An early Christmas gift

A few weeks before Christmas I was doing my usual blitz of ornament making. This year I chose to use the scroll saw which I’ve neglected for the last couple of years. Turns out there was a reason for the neglect.

I’ve had difficulty for the last few years with blades pulling out of the holder when I was half way through the cut. A few people have looked at it and others have suggested solutions. I’ve bought and replaced parts and thought, in the end, my problems were due to operator error. So I’d try again.

Then I couldn’t even get two centimetres of a cut made before the blade would pop out of the bottom holder. I’d put it back in, try again and out it would pop. In addition the saw was making a rather unpleasant noise that scroll saws shouldn’t make. Fed up, I got out my jeweller’s saw and cut several of the ornaments by hand. It took longer than it would have with a co-operative scroll saw, but I didn’t have one of those.

Richard wanted to help me so he volunteered to take the saw apart to see if he could figure out what the problem was. He got the saw apart and determined that there was a bearing that was completely seized. That wasn’t necessarily the reason the blades kept pulling out but it probably accounted for the noise. We found the number of the bearing on the parts page of the instruction manual but weren’t sure where to go from there. Since the part was fairly small, and Jake is very good at figuring out how to fix things I took it to him. He did a bit of searching but wasn’t able to find anyone in Didsbury who had bearings small enough. He said if I could find a bearing I could use the drill press to press it out and press the new one in. I wasn’t too keen on that solution but I did start looking on websites of Calgary companies to see if I could find the proper replacement bearing. I found one place that had it in stock.

To the rescue!

As soon as I could, I headed off to get a new bearing. The person I talked to said he didn’t think they had anything that small but he looked in the computer and found what I needed. First problem solved. I asked if he knew where I could get the bearing replaced and he suggested I’d need a machine shop. I got on my phone and searched for machine shops in the area. I picked one that had been in business for quite a while and advertised that it was a family run company. I called, explained my problem and asked if they could help. He suggested that I bring the part in and he would look at it.

The door into the shop opened onto a dark hallway with a concrete floor and a sign pointing to a door down the hall to the right. I opened that door and saw a small room with a desk, a computer and various parts of machines on the desk and on the window sill. From the office I could see part of the shop itself with welding tanks, a drill press and other machines I didn’t recognize.

I waited for a few minutes until a short stocky man came around the corner. I explained what I needed and he took the scroll saw part and the new bearing out of the bag. He asked if I had a new bushing and when I said no, he turned the part over carefully in his hand and declared, “We make this work. We use the old one.” He asked me when I wanted the job finished and I told him I’d like it in the next couple of days. “I try my best. I do it as soon as I can,” he said. I wrote down my phone number on a pad of paper and he said he would call me when it was done.

I was a bit surprised when I got a call the next day saying the part was ready. It was late in the day and I told him I couldn’t pick it up then, but I’d be by the next day. When I arrived at his shop the next day I saw the part in a plastic bag sitting on the desk on top of the pad on which I had written my name and number. He came out of the back room and explained to me that he had found a new bushing and replaced the old one. He put the new bearing in and showed me the old one he took out. He also explained that he looked at the other bearing in the part and found it wasn’t seated properly so he pressed it back into the middle where it should be. I thanked him and asked how much I owed him. “No, no,” he said, “nothing.” I protested that it had cost him time and asked if I couldn’t pay him something. Again he said no but suggested that I write a Google review if I was happy with his work. I thanked him again and said I would write the review as soon as I got home. I also told him I would recommend his shop to anyone who needed a machine shop. He wished me a Merry Christmas and we were both smiling broadly when I left the shop.

I wrote the review when I got home and have had occasion to recommend him to one person so far. Getting the part fixed was a wonderful Christmas gift. I cleaned up the scroll saw, Richard was able to put the saw back together. I was then able to finish the ornaments much more quickly than I could have done with my jeweller’s saw.

Cleaning up the saw for reassembly

Sometimes when I watch too much of the news I’m convinced that the world is going to hell in a handbasket but then I meet someone like the machinist who, right in the middle of a busy time, was willing to spend his time to fix a niggly little part for me. He did more than I asked because he takes pride in his work and wanted the saw to work for me. It might not have taken him very long, I don’t know. What I do know is that he was generous with his time and skill and added something special to my preparations for Christmas. There is a story behind all of the objects I make and at the heart of this story is a man whose name I don’t know but whose smile I will always remember.

Back in business

Another rabbit hole

One of the things I love about being retired is the ability to investigate whatever strikes my fancy. We had friends over for dinner the other day and the talk turned to book binding. Craig makes lovely books and I bought one of his journals for Richard for his birthday. As we chatted it sounded more and more interesting so the next day I spent way too much time on YouTube looking at bookbinding videos.

I discovered that I have all the materials I need to bind books and there are a number of videos for beginners. Most of the videos suggest that linen thread is the best for binding. Off I went to Amazon but most of the thread there is expensive and already waxed. The video I was watching at the time recommended that you wax your own thread. I don’t remember the reason but it made sense at the time. The preferred wax is bee’s wax. It just so happens that I have a couple of pieces of bee’s wax courtesy of Mum’s sewing cabinet. She, too, used to sometimes wax her sewing thread.

So, where to find linen thread? Of course the videos give other possibilities of types of thread but finding linen thread became a challenge. At my lutherie lesson the next Tuesday I mentioned to Jake that I was on the lookout for linen thread. He thought for a moment and then said, “I think I might know where you can get some for free. Let me make a phone call.”

Later that day we headed to Bowden to visit a saddle maker Jake knew. He had been given a number of spools of linen thread at the dispersal of an estate. He couldn’t use them and hadn’t been able to sell them so he was giving them away. I came away with two spools with enough thread to last me and Craig forever. Being the curious sort, I also came away with an appreciation of how western saddles are made and the impeccable craftsmanship of Ocean Front Saddlery.

