Sympathy for the Devil

I woke up 5 days ago with the worst case of pink eye I've ever had. It's only the second time in my life I've had an eye infection and that first time was 'rien du tout'. This time, well you have to see it to believe it - an irony not lost on me as I struggle to focus through inflamed membrane. So I've posted a picture to thoroughly gross you out - this is me after 5 days of anti-biotics. I don't know why I'm smiling either.

The sensible person in me, and you have to look very very deep for her wants to believe it was bad luck, an unfortunate brush with a less than meticulous make -up artist used at my sister in law's wedding. But the person who plays me in real life knows my immune system, disabled by stress and general unhappiness meant I was unable to shrug off what might otherwise have been a day or so of discomfort. Oh woe is me or like my husband likes to say: Boo hoo for you.

- Darling, I've got really bad conjunctivitis!

- Oh boo hoo for you

- Darling, I'm so unhappy I've been considering ending it all

- Oh boo hoo for you

...and so on and so forth.

To me, this is my body's way of sounding the alarm and I've taken note. More meditation, less bollocks and a practical plan out of the corporate world where I find myself in the unsavoury position of working for a bully - not to be mistaken for a mad genius or a hard task master. Or perhaps this is just the rhetoric of failure. Whatever it is, there is no place for bad in business. I'll be correcting downward dog poses long before it gets the true better of me.

A trip to Europe will right it all for now - misery loves company and my mates await me with pint in hand and maybe, just maybe I'll miss Canada. Stranger things have happened.

The Sisterhood Van

I was a bridesmaid this weekend for my sister in law; it was an absolute honour and privilege. My first and sweetest time and probably my last since I'm of an age now where all my friends in the market to be wed have already done so, while the rest are divorced with no desire to walk that plank again and the remainder have sworn life long allegiance to spinsterhood driven (so they tell me) by the fact that the best men are either taken or gay.

Back to the wedding in hand. It was a grand affair to say the least, the grandest I've ever attended, with well over 200 guests. Well over. There was enough food to feed a banana republic and more love filled positive energy than a weekend at the Dalai Lama's.

The blushing bride wore the gown of her dreams and couldn't get down the aisle fast enough. Not a tear or tremble. I've never seen anyone more determined to marry than this girl. Long may that sentiment reign. The groom played his part well but blink and you would have missed it. Still, these affairs as we all know are for the bride, by the bride, of the bride. And why not?

For me the best part of the day started early but I wouldn't have missed it for any sleep in -as delightful as a sleep in would have been: I refer to the 'girlie' stuff and I'm not ashamed to say it. The girls in the wedding party met at a salon...ooh too early to say to get their faces put on and hair ruffled into shape. Two hours of champagne filled fun later - eight stunners sashayed out.

The day got progressively better, as sleep continued to fall from our now well defined eyes as we climbed into our respective frocks. The best was yet to come three times over and it started with the limo bus - a great idea to ferry the wedding party from place to place without fuss but lots of ceremony.

The sun now shining bright - both temperature and humidity rising, this was an oasis of cool, the font of all things alcopop and the brasserie on wheels for the hungry - there was no better place to be. Best of all was the atmosphere of friendship and heartfelt emotion between friends and soulmates. Tears of love and laughter filled this heartshaped box and I felt truly blessed to have been invited into this sisterhood - even if just for one day.

But soon thoughts strayed to my own friends back in the UK, the ones I never get to see anymore since moving to Canada; The girls who've carried me through the brightest and darkest hour - whose intimate understanding and loyalty have helped me laugh, cry and grow. It was at this time, I thought of them. Nostalgia preceded a black mood that would stay with me for the rest of the day- thankfully deep enough to hide from the guests, especially the guests of honour but to me as obvious as a hole in the chest. Still, this day wasn't about me and I needed to remember that.

Wedding vows taken, it was time to party and I was more than ready to celebrate the new couple, sincerely but as Sod's Law would have it, the flower girl passed out just as dinner was being served. As the flower girl's mum and bridesmaid duties more or less done, I was left with the unsavoury task of spending the rest of the evening in the hotel room with a slumbering 3 year old - bless her cotton socks. I could hardly expect the bride's brother (my husband) or the parents of the bride to miss out.

Such is life, that I didn't get to party that night unless you call horizontally washing a piece of delicious beef down with a rye & coke fun and actually when I put it that way...it could have been much worse.

Thoughts turning to the UK again and unable to concentrate on the French New Wave film on TCM (it starred the tragic actress Jean Seaberg - just what a dark mood needed...), I wondered how much more I would have to take? When would enough be enough? How long would this feeling of homesickness last? What if it never really ends? but most of all will it have all been worth it?

Difficult as it was to admit, I realised that I am the only one who can assign this kind of worth but it means I also have to buy into this life here, drink the Canada Kool Aid and tow the party line like I mean it - and that requires me to let go of the past, start living for today and stop making those comparisons. Question is -is this a realistic ask? buggered if I know.

