The Hewson Manoeuvre and the Ogre’s Violin

the Further Adventures of Trashy Drifter

Chapter 46*

The Hewson Manoeuvre and the Ogre’s Violin

It would be dishonest of me to say that work is all work and no fun. In fact often we have too much fun. Our little dock family is a petri dish of peculiar people percolating in perplexingly personal proximity occasionally erupting in paroxysms of partying. Sometimes we have a few brewskis after the day is done and visit and socialize.

On one such occasion last month, my good friend N Hewson, who was a bridesmaid at our nuptials and now works here as a guide, was fairly well lubricated with beverages and we were singing karaoke. She and I stepped outside for a smoke break. As I watched her walk, I noticed that she kept on walking even though the dock beneath her had come to a physical end. She executed a magnificent and perfect no-handed cartwheel, in a skirt I might add, with her heels circumscribing a perfect half circle through the air as she gracefully and accidentally invented what I have dubbed, ‘the Hewson Manoeuvre’.

At the sound of her splash, many hands came to the rescue and she bobbed up with a surprised grin on her face and her wine glass still held in her hand. So far, she’s the first to execute such a move, but we’re only half way through the season.

That’s right, the full on non- stop summer to fall marathon has commenced. There isn’t a spare bed here until the end of October, luckily, there are plentyof bears around and more new ones are arriving and being watched each day. In fact today, Bella walked right behind the lodge with her three cubs, not more than eight meters away from the lodge railings where eager guests took hundreds of photos. As she and her cubs made their photogenic perambulation around our little cove, all the rubberneckers had to scramble from vantage point to vantage point to keep them in sight. So, people were pouring through every crevice and cranny to garner a gander.

We’ve just come back from a week’s break. I could really get used to that vacation mentality. We spent the week on Cortes Island. Originally, we had intended to just quickly visit Cortes and then find our way up to the Lodge so that I could show my family around here without all the touristas. But after we unwound on Cortes, we decided that doing anything other than relaxing and visiting with each other would be painful. I think it was our best ever family trip, even better than Mexico. We swam every day, in pure fresh lake water, met a lot of wonderful folks in a beautiful place. Our friend Scott Cook showed up there and we had a sing song at our campsite after watching one of the best sunsets ever. The next night he played a gig at a restaurant there.

On our last night there, we picked oysters off the beach and cooked them in the coals of a fire and ate them with a knife, I can’t remember when I’ve ever eaten something so exquisite. There was an open stage at the marina we were camped in, so I sang a few tunes, Yaya told her tornado tale and Bella told jokes. The owner now wants to book us to entertain there, so I expect we’ll revisit Cortes soon.

When we finally were ready to go to our Boler and sleep, we heard good music bouncing off the mountainsides, so we decided to chase it, and we ended up crashing an outdoor wedding! We magically arrived at the moment that a beer keg needed to be lifted. It was a fantastic outdoor wedding, on a beautiful acreage, with strings of lights hanging over banquet tables in a grove lit with tea lights. The bride and groom and their guests were rocking out to 80’s music which for some reason makes wifer gag, but I enjoy. So I ended up on the dance floor, and what do you suppose transpires? Yes, I caught the garter! I think I have caught the garter at almost every wedding I’ve ever been to, perhaps it’s a sign that I should become Mormon. Anyways, I had to relinquish it so that a proper bachelor could catch it. You see, another occasion when there needed to be an MC on the mic and there wasn’t one, sheesh.

Speaking of MC’ing, I recently had the audacious though slightly dubious honour of being the MC for a concert up on Mt Washington ski hill, put on by Vig and Kevin of Cumberland village works. The headliners were Cat Empire from Australia, a fantastically fun powerhouse band. Somehow, it was decided that I should be dressed as a tiger for the occasion, so Donna sliced up a stuffed tiger and I wore its head and paws and tail, with a leopard skin coat. The fluff from the chopped up stuffy tended to fly down my throat when I inhaled, so I ended up coughing up a few fur balls in front of thousandsof people. I’d like to think it went well, after all, I do love yelling at crowds of people, I find it therapeutic.

If you are wondering what the Ogre’s violin is, it is the music that I go to sleep to at night. This whole lodge is a cluster of floating wooden platforms that are connected by bridges. As we are at sea, the whole thing is always rocking or rolling one way or another and the bridges like to slide back and forth across the platforms. The ensuing friction between surfaces causes sound vibrations to fill the air. That sound resembles nothing so much as a very large, very out of tune violin being played very badly by a very sad and tedious ogre. Just beneath my attic window there is one such bridge and I sometimes get the impression that I am having a very clumsy lullaby blammed in my ear hole as I try to get some shut eye, which can translate into some very strange dreams indeed.

Other than that, things are going well, I’ve taken up carving and have gathered a few pieces of driftwood and have borrowed some carving tools. I like to carve an image into wood, then scorch it with a blowtorch and sand away the outer burnt parts to reveal the carved image burned into the wood. So far I’ve mostly done bears playing accordions and space ships and pin up girls. An American couple bought one piece off me and I’ve sent another to Lana and Marcus’ gallery in Telegraph Cove, who knows? Maybe someone will buy it?

 

(*Chapter 45 omitted by popular demand, but available for a price)