I couldn’t wait to try out some of the newly acquired linen thread so the next day I started looking up more complex ways of binding. I learned that the sections of pages folded together and then stitched to other sections to make a book are called signatures. Many of the sites talked about book cloth so I went on a search for that. Of course, you can buy it but you can also make your own. The easiest way is to use iron-on facing material used in garment construction. There’s also a product that has glue on both sides that you iron onto the fabric and then iron onto some kind of paper backing. Neither of those appealed to me and besides, part of the fun had become to find things I already had that would serve as bookmaking materials. Some people used white glue and others used wheat paste.

That one took me back to my childhood so I started looking up recipes for wheat paste. Turns out there are a few minor variations in the recipes and methods but all are pretty simple. I haven’t made any yet but it’s on the list.

A while ago one of my favourite shirts sprouted a hole and the material is so thin that there was no point in patching it. I took it into the shop to use for rags. As I was looking at book cloth information I thought of the shirt and went to retrieve it. Mostly book cloth is used for the spines of books but you can also use it on the covers. I’ve decided that I’m going to make the shirt into book cloth and make myself a journal / sketchbook. Add that to the list.

Another track led me to look up paper marbling. I’ve always admired the swirly patterns on the endpapers of old books and there are videos on how to do your own. You need a medium to slightly thicken water which you put in a tray and then spatter or drop ink or paint onto the surface. The colour spreads out and then you can manipulate it with the end of a paintbrush or special tools called rakes and combs which you can make fairly simply. This is another thing that is on my list to try. I have a bit of experience in making this kind of print because when I was in high school my long-suffering mother allowed me to put a layer of water in the bathtub and then drop oil-based inks onto the water and take prints from the oil. I remember making a number of cards and papers using that method. I also remember that I cleaned up after myself.

Part of what I find so attractive about bookmaking is that I can use up a bunch of the art and craft supplies that I have very carefully kept over the years. Sketch books are a good source of paper and I have already used one up in the dozen or so books I have made so far. I also have most of a ream of legal sized paper that I hardly ever use. Most of the videos on bookmaking suggest that you start out with ordinary printer or copy paper, which the legal sized paper is. Because I have framed a number of my coloured pencil pieces I have a small stock of matt board that will well for covers.

Of course all of this begs the question of what to do with the books when I get them made. I’ll use some of them and give some of them as gifts although not to friends that Craig and I have in common. He was there first after all. I will likely end up with more books than I know what to do with but at least some of the raw material in the house will have been transformed and I will have had a heck of a good time in the process. In case you are wondering, this will not replace my woodworking: it will complement it. I love working with wood but don’t get the chance to play much with colour. Books will give me a chance to use my coloured pencils to make things other than cards and framed pieces. I’m also experimenting with using old calendar pages pasted to file folders as cover material. So far this isn’t a huge success because the file folders curl despite pressing them between two boards.

All in all, there are enough materials and possibilities to keep me entertained for quite a while.

A 3 foot X 4 foot oops (Scotland to Iceland 5)

 We certainly didn’t expect such hot weather in Glasgow. It was up to +30 some days and that is way too hot for me. Plus, we were on the fourth floor of the hotel, and I can say with absolute certainty that heat rises. In order to try to keep the guests from melting into puddles, the hotel purchased a bunch of swamp coolers. Ours didn’t work and when one of the young women from the front desk came up to help with it, she ended up with a free physics lesson. I sat back and observed as she and Richard tried to trouble-shoot the problem. In the end we got another cooler that worked - sort of.

View from our top floor room

If you put tap water in it you didn’t get a cooler room: what you did get was a very muggy hot room. The solution to this was to make several trips to the ice machine with the ice bucket, fill the cooler with ice and then top it off with water. This operation made sitting and doing nothing just about bearable. We looked forward to getting on the ship because the AC there works, sometimes too well, but it works.

While in Glasgow we mainly focused on staying cool. We took a walk over to the hotel where we were to meet the Adventure Canada group. We wanted to see how long it took us and make sure we knew where we were going.  The last day in the hotel we found an air- conditioned tea shop in a mall. I wanted to pick up some fruit tea to make iced tea on the ship. We were met by a lovely lady named Annie. On hearing our accents she wanted to know all about our trip. She told us it was her birthday so we sang “Happy Birthday” to her in the middle of the shop. She let me try several of the fruit teas and I ordered a chai latte. On the ship tea and coffee is available almost any hour of the day or night but the selection is limited. I found out that they had a chili chai, one of my favourites. Annie asked me if I wanted to try it. I told her I didn’t need to: I knew I would like it. I bought fruit tea, chili chai, tea filters because the chai was loose rather than in bags. Then we headed back to our hotel.

Adventure Canada check in

On Wednesday June 14 we walked to the Adventure Canada hotel and joined those milling around in the lobby. We picked up our various bits of identification and headed out for lunch. On the Adventure Canada trips much of the people moving is done by means of colour groups.This year we were in the blue group and were one of the later groups to board buses to take us to the port of Greenock, a 40 minute drive from Glasgow. I hadn’t done my geography homework and expected us to leave from the city of Glasgow itself.

