Winter weather has such a magical quality.  A thick blanket of white across roof tops and sidewalks, urging you to stay indoors, to curl up in bed, in front of a fire, a warm beverage enveloped in your hands.  When Benjamin and I lived in Perth, Christmas time was blazing hot, filled with summertime activities.  We once watched “White Christmas” on a large screen in an inner city park on a piping hot day.  To a Canadian, it was a confusing physical experience.  For my husband, born in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas dinner comes off the BBQ.  Once during our Australian Christmas season evening, we watched “The Holiday“, a personal Christmas cinematic favorite.

Yes, the writing is imperfect.  The concept ludicrous.  The acting a little terrible (ahem, Cameron Diaz I’m looking at you girlfriend).  Jack Black is wildly miscast as Kate Winslet‘s love interest.  He’s perfectly cute and funny, but he is the exact replica of that “nice guy” who single girls go to the movies with but whom they will never go to bed with.  My husband hates they way the characters talk to themselves.  Still, as far as a Christmas-themed romantic comedy goes it’s light, frothy, sexy, silly and ends happily.  I especially love the friendship between Winslet and Arthur Abbott, played by Eli Wallach.

He is as cute as the dickens.  Look at him. Isn’t he precious? I’d love to be on the other side of that table hearing his many stories.  (PS: Did you know that this man is still alive? He is 97 years old y’all, and he knew all of the greats. He was in Marilyn Monroe‘s last completed picture “The Misfits”).

He worked with Audrey Hepburn in “How to Steal a Million“.

With the slew of celebrity deaths this year, someone needs to go check in on him.  Wrap a blanket around his shoulders and check his pulse, and say “I really enjoyed you in “The Holiday”, what was Marilyn Monroe really like?”

Anyway, as for watching “The Holiday” on a hot and lazy evening in Australia, I was overcome with nostalgia for thick cable knit sweaters and a snowy Christmas. I also enjoyed me some Jude Law in this deliciously mindless holiday fare.  Essentially this movie makes me crave snow, sweaters, long lunches with Eli Wallach, and for Jude Law to explain how books, movies and birthday cards make him weep.

Wow, thanks Jude.  I love how last night you weren’t wearing glasses, and today you are.  It really adds to your mystique.  Last night you were a bad boy, but this morning you’re this nice guy.  But not in a Jack Black, you can make me laugh, but you’ll never bring me to orgasm kind of way.  It’s refreshing.

Jeez Jude, way to give it all away in one blog post.  But I don’t have to go to work right away…I’m willing to roll with this.  But the truth is, I’m married, and I’ve already promised my celebrity cheat card to George Clooney.

So…where do we go from here?

Yeah, you’re not the first person to tell me that.  Maybe it’s the winter blues.  Maybe it’s always wanting the opposite of what you have.  In Perth I dreamt of snow kissed landscape, and now I am fantasizing about that hot sun in that beautiful city, where Christmas decorations baked in the heat.  How is it that the things you want always seem to be on the opposite side of the fence?

Well sure…I guess.  I mean you live in a movie in England, and I may die of frost bite and homesickness in Canada.  How could we possibly be together?

None of this makes any sense.  I should of been at work an hour ago and you look so cute in a collared shirt and sweater combo, and this blog shouldn’t even be happening.  But here we are, just a woman and a fictional character falling in love on a miserable winter’s day. Ah well, whatever keeps you off the roads.

Images Courtesy of Google

When my sister-in-law Kate arrived we hit the ground running.  We showed her Kamloops; went to my favorite yoga studio, did breakfast at Hello Toast, checked out a Project X Production in Prince Charles Park. Before the next leg of our BC tour, we showed her our favorite view.

We hit up the Shuswap region, then went to Dutch Lake in Clearwater. 

We then picked up my brother Matthew and then drove through the entire Okanagan region.

We drove to Vancouver, went to the Justin Timberlake & Jay-Z concert, then spent a few days in the city, walking around and perpetually getting over hangovers from the night before.

