Coronavirus Update #13 - I said, "Social Distancing!!!"

A place where I can be socially distant. Bertram Park, Kelowna.

Here in BC, things were looking so great but the last 24 hours - not so much.

There were 3 deaths and 71 new cases - the biggest jump in cases in a month!

Maybe it's because of the chicken processing plant where there are 28 cases due to workers not wanting to miss work.

Maybe it's because too many people were ignoring advice over the Easter weekend and the cases are cropping up now.

Whatever the reason, I just hope that this is an anomaly and the numbers will be down tomorrow.

In the meantime, I had a rather disconcerting experience with social distancing this afternoon.

I stopped at Home Depot in Kelowna to make a small purchase. The management had done a great job to ensure people were being socially distant - or so I thought. There was a lineup that snaked in front of the store. The lines were separated with piles of palettes that were at least 2 metres away from each other. Within the line were painted orange lines that marked 2 metres between each person.

The idea was, of course, that you were supposed to stay behind the orange line and that would ensure the proper distance.

I lined up behind an Asian couple and we did a great job of distancing ourselves from each other. Behind me, however, were two women and a young girl.

Right from the get go, the young girl (maybe 9 or 10?) was playing, as kids do, pretending to limbo underneath the rope that helped divide the rows (along with the palettes). I know - kids are kids. so I don't expect them to be vigilante about social distancing. I do, however, expect their parents to provide a reminder when a kid needs it.

The women, one who I figured was the mother, said nothing.

I levelled my best teacher stare at the group and things seemed to be OK.

My trademark glare was not overly effective.

Five minutes later, the whole group was about half a meter behind me. Time to glare at them again.

It went on like this until I was second from the front of the line. They weren't behind me - now they managed to be right beside me! I had a tape measure in my pocket and I toyed with the idea of showing them what 2 metres looks like but I feared that I would end of raging at them and, let's me frank,  I didn't want to upset the young girl.

I leapt to the front of the line when it was my turn. After a half minute, the worker letting people in asked me, "Is it just one or all four of you?" The two woman and the young girl were right behind me! 

I said, "Just one," shrugged - so hard that I almost dislocated my shoulders - and looked back and gave one last glare before entering the store.

Should I have spoken up?

Probably, but after teaching kids for so long, I really don't want to give the parents crap about their stupid behaviour in front of the girl and traumatize the kid. Also, I was facing away from them so the chances of actually getting something is pretty low.

Still, if this happens again, I am more likely to say something. This is the first time that I have felt uncomfortable with the distancing of another person.

I hope it's the last.

Stay healthy.

Two hits and two misses!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have tried a variety of different wines from my cellar. 

Two of the wines I had were amazing and two were, well, not so great.

Let's start with the worst story.

I had the opportunity to buy a couple of bottles of a 1996 Chateau Vieux Rivallon from an importer a few weeks ago. That's right, 1996! Each bottle was $63 so this was definitely pricey for me but I thought it was a pretty incredible deal. I had a 2007 from Bordeaux on my birthday and it was a super bottle, despite being a challenging growing season. This wine was from the right bank, from St. Emilion, and I was very excited about trying such an old wine - because I have rarely had that opportunity. 

I carefully popped the cork - well, at least the first two thirds of the cork! I managed to get the rest of the cork out and then poured the wine through a strainer into the decanter. As I decanted, I thought - hmmm - maybe I should just try a bit to make sure it's ok. 

Ugh! It was very blah! There were lots of mild ageing flavours like leather and tobacco as well as some tannins but not much else. 

This was our Saturday night date night (a new, Coronavirus inspired event) and we had dinner taken out from one of our favourite restaurants, Bouchons (cassoulet). I panicked! I thought that it must be off. 

So I opened my other bottle. 

I had better luck with the cork and then decanted this wine. I had a quick taste and....

it tasted the same!

After panicking again, I left both wines, in their respective decanters, for about two hours. 

After breathing for two hours, the taste certainly had improved but was still kind of watery. Or is my palate not delicate enough?

We had our dinner and drank the wine but the amazing meal was not supported by an amazing wine. 

We did have the other bottle the next night and it was OK - more or less the same even after all that time being opened. 

So was it me or the wine?

I think it was a case of the wine reaching its peak and starting a downward decline. It wasn't tasteless, like the 2011 Tinhorn Creek Pinot Noir that I tried a couple years ago. But it did not have the flavour that I usually associate with Bordeaux wines. 

