I think I’m running about a week behind schedule. Right now I’m on a plane from Victoria back to Edmonton and I’ve just realized I’ve spent the last 15 minutes planning exactly what I want to do when I get to Victoria. Where I’ve just been. The horrifying realization has popped into my head that I had all these grand plans stored somewhere in my head and forgot about them all until it was too late.
I must have been more stressed than normal approaching this trip. It didn’t really feel that way, but this flight (10 days into my holiday) feels like the first time I’m ready to start having fun. Too bad I have to be on a plane to London in less than four days.
I had a pleasant enough visit with everyone, but it felt in retrospect like I spent an inordinate amount of time watching bad television.
Victoria’s a beautiful, laidback city. I should have tried harder to fit in. Why didn’t I spend more time sitting in coffee shops swathed in polar fleece and goretex? Why didn’t I steal more flowers from stranger’s yards? Why didn’t I go to Wings night at the Swiftsure? Why didn’t I visit my friend Heather on her allegedly gorgeous, albeit steep farm? Why didn’t I go sea-kayaking? Why didn’t I smoke any drugs? Why the Hell didn’t I write a single word while I was there?
I guess it wasn’t a complete disaster. I did go running along the seawall a couple of times. Played a few sets of tennis. Spent some quality time with the maternal familial line. I quite like the West Coast branch of my family. My maternal grandmother is roughly 2000 years old and is as spry and enthusiastic as toddler. It must run in the family. My mother seems to have stopped aging about fifteen years ago. And then there’s my Aunt Wendy’s family who are just cool, generous, lovely people. My aunt in a particular is a delight. She belches louder than any human being I've met, possibly louder than any other land mammal.
I can see the praires through the airplane window now. It may seem odd to some but they always fill my heart with an enormous sense of homecoming. It hits me even stronger when I'm driving. Every time I spend a while cooped up by those damn mountains and then slide down the foothills into the praires the openness hits me with a big 'whump' and my eyes fill with silly sentimental tears.
Sure is ugly though.
Oh well, time to deplane.