Sunday 15th October – OUR STORY YESTERDAY …

… ended with me creeping off to bed at 20:00 or thereabouts for a lie down.

It restarted at about … errr … 00:30 when I suddenly sat bolt upright again. Wide awake, of course, and that was that.

Interestingly, I’d been on my travels too. Out to sea in a small ship again but I’ve no idea where to.

I wasn’t wide awake enough to do all that much though. I had a mess around on the laptop but couldn’t keep the concentration, and I read a book for a while. By 04:00 or thereabouts I was ready to go off to sleep again.

And go on my travels again. This time we were camping – at one of these steam engine rallies or something like that. We were one of the first to arrive, and we had two tents so we could have had the choice of places. But somehow we had managed to cram ourselves into a tiny corner where there wasn’t much room to move about. It was then that I realised that I had left my sleeping bag and spare clothes behind, and I’d also forgotten to bring the spare tent pegs. The plastic ones that we had were not up to doing the job in this soil.
And then I moved on to being in a restaurant – some kind of posh house-type of place. But I just can’t remember now what was going on there.

09:27 when I awoke (it’s Sunday so there’s no alarm of course) but it was … errr … nothing like that when I finally crawled out of bed. I missed my bed while I was away … "you’ll have to improve your aim" – ed … and so I made the most of it.

Making muesli was the highlight of the morning, seeing as I had run out, but this fridge is finished. There’s an issue with the thermostat which means that it switches off, the fridge warms up, the ice melts everywhere, and the thermostat doesn’t switch back in until it’s too late. Everything inside the fridge is drenched.

After breakfast I went down into town to see if any of the shops were open. But we are now on winter hours of course so the little supermarket down below was closed. But never mind – it was a nice walk and did me good.

Just by way of a change, I had a visitor. My neighbour who looks after my keys came to see how I was doing, which was nice. But not so nice seeing as I had everything out and the place was a total tip. Doesn’t it always happen like this? Still, I gave him and his wife a little present for being so kind.

And that, dear reader, is your lot. I managed to rustle up some food (pasta, veg and tomato sauce) for tea but apart from that I’ve hardly moved. I should be going for a walk but I’ll postpone that for today. I had a little walk at lunchtime as you know.

So tomorrow we’re back in the routine. There’s an alarm set, and I need to visit the shops for just about everything. I tested Caliburn and he started up, which was useful. It’s been nearly 9 weeks since he’s had a run out. A little drive will do him good.

And I’m going to look for some new stuff too. A fridge, a freezer and a washing machine. High time I organised myself.

Saturday 14th October 2017 – DESPITE THE FACT …

… that the hotel was not as quiet as I would have liked when I returned from the football, I was dead to the world all through the night until the alarm went off this morning.

And I wasn’t alone either.

I was on my travels last night with a couple of young girls and we were nipping about from island to island something like as if we were out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Yes, I know where I would much rather be right now.

I had some things to do on the laptop of course and then I stuck myself under the shower. Yes, I quite like this hotel.

The next problem was to find my prescription. As you might remember, I could only obtain half of the stuff that I needed at the chemists. But despite having a really good search of my affairs, I couldn’t find the things. In the end, I just went out for bread at the Moroccan bakers across the road and that was that.

With a couple of minutes to go, I turned out my affairs yet again and there they were – in the wrong pocket of the backpack. And then we had the confusion about trying to find the key to the room, which I had had in my hand not five minutes ago.

I dashed over to the chemists across the road but it was an old prehistoric place run by an old prehistpric woman and there was no chance of her having the stuff in stock.

She assured me that there was a chemist on the Gare du Midi but could I find it? I had a good look around but I couldn’t see it anywhere. In the end I gave up and went to pick up my ticket for the train.

As luck would have it, there was a seat available on the earlier train at 10:13. It would cost me €29:00 extra as there’s no Senior Citizens discount on that train, but Senior Citizens discount is available in First Class and that would cost me €30:00 with a free breakfast included.

High time that I spoilt myself a little, and the carrot cake was delicious.

And here’s a surprise. Dragging my oversize suitcase off the train, a passing policeman asked me if he could carry it for me. That’s a first, sin’t it?

It took a while to find the ticket office in the Metro at the Gare du Nord, In the end I located a ticket machine and it was reasonably straightforward to obtain a ticket. It’s the line 4 southwards from there that takes me all the way to the Gare Montparnasse.

But struggling through the automatic gates with the suitcase was something – the suitcase made it through but I was trapped. Nevertheless I managed to fight my way out.

There was a train pulling into the platform just as I arrived so I was able to wedge myself in a corner with my bags right by the door. A handy little place to be where I can just fall out of the door when we arrive.

I don’t remember the route from the Metro to the railway station being as complicated as it turned out to be. About four flights of stairs to negotiate with no lift, ramp or escalator either.

And then the climb up to the railway station itself involved several flights of stairs going upwards. This time there were some escalators, but only for people travelling down.

And I’m still trying to work that one out.

Having picked up the ticket from the machine I could make my way right across to the fartherst part of the station complex – the platforms at Vaugirard where my train should be waiting. And with me being an hour early, and being in possession of some bread and vegan cheese, I could make myself some butties.

There was quite a crowd of people waiting for the train – in fact, it was quite full. But it was a pleasant run through the Saturday afternoon sunshine. I had plenty to do on the return trip, but I dozed for most of the journey.

And I ran out of stuff to drink too. That was something of a tragedy and no mistake.

The one problem with the local buses is that no-one in the town seems to know how to organise a timetable correctly. The buses run every 50 minutes, and I don’t have a problem with that, especially as it only costs €1:00 a trip, but when the train arrives at 17:03, what’s the point of having the buses arrive at 16:53, meaning that you have to wait 40 minutes for the next one?

But apart from that, the whole thing is quite painless and by 18:15 I was back in my apartment having a coffee.

Despite everything that I needed to do, I couldn’t keep going. I was in bed by 20:30 and that was that. The whole thing has taken far too much out of me.

But as Barry Hay once famously said – “Something I gotta tell you, man – it’s good to be back home”.

Friday 13th October 2017 – IF EVER I GET …

… my hands on the person who decided that it would be amusing to play his music at full volume at 04:40 this morning, he’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

Having a little party in one’s room at 01:30 was rather disturbing, but this was something else completely.

Mind you, it’s taught me a lesson, which is to make sure that all of the windows in my room are closed in future. The noise wasn’t half as bad once I had done that.

