Maui to Canada to LA = Scorcio - il pleut - Scorcio

The last couple of months have been mad!

I was so fed up with not feeling control over my weight that I went to my doctor last March to discuss how he could help me. The good thing about the American health system is that you do get to see the doctors when you need to and there is little wait time when you are fully covered and there in lies the issue - When you have money and get the cover, it’s excellent (if a little too free with giving medication). It makes me feel disloyal about the NHS really- that’s what 10 years plus of conservative abuse does- it’s certainly not the NHS doctors fault is it? Anyway the US doctor gave me a list of possibilities and after a consultation, he gave me Phentamine. It’s a diet pill, which suppresses your appetite and is an amphetamine. I was nervous about taking it at first but was desperate. Despite the not sleeping properly at times, I feel so much better having lost more than 3 stone. I have been on it for over 6 months and am coming off it by halving my dose, but during that time my doctor suddenly decided to give up his practice! So I had to go about finding another doctor who is a lovely man but actually a bit more like an NHS doctor who is reluctant to give you anything (which is actually ok really) and won’t give me any more of it, but hopefully now I’ve been given a kick start I can keep it up. Ever the optimist. 😁

We had a pot luck at ceramics with everyone bringing in a variety of food. I brought in shepherds pie which was a hit. We also had a set of competitions, much like pottery Throwdown. We had to pair up by picking numbers from a hat and then throw a pot together using only one hand each. I picked a number which paired me with Mae, a 25 year old tattooed and pierced Canadian. She saw I had the same number and promptly went outside surreptitiously to ask to repick another number, thinking I wouldn’t find out…... What the heck I’d done to offend her I’ve no idea, but I think it was more about me being an old fart and she wanted to hang with the youngsters. Well f*** her, I thought! Determined not to be undone I worked with another girl called Michaela and came 4th, unfortunately being beaten by Mae and her new mate. For the next task I was on my own and we did a blindfold throw to see if who could get the highest pot. This time I beat her and came 3rd- 🥳🥳 In your face Mae! Later that month she left for another studio….There had been rumblings of descent since she left as the studio she went to is around $40 less a month and it’s larger - more like a warehouse. The fact that it has Mae there, puts me right off, but since I’ve been away the ceramics WhatsApp group is filled with people deciding they’d rather leave. After these 7 weeks I hope that some friends are still there when I get back from Canada…

During the summer the withdrawal from Afghanistan happened which can only be described as poorly thought out and executed, many people are very disappointed in Biden. Also Texas had their atrocious abortion ruling. Texas said they hoped the rest of the country would catch up with their progressive ruling- WTF! As many have said before me, this is like something out of The Handmaiden’s Tale and unthinkable in the UK. It is a backward step where the life of something which is barely a fetus at 6 weeks has more rights than the woman who has to carry that life and ironically Texas has no support system to help these single mothers or give support to women giving birth after being raped. It is truly horrific! We hold our breath as the very conservative Supreme Court decide whether to uphold their rulings. Florida of course is following suit- a place I’m never going to visit out of principle. All this time they are trying to convict the Jan 6th rioters whilst fox news presents the event as a group of people strolling through the capital saying it wasn’t a riot at all.

During this time, I debated coming off of facebook due to the whistle blower testimony which is big news here. Of course I love facebook, I love the chance to see family and friend’s news, I love the dance videos and dog pictures, but I came to the point when I wanted to be able to say that I wasn’t standing by and letting facebook behave in this way. Yes, it has been inconvenient, especially when I realised that some people were only contactable through messenger, but I’ve lived without it before…. And I’m taking it in baby steps as I still have Instagram! I realise this is owned by facebook too, but I need some social media….

Mark and I managed to get out to visit a few of LA museums this summer- the California Science Museum where we saw the Lego art exhibition which was amazing. Now I’m not a massive fan of lego, I mean I did use it a lot as a child but it does humour me when we used to see the lego stand at my local car boot sale , manned by a 50 year old man obsessed by it and really keen to geek out about it to whoever was interested. At the exhibition, there was the Mona Lisa, Van Gogh and many other famous art paintings, full sized dinosaurs and even a beautiful stain glassed window- all in lego bricks- Impressive. We also visited the Natural History museum which was by no means as good as our London version, but did have the most fantastic 3 hall display of a variety of T-Rex, velociraptors and others set up in active positions- amazing!

