An-ti-ci-pa-a-tion...

“…is making me late, is keeping me waiting…”

For some reason, Carly Simon is rolling around my brain this morning...

… or maybe it’s the Heinz ketchup (oops… tomato sauce!) commercial… remember that one? Thick red ketchup oozing toward the bottle’s neck, slow as molasses in January… where it inevitably gets stuck and you need to use a knife to unplug it and then – splat! - your French fries are swimming in it…

Oh, I know why I’m on tenterhooks: my sweetie arrives in Hobart Monday - only four more sleeps! Then I get to show him everything I’ve been saving up of Tasmania… our version of “Ten Days on the Island”! And then we’ll be heading home…

What prompted this post was a note via Facebook from my daughter Heather – who’s had to go home to Canada from London, England, where she's teaching, to renew her visa. She was in the Toronto airport, enjoying an ice-cap* at Tim Hortons. It made me long for home - and I don't even like ice-caps! All these triggers: a photo from David Sims of one last dirt-encrusted snowpile on a bed of dead yellow grass; photos of Mikhala and Mike crossing the stage at UPEI’s graduation; a shot of Michaye Boulter's golden retriever Splash looking up at me, thumping her tail expectantly; Frank and Jude Driscoll on the front page of this morning's Charlottetown Guardian; Heather's words reminding me of my last visit to Tim Horton's in the Toronto airport, waiting for the plane to Charlottetown last December... (And just for the record: I also don't like Tim Hortons excuse for coffee - especially after all the good "flat whites" I've been drinking here!)

  

But that also means I’m leaving this wonderful island in two weeks’ time. So it got me thinking: what will I miss the most?

Stewart and Denbeigh and Maddie and Harry… Maddie’s six a.m. thump upstairs as she hits the ground running, and the big hug when I come up for breakfast... Three-month-old Harry’s gurgling smiles… Denbeigh’s fabulous cooking and our chats about parenting... Stewart’s fabulous cooking and our chats about academia and islands…

Lunch with Pete at Shippie’s – bangers and mash and "skinny" beer, and talk of islands and poetry and art and cricket…

Ferry rides over to Bruny Island with Pete and Anna… anticipating the fire at the shack and walks on Nebraska Beach with Ollie and Flossie… and that mad dash at the end when we close everything up and spin out to catch whatever ferry we’re trying to get…

Coffee with Millie and Anna and Catherine at Sandy Bay Coffee Roasters or The Jam Jar in Battery Point – talking methodology chapters and writing, commiserating about the PhD life (and afterlife), and editing papers... we're each other's “guerilla supervisors”…

The walk in the morning along Proctors Road – seeing the huge palm tree that is so distinctly “from away,” like me…

The sunrise over Hobart from my bedroom window or the Tasman Bridge fairy lights at night…

Playing Scrabble with Millie and Garth and Tessa and Qug in their wonderfully homey sharehouse on Wellesley Street…

Beating Pete at crib… and Anna beating both of us at Scrabble...

My officemate Jenny, and hearing all about her stories about kayaking around Flinders Island, or weeding on Maatsuyker Island, or her involvement with the rabbit eradication program on Macquarie Island…

Morning tea downstairs in Geography, where conversation with Dave and Annette and Tracy and Kate and Trish and Paulene ALWAYS comes back to sex… having them complain about my too-strong coffee (I have to have it that way – I brought my aerolatte milk frother with me!)… remembering the look on everyone’s faces when Kate brought in her gigantic bowl of tiramisu for Monday cake day …

Jane and Ralph, and Valentine’s Day lunch at their house on Poet’s Road, when we drank champagne, ate chocolate, and read love poetry… and sharing a house and drive, with Emily, at the Poetry Festival in Launceston… and a spring morning at the Botanic Gardens with Jane...

Walking along the waterfront to the Art School Library, and writing poems at “my” table by the window…

Drinking coffee at the Wrest Point Casino Coffee Shop with Leo Cheverie's cousin Pamela and her partner Paul...

Getting to meet my artists and writers, photographers and musicians, in their homes and studios and favourite haunts…

Driving the island with Pete, for cricket matches or interviews or a Tassie Tiger Beer at the Thylacinians' 11 home pub in Mole Creek...

Having Mount Wellington looking over my shoulder... 

Tromping on yet another glorious beach...

There’s so much more… so many more people… I suspect this post will be a running post.  I'll pass something, knowing it’ll be for the last time, and think, I'll miss that, I must write about that...

But for now I’m waiting waiting waiting… that delicious in-between time when it’s hard to focus for the bubbling stomach… knowing that I’m finishing something here, but starting another anew...

*iced cappuccino (a quadruple hit of caffeine and sugar)