Emmaprovement Continues...

"You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see."
Earnest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

Eleven hour flights are never fun. But imagine, then, having to greet your überhealthy family at the gate. They're pleased to see me - teary even - but there's always a moment when they pull out of the group hug to check me out. And, collectively, frown.

Translation: you've let yourself go.

London, see, is making me ugly. It's not just my family that thinks so. Vancouverites are largely disgusted by Londoners' lifestyle: we drink too much; we smoke too much; men are too skinny and girls too chubby. And what IS it with the funky teeth?

Often voted the most liveable city in the world, Vancouver is extremely clean, disgustingly wealthy and, supposedly, the healthiest city in the world. People go to the gym, not the pub, after work. As such, it's pretty boring; like the Geneva of North America.

It's strange going back to the bosom of your family, if only for a week. What is it about family that brings out your worst self? On the drive home from the airport, I snap at my mum and instantly feel awful. The woman used to wipe my bum. And without fail, within hours of my arrival, one - or all three - of the following will happen: we'll have a family fight, I'll cry and/or someone will yell at me about smoking.

Because, you see, in Vancouver, smoking is considered a criminal offence. One of the first cities to ban smoking indoors; next year, it'll even be illegal to light up on the street. The city may have free needle distribution for the junkies, but try scoring a match from a local? You'll be shot.

Marijuana, on the other hand, is a totally separate matter. Allegedly Vancouver's largest export, the city reeks of the stuff. Yesterday, walking downtown, someone coughed audibly when I lit up a cigarette. Less than a block later, a homeless man - someone who doesn't know where his next bed or meal is coming from - offered up a fat joint as I walked by.

"Want a toke?" he asked. Classic.

Like a philandering husband, I basically live two lives. London was supposed to be temporary, and even still, seven years on, when someone asks when I'm moving home, I always say the same thing I've been saying since I left. I'll move back, in a year, year and a half, tops. But, truth is, I can't really imagine leaving London permanently.

But there are moments when I'm nostalgic for the life I would've had if I'd stayed. Like last night. My childhood best friends were over: the boys barbequing Pacific salmon someone caught that day, while we girls gossiped in the garden, over wine we stole from my dad's cellar.