Chilling in the heat with the Murnanes

Instead of telling us to check into a hotel until our house is ready, the wonderful Murnanes took us under their roof.  It was actually payment for a long-ago debt when I organised Amanda's flat in Berkeley after all her stuff was dropped off while she was at a lecture, sometime in 2008.  "If you find a whip, it's not what you think," were her final words before shutting the door.  I'd known her for around three days at this point.

Now we're all older, wiser, and have children.  Charlie and Isabella are exactly Pete's age but have way cooler toys, none of which were bought from thrift stores, so he was over-the-moon to have both playmates and things to play with that worked and were clean and complete.

We're only here for a few days, but we did bring our own duty-free spirits so as not to be too much of a drain on resources.  Unfortunately this doesn't balance the generosity; the scales have swung mightily back and we're now hugely in debt to Jack and Amanda.  I guess there might be some babysitting of twins in our near future...

Feeding the army.

Two monsters with bubble guns.

The biggest (and cutest) monster of them all.

There was a lot of playing with bubbles.

A lot.

"So, Pete, what exactly are your intentions towards my daughter?"

Smithsonians

The only trouble with DC is all the tourists everywhere!  I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, having only lived here for 48 hours, but it was difficult.  They swarmed around the National Mall with little-to-no coordination until finally forming queues in front of many of the free museums that line each side of that green swathe.

Pete and I wandered merrily through the throng, up to the Washington Monument, before deciding to visit the National Museum of American History.  It was a good place to reacquaint ourselves with this great land, and it had the shortest line.

Sadly there was a lot of anti-British sentiment on display within, with much made of the misunderstanding that led to the so-called "War of Independence" (you had representation for your taxation!  You just didn't get to choose who it was!)  Then there was the original star-spangled banner they wrote that song about.  It celebrates the time a British fleet turned up at Fort McHenry and didn't kill everyone.  Hardly "their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution" as one of the lines claims about the British, but there we go.  We're all friends now I suppose.

After one of us had a nap it was on to the Air and Space Museum.  I loved this one but Pete was less than impressed that you couldn't go into every plane and space ship.  He didn't compare it favourably to Vancouver's Science World.  The high-point for me was a display about flights to Hawaii, and how hard it used to be for pilots to find that tiny island group in the vast Pacific.  There were some fantastic pictures of the first commercial jetliners of the 50s and 60s, complete with dining and sitting rooms.  You'd never get that space nowadays...unless you fly business class, of course.

After that we were exhausted, something not helped by the 90F heat and 150% humidity that seems to be everyday June weather.  I can see there will be a huge amount of educational content for me and Pete to cover over the next few years, starting with "who do you trust more - what that museum says, or Daddy?"

A replica of that banner, hence the fewer stars - we were yet to realise just how many states were out there.

Us and the Washington Monument.

Us and the Washington Monument (close up).

"Is it going?  Can I get in it?" Pete asked about every vehicle.  Sadly, the answer was always no.

Unimpressed by an obviously faked moon landing photo.

The vehicle they would have returned in, had they actually gone there.

Pete takes the wheel of a cessna.  No Pete - we're a navy family, remember?

So kiss me and smile for me

Progress is a funny thing.  I first got to fly on a plane when I was six.  We were seated just in front of the smoking section, and I was invited into the cockpit mid-Atlantic to chat to the pilot.  That was a great holiday; I was still getting used to having a little sister in my life and we left her behind!  I believe this to be the foundation of my enduring love for North America.  Sorry Emily, I do like you more now.

I wondered what lasting impressions Pete might form as I looked over at him, dwarfed in his business-class seat, while the stewardess delivered him an apple juice on the rocks.  It's taken me 38 years to ascend to the lofty heights of the first few rows of the plane, and here was a two-year-old enjoying priority boarding and free drinks.  We were literally riding Hannah's coat-tails - it was difficult to judge which of her dependents was the biggest fraud.

Being British, I felt the need to apologise to every passenger that filed past us, to tell them that this wasn't my idea and we weren't actually paying.  Having a conscience, I wondered about offering my seat to someone in greater need.  In the end I didn't allow either moral impediment to move me to action and simply avoided eye contact.

Anyway, the complimentary gin and tonics were actually therapy as we were forced to finally say goodbye to Vancouver.  It's a city we would move back to in a heartbeat, and it was not easy to leave so many good friends that we've made in such a short amount of time.  We'll be retiring to Victoria, in the British manner, and we're not that far away now, so come to visit, soon.

