Memories – Patricia McLellan's Blog

2024-04-102024-04-10

Air Pollution

When one lives in a rural area in Norway, one sees people cutting down trees for firewood. It is almost the end of the heating season, but many people still have wood stoves for heating their homes. Those who cut down trees themselves are often out at this time of year to get the wood necessary for the next heating season. Personally I am very glad that we have cut out burning wood inside our house. We’ve removed one old wood stove from our living room. No more bad air there.

I have read quite a bit in recent years about climate change and what we have done right and what still has to be done. I’d like to quote Bjørn H. Samset who writes in The Climate Book (published by Allen Lane in 2022):

“If you light a bonfire and look towards the sky, you will see a rising column of smoke. Spreading upwards and outwards, it twirls and thins until it fades to invisibility. But it’s not gone. Smoke particles – one example of what we call aerosols – can remain airborne for days, and in that time they can travel both far afield and high up in the atmosphere. And while there, they have a strong effect on both the weather and the climate.” (page 57)

Picture taken in Straumen, Inderøy, on 2024.04.03 at 18:55. Smoke stack from a wood-chip burning, central heating system at the busiest intersection in Straumen, our local municipal center.

If I am out walking, I can smell when my neighbors are heating their homes with a wood fire. A lot of the electricity in Norway is made with hydro power and some is made with wind. Neither of these types of energy production pollutes the air, though there may be other disadvantages. In this blog, I’m wanting to mainly focus on air pollution. With the rise of electricity prices in the last year or so, heating homes with wood has again became popular, as people are trying to reduce the cost of heating their homes. Their electricity bill might be lower, but is burning wood a good alternative to using electricity produced by water or air power? Electricity can be used for heating, either using space heaters or a heat pump.

If we look at historical methods of creating energy, burning wood is one of the oldest methods. Open fires inside homes for cooking food was still common in the 19th century. Baking ovens were used, but meat was usually cooked in large fireplaces over an open fire (i.e. roasted). In countries like England, wood became a scarce resource as trees were cut down and not replaced. The discovery of coal made possible the transition to burning coal instead of wood. But coal also pollutes the air when burned and was one of the causes of very bad air in London, England during the 19th century.

When I was small we had a furnace in our house that burned coal in a closed stove in the basement and sent heated air throughout the house. There was a storage space for coal inside the basement. Coal is very dirty to handle and there was an automatic feeder to get the coal into the furnace. This was replaced, probably in about 1966, with a natural gas furnace.

The house I grew up in was built in the 1920s and at that time, the City of Vancouver was piping natural gas to new housing as a cleaner alternative to coal or sawdust. As far back as I can remember, we had a gas stove and oven in the kitchen when I was a child. There was a constant flame, a pilot light, which then lit the burner that one wanted to use. As I think about this now, I am surprised that people accepted an open flame in the kitchen. Though gas is a cleaner burning fuel than either wood or coal, it is still a fossil fuel that creates air pollution.

I have always had a sniffy nose and though I now think of it as primarily a reaction to pollen. As I have been writing this, I have been wondering how much my physical development as a child was affected by the burning of “dirty” fuels in my home. When I was about 10 years old, I suffered a lot from constant coughing. Was it indoor air pollution, or pollen from the fruit trees in our yard?

Looking at Our World in Data, they separate air pollution in two categories, indoor and outdoor. Let’s look at some of the information that they have on these two categories.

Indoor Air Pollution

“Indoor air pollution is caused by burning solid fuel sources – such as firewood, crop waste, and dung – for cooking and heating. Burning such fuels, particularly in poor households, results in air pollution that leads to respiratory diseases, which can result in premature death. The WHO calls indoor air pollution “the world’s largest single environmental health risk.” (from OWID)

Note that indoor air pollution primarily comes from cooking and heating, and its severity would depend on what was actually being burned and how good the ventilation was. There is a distinction between solid fuels, such as dung, wood, charcoal, and coal, and non-solid fuels, such as kerosene, methanol, natural gas and electricity. Access to clean cooking fuels, such as electricity, improve as a family’s income improves and as the standards within a country improve. I see this also in my childhood, where heating was first coal, then natural gas, and cooking was natural gas, then electricity. The change came about as my parents were able to afford a better standard of living in the 1960s than in the early 1950s.

Looking at the charts available at Our World in Data, Europe and North America come out with the least indoor pollution as here there is better access to clean cooking and heating fuels. If you find looking at charts interesting, I suggest you go browse their website.

Outdoor Air Pollution

According to Our World in Data, outdoor air pollution is one of the world’s largest health and environmental problems. Outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for several of the world’s leading causes of death, including stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Is the rise of asthma in European and North American countries attributable to worsening outdoor air pollution? I don’t know the answer, but I imagine there is a connection.

