reflections

…just happened?

2018 – that’s what!

The Girl and I spent a very low-key Hogmany last night, staying up barely long enough to greet the new year as it poked its head nervously around the door. Who can blame it? After 2018 was dragged from the room, kicking and complaining, punching the air with all of the self-possession of a drunk going down for the third time, 2019 was pushed and prodded into the limelight, most likely feeling anything but ready.

I am reminded of an occasion many years ago at the Edinburgh Festival. The Youth Theatre with which I was heavily involved had taken a show to the Fringe. Fighting – as ever – for any publicity we could get we had taken a late night slot at the Fringe Club to parade our wares. As we waited nervously in the wings – instruments at the ready – we could hear the previous act going down a storm. As soon as they finished there was a mass exodus from the hall, with hundreds of souls pouring out and heading for the bar. Nervously we tiptoed in. Magically the place was still packed to the rafters, with considerably drunk and extremely raucous revelers, all armed to the teeth with heckles! The less said about our performance the better, but as we left one of the young thespists turned to me and said:

“Don’t ever ask us to do that again!”

OK! So this is traditionally the point at which I look back at the outgoing year and summarise what has happened for us. Given that everything at the moment is overshadowed by the scary goings-on in the wider world it must be admitted that – though the year has thrown up more than a few surprises – we have done pretty well for ourselves.

2018 was always going to be the difficult year for us. When we did our retirement projections well before we left the UK we could see that there was going to be a financial dip, caused in part by the fact that my state pension does not kick in until part way through 2019. The collapse of the Sterling/CAD exchange rate that followed the Brexit vote made things worse, though being able to purchase ahead gave us something of a buffer up to this time last year.

It was clear that I was going to need to earn some extra monies to support our adopted lifestyle. By this time last year I had failed to find temporary or part-time work and it was not clear how I was going to do so. I was most fortunate to land the teaching contract that I did, and even more fortunate that I got another one for the autumn (Fall). With luck I may have another for the coming spring. Of course, none of this had been planned at our point of departure and I really had thought that my working days were over.

The Girl has had a difficult year at work as a result of changes to which I alluded in my equivalent report of this time last year. Change is never easy and as a species we tend to handle it poorly. She has persevered – something that is a most admirable strength of hers – and it does seem that the situation with her agency is now greatly improved. Fingers crossed.

She is not, however, one to sit back and to let things come to her. She has thus spent much of this last year planning her slow withdrawal from the world of work as she currently knows it. To this end she is undertaking a year’s course of study which will equip her to set up her own business, which will then gradually supercede her current role.

With regard to matters artistic it has also been a somewhat varied year. I got to teach a term’s worth of drama to a small but keen group of youngsters up here on the peninsula, but it rapidly became clear that there was no easy route to making this into something more permanent. My efforts in the realm of theatre have thus been primarily been devoted to wearing my Board of Directors’ hat for Intrepid Theatre. I have been able to spend a fair amount of time making music and I am hopeful that developments towards the year’s end might result in a further collaboration in the new year.

2018 afforded us little opportunity to travel aside from the excellent short trip that we made to Montreal during the spring. It is our intention that in this regard – as in many others – 2019 will be different.