The Night Before

Hi all,

It's Monday evening here (the 2nd) and I am just packing my suitcase and getting all my final last minute prep ready for flying back to England tomorrow. I always feel like I'm so last minute with my packing for England, but it's nice that I don't have to worry to much as I am just going back to my Mum's so its not a massive issue if I forget things. I end up buying most of my things there anyway as it is so much cheaper to buy makeup and toiletries. I have a lot of stuff there too anyway so I feel pretty at home just going to my room; it's like I have two lives though, one in Canada and one in England. My rooms at my parents and grandparents are left the same as I always leave them and full of my stuff.

I'm really excited to be home for Christmas. It really is my absolute favourite time of year... there's nothing better. Right now I'm not working and I just graduated so I don't have any responsibilities (iI'm not sure this is something to be proud of! hehe) Usually when I head home I have to work on an essay or two for university, but this year I am all free. This is pretty exciting, it means I get to go full force into Christmas and I also get to fly home earlier than usual so I get the full month of Christmas buildup (eeekk).

I don't think there is anywhere I'd rather be for Christmas than in England, I suppose this has a lot to do with my emotional ties to home and my love of hisotry and tradition too. Maybe I am biased but Christmas in England is perfect. We have just so much going on around Christmas time, markets, festivals, concerts the whole shabang! I've stayed in Canada for a couple of Christmases since my move here, but I find it incredibly depressing (sorry Canada, I love you). Christmas is pretty low key here in Canada, at least on the west coast; there aren't too many festivities going on or things to do. I get incredibly lonely too, for me the whole point of Christmas is to be with your famiy and indulge in traditions!

We have lots of great family traditions and celebrate lots of christmas traditons that are really specific to the UK, I'm excited to share these with you and to share the history behind some of our lovely traditions. I know a lot of you are as obssessed with history as I am and I really enjoy the discussions we have and inspiring some of you to take trips you've always wanted to. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's Chrstmas festivities too! ... So bring on Christmas.

xx

And, I'm back...

Hello lovely internet friends, I am back!

Sorry for being absent, I have so much going on right now in my life... I'm at a weird cross roads and I have some very difficult decisions to make. I'm bad a decisions at the best of times, like what to have for dinner, or what kind of pudding I want...so making massive life changing decisions is turning out to be a massive ordeal for me.


As you may or may not know, my father passed away last December after being diagnosed with throat cancer in the summer. It was obviously a difficult year, I attempted to balance my final year of my degree with flying or driving thousands of miles every month while he was ill and I eventually hit the wall with school. I went from being an A+ student to dropping a good few points of my GPA, but I also leaner to accept that getting a C isn't the end of the world. Things like that just don't matter in the big scheme of things. After graduating in the summer I have just kind of been coaxing a long a little trying to figure out which path I should be following. I'm a little clearer on things now. I'm a perfectionist which doesn't help anything and I also have a weird need to have control over everything... some things I just can't control to the t though. I'm working through it all bit by bit though. My dad had a tough and lonely life, he spent the past few years working away at something he wasn't really all that happy with at the expense of doing things he really wanted to do. I learnt a lot about how I don't want to be through this whole process. Life is really quite short and fleeting and it's so important to not get side tracked and lose your dreams in the process.

Anyway that's where I am at, subsequently I have been quite useless with my blogging... I promise I will try a little harder! It's my new years resolution. I know a lot of you that read this are quite similar to me and enjoy many of the same things. I really love sharing my trips with you and talking about our common interests. I have so many pictures from being home in England in spring and October that I have been meaning to share with you all, so I will start uploading over the next little while. I also wanted to get the blog back up so I could share my upcoming Christmas trip with you. I'm going to post the places I get to visit but also I wanted to share some English and British cultural traditions with you guys. We have a lot of really unique Christmas traditions that I would just love to share with you guys. Christmas is my favorite time of year and I will just warn you now that I go in to full on Christmas overload. I fly home on Tuesday and I have a packed month of festivities that I am so excited about. I look forward to seeing all your Christmas pictures too, I enjoy following along with your lives on instagram.