Of course, you can’t be on the road forever.  As the trip was dwindling, I occasionally thought about ‘home’.  I like our little space, I like our little life.  But, my brain was so focused on everything before the trip, and then I focused solely on the trip.  I didn’t even bring a notebook, I brought a book, and barely cracked it.  After Matthew and Kate left, Ben and I took the long way home. And I jotted a few thoughts on the back of a hotel receipt.   I didn’t think about the future.  I just thought about ‘right now’, which is not always my strong suit, so I’ll consider that a success.

I’m happy to be home, but it’s a shock to the system to say the least.  As I write this, my husband is lying on the office floor, completely exhausted by two days of physical labour.  He’s still getting over the amazing rental car we had.  In fact, he actually circled the block several times before finally dropping it off at the airport.  When he got back into the Kia Rio, he looked so forlorn that it totally broke my heart.

As for me, August is shaping up to be extremely busy, I’m at my new job, which is like…a career, so that’s exciting, and daunting.  I’ve also taken on a temporary work contract, and will be doing some improv shows on…oh, how about this weekend?  I love it, but I fear that my brain is as mushy and squishy as my little post-holiday physique.  (Just kidding, I’m as rock hard as ever).  And then there’s the blogging.  I really enjoyed posting videos.  I may do it now and again.  I’ll always post on the daily, but occasionally, it’s going to be fast and loose, quick and dirty.  For now is the time for putting my nose to the grindstone after having my head in the clouds.

Photos Courtesy of Alicia Ashcroft

If memory serves, there’s a scene where the old lady who had adopted the fox, takes him into the woods and leaves him there.  The fox thinks they are going to a little forest jaunt, but she lets him get out of the vehicle first and then drives off.

She doesn’t want to do it, her hand was being forced.  But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.  Poor Ben, he was having such a nice holiday.  Laughing, playing, swimming, gallivanting, traveling. We had a beautiful, fabulous time, visiting with family, feeling like children on an endless vacation.  And now it is time to be the grown ups that we are, and go back to work.

And somehow, I’ve put out of my mind, the fact that I am starting a new job today.  That this is the end of something for me as well.  Not only is the holiday over, so are my luxurious days of writing for hours on end without any agenda or time constraints.  Of course, I’m so excited to be looking into the future and seeing a number of amazing possibilities.  But…as I drove away from my poor husband, who looked positively broken by how quickly time passes. I felt a little broken myself.

I couldn’t help but wish I could turn the car around, turn time back, and start all over again.  But life doesn’t work that day…nor does time.  One must be grateful for the good times, and let that be the fuel that drives you, when you go back to the monotony of boring old day-to-day life.

All Images Courtesy of Disney, Google

I have such a soft spot for this song, it’s sparkly and sunny and makes me feel like a better day is just around the corner. Strange and sweet video.

I was expecting this.  The droves of hysterical fans, screaming, crying, wailing, begging me not to stop blogging.

Okay, dry your eyes, and pull yourself together.  People are looking and this is getting embarrassing.  Listen, I hear you, I’m this strange fusion of James Joyce and Danielle Steel.  And you are one of a very enthusiastic dozen or so people that…as far as my blog is concerned…you just can’t get enough.  And I want to be here, dropping hilarious anecdotes like Dr Dre lays down tracks (is that still a contemporary reference?). But Mummy’s tired and she needs a break.

“Girls, I can’t play right now, I’m just talking about quietly resenting you”.

I think about where I was when I started this project.  By the time summer ends I will have been at it for six months.  With the exception of a handful of “too tired/hungover/busy to write, here’s a picture of a pin up girl doing….something”. I have written every single day since the 1st of March.

Since that day I’ve written over 150 pieces.  And if I haven’t made it abundantly clear, after years of writer’s block, this is a pretty fabulous feat.  Recently, my friend Sheanna came round with tarot cards, she asked what I wanted to focus on.  “The writing, of course”.  Is this something that will happen for me? Am I wasting my time?  And of course, the cards reveled that there is some kind of mystical blockage getting in the way of success.  And that I’ve planted seeds, but the harvest has not happened yet. But what really hit me was that one of the cards suggested that I don’t celebrate enough.  I need to give myself a little more credit, and appreciate every “like”, every comment, every bit of positive feedback. I’m terrible for thinking “I’ll be happy when…”.  That’s a dangerous belief.  Why not be happy right now? There are times when I’ve sought validation, as if I need an external force to justify my direction in life.  In fact, it was not being long-listed for that writing competition when my life took a turn.  It was not directly connected, but after that day, my job changed, and my life opened up.  I had this month or so of freedom.  I took casual work, which led to actual jobs.  I took on a social media project, and it has been such a satisfying undertaking.  Doors have opened, and I’ve walked through them.

