Maggie in Newfoundland Again 2016: Day 36 St. John's

After our day of torrential rain yesterday we woke to sunshine and a day that was almost too hot! As I had a dinner date with my school chums, we all went out to Conceptions Bay to enjoy the lovely weather and bore our children with tales of their parent’s dating days! By the time we got ourselves in gear from our very late night on George Street, we were driving along Conception Bay highway with grumbles from the back seat about being hungry. We stopped at Sobey`s and while the boys went into the Liquor Store to find treasures for home, the girls went into the grocery store to create a picnic. Topsail Beach next stop!

While we had originally planned a hike up George’s Mountain, we were so hot on our picnic at the beach, we decided that driving from beach to beach around the bay is a much better plan! Manuals, Fox Trap, Kelligrews, Upper Gullies all the way to Holyrood to explore the place where I spent my teenage years, where David and I met, the place I think of as home. We parked at the Beach Cottage, the place where David and I first met. The last time we were here it was closed. Apparently now it’s opened under new management and the new owner is a second cousin of mine! Nobody home so we must be content to take a picture with the kids on the front step where it all happened!!

Across the street is a new place called the Station Diner. We learned that it has been opened by the couple who used to own the Beach Cottage – the lady who introduced David and me all those years ago! She is also not in so we struck out with connecting with people but our walk about town and along Holyrood beach is no less enjoyable. I pointed out wild raspberries as we walked along and I think the kids were fascinated to see them somewhere other than a farm or grocery store in such profusion! Everyone picked and ate a couple but we had trouble dragging Mary-Kate and Michelle away!

I was able to show them the house we grew up in (for all the growing up I’ve done!) We stopped and looked at Boland’s Pond where I learned to skate, and where I broke my tailbone in said pursuit! We drove around North Arm and saw my elementary school, Crosbie’s summer home where we swam in the indoor pool once a week throughout the fall, winter and spring when they weren’t there, Harbour Main and finally Avondale for a stop at my sadly abandoned junior high school and finally to Roncalli the home of all or my wonderful high school memories that I obviously had to share – my poor children!

We were still early for my dinner date and it was still too hot for the hike up the mountain so we went back to hang out on Holyrood beach. In typical fashion my children were well able to amuse themselves and created various games and competitions around throwing rocks in the water! David and I marvelled at the life that has led us here. Little did we think when we did much the same thing, 40 years ago, that we would be sitting here with two of our four children all these years later! Andrew and Mary-Kate realized that they are both older now than David and I were back then!

They dropped me at the Tea Room on the South Side and came in long enough for me to show them off to my old high school chums! My friend Trudy is always so good about gathering people together when I come home. I always feel a little sad when I think about the times I miss with them, but they assure me they only ever really get together for funerals and when I come home (my cousins said much the same at the reunion!) Perception is a funny thing I guess! No matter though, within minutes of us sitting in front of a huge window overlooking the bay, in the ginger-room that has been reserved for us, we are reminiscing, catching-up, talking and laughing hilariously like the last almost 40 (yikes! how is that possible?) have not separated us!

Following our delicious dinner (seafood chowder and fish …again! Growing fins I tell you!) Trudy, ever the one of us with a master plan, insists that we go to Holyrood beach for a photo shoot. Kathy’s husband Don (they were dating back in our high school days so we all grew up with Don too) was conscripted as reluctant photographer and as the sun set on the bay we laughed until we hurt! It amazes me that we managed any nice pictures since most of the time was spent with most of us doubled over and useless with laughter! At one point we would all try to sober up for another picture and some would say, “Yes we have to stop! We’re all middle-aged now with youngsters. We can’t all laugh like this without havin’ to pee!” …and the laughter would start again. Or in trying to walk up out of the water in our bare feet, on the shifting rocks, and Don had to help us he pointed out, “B’ys the last time I was here with all of ye, it was easier to get ye all movin’ and I didn’t have to haul you out of it!” Maybe you just had to be there, but the laughter that followed, it’s a wonder we didn’t all drown! By the time we finished we had gathered a bit of a crowd who came down to see what all the fuss was about. Someone muttered “Carryin’ on like a bunch of teenagers” and we were off in gales of laughter again! It truly was the kind of night you might see in a movie and wish you could be part of! If laughter is the best medicine we were all well medicated by the end of the evening! Not wanting the evening to end we went back to Kathy’s and Don’s to enjoy wine on their back deck and watch the moon come up over the harbour. Oh what a night!

I drove back to the city with Lolie and met my gang who had gone to Moo Moos for ice cream and to listen to the Folk Festival at Bannerman Park. While the kids are listening to The Once, Grant and Ruth were standing talking to someone who looked familiar to me. After a bit of a guessing game I had another little reunion with Aidan Maloney. He was a year ahead of us in school but growing up in the same town we all knew one another. He works at CRA with Ruth and lives in St. John’s. He has two sons who are musicians, one of them the drummer with Hey Rosetta so I know Jonathan will be impressed!

What a wonderful day this has been for catching up and reconnecting. Seems the older you get the more valuable this becomes. By that standard, today was priceless.