When we left L’Anse aux Meadows it was pouring rain. We had had some intermittent rain and wind for the three days we were there, but our travel day was miserable. Well, that timing was great. We were able to literally ride out the bad weather. We were going to Rocky Harbour, in Gros Morne National Park. We drove back down the Viking Trail. Our first side trip was to Port au Choix. There was another lighthouse there, and it was ghostly in the fog. Dale saw some caribou off in the distance so he started walking towards them to get a photo. It was cold so I went back to the car. I was keeping a watchful eye on Dale and I was amused to see that the caribou were also walking, towards the parking lot. I rolled down the window and got my picture. Dale got back in the car, excited that he had been so close to the caribou, but I teased him that my pictures were just as good, and I was warm and dry. We drove to the Port au Choix National Historical Site Interpretation Centre. It details the history of the indigenous peoples of the area by showcasing the artifacts found in the area. It was a fascinating and informative visit.

Our next stop was the site of the shipwreck of the S.S. Ethie. There isn’t much to mark the spot, a small wooden sign and stairs to the beach. We learned most of the information about it online. There were still pieces of the boat in the water and on the beach. Thankfully everyone survived.

After a shipwreck site it was appropriate that we stopped at a lighthouse. The weather had cleared a little and  at the lighthouse at Lobster Cove we took a short but pleasant walk. It was a quick visit as we planned to come back. We walked back to the car and drove to Rocky Harbour. We had booked into a yellow chalet up on the hillside. The GPS took us up from the highway on several paved roads, then back down a very narrow, steep, unpaved road. There were several signs “Primitive Road, Use at Your Own Risk”. We slowly bounced down to the chalets, only to find a perfectly paved road coming up to them that we could have taken. Why the GPS took us up and then down instead of just up was beyond us. The chalet was beautiful and had a kitchen so we went on a grocery run. Now, Rocky Harbour is a small town, with no real grocery stores, just convenience stores. Several hours later after visiting the convenience stores in several communities we bought a Kraft pizza kit and a package of assorted pizza meats, but no mozzarella, we couldn’t find mozzarella. I remember making Kraft pizza as a teenager. Making and then eating the pizza was like taking a trip in the wayback machine, that’s for all you Professor Peabody and Sherman fans out there.

We did go back to the Lobster Cove lighthouse the next day and we took a walk around the grounds. We went down to the lighthouse keeper’s garden. It was in an exposed but sunny location. We walked along the paths that wound through thick vegetation and then opened up to incredible ocean views. We came back to find a notice on our vehicle. As we were in Gros Morne National Park we were supposed to buy a pass to visit any of the sites. It was a confusing situation. There is no indication at the park entrance that you are supposed to stop and buy a pass if you are going to visit any of the sites. The park administration buildings are well off the highway. We felt bad, but every car in the lot had the notice. Perhaps Parks Canada should reconsider the park entrance and appropriate signage.

We hadn’t made any plans for our Thursday night accommodation. But Dale did some quick research and we took off east, on the road we had travelled before and then turned north, Bonavista bound!

There is definitely a North American fascination with Vikings. We think all Norsemen were the marauding, pillaging Vikings with horned helmets and double-bladed war axes that we see in movies and television shows. But a great number of them were just seafaring merchants, and those were the ones who ventured to the eastern shore of our continent looking for the resources they were lacking in Greenland. I remember seeing pictures of L’Anse aux Meadows, a UNESCO site, on CBC television shows. It looked amazing, and I hoped that someday I would get the chance to see it in person. When we decided to take a trip to Newfoundland I knew we had to make the long trip up to L’anse aux Meadows, on the northwestern tip of the island.

We started our trip to the site on the Viking Trail, the only road north out of Deer Lake. It was a long trip, almost 5 and 1/2 hours. We stopped at our B&B to check in and then went to the National Park Visitors Centre to get our tickets. We had booked into the Shadows and Sagas event where park guides in traditional Viking garb tell stories. It took place in one of the sod houses reconstructed on the site. After picking up the tickets we had some time to kill so we drove down the road as far as we could. We got out and took a look around. Then we had a quick dinner and went back to the B&B to organize our stuff before going back to the event.

It was very interesting. They fed us a hearty flatbread with partridgeberry jam and gave us partridgeberry juice to drink. The first storyteller gave us a history of Leif Eriksson and his adventures before and after his trips to this part of the world, which he called Vinland. Then another story teller told us about some of the settlers who tried to make a go of it in the new land. After a bad experience with the local peoples they decided to leave. The third story teller told us about Freydis Eiriksdotter, Leif’s half sister who also made a voyage to Vinland. She was a true Viking, if the story told about her was true. To finish off the evening, the third guide told a story very similar to Rumpelstiltskin.  All three storytellers were animated and their Newfoundland accents and expressions added an extra measure of fun.

In the morning we went back and wandered around the site. It is well laid out and easy to navigate, with a boardwalk from the visitors centre to the actual site. That part of the exhibit isn’t reconstructed, but you can see where the buildings were, the indentations in the ground have been made more clear and are marked with plaques.

The longhouse had new park guides in it, with more information to impart. Everything in the building could be handled, in fact, we were encouraged to do so. With the wind blowing through the long grass and the waves crashing on the shore, and the sod covered house behind us, it was easy to imagine what they might have seen and felt. History really did seem to come alive.

