Eleven days

Eleven days to go now, and my thoughts are most certainly starting to turn to the summer and all the changes that are on what is an ever-nearing horizon. Now that my imminent departure is official I've been able to talk more openly about my plans with friends and colleagues here, and the more I talk the more excited I'm actually becoming about the future.

Those of you that know me well will know that I'm normally a very phlegmatic person, perhaps too phlegmatic, but for once I really am feeling genuinely excited and I don't think that the next eleven days are going to pass anywhere near quickly enough. My students are on a trip to the Pingualuit Crater this weekend and don't return until Monday afternoon, so consequently I will be starting my week with a personal ped day, which means that just six of those eleven days will be spent teaching before my flight on Wednesday week. Whether this will make the time pass more quickly or not remains to be seen.

The only blot on the landscape is the need to pack which, thankfully, is not too pressing at the moment. However, by this time next week I think I will be in full-on packing mode, and whilst this shouldn't prove to be an overly arduous task it's never one that I look forward to. I arrived in Kangiqsujuaq with only 18 boxes, and as I haven't really accumulated any extra possessions in my time here there shouldn't be any more than 18 boxes coming back down with me. Quite when they'll make it back is anyone's guess - as I've said before, things tend to happen very slowly in the North - but as long as they actually do, that's all that matters.

Eleven days...

Two weeks notice

It's official; I'm leaving the North.

I have my ticket, and in two weeks' time I will be back home in the south.

Permanently.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, this moment has been coming for a while now, but yesterday I finally confirmed my intentions with the powers that be and today I received my travel itinerary. Most things happen very slowly in the North, but in my life events are now moving on apace. The number of teaching days that remain are in single digits - so even I can count them on my fingers - and just two weekends sit between me and my final flight.

I know I'm going to be feeling some mixed emotions over the coming days - in fact I'm already feeling them - but I'm glad to have finally made an irrevocable decision and I know in my heart that it's the right one. I've said before in these pages that my time in the North has changed my outlook on life, and whilst I really do believe that my experience has been largely positive, I also feel that the misanthrope inside me is edging ever nearer the surface, especially this year, and that can't be a good thing.

Consequently, my repatriation to the south, and to Melanie in particular, is coming just at the right time I think, and as much as I'm going to be looking back over the next few weeks, now is really a time to be looking forward. There will be many changes ahead and all the routines I've established will need to be broken, but it's all for the greater good.

The countdown has begun...

The final furlong

Horse racing has little or no profile in Canada, but back in the UK it was Grand National day yesterday, and whilst I have never been the greatest of gamblers I always enjoyed a bet on the National. Some years I would study the form and make the whole thing a very scientific process, some years I would just go by the horses' names; I even dreamt the winner one year and yes, it won! As you may have guessed though, I didn't put much money on that year - I always went by the adage of 'never gamble more than you can afford to lose', which kind of defeats the whole purpose of gambling really, but there you go - and consequently here I am, still eking out an honest living.

The way I make that living, and where I make it, is all about to change though. Although nothing is signed, sealed and delivered just yet, it would seem that a new career at King's Town School beckons, and consequently, after four years in the North, I've now entered what looks like being my final four weeks here. There are going to be many instances of 'doing something for the last time syndrome' over the coming month and, who knows, I may well have done some things for the last time already.

Whilst working in the North has brought with it many frustrations, I have by and large enjoyed my experience. I have seen and done things that I would not have seen and done otherwise, and I have met people the like of who I would never have had the chance to meet in my normal walk of life. Since leaving the UK some five years ago the North has very much become 'my Canada', and I know that my outlook on many things in this life of ours has been changed as a result. Without wishing to sound pretentious I think I am a better person for it all or, at the very least, a different person; perhaps it's best left up to others to decide on whether different is actually better.

For everything there is a season though - it's normally winter up here - and, for a number of reasons, I think the time is now right for change. A full five years after moving to Canada it would seem that enough dues have now been paid to have earned Melanie and I the opportunity to be living and, hopefully, working together again, and whilst I have always been very much aware of my 'geographical impotence' up here, a series of recent, unfortunate events in the lives of my friends and family has done much to bring that awareness into even sharper focus. As I said at the start of this post, I have never been much of a gambler. Any move, be it career or physical, is always going to be something of a gamble, and I am about to do both. On this occasion I'm happy to roll the dice though, and I'm prepared to deal with the outcome, whatever it may be.