Sunday, December 23, 2007

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

With yet more apologies for the infrequency of the updates here, I wish everyone out there a wonderful Christmas and, in case I get distracted again, a happy new year.

I plead distraction yet again - a family party in Moncton NB on Friday night, apart from being 3 hours away, carried on well into Saturday and was everything we expected it to be - wild.

Four guitars, sometimes playing the same song, strumming and picking away in the basement, a constant revolving darts marathon a few feet away and a traditional Maritime style (Brits think Jona Lewie) kitchen party going on upstairs. Dozens of cousins, nephews, nieces, spouses, girl/boyfriends, friends, you name it, in various degrees on inebritude but all partying down like there was no tomorrow (which, in a very real sense, there WASN'T, just a continuation of today).

Now we're all back home with Grandma (my mother-in-law but none of the traditional jokes apply, she really IS a sweet little old lady who has spent part of this morning learning to use Facebook!) here for a stay. Party season breaks out here for Christmas and kicks up to open-house-crazy-season on Thursday when all and sundry descend on our house and garage and stay till.......stay tilll.....well.......till they leave, I guess.

I know I still have a lot of serious business to do here - in no particular order - answer "questions to the Waeguk" (and, Simon, I have given yours some considerable thought while driving and have the mental version of the answer ready - just gotta type it out), finish the shopping series, work out how to put pictures one here, take some, do it; describe life here in other terms and generally make this into the dyary it was supposed to be.

Be patient, please, gentle readers, I have no routine whatsoever. A pretty darn good life alright, but no routine whatsoever. But then, I suppose that's Chrisrmas everywhere, innit? Enjoy!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Nova Scotia Makes Wine - Who Knew?

Well, it's been over a week and at least two of my loyal readers (out of at LEAST two!) were worried that I'd lost interest in this burgeoning project.

No such luck, O faithful ones, I'm here, just been busy - gathering material, among other things.

So, to go back to the shopping theme, today, a brief commentary on my visit to the NSLC. I presume that stands for Nova Scotia Liquor Commission. (Note, added June 2008. No, it's CORPORATION, not COMMISSION).

I need to explain that term for two different audiences I know are out there. To Ontarians, I only need to say that it's the local equivalent of the LCBO. Only difference is, there's no "Beer Store" equivalent here so it's where ALL the booze comes from except, again as in Ontario, if you go to a specialist wine store or a vinyard - but more of that later.

To the Brits out there who are no more familiar with the LCBO than they are with the NSLC, they are equivalent of "Off Licences" but are run by the provincial government and have, with the previously noted exceptions, a monopoly on the retailing of alcohol. Even restauratnts buy their wine etc. there most of the time. Bars and restaurants are not allowed to sell "take out"; it's the government way or the dryway.

In recent years, during my time in Ontario, the LCBO, under threat of privatization, has transformed from a pretty basic and quite unpleasant place into something which would compare favourably with any privately run "offy" in the UK or elsewhere and is MILES nicer than any american liquor store I've ever been in.

I can't speak for the history of the NSLC but its present seems to stack up pretty well too. I say again that this is a small town of under 1,000 folks with only a few stores of any description. Among them, the NSLC is quite possibly the nicest. It's bright, its staff are friendly (though that's nothing unusual round here), knowledgable and, from my handful of visits, seem to have found the point where attentiveness and helpfulness can peak without straying over the line into intrusiveness.

Last week, we went in for some beer and a bottle of wine to take to a dinner party. We had been invited by a new friend who is also new to the area, from Ontario, and thought that a bottle of something local might be just the ticlket. We had tried a couple of Nova Scotia wines already, having been first surprised to find such a thing AT ALL, and further surprised at the quality. As a wine region, it is, of course, small and fairly new. This newness is evidenced, as it was in Ontario only a few years ago, by a preponderance of fruit or fruit flavoured wines, sweet whites and "novelty" type wines. Among them, though, there are some gems.

How to tell? Well, you stand there, in front of the display that says "NOVA SCOTIA WINES" like it was the most natural thing on earth and stare vaguely at the bottles. This is the sign for the staff to come over and share their experiences with you. Salesmanship around here is often like that - not really salesmanship at all, more a sharing of experiences. I know this is a digression (but it's MY digression, so that's OK) but only yesterday, having lunch in a local restaurant, my wife asked the waitress what the fish cakes were like. She said she remembered "nasty" processed ones from childhood but knew that, made fresh, they are a local delicacy. The waitress made no bones about telling us that this was NOT the place to have your first taste of Nova Scotia fish cakes. THESE are the ones you remember. THESE you should avoid, at least today. Have this, have that, try these, but DON'T have your first maritime fish cakes here.

