Oceans Awayyyyy

===is, I admit, a strange choice of a blog name. But it describes exactly how I feel each Fall, when I return to AB after nearly 6 months of ocean-side living. But that's been close to 2 weeks now, and as I get ready for my grandchildren's 3 day visit tomorrow, the wild Atlantic will slowly fade from my mind's eye, and I am an Albertan once again. After living here for close to half my life I should be.
We are blessed, my husband and I! In many ways, but being able to live in 2 provinces every year is something we could never have foreseen. The province of our upbringing has never released its hold on us, not completely. The beautiful island of Newfoundland , while stored in the memories of time for so long, has at last reached out and captured our attention. Our children, and 2 of our grandchildren, are grown and independent. After early retirement, we are free to choose our paths, considerate only of each other. A tiny cottage on the South Coast of NFLD said "Hello" when we looked at it in 2007. Till now, we had not even considered purchasing property in NFLD. We were there to visit our families, but before we left, we were homeowners on the Rock! 
So we go East for summers, leaving in May, returning after Thanksgiving. I have to get every Sunday Jiggs Dinner out of my sister that I can! Then we return to Alberta for the winters. 
I think we are a psychiatrist's dream....or maybe his/her nightmare. 
Alberta in the winter-time? By choice?
"But wait", I say. "Do you not know that Alberta has huge blue skies, and the sun shines almost every day? There is no better province in which to spent winters than beautiful Alberta!"
They don't know....and this opens some eyes to a new vision of minus 30 temps in the west. It rarely dips below freezing in NFLD, but with the ocean winds, and the humidity, it feels just as cold as Alberta does. So that evens the playing field on that subject. The conversation stalls, or moves on to another subject.
Conversely, life on the Rock is second to none. Balmy ocean breezes on most days, flourishing plant life, the sweet  scent of the ocean, the majesty of the sea on stormy days, forays into the country-side for bakeapples, blueberries, partridgeberries, cranberries, beach combing after a rough sea, and what joy to find the coveted seaglass rare now, since plastics and other synthetics have replaced glass floats, etc.on fishing nets.
And to eat cod for supper that was swimming in the ocean only a few hours ago...nothing, but nothing, compares. Well, except for Alberta beef. :-)