And so, I’m trying not to worry so much.  Note the italics here.  I fuck it up as often as I get it right.   But it’s fair to say that this blog has been a lifeline for me.  And now, after over 9000 views in over 50 countries, I am going to celebrate that. Am I counting the one time someone in Nicaragua had a gander? Yes.  Because I need to celebrate any one, any where reading my pieces.  Am I well-paid? Not really.  Am I writing while wearing a magnificent fur coat? No.  Am I happy? Most of the time, yes.  I’m actually amazed how life can sort of evict you from your circumstance.  I was in a job that made me so unhappy, that I had never-ending heartburn, an unsightly stress rash, and a soul that was crying  out for change.  And then, circumstances changed, and I could just walk away.  And it was only was the stress was slowly released, like air out of a balloon, that I realized just how unhappy I was.  And that’s no way to live.

But there’s something about my temperament that wants me to be stressed.  And I’ve got to work on that.  I’m pretty famous for stressing hard before a holiday, trying to accomplish everything before the break, so I can be truly relaxed.  But by the time to clock ticks to the holiday hour, I am so wound up, it’s like trying to untie an impossible knot.  And I don’t want that either.  So, there’s a bit of meditation to do on this break.  How I’d like to proceed with my life.  How I’d like to adjust my attitude.  How I’d like to be just a little bit better than I am right now.   And then I’d like to come back to this place and share with you all I have learned in the time I spent away.

All Images Courtesy of Google

By the end of Sunday evening, with the last load of wash shimmying in the spin cycle, I am feeling very happy.  I love to go on holiday knowing that dishes are washed, bills are paid, and the check-list has been ticked off.  It reminds me a bit of one of the greatest feelings ever–that ‘back to school’ feeling.  I love that sense of preparedness, the idea of a fresh start.

When growing up, my mother would take the last week of summer and try to resurrect some semblance of a school-year routine.  This meant lying awake in a not-dark room, while other children in the trailer park rode their bikes round and round the never-ending circular street.  Not that I would have been out there playing, even when I was a child, I wasn’t a kid.

But still, just knowing that others my age were out gallivanting outdoors, made me not want to be in bed.  Not able to sleep I’d daydream about the upcoming school year.  In my mind I would piece together my ultimate ‘first day of school outfit, where you could really make a definitive statement about who you wanted to be this year.

Who I was, what I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be perceived was never an easy mix.  I liked to imagine that I would be welcomed, accepted, popular;  be a part of a group, or be an object of affection for pre-pubescent boys.  Lying there in the lit bedroom, anything was possible.  The carefully selected outfit hung from the door-knob.  New shoes lined up nicely, the school bag filled with crayons, pencils, erasers, blank sheets of paper.  Of course, that wouldn’t last long, that level of neatness.  Even as a neurotic, tabloid-reading, less-than popular child, I didn’t always do myself a solid, and finish my homework or keep my room clean.  The foundation of success is organization, and having the confidence in knowing where everything in your life is.  I didn’t really learn that until my thirties. I wanted to be that person, bright and shiny, without fault, without mistakes, but I kept tripping over myself…all the way until my high-school graduation.  Still, there was that promise, before the season actually began, when anything was possible, and you would get everything right.

All Images Courtesy of Google

But not yesterday, I spent Canada Day at the park, and then we went to the beach.  I basked in the sun, swam in the lake, and I felt like a knot inside of me was being unraveled.

I smiled goofily as I dipped my fingers in the water, watching all the people around me.  The much older man talking politely with his young Asian wife, as she nods politely and holds their baby.  The rock-n-roll mother in the bikini, fedora, covered in tattoos and wearing huge rings, smoking in an inflatable dingy next to her daughter.  The teenaged couple on the grass, making out like he was about to go off to war.  An older couple standing waist deep in the lake, their serious expressions and tense hand gestures leading me to believe they were having some kind of aqua quarrel.  And there’s me, snooping at snapshots in the lives of others.  After the swim and the sun, Ben and I drove home.  We napped, we ate more, we walked through our neighborhood for potential firework viewing spots.