Some of the sources of outdoor air pollution can be:

industrial plants that put pollutants in the air
burning solid fuels to make electricity
vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel
wild fires which put a lot of small particles in the air

Many air pollutants contribute to the small particles that float in the air. As we age, our exposure to these types of pollutants accumulate and can affect our health. At the moment I live in an area with relatively low air pollution, so that most of the year I enjoy sleeping with a window open so that I get fresh air while I’m sleeping.

However, there are three types of outdoor air pollution that still affect me.

Wood smoke, or the burning of dry grass or refuse. Both of these can be common in a rural area in Norway. In winter, there are people heating their homes with wood fires. In spring, dry grass or garden refuse may be burnt so that it disappears. In summer, there is the burning of charcoal in grills, by people who think that this is a great way to prepare food outdoors.
Gases from animal manure, particularly as it is being spread on the fields near me. The older technique was spraying the manure in the air so that it spread over a wide area. This technique was terribly polluting and created bad air for several days, until the field was either plowed or it rained heavily. Fortunately, farmers here have learned new techniques with new equipment, whereby the liquid manure is forced into the ground rather than up in the air. Now there is much less of a smell of manure which I’m sure also means that there is less pollution from it.
Pollen, from flowers and trees, can also affect me. I don’t react to everything and how much pollen there is in the air will vary from day to day. Some years can be quite bad and other years I am affected a lot less. Many people have it a lot worse than myself. However I have stopped drying clothes outdoors so that I don’t get pollen on my clothes. Filters on ventilation systems can also improve air quality indoors.

Conclusion

I grew up in a house built about 1926 so the standards that were relevant at that time, have hopefully been improved by 2024. In fact, I have read that Vancouver is no longer allowing natural gas installations in new housing. Heating with coal and cooking with gas should be replaced with cleaner fuels.

I live in a house which was built in 1963 and we have improved it since then. There is more insulation now and better windows with three layers of glass so that we use much less electricity to heat the house now than we did even 10 years ago. We also use electricity to cook, using an induction stove top which uses electricity much more efficiently than older styles of cook tops.

Even though I live in an area with little air pollution, either indoors or outdoors, I can still have problems. How much of my problem is a result of pollution in my childhood I will never know, but I do think it is a possibility. However, every individual has to adapt their living conditions to their own sensitivity to air pollution. Parents also have a responsibility for giving their children a good environment to grow up in. For myself, living in a rural area helps, and getting rid of local polluting devices, such as a wood stove and a diesel car, have improved my living conditions.

2021-12-232021-12-23

Buying a house

When looking at several generations in my family, I see the same things happening in more than one generation. For example, my mother was 35 when she had her first child, my older sister was 34 when she had her first (and only) child, and I was 33 when I had my first child. So we are a family that has our children relatively late and thus other things connected to this happen when we are more mature.

Let’s look at my parents first. My mother was born in 1907 and my father in 1911. They got married in 1939, moved from one country to another in 1946 and bought their first (and only) house in 1947. So my mother was 40 years old and my father 36 when they got their first house. They already had one child and the second child was born in 1949, shortly after they had bought the house. So for about 9 years my parents lived in rented accommodation before they were able to settle enough in one place to purchase a house.

2970 West 37th Avenue, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Picture taken on 2016.06.25 This is the house that my parents bought in 1947 and I grew up in. It was always grey, but we had white and green trim. The front door was dark brown. The flower beds had different plants when I grew up. On the whole, there are very few changes to the house itself on the outside.

My parents-in-law were born in 1906 and 1916. They got married in 1942 and adopted two children, the oldest being born in 1948. They bought their first house in 1951 in New Westminster. So they were 45 and 35 years old when they bought their first house.

My husband was born in 1948 and I was born in 1949. We got married in 1978, moved from one country to another in 1980, had our first child in 1983, our second child in 1989 and bought our first (and only, so far) house in 1991. So we were 43 and 42 when we purchased our house. We are still living in this house 30 years later.

Between 1978 and 1991, about 13 years, we lived in a variety of rented accommodation, ranging from apartments (Port Coquitlam and New Westminster), to primitive housing (Aukra and Inderøy) to basement suites (Molde), to student housing (Molde and Bodø) before we were able to purchase our own house in Inderøy.

The name of the house is “Fjellheim” (literally “mountain home”) and was given to the house by a previous owner.. This picture was taken 2020.08.05, before the old flag pole was removed.

Why did we choose this particular house and this particular time to purchase a house? There were several factors involved, including opportunity and financing.

