Category Archives: Amber

Thursday 6th October 2016 – I FELT THE PAIN …

… this morning of the last two days on the road. It was a struggle to crawl out of bed and start out.

but I had to do it because I have a very long day tomorrow and so if I’m going to take a break, tomorrow during the day is the best time.

So we went off to the tyre depot, in another load of fog and hanging cloud, to say hello again to everyone and for a coffee. And once that was accomplished, there was work to do. Rachel had some deliveries that needed to be made in Florenceville. Everyone else was busy and so I volunteered to go. “Sing for your supper” and all of that.

Next stop was Woodstock, and so I set off down the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River. Not that I could see anything because the fog billowing off the river was blanketing everything.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was rather crowded in Strider. The fog was lifting too. I went into the Atlantic Superstore for some shopping for lunch, and here I hit the jackpot. Not only were hot-cross buns on sale, but there were a few packets reduced by 50%. As you know, I have a long way to go tomorrow night and also, the food is pretty miserable on Air Transat. The hot-cross buns will fill in the gap quite nicely.

There’s a grassy area and boat slipway at the back of the Council car park in Woodstock, overlooking the River Meduxnekeag, and this is one of my favourite places to stop for lunch. And here I am yet again.

In the sunshine, eating my butty, reading my book, chatting to the boaters and … errr … closing my eyes to relax in the beautiful weather with the glorious autumn colours on the trees on the opposite bank of the river, there’s nothing more pleasant than this.

Once I’d come back into the Land of the Living, I had work to do. Tomorrow, Strider is being laid up for the winter and so I need to have everything sorted out.

A huge pile of rubbish went into the bins for a start, and then I tipped everything out of the back, sorted and stacked it into the boxes where it will live for the winter (and threw away another pile of stuff) and then slid the boxes back under the bed.

Some of the foodstuffs won’t keep, especially as I’ve no idea when if ever I might be coming back, so I made up a box of all of that to give to Rachel. And then there was some stuff that I wanted to take back to europe with me.

On the way back I stopped at the car wash and gave Strider a good going-over with the pressure lance ready for putting away. And once I’d arrived back at Rachel’s, I took out everything that was to come out. There wasn’t anyone about though and so I settled down in the sun to read a book. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Darren came back and I had a guided tour of the garage. While I’d been away he’d tidied up in there and the place was looking quite impressive. It won’t be long before he’ll be in a position to strip down the engine on Perdy in the Pink.

Once Rachel and Amber returned, we had tea and then we chatted for hours about this and that. After all, I have to be realistic and say that I’ve no idea if ever I’ll be able to come back to Canada. This might be my last chance to see them.

But I was soon in bed. I hadn’t been up to much all day and by now my batteries were really flat. I’m struggling along now and I can feel everything – all the aches and pains all over the place.

Sunday 25th September – I MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED …

…last night. Crawled into bed round about 09:30 and I remember nothing whatsoever – not even going to ride the porcelain horse – until the alarm at 06:00.

But being awake is one thing, being out and about is quite something else and I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit for a considerable number of hours. It was definitely something of a strain this last few days.

In the living room Amber was watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and so I went to join her. Darren was there too so we had a good chat about this and that too. When Rachel came back we attacked a huge mound of washing up followed by a pot of coffee but I couldn’t keep going and it wasn’t long before I was back in my room again and that was that for a couple of hours.

Later in the afternoon we had to empty the trailer of everything that was in it. The pulling season is over and everything needs to be cleaned, tidied and put away. I grabbed my tote box with all of my stuff in it and put it back into Strider and then joined in the general mayhem.

The garage needed to be cleaned and tidied too because the engine is being taken out of the pulling truck. Every year or so it’s taken out and dismantled to be checked for wear and tear. After all, it’s an impressive high-performance alcohol-fuelled racing engine and subject to incredible strain. The garage has to be scrupulously clean so that dust doesn’t enter any of the working parts and so that wasn’t the job of five minutes either.

Eventually we had the garage clean enough and we could winch the pulling truck out of the trailer and have it ready for dismantling, but by this time it was tea-time so we all knocked off. I had a lovely vegetable stir-fry.

We had quite a chat later – about all kinds of things but mainly about what I intend to do when I return to Europe. Of course, I have a few ideas but they are all unpleasant ones and quite disappointing but it helps to put things on the table and discuss them. But by this time I was out of it again and after a brief attempt to watch another film with Darren and Amber I was back in my little room.

And for good this time.

Saturday 24th September 2016 – WELL DONE AMBER!

And quite right too!

But first, let us turn to this morning. And when I awoke at about 05:30 I was frozen to the marrow. I’ve never been as cold as this for a long time, not even when I was up in Labrador last year, I reckon.

