the last post

today is my last full day in my liverpool home. and it feels mighty weird. weird because there are so many people here i will miss and who have said they'll miss me too. weird because there are so many people back in canada overly excited about me coming back, and i'm overly excited too!

i haven't had too much time to fully reflect on my last four years here, but i have been thinking about the first six months a lot. how wonderful, accepting, lovely and beer-loving everyone was. it didn't take long before i was one of the crew...and i still am. i'll desperately miss a lot of people and things, but here's a list so far that i've compiled of things that i've learnt:

1. that people are precious, delicate individuals whose beings no one can fully know without complete openness. that no matter what tortoise shell exterior someone may have, we all need to draw our head inside sometimes.

2. it's okay to grow my hair long and not feel less like i did when i was 18

3. the telephone truly is the greatest CANADIAN invention (many disagreements over whether Alexander Graham Bell was scottish, but we can all agree he is canadian). no matter how great the internet is for keeping in touch there is nothing quite like hearing a loved one's voice. especially if they're a niece or nephew being coached to say 'i wuv you' and 'i miss you'

4. how much i appreciate each and every member of my family, how close i've grown to them over the years, and how much it hurts to lose one of them.

5. there is a song for every feeling and every occasion

6. as they said in high fidelity, sometimes it's what you like more than what you are like (and scousers love to say 'whaddar ya like?'

7. the value of patience, grace and principles. still working on those...

8. that the reason i was drawn here in the first place was my ancestry and that is also the reason that's drawing me back home.

9. how much i love camping and hillwalking (but really it was just a substitute for the cottage:)

10. how generous and loving people are.

11. that scousers truly are one of a kind.

12. you can pack a lot of people into a small country and even more people into a field of tents (a la glastonbury)

13. as much as i complain about british/mersey rail, i really do love it.

14. i can change career paths.

15. i can do my masters whilst working full-time, so maybe my phD too!

it's quite a random list and not nearly as exhaustive as i'd like, but the brain is a bit mushy and scattered what with all the packing and saying goodbyes. i will treasure the text on this blog forever and will probably use one of those nifty sites to make it into a little book for myself.

so thanks for the memories, laughter and lifelong friendships i've established in the last four years.

...and can't wait to get back home! one more sleep.

three more sleeps

it was my intention to post a lot more in the last few weeks, but it just hasn't happened - my apologies! i wanted to post as often in my last two weeks in liverpool as i had in my first two, but i guess i've been a lot busier in these last two than the first!

i had a flying visit to amsterdam with val, which was really lovely and nice to do immediately after i finished work. there were a lot of walks, a few museums, great food and of course wonderful company. val had kindly given me a spa day for my birthday, which we indulged in the day after we got back. it was lovely, relaxing and resulted in me having hysterical hair.

this past weekend was an extended one down in norwich with sam, kel, nick and dipak. the weather was phenomenal, there was seaside, pubs, more good food, more wonderful company, a bit of a swim and a rowboat ferry!

i've spent the last couple days wandering around my liverpool home. walking up to anfield, running errands, visiting the tate, fact, the bluecoat, the docks and tomorrow a few more walks and hopefully some nice weather. it's a weird and strange time...one that feels absent of the passage of time completely.

i'm really excited to be moving back home and feel incredibly at peace when thinking about it, but i will miss a lot of people and things over here. but it's always nice to have friends everywhere - more free places to stay!

"very often we travel the world over in search of what we need and return home to find it." - george moore

a few random musings on my last couple weeks at work.

i think there are times when songs follow you. for me it's been 'fields of gold' by sting for some completely unknown reason. it started when i was re-watching aaron sorkin's not so successful show studio 60. the premise is that it's a show about a late night sketch comedy show (think saturday night live). one night the musical guest is sting playing his lute and the executive producer asks him to sing fields of gold. now i like the original version, but with a lute? so much better.

i heard the song again - another cover - when i was taking the train to the airport for grandma's funeral. listening to stuart maclean broadcast a show from 'the canadian' train, the one that goes across canada. it was a lovely acoustic version covered by someone whose name i can't remember.

lastly, i heard it just a few days ago walking from the walker art gallery to the station on my way home. there are several grotty karaoke pubs in liverpool and at this particular one someone happened to be belting out fields of gold. i listened to it that night doing housework to get a lovely voice singing it back into my head.

i've been trying to put together a mix before i leave liverpool, but it's really hard. i'm obsessive about each song leading into the next and that's hard to do when you're not just trying to get a good series of songs together, but to try and weave a story too. i'm sure i'll get there, but it needs a few more takes.

it feels weird that i only have two days left at work. in fact i think it only just dawned on my yesterday. i've started saying goodbye to people and that feels strange. i wonder who i'll keep in touch with and who will just become a memory for me. i wonder if i'll miss schlepping to the train station with bags of stuff to take into work in the rain trying not to let my hair get wet and frizzy. i wonder if i'll ever really appreciate how fortunate i've been to have the opportunities i've had here and if i'll be able to convey that properly to my own little community here.

i found a card when i was cleaning out my desk yesterday. it was left on my desk when i first started at the lady lever art gallery and just welcomed me and wished me well. i remember being really touched by it, but that's just how this place is. everyone helps everyone. it's been my own little family away from home and i'm going to miss them.

i'll be weepy about leaving my friends too when the time comes, but that's not for a couple weeks yet. a word of warning though - i'm not going to keep the blog up when i move back to canada. i thought it would be nice just to have it of a record of my four years here.

