Category Archives: Woodstock

Tuesday 9th September 2014 – I’VE LEFT CENTREVILLE …

… and I’m now at my other spiritual home, the campsite at the country park at Mactaquac, near Fredericton.

It wasn’t quite as cold this morning – a balmy 9°C would you believe – when I set off to the tyre depot to pay my respects to everyone there, and I ended up for an hour or so doing some photocopy-editing of a photo in an old historic book that someone has found. It shows all of the kids who went to a local primary school in 1935 – including Wallace McCain, he who had his chips just a few years ago – and someone has succeeded in identifying them all.

Consequently we were doing a “cut and paste” on the photocopier so that all of the kids would be labelled with their identity.

From there I went to the Bank at Florenceville to do some stuff down there and then set off for Woodstock. And by the time I got to Woodstock I was half a mill … "you said that last year – and the year before" – ed. I did a little food shopping and at Canadian Tires I bought a small hydraulic bottle jack. There’s a good reason for this in that the jacks in these hire cars are sill jacks, and totally useless on uneven ground. And of course, I might be going to Labrador as you know.

But then again, I might not. It’s snowing in Alberta already and there are people snowed in at their homes and so on – early September and WE complain about our weather! I want to see what the long-range forecast is before I commit myself.

On the motorway down to Fredericton, I was right about something of which I had caught a glimpse earlier. You may recall, from all of our previous visits to Canada, that they have these road trains – an articulated tractor unit towing not one but two small trailers – a lead trailer and a pup trailer (although when they have to reverse, the drivers often call the pup trailer something like “the mother of a pup.

But I was convinced that I’d seen not one but two Day and Ross lorries, each towing two full-sized trailers on the motorway around Montreal and so I had the camera poised as I flashed along the Trans-Canada Highway.

Sure enough, I was not wrong about that. The lorry here in this photo on the other carriageway is pulling two full-sized trailers. I’ve seen plenty of lead-and-pup combinations in my time, but never this.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take a superb photo, especially when we have a closing speed of what must be not far short of 250kph. Well done, Strawberry!

At Fredericton, they hadn’t done my press pass info so I had to hang around for a while so I went up to Home Depot for a nosy around. There was nothing interesting there but I did meet Danny, the store assistant who comes from Croatia and with whom I’ve had several good chats before. And at Value Village, I bought a few more CDs and a book on Quebec and the Maritime Provinces.

Finally, I picked up my press pass and my parking permit and now I’m here. I’ve had tea and I’m going to have an early night, I reckon.

-1

Tuesday 24th September 2013 – I’ve been stirring the …

… errr … brown and smelly stuff today.

And quite literally too.

At a small town called St André, about 100 kms from here is a farm owned by someone called Laforge. It’s a dairy farm but he’s expanding into all kinds of other farming activities seeing as how he has abundant supplies of … errr … fertiliser. The reason for this is that it’s all the by-product of Canada’s biggest methane generators, for which he uses the waste matter from his cows and whatever else he can find.

Darren showed me a video of the operation the other day, and then quite casually mentioned that they were customers of the feed mill. Of course, my eyes lit up and a phone call or two later, Rachel and I set off.

Impressive is not the word, that’s for sure, and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours there talking to the guy. And he knows his stuff too, even down to sourcing a supply of wood ash to mix into the inert waste matter in order to produce a balanced fertiliser.

His experiences, mostly with the hide-bound Government officials, were interesting too and full of difficulty as you might expect. But the rewards are equally as good, especially as he’s now planning other exciting activities such as using the waste heat to warm greenhouses to grow tomatoes with the fertiliser that he has. Even more interestingly, using the fertiliser to the maximum he’s just starting on his fourth hay crop whereas his neighbours have managed two this year.

That’s not the only bit of brown smelly stuff we encountered today. Zoe and I were in Woodstock today sorting out her salon and running other errands and while in Tim Horton’s Zoe was surfing the local small ads. “Chevy Silverado pick-up, 1997, $2500 or best offer” and so seeing as it was on the way home, we went for a look. And this is where the brown smelly stuff came in, because even though the pickup was white, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate description.

Seeing as I’m leaving here tomorrow I shall just have to resign myself to not having a pickup again. But these rental charges are killing me.