Emirates air crew

As we sat outside in the bus waiting to leave we saw an air crew from Emirates airlines and were quite interested in the uniforms the women were wearing, very different from the airlines we are used to travelling on. The bus ride was hot and when we got to the ship a couple of disappointments awaited us. There is a particular configuration of cabin that we like and we had asked for it in our pre-tip emails. This cabin has a bit of a sitting room, a bedroom and, most importantly, two bathrooms. It’s a luxury but it makes things so much easier when we both have to be somewhere at a given time. The cabin we were assigned to had only one bathroom. Richard allowed time for everyone to get onboard and then went to chat with the Adventure Canada  staff. They apologized and didn’t know if they would be able to change our cabin for the first trip but, since we were on back to back trips, they said they would rectify the situation on the second half of our voyage. We weren’t delighted but knew we could make it work.

The second disappointment came when we attended the first information session. The plan was to set sail that night. MJ, our expedition leader, informed us as gently as he could that the ship had docked in a strong wind which had pushed it onto and dragged it along the pilings on the side of  the dock. The dock is sized for huge container ships and the pilings acted as a very efficient can opener on our relatively small vessel. The result was a 3X4 foot hole in the bow on the starboard side. We weren’t going anywhere until the hole was patched. The patch job was complicated by the ship’s ice hardened hullwhich consists of a double layer of steel. There was a boundary fence set up on the dock beside the ship. This allowed welders to work safely and discouraged us from taking photos. The next day we ate dinner with a local woman who was volunteering as an interpreter for tourists. Before she retired she had been a marine insurance adjuster. She told us that the insurance companies would be fighting it out for years to determine who was liable for the hole in the hull. There was a licensed pilot onboard at the time. I managed to get a photo later in the trip when the hole was patched but the painting hadn’t been finished. It was quite a spectacular patch.

The patch

So what do you do with a boatload of people who expect to be sailing in the Scottish Islands but are stuck on a boat in port for an unknown length of time? Luckily Adventure Canada is well practiced at responding to such situations and they quickly concocted an alternate plan. Stay tuned for the next instalment to find out what we did while living on that ship in Greenock.

And, and, and

Okay. This is going to be a bit of a whine but also a bit of an explanation as to why the posts about the summer in Scotland and Iceland have been so slow in coming.

I said in the post I just uploaded that I’ve been in the shop having a good time, and that’s true. The part I didn’t tell you is that I’ve been procrastinating. That will be no surprise to some of you. There are a bunch of annoying little things, mostly to do with technology, that have dampened my enthusiasm for getting on with the posts about the summer.

There’s always the issue of how to handle photos, not necessarily which ones to put into the blog, but where to store them, how to access them, and how to coax them from wherever they happen to be hiding into the blog. I’ll spare you the details except to say that I work on a Mac and it wants to have absolute control of where I store my photos and how I handle them. The blogging software I use is a Google product and Google wants to have absolute control over where I store my photos and how I access them. I use my Android phone a good deal and Google is happy with that. The Mac? Not so much. I also used a regular camera on the trip and have two sets of photos to wrestle into some sort of order. I know: it’s a first world problem and I could solve it by using one device to take pictures and sticking with one platform or the other. Only one problem: I don’t want to! I like the Mac and the Android phone. I don’t want to change the software I use to publish the blog partly because I’ve been using it for 15 years.

I don’t seem to think in the same way as the folks who are responsible for photo and blogging software do. I set out to do something that seems like it should be simple and it turns out not to be. I want to be able to search for a photo by date and not lose it. To do this I need to download the photo and then upload it. The thumbnails are so small I have to guess at which photo I want or write down the number. Once I figure out where a photo is and manage to get it into the post, why can’t I drag and drop it where I want it? It’s way easier to write and post a blog entry within a couple of days of when I take the photos on my phone. I’m a bit late for that on the Scotland to Iceland story.

Another thing that drives me bats is how to notify you when there’s a new post. I could solve this one by just setting up a regular schedule for writing and posting and sticking to it. Then everyone would know what to expect. Again, I don’t want to. I enjoy writing the blog, mostly, and I don’t want it to become a job. I tend to write when I want to say something and that’s not always predictable. If anyone is going to read the blog I figure it’s only fair to let you know that there’s something new to look at.

When I do send an email notice some of you get it and some of you don’t. I’ve tried several different ways to notify you. Some providers seem to think I belong in the spam folder. I’m okay with that but I’d like you to have the chance to decide rather than having them decide for you. Some of the methods I’ve tried result in my messages bouncing back. I don’t even make it to the spam folder. I’m looking into another way of notifying people but that isn’t without its own issues and it’s another thing that gets in the way when I think of writing a blog post.

So there you have it. I’m hoping that by acknowledging all these little irritations I’ll feel less like running and hiding whenever I think of producing content for my few loyal followers. In my ideal world the technology would be easy to use and would be at my service. I feel as though I’m at the service of technology. At this point I’m tempted to forget about the rest of the Scotland to Iceland trip but I know some of you want to read about it and I promised I’d cover it in the blog. There are some good stories to be told from that trip so stay tuned. I appreciate your support.

Glasgow (Scotland to Iceland 4)

I’m finally back to the blog. I’ve been spending a lot of time in the shop making boxes and thoroughly enjoying myself. That’s for another post. For now let’s go back to June 2023 and Glasgow, Scotland.


Tuesday June 13, 2023

We generally come north in the summer to avoid the heat. Turns out it’s unseasonably hot in Glasgow right now. +29C in the forecast for today. The locals are all very happy about the nice weather. I was absolutely delighted in Inverness where highs got to +18C. No matter where I am, when the temperature goes above +25C my main objective is to remain cool regardless of what that looks like.

Yesterday we tried to book a bike tour for today but they were sold out. No surprise there. It seems you can often get a tour if you book two days in advance whereas trying to do it the day before is pushing it. So, this morning we are hanging around the room with the swamp cooler running and the fan above the stove also running. Our theory is that the stove fan will suck hot air out. We are on the fourth floor and we can attest that heat rises.

