Culture Shock

I was at work on Friday, beavering away in my office at home, when through the window I heard a fascinating conversation that told me more about the difference between Europeans and North Americans than I ever knew. My neighbour from next door but one, many generation Canadian, was having a conversation with the woman across the street. He doesn't work as he is on the compo, with a back injury.  I know this as that was Thursdays listening novello.  I assume he gets bored as he pounces on people for conversation the minute they leave their homes or cars.  Any how, the cultural shock story..

He..." Do you watch soccer?"

She... "No, I don't get it."

He..."I know, the scores are like 1 to zero after 90 minutes.  90 minutes and that's all you get!.  Men running around a huge field chasing a white ball.  There's no excitement and low scores eh!"

She..."there's a competition starting soon, I've seen flags on cars"

He..."Yeah, the World Cup.  They make a big fuss about it. I just don't get it."

Then the Polish guy up the street gets home, they share their confusion with him.  He disagrees with them obviously, so my neighbour tries to explain that Hockey is a real game, "There's contact and fighting and they score 45. It's fast, I like a fast game. Soccer is slow.  I don't get it!"

Now I'm not a huge football fan, being a Scotland supporter you learn early that the only way you get to the World Cup is on a package deal or an Easy Jet flight.  But I supported Spurs from the sofa back when Ricky Villa and Ozzy were all the rage.  I watched that other Argy handball to win. I know that Camaroon do that corner post dance thing when they score.  I know that Pele is a god and Terry is a dreadful role model, but a great defender.  I know that the national team suffers because the players have greater loyalty to their clubs, that are floated on the stock market and driven by money men. 

I spent the first 15 years of my working life in a male dominated world.  Where football was discussed for hours every Monday morning, and then again after the mid week match.  I know it's about skill and stamina, that the team formation is critical. I don't understand the offside rule...but more in terms of why do you need it.  I get the whole formation part of it.  I learnt, at 19, that you don't join in those conversations unless you know your stuff.  They are serious, important, tribal.  They are where men, who rarely express emotion, express emotion.  I never joined in.  I made the right noises if questioned.  Clearly Watford were the better team and Luton were W*****s.  Apparently still the case.

So, to hear a grown man saying that he has nothing in his blood for football is actually shocking to me.  It is my first "you are not like us" experience.  I had assumed that would be over politics or war, but no...sport.  I guess that whilst the Olympics unites us, ball games devide us.

I'll stick with my plants:-)

Sat On The Front Porch

As predicted I have moved quickly from grumbling about 4 months of snow to winging about the heat. Today it's in the high 20s with no shade so feeling a lot warmer. Tomorrow the weather channel predicts 34 degrees, which I am guessing is high for May, but as it's our first spring here I am not sure.   The back garden is now in full sun so I have escaped onto the front door step for shade.  If this was the UK neighbours would be twitching curtains and questioning my sanity.  In Canada people seem to live in the street.  Four doors up they are playing street hockey, further on basketball.  The woman across the street is greeting all neighbours with discussions about their front garden. Much talk of ice storms, maple damage and dandelions.  Someone told me the other day that " in Canada a home is not your castle" but I suspect that your front yard is your kingdom.

In a moment of madness and defeat yesterday I took small person to the animal rescue centre. They wouldn't let me leave him there so we adopted two kittens instead.  The speed of the decision is the madness I refer to. The defeat is that small persons reward chart is now passe and we were never going to get to our kitten goal.  So do we wait until he starts to listen, tidy up, eat lunch at school, go to bed and stay in bed? Or de we reverse the psychology and get him the promised kittens with the new insentive being "behave or they go back".  We probably should have waited for behavioural nirvana; and we have probably created a rod for our own back but it felt like the right thing to do.

I have never seen him so happy.  The kittens are super cute and they play fight like ninjas which he finds hysterical.  He seems to be trying to train them like dogs, and believes that he has to watch them all day to "take care of them". Thankfully we convinced him to watch a cartoon and the kittens took the opportunity to climb into the blanket basket and have a sleep.   He hasn't asked for the iPad once since they arrived.  He was just playing sticky ninja on the laptop, but after 15 minutes he said he was "fed up" and returned to kitten training. I suspect that they will love the peace tomorrow, when he is at a school. I'm planning a quiet Monday too.  The US are on holiday, so hopefully all emergencies will be on hold until Tuesday. I have planned to do that file tidy and archive that will make life easier.  Happy days.

I met my new allotment today

And she's a beauty.  10 k from home, in the rolling hills.  On the way there I had to stop to let two deer cross the road. Reminded me of home.  The allotment ( they call it a garden here ) is a strip of land 10' by 40', so 1/3 of the size that I had back in the UK, but that is the plan...start small.

