Pottery Bum

It's like a ski bum only dirtier.
We went to a potluck last weekend and I met many of The Sweetie's school mates there. I experimented answering the question "What do you do." It's not supposed to be a hard question,
and many people only have one answer to this question, I know. My answer changes as often as the colour on my mood ring. But the fun thing about party chit chat is you can just make stuff up and most people never question it.
First, I tried out "Housewife."
Not a lie, and weird as I have never used it before. Ever. I got a very favourable reaction from the woman studying the WI for her Master's thesis. If you don't know what the WI is, you don't qualify to be a housewife, but I do, so we had a chat about that - which led to an earnest conversation about crafts.
I tried out "retired" with one woman, who didn't even bat an eye. This leads me to believe that I need to revamp my wardrobe and hair.
Next I said I was a bum. Also not a lie. The first reaction was a bemused laugh, but no questions for clarification. Obviously they couldn't see anything interesting about being a bum. So I tried it again with the next person. This time it did get a reaction, "What kind of bum, like a ski bum?" Obviously she was taking a Methods in Research course, and I was impressed she had enough imagination to want to qualify my bumminess.
For a half second I pictured myself careening down a slope and knew I wouldn't be able to pull it off (I don't know graupel from piste) so I clarified with Pottery Bum. Also not a lie. I started at the craft council pottery studio last week. This also led to an earnest conversation about crafts. It is the year of the craft in Newfoundland. I don't think they mean dories.
On second thought I should have qualified myself as a Curling Bum, because curling would have been a nicer contrast to skiing. One is what the rich, fashionable elite do in Europe and the other if you haven't figured it out, is curling. I didn't think of it at the time because curling hadn't started yet.
Pottery, as it turns out, sounds too interesting to be funny. Particularly in a room full of sociologists. Someone labelled me as an Artiste, but I don't think it was meant maliciously. After all, I stopped wearing mismatched earrings in 1988.
For as long as I can remember I have had a secret desire to be a potter. Maybe it was all the playdoh I ate as a kid. I seem to remember watching a TV segment, (probably from Sesame Street or the NFB) of someone demonstrating throwing pots on a wheel. It was mesmerizing to watch a lump of clay being pulled up into a tall pot and then widened into a fat bowl, like it was something alive. I have always been very good at getting dirty and this was obviously something very dirty and gooey and so it was hugely attractive to me.
Saturday at the studio, a group of Brownies came through on an impromptu tour. They arrived at the Craft Council and wanted to see some potters at work. Unfortunately they got me instead. I hated to tell them it was only my second day back after an absence of 8 years. Longer than most of them had been alive. I was making pinch pot mugs and the other woman was making pinch pot wine goblets so there was no impressive display of wheel work. Consequently, they didn't look all that impressed. I did let them handle some clay though, and told the group leaders (are they Owls?) about other modelling projects they could do without a kiln.
Next week I start a class, and then the clay will really hit the wheel.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

When we lived in Vangroovy, friends of ours lived the basement apartment of the house we rented on John St. One day Corey announced he was taking up the violin. At the tender age of 20something when most violinists start at 8 years of age, Corey began his musical career. It was fun to hear Corey sawing away in the basement, and both Peter and I would silently cheer him on as he made his way through a barely recognisable Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That is when I knew what my parents felt all those years ago when I would plink my way through "Lion in the Long Grass' on the piano in the basement.
Now we are on the other coast, and we are again sharing a house with a musician. Tiffany lives in the loft apartment upstairs, and she is working on her Master's degree in Ethnomusicology. But to get a Master's degree in music you first has to have a Bachelor's, which means that she plays a little better than Corey used to. Her instrument is the cello, and Friday mornings are her time to practice. Mostly she does fingering exercises which I don't profess to understand, because when you play the piano you either hit the key or you don't. (mostly I didn't) Occasionally you can hear the cello part for a quartet or a symphony and with a little imagination, you can fill in all the other parts and it sounds really nice. Last week though she treated us to a very rousing rendition of Three Blind Mice. Only she plays it sadly, like gypsy music.
Peter and I both thought of Corey at the same time. And laughed.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Usually this essay is written the first week back at school, but my summer vacation is still happening and I thought I should start making notes. Ironically I don't ever remember writing one of these ubiquitous essays when I was in school.

