Chronically Awkward

M'kay. Before y'all judge that I'm exaggerating/remind me I'm out in Quebec and decided to be here blah blah blah buh blehhhhh.....

LET me tell you how I spent my day today.

NOT exploring Ottawa like a badman as I had originally intended (that has been postponed to tomorrow).

I decided to put on my Yes Man Hat and accept an invitation to go and watch a tractor ploughing contest. I kid you not. I fully went.

Believe I changed my clothes, ratty t-shirt, house jeans and walkin shoes (my comfy sneakers, be real I don't own no CATs). My Ottawa outfit will re-emerge tomorrow coz trekkin through the mud and whatever....#AintNobodyGotTimeFoThat

Anyways. Pre farm/field trip we had to swing by the golf course real quick. Let me just make it clear that you cannot 'swing by' anywhere out here, even in a car that still means a good 10 minute drive or more. BUT. My God. It was beauuuuuuuuuuutiful! Autumn out here is next levels, big ol' tall trees all orange and red and brown. It's like going from amateur weather to professional, like I've never seen autumn - or rather fall (kmt) - before.

SO. This golf course is waaaaay out in the woods, by a lake, its some out of town getaway thing. TOOOOO beautiful! No black people. Just saying. I knew this. You lot know this. But still. Felt a little like the beautymark on Marylin's face loool.

But yea, so we saw alladat, then we went walking to the owners' (who happens to be related to our host family - YES!) house. Literally overlooking the lake - which was big as hell- with a JACUZZI. OML. Belive  nobody was home and that thing was still on. MONAAAAAAY. You KNOW they got money loool! They also run a B&B chalet thingy out in Montremblant (caring if my spelling is wrong....) with a spa! You KNOW Ima be visiting!!!











After that, we go to this tractor-fest thing....

WELL. Marylin's face got a WHOOOOOOOOOOLE lot bigger.......I'm talking just all middle aged and old dudes in baseball caps and jeans. Tractors all around. Even horses with ploughs. No joke.

Hear this: the aim is to plough about a rectangle size piece of land with your tractor or horses and keep it straight and even.......that's the aim......men, women and children's categories......

YES. This is life.

There were alpacas, and stalls.








So I bought some loot...buttons, facemask....ate some munchies...then the country music started.....then we went home.....

It was an interesting day. At least I can say I tried new things. I'm looking forward to my invite to the jacuzzi lake house and the spa.....tractor contest............Wellllll.......

Anywho, now it's time for some school prep, scripture (YES.), some lemon thriller tea (this tea is DOING IT for me now), burritos (with my homemade guac) and a movie before bed.

Tomorrow we gonna press play on my Ottawa adventure....

My bubble of harmony, peace, joy, bunny rabbits and rainbows has been well and truly shanked with a needle kids.

Reality is blindingly ugly when you haven't seen it in so long you forget what it looks like kmt.

But it's all good that just means it's time to actually start living and make effort to enjoy myself, I refuse to let this year be a waste or remain stuck in a rut.

There are 3 things I need to do for this to become a reality:

• Buy a phone - IDC you can' do anything without a phone sometimes, especially in another country. It connects you to the rest of the world (with or without wifi) and stops you from racking up international bills if its from the coutnry of residence - so you done know my parents will appreciate!

Not gonna lie the reason I want one primarily is so I can phone the lady who lives down the road so I can make appointments to get my hair done. And by FAITH one day to phone my canadian/quebecois hairdresser to hook me up with braids, a fresh perm or a trim! Somewhere. Out there. Is the blackwoman who's hands I will trust for the next 9 months....

• Master the buses. On. My. Ones. - Joe and Amy are the drivers in the group. And they drive the car. In the town where they live 1/2 hour away. So as it stands, in terms of big excursions - i.e. a deeply necessary all day shopping trip to Ottawa NOT spent politely not buying everything in sight and walking away from Forever21 because other people "don't really need to buy that much" and have one bag to their name when I could easily have 20 from my fresh paycheck" - *ahem* unless EVERYONE is going, I ain't going. Those two can drive, Dan has somehow mastered public transport in like, a day (tbf I'm sure I could leave him way up north in inuit territory with a compass and a spoon and somehow he'd be home before me).