And this was all a shame because my room was quite pleasant and I was very comfortable in my bed. I shall look further into this hotel once I return home.

So wide awake, I attacked some stuff on the internet that needed doing. And found some more stuff about my grandmother Ivy Cooper performing in Winnipeg in January 1923. Hard to believe that just 33 months later, she was back in the UK, remarried and giving birth to my mother.

With not having paid for breakfast, I had bought some raisin buns and orange juice from the supermarket while I was out last night, and they made a very agreeable breakfast.

And so all of that was followed by a nice shower and shave (and it really was a nice shower too) and change of clothes, and then I packed everything up to go.

The owner was on duty at the Hotel Midi-Zuid. He apologised for yesterday too and let me put my suitcase in the cupboard as my room wasn’t ready (so what REALLY happened yesterday?)

I wandered off down to the Gare du Midi to buy my ticket to Leuven. And here I made something of a mistake. It was well before 10:00 when I bought them so I had to pay full price.

But it was a nice day anyway so I went early (falling asleep on the train) and sat on the Square outside the railway station, soaking in the sun and also supping a well-earned coffee.

Later on, despite still aching just about everywhere, I decided to walk right across the city to the hospital. It was market day down the main street so I fought my way through the crowds, stopping to admire the fruit and veg stall with its lovely collection of grapes, which were so irresistible.

The Loving Hut wasn’t open yet but nevertheless I blagged my way in to buy some more vegan cheese, seeing as I had forgotten to bring over any from Canada. And the manager gave me a couple of names of mail-order vegan suppliers who might help me out.

And here’s a thing. it’s been a while since we’ve featured an old car in these pages.

I didn’t really have the time or the inclination to do much around the USA. I need to catch up, and here by the merest chance happens to be an old Mini Traveller.

rare enough in the UK these days so I never expected to see one here in Leuven.

But then again, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a mini van here in Brussels a couple of years ago.

Calling at St Pieter’s Hospital for the usual morning reasons, I continued on my way only to bump into one of my former co_kottiers from the Hostel. He’s now managing the little bistro place that’s attached to the other hostel and he invited me in for a coffee and a chat.

Unfortunately I was obliged to decline, seeing asI had a prior appointment, but I made a note. And then pressed on to the hospital.

We had a new student nurse today, so it was a good job that I knew the routine. And when she told me to “move over to the far side of the bed”, I couldn’t help but reply “that’s the most exciting thing that I’ve had said to me for quite some considerable time”.

The news though isn’t so good. While the protein might be “stable”, whatever he means by that, the blood count not so. That’s dropped from 9.6 last time to 9.2 just now. And he reckons that there’s also a leaky valve in my heart.

None of this is anything that I particularly wanted to hear. Things aren’t sounding quite so good just now, so i’m glad that I took the opportunity to carry out all of the tasks on my “to-do” list when I was able to.

It took the doctor until 17:20 to come to tell me that I could go, and to give me my prescriptions. I have to come back on Thursday 14th December, but to go to a different department, and I don’t like the sound of that.

But now I’m horribly late. I was hoping to be gone from here hours ago. I have to run to the pharmacy to collect the prescriptions and, as usual, they are short of product.

And then run for the bus, which is in no hurry. No chance of going for that coffee now.

Luckily the trains to Brussels are quite regular and I don’t have to wait long. Mevertheless it’s 18:33 when we arrive. I have to run down to the hotel, register (why he wouldn’t let me do that this morning I really don’t know), leave my backpack, and run back to the station. And i’m on the platform southbound with just three minutes to spare.

Since I’vs topped going to see OH Leuven, they have been on an impressive run of form and are up there in 2nd place in the league. On the other hand, AFC Tubize are on a woeful run of form and are well adrift at the foot of the table.

There’s a football match played in each division on a Friday night, and by pure coincidence, tonight is AFC Tubize v OH Leuven. it’s just a handful of stops down the line from here, and I’m at a loose end.

Obviously a home banker then.

But we have a tragedy – i’ll tell you that. They’ve reorganised the times of the trains and the last one back is at 22:12. The 23:12 has been taken off. What that means in real money is that if I don’t want to walk back to Brussels, I’ll miss the last 20 minutes of the game.

But never mind. Grabbing a bag of chips from the fritkot across the road from the station, I set off to the ground.

It’s a modern stadium, but they ran out of money after doing just two sides.

And that’s hardly surprising because it’s another one of those places where they announce the crowd changes to the team.

I have a coffee, chat to a couple of people, and take my seat in the stand.

AFC Tubize aren’t all that bad. In fact they can match OH Leuven in most departments but you can immediately see the problem that they are having. Their centre-forward is ploughing a very lonely furrow up front, with no service and no support.

OH Leuven are on the attack from the kick-off and only a brilliant save from their keeper stops them going 1-0 down in the first 5 minutes.

But they are in front after half an hour with a brilliant glancing header from Casagolda from a free kick.

Tubize equalize in the second half and I start to have this rather uncomfortable feeling. But it can’t be helped – I need to be on my way.

Back at the hotel I find my room, and its quite comfortable too. One of the bigger ones. I learn that OH Leuven went on to win the match but it’s bed-time for me. It’s been a long day and it’s going to be another long one tomorrow.

Thursday 12th October 2017 – I HAD AN INTERESTING …

… flight back from Canada. Playing “Bejeweled” all the way across the Atlantic.

That’s not a polite way to say that the in-flight entertainment was total garbage either. I mean – it was, but once I found the “games” section of the things, I didn’t bother too much about the rest.

And never mind my worries about not having a special meal either. The two options of food offered on board was either chicken or … pasta with vegetables in a tomato sauce – with no cheese.

Sleep wasn’t too much of an issue either – I just had a fitful doze here and there and that was really my lot.

It seems that Air Canada is having issues with the landing fees at Charles de Gaulle airport too.

Admittedly we were considerably early in landing, thanks to a helpful tail wind, but we ended up moored on the concrete apron and having to be bussed over to the terminal.

And just two passport control officers at the “EU” desk to screen us. But they weren’t too bothered about much and we were soon through.

The baggage was reasonably quickly out too so I was able to make good my escape. On the way out I was accosted by a couple of pirate taxi drivers. “Do I have the word ‘idiot’ tattooed on my forehead?” I growled.

10:30 was when I made it to the railway station – that has to be something of a new record. And my train from Paris to Brussels was at 14:35. A mere 4 hours to get into the city.

But – wait! There’s a train from here direct to Brussels at 11:07!

