The anticipation returning to Calgary was intense - sleeping issues, poor organisation and anxiety. But the excitement built once I managed to make my flight from Adelaide to Sydney by the skin of my teeth.......
I had replayed the image in my head repeatedly of seeing my Canadian family again; almost daily and most assuredly hourly as the months turned to weeks before my departure. It's very hard to explain that you have a bond with a family of people that live on the other side of the planet and that such a bond was born of a random meeting on a wet day in the Italian town of pisa which was a gift from a dead, mutual friend. I'm not going to replay the occasion here and whilst I dont believe in destiny, the circumstances that link me to Canada (at both ends of the country) are, well, beautiful.
I got next to no sleep on any of the flights over and time spent in airports is wasted time but I could barely contain myself once I arrived in Calgary. I had passed smoothly through Canadian customs and immigration (just as I had through the American) and was early than anticipated. I had of course expected that Thomas would be late picking me up but that is normal for my Canadian family - clocks are dismissed as simply ornamental pieces and the ability for a smart phone to display the time is as redundant as turning the bloody thing on in the first place, but I digress.
A family dinner was arranged after shortly after my arrival time of 5.30pm and it was everything I hoped it would be. By that I mean the food was utterly irrelevant - fresh lobster was supplied by Laurel and Darren (which was incredibly generously funded by Tim and Donna) but all I was interested in was embracing these loved ones. Not surprisingly the adrenaline kicked in and any notions of fatigue simply drifted away (as did any notion of sobriety as I easily put away a pack of my favourite Canadian beer kokanee gold). The whole evening was just thrilling - many laughs, much sarcasm, and as I had hoped, much love shared.
