tvordlj | Decade meme (Reply)

sprezzatoura posted a meme that summarized each year of the past decade. I wasn’t sure I could remember major things from each year but giving it a go anyway. I think this would most definitely be termed a decade of travel as i went somewhere every year.

2000
1999 was a rough year. Our union was on strike for nearly 3 months over the summer but the end result was a huge pay rise so by 2000, I was in a much better position financially.

In May, I went to British Columbia to visit cousins that I hadn’t seen since I was a kid and also went to Victoria to visit more relatives.

In the fall, my friend Carole and I headed to the U.K. The main event was a week long “ping” in Manchester with Corrie net friends from all over the world though most were from North America, the U.K. with one traveling from New Zealand. An Aussie was the one that started the ball rolling but she wasn’t able to attend in the end! Carole and I started in London for a few days, spent the week in Manchester doing day trips and visiting the Granada studio. We bought china in Stoke, then did a short bus tour around Scotland with a few days in Glasgow at one end and a few more in London on the other end before heading home finally after a month. We flew Iceland Air so got to spend two hours in the Reykjavik airport en route!

2001
Developed a crush on a younger man I’d met via the corrie crowd but it didn’t go anywhere as he ended up in a relationship with a fellow corrie friend who was even older than me! Doh. Never mind, we’re still mates, me and he.

Short trip to Ottawa and Kingston, Ontario for another Corrie get together, this time a sailing “ping” in Kingston.

10 days after 9/11 I flew to London. Spent some time there on my own plus a few days in Essex with more internet friends though no Coronation Street connection this time. Really enjoyed my week in London as I’d never spent any extended time there in the past. From there, I dropped in on

naturalbornkaos for some castle and beer time. Off to Manchester to hang out with friends.

Suffered periodic back problems.

2002
I started my LJ in May thanks to

naturalbornkaos.
More back trouble so I finally went to a chiropractor. It doesn’t cure it but it helps. Also discovered I had high blood pressure so had to take meds for that, too. This summer I went to my high school 25th year reunion. Doesn’t seem like that long! A new contract at work was signed in December so no strike this time around. Phew! The year ended with a chick party at my house building a desk!

Travels saw me spending Easter in Manchester and then going to Ireland (Cobh and Dublin) for the first time. Then took a bus tour around Ireland with Carole. In the summer I went to Ontario to meet up with Corrie friends, one of whom had come from Oz and who was the reason for the party.

2003
In 2003 I entered the digital photography world and got a tattoo. One of my best friends had a baby at the start of the year. Work was good, I headed up a large development project but in the end, politics meant that the system was never implemented.

My trip to the UK included a quick jaunt to Scotland where I met up with an Irc mate who, sadly, died suddenly later in the year. A stop in Manchester included the Paul McCartney concert. Little did I know there was someone else in the sell out crowd that I would meet and who would become very important to me. Who?

gramie_dee! We met in the corrie irc channel between Christmas and New Year’s at the end of 2003. The rest, as they say, is history! Back to the UK. The trip was good but while I was staying in Cardiff with a friend, I started to get sick. I staggered through Bath and by the time I got to London I was really ill. Had the doctor to the hotel and ended up checking out early and staying with my sister’s friend. He kept an eye on me and help rearrange my return ticket.

In the fall, my back went out again! But it righted itself and in November I went to British Columbia again to visit family and friends. Went to the Vancouver Zoo and fed a giraffe!!! Also in the fall, Halifax experienced the full on fury of a hurricane, Hurricane Juan that decimated the trees in one of the best local parks and elsewhere all over the area. People had no power for up to 2 weeks in some areas.

2004
Probably one of the best years of my life. Little did I know that the person I had met and was chatting to while we saw in 2004 online would be the person I would be with in his flat in Salford to see in 2005.

gramie_dee and I started off chatting as mates and by the spring, much to my surprise, it seemed like it was more. We met face to face on July 12 and then went to Ireland for a wedding. Yep, it was all good and it’s gone from strength to strength ever since. So yes, we saw the new year in and then spent a few days in London and met up with some LJ folk while there.

The Ireland weekend was also joined with a few days in London at the beginning, and a few days in Manchester. I headed back to Manchester (Salford) right after Christmas though a blizzard delayed my departure for two days. I still got there by New Year’s which was all that mattered. It wasn’t the last blizzard either. In February a huge one hit Halifax, nicknamed White Juan, that shut the city down for a couple of days!

At work, I learned java programming which was quite stressful. I also took up oil painting, more or less teaching myself in spite of taking “lessons” at continuing education.