So with the NSLC staff. They had just had a delivery of a range from a new local winery; first time at the NSLC (which means first time anywhere except at the winery itself) but it had won a gold star, the man said, and they'd got it in just yesterday. He'd only tried one kind but had liked it, told us about it without mentioning the words "bouquet", "presumtuous" or "precocious" even once. An excellent piece of service and, guess what, we bought it.

They make cranberry wine (thumbs up from the ladies though I haven't tried it yet), rhubarb wine (OK, but nothing to blog about) and, and this really threw me, PORT. Yes, Nova Scotian PORT. We tried it and it's pretty darn good. Many years ago, an old Thomas Cook branch manager of my long acquaintance would take his staff to "Balls Brothers", a wine bar in the City Of London when he wanted a "private chat"; a sort of 1970's style performance review, most often. The drink de rigeur was PORT, always from a wooden barrel, recommended by one of the Balls brothers ludicrously expensive (though I wasn't paying!) and described and discussed in excrutiating detail. So, while I would never claim expertise, I have tried more than a few ports (I worked for and with Jim Russell - the manager in question, for 5 years!) and can make some discrimination. Obviously, Nova Scotian port has not been oak cask conditioned for decades (an hour or two maybe) - they haven't been making it long enough - so it's young and light. But here's the thing, two things actually, it tastes good and it's pretty cheap. We're on our second bottle. More power to ya, Nova Scotia wine industry, says I, long may you inovate while you inebriate.

Still on the subject of drinks, while out to dinner with the same friend a couple of weeks ago, I got to try "Propeller Bitter" in a local restaurant. It is one of a range from a micro-brewery in Halifax (called, you guessed it, the Propeller brewery at www.drinkpropeller.ca/beer ) and it was the best beer I've had in North America since the Starfish Oyster Bar in Toronto pulled out its real ale pumps (shame on you Starfish!, after all the thirsty Brits I sent you!). It's kegged, so it's a bit too cold and gassy to be TRULY great, but it's WAY better than anything else around. They have a jam session there on Sundays so I may get to taste the others.

This waeguk has been asked a question (thank you Simon) - more on that next time, and it WON'T be a week.
Thanks for reading.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Grocery shopping in Nova Scotia

Wherever I've been in the world, one of the fascinating things to do has always been to go to a grocery store or supermarket and just look at what's there, what's NOT there, what people buy, what seems to be treated as commonplace and what's thought of as exotic.

Now this is a very small (not to mention friendly) town. The dot on my map puts it at below 1000 people, and that's as small as dots come so it's probably only a few hundred. It's also an odd shape; about two miles long and one house thick, I like to say, though that's just what it feels like. There's a little plaza where most of the shopping seems to get done. Yes, there are other places; one off stores and businesses scattered along the road, a few hairdressers, restaurants, insurance and real estate agents, a graphic design shop, but most of the SERIOUS shopping seems to get done either elsewhere entirely, in larger, neighbouring metropoli, or in the plaza.

Over the next few days, I'll put some observations on my shopping experiences. Not to criticize or praise, you understand, just to note the things that strike me.

Today, No.1. SuperSave.
This is the local supermarket and is therefore the best indication of what people eat at home. Mostly, it's what you'd expect but there a few oddities.

1a. Seafood.
Nicest, I would say, is the little shelf of fresh local seafood. No great surprise this close to the ocean, I suppose, but to be able to buy scallops (World Famous Digby Scallops*, no less) covered in cellophane on a wee styrofoam tray, as if they were so many pork chops, is quite a treat. Remember, this is no downtown Loblaws or Tescos with its real fishmonger section. They just sit there, with the mussels and haddock fillets, next to the chicken pieces and sausages. We tried the scallops last week. I had no clue what to do with them. The internet was full of wonderful recipes calling for raspberry sauces, honey glazes and the like, but I was already home with them and NOT going out again for all that stuff. The lady at the check-out, when I asked her for the easy way to do them, said to coat them in breadcrumbs. Everybody, internet and real, says the big thing is not to overcook them. They go rubbery, all agree. My tactic was to quick fry them with a little lemon juice, just for a few minutes. I certainly didn't overcook them. "Underdone"doesn't quite say it. The term my wife came up with, and I think it fits the facts, was "raw". So, back in the pan, fry them some more and they were lovely, and only slightly more expensive than their former neighbours, the pork chops.

