Day 9: The Newfies Next Door

I would be remiss if I didn’t spend at least one post talking about the wonderful people who live on The Rock.

Let me first start by saying that it has been a mission to get my posts out. There is no cell service within an hour of our secret cod cottage. No wifi either.

For the first couple of days I basically had to stand in the neighbour’s driveway doing a yoga ‘tree pose’ in order to steal one bar of connectivity.

Peter the Shrink is like, “Just go over and sit in their living room”, like it’s no big deal. Instead, like a stubborn ass, I stand outside in the cold for the first couple evenings while my photos upload at dial-up speed. I pretty much camped out on their lawn to upload my first video. The best part is when I look at my phone in my cold dead hands as the last percentage uploads, and my phone dies and everything is lost.

By day three I am nestled in their living room, watching TV and posting while they are having lunch. I’m offered sandwiches and some lemon pudding and banana cake. This is pretty much the best place on earth.

More genuine, welcoming people you will never meet. They talk to you like you’ve been friends your whole life. Their house is your house, “Just come on over and have a seat any time you like”. Even if I didn’t understand what they were saying to me for the first few days, I still felt at home.

Dan the fisherman and his wife Sherry live next door and look after the house when Ivan is away. The son Darren spent an afternoon explaining Squid Jigging to me. Hank and Dan’s other brother and their wives are visiting for the week like they do every year for the ‘cod fishing week’. The house is packed, but there is always room for one more, or two, or three, or four. No one seems to question why there is some random Asian girl in their living room stealing wifi.

The house is never empty. People are always stopping by, to eat, to say hi, to drop off vegetables, to have a drink. Even the town dog comes by – he just roams around and goes for walks with people, naps on porches, and finds people who will give him treats.

The Rock is a place where you come as a stranger and leave as family, including the kind of family that gives you uncomfortably long, borderline inappropriate hugs the first time you meet.

Newfies will share everything with you – food, drink, their stories, their wifi, their fish, their love and laughs. Lynette, Hank’s wife, even made me a delicious banana cake care package for my trip home. (It didn’t even last to the airport).

You have to see them to believe them: Meet the Newfies Next Door

And finally, a tip of my hat to my partners in fish slaughter and high jinx on the open water, Crazy Ivan and Peter the Shrink.  Peter was super positive and encouraging, answering all my questions, acting as a buffer so I wouldn’t drive Ivan totally insane – kinda like the father I never had.  Crazy Ivan on the other hand was more like an older sibling, whose sole purpose was to torment me and to receive the same. (But boy was he a good cook!!!)

I have a cooler full of fish, a belly full of laughs, a cup filled with tea, and a lifetime of inside jokes and memories.

Thank you to everyone who came with me on this adventure.  To The Rock and all its people, you have my heart.

See you next year!!!