I feel like I need to relearn how to grow some things.  I started gardening proper 28 years ago.  Whilst most people come to gardening late in life, I started there when I left school.  Back then I mostly grew flowers from seeds and cuttings, endless clematis plants and annuals, then my passion moved to perennials and alpines.  I like conifers but there has never been any romance there for me.   Dabbled with heathers for a bit, they are beautiful.  I didn't start growing veg until I got my UK allotments 4 years ago.  I remember my first afternoon on the plot, faced with soil like concrete, hacking away with my pick, looks of derision from some plot holders.  One guy who decided to lecture me on what to do, what not to do.  Gave me loads of advice, all of it wrong, but I think he meant well.

It takes time to find your groove on an allotment...for many it is a solitary activity on purpose, so the concept of joining a community is slow to realize.  For every chatty person there are 5 people who just want you to shut up and move along.  Over time I worked out who to chat to and who to stay away from.  No one was mean, but folks just wanted peace.  I learnt not to talk about the fact that I was qualified in horticulture because despite the study and the years of experience with plant propagation I had minimal experience of growing food.  After 4 years I gained a grasp of what I could grow and a huge knowledge of what happens if you cut corners - "I'll cover the cabbages tomorrow" result was bird ate them overnight.  "I'll pick those red current at the weekend" result No redcurrents.  "Just snap off the bind weed for now" result even more bindweed.  I wouldn't say that I am great at growing veg, because like all things in my life there is limit to the effort I am prepared to put in.  I get bored with rules and protocol - hence the knowledge of cutting corners.

So here I am, facing my first season growing food in Canada, actually further south than I was in the UK, so I expect a drier warmer summer climate.  Once again I am faced with having lots of knowledge but limited practical experience.  I am very fortunate to have been given a plot that was well managed by the previous tenant. The soil looks rich and clean, apart from couch grass.  Couch grass and I are are old adversaries but we have learnt to live in harmony over the years.  At the open day earlier the site manager advised us that our three greatest pests are deer, wild turkeys and black fly.  Small person questioned her at length about the turkey's - in fact he spent 20 minutes asking her questions on many topics.  He has a thirst for knowledge and I suspect he is also sponsored by Duracell to keep going - he gets paid by the word!

The hierarchy at the open day today is already evident.  The wise old women are already offering to give guidance and advice ( wether you need it or not ).  There is a large group of retired Indian folk who have taken a plot 10 times the size of mine - I hope they grow awesome veg from Asia as that will be cool to see.  I tried to chat to them but they are a closed shop at this point.  There are folks from Italy, UK, Jamaica, Pakistan, Canada  and US.  If we do get to talk it will be cool to learn from each other. But if folks want to be alone that is cool too.  I'm aching a little from spending a warm hour cleaning 60 sq foot of soil.  Only 340  sq foot more to go.   Small person made friends with Lily, the resident dog, so all in all it is shaping up to be a fun season.

Career Day - Guess who didn't have a gun!

Spring has finally sprung.  I have planted seeds in my new mini greenhouse - happy days!  Amy, from the Community Garden (translation - Allotment) has been in touch - we can go onsite from 10th May....I am very excited but if I am honest I actually have no idea where it is.  North about 6K but more than that - not sure.  Mental note - work out where it is this week.  As it goes I am doing a charity walk on that day - just 10K fundraising for the local Hospice which survives just on donations.  There was a huge banner about it accross Highway 50, which was in itself a huge feat of bravery.  As I believe that we see stuff for a reason I thought "yup, i'll do that, do some good and get to see the countryside".  The forecast is for 23 degrees so I may actually be grumbling about the heat 3 weeks after seeing off the snow.

The snow - that was on the ground, by my reckoning, for 22 weeks.  I am told that that is unusual - but I've seen every episode of Ice Road Truckers so I suspect folks are confused.

Last Friday I went into small persons school to give three career talks to Grade 5  (not 5th graders, I was corrected there) kids.  First group, pre lunch were fab, post lunch groups were mostly fab all be it a tough gig straight after lunch.  Third group, last lesson on a Friday, were still fab but exhausting.  I expect my memory of 40 years ago is missing data but I don't recall talking amongst ourselves and over other people.  In those days board rubbers (don't panic foreign people, that is an eraser, nothing more) were thrown and threats of being damned to hell kept us in place.  And you wonder why I have issues with organised religion.

So, what to tell them.  I work in Human Resources which is like saying I work in Spain - it could mean a million things.  So I focussed on what I do the most, which is project management and I sold it to them as "find something you enjoy/love and get a job where you can do that every day".  For the record I am at enjoy rather than love - but then no one explained careers to me when I was young beyond a careerday about "being an actuary, restocking cheese at Sainsbury's or being a nurse".  Terrifyingly that must have has an impact as I worked for 7 years within Sainsburys, although I never stacked cheese and today I work in a firm that employees about 3,000 acturies.  Nurse - never gonna happen, too squeamish and my people skills, although much improved, wouldn't cut it.

