I’ve always liked the idea of being outdoors. In the year following the completion of my journalism degree I spent a lot of time cycling, walking, hunting down saleable items in automotive junkyards, and just generally trying not to be nailed to a computer screen. It worked, I had a great time, and my eBay flogging of seemingly useless car parts meant that, at least for a while, I did not have to get myself a ‘real’ job to supplement my chosen lifestyle.
Fast forward three years and I’m in Canada. I still spend a lot of time outside, but now I spend it doing different activities. I still cycle as much as possible – my precious antique 10-speed road bike is my livelihood. It gets me to work and back, and was given to me by one of my first friends in Canada, Andrew, and until recently it cost me next to nothing. However, when things started to fall off it at will I decided it was about time to spend some of my hard-earned cash on the thing. $200 later and I had a bike that ran smoothly, and didn’t make a huge amount of ridiculous creaking noises.
Besides my cycle commute, I’ve been spending a lot of time in Vancouver’s undeniably brilliant backyard. The mountains are just begging to be hiked up, so as I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been spending time with some friends climbing the peaks visible from the city. It’s an achievement to conquer any of them, be it a smaller one with a well-worn trail such as the Grouse Grind, or one that is more challenging, such as the epic, all-day hike that is The Lions. Scrambling through snow to get to the top, only to discover that there’s no tread left on your hiking boots for the way down is an amusing experience. I’ve yet to try a full weekend hike, such as the trail that leads from Cypress Mountain, which overlooks West Vancouver, to Squamish, half-way to Whistler, but hopefully I will be able to find enough time, and enough friends, to join me on that at some point.
As good as all these things are though; there are still a few small effects that I miss from my home country. Apart from the obvious things such as friends and family, the good old fashioned English country pub is one of them. There’s nothing better than sitting in a beer garden, cold beverage in hand, waiting for a hand-crafted doorstep sandwich to arrive, with chips (not fries) on the side. Preferably this would be by a river or lake, it would be June or July, and you’d be surrounded by old stone houses and fields filled with sheep. A few cars, and maybe a tractor, would pass, but generally there’d be the sweet sound of the English countryside. Some dogs would be heard barking in the distance, there’d be the soothing sound of distant conversation from a picnic bench opposite, and the trickling, peaceful backdrop of the brook flowing on down to the seaside somewhere on your left flank. The birds chatter excitedly to each other, and the waters shimmer in the sun.
Other than that there’s the cider. Cider is one of those drinks that offers instantaneous, joyous refreshment, after a long day of studying. I remember back at university in Southampton, heading to our local pub, The Giddy Bridge, with my close friend Luke, to have a pint or two, and talk over all things ‘Uni’. It was final year, and we had a lot of work to do. Really, we should both have been studying for our dissertation projects – assignments so huge that we were given a full year to complete them. I did mine in approximately eight weeks and did fine, but that’s another story. Anyway, the gratification of wiping the condensation from a chilled glass of Magners or Kopparberg, taking a sip, and talking about Wolverhampton Wanderers flirtations with promotion, and mediocre footballers, such as Arouna Koné, really capped off a day well.
Cider in Canada, however, just doesn’t have the same effect. It feels like a fizzy soft drink. So artificial. So acidic. It just isn’t the same. During my early days here, I tried to drink it, but ultimately turned to beer. As Billy Currington once sang: “God is great, beer is good. People are crazy”. Well Billy, I agree with you on about two thirds of that, but as good as beer is I just don’t enjoy it quite as much as having that special fruitiness in my drink. Bud Light with Lime just isn’t the same, sorry Bud.
Another thing – football. As good as it was to be able to watch the recent World Cup in South Africa, it doesn’t match Saturday afternoons in the pub, Magners, and Manchester United about to put four past Fulham in the English Premier League. It’s known as the EPL out in Canada, and that’s fine, but I don’t enjoy having to get up at some unearthly hour on a Saturday to catch the game. I manage to watch Match of the Day most weeks, thanks to the Internet, but it’s not quite the same experience as watching a live game unfold. Hopefully things will change with the Vancouver Whitecaps making their presence felt in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the new year, but I’m still not sure on the quality of the game out here, Beckham, Marquez, and Henry aside. Time will tell I expect.
Finally, there’s the English countryside. It seems like all I want to do is sit in a pub in some small, unfathomably remote village somewhere, watch football, and get plastered on cider; and I’m sure I will come Christmas, but there’s a certain charm these things have separately too. I used to love cycling along the old Roman roads just outside my home village of Middleton. The roads were narrow, the trees and hedges enveloping the tarmac, the sun’s rays streaming through them. Maybe you’d see a couple of people on horseback, riding to one of the endless fields around the area, or a fox skulking across the road ahead. It was just always a tranquil time to experience. Those days of limitless time. Endless freedom. Once I get my fix of these typically English things at Christmas I’ll be back in Vancouver, ready to complete another season of snowboarding after work, and every possible weekend, and once again be ready to jump off high objects into the waters of the Pacific Ocean when summer rolls around. Two years is a long time to be away from home voluntarily, so the Christmas trip back to the motherland will be one of great adventures, reviving old memories, and becoming refreshed once again.
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