2019-02-04 Mon

It’s all “Go” here in Clarenville

Fire at Clarenville Hotel and Fitness Centre . I stayed at this hotel back in October 2017 .

“I spent a miserable night in a hotel that shall remain nameless so as not to embarrass The Wave Hotel. I dropped my bag in the room, went out to eat, returned, bathed, and typed up my notes and only then realised I was freezing. The fan on the air-conditioning unit was working, but that was functioning-all. No response from the controls. Couldn’t turn off the fan, couldn’t raise the temperature. In the end I did a Bryson and left the fridge door open all night. I managed to turn the fan off by unplugging the unit from the wall. To make things worse, the room has four weak table lamps, Bryson would describe them as ‘in the French 7-watt style’, all shaded, and in the darkness while all four lights were turned on, I stubbed one of my toes. This is what it looked like twenty-four hours later. I was glad to Wave the motel goodbye.”

I would not have wished it to burn down, honest, but I sure would have liked to hear the table lamp bulbs popping. Perhaps they will use LED lights for my next visit. (Thinks: Why don’t I travel with my own LED bulb to replace the 7watt one provided?)

Woman Dead Following Head-On Collision in Clarenville is another item. I know this intersection well from my previous two visits. Manitoba Drive is the new commercial hangout with the big box stores, restaurant chains, and lawyers offices. Driving east, you descend a steep hill with stop lights at the intersection and, I believe, a right-turn Yield sign. Meanwhile traffic is descending the hill to your left, southbound down Memorial. Let me see now, two roads, both coming down a steep hill, and a Yield sign. Yes, that should work.

For several years now I have made much use of weather radar, in particular https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php to see “What’s coming down the pipe”, but sadly I am now out of range. I will have to find another predictor. This particular radar was good in Toronto for as CTV’s Dave Devall used to tell us “A system is sweeping up the Ohio Valley ...”. Even before President Chump, Toronto blamed its problems on the USA.

Well, anyway, I wake at seven and contemplate that breakfast will be two mugs of coffee from a sachet stolen from the Greenwood Inn, two sugar sachets ditto, and why didn’t I steal some creamers, or at least buy a small carton of milk while I kicked my heels around the Ultramar while waiting to meet my landlady last night? When I hit that railroad track today I’m off to the Tim Horton’s and a Boston Cream. Just don’t tell my doctor.

There is a possibility that I’ll sleep in my own place tonight, but it seems remote. One item slipped my attention from the huge checklist – House Insurance which, I’m told, the BMO insist on having. The insurance agent isn’t responding to emails or voice-mails; the lawyers didn’t pick up on it being missing. The Real Estate agent says it is mandatory. I have heard nothing.

I need a WETT inspection . I am prepared to sign an affidavit or promise to have no naked flames. I don’t smoke or burn incense, don’t light candles, and have no plans right now to try baking bread in a wood stove. The next three months will be spent unpacking and unwrapping stuff, then I’ll be in the garden (Later: hah hah hah). The lawyers contact too is deficient in responding to emails. I sent an email last night announcing that I would be knocking on their front door at nine on the dot. ***IF*** all is on track, reckon on 30-60 minutes to sign papers and once the lawyer declares happiness, phone Morley Moyles in St John’s with “Gentlemen, start your engines”. He has 3½ hours of driving to get to Bonavista, I have about 1 hr 45 minutes in Old Waddler, so my plan is to lumber up dear old #230 and hang out at the Walkham’s Gate Café Pub .

This is the last leg, except for driving the unloaded truck back to Clarenville and catching the $25 shuttle bus back to Bonavista.

I, however, am not stupid. I know how to drag one of Google Maps little white buttons back up the highway to the other junction with #230. This adds two minutes to the trip, but avoids a weary trek through traffic in Shoal Harbor, Mills Siding, and Milton. I went that way last year on my drive from St John’s to Bonavista. My revised route is the way I first went to Bonavista, October 2017, from Lewisporte, so that will make it a nostalgic trip.

