eggs, anyone?

Photo by: Fairway Kev

O.K. Maybe I've lost it. But my latest idea -- life plan -- is that maybe I should move to Wales and run -- or help run -- a B&B.

On many levels the crazy plot makes sense. I like the sense of community this would give me: a sense of family and connection, but with an everchanging cast of people coming and going -- a connection to travel, which I have always loved.

Wales is a good jumping off point for Europe, as well, if I would ever be allowed to leave the B&B. (Haven't worked out all these details yet about working 7 days a week, 12 months a year.)

I would like to find something, perhaps, that would enable me to live there half the year, and in Canada for half the year, as I don't want to be cut off from my brothers and their families.

I would have to learn to cook eggs more ways than sunny-side up or scrambled.

After viewing pictures of Welsh breakfasts on flickr, I'm not sure I could handle the fact that they seem to eat baked beans, mushrooms, and blood pudding and laver bread first thing in the morning. (Laver bread is something I heard about but didn't see last year in Wales. I know it is made from seaweed, but was expecting it to still look like bread. I'm afraid it may look like black mush. Black food is hard to take at any time.) In the above photo, the cook has also included cockles.

Whatever the hard realities that may nip this idea, at this point I am gobbling up all things related to the possibility, and immersing myself in the complexities involved.

I discovered the American travel writer-turned-Brit Bill Bryson and am laughing my way through his books. I found an excellent source for the business end of running a B&B on the visitbritain site, though I haven't tackled that yet.

Lots to play with.

I never intended on living in Toronto. The original plan was to go to school for a couple of years so that I could spend the next 10 years or so looking after my Mom, find a job doing anything, and play with writing on the side.

Now I'm a copy editor in the big T.O. and it's not what I want to do for a long time. I need to be connected to the land and community much more than I can ever be here. I like the idea of doing something that incorporates many talents, and even found myself singing the song from The Sound Of Music, Climb Every Mountain:

Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream
A dream that will need, all the love you can give
Everyday of your life, for as long as you live.

There is a lot about this idea that is appealing. My week's vacation in Wales in September will either bring me down to earth or set this dream alight.