Regatta Day - Thursday August 2
Usually the first Wednesday of August or the first sunny day after that. People in St John's have to listen to the radio in the morning to know whether it is nice enough day to get a holiday or they have to go to work as usual. I like this method and I think we should adopt it for all holidays.
We walked to Quidi Vidi lake and watched the rowing for a few hours. As we got closer we joined throngs of people doing the same thing. It was like going to a huge music festival. I have no idea who won, or even what the categories were. But the regatta is really just an excuse for eating fried things and playing games of chance. There were dozens of food and game kiosks set up by service groups as fundraisers. It was charming to see that they were still using the same kind of plywood and paint stands from my childhood instead of giving way to trailers by Timmies or the Scottish restaurant. I forgot the camera, no pictures.

Signal Hill - We went on a particularly windy day, and realised it was windier there still. Beautiful views, good interpretive signs about the military history of the site and the famous transatlantic radio signal by Marconi. You can go into the tower but not to the top. We watched what looked like a very small boat coming in through the Narrows, but when we got down to the harbour it was really quite a big boat about 60 feet long. From the top of the hill it looked like a bath toy. Too many tourists for pictures, but I did snap this one of Peter. We have to go back to explore the trails with Jake.

On August 4th we went to Middle Cove beach for the Craft Council Annual Beach Day firing. They dig a big pit in the beach sand and wrap clay pots in seaweed and throw various minerals on top. Then they pile firewood on top and set it on fire. A few hours later when the ashes are cool enough, they uncover the pots and see what patterns the firing has produced. It is a fundraiser for the craft council, they sell the pots on the beach once they have cooled. We ate a picnic lunch and explored the coastline while we waited for the firing to finish. Middle Cove also has thousands of Caplan that come ashore in summer to spawn, and it was crazy to see the waves wash them ashore. And crazier still to watch the children running back and forth throwing them back into the water. In earlier times people would scoop them up and use them as fertilizer on the garden. Ewww.

The Fluvarium and the Geo Centre got a post of their own. Nuff said.

On Labour Day weekend we went to Cape Spear. Also a very windy day, and the ocean smelled fabulous. Used up all my camera battery trying to get this goofy picture of us with Signal Hill in the background across the bay so I don't actually have a picture of the lighthouse. Bummer. Have to go back to explore the trails with Jake.



St. John's hosted a Door's Open Day on Sept 8th and 9th. Many places that usually charge admission were free, and some places that are not normally open to the public, were. I went to Government House, built in 1829 as the home of the colonial governor of Newfoundland and adopted for the Lieutenant Governor when NL became a province in 1949. Much of the furniture is original including a very cool dining table for 28 that I covet. The ceilings are painted plaster to look like carved relief. They were gorgeous. I forgot my camera.

Last weekend we went to Ferryland and toured the archaeological site of the first English colony of Newfoundland. It was fascinating. The colony of Avalon was started in 1629 by the same guy who then decided the winters were too cold and moved to Jamestown in Virginia instead. The foundations are extremely well preserved because the French attacked in 1696 and burned everything to the ground. When the English returned the next year they just built on top and kept going so the first 75 years are undisturbed until this dig started in 1993. The camera battery died again before we got there, so you'll have to explore the website at www.heritage.nf.ca/avalon

During the week, Jake and I have been using the Grand Concourse for our daily strolls. St. John's has an excellent series of 35 walking trails that link up various parks and green spaces in the city. Each trail section has a signboard that tells you what you'll see along the way. You can pretty much walk from Pleasantville to Paradise. So far we've wandered from Quidi Vidi to Long Pond to Mundy Pond. Without oppose-able thumbs though, Jake finds the camera operation difficult, so you'll just have to take our word for it.

