General Chat

Hello to the Aussies and a great big hi to the Canadians.

I'm Pam. An Aussie from far North Queensland. Love Canada. Only been there 8 times. Too cold for me to live there though. One fond memory.

On a bus in North Vancouver. Going to the Kodak factory to get film processed (pre digital days, obviously). I was freezing. Only 11c outside the bus. Girl was sunbathing in a park --- in a bikini, yet!! I was quite convinced that Canadians were crazy people.

But I love 'em

Oh dear, the Canadian map does look rather blue at the moment :-(

Okay.....JC dropping again and it worked it seems =0)

Oh to be in JC's shadow.......

So Persephone....marketing job would love one...know anyone looking for someone ?!
GRMarilyn....nosey...isn't everyone on here why else would we be reading the threads on general?
Pamela.....please..cold in Canada....it's been above freezing for at least a week now and all the snow has gone. If you found it cold in Vancouver you'd never survive the rest of the country =0) My kids have to go out and play unless it gets to minus 22 or colder............and then they only go out for a shorter time during recess...that's what coats are for!!!
Fiona aka Ruby......strangely enough the UK local elections map looks almost the same as Canada's now...LIberals lost Labour and Tories gained...is this the end of the world as we know it ? =0)

Yes, the map is blue, and not from the cold. Unfortunately.

I'm just dropping by to exploit this thread to test out my new researching line ... let's see how that goes ...


... There we go!

My goodness, JC! That many posts? How on Earth do you find the time (and topics?)...
Politics? A bit of a downer for me. But I (we) survived Mulroney - barely - and in Ontario, Mike Harris as well... Barely. Bah!
My local LCBO (the alcohol outlet for all ye who don't know) has some delightful beers. One, called Curmudgeon Ale, might become my house brand. It makes politicians of any stripe almost tolerable.
As for the weather: what can you expect in Canada? We, near Lake Ontario are pretty lucky - and then, visiting daughter in Victoria, BC... maybe not so!

Michael

C


In 4 years time, we'll have another election.

Blues will probbay be out, out, out.

NDP will revert back to their usual level of votes, as those who voted for them as an alternative vote, will revert back to the Liberals



and we'll effectively be back to a 2 party system again.


Unfortunately, I do not see the NDP maintaining this high level of voter support .................... it would be so good to have an effective 3 party system




Alternatively, of course, we might well have had a country-wide vote on Alternative Voting, it will have passed ........ and who knows what effect that will have?!




Hi Mike ...... from the West Coast!




sylvia

Janey

Just made an interesting discovery .............. one of those little "tidbits"


The church where my gt gt grandfather was married in 1835 is

"a popular choice with the makers of ...... Coronation Street and has been used as the setting for several big storylines, including weddings and funerals, in the fictitious parish of “Weatherfield”. "


It's St Mary's, Prestwich, nr Manchester


for photos of it go to
www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21354349&page=2


www.georgraph.org.uk/ is a fascinating site, in case you don't know it!





sylvia

My mum just gave me and No.1 our early birthday presents -- a 5-vol set of DVDs of old Coronation Street episodes. I imagine there will be lots of weddings in that so I'll watch for the church! I guess it's the one we often see the front grounds of as they go in for their hatching, matching and dispatching -- yes, it does look familiar in those pix.

One of my sets of grandparents married here, in Wellingborough:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21373754

The second photo shows the spire of Irchester church in the distance, and I'm sure my grandmother's Carter and Craddock ancestors did a few things there.

My mum and I looked around the grounds and talked with the clergyperson at this one in Newham in 1994:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21373807

before we knew her grandfather's connection with East Ham was tenuous and they really came from Cornwall/Devon. When we asked directions to the local church and were told St Mary Magdalene, we said Oh no, they weren't Catholic. Since the present church dates "from no earlier than the first half of the 12th century", the distinction doesn't apply. ;)

Nice site, ta!

Nice to see JC has cheered up =0)
The skies are blue and it's a lovely day what's not to like.
Knew we had something in common JC Coronation street, lucky you with the DVD's....I'm jealous...mind you I've seen nearly all of them except the first year or two maybe...in those days you could let kids watch it no problem...now sometimes it can be a bit much for them poor dears....that or it bores them.
Enjoy the lovely weather

Yay!! the Canucks are on to the next round! (or am I out on a limb here?). :D

Corrie didn't take in our household...