-4

Friday 20th September 2013 – AND WE’RE OFF …

… tractor-pulling again. Just the four of us this time, namely Darren, Hannah, Yours Truly and of course Strawberry Moose. We’re going to a place called Millinocket which is deep inside darkest rural Maine and miles off the beaten track, so I shall be quite at home there.

But a crisis at the local truck stop (not the big one where we stopped last time). My fries turned up, well, sort-of okay but my beans had bacon in them despite me specifying “just beans – no cheese and no bacon or anything else”. Apparently a simple request like that is beyond the capacity of some trukstop waitresses in the USA. “However did this lot become the new master race?”, as I have asked myself before.

Today started off early as it was Inspection Day at Zoe’s salon. A couple of last-minute tasks needed to be carried out and so Yours Truly was roped in. This little desk with two shelves that we bought (was $60, when we first saw it, it was reduced to $40 and when Zoe bought it it was further reduced to $20) is an absolute bargain and does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and more besides.

Then I went off to Tim Horton’s to give two people the shock of their lives. There they were sitting at a table next to me quietly nattering away, and then I caught the “long Jaaaa”. “Jullie komen uit Nederlands?” I asked them, and then we had a very interesting 10-minute conversation in Dutch. Probably the last thing that they were expecting in a coffee bar in a small town in rural New Brunswick.

The rest of the day was spent running errands. They are short-handed in the tyre depot again and deliveries were piling up and so with Zoe as navigator (her salon passed its inspection and as soon as Darren finishes welding the sills on her car she’ll be in business) we went off around Bath, Florenceville and Bristol with a pile of parcels and envelopes. And of course the bank. I don’t know if I mentioned last time the fun that I had trying to get US dollars out of US cash machines with my Canadian bank card, and so I went to the bank and took out some USA cash.

Now I’m sitting at the side of a deserted runway in rural Maine watching the stars and the full moon, and waiting for things to happen.

-3

Tuesday 10th September 2013 – I HAD THE MOST UNEVENTFUL …

… drive down to Fredericton that I have ever had. There was nothing going on and nothing to report whatsoever … "hooray" – ed …

But in Woodstock earlier a few things happened.

Zoe and I picked up her price list and stuck it on the wall of her salon where it looks pretty good and effective. We did a few more things (and I’ve still forgotten to fasten her cupboard handles) and then I wandered off to see someone about another little project that I have in mind.

However, that won’t be happening, said he with deep regret.

A small piece of land that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while, well, they want a telephone-number kind of price for it. Its situation is such that it merits a few extra shillings, to be sure, but the price that they are asking is simply delusional. Even half of the asking price would be expensive.

In Fredericton I went to Value Village – the charity shop – to scan the books.

Here in Canada, there isn’t a variety of different charity shops as there is in the UK. All of the charities have joined together and have a charity megastore, and all of the items are colour-coded, the purpose of this I suppose is to tell which charity each item belongs to.

I always visit it because it’s a really good source of books on Canadian affairs, history, grography and the like, and I wasn’t disappointed. Six new books have found their way into the Dodge and now this place looks more like a library than anything else.

I picked up my Media Pass from the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival offices at Regent Street (it helps, having your own media outlets back in France – good old Radio Anglais).

And Strawberry Moose was in his element – not only were there floozies to admire but they even dressed him up in Festival Gear and allowed him to be photographed with them.

What more does any Moose require?

Lunch was at the side of the river near the boat ramp and for some reason or other I crashed out here. And for a couple of hours too. It’s not as if I’ve been overdoing it or anything just recently.

What woke me up was the book sliding out of my hand and crashing down to the floor of the Dodge. I’d probably be still there now otherwise.

So off to the camp ground – this is at a place called Mactaquac about 20kms outside Fredericton and close to the big dam for the hydro-electric power station. This has created a huge lake and the campground is on the shores of the lake.

It’s a wilderness campsite run by the Province of New Brunswick and so there is a good deal of wildlife hanging around and because it’s protected, it doesn’t have too much of a fear of man.

Consequently there was quite a deputation of Strawberry Moose’s friends and admirers from previous years awaiting his arrival, all keen to continue their acquaintance.

