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May 9th 2008

I have purposefully missed out day ten simply because we did even less on that day than we did the day before. To be honest we came at completely the wrong time of year to get the most out of Newfoundland. Everything is shut as the tourist season doesn’t really start until the end of May or early June. Now I was unaware of this before we came but my parents weren’t. I think the problem is that we were looking at the holiday in different ways. They were looking at it as an opportunity to come out and get the house all ready and set up for when they come back later in the year with a couple of their friends when they plan to visit all the interesting places we have been previous years. I on the other hand viewed it as my actual holiday and I don’t think they really realised this. Don’t get me wrong, I have had a really good time, I just think that had I known in advance what the plan was I would have suggested that they push the holiday back a few weeks so that I could go off and do things on my own if they didn’t want to come. Ah well.

That said today we went out to a place called Pikes Arm that, surprise surprise, is a little coastal fishing village with a population, according to the notice board, of 194. As with most places you can go in Newfie this involved a walk up a hill and an amazing view out to sea. I of course took loads of pictures but the over cast weather had the same effect on them as it did on me and made everything appear sad and gloomy. I will admit that I rather lost interest after that and was glad when we got back to the house. I have spent most of the afternoon in my room writing and this has cheered me up a fair bit. Tomorrow we set off back to Gander and fly back over to Halifax. Now while I am no where near as worried about this as I was coming out and to be honest haven’t really though that much about it I suspect that having this knowledge in the back of my mind hasn’t helped with my mood at all.

I will be sad to leave Newfoundland and our little house, and not just because I will miss seeing the girls basketball team clear up our beach. At the same time I am looking forward to getting back to my real home in England and seeing my friends and the rest of my family again. Not too fussed about going back to work though…which reminds me I haven’t bought my work mates anything yet and really should do so before we leave the country. Anyway I have had a great time and still have as full day ahead of me tomorrow before we return to England. We are meeting up with Linda, sister to Doreen and owner of the place we stayed on our two previous visits. She is planning to take us out somewhere which should be interesting and will give me a chance to take a few more pictures as so far I have only taken 623 of the things.

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May 7th 2008

Day Nine - Er did we actually do anything today,

Today we did nothing pretty much constantly all day. I am not sure I even left my room other than to top up on chocolate milk. I did a lot of reading, a little bit of writing and more than my fair share of dozing. All in all a very productive day.

In the evening however we went across the road and met up with Doreen for a meal out. I had half a chicken and a rack of BBQ ribs and managed to get through a good 90% of it before I really couldn’t eat another bite. It was really good. My Dad has a plate of snow crabs, which are really rather freaky, and I spent my time waiting for the meal to arrive taking advantage of the restaurants Internet access. And that is about it for Wednesday.

Oh I did learn one bit of slightly upsetting news during the course of the meal however. The beach outside our house is covered in all kinds of junk that has washed up on it over the years and Doreen kindly said she would arrange for someone to come over and tidy it up for us. Well apparently she had now done this and it seems that some how she has managed to get the local college girls basket ball team to agree to come over and clean it up for us and so soon our little beach will be full of tall, slender 18 to 19 year old girls bending over a lot…BUT NOT UNTIL I HAVE GONE HOME! I’m sorry but that is just cruel. Would it be wrong of me to ask Doreen to take pictures? Anyway if you would excuse me I need to go now and, er, lose my passport.

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May 6th 2008

Day Eight - Taking a gander at, well, Gander,

Today we went on a bit of a field trip to the town of Gander. This is the place where the airport is located and as such we had already driven through it but hadn’t really stopped to take a look. Now how can I accurately describe the place? Do you remember that I said that Halifax in Nova Scotia reminded me very much of West Baltimore in the TV show The Wire? Well Gander reminded me of a TV show as well, though this time it wasn’t a gritty crime drama but the sitcom My Name is Earl. It seemed that almost everyone we saw looked like a member of the cast, though unfortunately there were a lot more Earls and Randys than there were Catalinas, and I could swear I saw a place actually called The Crab Shack. In one shop there was a guy wearing full fishing gear drinking a six pack of beer and in another a guy so creepy that we decided to leave by a different exit rather than walk past him again. Now this may of had something to do with the fact we spent most of the time visiting the various shopping malls to stock up on things we needed for the house, but who can say for sure. Most of our shopping was done at the local Wal-Mart, which, if you have never been to one, is one of those shops where you can buy a TV, a box of cereal and a pair of jeans at one end and a high powered hunting rifle, a canoe and one of the hats that you can put beer cans in at the other. Naturally I felt right at home.