Later in the day we went on a little hike that started just across the road from our B&B, called Aunt Bride’s lookout. It was a fairly easy “hike”, it wasn’t flat enough to call it a walk. The view from the top was incredible. On our way down Dale noticed a whale in the bay. We watched as it bobbed up and down several times and then breeched. It repeated this several times. We were too far away to see it clearly, but it was a majestic sight nonetheless. We ended our day with an incredible meal at The Norseman Restaurant. Dale had scallops on pork belly with pickled mangoes for his starter and I had bacalao, a thick stew made of salt cod, tomatoes and capers. Both were delicious. For our mains I had duck confit with partridgeberry sauce and Dale had lobster. We rounded out our meals with desserts. I had the citrus pound cake and Dale had the blueberry pie. It was one of the best meals we’ve had in a long time.

The following day we went to the provincial site at Norstead. It is set up as a site that might have existed had the Norse stayed in the area. It was wonderful, with more park guides dressed up, playing the parts of villagers, telling us about their lives. They had a full-sized Norse boat, a knarr named Snorri. The bay was a perfect setting.

The entire area of L’Anse aux Meadows is amazing. However, it is very remote and very wild. The cook at our B&B told us that they get over 7 feet of snow, and that winter starts in late September and runs until the end of May. A beautiful, wild and wonderful place, but for me, a great place to visit, not to live.

The first part of our trip to Newfoundland took us all the way across the province from east to west. We started in St. John’s and toodled around that area for a couple of days. Then we set our sights west and drove to Gander. Everyone has heard of Gander Newfoundland now because of “Come From Away”, the great musical based on the events that unfolded there after 9/11. We were excited to have our own “come from away” experience, but Gander is a pretty quiet town when the residents aren’t looking after thousands of stranded airline passengers.

We stayed in a chain hotel along the Trans Canada, called TCH in Newfoundland. Dale went to get a haircut in a local salon and he said it was like being in a foreign country, listening to them speaking amongst themselves. He asked them what the must-do things in Gander were and they were perplexed. After saying we should see the North Atlantic Air Museum, they were at a loss of what else we should do. Dale took in the museum and said it was very interesting. The next day we headed to Twillingate, which turned out to be the best part of our trip to Gander. It was an hour and a half drive north.

Dale was excited to see the harbour, because he watches the show “Coldwater Cowboys” and the fishermen in the show are based in Twillingate. We stopped at the harbour and Dale hopped out. Two of the featured ships were at berth and one of the skippers was on his boat. Dale had a celebrity sighting! I stayed in the car and, as it happened, took a call from my brother.

We also drove up to the lighthouse in Twillingate, where the view was amazing. The road up to it wasn’t marked but we just kept following the most likely road and suddenly there it was. We got out and took some great photos before we headed back down into the town. There were not a lot of shops in the town. It was clear that people had to be pretty self sufficient to live in a place so far away from anywhere really. I’m sure people there have skills many of us have forgotten or never thought to learn in the first place. It must be a hard life, and not one I’d like to experience. It may be beautiful now, but I’m thinking being in Twillingate in January would be the last place anyone would want to be. It may hold that ranking with other remote Newfoundland locales.

We had a place in mind for our late lunch/early dinner which was how we were doing our meals for the first little while in Newfoundland. Around  3:30 we arrived at Doyle Sansome & Sons Lobster Pool. Although it was very late in the lobster season, they had a few left. We enjoyed a simple, delicious meal of lobster, fries and green salad. For desert we had cake with vanilla sauce, a lighter version of a caramel sauce.

The next day we drove to Deer Lake, again along the TCH. There wasn’t much to see, although it was interesting to notice the change in the forests as we moved inland and farther west. Deer Lake was small and not very interesting, in fact the owner of our B&B said the best places to eat in town were the Irving Truck Stop and the motel restaurant. Our first night there was quiet.

The next day we drove south along the coast, first to Corner Brook then to Stephenville. Our drive took us up to the highest elevations in Newfoundland, the Louis Hills, which lie between those places. Corner Brook was not at all interesting but Stephenville was. As we drove into town we saw many long buildings and several groupings of similar very basic homes. I wondered aloud if this was a military town and then we came across some signage that indicated it was. We pulled over and googled the town. What in the world did we do before Google? It turns out Stephenville has a very interesting history, and that it was once an American military airbase. I’ll let you do your own search on it to find out more.

On our way back to Deer Lake we took a little detour to St. George. We had no real interest in it except that a fellow guest at our B&B told us he was originally from there. So, as we were in the neighbourhood we thought we’d check it out. I’m sure it was special to him but it really didn’t make an impression on us.

We drove also through tiny Botwood. The sign to it advertised that they had murals. We had some trouble finding them at first, but then suddenly, there they were. They were all related to Botwood’s history.

After an adequate late lunch/early dinner in Corner Brook, we drove back to Deer Lake. We stopped off for some ice cream before calling it a night.

Before we left on this trip we looked up places to see and things to do. Dale discovered that we could go cod jigging out of Quidi Vidi, a small harbour in St. John’s. So we booked it and on Monday morning we got up, had a quick breakfast and drove to the location.

