Mohammed Sode and my other new friends

Early Monday evening we were presented with a very solvable dilemma, or so I thought.  Food.  Pretty simple and basic.  We had stopped at a grocery store before crossing into Prince Edward Island from New Brunswick.  We needed more lunch stuff for the road and I decided to purchase a few supplies and a little bit of food for the house.  Having deep-packed a lot of food as well, I didn't buy much and was more picking up things like dishwasher and laundry detergent, etc...  Our cooler was still pretty full and with the lunch stuff I was buying there was no more room for extra refrigerated items.  As it was we were whittling down on our Happy Cow milk and just finished it up Sunday morning.  I knew there would be a place to shop in Nova Scotia on Monday for the rest. 

On Monday, JB offered to get what we needed so I spent time making a list and up until he left, kept adding to it as he was going to Halifax to pick up the boxes for the class he is teaching and meet with the man who had set up and requested the class.  Now, he can call the house but not my cell phone and I cannot call at all.  Of course we are in and out and down at the dock all afternoon while he is gone and miss his phone call.  Finally he reaches us and he is at the store getting everything we need. Do we need anything else?  Yes, and I give him the rest of the list, what I have thought of since he left.  He's a good sport.  When he arrives home without any of the refrigerated items (they were not available in that particular store?) I realize we need some of this very soon, as in this evening.  He is very tired, from all the driving this last week and then today's meeting, and of course he offered to do the shopping for me, so what could I say?  I volunteered to go finish the shopping somewhere.  I am leaving the house, everyone is on the dock or playing around and I'm just thinking, I have to get this crew fed and quickly. 

Well, if you remember from another post, we are living in a drive-by-shooting-type-of-town- sighting.  There is not much here.  In fact it took us 2 days to find the post office tucked inside a bulk food store!  And those ladies run the ice cream shop, the store, the post office of course, and probably even operate a bank behind the counter and who knows what else.  All I can remember from last night's dark drive in is that we were on some kind of 2-lane road and when I get out to that road from my one lane drive through the woods, up the hill, and around a big curve, I will be turning left or right and I get to choose.  I have absolutely no idea where a store might be.  Now earlier today I met the next door neighbor, a man from France who bought the fixer-up right beside us through the trees. (What is it with these French men I keep finding?)  Now he waves to me every morning from his roof when I go out on the dock with my morning cup of joey (tea).  He has told me that the town of Bridgewater has a large store and vaguely gave me directions which I think might be to the left.  So I ask JB what he thinks.  He's just about passed out on the sofa and says that maybe he can look something up or he will just get up and go.  No, that's ok, I'll go, I'll find something, I mean, this is probably a friendly place and I can just ask the first person I see, right?

So I turn left wondering exactly where Bridgewater is and how far and how does one find another town by just driving in the middle of nowhere?   I go and go and nothing gets any larger, just more hamlets blink by only identified by small green signs that I mostly don't even see.  So I turn around and go back the other way, making sure I remember when I pass it, where I turn into that one road that will take me back to my family which looks like every other road around here (no street signs).  There are no stores, no people, no anything.  I call JB on the house phone (he gave me his cell phone for just in case).  I ask him, "Will you please look something up on the Internet please?"  His response, "Just plug it into my phone."  I'm thinking, "Huh?" I am driving around all these little curves hugging the shore line hoping I'm not speeding (this rental car I'm driving has mph, not kilometers per hour), and there's also that little technicality that I have no idea how to work the Internet on his phone.  I'm doing well if I can remember his password to unlock it.  "Hubby, do you mind looking it up for me so I can keep driving this direction and maybe find something soon?"  He replies, "What happened to asking that first person you see thing?"  About that time, I see the first person walking 4 dogs on the side of the road so I roll down my window and ask her.  I can hear my husband howling with laughter on his end of the phone.  (Very funny.)  She points up the road apiece and says "He has everything." 

Sode does have everything I need but the outside says, "Hunting and Fishing Supplies" but I know that's exactly what I am doing, hunting and fishing for food so I decide to go in, maybe this will be an adventure.  Well, Sode is now my friend.  Not only does he have everything I need, he gets it for me too.  He grinds my beef fresh, his eggs are from some one's chicken coop, he even has some of the weirder things I need.  I am perfectly content not to ask him how much things cost although I begin to notice today and other days that he charges me prices that are lower than what is advertised in little signs in the window.  He also gives me some advice about getting a boat which is why we knocked on the Frenchman's door in the first place. Sode knows everyone and apparently everyone knows him.  He is a fixture.  Now it seems that I am in there every day for something and he always has a smile and I'm sure his business does very well.  He waves if we drive by and the other day kissed my hand, bowed down, and told me "I was the woman" when he asked if those were all my children (I had 3 with me at the time) and found out that no, these are not all of my children. 

On Tuesday when we go into Chester to look around (which is just further up the road to the right) and go to the Visitor's Center to look at a very neat display about all that searching for treasure on Oak Island, we find a grocery store, a fully stocked real store.  The children say we don't need this store because Sode's store has it all.  Of course I go in, it's a new day, we need some more food (think: Scott is 14).  It takes me a long time to find what I need and locate it all.  It's nice, it's not too pricey but it doesn't have the appeal that Sode's does, there's no one to chat with, there's not a group of people sitting outside who want to talk, there's no one running around gathering all my stuff for me.  So the next day where am I when I need eggs, Parmesan cheese, bacon and scraps of fish for crab bait?   ~~ The Hunting and Fishing Supply Store. 

A few days later when we drive by here on our way to Peggy's Cove I tell my husband about something I heard or that happened at Sode's.  He gives me a sidelong glance and a smile which says, "I don't know if I really believe that you bought groceries in there and I think sometimes you are living in your head."  But the children talk about Sode and the store and my husband listens patiently and asks a question now and then while he winks at me over their shoulders.  I think he knows that I really couldn't make this stuff up!  So, I just smile and enjoy the view and my family is content and fed.