I haven’t blogged in a while. Every time I think about updating my blog I realize that I don’t really have anything earth shattering to say. I guess that must mean that we’ve settled into a happy, routine life. I follow a few blogs, one of them nauseatingly irritating due to an exceptional high level of daily “pat me on the back’s” and that’s the last thing that I would want to do. Who cares what I do every day? Just because blogging is the in thing, doesn’t mean that everyone wants to read about you (or me). Anyway, here’s an update on the last few months (just in case you were wondering)…
I last wrote in October so I’ll try and think about interesting and poignant things that have happened since. I turned 36 in November. It’s actually a nice number and I don’t mind at all being on the closer side to 40; my 30s have been tough years. At some point I thought that I may be having an almost-mid-life-crisis but quickly realised that I just hate my job that I love. Explaining that would be tedious and not something I choose to put in writing at this time.
December brought the long-expected visit of Cherise and Simon and a very well deserved break from the love that I hate but love. Work over the preceding months had been more stressful than ever before mostly due to a nasty client and incredibly bad preparation in a project that ended up becoming my problem. I loved having Cherise and Simon see our life, meet our friends and just enjoyed being together. I loved waking them up in the mornings. I loved seeing them lounging around. We did little more than relax, eat and catch up. Knowing that Toronto would never be their first destination of choice I was so grateful that we were reason enough to spend the money and time.
We took our own holiday shortly after Cherise and Simon went home to South Africa. We travelled to Mexico and spend a fantastic week or so in Playa Del Carmen. It was just what we needed, sun, the pool and a constant flow of alcohol. Did I mention that we were drunk before we even reached the hotel and remained that way for the entire duration of the trip?
Our second winter in Toronto has been a breeze (or maybe a slight chill). We barely had any snow until February and it all seems to be over already. I must be honest; I think I would have preferred a little more snow. It’s pretty and makes winter “feel like winter”. But I’m ok with the fact that its over. Keith has bought himself a 32-foot sailboat and I’m looking forward to being ferried privately to and from the island.
As I write this I am looking at a snoring Dexter with a bruised leg and slice from knee to ankle. Poor guy tore his cruciate ligament in his right leg two years ago and had major surgery to correct it just before we emigrated. Surgery involved removing the damaged ligaments, breaking the leg (or rather cutting through the bone) and attaching a steel plate and 8 screws to realign his two leg bones (femur and tibia). The recovery was slow and long, involving 4 months of restricted activity and rehab. Those months of relying on the good leg resulted in the other cruciate tearing a few months ago. We tried conservative treatment of rest and anti-inflammatories because I didn’t want to put him through another surgery but it was inevitable. He had his $4000 (things really are so much more expensive here) surgery last Friday and so far is doing really well. He really is a trooper, seems to be relatively pain-free and resolved to the fact that he will need to heal for a while. Our house isn’t as contusive to this kind of rehab as was our house in Johannesburg because of all the stairs, which means that I have to carry him up and down. But in a few months I know he will be jumping around as if nothing had ever happened.
Daniel came to visit last weekend. What a treat and I was so grateful that he would happily hop on a plane arriving Friday night and leaving Sunday just to come and spend some time with me in between his business in the US. Daniel and I have always travelled well together, we’ve done Sydney, London and other fun things (even a Hindu wedding in Durban where I had to put out so that we had a place to sleep) and rarely tire of each other. We walked around Toronto, we ate and went to gym and we caught up.
I think it’s time to wrap things up. I’ll end with good news. We finally became permanent residents last week. While in the grand scheme of things it was relatively quick and painless, it felt long and painful for us. We are one final step towards Canadian citizenship and that feels really cool.
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