Margaret Jessie Gould

It's been a tough and trying time for my family lately. Sadly, my Grandma Gould died last week on 7 July just over two months since my Grandpa passed away. She had been suffering with dementia and other ailments and it was a relief for her that she suffered no longer and saved her family more pain in watching her drift away. That might seem crass to some, but blessings often disguise themselves. I was home for the funeral this week and arrived back in Liverpool yesterday for my last month in the UK.

The Minister who has presided over both services was Canon Jim Kiddell who knew both of my grandparents well in their time at St Mathias Church in Etobicoke. When he spoke about Grandpa he referred to him most often as principled, for my Grandma it was 'pearl' and gracious. Quite a lot was said about both of them at both services because they were such a team, but I've been reflecting too on them as individuals.

She was an incredibly gracious woman and here's a few random musings...

Remembering her now, I always remember wanting to have her fiery red hair when I was younger. Her house was always impeccably clean, perfectly organised and they did have the cleanest basement I've ever seen in my life. She took pride in her home and I think that is something I've definitely taken from her too. But she loved a good laugh and always seemed on the verge of making a punchline of virtually every story. She shared so much with so many people and from that I take that she must have cherished the wider community she was a part of.

She also loved turtles. For many birthdays, Christmases and Mother's Days I'm sure I bought her a little turtle. I'll always remember her little cabinet in the den at Rowse Crescent and picking my favourites out. Her little bell would ring each morning for Grandpa to bring the coffee presumably. She let me stay up late to watch the Golden Girls and I can still sing every word of that theme song today! She loved stroking my hair, whatever the length, and counting freckles. Whenever I would leave her house in the summer, I'd always leave with an empty margarine tub full of cherry tomatoes.

The other past time I'll take from her is peering into the windows of people's houses at night. I'm not sure whether she was checking out their decor or seeing if she could catch people up to something mischievous, but she loved it and now I do too.

But you cannot help thinking of my Grandma and Grandpa together. They were married for over 66 years so were inseparable. Grandpa would always call me - to dial the numbers - but then I'd quickly be passed over to Grandma - who he called the boss. I think that simply demonstrates how they did always do things as a team. I'll remember them both with the utmost love, fondness and admiration. I'll miss them always but hold dear the lessons learnt.

Finally, I just want to write somewhere so I don't forget, that I mentioned to my cousin's wife Kelly at the service that one of the last conversations I had with my Grandpa was about my masters dissertation. He told me about how he researched his from old newspapers at the central library in Toronto. Apparently, Kelly said he randomly dug it out and told everyone about it and she hadn't known what had triggered it. I guess it was that slightly random conversation with me.

glasto review

i'm back. showered, laundry in progress, and back to work today for a three day week. i think it will be needed as last week was pretty exhausting! not because i was in the dance tent until 4 am, but because you walk and stand for virtually five days and sometimes through some pretty thick mud. several wellies got left behind...

it was absolutely brilliant though. 25 bands in 3 days including some of the biggest names in the biz - neil young, bruce springsteen, blur, crosby stills & nash, and tom jones. of course there were several 'smaller' names that i saw who were equally entertaining and talented just not as main stream.

there is nothing to prepare you for the enormity of it and a few things that you don't know before arriving. long car waits to actually get on site, trekking from the car to the tent with all of your gear, fires at night filling the air with smoke, human traffic jams, and all of the garbage. i have to say it was the garbage that bugged me most. being a 'green' festival it seemed that very few people cared about leaving no trace on fields that usually are home to the cows of worthy farm.

but the beautiful things you don't quite get either. massive paper lanterns being sent up like slowly reversing shooting stars every night, the huge variety of people and ages, a general no pushing policy, being able to wear whatever you want and get away with it, the park stage, the stone circle and most of all the 100,000 people plus sing-a-longs that take place daily.

it was a once in a lifetime experience that i'll never forget. *everyone* should put it on their bucket list.

going to glastonbury!

there weren't that many things that i consciously put on my 'uk bucket list', but going to glastonbury music festival was definitely one of them. it's the largest greenfield performing arts festival in the world and *everybody* plays there. not to mention everybody goes too - over 175,000 people!!!

it is lacking a lot of canadian bands this year in my opinion, but i'm a bit bias. neil young is headlining on friday night to make up for it though. you can check out the full line up here.

the weather is supposed to be gorgeous until at least friday, so we'll hopefully stay dry until then. to kick off my week off i'm going to see kelly in bristol tomorrow. she's taking the afternoon off so we're going to take in the banksy show at bristol museum. really looking forward to that.

keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain and that i don't lose my tent amongst the sea of nylon.

le update

evening faithful readers and my apologies for not being around of late. it's been a busy, tiring time for many reasons and it feels like much has happened since my last posting. the trip home was okay. we, of course, had some laughs, beers and i even got to watch the hockey game on my birthday. the weather was gorgeous, which was much appreciated by me too.

i do have some news to report that i'll make short and sweet. davoud and i are splitting up so it will just be me moving back to canada in august. i'm not going to say more than that, but we're both doing okay despite it being very sad.

the weather here when i got back was glorious, but has taken a turn for the worst. the rain and humid weather has settled in for the past few days making for not very nice hair days. i've been trying to get out for my training walks and did my longest one on sunday at 10 km! so if you haven't donated yet, you can do so by clicking here. i'm almost at 50% of my target and would love to make it to 100% before i get back to canada!