My ticket is not refundable, and it’s more expensive than I was expecting.

But sodomisez ça pour un jeu de soldats! as they say around here. I’m not struggling all the way into Paris and hanging around on a draughty station for several hours.

The moral of this story is – don’t book your ticket from the airport “on-line”. Wait until you arrive and then do it. It works out cheaper in the long run.

When the train was called we all trooped off to the gate, to be turned away by a security guy. “You have to use the other gate”
“Why’s that?” called out Our Hero
“Because over there they are controlling the passengers”
“So what are you doing then?”.

I ended up in the company of a woman who needed help to find her seat. She told me that she was from Russia, to which I replied “Ja ne gavariou nichivo pa-Russki”, which always helps in moments like this.

So, by 13:00, instead of still having ages to wait on a draughty station 320 kilometres away in Paris, I was banging on the door of my hotel.

And “banging” too, because it was all locked up, in darkness, with “FULL” on the door.

Eventually, the manager appeared.
“Sorry, we’re full” he explained, which with the Hotel in total darkness looked totally unlikely.
“I’ve a booking here!”
“Ohhh yes – you must be Mr Hall”.
Manager takes me to a hotel down the street – a much better one than the one where I am supposed to be staying.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience. You’ll need to stay here tonight. But you’ll be back with us tomorrow”
Manager retreats into the total darkness of his hotel.

So what’s going on here then? Knowing the usual kind of places where I stay when i’m on my travels, my money is on a Police raid.

The Hotel de France is quite nice, and so it goes without saying at all that the first thing that I did when I arrived was to crash out. And that was that for … errr …some time.

Later on I went to the café around the corner and had a bowl of lentils, some bread and chips for tea. And the thing about that was that they had the TV on. And being in this particular little corner of Brussels I was entertained by watching RAJA Casablanca beat FUS Rabat in the Moroccan Cup.

I went down to the all-night supermarket in the Gare du Midi for a bottle of pop and some food for breakfast, and encountered these giant lego bricks or jigsaw pieces all over the place.

They are probably road-closers or something like that actually, but my imagination had endless moments of fun imagining builders in giant cranes amusing themselves with these lumps of concrete, building all kinds of things.

Keep them out of mischief for days.

Back here, I sat on the edge of the bed pondering my next move, and the next thing that I remember was that it was 23:00. i’d been out for about 90 minutes.

Well out too. I wasn’t going anywhere else so I curled up under the comfortable sheets. I needed it too.

Wednesday 11th October 2017 – SO HERE I ALL AM …

… not sitting in a rainbow, but sitting in the Departure Lounge of Dorval – or the Aeroport Pierre-E Trudeau waiting for my flight back to Paris.

And I have a feeling that it’s going to be an uncomfortable flight too. I’ve asked for an aisle seat because I’m still having problems with my right leg, And the girl in the check-in has given me my boarding pass, with the luggage label stuck over one of the places where the seat number is printed, and another sticky label stuck over the other place. So I can’t read it.

And so I bet that it isn’t an aisle seat. That’s just the kind of trick that they play on passengers instead of being honest and up-front about it. And so I’ll be crammed in somewhere extremely uncomfortably in the middle of a row.

Just as well that it’s a decent Air Canada flight and not an Air Transat sardine tin. But I’m still not happy.

I slept the sleep of the dead last night. Flat out all night and didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off at 05:00. Mind you, it was … errr … somewhat later that I actually crawled out of bed. I wasn’t in much of a rush.

I spent a while doing some stuff on the laptop and then I went for a shower. Once I’d done that, I sorted out all of my affairs and repacked all of my possessions. That took me up until about 09:30 – meaning that I missed out on breakfast. But I didn’t really worry too much about that.

There’s a cupboard here at the hotel where you can dump your suitcase and so I left mine there and went for a walk around the city. First stop was the Dollar Store to pick up some stuff for the aeroplane. A couple of bags of sweets and the like.

Next stop was the Scotia Bank to take out some more money.I like to have a little stock on hand when I’m in Europe. I’ve been caught out with an expired bank card before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

From there I went down to the Old Town. I needed a few things to take home with me and there was a place that had what I needed.

One last thing was to leap aboard the 55 bus with the driver listening to Focus III at full volume, and head off to the north side of the city.

Bang on midday I was at Josée’s place of work. I’d missed her yesterday as you know so we had agreed to meet for lunch. We ended up at a place not too far away where I had a vegan salad. I handed back the telephone, with grateful thanks to her for letting me borrow it.

Back down into town after that, and despite the grey overcast weather I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit the vegan ice-cream bar in the rue St Catherine. The coconut milk was delicious as usual but I declined the chocolate – you remember from last year that it left something to be desired. Instead they had some kind of Vietnamese fruit.

I had a snooze too, having made sure that it wasn’t an auto-flush toilet. I seem to be making that some kind of habit these days again. But at least for the last couple of days I’ve been doing well over 100% of my daily activity so that’s something. and it will probably be something like that tomorrow too.

Having had my little relax I hobbled back (because I’m feeling the strain now) to the hotel to pick up my suitcase. the owners were there and they recognised me from when I was there before. We had a little chat and I had a little rest before wandering round the corner for the 747 bus to the airport.

We had one of these bus drivers who was a stickler for the rules. Everyone had to put their luggage in the racks and once the racks were full he refused to take on board any more passengers. But the motorway was open at last and it didn’t take too long to drive there.

Interestingly, some of the worst parts of the flyovers seem to have been demolished – they had concrete-cutters busily chopping up all of the rubble as we drove past.

At the airport I remembered to hand in my green card at the Immigration desk, and then went to check in. The automatic check-in didn’t recognise me, which is hardly a surprise – after all, who would want to admit to recognising me? And so we had the performance at the check-in desk.

And my suitcase for the flight back? A mere 16.7kgs. I’m clearly losing my touch.

Food is the next thing. I know that I won’t be having my special meal on the flight, but there’s a “Subway” in the airport, which is a good thing. A 12-inch vegetarian without cheese accompanied me through the security gate.

While we’re on the subject of security … “well, one of us is” – ed … apart from the queues it was relatively painless. They discovered my small bottle of water that I was hoping to keep, and also one of these juice pack things which I had forgotten all about.

They didn’t think much of my laptop either – but then I’m not exactly crazy about it. They spent quite a long time giving it a close-up befoe they were able to agree that it was relatively harmless.

At the boarding gate I had a word with the girls there. They confirmed that I didn’t have an aisle seat and so I explained my problem. They doubted that they could do anything for me seeing as the aeroplane was full.

