Jig's dinner

Experience has taught me to beware the middle aged fitness instructor, especially females ones; they bring a kind of ferocious competitiveness to the room. When I got to the 9am spin class a couple of minutes late and saw two women in their 50s on the instructor stage, I knew I was in for it.

One had dyed black hair and was wearing tiny black Lycra. I know her hair was dyed, aside from the slight purple tinge, because she was joking about it running on the floor among her sweat, and boy she was sweating. We all were.

Arch Hole (around the bay)

The purple headed madwoman took the second half of the class and led us through the '7 minute mountain' with a stream of unsubtle, dominatrix comments like 'faster, harder, you know you can give me more', made more alarming to the men in the room I'm sure, by her habit of pointing a finger at them as she shouted. It was a little tongue in cheek, well she certainly knew she was being cheeky with statements like "you have to get off your motorbike and onto a real ride if you want to catch a woman like me...". Despite my being in deep anaerobic pain by this stage of the session, hot and breathless to the point of dizzy, I was distracted and amused enough to keep the work effort on to the end of the session. Her co-presenter seemed a little embarrassed, but then, she had literally been foaming at the mouth as she barked out her orders for the first half. Suddenly Newfoundland seemed more like California, with a level of whoop, whooping that I don't think would go very far at home. At the end as we disinfected and mopped down our bikes the man next to me, who must have been around my age said, "I think I kinda hate them right now".

Open Hall

I was still beaming bright red when I went for another round of meet and greets and self-promotion an hour later. I figured, it's a conversation starter.

But I need to work hard after the volume of food I consumed over Easter. I went 'around the bay' which seems to be a generic, in the way we might say 'up north', somewhere rural and a bit out there where possibly you still have family and a longing to live but can't find employment or population to stay. The weather was finally double digits for the day, and then returned to snow for Easter Sunday.

St John's

Frances, who looks after John's cabins took me round and cooked lunch for everyone. As she was serving she asked , "do you just want a bit of everything?" so I, foolishly polite, said yes. Well, the plate of food was as big as Signal Hill that marks the entrance to St John's harbour. I now know Jig's dinner consists of roast turkey, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, gammon, pease pudding, stuffing, gravy and god knows what else was lurking under the pile - possibly an entire rabbit. Actually I think the jig's dinner bit was everything but the turkey, because it really means, whatever you can cook up in one big pot.

Signal Hill, entrance to St John's harbour

I had to give up. I really couldn't get it all down me, not least because she'd already given me a massive slab of Blueberry Fluff or Flan or something laden with whipped cream and custard - to keep me going to lunch. I had to sit and chat and drink a lot of tea over the next 3 hours before I could even think of driving back to St John's. And am I fed up with 80s and 90s rock music. A land that has the most fabulous live music has shocking radio. The BBC has spoiled me forever. There was a very cool programme on CBC however, called "Three Years of Provisions and two French Horns - Music of the Moravian Inuit". It documented a tour by Memorial University brass of Inuit Labrador, (tempting to type resurrecting) the once common brass band music that was central to Moravian religion. It was quite marvellous to hear hymns being sung in both English and Inuktitut, simultaneously.

Old St John's, Battery Hill

Easter Monday in St John's was once again sunny and warm, 11C, so I picked up my trails map and headed out about 30 minutes to La Manche provincial park where there is a walking route down to an abandoned village. La Manche means, the sleeve. It makes sense when you see the geology of the place.What a pretty, pretty place to live, though winter must be a different story. The bridge across the gorge must be a good 40ft about the water and it was washed away once storm and had to be rebuilt. The trail was not much used south of La Manche and I found myself walking in mud with only moose scat and prints ahead of me. I started to get myself a bit tingly closed in the thick woods, because the radio has started reporting moose sighting by the roads and we'd seen caribou 'round the bay'. I heard a scrabble of branches and stopped in my tracks, just as a tiny squirrel ran across in front of me. Hmmmm, think I was letting myself be a little paranoid.

