almost gone

9 a.m. Canadian scene #2642: sparrows on my deck pecking at the last little patch of snow, the garden a vista of green, grey and brown, but so much life waiting beneath. When I get back April 23, it'll be starting to burst.

I'm more or less packed; my suitcase weighs 32 pounds, but that's with some gifts, including children's books for the small people I'll be visiting and a heavy pot of peanut butter for Lynn. Son Sam came over to say goodbye and is asleep upstairs; later I'll meet Anna and the boys, have lunch with all my nearest and dearest. Yesterday, the English conversation circle - Nurun, Foyzun and other new friends. Then Carole's class at the Y, a gathering of old friends, some I've known nearly 30 years, sweating around the gym. Lunch with Ken, who at 81 is as lively as anyone I know, though with a big scab on his head from a melanoma cut out recently. I told him I'd been to the shrink and the doctor, so had taken care of my body and mind. "And now," he said, "you're going to France for your soul."

This morning, waking up in my room with its row of framed portraits facing the bed - Beethoven, Matisse, Colette, Paul McCartney, my great-grandmother Anna, and other notables. My British grandmother's sewing basket, my childhood books, my mother's teddy bear Donald Leonard Brown and her china doll Janet - the comfort of beloved artifacts, of familiarity. Tomorrow morning, I'll be groggy at the end of the long flight, about to emerge into adventure, glad to leave responsibilities behind for a few weeks - house, tenants, children and grandchildren, students, editing clients, garden, conversation circle, Y, piano lessons, and all the rest (though not writing). Just me in the wide world - with, of course, a computer and smartphone, my Canadian life a finger's touch away. Thank God.

More sparrows have discovered the snow. This I will not see in Paris. My flight doesn't leave till 9.45 tonight. It will be a long day.

So my friends, my dear bloggees, I bid you farewell. Hope you will come along for the journey - Paris with Lynn, Provence and Montpellier with Denis, Nice with Bruce, and a week in London alone though with a visit from Penny. Not a bad little jaunt for an old bag.

Onward. Or as they say in the country with the cheese, En avant!