Signs You Don’t See in England or Canada, Number 2

No, haven’t seen this before.

Signs You Don’t See in England or Canada, Number 1

Nope, haven’t seen that one before.

Signs You Don’t See in Canada, Number 3

This tickled me.

Signs You Don’t See in Canada, Number 2

Ahhh, so that’s where the end of the world is.

Signs You Don’t See in Canada, Number 1

The English love their dogs.

Cool Hot Neon

We had an Open House today so I had to make myself scarce. So I took myself off to a yoga class (which was VERY challenging and ended up with me panting face down on my yoga mat), and then I wandered around downtown Nanaimo. Don’t get too excited about this — downtown Nanaimo consists of two streets — Fitzwilliam and Commercial — so noodling about on a drizzly Sunday when three-quarters of the shops and cafes are closed takes about fifteen minutes.

I kept looking for some inspiration for today’s blogpost, and, aside from a possible picture of me panting face down on my yoga mat, I came up with…nada…niente…zero…zip…total goose egg.

So, I’m going back to some photos I took the other week when I was in Fort Langley, BC and Bellingham, Washington with Jamjarjude. Walking down the main drag in the delightful town of Fort Langley, admiring the clapboard buildings painted in all the colours of the rainbow, I spotted a neon martini sign in a window which I quite liked…

…it just looked kinda cool and retro — something you’d see in an old Frank Sinatra movie. After than I spotted an inviting one for a steaming cuppa Java…

….and this blue note sax….

…and I was hooked. Off we went the next day to Bellingham, Washington and my neon radar was on full alert. A good thing too because, who woulda thought it? Bellingham was a treasure trove of neon art…

Neon. It’s cool.

Signs You Don’t See in England, No. 1

Prior to landing in Vancouver last August with an overnight bag and flip flops, I’d been living in London, England. After spending the past few months over here in BC, I’ve noticed some signs you just never see over there in that green and pleasant land, which I thought I would share with you. More will no doubt follow at some later date.

On the ferry last week, my eye was caught by this ferry evacuation sign…

…and I had to wonder who in their right mind would throw their hands above their head and willingly plummet and spin (!?!) down a rubber tube into what looks like a defective kiddie pool with a plastic window. Not something I can see my 95-year-old Auntie B doing with alacrity, or me for that matter.

I was reminded last week that British Columbia is a land where wildlife and humans are still working out their living arrangements…

…and where there is a heirarchy you must be aware of when out on your perambulations.

My favorite so far has been this collection of signs in Parksville, BC…

….where it was quite easy to miss the rather alarming tsunami warning sign in the upper left-hand corner.