Something you should know about me…I hate missing fireworks.  And as a result, I like to get to the viewing spot early.  And it’s always way too early, as the city’s website will say 10:00pm, when what they really mean is “when it’s dark enough, and whenever we feel like it”. We venture down to the lookout spot, a crushingly popular one at that.  We got there at 9:20, and it was packed with folks sitting on top of their trucks, families set up with lawn chairs, and us, with a shitty blanket and nowhere to sit.  Which brings up the issue.  Should we go somewhere else? Of course, the minute you climb into the car, the explosions would start.  You’d try to drive closer (or should we go further away to see it better?), and ultimately, you’d be speeding along the highway like a storm chaser, trying to get inside the eye of the explosion.

But who wants to work that hard?  It’s only fireworks.  This is what I’m thinking to myself, as the population of people builds at the city look-out.  On one side of me, some jerky kid has just evicted his tired-looking mother from the lawn chair by barking “It’s my seat, it’s my seat, give me back my seat!”.  (And I had seen enough mothers all day to know that even though they are in bathing suits and sundresses, it’s not exactly their day off, diapers must be changed and sandwiches must be made, and I felt like smacking that kid upside the head for talking to his mom like that).  But don’t worry, on the other side, there was an elderly grandmother whose patience had run thin, hollering at her granddaughter to ‘sit down’, ‘calm down’, ‘behave yourself’, ‘shut up’.  As the time passed, the children were growing restless.  While one gave up her seat to soothe her child, the other was smacking fingers and threatening toys to be tossed into a ravine.  I’d like to think that when I’m a parent, I’m going to be somewhere in the middle.  But I can appreciate the eternity one must wait for these fireworks to start.  I’m 31, and I was losing my grip on my patience.  The cement beneath my feet.  The collective smell of bodies.  The children…just being sticky and whiny.

The time creeps toward 10:00.  Any minute now.  They will begin and then we can go home.  A fleet of people in electronic wheelchairs and scooters arrives.  One was clearly the leader, and proved this by bossing strangers and forcibly guiding his chair into cramped spaces.  I hear him demand the time of said fireworks and I pipe in “It starts at 10:00″.  “NO- it starts at 10:30″.  This is a dangerous situation to be in, because even though you are tired and annoyed, you never want to be the person arguing with the kid in the wheelchair just because he dares to disagree with you and the city’s Canada Day schedule.  But it was like he knew the answer was 10:30, and asked just to prove you wrong.  I dropped my blanket, and plunked down on the concrete.  Ben crouched down next to me.  We were talking quietly, recalling firework displays from the past.  We were remembering the Australia Day spent in Perth, when it was so hot, and then began to storm in the middle of the light show.  We were discussing how we ran home in the rain when the little girl shoved her hand right below Ben’s nose.  Ben smiles grudgingly before standing up.

I continued to sit.  Really taking the time to consider just how important this fireworks display.  It was 10:20, and life was starting to feel as though it was being passed in dog years.  Suddenly, there’s one magnificent burst of light.  I leap up, and then…nothing.  More waiting.  Shortly after 10:30, the fireworks begin, and it’s over within ten to fifteen minutes. When they finish, giving the same notice they did when they began, people give a brief pause, as if another round is possible.  And then, everyone abandons their long held post.  On the way home, I can’t help but think about how this ritual is like so many others.  Exciting and disappointing all at the same time.  That it’s like life itself.  Sometimes there is so much waiting, waiting for something magnificent to happen.  And then it happens, and you don’t want to blink because it’ll be gone before you know it.

All Images Courtesy of Google

We were living and working in a fortuitous country, and in a short time, got ourselves a little slice of the pie.  But while wealthy miners were winging to Bali for a quick weekend getaway; we were aware that this was not a throw away holiday.  This was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure, and though we had to acknowledge staggering levels of poverty, all you could do was feel humble gratitude and tip extremely well.  And we were determined to not let it get in the way of our good fortune.  I even got a little sassy and stared roaming pool side with only a sarong wrapped around my waist.  The angle of our pool was high up, and therefore, there was not a soul to see us.  Until we realized that we had been putting on a pretty good show for some construction workers over the hill.  Floating in the water, my legs wrapped around my husband, I noticed half-dozen or so men, crouching down and eating lunch and watching our watery antics.

