THE SUNSHINE OF ANOTHER TIME ZONE

Now this is a Sunday afternoon. Warm sunshine floods the deck, I snuggle into the papasan chair with my Kindle (more Wodehouse) and on the street corner, the steel pan guy plays happily for the neighbourhood.

Back home, a Sunday afternoon is a bit like a siege. You know that thing when you're cut off from the outside world by invaders? We have to prepare very carefully: make sure there are toys out ready, the kitchen is stacked with treats and that anything you don't want little fingers to play with... is safely out of reach.

Then they arrive, the Nibling hordes - they ring the doorbell, though its function is pure decoration, as the front door clicks open and small voices cry excitedly. In they come, the miniature attackers, clutching fragile-looking Lego structures (which will get lost) or chunky plastic weapons (which unfortunately, will not). The next two hours belong to them.

None of that here - just the melodious tones of the steel pan and the whir of traffic, the chirping of birds and the hiss of a barbecue somewhere. A breeze ripples through the giant willow tree out back and a black squirrel darts up an elm in the avenue. If I'm beseiged by anything, it's just peace today.

That's good because there are lots of unspoken questions at the moment. I was thinking them through last night, trying to work out why I feel certain ways about certain things and what I'm going to do about it - and for now, the only answer I've got is to sit here listening to the world around me. There's a kind of helplessness which is really beautiful - I can't switch my phone on, I can't fix things in the UK, I can't leap into action or stress myself out for a while... I'm three days and seven hours away from that world, and living in the sunshine of another time zone. The only thing I can do, the only thing, is to make the most of it.

I went back to Emmie's church this morning. She's on a training course, so today it was just me rolling up for the practice at 9am. It was all fine - I played guitar (rather standardly) and tried to sing in as Canadian a way as possible. Afterwards, Andrea showed me the difference between a soft A and an East Coast 'A' (which sounded much more like an 'E' to me). I realised that I couldn't say 'Kenada' without it sounding like I was mocking her accent, so I stuck to good old Home Counties English - which is quite natural, I suppose.

"So hey Matt, when are you moving to Toronto?" asked someone, as I left.