August 24, 2004

Miss Me?

Ladies and gentlemen of the blog... Look who's home.

dbdone

The Dublin Bay socks are finished, as is your faithful Harlot. Much was knit, much was bought, much magnificent Canadian wilderness was sighted and enjoyed, and we are tired and re-inspired in our patriotic nature. Beauty, thy name is...well, anything along the whole east coast of Canada pretty much.

Today's photo essay...St. John's Newfoundland. (The whole trip is too big to go on a single day, and the dial up people should just go get a bottle of wine, these days will be a little photo heavy.) The eight million rolls of film we took are yet to be developed, so you'll be contenting yourselves with way...way too many pictures from my digital.

The Dublin Bay sock arrived in St. John's. We stayed at a little house on the Battery, overlooking St. John's harbour, and within moments of arriving, Joe's super active dad Joe (we call him "old Joe" to avoid confusion. He loves that.) had taken us here.

harlothill

This is your trusty harlot, bravely sitting on the edge of a cliff (though there is some rocks and stuff that would smash you to bits before you plunged to your death in the sea) on a hike up Signal Hill, all for the sake of a quintessential maritime photo. I'm knitting (of course) the Dublin bay socks, while overlooking the narrows, the entrance to St. John's harbour. The harbour itself is to the right. In this photo I am (for the sake of those inclined to know these things) about 1/5th of the way up Signal hill. (You may note the largeness of my maritime hair. By the end of the trip I was in danger of knocking people over with it).

topsignalhill

This is the sock, the children and the enthusiastic Grandad at the top. The hike up the hill ends with an unmerciful flight of stairs that, when sighted from the trail, will suck the very will to climb right out of you. It was at this point...right when I was about to complain (not really complain, just sort of maybe say that I was a little tired) that Old Joe remarked that he JOGS the trail every morning that he is in St. John's. Jogs. I was speechless. I'm a pretty fit lady, but this trail made me tired, and here my father in law, (who's age we shall not discuss but you may infer at will) Jogs it.

sockhill

I decided at exactly that moment, that I wouldn't even complain about that trail. My legs could fall off, my arse could seize into a solid immobile mass, my lungs freeze in my body, in fact...I decided right that second, right when he said "jog" that I would Die on that trail before I spoke even one single word of complaint out loud in the presence of my father in law. Die.

The next day we went to Cape Spear, and the sock looked out over the most eastern point in North America.

capespearsock

The children scrambled over the rocks while Joe and I argued about the possibility of enormous rogue waves sweeping them out to sea. I claimed that I had seen such things on TV, and that I was sure that this looked like exactly the sort of place that this could happen. Joe countered with his experience of the sea, and my various overprotective qualities as a mother. The dispute was settled when Old Joe rounded the corner, saw the children on the rocks and warned us about the enormous rogue waves that can sweep children out to sea. I smirked for some time. (This proves a theory that I've been working on for some time. PBS saves lives. It also proves a secondary theory about which person in this marriage should be in charge and officially designated *right*, but that would be too much smirking.)

Back into St. John's, and the sock watched a tattoo at Cabot tower,

socktattoo

and hiked part of the East Coast Trail by Bay Bulls with Joe's Aunt Julie and Uncle Pete. Pictures to come of this, since the trail was long and the digital camera heavy. I only took the regular camera and...er...left the sock behind. I'm not sorry either. For a piece of knitting the DBS do okay. If they think that I'm going to wallow in guilt because I didn't take them to the Avalon Peninsula when they got to go to three other provinces and a Prince concert...well, there are no words for that kind of self-absorbed sock-centric behaviour. The sock can suck it up.

Later that day I got a chance to visit NONIA (read this older blog entry if you don't already know why this place is cool) and marveled at the mountains of handknits, and stuck my hands into about ninety pairs of thrummed mittens. While there I apparently lost my ever-loving mind and bought this.

xrowhouse

It's a Cross-stitch kit. (I swear to you that I was completely sober.) It's a completely accurate little picture of Gower St. in St. Johns, with all it's pretty coloured row houses. I asked a local why they are such wild colours and he told me that the way he sees it, it's one of two reasons. Either it's to keep your soul alive in the winter, when St. Johns is colourless for so long, or it's so that you can pick your own little house out when you are "drunk as a woodlice in a rum barrel". (In our house you would be "tree sheets to da wind".)

Finally, as if St. Johns could be any better than it already was, we took a whale watching trip on the Scademia.

whalesock

Out on the ocean, the sock felt the wind in its...er, fibres, and was stunned senseless by the family of humpback whales that swam with us, under us and around us. The captain of the boat is something else. He called the whales, and they came. The only thing that was more fun than seeing whales, was seeing my kids see whales.

scademia

The Scademia was home to my most profound Newfoundland moment. The moment that defined it all. The sun was setting over the ocean, the whales were swimming out and the wind was in the sails.
The wind was everywhere actually and I was a little bit cold (read freezing. Absolutely freezing, I couldn't feel my fingers) and I sent my lovely sunbrowned curly haired love to get me a warm drink. When he came back I asked if they had anything warm.

"Just rum" he said, and handed me a glass.
Long may yer big jib draw.


Posted by Stephanie at August 24, 2004 1:55 PM