March 2012

… the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll

I am aware of having turned a corner – of having reached a milestone – of having crossed the Rubicon… and – quite possibly – of other ‘travel’ related metaphors! Kickass Canada Girl is in Victoria and life has changed. It is time to emerge, blinking, into the light of a new day, to sniff the air and to take a first look around – though perhaps mixing Lewis Carroll and Kenneth Grahame is a step too far (on second thoughts, maybe not – I recommend to you Jackie Wullschlager’s excellent ‘Inventing Wonderland’).

It is six weeks now since I started this blog with no clear idea as to where it might lead or as to what it might include. The experience thus far has – for me at any rate – been most interesting and instructive. I thought it might be a good idea at this point to sit back and consider some of the topics that I intend to cover in the near future.

The Girl and I are currently having to jump through all of the usual administrative hoops associated with moving from one continent to another. The InterWebNet is a hugely valuable resource and I really do wonder how these things were done before its existence. I am currently watching Jeremy Paxman’s excellent (note: there are critics who disagree!) BBC documentary study of the age of Empire and I am struck by just how difficult it must then have been to perigrinate the globe the way we do now. It is quite extraordinary how much could be achieved with such rudimentary tools, and I can’t help thinking that we have lost vital skills whilst at the same time gaining much that is ephemeral. I sometimes wonder if the torrent of information through which we now wade is in fact more of a hindrance than a help. That might seem unlikely, but it has taken considerable effort on occasion to find answers relevant to my own questions. Having said that, if anything that I write should ever prove to be the slightest use to anyone following a similar path then I will be reassured that I am not simply adding to some gargantuan information landfill.

The Girl and I will be henceforth be engaged in what I believe is dysphemistically called a ‘long distance relationship’, the TLA for which is, of course, LDR. I have been reading up on LDRs (the InterWebNet is particularly fruitful on the subject, though much of it seems to be aimed at students who are separated academically) and I intend to pass on some of what I have gleaned. More pertinently I hope to discover whether any of the received wisdom actually works in practice.

I shall certainly at some point touch on retirement since I am aware that this too represents a major sea change and that there is much to be learned. My gut feeling is that retiring and moving continent at the same time will actually prove somewhat easier than doing so separately, but this of course remains to be seen.

I shall doubtless also engage in – and subsequently discourse upon – various displacement activities. Kickass Canada Girl – who is endlessly thoughtful and wise – gave me a Cajon kit before she departed. This – along with the new camera – will doubtless keep me out of trouble for a while at least.