Where to start, where to start….
And I think about the weekend past, or the weekend coming. And a great big sigh of happiness just comes bubbling up and warms my insides just like my skin.
It’s not that I haven’t had great summers; Queenie could find a party in a Taliban-run fortress with no doors and no windows for chrissakes. But this is the first where I haven’t had to depend on anyone else to go away for the weekend. I just go. And with nice weather and a more relaxed attitude to camping, I can spend two or three days in a beautiful peaceful spot without having to know someone well off enough to own a house there. Or organise a group of people to book somewhere. Or pay through the nose for a single supplement.
The Floating Fire
I have to tell you about the floating fire. I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I didn’t bother to bring my camera down to Oilean Fada two weekends ago. It being a full moon and us going to build a fire in Bear Cove. Silly girl. Never mind. It is burned on my memory forever.
By the time I got down to Digby, the guys had decided we were going to camp in the cove. So it was too late to go back to Halifax and get my camping gear. Never mind – they gave me everything I needed. One of the things I love about here is the fact that a trip anywhere involves at least two pickup trucks rammed with stuff: tents, chairs, coolers, barbeques, towels, sleeping mats, bags, comforters, food, boxes of condiments and sauces. I sat on the deck and let them pack the truck. When we got down to the cove, we had to unpack everything and carry it down. Except we didn’t, as two of them had brought their ATVs to move everything down.
I love this country! They’re so organised.
I suppose I should disapprove of ATVs, but actually I just want one. Who needs a car when you can fit two people and a beer cooler and a tent on one of them? And go anywhere. And then, when you get back, just drive it up onto the bed of the pick up and off you go.
Well, I suppose you need a pickup, now that I read that sentence again.
Anyway, the women made the fatal mistake of letting the guys and Queenie organise the camp, which meant that very little got done in the way of organising before they arrived. I am getting away with murder in the division of labour stakes at the moment. None of the blokes will let me do any of the heavy lifting stuff. And none of the women expect me to know how to turn the barbeque on. So I get to sit on a rock or take photos or generally just ponce around.
They’ll be onto me soon, I’d say. We’ll deal with that when it happens.
The winklepickers and the monologue
Anyways, M and T went winkle-picking and I sat on a rock and listened to an extensive monologue from R about some girl he wanted to go out with even though she had a kid with someone else, but that didn’t matter and he was just waiting on a phone call from her and he was going to go over to Bridgewater and pick her up because the guy she was with now was a real jerk and he treated her real bad even though she had a kid for him and she was real nice not like his current girlfriend who was a real bitch and the other girl (Lisa I think it was) was real sorry because she had introduced the two of them and she had rung him to apologise and he was real pleased because he really preferred her and had wanted to go out with her all along.
Nice save, Lisa, I thought.
The lads told me afterwards R had signed over his life insurance policy to the other girl BEFORE he even started going out with her.
Real nice save, Lisa.
I wonder did my ex ever unsign his? Probably. But if not, that would be a nice surprise to find out, wouldn’t it?
And then I’d get to hear about the money too.
Joke.
I think.
Anyways, M and T eventually arrived back with a big pot of winkles and set about deciding where to build the cooking area. This always takes a long time. They can never decide. And I’m no use, I can’t even figure out the wind direction. Eventually they agreed on a spot, which was conveniently situated right beside me. Actually, that’s usually what happens. The more I think of it, the more I realise I’m a natural. I just zone in on the most comfortable spot in any given situation and you should just build the kitchen wherever I am sitting. T set about building a kitchen. Man, that dude just loves heavin’ rocks around. While he rearranged the beach in order to cook a few hotdogs, M and I had a beer and watched the sunset.
The mossies were ferocious. Huge ones, tearing lumps out of us. They all ended up using my DEET spray even though they don’t normally. It was insane. You’d go for a pee and by the time you’d wiped your ass you’d have four bites in it. Because really, I don’t care what anyone says, you can’t spray DEET there. You could combust under certain circumstances.
Really big, lumpy, sore bites too. Not great for work the following week. Surreptitious scratching has to be just that, doncha know.
Grrrrl Power
M’s wife Tina arrived on her ATV then. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl power with a big gguuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. The muffler’s gone on it, you can hear it coming a mile away, which meant a bit of a spring into action on our part and we had nearly everything organised by the time she arrived. Well, T did. M and I managed to clamber down off the rock and lookabusy.
It’s really interesting, when we go on these trips, the guys do the cooking. They set up the camp as well. But there’s an interesting hiatus in the middle where nothing gets done unless Tina or Amanda or Melissa give everything the once over and point out the mistakes and then take off again. Then the cooking starts.
I don’t know if they’re even aware of it.
Anyway, eventually everyone arrived and we had a bit of nosebag and started building the fire. It has been a very dry month, so we had to be very careful. And the tide comes right up to the grass in Bear Cove. So we had to build it on the beach, which meant it would flood come high tide, due about half past midnight.
So they built it in the lee of an enormous rock. In a little bowl created by the dip in another flat rock. Reckoned she might hold a piece.
And so she did. We drank beer and ate winkles. The wind rose a little as night fell and the tide crept up the beach, silent under the babble of our voices.
I’m not a winkle girl. I wasn’t feeling the best anyway, what with Lady Moonbeam coming to visit (when is she ever going to feck off). Better out than in I say. The fire was so hot I was burning up anyway. So I climbed up the grassy bank and released the winkles back into the wild, and sat on another rock and looked down on the beach. I could see the sea flicking itself around the fire. It slid in among the rocks and filled up the cracks and created a pool. The fire, supported by the lip of the rock upon which it was built, burned steadily in one corner. Not even the maddest Finns in the maddest part of that mad country could’ve built a steam bath like that one. It wasn’t long before they noticed. And they’re in. Well a couple of them, clothes and all.
Better out than in I say, I stayed where I was.
After a while someone came up to check on me and I told them I had chucked up my winkles.
“Oh? Where?”
Well, dearie, seeing as that was your first question, I won’t bother telling you I think it was around about where you’re standing. And I'm fine, thanks for asking.
We woke up at eight the next morning to gentle rain tapping on our tents, and made filter coffee with two saucepans and a roll of toilet paper. We drank it in the wet grass and looked at the work to be done taking the camp down, then walked back to the trucks and went home. It was all still there, untouched, on Wednesday when they went back to get it.
Sure, why wouldn't it be.
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