But here’s a thing – I was locked into the trailer. That was necessary because with all kinds of items of considerable value in the trailer with me, you never know what is going to happen through the night when you are parked up in the Wilderness.

And what made things even worse was that Darren and Amber in the truck awoke at about 08:00 and fired up the engine to warm up the truck, and thinking that I would be still asleep, they left me to it. When they finally let me out, I was in no state at all.

A big plate of beans on toast soon brought me round and then we had work to do. First, though, I walked down the field and round the corner to have a look at Mount Katahdin. It’s the highest mountain in Maine, at just over 5,250 feet, and it’s always impressed me, even if it does happen to be shrouded in cloud today.

But back at the ranch, we pull the tractor out of the trailer, started it up and tuned it up, and then Darren let Amber have another little run around the field in it, because he has a cunning plan.

You may have noticed that earlier this morning when we awoke, we were alone on the field here by the airstrip. But a couple of hours later, you can see that there has been a dramatic change in circumstances.

There are over 60 trucks and tractors pulling here at Millinocket today, apparently. There are about 8 different classes of tractors, but Perdy in the Pink only has one competitor in its class, and that’s it just there.

One of the classes is for diesel 4×4 trucks, and that’s quite interesting to watch. Not for the puling itself because, to be quite honest, I’ve seen sports that are much more exciting than this, but because of the plumes of smoke and diesel emissions from the trucks, that blanket the whole arena

I’m not quite sure what the local environmental inspectors would make of all of this, but remember that this is the USA and the Environment is not all that high on the agenda.

By the time mid-afternoon came around, it was time for Perdy in the Pink and the 2-wheel drive modified truck competition.

And do you recognise the driver in the truck? It’s not Darren, and it’s not Hannah of course because she’s gone back to University. In fact, young Amber is making her competitive debut behind the wheel of Perdy in the Pink in front of quite a large crowd of people.

And here she is down the end of the field at the end of her first competitive run. She confused herself a little somewhere along the road and had the steering wrong and as a result, could only manage a run of 287 feet at a maximum speed of 32.1 mph. The other competitor in the class made 324 feet.

But what you have to remember is that this is only her third ever time behind the wheel, and the very first time that she’s actually been coupled up to a load. As a result, she can be very proud of what she has managed to achieve today.

After that, while other competitors were lining up to take their runs, we went back to the trailer for an inquest on the first run, with Amber walking on air! Darren chatted to Amber and gave her a few more tips, and then we went for some food.

I discovered that the chips had been fried in oil which was good news for me, and so I went to buy a plate, only to find out that they had sold out.And the coffee, the first of the day, was totally disgusting. Back home, I wouldn’t even wash Caliburn’s windscreen with it.

We didn’t have too long to mess about though, because as the sun went down in the evening, it was time for Perdy in the Pink’s second and final run.

And so off set Amber down the track again, with the beautiful Mount Katahdin silhouetted in the setting sun in the background.

And I wish that they had started the competition an hour earlier today so that we would have had some light to see what was going on.

And she makes it down to the end of the track in one piece again, much to everyone’s delight, especially Darren’s.

And with very good reason too because Amber had taken on board her father’s advice she managed to increase her distance. Not by 10 feet, or 20 feet, or even 50 feet, but she covered a magnificent 357 feet – an increase of 70 feet, at a maximum speed of 30 mph.

Her competitor managed to increase his distance for the second run, but only by about 20 feet, which meant that Amber had actually won the second leg, in only her second ever pull, and that is an astonishing achievement against someone of 40 years experience.

of course, as we pulled the tractor back to our little camp, Amber developed her own little fan club of supporters and I noticed a discreet exchanging of e-mail addresses going on.

And here’s another thing – there were competitors here today by the name of Pelletier, Voisine, Michaud and a few other names of French origin, all of whom lived in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont. It just goes to show you how much of Upper Canada the British signed away at the Treaty of Webster-Ashburton

Just so that that there is no mistake or misunderstanding, Amber can’t be only 13 years of age because the minimum age to drive a vehicle in this competition is 14. So now you know.

We loaded up everything into the trailer and then set off for home. And finding a new way through the lanes that completely missed out the town of Millinocket, we were back on the highway heading north in no time at all.

We passed a few of our fellow competitors on the way back, and then turned off at Bridgewater to go down to the border crossing. there, we had to re-do the paperwork and reclaim our documents, and then we could cover the remaining 5 miles or so back here.

