Watching the world go by

We had breakfast this morning with a man from Kent, England, who loves travelling by train as much as we do.  He says that when you fly,  you spend all your time in the cities.  When you travel by train, though, he says, you get to see the whole of a place.  You sit in your seat and watch the world go by.

Train travel is very sociable, and remarkably egalitarian.  It pretty well has to be.  The accommodation, even the two person bedroom we have, is very small - VERY small.  So the suitcase we bring on board is equally small.  Which means that we pretty much wear the same clothes every day.  Not much opportunity to show off your designer duds.  And even if you just happened to bring those fancy clothes, there's no place to hang them.  Tom and I fold up our clothes each night and place them in a pile on the floor just inside our room door, the only place we don't step between the beds and the bathroom.  By day three, everyone looks a little rumpled.

And then there's the shower.  There's one in each car that we all share, and we time our rising, not by the breakfast schedule, but by how many people are likely to be ahead of us for the shower.  I'm thinking 5:00 am tomorrow, before our 9:30 am scheduled arrival in Toronto, to beat the crowd.

Mealtimes are a chance to meet new people, as every table in the dining car seats four people, and every table is filled. We have a warm and interesting group of passengers on board.  There's Jan and Bob from Eugene, Oregon - a warm, witty woman and fellow knitter, and an engaging and amusing fellow who trades wisecracks and puns with Tom.  There's Brian and Lynn from Manchester, in Canada for the first time.  We felt it to be an hospitable touch to introduce Brian to that quintessential Canadian drink, the Bloody Caesar (that spelling just doesn't look right).  He confessed the it was not something he would likely order on his own,  but admitted it was "interesting".  David, from Vancouver, has a featherweight CPAP machine half the size of Tom's.   Krystal and Kristoff are mother and son troubadours from Petawawa, Ontario,  paying their passage by playing for the guests, she on the violin and he on the bassoon. Oh, yes, and Kristoff is studying nano technology at the University of Waterloo.  Then there's Celene from Portland,  Oregon, also a knitter - of socks - who never heard of the Sock Summit!  That was held in Portland!  Twice!

And the fellow from Kent - he stopped by this afternoon to tell us that he's decided to take that Winnipeg to Churchill train trip we told him about! 

These boots are made for walkin' - redux

Dear Mayor and Council,

We love Victoria!

Within months of moving to Victoria in 2006, we traded in our car for a shopping cart and became dedicated pedestrians. Though we do, on occasion, use public transit or taxicabs, we find the city best explored on foot.   Victoria is a very walkable city.

Nine years later, our circumstances have changed somewhat.  My husband, while still very mobile, now uses a walker.  Those minor inconveniences on sidewalks that we previously encountered when he was able-bodied have now become serious impediments to getting around.

There are three specific problems I would like to draw to your attention:

1.    Sidewalks
Many of our sidewalks are too narrow.   A person with a walker takes up more than half the width of a standard sidewalk.  Motorized wheelchairs, scooters and baby carriages take up even more. 

The sidewalks are cluttered with all manner of obstructions – telephone poles, parking meters, sign posts, sandwich boards, café seating.  Some homeowners further add to this obstacle course by letting their plantings overgrow the sidewalk.

We’re turning into a population that walks single file on the sidewalks.

2.    Sidewalk ramps
Sidewalk ramps often don’t line up with crosswalks or intersections, requiring persons with assistive devices to cross streets partially in the roadway in order to access the ramp. 

Many of the sidewalk ramps have small lips on them such that they are not flush with the road.  For an able-bodied person, a half-inch lip is insignificant.  For a person using a walker, such a lip requires lifting the front of the device – no small feat when one has a balance problem.

The newer sidewalk ramps have solved both these problems, having been constructed both wider and lower, but there are many more old style ramps in the city. 

3.    Pedestrian crossing signals
Pedestrian crossing signals are just not long enough for someone using a walker (and, I would suspect, many able-bodied seniors) to cross the street safely.  The timing needs to be changed to accommodate our aging population. 

I am aware that the city has a Pedestrian Master Plan from 2008.  It is my hope that the City of Victoria will revisit this plan and make correcting these pedestrian deficiencies a priority. 

Respectfully submitted,

Gwyn Thompson

The Labyrinth

I walked a labyrinth for the first time today.

A labyrinth is not a maze - there are no tricky paths that require you to puzzle out each step so as not to get lost on the way.  It's a well marked path that leads to the centre and back out again.