We were early but we sat on the deck of the QV Fishing Charters and chatted with some of the guests from an earlier trip and the guides. Everyone was friendly and we discovered the owners/guides were all rugby players and fans. They were very funny and joked with each other and us. Soon the other guests arrived. We met Dean and his children Sophie and Jacob from Saskatchewan, Len and Sarah, a young couple from Wyoming, and Michael and his son Jack from England. We put on our life jackets and got on the boat.

The entrance to the harbour was narrow but we got through easily. Soon we were out and ready to fish. It was a blast. Kevin, the skipper, took us to where the fish were and Tony, the deckhand, helped us get our fish off the hooks. Sophie put us all to shame when she pulled up her line with two large cod, both around 8 pounds. We passed the rods around and everyone had a go. If you weren’t fishing you were cheering on another fisher, or staring at the incredible scenery.

An hour and a half later we had our limit and we started in. Back on the dock, the guides took pictures and then set to cleaning and cooking the catch. We sat and waited while the enticing smells of fish and chips filled the air. The cod was incredible, how could it not be! It was as fresh as possible, flaky and soft, absolutely delicious. The skipper said he would cook more than we could eat. The kids gave it a good effort.

We drove home and showered and changed. I did some laundry and we vegged for a bit. We had a big night coming up, we were going to get screeched in! We got to that location early too, but it was worth it. We met a woman from Georgia, Barbara, who had discovered six months earlier that she was the granddaughter of Joey Smallwood. Her mother had had an affair with one of his sons while the family was stationed in Newfoundland with the American military. Barbara had no idea the man who raised her wasn’t her biological father. She said perhaps that her mother didn’t know either. She had taken a DNA test from one of those companies that offer it because the man she thought was her father had been adopted and she wanted her children and grandchildren to know more about their background. She posted her results online and was almost immediately contacted by a member of the Smallwood family, and then by an historian. How’s that for a story someone tells you in a bar.

The bar filled up and just after 7:00, the ceremony started. We all listened, ate a piece of fried bologna, kissed a cod, slammed back a shot of screech and recited a poem. Then we were presented with our certificates and welcomed into the tribe of honorary Newfoundlanders. It was exhilarating! The bar didn’t serve dinner so we walked to a nearby rather posh seafood restaurant overlooking the harbour.  It was very busy but we were happy to sit on the deck and got in right away. The view was fabulous and so was the food. It was the perfect end to a perfect day. After dinner we walked up to Water Street, grabbed a cab and went home.

For our first full day in Newfoundland we had to have an adventure. And as the lady at the Hertz office had said that Sunday was the last day of the world famous Blueberry Festival in Brigus, we just had to drive there and take it in. So we headed there bright and early to avoid the huge line-ups of traffic that were expected from a festival so amazing. The internet research we had done said that there was one road for going into town and one going out because of the festival, and that shuttles ran constantly between the venue and the parking lots. Wow. We were hyped. The drive was about an hour, and traffic was, well, light. When we got to Brigus we looked for signs directing us to the Festival. There weren’t many, but I did spot a Festival parking sign that pointed us down a narrow road. The end of the road was blocked by a search and rescue truck with an older gentleman standing beside it. He vaguely waved to his right, which was our left, so we turned. A few metres later a gravel parking lot appeared on our right. Two young men were sitting on a bench. We pulled in and chatted. Yep, this was the parking lot for the Blueberry Festival. Two dollars for all day. Nope, the shuttle wasn’t running yet but it was just a five minutes walk to it. We gave them a twoonie, parked and started walking.

We saw evidence of something happening in town. There were barricades on streets and some driveways and doorway paths had tables set up on them. Those tables were empty but clearly something was up. We walked past some interesting shops to the little cafe. The staff there were all wearing Blueberry Festival t-shirts. That was a good sign. We had a light breakfast and by the time we were done, the Festival was up and running. And by that, I mean there was a person at the gate ready to take our $3 entrance fee and put a bracelet on us.

And we were in! At the world famous Brigus Blueberry Festival. I expected booths with homemade blueberry scones, blueberry jam, blueberry tea and all other things blueberry. We got a booth selling gloves, mittens, toques and purses with sealskin accents. One selling multi-coloured and patterned leggings and another selling handmade bows and barrettes. We stopped at a hand painted jewelry booth and walked by one selling moose burgers. Then we hit the beer tent. Surely there were more booths, another block of vendors around the corner. Nope. Just two more entrance gates. We laughed and backtracked. I stopped to buy a raffle ticket to support the Brigus Historical Society. They said they would mail the basket to me if I won (I didn’t as they were drawing the ticket at the end of the day and it’s well past then and no one’s called). There was a grassy area we had missed that was lined with booths, but they turned out to be little carnival games for kids.

Still laughing at the build-up we had given this event, we walked back to the parking lot. One of the driveway tables was now in business, selling “Homemade Blueberry Tarts, a tradition of over 20 years”. Dale bought one. It was a store bought mini pasty shell with (possibly) homemade filling, then topped with a squirt of whipped cream from a can! It was the only blueberry thing we had seen.

Traffic was picking up as we left. I’m sure it was a lovely local event. And Brigus is a beautiful town and we were happy we had walked around it. World famous, maybe.  Blueberry, not so much.