But much to my surprise, 10 minutes later one of them – a young red-headed girl called Roxanne – came running over to me waving a new ticket. Somehow they had managed to find an aisle seat. It was a left-hand one, not a right-hand one, but that is far better than nothing.

So in a minute we’ll be boarding. Didn’t that 8 weeks go quickly? I managed to pack an enormous amount into it – like 12,000 kilometres in the 5 weeks or so that I was on the road. I don’t want to leave but I don’t really have much choice.

But then I’m always like this when I leave Canada.

Tuesday 10th October 2017 – JUST HOW SILLY …

… can you get?

There I was with an appointment to go out for an evening meal with Josée and we arranged that she would telephone me when she finished work and came outside.

And so she did. She telephoned me at 16:30 and 16:30, sent me a couple of texts, a message or two on my social media page, and then became fed up and went home.

And where was I when all of this was going on?

In case you haven’t guessed, I was flat out on my bed, well away with the fairies and totally inconscient of anything that was going on. And I must have been too, to have slept through the cacophony that was going on.

I blame the bus myself.

I can’t sleep on buses (except whrnI’m driving them). At best, I just fitfully doze and let every bump shake me awake.

But that doesn’t apply to everyone. As we pulled into Montreal a girl suddenly stood bolt upright.
“Is this Montreal?” she asked, in a panic
“Yes it is” replied the driver.
“What happened to Sainte-Foy?”
“We stopped there and everyone there got off”
“But I should have got off” she wailed.
“Not much I can do about that” said the driver. “I can’t go around waking everyone up to see if it’s their stop”.

The bus was quite busy too. Everyone going back after Thanksgiving with the family.

We were 10 minutes late getting into the Bus Station. 06:10. Far too early to go to my hotel and so I sat around with a coffee and did some work.

And if you think that our family tree is complicated, you ain’t heard nuffink yet.

Apparently my mother any my aunt were daughters of their mother (my grandmother Ivy)’s SECOND marriage. That’s a new one on me. Ivy had apparently been married before to someone called Cyril Ralphrul Hogg who had been her singing tutor.

He was apparently quite famous and had studied at the Conservatory in Vienna.

They married in July 1918 but he was swept away in the Spanish Influenza outbreak of December 1918.

Now that took me by surprise.

At 09:00 I took my stuff round the corner to the hotel and left it there. Of course my room wasn’t ready so I went round the corner to Tim Hortons for breakfast.

From there I decided to go down to the docks to see what was happening.

My route took me close to the Gare Viger, which, asregular readers of this rubbish will recall, is my favourite building in the whole of the city.

We haven’t seen it from this angle before though. It looks quite eerie with the morning sun reflecting off the autumn leaves of the trees.

Our walk continues round to the docks to see who is there.

The Winnipeg is still there of course, but we also have the Barnacle. She’s a bulk carrier of 30,000 tonnes and is on her way to Ghent in Belgium from Hamilton in Ontario.

her cargo is “Agricultural Products” – by which, presumably, they may well mean “wheat”. Montreal is one of the world’s biggest ports for the handling of wheat.

. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of activity around the rest of the commercial part do I wander off down to the old port.

Not too much going on around here either but at least there’s a good view of the city from here. It’s looking quite splendid in the early morning autumn sunlight.

And you can see the twin towers of the cathedral right in the centre of the image.

However, at the cruise terminal we have the Artania of 44,000 tonnes. Operatedby a German cruise company, she set out from Hamburg on 22nd September.

But don’t let appearances fool you.

Despite having just crossed the Atlantic with a load of passengers, had she been simply going back and forth across the English Channel she would have been scrapped long ago because she is actually 33 years old

She was built in 1984 and sailed for many years as the P&O liner Royal Princess.

I’d caught a glimpse of a container ship down in the Oceanex container terminal so, with nothing better to do, I headed that way.

However, my perambulations were interrupted by this most bizarre spectacle of a woman taking several dogs for a job.

You might think that it’s hilarious but the poor little dog being dragged behind, clearly unable to keep up wasn’t enjoying it one little bit every time their leader broke into a run.

So here in the Oceanex terminal s the Oceanex Avalon.

She’s a small container ship of 14500 tonnes and seems to work a shuttle between St Johns in Newfoundland, Saint John in New Brunswick and here.

I imagine that rather than half-unload a huge container ship at Saint John and have her shuttling around, they will completely unload her for a faster turnaround and have the Oceanex Avalon doing the distribution.

I had a wander around the port to see if there was a better view, but not today.

On the way back I walked down alongside the Lachine Canal and today for some reason you could clearly see where the former dry docks used to be.

I can’t think why it was never so noticeable as this before.

But like most canal-side enterprises they have long-gone. Montreal has lost a lot of its importance since it started on this monolingual anti-English crusade.

But this was interesting to stand and watch.

We’ve seen … “on several occasions” – ed … the shambolic nature of much of the city’s concrete infrastructure as it weathers and disintegrates.

These men were up on a sky jack tapping the concrete supports of the flyover with a hammer to see whether the concrete was still sound, or whether it was being eroded away from within.

One thing that I haven’t yet done – and I can’t think why- is to go to visit the site of “Ville-Marie”.

That was the original name of Montreal, but it’s more properly applied to the site where the first European colonists installed their settlement

As far as it’s possible to tell these things, that column just there marks the centre of the original settlement. We can’t go to visit it for a closer look unfortunately.

That’s because the Place d’Youville, site of St Anne’s Market, is currently undergoing archaeological excavation and everywhere is fenced off.

This is a historically important site because St Anne’s Market became home of the Canadian Parliament in 1844, moving here from Kingston in Ontario.

That was a controversial move and in 1849 during a debate to consider the losses that had been incurred by the population during the rebellion of 1837-38, a mob stormed the building and burnt it to the ground.

From here I went for a butty and then back to the hotel to sign in for my room, followed by all the nonsense that I mentioned earlier.

Later, I went for a walk and something to eat at the little Lebanese restaurant at Sherbrooke. And here, I watched a television debate that rather amused me. Should the captain of the “Montreal Impact” football team be a French-speaker?

You can tell what kind of society you are dealing with in Quebec when a person’s language ability is considered to be more important than his professional qualifications.

Monday 9th October 2017 – HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And everyone around here is celebrating and giving thanks – for tonight I’ll be on the bus back to Montreal – always assuming that it doesn’t forget me like last year.

