You can see one of them on the front wing of the Minerva. They are small but nevertheless they are pretty eye-catching. All I hope for now is that I’m not offered a white car. That would be unfortunate.
I also had a phone call this afternoon. Someone asking me if they could bring their car round for rustproofing.
“What number have you dialled?” I asked, somewhat bewildered.
“That number that’s in the directory – 982-2129”
The penny dropped
“Ahh – you’ve dialled the wrong number. This is 982-2199”
And so my Canadian number is not only up and working, the transfer to my French mobile phone works too and that’s exciting. And a beautiful sing-song Atlantic Canadian accent it was as well – made me homesick and I started to become all broody. I’m clearly out of place here in Europe.
In case you are wondering, the phone number quoted belongs to Portland Rust Check, 51 Williams Ave, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. And her car will need rustproofing if she drives it across the Atlantic to me. It reminds me of when I was talking to Colleen – this woman who I met in Labrador last year. She expressed surprise that I had travelled the Trans-Labrador Highway in Casey who, as you know, is a Chrysler PT-Cruiser.
“Most of the time it’s down to the driver” I told her. “You can take a motor vehicle almost anywhere if you have a decent driver. In fact, for my next voyage, I shall be crossing the Atlantic on a motor bike”.
So what with computing this morning, I spent some time making a collection of tools and so on to take to Canada with me. Not that I really need them because I can soon buy some more, but it’s just that I have a baggage allowance of 25kgs and so far I’ve managed to pack not even 10kgs. It’s pointless going with an empty suitcase when there’s stuff I can be taking with me. I’ve organised a “drop” in Montreal at about $8 (that’s about a fiver) a week where I can leave them for my next visit. I intend to leave all of my stuff there because there’s no point in dragging it back and forth across the Atlantic and I’ll be going back quite frequently.
This afternoon I was pointing again and now the ladder is up past the window. It’s quite high and fairly precarious so I’m doing my best not to look down but it really is a long way up. And don’t forget – the ladder is standing on the roof of the lean-to and that’s about 8 feet off the ground.
At about 18:15 the sun went in, and I noticed that the temperature in the solar shower was 38°:C. That called for a shower to wash all of the dust out of my eyes.
No point in going back pointing the stonework after that, and so I dug up all of the new potatoes. There aren’t all that many of them, so what’s happening there? Has someone else been eating them? Anyway, I’ve left them outside to dry and tomorrow I’ll be cleaning them and storing them away.
But what’s the plant on the left-hand side? is it a Parsnip? What’s that doing there in the potato patch? It’s nothing that I’ve planted and prior to the potato patch, that land was part of the meadow so it’s not anything that anyone else has planted. How bizarre. For its size, it came out of the soil quite easily too.
Now that the new-potato patch is empty, tomorrow I’ll be planting chicory in it. Some nice big witloofs, I hope. I also have tomatoes and chilis too in the cloche and that’s all exciting.
In other news, my campaigning over the last few months seems to have paid dividends at last. I have someone from the New Brunswick Government wanting to see me – about the school house that’s on my land. As you know, I’m trying to find it a good home because it’s all pretty rare and historically important. He’s called Bill Hicks and so I’m half-ecpecting to find a Yankee comic shrouded in cigarette smoke.
Yes, it’s all starting to come together and I’m looking forward to being back on the North American road again.
