Voyage to the Arctic; Day 1, Into Vancouver.

 Day 1: Into Vancouver

A short abridged and censored history of The Hyde family:

I grew up in a small terraced cardboard box near Croydon, the Concrete Capital.  My dad, Victor, named after something to do with some war or other, worked with computers. These were immense structures built in giant barns and run on cards with holes punched in them. They were difficult to carry around on your wrist. 

One day, we moved away from our cardboard box south of London, into a huge mansion north of London (size is, of course, inversely proportional to age) where we accidentally moved to a house around the corner from one of my dad's brothers, the one that we had hardly ever seen before, from the 'posh' side of the family. Now, living so close to them, we carried on hardly ever seeing them. 

Dad had two brothers and one surviving sister. One brother, Louis, was down to earth and married the life and soul of any party involving 'Knees Up Mother Brown'. The other brother, Clary, didn't mix well with us poverty stricken lot, and married into the upper class. Well, the accent was upper class if not anything else. His sister, Olive, lived in sin, which, as a young child, I was quietly informed is in West London near the Chiswick flyover. 

This family politics was well out of my sphere of comprehension. However, moving closer did have two unforeseen consequences. First was a rare visit to their house to bid farewell to their son Alan, someone that I knew not at all. With him was a cot, inside of which was a mewling baby boy. Babies were also well out of my sphere of comprehension. This particular baby had been named Adam. And still is. Although he is no longer a baby. He is, in fact, the reason we are now heading to Canada, for Alan was emigrating with his family to British Columbia.

That's the top left-hand bit of North America, just below Alaska.

The second unforeseen consequence was that Alan would, every few months, send over copies of a magazine called 'Beautiful British Columbia' rammed full of amazing photos of Vancouver and the surrounding area. From this came my fascination with photography.

Fast forward to today. An invitation to Adam's wedding on a cruise to Alaska.

Some of you may be aware of my fondness for weddings and for cruises. You may also be aware of my fondness for sarcasm...

We very nearly didn't make it. Canada has recently introduced the same visa waiver system (eTA) that is being introduced in the EU and the UK. It is not without its flaws. Despite us having received emails confirming our acceptance on the eTA system, on arriving at Toulouse airport we were found not to exist. 

Looking around me I had the feeling that we did exist, but maybe in an alternative reality. A stressful alternative reality.

It took an hour. A whole hour of phoning and begging before they finally accepted our existence and let us on the plane. 

We feared that we would suffer a similar fate upon arriving in Vancouver. But no, they couldn't give a shit.

So here we are:

The view from Adam's window.

And a few hours later:

The same view from Adam's window.

Not bad eh? 

The houses around here are pretty smart, with always the ultra neat gardens and immaculate hedges. All you need is a few million Canadian dollars, which is a lot of dollars whatever kind they are.

The view from here was pretty good too, although you had to stand in the middle of the road to peer over those hedges.

On popping down to the local harbour...

A local variety of goose.

...we realised that the weather was changing. I suspect that the weather will be a recurring theme on this cruise, as the forecast was dire. Rain, snow, wind and woolly underwear.

Incoming weather.

At least the birds were excited.

Evening sets in on our first day in Canada.

Tomorrow we attempt to get onto our cruise ship. We are to face the immigration department of the United States. 

El Salvador he we come...

Next episode here