On every holiday I discover something and there have been a couple of important discoveries so far on this one. The first is that we make our own holiday and just because something is in a guide book doesn’t mean we have to see it in order to have a good time. In fact we’ve reinforced the idea that we’re happier with ‘the road less travelled by.’ Yesterday as we walked around the city we saw a large crowd at the end of the street. Rather than going in that direction, we decided not to go there. We haven’t been inside a church or a museum and that’s okay. We are having a good time in our own way, walking the streets, listening to the various accents, reading the interesting signs in shop windows, observing the slate shingles on the roof outside our window, trying to quickly sketch people at the train station as we waited for our train from Inverness to Glasgow. I know a lot of people would tell us that we could just as easily do these things at home whereas we can’t go into Edinburgh Castle at home. This is true, and it’s also true that we can make our own fun in our own way.

Yesterday we spent a lovely few hours in a vegan restaurant that was also a vinyl record store. The food was excellent; it was relatively cool, and the people-watching was fun. Today I’m catching up on blog posts and emails until it’s time for lunch. Yesterday while I was doing laundry I picked up a book from the book exchange in the laundry room. It was a good beach read and I finished it in one sitting, something I hardly ever do. It was a good day. A holiday is meant to be a change from normal routine and that will look different to different people.


Another thing we’ve discovered on this trip is that cycle tours are a lot of fun. This is a surprise to me because I thought that riding on the left would be an issue. With a bicycle guide it’s pretty easy to remember what side to ride on and the two tours we have been on so far have taken us on bike paths or very calm streets, another advantage of being with a local. The groups have been small, 6-8 so there are not endless lines of cyclists all trying to get somewhere at the same time. We have experienced that on some of the tandem tours of Europe we have been on and found it rather stressful.

Tomorrow we will meet up with the Adventure Canada crew and head out on the Ocean Endeavour. As for the rest of today, we’ll just have to see. Lunch is on the program as is packing. Other than that we’ll just do whatever strikes our fancy and the beauty of doing that in a place other than home is that there are no chores demanding attention so we can truly do as we please.

Inverness (Scotland to Iceland 3)

This entry consists mainly of excerpts from my daily journal.

Monument at Culloden

Thursday June 8, 2023

That was a pretty good day and we met some interesting people. Before we left I found an ‘Edinburgh’ sticker for my ukulele case and I also got a pin for my collection. This one has a Scottish flag and a Canadian flag on it.

Just as we entered the Royal Mile we stopped to chat with one of the locals. I don’t remember how the conversation started, maybe as a result of the Canadian flag on my hat. Anyway, she said she had seen the fires in Canada on the news. We chatted about our trip and as we parted she told us we had lovely accents. I stopped myself from saying, “So do you.”

There were a couple of women sitting across from us on the train and R talked to them quite a bit. One was going north to attend a conference of some sort and the other was a municipal councillor. The guy either directly in front of us or in the next seat up had a terrible cold, or something. There was much coughing and throat-clearing, and once that penetrated my consciousness I put on my mask. I sure hope he didn’t give it to either one of us. That would not be a great way to start a holiday!

After a few texts back and forth we found out where our accommodations were. It was a lovely walk beside the river Ness. We are in quite the swish guest house with a huge bedroom/ living area, a galley kitchen and a bathroom complete with a washer and dryer. We passed a couple of restaurants on the way and decided to walk back to one where we had fish and chips for supper. Now we are deciding what to do while we’re here. We had a lot of fun on the cycling tour in Edinburgh so we might look around and see if we can find another one while we’re here.

Friday June 9, 2023

R and I both had the grumpies today, I in the morning and he when he was trying to cook supper. He hates trying to cook when he doesn’t have good stuff to work with and I don’t blame him. These places come with just the basics meaning there are no spices and we don’t want to buy jars of spice which we will then have to carry or toss. The knives are dull and the pots and pans don’t match the lids. We’ve decided we’ll have one meal out and the other one we can make do with veggies cheese and hummus. We stopped in at Tesco on our way home and also bought some instant oatmeal that isn’t loaded with sugar: it’s just oatmeal. We got yogurt and milk for our tea and coffee. Today we had lunch in town and it was less than stellar. I had a chicken salad which was heavy on the chicken and light on anything green. I would have preferred it the other way around.

After lunch we took public transit out to Culloden and had a guided tour. The tour guide was a very good storyteller. It’s pretty rough country to be fighting in. One thing I hadn’t known was that it wasn’t a clear cut case of the Scots against the English. There were mercenaries in the mix and Scots were fighting on both sides. They’ve done a really good job of marking out where the two lines met each other and the signage is also good. Although I'm not much of a history buff but it was an interesting visit. It was stinkin’ hot though. So much for cold, rainy Scotland - at least so far.

I booked a two hour bike tour of the waterways for 10:00 tomorrow.

Saturday June 10, 2023

That was a pretty good day. Nice easy bike ride on cruisers that did have gears. There weren’t any hills to speak of and we were definitely on the experienced side of the people who were on the tour. One woman said she hadn’t been on a bike for 40 years. Yikes! Allison, our guide warned us that the brakes on the bikes were the opposite of what we were used to across the pond (the other folks were Americans.) On our bikes the rear brake is controlled by the right lever and the front brake is controlled by the left lever. Always put the rear brake on first so you don’t go sailing over the handlebars. Allison’s rule was both hands on both brakes. I found that if I kept my left hand on the brake lever and wrapped my right hand around the handle bar itself I had a suitable reminder of what to do with which hand.

The pre-tour chat

There were a couple of incidents with the folks who weren’t used to riding. I was ahead so I didn’t see what happened but I think one of the women fell when she tried to go through a narrow spot on the pathway in the bird sanctuary. We also stopped at a botanical garden and I got a picture of one particularly fuzzy looking cactus.

