To Hell with the Consequences. And back again.

Queenie’s very tired. She’s been all the way to Alberta and back. Northern Alberta too. Over six thousand miles in five days. She’s a bit discombobulated.

It was very cold. When she landed in Edmonton last Thursday night it was minus 3 degrees. When she left this morning it was minus fifteen. Yes, that does sound very cold, doesn't it.

You should try having to pee by the side of the road in it.

A weird weekend. Queenie had a big case of the ‘where the hell am I’s’ most of the time. As well as a case of the ‘what the fuck am I doing here’s’. Which is the second time this has happened to her on a trip in November. For much the same reasons. Which is very scary and doesn’t bode well for travel in this month in the future.

I give up, do you know that!!

What would you make of a girl who spent hundreds of dollars on a plane ticket to go thousands of miles to see a bloke who completely blindsided her with a little speech he had prepared earlier, all about ‘I don’t think this is what I want; I think I want to be free!'

It had the usual enormous dollop of 'It's not you, it's me'. Interestingly, this time it was all wrapped up in a big helping of 'I don't want to lose you, just my sense of responsibility towards you, so I am dumping you three days before you fly home to Nova Scotia in order to spend the rest of the time persuading you that we can be friends forever. We can, can't we?'

You'd feel a bit sorry for her, wouldn't you? A bit of a domestic tragedy I suppose, you’d say. You'd understand if she was feeling a little bitter and cynical, wouldn't you?

Quite.

Now, what would you think of a girl who has had this happen to her twice in two consecutive years. In the same month.

Careless girl!

Yup, that’s exactly what I thought.

So there I was, sitting at the kitchen table in Himself’s house in Alberta last Sunday, hand-writing a blog entry because I had not brought my laptop. Sitting on my own save for a bottle of Canadian and a notebook, because everyone else had left me alone for a bit to sort myself out, bless them they're so kind, in what appeared to be an exciting new version of Hell.

“So what’s Hell like, Queenie?” I hear you ask.

Well, it sure as hell ain’t warm, boys and girls. Hell is Athabasca, Northern Alberta, population who effing cares. It was 4.30pm on a Sunday and already minus nine degrees Celsius.

Queenie was having one of her internal dialogues. The really boring one she’s had a few times in her life.

“So what did I do wrong this time?”
Darned if I know girl!

“So what could I have done differently this time?”
Darned if I know girl!

“Is there something I should have said or done differently to make this not have happened?”
Darned if I know girl, but why worry? You know you wouldn’t have pulled it off anyways, being too fond of saying what you think instead of the diplomatic/politic/ manipulative thing that other women seem to be able to say to retrieve these kind of situations and get things back on track with just a few tears and a wobbly chin.

My voices are not very helpful, as you can see.

Man, I am B-O-R-E-D with these conversations.

Bored. Bored. Bored.

And with that stupid question that women always ask themselves as they brush the shattered dreamglass and assorted debris of another classic, eleven-week panic, sixty-to-zero-in-8.3-seconds, male dumping manoeuvre out of their hair. Stand up to feel their arms, legs and assorted inner organs for numbness or bruising. Undertake a survey of the esteem damage done this time. All the time thinking:

Is there something wrong with me?

Queenie doesn’t know why she asks herself this question, because there is no answer. There’s nothing wrong with her: Queenie is just Queenie. She’s halfway to the seniors' home and she ain’t changing now. But she’s pretty happy with herself; she’s mellowed over the years. Not too bitchy. Not too whiney. Not too demanding (but she is a woman, for chrissakes). Not too insecure. A great believer in giving people space if they ask for it, in whatever shape it needs to take (in fact, being cool about her boyfriend moving to Alberta for the winter to sort his head out is a very good example of how understanding she is these days).

Not that it effing gets her anywhere.

And she’s not looking for Mr. Perfect. She gave that up a long time ago. In fact, she wasn’t looking for anyone when this happened. But it did and he was up for it and she thought, fuck it, life’s too short to worry about things not working out. To hell with the consequences.

And now here we are.

Queenie and her consequences.

Back from hell.

Sigh.....

Them’s the breaks, girl.

