This is the scene as I walk near our apartment. Inhospitable Arctic tundra I hear you remark... and you'd be right about the landscape. Amazingly, amid all this ice and snow, beat warm and friendly hearts. The Canadians I have met make me very welcome indeed and show me a great deal of interest.
The landscape on Prince Edward Island is like no other. The earth is brick red, the fields a deep green and the sky a rich blue. The light is piercingly clear and the air crisp and clean. Entertainment is simple and life is slower and more leisurely than in the bustling cosmopolitan cities I grew used to. Potatoes and grain are grown at breakneck speed during the brief summer months before winter's white cloak descends.
This small island has far more than its fair share of poets, writers and musicians. Something about the remoteness and the isolation makes your thoughts turn inwards to seek creativity there. You are never more than a few minutes from the sea and the wind is a constant reminder of that. In summer the blue waves crash in white foam on the pink sand. In winter the slabs of ocean ice buckle and slide, locking the land in an icy embrace. Summer is hot but too short and winter is long but too cold.
The regular forecast in January is from minus fifteen to minus twenty and the windchill factor lowers the temperature to minus thirty. Previously an ardent disbeliever in hats, I have at last started wearing my tuque and even donning my warm padded coat without complaint. Recently I invested in a pair of gloves. I am becoming a Canadian.
All I need now is my residency permit.
The landscape on Prince Edward Island is like no other. The earth is brick red, the fields a deep green and the sky a rich blue. The light is piercingly clear and the air crisp and clean. Entertainment is simple and life is slower and more leisurely than in the bustling cosmopolitan cities I grew used to. Potatoes and grain are grown at breakneck speed during the brief summer months before winter's white cloak descends.
This small island has far more than its fair share of poets, writers and musicians. Something about the remoteness and the isolation makes your thoughts turn inwards to seek creativity there. You are never more than a few minutes from the sea and the wind is a constant reminder of that. In summer the blue waves crash in white foam on the pink sand. In winter the slabs of ocean ice buckle and slide, locking the land in an icy embrace. Summer is hot but too short and winter is long but too cold.
The regular forecast in January is from minus fifteen to minus twenty and the windchill factor lowers the temperature to minus thirty. Previously an ardent disbeliever in hats, I have at last started wearing my tuque and even donning my warm padded coat without complaint. Recently I invested in a pair of gloves. I am becoming a Canadian.
All I need now is my residency permit.
6 comments:
Indeed. Welcome home babe.
And happy one year anniversary :)
congratulations to you mate for finding the one thing we all seek, happiness. humans exist every where so no surprsises about the inhospitable clime. canada is fantastic, i have been there.great place.
i wish you both all the luck in the world especially now at this time of year but even in spite of that may whatever god you believe in bless you both.
Very well written. It showed in my mind like a thorough pan of a camera.
You've learned something there in that frozen friendly land, Love is like the mail; neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, can ever slow it down.
Here's to a round of happiness to us all, and here's hoping that the one who will deliver your freedom papers is now just outside your door.
MD - thanks and here's to many more.
(Hey, have you borrowed my new hat again!)
CJ - thanks mate! Then you'll know exactly what I mean, the weather is an integral part of life here. BTW you reminded me of Dave Allen for a minute! Remember how he used to raise an amber glass and close his monologues, with the phrase "may your god go with you."
Neetee - thank you for your kind words, how beautifully said. Yes, a round of happiness all round! I'm keeping a beady eye open for that postman right now!
Aahh yes. Becoming canadian huh? or should I say eh?
I know the feeling. I am very swedish I think, everyone tells me so. I sicken myself sometimes and wonder where the American in me has gone. Then next thing I know I get irritated about something and out it comes full force..lol
Not the hat, PV, surely not the hat!!?? :P
Queen Neetee - Love IS like the mail - it stops coming when somebody goes on strike. HAHAHA! Gotta love the Royal Mail.
How reliable is the Canadian postal service?
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