• Find a church that is not Catholic, OAP crusty, stuffy, conservative....or a cult - I don't even care I LOVE going to church on sundays. My church at uni in Manchester - shout out Victory Outreach - was LIIIIIIIVE, my church in London - shout out Rhema Church London - was LIVE. Music forever on point, no acoustic guitar coom-bay-ah with socks and sandles or the oldest woman alive on some broke down organ. Full live band and singers fam! Preaching, teaching, the works I love it all. Anyone that knows me or has lived with me pre-Canada knows it's a given as far as I'm concerned. In my town so far there are 4 churches. A baptist-evangelical (whatever that means), a united church (again, whatever that means) and two with St- Someone names, which I presume are Catholic, one has a giant jesus statue outside so I'm betting that's Catholic. Oh actually five, one is Our Lady of Victory (say no more). Anyone who has even contemplated Christianity knows this is the major hurdle - ALLOW ALL THE DENOMINATION CONFUSION. I know enough to know that Anglican, to ME, is dry, not what I'm looking for. Catholic is not the one - no offence obvs. Pentecostal is the way to go as far as I'm concerned. But. I want to go to a parlent francais church. Narrows my options ridiculously. I'm not about to go tto one and get trapped in to drinking to koolaid so I gotta go about this one with some care. So Ima need bullet points one and two to enlarge my social circle of contacts and aid my search on this one.

I can practically hear the streets of Catford and Penge where I spent my childhood and adolescence crying either with laughter or with sorrow. Kmt.

Go ahead. Revoke my Oyster! Take away my ballet flats and just give me a pair of wellies.

I'm turning into some nature loving farm girl out here! Apparently Aleksey Vayner was right - Impossible Is Nothing.

I VOLUNTARILY took my two foot and walked my good-good sneakers (oh yeah, even my vocab has been poisoned) in the mud- YES, you heard - and went and picked apples off literal, physical trees instead of a supermarket shelf. I even ate some without washing them. Was even out in the rain, no hood or hat.

If there is a black girl/person reading this you know that this just got REAL if my headpiece is out in the rain and I don't care and I'm just eating nature with no suspicion!

Tbf though it was like spitting/drizzling so I could firm it.

My backside even road in the back of a tractor like a BADMAN!

I'll just admit it. I had fun dammit. I don't even care.

Now, I don't know Ima consume what is approximately a JD Sports bag full of big booty lookin apples (as you can see, my measurements and approximations still remain firmly in Londonese). 



Recipe ideas me and Le Bonne Gang (what me, my flatmate Dan, Aimee and Joe who live 1/2 hour away, have dubbed ourselves because we're just sick like that) have come up with includes crumble and ofc candied apples - a necessary activity in support of Fall and Halloween festivities obviously.

On that note, I'd like to add.

The struggle is REAL. I'm fighting a losing battle against the chubb it seems.

Between apple cakes, beaver tails, waffles, pecan pie and ice cream, peanut butter cheesecake and whatever else we usually consume when the Gang is ensemble, I don't stand a chance. My only comfort so far is that Joe eats as much as I do and enjoys all the bad stuff with me, always one I can count on to get chunky with me lol. But alas as I'm not 6 foot whatever and don't have the same levels of testosterone (thankfully ofc) or whatever the scientific explanation is, I will just remain short and heavy loool. #BLEAK #PEAK #BADTIMES and whatever other hashtags can mock the hopelessness of my affliction.

BUT.

In the spirit of going crazy and doing things I never would, I am going gym hunting this week. Putting a stop to the madness aka making sure I get my money's worth out of the Old Navy gym gear I actually allowed myself to spend money on.

So far in the Battle of the Chubb or the Chubby Wars, Canada is winning, but its only month 1/9 so game on....

Note to self - post about the failed night out in Ottawa, how I evaporated my first pay in 3 days and how some of my pupils clearly don't rate my life (y'all can take this as a coming soon announcement lol).

I'll end with another shock. Everyone that knows me or is afro caribbean themselves know that we do not consider or even use the word picnic in the same way as everyone else. There will always and forever be hot food, meat, rice etc, otherwise we're not involved. Well today I even had a quebecois picnic with the family we live with (they invited us apple picking in the first place - please, you thought I'd go of my own volition? Baby, no).