A milestone for locavore: Roddy and I broke in the soil for our first kitchen garden today! I can’t believe it’s only January and we’re getting our hands dirty already – yeehaw!

Our neighbours from Backyard Farm came round for a garden consult this afternoon. Jenny and Philip have converted their entire backyard into a mini farm field complete with urban chickens. They sell their fare twice a week from their backyard – very quaint! Who would say no to strolling down the road and buying gorgeous pesticide-free veggies, flowers and free-range eggs direct from their urban farmer?!

Jenny and Philip have followed Roddy and I through our offer on a 70 acre plot of land in Cape Breton, to my wish to have chickens of my own right here in Fernwood. Our landlord isn’t warming to urban hens yet (I give him ‘til Easter), but he has given us the go ahead to develop the edge of our long backyard into a sizeable garden. Now that the snowdrops are up, it’s full speed ahead.

The days are getting longer, but the light fades at about 5:45. When Jenny and Philip were finished guiding us through what to plant where, and how to space our path (and where to grow our obligatory Victoria pot plant!), Roddy and I jumped at the offer to borrow some of Philip’s shovels and get tucked in right away for an hour. First I plotted the new border of our patch with twine and makeshift stakes, then I got down to work using a brilliant sod tool which splices right into the hard sod like a knife into dense bundt cake – very satisfying! Roddy joined me in shifting our compost bin and the month’s worth of rotting kitchen waste to it’s new corner. We also removed four invasive fennel and a lemon balm plant and transplanted some hideous beast that looked like it belonged in the Galapagos. Slowly, we’re making a dent in the sod that surrounds the current herbaceous border of the garden.

We may not have a farm of our own yet, but we’ve got an excellent patch of land to experiment on in the meantime. And knowledgeable, generous neighbours to boot - the real icing on the cake!

My hands were black with rich earth and numb from the cold when we put the tools to bed for the night. What a fabulous feeling!

A horrible thing happened today. My trusty, stunning PowerBook G4 decided I had knocked her around one too many times, and after four and half years of service she can no longer be by my side. She’s been on the fritz for awhile now. Her screen has flickered from it’s normal, high res state to blinding magenta for months.

A seasoned traveller, she doesn’t transport well anymore, and tapping her screen (as one would slap the side of an old TV, or kick a car tire) will no longer revive her. My laptop, affectionately named ‘The Afterlife’, has battle scars from being dropped on concrete steps in Edinburgh in 2005, has had a new hard drive installed by Roddy in 2007, and a new power adapter also installed by my personal Mac-tician last year.

Roddy has performed open heart surgery on The Afterlife, but alas, this time, I thought it was over for my treasured friend. I’ve written a Master’s thesis, polished my CV, listened to great tunes, watched every season of Sex and The City, poured over endless photographs, and piled into bed with Ashley and Vic to watch Christmas films on her compact 12 inch screen. We’ve been through a lot together.

Is it sad to get sentimental about a little laptop?

As I walked home from the library in a bit of a huff, I was cheered up by a sighting of new life: these snowdrops are growing right outside our bedroom window. I don’t remember ever seeing these daintly little flowers in Ontario. They’re a reminder of Scotland and are all over Vancouver and Victoria. I just love them: the first sign of new life when winter is still going strong. (It can’t be spring in Victoria already, can it?!)

Pretty flowers aside, there is hope for my beautiful silver machine. Roddy just got home and tells me he’s found a way. Yes - there may be another life left in this ol’ girl! Cross your fingers for me…

Kensington Market is one of those special places that draws you in from it’s edges and invites you to explore. Explore other cultures, exotic and local food, music, and yourself.

When I moved back to Toronto from Scotland over the holidays in 2005, I had the exciting task of choosing a neighborhood in which Roddy and I would hang out for awhile. Leslieville was one attractive option: artsy, removed from the downtown hussle, and close to good friends in The Beaches.

Bloor West Village was also in the running. I had a love affair with the Runnymede area’s flower shops and a bakery named Bread and Roses. Ever since visiting an artist friend who lived in a cozy suite there, I imagined my life in the village would also be filled with antiques, a sunny balcony, brightly painted walls and rose water.

