NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF

This year - 2018 - has started off very differently than usual.  We are normally the stay-at-home kind of people but out of the ten weeks since New Years Day this year, we have only been home for three of them. 

This would not be outside the box for a lot of our friends and neighbours; Arizona, Texas, and Florida tempt them all south to avoid Old Man Winter here in Canada.  They hide out down there for as long as their health insurance and income tax laws will let them, but that's not our style.  It's not like we don't go find some sunshine for a break from the ice and snow, but for us that's a stay at an all inclusive resort on a beach somewhere - ten days, tops.

I think it boils down to us not being sitting-in-the-sun kind of people.  We can do it for a little while but it just doesn't come naturally.  We need something to do.

So, even though we've been gone 70% of the year so far and two thirds of that was spent in a tropical country and close to endless beaches, it wasn't the destination, it was the company once we got there.  Even the two weeks we spent in Alberta were all to do with the people, not the place.  Our time away has been all about family; all about grandchildren.

While it would be nice to see them more often, I'm not going to pretend that having four of the little darlings living in Australia is all hardship.  We're not fans of the flights there and back, and to make the cost and jetlag worth it the trip requires at least five weeks, but once you get past these things it's all good.

This time we were there on their Christmas/summer holidays so we missed all the sports they are usually involved in, but still the house was busy with lots of friends coming and going, a part time job for the eldest, and trips to the beach to work on their surfing skills.  To keep Grandpa from going crazy there was a home reno project to work on, and we spent a week on an exploration/camping trip.  The day before we headed home the kids lined up for a back-to-school picture: the eldest was beginning her high school years, the twins were headed for their first days at junior high in a new school, and while the little brother wasn't changing schools, that morning was the first time in his life he had ever had to go alone.

Theirs is a busy household with siblings either getting along fine, or not.  You know: normal.  They can be strumming guitars, beating bongo drums and singing one minute (they are quite good at it), but it's not all kum-ba-ya - teenage angst and the corresponding hormones being what they are.  It was great to get to know them better - their strengths and weaknesses, their interests and ambitions.  Until you are there in person you don't realize what a one dimensional picture FaceTime gives you.  My mission was to take as many candid shots of them as possible to replace the years-old photos of them I have hanging on my wall.  These next portraits are going to show who they really are.

We had just enough time to recover from the jetlag from Down Under and then we were off to babysit a couple little guys in Alberta.  Their parents were off to soak up some Mexican sun so Grandma and Grandpa were there to hold down the fort for a week.  Whereas the teenagers' energy might be likened to the movement of a soccer ball - powerful and strategic - these little guys are more like ping pong balls - bouncing off the walls, the noise they make constant, but not really unpleasant.  Luckily their bedtime was an early one - Grandma's and Grandpa's was never far behind.

They are full of wisdom too.  Conversations with them are always enlightening even though they tend to be about dinosaurs and transformers ... and dinosaurs that transform.  It keeps a person on their toes.

During dinner on the night their parents were flying home there were two conversations going on at the table.  The little boys were listing things to be afraid of ... monsters and dinosaurs.  And the adults' stream of thought that had begun with the boys' parents being on an airplane had somehow progressed to who were the appointed guardians for these guys, and all their cousins. 

I can't imagine why this concern had surfaced ...

Meanwhile the little people's danger list went on ... lions, sharks, bears (apparently only the black ones because they always hungry), and snakes.

I gave Grandpa a run down of the arrangements for each family as best as I could remember them.  There are plans made but I know we are "back up" even when we're not 'plan A'.  Together we sat and pondered this midst the regular dinner din.

Just then, out of the blue, the youngest turned to me and asked "And what are you afraid of Grandma?"

There was no way I was going to tell him the first thing popped into my head so I lied and said Grandmas weren't scared of anything.

And then offered up a prayer that all my children lived to a ripe old age.

                                               LANDMARKS

Last weekend, in an effort to amuse the grandsons, Grandpa was convinced (by a six year old who shows great promise as a car salesman) to take them on a treasure hunt up in the attic. 