I waved, as if to say, “I see you asshole!”. He waved, as if to say “I totally saw your boobs, and this is going to be our new lunch spot!”  Normally, this would have been a serious buzz-kill, but I was deep into holiday mode—and aren’t we all the most fabulous sons-of-bitches on vacation?  ‘Oh well–let ‘em look, it’s probably good for morale’.

A few months later, back at work on the construction site, I get a phone call from Ben, who is on a different floor on the same building.  “Where are you?”

“The twenty-fifth floor…Why?”

“Cause there’s something I need you to see”.

He comes into the apartment and pulls me into a bedroom with floor to ceiling windows.  “Do you see that roof-top hot tub?”

“Yes…” squinting my eyes.

This hot tub had never seen so much action; or rather we had never seen this hot tub get this much action.  The world below was like map, the ground was punctuated with water; pools, tubs, and the river in the distance.  Each work day was interrupted by no less than one million glimpses out the window.  We literally watched a suntanning couple get browner as summer blazed on.  But in this particular afternoon, there were five people in the tub, four of them paired off in passionate two-somes, with one fellow in some sort of awkward fifth wheel–all at once trying to include himself in the waterworks, and secondly, trying to get out of the water whilst trying to cover his swim truck clad boner.

And, after about fifteen minutes of  viewing and commenting,  cracking jokes and making up horny dialogue; it occurred to me that we no different than the Balinese construction workers watching us in the water.  I wonder if they made up jokes about us, or just watched with interest, wishing they were on a holiday as well–like the fifth person in the hot tub; so close to paradise, with that kind of pleasure simply out of reach.

“But we had plans!”

“Cancel them. You have Sunday off, I am taking you on a holiday”.

Though I am a strident feminist, I thought it best to bow down to my husband when he insists upon road trips, hotel rooms, and splitting a bottle of wine over a dinner that neither of us had to cook.

“I can be ready in five minutes”.

As we head towards Sicamous, the Houseboat Capital of Canada, (thank you very much), I am discovering just how tightly wound I am.  I’m an ice sculpture slowly thawing in the hot sun.  Ben and I are back on the road, and it has been way too long since we’ve traveled.  We used to holiday all the time.  We were constantly planning, executing and recovering, from said adventures.  Holiday, then lather, rinse, repeat.  Somehow, Canada has not been that way.  Well, not really ‘somehow’, life is just different here–the immigration process has held us in a choke hold, and work schedules have not been conducive to travel.  The work versus play quotient has been extremely imbalanced. And you saw how the how the old adage of ‘all work and no play’ worked out for everyone in “The Shining“, creepy children, freaky mazes, eerie hallucinations and a whole lotta red rum.

See? This is a man in serious need of a holiday…this also an example of writer’s block gone terribly wrong.

Jack was a frustrated, off-season caretaker of an isolated mountain lodge that just happened to rest on top of an Aboriginal burial ground. He believes that the long winter spent snowed in with his family and typewriter will be fruitful.   Cabin fever, evil forces, and the dreaded creative block leads to some heavy shit.  And I reckon that ten minutes before we hit the highway, I was just short the ghost story, and as Meatloaf always says: “two out of three ain’t bad”.  But this is just not the case.  I was feeling caged in.  Trapped.  Stuck in a labyrinth, not knowing how to escape.  Being on the road reminds me that we can go anywhere; I need to know that we can go anywhere.

Though we are in our own house, the holiday continues.  Fostering a decent buzz, the sun still shining, I am happy to have gone away, but am happy to be home as well.  But it is decidedly a good thing to take a break now and again.  Nothing good comes from not taking a break.

Courtesy of rabittooth.deviantart.com

Courtesy of Etsy.com

An unheard of Sunday off, so I have been whisked away to the Shuswap on a Saturday night by my husband, and I want to tell you all about it…tomorrow xx