I’d had a really early night again last night – alone again, as it happens, and I’d been off on my travels again. back in Virlet as it happens, and everyone was poking fun at me, although there didn’t seem to be any reason why. But I approached the Secretary of the Commune and she explained to me that I was wearing odd shoes. I had a look, and it took quite some doing, even on a close inspection, to see that they were different. How anyone else had noticed from a distance away at a casual glance was beyond me. I asked which “pair” she preferred, and she replied that the “dark blue” shoes were preferable. However they looked the same colour to me and while it might have been dark blue in reality, on my travels last night I reckoned that they were black. So off I trotted back home to look for a matching shoe, but instead found a pair that were a real pair, but were black, and nothing like as highly-polished as the ones that I was wearing (because they really were highly polished). And so, do I ignore the catty remarks, do I carry on hunting for “the other shoe” or do I put on the black, dirty shoes and if so how would everyone else in the village react?

When my alarm went off I went off to ride the porcelain horse, and encountered Cujo the Killer Cat on the way back. I went back to bed seeing as no-one else was stirring, and she stayed there with me for a while before disappearing off.

Eventually, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen told me that Rachel was up and about so I went to help her prepare the breakfast brunch. Famous the whole world over, as I have said.

My share of the breakfast was the beans on toast with hash browns and one of my vegan burgers.

In the afternoon, Amber’s boyfriend came round and we all chilled out and did precisely nothing at all. Round about 14:30, Hannah and her friend left to go back to University at Antigonish and the rest of us, having said goodbye, carried on chatting.

Tea for me was the rest of the vegan burgers, the rest of the beans, and some left-over potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal, followed by rice pudding ditto. Then I went for a shower to wake myself up.

At 19:45 I took my leave of everyone and Rachel drove me to Florenceville and the bus stop. We were an hour early which I preferred after the dreadful performance last year that inconvenienced just about everyone except the bus driver.

We weren’t alone either. One of Rachel’s neighbours was there, putting her son on the bus back to Montreal where he’s at University studying aero-engineering.

We were there quite early, as I have said.

And so, as you might expect, the bus was late arriving.

And Coach Atlantic is spending its money too, so it seems, because this was a modern, clean, comfortable coach, which makes a change from one or two that we’ve travelled on.

Not to say that they were ever dirty or uncomfortable – far from it. But they were starting to become rather long in the tooth. This one was brand-spanking new, with wi-fi, but, alas, still with no power points.

And no data tracker too. Most buses and coaches these days have data trackers fitted so that you can go to the website of the company and see where the bus or coach is. Once Coach Atlantic fits these to their coaches, there won’t be any of this “missing the bus” or waiting around for well over an hour in the pouring rain.

Because pouring rain was what we had had all day. I’d never seen anything like this rain. Heavy, yes, but not persistently so all day.

So having dozed all the way to the St Lawrence, I’m now at Riviere du Loup waiting for the bus that’s coming from the Gaspé that will take me on to Montreal.

It’s always a long night on the overnight bus but at least I don’t have far to stagger from the bus terminal to the hotel where i’ll be staying until tomorrow evening.

8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

Saturday 7th October 2017 – STRIDER’S FIRST …

… tow job.

And it very likely was too, because all of the electrics on the trailer plug were totally corroded. It took an hour to clean them off and grease them.

And in the end, we only had direction indicators too, but that was good enough to go.

Here in Canada, recycling is big business. And I do mean “business” too. Most of the glass bottles and plastic containers require a deposit, and there’s cash to be earned from aluminium soft drinks cans too.

But remembering where you bought each article and taking them back to the correct shop is a nightmare, so some enterprising people have set up central collection points where you can take your empties, they redeem them from you, and they handle the returns to the various shops.

Amber is fundraising for a school trip to Washington DC in the Spring so she’s been collecting from friends and neighbours. Today, we loaded everything into the small enclosed trailer, under the careful supervision of one of the mill cats, and took it down to the Centre in Bristol.

And you’d be surprised how much we earned too!

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded too. The trailer was stuck deep in the undergrowth and I had to attach a chain to Strider to pull it out.

And then the tow ball was the wrong size so we had to find a smaller one and swap them over. And then the electrics.

Rachel came with us so Strider also had his first rear-seat passenger. There are a couple of pop-up dickey seats in the half-cab at the back and Amber perched on one of those. She refused to travel in the cage.

Another thing as well was that despite being out of practice, not having done it for years, I reversed the trailer exactly where I needed it to be, and on several occasions too, quite often into very small gaps. I was proud of that.

I wasn’t quite right about last night though. Cujo the Killer Cat didn’t come to bed after me. She was in fact already on the bed and waiting for me, which was quite nice. And she stayed for quite a while too.

But I didn’t though. I was off on various nocturnal rambles during the night.

We started off last night somewhere out on the Outer Banks but I don’t now remember exactly what I was doing out there. But anyway I quickly moved on to driving a coach full of young school kids to some kind of science laboratory where they were having some kind of lessons. I had to clean out the coach and found a huge pile of animal hair in the form of a long grey and white tail. It was many metres long and quite valuable too so I collected it up to put in one of the lockers at the side. Having done that, I went into school to say that I was ready to leave, and gave my journey number, which was one of the 6 that began with a figure “4” but the receptionist had said that all of the “4” journeys had gone -which was definitely not the case, for my next trip to the laboratory was another one of the “4” trips, so that hadn’t even arrived.
A little later I was in a car heading to the north of Manchester – a rough area – so I had a CB radio with me. I was chatting to a few people and they began to ask me questions, about what my car looked like and so on. I knew that soon I would have to stop for fuel so I started to give them all kinds of false details about me and the car so that we wouldn’t be recognised.
The discussion moved on then to another erstwhile taxi owner who had never been particularly successful and had fallen foul of the taxi licensing laws. He had been allowed to start again with just one car but hadn’t been successful and I was trying to buy him out. But the discussion concerned his own ineptitude and incompetence.

After our return from the Recycling Centre, I had to go shopping. And come back and go again because, in the kind of thing that only I can do, I forgot to take any money.

A shower, shave and clean clothes were next, and then we attacked the Thanksgiving meal. 14 of us, there were, and we made tons of food, much of which wasn’t eaten and went into the fridge. And then Rachel and I attacked the mountains of washing up.

Although it’s early, I’m in bed. I’m totally exhausted and I’ve crashed out twice already. I managed just enough effort to put a pile of clothes in the wash, and that’s my lot until the morning

Friday 6th October 2017 – I WAS NOT …

… alone last night!