We landed, got to our hotel, and got Pete to bed on jet-lagged time.  DC is hot and sticky and everyone speaks a different language; Maryland = "Muhr-lund", Potomac = "Po-toe-mic".  I'd forgotten what happens to English when the Queen isn't Head of State.  And if the atmosphere is a little less laid back or willing to apologise than our previous home, that'll set me up nicely for the next time I fly business.

I stocked up on the essentials in duty-free before we flew.

G&T selfie!  It was quickly obvious to my fellow business passengers that I did not belong.

It's the only way to travel.

Here we go again

Everything's back in little boxes.  Some things didn't even come out of their boxes for the whole time we were in Vancouver, but they're now on a truck and I believe racing towards the USA via Niagara Falls.  Please look out for the water.

I'm not racing anywhere as we enjoy a few days of cleaning the apartment.  Where does all that dust under the bed come from?  I shudder to think, but I was able to give it all a once-over with the hoover before it too was consigned to a box and taken from me.  With no hoover and no cappuccino machine I basically lack all meaning in life.

Never mind - we get two nights at a swanky hotel before our flight.  My clever dieting plan has always been to lose weight during the stress of these international moves and then I get to slowly gain it until the next one.  Except that this move hasn't been stressful, and we've just come back in from beer and pizza in downtown Vancouver.  Oh well, America is known for its successful efforts to combat obesity.  Isn't it?

I should probably have asked for ID from those men who turned up and put all our stuff in their big van...

Ah, who cares?

The fridge and the fury

Can I place all the decisions in my life in a row, leading up to this very moment?  Perhaps I shouldn't have told the university recruiter that computer science "sounds a bit like hard work. What's theology?"  Maybe I could have played rugby for Wales if I wasn't so rubbish at rugby.  Perhaps if I'd had fewer tequilas before meeting Snow White I'd still be allowed in Disneyland.

I found myself pondering all this as I cleaned our fridge, in preparation for our fast-approaching move to DC.  There's something about scraping six-month-old honey dijon dressing off a plastic shelf that invites introspection.

The question wasn't whether the fridge needed cleaning, or whether I was the person to do it.  I certainly wasn't going to suggest that my highly-skilled and paid wife should.  ("Doesn't the fridge clean itself," she would ask, "like the dirty washing I leave in the corner of the bedroom?"  Before adding "why have a dog and bark yourself?" to make sure I understood.)

There was only one thing to do: go to see Mad Max: Fury Road.

Going to the cinema alone is a singular pleasure.  You don't have to worry about what the friends you're with think about the film, or whether they might walk out mid-way through (Spiderman 2).  The only downside is wondering what's up with the weirdos sharing the cinema with you on a workday afternoon.  Don't these people have jobs to go to?

Mad Max: Fury Road features Max Rockatansky who, as you may know, is a lone wanderer of post-apocalyptic Australia; portraying him catapulted Mel Gibson to stardom.  This time he's played by British actor Tom Hardy, but he remains the haunted, broken man whose only instinct is survival in a world he can neither understand nor overcome.  I can relate to him.

As you may also know, this installment of Max's saga sees him racing from death with a group of beautiful concubines, alternately fighting and assisting Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) as they fling themselves across a wasteland towards an uncertain destiny.  One of the criticisms is that Max is a bit-player in his own uber-feminist movie, forced to follow a beautiful, volatile, and lethally capable woman to wherever her destiny might lead.  It's true - it was like watching my life unfold on screen.

Happily the film was jaw-droppingly amazing but, disappointingly, outside the cinema it was a drizzly Vancouver day rather than the parched outback where all I needed was a vehicle and a gun to make my own law.  Oh well, maybe that'll be Hannah's next placement after DC.  I consoled myself knowing that, should the apocalypse arrive, no one will have a cleaner fridge to hide in than me.

Welcome to my life Max.

Last exit from Vancouver

Given our impending exile to the USA, our final European clients of Davies Travel International (Canada Division) have waved goodbye.  It's even more disastrous than usual - with the addition of Aunty Emily, Pete had three entertainers to cater to his every whim.  Mummy and Daddy on their own just don't cut the mustard.

So Pete is going through the time-honoured toddler tradition of checking to see if the boundaries have shifted during the visit.  "Grandma let me do this," he seems to be saying as he charges about and generally makes mischief.  To be fair, going cold turkey from endless chocolate and cute-animal-Youtube-videos would probably have the same effect on me.

 

 

Down on the beach - English Bay, naturally.

 

 

Science World, with the kind of abominations that unchecked experimentation can result in!

 

 

So many fascinating and intriguing experiments.  But look!  A touchscreen!

 

 

Inside a tree.

