This is a nostalgic trip back to Vancouver, BC, scene of happy memories and an awful cold I picked up in the late spring weather.

I’d met Brent in Perth, Western Australia, for the America’s Cup and found out he was a keen bike rider. Later I also found out that many of the people in his frontier town go in for some sort of strenuous activity. About this time, I was given an introduction to two hockey enthusiasts, Larry and Edith, and so I wasn’t going to be alone.

Fast forward and I became that most fearful of guests – the one who takes you up on your invitation – flying in on what seemed the safest approach in memory to an airport squatting on a large, flat plateau, and the next thing, a rush of blood went to the head and I’d rented a Budget BMW and was heading for the hotel I’d booked for one night, on West Pender.

So what to do? Wander down to Chinatown, pick the café with the most Chinese people in it and eat. The next day when I met up with Brent, he was amazed I’d actually walked through that part of town and was still alive to tell the tale.

Next day I left the city proper, got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road, left turns being the only real problem of note, past Stanley Park, across the famous Lions Gate Bridge and that was when Vancouver first really hit me, like a smackerooblurby, right between the eyes.

It was the colour, you know – it was sort of bluish, with a lot of moisture. The sky, the mountains, English Bay – it was all – well, blue.

And so up the other side, climbing from the bridge between North and West Van, which I later discovered were two of the more select suburbs and onto the long, winding road left to the coastal mountains and one in particular – Black Mountain, near where Brent supposedly had a log cabin.

Had a spot of bother with the highway patrol – can’t remember what over but I remember the guys were ultra-friendly and then I found the lodge. Brent and his girl had just finished his waffles with maple syrup and she was simply stunning. She had no transportation back to Van and would I drive her back later?

They took me to a rodeo, seated on a multi-tiered bench arrangement with the blue mountains in the background and we ate well.

In the evening, with the dark closing in and the blonde girl beside me, I fell in love with Canadian girls. We caught up with Brent and went to a restaurant where I think we hit the steak but the two things which stood out were his garish but stylish shirt and the burners they had running in the al fresco dining area. Plus his girlfriend, of course.

Next morning it was time to move on and make contact with my other people in Kitsilano, near the water and I remember that all the street names seemed to be West this and West that and that they all had four digits.

Parked the Dub by the nature strip by the white clapboard house and the next I remember was going for, in my eyes, a longish walkat a cracking pace, down to the Kitsilano waterfront, with its green banks and pavement all the way around, beside the lapping water and always the bluish mountains with the white tips on the other side of the bay.

Seemed to be a hell of a lot of people jogging along that path and Edith told me that all the people in her circle did some sort of active exercise each day. That may or may not have been so for Greater Vancouver but certainly there were very few smokers that I saw about, so that was healthy enough. Actually, I didn’t see any.

Then, back home, I seem to recall a ’56 Buick in a garage which perhaps the neighbour was restoring. In the evening, sitting in the cellar watching Calgary take on someone in the Stanley Cup playoff which sadly, they didn’t win.

Next morning it was a trip west over to the genteel university and a drive around that part of town and out to the point. Then it was down to the Marina near the Burrard Bridge and onto English Bay for a bit of cruising and snacks in their daughter Shelley’s Cal 20 [or 22 – can’t remember exactly]. The breeze was down that day but still I was in my element – sailing being, I believe, the second best experience known to man.

Straight after toweling down and leaving the marina, it was into the smallest brewery I’ve ever seen, nestled under the Burrard Bridge, from memory and I wish I could remember the name of the local brew. Someone told me, years later, that the brewery had had to close which would be an enormous pity if that were so.

Visited Brent’s folks in West Van – the father ran a company called Bugaboos, which made sunglasses and you could see the Lions Gate from his patio, which now I vaguely recall was one way at certain times of the day but don’t quote me on that. I also remember walking through Stanley Park and were there Inuit totem poles there? Can’t exactly recall. But I recall the grassy plushness of Stanley Park.

Spent the night at Brent’s and met a mate of his in a beaten up combi who planned to drive to Fairbanks but actually ran the vehicle into a ditch 30 seconds after leaving on his grand trek and then decided to have a beer instead.

The next day was time for the trek to Vancouver Island, past the airport, south, down, down, down, it seemed almost to Seattle and then right, or west, and I seriously can’t recall whether it was a ferry or a bridge which took us across to Victoria, where I had some business. I remember the land was flat.

That’s the point where I caught one of the worst colds and coming up to summer as well. The rest of the trip was hazy. I know I went to the mega-predominant Canada Place, went supermarket shopping in the Canadian way, dined at a White Spot café, dined Japanese at one point with Brent’s girlfriend again, went with Larry for a trek into the mountain valley out east and next evening I took a Greyhound for LA – but that’s another tale.

Some cities really leave an impression. Vienna is one – just its sheer stateliness. Venice, of course. Paris. London’s home territory. But Vancouver – who knows what it is? Officially the world’s most livable city time and time again, it definitely has something. It’s a sort of rustic sophistication, for want of a better description. It’s the blueness. It’s the frighteningly clean air and dangerously healthy lifestyle.

Maybe I never saw the seedy side – there ahd to be one, of course. But above all, it was the friendliness and yet slightly English reserve which separates the Canadian from his southern neighbour. But more than anything, it seemed like a home away from home.

I miss Vancouver.