During our first years in Norway we had very little income and had to find very inexpensive housing to keep a roof over our heads. We rented an inexpensive, older house, with only cold water and no indoor toilet facilities for two years. The arrival of our first child made a move to a basement suite in Molde necessary. We got an inexpensive basement suite based on looking after the owners’ dog while they were out of the country. When we shifted from student life to working life (with income!) we moved to Bodø and got student housing through my husband’s employer. Slowly we acquired our own furniture having progressed from rented, furnished housing to having to have our own furniture. The move to Inderøy eventually resulted in a move to a house when we were expecting our second child. When the owner of the house died, we bought the house, an easy solution to the problem of moving again.

However, being able to purchase the house that we did was also dependent on us being able to finance the purchase. My father had died in 1989 and so I inherited enough money to be able to have a down payment on the house which we purchased at the end of 1990 and became officially owners of the first of January, 1991.

As I look at these three couples, who all purchased their houses at approximately 40 years of age, I see some similarities.

First of all, is the desire to own a house. When I was in my early 20s, I wanted to rent accommodation so that it was easy to move whenever I wanted to. I did not want to become settled in one place. The time was not right for me. Often owning a house is also connected to being part of a couple. This need to settle is often connected to having children and feeling the need for more stability in one’s life. It was after I had my first child that the need to own a house was something that I felt.

Second, is the ability to finance the purchase of a house. A house usually costs much more than a person or a couple can afford to pay off at once and a loan must be taken up to spread the cost of the house over many years, often 20 or 30 years. Being able to go to a bank and ask for a mortgage is dependent on having a steady job with an income that is high enough to pay for the mortgage on a monthly basis. Here in Norway, usually both people in a couple will need to be working to afford to buy a house, though this will depend on whether you live in a large city (where the housing is very expensive) or a small town or village (where housing will be more affordable).

Why did I want to write these thoughts? Both of my children are now in their 30s. Neither of them have children nor own their own home. I wanted to share with them some of my thoughts about owning one’s own house.

2020-12-312020-12-31

The Pandemic Year 2020

As I write this on the last day of 2020, I am thinking of all that has happened during this year, both to myself, my family and the world. Some things have been constant in my life and other things have changed quite a bit.

Throughout the year I have used Duolingo to help keep my brain in shape. My old standby language is French, which I first learned when I was 14 years old. I grew up in an officially bilingual country, so French has been with me most of my life. Even in kindergarten I remember learning to count, in French, the number of elephants on the inside cover of a Babar book. Over the six years that I have been using Duolingo to learn languages, French has been my constant language that I have worked on almost daily. If I have finished what was on Duolingo in French, it didn’t take long for them to add more lessons and I have experienced at least two upgrades in the French course during 2020.

In addition to French, I was studying Italian at the beginning of the year and now I am studying Swedish, which is perhaps a more practical language for me that lives in Norway and shops at many Swedish chain stores. Swedish is easy as it is so close to Norwegian, but there are things to learn which helps my brain keep in shape and learning new things.

Also during 2020 I have tried to get out walking several times a week. Those who read my blogs will have seen descriptions and pictures of quite a few of the walks I have taken.

Looking westward from Brekkefallet, Mosvik. Picture taken on 2020.09.02

January 2020 was, in retrospect, a normal month. We were working on plans for an extended holiday of several weeks to San Francisco, Detroit and Bergen. Reservations were made and plans agreed on. News from China that there was a virus on the loose that was causing a lot of deaths had started to filter through, but though I hoped that we wouldn’t come across it in the Chinese part of San Francisco, I didn’t know how that virus was going to affect the rest of 2020.

Towards the end of February, my husband and I left on our planned trip, meeting up with my son in Oslo and then flying to San Francisco where my daughter lives. We also met up with my sister there for some of our stay, with her staying in the same hotel as us three visitors from Norway.

I enjoyed our trip to San Francisco, having time to relax with family and spending time with my sister and daughter who I don’t see very often, but do keep in touch with on a regular basis. The weather cooperated with only one day of rain and temperatures were much warmer than they would have been at home. San Francisco has lots of things to do, but as we were staying at a hotel in the downtown area, I noticed in particular the number of homeless people that were just living on the streets. It was a stark contrast to where I live, where the local community gives those not able to look after themselves a place to live.

Many of the streets in San Francisco are quite steep, though it is good exercise walking up them,

After two weeks in San Francisco, my son, my husband and I flew to Detroit. At this point in the trip, the corona-virus is becoming news, but it is not affecting what people are doing with their days. Traffic in the airports was normal. The reason for Detroit as a destination was to visit my husband’s half-brother and his family in their home environment.