We left Brigus and drove towards Dildo. Dildo has been in the news recently because Jimmy Kimmel, of late night fame, discovered it somehow and has been fascinated with it. When he heard that it doesn’t have a mayor he offered to run for the position. So when we arrived there were signs everywhere saying “Jimmy ❤️ Dildo, Kimmel for Mayor”. But that was the main draw in Dildo, not much else was there. The Dildo Brewing Company was busy, but there weren’t many little shops selling souvenirs. Mmm, I can think of several good souvenirs from Dildo and several good t-shirt sayings to celebrate Dildo. Perhaps in association with Come by Chance, or Conception Bay…

It was still early so we drove up to Signal Hill and walked around. Dale went to the top of Cabot Tower while I sat on the wall below. When he came back, I was being chatted up by a gentleman. A friendly conversation between two tourists, nothing to tease me about, although Dale teased me.

We drove down to the Interpretation Centre just as a presentation involving the military involvement of Newfoundland troops throughout the years was about to start. We bought tickets and sat down. It was well done, with live music from the historical Drum and Fife Corp to start, followed by the red-coated Newfoundland troop, and the Newfoundland contingent in WW1. The redcoats filled their rifles with powder before they shot, and the other soldiers had blank bullets in their rifles. The cannon was very loud. After the presentation we had a cup of tea and walked around the historical display in the building.

We still had time so we went to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in Canada. I walked along a bit of the boardwalk so I could say I had been there. Dale walked up to the lighthouse but it was windy and I was tired so I sat in the car.

For dinner we tried a restaurant that had looked promising on our little walks about downtown St. John’s. They were out of mostly everything, so we had the nachos and left. Then we walked to a chocolate shop, loaded up and headed home. We settled in for the night, happy with our adventures and our little treat.

We started planning this trip to Newfoundland last year, almost exactly a year ago as a matter of fact. We wanted to go in July but on the off chance that the stars aligned and I got cast in a Festival play that won our zone and went to Mainstage in July (which actually happened OMG), we planned to go in August.

Of course, the night before we flew out I couldn’t sleep. Now that normally wouldn’t be a problem, but we had booked an overnight flight. We left for the airport about 3:30 on Friday afternoon and it was a good thing we had some extra time. We always have trouble with the check-in kiosks, and this trip was no different. The line-up for the agents was long and slow, but eventually we got through, dropped our bags and headed to security. One of the great things about flying domestic is that you don’t have to go through American security. We had a lovely, relaxed late lunch/early dinner. Our flight to Calgary was on time and the gate we were flying into was close to the one we were flying out of. The flight to St. John’s was a little late but that just meant that we were sleepier and ready to nap our way across the country. Luckily the seat beside us, in the exit row, was empty so we could stretch out and try to catch a few zzz. I think we might have managed about two hours, which meant that we weren’t totally messed up when we landed in St. John’s around 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Sunrise across Canada

After collecting our bags we went to the car rental booth. The couple ahead of us, from Pennsylvania, was having trouble. They had booked their car pick-up for noon and it was not noon. They were told they could pay extra, around $1200, to get it or they could take the shuttle back to their hotel and come back, via shuttle again, after noon. They decided to do that. We had to get the same shuttle, as we had booked through Hertz, which was off-site. When we got to the Hertz office, the woman inside was awesome. We were early too but it wasn’t a problem. Dale had his licence out but she waved it away. “I’s got everything I needs here b’y, and I knows how to do me job.” In minutes we had our car, a white Ford Edge, but we stayed to chat. She told us about the world famous Blueberry Festival in Brigus that we couldn’t miss and she was thrilled we were going to Quidi Vidi, which she pronounced Kiddi Vidi, to do some cod jigging. We got into the car, set the GPS for the cafe she recommended for breakfast and drove away.

Driving down into St. John’s – our first sight of the coloured houses.

Breakfast was very good. The server was hilarious. Dale ordered an omelette but didn’t want the hash browns. She looked at him, raised her eyebrows and said, “No hash browns b’y? And here I was thinking I liked you.” I redeemed us by asking for his hash browns, which she said she’d put on his plate to save me the extra charge. After breakfast we drove around for a while to waste some time. But just before noon we gave up and went to our hotel, fully prepared to beg for an early check-in. No begging was needed. Check-in achieved, we dragged our luggage and our butts up to our room, washed our faces, brushed our teeth and crawled into bed. Three hours later we awoke, refreshed but not fully recovered. We didn’t want to jeopardize our night time sleep. Pulling back the curtain, I could see that it had rained while we were out. Later we learned a sinkhole had opened up due to the heavy rain, on the road we had driven down to get to the cafe where we had breakfast.

Several hours later, as the rain had stopped, we decided to walk along Water Street and then go up to Duckworth Street to go to the iconic Duke of Duckworth for dinner. It was quite busy but we got a table out on the covered patio. It was cooler out there but not much, it was very humid after the rain. We maximized our dinner options. I had the pan fried cod with Greek salad and Dale had the deep fried cod with fries. We mixed and matched and everything was delicious.

The Duke of Duckworth, made more famous by the TV show “Republic of Doyle”

We decided to continue our adventure by going somewhere else for dessert and tea. The restaurant we stopped at had only cheesecake and I’m not a cheesecake fan. She recommended a bakery we had passed earlier in our walk, so we backtracked and went in. The lemon tart I had was delicious and Dale enjoyed the cowboy cookie he had, which was an oatmeal cookie with coconut, raisins, chocolate chips and peanuts. We wandered around a bit more, but we were surprised to see many shops were closed by 7:00 pm so we went back to the hotel, a little over 6 kilometres in all. Not a bad hike for an old gal with two bad knees.

