8th and 9th June
There was a Bill Reid exhibit in the airport, lovely airport with water and greenery. Bill Reid was a noted Haida artist.
Travelling home was straightforward. Everything went as expected except I had to sit next to an obnoxious git. His opener was “I am big, and I have to sit in your seat.” I told him that I’d selected my seat online and basically my answer was “no”. He grumbled on a bit, showing me his massive muscles and it’s quite true he was big but I wasn’t going to give in. He then had some fuss about where his bag was to be stowed and he gave in on that too. Basically he was all mouth, no trousers! At least he was wearing some! He then seemed to want to help me to use my multimedia controls. I probably can’t tell you how irritating this was. Only that morning I’d fixed Klaus’s computer, and I’d shown Bonnie how to do various techy things on her tablet, business as usual. After a bit we just ignored each other. It was very cold on the plane, I wore all the clothes I had plus 2 blankets. I watched the film Jackie about Mrs JFK, not very good. Slept a tiny bit with a blanket over my head. Got the evening meal early because special, not great. Had a free lager and a malt whisky to help me sleep.
I still can’t figure out the time stuff and maybe I lost half a day or maybe I lived it twice. I got home about 8.30 in the evening and it was lovely to be back. I’ve slept well since returning and don’t appear to be jet lagged, am a bit tired and glad to be sleeping a bit better. Bonnie and Klaus’s condo didn’t exactly relax me with them in the room next door with their door wide open.
I had thought that this trip would be a form of punctuation in my bereavement but really it hasn’t changed a thing except maybe brought it all into closer focus. There were things I saw and did that resonated very strongly for me in terms of my relationship with Chris. At times the intensity of feeling almost had me in pieces.
At least the trip removed me from worrying about my job situation and one thing that’s very positive is that I feel confident I can deal with the outcome whatever it is. I will be angry if I am made redundant or messed around more than I have been already, but there’s a lot more to life than Bradford uni.
And did I say? Everything in Canada is very big!!
Some things I noticed:
- There are an awful lot of cedar hedges around private homes in Vancouver.
- House construction consists of a wooden internal frame where we would have breeze blocks.
- I saw a lot of female public gardeners and a lot of gardeners generally.
- Also a lot of female road construction stop/go sign twirlers.