Now we were staying in someone’s home and the television was on most of the time. But there only seem to be two main items of news – the up-coming presidential election in the USA and the corona-virus problem. The latter was becoming a great problem in both Europe and the USA. We were in Detroit for a little over one week, but suddenly things were not normal. A trip to a museum indicated that though there were still some people around, the place was not as packed as one would have expected. A trip to downtown Detroit was even more revealing, as there was almost nobody walking around and nobody on the light rail through the city center. The pandemic as it would be called was creating changes in the way people spent their waking hours.

Downtown Detroit, photo taken on 2020.03.13. Notice how few people are walking on the streets in the middle of the day.

During this week, we had to reschedule the rest of our trip. The week in Bergen was cancelled. The hotel we had booked was closing down and they would relocate us to a different hotel. My son who was working in Bergen at the time was given home-office so he decided to move his home-office to our place in Vangshylla. Plane tickets were rebooked, still going through Amsterdam but now our destination was Trondheim airport, rather than Bergen. Already, the airlines were reducing their numbers of flights and flights between the USA and Europe were becoming less and less frequent.

The trip home from Detroit was very different than the trip out. The airports had almost nobody in them. However we met one of my daughter’s friends in the Detroit airport and also in Amsterdam, so we spent a bit of time talking to her and her family. I have never seen large airports with so few people in them. People were starting to wear face masks. The planes were only half full. On arrival in Trondheim airport we were met by people fully covered in protective clothing. Though foreign citizens, we were official residents so there was no real problem, but it was a stressing situation. Taking the train back to where our car was parked was also different, with almost nobody on the train.

We had to spend 14 days in quarantine as we had been out of the country. I didn’t mind the rule as we had no idea if we had picked up any bad viruses on our trip. We arranged with people who lived near the food stores, to pick up groceries for us so that we had at least some fresh food in the house and I was hoping we had enough dried food so that we could eat varied meals. We picked up our bags of groceries outside their homes and avoided contact with them.

Home again, the news was getting more disturbing and the corona-virus spread around the world. Those who got sick, got really sick and many died, particularly those who had previous health problems. My husband and I were suddenly in a high-risk group, those over 65 years old. Thankfully, we live in the country, with lots of nature right outside the house, so we could go for walks and keep a reasonable physical health even while in quarantine.

The two weeks of quarantine passed and we didn’t get sick, but the world around us had changed. For us, the most noticeable difference was that my son was living at home again, not able to get back to Bergen until the beginning of August. He also ended up coming to stay with us again in November when Bergen had a lot of contagion. Then he got a new job, in Oslo, where there was also home office and so he moved out of Bergen and is currently living with us until the contagion in Oslo is reduced and allows easier access to the city.

My husband and I have a life-style that is not very much affected by the pandemic on a daily basis. Neither of us likes crowds of people. We have lots to do around the house and garden. My husband is busy fixing up the house in stages. The spring and summer went to finishing the terrace. Unfortunately the nice summer weather had come and gone before it was usable, but we have it for next year. Then there was new windows and siding on the next side of the house. This outside work was done as the days were getting very short on daylight and not very warm either. But every bit done, makes the house better than before.

The new terrace deck before the glass railing has been installed.

I spent a lot of my time knitting and sewing, sweaters, toques, kid’s clothing, shirts for my husband and tops for myself. I also spent time in the garden, trying to keep it in order. A lot of the summer months were spent painting, both things for the terrace, the wall, and furniture for inside. When you have a house, there is always something that can be improved.

My son also contributed to improving the garden. His window looks out on some of the lawn and he started by removing moss from it. Then he got several loads of dirt to even out bits of the lawn. Then he planted grass seed. The improved lawn made a great improvement to the garden.

My son and I took two different day-trips to visit nearby islands, Ytterøy and Jøa. We were not in much contact with people, and during the summer there was much less contagion, but people were mostly still aware that there was a pandemic and that foreign travel was discouraged.

My husband and I had several trips to our local IKEA store, which is about an hour and half drive from home. This actually makes it into a day trip. But on one occasion, we found that the store was so crowded that we didn’t really find it comfortable to be so close to so many other people. We then made sure we planned the next trip at a time when there would not be nearly as many people in the store.

Just recently I have read a book in Norwegian, called the Corona Spring, a day-by-day summary of what people were experiencing during the spring of 2020 in Trondheim. It made me think about my experiences in this pandemic and how it has changed things for me. So what are the effects really for me?

Better hand hygiene, especially when having been out in stores or other public places.
No hugging of friends that I meet, either casually or otherwise.
Less contact with other people than those in my household. I have two girlfriends that I meet regularly, but otherwise there is little contact with people.
Trying to keep a safe distance between myself and others, primarily when in stores, but also when meeting people when out on walks and stopping to chat. With a hearing disability, this isn’t always easy.
Almost no restaurant or cafe visits. I’ve never been a big one for this anyway, but there have been almost none this year once we were home again from our trip to the USA.
No planning of major trips, either within Norway or outside of Norway. Staying at home is safest.

