Category Archives: Montreal

Tuesday 25th October 2022 – MY WELSH LESSON …

… this morning was a disaster.

At least though I was there. And in spades too. When the alarm went off at 04:45 I was actually up and about. With having had no sleep the night before, I made sure that I was in bed early last night but even so I didn’t have much sleep. I was awake by 02:30 and had given up trying to go back to sleep round about 04:00 I hauled myself out of bed.

At one point I had been on my travels. There had been some kind of visit. We had a friend staying with us so I wasn’t working on the coaches that night. I was taking him and Nerina around showing him the town. Some girl had driven the coach that I should have been driving and she had STRAWBERRY MOOSE with her. It was late at night and we were on our way home and were discussing going down to the end of Beachey Head to show the guy the view from there night when we met the girl coming the other way in a kind-of Mini Moke machine. She flagged us down so we stopped. She gave Strawberry Moose back and said that she’d see us back home in a minute. After she left Nerina said “if we’re going there it’ll take us longer than a minute”. I replied “she was the one who made the arrangements. She’ll have to wait for us” and something about a song. There was a coach that had a certain song to perform so its registration number needed to be changed. Two of the coaches were identical but Nerina changed the number of the wrong one. I pointed it out to her but instead of changing it back and then changing the second coach’s number she went to change the number of the second coach first. That way she’d end up with two identical numbers and she wouldn’t know which one had been the original one which had been changed back. I could see that this was going to be extremely confusing but wit the woman turning up in this car she’d interrupted our train of thought in mid-action. This was bound now to lead to all kinds of confusion that we didn’t want to have and never be able to sort out.

With steam-driven internet, my loss of voice and all of that I couldn’t concentrate on anything so I just sat there and observed without contributing anything.

When the lesson finally finished I had my leftover slice of cold pizza and with checkout being at 11:00, I set the alarm for 10:00 and went back to bed. I didn’t sleep but just relaxed ready for the corvée that is to follow.

At 11:00 I went down to reception, stored my luggage in the still-incomplete after all these years annexe and went for a walk in the sunshine.

In the Rue St Catherine I stocked up with medication. And then sat for a couple of hours in the glorious weather. In fact I shall be sorry to say goodbye, maybe for ever, to Montreal. Sitting here in the Place Gamelin in short shirt sleeves in Summer temperatures with not a cloud in the sky watching the leaves falling at my feet.

At 14:00 I went back to the hotel, picked up my possessions and began the long, slow crawl to the bus stop The bus was actually there but the driver was having a break so we has to sit around and wait for him to finish.

Driving down the Boulevard René Levesque we hit every traffic light on red and then at our final pick-up we had to retrace our steps somewhat because of the roadworks and deviations.

Apart from the heavy traffic on the highway it was an uneventful drive and we were there by 15:20. By now I was pretty much played out so I staggered off to the check-in. Having checked in on-line last night my aisle seat was already reserved. I handed over my suitcase and drank my last can of energy drink

While finishing my drink I noticed that there was only a handful of people waiting in the queue for Security so I thought “sod it – I may as well go now while it’s not busy. Better sooner than later”.

And I don’t know what has happened here, but I have made many remarks about how the Dorval Airport – called these days the Pierre Trudeau Airport – has the rudest, most uncivil staff in the world but today I was impressed by their politeness and amiability. Times are certainly changing.

There was several hours to wait but a radio thriller of 150 minutes passed the time quite nicely. I’ve downloaded tons of old radio plays and shows to which I wan listen. It help pass the time

The plane had several empty seats but I was on the end of a row of three. And we were crammed in too because I had a lot of stuff with me. There are new rules on aeroplanes that you have to carry on board with you all of the electronic items that you have. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have plenty of that.

Our take-off was about 10 minutes late and everyone settled down to sleep except me because I couldn’t sleep with all this coughing that I’m doing.

We were served our evening meal in the dark – probably a cunning plan so that we don’t get to know what we are eating. I was assured that my meal was vegan but I remain unconvinced.

And then we hurtled off into the night

Monday 24th October 2022 – TODAY WAS ABSOLUTELY …

… awful.

It started with me struggling to fall asleep on board this train and finished with me having yet another spectacular fall, this time on the platform of the “Berri-UQAM” Metro Station. It doesn’t get any worse than this.

Last night I mentioned that the carriage in which I was travelling was more modern and luxurious than the one on which I travelled down to Moncton. That much was true but that was all that could be said for it. The seats didn’t recline at all and I just couldn’t make myself comfortable.

Nevertheless, I did manage to go to sleep for about three hours and there is even something on the dictaphone to prove it. I fell asleep listening to “Murder on the Orient Express”. The train pulled into a station in a big city. I alighted and went through a door, down some stairs and found myself in the cellar of this railway station where there was a ticket booth or similar with 3 clerks sitting in it. I turned round to retrace my steps but couldn’t recognise the route that I’d taken. I was sitting there scratching my head thinking “how am I going to find my train?” when I heard it start up and pull out of the railway station.

Later on we were on the train with a pile of stuff. We weren’t supposed to let it congeal together. I had this cough that was keeping me awake and annoying all the other people too. I must have fallen asleep because I didn’t remember anything after that. Then an alarm went off. I thought that it was mine so I sat bolt upright. My eyes were stuck together with this liquid stuff that is coming out of my eyes. I couldn’t see anything and I didn’t know how to separate them either.

And finally we were going somewhere as a family. I don’t know who was with us but someone was coming to pick us up. It was a long way and we had to be ready by 04:00. I heard that person coming while I was asleep and I awoke to find them coming to the door. Pretending that I was wide awake I said something in a very cheerful voice that we were all ready and raring to go. Then I found that I’d gone back to sleep again and none of the rest of my family had got up yet either

The rest of the journey was spent coughing all the way to Montreal, nibbling on a bit more baguette and eating a banana. No coffee though. There was a tea-trolley service on the train down but not on the way back. Luckily I’d stocked up with liquids. As I’m not eating, I still have to keep myself hydrated.

The agonising journey (which I would have enjoyed in other circumstances) drew to a halt about 15 minutes late (which was a surprise for everyone, a mere 15 minutes) and I staggered onto the platform.

I could feel that there was something not quite correct but I pressed on. And I was glad that there was an escalator up to the upper floor because I would never have made it up the stairs.

Having collected my suitcase with HIS NIBS I set off on the marathon crawl to the Metro Station.

Any disabled person thinking of wandering around the subterranean labyrinth of the centre of Montreal needs to think again. They have some escalators here and there that take to mezzanine floors where you have steps to take you the rest of the way.

And some of the escalators don’t work and you have to walk down and had not a friendly, helpful youth not carried my suitcase down to the bottom of one of them I’d still be there now.

And then some of the corridors are carpeted which means that your rolling suitcase comes to a dead stop with a velcro-like effect.

The metro ride to “Berri-UQAM” was uneventful but at the station itself I encountered some of the worst of humanity. There I was, collapsed on the platform and I asked some man if her could help me to my feet. He just looked away and walked straight past. A couple of young girls came to my rescue and with a great effort helped me to my feet while several other people just stood around.

In absolute agony I crawled to my hotel. Of course the room wasn’t ready but I know the people here and they soon had it ready which was nice of them. There’s no lift here though and I had to crawl up the steps to the first floor.

Luckily I was able to leave my luggage downstairs. The chambermaid brought up my backpack and the manager brought up my suitcase later.

By this time I was flat-out on the bed asleep. And I managed a couple of hours of, for once, blissful sleep.

A little later I had a nice hot shower and washed my clothes, and then got back into bed. Not that I slept but it was simply to rest my leg and take it easy.

In the early evening I tempted fate and went out again. I think that I’m keeping alive the entire Canadian pharmaceutical industry right now because with the stuff that I bought in Moncton not having any particular effect, I went to the chemist’s down the road and received different advice.

On the way back I went to try a slice of pizza but I could only eat half of it. This complete loss of appetite isn’t a fiction at all. So guess what I’m having for breakfast.

Back here I went straight to bed. I have a Welsh lesson in the morning at … errr … 05:00, not that I’m feeling in the least like it, but I have to push myself on.

But honestly, I’ve never felt as bad as this and I’m worried about the next couple of stages of this journey

Sunday 2nd October 2022 – AS I TYPE …

… these notes I’m sitting in a train that’s rocketing eastwards along the south bank of the St Lawrence River.

For reasons that only they will know and, if the rest of us were to know them, we still wouldn’t understand them, CoachAtlantic has taken off the service that runs between Moncton and Rivière du Loup.

Back in the old days, I would catch the “Orleans Express” bus from Montreal to Gaspé, alight at Rivière du Loup and await 90 minutes for a bus to come in from Moncton and turn round. But that’s no longer possible.

What I’m having to do now is to catch a train that goes to Halifax, alight at Moncton and wait three hours for a bus to take me back north-west. It’s like travelling 270° of a circle and what started off as a journey of about 9 or 10 hours has now become a journey of 26 hours.

Any British person who is complaining about the effects of Dr Beeching on the British railway network would have apoplexy if ever he were to examine the Canadian railway network. There is only one passenger train east of Québec in the whole country and I’m on it. There is absolutely nothing else. And although I paid for four nights in my hotel I only ended up staying for three because this train only runs a couple of days per week.