Once we were safely installed, I grabbed a couple of rounds of toast and that was me, gone. I was totally wasted and went straight to bed.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

Friday 23rd September 2016 – I WAS OFF …

…so early and in such a rush this morning that I forgot to take a photo of my motel at Caraquet last night. I’d had a communication during the late evening to say that the lorry had been fixed and the tractor pull was on. It’s only about 350 kilometres from here to Centreville but it’s over some dreadful roads through the mountain and they were planning to leave at 15:30 so there was no time to hang about.

Not only that, the weather was dreadful. It was freezing cold and the gorgeous sunny day that we had had yesterday was now miserable, grey and wet with this freezing rain that was getting in everywhere. I wasn’t going to enjoy this drive one little bit.

But stil, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish and I hit the streets. Leaving behind me my breakfast cereal as I was to discover later. There’s always something that I leave behind me, isn’t there?

The drive as far a Bathurst was quite uneventful, apart from the dreadful weather, that is, and I found a cheap Ultramar service station where I could fuel up Strider. Shortly afterwards I found a huge Atlantic Superstore where I could stop to lay in supplies for the next few days, and where fuel was even cheaper that at the Ultramar – but then, that kind of thing always happens, doesn’t it?

The road from Bathurst over to the Saint John valley goes right into the mountains and through the Mount Carleton National Park and some of the roads through there that we will have to take are quite dreadful.

It’s all up and down, through the rainstorms and the low hanging clouds and with a good length of dirt road that I remember driving on back in winter 2003 through the pitch black and the snow … "no you didn’t – you came a different way" – ed

Further into the mountains and the weather hadn’t improved any. In fact I was beginning to wonder if we would be having snow any time soon – that was what it was looking like to me.

In fact I was starting to become rather worried. If the weather doesn’t improve any, we can forget all about tractor pulling and I will have had this long and exhausting drive for nothing. And after a good spell on the dirt road, Strider was looking disgraceful. He’ll be needing a wash.

Hitting the Saint John valley I drove along the old route of the Trans Canada Highway for a while and found a place to park for lunch right by the river, at the back of the seasonal camp site. And having demolished my butty I was back on the road again for Centreville, completely forgetting that I needed to go to the bank at Florenceville for some US money. I shall just have to do without, I suppose.

We went back home and sorted out the tractor and Amber hopped into the driving seat to move it around.

It’s the first time that she’s actually been behind the steering wheel under power so Darren kept her under close supervision. After all, it’s a mere 3,500 horsepower so I was told, and it’s not every young girl of Amber’s age who will have the opportunity, never mind the confidence, to handle that kind of power.

She was doing really well too. She wasn’t just along for the ride

Eventually we set off and had the usual histrionics at the USA border. There’s an extremely long and complicated (and expensive) procedure to be undergone and as a result no-one has really bothered with it in the past. But a Canadian tractor-puller took his vehicle across into the USA – and sold it. And these things are worth hundreds of thousands – the engine is worth $80,000 on its own. And because the border crossing wasn’t registered he escaped paying the import duty and the sales tax.

As a result, the people at the border post had their derrieres very soundly kicked by Head Office and so now everything is done by the letter of the law. And it takes ages to do.

But we were soon back on the road and headed off down towards Millinocket, stopping off for diesel and also for some food. And as we headed south, the clouds blew away. By the time we arrived, the skies were clear and you could see millions of stars.

It was also freezing cold.

What might have been a major problem was that the raceway was all chained up and padlocked – there was no way in. But regular readers of this rubbish will remember from several events that have occurred in the past that a chain and padlock isn’t going to keep me out for long. Five minutes and we were inside, and no-one would ever guess how we managed it.

Darren set a methanol fire – about two inches of methanol in an old saucepan and he tossed a lighted rag into it. The liquid doesn’t burn – just the gases – and the evaporation is slow enough that it lasted for about an hour or so. We were crowded around it to try to keep warm and that wasn’t easy. After a while I could smell something burning, and I was shocked to realise that it was me! I had to move my chair back into the cold.

By now I was pretty tired and so I sloped off to bed. Darren is having the front seats of the lorry, Amber the rear and so I’m having the mattress in the trailer.

I’m glad that we are only staying for the one night.

Saturday 10th September 2016 – NOW THAT WAS MUCH MORE LIKE IT!

In bed at a reasonably early hour and despite the odd trip down the corridor it was totally painless and I didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off at 06:00. I wouldn’t mind doing that again. I felt much better after that.

And we had a slow start to the day seeing as how not much was likely to happen here. Darren and Amber went off to the tyre depot, and after a somewhat late breakfast Rachel and I spent the morning doing stuff and having a long chat about this, that and the other.

But these insurance problems are never-ending, aren’t they? We went to print off the proposal form – and the printer ran out of ink. It’s almost as if I’m destined not to take out this insurance, isn’t it?