Back in the room I had a long bath, and by 10:00 the lights were out and we were asleep. I did wake up to my iPad making a noise, so I got up and turned it off. And then Dale’s phone started to vibrate and flash on a regular basis. I tried to ignore it and I must have been successful because I fell back asleep. The sun was shining through the curtains when I woke up the next morning. We both felt fully revived and ready to experience our first full day in Newfoundland.

I just watched a commercial for an investment company. It showed a couple over time, opening doors. It started when they opened the door to their first home together and then went through their life together as they opened all other kinds of doors. It ended with them opening the door to an investment firm, and the tag line came. They did it together, a life well planned. 

It was an successful commercial. The images of their life together as they walked through doors stayed in my head. The couple started out young and in love and ended up old and in love. We saw all the stages of their lives in between  – the birth of children, the starting of jobs, grown children, retirement, the death of parents and so on – all effectively told and shown in a minute with the metaphor of opening doors. Of course, there’s a point and purpose behind it. Boomers are retiring, and many of them have been married for decades. They were definitely targeting a specific demographic, and perhaps a younger demographic who admired their parents and aspired to their achievements, or what they perceived their achievements to be.

I have no interest in the investment company that was being advertised. In fact, I don’t even remember what company it was. I just remember the tag line, especially the part “they did it together”. Most of us try to plan but life happens and plans go by the wayside. But living a life together, well, that takes guts and compromise and hard work and love. And it changes. There are easy times and difficult times. The joy of the easy times gives you the hope and inspiration to get through the pain of the difficult times. And people change. The secret is to change together, or to embrace the changes your partner makes, if you can.

Not many of us make it through a lifetime together. Dale and I first started dating, or going out as we called it, when we were 13. We broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together, got engaged and then got married. This year marked our 39th wedding anniversary but if you go from when we last broke up and then stayed together, it’s been 44 years, give or take a few months. And I hope there are many more years for us to be together ahead. But nothing is guaranteed and life can change on a dime.

If we do make it together to the near end of our lives, I hope we will be treated with respect and love. There have been stories of long married couples who are separated because their local care home can’t take them both. Or stories of one spouse who has to travel hours by bus to visit the other spouse who has been placed in a care home far away. If we make it to old, old age still married to each other, shouldn’t we be allowed to spend what little time is left together? I spoke to a woman who lived in the apartment building across from our townhouse in Port Coquitlam. Her husband was in the local full care home and she lived nearby. She could visit him several times a day. It was an easy walk of just a few minutes. I don’t know what happened first. If he was placed in the home and she moved or if they moved to the apartment and then he was placed in the home. But however it happened, they could still see each other at least once every day. They were as together as they could be, given his poor health and her relatively good health.

There are also stories of couples who die within days, even hours, of each other. As if the thread of love and commitment that pulled them together in life pulled them together in death. As if they couldn’t imagine living without each other. We tend to celebrate new, young love, but old love is far more rare. And its rarity should make it more valuable and thus more desired, more worthy of celebration.

So I’m changing the tag line on the commercial. They did it together. A life well lived, a life well loved. What a legacy to leave behind. We should aspire to that, not to a huge portfolio of investments.

I just read an article about a woman who suffered terribly from empty nest syndrome. She became depressed and suffered other physical effects. She wandered through the house bemoaning the emptiness. She tried to shake it off but she was unable to do so, and eventually, and correctly, she sought professional help. The poor woman suffered from that, and the onset of menopause at the same time. Over time, with support of medical professionals, she made changes in her life. She redecorated the kids’ rooms and started to involve herself in hobbies and group activities. Things got better.

I cannot relate at all. I understand the sentiment and the feelings, but I didn’t feel sadness at having no kids around. Perhaps it was because we were so young when both our kids were gone. Son Number Two left for university in September of 2003. We were 44, well, Dale was 44 and I turned 44 the end of September. We were both working full time and had hobbies and activities we enjoyed alone and together. Having no kids at home meant we didn’t have to rush after work to cook supper, or to get a child to or from an event. We teased the kids that we had taken up naked ping pong, but that would have been more sad (and funny at the same time) than erotic. The kids popped home now and then. And we visited them or picked them up to take them on weekend breaks. But once they left, they were pretty much gone. They worked or took classes, or did both over the summer breaks and became fully functioning adults who only occasionally needed the expertise and finances of mom and dad.

I love my kids. I loved them in all the stages of their lives. But I wasn’t a stay-at-home mom. I needed to work. I felt more myself when I could be a working mom. And it was sometimes hard. I remember waving at Dale as he arrived home after work to pick up one child to take him to soccer as I was heading out with the other. Ships that pass in the night. I remember sitting marking notebooks or tests at the hockey rink. And I remember being so tired I crawled into the backseat of the car and slept instead of watching a sporting event; track, cross-country or soccer, something outside. But the four months I was at home with Son Number One were the longest four months of my life. With Son Number Two my maternity leave was over the summer so although it was almost the same length it passed faster, and of course, I had Son Number One too, so I was busier.