And that’s the Canadian National Railway. The whole of the Canadian Pacific network east of Québec, freight as well as passengers, has been ruthlessly hacked off, every inch of it. There’s a railway station right at the back of Rachel and Darren’s mill but that hasn’t seen a train since 1982.

And that’s why you’ll see a lot of “misinformation” about “The First Transcontinental Train” going from Montreal to Vancouver. In its embarrassment, Canadian Pacific is trying its best to shove under the carpet the fact that it had at one time a huge network in the Maritime Provinces.

And if anyone is wondering why I’m not flying, I’m refusing flat-out to pay … gulp … $1335 for me and my baggage.

If you don’t have a car in Canada, you are really in some extreme kind of difficulty and for that reason I’m seriously thinking of selling Strider and going back to hiring a vehicle at the airport. I can’t do this kind of journey again under any circumstances.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, I was wide-awake, and in total agony by the way, at 06:30 and I went off to have my medication.

And having dealt with that I could get on with what I had to do. And while I was doing it, I was sitting with my right foot in a bucket of ice-cold water. I have to do something to try to improve my foot.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night. I was going away with a girl but first of all I had to go back to the office to pick up my car, the beige MkIV that we had. When I arrived there, parked outside was the chocolate brown one with Nerina sitting in it. I had to basically chivvy her up out of the car so that I could get in and take it away with me as I had a ferry arranged for later that night. She said that I couldn’t go yet as there was a problem with a couple of the cars. The beige one had just quite suddenly cut out. She did say what was up with the second. The way that she described it, it was simply a wire off the beige one that I could fix in a matter of seconds. Then she said that one of the drivers had all the wages. I asked “which driver?” so she gave me a name but I didn’t recognise that driver. I asked about the rest and she said that it was in our lock-up. I thought that I’d better go and collect that. She said “you’ll need to go quickly before they go and fetch it”. I set off but I had to go back and ask where the lock-up was. She told me then I had to go back to ask which lock-up it was. I could see this lasting for hours, not finding the money, not fixing the car, not going away.

Later on, Mrs Ukraine was asking me why I was so interested in the fate of refugees in France. I explained briefly to her the story of my mother as a child being evacuated with 10 minutes notice to go to live with strangers. I told her all that story. Then I was on patrol with the Ukrainian Army but in France. They had found the coast and were making more of it. A helicopter then flew in. The first thing that it did was to winch out my brother. I imagined that I’d be next but it looked as if someone else was preparing to go, a woman. In the meantime my brother and two people were standing on a cloud playing football. As other people started to be winched in one of the guys came up to me to say that he needed a cannon. They had to make certain what it was that he actually wanted. It turned out to be a self-propelled armoured vehicle with something bigger than an 0.762mm machine gun. I said that I’d try to see what I could find for them and started thinking in my head about people I knew who might actually have that kind of equipment and I’d go along and negotiate it out of them.

As for the story about my mother, regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall having seen a photo of where my mother lived as a child. It’s a small terraced house at the side of the road in Birchington in Kent, about 200 yards away from the end of the runway of Manston Airfield which was a major RAF base. At the fall of France and the first stick of Luftwaffe bombs dropping on the airfield, all of the children in the vicinity, my mother and her younger sister included, were rounded up with 10 minutes notice, put on a train and evacuated. My mother and my aunt ended up living in Somerset with people whom they didn’t know and had never met, with just one small suitcase each. Listening to my mother’s stories, what happened to them must have been an appalling nightmare for little kids like them and as a result I have a great deal of empathy for anyone else fleeing from their homes under a stick of bombs, no matter who they are and where they are.

Another thing that I did was to have a shower and to clean myself up ready to leave, and then to tidy up my room. And in many senses I’m sorry to leave this place. It’s much smaller than the place where I stay in Leuven but it’s much more modern and better-equipped. Had I been more mobile this place would have been pretty high up on my list of places to stay but the stairs killed me off.

My foot had gone down somewhat and it was easier to walk about. Putting on my elastic stocking made it go down a little more and although it was still difficult to put on my shoe, I was able to move around a little better than I did yesterday and that was a relief.

On my way to the station I stopped for a quick snack before getting on the Metro. It’s as well to have some food before leaving because I’m not sure what the arrangements for food will be on the train. There is a restaurant car on board but whether there will be anything that I can eat, or whether I can actually afford it anyway if there is, are interesting questions.

At the station I had to check in my suitcase witn STRAWBERRY MOOSE on board and then wait for boarding. I declared myself as in need of assistance so someone accompanied me down the escalator – It’s a long, steep drop to the bottom if I fall.

We’ve SEEN VIARAIL TRAINS BEFORE when we were in Halifax and they seemed to be are absolutely ancient and in poor state of repair.

These days, nothing much seems to have changed. And that’s not all. The interiors are like something out of the 1960s, all leather and chrome, but it looks to be supremely comfortable.

Having had assistance to board, I was one of the first to find a seat. The train ended up to be crowded although I was one of the lucky few who didn’t have a neighbour. Mind you, someone is sitting right behind me with a couple of toddlers by which time it was too late to change seats. It’s going to be a long, noisy night.

After what seemed like for ever, our train pulled out slowly from the railway station and we eventually found ourselves out in the open air.

It was going dark quite quickly and as the train looped round to the south to cross over the St Lawrence there was a really nice view of the city with all of the buildings illuminated.

We aren’t exactly in a hurry. It’s not what you call high-speed travel. In Europe this kind of pace would be embarrassing. It’s going to be a very long journey, I reckon, but at least I was right about the seats. They are comfortable and I have two to myself so I can spread out.

Something else that I can tell you about Viarail and the Canadian National railway network, such as it is, is that passenger trains have a very low priority. By the time we’d gone an hour out of Montreal, already we’d ground to a halt twice to give precedence to freight trains.

Having now had a coffee, I’m going to settle down while it’s quiet. I’ll probably be awoken a dozen times during the night so I need to take advantage of whatever quiet I can find.

Saturday 1st October 2022 – THAT WAS HORRIBLE

I awoke this morning with my right foot swollen up like a balloon and with pain the like of which I haven’t felt before. I’ve no idea what has happened because despite all of my meanderings yesterday there wasn’t a hint of this happening.

As a result, most of the day has been spent in bed with my foot up, doing not very much at all. It’s a good job that I went to the shops for food supplies when I arrived because at least, I have stuff to eat and drink even if it means staggering around in the room a little

There was some stuff on the dictaphone too from last night. This dream concerned someone who was driving a car and came to an area where there was a strike. He understood that when he reached the strike he had to leave the road and re-join the road where this strike was over. He didn’t realise that he could do things differently. People started to call him names about it being stupid so he went to tell the Police. He met a policeman at the traffic lights where he had been at the start. He got into his car and drove to this policeman while he was telling this policeman his story. The policeman was surprised and asked this guy what he wanted him to do. The guy said that he was annoyed at people calling him names and being stupid. The policeman said that there wasn’t an awful lot about that that could be done but this guy was rather insistent. He’d been driving around for quite a while while this guy was telling the policeman his story.

There had been some kind of kidnapping. A couple of people had been taken. The gang that did it – I managed to track them down. I was about to make some kind of arrest. They had a secret code number which was 2568. How I knew about this I really can’t remember. There was a sudden knock at the door. Someone wrote something down on a pad so I had the burnt tip of a match and rubbed it on the pad and it came up with the number 2568 so I opened the door wide but stepped right back. It revealed a guy whom I knew but I hadn’t quite connected him with this kidnapping affair. He came in but in the confusion I was hit on the head and knocked out. In the meantime these people disappeared and ended up on a deserted World War II airfield hidden between bales of hay in a tent or two. Their plan was to move people out early in the morning. I had the impression from what they were saying although I wasn’t there that “moving them out” meant that some of them would be flown away, the valuable ones, and the others would be quietly liquidated

Later on I was back at home again in a kind of bunk bed with instead of being a bed there was a shelf over the top. On my bed were a load of files all in red filing covers. I started to arrange some o the shelf but very slowly. I thought “this is going to take for ever. What I need is a wild fit of enthusiasm” so I suddenly leapt up and started to grab these files with the aim of filing them all on the shelf quite rapidly but I awoke instead.

Something else that I did was to go through the 40 or so photos that I took yesterday and to carry out a little research on what I’d seen.

Later on in the afternoon, in extreme agony, I hobbled out and on the metro to the Bonaventure railway station. Tomorrow evening I have to be at the Central Railway Station so I needed to work out a plan and to check the route.

The agony was indescribable so I won’t try to describe it and the walk was ridiculous. It’s one thing that I’ve said so many times about the Metro in Montreal is that it goes where it was convenient for the planners to put it, not at all convenient for where the passengers want to go. As I result I had to drag myself through a labyrinth of corridors, making several wrong turns because the signposting is awful.

It’s not built for disabled people either. There are several escalators in there, that’s true, but for one at least of the escalators you have to walk up half a dozen steps to reach it and that totally defeats the whole purpose of the escalator.

At the station I found a very helpful member of staff who told me everything that I needed to know and gave me a few tips and hints too, so it was well-worth the effort to go there.

The stagger back home was no less painful and I was glad to collapse on the bed again. Rosemary rang and we had another one of our marathon chats. These internet-based telephone services are worth their weight in gold.

Later on I made another coffee, had another bowl of muesli and a bagel with jam and went to bed. I’d done enough today. Let’s hope that there will be an improvement tomorrow

Friday 30th September 2022 – OUCH!