As 2020 ends in just a few hours, and I look ahead to activities in 2021, I expect my daily life will be much the same. Meals will be made and eaten. Projects started and hopefully finished. The dark days of winter will become the bright days of summer, then the darker days of autumn and winter again. The years go by faster and faster as I age. I hope you will have a good year in 2021.

2020-09-07

Milk in a bottle

When I was small, we got milk delivered in one-quart milk bottles on the back steps. It would have been pasteurized but not homogenized. I remember the cream rising to the top of the bottle.

There are no guarantees that my memories are actually correct. I think we got milk delivered every other day. My mom would put the empty milk bottles on the back porch and they would be replaced with full ones during the morning. I remember there being a calendar in the kitchen which showed which days we would get delivery.

How was the milk paid for? I’m not sure about that as it was during elementary school years that milk delivery stopped. I think my mom bought tokens of some sort, that were put in the empty milk bottles to show that the milk was prepaid. The milkman would come to the door, probably once a month or so, to sell more tokens. A lot of that is guesswork.

I also have vague memories of an icebox on the back porch, before we got a refrigerator. We probably got our first refrigerator in the early 1950s, before I started school. Home delivery of milk slowly disappeared as people got refrigerators and could store the milk longer at home. The rise of supermarkets where one bought all kinds of food items, including milk, would also have contributed to the disappearance of home milk delivery.

The interesting thing that prompts this memory is that I am now buying milk in a glass bottle. I have a 20 minute walk up to a local dairy farm. I paid a deposit for the bottles on my first purchase and now I just pay for the milk I buy each time. In Norway there is a digital payment system called Vipps that I can use to pay for the milk each time I pick it up.

Åsvang Farm, pasteurized milk from Inderøy, one liter

Again the milk is pasteurized but not homogenized and the cream rises to the top. I don’t use the cream, but just shake the milk so it gets distributed in the milk. I notice that the farm is now selling both skimmed milk and cream, so they have expanded their number of products in the last five months. I started becoming a regular user of this milk in April 2020.

There is no home delivery, but I can either drive by the farm when I am out anyway, or it is close enough to get a walk. At the moment they have fresh milk on Mondays and Thursdays. I have three bottles and I buy milk once or twice a week, depending on how much we have used.

2020-05-08

Jig-saw puzzles

I have done jig-saw puzzles since I was a child. My mom liked to do them, and she had a special tray that she did them on so that they didn’t take up a table and could easily be moved. When she had finished a puzzle, I liked to take out a small section of it, perhaps a corner, perhaps 50 pieces or so, and put the pieces back in place. Now that I think of it 60 years later, it was probably a good way at getting practice at doing jig-saw puzzles.

500-piece jig-saw puzzle by Ravensburger

I have collected jig-saw puzzle for many years. Some have been terrible to do, for example, when the same piece can go in several places. Those have been thrown away or given away quickly. Others have been enjoyable to do and I do them again and again.

What makes jig-saw puzzles a pleasure for me? First of all, the picture has to be something pleasing. I usually like landscapes, often with a building and mountains. When I buy a new puzzle, I only buy the ones that I enjoy looking at the picture. The picture itself should be relaxing, hence landscapes. There should also be enough variety of colors in the picture so that it is a pleasure to do, not annoying.

Most of the time I do puzzles with 500 pieces, as the easiest ones take only a few hours and I can get the table back quickly. I have quite a few with 1000 pieces, but then I need to be able to use the table for several days. Just sorting through the pieces takes twice as long with the larger puzzles. I have very rarely done anything larger than 1000 pieces as they just take up too much space.

Secondly, I enjoy the slow putting together of a picture, piece by piece. It is like knitting or weaving, though in a different medium, as it slowly becomes more done and the project becomes finished. When the last piece is put it, I can say to myself, “Done!” Even doing the same picture several times will give the same joy of having accomplished something.

500-piece puzzle de-luxe puzzle by Liveworks and British Heritage Ltd

Every now and then I like to have a greater challenge. The puzzle of London is quite difficult, even though I have done it several times. It is not one that I would have chosen myself, but my son gave it to me after a trip to England. There is writing on many of the pieces so one can tell which way the piece should go, but remembering where everything is in the picture is part of the challenge. It makes me think of the geography of London as well as where in the picture a particular place is. This one was on the table for three days.

