This month I’m not writing about a place I have travelled to, rather a different kind of journey. For the past 4+ I have been writing a memoir of my early life. I’m not writing it because I am famous or a narcissist as I’m neither of those. Why then? Because those years shape us by creating our patterns of thinking which in turn affects our behaviour and each year, adds a layer.
Please bear with me as I set the stage for this blog.
In the early 1980’s, I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar at night whilst studying marketing and business administration during the day. The venue was called Richards on Richards and was arguably the hottest nightclub in Vancouver.
Our 4th and final trip to Italy this year was to attend the Ryder Cup in Roma and watching the greatest golfers in Europe and the USA did not disappoint! And I said, ‘this year’ because I will return to Italy time and again. Quite simply, I love this country!
The beginning of September took me to London, a city I’ve travelled to many times, possibly hundreds of times and lived there for a short while. When I moved to Notting Hill some 17+ years ago, I never thought I would leave after only five months. Astonishing how a marriage proposal can change the trajectory of our lives.
This past July took my husband and I to Lucca, Italy for something that has been on my bucket list for some time and that was to see a performance of Andrea Bocelli.
As I write this blog, I’m looking out my home office window. The sky is a lovely mixture of pale blue, white with predominant strokes of grey. The clouds form a montage of pale hues. Below is the sea, a grey and very faint turquoise. The tide is halfway out. There’s a calm about the weather today. I heard on the news this morning we could be in for thunder and rain showers so I suppose this is the calm before the storm.
So different than yesterday’s sky. I could see the coast of France clearly in the distance reminding me that I although live on a tiny island, Europe is at my doorstep and for that I am grateful. J’adore my trips to France.
I remember an ex colleague of mine couldn’t understand why I liked living in Vancouver or San Francisco. He said, “Everything is so far away from the West Coast!“ I thought it was such an odd statement because there was SO MUCH to the West Coast with easy reach to Hawaii, Mexico and the neighbouring Provinces or States depending upon what side of the 49th parallel I was sitting.