Maybe I should stay away from really old wines?

The other wine that was a miss was an orange wine. I'm not a big fan of orange wines so I'm not sure how we ended up with it. 

Orange wines are made when white wine grapes are treated like red wine. Instead of just pressing the juice out of them, what happens is the juices is pressed out of them AND the skins are left in the juice for a period of time. That skin contact gives the wine an orange-ish colour. 

The wine we had was a 2018 Stag's Hollow Vidal Orange wine ($22). It was a watery, harsh, sour wine that neither my wife or I could drink. A rare thing happened - I poured it down the drain. 

 I really tried to have an open mind to this wine but it was not good to drink. Maybe orange wines are all like this for me - I haven't found one that I like - but this was particularly undrinkable. 

Funny thing is, Stag's Hollow is a fantastic winery. Every other wine I've had there (especially their Syrah) has been excellent and I would recommend their wine without reservation - except for the orange wine. Once the Coronavirus has settled down, I would definitely recommend going for a tasting. Just skip the orange....

Two wines to buy - right now!

The first might be hard to find. It is made by Synchromesh, a boutique winery in Okanagan Falls. They are famous for their Riesling and I absolutely love it. This year, we finally became members of their wine club so we received 10 bottles of their various Rieslings and 2 of their Cabernet Franc.

The bottle we had last week was their 2019 Drier Riesling ($23). I'm not sure if this wine is actually bone dry because there is a wonderful fruitiness to the wine as well as breath taking acidity. There were flavours of lemon, honey, apple, and even oranges. On the palate, there is a wonderful fruitiness that grows into amazing acidity.  This wine was nicely balanced, had a great long length, was intense in flavour, and was really quite complex. I really enjoyed this wine and would rate it as Outstanding. And there are a few other Synchromesh Rieslings to try!

The final hit is a great pasta wine. I find that a lot of Chianti wines that I try are not that great. These wines are good enough with a coating of tomato sauce in my mouth but not that great to sip while I'm cooking up a batch of sauce. 

Chianti Classico wines are wines from the Chianti region that are in the better parts - usually the hillier areas. These can get quite expensive but I recently found one that tastes good before and during the meal - and doesn't break the bank. 

The 2017 Rocca Della Macìe Chianti Classico ($20) is a perfect accompaniment to a Tuesday night spaghetti or a Thursday night pizza. On the nose and palate are red fruit flavours such as cherry, cranberry,  and strawberry and oak flavours such as tobacco, coffee, and vanilla. There are also earthy and leather flavours. There is also enough acidity to cut through the tomato sauce of Italian food. I really enjoyed some of this while I cooked but it really showed its ability to pair with some pasta with tomato sauce. A Very Good wine.

So there it is - two hits, two misses, and a lot more learned about the amazing world of wine!

Cheers! And stay healthy!

Coronavirus Update #12 - Refunds during the Pandemic

On Sunday, my wife and I were supposed to go on the trip of our dreams.

We had planned to walk the Camino, visit Spain and Portugal, fly to Hungary, take a river cruise on the Danube, and finish off with visits of Berlin and Prague.

That all changed thanks to Coronavirus.

Two things have made us all right with everything.  First, it will all be there next year (and who would want to visit anywhere now?). Second, companies have been pretty good with refunds.

We do have travel cancellation insurance with our Mastercard but I've never actually made a claim and am uncertain how that would go.

Here's how it all panned out.

We made a lot of bookings on Booking.com - way more than any other way. This turned out to be, for the most part, a very wise decision. Almost all of the places we booked had free cancellation up until a week or two before our stay. A couple of places waived any charges that we did incur. Only one place won't give us a refund but we can rebook with them next year.

A few bookings were made directly or with another company. No problems cancelling there, either.

AirBnB was a bit of a different story. All but one gave us a refund of their accommodation but not the service charge. The service charge (charged by AirBnB, not by the hosts) varied from $32 to $64 per stay so it added up over 5 different places. And one place wouldn't give us a refund, even after I complained. Happily, after a bit of back and forth with the AirBnB support - and after 'proving' that we were not allowed to travel to other countries due to the Coronavirus (thank you, internet) we were able to get full refunds for everything. Yay!