Here I am sitting up in bed in Clarenville, slavishly typing up a story for you when the room lights up. The sun has risen “POP!” Over the skyline. Sunlight floods the room, shining through one of the louvered windows to make a sun-show on the bathroom door.

Sunshine shining in through my windows; that is my goal, and here is a preview. I type some more then my phone rings: The lawyer’s office. Everything is ready to go. Oh. Except for the house insurance. Can I come to the office? I’ll be there in thirty minutes, I say, shutting down the computer, pulling on clothes.

This morning the truck looks much cleaner.

Always ask to use the washrtoom when entering a lawyers offices. If they have gold-monogrammed towels, be on guard!

The legal session was a mess. I started this all by missing one item in my 460row spreadsheet or my 218page diary. Because I missed that item I did not contact an house insurance agent, and so the wood and oil facilities were not inspected, electrical and sewage systems were not certified, and at 9:15 a.m. this morning I was on the speakerphone, with a lawyer and paralegal listening in as an insurance agent asked me “What type of electrical?” “What do you mean by ‘What Type’?” “Well is it aluminium, copper, ?” “I dunno”. “Well OK. What type of water pipe?” “What do you mean by ‘What Type’?” “Well is it galvanized iron, copper, ABS?” “I dunno”, and so on, ad panicum.

About that wood stove. It you don’t have a certificate, it’ll have to be “certified disconnected” before the insurance policy can be issued (before the lawyers can release the money ...). This means, the lawyer confirms, I will have to have a contractor enter the house (getting the keys from St John’s?), check out the work, disconnect the stove pipe, and get someone(s) to help him lug the wood stove outside the building, then issue a certificate of dis-connection (how long for the contractor to write it up and fax it to the lawyers?).

And about that oil tank, certificate that it doesn’t leak, etc. etc. I start quivering, physically. I am slowly entering shock. Who dropped the ball here? (later the real estate agent confirms that it was the lawyers. They bungled this one badly).

For two hours we phoned toll-free numbers, spoke with different agents, finally got one in Mississauga (GTA) who rattled off a few questions, quoted a price, faxed to the lawyers. The paralegal grabs the fax, reads it, says OK, and we are done. Now all I have to do is drive to Bonavista, but I can’t do that. I am still shaking, so I drive to good old Ultramar and gas up, then walk to Tim Horton’s and order a double-double-double, which is two creams, two sugars, in a double mug to serve as insulation. I hit the road, trying not to scream. I head north on Trans-Canada Highway to the 230 turnoff, pull over, and confirm a room in the Lancaster Inn for tonight. After all, I still don’t have the keys to 60 Canon Bayley Road.

The kilometres wind down from 112 to 44. I am less than half an hour from my goal. And no, that’s not snow on the windscreen. Those are salt-flecks. I clean them off every ten kilometres or so.

We are at Catalina, pronounced kat-a-LYE-nah, rather than kat-a-LEE-nah.

Look how little snow they have here. Check out a plant hardiness zone map.

Sometimes hard to spot, but in most maps, the tip of the Bonavista Peninsula, which is the town of Bonavista, is ever-so-slightly just in a warmer zone than Toronto, five degrees latitude (so 350 miles) further south.

At last! The town of Bonavista spreads out before me.

I will be living near the foot of the two water towers, just the other side of the bases. I suspect that at certain times of year the shadows will fall on me, like sun-dial. (An aside for my northern hemisphere contacts: Did you know that sun-dials in the southern hemisphere go round in the other direction?)

The trip from Clarenville took me two hours, normally ninety minutes in a little sedan.

