ateabutnoe.com

It doesn’t take much effort, the blogging. But it certainly takes more than I’ve been able to spare these last few weeks so apologies for the scarcity of updates. My mental bandwidth has been maxed out with preparations for moving back to Canada, with work, selling my flat and visiting as many people as possible.

Now I’m in my empty, denuded flat and it’s only 3 days to go before I leave for Calgary and a whole new world. Let’s see what’s in my diary for this weekend…

Yeah - that’s about right!

In the last few weeks I’ve been on a grand tour through some of the most charming parts of this country. I finally made it up to Straiton in Ayrshire to see the magnificent Masons and their lovely collection of animals (ponies, sheep, chickens, cats and dogs with gorgeous puppies). I’ve also been to glorious Dorset (twice!), Oxford, Newmarket and assorted parts of Suffolk which has been a real treat. I had a leaving party at the wonderful South London Pacific last weekend and there’ll be TW drinks this Friday. At all these events I’ve been thinking of this as a chance to see people not as a time to say goodbye. Goodbye seems too terminal, too final when that simply isn’t the case. I may be moving to Canada for good but I still hope to come back for visits, to receive visitors in Canada and to stay in touch through the magic of the interwebs. So it’s not goodbye - this thing ain’t over - it’s much more like au revoir!

Throughout my recent tour of friends and family there’s been no escaping what a sensationally beautiful country this is, what great friends I have, and what a wonderful and caring family I am lucky enough to be a part of. I came back from Canada because I missed all of that. On coming back I found that all of that was as special and as important as I recalled but I realised that none of it mattered as much as being with Sara. I can leave now because I know exactly what it is I’m leaving behind. I’m going because I love her and I want to be with her, not because I don’t want to be here. It’s a hard thing to express but my cousin Catherine found that somebody else had already captured the emotion perfectly:

From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The weary Mole was also glad to turn in without delay, and soon he had his head on his pillow in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour….
…He saw clearly how plain and simple…it all was; but clearly too how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and it’s splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there: the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew that he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place that was all his own, these things that were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.