Springtime in Vancouver

Here in North Vancouver, we occupy land between the mountains to the North and Burrard Inlet to the South. The Downtown area is but a bridge away. And yet, the upward lift of the mountains give us, on average, three times as much precipitation as the city below us.. Not being a meteorologist I know little of weather patterns. I do, however, suspect that this has been a very fine Spring for gardens and wilderness. Most of the rain seems to have fallen at night, added to which we have had some cloudless, sunny and warm days.

               In our isolated state we have still been allowed to exercise, so my wife and I have walked. Not far from us there is always a different path, we could walk many and various trails every day of the week. We know how spoiled we are.

      Just the other day, I decided to wander up the street in the early morning. The sidewalks were still damp from the heavy rainfall during the night. The sun was struggling to lift the moisture from the leaves and trees. Of course, any wet nosed dog will tell us how water enhances smells. All of us who are blessed with a sense of smell know how evocative it can be. So as I walked I was suddenly aware of a smell so familiar, yet so distant in time. A few years ago I had paused in much the same place to take in a childhood memory. Now I stopped and lingered a mite longer.

      My grandparents had a large garden in the small town of Nairn on the Moray Firth in Scotland. Every summer we would decamp there from the South. My dad always booked a rowing boat for our fishing trips. We would either find ourselves on Lochindorb near to the town of Grantown-on-Spey or at Loch Ruthven not far south of Inverness. My two brothers and I would spend the day casting our flies on the water. We would either catch fish or not. Our dad would cast his line with infinite patience. The boat would be a source of peace and tranquility, a calm haven of gentle views, lines landing on ripples, flies being pulled temptingly across the loch’s surface. Occasionally there was excitement as a fish being caught. I can still hear the oars being pulled into the boat, the unbalanced clambering as somebody reached for the fishing net and feel the pride when we estimated the size of the brown trout. Sometimes a rainy squall, however, changed the idyll, and often the wind blew up. We were then faced with an elemental effort to get the boat back to the boathouse by the end of the day. So if we came off the loch early because the waters and the winds kept the fish away, we would make the hour journey back to the town with time still to play outside. Northern evenings in the summer are long and light.

     Therefore when we returned to Nairn, we could not wait to get back outside to  play football (soccer) on the lawn. One goalie, one defender and one attacker; three goals for the change around. Large beech tree served as one goalpost and a small bush as another. Hours of seamless pleasure before supper. On one occasion, I remember having to retrieve the ball after a wayward shot had sky-ed it over the wall and into the street. I dashed out of the gate and in the process caught the fragrance of my grandfather’s juniper hedge. Wet from a shower, green with its summer growth, only about half of my height, temptingly low to leap over. So rather than the gate on the way back, I jumped. I caught my foot on a branch and fell. The hedge was now above me. My teenage senses took in the aroma. My teenage energy did not allow anything but a passing moment of appreciation as I dashed back to the game.   But the smell registered, competing with all of the other fluids flowing through my teenage body. So here am I over fifty years later, with all the life that has gone in between, walking up my street and suddenly ineluctably back in my grandfather’s front garden at ‘Hazelbrae’, Viewfield Street, Nairn.

All of our senses are evocations are they not? They are antipathetic or therapeutic. They take us to different places and different times. They trigger what once was and enhance our realization of what  is.

When I walked past this juniper hedge last week, I stopped. I looked about to see if anybody was watching or whether anybody else was on the street. Nobody was. I squatted down, drank in the aroma, stood up and ran my hand through the length of the hedge as I strolled.I milked the moment, savoured the memory, took in its simplicity. Dear Reader, n these times of no touch and social distancing then it is such a pleasure for one living thing to commune closely with another  without fear of contaminating or being contaminated is it not? It was an uplifting moment, a deep intake of breath, a closing of eyes, a smile on one’s face and a joyous memory of a boy’s past and an adult’s present.

Be safe, dear reader, be safe.