 

 

We should get one of these installed at home in Frome.

 

 

 

The national sport. 

 

A final wander around Stanley Park.



And just enough time for yet more Peppa Pig before going to the airport.

HMCS Ojibwa

Somewhere in the mists of time, otherwise known as the 1960s, my Dad built submarines.  So good was Britain at making subs and warships that the Canadians, Australians, and Kiwis all paid us to build them for their navies.  The Americans liked to build their own but insisted on having British naval architects on staff to make sure they got it right.  The Chileans bought our ships second-hand, and took a couple of submarines too.

One Canadian submarine that Dad was Constructor-in-Charge for was HMCS Ojibwa, built in Chatham, Kent, and launched in 1965.  In 1998, after many years of renowned service, she was decommissioned and left floating empty in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  A few years ago an enterprising military museum asked the Canadian Department of Defense for some old tanks to display and were told "we're fresh out of tanks, but we've got this submarine..."  So they decided to save her, towed her several hundred miles, and now she's a museum on the banks of Lake Erie.  The torpedo tubes point towards Cleveland so the Americans complained and insisted on "deweaponization" by removing/welding various things.  Now she can't be used when Canada finally declares war on the USA.

Dad and I got on a plane to Toronto and went to visit, and a massive submarine sitting in a small Canadian village is quite a thing to see as you drive across the flat plains of Ontario.  The thing is huge, and they'll soon construct a naval museum beside her but for now she's a monolith open for tours by a group of voluntary ex-submariners.  The whole endeavour is a family passion-project of Ian, Kathy and Melissa Raven, who run the nearby Elgin Military Museum.

I'd emailed them in advance to see what could be arranged to make Dad's visit as fun as possible, but when we arrived you'd have thought the Queen Mother had turned up!  The whole event was a two-day affair - on day one Dad was grilled for all his knowledge and reminiscences about the boat, and day two we spent on the sub herself, everyone wanting to shake hands with Dad and hear every story again.  I've always lived in the shadow of my father, but I've never been so completely in the dark as this.

Dad was happy to corroborate several tall tales.  Back in the 60s the Canadians had demanded 24-hour coffee as standard on their subs, which was a new and foreign idea to the Brits who had to find room to install the necessary machine.  British submariners only drink tea and rum.  The electrician who rewired the boat to be a museum questioned Dad in depth for a good hour on the layout and workings of the wiring.  A red maple leaf and number that had been painted on the tower when it left Chatham dockyard was covered over when some genius finally worked out that the Russians were identifying the sub from it.

There was one unsolved mystery surrounding a Hoover twin-tub washing machine that Dad swears was installed, at the Canadians' request, when the boat sailed.  It doesn't seem to be there now.  He says he remembers because he went on to build boats for the Aussies, who when asked about their own requirements said they were happy to wash their laundry in a bucket.  As a present from the dockyard the Canadians got a silver cigarette case for the officers' wardroom.  The Australians got copper dispensers for gin and whisky.

The whole visit was a massive success, and Dad, like the engineer he is, did not shed a single tear out of nostalgia but was inordinately impressed that the handiwork of the dockyard has stood up so well after 50 years.  Perhaps the Americans are right to be worried about all the old submariners jumping on board, rolling Ojibwa back down into Lake Erie, and terrorising the Ohio coast.

Is that a submarine in your village or are you just pleased to see me?

Dad checks the welding to see if it's still sound after half a century.

A dent?  Yes, after Ojibwa retired the Canadian navy decided to test the impact of underwater explosives on her, for "research purposes".  Quite unfair, but she survived.

Chief electrician Bill has lots of questions.

Permission to come aboard.

The most important locker on the boat.

In between the engines.

Dad explains...

...and then take the helm under battle stations!

Going below.

Battery tank #2.  No batteries anymore, but the insulation coating and the wooden flooring is genuine, original British craftsmanship.  Everything in this picture could be described as "well preserved".

The captain's cabin.  Luxurious.

Agreed.

The original ship's crest from her commissioning.  Apparently some sailors in western Canada "found" it and returned it.  No questions were asked.



Looking into the forward torpedo room.  Roomy.

"So - hypothetically - how would we re-weaponise this...?"

Dad and his first love.

Checking the propulsion.



Normally, if you have this view, you should turn around and start swimming as fast as you can.

Some of our hosts and Dad - electrician Bill, Ian, and Melissa.

Dad and (another) Bill, an ex-submariner, swapping one of several hundred stories throughout the afternoon.



Next time we'll bring the youngest generation.  It may be too late for me, but maybe Pete Jr. can bring honour back to the family as a naval architect!