Category: Daily Blog

When my daughters were Brownies, they used to sing a song that went “make new friends, but keep the old – one is silver and the other gold.” What a beautiful – and true – sentiment, which helps explain why I try to remain touch with my old friends from university.

But of course at this age, ‘old’ friends takes on new meaning! My friend and former classmate, Bill, celebrated his birthday over the weekend, and I gave him a card congratulating him on turning 100. And I’m catching up quickly!

It was a great time spent with great people (and maybe you’ll recognize his son in the lower picture!). So, Happy Birthday, Bill, and cheers to old friends!
And please, if you enjoy this reading my posts, I’d love an early birthday gift myself – your vote at the Canadian Blog Awards. Voting is simple – you don’t have to register or log-in, you just have to visit this link, and at the bottom of the left-hand column, you’ll see a category called ‘Best Business or Professional Life Blog.’ Expand that, and you’ll find humble little Jerry by the Sea!

Eight more soldiers guarding the Wizard of Shag Rock! My father always called beer bottles soldiers. I never knew why – maybe something that came out of the war? If you have any idea or call them that yourself, please let me know in the comments!

Anyway, I was a Budweiser fan until Quidi Vidi Brewery (a Newfoundland company!) introduced their Iceberg beer, which is supposedly made from 25,000 year old water harvested from icebergs. I don’t know how they manage that, but it is the smoothest, gentlest, best tasting beer I’ve ever had. And no, I’m not getting paid to say this (but if anyone from Quidi Vidi is reading this, please direct your emails to info@oceandelightcottages.com, ha!)

I still go for my old regular from time to time, but the Iceberg is my current favourite. Thankfully, our local Drover’s Store started stocking it for me in the summer. Our guests love it, too, except for those who love Guinness and that other dark stuff. But I never could make it over to the dark side!

Don’t worry – I’m not running for office! But I’ve been nominated for the Canadian Blog Awards at TopBlogs.ca. If you enjoy reading my daily posts, I would really appreciate your vote!

Voting is simple – you don’t have to register or log-in, you just have to visit this link, and at the bottom of the left-hand column, you’ll see a category called ‘Best Business or Professional Life Blog.’ Expand that, and you’ll find humble little Jerry by the Sea!

Writing this blog has been a lot fun. When I started, I wasn’t sure what my general theme/content would be. But I always jump in with two feet, and now writing has become an entrenched (and favourite) part of my daily routine. I already wrote my girls an email every day, so blogging was a natural progression – now I just have a slightly bigger audience. And I have my own catchphrase now – I Blog Therefore I Am!

Well, folks, I have a new plan for a ‘Sunday series.’ If you remember, I started my church blogging series to give myself a bit of an end-of-the-week break from daily blogging. But as I started running out of pictures of churches to highlight, that started to become more work than regular posts – kind of defeating the purpose! So, for the next little while, Sundays will be reserved for MY church – sunsets. Each night out here in the Wonderful World of Whiteway, I think the raging beauty could never be topped – until the next night, when I think the same thing again. I can’t capture the majesty in words, and while pictures barely do it just either, I just have to try to share them with you.

So, welcome to Sunset Sunday – pull up a chair!

We’re half-way through October, so I take advantage of any opportunity to eat outside (which just happens to be my favourite way to eat). The Berry is off taking a much needed vacation, relaxing and visiting family, and that leaves me to bachelor-it-up, which I did yesterday with lunch at Greensleeves. It was fun and made better by running into an old friend to have join me. Clearly, I was in St. John’s, which still holds a special place in my heart despite the even bigger special place in my heart taken up by the Wonderful World of Whiteway. Regardless, there’s only one thing to say to eating outside in Newfoundland mid-fall: Cheers!

While we don’t have any specific group excursions standing on offer, we love it when potential guests approach us with ideas – we’re flexible and happy to accommodate. Last Spring, we were overtaken for a girls’ scrapbooking weekend. This weekend, some men got a turn!

The group, led by Mike Collins and Peter Gill (Peter also has a great St. John’s vacation home for anyone interested), booked the Whiteway cottages and our house for a Golf/Football/Cards Overnight Getaway. We moved out of the house, took a Heart’s Delight cottage and left Joe in charge. Always up for the challenge, when the boys came back from 18 holes of golf at Pitcher’s Pond Golf Course, Joe had a huge pot of moose stew, chicken wings, chips and salsa, and a host of snacks waiting. They had all they could eat and drink and had a wonderful day in the WWW.

The next morning, the group woke up to a full-on-continental breakfast. They told us they can’t wait to do it all again, and we hope they do – they were a great bunch of guys and it was a wonderful experiment. It was a lot of fun for them and for us – the perfect combo. Maybe their Significant Others would like to try it out – why should the guys have all the fun?!