Picking up the Pieces.

Life on this side of the ocean continues at its merry pace.

We are trying to pick up the pieces of our previous life.  On the weekend we went out to a downtown pub and spent a wonderful evening reminiscing with friends and listening to songs from a bygone era.  We had an evening of live entertainment - sort of Gordon Lightfoot style - singing along with Pat Hewitt, a chiropractor by day and a guitar playing wonder at night.  Probably in his late fifties, armed with a mean guitar,computer acoustics and great vocals and repertoire - singing all those old fashioned songs from the seventies - "Cecilia" got me going again... just like it did when I was 17. He played a whole lot of Bob Dylan, Eagles, Who, Mamas & Papas, and moved onto the 80's and 90's as well.   Really good evening.

Had a Doha moment here - a really frustrating experience trying to get my Ontario drivers licence - went first time and hit a line up of 60 people ahead of me, all milling around in hopeful agitation.  I couldn't stand the thought of wading through that level of bureaucracy.  Returned a second time (at an earlier time) and found 86 people clutching their little paper number - couldn't handle it - walked right out. Got up at the crack of dawn - got there 30 min before the doors opened and still found I was number 8 in the line up. Waited 45 minutes to be served - of course, only one person at a bank of counters....just after I went up about 6 more tellers arrived to start serving the poor saps who had gathered in hordes behind me. Found out later that they had just been on strike for 4 months and hence the fat lip - probably didn't get the deal they were looking for, so onto a little bit of sabotaging methinks.

On a positive note - I am trying to rid myself of my magpie tendencies - I have hoarded stuff for years, so in our room by room endeavour to clean up, tidy up and otherwise fix up, I am trying hard to get rid of "stuff". Celebrated the dumping of curtains that I had brought from South Africa to Canada 23 years ago - whoopee!! Now if I can just close my eyes and throw the detritus from the following 23 years, I will have achieved something!!

Couch Potato Talk

Let's talk about tv - we watch it every night - what a terrible habit, but it is so easy - shifts you into escape mode and you can veg your way through the evening.  But I am really frustrated and fidgety with tv in Canada.  We thought Doha had scant programs to view, but coming home has been an eye opener - reruns everywhere, 8 minutes of show then 4 or 5 minutes of adverts of the most inane type - self-important bozos strutting their stuff trying to exhort you to buy their often useless product.  And all those reality shows - not sure I want to watch non-actors perform hum-drum daily activities engaging in prattle of the pathetic or boring sort.  And we can't find any decent movie channel either. 

So to stop the whine refrain, we spent some time last night going online to try to change things on a complicated website that was hard to navigate.  We also wanted to install our PRV box from Calgary (paid $500 for the thing and used it for about 6 months before mothballing it)  Of course, this means an in person visit that we now have to wait for.  But this is the funniest of all - they make it sound like they are really customer friendly - start off by saying: "When would it be convenient for us to call you?" and you get ready to specify a time, but with the next click of the button your choices are: 1. between 8am and 12 and then 2. between 12pm and 5.   Wonderful choices those!  If you are a working individual you just get to use a vacation day, I suppose.  But one has to wonder - at whose convenience is this????

And I guess this is what they call service:  bash your way through the jungle of non-human voices telling you to choose which service, spend 5 minutes tapping phone buttons in a desparate attempt to find a real person who can be of real help.  Finally make it to the real rep, only to discover he is sitting in India and doesn't really understand what you're asking.  Then get to the aha moment when you think your request will be approved and then it's: "we can come next week, but only between 8 and 12 or 12 and 5 - what would be convenient?"       Convenient he says?  Really, convenient?? 

The best part of this tale: even though our PRV box from Calgary is absolutely the same PRV box in Burlington - it cannot be installed ..... because it's from Calgary.  If we want to skip the adverts and only sit and watch the shows we really want - yes, you guessed it: we will have to spend another $500 for the privilege.  What happened to us being Canada - from sea to shining sea?  These are somewhat like my Doha moments.

We should just go cold turkey and give up on this tv watching thing.

Buzz, buzz.

We have taken our first stroll around a couple of very Canadian stores and then into Chapters - the biggest bookstore chain in Canada. How different from Doha, where Virgin may have provided two shelves of English books and Jarir not much more. I loved being amongst the books again, wandering the aisles for at least an hour, drinking in my fill after a long, dry drought. Picking up brand new novels, reading the back cover and moving on to the next - could have spent all day there. So many books, so many to choose from.  And only bought a few - I am cutting back on my addiction.

Not much to do here in Burlington that we haven't done before - nothing exotic, nothing daring - not like the expat wife life at all - I can see I am going to be bored out of my tree before long - work will probably be a bit of an escape.  So in the very near future I will have to start applying for jobs, doing the interview thing, waiting, and worrying about whether I am acceptable or not.  Although, have to say that husband is treading very lightly around me and has not mentioned the dreaded 'when will you go for an interview' sentence yet.  It's all enough to make me want to run right back to my little old peaceful life in Doha. 

There is always so much to do: fix this, clean that, go here, go there...and there is a never ending 'honey do' list to be completed. Never mind all the other buzz going on around us.  Even watching the news now matters - because they are making announcements about your own world - interest rates up, taxes up, politicians barking from left and right.  Demands from the world out there are making themselves known.

I am still revelling in the all the silence around me - no-one at home, everyone working like busy, productive bees out there and here is little old me... hibernating at the bottom of the beehive hoping no-one will notice one less worker bee.

I will have to make an effort to hop back on the world - can't have it turning without me!

The Cat is Out of the Bag.

It is 3am and I am jetlagged - the house is as still, and quiet as a mouse, and here I am - wide awake and rearing to go.