The bridge at La Manche

Well it is the big RW on Friday. Surely he hype here tcan't be as bad here as at home, but it is bad enough. I will be on an aeroplane heading to Halifax and on through Nova Scotia. I'm sure the airport TVs will be showing all the highlights and I won't miss her dress for longer than the morning. I hope they get better weather than us. After yesterday's sunshine we are back to snow tonight, ice pellets tomorrow.

'Top' of the sleeve at La Manche

La Manche - The Sleeve

PS Why does Lycra have a capital?

A walk in Newfoundland: Bread and Cheese Point to Bull Head Light

I love the humour in Newfoundland names. There are plenty that are more famed, such as the village of Dildo which has many a postcard of its sign, but even a simple coastal walk, only 7km there and back, takes you from Bread and Cheese Cove, along Raspberry Bottom and The Flats, over The Oven headland before reaching your turnaround, Bull Head lighthouse. The many lighthouses are very much needed as the map shows there to be 19 wrecks on this one 3.5km stretch of coast alone, but it was not built until 1908, too late for every one of those 19 ships; the earliest recorded on my trail map is HMS Saphire, sunk just before, or in, the safety of the Bay Bulls harbour, in 1696. The ship names give indication of the families left behind: Ann, Sarah Jane, Marilyn Donald, Elizabeth E Annie, Thomas, Eliza, Dora, Frances Russell and so on. In 1701, both HMS Loyalty and HMS Asia were lost. I wonder if it was the same storm. These names are serious reminders of the dangers these early voyagers took on.

Like home, there is a Pulpit Rock, however this sea stack stands at 14.7m high, and the interpretation tells us that "if any worshipping took place at Pulpit Rock, it was done by duck hunters". Not for them our stories of hidden services in stinky pigeon infested caves during the Reformation. Perhaps they were hidden enough just being in Newfoundland, or perhaps I just haven't heard those stories yet.

Next weekend I might do the next part of the route, from Monkey Cove, past Bald Head River, Landing Place of Bald Head, Rust of Bald Head, Bald Head, Turn of Bald Head, Bight of Bald Head....I'm curious to know who had the bald head. Likewise, I wonder who the 'American Man' was that has a hill top named for him. Is there an unknown American buried their perhaps? No wonder this is a land of storytellers. Every place name charges the imagination. The short, overland route between Bay Bulls and Freshwater, before reaching the boggy marshes is called.....The Clappers. It was an old horsetrail. Other points of the map are more literal. Gull island for instance, within view on this walk and now a seabird ecological reserve is home to 'Shitting Cove Rock'. For sure there is plenty beside the scenery to keep me occupied.

Bull Head Light

Front Door 

Looking into Dungeon Cove

The Flats

The Pulpit

Wet socks chase rainbows

Sometimes I have to remind myself, firmly, of what I have done, instead of walking around with endless 'to do' lists in my head. In a new place is it easy to feel inadequate when there is so much to find out, so much to see, so many people to meet and lots of things to establish. So today I left aside the laptop for the morning, went on a short drive and long walk in the sunshine and then sat myself down at the institution that is Tim Hortons with a large cup of tea to write a list of all the I have done in my first week here, just to remind myself I don't have to do everything now. I won't bore you with it, but it calmed me down at least.

For the second time my trainers are now drying off very slowly in the misleading sunshine. I woke at 7.30am to a gleam through the blinds that told me it was already bright outside. I wanted to see Petty Harbour, the village that we'd reached the other day overland by trails. I knew I could walk from there along this wonderful coastline towards Cape Spear - the most Easterly point in North America. I forgot however, that spring takes a long time to come here and last night it was snowing when I left the gym and as I dropped off to sleep the radio was reporting an overnight low of -9C.