We went to Gander with the intention of buying some towels, some extra cutlery and a couple of pots and pans but, thanks to my input, came away with a wide screen television as well. It is now set-up in our living room and I have wired my Mum’s portable DVD player into it. I can’t really think of much to say about Gander other than that when we were leaving we saw a sign announcing it to be “One of the top ten places to live in Canada”. Now I don’t now how old that sign was but it really doesn’t say much about the rest of Canada. It was nice to get back to Twillingate, which so far appears to be a genuinely nice place to live. Heck we already know more people in town than we do back in Fordham.

Oh and PS I discovered that woodlice don’t actually eat wood so there is a good chance the house will remain standing for a bit longer. Now if only I could say the same thing about our shed.

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May 5th 2008

A look at Newfie,

Ok so hopefully I have done this correctly and have managed to upload a couple of my photos to my Flickr account. I am not going to say much about them, as I think they speak for themselves, other than that they were all taken in and around Twillingate, with all the sunset ones taken from right outside our house.

Check them out and let me know what you think.

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May 5th 2008

Day Seven - New beds and…well just new beds really,

Didn’t really do all that much today, though I guess it is possible that we did and I have simply fforgotten seeing I am again writing this post several days after the events in question. Me and Mum headed down the road to look at yet more icebergs but other than that we spent most of the day just hanging around the house and doing nothing much in particular. The main thing that happened today was that the new beds for the spare room were delivered. When they turned up I was the only one in the house so had to deal with receiving them. Now I think I already mentioned that the Newfoundland language is only English in the most basic sense. Well it seemed that the two delivery guys were both Newfies to the bone. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Morning.

Delivery Guy 1: Muhrunarpy unrd flurben hardenduhflut mardhoodui ahrflar.

Me: Er, so you’ve come to deliver the beds? (stupid question I know)

Delivery Guy 1: Mardur hurden flarby morden hurden?

Me: Yeah…em…let me show you where they need to go.

Delivery Guy 2: Arhgh greargh kurgeyuuch greeuargh urgh!

Me: Yes, yes that is completely possible, maybe.

Luckily the carrying of bed upstairs doesn’t require much conversation and mid way through my parents returned home.

Dad: Hi, great the beds have arrived.

Delivery Guy 2: Muhrunarpy arggh muflany.

Dad: Indeed.

Mum: Would any one like a cup of tea?

After that we spent a good part of the afternoon actually building the beds before really taking the rest of the day easy. I laid about reading a book, I know it is so out of character, and the next thing I knew it was dinnertime. My Mum had decided to use up the rest of the moose steak in a pie and once we had a resolved a slight flour related emergency we all went for a walk while it cooked. Wandering up the hill to the hospital we came to Twillingate pond and took a leisurely walk around it. Unfortunately it being a warm sunny day I had forgotten to bring my snow shoes with me and when, about half way round, we discovered the path was still under a good few feet of snow I ended up with slightly wet, cold feet…though it is just possible that this had something to do we me going off the beaten path to take a photo and disappearing into a snow drift. That’ll learn me. Back at the house I discovered the moose in a pie is infinitely nicer than moose in a steak and I really enjoyed my dinner. After that I again took loads of sunset pictures until it got dark, or I went temporarily blind from staring into the setting sun, one or the other. I got a great shot of the house against the sunset that I will try and upload to the Flickr account. With regards to that I had a lot of trouble getting the pictures to upload correctly and I eventually gave up with what appeared to be only five or six pictures uploaded. However I discovered last night that all the uploads I had tried had actually worked and I had ended up with multiple versions of each picture. I have now tidied this up so that it is easier to see what you are looking at, sorry about that, new technology and all.

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May 4th 2008

Day Six - Sunsets and driving,

I noticed something today. Both my parents seem to have fallen victim to that very English habit of speaking louder to people who are having trouble understanding you as if volume was the hang up in your communication. As I said before Newfoundland English is very different from English English and as such there are a few times when there is a bit of a language barrier. My parents approach is to just talk louder. It is rather amusing and embarrassing at the same time. I am reminded of this because, and this is a little off point, as I write this the local handy man has just turned up to have a look at a couple of issues we have found with the place and he has a very thick Newfie accent and already I can hear my parents voices getting louder and louder.

Anyway back to the day at hand. It was another very typical day today that didn’t deviate from the established pattern at all. We went for a drive the other way down the coast, with me driving this time, which was a bit of a first. We stopped numerous times along the way and I took another shed load of pictures and we chatted to some guy who runs his own little museum in a shed at the end of a peer. After that it was back to the house, by way of the supermarker, where we all flaked out yet again for the rest of the day. I think it is the fresh air and the cold that does it. When you are out in it it is all very bracing and you feel awake and alive. Once you get back in to the warm it is like your battery has run down and you just want to crash. I am still hoping we will be able to change this routine before the end of the holiday.