Doing jig-saw puzzles is not for everyone, but it is something that I find relaxing and enjoy doing. The boxes require quite a bit of storage space, so I can’t afford to have too many in the house. The current tally is 69.

2020-04-26

Summer of 1966 – London

We arrived in London on August 23rd and stayed in the area until we went home on September 9th. I think we were both getting anxious to get home again. We had been away for two months already, seen a lot of different places, met a lot of relatives and new people. But there is always lots to do in London, so the last two weeks were filled with activities.

Of course we had to see all the regular sights – Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Parliament Buildings, the Post Office Tower, Selfridges, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Monument, 10 Downing Street, Madame Tussauds, the Planetarium, London Tower, Kew Gardens and probably lots of other things too. I’m just going to write about a few of the ones that stand out in my mind. I have visited London several times since then, so memories can be hard to place in which visit they occurred. These ones I’m pretty sure were from this trip.

Post Office Tower

I was a stamp collector as a teenager, so part of the point of the postcard was sending it to myself with a special post office tower stamp and it being stamped at the Post Office Tower. The tower was opened in October 1965, so it was a relatively new structure in September 1966.

Postcard of the Post Office Tower, with Post Office Tower stamp and cancellation. Sent on September 7, 1966 to myself.

As mentioned on the card, we had good weather and an excellent view from the level we were allowed onto. There were elevators that took us up.

We had also walked up the Monument, but there one had to walk up oneself – 314 stairs according to Aileen’s notes. This is a monument to the Great Fire of London and was built between 1671 and 1677. The tower is 62 meters high and there is an open viewing platform.

Richmond

Aunt Florence lived in a residential hotel in Richmond. She invited us to stay in her hotel from the 30th of August til the 6th of August. This was an interesting experience as well as giving us the chance to get to know our aunt. She was born in 1897, so would have been 69 years old in 1966. I think she was still working and worried about being able to afford to retire. She had a lot of friends and liked to go on cruises. One has to remember that retirement plans were not so common in the 1960s.

From the hotel room, I remember the gas heater that had to be fed with coins for it to heat the room. This was something new and different for me.

Though we took the tube into the center of London some of the days, we also did things in Richmond, such as Kew Gardens and Chessington Zoo.

One day we were just wandering around Richmond and went into the cemetery at St. Peter’s Church, Petersham. It is always interesting to see who has lived and been buried in the area. We came across the well-tended grave of Captain George Vancouver, the person whose name was used for the city I grew up in. He died in 1798 at the age of 40.

Brighton

We also took a day-trip to Brighton from Richmond with Aunt Florence and her friend, Marion. I remember it as a wet day. I also remember going out on the pier. I was given a coin to play the machines and felt the thrill of winning even though I did nothing except put in a coin. I used up all my winnings (another good lesson) then quit. I’ve never felt the need to gamble money in such a way again. We also went to see the Pavilion, one of the luxurious residences of the Royal Family back at the beginning of the 19th century.

2020-04-26

Giving birth to my second child

Back in 1989, we didn’t usually know the sex of our child until it was born, so though I would have liked a girl, as I had a boy already, it didn’t really matter.

I had regular doctor check-ups on Tuesdays, so on Tuesday, the 25th of April I went to my regular check-up. The doctor (a lady) asked me how I was feeling. It was basically my due date. My baby was a bit restless, though I wouldn’t have said that labor pains had started at all. The doctor said she wouldn’t examine me and told me to head off to the hospital in Levanger.

It was the middle of the day and as this was my second birth, I knew a lot more than I did with the first one. I said to my husband that it was far too early to go to the hospital, though we should go later in the day. So we went home and had some lunch and relaxed for a bit.

We picked up Alasdair at the kindergarten at his usual time. We had already arranged for him to stay with someone living in Levanger when it was time for me to go to the hospital. We took him there, and got him settled in and then Brock and I left.

I still felt that it was far too early to go to the hospital, though I was now feeling like the birth was on its way. We went walking and we had a meal. I knew that walking would help the birthing process and staying upright would give gravity a chance to help too.

After a while we went to the hospital and to the maternity ward. They were very busy and asked us to come back in an hour. We said that was okay, as I was sure things weren’t imminent yet. So we walked around the park area near the hospital. I seem to remember a lot more park back in 1989 than there is now. (There are a lot more buildings now.)

When we went back to the maternity ward, the evening was getting on and this time we were taken in and I was examined. I was now dilated enough to be assigned a birthing place and the birthing process continued with Brock at my side as well as a midwife in attendance.

Everything went well. There was no need for a doctor this time. At about 12:45 am, on Wednesday, the 26th of April, after about three hours of labor, a healthy baby girl was born. I could relax again. This second birth had been much, much easier than the first one.