Shannon

Birthday

I turned 28 this past September (gasp)! I just really don't know where the time goes these days?! Do you remember when you were a kid and even a months summer holidays felt like forever. Now I feel like whenever I get focussed on a task or a life issue, the next time I look up again a whole year has passed! Twenty eight!... or "pushing thirty" as my friend Kate likes to call it, which makes me feel a whole lot worse about it all. I panic a little from time to time over my age, I suppose because I am really aware of the social expectations of being in my (very) late twenties. My friends at home in England all went straight from college to university and had competed their degrees by the time we were 21. I took a long hiatus from uni and went back as an older student so I've always been a little insecure about how much older I am and how "behind" I am. Behind on what I am not quite sure, the timeline set by society and lots of my friends maybe? My friends are all getting married now and having babies... Something that terrifies me. I'd much rather collect dogs and horses instead. Honestly, I can't even look after myself properly. I feel like I'm perpetually 12... I still can't make adult decisions before calling my mother!!!

Last year I had flown out to see my dad in hospital at the time of my birthday. It was the first one I had ever spent with my dad that I remember and back in the small Albertan town that I was born in. Given the circumstances I wasn't really feeling up to having any kind of birthday celebrations for my 27th. I was away just before my birthday this year as well again, I drove out to sort through my dad's things and to clear up some of his estate matters with a lawyer. After growing up in England I always forget just how big Canada is! From where I live on Vancouver Island its a 16 hour drive to the next province where my dad lived. It was a fast trip, managed to sort most of it in three days and set off driving back to B.C the day before my birthday. For anyone who does long trips, 16 hours in the car is pretty shit. We made it back to the coast in the middle of the night and slept in the truck in the car park of a MacDonalds (I'm classy). Managed to get on the first ferry at 6am, it was my birthday at this point. I was feeling pretty tried and grumpy to be honest and stiff from the car ride, not a happy camper. I wasn't really planning anything for my birthday this year either, but the girls confirmed that morning that my boss had leant us the big stock trailer for the carriage horses so we could take my friends school horses to the beach. It was a lovely birthday surprise. I got in and got changed and went straight out, despite the lack of sleep.

Here we all are with friends, two legged and four 

Our big work stock trailer for the draft horses. It's a pretty big deal that my boss leant this to us. It's his absolute pride and joy!! 

It was Vixen's first time ever at the beach. Horse people will know how much of a big deal new things  and experiences are to our equine friends. She was an absolute champ though, trailered no issue and didn't bat an eyelid at the beach. She just wanted to go

 Friends having a lovely time

Our incredible view for the day. The sun was shining, the light was perfect, the view was incredible. It's one of those moments that just fills your heart up ready to burst. 

I am so very in love with this perfect little girl 

Paddling in the ocean together. If you have ever tried to run on sand you know how hard it is and how much of a work out it is. Same for the horses, they were so exhausted at the end o it all. This fat little mare is a little overweight so she found it easier to run along the shore line where the sand was wet and firmer. We cantered the whole stretch of the beach splashing up water in our wake 

Debra and her horse Brew. These two just have the most amazing bond! She rides him completely tackless all the time; no saddle and just a halter and they rip around the trails like that. I have absolutely no bloody idea how she stays on, i'd be off in a second. We call him Tokyo drift because rather than bending he likes to run sideways and side pass at a canter. 

Everyone was just exhausted after that ride!!!!

Lucky to have such well behaved horses. They can just graze while we do our own thing. 

It was such a lovely day, it's pretty hard to be anything other than happy while cantering a horse you love along the beach in the sunshine! Slamming around in the saddle worked out all my kinks too. I'm  really to have such wonderful friends here, we're all really different but our love of horses binds us. These girls have been so wonderful and such an amazing support network through a really rough year. I love spending days out on the horses together. It's just so perfect. I'm really grateful for the memories that I've made in Canada, especially in this last year. Although it was a really tough one for me with the passing of my father and dealing with all the accompanying shit, these girls have really rallied round me. I've spent most of my summer int he company of these wonderful people and southing my injured soul with some amazing horse therapy. These are days I will always remember....