World without Dreams

I am suffering withdrawal symptoms. I haven’t been able to do Yoga for weeks now and I’m still limping so that means no Yoga for a few more weeks to come. That also means I can’t even begin to think about working which in turn means I really can’t justify putting The Lish into daycare – even for me, that would be too ‘Joan Crawford’. Of course that means finding ways to stay positive and busy that do not revolve around retail therapy now that my tour of museums is almost exhausted. I am getting much much better at the ‘here and now’ attitude, really I am which isn’t bad for someone who up until 6 months ago had done nothing but live in the future for as long as I can remember.


For instance, when I was in primary school, I would muse about which subjects I would take in secondary school, even Uni and then fantasize about what I’d become. I think I went through pilot, psychiatrist and international Uber business woman phases. Of course when Secondary School came, I updated careers to something more realistic, like translator or possibly teacher given I was very good at languages and literature but rubbish at maths and science. So I spent my days fantasizing about living in Paris doing one of the above. I think I took the ferry over (these were the days before the Channel Tunnel) about 6 times one year and I wasn’t even 15. Being independent is a great gift in later life but I shiver at the thought that my daughter may have inherited that streak and may want to do the same. I mean, I'll be no more effect than Ozzie Osborne trying to prevent his kids from getting tattoos but I think I might still try.

Then came Punk at the age of 16 and the only thing I was into was a spiral of downward mobility. Anything else was considered fake. I was the epitome of a rebel without a cause and I had everything to lose – which in a way I sort of did when I refused to try for a place at Oxbridge (either Oxford or Cambridge)- I think back to that and really honestly regret the nihilism that drove that choice. I ended up at London Uni but by then I had already lost my way. I spent the next 4 years not really paying attention and mostly chasing the quick buck. Fast forward to graduation I dropped into a social abyss which ended only when I fell into a 'temporary' role in PR where I spent the next 10 years.

But I suppose, had I done something truly gifted or fulfilling I would never have decided to go travelling where I met the Canadian (Jim Jam king) and well, you sort of know what has sort of happened since - more of less if you leave out great swathes of learning experiences (maybe another time). Today, I’m less of a forward planner and more of a forward thinker ( I think...I hope).
One thing that hasn’t changed is my love for words and writing – that is still a dream I pursue on a daily basis. And when I think about ‘the future’ like that, I realise a world without dreams would be a dull place indeed.

The More Things Change....

I spent Sunday with my bezzie friends.  It started with lunch at a pub by Little Venice Canal.  That in itself was delightful enough but for me the feelings ran much deeper than just being happy to see them again, happy to be a part of their lives again and them, mine.  I watched my friends order and chat about events of the week and couldn't believe it had been over two years since I'd last done this.  No longer was I Carrie Bradshaw in my equivalent Paris, looking into coffee shops at groups of girls doing just this...no I was on the inside again.  Mr. Big didn't come looking for me, but Mr. Big did bring me home.  I thank him profusely.

Never have I experienced the saying: Plus ca change.   The easy conversation, the assumption that I would go on to one of their houses for cake and gossip - like I had never left.  I'm humbled by their easy acceptance of someone who so wholly left London, hissing and spitting at everything about it.

In fact not only that - the stories unravelling around this table proved that time stands still for no-one.  A friend of mine has stage 3 breast cancer.  The numbers aren't good.  I am not sure how I feel about that except to say well, not great.  It's time, definitely time to appreciate everything and everyone around me whatever happens now - whether I feel London is working or not...in fact there is no room in my life for that kind of attitide any more.  I had the last dance with the demon of ingratitude in Canada.  Now, it's time to live, love, laugh and cry.

2010 is going to be an interesting year.

Just living

Day 4 in the new place.  One word: REDEMPTION.  I would lick the place (if I were so inclined and/or mentally unstable enough - which is any day now) that is how much I love it.  I'm a bus ride away from a gazillion interesting things and I'm milking this for all it's worth especially since I'm temporarily back to spending every waking minute with The Lish.  She starts big school in September, an event she is dreading.  I haven't the heart to tell her that I'd push it forward by 6 months if I could.  I mean, I love her dearly and have been thoroughly enjoying our outings to museums and swimming pools but...how can I put this....after a while and especially if you're used to working etc...fulltime motherhood is dull as church.  There I've said it.  No doubt the attendant karma will follow.

I can only take so much of this before I start unravelling.  I'm keeping a close eye on the end of the psychological yarn.  So far the proverbial dab of clear nailpolish is holding but it's starting to flake.

Thankfully London is also full to bursting with children's drop in centres and today I discovered one which was 'les cuilles du chien' or the Dog's Bollocks.   

The flat is a delight - did I say?  Located in a rather posh area of London  (don't mind if I do!) may as well enjoy it while it lasts as I doubt very much we will be able to buy here.  To be fair it was just as expensive in Ontario what with cars and insurances and alcohol to dull the pain of suburbia - I'd rather spend it on location! location! location!