Confessions of a self-professed cougar

I can officially confirm two things about life after marriage and motherhood; first - there is life after marriage and motherhood and secondly, men in nightclubs don't give a monkeys about either of those two things.


Here's what brought me to this conclusion. I just got back from a hen weekend in Niagara - the Canadians call it a stagette. My sister-in-law is getting married next week to a sweet guy and being a very traditional type of gal, a hen night was imperative. I was never a massive fan of the hen night as I always found them tacky; the whole 'last night of freedom' moronic - that is until I hit 30 when basically any night out was a bonus. And it was in this spirit I bulldozed my way out of work and into Friday night.


More than a tiny part of me was intrigued to see what the dynamic of a group of mostly married working moms pushing the 35 - 44 bracket would be. I imagined one of two things; Utter debauchery (the kind of which would stand up in a divorce court) or one big Spanx- wearing yawn.

I couldn't have been more wrong, which basically is the story of my life. There was more Mojo in our hotel room than in Austin Power's pants and more camaraderie than an episode of 'Friends'.


The evening began in a large hotel room with strawberry flavoured wine, corona beers, Jenga - the drinking edition and the sound of one of the girls manually pumping breast milk (she'd had a baby 7 weeks earlier). Bottle upon bottle of the stuff casually packed in ice alongside the rest of the booze; The promise of a bizzaro night solidified by that image.


It took the best part of 2 hours to get out the door, 2 hours of good humoured, filth-filled laughter. I don't know what it is about getting a bunch of tipsy ladies together that invariably leads to talk of pooh, wee and farts. After a meal that left me in no doubt as to why North Americans are fatter than the rest of the world, we headed out to dance the calories off.

At midnight we headed for the Dragonfly nightclub in Niagara Falls and not two minutes into the night my first proposition; would I dance with what looked like a boy whose voice was yet to break. I debated not the answer but whether I was more flattered or dismayed. Not a joke veil or L plate in sight and yet it appeared a group of ladies, utterly self-effacing ones at that - was the green light for a free for all.


The most startling thing to me was how aggressive these 'men' were - plundering into one-sided conversations like they were god's gift. I can tell you now - only God could love them. I guess it's always been that way, I'd simply forgotten. 10 years ago I might have been bamboozled into wasting precious drinking and dancing time on letting these guys down easy. Today I watch through the bottom of a glass as I drain its contents before heading back to the bar.

Oh and we danced with ferral abandon. We closed the place.

The next morning, deep fried eyelids solidified shut, a mouth that felt and tasted like a rancid old chickpea - no longer the yummy mummy so alluring to the young boys, I was feeling more like a Himalayan Mountain Lion after a day outrunning poachers on an empty stomach.

ROARRR!

A Life Less Ordinary

For years now, I've wanted to do something that truly mattered, counted towards a greater good and changed people's lives for the better. Various 'reasons' prevented me from ever taking the plunge to say become a counsellor, or train as a yoga teacher though I did get attuned to Reiki while travelling a few years ago. But I never did anything with it and I realise now that the only thing preventing me from doing more with acquired gifts like this was my inability to just do it.

So in fact I, am the only thing standing in the way of progress. It's a baffling and unsettling discovery and yet utterly joyous. Such a simple solution in that all I have to do is take that first step. I don't have to do it all at once either. I could tear bits off the plan and tackle them individually - at appropriate times where economics don't dictate against this type of innovation.

Coming to Canada was, I thought the first step. I had hoped to set up a Reiki clinic but during a meditation group discussion I had joined to tap into my intuitive self - and become a better healer, I made a stark discovery. For all my good intentions I did not come from a long line of Japanese Senseis. How then could I really know what happens to all that life force energy being channeled through me after it's done its job? I couldn't, was the unfortunate conclusion.

Further, I was horrified to discover that many Reiki practitioners have been known to die from the very diseases they spend their lives helping to cure. Not really the fate I had in mind.

Instead I turned to the material world again and took a role at a PR agency, where I enjoy a great deal of autonomy and build daily my industry skills. However, thoughts of Eastern spiritualism keep nudging me. The result is that I am giving serious thought to training as a yoga teacher and then actually doing something with that skill.

Meditation continues to not only fascinate but also fulfil. I find myself chanting and flicking through Yoga journals and laughing at the pictures. There is no need to lose my sense of humour over it .

That isn't to say that I don't consider the job I have right now a great opportunity - I do. I just wonder if it is in fact what I came here to do, given I am back in spiritual search mode so soon.

I guess when the psychic medium I visited for a giggle last year told me that I was being divinely guided towards a life less ordinary - she wasn't messing around.

The thing I struggle with most is balancing the material and the spiritual - this is the greatest blocker - or is this just a case of mind over matter? However, Yoga is no good if I can't pay the bills so I need to be strategic about it. Well it's a start.