That was painful. I’ve just come back from an afternoon out where despite having a broken kneecap I’ve walked an agonising 116% of my daily total today.

At least last night I’d had a good sleep. This is one of the most comfortable beds in which I’ve ever slept and I really would have enjoyed it even more had I not left the alarm to ring at 07:30 this morning i.e. just 3 or so hours after I went to bed.

However no danger whatsoever of me leaving the bed at that time. Even 11:48, or 05:48 around here when I finally did surface was probably an exaggeration.

After the medication I updated the blog so you can now find out where I went yesterday and then I went for a shower and a clothes-washing.

And I forgot all about the phenomenon of “Québec Showers”.

“What are “Québec Showers”?” I hear new readers ask.
Regular readers of this rubbish will know all about “Québec Showers”. That’s where you see C and F on the taps and you think that they mean Chaud and Froid but they actually mean “Cold” and “Freezing”.

Actually, despite the foregoing, the shower is quite nice. It washed me and my clothes a treat.

Another thing that I’d done was to send a few messages to various people and as a result I went out at 11:40.

The last time that we were here in the rue St Herbert there was a big hole in the ground just down the road from the hotel – the brick-built building to the left – where I usually stay.

When we wandered past this morning we noticed that a huge tower block of apartments had mushroomed up to fill the hole and by the looks of things everyone has already moved in. It didn’t take them long to throw it up.

It’s probably a quite popular, and quite expensive place right across the road from the Berri-UQAM metro station.

Down at the Metro station at Berri-UQAM I met Dorothée. She was a young girl whom I met in New Brunswick while she was on a school exchange and we kept in touch. She’s now studying at the University of Montreal and so she nipped out in her lunch break to meet me.

We had a lengthy chat that went on for two hours, chatting all about old times and so on, and then she had to leave for a lecture.

After Dorothée left to go back to University I went to sit outside in the sun for an hour. At least I have some nice weather for it.

The crowds are out today loitering around in the place Emilie Gamelin making the most of the good weather before the leaves turn golden and begin to drop off.

And who was Emilie Gamelin when she was at home, if she ever was?

She was the founder of the Sœurs de la Providence de Montréal, one of the many religious orders that existed in Québec. She contracted cholera during the epidemic of 1851 and died shortly afterwards.

Once I’d recovered from my exertions I made my way to the Gare Berri-UQAM and caught the Metro to Place d’Armes for a wander around the square and the cathedral.

The cathedral was built in the 1820s to the design of James O’Donnell but since then has been amended considerably. The two towers, for example, were designed by John Ostell and were erected in the early 1840s.

Since then further alterations have taken place and a programme of restoration began in 1979 following an arson attack the previous year.

Before the basilique was erected there was an earlier church on the site of what is now the Place d’Armes that was demolished in 1830.

The Place d’Armes is now the home of Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, one of the founders of Montréal, or Ville-Marie as it was known back in his day.

He comes from the region of Troyes in France and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on one of our visits to the town we went to have a look AT HIS FAMILY HOME.

The site of VIlle-Marie was established after several confrontations with the First-Nation tribes.

Both Cartier and Champlain encountered settlements of Iroquois in the immediate area and once the first colonists arrived here in 1642 they attempted to push out the Iroquois.

On 30th March 1644 there was a confrontation in the immediate vicinity between a party of settlers and a band of Iroquois that ended inconclusively.

Although the war with the First nations raged on for another 50-odd years this confrontation is considered by some to be the decisive moment in the establishment of the European settlement of Ville-Marie.

Of course, these days times have changed.

European exploitation and mistreatment of autochtone inhabitants is being rightly recognised for what it was and the rights of the autochtones to defend their land, their settlements and their way of life are being rightly recognised as the heroic struggle that it was.

For that reason, the placing of a plaque to acknowledge that is long overdue and I’m surprised to see that we had to wait until 2019 to see it.

It’s not of course the first time that we’ve seen something similar.

When we were at the Little Big Horn battlefield we encountered memorial stones to the native Americans who “died defending the Lakota way of life” and when I finish editing all of the photos YOU’LL SEE THEM.

As well as that, when we were in Santa Fe we saw a plaque that spoke in extremely dismissive, if not offensive terms of the native Americans, with an explanatory and apologetic plaque attached at its side.

Times indeed are a-changin’

Despite all of the times that i’ve come to Montréal I’ve never managed to take a decent photograph of Le Vieux Séminaire De Saint-Sulpice

There has always been scaffolding around it, or lorries parked in front of it, or pedestrians who won’t get out of the way, and today is no exception.

It’s important to take a photo of it because it is said to be the oldest surviving building in Montréal, dating from the 1680s and the members of the Sulpician Order took up occupancy in 1685.

There’s said to be some very historic archives in there with records going back to the 16th Century and how I would love to lose myself inside there for a couple of days.

From the Place d’Armes I went for a wander through the old town down to the old part of the port to see what’s going on.

There aren’t very many commercial freighters that use the old part of the port these days and the freight facilities are pretty much derelict. Instead they’ve constructed a huge modern cruise ship terminal and we’ve seen plenty of cruise ships in here in the past.

And there’s another cruise ship in there today. I’ll have to go for a wander to see who she is and what she’s doing here.

You can see what I mean about the cruise terminal.

It looked quite a tempting sight for me to go to visit but there were quite a few security guards loitering around who wouldn’t let anyone past who didn’t have a boarding card. They didn’t seem to welcome anyone who might be seen as a potential stowaway .

But it does hold a special fascination for me because it was probably somewhere around here that my great grandparents first set foot ashore in Canada when they emigrated from here after my great grandfather’s military service ended.

So it looks as if we have two for the price of one here.

Firstly, let’s mention the oil tanker that’s here fuelling up the cruise ship. She’s called Juno Marie.

She was built in 2004 and displaces about 2000 tonnes. That’s not very much but she presumably just runs around the port fuelling up the ships that call in here.

We’ve seen her before, in AUGUST 2018 in fact when we were passing through Montreal on the way to the Arctic, when she was also fuelling up a cruise ship that was calling here.

As for the cruise ship herself, she’s called Amera

She was built in 1988, displaces about 35,000 tonnes and carries a total of 835 passengers and 440 crew.

A week ago she was at St Anthony and then St John’s in Newfoundland and since then she’s been sailing up the St Lawrence River, having done a lap around the Saguenay Fjord at one point with a port of call at a small town called Port Alfred.

She arrived here in Montreal earlier this afternoon.

In the meantime, having seen Juno Marie just now coiling in her pipes and setting sail out of the berth she’s now heading off downriver.

What I imagine that she’s doing is going to the storage tanks at the port to fuel up ready for her next client. She’s the kind of ship that’s being kept busy.

The crane on her deck will probably be for swinging the hose out to the ship that she would be fuelling. Modern fuelling hoses are reinforced these days and would be quite heavy.

Amera is not the only cruise ship in port this afternoon.

This one is Viking Star who is basically following in the footsteps, or, more appropriately, the wake of Amera, although she put in at Sydney on Cape Breton Island last week on her way around.

Launched in 2014, she is the flagship of the Viking Line. Displacing 48,000 tonnes, she can carry 902 passengers and 602 crew

Her relatively compact size means that she can fit into some ports into which other cruise ships can’t fit, although the town of Bourne in Massachussetts will certainly have one or two remarks to make about that.

Another ship that’s in port today is the VM S Hercules

She’s described as a floating crane and is owned by the St Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. Believe it or not, she was actually built in 1961 by Marine Industries of Sorel, just down the river, and displaces 2100 tonnes

She’s not actually a ship, in the general way of things. She’s more like a large floating pontoon with an enormous crane on top so she’s probably used for maintenance and recovery rather than for unloading freighters that arrive in port.

If you had come here 50 years ago the waterfront scene would have been completely different.

All along the port would have been grain silos like these, dozens of them. All of the grain from the Great Plains would have arrived here and been stored in the silos ready to be shipped to Europe.

However in 1959 the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway has permitted larger ships to sail further inland via the Great Lakes

As well as that, with there being a railway line between Winnipeg and Churchill on the shore of the Hudson Bay, because of global warming the Bay is ice-free long enough for the grain to be shipped out of Churchill. Because of the curvature of the earth, it’s a much shorter and less-complicated route to Europe.

One thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall as a common feature is photographs of people taking photographs.

And, not to be out-done, this afternoon down at the old port we come across not one or two but probably a whole dozen people here down in the port taking photographs of a young lady.

It goes without saying that seeing everyone here, I couldn’t resist taking a photograph of them all myself.

There’s no doubt and judging by all of the equipment that the photographers have, cameras as well as lighting equipment, it looks very much as if I’ve stumbled upon some kind of outdoor photography class.

That much seems to be evident by all of the photographers standing around exchanging information about settings and apertures and the like.

Usually, most photographers guard their settings quite jealously. They are very persoonal and it’s quite oftten the difference between half an aperture or a tenth of a second that can transform a good photograph into a great one

As far as I could tell, in my mind that she’s a professional model being moved around as her photographers think fit.

But whoever the model is, she doesn’t look all that comfortable sitting there on the back of that bench. However the model seems to be enjoying herself, being the centre of attention with all of those guys around her. And who can blame her?

Had there been a pause in the session I’d have gone to have a chat with her but as they were all so busy and I was pushed for time I left them to it and wandered away.

