Looking Back – Looking Ahead
2022 was a good year for me. I am very happy in my new home. My apartment is spacious – I even have a reading room! – and I am just steps away from the Westbay Walkway heading around Victoria’s harbour to Esquimalt where I spot ducks, herons, seals, and occasionally (once!) orcas. It’s been a year of living locally as I got to know a city I had only visited in the past. I use the farmers’ market and library in Esquimalt, have a choice of two organic bakeries within walking distance (Fry’s and Fol Épi), and a great local grocery store cum deli (Market Garden). I can also walk downtown.
My housesitting was local this year as well with 3 housesits in Oak Bay near Estevan Village and Willows Beach and 2 housesits on Dallas Road with fabulous views over Juan de Fuca Strait to the Olympic Mountains. Housesits in Vancouver and New Westminster were great opportunities to visit good friends.
I read 116 books, mostly mystery and non-fiction, this year. Only 4 of them were in French. I’ll do better this coming year as I only read in French when in France. I remain passionate about poetry for its compact use of words and images to trigger the imagination and they are almost the only books I collect.
My biggest challenges this year were work-related. After 10 years publishing EcoFriendly Sask and beginning to develop a following, Andrew and I expanded our reach to the 4 western provinces with EcoFriendly West. I am thoroughly enjoying interviewing a wider range of people but building up an audience for an online publication is tough. I remind myself to just do the work to the best of my ability; the rest will follow.
My own blog, Wanderlust and Words, is definitely a distant second to EcoFriendly West, but I’ve been enjoying posting ideas, book recommendations, and interesting stories on my weekly Footnotes to a Conversation.
In September I was interviewed by Radio-Canada (in French) about EcoFriendly and that led to a 16-part column for Radio-Canada in Saskatchewan. Wow! That really pushed me outside my comfort zone as I translated the environmental stories I was familiar with into French. I’m proud of myself for accepting the challenge and it has given me renewed confidence in my language skills, but I was enormously relieved when the last episode was recorded.
2023 brings with it a return to international travel. (I have not had Covid and hope that will continue to be the case as I take extra precautions while travelling.) I leave January 11 and won’t be back in Victoria until May 8. The first 6 weeks will be spent housesitting in the UK. I have 3 relatively remote, semi-rural housesits in Cornwall as well as a few days in Frodsham near Chester and a week in Stoke-on-Trent (potteries! china!). I also have a few travel days in hotels in Plymouth and Cardiff as well as a chance to visit family in Norfolk. I’ll head to France at the end of February where I have 2 month-long housesits. One is a return to Quillan, a favourite, while the other is new in Mennecy (not far from Fontainebleau).
Many of my recent trips have been for 6 months so I’ll be evaluating how it feels to only go for 4 months and whether I still want to spend time in the UK. I am no longer escaping the cold Prairie winters, but I know I still want to travel, particularly in France. I’ll miss spring in Victoria, but I will enjoy it in France.