Tube striking in London

Nov 10
Thames river with river bus

Thames river bus (Uber Boat) will be one of the few ways to get around during today’s tube strike

Departure day looms; I had a nice sunny afternoon yesterday for a final wander round Vauxhall as I prepared myself and my bags to move along.

Fate is a funny fellow. It had initially added to my carefully planned trip to London a week of train strikes, one of these incorporating a tube strike for additional merriment.

Retired soldier at Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey

Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey

Then the tube strike scheduled for November 3 was shifted to today, in order to avoid a clash with the Royal British Legion’s London Poppy Day appeal. So instead, the usual transit aftermath will spill into Remembrance Day itself -?! – and I had to take evasive action in order to avoid missing my flight this afternoon.

Well, this evasive action allowed me to discover routes and areas of London I hadn’t been familiar with. I travelled to Stanwell yesterday, where I found an Airbnb bed for the night, only 10 minutes or so from Heathrow.

All this brings back memories of my year in Italy, where transport strikes (scioperi) are so embedded, they have their own website. The BBC has its own advice on how to cope with a tube strike.. but so far nothing on offer about how to cope with the upcoming nursing strike, a whole new level of pain for my other country.

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Reading in London

Oct 24

Please join us! Saturday October 29 at St Mary’s Church, Islington, London N1 (UK)

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Reading in Vancouver

Oct 18

Susan Alexander and I will be reading at Christ Church Cathedral, downtown Vancouver, on Saturday October 22, from 4-5pm. All are welcome!

The poster was so beautiful I had to share!

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Poet Laureate Rocks the Shore

Sep 26

A sunny Sunday on Dallas Road – we gathered to watch the unveiling of the latest Victoria poet laureate legacy art installation. This was a poem by Yvonne Blomer whose term ended in 2018. It’s perched on a grassy spot on Dallas Road, overlooking the ocean.

The big reveal: Yvonne introduces the project and then cuts the ribbon and enlists the help of her husband and father to unwrap her poem.

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Field 5 Farm Tour.. malt, whiskey, beer, flax…

Sep 25

Saturday was a beautiful day for a farm party and tour of the facilities at Field 5 Farm, where Farm Folk City Folk was also showing off a new mobile seed cleaner. Farm and city folk gathered to sample some local whiskey and beer made from Field 5 malts, enjoy some music and learn a bit more about local grains and watch some seed cleaning demos.

Mike Doehnel, last seen at a Kneading Conference some years ago in Mount Vernon, is now farming with Field 5 and gave some info about what’s being grown and the challenges of harvesting small scale for different purposes. Two different flax plots growing, one for a cover crop and the other for the very flax farmer I’d seen (during last month’s North Saanich Flavour Trail at Sandown), whose interest is in producing local linen. Photo above shows black oats, and here Mike talks about khorasan wheat, an ancient grain.

Lisa Willot (FFCF‘s Vancouver Island Seed Security Program Coordinator)checks on the equipment in the mobile seed cleaner, which she’ll be taking on the road soon. It will allow small scale producers to save more local seed. Which improves local food security by allowing farmers to plant more locally produced crops adapted to changing climactic conditions.

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