The kitchen overlooks a tennis club.  The Canuck (husband man) loves it and I mean that in a Benny Hill sort of way.  He took a little mosey over to check out the sports club bit of it and was shown around by 'the treasurer', that's right - it's sooooo posh it doesn't have a manager - it has a treasurer.  There were no brooms, Sausage boy explained, because they are all rammed right up the management's arse and while they were speaking English - it was very hard to understand them.  Secretly, he loves it.

Secretly, so do I.

I Want it Now

I'd forgotten how much effort and time goes into relocating - hence the outrageous break in blogging.  Today is our last night at the hotel and I feel we are all very ready to have a little more space and freedom, to be replaced, I'm sure by another set of binding obligations.  For a start we will surely kill eachother without TV, so enabling the ability to Zen out to repeats of Friends will take precedence as soon as we take possession of said new flat.   It being London, cable men are like lottery wins.  I'm prepping for the ridiculousness of their estimated 8 hour window and the customary 3 weeks of to-ing & fro-ing to set up a visit.  I`d better stock up on beer and Vodka in the meantime.

Even more nightmarish is the question of buying and having delivered before the end of this decade, a couple of bits of essential furniture.  Not looking forward to the prospect of having to wait up to 28 days for delivery of things I am touching and seeing in the store.  I will never understand why I can't just take the one on display. 

"But madam if we did that with everyone that wanted the display copy - we'd have nothing left in the shop."
Dream situation for a shop, I would have thought. No?  Oh OK - I do get it.  Doesn't make me feel any better.

 I remember my first flat and having to sleep on the floor for 6 weeks.  Yikes -I sincerely hope this won't be the case.

Other than that, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives in a way as we move back into London proper, as tax paying residents.  Setting up tax accounts with councils and TV license providers will obviously be a walk in the park.  Of course.  Getting the TV for which you are required to pay a license will not be quite so straight-forward.  Again, of course.

Ah - it's good to be home. 

Never! I would rather...oh that's not too bad actually.

So you know we are currently living in a hotel in West London and very nice it is too.  The room isn't huge - nothing is in Europe but it does have a kitchenette which disappears behind a sliding cupboard door at the end of the night.  This kitchenette was in fact the deal maker when we were choosing where to spend the first little while in London.  It has a double hob and a microwave.  I knew from day 1 that I would not be bothering with the hobs but the microwave would prove handy - even though I'm not its biggest fan.  Sausage boy - as much as he likes to eat quick meals - swore blind he would NEVER use it.  NEVER!  He would rather eat fresh dog poop than put into his mouth a meal that had had its molecules messed with.

Day 4 and the boy can't get enough microwave food, not since he discovered the local supermarket stocked rather amazingly clever and delicious food pots that layer fresh food such as chicken, veggies and delectable world sauces in such a way that once cooked in a microwave (specially made for this) mix together to look and taste like a meal cooked separately on the hob.  I rest my case.  I also knew on day 1 that this would be so.

The last time Bratwurst Boy said he'd never do something was in relation to eating hot beans in tomato sauce for breakfast.  In the UK we call them baked beans and they've been a staple breakfast food for decades.  Not a week passed when he didn't put 2 tins of the stuff into the supermarket trolley.  Same with sushi (but the credit falls to a past long suffering girlfriend - credit where credit's due).

Sparkling water is another amazing discovery for Jurassic Boy - he swore on his death that it would never take the place of Coke. NEVER.  And now...you try making him drink anything else in a restaurant.  First words out of his mouth at a pizza place the other night:  "Ah, it's nice to be back in a place where sparking water is commonplace".  I would cry, but there isn't enough room.

Not long ago he raged on about how Coke was so sweet - undrinkably sweet - that he couldn't understand how he could have drunk it for so many years.  I mean I ask you?

The list goes on.  Pink shirts?  only people of a certain ilk wear pink.  He ended up wearing pink to his wedding and loves the pink on blue/pink on grey combination now.

He's sitting behind me now chomping on his microwave meal: tandoori chicken & pepper kebabs with spinach pilau & mango chutney (try preparing that in 3 and a half minutes) sputtering with his mouth full:  We're not getting a microwave in the new house!!

Sure.

Cheap thrills and desperate measures

I have wasted no time at all in Londonising myself.  I'm back to eating crayfish & rocket sandwiches, Nero lattes, using public transport like the best of them, jumping queues, taking secret short cuts and getting inwardly irritated at bumbling tourists.  How they love to tease us with their white running shoes.  You are fooling no-one.  What they really want to be wearing is slippers; house shoes and pijamas for they walk at the pace of someone who's woken up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. 

We sat on the upper deck, at the very front of the number 7 bus - the finest bus route in London and cheapest kiddie thrill since the playground swing.  Look at this view from the best seat in the house - look at those London skies! old school grey.  You won't find a more authentic shade of grey south of Battersea.

The Lish was beside herself with glee.  The whole upper deck was in stitches at her rollercoaster-like screeching.  Meanwhile, mummy was able to read two whole uninterrupted pages of her book.  Bliss.

We met some old friends of mine from my college days and mucked about in a park around Holborn - once a witness to teenage drunken revelries (Oh how times have changed), today a calm child-friendly urban oasis - certainly more child-friendly than Alice in Wonderland (will do better next time- am wondering what the chances are of getting The Lish to sit through Avatar with me). 