After telling them how the world turns based on project plans - I got a scream when I told them One Direction have a planner who directs their schedule.  It was like saying Bros in 1979! - they each planned a mini project.  It went well - every teacher told me that they don't learn this at school which is a huge miss in my view. 

Then we got to questions:

• How much do you earn?  I gave them a ball park and their jaws dropped.  "is that a lot then?" I asked - "yes" gulped the teacher.  Interesting as the ball park that I gave them was on the lower side.  Hopefully those that love planning and organising can now see a future beyond working in local food retailers.
• "Why do you say you are from Britain, we say England" - because I'm Scottish.
• "Does it rain every day in England?" - I lied and said no.
• "Does it snow in England?" - yes for 5 days every other year.
• "Do you play Baseball in England?" - Not really - Met with disbelief.
• "Do you play football?" - we call it soccer.  "No, football"  ah, you mean Rugby, yes but no padding and helmets.
• "Do you play ice hockey?" Nah!  Eyes like owls at this point.

I should have said earlier that there were three parents giving talks to each class, in rotation.  Me, a uniformed Police Officer who had his gun with him (not sure that was right but he didn't draw it); and a plain clothes police detective who was like Lara Croft.  I like to think my talk was the most fun - yeah right!.

What did I learn?  Rapters is a sports team, not an amphibian zoo in Vaughan; uniformed police use a Smith & Western whilst plain clothes folks prefer the plastic Gluck; they source femail officers guns from USA as you can get smaller lady versions there; At least one person will punch the air and say "yeah!" whenever you mention the Canadian hockey team, mens or womens; at least 6 girls in 10 scream a little bit when you mention One Direction; and apparently asking folks to "chat amongst themselves" for the group work required translation!  Encouragingly, I think, these guys did a great job defining roles within their teams; focussed on costs and profit alongside logistics and when it came to detail their ability to plan out the snacks was awesome.  Good Job!  as they say down here.

Fun In The Basement

Having fun with scraps of canvas, unsized, painted with Acrylic (wash and full strength)

 

Wet the canvas

 

 

Wash

 

 

Splatter & leave to dry

 

Add acrylic flowers

 



Hit a road block

It was glorious weather on Tuesday. I even took my coat off as I walked back from school. The grassy banks were slowly turning from soggy brown to fresh green. Then on Wednesday we had a foot of snow.  That walk to school was less fun for sure.  Why walking to school? Small person has been given a red card and banned from the bus for a week.  Aged 6 he finds it hard to be sensible at the required moments.  Apparently he swapped seats as the bus was moving.  Without seat belts to restrain them they expect good behaviour. It's a struggle.

So we walked to and from school for a week.  It's not far, less than a mile I think, but the trek plays havoc with my work schedule, On Wednesday I lost track of time and only realized the time 10 minutes before the school bell.  I don't run, knees won't let me...that was a very fast walk but I still got there late.  No sign of him. Checked on the embargoed bus...nope. Checked the classroom and the hallways...nope.  Found him after 15 minute search, in the playground waiting with the kids who get collected in cars.  Too much excitement.

The previous day I had been called into the school at 2pm because "he's having  a few problems".  Transpires that he had had enough and gone on strike, demanding to go back to England the next day.   It's been a tough month, with him getting picked on at school, and most likely he has been mean to others in return. I know I am biased, but he is only 6. He feels angry and alone, he wants friends or more accurately he needs to feel that he has friends.  He doesn't feel that. He is sad, he gets distracted easily, he falls behind with the tasks that he is set.  They have incentives most days...finish your sums and you can have some friendship pie.  He fell behind, no pie.  Finish your sentences and you can play outside.  He fell behind, no recess.

It looks to me like the system is not helping him to integrate and is actually making him feel worse.  On the open house on Wednesday I went in to spend an hour in the classroom.  "Show me your desk"... I almost cried. They have isolated him at the desk next to the teacher, with his back to the class.  The Principals words earlier that day about inclusion and integration suddenly very hollow.   I know he can be a little sod, but it just shows that education needs to match the style of the child, not the majority.  It'll get better I am sure.  We have reward charts and the promise of kittens if he listens to the teacher. He has joined a sports class on a Saturday morning and we are looking at soccer club.  I have promised him that we will play together after school no matter how busy my work is.  Basement ping pong is the sport de jour.  We just need to get past the anger. They don't tell you this stuff when you have a kid do they eh?

Preparing my application to participate in an art exhibition