Long Time Gone

As evidence might suggest: I've been gone for quite some time. This blog fell into a bit of disuse but I'm hoping to rectify that in the New Year.

Part of me wonders what I should include in these scrawlings now. I'm in and out of Canada on the regular so the name doesn't really make sense, I'm not interesting enough to warrant telling the common folk what I did in my day-to-day, and I don't care to be labelled as a someone who painstakingly labours over their food so that they can garner the praise of the internet. 

Or maybe I am.

In fact, it seems that Canada might very well be my permanent residence soon enough. After almost ten years (with me actually having lived there for about seven of 'em) I've finally decided to make Canada the place I want to stay. It's a truly wonderful place that I've seen about 0.00003% of and I'm probably being generous with that figure. From the breathtaking geography of the west to the subdued simplicity of the Prairies, to the populous and diverse Ontario, the culturally rich Quebec and on to the Maritimes which I know nothing about and that excites me! One day I shall get my derrière to that beautiful part of the country.

But I suppose that's it. I always say that I've got all this time in the world but I don't. That's not a mention of the stark realisation of mortality but an 'Oh heck! There's so many places I'd like to go' kind of deal.

Ma che cozz’u fai?!
Which does lead me to suitable segue! I did do myself a bit of travelling this year. I left the idyllic lands of Canada in the springtime to fly to Italy for a wedding. It was the union of two very lovely people who I've had the pleasure of knowing for 10 years. I did learn from my mistakes about driving in Rome and driving in Italy generally. The long and short of it is - don't do it. Good grief. All the stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason! Every time a car drove I would do the stereotypical hand gesture as you can see to your left here. I'd like to address a scientific notion of Italians driving and the speed of light. If there's a chance of us ever achieving a speed faster than then it will definitely be by the Italians.

The town, Conversano, was gorgeous! It's a very old, rustic part of the country that's main focus is Conversano Castle. In fact, that's where I stayed! Mother of mercy, it was wonderful. Tragically I did sleep a lot there as I wasn't feeling the best on account of the travel and also lack of eating. I did devour a plateful of cherries upon my arrival. That was perhaps the 3rd best thing I accomplished when I was in Italy.

I could bore you with details of the wedding but I won't. I'll summarise in 20 words or less. It was a divine experience to be involved with. Wedding was delish, people were great. Love was all around us. There we go! I think that's a bloody good summary.

Then some bad stuff happened and I missed a train that in turn made me miss a flight and I had to stay at the airport and get all sweaty and unhappy with TD bank. But on the bright side - THE BLOODY CHEESE WAS FANTASTIC. More about this and more in a later exposé! Hoo boy!

As a reward for my pain and suffering in Italy, I headed to the Netherlands. A place that I'd often talked about with fond gusto but had, in fact, never visited. All the woes and unpleasantness of Italy and me being lazy in terms of trying to speak Italian - I did converse reasonably well with an Italian gent in a car park. All I was asking was "Dov'è la Banca. per favore?" (where is the bank, please?) but don't let that detract from my polyglottism - was washed away within mere seconds of me touching down in the Netherlands. It truly was a country made for me! Cheese, beer, tulips, orange, canals, tall women, cheese, reclaimed land. It was all there! And I loved it. I will return as I feel like I was very focused on both avoiding and sneakily stealing a sniff of the coffee shops.

In between then and now there was also a summer camp which was pretty fun. I got to work in a role that I was pretty familiar with and that was enjoyable. There were new challenges and new capacities to fill this year as opposed to 2015 which was exceptionally pleasant. The folks I worked with intimately with were as good as good can be. I do hope to see a wonderous percentage of them return in 2018.

So, I suppose, that would bring you up to date to now. I've not done a real bunch more. I did sample some amazing ciders in Seattle, see the sea in San Fran, get asked by Willy Wonka and Edward Scissorhands impressionists to take a picture of them, and then celebrate Veteran's Day with an actual veteran. It's a very interesting ability of the brain to remember all the decent things that've happened to you. Even more peculiar that some people want to share those memories.

Well seeing as it's now 2 days until the New Year, I'd like to make a little resolution as it were. This year of 2017 was pretty lacklustre in terms of me adding to this. In fact, the only reason that I decided to do this post was so that the '2017' dropdown menu on the right wouldn't appear empty. The last 2 to 3 years have been pretty vacant as a whole and I really would like to remedy that. I don't want to treat this as a livejournal (some of you are too young) or a twitter (some of you are too ridiculous) but I would like to record a little bit more of my life. Online. Yeah, I see the stupidity in that but I don't think I've ever included anything scandalous in these posts.

Here's hoping that 2017 wraps up nicely for you and that 2018 has some wonderfully fresh and fantastic opportunities waiting for you. I may live to regret those words but only time will tell, I'm thinking.

Oh yeah, I forgot I add little videos at the end of the posts to reflect the title post! I'll admit that ELO is definitely not my favourite band. I don't think I could name 5 more songs of their repertoire but I do like this song. It has a distinctly George Harrison c.Wilbury feel to it and I'm okay with that. And I hope you are too! Enjoy!


† I barely suffered and Italy was good enough. I was just knackered! Thanks Italy. Thitaly.
 

© Copyright These Flowers in the Dirt . All Rights Reserved.

Designed by TemplateWorld and sponsored by SmashingMagazine

Blogger Template created by Deluxe Templates