Tomorrow I am doing something I haven't done in...a very long time: going to a public swimming pool .Desperate? Moi? Well, yes a little.  We're a week and a bit away from a permanent address which rules out a nursery school place until such a time...so I'm grabbing at straws here but I reckon swimming could be fun - even with a broken foot. 

Famous last words. 

 

Time is not on my side

I was at once outraged and grateful that The Oscars were bizzarely not shown on UK TV last night.  I mean what?  But since I had to be up bright eyed and bushy tailed today to limp over to the estate agents in search of a more permanent living arrangement than what we currently have, it was for the best since Oscars tend to start late and go on later.

Add to this that I had taken very strong painkillers for ye olde broken foot, I was in no state to fight the droop.  No instead I went to bed and fell into a hazy sleep from which I was awoken by ill begotten thoughts I have so far managed to keep leashed.  Will I find a flat in time? Has the money been wired? Will I ever drop the last 10lbs of baby fat.  How will I ever pay for my old age? and so forth.

To my credit (even if I do say so myself), I am getting good at taking one slice of thought pie at a time (wish it were so with real life pie) and am glad to say that within an hour of waking I had contacted the real estate vultures and confirmed that for once in my time as a client TD Canada Trust was as good as its word.

Terrifyingly, that left pretty much the whole of the rest of the day to fill with a precocious 3 and a half year old who is weeks if not months away from joining a new daycare - so I took her to the only place I could think of that would entertain, educate, tire out and put hairs on her chest.  The Natural History Museum.

To my amazement The Lish was like a drama school brat to a sniff of celebrity when it came to the interactive elements of the human biology section.  Lights indicated the body's journey through human reproduction; the digestive system; cell biology; the nervous system.  It was fascinating but The Lish was all about the levers and buttons - she couldn't give a shit about the journey.  Human genitalia does not thankfully yet hold the fascination it one day will.  Can't wait...

She didn't however touch the dinosaur exhibit with a barge pole; wouldn't even step through the threshold to that exhibit.  Too scary mummy.  That's cool - we'll save that for another time and besides mummy was deliriously tired.

By 3pm I was lying comatose on the bed  in the hotel room crippled by the remaining jet lag.  Lishy refused to sleep so I removed all temptations and wires to above waist height, locked the room and left her to her own devices - I mean how much damage can a child do in a room the size of a modest kitchen.  I expect I'll find out when we move out.

Though I would have slept until midnight, I realised I would need to feed said spawn before Daddy Cool returned from his first day as Head Talent Honcho and it took all my strength to rise from my beloved horizontal position.  Looking at the watch I realised the night was horrifyingly young and if there is one thing I can't stand is a bored child.  So we went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.  A controversial choice? maybe but it was that or The Lovely Bones and I don't think that would have been appropriate at all...well it was that or risk turning into the Red Queen myself stuffed in my rectagular kingdom with an insolent, bored child.  Off with her head!

Ah, tomorrow is another day.  What to do, what to do! 

Goodbye Canada

I've just lived through the most surreal couple months of my life.  Surreal is the aciton of putting one foot in front of the other as if what is there, isn't.  While you may know where it is you are heading in search of what you feel you want and need - you so do with no guarantee of receipt or arrival at desired destination.  All you can do is walk.  "Walking" has brought me here.  Home. 

I'm in awe of my home town - a feeling I haven't had since I was 16 when having discovered punk, I realised London was the only place to be.  I've learned the hard way that London has always been the place for me to be - nothing new there.  I don't think I've ever taken the easy route though that is my honest intention every time.  So I went, saw and did not conquer but I did forge the strongest ties with The Lish's grandparents. Oh, the tears did flow when the time came to say goodbye.  All I will say is this: My in-laws rock.  I never thought I could love another mother like I did mine but I am obliged to report that I do.  In that sense, leaving her has felt like another bereavement and the tears come in waves even here.  All I could do was to offer a snot-filled apology for taking away a future she had come to rely on.  That is something I will have to live with.  We're expecting a visit in June.  I look forward to it.

So after the world's longest nap, the Jim Jam king and I took the nipper to our local park, which because we are currently staying at a hotel in Bayswater - is the Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens.  Now, THAT'S a park.  My mum used to take me there when I was little, well before it was anything but a big sandpit with a couple of swings. I've never felt more at home.

Last night we walked down Westbourne Grove to have dinner at what had been out favourite eatery before moving to burbsville.  Like the creatures of habit we are Jim Jam king had the rice balls and penne with Spinach balls and I had spaghetti vongole and a Campari.  It's amazing but it's like we never left and while Jimjamalicious is having to reconcile himself with being back in the world's busiest town, I don't think he'll have trouble - not the sort I had when we tried this the other way round.  He starts work on Monday (Director of European Talent - for the trendiest retailer in the world) a title that makes his Canadian friends titter and apart from the fact that for the next two weeks we have people making our beds everyday - we're as good as home.

Now I just need to get the cast off my leg - yes I left Canada in a wheelchair - and it's time to get on the Yoga trail.

So anyhoo, goodbye Canada and thanks for all the fish.