Now, just to clarify, the word "attic" means different things to different people.  To little people it is a place of endless discovery (if they are brave enough to climb that ladder).  To Grandpa it is a fun experience to show these kids all kinds of stuff (and get them off his case to go outside at minus 25 degrees).  For Grandma it is a place where you put stuff that you don't want to deal with.  You know, the stuff that is too good to throw away (you think at the time), so you hoist it up out of sight and promptly forget it even exists.  Except for the Christmas decorations, anything that goes up there STAYS up there. 

Therefore, when Grandpa and the little boys got all dressed up (it was still 15 degrees below zero up there) and prepared for their climbing expedition, Grandma was super unimpressed.  Her rule of "what goes up to the attic stays up in the attic!" was surely about to be broken.

And it was.  Boy #1 retrieved his uncle's favourite shirt (circa 1992) and a pair of mint condition runners (2 sizes too big) and boy #2 claimed a bunch of hot wheels cars, and Grandpa found a full face Halloween mask which the dog disapproved of even more than Grandma did.  The adventurers didn't leave Grandma out though - they also presented me with a little wooden box full of letters.

I can offer no rational explanation why anyone would keep such things but the box is from my childhood and the letters are so old that they are addressed to my maiden name.  You know how, if you move a lot there are some boxes you just keep moving because they are your stuff, not because you actually remember what's in them anymore?  Well, that's where this treasure has been hiding for almost 50 years.

My first reaction was disbelief.  How could they still exist?  Next I shuffled through the pile - who were they from?  My cousin in Calgary: check.  A girl from Regina I had met through her cousin: I had forgotten we ever corresponded.  But the ones that really blew me away were the stack from my BFF ... man, have times changed!

We were fifteen year old girls:  self absorbed, juvenile and (apparently) talked incessantly of boys and parties and boys and dates and boys and flirting and yet more about boys.  Oh yeah, we weren't fans of younger siblings either, and wondered how our mothers always seemed to be on to our devious plans.  But it's not what's in the letters that stands out to me in 2018, it's that they were ever written in the first place.  You see, we went to the same school and we only lived 22 miles apart.  When summer holidays came along, though, 22 miles was too far.  It was long distance.  Our parents ruled out letting us talk on the phone - there were charges.  A postage stamp only cost 6 cents and that was our only option to stay in touch through July and August.  Today's fifteen year olds with their personal smart phones and unlimited data will have a hard time computing this.

Maybe it's just how my brain works, but that little time capsule has shone a light on other things to think about.

The route we take to go to town has been altered this winter.  The road is the same, but the scenery is different - an old yard site and the trees around it have been cleared away.  All that's left are bush piles, a bare hill, and a SaskTel pedestal to show that the lane ever led to anything but a field.  This is progress, of course: an acre or two more to farm, less turning for the farm equipment, and nice straight lines to make the GPS happy.  Maybe it's only me who sees that something has been lost.

It's not a physical trail marker I need to show the way to town, but more a historical kind of talisman that used to remind me of where we've come from.  In today's world of electronics and machinery and every convenience under the sun, the hard work and trail blazing of previous generations fades from memory.  The little house with outdoor plumbing.  Carrying water from the well.  Milking cows, gathering eggs, preserving garden vegetables, chopping firewood, sewing your own cloths, fixing your own tractor, stacking square bales by hand.  It's not that I think that progress should stop, it's more that I wonder how will we appreciate what we have now if there's nothing to compare it to? 

Maybe it's not important, I don't know.  When I think of how so much has changed in my lifetime alone - the snail mail to e-mail thing is such a perfect example - I suspect that there are a lot of folks who will say I'm just being nostalgic, but I don't feel like nostalgia is the right word.

Barren.  Open.  Vacant.  Bare.  This newly cleared field on my way to town pushes me to find the right word. 

Eventually I will get used to the new view.  I hope I will always miss the landmark.