1b. Tobacco.
I've never really adapted to the whole "federal" thing. I expect countries to behave like countries. That is, to agree, with some minor variations like how often the garbage is picked up and what colour the buses are, on how life is regulated, wherever in the country you may be. Since my first days in Canada when I got my first eye-openers on federalism at work while living briefly on the Ontario/Quebec border, I have remained almost constantly in Ontario, so I have not had much exposure to the differences between the Canadian provinces in the way they do things. Here, it's true, I am not aware of the differences most of the time. Sure, the license plates are nicer ("Canada's Ocean Playground" is MUCH more inviting than "Yours To Discover" and I never quite grasped "Je Me Souviens" at all), things have different initials, usually putting "NS" at the beginning where I would expect to see an "O" at the end, but most of the changes seem to be cultural and environmental rather legislative.

I am also aware that, just about everywhere, governments are coming up with new and diverse ways to control the sale and use of tobacco. I had heard in Ontario, some time back, plans to prevent tobacco retailers from having displays advertizing the various brands or promoting discounts and so on and had wondered casually what such a store would look like; a bit "soviet", I presumed.

Well now I know. I first noticed something was odd in the local gas station a few days ago. There were signs everywhere about the evils of tobacco, how dire the penalties were for selling/giving cigarettes to minors (which, for this purpose, as in Ontario, means 19) but NO CIGARETTES! My first guess was that this place had decided not to sell them because they had read all the notices. That wasn't why I was there. though, so I paid for my gas and thought no more about it. Then yesterday, I discovered that, to buy cigarettes at the supermarket, you have to go in a DIFFERENT DOOR to everybody else. When you're in there, you still can't see anything for sale except a few lighters. There's just some locked cabinets and a cash register. A staff member comes through a door from the store-proper and serves, from the locked drawers. Most odd.

I now know that something similar is happening at the gas station. The smokes are in the closed cupboard behind the counter.

1c. Christmas.
I know it's December and Christmas has started everywhere but, here, it's in full swing. On my first day in Nova Scotia (it was mid November and I wasn't even home yet), driving on the piece of toll highway that leads South from New Brunswick, I stopped to pay the $4 toll. The man in the booth, the first Nova Scotian I had seen face to face since July, gave me change and wished me a Happy Christmas. That was November 18th and I guess he's still doing it. If he does that about 6 times a minute, eight hours a day, 5 days a week, for OVER SIX WEEKS, that's 86,400 Happy Christmases and he hasn't even been to the supermarket yet (read on)! Gotta really love Christmas.

It does seem to be the thing here though. Supersave (to get back to the point) is awash with people wishing each other a Merry Christmas. Nothing wrong with that, I hear you cry, and I agree. It just seems a little odd that here, where people meet each other far more often than in larger places, they start this so early. In Toronto, for instance, if I met someone on the street or in a store in early December, there would often be a real chance that I would not see them again this year. Happy Christmas, we'd both say, figuring we might not get another chance. Here, though, the same folks seem to greet the same folks the same way, several times a day in some cases.
At this stage, I have to put it down to the fact that these are just lovely folks who like to have something to celebrate and share.

As with all the foregoing, and what will follow, I am quite prepared to admit that the "oddity" is in me, nowhere else. But that's what this is all about, isn't it?

* World Famous Digby Scallops are from Digby, Nova Scotia. They are truly wonderful but NOT, I can say with confidence, World Famous. I've BEEN to the world and I'd never heard of them until I came here for the first time last year. I'm glad they're not. I like the idea of living somewhere that has a kind of food that SHOULD be World Famous. The world would only spoil them and that kind of thing doesn't travel well anyway so they'd only disappoint elsewhere.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

First Correction Leads To First Story.

Well, I guess that's a lesson learned. My first comment is in and it points out an error. Jeff (qv) reminds me (and, yes, I HAD known this at one point) that a "Waeguk" is not, as I said, a question; it's a FOREIGNER. He beseeches people to ask a foreigner (himself) a question.

Trying, as ever, to turn an upset into a positive, I thought "Hmm, well I'm a foreigner, aren't I?"
I stand humbly corrected but, with Jeff's permission, I will continue to use "Waeguk" until someone comes up with an even more obscure translation of either "question" or "foreigner". Answers on a postcard please, to dyveatqq@hotmail.com.

This all leads me to ponder the precise nature of being foreign; when are we and when are we not? This first became a question to me on my arrival in Canada, in 1991. Before that, I was always either in England, where I was never a foreigner, or I was not, in which case I was. The only time it would have been debateable was if I happened to be in Scotland or Wales which were part of my nation, but not my country - confusing even, sometimes, to the locals.

