What a tumultuous few weeks that was… but I’m back! Full flow. I see the wood despite the trees everywhere, in fact even that forest is beginning to thin out a bit… hurrah. Really thought it wasn’t going to happen for a moment back there...Stuck in a bubble, looking out at the world, rolling along, not feeling, experiencing, touching, just watching. Hearing the world through muffled ears, putting one foot in front of the other, existing, not sad, not happy, just existing. That was life in my head for the last few weeks, existence.
I had actually come to expect it, it was on the cards, I felt it brewing, mounting, and then just rode the storm. A couple of times Andy asked me what he could do to help & I honestly didn’t know, didn’t even really need any help, I knew I just needed to get past this phase with as little ricochet onto our lives as possible. And I did, I’m out of that ‘phase’ of culture shock and it was pretty shocking, I should coco.
So, how did I get here… well, I guess it started with a trip to some lovely friends’ beautiful B&B and home in Revelstoke last weekend. Out into the fresh air. Beyond the oppressive claustrophobia that is Kelowna in the depth of Winter when the sun doesn’t rise high enough to burn off the cloud in the entire Okanagan valley, all ninety miles of it. I knew I was getting desperate when I migrated towards a newspaper in a favourite lunch venue of Andy & mine, it was calling me with the headline “Gloominess nearly over” and continued to explain that give or take a day or two 22nd February was the day that the meteorological centre of Kelowna expects the sun to reach a height sufficient enough to poke through and burn off the moody stuff until Spring arrives. Phew. I have a date. Structure. I’m counting down, no really, I am.
Revelstoke, good friends; English friends, and fun in the snow helped my head, that and the jaw-dropping scenery up there, scale our mountains up by ten and you might come close. As I’m often heard saying; those mountains, that scenery make me feel insignificant in this world, I like that feeling, it makes me understand that there is one life to live, get living… those mountains will see a million more lives after mine and will stand tall over every one of them, time is limited for us…
And then it all fell into place. Great school reports for our little heroes, two months in for them and they are already thriving, popular, competent kids in a brand new and, in my opinion, rather intimidating place for a village child. If they can do it so can I.
The school has also been a ‘way in’ to the community that I had orchestrated for my own involvement too, I find myself heading up the school Spring-Dance for the PTA equivalent, nothing like jumping in the deep end without my arm-bands, yes I can do it. I can do it.
It’s not without humour, I hasten to add, after several ‘footballers wives’ incidents (we hadn’t seen this side of Kelowna, it can be like LA, poodles & all…) I decided stuff it, no more Mrs Ditsy, stand up & be counted, so I became the arsey Englishwoman for a week or two after my birthday, much to the horror and amusement (in varying degrees) of the ladies who lunch. The horrified ones moved quietly away and the amused ones welcomed me with arms-full of invitations; evenings out, coffee and movie offers… I finally made some proper friends and they are a giggle, and they know the Jules that I am, not the one who had the sickly sweet aura of naïve new girl…
So pounding the streets, drumming up business – successfully (killer heels work worldwide) is beginning to pay off, social events on the calendar for the next six weeks, employed the services of a great babysitter so new life, real life begins here…
When we lived in Greatham I used to travel down the A3 on a cloudy day and imagine that the clouds were really mountains.. if you squint it works. I’d daydream I was here and that was my vista. I’m here & those clouds are really mountains now, they’re not pretending. Time to start enjoying them and everything else this beautiful country has to offer.
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