On our way back home we met a guy from Holland who is doing long distance hikes all over Europe. He told us that his kit weighs 9 kg and that includes his tent and everything. He said he is 76 and is still working so he does these hikes every summer when he has holidays. I think he said the hike he is on is called ‘The Great Glen Way.’ He said the midges are terrible and he had bites all over his arms. Not my idea of a good time!

It was 26C here today and I think we have a good chance of getting rained on either here or in Glasgow or both tomorrow. Our train leaves at 12:07 and we get in around 4. All our paperwork for Adventure Canada is up to date and Glasgow is where we board the ship for the second part of this adventure.

One slightly annoying thing: I brought a small wooden phone stand with me and I can’t find it. I’ve looked behind all the furniture and under the bed. I know I had it here because I used it to watch videos on my phone. It seems to have disappeared into thin air. I’ll have another look in the morning but I don’t have much hope of finding it now. I wonder if it somehow got thrown out.

A fall bike ride

If I look back in the blog I find another post about cycling in the fall. I wrote that one 16 years ago when I was newly retired. The bike is different but I think the route is similar to the one I took last Friday. I debated about whether to go for a ride or not and then I checked the forecast for the next day. Rain. That settled it. Much better to get out when the temperature was just about right and the sun was shining. I think it was 13C when I left. I had on a light fleece, a wind vest and gloves.

The bike is the e-bike R gave me for Christmas last year, although we didn’t get around to actually buying it until May. Last Wednesday, we stuffed both e-bikes in the van and headed to Canmore where we parked and rode the Legacy Trail to Banff. On that ride my saddle slipped down about an inch even though I tightened up the clamp as hard as I could.

When I set out Friday I had no particular plan except to drop in to the bike shop to see if they could rectify the problem. The guy took the bike right away and, while I waited, he cleaned off the seatpost and regreased it. That was entirely counter intuitive to me. If the thing was slipping, why would you want to grease it? But it seemed to work. I thought of just riding around the neighbourhood and then decided to ride down the Edworthy Park hill.

The road down to the river has improved a lot over the years. When I first rode there it was mostly gravel and now it is mostly paved. That makes the riding nicer both up and down the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a parking lot and a playground as well as a few picnic spots and one picnic shelter. At the north end of the parking lot is a concrete barrier with an opening in it that leads across the train tracks. I decided to carry on across the tracks and the bridge to the north side of the river. As I approached the tracks I saw a young woman with a camera and a tripod taking photos. If you look either way along the tracks it’s easy to forget you are in the middle of a city of 1.3 million people. You might be looking along any treed section of track in the foothills.

I crossed the bridge and turned to the east along the divided pathway, one path for cyclists and a separate one for pedestrians. From there I could make a shorter loop on the pedestrian bridge under Crowchild Trail and come up the hill by a golf course, or I could carry on, turn around at some farther point and go back up the hill the way I came. Thinking of the photographer I opted to carry on and get some photos with my phone on the way back through the park.

When I decided I had gone far enough I turned around and retraced my route, stopping this time for a few photos along the way.There were a number of people out on bikes and walking along the river pathway. As I toodled along a few guys on road bikes and mountain bikes passed me. I’m happy to have fit individuals on light bikes blow by me. The point of having an e-bike is not to go as fast as I can but to enjoy cycling again with a little less effort.

Don’t get me wrong, the kind of e-bike I have is still work. If I don’t pedal it doesn’t help. You can get e-bikes with throttles but mine doesn’t have one and the info from my fitbit tells me that I’m working hard enough on these rides. Today I was in my vigorous heart rate zone for 50% of the time, the moderate zone for 40% of the time and the peak zone for 9% of the time. I don’t know where the other 1% got to. Perhaps it was for the photo stops.

I set out to ride for 40 minutes and by the time I got back home I had ridden for an hour and 59 minutes. It was a very satisfying and enjoyable ride. I certainly used the highest level of assist to make it back up the Edworthy Park hill and that probably accounts for the 9% of time at the peak. It’s the difference between struggling with each pedal stroke in the lowest gear on a normal bike and feeling that going up the hill is hard sustainable work.

I hope to go on as many rides as I can before it snows and the paths get icy. Next summer I’ll test how far I can go on a battery charge. So far I haven’t even drained the battery half way.

Goodbye to a piece of personal history

My next post was to have been another in the series of Scotland to Iceland adventures but today was important and deserves comment. So here we go.

I wouldn’t say we’re trying to downsize as such but we are taking a close look at what we have and asking ourselves if we are likely to use certain items again. Among those things is the canoe that we built ourselves and all the river gear we accumulated during our years of wilderness canoeing. Over time our interests changed and at some point we stopped canoeing and started cycling instead. I can’t remember the last time we had the canoe in the water and if we canoe from now on it will be in a rented canoe on a nice tame river or lake. We have offered the blue canoe to several people. One person said two years ago that he would like it but we have reminded him of it 3 or 4 times since to no avail.

The blue canoe

Today someone came who wanted the canoe and was prepared to take it immediately. I rounded up all the gear except our old life jackets, which nobody would want anyway, and we packed it all into his truck. When it came to moving the canoe it was so much heavier than we remembered. I swear it has gained weight just as we have over the years! I can’t believe that we blithely put it up on our shoulders and portaged it for over a mile in some places.

I told the new owner that there was a high price to pay: he had to look at the photo album of our trip down the Nahanni in which the canoe features prominently. He was very gracious about it as we sat in the shade and swapped river stories. Before taking his present job he was a river guide for different rafting companies and he has rafted down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I enjoyed talking with him about our trip and he enjoyed seeing photos of a river he has never been on. We both marvelled at how far river gear has come.

