Week 3 - Colchester to Hants
We had been warned about Henri. Warned about how it was moving up the coast, blowing chaos into Southern cities. On the forecasted day we found ourselves blanketed in a gentle mist that mingled with the ocean to fill the air. We could feel and smell what we could not see.
Living in Mi’kma’ki we are used to the fickle winds and the meteorologists eagerness to please, to predict and to provide news for conversation. That we experienced the gentle mist of an afterthought of a hurricane instead of a raging storm was no surprise. The rain and wind that came on the Tuesday after Henri was unnamed but soaked us through just the same. Biking in the rain is not unpleasant but stopping to rest is less comfortable with out a dry patch on grass to stretch out on. Instead of stopping to camp on the side of the road we made a two day trip into one and spun our legs on to the indoor space that awaited us in Truro.
The dissonance of choosing to tour a puppet show by bicycle is perhaps more striking when it is raining. Curiosity, sharpened by our apparent discomfort led to convience store awning encounters with stories of past wanderings, offerings of rides and even freshly picked blackberries. One gentlemen offered to make room for us amongst the beehives in the back of his truck. When I invited him to our show on the following evening, he confirmed that tomorrow was a Wednesday and I agreed before biking away. We had, of course, mutually agreed on the wrong day of the week.
Tuesday night came and, with a full breeze and a shallow incoming tide, we set up at The Fundy Discovery Site Visitor Centre. Old and new friends showed up and I was relieved to see the beekeeper accompanied by his spouse, who had the good sense to look up the show date before leaving home. Once again we were treated to a generosity of trust in our work and people took time to witness what we created and towed around.
It was a day and a half ride to Fall River from Truro. We had a clear night’s bonfire with new friends but, before morning, the sky had clouded over. Hurricane Henri had let us be but Ida showed up, all wind and rain, and canceled the show in Fall River. In spite of the cancellation and the rain our spirits were lifted by Carsten Knox, radio journalist extraordinaire, who braved the weather to interview us in the waterfall gazebo at the Gordon Snow Community Centre. We deemed it the waterfall gazebo because the eaves channeled the rain water into a powerful stream that somehow gushed into the structure’s covered inner sanctum.
From Fall River we dropped the set off in Dartmouth and dismounted from our saddles for a couple of rest days before bringing the show, our creative child, to the big city of Halifax.