At the beginning of August we saw The Van Gogh experience. Alan our neighbour, has a floor laying business (Lino, carpet but mainly polished cement). And he had the job of laying all the floors for the exhibition hall. It was spectacular and the floor looked pretty good too.

Mark’s sales teams have a variety of reward trips for hitting their yearly numbers and so it was for that reason we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Maui for 10 days.

The people were great fun and it was 10 days of the pool, beach catamaran and kayak with snorkeling to see turtles.

We did loads of walking and swimming, but also ate and drank far too much!

I even took a ukulele lesson in Maui, which seemed like a good idea until I arrived and it was all 5-10 year olds. A mum took pity on me and joined me with a spare one. I’d been practicing the ukulele and said to Mark’s boss that I’d play and sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow at the final event, the Luau, to the 150 odd people there and in front of the professional Maui performers- it seemed like a good idea initially. I bottled out of playing the ukulele and convinced a couple of lovely young Blackliners to play, but I did sing - it went pretty well- well people seemed to like it… I was just glad when it was over and vowed not to promise anything while tipsy again…😆

When we got back from Maui, Rick and Alan wanted to perform our jam songs to our family and friends as Rick was moving permanently to South Carolina and it was the last time we’d play together. We did an hour set and didn’t make too many mistakes, but we all had a blast and wanted to do it again. I just loved that my guitar playing has improved so much- a long way to go though. When I get back I’m working on my electric guitar (and ukulele- if those 5 year olds can do it, I can!)

During the last few days of the Maui trip, the company lawyer who had been supposedly dealing with our visa renewal and green card, contacted us to say that we would have to leave the country to get our visa renewed. Why we are in this position is that they hadn’t pushed for the green card sooner and then did nothing until this year, meaning we’ve had to get a year renewal and then they’ll try for the green card. There is a little element that some of Marks HR team maybe feel it’s a privilege for us to be here….When anyone is like that, I want to say ‘stuff you’, but I won’t of course.

Anyway, due to ridiculous US regulations and the company lawyers ineptitude meant that we had to leave USA soil and go to another country for a number of weeks- this all seemed a revelation to the lawyer- we discovered by our own investigations that this was normal practice for renewal of visas but not green cards. At the time (end of Sept) we couldn’t get back to the UK, so the best option was Canada if they opened their border to the Brits (they’d already opened to the largely unvaccinated Americans of course- wtf!)

What annoyed me the most about this whole thing is the way the HR team just sort of shrugged their shoulders at the fact that we had to leave our home and it may be 2 months before we would be allowed to get back in and then left us to organize it all. Mark even had a word with his head of HR(who’d been round our house for dinner- never again I say!) who when Mark said we didn’t want to have to do it again in a years time, said in her arrogant American way, ‘well you may have to’….. I won’t say what I said when he got off the phone.

Now don’t get me wrong, we’ve had a truly wonderful time in Canada, but we’re not telling them that!!!

We hired a large car, vaccinated the dogs for everything known to man or dog, packed everything we thought we’d need for 2 months, gave my notice into the food bank, put my temp notice for my ceramics class, postponed my gym membership, got 2 months of prescriptions, set up our watering system so our plants didn’t die, booked our apartment in Vancouver, worked out our driving route and booked 3 hotels for our journey of 1,300 miles over 3 1/2 days. I was on track and on top of it all, until I got to the vets and the technician said that we’d have to organize a pet passport which would take 2 weeks. She was wrong of course but my well oiled machine and excel spreadsheet couldn’t cope with that and I had to choke back frustrated tears. - Straw/camel!

Canada opened its borders and we set off and made our way over the 3 days past San Francisco into the desert of Sacramento and above into the wide forests of Oregon where I can well believe Big Foot exists and into Washington State and through beautiful Seattle…… what a country?

It’s limitless; we were blown away. I mean you see it on the map but to experience a road going through a dense forest which last 6+ hours with no internet reception and only a few shack restaurants and gas stations is something to experience; to look across vast flat desert like landscapes and see nothing but your winding road with a few lorries on it for hours, is daunting and breathtaking. This land is huge and so full of possibilities. We were both amazed by it and loved the journey.