As he drove away with the canoe strapped to his truck I felt lighter knowing that he would refurbish it and it would again find its way onto rivers. That, after all, is where canoes belong, not sitting in a backyard next to a fence for years on end. I hope this is the start of parting with a number of things that are relics of wonderful adventures that we have no desire to repeat. We don’t need repeats: there are enough new adventures waiting just around the next bend in the river.

Paddles, barrels, and bags

Odds and ends from Edinburgh (Scotland to Iceland 2)

I wrote the previous blog post while I was in Scotland. I realized as I looked through some of my photos that there were other interesting tidbits that I didn’t cover so here are a few photos and some things I found interesting.

Riding up to Arthur's Seat

Nearing the top

Portobello Beach

On our bike tour we rode up Arthur’s seat. I was very glad to have an e-bike. We had walked up to the top the day before and it would have been a real slog with a regular bike. I used to say I’d never met a hill I couldn’t walk and that’s probably still true but if I can get a bit of an assist from an electric motor I’m quite happy not to have to walk. We also rode down to Portobello Beach. It was a bit chilly and, because it was a weekday, there weren’t many people there.

Tempting Tatties

I’m also including a photo of a little shop called ‘Tempting Tatties.’ It was on the way to our hotel and we walked by it a number of times before stopping in for a very late lunch the day of the cycle tour. I’m happy to eat potatoes any time and the ones we had that day were tasty and filling.

I think when I travel next I’m going to take more photos of interesting signs. I didn’t get a shot of one outside a pub that said, “Mary Queen of Scots probably drank here.” I got a few other interesting ones though.

Edinburgh Scotland to Iceland 1 (June 7, 2023)

 

We took an overnight direct flight from Calgary to Edinburgh. The first day was mostly to get over jet lag which we have almost managed today. Yesterday we went to the train station and bought tickets to get us from Edinburgh to Inverness and then from Inverness to Glasgow. The agent was very helpful and saved us money by suggesting that we buy return tickets from Edinburgh to Inverness and then a single ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow. We don’t need to change trains the day we go to Glasgow and we have an open ticket so we can leave pretty well any time we want to.

The accommodation here is fairly nice. It’s a bit noisy as we have construction right across the road from us and we found out the hard way on the first day that the smoke detector is pretty sensitive. R was cooking when the smoke detector went off and that set off the sirens in the whole building. It brought the lady from the front desk running. We assured her that nothing was going to burn down and I think she was able to stop the fire engines from responding. Since then we have been very careful to have both windows open when we’re cooking.

We have a bedroom / sitting room area with a TV which we don’t use. There is a small, decently equipped, kitchen complete with a small dishwasher and a clothes washer under the counter. We took advantage of the dishwasher last night and did a small load of laundry today when we got back from our bike tour.

The bike tour was fun. We both opted for e-bikes which we didn’t need for most of the ride but there was one significant climb where they certainly paid for themselves. We saw quite a lot of the city and the guide was knowledgeable and a good sport. There were six of us: two from Australia, two from Newark New Jersey USA, and the two of us. We were mostly on bike paths and when we were in traffic it certainly didn’t bother me. What I did find difficult was getting on and off the bike. It had no crossbar but I still had to lean the bike over quite a bit in order to get my leg over. After a while I started with my left foot on the pedal, gave the bike a push and then swung my right leg over the way I used to do when I rode my touring bike. I didn’t do as good a job stopping though and definitely felt uncoordinated as I struggled to get my leg back through the frame.

The other thing I found very awkward was not having my clipless pedals. I’m used to clipping my right foot in, pulling the pedal up to the top of the stroke and then pushing down while I get settled on the saddle. I found myself fluffing around trying to decide whether to push down on a partially raised pedal or to give a mighty push and then try to get the other foot onto its pedal while trying to steer. Fortunately, although I did a fair bit of wobbling, I didn’t end up in the canal as one of the people on our Holland trip did. Our guide for the day told us that we were going to dismount at the first bridge because he had had one person from the US and one person from New Zealand actually miss the corner and end up in the canal. It was a rather tight turn. I had enough trouble negotiating the bedsteads which clearly shows me that I haven’t done enough riding of late. Clumsy as I was getting on and off the bike, once I got riding I was fine. We covered about 45 km and saw a lot of the city.
On this trip we chose not to do the regular tourist things. We didn’t go to see the castle or any museums. We have walked part of the Royal Mile because it is on our route from the Old Town to our apartment hotel.

I have my new carbon fiber ukulele with me and I decided that I should get a sticker for the case. Apparently they don’t do stickers here, or at least, not in any of the souvenir shops I’ve been into. There are a ton of fridge magnets but no stickers and no pins that I’ve seen. I don’t think I’m going to be able to find one because we leave for Inverness tomorrow and I’ve tried about half a dozen shops in our immediate area.

When we arrived at the airport we bought a three-day tram pass and that has turned out not to be a good idea. We have been able to get anywhere we wanted to go by walking or on the bike today. Oh well, we’ll chalk it up to our contribution to the infrastructure of Edinburgh.

Yesterday we climbed up to Arthur’s seat and had lovely views in all directions. Today we cycled up the road to below Arthur’s seat and our guide pointed out that Edinburgh is founded on 7 hills. When we were up there yesterday we noticed a coiled sculpture that looked a little like the Dairy Queen swirl on the top of an ice cream cone. Today we asked about it. He said it was a shopping centre and that the locals call it the ‘jobbie’ i.e. the piece of poop. That was the other thing it reminded us of but we were trying our best to be polite.

