oh yes, it has been too long. what has happened? so much and so little. partly it’s that i have no internet at home, so i can’t handily post from home, which is a little bit of a hindrance to writing. partly it’s that being in a relationship is a time-suckage, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. partly it’s that there hasn’t really been too much out of the ordinary happening. and the last partly is that i had a strange lingering flu for 2.5 weeks. aiiiie! it came on for about five days, then i had a three day respite where i thought i was over it, then it just came back and hung around and hung around and hung around. it was mild enough at points that i thought – this would be a great time to write – but when it came down to it, i just had no mental or physical energy for it. 

now it is the tail end of the may long weekend and i realized i’ve gotten out canoeing two may long weekends in a row now. yay! it used to be a fairly regular occurrence back in winnipeg, any long weekend really, we’d head to the water in whatever configuration of friends we could muster. i miss those days. i know i lament this a lot. canoe-tripping, it is one of my true loves. i knew in moving here that it would be the biggest sacrifice. i knew i was leaving a canoeing mecca of sorts. and it was worth it to move here, to follow this dream, but there are always sacrifices. one thing i didn’t realize until moving here is how much harder it is to rally my friends back in manitoba to plan big northern adventures with me. there is something about proximity and feeding each others energy that makes things float.

ben and i managed to get out for a 5 hour paddle today. ben and carson had left his canoe at the bay close to the hall the other night, and ben wanted to continue on to the south end of the island to visit friends. carson also likes it when his canoe ends up at different places on the island so that he has to have an adventure to get it home. he’s fun like that. therefore he was fine with us taking it and leaving it at the south end for him to pick up another time. it was a light drizzle this morning and set to blow 20-30 knots in the afternoon, from precisely the direction we were heading, but despite this, we were both still gung-ho. the wind was intense, and going through some of the tighter channels where the wind and waves were funnelled was exciting. we made it seven km (about 1h45m), before we pulled over for lunch in a small cove. the cove was situated right before the islands to our left fell away and we’d be out exposed to open ocean. even before this opening we had noticed that the swells had increased in size and i was feeling mildly trepidatious. i was wanting to round the corner before lunch to get it behind us, but i heeded bens request for a stop, as he was right that it was at least sheltered from the wind. it was a cute little cove that someone at some point had built a cabin in, and seemed to be only boat access unless the resident hiked in. the cabin was completely in shambles by this point, and wasn’t the best spot in that it faced north and probably only got sun midday at the height of summer, but a tiny stream flowed down the hill beside it, so i could see why they chose it. i was not excited to head back into the swells after lunch but i also was not yet ready to bail on the adventure. perhaps about 20 minutes into paddling and ben noticing that we were only gaining about a foot per paddle stroke, if that, he wondered if maybe we should turn around. that worked for me. as soon as we turned around we were going about 5 feet per paddle stroke. nice. that felt so much better. so we did not gain our destination, another 3.5km away, which is always hard for me to let go of, but i think it was the wise move. now my shoulders are sore in a way i know i’m going to feel it tomorrow, and my hands are hot and dry in a lightly calloused sort of way. oh! and upon further examination, i have a tiny blister on my palm! yay!

i’m also nearly falling asleep while writing this, and it’s only early evening, but maybe i should go to bed early tonight. it has only been about three days of eating anything that i want, as in not finding most foods revolting, so maybe i’m still in recovery mode. sleep sounds nice.

a quick synopsis of the previous month or so…i have started reading french children and young-adult novels in order to improve my french, which means i just read a babysitters club graphic novel en français. reliving my youth. spring flowers have bloomed, the nettles are tall and beginning to go to seed. my wee little garden is taking off, half planted with kale. i’ve just put a few lettuce starts in, but need to get some more green things in there. cilantro! parsley! chives! the lemon tree is blooming and oh-so fragrant. we had a huuuuuge mail day at work after the easter super-long-weekend, and that got me really excited. work on the cistern shed has been happening incrementally. a few weeks ago a couple of boatloads of us went boating to the tiny wild-flowery islands just north of here for an afternoon, rejoicing in the beginnings of summer. that’s about it, the glory of the day to day. hopefully by next post i will have some adventures to report…