Pushed for time indeed.

As you might expect with a working port and a very large country to service, there’s a thriving network around here and it’s connected to the railway network at each end of the docks.

And having heard the rhythmic clanking of the bell at the level crossing that told me that there was a train on its way.

It’s a double-headed train with two locomotives. That tells us IF OUR OBSERVATIONS IN WYOMING In 2002 are anything to go by, that it’s half a mile long.

The locomotive at the head of the train is painted in Canadian National Railway colours and is numbered 4135

That tells us that she was built by the Electro-Motive Diesel Company or EMD, a subsibuary (at least, in 2022 because the company changes hands often) of the Caterpillar equipment company

She’s a GP-9, or the ninth version of their general-purpose locomotives and was built as long ago as December 1957

Her actual designation is that she’s a GP9RM, the RM indicating that at some point in the past she’s been rebuilt and so no longer complies with the manufacturer’s specifications. Not that that’s a surprise for a locomotive that’s almost as old as I am.

As for exactly how she’s been rebuilt, that’s impossible for anyone really to say. Someone who seems to know what he’s talking about tells me that “no two rebuild programs were identical”.

The one behind is a much more modern locomotive, at least by Canadian standards.

She’s another EMD machine, this time a GP38-2 version, built between 1972 and 1986.

She’s currently wearing the livery of GATX, the General American Transport Company founded in Chicago in 1898 to lease railway wagons to rail shipment companies.

Since then the company has branched out into the leasing of locomotives and other railway equipment.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you too much about her. The company doesn’t tell us too much about the history of its locomotives.

There doesn’t seem to be too much information about her by reference to the fleet number either. It’s quite possible that she’s been renumbered at some point in her history

At the rear of the train is a caboose in which the guard sits.

In Europe it would be called a guard’s van and a caboose would probably be known as the offspring of a Native American woman.

One of the purposes of the guard’s presence is to keep an eye on the level crossings to make sure that no vehicle or pedestrian tries to force a passage across in front of the oncoming train. Traffic control along here isn’t very efficient.

Here’s something that we’ve been noticing as we’ve been coming here in the late summer over the years

The big wheel has become something of a major attraction here in the port since its erection in 2017 to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the founding of the city.

It’s 60 metres high, has 24 cabins and cost $28 million, which was apparently financed by a group of private investors. It operates all through the year thanks to its heating system and resistance to strong winds, and can carry a fulll load of 336 people.

Another attraction here in the port of Montreal is the Tyrolean Zip wire.

It’s the longest urban zipline in Canada apparently at 365 metres and is 25 metres from the ground.

Something that is unusual as far as any European in concerned is to see an upper weight limit on equipment such as this. It’s something that wouldn’t usually concern anyone but, I suppose, being situated close to the border with the USA, it’s of some kind of importance.

On the way down to the port I came by the Marché Bonsecours.

The site itself was one of the most important in the city and after the fire in 1833 that destroyed the house of brewer John Molson that was situated here the municipality bought it.

From 1844-1847 the present building was erected here as a market to the designs of William Footner to replace the older Marché St Anne.

Following the riots that led to the burning down of the Parliament building in 1849 the delegates met here for a while and once another Parliament building was inaugurated the Municipal council met here until 1878.

Today, it’s now a commercial centre with boutique-type shops and cafes.

It’s also used as a space for exhibitions of art and the like, and rooms are available for hire by the public.

It’s really very hard to believe that a building such as this was at one time left derelict and in 1963 there was even a proposal for its demolition. But as we’ve seen so many times in North America, there doesn’t seem to be the same pride in the patrimony as in other parts of the world.

So abandoning another good rant for the moment, I’m going to wander down to the waterfront.

We’ve seen this building many times in the past. It’s the Memorial Clock Tower, one of the typical symbols of Montreal and is a monument or memorial to the Canadan sailors who lost their lives during World War I

The tower was designed by Paul Leclaire and was built between 1919 and 1922. The mechanism is based on the mechanism that works Big Ben in London.

You wouldn’t have had this view of it in 1922 though. As I mentioned elsewhere, the Port of Montreal was formerly one of the leading grain exporting ports and the area in front of the tower where you can see all the trees was formerly the site of yet more grain sheds.

While I was busily admiring the Memorial Clock Tower, I noticed a ship coming upriver so I decided to loiter around to see who she might be.

The ship to the left is hidden by a wharf so I can’t see her name and by the time I’d checked on my maritime radar she had left, but the one heading my way is called Oceanex Connaigra

You can tell by the writing on the hull that she’s owned by the Oceanex company.

When I returned to my hotel I had a quick look to see what I could find out about the company.

It’s based in St John’s in Newfoundland and its mission statement is to provide transportation services between the Atlantic coast of North America and Newfoundland and Labrador, from whole shiploads to individual vehicles

It’s been carrying on this business in one form or another since 1909

As for the ship herself, she was built in 2013 in Germany

She displaces 26,000 tonnes, is 210 metres long and has a draught of 8.45 metres. She cost the company $108 000 000 to purchase. The company chairman told me that to fuel her up would cost $1 800 000 and that was a long time ago too. God knows what it would cost now.

According to the records of the maritime radar, she seems to operate a shuttle service between St John’s and Montreal.

What caught my eye about her was the fact that she can transport “individual vehicles”.

And so as she sailed past I was expecting to see that she had some kind of Ro-Ro configuration, and I was rather interested to see that she does have that capability.

But what I found even more interesting is that she is licenced to carry 27 passengers too. Are you thinking what i’m thinking? I shall have to go and sweep the dust off Strider.

On the way back to my hotel I went past the site of the Gare Dalhousie

It’s a national monument because, as a plaque on the side of the wall proudly proclaims, "the first regular transcontinental train departed from this place 28th June 1886".

However, that’s a complete and absolute fabrication, as several million people who live in Canada will tell you.

The train left here on that date and headed for Port Moody which is on the Pacific coast. There is another 1250 kilometres that separates Montreal from Halifax on the Atlantic coast and this “first regular transcontinental train” didn’t cover a single kilometre of that distance.

But then again, the people of the Maritime Provinces of Canada are quite used to being totally ignored by anyone further west and so this is absolutely no surprise whatsoever. Nevertheless, it is pretty shameful

The train, and the railway station were run by the Canadian Pacific railway so it seems to be absolutely appropriate that it later came to be the home of the National Circus School. Clowns a-plenty, I should imagine.

At one time the Canadian Pacific had quite an extensive network of lines in the Maritimes but practically overnight in the 1980s the company wiped it out entirely. Maybe the statement on the plaque is Canadian Pacific’s way of trying to hide its embarrassment.

Just down the road from the Gare Dalhousie is my favourite building in the whole of Montreal – the Gare Viger.

Gare Dalhousie only lasted as a passenger terminus until 1898. The Gare Viger, designed by Bruce Price was opened as a railway station, railway offices and hotel.

The hotel closed in 1935 and the rooms were taken over by part of the administration of the city who stayed here until 2006, having bought out the rest of the building when the Canadian Pacific ceased operations from here in 1951.

When we first came past here in 2010 it was boarded up and derelict. We’ve been slowly watching the renovations take place and much of it now is let as offices. But there’s still a lot to do with the building if it’s to be restored to its former glory.

A very slow, very agonising (and I do mean “slow and agonising”) walk brought me all the way back to Berri-UQAM – a walk that would usually take me about 15 minutes but today took me about an hour – and I caught a metro train back to Cote-Vertu.

When I’d been there yesterday I’d seen a pizza place that sold pizza by the topping so I chose one that didn’t include cheese. And it really was delicious.

There’s a fruit wholesaler there as well so I stocked up with grapes and bananas

On the way back I was feeling rather better and I moved a little easier. The climb up the stairs was ever so slightly easier but they had changed the code on the front door here and it was quite an effort to persuade someone to open the door for me.

Once inside I had a listen to the dictaphone. We were discussing one of my father’s old vans last night. When we were kids we had a Bedford Utilabrake, CA Bedford and had it for a couple of years. It was as rotten as hell and it went on its way eventually. We were chatting about it last night and much of that which we discussed we talked was actually quite accurate which was a big surprise

So having written up my notes I’ll go to bed. I’ll add in the photos at some other date – there are over 35 photos from today’s walk to edit and sort.

But a good sleep in the comfortable bed will do me good – no alarm until late and sweet dreams (I hope).

So who’s going to disturb me first then.

Thursday 29th September 2022 (cont) – SO HERE I AM

And here he is too. I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you who is travelling wiht me, do you?

When the alarm went off this morning I’d already been in and out of the shower. This is usually what happens when I’m setting off to go somewhere, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. In fact I’d been awake for a lot longer than that. I would have said that I hadn’t actually gone to sleep at all except that there’s something on the dictaphone. And I know that without looking because I remember having to leave my stinking pit to change the batteries in it.

I can’t remember very much about this because of the batteries. It was to do with a person whom I know from University who is in a wheelchair trying to find someone to look after his cat, his old black and white cat before he went off on holiday. There was also a question about a dog as well so we were making jokes about Boudicca, having the dog tied to his wheelchair to pull him along. There was something else in this as well about food. He was looking for someone who had some extra food for some reason that he could take but I don’t really remember all that much about this.