The first night we had wraps in a little Turkish place. They were quite tasty. There is a Tesco Express half a block from us and we have made two trips there for provisions. Yesterday we ate all our meals in the hotel. Today we were just a wee bit hungry by 2:30 when we finally got to sit down for the first meal of the day. We’ve been past a little place that sells baked potatoes several times so we decided to stop there for brunch on our way home. I had a potato with chili and jalapenos and R had one with tikka masala. We very much enjoyed them. Tonight we need to eat up the salad and veggies we have left so we can be ready to leave in the morning.

I think it might be just about time to take stock of the food we have and take care of it. I’m not sure when my next entry will be but I’ll try to summarize what we do in Inverness and Glasgow before we join the Ocean Endeavour to sail from Glasgow to Aberdeen and visit the Scottish Isles.

Excuses or Explanation?

I just checked when I last put up a blog post, June 2. It is now August18. Yikes! I know many of you are waiting for stories of the trip to Scotland, the Faroes, and Iceland. I did draft some posts while I was away. Since I’ve been home I’ve been avoiding the blog, or more properly all the photos I took while on the trip. I took a small, pocket camera and my cell phone and thought that would mean many fewer photos to go through at this end. There may well be fewer photos but trying to corral them all is a bit of a challenge.

I’ve yet to find a way of handling photos that works well for me. Part of that may be that I work on a Mac computer and an android phone. Not going to get into the whys and wherefores of all that now. The computers we have are 9 years old and when queried about how much we could get trading our computers in, our friendly Mac website told us, “Your computer is ready for recycling.” Uh, thanks.

We got new computers and there are still a few things I’m not sure about. I like Google photos because it works seamlessly with the blogging software I use. Google photos is telling me I’m almost out of space so I’ve tried, with R’s help, to cut down the amount of space I’m using. Factor in a bunch of dithering on my part about what to keep and what to toss and that adds up to time. I’m now ignoring the whole thing until my storage is actually full; then I’ll decide what to do. One issue solved temporarily.

Phones. The day before we were to leave for Scotland R dropped his phone on one of the two tile floors in the house. The back shattered but it still worked. Luckily I had an extra case which did an admirable job of holding the phone together until we got back to Canada. It did get a bit dicey when we had to change sim cards because each time we did, little sparkles of glass floated to the floor.

Once we got home we decided it was time to replace the phones as well. I thought I had downloaded all the photos onto my computer but I can’t find them there. A week or so after we got the new phones and I had passed my unbroken phone onto someone else, I was riding my bike up a hill and my new phone leapt out of my pocket and landed on the street. I pulled over, put my bike down, and rushed back to get the phone just as a car ran over it. It sort of worked but only half the screen would show at a time. R dug out his cracked phone and set me up with it until I could get mine fixed. All of that adds up to, you guessed it, more time.

Anyway, the phone is now fixed. I can find the photos I took on the phone in Google photos and the ones I took on the camera are on my computer’s hard drive so it’s now time to get the lead out. I’m also searching in Google drive for the posts I drafted while on the trip. I didn’t give them titles and I don’t remember how many I wrote. As I used to say to my students, “If I ever get organized I’ll be deadly!” They just laughed. I have found one post about Edinburgh, the first place in Scotland that we stayed so I should be able to get that one up in short order. I’m not sure whether to warn you about an upcoming deluge of posts or whether that’s just being optimistic. Stay tuned.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with a photo of the back of my phone case sporting a one-of-a-kind tire track on it.

Another crazy scheme

Ok I may have truly lost the plot on this one. We are at the point where we need to make some decisions about our camper van. This is our third one and when we bought it 9 years ago we thought it would be ideal for us. We have enjoyed it. It’s great to have a furnace that you can turn on from the bed, and an inside potty. Richard has used the shower once and we pretty much came to the conclusion that it was more work than it was worth. The body of the van needs painting and there are a few other things that could use some attention. So the question is do we invest money in this vehicle or do we look for another solution?
To be honest, the van sits in the driveway most of the year. Last year we came back from a holiday to find the door open and a bunch of stuff gone. We might not have checked to see it was locked before we left. We just don’t know. Since then our garage door has been open twice when we didn’t know it and we have had items stolen. Clearly we need to be more conscious about security.

The plan for the neighbourhood would see a three storey multi unit apartment go in behind us.The back lane is already crowded and we can see that we might have difficulty manoeuvring the van out of its spot when we do want to go camping. Also it’s a dead giveaway that we’re not home when the van is gone. What if we had a camper that we could put in the garage? Of course that won’t matter if we don’t remember to close the garage door, but it would save wear and tear on the vehicle.

Recently we took a trip out to Vernon in the Okanagan with our 30 year old Toyota Previa. We love that thing. It’s quirky and it too needs some TLC. We’ve looked at alternatives and have come to the understanding that we don’t really want an alternative: we want this van with a few more bells and whistles. So this brings me to the latest crazy scheme. What if we were to sell the current camper and make the mini-van into a camper customized just for us?

On the one hand we’re giving our heads a shake. The van is 30 years old for crying out loud! But Toyotas can go for 400,000 km on the motors before they give out and we have under 300,000 in 30 years of travel. It could fall apart at any moment. It could but so could any other second hand vehicle and we know exactly how this one has been maintained. It needs body work because it’s starting to rust. Well, yes but so does the RoadTrek.

I’ve always wanted to do a van conversion. I know, if we do it, it will be a headache at times and we will wish we had never thought of it. At the moment I’m excited by the possibilities. The Previa gets great gas mileage compared to the RoadTrek. It’s way easier to drive and we are very fond of it. In our lives the latter counts for a lot.

