As far as I can tell… we did little but manage to ride out the start of 2023. Environment Canada kept us busy, not with the normal sub-zero temps and snow days of our first month but heavy rains, high winds and dark commutes to and from school. At work, a colleague put it like this… “Welcome to the 97th day of January”! I think students struggled too! No ice for retreat to the camp, no snow days for trip planning or winter pursuits, and lots of hunkering down in warm sweater and rubber boot weather. Seeing the back side of this one isn’t exactly upsetting me!
That said… onward and upward in the quest to make lemonade! New semester and a new set of pre-service teachers at StFX. Perhaps taking on two courses an academic year alongside my public teaching is pushing it, but it surely keeps the mind busier through the heart of winter. We have designs on tackling another room upstairs and planning has begun with that. We also managed one beautiful Saturday at camp, detailed with a great hike, some hands-on chores and purposeful outdoor time that did much to invigorate!
Trip planning for March Break has happened in spurts and, as yet, we’re not quite feeling a lot of urgency to “nail it down”! I think we’re both less worried about voids in planning for this one, and just want to get on the ground. I sense that we’ll be more than content just being in our cities of choice, picking an attraction or so each day and “shouldering” with the sights, sounds, tastes and feel of our destinations. I’d suggest, in no small way, that an evening walk in cobbled historic Budapest Old Town, street side coffee/sweets in a Vienna cafe or a foamy Pilsner in a warm pub in Praha may be all we really want! New spaces and places that we know will be a feast for the senses.