By the time I was ready to stop working, the kids had been gone for years. And we moved so much their rooms were long gone, replaced by guest rooms they would commandeer when they came home. So there was no sadness at walking by rooms that reminded us painfully of them. Of course I missed them when they were gone. But when they left after a visit, I was ready to have them go. When kids come home, they revert back to family roles. They were more than happy to veg all weekend while Mom cooked and did laundry and Dad did routine maintenance on their cars and cleaned them. And we didn’t begrudge doing that, because we knew in a few days we’d be back to our regular just us routine.

I wonder how women who struggled with empty nest syndrome defined themselves. Was mom at the top of their list? It was never at the top of mine. I had a family doctor who told me Dale and I were a couple before kids and we needed to work hard to still be a couple after the kids left. I always remembered that. “Mom” was one of my identifiers, but not the only one and it was never the most important one, No judgement on those women who do have it at the top of their list and who stay home. In a ideal world, we would value, recognize and celebrate all choices, including never having children.

So as I said, i can’t relate to the people who bemoan their empty nest. I loved raising our boys, and I didn’t mind when they left. And now, they rarely visit for more than a day because we live in the same area. But when Dale finally retires and we buy our retirement home, it will have at least three bedrooms – one for us and one each for the boys and their wives. And there will be a large area – downstairs, on the covered deck, over the garage, in the living room or even in the backyard – where the grandkids can have slumber parties, perhaps in a tent. And we might just join them there, because when they leave, we can go back to our regular just us routine.

I’m sitting, well, lounging, on the couch in our rented house in Tsawwassen. The ceiling fan is slowly turning on the vaulted ceiling. I can see into the kitchen from here, past the dining room table we bought to fit in the space. It seats 10. Our family is getting bigger, with daughters-in-law and other in-laws. I can see straight though the window over the sink, and the colourful hanging basket on the back patio. It was a good choice to hang it there. Casting my eyes a little to the right I can see the staircase and part of the upstairs landing. And immediately off to my right are the big living room windows. Looking out then I can see the sky is a bright blue, with not a cloud in sight. The trees are a vibrant green. There is just a hint of a breeze and off in the distance the ferry horn sounds. I am quite content, a phrase my mother uses. I have felt this way in every home we’ve lived in, Dale and me. And we’ve lived in a lot of homes. Each one of them had something special about it.

Our first home together was a one bedroom apartment in Fruitvale, just below the elementary school. We rented it a few months before our wedding. I felt very grown up there, almost 21 and married. It was our starting place. I remember having our first dinner party there. I wanted to cook a roast but Dale vetoed that. He hated roast. No, I told him, you hate the roasts your mother cooks. I can do better. And I did. The roast was perfectly cooked to a medium rare and very tasty, not the charred offerings his mother put on the table. We also had our first married fight there. I washed the dishes after dinner one night and left them to air dry in the rack. Dale asked me to dry them and put them away. I said the drying fairies had to do their work, then I would put them away. Voices were raised and I retreated to the bathtub. The phone rang, but as Dale didn’t come to get me, I assumed it wasn’t for me. It was. My mom had called and Dale left her hanging for so long she hung up. The next day I went to an appliance store and bought a portable dishwasher on credit. Fifty dollars down and fifty dollars a week until it was paid off, or something like that. The day after that I took Dale’s Bronco or Jimmy to work, loaded up the dishwasher and drove home. Then I asked Dale to unload it. Argument solved.

We wanted more space but  it was the early 80s and mortgage rates were going up. Dale was an apprentice and I was a new teacher on probation, so we didn’t quality for much. We bought a used 12×68 trailer on a rented pad in Genelle. We had our first vegetable garden there. We brought home cow manure to strengthen the soil we had turned. It was literally sloshing in the back of the truck. Our neighbours must have loved us! I felt like a proper housewife there, canning vegetables and making jams.  But the drive to my teaching job in Fruitvale was long and there were days when I drove home and had no recollection of doing it. So…

We bought a lot in Beaver Falls and moved the trailer. We built a front porch and a back deck and dug another vegetable garden and had our first child. I put his cloth diapers on the clothesline off the back deck, and folded them on the carpet in our living room. We became parents there. Dale finished his apprenticeship and my job became permanent and we qualified for a bigger mortgage.

Our next home was back in Fruitvale. I could walk to the school from our two-story house, but I didn’t often do it. I had to take our son to daycare. We fixed up this home and along came son number two. My sister was our child minder, and she came to the house. Things were wonderful there. I remember taking an armful of laundry up the stairs one evening. At the top of the stairs was a large open window. I stood there, breathing in the cool evening air and enjoying the view. I can still recall the feeling of utter peace and happiness that washed over me. But the 80s weren’t done with us. Dale was a victim of the recession. He was still working but not as a tradesman. I had resigned part of my job, working only part time now that we had two children. Money was tight. Then Dale got a job as a millwright in Castlegar, and you guessed it, we were on the move again, after selling our house for less than we paid for it.