It still hasn't sunk in that we are actually at home - real home, that is.  Passport control, security and flights all went off without a hitch, except for Air Canada who, once again!, just before being able to board, said that someone had reallocated one of our seats and that we were now in 21 J and 51 J respectively. Patrick soon sorted them out and thank goodness we sat together. Of course, it was everyone else who had done the dirty deed - not them, despite the fact that Qatar Airways in Doha and Lufthansa said that AC would not allow them to enter their computer system to confirm our seats at the beginning of the trip.  It always happens with Air Canada - when will we just learn to avoid them?

I thought security through Doha airport was quite lax - I am relieved to say - they allowed Kitten Isha and its box to go through with me and then didn't check the cat box at all - I had put a box of cat litter and some food cans inside but they didn't seem to notice. Germany was a bit more careful - made me "take the cat out of the bag" and then searched the bag - they only found a used cat litter box so I got it back quite quickly.

We travelled on the 777 from Frankfurt to Toronto and must say they are really comfortable - even in the cattle truck in the back - we had enough space to actually take a brace position. Seats were comfortable and we were able to sleep quite well. Seems to be a very quiet aircraft as well.

The cat made it through Canadian customs with no hassles - the sympathy and cute factor kicked into play - the officers were more interested in cooing over a 6 week old kitten than anything else. And yes, cats under 3 months can come in without rabies clearance or other vaccinations - we breathed with relief as we trundled our baggage out into the very cold air.  I think I have become quite thin blooded as I am freezing - even inside the house so that we have had to bump the furnace up a few notches.

And finally - "the cat truly is out of the bag" - Patrick phoned the company in Doha and gave them his formal resignation.  We are free - or as free as we can define right now.

Still and All.

Here I am again - 3.30am and I am still up and about, but then I'll crash at 5pm, drag my butt up to bed at 10pm and then do the wide-eyed wonder at about 3am, again. This too shall pass.....

It is still freezing cold and I am not sticking my nose out in that stuff.  Even inside the house despite the furnace notched up, I am shivering - so it's on with another layer, and then shroud myself in a throw rug while I sit here tapping away at the keys.

The house is in utter chaos still - but I still don't care. I will be doing this one room at a time - so far I have managed to clear and organize the dressing room, and the second bathroom has got some loving attention - scratch the loving - just gritted my teeth, dug down deep, and scrubbed!  on Sunday I managed to clear and organize the dressing room, and yesterday spent 2 or 3 hours in the laundry - I have now reclaimed both and know what's in there.  We are painting a bedroom on the weekend - can't wait so that we can get some of the furniture stacks out of some of the rooms and then we can maybe stop climbing over boxes and furniture to get to our bed as well.  We look like a second hand furntiture store right now.

The joys of homecoming....

waiting while the world goes by...

Batten Down the Hatches.

The last few months have been somewhat harrowing and we both have a lot more grey hair to prove it. I think we have had enough of change to last a long time - we both just want to settle down, get our house in order, our lives back on track, and start breathing easy again. Living in foreign lands is always a wrench and always presents difficulties, but the Middle East, I think, was what ex-pats consider to be a "hardship placement". I am sure we would never return to live there ..... maybe somewhere else, but not anytime soon! I think our attitude now is going to be "batten down the hatches" and wait out any wild waters in a safe and balmy cove called Burlington.

We are home now - safe and sound. We are going to miss some aspects of life as ex-pats - our solid friendships that we formed along the way, most of all - although we fully intend for them to continue with correspondence and visits now and then. We will miss some of the adventures - walking in the souq, watching camel races, walking the corniche, eating labneh, listening to the calls to prayer every day, the laid back weekends, no maintenance on home, cleaning service and help, and give your head a shake moments. I personally will miss my retirement. The adventures we won't miss - you guessed it - driving in Doha, and also Ramadan rules, no holding hands in public, and .... give your head a shake moments.

A small tidbit:  A bit of baggage we picked up along the way - as those of you who have read the Qatar blog already  know: In the middle of all of the packing up and winding down of affairs, we happened on a little black kitten on the side of a 3 lane highway that we rescued on Boxing Day - just three weeks old. I don't know sometimes.... but how could we leave him knowing that he would be dead within minutes, if we just passed him by? After much ado - State of Qatar certification, vet certification, airline approval - we had an extra passenger with us on our flight. He has already been adopted by his real parents and is living the life of bliss in a warm and safe home in Canada. He is a tiny little thing with very little fur - being a desert cat I suppose. Good karma for us, at least.

We hope to speak to and/or see all of you over the next little while. Thank you for staying in touch with us while we were on our little adventure. With all of our family and friends old and new, scattered across the four corners of the world, I am resolved to staying in touch.  This is the start of my Canadian blog - it may not contain quite so many weird, bizarre, exciting or curious notes, but I intend to try to keep it up. For those of you who live in Canada - some of it will seem old hat, but will maybe give us an opportunity to connect, to think, and certainly to laugh about ourselves and the world we live in. For those of you in South Africa, USA, Europe, Australia, Ecuador and now Qatar - you might hear about something new or weird or wonderful. Whatever it may be, we hope to stay in touch with each and every one of you.

Here's to the future - whatever it may hold.

Home James.

The 'daptable duo' have landed back on familiar soil,
back in our home town
and back in our old house.

We are exhausted from moving.
We are stressed from uncertainty.
We are frazelled with airlines, airports and all things connected to air,
but
We are happy to be back
and reconnecting with our old life.

Here's to our girls and to our old friends
and here's hoping the rollercoaster has finally 
reached its destination.