Just by way of a change I’d paid for a breakfast. I don’t normally eat a breakfast but it’s going to be a very long day and the availability of food is not going to be guaranteed. There are supplies in my backpack because I’ve been caught out like this before but nevertheless it’s always best to be as prepared as they can.

They sent a minibus to pick me up and to my embarrassment and shame I couldn’t get into it. I ended up falling into it and I’ve repeated the damage to my right knee. This is certainly not the time and place to be doing that and I shall regret that, I reckon.

At the airport (because of course I’m going by air) it was a long walk down to the check-in and I felt every inch of the way. At the check-in desk there were just four other people. We had been told to be there at least four hours before check-in so we were there on time but the staff didn’t turn up until much later. And one of them, the guy who set out the lanes for the queues, is someone whom I shall remember for a very long time.

After having checked in I then had to go through passport control.

That’s all automated these days. You set into some kind of little cubicle that checks your passport and photographs you. I was thinking that if you and your passport were rejected, the floor would slide open and you’d fall into a pit lined with sharpened sticks.

Mine was okay and I passed through for a physical check. Luckily, my carte de séjour was to hand so they didn’t stamp my passport.

Security was surprisingly painless. They confiscated my little bottle of water. I was half-inclined to ask him about how he felt working right next to a crateful of stuff that he believed to be dangerous or explosive but I decided that gratuitous confrontation was probably not a good idea.

But I sailed through without the slightest problem and that really was quite extraordinary.

This is our trusty steed.

She’s C-FNNQ and the fact that her registration begins with C tells us of course that here in Paris she’s likely to be owned by Air-Canada. And when I say that she’s a Boeing 777-300ER, you have probably worked out where I’m going.

Being as early as I was, there was quite a long wait before we could board. I sat quietly and listened to some music on the computer. Many more power points in the airport than ever there used to be. Currently, the “album of the moment” is of a live acoustic concert by Steve Harley and Nick Pynn and if ever you get to hear “Riding The Waves” from this concert, it contains probably one of the best acoustic guitar/dulcimer solos of all time.

Here’s a better view of my ‘plane, taken at – you guessed it – Pierre L Trudeau Airport at Montreal.

She was built in 2013 and her claim to fame is that on 26th September 2014 she lost all her navigation connections on a flight over the Atlantic. Luckily they were restored soon after and most of the … gulp … 465 people on board knew very little about it.

They would have known much more about it if they hadn’t managed to re-connect the system

We were packed in like sardines and having luckily checked in on line last night I had an aisle seat. I spent the flight either asleep, listening to more music and watching my neighbour playing solitaire – not very well.

The on-board meals were really what you would expect – quite correct as far as airline food goes so my supplies stayed holed up in my backpack.

And here we are fighting our way through immigration in Canada.

Queues for miles and most things automated. But when I finally saw the Immigration officers I was waved through with the most minimal enquiries. Obviously the events of a little over three years ago and which have been preying on my mind a little for all this time were really all for nothing. I suppose that I can go ahead and add in those few days that are missing from my blog.

Queueing then for the luggage, queueing to buy a bus ticket, queueing for the bus, and then queueing in the traffic for a demonstration that was taking place in the streets. And a guy who spent much of the bus ride asking me questions ended up missing his coach connection at the bus station because of all of the delays.

Finding my hotel was another thing. It’s a new place apparently, so new that they haven’t even put up the signs for it.

Consequently I was wandering up and down the street aimlessly for quite a while trying to track it down.

And once I’d finally found it I had to find the check-in instructions, sent by e-mail that of course I hadn’t received previously with being on the road and there being no public internet connection. Walking down to a Tim Horton’s for a free connection isn’t possible at the moment, the way my health is.

In the end, more by luck than judgement, I found what I needed.. I’d asked for a ground-floor room which they had given me, but they didn’t say that you had to walk up one flight of steps to the front door and then down another one inside to my floor.

However, once down here, I found the room to be very nice and comfortable ven if it is a little small.

There’s even a little kitchenette, although I shan’t be using it much with probably the best Indian restaurant in North America just a metro ride away.

Had it not been for the mobility issues I would have been delighted with this place, and I’ll certainly remember it for future visits if my health improves..

Having had a little … errr … relax for half an hour or so I wet to the shops for supplies.

On the way I went past the Place Emilie Gamelin where there was an outdoor table tennis game taking place. It wasn’t the game that interested me as much as the antics of the car that’s in the lower left corner. The driver pulled up, dropped someone off, looked around ready to move off, saw me waiting with my camera, put the handbrake on, took a drink and started to eat a snack.

Fed up of waiting, I walked up the hill 5 yards, took the photo from there and as I moved away, she drove away.

My original plan was to walk down to the river but I decided not to push my luck that far as I’m not very steady on my feet right now. So I decided to go and buy some food instead.

Took me 10 minutes in the IGA to choose the stuff for breakfast, and then about an hour to pay in one of the longest supermarket queues I’ve ever seen

On the way home again I stopped at the Place Emilie Gamelin again.

This time it was the outdoor theatre that excited my attention. Nothing much happening there but there seems to be much more going on in general than ever there used to be.

Going back up the steps with my shopping was too much and I fell down the stairs. Some poor girl tried to pick me up but failed miserably as I was of no help. In the end I dragged myself over to the steps and sitting on one step after another I managed eventually to pull myself upright.

When I finally made it back to my room I had to wash the shopping bag to get rid of the orange juice stains. What a mess that was!

After a long rest I took my life into my hands and headed for the metro. Luckily there are lifts and escalators here at Berri-UQAM and so getting to the platform wasn’t much of a problem although I didn’t enjoy the walk one bit.

I took the Montreal Metro’s orange line westwards to the terminus at Cote-Vertu where there are also passenger lifts to take me upstairs to the street.

From there it was yet another slow walk across a dangerous road junction (which is not the place to fall over at all) to the shopping mall, the Galeries Norgate, on the other side of the rue Decarie.

And why is shopping in North America so boring? Well, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall

I’ll get my coat.

At the back of the shopping mall is the best Indian restaurant in the whole of North America.

It’s still here, which is good news, and not only that, it’s even better. It’s been enlarged so there’s plenty of room to spread out. The vegetable biryani was excellent although the garlic naan wasn’t as good as it might have been. However, this is North America, not North Staffordshire, and you can’t have everything.

Like most places in North America the portions are definitely man-sized … “PERSON-sized” – ed … and I asked for a doggy-bag on leaving. Guess what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow?

The Galeries Norgate are right underneath the flightpath for aeroplanes coming into land at the Pierre L Trudeau airport down the road.

They pass so low overhead that you can almost reach up and touch them. And there are dozens of them too. I’d be quite happy to stand here for a while and watch them but it’s probably not a good idea. There are one or two other people standing on the street corner around here and they certainly aren’t watching the aeroplanes

Consequently, in the best traditions of a well-known British Sunday newspaper of years gone by, “I made my excuses and left”.

Luckily the metro station has its lift because that was the only way I could make it back. And at Berri-UQAM it was a long, slow crawl home.

Now I’m off to bed even though it’s not quite 22:00. But in real time that’s 04:00 tomorrow and that means my day has been almost 24 hours with just a cat-nap in between.

It just goes to show – I really CAN do it when I try.

Thursday 17th October 2019 – WHEN I WAS LOOKING …

… at my flight and trying to reserve a seat, I remember looking at the rows and rows of seats available and thinking to myself “this must be a flaming big ‘plane with all this room on it”

And much to my surprise, when i was walking down the ramp I noticed on the side of our aeroplane “Boeing 787 Dreamliner”. Boeing’s new flagship aeroplane, and we’ve only flown on one of these before, FROM CHARLES DE GAULLE TO MONTREAL IN AUGUST 2014. My luck seems to be in, for once.

The cabin crew were super-efficient. Although we had had a long wait, we were ushered in, seated and we were off taxiing down the runway in a matter of just a couple of minutes. Quickest loading and departure I’ve ever had.

Just two of us on a row of seats meant for three. My companion was a Francophone Canadian woman in her 40s I reckon, very friendly and with a good sense of humour. We got on quite well although she was a “mobile” passenger, needing to get up and move about on regular occasions, usually just after I had dozed off to sleep.

Mind you, there wasn’t much opportunity for sleep. That was a flight that I will remember for quite a while. I don’t think that I have ever encountered such astonishing turbulence over such a length of time. We were being tossed around like corks and at one time I think even I was praying to Mecca (it’s the first flight that I’ve ever been on where Mecca was shown as a destination on the flight direction screen). My poor travelling companion felt the worst of it too.

Vegan meals on offer too and that was quite pleasant. I’m rather wary of some flights – I’ve had far too many failures in the past. But my ratatouille and rice was quite acceptable. I turned down the coffee though. I’m having enough sleep issues as it is.

I suppose that I must have dozed off here and there because I was awoken by the arrival of breakfast. Bread and jam (with coffee and orange juice) and that filled a nice little hole.

Eventually we touched down – in Casablanca, Morocco!

And I bet that you are all wondering just WHAT I’m doing in North Africa!

The fact is that with having left my booking for the return flight rather late, the “direct” prices are just totally absurd. And with it being merely a “one-way” booking, there’s an opportunity to look around all different companies and sites to see who has the best deal on connections on scheduled flights. There was a whole batch of them too at prices that, while not exactly a bargain, were much less expensive than the direct price. And it’s not as if I’m in any particular hurry.