                                                            READY ... SO READY

Well, Mother Nature, we're all good now.  We're over this winter thing.  It's been nice, but let's move on, okay?  I want to go outside without worrying about body parts going brittle and breaking off.

I apologise to all the people who didn't get to spend a month in a tropical setting.  I don't expect even a moment of sympathy from you, and I'm not asking for it.  But, I tell you what: that sort of trip is not a cure for the winter-is-too-long blues.  I don't think it even rates as an inoculation against this condition's worst symptoms.  Having recently taken part in a study on whether spending the month of January in Australia helps, my conclusion is it only makes a person wimpier. 

Having said that, should anyone want to study the matter further, I respectfully submit my name to participate in subsequent studies.  Even with the danger of developing enhanced wimpiness tendencies, I will take one for the team.

But meanwhile, back in Saskatchewan, I'm totally over this winter thing.

It happens every year about the beginning of February.  This feeling of being trapped inside because it's too cold, and worse yet - there's nothing to do even if you do go outside.  I want to garden!  I want to plant flowers!  I want to weed!  I want to hill potatoes!  I want to pick berries!  I want to mow grass!  The only job that winter offers me is shovelling off the deck and we have had so little snow this winter than my six year old grandson did this job in ten minutes on Saturday.  A walk with a 40 below wind chill factor is not in the cards - sorry Turbo.

Just as house plants begin to detect the lengthening of daylight hours, I'm pretty sure something stirs in a gardener's brain at the same time.  Plants start to put out new shoots, seeds itch to germinate, gardeners page through nursery catalogues and envision where they will put all the new things they want to buy.

While scrolling through Facebook the other day I noticed a new group - Gardenering in Saskatchewan - and decided that maybe hanging out with like-minded people would be a positive move.  You know: strength in numbers, and all that ...

Talk about being overwhelmed.  Instantly there was no room on my news feed for anything else.  the membership of this group was beyond anything I had imagined.  They wanted to talk about indoor plants and outdoor plants and when to start them indoors so they could move them outdoors.  Trees and flowers and herbs and bulbs and onion seeds and lavender and birds getting drunk on fermented fruit.  Don't get me wrong - these are the very things one would expect to find on a gardening site - it's just that there was so much of it.  I'm no longer sure that talking about gardening is a cure for gardening, but as of this week I think it's a cure that a person can overdose on.  I hit the "snooze for a month" button.

So I'm trying to keep myself busy with other things.  Yesterday I decided to tear the bed apart and wash it all.  Not only did this give me something to do but the challenge of getting the duvet back into it's cover gave me some exercise for the day.  My longings for spring didn't go away though.  As I finished up the job and was fluffing the pillows back into place I sighed knowing that this job was only half done.  No bed is totally fresh unless everything has been hung out on the clothes line to dry ... and that won't be for another month, at least.

I'm so done, Mother Nature.  So done.

                            BUT IT'S A DRY COLD!

"It's a dry cold!' 

And it surely is.  Dry.  Very very dry.

Take it from someone who just spent five weeks at the ocean's edge where the humidity never went lower that 50% even though it only rained twice in that whole time.  The mornings tended to be shrouded in mist, anything left outside overnight would be wet with dew.  The sun is brutal, but the air is sweet.

So.  Here we are back in Canada, where as promised, it is cold.  And as an added bonus (they say) it's a dry cold.  Breathing this cold, dry air is killing me.

I first noticed how unpleasant the air was on the never-ending return flight across the Pacific Ocean.  Having done this trip three times now, I am well educated in the unpleasant aspects of 15 hour flights: the discomfort of an economy sized seat, the lack of opportunity to move or stretch, the total distortion of day and night as you fly across multiple time zones.  Add to this list the "conditioned" air and you have a perfect picture of human suffering.  Well, that and the food they serve you; that's a story in itself.

By the time we landed in Vancouver my happy, healthy, moist nasal passage ways were beginning to protest their harsh treatment.  I felt all stuffed up and when I tried to inhale it sounded like someone had stuck a whistle up my nose.  Kinda felt like it too ... pretty darned sore and scratched up.