For dinner we had the moose steaks that Doreen had given us. I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed with them. I really enjoyed the moose burgers and stew I had on previous visits but in steak form I found the meat very bland. We still have some of the meat left and are going to try doing something different with it, such as make a pie or a stew, as it seems to gain more flavour that way. After dinner I spent a long time taking pictures of the amazing sunset we had. I must have taken at least fifty of the things so hopefully I should have got one or two good ones. I also discovered that I did bring the camera download cable with me so will attempt to pick out some of the best ones and upload them to my Flickr account for you all to see later today…that being Monday not the Sunday that this post is about.

I have also noticed that the grammar and spelling as been really rather shoddy in the last few posts. I guess that will teach me to try and write the things last thing at night when I can hardly keep my eyes open. As my old English teach often use to write on my work “must try harder“.

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May 3rd 2008

Day Five - It’s all a bit of a blur,

Firstly today is my sister Jenni’s birthday…and I have just realised I have no earthly idea how old she is. I think she is 27 but I’m not sure. Anyway please join me in wishing her the very happiest of days today and many more to come. Sorry I can’t be home to say happy birthday in person sis. Other than that I have a bit of a confession to make. I have kind of been falling behind on the old travel blogging and am actually writing this a few days after the events in question. Now this isn’t a big problem obviously aside for the fact that the last couple of days have been very similar and I am not 100% sure what we did on which day. As such the next couple of entries may not be entirely accurate. I am sure you won’t mind.

So today, I think, we went up to the far end of Twillingate to look at the lighthouse and do a bit more iceberg spotting. The view was, as always in Newfoundland, amazing. You could see for miles along the rugged coastline and out at sea there were dozens of icebergs in all shapes and sizes. Once again I took more than my body weight in photographs but age I think the icebergs were just that little bit too far away for them to come out very well. After that we took a walk along the cliffs until we reached a point the path was still under several foot of snow and we were forced to turn back. Another stop at the local supermarker, something we have done every day so far, and back to house where we all collapsed once again. So far all our days here have followed this pattern. Get up, go out for a walk somewhere and take loads of photos, go to the supermarket, go home, fall asleep, wake up, have dinner and go to bed. One of these days we might actually do something in the afternoon.

That said we did have a few visitors over for an impromptu house warming party in the evening, well three visitors anyway. Doreen came over again along with her parents Skip (not his real name but what everyone calls him) and Marie. We had a fun evening even if we had a little trouble understanding what they, and by they I mean Skip, were saying half the time. The Newfoundland (which I am told should be pronounced Nu-fin-laand) accent is a mix of Irish, West country English and Canadian and as such can be a little tricky to follow at times. Skip told us a number of Newfoundlander jokes, which are similar to what we would call “Irish” jokes over in England, which were funny mainly because we couldn’t understand them and because he felt the need to explain the punchline at least a dozen times after he had told the joke. All in all an entertaining evening.

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May 2nd 2008

Going ape,

I thought I would break up my travel blogs with the odd post about something else so that you don’t get bored of hearing about my holiday, at least not as quickly. First up is this great story about an Orangutan trying it’s hand at spear fishing. Having seen local fishermen hunting with spears this Orangutan apparently decided to have a go himself. This is the first time Orangutan’s have ever been observed using tools to hunt. Unfortunately this method of fishing proved too much for the Orangutan to master, but personally I think that the alternative solution it came up with shows much more intelligence. The local fishermen also use lines and hooks to catch fish and the ingenious ape worked out that these fish were far easier to spear. Now can you think of anything more human that letting someone else do all the work before taking home the prise yourself?

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May 2nd 2008

Day Four - Icebergs, woodlice and brown water,

I discovered a few new things about our little house today. Firstly we seem to be playing host to a large number of woodlice. They are everywhere, not in hugh numbers but noticeable all the same. Every morning we come down stairs to see two of three of the things merrily making there way across the floor. We also find about the same number of dead ones that need sweeping up and disposing of. Now this in itself doesn’t bother me until you remember that our house is made of wood. These little things are most likely in the process of eating our new house as I type this. I think I may need to pay a visit to the internet cafe so that I can look up how much wood woodlice actually eat per day, that way I should be able to work out if our house will still be standing come the end of the holiday. The next thing I discovered was that we appear to have brown water. I’m not talking mud coloured but it is definately not clear and has a distinctly unpleasant colour to it that I am not sure is right. I don’t remember the water being that colour when we came before so it is a little worrying. My parents don’t seem that bothered about it but personally I would like to know if I am washing in something toxic sooner rather than later.