There I was, all curled up under the covers last night, and I felt a weight settle down on my feet. Yes, Cujo the Killer Cat needed some reassurance and company.

It’s a long time since I’ve had a good cuddle with a cat in bed, and she didn’t stay too long either, but it was still nice. It hasn’t happened for a long time.

And despite having a disturbed night’s sleep, I was off on a mega-ramble that took me miles, and the sad thing was that as soon as I awoke – “PAFF!” – Gone With The Wind.

But there was a reason for that, I reckon. It was a noise upstairs that awoke me. And when I glanced at the time it was 07:15! The battery had gone flat in the ‘phone (I hadn’t noticed) so the alarm hadn’t gone off.

and so today, I’ve done … errrr … just like my namesake the Mathematician, three-fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing.

And quite right too. In fact, it wasn’t until about 22:00 this evening that I actually set foot outside.

But the rest has done me good and I’m feeling a little better, which is just as well because there is work to do tomorrow.

Tea was a stir-fry in tomato sauce wit one of the vegan burgers that I bought the other day. And not only was it excellent, there’s enough left over for tomorrow too.

So now it’s bed-time. An early night ready for some work tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have company tonight but if not I’ll have a really good sleep. I deserve it.

Thursday 5th October 2017 – FOURTEEN HOURS.

I told you last night that I was just off to lie down for half an hour or so to rest.

And indeed I did. But not for half an hour though. I hit the sack round about 18:45 and it was just before 09:00 that I awoke. That’s just over 14 hours of sleep. I must have needed it – I’ll tell you that!

So 09:00 it was that I awoke. But it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of bed. And if it hadn’t been for the necessity to go and stroll the parapet, I would probably still be in there now.

I was on my travels too during the night. Hanging on underneath a bus watching the prop shaft revolve around to see where the problem with it was – a highly dangerous occupation perilously close to the ground. And my brother was there alongside me, giving me “solidarity”, something that would never ever happen to me in my life seeing that members of my family wouldn’t share a bus shelter with each other during a monsoon.
And from there we progressed onwards to me confronting a Border Crossing person – a very young female who was carrying three small teddy bears hugged to her chest. Despite the altercation, I did have to admit that I found her extremely attractive and when I confessed this to a friend he suggested that I go and chat her up. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. But even on a nocturnal ramble I could work out that a 40-year age gap was a mountain too high to climb, despite the encouragement from everyone else.

So, a “somewhat late” breakfast, and then I loitered around here foe a “somewhat late” lunch – not doing too much to exert myself.

But after lunch I stripped out the back of Strider, collected up about three tonnes of rubbish which found its way into the incinerator, and sorted out the stuff that wouldn’t survive the winter, and brought that inside for Rachel.

Tonnes of stuff left over for food – I didn’t eat all that much while I was away. The tinned stuff and vacuumed stuff will keep, though, but the stuff in glass bottles and the easy-open tins that can burst when they freeze up in winter, they came inside.

And here’s a surprising thing. Strider has travelled over 12,000 kilometres in just 5 weeks, and as well as the dramatic improvement in fuel consumption, Strider didn’t consume a single drop of oil.

There’s still the same amount in that there was when we set out. And for a vehicle with 209,000 kilometres on the clock that’s pretty much extraordinary.

I didn’t do too much later. I reckoned that that was enough. Darren and Rachel came back from work and we had a good chat, and then Hannah turned up from University for the weekend with another cat that she cares for.

Of course that was a big mistake. The cat here is not called “Cujo the Killer Cat” for nothing.

So I’m off to bed now. It’s past my bed time. I’m going to have another relaxing day tomorrow as well. Apparently there are “plans” for the weekend.

Wednesday 4th October 2017 – SO HAVING …

… forgotten to take a photo of my comfortable motel this morning, we can move on quickly.

I was up and about quite early as usual and cracking on with some stuff that I needed to do. But not so “cracking on” as I might otherwise have been, because I’m starting to feel the aches and pains.

And a good go under the shower didn’t do much to revive me either. I think that the late night last night, and the whole total of the journey is starting to catch up with me now.

Breakfast was quite quiet (and I remembered at the second attempt to take in my soya milk) although the couple from Virginia did their best to liven things up.
“How far is it to Canada?” they asked.
“About three and a half hours” replied our Hero. I’m even beginning to think and talk like a North American now!

I tip the rest of the fuel in the petrol cans into Strider (the cans are empty now) and set off on the road. I head due north – I want to cut out Bangor (another bottleneck) before rejoining Interstate 95.

But my best-laid plans go all awry when I misread “Hartland” for “Howland”. Howland is on the I-95 north of Bangor but Hartland is south of it. So here I am, with the I-95 at my feet and still a long way to go. But never mind – in for a penny, in for a pound.

Surprisingly, there’s no traffic on the Interstate and even Bangor seems deserted. I’ve never known it like this before. I hardly notice the city as I drive my way around.

But I’m fighting off the fatigue. It’s all catching up on me now but only a couple of hours before I can stop.

Island Falls has a population of 837, and every one of them came out to see what I was doing while I was stopped to eat my butty on the car park at the side of the town hall. One of “those” places, isn’t it?

But I was soon on my way back to Houlton where I did some shopping – Rachel had sent me a list of things to buy for her.

At the Border Crossing I had that miserable girl again but at least she didn’t make my life difficult. And the printed-out Visa (thanks, Rhys) avoided the complications that we had on our initial entry to Canada almost 7 weeks ago.

Everyone was pleased to see that I had made it safely back (I must owe them money or something) but right now, I’m going to lie down for an hour or so before tea.

A little lie-down will do me the world of good. See you in an hour.

Tuesday 3rd October 2017 – SO LAST NIGHT …

… wasn’t such a good night as it might have been. Not that there was anything wrong with the motel where I stayed – it was just that there were things wrong with me, I reckon.

I couldn’t sleep very well al all – very difficult to make myself comfortable, and the odd trip down the corridor didn’t help much either.

Mind you, I was back on my travels again. Round at the farm as it happens doing some repairs. And they certainly needed doing too because one of the walls had entirely disappeared and was just propped up with tree trunks.

But anyway, back to the plot. And don’t worry about the lack of photos right now. I’mm having an “upload” issue that might not be solved until I return home.

So read the stories and you can come back to look at the pictures next week or so.

I didn’t feel like any breakfast right now – I’d rather let the time slip somewhat – and so I tidied up everywhere in here and prepared for the road.