I didn't have much time to think about it though as there was just barely enough time to make it through customs and check in for our next flight.  We traded our huge 777 for a little puddle jumper and British Columbia's rain for Regina's frozen wasteland.  Upon arrival we put on our winter gear and were chauffeured home in the zombie-like state of been-awake-and-travelling/waiting/travelling-for-35-hours.  We managed some conversation - not sure if I remember much of what was said.

There was soup on for supper.  The dog showed mixed emotions to see us - were really home to stay?  The person who had made to soup had also turned up the furnace and vacuumed up a month's worth of dead winter flies - all were very much appreciated.  It left me with only one very important thing to do: fill the humidifier and set the controls to FULL BLAST.

Even though the water is going down in the reservoir I am unconvinced that there is any more moisture in the air than there was 24 hours ago.  My nasal passages have yet to detect any relief.  In Australia the grandkids had this sweet little spray bottle/fan, a kind of portable cooling device.  I sure could use one or two of them blowing continually in my face at the moment.  I could live with the cool if I could only have the moist.

We are currently in day two of jetlag recovery.  Step one was to stay up until at least it was dark outside so our bodies (which were exhausted) and our brains (that play a part in trying to keep days and nights going in the correct order) had something they could agree on.  Night #1 was pretty successful; except for an hour about midnight we slept around the clock making Day#1 seem like it was normal too.  I foolishly congratulated myself on how well that went, thinking the pain was all over.  Then came Night #2.

Bed time was normal - on the CST clock.  We went to sleep as usual.  And then we woke up ... at midnight.  This time there was no going back to sleep for about four hours, which is totally reasonable considering in Sydney, NSW it was only 5:00 in the afternoon.  After finally getting about 3.5 hours of sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed to show our bodies it was, indeed, morning.  We will try to readjust our internal clocks again tonight.  I think I purposely blot out how long this takes every time just out of self preservation.

But meanwhile those sleepless midnight hours give me lots of time to think.  About what to write in this blog.  About how I want to make a photo album with all the pictures we took.  About getting back into the swing of things ... meetings, appointments, commitments. 

And about how when they reassure you that "It's a dry cold!" they make it sound like it's the cold part that's most difficult to deal with.  With every breath I could feel the delicate skin inside my nose cracking open, the tiny hairs clogged with brittle, scratchy nose debris.  I know that my hard-won suntan will flake off and be gone almost instantly.

It's cold alright, but nothing we can't handle.  It's annoying to have to put on so many layers of clothing after wearing nothing but shorts and sun dresses for a whole month, but I can take annoying.  It's the 'dry' part I`m finding painful.

                      A DIFFERENT WORLD

I know we are all on the same planet.  I know that everywhere a person goes, and what ever the lifestyle of the people who live there, these places and people are in their own normal just as we are.  It’s such a rewarding experience to be able to stay in a new place long enough to soak in these outside-the-box daily details.  That’s what five weeks can do ... it’s the difference between being tourists (who never really get past being outside observers) and visitors (who have become pretty much locals with our morning walks along the sea wall).  The local hardware store is about to name us their most regular customers as well.  There’s been a home improvement project to keep one of the visitors busy or he might have gone a bit squirrelly.

But, as our time in this pretty place comes to an end, I’m struck with how many ways it is different from what our usual normal is, even if we are on the same planet.

For starters there are the tides.  Ocean tides.  Not much call for prairie people to think about them, but here, every time we go for a walk the water is a different depth.  Sometimes it’s lapping waves over the top of the sea wall, sometimes small sand beaches have been exposed and moms have brought their young children down for a cool off swim.  Sometimes the water level is somewhere in between and I wonder if the tide is in the process of ebbing or flowing at that moment?  In the mystical dance between the moon and the oceans, whose turn is it to lead?  At Ettalong beach the other day there was no wondering at all - we could see the water pushing in.  As a general rule Australians are powerful swimmers: they need to be.