So I’ve emptied the Dodge and tidied it out, and made tea. Now I’m off to bed for an early night. Of course, you can guess what Strawberry Moose will be doing.

-2

Monday 9th September 2013 – ZOE AND I …

… went to Woodstock again this morning. Mind you, it was pretty crowded in the Dodge because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, of course … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Another not very successful day for shopping but at least Zoe has much more of an idea as to what she wants. And a stroke of luck – while we were there at her salon, there was an old woman sniffing around outside and so I packed Zoe off to make further enquiries, with the result that Zoe now has her first paying customer for tomorrow at 11:00. Good old Zoe.

I had some rather mixed fortunes in Woodstock though. Did I tell you that I have broken the zip on my suitcase? That’s rendered it impossible for further service and I was wondering how to bring my stuff back home. But we went into a second-hand shop in the town to look for an office desk for Zoe, and while we had no luck there for that, they had an enormous suitcase even bigger than mine. Not quite as many pockets though, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially at $10:00.

The bad news is that the Dodge was running rather roughly this morning and I wasn’t happy at all. I had a look at Woodstock and it seems that the rear brakes have been binding. The handbrake is one of these foot-pedal ones by the door pillar and it’s not as cleverly placed as it is on a Mercedes and it’s possible that I’ve stepped on it by accident and not noticed. Driving the Dodge around the car park a couple of times in reverse seems to have freed it off and so now I’ll have to see how I go with it.

Anyway, an early night is called for tonight as I’m hitting the road tomorrow for a week or 10 days. I’ll see you soon.

-4

Friday 6th September 2013 – I HAD AN “AT HOME DAY” TODAY

The only difference being that I wasn’t of course at my home but at Rachel’s. I slept for at least part of the night with a cat curled up next to me, something that brought beck memories of course, and after breakfast (and the typical frantic hunt for keys) Zoe and I went off to do a few things.

We went too look at my little kingdom up on the USA border, and then went to see someone to chat to him about Ford Rangers. The Bank in Florenceville was the next port of call but I couldn’t get done there what I needed to do, so we headed to Woodstock. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong of course and Zoe took me to see her new salon. Now that she’s a qualified and licensed aesthetician after her year ot college in Miramichi she’s planning on opening her own little business and has rented two small rooms. They will be ideal for a newcomer to the business once she sorts herself out.

We ran quite a few errands for her while we were there and after lunch it was back to the Bank where a few (but by no means all) things were sorted out. I went on to the Great Satan to sort out my entry permit and then back to Rachel’s where we loaded everything up for the weekend.

This led to the immortal conversation
Hannah “Will 2 packs of water be enough for us for the weekend?”
Yours Truly “How much beer do we have?”
Hannah “two 36-packs”
Yours Truly “why do we need water then?”
Yes, I’m fast becoming a redneck, aren’t I?

Rachel came with me in the Dodge on the long drive to southern Maine and the highlight of the journey had to be eating chips (or “fries”) in Dysart’s, a typical American truckstop and a team of cheerleaders coming in. A scrawny, scraggy lot, it has to be said but cheerleaders all the same. No, you can’t make up a story like that and I wish that I had taken a camera into the truckstop to prove it.

The pulling track at Clinton, Maine, is cold and wet.

But so what? So am I.

But at least I’ll feel better in the morning.

Hopefully.

-2

Monday 19th September 2011 – WHAT A LOVELY DAY

I took the back road into Fredericton to go for a look around today, and I came across this company. I couldn’t resists the idea of going into them and seeing if they would make one for me to my own specifications.

I need one made with a couple of rows of beads, rather like an abacus. And when I was asked why, I replied that, having had the kind of life that I had, I can only count on my own support.

But there was nothing happening in the town so I head back northwards towards Centreville

I took the old road out of the city and a few miles after the turning to Mactaquac I encountered this beautiful suspension bridge.

I couldn’t see a date on the bridge so I couldn’t see whether it was built before the valley was flooded when the dam was built in the 1960s. But looking at the clearance underneath the bridge you would only just paddle your own canoe underneath it today.

The day was really beautiful today and the views along the Saint John River were stunning. I took dozens of photos of the route and it’s really hard just to pick out one as an example.