Mother and daughter at home at Fjellheim, probably in May 1989.

2020-04-23

Summer of 1966 – British money

Before 1971, the United Kingdom used a non-decimal currency system. In essence there were 12 pennies to a shilling and 20 shillings to the pound. A price in a store could be £1 5s 4d. But in addition to these unusual (for me) quantities, with difficult addition and subtraction, there was also the challenge of figuring out what each coin was worth. The Republic of Ireland also used a similar system of pounds, shillings and pence, but issued their own coins and banknotes.

My source for the following information in this blog is: https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/old_money/old_money.html

In 1966, the following 7 coins would have been in common use:

halfpenny (1/2d), pronounced “herpni”
penny (1d)
threepence (3d), pronounced “thruppence”
sixpence (6d)
shilling (1s)
two shillings (2s)
half crown (2s 6d)

In addition there would be banknotes:

10 shillings (10s)
one pound (£1)
five pounds (£5)
ten pounds (£10)

For someone unused to travelling, these new coins and banknotes were confusing. I had learned about the British money system in school, but dealing with it on a daily basis, for example, finding the right coins to pay for something was completely different.

The following pictures are coins that I actually have. You won’t see the size of them, except in the picture with the penny, which is very large, in comparison to the sixpence.

Irish coins from about 1966. All coins had the Irish harp, the name “EIRE” and the year on the back side. Pictured above are two pennies (1d), a half crown (2s 6d) and a florin (2s)

A British one penny from 1966. It is still very new looking and Queen Elizabeth is looking very young.

The other side of the British penny from 1966.

These three coins are one shilling each, from 1949, 1958 and 1959.

Here are two slightly older coins, one penny on the left and sixpence on the right.

The reverse sides of the coins showing the monarch in 1943, George VI, (on the left) and 1906, Edward VII,(on the right).

2020-04-22

Summer of 1966 – Rochdale, Northern England and Wales

We took a train from Glasgow early in the morning of the 6th of August. At Manchester we transferred to a train to Rochdale, which is where my dad’s next oldest brother, Walter, lived. We left Rochdale on the 21st of August so we were there for two weeks.

Healey Dell, Falinge Park, Town Centre, Town Hall and Parish Church

Walter Commins had gone to school with his youngest brother in Southport, so I think these two brothers probably knew each other better than some of their older siblings. Walter married Ivy and they lived in a semi-detached house. They had one son, Michael, who was married and living in his own home when we came in 1966. I still keep in touch with Michael, as he is good at keeping in touch with me. He is the only one of our generation that had the surname Commins. He has two sons and grandchildren so the name will live on through them.

Walter was very kind to us both by housing us and by taking us on many day trips, including Yorkshire, the Lake District and Northern Wales. Shorter trips included Southport and Blackpool. During the two weeks we were in this part of England, there were several rainy days, but we seem to have had leisurely days at Walter’s home on those days and they were able to find nice weather for the longer trips.

We had time to visit shops and meet people. Michael and his wife Brenda took us dancing one evening in Manchester. I remember it as a rainy evening, and Michael had problems with the windshield wipers. As long as he was driving, they worked well, but as he slowed down or came to a stop at a traffic light, the wipers slowed down or stopped too. I remember the dance hall, but I was not the most social person in strange places, though I remember dancing with people there. Michael was a year or so older than my sister, so I think she enjoyed the evening a bit more than I did.

Yorkshire

We took a day trip in the car from Rochdale via Halifax, Leeds, York, Scarborough, Whitby, Ripon, Harrogate, Burnly and back to Rochdale, a trip of a little over 400 km. The records say we were out for 12 hours, not getting back until 10:30 pm. In particular I remember seeing the York Minster and the seaside at Scarborough.

Bootham Bar and Minster, the Shambles, Minster, The City Walls, Mickelgate Bar

The route would have taken us through much of Yorkshire, including the North York Moors National Park. We saw many of the main Yorkshire towns. I don’t know now what the actual route we took, but given the list of the places we passed through, it would have been a good circle tour of North East England.

Southport

Though my dad was born and spent his childhood in Dublin, he went to school in Southport in England. His older brother, Walter, went to the same school. Because they were Irish, they were Big Pat and Little Pat. My dad never talked too much about his school years, except to mention that he went to church services enough during his years there to keep him going for the rest of his life. The school would have been a residential boys’ school.

Access to Southport from Dublin would have been a boat from Dublin to Liverpool, then a train the few miles north to Southport. As my dad was born in 1911, he was probably attending the school in Southport from about 1920 to 1927.

