Friends & High Places....

I was absent-mindedly writing a list of all the people we'd invite to our upcoming 'we've been here X months' gathering and caught a glimpse of it in all it's listed glory.  Now, those of you who know me will know I'm a lister... a list writer extraordinaire.  I even write lists of lists I have to write.  I write lists of things I've done just so I can tick the boxes.  I am a box ticker list writer and owe all my successes in life to this one, small yet significant characteristic... no really, I do.

Anyway, there it lay, gazing up at me, the sheet of paper covered with spider scrawl mind-mapping, who would we invite - did we have enough friends in our friendship arsenal to make it a worthwhile party-time.  Hell yeah [twangggg] did we?  It got me thinking how I woke up one morning and found myself happy in my skin. Happier than I've been for such a long time.  The stresses and strains of our existence over the past year or two have taken their toll on various corners and crevices of my world but suddenly I find myself at peace.  If only until my next stark-raving lunatic idea organically breaks through the surface and starts feeding off me... for now I'm aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. 

This is due in no small part to the web of beautiful friends and acquaintances we have conned into being part of our world in these six short months, some of whom have become deep, intense friendships already, hardly seems possible.  You see we really struggled to leave all that behind.  We could leave bricks & mortar, sell off the cars, pack our past into boxes and our future into suitcases, but the emotional underground-cables of friendship bonds were painful, physically so at times, and with all the practicalities to busy our pretty-little heads with we avoided thinking about the inevitable loss that was staring us in the face.  Necessary of course, or we would never have left such an amazing life full of amazing people.

I tell myself I'm a 'wherever I lay my hat' kinda girl.  Tom & I are cut from the same cloth. We look forward and cry in private. Andy & Amelie on the other hand look back - nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, we just see things differently sometimes.  Andy had to come to terms with his 'loss' and it really was like some sort of grieving process.  My way of getting through was to envisage that at some point in the future I would build the friendships I so relied upon in England, that it was inevitable that, in time, this would happen here. 

In my wildest dreams I couldn't have imagined that we'd have found the friends that we have already - or that they would have found us, because, for the most part, people have gone out of their way to get to know us.

Teasing out the list there's the neighbours, the wonderful neighbours who we didn't really see through the dullness of Winter, except for a family with whom we quickly connected and have spent some great evenings already.  Then there's the 'waving friends' who we chat to, pass the time of day on our many walks, I count the school bus-stop friends in this list, always a smile, always an interested ear and always a lot of laughs, these are the people we see every day and they all add a little polish to your hour...

Moving further afield we have individually moulded our social scenes, Andy's embedded in his prolific badminton excursions, four, five, six times a week - those connections have led to some really enjoyable evenings out, and mine in the school environment, throwing myself into the PAC (PTA) and getting involved in some really great events. Through this the friendships just evolved, and here's where some of my greatest times have been so far, fabulous people, huge laughs and like-minded peeps. 

Then there's the exercising lot...! I have little pockets of friends with whom I Yoga, bootcamp & hike up mountains, all with one thing in common (aside from the sweaty me...) - the giggles & hooting belly laughing that goes on, the light-hearted light-spirited breaths of fresh air that we forgot to breathe for a while when we first arrived... give me that sweet air any day. It's been a long time since I laughed so much...

So, along with the array of wonderful people who we knew & loved before we arrived here in November we have gained a wealth of friendship since, from people who have made us feel so welcome, to add to our much loved and more missed posse back in England (and beyond...) most of whom who have gone out of their way to stay in touch, to give us the love and support that we fed off for a while and who never cease to amaze me that they still think of us as much as we do them.

Aren't we the lucky ones? Share the love... go on, feel it, feel it....

So - a soppy account maybe, but there's room for the odd emotional outpour on my blog, just keep me away from the brandy at our party, it makes me all gushy and loved up ;)

See you again soon.... x

The White Stuff...

Yes, all that white stuff.  There was lots of it by our standards but a very - very - mild year by everyone else's.  Not sure if we prefer that, we enjoyed watching the extreme cold kick in on the webcams last year, but I guess that's the key to it, we watched, from a dank & drizzly England - let's be fair, it was a dank & drizzly season in our neck of the woods last year... a winter that was pretty non-descript and dragged on for what seemed like an age...

So we only had a few days of lots of snow on the ground down here in the 'valley', ultimately I was thankful for that for practical reasons like I can't bloody drive in the snow, on the wrong side (and yes, it is still the wrong side to me...) never mind that we had to re-sit our driving tests again, the pressure on clear roads never mind if we had ice & snow to contend with, they may as well have torn up my paperwork there & then... yes, mild Kelowna winter worked for us this year, thank you very much.

Up on the mountain it was a different kettle of ballgames altogether.  Lots of the white stuff, plenty of good skiing at such a fab resort, and only an hour away on a slow day... needless to say my ideas of becoming pro-skier this season were rapidly quashed with a couple of very silly incidents that made me lose all confidence on those two planks strapped to my feet.  What is that all about anyway, I ask you...

