Miscellany

 

A photo I took the other day of a spot near my podiatrist's office. Sometimes I catch sight of the ferry here which goes back and forth to Bell Island. I was entranced by the skyscape meeting the seascape.

Bell Island Ferry.

An unusual personality test which hit me square in the noggin last week. Normally I avoid such "tests" but this one was irresistible. I recommend.

You are a Mad Scientist

POSITIVE AFFECT: 36
NEGATIVE AFFECT: 20

You’re a Mad Scientist! This means that you have high positive and negative affect, or, put another way, you tend to feel both positive and negative emotions deeply. Everything is awesome or everything is terrible, depending on your mood.

This leads to a cascade of good qualities: Mad Scientists usually are highly extroverted, passionate about their interests, deeply curious, and relentless seekers. We often see this profile in CEOs, entrepreneurs, consultants, and all types of adventure-seekers who travel for their jobs. But this affect profile does come with costs.

In other events, I was startled to get a call from a random woman I met in a grocery story a week or so ago, and had about an hour's conversation with. To make a long story short, she tracked me down and called me and asked if I could meet her for coffee. Which I did. Three and half hours later we realized we have known each other forever. Our lives were linked in so many ways as were uncountable. This is highly unusual at any age but in our elder years completely astonishing. And yes, we are meeting again. I hadn't realized with so many of my friends gone to stardust that I desperately needed something like this. 

And my heart is with our dear darling blogger friend Sue who has undergone so much in the last few months. I view her as a very dear friend and we have exchanged daily emails for years. The void of her absence now leaves a gigantic hole in my life and I'm sure in all of her readers' lives also.  She is one of a kind.

A Ramble of Thoughts.

We've had one case here of the Omicron. An odd word, I keep spinning it around in various accents but nothing feels right. It sounds like nylon underwear to me. As if it would itch mightily and be tossed in the garbage as "not fit" which is an expression used a lot out here on The Edge. Applied to boats and cars and people in equal measure. The imaginary standard of fitness is never mentioned. Maybe there isn't one. On a divorce: oh he was not fit. On an old boat: she's not fit.

I could write every day here but I think you'd all collapse of chronic boredom. I can write about anything and quickly too.  My thoughts come together on a page but rarely in my mouth. I've had to publicly speak and it's always a challenge so I use cue cards which are helpful.

We have an absolute hoard of my family gathering for this season. Highly unusual as one section is flying in from Costa Rica where they're all basking in their summer right now and will hit our winter wall of snow on arrival and will need to borrow thick pelts of coats and socks and hats and gloves as they don't have any cold clothes. Daughter is coming in from rural and decided to rent a wee AirBnB unit  in the city not far from me before the festivities start at Niece's who has five children between herself and husband. 

We keep the whole thing simple with regard to gifts and do the Icelandic tradition of a book exchange which is far more meaningful. If I've had the time I make stuff too as does Daughter, as does Niece.

Organ recital: Health is on a bit of downswing with regard to energy and BP and congestion so seeing the doc this Friday for a once over. No news from vascular surgeon yet. And leg seems to be healing nicely from skin cancer removal.

Life is full of slivers of joy and downers of mortality. I lost another friend last week. It feels like I'm misplacing these dear ones as they keep popping into my head and have to halt myself from emailing or texting them with bits of news. As if there's s wee chance they might respond from the stardust they are dancing in.

An empty lit up storefront of many in this economic downturn.

The Bell Island Ferry at a rather weird angle going downhill on the ocean.

Where the ferry is headed. Portugal Cove South.

For you trivia nuts, Bell Island was attacked by German U-Boats during WW2.

Any Guesses as to What This Is?

The above photo was taken on Bell Island, Newfoundland, recently. There is something alien and surreal about it, isn't there?

I'm thinking that Grannymar won't have any trouble identifying it.

What about the rest of you out there?

Bell Island

Today, the last day my family are here with me, we visited Bell Island for the first time. It was an extraordinary day, contributed to in no small part by the weather which was stunningly clear, it was as if the ocean and the sky were having a tug of war as to which would get the most turquoise.

We took the ferry from Portugal Cove – picture by me below, ferry is in the background

and headed over on our 30 minute ocean ride across Conception Bay South. I had heard that the iron ore mines were well worth visitng though they were not for the faint of heart as the climb down (and back again!) was pretty challenging and at times claustrophic. We were undaunted by this but confess to feelings of unease at the thoughts of the overwhelming weight of the ore above our heads.

Karen, our tour guide, was amazing. Our group was small, very unusual, she said, so we were given, I believe, more personal anecdotes about the miners who worked long and hard in digging the incredible shafts, deep within the earth and under the surrounding ocean. Unbelievably challenging even today but an astonishing engineering feat at the time, well over a century ago. We trudged around in our warm jackets (we were asked to put them on prior to going down as the temperature would drop dramatically) and our hard hats, fascinated by the lives that were lived by both man and beast down so deep within the bowels of the earth.

Karens' father and grandfather worked in the mines, starting at very young ages doing menial work and then graduating at fourteen to the actual mining itself. She had stories of horses that didn’t see the light of day for months on end, even their stables were way down in the bowels of the earth. Stories of rats that were treated with total respect by the miners as they could sense an imminent collapse and would scatter – the miners fed them bits of their lunches every day as a thank you for saving their lives – much like the canaries in coal mines.

The mines have been kept intact and many artefacts were on display. You can read more about it here if you like.

Another of Bell Island’s claims to fame is that it was the only site in North America to be attacked by German U-Boats in World War Two.

Picture below was taken by the grandgirl from the Bell Island side of the path of the ferry crossing.



To add to our adventurous day, a few minutes after she took this picture, we were on the ferry and dolphins entertained us all the way back to Portugal Cove.

My summer scrapbook overflows with unforgettable memories.