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we don’t have problems, we have solutions. So I forwarded the e-mail up to the tyre depot and they printed it out up there and brought it back when the place closed. So what’s going to be the next hitch now?

For lunch I had a couple of wraps filled with vegetables and my vegan cheese, and then we we had a little task to perform. The golf-cart had broken down and so it needed to be looked at. After quite a few complicated manoeuvres and procedures, one of which involved a rather large hammer, we came to the conclusion that the starter solenoid had failed. That’s a mail order job for a later date.

But while I was down there I washed off all of the small plastic storage boxes that I had taken out of Strider the other day and forgotten to clean off. They’ve come up nicely and are sitting there drying out now, ready to go back inside the pickup.

We hadn’t finished yet either. The air-conditioning unit in the living room had packed up a while ago and a new replacement had arrived. We decided to fit it, and that involved cutting a new wooden blocking panel as the new unit is larger than the old one.

We had already made a start when Darren’s brother-in-law turned up. He’s a joiner by profession and had all of the right tools with him in his truck, so he took over the work and the job was done in half an hour. Having the correct tools doesn’t half make a difference to a task like this.

By now it was tea time and we were quite numerous – Amber had a friend round and there was also Darren’s sister and her husband (he who had helped us with the air-conditioning), so tea stretched out for a good couple of hours while we sat around chatting.

It was a beautiful evening and as a rather large pile of rubbish had been gathering all around the place, we decided that we would have a garden bonfire.

This was really quite pleasant, all of us sitting around outside toasting ourselves by the flames in the warmth of a September evening, and it’s a shame that the photo hasn’t done the scene very much justice.

You might remember back from March that the big Nikon D5000 has now officially ceased once more to function, and I’m having to work with a cheap one that I bought in Quebec in 2012 when I had a similar difficulty. I was planning on buying a much better camera but I’m not sure whether there’s much point in spending a shed-load of money on something like that, given my state of health.

I wasn’t out for all that long. It was soon bed-time for me so I came inside, ready for an early night and hoping that I would have just as much of a good sleep as I had had the previous evening.

Wednesday 7th September 2016 – WHAT A GOOD DECISION …

… that was, to book into that hotel at the back of the coach station.

I was stark out as soon as I laid down my weary head. We did have an interruption at about 23:45 when a baby started to cry, but that can happen in the best of places and it was a thing of five minutes. And then I needed to make a trip down to the corridor at about 03:00. I finally came to my senses, such as they are, at 04:45, having had a good night’s sleep in this extremely comfortable bed. The night porter’s call at 05:00 was therefore rather superfluous but it was nice to know that it was available and that it works.

But I’ll tell you this – $30-odd less per night than sleeping out at an airport hotel and while the comfort is rather less, I don’t need most of the difference. For the time and money that I save and for the convenience of being in the city centre, if I do ever make it back to Montreal I’ll be coming here, even if it does involve a 500-metre drag of the suitcase. And remember – when I stayed in Lille the other year I dragged it farther than that – and uphill too!

Let’s face it. It’s seen better days, this hotel, but I had a good shower, a really comfortable sleep, and no-one stole my boots. What more do you need?

I was too early for breakfast of course, but that can’t be helped. My bus was more important. I was at the coach station in no time flat and a friendly security guard unlocked the door to the left-luggage room and took my voucher so that I could recover my suitcase and Strawberry Moose, and we took our place in the queue, chatting to a guy who said he was a scouser, although he sounded more Northern Irish to me.

The trip to Sainte-Foy, on the edge of the city of Quebec, took just under three hours and I spent the time in half-asleep mode. After all, it was quite early in the morning. And it’s a good job that I didn’t go to sleep (or is it?) because this bus apparently goes right out to Sept Iles, somewhere else where we’ve been before and where I can catch a train to Labrador.

But when we reached our destination – Sainte Foy, not Sept Iles – a couple of mugs of coffee and a few rounds of toast and jam revived my spirits somewhat, although I’m not sure that you really need to say more than once that you don’t want butter on your toast.

But what’s this all about? That chewing gum was disgusting – $2:00 for three slices and it tasted of nothing but rubber. As for the viagra however, I tried that once many years ago whilst in the company of the much – maligned Percy Penguin, who didn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserved to back in those days. And I clearly didn’t swallow the viagra quickly enough – I had a stiff neck for a week.

And you all know that the wish that I have about my departure is to go suddenly while in the arms of a nubile nymphet a third of my age. Were I to be lucky enough to find a willing volunteer, the viagra would come in handy in those circumstances. But it would take them three days before they could put the lid on the coffin.