So, what has Queenie learned?

1. Don’t ever fly anywhere to visit a bloke in November ever again. Ever!


2. Don’t expect a bloke to know what he wants, particularly if you think he should be allowed to decide for himself.


3. Remember that you knew this before, and somehow forgot it. And don’t ever forget it again.
   

So, anyways, Hell. Now that she’s back from there, Queenie supposes it’s worth a paragraph or two.

My first impression of Alberta was terrible. Edmonton is a really ugly, dull city with huge low-rise blocks and a dingy downtown. The West Edmonton Mall, which is the biggest in the Americas, has sucked all its life out I think.

We spent a night there in a hotel populated mostly by cowboys in town for the National Rodeo Championships, which were taking place that weekend. We were too tired to deal with cowboys, so we just stayed in our room and had a couple of drinks.

Next day, we went to the Mall. Jesus Christ, I hate shopping almost as much as I hate spending my road trip savings on a ticket to Dumpville. (Okay, half a ticket). But there was nothing for it; I had to get a winter jacket. I managed to find one that goes all the way to minus thirty but still gives me a waistline for less than a hundred bucks. So I was pretty pleased. Then I had to go to Gap and buy jeans because I have lost the ability to pack a rucksack after four months in the one place. Then out of the shopping mall from hell I did get rapid.

(Having said that, if you like shopping, then it’s the place for you. It’s just not Queenie’s thing. Particularly with a bloke in tow)

Then it was into the truck (vehicle, not lorry) and up to Athabasca, a couple of hours north on the road to Fort McMurray.

Why did Kate Bush put a song about her washing machine on her new album? It is too strange. The second disc is much better than the first, isn’t it?

Man, central Alberta’s some flat, as Himself would say. A flat, endless landscape. And dull. No features. No shadows. A weak November light didn’t even make it to the ground, or so it seemed. All the poplar trees along the way were completely bare, their silver and black barks reflecting what little light there was. They stood in miles and miles of canola stubble and dead grass, a beach of palest barley yellow.

The whole vast expanse of it screamed absence of light. There wasn’t even that tigerish yellow tinge that you get in Ireland at this time of year, something to do with the sun shining through dark blue-grey clouds. Here there was nothing – just pale, non-blue sky, pale fields and pale trees.

As we got further north, the landscape became a little more interesting. Less flat. The Athabasca river is wide and strong and the ice floes building up in it gave it a mottled sheen that was quite pretty to look at. All the green had been leached out of the grass up here too, though. That was what I found really unnerving, and gave me the first sense of ‘where the hell am I’, a feeling that lasted all weekend and has followed me home to dear, leafy, historic Halifax, where it is a balmy six degrees above zero.

I’m scared the same thing will happen here. Everything will shut down its life source in preparation for the cold winter. What am I supposed to do? I keep getting panicky about the winter (not helped by being wound up by psycho-Bruce about being snowed in with him for a week, and some people at home hoping I’ll freeze to death in punishment for escaping Dublin). Then I look at everyone I know here, none of whom are terribly tough (all of the really tough people I know have gone to Alberta where it’s FUCKING cold) and all these wimpish people have done dozens of winter and survived. And so will I.

But I’m really scared.

Not that that's a new feeling for Queenie in November.

And I don't feel it so much now that I’ve done that few days. And survived with not even a runny nose.

Athabasca is a small town spread out across a valley created by two smooth gentle hills that give an intimation of what’s looming in the southwest. Wandering around it in the sunshine on Sunday morning gave me an exhilarating feeling – the one you get when you go skiing – the combination of cold and sun and clean, fresh air a mile and a half above sea level. It made me long to jump in a car and head for the Rockies.

Actually, the whole weekend has given me a serious case of the itchies. In the absence of a major lottery win my choices are a bit limited. Maybe BC? Possibly a bit warmer than Halifax, what with potentially two winter elections coming up.

We'll see.......

Let's get to Christmas. As Jersey Girl reminded me the other day - only 38 days to go!

That's enough for now! I’m very tired and it’s very late and I have to go to work tomorrow, so I’ll tell you all about the logging truck trip as soon as I can.