And so I had a good look around to see whether there was a connection proposed at anywhere exotic or anywhere where I had never been before.

Sure enough, Casablanca looked a good choice to me, so here I am.

We had to pass through Security, and then a four-hour wait. But that time passes quite quickly, especially when you are tired and close your eyes for … errr .. a short while. But close them I did.

Our plane back to Brussels wasn’t particularly full so we could spread out at the back. I had rice and veg for lunch too and that was delicious.

The flight was uneventful and we touched down in Brussels bang on time. And all in all, I’ll fly with Royal Air Maroc any day of the week. I’d had good service all the way from Montreal.

The joys of flying in on a scheduled flight from North Africa is that I was the only passenger in the “European Union” queue so I was straight through. I had a fight with the railway ticket machine and then collected my suitcase. Just as I set foot on the platform a train for Brussels pulled in so I piled on board and headed for the city.

For a change, I’m in a new hotel. I’ve never stayed here before but my regular one is booked up. This one is clean and modern, but cheap with no lift (so the receptionist had to carry my suitcase upstairs – all 19.7 kilos of it). I’ve stayed in many worse hotels than this, and for much more money too, although the internet is rubbish. And the huge damp patch on the wall behind the shower is rather worrying.

Back to the Delhaize at the station for a salad and now I’m ready for bed. Hospital tomorrow. I wonder what they are going to tell me.

Wednesday 16th October 2019 – SO HERE I ALL AM …

… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting in one of the departure lounges of the worst airport in the world, with the rudest staff I have ever met. I hate this place with a passion that cannot be measured on any scale that is known to Mankind but here I am. I’ve decided that it’s time that I was moving on before I put down roots.

And roots indeed. The last time that I slept in my own bed was on 26th June – that’s 16 weeks or so ago and while I’m not going home just yet I ought to be getting a little closer to it.

A lot of water has passed underneath the bridge since 26th June, that’s for sure.

Talking of passing water, I had another bad night last night. A whole succession of cramps in the calves and shins and it kept me awake for an eternity. I took advantage of the wakefulness by going down the corridor, but I would much rather have had a decent sleep instead.

I suppose that I must have dropped off at one point though. Or maybe more because there are several recordings on the dictaphone that I don’t remember making. Anyway, at about 07:15 I was wide-enough awake to push on with things.

No breakfast though. I repacked the suitcase and bunged another pile of stuff into it (and it registered 19.7 kilos at the airport’s weigh-in machine so I’m clearly getting back to normal) so that the backpack is at least manageable.

At 10:30 I set off for a walk, leaving my baggage behind for a moment. All the way up to the top of the town where I met Josee. I had done a little research in the area and discovered a little Lebanese restaurant in the basement of the shopping precinct so I took her there for a meal. And it turned out that she was well-known to the proprietor.

Later on, I had a leisurely stroll around the town and visited a few buildings that I had seen on my travels in the past. The big one near rue Sherbrooke that I had seen on several occasions is in fact the former hostel for the Deaf and Dumb of the city.

Eventually I rescued my suitcase and by 17:00 I was on the 747 bus to the airport. And it was then that I realised that I had left behind my raincoat and my aniseed balls. The objects and items that I have abandoned behind me on my travels could have filled another suitcase.

It was a good idea to go early to the airport because the traffic was horrendous. It’s a working day of course so we had the rush hour to deal with and there were queues everywhere. Our bus even lost a mirror against a lamp-post trying to squeeze past a queue of traffic turning right.

The departure check-in wasn’t open yet so I had a sandwich at Subway and then handed back my card for the USA. I won’t be going there for another while unless something quite dramatic happens.

Security is always extremely stressful here so I don’t propose to talk too much about it, even though I’ve had much worse passes through airport control than this. Now I’m sitting quietly waiting for my flight to be called.

But before I go, let’s talk about music. For no reason at all a track suddenly popped into my head out of nowhere. It’s Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams and regardless of how apposite the lyrics might be vis-a-vis my own personal circumstances and how I have lived my life, then just as Colosseum Live reminds me of almost every late and lonely night that I have ever spent on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, this particular track reminds me of just one particular night that was later than most and which I didn’t ever want to end.

I wonder if it means anything to anyone else.

That brings me round to the music that I am listening to now. Tom Petty has come round on the playlist and I have Into The Great Wide Open going full-blast.

Not a good idea right now of course. Far From it, in fact.
I heard you singing to no one
I saw you dancing all alone
One day you belonged to me
Next day I just wouldn’t know
One day all the rules will bend
And you and I will meet again

“One day all the rules will bend and you and I will meet again”. Nothing is more certain than that. You just have to believe.

“How could I get so close to you, and still feel so far away?”

Quite!

Tuesday 15th October 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about it being a very long day today. And I felt almost every minute of it too.

The Orleans Express bus was due to leave Riviere du Loup at 01:15 and much to my and everyone else’s surprise, it was bang on time, pulling into the bus depot at 00:50 ready to load up.

It was crowded, as I expected too. I had to share a seat so I wasn’t at all comfortable and I felt every jolt and bump at least as far as Sainte-Foy. But I did manage to drop off for a short while afterwards and awoke again as we were pulling off the highway at Longueuil.

After we had pulled into the bus station at Montreal bang on time at 06:15 I performed my usual task of disappearing for a ride on the porcelain horse for a while to catch up on my beauty sleep, such as it is, and then repaired to the cafe for breakfast.

At about 09:00 I wandered round the back of the bus station to my hotel. The room wasn’t ready at all, which was no surprise, but the guy on duty made me a coffee and I watched a TV programme about the treasure of Oak island amidst a wave of serious fatigue.

A little later I went for a walk down to the old harbour, along the canal and then back up rue Peel to the rue St Catherine.

Lunch was taken at the Subway in the Complexe Desjardins in the rue St Catherine. And I had to explain to the “Sandwich Artist” not once, not twice, not three times but FOUR TIMES that a “vegetarian with no cheese” really DOES mean “no cheese”.

I really don’t know where they find these people.

But I tell you what I DID find in a Dollar Store were some sweets that passed very well for the aniseed balls of my youth – when I eventually managed to buy them because the whole queue was held up by some guy arguing with the girls and the manageress at the check-out.

By now my room was ready so having fought my way in with this stupid key and stupid door lock, I could have a shower and wash some clothes.

And to … errr … catch up on some more beauty sleep.

Later on I took the metro to Cote Vertu for some bananas and grapes at the wholesaler’s, and then across the road for the Indian cafe.

No I’m back, and it’s bed-time. No alarm in the morning because it’s going to be another long and painful night tomorrow.

Thursday 26th September 2019 – HERE I AM …

… sitting on a bed in another one of these places where you don’t rent the room for the night, you buy the motel.

Last night I was dead to the world and slept right the way through the night until the alarm went off without disturbing myself once. There was the tail-end of a dream going round and round my head so I managed to dictate that – such as it was – before it disappeared completely. Nothing exciting though, unfortunately.

Having done a few things, I went upstairs to the kitchen and tried to make a coffee. Eventually, I managed to figure out the machine so that was good.

Sandra came to join me later and we had breakfast and a good chat. Then I had a shower and packed Strider ready to leave. We swapped the cars over and I headed off into the torrential rainstorm.

I was right about the turn of the cards – my wish hadn’t come true. But then I never really expected that it would. But the combination of Ottawa and the events of the past six weeks together with a music track appearing on my playlist and a “memory” about my farm all collided together at a vulnerable moment and I ended up in a deep, deep depression that has followed me around all day and won’t go away.

The weather didn’t help of course, and neither did the roadworks. It took an age to negotiate myself out of Ottawa and I must have passed the same guy on the same street corner three times until I had come to terms with the roadworks.

On the highway the rain was dreadful and the first of a long, long set of roadworks put the evil eye on just about everything. I was soaked going to the bathroom, soaked fuelling up Strider and then in Montreal amidst the major road reconstructions there I ended up being unable to join the lane that I wanted due to standing traffic. I was pushed sideways to the west and instead of going up Highway 40 and over the ferry at Sorel, I ended up on Highway 15 and over the new Champlain Bridge.

So here I was and here I stayed.

I stopped off for a coffee at Tim Horton’s at St Hyacinthe, home of many a tractor pull, and then continued through the storm.

At Quebec I misread a sign (Riviere du Loup for Trois Rivieres) and ended up going over the Laporte bridge by mistake. I had to turn round and fight the rush-hour traffic to pick up my route again.

So here I am in Montmagny and here I’m staying for the night. The Motel Centre-Ville. I’ll have a good night, a shower in the morning and then continue on my way.

So if anyone wants to contact me, don’t be shy. I have another three weeks here at least.

And who knows? This wish might even come true. You never know.

Saturday 21st September 2019 – OTTAWA!

So here we all are, people, despite all of the prophets of doom and gloom. Strider, Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly nicely settled down in Ottawa in the bosom of another branch of family – one that I never knew that I had until I posted a casual remark on a page on the internet.

This world is far too small for my liking, as I have said before, except for my cousin Sandra.

And do you know what? It’s two years TO THE DAY that we met on the only other occasion, in Kingston.

A rather late-ish night last night but a really good sleep, and awakening to find no less than FOUR voice files on the dictaphone, one of which goes on for 00:08:42 and I’d love to know what that is all about.

I had a laze around for a few hours and then a shower, a shave and a general clean-up before slinging all of my gear into Strider.