We had free coffee to take away, which is always a good plan, and with plenty of ice around I was able to fill up my water bottle with stone-cold root beer.

But having seen how many motels these days have fridges with little freezer units, I’m going to pick up a cheap ice cube tray from somewhere.

And it’s true!

I thought that I had seen a sign for “Hicksville” – the traditional name for every small-minded mid-west town – and while this might not be the town itself, it’s the next best thing.

It must be embarrassing to tell people that you actually live and work in Hicksville though.

And so we hit the road. I’m not in a great hurry. According to my timetable I have two days to travel 8 hours or so, so it’s not going to be a big deal.

I find a motorway service station to stop and eat a couple of bagels with jam, and to exchange cheery greetings with my neighbour.

There’s ascenic turn-off (why don’t they call them “scenic turn-ons”? That’s much more appropriate) on the side of the Highway overlooking the Mystic River.

Despite being only a short river (3.5 miles or something like that) it’s almost entirely tidal.

It’s also famous in that the European settlers attacked a native village here in 1637.They destroyed the settlement and massacred all of the inhabitants and, according to contemporary writings, were quite proud of the fact.

My attention was however diverted by the ship over there. A traditional three-master was what it seemed to be.

Mystic River was formerly an important shipbuilding area and in 1929 it was all turned into a maritime museum.

The ship that you can see is the Charles W Morgan. Built in 1841, she’s said to be the last of the wooden sailing whalers in existence and probably the oldest merchant vessel still afloat.

Laid up for many years, she was donated to the museum on her 100th birthday and has undergone a full programme of restoration. She’s now completely seaworthy, apparently.

Next door in a northwards direction from Connecticut is Rhode Island, or, to give it its full official title, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

This is the smallest State in the USA despite having the longest official name of all of them, and although there was a shorter route which would have saved me half an hour (and a lot more as it subsequently was to turn out) I arranged my journey so that I would pass this way.

One more State off my list then.

The capital of Rhode Island is Providence, and the Highway takes us right through the centre of town.

It’s said to be one of the oldest cities in the USA, being founded in 1636 and named in honour of “God’s Merciful Providence” that brought the early settlers here.

Today though, you can see that it’s just like every other big city in the USA – no difference at all. You are hard-pressed to say where you might be in the USA’s urban environment.

Having come this way, there is no alternative but to wrestle with the Boston traffic.

There’s an inner ring road and an outer ring road. I pick the outer one, which costs me about 15 minutes in journey time but saves the congestion, or so I thought.

And I was glad that I was travelling north, not south. Just look at that lot over there!

So I said at the time. But it wasn’t long before I was decanted into the traffic queues.

I knew that Boston was a nightmare and so I had picked my time carefully and picked my road too. But it wasall of no avail.

40 minutes we inched along the outer ring road and it did make me wonder whether I should have bitten the bullet and gone for the town centre.

But at least it wasn’t the 6 hours of New York traffic from yesterday.

We’ve been to New Hampshire on many occasions, but here’s a reminder of where we are now.

New Hampshire, at least down on the coast, is another one of these places where you blink and miss it, so I wanted to make sure that you and I didn’t.

It’s still quite early too – only about 17:00. Despite the hold-ups in Boston I’m making good time. Only 6 hours or so to the US/Canada border.

Much to my surprise, Portland in Maine is comparatively quiet. And so like Jackson Browne in “Nothing But Time”, I can “roll down (or in my case, “up”) I-295 out of Portland, Maine” without any inconvenience – except for the barrage of toll barrages.

In the end, totally, fed up, I leave the Interstate and try Highway 2 – and that’s even worse as I seem to be stuck behind every slow-moving vehicle on the planet. It’s so frustrating that in the end, I see another “Interstate 95” sign and bite the bullet.

As I approach the town of Lewiston, it’s 18:00 and there’s a “Motel” sign on the side of the Interstate. Unfortunately in Maine, they don’t tell you the names of the motels on the signs like they do in most other States so it’s pretty much pot luck.

Having had good success in the past, here I strike out (well, i’m in the USA!). One look at the cars in the car park tell me that this place isn’t for the likes of me.

But never mind. Lewiston is a biggish town. Bound to be some more.

And famous last words they were too. I’ve never seen a town with so little in the way of accommodation – at least, at my kind of price. The commercial centre is out to the north so that’s the place to look – but that comes up empty too.

Still, I head north on the grounds that something will show up sooner or later. But by 19:20 at Livermore Falls and low on fuel in the pitch blackness, a very vocal local yokel in the petrol station tells me that at 15 miles up the road in Farmington are a couple of cat houses that will do the job.

He’s not wrong either!

The Colonial Valley Motel in Farmington conjures up an excellent room for just $70:00 all-in and I’m quite happy here. Even breakfast is included in the price.

The manageress adores my accent, but I’m not sure what she is going to make of the registration formalities –
Identity – British passport
Proof of address – French Driving Licence
Vehicle registration – New Brunswick plates
Mobile ‘phone – Quebec number
Payment – Belgian credit card

Yes, sort that lot out!

There’s a microwave here in the room so tea is a couple of tins of stuff slung into it. Cheap and quick.

But here’s a problem – my *.ftp server has corrupted and I don’t have the settings to reset it. That means that I can’t upload my photos to the internet.

So you’ll have to do without for a while until I return home.

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Yes – I’ll tell you what was (and where it was too in due course).

But starting off, I had a really good night’s sleep in the hotel last night. Didn’t feel a thing at all.

and I was up reasonably early, did a pile of paperwork, had breakfast and a good shower too. Fit for absolutely anything.

And I needed to be, too. Because today is going to be the most difficult day of the journey. I knew that, and so I cannot say that I was unprepared for the events that were to unfold.

Having picked up some fuel, because by now Strider was running on fumes, we drove north up the island.

As I said yesterday, the Outer Banks (because I suppose that these are really still the Outer Banks around here) are in a perpetual state of flux and continually moving about.

A lot of work is needed to stabilise them, and here are three bulldozers hard at work moving the sand around

Back on the mainland I took a little diversion so that I could send you all Greetings From Asbury Park NJ.

It’s a little-known fact that when Brute Stringbean left the E-Street Band, they signed up one of the singers from ABBA to replace him.

He came over to the USA specifically to take up the role, and their first single was entitled “Bjorn in the USA”. You can’t say that you aren’t learning a lot by reading this rubbish.

As for Asbury Park itself, you need to have a good imagination of how this place must have been during the boom years of the 1920s and 1950s.