So instead of striking out immediately I bought a coffee in the cabin by the jetty of Petty Harbour and had a blether with the woman behind the counter. I forget still, the question 'and where are you to'. They don't mean at all where am I going, but rather where am I from. At least, that's how I think it works. I pictured a Newfoundlander meeting a Ugandan:

"and where are you to?"

"I'm on my way coming."

Apparently we all talk English.

I had a such a lovely chat with the lady over my coffee I completely forgot to pick up the postcards I'd just bought, but I'm sure if I go back in a week I'll find they've put them aside for me just in case I come in by again.

I wrote up my journal in the car and made more lists, because I do have plenty to do and let the sun rise a bit higher before heading out. I just love it here I have to say. I find it so calm. It reminds me of the north west of scotland, which I suppose it should as the rocks are all connected. The sea was mirrored blue and below a deep green and clear so I could see the rocks at the bottom of each geo, but like the sunshine, the sheen was misleading. Every now and than a wave would break heavy over a rock to remind me there was swell out there somewhere and with several nights of wind warnings this week, there had to be sea further out. The horizon was tell tale raggedy and I'm not sure I'd have wanted to go very far offshore in a small boat.

The trail wound through old forest and dorment blueberry shrubs which still had their rusty autumn colours and finally cleared so I was just walking along the edge of the rocks, feeling like it was the edge of the world. I can't wait to see the icebergs passing from Labrador and a whale fluke. Then I think I'll begin to feel I'm really here somehow. I hit upon a small stream which I couldn't leap and as the ice was still forming on the plants beside it, I didn't much feel up to taking my socks and trainers off to get across so it became my turnaround. I wasn't going to get to Cape Spear today on foot anyway, it would be a full day to get there and back, but I'm glad I was stopped because I followed the stream instead and it ended in a pretty waterfall into the sea. It is cold still. The fringe of splatters were frozen as was the sea spume washed up at high water. The strong sunlight made all the icicles sparkle and formed a delicate rainbow through the spray. A little treasure for my viewing. 

People have been wonderful. Newfoundland is famed for its hospitality and it certainly has not let me down one bit. I realise I have to stop asking everyone if they are from Newfoundland. Of course they are, almost always. I got used in Alaska to everyone having come in from 'away' and partly attributed their positive nature to being proactive enough about life to have got themselves there. Newfoundland somehow is humanising. It is easy to remember here how little a gesture needs to be to make the difference to how a place feels, because people are forever making small but welcome gestures.

I baked some shortbread and went across to see the neighbours who I had met on Hogmanay. After they placed me, we had a long chat over another cup of tea about politics as Canada is in the middle of an election period. Then they invited me to join them at their son's saxaphone recital tonight. It's part of his music degree that he has to give a show, so I think that will be really fun.

But that will be my second concert and I've only been here 8 days. On Wednesday I went to meet a communications company I had contacted through a PR firm in Aberdeen. I was hoping they might give me some pointers on what the local industry is like, instead they completely opened their doors. First of all, the entire PR team met me, then they gave me an hour briefing on the major industries, who's who, what jobs come up where, what kind of salary scales I can expect. The girls were on their phones texting people to ask if they were still recruiting for positions they'd hear of and by the end I said to them, I'm going to feel I've let you all down if I don't find work now.

I wrote a thank you email when I got home and in reply had an invite to their coporate suite at the local civic centre come ice hockey rink come music arena, Mile One. It was some guy I'd never heard of, Jackson Browne, but now know co-wrote Take It Easy for the Eagles. I went along and a chance to meet some more people and get to feel a bit more orientated to how things are. Most importantly, the week has just made me feel right at home. I won't struggle to be here if I can make the leap jobwise.

