I haven’t done much blogging lately, not because I don’t have anything to say but mostly because life intrudes. Christmas mostly. You know the sort of stuff – tramping round the stores spending way too much money on people you never see or driving yourself nuts trying to find that perfect gift for the ungrateful good for nothing little bastard of a grandson who dropped out of school barely out of grade six and now thinks the height of ambition is lying on the couch watching wrestling and drinking beer but you have to get him something because if you don’t your daughter, the single parent, will be hurt and an entire family feud will ensue – phew. After all that who has the strength for blogging? It’s taken me most of January to get over it. I don’t know about you but Christmas occupies about a third of my year and the rest is taken up with birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions, graduations, and various assorted public holidays - like Easter and Thanksgiving – when I am obligated to cook AND be nice for an entire day. Hrrrumph.

This being Canada it’s snowing for a change and it’s bloody cold; so cold that you have to watch out for falling birds whizzing past your nose and plummeting to earth, frozen in mid-flight. Every year at this time I ask myself what I’m doing here but I can’t leave even though I would like to especially since I’m self-employed and only need a laptop and an Internet connection to work anywhere in the world except the UK where I was born and spent 21 years of my life. It’s not because I’m an international criminal or a drug dealer or even a minor rock star that I can’t go back but because UK currency is worth twice as much as mine which means in simple math that the minute I step off the boat I lose half my income just like that – thump. Or put another way, everything would double immediately. Even a take-out curry with some chips would assume a cost approaching that of fine dining – well without the wine obviously. About the only place I can move to on the planet with a currency worth less than Canada’s and still be relatively warm is New Zealand and they have earthquakes – sigh. The South of France I hear is relatively affordable - but French. Spain – bull fights. Italy – crazy drivers and volcanoes. Japan – crazy drivers and volcanoes AND earthquakes [and they all speak Japanese]. Thailand – snakes as long as a football field and typhoons. Hawaii – volcanoes and Americans. China – coal fires and lung disease. Australia – snakes and crocs and great white sharks and jellyfish bigger than a boat and venomous spiders the size of soup plates that live in the toilet bowl and blokes who call you 'Sheila'. Hmm – maybe it’s not *all* that cold and who needs to go outside anyway. If I stay in all winter and most of the Spring by the fire I can put some money aside for Christmas.