I’m about 5kms from Kings Landing just here when I crested the brow of a hill and and this view presented to me. It looks absolutely magnificent in the sunshine but it does make you wonder what it must have been like before they flooded the valley.

This is the largest employer in the area, the AV Nackawik mill. And that must be the biggest pile of sawdust the world has ever seen.

The mill was built in 1967 to provide employment for the people who had been displaced from the valley due to the building of the dam. But in 2004 the company that owned it closed the mill in circumstance that can only be described as “controversial”. It reopened under different ownership 18 months later.

Nackawik is home to the world’s largest axe – the Giant Axe of Nackawik – and so seeing that we were here, Strawberry Moose and I went for a look at it.

The handle is 15 metres long and the axe was built in 1991. It’s purely symbolic and is said to represent the importance of the forestry industry to the area. And that’s just as well that it’s symbolic as I wouldn’t have liked to have met the lumberjack who was able to wield that in a forest.

There’s a time capsule embedded in the stump, but I’ve no idea what might be in it.

His Nibs and I had a quiet uneventful drive up the eastern bank of the Saint John River as far as Woodstock, which is over there on the far bank, swathed in the sunlight.

The bridge that you can see in the foreground is the old railway bridge. The station building remains but it’s lost in the trees to the right of the bridge. It’s a shame that there’s never going to be another locomotive running up and down that track

In Woodstock I went to the machinery place to see if he had and second-hand brushcutters but there was nothing doing. But what he did have was a selection of D-i-Y machines such as drills and the like powered by small petrol engines. I’ve never seen that before.

And back at Rachel’s, she didn’t feel like cooking so I made a mega-vegan-curry for everyone. And, surprisingly, everyone survived.

Thursday 8th September 2011 – WATERFALL

I had another excellent night’s sleep and yet another really vivid dream. As a result I wake up fully refreshed at … errr … 08:30, which, after going to bed at 10:00, is something of a record for North America.

We’re still in wet and clammy weather after yesterday of course but slowly the morning brightens up, and not before time either.

I eventually go round to the garage and have a good long chin-wag with everyone there, and even help Darren MoT a car. Once I’ve done that I head off to Woodstock to try my luck at the council again.

I’m at a place that’s probably 9 kilometres south of a place called Lakeville on the brow of a high ridge. I’ve no idea how far that is away from where the wind turbines are but you can see them for miles.

It’s a magnificent view though isn’t it? You can see exactly why they installed the wind turbines up there. There’s nothing around for miles to interrupt the flow of wind.

By the time I got to Woodstock I was half a … &#34yawn;" – ed … and much to my surprise the council offices are open.

The girl there is very helpful – tells me some of what I can and can’t do.

There’s a good place to eat my butty down on the river bank and then wander off to do some shopping (well, not much because apart from gas there isn’t anything much else that I need right now) and then back home (and isn’t it nice to be able to say that here in Canada?)

I’ve taken a little deviation to the North Branch Meduxnekeag River (and I hope that I’ve spelt that correctly).

The reason why I’ve come here is that I saw a sign down the road pointing this way that said “Jackson’s Falls” and the name looked interesting.

As for the falls – well, I have to admit that I’ve seen better but they do look quite attractive.

The bridge might not look like very much but what caught my eye was that it carried a maker’s plate, and that’s not something that you see every day.

It was built by the Dominion Bridge Company in Lachine, which is where the rapids are, just outside Montreal, in 1928. And so it made me wonder how people crossed the river back before then. Did we have a ramshackle timber bridge, or did people have to ford the river as best as they could?

And on that note, I could go back home.

Tuesday 6th September 2011 – I WENT OFF …

… for a little drive today as I had a few things to do.

But on my way out towards Florenceville I caught a good view of Centreville in the rear mirror and so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a photograph of the town. I don’t recall taking a photograph of the town from here before so I need to put that right.

In Florenceville my lawyer was unavailable but I was able to open a bank account at the bank next door. Mind you, it took them long enough and a couple of good kicks to the computer in order to do it, but there it is.

I now have 200 dollars in a Canadian bank account, and I’ll be adding to that here and there as I go around.

