Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on August 1st, 2015.

Since Grampie wasn't going to help me finish those remaining two dozen oysters, I thought had better get cracking and slurping. But were they still good to eat? "Check with Mum" was the advice given; after all, one doesn't cook for 30 people on a cross-Pacific-tropical-voyage-sans-refrigeration without developing a certain authority in these matters. She sniffed and felt the beasts and gave her okay, but just to be on the safe side I opted for frying them instead of eating them raw.

So I shucked the beauties (lots of work), and then made homemade breadcrumbs (more work), then breaded them (ahem, work, work, work), and waited for them to chill (an evening swim at the beach killed the time). My family watched the whole process, with cautious comments, while eating their leftover roast beef. Smart family.

They didn't quite taste right. Slightly bitter. And they looked a bit like fried chicken embryos. So after eating a couple I tossed the rest. Good thing it was before my agèd grandfather arrived in the kitchen hoping to give them a taste.

For all that wretched evening I slept very little, otherwise occupied in depositing every bit of food and liquid from my digestive track into the toilet bowl. I moaned and groaned, trying to match my melody with the beat of my twisting stomach (which was trying to replicate the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee). Any drop of water I dared swallow was rejected with a vehemence, until my mum was calling the island nurse and speaking words like “intravenous tubes".

But the stomach relaxed after the food gave way and no rides to the mainland were needed. I slept all the next day, and all the next evening, and read in a hammock all the day following. While I was grieved to give up my precious holiday, I did ask myself "are there worse places to read than under an Arbutus tree, refreshed by the sea breeze?" And I remembered my pastor Gavin's story from his recent vacation and knew that I too was learning to trust and give up control. My rest is not my god.

P.S. Because my sleep cycle is now null, I spent last evening listing to Wendell Berry on audio book before finally walking down after midnight to the full-moon-lit-sandy-beach. I don't do this every night, folks. Just once in a blue moon.

I've spent the last three days "adventuring" with my 92 year old grandfather and now have an arsenal of memories to share with my grandkids someday. Such as:

Getting almost-scolded by the owner of Charcut for, a). standing on the rooftop balcony (my grandfather, to better catch the view) and b). bringing in outside coffee (me, because they didn't have decaf).
Together doing a $700 grocery shop for 7 people before desperately catching two island ferries lest we miss the last ferry ride.
Discovering that there is a Hyden string quartet concert beginning in 15 minutes and racing across the island to catch it.

And.... OYSTERS!!!!

I recently discovered these delicacies only to be told that my grandfather would catch them by hand in Cape Breton and eat them, alone, to the chagrin of his family. So I bought us 4 dozen and we ate half of them together, after learning how to shuck them (from the man at the COOP hardware store, where my grandfather bought lemons and heavy duty gloves). This was all done in view of the family, who watched us with chagrin through a glass window as they ate their boiled potatoes. (We offered them samples, many times, but each family member refused.)

So yes, vacation has been fun so far.