A walk took me around the shops to buy some deodorant as I have run out, and some food for the next stage of my journey. And the crisis is over, it seems. Epinette, or Spruce Beer, is back in the shops. They are minus two bottles now.

On the road now for Ottawa and fighting my way through the roadworks and traffic jams and breakdowns. It took me ages to pass through Montreal this afternoon.

But soon I’m on the clear road and Strider and I can open up a little. I’m doing 100 kph – the legal limit on the highway – and everyone is going past us as if we are standing still.

What’s the matter with Canadian drivers? Don’t they understand anything about speed limits?

There’s a rest area ahead so I pull in for lunch. Baguette, tomato and hummus again. A ride on the porcelain horse and then a trip down the road to the service station where I saw fuel at $1:13 a litre (I saw it at $1:09 a little later) even though Strider didn’t really need it.

Back on the highway in the heat and I’m in Ottawa in about 90 minutes. Roadworks everywhere of course. But I find the chocolate shop to buy some chocolates for cousin Sandra who is kindly hosting me for the night.

Sandra has a lovely house right by the river, so it’s a good job that I have o holes in my socks or anything to let the side down.

Recently, I had heard from “a reliable source” that there was a really good Indian restaurant in Ottawa. “Ohh yes” said Sandra. “It’s on the corner here” so off we trot. A tiny place and we have to wait 20 minutes for a table and then another 45 minutes for the food. But I do have to say that the food made it worth every minute of the wait. It was delicious.

Sandra’s sister was passing briefly so she called in for a chat too.

Back at the house we exchanged family stories and then I went off to bed. Sunday morning so a lie-in, I hope. I think that I’ve earned it.

So now that I’m in Ottawa, what will tomorrow bring me?

Friday 20th September 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

… bad day today.

Back here in mid-afternoon with nothing accomplished of what I had hoped to do, crashed out on the bed where I stayed for about three hours.

My exertions of the drive up from New Brunswick and the day spent walking around the city yesterday took their toll on me today.

And it all started off so good too. Four sound files dictated on the dictaphone during the night. And one of them – the last one – is of particular interest because it steps me back right into the exact spot where I left an earlier nocturnal voyage. And not the previous one, or even another one of last night’s journeys, but one from a couple of nights ago which I had briefly mentioned at the time.

And did I get the girl? Not ‘arf I did! Not quite with the same intensity of that which occurred to the well-known inmate of a certain religious establishment situated in a province of the modern-day Czech Republic but it was pretty damned near. What wouldn’t I have given for another 15 minutes of sleep on that occasion?

As I have said before, and on many previous occasions too, the life that I lead when I’m off on one of my nocturnal voyages is much more interesting and exciting than any kind of life that I have led in the real world and I wish that I could stay in that state rather permanently. In fact, several of my friends would certainly offer to help me in this respect.

Despite the alarms it was a struggle to leave the bed as I desperately tried to go back to sleep to carry on where I had left off, but to no avail unfortunately. So I left the bed and did a few things around here that needed doing.

At 10:00 I went off to find an adapter for the camera charger. And the price of carelessness and thoughtlessness worked out at just over $20:00 at Walmart. As I have said, I don’t ever make mistakes. I just learn some very expensive lessons.

The housekeeper chased me out of my room at midday which was just as well as the camera battery was now properly charged, and I took the metro to the Andrignon Metro terminus – the last terminus I had to visit on my tour around the Montreal Metro.

With it being a beautiful day I had a good walk around and eventually found a supermarket where a couple of bread rolls, a couple of tomatoes and a tub of hummus (on special offer) fell into my sweaty little mitt for lunch.

I took my supplies down to the Parc Andrignon and sat on the grass by the lake watching the ducks and feeding my face. A little walk afterwards and that was when I crashed. Not an ordinary tiredness but one of these deep intense ones that I have every now and again and which I haven’t had for a while.

These days I can recognise the symptoms so I fought them off as best as I could (which wasn’t very efficient) and caught the metro back here. And here I crashed out for three hours. Totally and completely. And I haven’t done anything of what I really intended to do.

Later on I took the Metro back to town. I wasn’t all that hungry – just a little snack would see me right. I alighted at the Baudry Metro station and walked along the rue St Catherine Est to see what was going on. There seems to be a new Mexican restaurant, the Tacos Frida, open and it served snacks too so I went in to have a try. I’ve had better food than this, but I’ve also had worse, and the price was quite realistic, which is important.

Mind you, their idea of piquant and mine are quite remarkably different.

The journey back was not without its moments, due mainly that the Papineau Metro Station does not have an entrance in the rue Papineau but in another one and that confused me for a while.

No Epinette in the supermarket next door now. I had the last bottle.

Now I’m making plans to move on. Fate awaits me tomorrow as I shall head off further west to Ottawa. “Travelling Eternity Road – what shall I find there?”, as the Moody Blues once sang. It’s been a while since I was in Ottawa but this time it’s not for tourism. I have other reasons to be there and I need to be on my best behaviour.

But let’s go to sleep first. Who knows where I’ll end up tonight? I imagine that my phantom reader from Celbridge in Ireland is gripping the edge of his seat in eager anticipation.

Thursday 19th September 2019 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to be awoken by the dulcet tone of a friendly voice?

It reminds me of the time many years ago on one of my coach trips with Shearings where a passenger asked me if I would awaken her at 06:00 one morning. “Certainly” I replied. “Should I knock on your door or give you a nudge?”. In those days of course you could say things like that and people would laugh and joke about it. But today you couldn’t say a thing like that. No one has a sense of humour any more.

But anyway, just as the alarm finished ringing, the telephone rang. Rosemary had sent me a message yesterday so I has messaged her back to tell her to ring me round about midday her time.

We had a good chat about all the things that had happened to us since we parted company in Greenland in late July. I told her about my more recent adventures on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and she burst out laughing. “Ohh Eric” she snorted. “That’s the kind of thing that could ONLY happen to you”.

And she’s right of course. Looking back, it was all quite amusing really and I’m not sure why I took it all so seriously. But then again, I don’t think that I really did.

I’d had a good night’s sleep too. After all of my efforts yesterday I was in bed by 21:00 and out like a light. I remembered nothing until the alarm went off, although there is a sound file on the dictaphone from last night. I wonder what’s in it.

For breakfast I went down to Tim Hortons and purchased some bagels and coffee to bring back here. Eventually. For it took a good few minutes to find my way into the place.

And then I hit the streets for my storage locker. Pretty easy to get to from here too, except for the traffic. At one point I was in a queue surrounded by brand-new cars with Montreal licence plates. People in suits on their way to an office somewhere. And there I was, faded baseball cap, tatty tee-shirt in an elderly tired Ford Ranger on my way to empty out a storage locker. It looked like something out of the Beverley Hillbillies, but ask me if I care.

Yes – I can remember the Beverley Hillbillies from 50-odd years ago, but ask me what I had for lunch yesterday …

Somehow I’d left the *.mp3 player in Strider playing last night, so when I switched on the radio I had “Foxy Lady” by Jimi Hendrix blasting its way across the airwaves.
.
That’s a significant track, and for two reasons too. Firstly, when I played in a rock group with Jon Dean and Dave Hudson back in the mid-70s, that was one of the numbers that we played and it always went down well.

But secondly, it has a much more significant meaning for someone else who I met much more recently than that and she’ll understand why. The lyrics are quite relevant too, given the particular circumstances.

At the storage place I had to wait for a trolley as they were all in use. But I was soon in business. A pile of stuff was binned but a pile more (much more than I expected) was loaded into the back of Strider for further review. And then I handed back all of my paperwork and cards (and had to negotiate to receive back the deposit on my card).

And that was that. The end of another era. All of my sleeping-out stuff into the bin. But at least on one occasion and probably two I’d managed to spend every night sleeping out on the trail around Labrador, but I’m only fooling myself by pretending that one day I might be able to do it again. It saves me $33:00 per month by binning it all, but it was still an emotional moment.

But we did have a little fun there. I was brandishing a large crowbar when one of the guys came up to me. “That’s huge” he said. “It must be a metre long (it’s actually 1200mm). Why do you need a pry bar that big?”
“I drive an old Ford” I replied.

On the way back we were all carved up by some moron in one of these big Volkswagen SUVs. But I had my own back by running him up to some roadworks amd blocking him in while we all went past. He was not amused – but we were!

Back at the motel I had a shower and a clean-up, and washed my clothes. I need to keep on top of all of that while I can if I’m on the road.

Down to the Metro and off into town. From Berri-UQAM I walked down past the Gare Viger, my favourite building in the whole of the city (and what are they doing in the car park?) and down to the old harbour. A couple of ships in there but I just had a good walk right round.

Up then to rue Sherbrooke and then all the way down to the Atwater Metro Station, thinking all the time about how much I hated Montreal and everyone and everything in it. I could feel myself building up into an emotional rage. But then again, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a very hard time throwing my stuff away, for reasons that any good psychiatrist could explain and it’s all probably to do with that.

I took the metro to the terminus at Cote Vertu (falling asleep for part of the way) and went to the fruit wholesalers. There, I bought grapes and bananas while the buying was good. And then across the road and the Indian cafe for tea. And when was the last time I walked away from a table leaving a half-eaten meal behind? Excellent though it was and perfectly spiced, I was bloated. Having cut right down on food over the last few weeks is certainly working…

On the way back I tried several different places and it wasn’t until the very last place just near here that I was able to find a bottle of Epinette. The last in Quebec, I reckon, and we are now facing a crisis of Brexit-like proportions if I can’t find any more.