There is also this small thing of them driving on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car.    We visiting Canadians are exclusively passengers here (even though I have tried to get into the driver’s door on a couple of occasions, I assure you it was by accident). They tell me that it’s not so strange.  That either way - our “keep right” policy or their “keep left” one, the drivers are always in the middle of the road.  All I can say is I might get the hang of driving straight down a road (and a straight road is pretty hard to come by here) but turning a corner would undo me.  It would be a natural instinct to keep right no matter how wrong that was.

Then there’s the birds.  Exotic parakeets and cockatoos are everywhere.  Ibis wander the water’s edge looking elegant.  Cuckoo birds live up to their name with a call that sounds like demented laughter, and some of their pigeons look like they are forever experiencing bad hair days.  The ones we hear the most though have to be related to our crows.  They look the part but instead of the hoarse, grumpy challenge of the North American bird, these guys sound depressed and despondent.  Maybe it’s the heat.  I’d be depressed too if I had to wear black in this heat.

Another thing that we have been trying to get straight is our sense of direction.  It’s trickier than you think.  We’re on the other side of the equator, remember.  Moss grows on the SOUTH side of the trees.  I think I’ve asked which direction we are walking nearly every day.  Finally we’ve come up with a sure fire way to tell ... the solar panels on peoples’ roofs will be facing NORTH to catch the most sun.  And yes, I am aware that sounds completely wrong.  Deal with it: I have to.

And on a more personal note, another sign that we are in a different world is that all these walks I’ve been talking about - we have been taking them together.  The Farmer even calls them “romantic” walks when he asks me if I want to go to the hardware store with him again.  At home he is unlikely to walk across the yard with me, so this definitely weird, even if it’s on the same planet.

A Day in the City

For a little country girl such as myself there are many different things to think about than just spiders and snakes ... although walking into a random web in the dark does incite a whole alternate perspective than doing the same thing in  Canada.  With one I go “Gross!  Gross!  Gross!”  I hate the webs worse than their makers at home.  With the other my heartbeat kicks it up a notch and I think “Where is the bugger, and what does he look like?”  But, so far, so good.  No anti venom needed.

There are also the different perspectives of very rural - what I’m used to - and very urban.  I spent a good part of today seeing a world renown city through the eyes of a country girl.

For starters, even though we are only an hour from Sydney’s city center we did not drive there; that would just have been silly.  We boarded a train, sat back and relaxed while the well oiled wheels of mass transit took care of the trip.  No traffic worries.  No parking problems.  A wonderful view of the Opera House when we crossed the Harbour Bridge.  Who could ask for anything more?

Next was the tour of the Queen Victoria Building.  Built in the 1800’s to be a shopping center and refurbished in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s for the same purpose.  The architecture is beautiful, the patterned tile floors and three story stained glass windows are exquisite.  The shopping was out of our league there though - shops selling estate jewelry, art work with price tags starting in the four digit range and climbing, dress shops displaying only twenty or so examples of their designer wares.  Even a cup of breakfast tea was $18.00: we passed.

Where we did spend our time and money was on the street malls.  As has happened with many city centers, certain sections of streets have been closed to traffic so that pedestrians can wander from store to store (in Australia it is from shop to shop) without the hindrances of traffic or traffic lights.  A single food court with more ethnic options than I’ve ever thought about serves the whole area.  Here and there are street buskers selling their pencil drawings or singing for pocket change.  Some shop signs are names I know, some I’ve never heard of.  The ones I know are the ones that surprise me; being so far from home I seem to expect everything to be different.

As the day wore on it was only the teenager who felt she hadn’t spent enough money.  Or maybe she just had more energy.  At any rate her mother and grandmother found themselves a shady place to sit as she investigated more shops.  To the uneducated eye our seating arrangements were blocks or balls of concrete seemingly scattered helter skelter along the edges of former streets.  Anyone who pays attention to world news stories knows that they really are strategically placed crowd protectors should evil climb into a truck and try to mow down as many innocent bystanders as possible in a bid to be the leading news story for the next day or two.  When they first became necessary these terroist deterants were huge and ugly but city planners have now integrated them into street furniture, a very smart move.  People appreciate the seating, and achieving this safety feature without constantly reminding the public of the danger they are in makes for more leisurely shopping.

