from the "leaving again for the first time" dept.

Leaving Halifax for Europa. The first time.
Originally uploaded by borderfilms (Doug).

The picture you see before you is an old one.

It was taken way back in October 1993. Four of us sat in Halifax airport full of anticipation and wonder.

Dave, Pat, Scott and I had never travelled to Europe. And we were just moments away from jetting to Lisbon, Portugal.

The reason? To ride our mountain bikes to a bar in the Algarve that we had read about in the paper (I still have the article!) and then onwards to Spain.

It was that trip, more than anything in my life, that changed me. It made me aware of the great big world, the importance of good friends and the fact that you can do anything (like a former 351.5 pound lazybones cycling hundreds of kilometres across the Iberian Peninsula) if you put your mind to it.

Now, with the big Ghana adventure looming, I find I am once again filled with that delicious mix of anticipation and anxiety.

I've noticed to that I am suddenly more aware of my surroundings.

I'll walk into Continental Coffee and think to myself "this is the 36th last double Americano I'll savour before leaving".

Or I'll look outside the kitchen window and feel a twinge of sadness knowing there are ony 31 more days of rain to endure before I head east.

And I've been stumbling across things that take me back to those youthful days in Halifax.

Last night while packing I came across a battered and scratched CD. It was the debut album by the Irish band Hothouse Flowers. They were never huge but I loved them at the time.

The CD was released in 1988, the year I moved to Halifax. Another big change. I still recall driving around the apple orchards of Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley listening to brand new music in a brand new place.

Don't Go, the first cut, is like a timewarp. And fitting in many ways. Read on & hum along:

There`s a smell of fresh cut grass
And it`s filling up my senses

And the sun is shinin down
On the blossoms in the avenue

There`s a buzzin fly
Hangin round the bluebells and the daisies
There`s a lot more lovin left in this world

Don`t go
Don`t leave me now, now, now
While the sun smiles
Stick around and laugh a while

And I`m lying warm on the soft sandy beaches
And my toes are submerged in the water and it feels good

Children playing building castles on the shoreline
Like a painting that we loved Lord it feels so fine

Don`t go
Don`t leave me now, now, now
While the sun smiles
Stick around and laugh a while

There`s white horses and they`re coming at me at a pace now
There`s a blue scirocco blowin warm wind into my face
The sun is shining on the underside of the bridges
And there`s cars going by with smiles in the windows

And there`s a black cat lying in the shadow of the gatepost
And the the black cat tells me that love is on the way
There`s a black cat lying in the shadow of the gatepost
And the the black cat tells me that love is on the way

Don`t go
Don`t leave me now, now, now
While the sun smiles
Stick around and laugh a while, stick around and laugh a while

Cheers!