At the amber light

Hello everyone. After a few days off from writing, I'm back off the piste. This week has been pretty quiet, days settling into something resembling normal life. But that's all stopping as of tomorrow, when Jade and I will haul ourselves up at some unearthly hour to catch a bus to Montreal. Incidentally, in the time it will take us to travel by coach, anyone of you could fly from London to the same place, or Toronto, and beat us to it. I'm really looking forward to seeing another city, but sad to be leaving Canadiana hostel. It's really felt like a home for the last few weeks. But I always like to stick to my rule of leaving whilst you're still having a good time, as everyone knows there's nothing worse than ending up as the permanent fixture. There are a few of those here, and mostly, they're a little on the odd side of crazy.

I had another day of feeling incredibly lucky to be doing what I'm doing yesterday. At work I had a really humbling conversation with a new lady whose first day it was. She had moved to Toronto with her husband and children from the Philippines last year, and we were talking visas and arriving in new lands. She was glad she was here for her kids, but I had the impression she was unsure of being here herself. They had to wait 4 years to have their visa approved. I almost didn't want to say how easy it had been to get mine sorted. And I know that had I gone straight through the normal embassy methods I might still be on a 2-year list, but I didn't. I was offered a last minute one that I took on a snap decision for relativly little cost, financial or otherwise. And whilst she and her husband have both got quite low-paying jobs out of necessity, I'm picking and choosing where I work, and when and really, doing what I want. The ease and independence of it all was something so surprising to her, and good for me to see it from another set of eyes. It reinforced it for me that this is not something to be wasted or taken for granted.

Last night was awesome :-) Nothing out of the ordinary, just the regular Thursday night at Republik, the crappy little club round the corner, but one for which the saying "people not the place" might have been invented.