One more for the licence plate file

This one is funnier if you say it quickly. Like Diagon Alley. Or that Gibert and Sullivan song:
"A pair a dogs,
A pair a dogs,
A most ingenious pair a dogs..."

A thanks for the thank you

Today my nephew 'Jamin sent me a painting he completed recently as a thank you for his birthday pressie. He was 2 in August. It's called Philosophy. I like it, although I prefer to think of it as Paeonia and Solidago. I am a fan of his work, as I am a fan of his mother's before him. Her Mountain and Seagulls in the Upstairs Gallery, Mahone Bay, is a particular favourite of mine. Although knowing her much more structured style leads me to believe that 'Jamin must take after his father.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn't mention that my nephews Claude and Lester have also sent us cards since we have been here. Thank you boys.
Peter thinks it is strange that the only people who write to us are toddlers and cats, but I pointed out that everyone else has email.

Good Night Bluenose, Good Morning Pitcher Plant

Driving home from the DMV after getting our shiny new licence plates, I realised that Newfoundland and Labrador don't have a slogan on their plates.
Nova Scotia of course boldly ignores at least 7 other provinces with salt water coastline not to mention at least 2 territories to proclaim itself Canada's Ocean Playground.
Ontario is Yours to Discover, Manitoba is Friendly and BC is Beautiful.
In Quebec you can be your own souvenir. The French are always a bit esoteric.
So we started making suggestions for Newfoundland and Labrador's licence plate slogan.
"Nothing to Say" Newfoundland and Labrador
"Our name is too long to fit a slogan in this little space" Newfoundland and Labrador
"We couldn't afford the extra ink" Newfoundland and Labrador
But then Peter had the perfect one. Scroll down and have a look.

How to Make Newfoundland Screech.

"Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses." Author Unknown

There is a link between Newfoundland and molasses, and I'm not just talking about the screech.
I spent last week sorting out insurance. Auto insurance it seems is not automatically transferable between provinces, and my underwriter does not insure vehicles in Newfoundland. My broker in Nova Scotia is also not licenced to find insurance here, leaving me to do everything myself. This is why they call Insurance a service industry. Finding insurance in Newfoundland is not really the problem. There are lots of brokers in St John's and some of them even return a phone message shunted through the Automated Press One For English telephone system. Well, one did. Eventually.
And that is when I learned that auto insurance in Newfoundland is roughly double the price in Nova Scotia. I asked the woman on the phone if it was because there were more moose to hit here. She didn't see the humour.
It gets worse. At home, all our insurance needs were covered by one company, and for that we apparently got a discount. But because we could no longer insure our car and truck with them, they refused to continue covering our motorcycles. Well, we left them in Nova Scotia so we are not riding them anyway, but we could not insure them as property sitting in storage either. Something about them having a Registration, so a lawnmower and a snowblower are OK but... For those of you who don't know, it can sometimes be a little tricky to find insurance for motorcycles and I anticipate this being a bit of a headache when we go home.
It gets worse. To get vehicle insurance in a province, the vehicle must be registered in that province. I didn't know this. We weren't going to bother to change our registration, but apparently if you are living in Newfoundland for more that 90 days it is required anyway. To get a vehicle registered in Newfoundland, you must have a Newfoundland driver's licence.
You are starting to understand the molasses comment aren't you?
On Monday, we spent 2 hours at the DMV doing the paperwork. We had to appear in person because there is no online form for provincial transfer and we needed new pictures on our licences. (To be honest, my new picture looks much more glam than the last, so I'm not complaining) We very nearly didn't get our motorcycle classifications transferred but we managed to catch that one at the wicket. We didn't catch that Peter's name was omitted from the car registration though. I suppose that is OK because my name appears twice. Unfortunately I only noticed that once we were home.
Home. Let's talk about home insurance. Having all our insurance with one underwriter means that now they are flagged to the fact we are not living in our home. We are considered absentee landlords, and while I'm sure that our friends Chris and Shelia are taking very good care of the place, the insurance company is convinced that they are irresponsible hoodlums planning to trash the joint and then set fire to it. The insurance company did however agree to continue coverage for more than double the price but only if we had the woodstove disconnected. I would like to point out that our woodstove is a cast iron, low emission Jotul, 8 months old and professionally installed by a WETT certified technician and is in compliance to all building codes. Apparently that is not good enough for this insurance company though. They are afraid of fire. I asked our broker if water damage from rain streaming into the kitchen from a hole in the roof was covered. She didn't see the humour.
Happily our new insurance underwriter is a national company and they are willing to cover our house in Nova Scotia as it is, at only slightly more than quadruple the original cost. Isn't that nice of them? So that holiday in Greece we were planning next month has been put on hold.
But the molasses was enough to make me screech.