Gardens and Marine Lake, The Promenade, the Floral Hall, Putting Green and Gardens

Uncle Walter drove us to Southport, about an 80 km drive from Rochdale. Southport is on the west coast of England, about 27 km north of Liverpool. Today it is a popular seaside resort town. It has extensive sand dunes. We saw the school that Walter and dad had attended. The buildings were still there, but I’m not sure if they were still used as a private school.

Lake District

This was another long day trip. We saw several of the lakes, Windemere, Grasmere and Coniston Water. Having read so much about the Lake District, it was interesting to have a car tour of the area. I think we were lucky and had a beautiful day for the trip.

Ennerdale, Priar’s Crag and Calsey Pike, Tarn Hows
Ullswater, Windemere Lake, The Langdale Valley

As I have been to the Lake District since 1966, my memories may get mixed up. I remember the lakes and nature being very beautiful and the towns very crowded. Comments on a postcard: “This part of England looks much like B.C. with the lakes and mountains.”

North Wales

I remember this trip better than some of the others. I remember the castle and the mountains. We first drove to Liverpool, crossing under the Mersey River via the Queensway Tunnel which comes out at Birkenhead. We then drove to Queensferry and from there followed the north coast of Wales, making quite a few stops to see places along the way.

Conway Castle, Swallow Falls, Welsh National Costume, Caernarfon Castle, Snowdon

Llandudno is a large seaside resort. Bangor is a university town. We crossed the Menai Bridge and saw the island of Anglesey. We stopped at the castle in Caernarvon, or Caernarfon Castle as it is now called. It is an imposing construction from the 14th century and dominates the skyline in the town. (The name Carnarvon was also the name of the closest side street to where I grew up in Vancouver BC, so seeing the original Carnarvon was very interesting.) We then headed inland via Betsw-y-coed and Ruthin, passing by Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales.

The trip was about 350 km, so another long day seeing the sights. I remember the weather being good that day which made it a very enjoyable trip.

After two weeks with Uncle Walter and Aunt Ivy, we took a bus to Stratford-Upon-Avon on the 21st of August. It poured with rain and Aileen sat by the window, which was leaking. She developed a cold that day. We stayed two nights in Stratford-upon-Avon. We saw all around the town, though didn’t attend a play at the Shakespeare Theater.

Garrick Inn and Harvard House, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Shakespeare’s Birthplace

2020-04-21

Summer of 1966 – Glasgow and Scotland

We arrived in Glasgow by boat from Northern Ireland. As it was an overnight boat, I slept for a few hours and was up early in the morning. It was interesting watching our progress up the River Clyde. It was quite narrow already when I got up in the morning and we passed mostly the dockyards. This was the first time that I saw the sign “dead slow” and wondered what it really meant as dead people don’t move at all!

We arrived on the 29th of July and left again on the 6th of August. We stayed with a friend of our parents, Madge Cummings and her sister, Jessie Izzat. Madge had known our parents when they were living in Glasgow during the Second World War. Madge and Jessie lived in an apartment in an old building. The ceilings in the apartment were very high. In the kitchen they had a clothes rack which they pulled up above head height to dry laundry or towels. It certainly got things out of the way.

I remember learning to play Mahjong, the original game, in the evenings. Madge and Jessie also took us on several car trips and showed us around the Glasgow area, as well as a day-trip to Edinburgh.

The Trossachs

Scotland has many beautiful, wild areas, even close to Glasgow. We were taken to see Loch Lomond, drove through the Trossachs National Park and stopped at Stirling before returning to Glasgow, a drive today of about 150 km. This was a day trip by car.

Stranraer

One day we took the train to Stranraer where I had a penpal. We visited with her and her parents. They took us around the area, showing us the local sights, treated us to lunch at a hotel, then we headed back to Glasgow by train. Stranraer is where there is a car ferry between Northern Ireland and Scotland as the distance between the two is very short here.

Edinburgh

From a postcard: “Dear Granny, Hi! We got to Edinburgh though the day we went it poured the whole time. In spite of the rain we toured Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle. Jessie, who had her car, showed a little of the city, but as it was raining constantly and we weren’t prepared for it, we didn’t stay too long. It is pouring again today, so we will do our washing this afternoon. Your granddaughters, Aileen and Patricia” (Written by me)

One of the challenges we had when travelling for so many weeks at a time, was having to put up with the inevitable bad weather. I particularly remember it being terribly wet the day we went to Edinburgh and not getting out of the car much at all. Jessie was very good to us, but there wasn’t anything she could do about bad weather, except be flexible with what we did.

When I read my sister’s summary of the trip, I find listed a lot of things that I have no memory of at all. For example, a train to Gurrock and a steamer across the fjord and around a peninsula to Tarbert.

There was also a car trip to Prestwick Airport and Ayr, which are south of Glasgow.