How I spent my mental vacation

Summer holidays this year saw me to Exploits Islands, where Vicky’s folks have a summer home.

Picture by Vicky, of the property a few years ago.

Vicky’s Grandma bought the place in the early 1970s.

Exploits is an abandoned community on two islands in Notre Dame Bay, nine miles or so from the mainland. There’s no road or causeway; a local fisherman takes us over and back. There’s no telephone, no electricity and no running water. It’s walking water – you walk to the well and back with a bucket.

As if that wasn’t good enough, there’s beaches for mucking about on, boats for messing about in, woods for getting lost in, water for falling into and outhouses for climbing on top of. More about that later.

This is the back of the house, by Heather.

In short, pure bliss. Vicky, Katherine, Fergusson and Wikket (Lab and Border Collie Number 1) went down with her folks a week before my holidays started. I learned in that week that a house with only me and Moss (BC No. 2) in it is a very quiet place indeed. Due to poor planning on my part, I had to eat my own cooking once.

The expotition down to Exploits had the Pateys (Bob, Heather and kids) and the Bauers (Shelley, sans Larry, who had to work, and kids. It was their first time down. We all sallied forth through all manner of Newfoundland weather: fog, rain, sunshine and construction. Six exciting hours later we arrived at Cottlesville, population itty-bitty. Home to a very talented kayak-maker, paddler and guide, Sea Knife Kayaks.

It was a soggy trip over in the good ship Sea Fun. The rain was pelting down, but there was no wind. Most everyone stayed in the cabin, ‘cept Heather and I, who are susceptible to seasickness. Mossy stayed up top too, because he was attached to me. We got wet. Had fun though.

Then we arrived and Vicky’s folks went back home. That leaves ten. Five nominal grown-ups and five kids, aged 3 to 10. All in one house. For a week.

Honest, we’re not crazy.

We had a wonderful time. There was boating and hiking, seashell collecting, violin practice, woodstove-lighting, bonfires and s’mores. And I got to re-shingle a roof.

The outhouse roof. I did mention that, right? Well, there’s the proof below – Heather took the picture.

That roof is about six feet square. There’s rocks and nettles to its front and one side, a fifteen-foot drop into nettles on the other side (the one facing the picture) and to the back……is downhill. Let’s just say that at the bottom of THAT fifteen-foot drop is a large patch of very well-fertilised nettles.

I did not want to fall off that roof.

Did I mention that I’m scared of depths? Actually, I’m not afraid of falling, but the sudden stop at the end. It’s an entirely rational fear of landing. It’s weird: I can stand at the edge of a cliff and look down, no problem, but being on top of a small space or on a stairway or balcony that I can look down through and see the ground below my feet gives me the heebidajeebadies.

The first step was to get rid of the old shingles and the easiest way to do that is to shovel them off. There is something truly ironic about shovelling out the TOP of an outhouse. Anyway, if any of you Gentle Readers out there have ever been near shingles before, you know about that peculiar tar-and-asphalt smell they have. It’s not objectionable, which is just as well, considering that you’re surrounded by it when standing on a roof. A word to the wise for those who have occasion to reshingle outhouse roofs. As you shovel off the old shingles, the shingle-smell gradually fades and you become aware that lurking below the shingle-smell is another odour, that the shingles were actually protecting you from. An older smell, coming from further below your feet……..

It is truly amazing how quickly one can lay shingles when one has the proper motivation.