2005
This year was shadowed by my dad’s illness. Graham did come to Canada for the first time in May and met my dad the day before his surgery. I’m glad they at least met and Dad did say he liked G. By the end of the year, we knew he wasn’t going to recover but he stayed with us through the holidays.

Work was good. I finished up a rewrite of an old legacy system and it went well. My best friend moved to Edmonton which was sad. I also had a session with a psychic but I wasn’t overly impressed. Most of what she said could have applied to anyone!

As years go, it was not very good overall.

2006
And the year started off with my parents’ 50th anniversary followed by my dad’s death. I went to Salford in May. We spent a few days in London, meeting up with the usual LJ suspects and also hired a car for a week and did day trips from Manchester to Wales, Blackpool and York. It had been a year since we saw each other since my trip at New Year’s was cancelled due to Dad’s illness. The great thing was we got engaged. The hard thing was not having my dad there to tell.

I attended a travel photography seminar in Toronto in March which was pretty cool and I got to meet

lola_is_naughty as well. Saw Alice Cooper in concert and then later saw the Rolling Stones who came to Halifax in September. Awesome even if we did get rained on!

After the Coronation Street event featuring a Corrie star (something that has been ongoing for a few years now), I joined the committee that puts on the event because I wanted to get more involved. I became the secretary for the committee. Sadly, we didn’t get to do the show in 2007. Doh.

My mom and I went to Prince Edward Island in the fall (me with a dodgey back again) and I also got to meet Dan Ackroyd!

2007
Graham visited in March for my birthday but the trip was marred somewhat by my dodgey back yet again. I redesigned my own website and also did one for the Downeast Streeters, which is our corrie group. Our school class had a 30th reunion! Felt like only last year we went to the 25th! My good friend Carole died in July. She’d been ill for a few years but nobody thought she would be gone so soon. I’m not sure what it was exactly but I suspect kidney failure as she’d had a syndrome that affected all her organs and her kidneys were not in good shape. I spearheaded a fund raiser at work and we had a memorial park bench installed at a park near where she lived.

In November, I went to visit Graham and took him to Paris for his 50th birthday. That was a really good trip! We stopped in London on the way back and did day trips from Salford again in a hire car.

I was called for jury duty but didn’t end up having to do it because all the trials were cancelled. I started doing some paid freelance writing for a Coronation Street blog which gave me some extra money and financed the trip to Paris.

2008
We put on the Corrie show again this year and it was a lot of work but a great event! Still writing for the blog but it’s been cut back quite a bit as the owners are feeling the crunch.

I went to a few funerals this year, elderly relatives mainly though another coworker passed away as well as did one of my favourite cousins, Eddie. That was tough and made Christmas a little sadder.

At work, our job position got reevaluated so there was another nice pay hike and a bit of back pay there to make the end of the year more positive.

Graham visited in September and we had a great road trip to PEI and Cape Breton. One of the best trips was when Mom and I went to London in March. Mom had never been before and I was so excited to show her my favourite city! She fell on the stairs in Trafalgar Square on day one!!! Aggh! Nothing worse than bruises and boy did she have a lot of them! But nothing broken so we hobbled the rest of the week and saw and did lots! Graham joined us over Easter and we all went on a day tour to Canterbury, Leeds Castle and Dover. Mom and I also went to Brighton and hit the shops and the palace!

2009
Stopped writing for the corrie blog and joined another one that my long time corrie mate G. has. It’s a free gig but lots of fun. This year’s local Corrie event went off well again.

January started off with me having the flu. I developed a persistent cough in the fall that lasted, though slowly went away, until I came down with the flu in November. I then coughed for another month. It finally stopped and I got a cold after Christmas. *sigh*

Visited Graham in May and we went to Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges and London. He came here in November and we spent a week in Montreal. Day one, I fell! No bones broken. I had the flu when I came back. Ah well. The trip was good though and I got to see some old friends, make a new one and see the Montreal Canadiens play hockey!

I joined the gym again and this time am paying a trainer to get me there twice a week. I also bought myself an iPod touch as an incentive for the gym.

So you can see the years have featured a lot of travel, a dodgey back, probably more than I mentioned. I didn’t go into all the details of all the stuff I did, things like Tall Ships, parades, short road trips, stuff like that. It’s been a pretty good 10 years for the most part. As I get older, my older relatives are as well and there are more funerals than weddings each year. In fact, I think I only went to one wedding, earlier this year. I can’t think the last time I went to one. Dad’s death was rough but it’s finally getting better. My sister’s marriage broke up but she’s got a new fella and they’re moving into a minihome later I January and it’s all good. Our union contract is unsigned and things aren’t looking so good there. Cross your bits that there’s no strike!