The second phase of adjustment to expat life has been harder. Little things, differences I once found charming, irritate me or depress me. Turns of phrase I’ve picked up sound fake wrapped in my accent. Running, once a joy, has become a chore. My creative life is clogged, hunched around a few untidy drafts that shake off revisions like a damp dog.

This is all exacerbated by the end of winter, which is going out not with a bang or a whimper but a fifty-foot billboard, a white-tie gala, an open-heart surgery, a not-to-be missed affair attended by its starkest clouds holding something more final than snow.

I am tired of you, not-quite-new life, and I am tired of me too. So it is time for a gratitude exercise, and some hasty snaps from the Royal Botanic Garden.

  1. I am feeling positive about the job-searching front, especially because I have such excellent friends sending me job announcements and offering advice.
  2. Speaking of friends, my garden-viewing companion today was another expat. She is turning out to be quite a kindred spirit, and not only because we have the expat thing in common. Though I won't lie: it is really nice not to be the newest newbie sometimes.
  3. For my first 10K race next month, I am fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support, and we're already a third of the way there. Well done, generous readers!

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