As most readers will know, it's been well over a year since Fred and I decided to quit our jobs and move to London, England to pursue our Masters – he in Environmental Management for Business at the University of Hertfordshire and myself in Health, Community and Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
I never dreamed I would end up as a Master of Science of all things but now that is exactly what I am, since my program was within the Institute of Social Psychology. So yes, I am a Master. Of Science.
 |
| Handing in my thesis...so much sweat and tears! |
It was an amazing year. Not always in good ways. Eye-opening. Troubling. Exciting. These are some words I might use to describe it. I made amazing friends, the 20 international students in my program were some of the most inspiring people I think I will ever meet, and I know we will keep in touch even though we are spread across the globe. I know they will do wonderful things to better this world, whether as doctors, academics or community development professionals.
 |
| The HCD gang. |
Much changed back home in Canada while we were away as well. My sister began building her career as a lawyer. She now has a dog and a house and even her very own car (which to me remains an ever-unattainable mark of adulthood).
Two elderly family friends passed out of our lives; strong Northern Ontario women that I grew up with and have so much respect for that will stay with me until the end of my own days.
When they passed I cried for days and I still can't believe they are gone. They left behind faded images in my mind's eye of summers on the lake, around the campfire at the
tourist camp where I grew up; listening to grandma’s stories about women running tourist camps and defying gender norms out of necessity when such things were frowned upon, when women’s strengths and capabilities were lesser known – or at least less appreciated.
 |
| My amazing Grandma - thanks Auntie Marsha for the pic! |
And life also came into the world while we were away on the other side of the ocean; four new smiles have arrived within our family and close circles of friends. Some friends have married and others are now engaged. I guess we’re at that age.
Some couples went their separate ways, and it was hard to not be there to offer salty-shoulder hugs. When I heard the hurt had largely passed – it was by that time nothing more than a look then in their eyes, still smouldering but already beginning to be forgotten.
Over there we saw another part of the world, another culture, similar but entirely distinct from that of Canada in ways both good and bad. We saw the chalk cliffs of Dover, forever England’s untouched beacons of white hope.
 |
| The White Cliffs of Dover and the English Channel, just across from France! |
We saw slick dolphin backs crest among Ireland’s Aran Islands’ salty waves while we rode the churning seas in a tiny ferry. We experienced the incredible warmth of people drawn together over centuries through song and dance in hamlets tucked into the greenest hills of Ireland.
 |
| Huge tree in a wooded glen in Ireland |
 |
| Connemara, Ireland: unbelievably green and beautiful |
 |
| The beautiful village of Doolin, Ireland; my favourite place! |
We took in pastoral views across England memorialized by Hardy, Austen and Bronte: thatched cottages, cobbled streets, austere castles crumbling under darkening skies. We watched red-jacketed hunters hunting for red-jacketed foxes; aristocracy embodied, prancing across Dorset’s tidy farms.
 |
| Following the fox hunt in Dorset |
We fell and fell and fell again down the snow-covered hills of Switzerland, and drank warm gluwein with dear friends across the strangely familiar landscape of Germany, where everywhere people are outside skiing, hiking, or otherwise enjoying the natural world more enthusiastically than probably most any culture in the world.
 |
| Me at Mount Titlis in Switzerland |
 |
| Out for a stroll at our friends' place near Ellwangen, Germany |
 |
| New Years in Berlin with the lovely Maria and Hannes! |
We were dazzled by magnificent architecture in Budapest, much of it still and empty, not yet out from under the weight of World War II and communism - then relaxed....in the amazing public baths, in the courtyard bars, and in the warm spring sun sitting along the Danube listening to the lilting tunes of a flutist entertaining his friends as if it were the most natural thing to do in a park, in the dusk, in Eastern Europe.
 |
| Looking over the Danube toward the Parliament Building from Buda Castle |
In London we went to open-air markets to buy local produce, fresh bread and cheese and olive oil, flowers and wild game from the Scottish Highlands. I shopped for vintage treasures in Brick Lane and marveled at the unbelievably beautiful street art of Shoreditch.
 |
| Broadway Market Produce |
 |
| Poetry as street art? Yes please! In Shoreditch. |
 |
| Birds on a wire street art along the canal by Broadway Market |
We picked plums and raspberries from our garden where the foxes played nightly at our last flat in North London.
 |
| Our English garden |
 |
| Fred harvesting plums |
We visited museums and galleries, and wandered through centuries-old cemeteries including the one where Karl Marx is buried.
 |
| Karl Marx's grave in Highgate Cemetery |
We rode the big red busses and Fred even managed to become familiar with the mind-boggling tube map.
 |
| Fred waiting for the Tube with Megan, our Toronto visitor! |
We made our way to northern England to visit the Lloyd clan, and were astounded by the beauty of Yorkminster Cathedral in the lovely city of York.
 |
| Fred with my cousin Marc and Uncle Ian on a walk to an old Abbey |
 |
| Yorkminster...a photo can't do it justice |
We went to Scotland and visited my old haunting ground - St. Andrews, where I had studied for a year during my undergrad. It brought back memories - both good and bad - from when I had rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy and was named the "socialist Canadian" - which was decidedly not a compliment!
We took a train through the Highlands and trekked part of the West Highland Way in some of the worst weather that area had seen in years, for which we were thoroughly unprepared. But when the sun peeks through in Scotland, it is a blessed place indeed.
 |
| Last day of our West Highland Way hike - looking toward Ben Lomond |
 |
| Looking over Loch Lomond |
We visited pubs and went out dancing until the wee hours of the morning. And of course we read, and read, and read…and wrote. And locked ourselves in our house and went mad writing our theses and emerged. Victorious.
 |
| Qualitative research = going insane hand-coding 12 hours of transcribed focus groups |
Fred graduated with Distinction, and I am so proud of him. He worked incredibly hard.
As for me, although I graduated with Merit I was awarded a Distinction on my thesis, which was based on the youth-led photovoice project I facilitated with an amazing group of young artists in Blind River.
The photos from the project were then featured as the only display of youth art at the Creative Communities for Children and Youth Symposium at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto, and I got to take six of the youth photographers there to see their work on display.
 |
| The Photovoice Project on display at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto |
|
|
|
 |
| Some of the youth photographers with their exhibition in Toronto |
I am currently working on publishing my research in a real academic journal! So I guess all that painful, hair-pulling, torturous hard work was worth it. And believe it or not, I'm already thinking about how I can get myself back in school again.
So yes, it was a good year. A great year. A life-defining year.
And now here we are back in Canada, and here I am once again in Toronto and there Fred is once again in the Soo.
And everything is eerily familar....but, my lovelies, that's another blog post entirely!