Part of me is aware I could just be casting rainbows through everything I see just now because I want to feel I belong. Scotland is still intoxicatingly beautiful and I have a strong sense of home that I hope I never leave behind, but this place feels like home should be and can be but somehow it is harder to connect to. Didn't we too have communities where everyone played something and storytelling was central? Perhaps I'm just nostalgic for something that never was, but I like to be in a corporate setting were people are telling me how important community and landscape are to them, they get misty eyed talking about the wilderness of Labrador and explain that music is absolutely central to their lives. I get the feeling people do their work and do it right and then get on with the most important parts of living. I like that the lawyer across the road plays in a band in the pub in town on a Saturday night and that is not in anyway unusual. No doubt there will be plenty obstacles to come so for now I'm just enjoying the journey of where all these trails are leading to, which right now could be anywhere between here and Goose Bay and that's all fine with me!

Back on The Rock

It's good to land in a place that already feels like home. As we flew in the snow was driving past the window but the winds were light. Today there is a wind warning and I'm glad I'm not in the air. It feels like February again.

I've just taken a few days to try to straighten out my body clock and get orientated. I picked up the car and set up a bank account on my first afternoon then tried to shop, but had slept so little I found myself wandering around the aisles completely unable to register what I was looking at or make any decision. I bought chicken and salad and apple pie and gave up on anything else at that point. When I drove home I completely missed my street, then missed the house which is hidden behind a still thawing snowbank. Time to sleep.

Moose the dog has grown from cute puppy to splendid husky with a long back and ridiculously curled up tail. He looks all set to be hauling all the way across to Alaska to me. Tiffany and Justin have him trained up to beg, bow, sit, roll over and shake hands. He's not so quick on coming back to you when there are interesting things going on in the woods, but I still reckon he'd be fun to skijor with and more than capable of figuring out his Gee-Haw. He's got the pulling thing down no problem!

I finally felt I needed to get out and get some exercise so Justin showed the trails right behind the house. I have to love a suburb which quickly leads to frozen lakes and into forest.

Spring is just coming now. The snow was sugary enough on the trail to walk in trainers, though I ended up finally with wet feet. Where someone had cut wood along the trail the smell of resin was hovering warm in the sunshine and we walked in t-shirts until we got high and clear and then the wind was still biting. We followed a snowmachine route for about an hour and a half, over the top of a hill which eventually lead into a different drainage system and on to the hills above Petty Harbour. It is my kind of 'city' that I can walk from the suburban door, straight to the seashore along perfectly mushable trails and wind up in a pretty village that looks to be a thousand miles from anywhere. There are plenty places to run a dog team around. The snow is too patchy now for snowmachine but a few people passed us blasting around on ATVs and I was thinking I'll be wishing for my mountain bike soon. As I stood in the old Catholic graveyard above Petty Harbour I was wondering if the 'residents' would mind my putting a dog yard right there on that flat ground?!

 The gravestones were a real mixture of elaborate granite carved with scenes of fly fishing, boating and duck hunting, even people's photographs etched into the rock in the most recent monuments. I wondered how different genealogy searches would be if all our headstones at home had photos carved into them from the 16, 17, 18th century. Others were just a simple, nameless wooden cross, all beaten up and gnarled in the winds. They nearly all faced the sea and I liked the wide grassy banks between them. It gives a sense that this has been a small town for a long time. Rather alarmingly though, the ground had subsided enough to just about reopen a 6ft hole at one gravesite. We couldn't see anything but it wouldn't take much more rain for whatever they buried under there to be coming right up to the surface again.

 Yesterday was just like spring and though I needed to get some work done and start making contact with offices, eventually the sunshine pulled me outside and I went for an explore round Bowring Park which sits between us in Kilbride and town. It lies around Waterford River and is full of little walkways, gardens, sports facilities. I think in summer it would be really a treat and in winter, fantastic cross country skiing. It certainly looked like again we were far from anywhere, but in truth the rush hour cars passing on the nearby highway were echoing around the valley. I'll take it though, as a city park!

 Today I am struggling again with being awake and trying to get some work done. I have found the local gym and plan to make their 5pm spin class so I can start to feel a routine coming back. Besides, if I don't I might be tempted to overdose on the many varieties of muffins on sale here and end up resembling one!