I lumber into Discount Plaza Autos but Derek is out at lunch. I walk next door, but Kim Oldford, too, is at lunch. I shrug and head over to the Walkham’s Gate Café Pub, park the truck outside the Old Court House (but see about 5/6 the way down This Page , and am greeted with hugs and kisses by Marie and Bev, later by Grace. I nurse a Coffee, do some typing, order and eat a breakfast sandwich and wait for Morley Moyles, the real estate agent. I took the fish inside because I didn’t know how long the truck would be sitting there. Much amusement. Half the folks aren’t sure what the raucous laughter is about, half the remainder are in disbelief. A few actually peer through the neck of the flask and exclaim delight.

I type, I sip, I wait. As far as the bank and the lawyers are concerned, all is done, right? No. Morley arrives, works the room (“Oh! That Morley Moyles, he’s a Great Guy!”) and finally sits down at the table. We greet. I take his hand and blurt out through tearing-up eyes “Thank You”. He spots my audible tremor and says “That’s alright, m’boy”. He has fathered me through this process.

We need to go to the property, walk through to make sure that both he and I are in agreement that the property is as seen a few months ago, then I must phone the lawyers and say that I am happy with it, then Morley must tell them he’s happy, then he has to wait to hear back from them that the money has been despatched. Only then, when Morley hears back from the lawyers, can he hand the keys over to me.

We open and inspect the shed. Wheelbarrow, snow-shovel, leaf pusher, saws, oils, tools, lawnmower, ... Mister Tremblett wants to leave all this here. For me. I remind Morley that I’d said I’d buy anything Tremblett didn’t want, and that Tremblett could take his time taking away what he did want, because for several weeks I’d be unpacking and arranging it. Or so I thought. No, says Morley, “Harold says you can have all this; he don’t want it.”

We move into the house, taking off our boots. (I will post a movie and a photo-inventory tomorrow). Everything looks just like the photos on the real estate web site (this Royal Le Page page since deleted, of course; silly of me ...). I note that today the house is marked as “Date Added 19 April 2018”, so it was on the market for 292 days. The list price was $65,900. If the real estate web page is gone, I have a copy of the photos here .

Note the beds with covers and shims. All left for me as shown in the photos. At the extreme right of the bathroom photo is a closet with cleaned, folded towels. The tool-shed has an indoor step-ladder as well as the outdoor extension ladder. The electric jug and knives in the kitchen are in place. The dining room table has two extension leaves. The oil stove and the electric stove are in place, but the dishwasher is gone. The couch is in better condition than mine. The grandchildren photos are gone, but the homely mottoes are in place. The little side table - check!

And much more, but see tomorrow’s photo-inventory. Morley too is overwhelmed at what has been left for me. To break both our emotional tensions I point to the kitchen clock. “Hang about. The clock has stopped. The batteries must be flat”. Morley chuckles. Ten minutes later I am exploring the kitchen and find FIVE super-packs of AA batteries. I show them to Morley and we burst out in laughter. Even my fake outrage has been trumped by Tremblettgenerosity.

I phone the lawyer and choke out the words “I am delighted”, for a Great Light has come into my life. I pass the phone to Morley and he Newfie-drawls “I’m good, we’re good. Now, you’ll let me know when the money is transferred so that I can hand the keys to Mister Greaves? (pause) What?!!” Be still my fluttering heart. “It was? Oh!” He hangs up and hands the phone back to me. “The money is transferred”. He hands me the keys, but I hand them back, for we are due to meet Mister Tremblett back here at five, and I want to use the keys to re-enter the house as Mine.

Morley drops me off at the BELL computer store where I chat with Kim while Peggy inspects my phone’s SD card. It is toast. I can buy a new one at the pharmacy. I walk back to the Walkham’s Gate Café Pub and meet Morley there. I drive the truck to 60 Canon Bayley Road and Morley follows, but Harold Tremblett is there when I arrive. I put down my 15-litre flask and tell the guppies “We’re home!”, shake Tremblett’s hand, and we chat. He wants to give me the run-down but I beg for Thursday or later, after I have unloaded, and when my brain has calmed down a bit.

I drive to PK’s for a turkey sandwich and fries, then to The Lancaster Inn where I will sleep tonight. As if sleep is a possibility.