Our flights were with Air Transat and Vueling Airways. Both of these gave us a credit rather than a refund. That's OK, I guess, but not optimal.  If we book for next year and it costs more, we are on the hook. Of course, if it costs less, maybe we will have to check out a trip to Cuba...

We had two train trips booked. We received a voucher from Portugal - which I think we have to refund at a train station in Portugal. Not very effective, but we will try to apply our refund when we book next year. Our train trip in Germany is still not refundable but we will watch that one closely over the next month.

Finally, our Danube river cruise on Emerald Waterways. I am not a cruiser (so to speak) but this is a once in a life trip with friends - and it certainly costs muchos dineros. We were able to all rebook for a year from now - and we are all on the same boat still! The only thing that irks me is that there is an additional £130 per couple because the cost of their cruises are increasing in 2021. I don't think that's very fair.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with how the different companies have been handling things. The places that have given us refunds are top companies, in my estimation. A credit, on the other hand, is still a good thing, just not as good as a refund. And the German train system will hopefully get on board with the other companies and give us a refund or credit. Schnell!

Coronavirus Update #11 - Happy Easter?

The Easter Bunny making a delivery with her helper

Has it really been a week since I last blogged?

Time flies, in a pandemic - or at least it does weird things...

So... where are we now?

The US is the epicentre of the pandemic with 550,000 cases and almost 22,000 deaths - close to 2000 deaths a day right now.

Canada has over 24,000 cases with half of them in Quebec. 713 are fatal.

BC has 1445 cases with 58 deaths total deaths. There have been fewer than 50 new cases daily for the last 8 days. The number of people in hospitals and on ventilators is fairly flat.

At least in BC, it looks like we may be having some effect. But we must remain vigilante!

A local Social Distancer

It's Easter weekend and, unfortunately, there are people who are leaving their homes to have a little holiday in the vacation homes. Places like the Gulf Islands and around the Shuswap are concerned - and even angry - because  these are small towns that don't have a lot of resources if visitors bring the virus along with their RV.

Some restaurants in the Gulf Islands are refusing to serve non-residents.

Good intentions but a bit of a disaster...

Closer to home, Forbidden Spirits Distillery offered free hand sanitizer yesterday. We got there about 20 minutes after they opened and there was a huge line up of cars. As we inched our way along the road., we found some people butting in from a cross street. Some other people left their cars and walked past the lineup with their containers.

However, most people waited patiently. Unfortunately, as we neared the front, an hour an a half later,  they shut it down. At first, I thought they had run out of sanitizer but then found out it was a worse reason. There were people actually fighting over the hand sanitizer! And now the free sanitizer promotion has ended. An example of a local business trying to do something good spoiled by just a few rotten apples.

We luckily didn't have to wait when we picked up a couple crowlers at Barn Owl Brewing. They provided a much needed beer in the sunshine when we returned home.

Today is Easter and my daughter and my wife got together (virtually of course) to make Easter baskets full of goodies like homemade chocolate and peanut butter eggs, tea candles, candle holders, egg cups, a bundle of lavender, soap, and an animal toy.

SDD - Socially Distance Delivery

We split up the baskets and delivered them - in a socially distant manner - to family members.

We can't get together for Easter dinner but we can make each other's Easter just a bit better.

Happy Easter!

Corona Update #10 - Support Your Local Businesses!

The playgrounds are closed but you can still walk by the beach.

It's not all bad!

We have good news in BC - our infection rate of Covid 19 is less today than it has been for almost 3 weeks. There were still some deaths, which is so unfortunate, but there is cautious hope. There were 29 new cases today (compared to over 50 each day the previous 3 days) and there are a total of 1200 cases.

Meanwhile, we are doing our best to support local businesses - which here in Kelowna means groceries, restaurants, and wine (although that's all that seems to be open).

This past week, we we notified that our first wine club case was ready from Synchromesh. They are in Okanagan Falls and I was emailing the wine club guy, Andrew, about pick up times as we live in Kelowna. Lo and behold, he offered to deliver the wine to my door since he lives in Kelowna! Similar to my experience with Niche Winery, Synchromesh seems to be so grateful that we are giving them business. Makes you feel special!