BTW, I was born in East Ham, well, maybe it was West Ham.

Is JC's avatar the original JC? This one:
Janey Canuck in
the West
BY
EMILY FERGUSON

Author of "Impressions of Janey Canuck Abroad"

It's very funny. I read a bit, then look at a news report, and can't help being in the same mind-set as in JC in the West. It gives a whole new perspective!

M

Duh, MJ, that's who I should have for my avatar, isn't it? Or a statue of the Famous Five or something.

You may not have heard the tale -- that Viscount Sankey, who wrote the decision in the Persons Case in 1929 (the original Janey's author was one of the five women who challenged the position that women weren't "persons" who could be appointed to the Senate), was my second cousin four times removed. ;)

I would never have known that if I hadn't posted a one-letter spelling variant to his father's aunt's grandson's wife's name at Ancestry and been contacted by a distant half-cousin in Canterbury who was researching our mutual ancestor's family. If only I'd known when I was in law school. Just think what being the Canadian cousin of the man who invented the "living tree" doctrine of constitutional law that has guided our legal history for decades now would have done for my rep.

But no, that's Ada the Actress, my gr-gr's sister who I didn't know existed until I tracked him down some six or seven years ago and discovered my mum's surname is an outright fake invented by Ada and her brother. Unless he really is the son of that other Viscount's black sheep younger brother ... the one who presided over Confederation ... because after all, Ada did have it as a middle name, and the brother was killed at Alma weeks before she was born ...

My mum's father, Ada's nephew and the second generation to bear the fake surname, was born in East Ham too ... well, maybe it was West Ham ... ;)

Well, at least your avatar is statuesque...

I think your post could fit right into "Janey Canuck in the West" and not not stand out stylistically! I've had tears of laughter running down my face reading her - at least as funny as Stephen Leacock, I think. And a Senate reformer, to boot...

on-line here:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/murphy/west/west.html#I

MJH

We should recommend Janey Canuck in the West for the Greaders!

After all, it's free. ;)

And that's a really lovely on-line copy of it that you linked to -- gorgeous illustrations and all. I think I'll bookmark that and recommend it to my young nieces.

Hi MJ

If you're out on a limb ....... I'm out there with you!


actually, we are not watching, or even listening, tot he Canucks games.

We watched 3 in Round 1 ............... the ones they lost. so we've decided we're jinxes



s
xx

I just hate that my name makes people talk about hockey.

I hate hockey. (As well as football, I really hate football, really really hate it -- our kind, of course, as watched on tv.)

And I hate maple syrup.

ooops



and you a "born" Canadian!



leave it up to us immigrants to uphold Canadian customs!


:))))


sylvia

How can you hate Maple Syrup ...the real stuff anyway ?!!
I'm with you on the hockey though...yawn...playoffs !
What age range is the Janey Canuck story aimed at please ? Might be worth my daughter reading it, rather than some of the rubbish she reads right now =0)

I think anything from young adolescent on up? Have a look at the link MikeyJay gave. If she can read it on line, it must be cool. ;)

Thanks it's got to be better than the one she brought home from school today "I'd tell you I love you but then I'd have to kill you".

I'm not as sure (or optimistic) about the age range as Janey seems, at least the youthful end of it. But - to speak of killing - try this excerpt:

"I have been keeping a record of the bites I have had since the beginning of the season, also of the mosquitoes killed–a kind of debtor and creditor affair. They balance up thus:–

Bites, 583,672,154,871. Deaths 13.

Stewart Edward White declares that the mosquito is superior to all fly pests in that it holds still to be killed. It is not necessary to wave your arms or slap frantically; all you have to do is to place your finger calmly and firmly on the spot and you get the deliberate brute every time. This sounds well in theory, but it is not always practicable or, for that matter, modest. "

My daughter-in-law is off later this month to graduate from Laurentian U in Sudbury, taking two of her three boys. They'd obviously been discussing the Northern insect life, black flies, when the youngest, Tyler, 6, asked me what they looked like. I found a picture, and added the usual tall story about their size. Two of them, I said, were heard discussing whether to eat some Southern visitor there, or carry him off to the nest... now he didn't quite fall for that one, but he looked quite thoughtful!

I can only begin to imagine the mosquito season in Manitoba this year...

MikeyJ