Coming over the Pont Pierre Laporte, which we’ve visited before, there was a ship a-sailing … "a-dieseling, you mean" – ed … by, up the river towards Montreal. It’s too far away to see what it is, but it’s the only likely candidate for today’s Ship of the Day and so we’ll include it in here.

We’ll see if we can identify it at a later date when I can access the record of the Port of Montreal … "he couldn’t" – ed.

But on the subject of Pierre Laporte, the whole world is currently up in arms about what they perceive as brown-skinned terrorism, but never forget that Pierre Laporte, a leading Canadian politician, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in cold blood by white-skinned Catholic terrrorists during a major terrorism in Canada – and some of the perpetrators of the crise d’Octobre were given a free passage to Cuba by the craven Canadian Government.

And not only that, some modern-day Quebec politician proposed to erect a plaque in their honour. Yes, and the Canadians complain about brown-skinned terrorists. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

But now the bus is in, and it’s two hours from Sainte-Foy to Riviere du Loup.

So feeling a bit more like it after the coffee, I did a pile of paperwork on the laptop and listened to some good music to pass the time. I’m in Traffic mode right now and I had a good listen to Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired from the magnificent On The Road album, because that’s just how I’m feeling right now. And if he can play a lead guitar solo like the last four minutes of that track when he’s feeling do uninspired, whatever could he do if he were to have some inspiration?

By the time I got to Phoe … errr … Riviere du Loup I wasn’t all that far behind where I wanted to be. But we were late and the connecting bus was already in so I had no chance to buy something to eat and drink. Luckily, I still had a packet of the vegan crisps that Alison had bought for me in Belgium and which had survived the voyage across the Atlantic. They didn’t survive the voyage down to Edmunston anyway.

And our Holland Hurricane has internet available and I can actually configure it to work. All I need now is a few people on line to talk to, but as soon as all of my friends see me come on line, they all clear off rather smartish-like.

We had a 15-minute stop at Edmundston (it’s nice to be back in New Brunswick anyway. Home Sweet Home, an hour in front of Quebec time of course) which was plenty of time to visit the gentleman’s rest room and to pick up a coffee. That’s me organised now for the two hour journey that remains.

Much to my – and everyone else’s – surprise, the bus was bang on time to the minute on its arrival at Florenceville. Rachel, my niece, was already there and waiting and so that was ideal. She had a few errands to perform and then it was off to Centreville and the tyre depot. Rachel went on to do some more errands and I came back here with Darren and Amber.

First task was to sort out Strider. He’s been in his little hidey-hole since last October and needed to see the light of day. Even though the battery had had the odd trickle-charge it was a little flaky so that will need to be replaced, and the tyres were down. And not just that, but some creature or other had made a nest with the soundproofing from underneath the bonnet. But it’s good to be back behind the wheel of Strider again – just like old times and as soon as I can resolve this continuing insurance issue we’ll be in business.

Darren and I had quite a chat but I eventually called it a night. It’s far too much for me these days. It’s amazing just how tired you become doing nothing but sitting around all day on a bus.

And it’s nice to see some friendly faces, but a couple of weeks with me will soon take care of all of that.

Tuesday 25th August 2015 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that the address of my little kingdom out on Mars Hill Road has now been approved by Canada Post and I now have a Canadian postal code.

The bad news is that it’s a different one to the one that I’ve already given out to everyone.

And so that’s going to complicate things even more when I give one lot of information to one group of people and another lot to others. But there again, if life were so easy and uncomplicated, no-one would be in too much of a hurry to leave it. In any case, it’s hardly my fault that it took Service New Brunswick almost 4 years to allocate the property address.

As for the postal code, the details had been sitting in the Centreville Post Office and they had somehow overlooked to ‘phone me back, but with Rachel needing a pile of stamps, it seemed like a good opportunity to go down there and chivvy them up a little.

More good news is that I have a Community Mail Box for my post, but the bad news is that it’s not inside the Post Office itself (that’s payable) but in a battery of boxes at the side of the road on the main drag up near my land. I can picture a soggy mass of animal-chewed papier-maché when I go back there after 10 months away.

I’ve also been running errands today. A pile of stuff for the shop has been delivered to different addresses and needed to be picked up, and what’s the point of having a pick-up if you don’t put it to good use? It gave me a chance to go to the food store and stock up with goodies.

And I needed to as well, for my little voyage during the night had left me starving. I’d started off in Liechtenstein This all started off with me making a visit to the barracks of the Liechtenstein Army and there were all kinds of goings-on going on in there that ended up completely out of hand and which led to me making a formal complaint to the commanding officer.

