Ro Wells Travel

Happy International Women’s Day!

It’s been a while since my last blog but the time felt right for a new one. My time in Banff is going ridiculously fast. The first few months in Banff seemed to last forever but after NYE the time has gone by in a blink of an eye. It was a bit of a “rocky” start (pun absolutely intended) but I am feeling a lot more settled and content and am fully in the swing of life here. I’ve got two jobs here which are keeping me very busy – I think I’m possibly burning myself out a little but it’s an expensive place to live and I’m going to build in some down time towards the end of the month to rest and relax for a while. As much as I’ve been working, I’ve also been finding time for fun. I go snowboarding or skiing at least once a week, some friends and I have started a little dinner club where we take it in turns to cook each week, and of course, I am happily meeting up with friends for a cheeky pint or two. I had my first experience of watching skijoring (horses pulling skiers whilst they do tricks) and have been semi-successful at bingo. I also ticked off a bucket list item and went ice skating on Lake Louise!

February was indescribably cold, hovering around the -25⁰C mark but dropping as low as -35⁰C once you accounted for windchill. It’s the coldest I’ve ever experienced and I can confirm it is fecking freezing. I’m very much a cold weather person but that’s too cold even for me. I spent those few weeks staying bundled up, drinking hot chocolate and going outside as little as possible. Getting frostbite is not on my bucket list. However, the start of March has brought some sunny weather and warmer temperatures and I have wasted no time in finding the nearest rooftop beer garden to sit in and have a pint after work. In all likelihood we haven’t seen the end of the cold weather yet, it feels like it’s a bit of a false spring so I am making the most of the reprieve of the cold whilst it’s here. This taste of sun is definitely getting me excited for summer and I am starting to put some feelers out towards making a plan for how and where to spend summer.

So now that you’re all caught up on what I’ve been up to for the last few months, I wanted to take a moment to talk about International Women’s Day as it marks the day that we buried my friend Catherine two years ago. Honestly, we couldn’t have chosen a better day to say our final goodbyes to her. Catherine was the biggest advocate for women’s rights and feminism I have ever met. One of our friends wrote a fantastic blog recently for her work. It talked about International Women’s Day, the inequalities and discrimination that women still face and what Catherine would have to say on the matter. I would like to echo some of that sentiment here and I think the best way to do that is to tell you a bit about Catherine.

Professionally, Catherine had dedicated her life’s work to improving the resources and help available for women. She worked for the engagement team in Welsh Women’s Aid, a charity supporting victims of domestic abuse, focusing on how policy, specialist services and education can support children and young people who have either experienced or been affected by violence against women, domestic abuse or sexual violence. She was at the end of completing her PhD which also centred around violence against women and girls when she died and her PhD was awarded posthumously. Catherine was additionally part of a research project to develop an intervention that challenges restrictive gender norms in schools. I could go on and on about the work she did to support women and girls.

Catherine as a person was incredible and all those who met her felt grateful to have done so. She had this amazing sense of fun and playfulness and always managed to bring a smile to my face. I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog that Catherine was our force of nature and I’ve not yet found a better way to describe her. She would always leave a lasting impression in the best possible way. Whether you’d spend ten minutes, two hours or all day with her, you always left feeling like you’d been heard, feeling supported, and feeling better than you had been before. Catherine had this incredible ability to see through any masks you put up to hide when you were having a shitty day and she would be the first to ask how you really are. Not how everything in life was going, but how you were, how you were feeling. And she would listen, really listen to what you were saying. That is an amazing skill to have. If she saw inequality or injustice she would call it out. If you made a comment that diminished your achievements she would challenge it and make you recognise it. If she heard about an action that was inappropriate she would call the perpetrator out on it immediately. She wasn’t afraid to be confrontational to challenge discrimination.

She was also the first person to fight your corner and support you in whatever you were going through. She was wonderful at building up those around her, raising them to their potential and making sure you recognised and celebrated your wins, no matter how big or small. Whether you’d known her for years or had met her for two minutes, she would give you the mother of all pep talks to build your confidence and follow your dreams. She would give you everything she could to support you, both in her words and in her actions, even when she had very little she would always share what she could. I have a wonderful voice note from her offering advice when I was going through a really tough time. She told me to acknowledge what I’d been through. She told me it was okay to be in survival mode. She told me I always had a safe place at her house if I needed it. She told me to celebrate the little wins, even if it was something as small as getting out of bed that day. And she told me what a strong badass I was to have come through the other end. On another occasion, a few of us were meeting up for dinner or drinks. I was at a point where I didn’t know what job I wanted to do but had some ideas about what I wanted it to encompass. I just didn’t know what job fit those ideas. So, very simply she said, “if that job doesn’t exist yet then create it”. She didn’t try and tell me it wasn’t possible, to fit in with the crowd or to say I’d never get there. She immediately got on board with it and said “Right, let’s create that job, how can I help?” That’s just who she was. She was an incredible human, a fierce feminist and a loyal friend.

So Catherine’s advice would be this:

• Ask how people are and really listen to what they say. Give them a safe space to share their experiences.
• Support the women around you and build them up, celebrate their achievements and your own – no matter how big or small.
• Challenge discrimination, inequality and unfairness when you see it, even if it seems a minor issue or if no-one else is speaking up.
• Don’t be afraid to be different and forge your own path, even if no-one’s done it before or if people tell you that you can’t – you can.

My friend titled her blog with Be More Catherine and I’d like to leave you with that sentiment #BeMoreCatherine.