Iceberg Drinks & Partridge Berries - Come Home Year Part I

Happy Hour - Rum over Iceberg Ice

Hubby is out introducing a great friend to the joys of sailing via Bart's Bash (Bermuda edition) and it's high time I started my chronicle of a recent eye-opening trip to my native shores.  

My sister, Lois, convinced me to stage our own Come Home Year.  We brought her little boys along and connected to our memories and made new ones - having a great time despite the (even for St. John's) poor weather, and trials of 3 generations under one roof for 12 days.

Always right on the mark, my bff, Trish, and her husband, Capt. Keith, provided me with an escape via a road trip to their place in Dunfield, Trinity Bay and what a time we had.

It was the start of Labour Day weekend so we piled into their roomy F150 pickup truck in the St. John's rain, drizzle & fog.  As we left the Avalon Peninsula, the sky brightened as predicted and our moods lifted.  The highway wasn't too crazy and the turkey sandwiches from Breen's Ultramar at Goobies went down a treat.

Photo by Bernice Goudy

Pulling up to their pretty salt box house in Dunfield gave me a tingling sense of deja vu even though I'd never been there before. It's been decades since I ventured out into rural Newfoundland so I expect it was childhood memories of visiting relatives' communities.   And it was a bit nippy that day.

The stage was almost set for a grand evening.

 

Photo credit: Trinity Vacations FB page

Trish and I went off for a little recce and  shopping in Trinity.  My eyes started to widen when I saw IRL what those fabulous NL Tourism ads have captured and how much the tourism product in these places has evolved.

There are several art and craft shops but Elisabeth Burry's little place right on the waterside stood out.  Definitely a sense of humour and playfulness at work here.
 

We declared Happy Hour was upon us and headed back to Dunfield.  

 

Booze and cigarettes and music go together - but not necessarily inside one's home.  Hence -- the Shed.  This ubiquitous outbuilding is the scene for many a party in NL.  Equipped with fridge, wood stove, chairs, ATV's, boating equipment, lumber and tools, you just roll up the garage door and settle in.  The neighbours wander over. You perch on a salt beef bucket and figure out that life couldn't get much better at that moment.

 

Then the text from Bermuda comes in...

It's not the same here at RBYC Happy Hour without you.  Even Wayne says so.

I had the perfect reply:

I'm sitting in front of a wood fire, sipping Mt. Gay rum poured over iceberg ice. Wayne [the bartender at RBYC] can't beat that.

Yep, that's the highball there in the top picture - see how the icechips are 9/10th's submerged?  Trish had netted and stored chunks of iceberg ice earlier in the summer.  Cocktails stay deeply chilled with a satisfying little crackle and pop sound as the ice melts.  How special is that!

The evening only got better with a kitchen party next door at Andrea & Dave's.  A gathering of extended family and friends old and new.  It was apparently just the warmup for the rest of the weekend's partying - but I sure enjoyed it.  And yes, the inebriated singing!  Check my video...

Early the next morning, these guys got up on a roof and reshingled it as a birthday gift for one of their [offscreen] buddies.  Like you do, right?

Trish and I went 'hungover hiking' on the stunning Skerwink Trail [pics below].  Aside from clearing my head, I also got to grab a few of my favourite partridge berries, in their native element.  I'd never seen them in the wild before.

So for all of you who think the townie lawyers are buying up the bays - well, you're right.  They are right in there with the people returning who have deep family roots in these communities but had to leave to make a buck.  And the artists and seabirds and tourists and whales that come to visit every summer because they love it.

Next post - Come Home Year Part II - back in Sin Jawns, aka The Republic of Doyle.

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