From there Liz and I were travelling somewhere and we had a young girl with us. We stopped somewhere for a coffee and we were joined at our table by another couple who were intrigued to find out what was going on. Liz and I were discussing the radio programmes and planning on making a few changes – I was going to introduce some kind of discussion about French football and Liz would include a little craft section. Then Liz got up to go somewhere and this girl went with her, and I noticed that she was wearing my boots.

This left me with rather cold feet, I can tell you.

This afternoon Darren took Strider for a ride. He reckons that the little misfire that I’ve been noticing isn’t a misfire at all. He thinks that it’s either a flat spot on the tyre or a warped brake drum. And bearing in mind the high fuel consumption, my money is on the brake drum.

This evening Darren and I made major plans to have a mega-tidy-up before I get on my way elsewhere and that seems to be our project for tomorrow night. I’ll go down to the scrapyard at Woodstock and see what they will take.

But the high spot of yesterday was the very lengthy discussion that Darren and I had about economy, false economy, and all kinds of things that young people will find useful a little later in life. And Amber was sitting there by the side of us. So I turned round to her and said “have you understood all of that, Amber?”

To which Amber replied “what?”

-1

Sunday 23rd August 2015 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST

And that applies even in Canada. No alarm calls over here on a Sunday so I could have a decent lie in. And even when I awoke, there was no rush as nothing starts here much before 11:00

The Taylor Breakfast Brunches are legendary and this was another one of those. No-one leaves the table hungry after that.

This afternoon, I finished off emptying out the big freezer that had developed a problem. Most of the remaining stuff was stowed into the other freezer and what was left didn’t really matter too much. I then switched the thing off, shovelled out the loose ice and spent a while every half an hour doing that. Finally I filled it with newspaper to soak up the water as it defrosted, and changed that several times.

Eventually the freezer was empty and dried off, and now we have to leave it to evaporate. Once it’s totally dry, I can check the wiring and see where the fault in the circuit might be. I suspect the wall socket, but we shall see.

We went out for another meal. Rachel has done some good cooking just recently and she deserves a night off. Nowhere exciting, but going out is going out after all.

Back here, Amber had a copy of the Grumpy Cat film so we watched that. And then I went off to bed.

I can’t remember when it was that I have last had a Sunday en famille. I’ll have to watch out – I might be starting to become used to this.

-2

Saturday 22nd August 2015 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day in today.

Rachel, Amber and Amber’s friend Julianna went off to the beach at Mactaquac, even though it was a cloudy, misty day, but I had so much to do that I decided to stay in and do it, in the company of Kujo the Killer Cat.

Of course, my day was plagued with interruptions so I didn’t get done anything like as much as I was hoping but nevertheless I’ve broken the back of a lot of the outstanding stuff that has built up over the last couple of days.

One of the interruptions was the start of the new Welsh Premier League season and newly-promoted Llandudno were playing Aberystwyth. With the benefit (for once) or a very-high-speed internet connection, I was able to watch the whole match and see Llandudno win their first-ever game in the WPL.

When Rachel came back, she brought me a pizza from the place down the road in Woodstock, which was really nice of her. We had quite a chat and then I went off to bed. Clearly the strain has been far too much for me today.

I shall have to have a little rest tomorrow to recover.

Friday 21st August 2015 – DOESN’T STRIDER LOOK SMART?

He now has his number plates fitted.

And I would like to say that he is totally street legal, but I can’t quite say that until Monday.

In fact he is, but the insurance certificate is made out with his temporary number plate, and this needs to be changed to his permanent number. It’s not desperately important to do that but if I’m going over across to the Great Satan, I can imagine all kinds of complications. I can get into enough trouble over there without actually asking for it.

This morning we had this wheel to refit onto the golf cart, and seeing as how I took it off, I reckon that Amber should put it back on. A girl of 12 has to start somewhere, especially if there is someone there to supervise and give advice, and all in all she was quite good at it

The parts for Strider had come by the time we arrived at the tyre depot so we stuck him up on the lift. Changing the plugs was another task that wasn’t as easy as it might have been. The engine in Strider is a basic “Cologne” V6 of 2.5 litres bored out and enlarged to 4.0, and while those engines were really simple and easy to work on back in 1962, the addition of all kinds of emissions control mechanisms have covered everything up and makes it difficult to reach.

The nearside plugs are a nightmare to reach, but we had the brilliant idea of taking off the wheel. Doing that, the plugs were quite easily accessible. And we soon found the cause of the misfire. The most difficult plug to reach (but easy from through the wheel arch) was cracked. It looks as if someone has had a go at taking it out from up above, cracked the porcelain, and then given up.