I took the old road down alongside the Saint John River down to Hartland and there’s a really good spec along there to stop and take a photo of the covered bridge there.

It’s the world’s longest covered bridge at 391 metres long and, much to everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t covered when it was built. The covering was actually added about 20 years later, but not many people know that.

There used to be a railway line, maintained by the Canadian Pacific, that ran up along the Saint John River.

From what I understand, which may or may not be the case, that the CPR was looking for a way out of its obligations out here beyond Montreal and in the Spring of 1987, the weather came to the aid of the company where the spring ice-flow took half of the bridge down just outside Woodstock.

That was the best excuse that the company could wish for, and the line was abandoned immediately.

At the Planning Office in Woodstock, I was out of luck. It had been closed for Labour Day and was not due to re-open until Wednesday.

I wasn’t the only person to be taken by surprise by that. A local came in with some business to do, and he was quite upset. He had a good go at Public Servants and suggested that we change our jobs. How could I disagree?

However, it wasn’t a completely wasted journey down here. Parked up here is a Chevrolet 1300 pick-up. No idea about it really but I imagine that it’s from the 1960s. But that’s just a pure guess.

It’s had a makeover and is being used as a mobile advertising display, and that’s not a bad idea. It’s certainly attracted my attention, and probably the attention of many others too.

In the Health Food shop that has just opened, they didn’t have any vegan cheese but the girl there set me right about the whole kind of different things. There’s nothing much exciting going on around here but the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival starts on the 13th and she thinks that there might be camping in one of the forest parks about 20 mins from Fredericton. That should be useful.

She was telling me about all these places to go to in Woodstock “its near here and just by there” and she noticed the puzzled look on my face.
“How long have you been in Woodstock?” she asked
“Ohhh, about 15 minutes”, I replied.

I do know that there’s a swimming pool here and so I went for a swim – and a good wash and shower – but its surely no surprise to you to learn that it’s closed for maintenance. It closed down the day I arrived and it opens up the day after I leave.

You couldn’t make it up.

But that girl was right about the vegan cheese in the Atlantic Superstore. And while I was waiting in the queue at a shop I noticed a magazine that told me that Canada’s biggest worry is the grief “given to us by our best friends across the border”. Why is this a surprise? I’ve been saying this for years

If I do come to live in Canada, I’ll be okay for work here. I could have a job on the techie counter at Walmart’s Woodstock branch because I knew more about the products on sale than the girl on the counter. It was me who had to insert the additional memory card into someone’s Blackberry and then program it – and I’d never even seen a Blackberry before.

I bought a 8GB micro-SD card for my Samsung mobile phone and wasn’t that an excellent idea? I now have an MP3 player for far cheaper than I would ever have imagined anywhere else.

also were having a DVD sale – piles of DVDs on sale for $5 – I bought 4 – 1 box contained 25 John Wayne films, another had 20 spaghetti westerns, a third had 9 commando B-features the fourth had 8 B-movie westerns. I’m set up for the long boring nights now.

But it’s a surprise to see who is starring or otherwise appearing in some of these films. There’s Klaus Kinski, father of Natasha of course, Lee van Kleef, Robert Mitchum, Van Johnson, Michael Rennie, Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Lloyd Bridges, Chuck Connors, Cesar Romero, Jose Torres, Eddy Chandler, Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, Ricky Nelson, Slim Pickens, Burt Lancaster, John Ireland (is he father of Jill?) to mention just a dozen all of whom went on to greater things.

And that is of course before we mention John Wayne himself.

On the way back to my little plot of land I have a bizarre encounter with two young boys riding bicycles towards me on the wrong side of the road.

That wasn’t all that I encountered either.

Away in the distance was a rainbow. There had been a storm somewhere and the wind had blown the residue towards me, and the sun had caught it full-on. I hope that the photo comes out as well as it looked in reality because it really was a nice thing to see.

I’d come up the back way from Woodstock, missing out Centreville, and just before I joined the road that goes down to the USA border I came across the Presque Ile stream and a lovely girder bridge that was also worth a photo.

We have different issues about whether or not this image will come out. I can’t believe how late it was and the light was going already. I hope that this photo comes out properly too.

EPIC HALL

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