But, wherever I went, in England or out of it, I was acutely aware that, to people of the "old world" at least, you are what you sound like. I could be treated as a foreigner just a few miles from home if my accent didn't fit. Now, I don't want to invalidate anyone who, as part of a "visible minority" in my homeland, has experienced discrimination because of their appearance. I know it happens and I abhore it. But it has always seemed to me that, regardless of what you LOOK like, if you SOUND like you belong, then you probably do. A visitor to the UK from, say, Germany, might look as English as cricket and real ale but, when he opens his mouth, he clearly identifies himself as "other" and is then prey to any curiosity or prejudice (good or bad) that his listener may carry.

Similarly, second and subsequent generation immigrants sound as Anglo Saxon as I do and, regardless of appearance, when they open their mouths to say, for instance "pint o'bitter an' a bag o' cheese 'n' onion please mate, ta", they tell the listener almost EXACTLY where they are from, and it's not Bangalore! This has become even more evident in the years since my departure, as I notice on my occasional visits and when meeting British visitors to Canada.

So, in my head, I'm a limey. I always will be, because I will always SOUND like a limey. It's not a choice I make, it's just what I am, like being male. I could (and probably will, one day soon) get Canadian citizenship and will live here the rest of my days. I would then be entitled to call myself "Canadian" and would gladly do so with pride. But I will never FEEL Canadian, not really. I yam what I yam and that's all sweet potatoes.

In the New World, Canada especially, Toronto even more especially, things can be different. Almost everyone is hyphenated. Many, for example, "Portuguese-Canadians" will live in "Little Portugal" and are proud hyphenated-Canadians. Some have portuguese accents, some don't. Some speak fluent Portuguese but little English, some the reverse. Some are Canadian citizens, some are Portuguese citizens, some are both, others are neither; being Brazilian, Angolan, or whatever. Makes no never mind. The are part of Toronto's "vibrant Portuguese Community" AND proudly Canadian. Come the World Cup, they will gladly cheer for Portugal, Brazil or, given a chance, Canada; all at once if necessary.

To me, though, this has nothing at all to do with patriotism or loyalty. I am not, by nature, a patriot, of anywhere. I AM, I like to think intensely loyal but I don't see that as being connected to what it feels like to be me. So, a Waeguk I am, and a Waeguk shall I remain. Ask a Waeguk!

Question to self: Where did I feel the MOST foreign?
Answer: Strangely, it was one of the places I was also made to feel most at home. Tanzania. I was TRULY a visible minority - usually a minority of one. An odd, sometimes scary, but memorable experience. But that's for another day.

Monday, December 3, 2007

So now what?

So I now have a blog called "Dyve's Dyary". What to do now?
First, I guess I thank Kevin Oliveira for the idea and Jeff Cooper for the pointers.
Jeff said it's best to have a theme for a blog and I agree.
He's probably right. But, see, here's the thing...... I haven't got one.
So, what do I intend to do here? What will the throngs of people who will completely fail to notice that Dyve's Dyary exists be missing?
Well, I don't know, but here are some guesses.

1. I'm a talker; a teller of stories. Some folks are entertained by them, others bored or frustrated; most are both at times. So, I intend to tell my stories on here, to give them a permanent home, entertain the entertainable without boring the disinterested. That's a good start in my book (and this IS, after all, my book).

2. I'm going through an interesting phase of life. Things have changed a lot lately. Whether you take that to mean the last few years or the last few days, it's still true. So the "Dyary" part will be, I expect, my musings on and observations of a new life in Maritime Canada; beautiful Nova Scotia to be precise. After 39 years in England, 16 in Ontario, 37 working for the same company, I live here now (since last week!) with my lovely wife of 5 years, two wonderful dogs, two cats and a blog. It's fun so far, if strange, and I'll use this space to write about it.

3. The aforementioned Jeff Cooper writes his blog ( http://uncanadienerrant.blogspot.com/ ) in South Korea and has introduced the word "Waeguk" to my lexicon. I understand that it's Korean for "question" and Jeff invites his readers to "Ask A Waeguk". He answers unerringly (try it!), informatively and entertainingly, no matter how dry the waeguk (and I've asked a couple of DRY ones). This completely justified flattery will hopefully serve to prevent Jeff from suing for stealing his idea and his word. So, if you're reading this and you have a question, just call it a waeguk and send it in. Of course, I'm not sure yet how you do that (I'm just typing on a page that blogger told me to type on) but, until I work it out, send your waeguk's to dyveatqq@hotmail.com and I, faithful reader, will do the rest. No rules for questions - anything goes. If I can't or don't want to answer, I will at least say so.

If you got here by invitation, you know who I am and may know some of the other people who crop up from time to time. If you stumbled on the place, you probably don't. That's fine - welcome aboard - but I won't be naming people here, except generically. So, if you know me and DON'T want your name on here, fear not, it won't be. People you already know might work out who you are from context but that's all.