After many interruptions, Strider was finished but the number plates STILL hadn’t come. And so I went round to where I bought him from and the boss was out but, sure enough, there were the plates and the registration document sitting on his desk. His mechanic fitted the plates for me and there we were.

The trouble is that now it’s 17:00 and the insurance offices are closed until Monday. Hence I’ll have to wait until then to change things around.

I went off up the Highway to the New Brunswick-Quebec border through a tremendous thunderstorm with the cruise control set at 120 kph all the way. ON the way back, just about to pull off at Grand Sault to pick up the supper (Rachel was Tupperware-ing at Nackawik) and Rhys rang up for a chat. As a result I was home later than intended.

But the good run seems to have cleared out Strider a little. He’s running a little freer than before and it looks (at first glance) if he’s doing better on fuel although I’m not counting my chickens before they have hatched.

Thursday 20th August 2015 – I’VE SPENT ALL DAY …

… waiting around.

Well, that’s not quite true. First job was that Amber had a flat tyre on her golf cart so while Rachel went off to work, Amber and I jacked up the golf cart and took off the wheel. We then shot off to the Tyre place, stopping en route to drop off the rubbish with the dustbin man who had passed by before we had had time to put the stuff out.

It seemed that Amber had hit a rock with the golf cart and it had knocked the tyre off the beading, so that was only a matter of minutes to fix.

All day, the parts never came for Strider, and neither did the number plates, and so it was a pretty fruitless day from that point of view, but I did have a lengthy chat with Bob about solar panels and a few lengthy chats with a few other people too. It’s nice to be friendly every now and again.

Later that evening, I took Strider to Woodstock to pick up some stuff, including a collapsible chair on special offer at Canadian Tire and then we came back on the motorway. And not only is this chronic misfire quite chronic, he’s drinking fuel at an unbelievable rate and there seems to be a speed limiter set at 3300 revs. Not that 3300 rpm is ever going to bother me, but the fuel consumption is. I need to do something about that or else his tank won’t be big enough to go around Labrador

Wednesday 19th August 2015 – HERE I AM …

… at 03:30 at Riviere du Loup, and this is the bus that brought me here – a Prevost.

It took that length of time for the bus to come all the way out here but to be honest I don’t remember all that much about it. I managed to have something of a doze.

But here, I had to change buses as this one that I was on is off down the Gaspe Peninsula. I’m waiting for the Coach Atlantic bus that will be here at about 04:00 ready to leave at 04:30 for Moncton, and that’s going to drop me off at Florenceville.

And this is the Coach Atlantic bus, an older Prevost, that brought me to Florenceville. We’re at Edmundston when this photo was taken, stopping to pick up and drop off passengers and also parcels because the bus does a parcels delivery.

And that gave all of us the time to have a coffee and to visit the bathroom, which I for one needed after all of that drive.

Strangely enough, we arrived at Florenceville on time, and Rachel and Amber were there to meet me. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I will do this bus trip again. It was extremely painless, and much more comfortable than I ever imagined it to be.

I was dropped off at the garage to pick up my new toy, Strider the Ranger, and then took it round for its safety check. It passed okay, but I’ve had a new spare tyre put on it. The one that was there was quite worn and in any case it was the wrong size. I may as well have it done first as last, and it gave me an opportunity to clean and grease all of the spare wheel fittings.

Armed with a valid safety certificate, I went off to the insurance and there I had to lie down in a darkened room while I recovered from the shock. North American motor insurance is horrendous, even worse than Belgium.

I took the certificate back to the garage so that he could have a copy and so that he could register the sale and obtain the number plates. At the moment, Strider only has a temporary registration certificate.

On the way back up here, I noticed that Strider has a chronic misfire on one cylinder so I’ve booked it in on Friday to have a full service – that’s something else that I may as well have done before I go too far.

The three of us (Darren and Hannah are tractor-pulling this weekend) went out for a meal later at Woodstock and a good old chat, to catch up with what we have missed since last October. And then I came back here and crashed out.

Hardly a surprise.

-2

Sunday 31st October 2010 – I ATTENDED HALLOWEEN TODAY

First time ever that I have done something as North-American as this.

After what can only be described as a leisurely brunch (with my “never ever call me before midday on Sunday” I would fit in so well here) we all sat down at the table and started pumpkin-carving.

First job was to top and then to empty 15 or so pumpkins and that led to seeds and flesh everywhere. Darren had a pile of images and so we photocopied them and used them as templates for the carving.

We sellotaped them to the pumpkins, pricked out the patterns and then joined up the dots with a small knife. And considering that I’d never ever done it before, my group of bats, my witch and my “screaming skull” came out quite well, and I was so impressed. Little Amber even did a freehand carving of Strawberry Moose (you can see him modelling for his portrait) and that was pretty impressive too.

