Blank looks

In my many attempts to answer the inevitable question "So, how was Canada?"*, I have found myself describing it as a Year of Blank Looks. Some from me, some from the Canadians, some from other assorted foreigners I have been un/fortunate enough to meet.

The thing is, most of the people I've spent time with have been both a) bleeding foreigners and b) mere fetuses. This makes common points of reference rather tricky. Just yesterday my lovely Canadian friend Janna wrote on Facebook "Oh Mia how I miss you and your outrageous Englishisms...". 'Outrageous Englishisms' in this context meaning saying "I'll pop that downstairs" or "I like your hair in bunches" or "I'll bring my swimming costume".

I'll give you a couple of other examples.

At work, a woman asked me where she should put her harness now she'd finished climbing. I replied "Just bung it over on the red rack" and pointed at said rack. She looked at me, blankly, and said "I have no idea what you just said. But I think I know what you meant by your pointing."

I introduced Isaac & Reilly to the wonderful series Life on Mars, which I'd downloaded on iTunes, and I was very amused to see two teenage Canadian rednecks become obsessed with 1970s Mancunian policing, but found myself having to pause it on a regular basis to try to explain what was being said. "It's 1973, nearly lunchtime, I'm 'aving 'oops" being a classic example.

I was up a tree (working hard, obviously) and saw Josh, a colleague, walking beneath me carrying a black bin bag, collecting rubbish. "Hey Bin Man!" I shouted. Cue blank look. "Bin Man!" I ventured again, in case he hadn't heard me. More blankness. "What?" "Bin Man! You're the bin man. You've got a bin bag. It's a bin bag. A black bin ba...no? No? Erm..." "I've been where?" You see the problem.

*which in reality is as hard to answer as "So, what do you think of oxygen then?" in that you just don't know where to begin