Our first home in Castlegar was a rented two bedroom townhouse. We were mortgage free, but also down payment free. We bought the boys bunk beds and moved in. I got a full time job in Castlegar at a nearby school and we started saving. We bought a house in the same neighbourhood and settled in. The boys got their own rooms again. House prices went up and we sold, making enough money to get into a bigger, better house for about the same mortgage. It was on the same cul-de-sac. We literally walked some of our belongings there. The boys grew up and Dale’s career path took him into management, and an opportunity at a pulp mill on Vancouver Island.

Cue our first house in Port Alberni. It was our first new build. It was very exciting to move into a house that had never been lived in. The cupboards were pristine, the walls unmarked. We quickly built a bedroom and a bathroom in the basement for our older son, he was not impressed that we had moved him away from his friends so it was a blatant bribe. I started substitute teaching, and the boys got involved in soccer and school sports. One of my favourite memories in that house was when the house was full of guests for most of the summer. Heavenly, to cook for friends and show them the amazing area of the world we lived in. But the boys were growing up and the house was too big for just the two of us.

Which leads us to the yellow house. There was a house in the old part of town that I would occasionally drive by. It was a heritage house that was being lovingly restored. I would see a lamp glowing behind lace curtains and imagine living there. Then it went up for sale, and so did our house. The day our house sold, we put in an offer. Weeks later we were living in my favourite house. My best memory of that house also involves guests. Sitting around the  living room, music softly playing, the fireplace logs crackling, different beverages in our hands, just talking and enjoying the company. We started going to antique auctions when we lived in that house.

Then Dale got transferred. His commute would be too long if we stayed in Port Alberni. So we moved to Parksville. Dale drove south an hour to his new job and I drove north an hour to my teaching job in Port Alberni. The large strata community we had moved into seemed perfect. With our commute we didn’t really want to spend our free time doing yard work and other house related maintenance. And our moving in changed the marketing of the community. More “professional” couples moved in as the local realtors recognized a new opportunity. But strata living started to wear on us. And as the market had improved…

We moved to Nanoose Bay, close to the marina, where Dale had his boat moored. The house was a rancher with an amazing back yard. We redid the kitchen and painted most of the interior walls. We pulled up the carpet in the living room/dining room and installed reclaimed fir hardwood. But the driving was still a lot, and I had had a couple of very difficult years. We made plans. Dale followed up on one of the many employment offers he regularly received. We were ready to move, and I was ready to stop teaching. And then he was asked to go back to the mill in Port Alberni, as a member of the management team. Now, I had asked him if this was a possibility before we sold the yellow house. He assured me there was not even a minuscule chance that this would happen. Because if there had been even a hint of that, we wouldn’t have sold my dream house. But, there we were, two years later, moving back.

The company bought our house and we bought a neo-Victorian house in Beaver Creek, just outside the city limits of Port Alberni. Our boat came back and we had full summers of visitors and family. I stayed teaching, rejoined the community theatre and life continued. The girl our older son had met when we first moved to Port Alberni became his girlfriend when they reconnected in Vancouver. But the mill was changing and Dale felt it was time to move on. He took a job with a mill on the Sunshine Coast. I stayed to sell our house. A year  and many price reductions later, it sold. I resigned my job and joined him in a rented house on the ocean. It was like living in a resort. It was lovely but it wasn’t home. We found a house in Davis Bay. Davis Bay was my favourite place to live in the area but the house wasn’t my first choice, or even my tenth choice. But Dale wanted to be settled, so I settled. We painted the main level, redid the master bathroom and had a wonderful family Christmas there. But a year later, we were on the move again. This time to Alberta.

We moved to Spruce Grove, into a rental house owned by someone Dale knew from the mill on the Sunshine Coast. It was very convenient to have an address to move to. The house, on the golf course, was beautiful. The neighbours were very friendly. We enjoyed the first wintery Christmas we had had in years. I got a job at the local Home Depot. But the drive to Dale’s  job had been understated by the owner of the house. And the hour plus drive in the winter was nerve wracking for the driver and his wife waiting at home. We gave notice and bought a little house in Leduc. Dale’s drive dropped to 10 minutes. I quit my job and never looked back. I joined the local community theatre and we settled in. Then the company Dale worked for underwent upper management restructuring and he was let go. We sold our house to the new manager, a private sale that was surprisingly easy to do. Six months later we were in our little apartment in the West End, and you know the story from there.

I’ve been mostly happy in all the places we lived. I still had the people I loved most around me, and some of the familiar, important things we had gathered to us over the years. I had a community theatre family in most of the places I lived and that really helped. Change is hard, and there were some hard moments here and there to be sure, but change can be good too. And all the changes have led me to this place and time in my life, which is pretty wonderful right now. And with Dale’s retirement date bouncing around somewhere in the future, I know more changes are ahead, and that brings a little smile to my face.

For the past, oh, I don’t know, 7 months, give or take a year, I’ve been involved with an amazing play called Dancing at Lughnasa. It’s a memory play about five unmarried Irish sisters in the mid-1930s. I was intrigued by it when it was presented as the third play in the Langley Players season, I was excited by it when I read it in preparation for auditions and then I was consumed by it when I was cast.