I did migrate to one board - for about 15 minutes - until I took the instructor's advice in part and disregarded the rest, in hindsight I recall him saying when you want to stop "...point yourself up the mountain and then use your free foot (you learn with one foot out of the bindings) to stabilise yourself".  I got mentally stuck on the last bit & tried to 'stabilise' myself whilst hurtling downhill at speeds of up to, well, it had to be approaching 0.003mph, and my left leg (the loose one) rather attractively splayed up the hill whilst my right one continued going where gravity (and a large snow-board shaped bit of wood) took it. Down. I swear I heard the tear in my groin, I certainly won't forget that rush of hot pain in a hurry.  Mamma-Mia... Still, my teacher was very sympathetic... he laughed.  A lot. In fact I'm not sure he'd laughed quite that much since he landed in sunny snowy Kelowna from Cambridge UK a few months back.  He gave me the accolade of 'position of the season' and my money back... he was very sweet but I think there was a sinister edge to him, probably the comment "I killed one" that he bellowed for all to hear to a fellow instructor as I hobbled around the nursery slopes looking for sympathy...

So, whilst we took every opportuntity to play in the snow, tobogganing, sledding... with Andy & Tom making slow & steady - in fact quite exceptional - progress on their chosen white stuff mode of transport, I chose to find other ways of entertaining myself, snow angels, snow men...mulled wine.

Amelie & Tom, with a day of private lessons with the "Ninja" were rockin' on the snowboards... I must spend all my time & energy blubbing into my balaclava, so proud, so, so proud of my babies.... Tom, well, Tom, what a superstar. He'd already mastered the skis after just a few hours a couple months back & now decided that he'd like to try the board, how fab did he look?  I think I'd probably kill for those stomach muscles and that core stability, and I mean really kill somebody... he may as well have been held up on all four corners and escorted down the mountain with the grace & decorum he demonstrated, skimming the snow (technical term, sounds good eh?)...this boy did good, as ever.

Not to take away from his sister for one moment, the seven year old mini me, except she was a hot shot, all her worries and anxieties funnelled into impressing her teacher & her brother, by the time I caught up with her (tactical absence) she was hurtling down anything that resembled a slope, with a "yeah, whatever Mum..." snow-dude face on. Pass me those tissues, please...

So, the man of the moment, Big A, ground away at his technique, he was labelled quite innocently by a seasoned skier as a "Two Plank W*nk" (I kid you not) to the absolute innocent bemusement of the kids who just know that in England that word is something they'd be locked in a cage for saying... apparently this is not a word in the Canadian vocabulary.... So, he steadily improved, looked hot in his pants and achieved more than I could have dreamt of in the season whose finale is this weekend coming.  He'll make it up the mountain once more, this time alone, to wade through the record 47cm in 7 days and, I'm told, another 15cm overnight last night, before the mountain closes to ski tourism, the lifts get packed away and the shutters go down until next season, although someone did tell me about some funky li'l fish-scales that you can fix to your skis and carry on skiing up the mountain until the green stuff pokes through... I'll pass.

So, we did the white stuff, conquered it all in our own way, Andy & I diversified and went cross country skiing (huge fun and great exercise) as well as spending our 17th anniversary snow-shoeing, we looked very silly and clearly went very late in the season, more like mud-shoeing... but a great, fun & happy time was had by all in this strange wintry land.  It's good to be alone on the top of a mountain, with nothing but a few munching chipmunks, cougars... awakening bears....

Now we have opened the pool, bought our seeds for planting exotic vegetables and are dusting off the suntan lotion in preparation for the next big phase...

That was the white stuff story... next stop, friends & high places :)

As ever, keep commenting, love to hear it....x

Friends & High Places...

I can't believe it's been so long, did I really only write back in February? Sorry chapettes, that really isn't good enough, is it?

I'll bombard you now, just wait & see...

To be honest, I've been at a loss as to what to say for a wee while.  The whole 'new Canadian' thing must get a tad boring, compare this & that, "Oh how wonderful it all is... blah blah blah", and how we miss you so... but it's kind of what it's all about really, isn't it?  Without that what to blog on our 'Big Canadian Adventure' blog? So there we have it... I'll tell some more stories, draw a few more comparisons and place you in our world for a few gentle minutes so you can get a feel for where we're at. All of which should be bed-down on a foundation of "we miss you terribly" and, at any given moment one, or all of us, are struggling with the move in some guise or another... I won't harp on about all that, but just know it's there. Clearly I'm working on the assumption that you're here because you're remotely interested....

So to cast my mind back there seems an age, and yet our day to day has appeared so... so... routine.

What have we done, I scale the diary for retrospective reminders.  Oh yes, there was the Olympics, that was cool - very cool (although, apparently not cool enough on Cypress Hill in the midst of a seasonally uncharacteristic warm spell... can you believe they had to bring snow in?)  Should've held it at Big White... apart from that & birthdays there were a few themes; snow, friends, and high places... let's start with the snow...