Darren’s friend George took a few pumpkins down to the gate and I set the rest up in the living room and put tea lights in them so that I could photograph them.

On a long exposure (which counteracted the flickering of the flame) the image came out really well and the effect is pretty good.

After Hannah and I had lined the drive with flaming pumpkins Rachel and I took Zoe, Amber and Amber’s friend (and Strawberry Moose who had donned a tutu and a bumble bee headgear for the occasion) out trick-or-treating.

It was all terribly tacky as you might expect but it was also fun and you can’t spend a Halloween amongst a family here in North America and not participate in the entertainment.

And tomorrow I’m moving on. My time here is up. I’ll be driving to Bathurst where my journey started in 2003 and heading north from there. The idea is to go around the shore of Northern New Brunswick and then round the Gaspe peninsula to Matane and then take the ferry over to Baie Comeau, where the adventure really began, and that will be the Great Circle route completed.

-3

Saturday 30th October 2010 – TODAY HAS BEEN QUITE CIVILISED …

… and hasn’t it been a long time since anything like that ever happened?

In fact we had a recycling day today and with Darren’s big pick-up truck, Rachel, Hannah and I did a tour of the neighbourhood picking up glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium drinks cans.

Once we had a full load on board we went off to a recycling plant in Bath about 10 miles away from here where we weighed it all in.

The plant was quite interesting – it was a simple hand-sorting operation where you tipped out your containers onto a kind-of counter and two people hand-sorted the cans and plastic and they also weighed the glass bottles, not by scales but by eye.

And having seen the price is on offer for scrap over here, not only do I now understand why in several cities that I’ve been to and down several roads that I’ve travelled I’ve seen gangs of people picking up the litter, I’m also going to bring over the scrap aluminium off the two caravans that I dismantled and weigh it in over here.

It was quite a windy day over here too and so the highlight was definitely this giant inflatable pumpkin that was busily making a bid for freedom down the highway in the general direction of the USA.

What you don’t see in the photo is the guy from a nearby house who was giving a rather desperate chase after it.

Thanks in no small measure to the long piece of rope that was tethered to it the guy managed to restrain it but it was touch-and-go at one stage and my money was definitely on the pumpkin.

I was also taken out old-car spotting too.

Darren took me to see his brother-in-law who lives just down the road. He has an old Cadillac convertible that he has restored from a rusty heap and had taken it out for a run-around this morning. And so we headed off down the road to catch him up.

This evening we all went out for pizza to celebrate Halloween and a good time was had by all. My pizza is the one in the foreground – the vegetarian one without cheese.

If I’m very lucky tomorrow I might get to spend some time with my great-nieces but the trouble with teenagers is that they always seem to have a much different agenda to any agenda that anyone else is ever planning. So I dunno.

Mind you, I have an important decision to make. Do I go out trick-or-treating with Amber and Zoe tomorrow night or do I stay behind with Hannah and hand out the candy?

But all three of them have decided that once Halloween is over I can take off my halloween mask. I don’t seem to be able to convince them that this is my REAL face.

-3

Thursday 28th October 2010 – AND HERE I AM …

… in the bosom of my family – or at least the friendly part of it.

They say that being an intellectual runs in our family and of course anyone who has ever been an intellectual really had to run, and so it is nice to report that there is a civilised bit somewhere, even if one has to cross the Atlantic to find it.

Strawberry Moose has disappeared of course. I have three great-nieces aged between 7 and 16 and they have already worked out a rota as to whose turn it is to moosenap him for which night and so I don’t imagine that I shall be seeing him again until I go back on the road.

This morning though I went into Houlton, which is just across the river in Great Satan.

Its claim to fame is that it’s the town in the USA that has the largest fire brigade per head of population, and when you look at the statistics you’ll find that it’s also the town in the USA that has been burnt to the ground the most often.

Are these facts related, I wonder.

It was also the site of a German Prisoner-of-War camp for German soldiers captured in north-west Europe following the D-Day landings and I had to hunt around for hours until I found any trace of that.

But any trace – the site has long since been built over and it’s now a civilian airport and new industrial estate. There is however a little monument to the place as it was, but that’s well-hidden in the undergrowth and I stumbled upon it in more ways that one.

I was talking to Darren and his Dad about the Templars and my theory that Columbus sailed to America to recover the treasure for Ferdinand and Isabella that the Templars had carried across to there when they escaped from La Rochelle in France in the fourteenth Century. We chatted for hours about this and when we returned home,

Darren switched on the TV and there was a programme on the Templars taking the treasure across the Atlantic and the efforts made to recover it. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction at times.

-2

EPIC HALL

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