My preparation for this play was more intense than any other I had taken on. I learned to knit, on three needles if you don’t mind, because my character knitted gloves for a living. I worked with a choreographer, along with the other women playing my sisters, to figure out how to do a wild, uncontrolled dance on my painfully osteoarthritic knee. My surgeon was floored when I told him what I would be doing. I lost weight so that the stress on my knee would be lessened in my every day life, allowing me to punish it in rehearsals and performances. I learned a northern Irish accent, and I studied my script. I dissected every phrase my character uttered. I tried to figure out why she said what she said, and how she said it, I made decisions, then changed them. I discussed things at length with the director and my stage sisters. At times, I felt defeated, and sure that I was the weak link of the group, that I was letting them down with my lack of skill. But sometimes, it felt right, it felt magical. And that confidence grew and my character evolved along with all the others and we had a show. I learned to make soda bread. And I dyed my hair strawberry blonde – hair that I had worked on for over a year that had finally gone beautifully, naturally grey. Now that’s dedication.

This play was Langley’s entry into the Fraser Valley Zone Drama Festival. We were excited to take it on the road, to Coquitlam, along with other plays from the area, to share our work and be adjudicated. We had a great show. And on the gala night we were rewarded. We won several awards, but best of all, we won best production. That meant we would be taking our play to Mainstage, Theatre BC’s showcase of best productions from around the province. And another best of all, we’d be doing it in Port Alberni, the town where I first got involved in community theatre over twenty years ago.

I had been in zone festival plays before but Mainstage was the pinnacle I hadn’t achieved. And considering it took me 20+ years to get there, I told myself I was going to savour every moment, as my “advanced” age could mean that I never get there again. Let me explain, community theatre is full of women of a certain age, meaning my competition for suitable, and dwindling, roles is fierce. There are many, many very talented women in my age group and it is unlikely that another festival play will have three or more characters we can all play. So, from the moment we won at our zone festival, I was determined to work hard but to have fun and enjoy what could be my once in a lifetime experience.

We had some rehearsals between the two festivals and some performances, to keep things fresh. The sisters had a Messenger group where we talked about things, further building our already strong relationships. Then finally, the week of Mainstage arrived. The first play was performed Friday night. I missed it as I was booked on a mid-morning ferry on Saturday. But a cast-mate filled me in on the show and the adjudication. Both were very good.  I was on the island, just outside Nanaimo (as we now lived in Tsawwassen I took the Duke Point ferry) when the director called. After the wonderful performance and the glowing adjudication, it was decided by all that we needed to run lines and perfect some scenes. I drove through the rain to the motel in Port Alberni where most people in our group were staying and joined them. We went through both acts and then I left. I was staying with a dear friend, which was a wonderful thing. While I missed being with my cast mates, it gave me time with my friend and a break from the intense preoccupation about our play and our competition. I still saw every other play and attended all the adjudications, but left them to decompress and hang with my friend, and sometimes with her family. I also got to catch up with my theatre friends from Port Alberni. It was so wonderful to see them all.

We performed on Monday night. We left the adjudication of the Sunday night show early and went to put up the set and dress it. The production crew was amazing. We had plenty of time to move about the stage to check out the larger space and to determine the levels needed for our dialogue to be heard. I was nervous, as I always am before a show, and excited and calm and confident as well. We were well rehearsed and prepared. We put on a good show. It wasn’t our best, but it was good. Our second act was stellar. It hit all the right notes and we were proud and emotional when we took our bows.

At drama festivals the adjudicator makes some generic remarks after each performance. Often it’s about the playwright and the history behind the play or its performances around the world. The adjudicator took a seat on the bench on our set and directed his comments to the cast. We had been invited to join the audience after the play. He spoke of his connection to this play. His family had come from Ireland. A great grandmother had left  there because she was an unmarried mother, so the  plot line was close to his heart. He spoke of the hard times of the thirties and the resilience of woman. He said he had seen the play in London and was bored by it, it didn’t affect him at all. However, our performance made him love the play again, and with tears in his eyes he thanked us. He tried to continue but was too choked up. He got up from the bench and went back to the sideboard where some soda bread was sitting, to pull himself together. He ate a piece as the audience began to file out.

His reaction was everything. We touched him, we made his night at the theatre personal, emotional and meaningful. We made him love a play again, a play he had seen professionals do, in a theatre in London!  As far as I was concerned, we had won everything. I didn’t need, or want, any further validation. Our adjudication was good, focussing mostly on production decisions. The adjudicator hugged us all individually afterwards, and to me he whispered that I had a lovely energy onstage. That was nice as the only other personal thing he had said about me was that he had noticed my clearly not natural eyelashes. Well, I do have a son and daughter-in-law who own a lash salon!

The rest of the week passed quickly, seeing a play in the evening and attending its adjudication the following morning. We learned a lot in them. I took notes. But we also judged every comment, criticism and celebration against what he had said about us, and what we perceived we had done. I had no expectations. I was there for the theatre experience and the joy of being with my friend. And as I already said, his response after our performance was validation enough.

At the awards gala we won Best Ensemble Cast. How wonderful that we were all recognized together. It was a humbling, exhilarating experience to be part of Mainstage. To see the amazing productions and performances of  other community theatres. To hear the valuable opinions of the immensely talented adjudicator, a well known actor and director. To enjoy the company of others who love and enjoy community theatre.

My theatre experiences have been varied. I’ve been part of adjudications that weren’t overly positive but I’ve also won awards, both individually and as as part of an ensemble or production. I’m not ready to give up community theatre but if it all came to an end tomorrow, I’d be happy with what I’ve experienced.