We arrived in Vancouver and saw water everywhere, all around us and from the sky too. Even at night it’s a beautiful city. The apartment was in Yaletown which is a gentrified and residential area of Vancouver right by the marina and 3 waterfront parks. We parked the car 6 floors down below the apartment then did 3 trips up and down getting our stuff to the 8th floor. The dogs hated the elevators initially with Lulu getting low down with her legs spread out, but by the 6th week she was an old hand.

So the apartment was all open plan with 2 bedrooms and bathroom. It had a balcony with actual trees in the raised bedding! We immediately loved it.

The next day we walked the sea wall with the dogs looking at the bridges and marinas and parks- all beautiful. There was a roof top pool and jacuzzi, an artisan coffee shop at the entrance to the building and a small farmers grocery store next to it. No point to drive anywhere!

Then Arthur, Max and Dani arrived. We were so happy. Each day was wonderful and we got on so well, even cramped inside the flat. We were so lucky with the weather - it was glorious most days, after a bit of rain.

We walked everywhere and also took the aquabus along the marina front to the

Aquarium, Arthur loved the snake especially and Science museum where It was perfect for little ones adventurous spirit and Granville island where there is a food market similar to (but bigger than) Camden market, where there is every different type of food to eat- heaven!

We also travelled to Victoria via car and ferry and stayed at the Victorian styled Empress Fairmont. My Mum and Dad had bought me Empress gin many moons ago and I hadn’t realised that it was actually made especially from this hotel. We met Winston the resident Golden Labrador there and walked to the quaint fisherman’s wharf, which are a collection of colourful houseboats housing restaurants and craft shops as well as residential. I told Mark that I’d love to live there, but as he pointed out, they were just glorified caravans- he’s so cynical. In Canada, they had just brought in the mandate where you have to show your vaccine and ID in restaurants, hotels and museums which we agreed with, but at the beautiful Victoria Parliament building, there was a major anti vaccine demonstration- the madness is everywhere. I was humoured by the fact that those people couldn’t eat, or stay anywhere if they didn’t have their vaccine. As we said to each other- they have the right to deny having their jabs but they were limiting their own freedoms by limiting their choices- shame! Chinatown was amazing too. Our last night together was spent at Vancouver’s Revolving restaurant. Arthur is such a treasure and we are so proud of Max and Dani as parents, they seem so much more confident than we were when we were young with kids.

…. And then they were gone 😭

Mark and I spent the next couple of days feeling lost and not knowing what to do with ourselves. We’d organized the whole Canada trip with the incentive of seeing them and when they went it all seemed pointless. To top it all, the lawyer who’d said she’d applied to the consulate at the moment we travelled over the Canadian-border 2 weeks before admitted that she hadn’t managed to do it until the day Max, Dani and Arthur left, delaying it further.

But a few days later, Mark’s managers arrived for the quarterly business meeting which had been relocated to where Mark was and it was meals out each night and a hockey match at the stadium. It was between the Canadian Cannucks against the Seattle Kraken (who were a brand new team and supposedly the underdogs). The Kraken annihilated the more experienced Cannucks. By then I was telling the Americans that I felt more accepted by the Canadians (who I felt were a softer version of Americans- they certainly seem more real to me), so of the group, I was the only one cheering the Cannucks on- even I said it was an embarrassing loss though 4-0. We all had to stand at the beginning for the national anthems and as usual the singer held the word ‘free’ for ages in US anthem. 🤣

The consulate meeting finally came through and we went to be grilled about why we wanted to be living in the USA. By this time I asked Mark if we could relocate to Canada- he just laughed hysterically at me.

At the end of the week my travel buddy, Jannet, (Marks colleague Eric’s wife) turned up and we travelled back to Victoria this time via seaplane, which I loved. We had a proper China cream tea at the hotel and visited Butchart gardens Which was beautiful, planted by Mrs Butchart in a granite quarry made by her husband’s mining company. The plants and garden made me homesick for all the beautiful lush green gardens and National Trust properties we have in Britain. When Jannet and I returned, we had one more night with some of the Blackline group and then they were all gone too.

Then finally after 6 weeks, the consulate sent our passports back and we could go back to our US home.

We packed up the car, took a last trip walking the dogs by the marina, had our last Canadian artisan coffee (honestly I’ve never had better coffee anywhere) and somewhat reluctantly left a rainy Vancouver racing towards the LA sun….