Surprises abound

I am one of those kids who grew up with my nose in a book, and who absolutely was useless at sports in school. I am that rare Canadian kid who never even learned how to skate, much less play hockey. So, you may ask, how do I come to have a photo of the Spanish national football team on this page?

Part of it is being married to someone British, for whom football (NOT "soccer") borders on a national religion. Part of it is living in the UK, and watching an entire nation place their hopes and dreams in the hands, and at the feet of, Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham.

Part of it though is actually watching games - even when interrupted by Fox News demanded "Hydration Breaks", aka commercial breaks - and understanding the flow of the game, the incredible skill of teams like Spain and Argentina, and especially loving the way that players, for the most part, actually seemed to be enjoying themselves, and enjoying being on the field with their opponents.

It was a good way to finish off an intense year in England.

On Monday we fly back to Vancouver. Mistrusting the cheap airlines, we chose to fly with IcelandAir. Booking the basics of a bus to Heathrow; Plane flight; Car Rental; Air BnB in Vancouver; Pet-sitting gigs on Vancouver Island (new grandchild last Monday!) and of course, a BC Ferries booking, killed much of two days. I swear that next time I'm going to abandon Expedia for a travel agent.

And those air and ferry fares are doing us no favours either.

Susan is taking an "intermission", a break, before finishing her dissertation. Right now we're presuming that we'll be staying in BC once we're back, but there's also a part of us that would love to remain in Cambridge. It's just so very, very expensive to live here when the basis of your income is paltry Canada pensions.

I, on the other hand, assuming we'll be living around Duncan, have signed on to the Creative Writing program at Vancouver Island University. My dream is that, as well as learning grammar, I will finally earn a full degree.

Plus, VIU is one of the schools that has free tuition for us old folks. After paying Cambridge a full "international" tuition, that was a big factor.

One thing that I genuinely will miss on Vancouver Island is the walkability of Cambridge. We have had no car for the past year, and have been genuinely happy without one. We either walk, bus, or occasionally Uber everywhere, and it's helped us to build incredibly strong connections to this town, and a remarkable understanding of the streets and alleys of a place dating back a thousand years.

The other thing that I'll miss is the quality of NHS health care. If nothing else, the idea that all prescription medicines should be at no-cost seems stunningly obvious: medicated people need less expensive health-care. And overall we've found that care is faster, better, and friendlier than anything we experienced in BC or Nova Scotia. (I seem to have a silly number of issues, the latest of which is a Uterine Tract Infection (UTI) that I'm sure has been hanging around for at least two years, the symptoms of which I just assumed were age related.)

Overall though what I'll take away from Cambridge is this: people are just nice. Friendly. Interested in you. Sad to say that's often not the case in Canada. That demeanour reminds me of France. Susan and I were both amused yesterday when we passed someone outdoors, and they said, without thinking, "Bonjour!", after which we responded back, also without thinking, "Bonjour!".

I like that.