Spring Thaw

Oh my, it has been a while, hasn't it?

Since I last posted here, rather a lot has happened, while at the same time, not very much has happened at all.


Thanks to a change in UK immigration law, I was forced to leave a job, home, cat, and country that I loved. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been; I'm still employed in the UK, and on track to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (permanent residency) this summer, but I've left the Scottish countryside for the Welsh suburbs, and commute by train for nearly an hour and a half into Cardiff city centre every day.

From the time I learned that I was going to have to leave Scotland in May 2015, there followed more than a year and a half of unrelenting grief and depression. For my first year in Wales, my mental emotional state (which is unreliable even at the best of times) felt like one big, seeping open wound. If I kept it well covered and didn't touch it, I could just about forget it was there, but the moment anything brushed up against it, the pain would come back fresh and it would start oozing again.

Then, to add insult to injury, the UK voted for Brexit and the USA elected President Trump. Between personal and political distress, it's been difficult just getting out of bed in the mornings. Until quite recently, the only vaguely creative thing I've had the energy to make is food, and even that is a bit touch-and-go.

It hasn't been all bad though. Once time and distance allowed my emotional wounds to scab over enough to explore a little of my new neighborhood, I found a few bright spots. Cardiff offers a lot more cultural diversity than St Andrews, which means that I now have easy access to Asian, Middle Eastern, West African, and Eastern European markets. I bought a house, gave up my car, finished the blue blanket, and planted a garden. I'm continuing to squirrel away every spare penny to buy a few acres in the Scottish highlands where I can go full-time hippy someday. Depending on the real estate market and whether I've crunched the numbers correctly, I might be able to do that in as little as two and a half more years, so the countdown is on. Here's hoping that by the start of 2020, I'll have the money, skills, and resilience that I need to make that happen.

When I started this blog, it was at the suggestion of my younger and better self, Tanya, who started her own blog, Crinolines and Cavaliers, at the same time. Her blog went dormant at about the same time as mine. This week, she resurrected it on a new platform and I refuse to be outdone by some young whippersnapper, so here I go again...

The home and (landlord's) cat that I left behind in Scotland.