I just want a goddamn popsicle!

Lately I've been a bit bored. I haven't had a job in over three months so I've been taking out my frustration by ruthlessly comparing the country that has graciously accepted me into it's arms with my ever-faithful and frequently-abandoned Canadian homeland. My good friend and fellow country-deserter Amanda has shared my frustrations with the petty differences between England and Canada, notably the lack of dill pickles here. I finally caved and purchased an unnecessarily large jar of pickles from the 'ethnic' aisle. The text on the jar was all in Scandi-Frenchi-Slavian but I saw comforting crescent moons slices of garlic within the jar and I thought, 'Surely, surely they wouldn't put garlic in these unless they were proper dills.' I brought them home, let them marinate in the chill of our midget-sized (aka Standard English Size) fridge, and dreamt of savouring the crisp snap, the mouth-watering tang, the serious satisfaction of a gift from vinegar-soaked heaven: the dill pickle. Well, unfortunately the result was another fail, another limp, weakly-sour, mostly-sickly-sweet finger-width abomination, and basically the nail in the coffin of my search. I give up. The first thing I'm doing when I get home in August is going to Maclean's and buying the biggest damn kosher dill I can find and I am taking it into the alley behind the shop and making sweet love to it with my mouth.

To deal with the sadness and heartbreak that comes with being separated from my favourite snack food, I have taken to wandering the footpaths around my neighbourhood and uncovering the absolute beauty that surrounds our modest seaside flat. My favourite path starts at the end of our block of flats which means I get to walk past the 'crackheads' that starred in the recent episode of Hayling Island Cops that played out on a Tuesday evening beneath my balcony. The crackheads are not very friendly. They like to sit out front of their houses on jagged cuts of old carpet while their random pit-bull mutts sniff out bits of garbage and lick the oddly shaped tumours protruding from their sides. I'm not kidding. Just outside the crackhead palace is a haphazard collection of old furniture and random cast-off household waste including a 10-ft fiberglass tuna fish that has been cut in half, obviously for ease of transport and dumping. This sorry excuse for a thrift store is the last frontier before the path starts winding towards the beach through patches of shrub and the ever-present, infamous Scotch broom. The trail follows the coast of West Beach, the sandiest and warmest part of the Hayling coast. Despite protection from the West Winner sand bar, the waves can be very rough and often catch people off guard by barrelling over the barriers meant to shelter and protect walkers. The Hayling Island Golf Club stands stark and white, like a small airport, and marks the transition from sandy beach to mainly shingle and shell. Continuing on towards Gunner Point gives beautiful views of Langstone Harbour and suddenly the terrain transforms into soft sloping sand dunes which are part of a protected nature reserve. I am always taken back to the beaches of Nova Scotia in this area, the off-white sand and pebbled beach transport me to the East Coast of Canada, the scenery is so similar it's almost eerie. The sand dunes eventually fade away back into the shingle beach again and the path follows the fence surrounding the golf course, eventually leading to the Hayling Island Sailing Club. A colourful collection of shining sailboats nestle together, their halyards and rigging twanging in the wind creating spooky, metallic harmonies. Thick bushes surround the sailing club and obscure the shoreline providing shelter and privacy. Julian and I happened upon an impromptu rave in this area one Sunday afternoon and the bass from the party's shoddy set-up could be heard for miles. Shortly after the sailing club and rave area is the Hayling Ferry Launch. A small boat connects the south-west coast of Hayling with Eastney, Portsmouth. The ferry costs approximately six dollars Canadian for a 720 foot journey. I'm pretty sure that's a rip-off, but there is a pub and an ice-cream shop right next to the boat launch so you can either get booze-drunk or sugar-drunk, depending on your taste or age, and the price won't really matter. Rounding the SW tip of the Island takes you past a quaint gathering of houseboats stuck in the mud flats and salt marshes. These were surplus military boats purchased in the 1950's during the housing crisis and they nest in their cradles overlooking the Kench. The Kench is an inter-tidal inlet owned and protected by the local council. Brent geese are the main occupants of the muddy shoreline although Canada geese are also known to pop by. The Kench also offers access to a large parcel of land housing three creepy abandoned buildings which have been thoroughly explored by Julian and I. Further up the road from the Kench is Sinah Common, where remnants of World War II gun placement lay. Because of Hayling Island's similarity to nearby Portsea Island it was used as a decoy during the war to detract German enemies from important military targets. Part of the remaining structure has been converted into a rest area and a memorial to six gunners who died during a heavy raid in 1941. Oddly, with it's green rolling hills and sunken hidey-holes made of stone, the whole scene looks like the set of the Teletubbies, if Tinky Winky et al. were gun-toting war heroes. Sinah Common is basically the last sightseeing area on the trail and afterwards, it's a calming walk through English oak groves and along muddy footpaths until it breaks out into the wide fields in front of our apartment building. The whole walk takes about an hour and a half and offers more than enough of a reminder that I live in a heart-wrenchingly beautiful place and I am unbelievably lucky to have moved from one gorgeous island to another!

I have been looking for other ways to fill my time since daytime tv is just as shitty here as in Canada and I can only read for so long before I fall asleep. I decided to try my hand at volunteering, something I haven't done since high school, ashamedly. I knew I wanted to do something with the elderly or with children and by some stroke of luck, I got in touch with a coordinator for the Hayling Island Girl Guides. An older leader is meant to retire this year and they were looking for a once-a-week leader for Rainbows, their group for 5-7-yr-olds. I decided to check it out on a Friday evening and I now go twice a week. Part of 'initiation' into the Rainbows group as a leader is having a name chosen for you. We all got into a circle and I was introduced as having come from Canada. The children were then prompted to come up with the types of animals that are associated with Canada. These animals were to form the inspiration for my Guide Leader Name. The options ended up being: Moose, Beaver, Goose and Deer. I was equally rooting for and cringing at the possibility of Beaver, mostly for the comedic value, but thought it might be a bit inappropriate for me to giggle salaciously every time I heard it. The girls ended up making an association between the animal 'Deer' and the name 'Bambi', and a majority vote cemented the moniker normally reserved for porn stars and trailer park wives, onto myself. I'm actually quite happy training to become the new Rainbow Leader. I hope there is an outfit involved. I hope I get to wear glitter. All jokes aside, it's nice to be around little girls to even out all the wonderful (?) gifts that come with hanging around a little boy.

Speaking of little boy... thanks to the literary genius that is Beatrix Potter, I was awoken at 6:30 in the morning last week to read 'Jeremy Fisher' in bed.... Welcome to my life.