yyt

the world will end at noon - 12:30 in newfoundland

they left without saying anything. heard them moving about then silent, after about 20 minutes i went outside and looked up and their s.u.v. was gone. i went upstairs to find a two prints on the table - one for sharon one for jim - this evening sharon's was still here. at first thought that she had forgot it but now think that she didn't want a print of the stage near where they found jesse's body. the key was in the door.

i moved up got settled then headed out. went over to bauline to photograph the town. still one of my favourites as it is sandwiched in between two mountains. one street into town that takes you to the dock quite steep.

parked across from a house that was for sale - nice view gut a shed would have to be torn down to get a better one $44 000 cdn. headed down to the pier, passing to torontonians painting the harbour. made a couple of snaps and headed back up through town - it takes maybe three minutes to walk from end end to the other - but stopped to photograph the painters.

wandered the town for about an hour, photographing my usual iconography - basketball hoops, laundry lines, outlines of the island. added lobster and crab pots.

bauline was cleaning up at one time it seemed that most of the town was for sale now it was all vinyl sided with volvos in front of the houses. everything looking over conception bay was bought up and quite modern looking.

made two rounds around the town. one with ubaldo and due to the fact that i actually took the diana out of the bag - once again with a plastic one. so much for this being the end of plastic.

a convoy of cars, s.u.v.s, and a motorcycle sped down to the harbour. about a dozen people hopped out and started to put on wet suits. all of a sudden bauline was the height of activity.

passing them again, i chatted with the torontonians who were quite the tourist attraction themselves. some came up to chat, others to look at the painting. a woman came up to take their photograph - i took one of her photographing them. she lived beside the house that was for sale last year. showed her the book of people and found out that dalton was actually alton - this has happened a great deal.

the conversation as usual surrounded the usual bafflement that the states sees nothing wrong with bush and why we would try to impeach a president who lied about an affair but don't bother with one who lies and thousands die because of it.
mentioned that peter jennings is now a yank maybe they would like to do a trade…

into st. john's to post the blog.

cape st. francis was nice and cool st. john's was hot . it was probably on 25 but after the drizzle and 8 degrees yesterday it felt sweltering. in wordplay was shocked to see jim back from biscay bay. gave him the print from robert said that jill his partner spent yesterday in hospital getting a tetanus shot due to a rusty nail.

so had jim. it seems that angela had fractured her wrist in trepassey and was brought back by ambulance to st. john's at 2am.

would go over and see her but first. i had been waiting since i arrived to do this and was afraid to do so due to the budget busting gasoline consumption of the caravan.

i had my samosa breakfast at the bagel. better still i had it outside in duckworth street reading the national post. - i had finished the globe at the duke last night. a little thing but i felt once again an inhabitant of the avalon peninsula, it is the little things that do this.

the waitress - yvette - came out to have a chat - nice day hated to be inside. the seat were in the shade already. she was a lab assistant at the same hospital that angie and jill went. she waits at the bagel to help out.

said that i had to make her snap as she had talked to me . she asked how many i had done about 100, since 1999, not counting this time. she said that she could do that in an afternoon in the café, i said that i wasn't collecting butterflies but trying in an unscientific way to show the diversity of the island - we'll worry about labrador later. that it wasn't all old men mourning the loss of the cod fisheries.

she brought up how newfoundlanders are stereotyped and how newfoundlanders are the ones who do the stereotyping.

settled up and headed over to see how angela was. had to dodge the inch worms hanging from the maple trees along rennie's mill road two ended up on me and i felt what seemed like a bight. couldn't decide whether i wanted to risk traffic and be in the street or run into these inchworms hanging everyplace. yesterday saw a remedy that seemed to work wrapping duck tape around the trunk about four feet off the ground.

there were games at st. pat's there was a baseball on their back patio. angela was in pain and pretty much out of it. withdrew headed back sweating, wanted to stop into moo's for an ice cream but the queue was out the door. headed over to see if the jazz festival was still on. it wasn't. went back to wordplay to await jim and mike to head to the duke.

walking in, i see ray, who in his usual self starts to yell in greeting frightening terry, i head for the door but it is too late. two ribs are crushed as he embraces me, yelling at the top of his voice. complaint from the harbour commission - he is drowning out the fog horns.

terry seems worried that he is going to loose the tourists who don't know what is going on. i try to get to the patio. mike and jim have abandoned me. he finds them and his friend - a scot - starts to chat with me.

finally we are on the deck chatting. he has a proposition for me that i never hear, he seems upset that i am leaving tuesday - he's upset!!!? wants me to ring him as terry is trying to get him to leave. finally get a snap of terry and am thinking that this episode will either allow me to run a tab in the future or get me exiled to the spur.

i have been christened - either by ray or mike - the accidental newfoundlander. from what little i could find out, ray is teaching at the college of the north atlantic and wants to work out a workshop schedule with me. i'll find out to-morrow or not.

a heated discussion on what to do with the newly expanded pouch cove foundation.
am to curate a show next year.

back to jim's for pizza where the eternal debate of the rock was brought up with jerry and mike-which i like by the way -where regionalism stops and sense of place begins. if you paint table mountain all the time are you doing tourist art. if you make prints of the bars along george street is that any different? do torontonians make ontario art? what iconography does a hamiltonian use?

headed back to do some serious work on the web site - on the way up route 20 thought it strange that i was not staying in st. john's but the window at the pipe house is closer to the ocean than the one at number 14.

the dominion was closed - hoped that i had enough coffee for the morning.

stopped in torbay and actually head into the cove. will need to walk. the road went bad really quickly - well bad for a car rental where they mark all the dings on the the receipt.

took out the tripod and made photographs of pouch at night. may have waited too late as i wanted anice balance between buildings and sky. we'll see.

am trying to build up resolve to not be terribly bitter heading back to the states a good 45 days before i have to.