Back to School

Yes. It's that most wonderful time of year again. Yesterday was the first day of classes for my Little student. I wish I had a picture of him in his new sneakers and with his new brightly coloured backpack on heading out the door with his lunch. But knowing how I would make fun of him he refused to pose.
Yesterday's class was cryptically called Graduate Seminar. When I asked him what it was about he said that it was to teach them how to think.
Thinking 101. Got it.
Tomorrow he has a class called Methods. I dubbed this Doing 101. He says it is more like How To, but I think that sounds like a workshop at Home Despot.
Today's class is Theory. It seems a bit of a rip off to make you pay for a class that hasn't been proven yet. On the up side it makes passing in papers easier. "Honestly sir, theoretically it should be right there on the pile..."
Perhaps that's why they call it Piled Higher and Deeper.

Instant garden

The far end of the back yard is a mere 20 feet away from the house. This bit gets sun from morning to mid afternoon.

This bit gets sun in late afternoon.

The rest of the yard is taken up with a table and chairs and the clothes line. The virtue of a small garden is that you can install it in a few hours.

Veni, Vidi, Veedy

I came, I saw, I gardened.
We've been here a little over a month now. And I have been coveting my neighbour's garden since day one. His entire back yard, small though it is, is planted with small shrubs, annuals, perennials, houseplants and any other growing vegetation you can think to stuff in.
Wistfully I have been gazing over the fence as he peppers me with gardening questions.
For a month I was strong. I passed by the leftover plants at Home Despot and Cambodian Tire in the first weeks when we were sorting out house needs. I turned a blind eye to the plants begging to be taken home at the grocery stores. I told myself I was content to use our back yard merely as a sitting area for catching up on my reading. I didn't need to buy plants. This isn't my house. It would be silly to buy plants for a yard that I don't even own. Right?
But this week, a number of factors conspired against me.
1. The weather turned warm and sunny again. And I started having breakfast in the back yard, surrounded by weeds.
2. I started looking for a job, which meant visiting several nurseries.
3. Most of the nurseries in Newfoundland close for winter in a few short weeks and they have put their stock on sale to avoid tossing it out.
4. The hardware flyers announced that bags of topsoil were only 98 cents.
5. I am usually the only 'customer' at this time of year but on Thursday there were other customers about too. This proved to be fatal.
I fell off the wagon at a place called Bickerstaff Gardens in Portugal Cove.
They had their annuals on sale for $1.
This was not a big temptation as I know I am hopeless at overwintering annuals in the house. We don't have the room either.
But as I was about to leave, some ladies were buying perennials because, as they pointed out to me, they were only $1 too. What? The perennials are only $1 too?!!!
Essentially, I bought a garden on Thursday. All the plants and the soil in one short spree. Just add hard work.
Today I added the hard work.
At the back of the yard, beside the gi-normous shed and under the clothes line went a double mock orange surrounded by double coreopsis, bi colour gaillardia, chocolate foxgloves, some lavender and a charming blueflowered plant called Cupid's Dart that looks like it is a member of the pink family.
Between the deck and the compost bin became a new bed full of tall blue speedwell, red geum, some more Cupid's Dart (white this time), purple heuchera, candytuft, more lavender and red dianthus.
Then it began to rain, saving me the chore of carrying water from the kitchen. It was like the weather fairy was anointing my labours.
I still have plants left to make a bed in the shady corner.
But I think this proves that looking for a job is never a good idea.