It got me thinking about where I was, though.   When I’m watching the news in my safe little living room at home the horror stories they tell are worlds away.  No terrorist is ever going to target a tiny prairie town; how safe I am!

The shoe was on the other foot today.  I was on an open street shopping mall in a famous city.  I travelled there and back on mass transit.  While we were buying my ticket for the ride home four policemen quietly raced through the station presumably answering an urgent call we never heard about.  Was it a false alarm?  Or something so serious the public was better off not knowing about it? That probably is over the top paranoia, but like I said ... it got me to thinking.

At the end of the day I was struck with the irony of it all: here I am on guard for poisonous spiders and snakes when the most dangerous animal on the planet is the two legged kind.

Road Warriors

The Australians are trying to show the Canadians as much about this country as they can while we’re here.  Considering it’s actually a complete continent all by itself makes the job a bit daunting.  There is no way, even if we spent our entire five weeks touring, that we could begin to take it all in.  None the less, we have covered some of the basics.

The first time we visited they took us camping starting from their home a lovely little seaside town, climbing winding, curving roads up away from the ocean to the tablelands inland.  Flatlanders such as ourselves are both inspired by the steepness of the roads (and drop-offs from the roadsides) and a smidge terrified of the possibility of weak brakes.  We drove through farmland and vineyards, ending up at a place called Bourke, which is where the land changes over from useful farmland to desert outback.  The dirt is rust red, you’d never think it could grow anything but when the rains come it does.

Our second trip over here we all flew across the continent to Broome.  There are two ex-pat Canadians in the family in Australia and they couldn’t live farther apart - kind of like one living in Halifax and the other in Prince George, BC.  This put us farther north and in hotter weather.  The temperatures were really high and the humidity was off the scale but they have a place called Cable Beach ... miles of sand and sea, impressive tides, and I can say I have stood in the Indian Ocean, taken a sunset camel ride, and watched crocs sunning themselves along a river’s edge ... from a bridge above ... no need to get any closer!

So here we are on trip #3.  The plan this time was a camping trip to the south, where it would be cooler.  We only had seven days and nights but judging by the number of pictures I have taken we crammed a lot into that time.  We took the coastal highway and drove over where they had to build a sea bridge because the road continually washed into the ocean.  We stopped at a lookout and watched as people parasailed off the cliffs.  We had a picnic lunch at an inland spot where the kids paddle wheeled to burn off energy.  There were places where pools had been built into the shoreline so that the tides wash in and refresh the water and a place where the surf roars through tunnels in the rock and blows water meters into the air.

And that was just the first day.

After two nights near the ocean we went inland for a farmstay.  The land looks strange - alien, even - very hilly, the grass bleached to a pale yellow, great gum (eucalyptus) trees, mis-shapened by the winds, dark green against the background, and weird eruptions of rock jutting out of the ground - souvenirs of volcanoes from eons ago.  It looks like a harsh place to live and yet the place where we stayed had rose gardens so it must be more hospitable than it looks.

The weather cooled with some rain as we headed back to the coast for our last three nights.  Australia is one gigantic island so the beaches never end.  The one we discovered on our last day was perfection .... a mile of fine sand littered with sea shells and rocks polished smooth by the surf.  The water was crystal clear.  At the far end the beach ended in volcanic rock formations: the kids climbed them, we explored them, the surf pounded them.  If I ever win the lottery I would love to build a beach house on the dunes above that beach.

Yesterday was a marathon drive home but we made it and today I have been sorting through my photos, amazed at how much we crammed into such a short time.  From here on the pace will slow down, there will be morning walks along the sea wall, more watching the kids surf, and at least a little checking Facebook to see what kind of cold we are managing to miss at home.