So now it’s bed time. I’ve already crashed out twice (and so has the internet) and I’m on the verge of going again. I’m hoping for a good sleep because I have things to do tomorrow early. The battery has gone flat in the big Nikon camera and Bane of Britain has forgotten to bring the Canadian charging lead for the battery charger.

Wednesday 18th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to Strider!

Here we are, sitting in a dingy room in a dingy motel in rue Sherbrooke Est. Old, tired, dusty, tatty and cheap. But that’s enough about me, let’s talk about the motel room. And you’ve guessed it. Old, tired, dusty, tatty and cheap.

In fact, in all honesty, you have to consider that it’s a motel in Montreal right by a metro station, with ample free parking and all conveniences (even a guitar shop, in which I’ve already made my presence felt) not a cock-stride away. And the fact that my three nights here are costing me less than $CAN 90:00 per night tax in, it’s a deal that I won’t find anywhere else in the city.

Even the local coppers won’t have too far to come to find me. They are in the building next door.

It’s the same landlady who was here last time I stayed. She didn’t remember me (which was a surprise) but I remembered her. The type who would have fought the Iroquois single-handedly out of this plot of land 400 years ago and she’s been here ever since.

Last night though was exciting. A reasonably early night (for a change) and a decent sleep, with no less than 4 dictaphone entries that I might not know anything about as yet.

Or maybe I do, because there is certainly one that is running around in my head and has been ever since I awoke. And I wonder if it’s on the machine. Basically, I was joined on my travels at one point by a person who has featured on my voyages on many occasions. And I’ll spare her blushes by not naming her because I have reason to believe that she reads these notes.

And you are going to ask me if I got the girl. And I shall say that after much perseverence and fighting off distraction, then I reckon. Not as intensely as I have done on some other occasions, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall, but nevertheless. And what wouldn’t I have given to have had another half-hour’s sleep in order to make sure that it was nailed on completely and thoroughly?

But that’s the trouble with these nocturnal rambles. They go off at tangents at all the wrong moments.

One theory that we were working on during this project years ago was whether there was a subconscious trigger somewhere that went off to protect you from harm. And there have been several nocturnal voyages, including a few just recently, where such a phenomenon might be identified.

This led us onto another project – that about the “sixth sense”. Intuition, second sight, call it what you will, it was a vital tool when you were struggling to stay alive in prehistorical times. Those who had it were the great survivors and they bred children who would have an even greater perception. Und so weiter.

It’s fallen out of use now but it’s still there and we worked on developing it – like walking around a room in the dark and thinking about what was where in our way. Or staring at people walking past and watching them suddenly turn around. All of that kind of thing. And, more importantly, trusting your intuition and your instincts.

Strangely enough, a while back I actually had this talk with the heroine of last night’s voyage. Do you rememb

So we had the school run despite the fact that I misplaced the key to the Golf, and then came back and picked up Strider.

Down to the depot to say my goodbyes, and also to change my hospital appointment. The list of tasks is building up rapidly and I still have things to do on and after when I should be having my blood transfusion.

So I’ve put it back another week. Zoe is worried that it might make me more ill than I already am, but ask me if I care.

By 10:04 I was fuelled up to the brim and joining the Trans-Canada Highway at Florenceville. And just before 15:00 my time (14:00 Quebec time) I was pulling into the Irving Truck Stop at Levis at the foot of the big bridge at Quebec.

454 kms non-stop in just under 5 hours. So hats off to Strider who performed excellently. There was well over a quarter of a tank of fuel left too and that is even better.

Fuelling him up, having a pit stop and finding a Subway for a sandwich – all of that took about an hour (never been in such a slow Subway) and then back on the highway.

294 kms non-stop and here I am. And what pleased me more than anything was that I actually recognised the streets of Montreal where I was supposed to be. And that’s not something that happens every day either.

Pizza Pizza has vegan pizzas as I explained last year, and the Metro supermarket next door produced some food stuff and spruce beer (at long last) so here I am and here I’m staying. For a few days at least.

Tomorrow I have the painful task of throwing away the rest of my stuff in my storage locker here. I’ll be a little richer in cash but a lot poorer in spirit. it really is the end of an era.

Sunday 30th September 2018 – I MUST HAVE BEEN …

… tired last night.

It didn’t take me many minutes to lie down on the bed, and when I did, that was that until the alarms went off at 06:00.

And I’d been on my travels too. On board a car ferry that had struck the ice and was sinking rather like the Titanic. And agin, the lifeboats on one side were crammed with people while those on the other side were going in with just a handful. There were two women in one and they called for two men to accompany them. We were three but nevertheless we were allowed in and lowered to the water. We rowed so far away but I stopped the boat to pick up people swimming in the water . But very few people went swimming past, and those who did wouldn’t come aboard, even though they had some frightful stories to tell of lorries sliding around in the car decks and crusing piles of passengers. Eventually, fed up of waiting I went back aboard Titanic or whatever to stimulate some trade. But I noticed that my new red mackintosh was badly damaged – the outer had separated from the padding and it was all looking really bad. One of the people on board sent me off to the purser to have it checked over – as if he didn’t have enough to be doing right at this moment.

Surprisingly, despite being the cat-house to end all cat-houses, the bed was quite comfortable and I was well-settled in there. But after waking up, I did a pile more work and then went for a stroll round the corner and down the road, rue St Catherine est to be precise, and the Tim Horton’s for breakfast.

Josée came on line and we had a little chat, and made arrangements to meet up for a brunch seeing as she had only just arisen from the dead. So I went back and had a shower and made the necessary arrangements for leaving.

She turned up at 11:30 and we went back around the corner to a place called Cora, which do some exotic kinds of breakfast. I had toast and a huge bowl of fresh fruit, and I wouldn’t like to describe what she had. She wasn’t too impressed either and sent back her cheese waffles, to be replaced with some muffins.

And here’s a surprise.

Something else I’m no good at is drawing, but Josée enjoys it, and there was a discussion on asteroids followed by a session on learning to draw lunar craters, on offer at the University of Montreal, her old stamping ground.

I’m all in favour of trying something new, so I tagged along and we spent a very pleasant 90 minutes there. Of course, my drawing was … shall we say … inconsequential, although Josée was commended for hers and quite rightly so.

We headed back into town and said our goodbyes at the Jean-Talon metro station. She headed north for home and I headed to Berri-UQAM and my hotel to rescue my luggage. Cheap and basic the hotel, but then so was the price and it scores quite well on the “value for money” scoreboard.

And I forgot to photograph it too.

The bus was exciting too. It was full of students from Cape Breton University – the “Capers” who were apparently a girls’ basketball team. And judging by the “athlete” badges that they were wearing, they had been competing in a competition. Whilst they might (or might not) have been good at putting the ball into the basket, they were absoluely hopeless at stacking their luggage in the luggage racks.

It was a quick drive to the airport – just aver 30 minutes – and I even managed to miss about 10 minutes of it, having … errr … closed my eyes for a relax.

The automatic check-in machines at the airport failed to recognise me … “no surprise there” – ed … so I had to check in manually. And no aisle seat either. I’m not having much luck.

Downstairs next. Hand in my USA green card to the Immigration and then pick up a Subway falafel sandwich for tea. That’s to take through security, but I had a “visit to the fountain” – my last root bear until I really don’t know when, if at all.

The usual fight through Security, where I was accosted by someone who ordered me to take off my boots.
“I bet your mother is really proud of the abruti she has turned out” I barked.
It must have struck a chord with her because I had a “thank you” afterwards. Now how difficult is it to say “please” and “thank you”?

A walk all the way down to the far end of the terminal where I sat quietly (for a change) and ate my sandwiches. When the staff appeared I used the “bad leg” ploy (I really DO have a bad leg by the way – I’ve broken the right knee three times in my youth and as I’m getting older I’m feeling it more and more) and they came up trumps with an aisle seat.

There’s a piano down here and much of the waiting time was spent listening to various people vamping away on it. And pretty good they were too. I’d sign them up in a heartbeat.

We’re now on the ‘plane – an Airbus 330-300. I have a middle-aged Belgian woman sitting next to me. Very nice and friendly, but not very confident and asking me lots of questions.

And the data viewer on my seat has crashed. Even 4 hours out from Montreal we are still only 26 miles from Dorval. This is going to be a very long flight.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Category Archives: Montreal

Tuesday 25th October 2022 – MY WELSH LESSON …

Monday 24th October 2022 – TODAY WAS ABSOLUTELY …

Sunday 2nd October 2022 – AS I TYPE …

Saturday 1st October 2022 – THAT WAS HORRIBLE

Friday 30th September 2022 – OUCH!

Thursday 29th September 2022 (cont) – SO HERE I AM

Thursday 17th October 2019 – WHEN I WAS LOOKING …

Wednesday 16th October 2019 – SO HERE I ALL AM …

Tuesday 15th October 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

Thursday 26th September 2019 – HERE I AM …

Saturday 21st September 2019 – OTTAWA!

Friday 20th September 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

Thursday 19th September 2019 – ISN’T IT NICE …

Wednesday 18th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

Sunday 30th September 2018 – I MUST HAVE BEEN …

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