I seem to have fetched up in the midst of a super-busy week. I’m making my first-ever podcast item for TGIM, using field recording muscles I haven’t flexed in a long time, and mixing muscles I haven’t flexed in even longer. So there’s some trial and error, teaching myself Garage Band, Zencastr, iQ5 recording. There’s…

Earlier this week I went to Moncton to help my in-laws move from the house in which they’ve lived for more than thirty years into a spiffy new condo where they still have lots of space, yet won’t have to shovel the thirty centimetres of snow expected to fall there today. I spent Monday, Tuesday…

It has been challenging to move from a life that was clearly defined by the clock, with daily and hourly deadlines that were immutable, and an in person team that was constantly communicating what I needed to be doing at any given moment. In that life, I knew everything about the deepest inner workings of…

And just like that, the final night of the writers’ retreat is upon us. We’ve made our final fire in the fireplace. I made a big pot of veggie curry and it’s simmering on the stove, rice cooking alongside. I have a bit of whiskey and a bit of white wine, and we’re down to…

One of my rules for writing a novel is: stay home. Don’t go anywhere interesting to write, because mostly you will just explore the new place and not so much with the writing. And here I am, breaking one of my own rules, on the first Monday of the rest of my life. I’m at…

I can’t say for sure what my “new life” is like, because I’ve mostly been on vacation since my “old life” wrapped up. But I can say with confidence that there’s no way my old life would have afforded me a three-week break at Christmas. So I guess that’s an indication. I can say I…

Six months ago, I walked to work one morning. It’s a thirty-five minute walk from my house to the CBC. I walked and I thought. The book I am writing was tugging on my sleeve. The view from my garden was playing on my mind. A hundred tasks I’d put aside were nagging my to-do…

That’s how much time I have left as the host of Mainstreet on CBC Radio One. My encounters at the Farmers’ Market are now solidly with faces that are twisted in a rictus of “I am so SAD you are leaving,” to which I have struggled to find a correct response. I have settled on…

So, this happened: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/storm-chips-covered-bridge-flurry-of-flavours-1.3322602 Which means I spent the day receiving message after gleeful message from people about it, followed by angry tweets from people who think I am depriving Frankie MacDonald of royalties on the Storm Chips name, followed by colleagues dropping off a bag of Storm Chips, followed by other colleagues seriously asking to…

When I was writing this post a year ago today, I couldn’t have imagined how it would change my life. I wrote it out of frustration, forgetting for a moment — or not caring — that as a CBC radio host, I am not allowed to publish my opinion. Also, my employer would very much…