Hurricane

Well a day is a long time in Wellington. Yesterday was nearly a harbinger of spring, but today, check the photos, is a day of wild wind and streets closed. Trees were blown down, electricity cut, and the idea of spring is remote. My plans cancelled for today, I bunk down, do some domestic chores, and get to my blog. The weather here is a potent force and just can't be ignored. 

Chances are this awful weather will persist until late tomorrow. Need to get myself going so hope the sun  shines. Received an email today from Madrileno Emilio Esteban. A young man searching for postage stamps. It's nice to see someone like me who also appreciates snail mail. Hope he writes to me too! Am also in the process of booking my US trip in April next year for the ECK Seminar in Minneapolis, with a return stopover in beautiful Vancouver.

 It's forty five years since I was in Vancouver in 1969. I still have vivid memories of waking up in my tiny ship's cabin and peering throught the ice covered porthole to a wharf bedecked with snow, but also   covering hundreds of Citroen cars patiently waiting for delivery to their expectant Canadian owners.

I had been thirty days waiting for that moment, working in the engine room of the HollandAmerica line freighter on my quest to reach foreign shores, no matter where.

 I was, of course, on my way to Paris, my then, Soul City. But it was Vancouver the aperitif, and it didn't disappoint. I rapidly got my ticket of departure from the captain, as work-aways did, and took my heavy trunk and many bags ashore, having no idea where I would spend my first night on this new continent, except I was heading south, to San Francisco, where I had the address of a the sister of a friend from Sydney. I didn't then know that the Boscaccis were multi millionaires. But in the meantime I had to find a hotel in Vancouver for the night. The streets were crisply iced and the shop windows enticing with their warmth and colour, of many, I naively surmised, European hues. This was such an international city, especially for a young Aussie with a strong French bent. Just right for me, but not for long. 

As I entered my chosen cheap hotel, I stood back to make way for a trolley being wheeled out, seemingly with a body draped over it. 'Another O.D,' I heard someone grimly mutter, as I opened the elevator to go to my welcome room and shower. this was my gentle but telling introduction to the North America of 1969, something which was echoed later that year when months later, I reached my next stage, New York city.