I’ve been down the YouTube rabbit hole on camperized Previas and have found a channel by an Oregon couple who have converted their 1992 Previa into a camper and live in it full time. Their blog posts are very instructive and we can learn from their experience. Also we don’t have to go whole hog if we don’t want to. We can start slowly with a minimum amount of fuss and then decide how much time and effort we want to invest.

We have already started to investigate. The other day we pulled out one of the rear seats. It was much easier than we thought it would be, a matter of two bolts. There is actually quite a lot of space inside. There’s no potty which means that there’s no black tank to worry about. The water system could be very simple so we wouldn’t need to worry about either putting antifreeze in the lines or blowing them out at the end of the season. As well, there are solutions to not having a potty. As we have found, any camper is a compromise, even the one you think is the absolutely perfect model.

We like the idea of some of the new camper vans but they are just too ‘perfect.’ They are beautiful but not cozy and they don’t have all the wonderful little nooks and crannies for storage that Kermie the lime green Volkswagen had. Kermie was our favourite camper. It was severely underpowered; the engine leaked oil, and the steering would freeze up in the winter because the engine was in the back. Nevertheless, we liked the coziness and practicality of the build. There wasn’t an inch of wasted space; it was easy to park and good on gas. I guess what we really want is the feel of Kermie without that particular set of problems.

I know myself well enough to understand that I love the seductive sparkle of a new idea. Some of my ideas are great and some are total duds. The nice thing is, we don’t need to do anything about our vans right now. For the moment I’m enjoying the many possibilities. One thing I do know: the old red Toyota van will continue to have a place in our garage for the near future. I’ll be sure to let you know if this idea ends up having legs or if it falls flat. Stay tuned.

It all comes down to tea and socks

Probably some of you are wondering how I’m getting on with the food situation. The short answer is well. I can get into clothes that have been too small for a while. I feel good and my cholesterol is down although not as low as the doc would like.

This whole business has got me reading more about food, metabolism, gut microbes, and sugar. Today I happened upon a podcast which featured Jesse Inchauspe, writer of Glucose Revolution. There was quite a bit of information that I knew already and hers is an interesting story. I felt very pleased with myself when she started talking about going on a bad vegan diet and going on a bad keto diet. She said her version of a vegan diet was to eat vegan Oreos. I’ve had success with both low carb and plant-based eating plans. What is common to both is the lack of sugar and refined carbohydrates. I didn’t think I could be content eating less bread and baked goods. Turns out I can be perfectly happy not eating bread most of the time. I still like it and when I do eat it I enjoy it. It is no longer my go-to food when I don’t know what to eat, so all in all, I’m pleased.

Update (a couple of weeks later)

I’m notorious for starting blog entries thinking I’ll get back to them sometime later and then by the time I think about it the entry is no longer relevant to me so I discard it. This time I’ll add on some new info, and, I guess, in doing so I’m trying to sort out my attitude to recent developments.

I had another doctor’s appointment yesterday to see how the cholesterol was doing. The answer is better but not good enough so I’m headed down the statin trail. I’m disappointed. I’m not sure why I’m disappointed. It’s a pill once a day and I already take vitamins and one prescription drug daily so why do I have any feelings about it one way or the other?

As with many things in life I react to, I suspect it’s not actually about the meds but about something else. Is another pill a physical representation of ageing that I can’t ignore? Is it another minor constraint on my life? Possibly, but I suspect that my feelings on the matter are a reaction to change. There is comfort in the familiar and I find myself seeking comfort these days.

The world at large seems to have lost its senses and I know there isn’t much I can do about that except to manage in my own little corner and try to treat the people around me with kindness and respect. I don’t want to stick my head in the sand, and at the same time, I don’t want to spend a lot of time and energy fussing about things I can’t change. Easier said than done, unfortunately. If I’m honest, I some days feel that, rather than managing in my little corner of the world, I’m being backed into it. And that’s a reaction to change and the perception of time.

When I was a kid a year seemed an eternity and now a year passes in what seems like a minute. “Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. Swiftly fly the years, one season following another laden with happiness and tears.” Joseph Stein pretty well sums it up in those lines from Fiddler on the Roof. I want to slow time because I sense the speed of it and with that comes a loss of control. Of course I do have control over how I respond to the world and as many wiser than I have observed, the only time we have is now. Tomorrow and yesterday exist in our minds. It’s one thing to know that and quite another to put it into practice so here goes.

I hear Richard and Odie saying good morning to each other and the sound of the coffee machine turning on. My feet are chilly because I don’t have socks on. These things are now. As I write this time slows just a bit and the new daily pill, symbol of unrelenting change, seems to have less importance. In a moment, in the imaginary future, I’ll go put some socks on and make a cup of tea. Socks and tea. Two things I can control and, for the moment, I'm happy with that.

Ukulele #4

Ukulele #4 went home tonight! This is the first of my ukulele builds that has gone to someone outside our household and it’s an exciting day. Am I happy with the build? Overall, I am and on its faults I’m going to refer to Leonard Cohen “Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

1, 2, 3, 4 all in a row

What’s next? I’m going to build a simpler instrument for the next one. It’s called a ‘pack-a-lele.’ It’s another of Jake’s very cool ideas and uses one piece of thick timber for the neck and the body. Jake cut the pieces for me quite a while ago and I’m going to take apart the first instrument I ever built (a mountain dulcimer that never was in tune) and hope I can use the top and back for the top and back of the pack-a-lele.

Back, make of deck offcuts

#4 headstock detail

#4 rosette detail

After that, I hope to build another ukulele with the intention of taking very careful notes and writing up every stage of the process so it can be turned into a book. Knowing how long it has taken me to build each instrument so far, this could be a multi-year project, and I don’t mind that at all!