When I was finished, I felt physically relaxed and mentally calm.

The friend I walked with said it made her see that, even though your path backtracks from time to time, you're still on the path to your goal.  She also said it made her realize that it was important to enjoy the experience of the journey, not just rush to the end.

Wow.

http://www.christchurchcathedral.bc.ca/index.php/about-us/our-cathedral/labyrinth-info

Rollin', rollin'

I love sleeping on the train.

It's certainly not because the gentle rhythm of the train lulls me to sleep; there's nothing gentle about it at all.  Sleeping on the train is bouncy and noisy.  There's even a net on the top bunk to prevent one from being flung to the floor.

But I love the adventure of travelling miles in my sleep; of the train slipping like a burglar through unsuspecting towns at night.  I love to wake up when the train stops in the middle of the night and watch sleepy people get on and off as they start or end their travels.  And I love waking up in the morning to see a totally different landscape outside the window.

Next week ...

Primary colours

Imagine a world with only three colours. No green grass, no purple mountains, no orange sunsets.

But so many of us live our lives in a limited spectrum.  We restrict our experiences to ones that are familiar; we choose our friends from people who have similar backgrounds and beliefs.

My own family has made some inroads into the crayon box:  a blend of different religions, ethnic backgrounds, and colours.  For us, it's easy being green. 

Grace notes

There's a chord in the opening music to season one of Battlestar Galactica that I can feel in my chest.  Really, I can physically feel that chord.  It also gives me a feeling of despair (which, if you know anything about BG, is quite fitting).  Interestingly enough, that same chord has been tweaked somehow in subsequent seasons of the show.  I still feel it, but less physically, and the emotion is gone.

A number of years ago, Tom and I were in London in the St Paul's Cathedral gift shop, when a piece of music came through the speakers.  It spoke to me of joy, boundless joy!  I had to have that cd!  Turned out to be the St Paul's choristers singing For the Beauty of the Earth. 

In the 70's, I had a friend who loved Nana Mouskouri.  Now, I thought Nana Mouskouri was okay, but I sure got tired of constantly hearing her records and going to her concerts.  When this same friend suggested going to hear another female singer in concert, I must admit that my initial reaction was a silent groan ... But I went, and within moments, literally moments, of hearing Ann Mortifee sing, I could feel tears welling up in my eyes.  There's something about the timbre of her voice that just does that.

Some 30 years later, Ann Mortifee came to Kingston in concert with Hagood Hardy.  We went to see them out of curiosity:  I wondered if I would have the same reaction to her voice, or whether it was just situational - me and the 70's.  Yep.  Same reaction.

I've been thinking about music a lot lately. Maybe it's because I have a new friend with a background in music.  Maybe it's because we've just come from seeing Les Miserables in Vancouver (and marching smartly to the restaurant after the show ... Do you hear the people sing?).  Or maybe, I just never stop thinking about music; it's such a part of my life.

Listen to the St Paul's choristers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycDk4r3vQ80  Does it give you that same feeling it gives me?  I hope so.

These boots are made for walkin'

We're beginning to understand that one person/one car is an inefficient and wasteful use of resources.  As a result, we're seeing car-free days, better transit systems, dedicated bike lanes.

We're also recognizing that our population is greying, that we'll require additional health resources and social safety nets to support a large cohort of senior citizens.

There is a linkage missing between these two issues: sidewalks.

In the 'old' days when there were fewer cars, we walked on the road when there weren't any sidewalks.  Then, as more and more of us had access to cars, sidewalks were just brief paths from parking spot to destination.

But now, as we're encouraged to get out of our cars and on to our feet, sidewalks are taking on new importance.  And there's the problem:  the sidewalks of yesterday are totally inadequate for today's seniors.

A person using a cane or a walker takes up about two-thirds of a standard sidewalk.  A motorized scooter can take up to three-quarters of the sidewalk.  The other day I met a couple in a two-person side-by-side electric scooter - The first of its kind in Victoria! they said, proudly.  It spanned the entire sidewalk.

Now add young parents with their state-of-the-art child carriers.

And sidewalk cafe seating ... and signs and telephone poles in the middle of the sidewalks ... and overgrown shrubbery ...

All of these are challenges in Victoria.  The mix of young and older people, the increase in people walking, the village atmosphere, are all what make this such a great city.  But Tom and I can no longer walk side by side on the sidewalk now that he uses a walker.

We need to widen our sidewalks.

Or, we can turn them into one-way single pedestrian lanes ...