By the way, we had a bottle of their 2019 Thorny Vines Vineyard Riesling ($28) last night. It is similar to a German Spätlese Riesling - wonderful apple, pear and apricot aromas and off dry  - maybe even a bit sweeter. But such acidity! A wonderful wine! It would have gone well with a spicy dish, a strong, hard cheese, or something very savoury but we had it on its own and savoured its flavour. At less than 8%, there were no sore heads in the morning!

On Wednesday, we ordered from Soy Asian Fusion restaurant which is practically across the alley from where we live. My wife and I both ordered their yakisoba because it tastes just like the yakisoba that we ate in Tokyo 36 years ago when we met.  And I'm not worried about Covid 19 in the food. The experts are saying that you are much more likely to catch it from the person handing the food over  rather than from the food itself. And the owner made sure to spray down and wipe the debit machine before I paid.

Speaking of which, I found shopping for groceries not so bad in person. We have been trying to order online from Superstore but when I made the order on Tuesday, the first open time was two weeks later! In the meantime, we have gone to our local Lakeview Market where the crowds are small and there are big plexiglass sheets in front of the cashiers. Not many shortages of things, either (besides wipes). We also went to Save On which was happily dead on Friday night. There are still shortages of toilet paper and paper towel but we were able o find a lot of baking goods such as sugar and yeast which wasn't available a week ago. We used the self checkout and staff made sure to spray and wipe the whole area between each customer.

On Friday, we also picked up wine from Le Vieux Pin in Oliver. They have a good system. We paid for our wine online and then drove down there. We phones on arrival in their parking lot and our wine was delivered to a table outside, Then we went to the table and took our wine and put it into the car.

On the way back to Kelowna, we stopped in at Alchemist Distillery in Summerland. We got a free (by donation) bottle of hand sanitizer and a bought a bottle of their amazing Green Frog Absinthe ($50). The owner joked that I needed to drink the absinthe and use the sanitizer to clean my hands - but that you could conceivably do it the other way around! I was very pleased with the fact that they are giving out sanitizer.

Today, our daughter and her dog, Nebbi, stopped by and we went for a walk by the beach to the Manteo Resort and back. It was busy, but people we still very respectful of each other's bubble. At the end of the walk, we had a marvellous coffee and a fantastic churro from Ki'bok - which, like Soy Asian Fusion, is just a stumble away from our condo. Ki'bok is run by two wonderful sisters and I was happy to see them open.

Tonight, we are trying to keep the economy afloat by ordering dinner from Bouchons, one of my favourite restaurants in Kelowna. For $60 you get a dinner for 2 including appetizer, main and dessert. Can't wait for this one!

Coronavirus Update #9 - Some Graphic Information

Courtesy https://twistedsifter.com

Since this mess began, I've been keeping track of the daily totals - as best as I can. BC doesn't post their totals on Sunday and my Canada totals depend on what time of day I check. 

However, there are some trends that seem to be happening. 

First, this graph shows the Canada and BC cases compared. Canada's cases don't look overly terrible - at least the line doesn't go not straight up. There might be even a slight lessening of the steeples of the curve. If social distancing continues to be practiced, this might actually continue to get better. Other websites I've seen have shown different countries infection rates compared and, at least now, it looks like there is some hope for Canada. 

When you look at the graph for BC, it looks like we're in fantastic shape. However, when you look at BC's numbers alone....

Well, it's not looking quite as good. However, it does look like the numbers are not increasing in steepness. As Dr. Henry said, we are going to have to wait for a couple of weeks to really see if we are going to mitigate our numbers enough to make a difference.

Finally there's this....

This shows the change each day of cases in BC. There are some anomalies in the graph due to BC not reporting on Sunday. There is also the big spike when the province was catching up with testing. 

It looks to me that the number of cases increasing each day is starting to reduce somewhat. However this doesn't take in account if there is insufficient testing or other variations. There may be a number of people that have not been tested and the government is not aware of them and so are not included in the numbers. 

Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, I try not to worry. I have an 85 year old father-in-law with several health conditions, a son-in-law with asthma, and several other relatives that have varying health issues - including myself (asthma and high blood pressure). 

But I am focusing on other things. I'm finishing off taking two Spanish courses at the local college, painting, doing a different household job everyday, walking, blogging, and watching a fair bit of Netflix (season 3 of Ozark is highly recommended). 

We will continue to stay at home as much as possible, keep our hockey stick (2m) distance when not, and wash, wash, wash our hands. 

And hope.