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Bleeding Fingers, Pretty Sounds & Canada
Monday at the end of a five show weekend is travel day for the touring company of How To Train Your Dragon: Live Spectacular. Where the contents of our life precious enough to join us get bundled up and strapped down into all manner of suitcases, duffel bags and backpacks. It becomes a little tedious packing & unpacking almost every week. The hotel rooms I meet I tend to unload everything into new chester drawers, closets and bathrooms, otherwise you feel like you truly belong nowhere.
Hotels are charming enough, there is nothing to maintain, nothing to clean. There is also no sense of ownership. Unpacking cases and filling the temporary surroundings with your own stuff soothes the mind and makes it all just a tad bit more "home".
So here I am in a new hotel room, the Hilton in London, Ontario Canada the day after travel day. Leaning against my wall is a new gift to myself, my guitar. An instrument I haven't the foggiest idea how to play complete with a case, books to teach myself and a demonstration DVD with a wild haired forgotten seventies musician instructing me. Playing it, however dreadfully I may strum, makes me feel good. It has become one of those signature items that makes a living space, a place to live in rather than visit occasionally for sleep and replenishment.
My wrists ache and my fingers are sore, but it has been too long that I've lived without music so there is a little self-healing involved as I teach myself the six-string acoustic guitar with dreams of grandeur!
My first day in London, Ontario has been quite surreal. I know nothing of the history of this town, I wait to discover that at the museum this week. However it feels incredibly British. Is that because the river is the "River Thames", or that this morning I drank a cafe au lait at Covent Garden Markets? Perhaps it is the absurdly similar road signs? With all that in mind, it has a flavour unto itself as well. The wide sprawl of Northern America is evident as is the Canadian atmosphere on the streets - friendly not brusque, warm not stares akin to the emptiness in the bustling streets of London, UK.
The urban culture of downtown London with whole alleyways bursting into life, street art dripping down the brickwork and layering itself on to your thoughts. Restaurants hidden along the curbside full of that charm that can only go with underground "style". Here I am sitting in the middle of it primed to explore and discover.
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Therese Howarth Full of adventure as your travels continue...