All that aside today we spent most of our time going round sorting things out of the house. We purchased a couple of beds for the currently empty bed room and they should be delivered at some point tomorrow. We also did a fair amount of very normal shopping, picking up the things you usually don’t bother with when on holiday. Slowly the place is becoming more homely rather than housey. After that we went for a little drive and got to see our first real iceberg. It was rather far away and shrouded in mist but the thing was clearly massive. It would have been nice if we could have got a bit closer but that would have involved a walk of several miles to reach the point and none of us really fancied that. Despite the distance I think I got some good photos of the berg that I was planning to upload them to my flickr account until I realised I have left the camera’s download cable at home. Ah well. After that we headed back to the house and took it easy for the rest of the day. You don’t realise how much the cold takes out of you until you get back inside where the exhaustion hits you like a wave. We really didn’t do that much walking today and yet we all just wanted to colapse once back at the house. My whole body felt numb for a good hour or so before I started feeling human again. That is going to a take a bit of getting use to.

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May 1st 2008

Day Three - Finally here,

So after another full day of travelling we have arrived in Newfoundland and at our new house in Twillingate. Though the holiday is technically only two days old it feels like I have been here a week already as the days have just been so long. It has just gone 9pm here but, because of the time difference, I am struggling to keep my eyes open and as such I apologise if this post is all over the place. Our flight from Halifax to Newfie was delayed which turned out to be a bit of a blessing as instead of the prop driven plane we were expecting we got a jet instead which made me feel more comfortable about the flight, especially when I heard that the reason for the swap was because the propeller driven plane had broken down.

Once we arrived in Newfie we headed quickly to Twillingate, our journey slowed only by my need to take pictures of every piece of scenery we passed. I am feeling a lot happier already as Newfoundland is just such a beautiful country and though the weather is chill the sun has been out today and I have got some wonderful pictures already. I was a bit worried we would be under ten foot of snow but in fact it is all but gone now. There is still plenty of ice around the coast and I have been assured that we will get to see icebergs this year. The house itself is wonderful, if a bit eccentric. The rooms are all fully furnished in that overly effeminate style that many B&Bs seem to favour and they seem to either have too many lights or none at all. In fact one hallway has a light but no light switch. You literally have to screw the bulb into the socket if you want to use it. It also has the lowest banisters I have ever seen and I feel rather unsafe when ever I walk near the stairs as you could step over them with ease. The house is right on the coast and the view from the window of the room that will eventually be mine, once we get a bed in there, looks right out over the bay and is rather amazing. There is a lot of work that needs doing to make it our house rather than just a house we own but it has a great feel to it and I already feel very comfortable here.

We have been out only briefly so far to pick up some essential supplies, cookies, chocolate milk and a twelve pack of the local beer, and have christened the place with a meal from the local Chinese takeaway. The woman who served us there was, now how can I put this without seeming rude, a few sandwiches short of a picnic. In fact I think she was actually a picnic short of a picnic. She was totally crazy, surprisingly rude in a “I’ll let that one pass as you may be suffering from some kind of mental disorder” kind of way and seemed to be hitting on my Dad which was slightly disturbing. The food itself wasn’t great but it wasn’t too bad either and it was nice to have a meal together in our new house, even if it did take place practically in the dark as the dinning room is one of the areas seriously lacking in lights. After the meal we all opened our fortune cookies and I discovered that even mass-produced psychic biscuits seem to think my future is not worth mentioning and my cookie was empty. Hmmmm.

After dinner we started to wind down for bed when we had our first ever visitor in the form of Doreen, the sister of the lady we stayed with the two previous times we came to Newfie. It seems that, due to a mix up when talking to my Mother over email, she had been expecting us for dinner and turned up with a basket of food, including various cakes and a tub of the oh so wonderful Hoofprint ice-cream. Following that pleasant surprise I made another one. Opening the cupboard upon which the TV sat I found that the previous owners had left us their entire collection of videos. Though they are all rather dated there is a good number of them and more than enough good films between them to keep us happy. Anyway it is time I turned in. The bed in my room has a mattress so thick that I almost need a step ladder to climb onto it and it is just so very very comfortable that I don’t know how long I can continue to stay awake while laying on it. Tomorrow the real holiday starts and hopefully I will have something interesting to tell you and may even get a chance to post these blogs so that you can actually read them.

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