I've realised recently the truth in the phrase "be careful what you wish for". I think I get it. Now all I need to figure out is, how brave am I feeling?

Not quite Niagara-on-the-Lake

This weekend, my husband took me to a food festival in his childhood hometown . Being a bit of a foodie I was very excited to experience some new fare, be introduced to a new culinary experience. Visions of checkered table cloths, hand pressed cider, plump organic vegetables tumbling out of wicker baskets came to mind. Excitement heightened when I further discovered it was by a waterfront.

With the sun shining, the whole day ahead of us and promises of fairground rides, artisan tents and food glorious food - I couldn't be more excited. I could hear the reassuring thumping of the rhythm section of a band playing in the distance. There was live music too! This is what I'm talking about.

As we got closer I started catching glimpses of crowds - large large crowds. Not big crowds but crowds of big people. It occured to me to ask my husband what the name of this festival was. In his infinite wisdom, my husband had put strategy around getting us to a WING festival. Wings, as in the things that are grown in petri dished by the likes of KFC, dropped into boiling fat and covered in monosodium glutomate. The kinds of wings you'd expect to see a pack of teenage boys with crotches to their knees eating, out of soggy cardboard boxes sitting in a Toyota Corolla.

There were more perms, tattoos and mullets than a back street dockers pub in 1970s Liverpool. For a moment I thought we'd walked onto the set of The Goonies. Still, it was sunny.

To be fair it was my husband's first time too, he wasn't to know and not to be too precious, it was kind of fun in a 12 Monkeys sort of way. So this was my husband's heritatge. Ok. Fair enough. In sickness and in health and all that malarkey. And then I watched in horror as he devoured half a pound of hot chicken wings like he'd just been released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

You think you know someone.

The Alchemist

Something very strange is happening, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to explain it but I'll give it a shot. It's partly like trying to remember a dream that dissolves as fast as you can wake up; disappearing like an effervescent tablet in water right before your mind's eye. That is my problem at the moment - I am unable to properly capture the thought long enough to explain it.

On the other hand it could just be a circle that hasn't quite closed. It all has to do with the realization that I don't feel the need to run away any more. To put context around this, I've come to the irritating conclusion that the more I've run, the further away I've been getting from an answer, the secret. To what? Well to finding peace of mind, happiness if you will - no that's too strong a word - contentedness, yes - that's far more achievable.

Trouble is this realization isn't much use when I'm 5000 miles from where I started. I'm talking geographically. I hate to say it but I'm obsessed again by the idea of going home to the UK. The difference this time is that I'm ready to commit to a long term relationship - with myself. You know accept things as they are and as they will always be.

The decision to come to Canada was made in 30 seconds, between a sip of wine and a flick of the wrist. Just like that. I kid you not. I put no more thought into it than that. Then it just became a game. I recently made the connection between my habit of taking serious life decisions based on little more than a whim to having lost my mum at a vulnerable age - not yet an adult but no longer a child, I was in that twilight zone where people don't really know whether to adopt you or put you to work.

As a result my life can be evaluated in 2 year cycles. No job or relationship ever made it past the 2 year itch until recently. And now I just don't have that luxury of turning on a dime, for lots of reasons but namely because moving here, much to my surprise was actually a gargantuan task which will not be easily undone.

But undone it will be. Except this time, I'm finally going to be strategic, you know, serious about something that matters.
I think what I'm trying to say is that I've realized that the grass is not greener because it' s not about the grass it's about you and your relationship with yourself. None of these crazy escapades ever made me happier, or more to the point brought my mum back. Finally, I get it.

Guess, I'm finally on my way to finding peace of mind though I'm not there yet. And with that the thought floats away and I find myself just living. Is this what acceptance feels like?

Cut it Out

Slowly but Shirley I'm discovering , in this brave new world, the shortcuts to life. Yes - that's right, skipping over the eye wateringly dreary parts and fast forwarding to the European strength juicy bits. I've started small.

For instance, I have no need for the crowds at Union Station now that I've found a saucy little door to the trains on Station Road (off York). Result! Like the Scarlett Pimpernel, you will never see me but somehow I still get home. In the spirit of Social Media, I want to share this tip de.li.cious...ly.

My next discovery will likely get me booted off the Women's Institute's Christmas card list but it's too clever to save for posterity: Avoid the logistics of Jim Jam tantrum time - the screaming, pooping and crying by not "being there". Get home just when the nipper is ready for a story and generously offer to take over. Here's the science - by spending that 'just in the door' time on storytelling duty you can seamlessly avoid the "ball & chain" game of - Anger: Real or Residual? then listen out for the hockey to start and only then join the party.

Finally avoid the utterly banal practice of drawing curtains by taking longer to brush your teeth.

You're welcome.