Romance wasn’t the victor in the end, however. Edgy diversity and bustling liveliness was. The top floor suite in a grand old house I found in The Annex was to be our home for almost a year, wedged between Little Italy and Kensington Market.

Kensington is a treasure. For years it has attracted immigrants as a safe haven and reminder of home. For me, it was a few extravagant blocks of discovery. Not yet cognizant of the finer nuances of locavorism, tapping into Kensington as a neighborhood market was transformative along the lines of connection to place and atmosphere.

I quickly grew to love a new way buying my food: in the open air (even in winter) for my fruit and veg, wandering through the tangled busy streets like a flaneur, popping into my cheese monger’s, my bakery, the spice house, my favourite haunt – Moonbeam Coffee, all the while taking in a sensory cocktail of sweet roasting beans mixed with sour yeast and pungent fish. During the summer a critical mass took over the streets on Car-Free Sundays, days where the market was filled with music, life size Scrabble and Chess, costume parades and buskers.

Kensington’s magnetism is obvious, as exemplified by the late, great Jane Jacobs’ case for small blocks: “frequent streets are effective in helping to generate diversity only because of the way they perform. The means by which they work (attracting mixtures of users along them) and the results they can help accomplish (the growth of diversity) are inextricably related. The relationship is reciprocal.”

And not to be overlooked, Kensington is also one of the best places on earth to try on a new identity.

I’m not the new year’s resolution type. I’m the once-a-year-when-I-feel-the-poetic-urge type. And that urge usually follows darker periods of self-reflection and desire for deep change. It takes me awhile to gain the momentum to actually make certain changes, however. When I leaf through old journals – an often painful exercise as I write when I’m down, not when I’m up – certain themes are clear.

For example, in times of frustration and lack of connection I’ve often been filled with resolve to DO and BE more. “Do yoga, do capoeira, do silk-screening, do pottery, do guitar lessons… Be fun-loving, be vibrant, be un-censored.” My resolve has always come from a place of longing to tap into a side of myself I no longer felt connected to, or a community undiscovered.

Last year, however, something shifted. Scanning old journal entries reveals that the winter was tough. But with the spring came a personal thaw and over the course of the year I realized I was already living a big part of my dreams and embracing the moment. This has not been an overnight transition – I’ve been trying to follow wise advice for a few years now.

How do I know that I’ve covered significant ground? Well, I FEEL so consistently fantastic lately, and a week after I penned my new year’s resolutions from 35,000 feet I realize that they were written from a fresh perspective. I wrote resolutions this year from a place of inspiration and heart-felt anticipation, rather than a place of mourning what wasn’t so and yearning for alternatives. I think the last time I had such a perspective was the 2002 holiday season – just prior to my first move to Scotland.

My life post-undergrad has been a roller coaster of euphoric highs and rock-bottom lows. But 2008 was a real growth year. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so connected to my work, my neighborhood, my family, my friends, my environment, my fabulous man and, most importantly, myself. Less resolution, more evolution! (Photo credit: Tori)

Only a scant few hours remain of my holidays and I’m savouring a final evening of excess and indulgence by munching freshly baked tea biscuits and chocolate from my stocking.

Two and a half weeks ago I left one of the biggest snowfalls Victoria has ever seen and entered into blizzard conditions in Toronto. Just what I wanted: a crisp, blustery, WHITE Christmas. And now there is barely a sign of the white stuff back in Victoria – it’s rainy and mild here but the frosty, cozy hibernation mode has gripped me and I’m armed with resolutions to excite my winter months.

New years eve with Tori, Nancy, Ryan, Marc and Linette was one of the highlights of the break. It was an ideal mix:

an intensely competitive new board game (Ticket to Ride, Europe)

a delicious meal (which included local squash)

stimulating art, bizarre odds and sods, lots of laughs

and a wee boogie!

I hope you’ve all had a fantastic break as well. Here’s to an enlightening and inspiring 2009! (Photo credits: Tori)