In those heady days the whole New Jersey Coast was the playground of New York City, but unfortunately they are long-gone and the town is just sitting here slowly decaying.

Today, it’s just really a shadow of its former self.

That is of course not to say that there aren’t any signs of opulence around the place these days.

The north side of the town seems to be very popular with the Upper Crust and there’s still plenty of evidence of wealth about.

And I for one would live in a house like this in a heartbeat. But I reckon that the entire readership of this rubbish couldn’t afford it even if we pooled all of our resources.

My journey up the New Jersey coast took me as far as the Highlands – and you can see why it is so named.

I mentioned the moving sand dunes of the Outer Banks – they are continually moving north and over the passage of time have isolated the cliffs of the former coastline from the shore.

The view from up there is quite impressive too, but we’ve seen it all before.

And so we hit the New Jersey Turnpike at Perth-Amboy, and we pay our … gulp … $15:00.

It’s 11:00 exactly, and you’ll need to make a note of the time because it’s quite an important feature in our story.

And you’ll also need to make a note of the traffic too. I’ve been keeping away from the heavy traffic as I travel north, as you know if you have been following this rubbish. But around New Jersey and New York there is no realistic option.

The best views of New York City that it is possible to have are from the Upper Deck of the Verrazano Bridge across the mouth of the Hudson River.

Unfortunately there’s no scenic turn-off (or scenic turn-on) to stop and admire the view and so the only way to appreciate it is to take an oblique photograph from Strider’s side window in the heavy traffic.

Unfortunately Strawberry Moose is not the best at photography. He needs to work on his technique.

It’s impossible to get onto the Belt Parkway. The queue was so long that I had gone way past the end of the queue before I saw the sign for the turn-off.

That meant hat I had to come off at Hamilton Parkway and fight my way through Brooklyn, which was not part of the plan, and rejoin the Belt Parkway at Queen’s.

This part of Brooklyn is “Chinatown” as you can tell by the signs on the walls and the people in the street.

Nose-to-tail all the way through Brooklyn and Queen’s. At least I console myself in that the Belt Parkway is exactly the same and it wouldn’t have been any quicker.

It gives me plenty of opportunity to admire the scenery as we pass through the city anyway. I’ve never been here before, and I’m probably never ever going to be here again.

And pressing on, I resist the temptation to pay a visit to Coney island just down the road. I’ll be stuck for ever

Having conquered Europe a good 45 years ago, it’s good to see the Ford Transit going on to conquer North America/

Both models are available here now – the “mini” and the normal Caliburn-sized one, and you can see just how much they are infiltrating the North American market.

They are even conquering the lucrative “school bus” market, and if that’s not a sign of official acceptance I don’t know what is.

I finally burst out of New York City onto the Belt Parkway at 13:30 – and that was the longest two and a half hours of my life, I’ll tell you that (or so I thought to myself at the time).

One of the suburban State parks looms up on the right and so that’s a convenient place to stop for lunch. Not only have there been difficulties with the traffic, it’s been piping hot too under the hot sun and i’m ready for a break.

Back on the road, first thing that happens is that we hit a “fender-bender”. And then the road works. And more road works.

I have to stop for fuel by now – (that means that I’ve travelled just 210 kilometres since I set off this morning). And then back in a long, depressing traffic jam that never ends.

I finally pull into Port Jefferson at 17:20.

At my lunch stop, The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that we were just 46 minutes away from here. And so Ihad timed it.

It had taken us almost three hours to drive this final leg of the distance, what with all of the difficulties that we had encountered. And I was thoroughly, completely and absolutely fed up.

I had even begun to wonder whether or not it might have been quicker to have stayed on Interstate 95 and fought my way through New York City after all.

No prizes for guessing why I’ve come to Port Jefferson, is there?

By pure coincidence and totally by accident … “of course” – ed … there’s a ferry that goes from here across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport in Connecticut.

This is going to be my lest ferry crossing of my voyage (Bar Harbor to Yarmouth is pushing the boat out a little too far, I reckon) and so I need to make the most of it.

And at about 18:15 we set off on the P T Barnum for Bridgeport in Connecticut.

And the name of the ship is certainly appropriate, considering the circus that we have been through in order to arrive here.

I was hoping to have been on the other side and halfway up the road to Boston by now instead of being on the ferry in the doom and gloom.

But doom and gloom is completely inappropriate considering the glorious sunset.

I mentioned earlier that it had been a hot day, and you probably noticed from the earlier photos just how clear and blue the skies had been

We were now being treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets that I reckon that I have ever seen. It was totally magnificent out here on Long Island Sound

There are two ships that ply this particular route across Long Island Sound.

The P T Barnum has a sister ship, whose name I had forgotten to note, and we encountered her in the middle of Long Island Sound doing the trip in the reverse direction.

Silhouetted in the splendid sunset like this, she looks quite spellbinding too. We were having our money’s worth out here.

And so we battened down the hatches for silent running and sailed off into the sunset.

Red Sky At Night might mean Shepherd’s Delight in the UK, but here on Long Island Sound, Red Sky At Night means that there are riots in New York City and they are burning the place down to the ground.

But tat’s not to say that we can’t admire the view as the sun disappears down below the horizon, can we?

And so Bridgeport, our destination, looms up out of the gloom. I’ve never set foot in Connecticut before now, and so that’s about to be put right.

The crossing itself was like a millpond. I’ve never been over such a tranquil sea in my whole life. There wasn’t a single wave to talk about.

But it was an expensive crossing, make no mistake. 90 or so minutes, and 19 miles, I believe. Just like the English Channel. And it cost me (and Strider) a walk-on fare of a massive and astonishing … errr … $57:00.

The P T Barnum is obliged to do a U-turn in her own length here in the river so that we can dock and drive off forwards,

And much to my surprise, I’m the second vehicle off the ferry. I’m not used to that!

Just at the back of the harbour is a big bridge over which Interstate 95 passes. And that’s the road that will take me all the way home as far as the USA border and it’s a drive of about seven and a half hours.

But I’m not doing that tonight – I’ll tell you. I’m thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly fed up (but then I was expecting this today. There was no other solution).

A sign looms up at the side of the Interstate – “Motel 6 next exit”. They’ve gone upmarket and expensive this last few years but I’m tired and fed up and want to stop.

They have a room too – for just $90:00 including taxes which is not too unreasonable either. I’ve had worse. But what is unreasonable is that their computer is down, everything is being done by hand and I have to pay cash.

I now have $5:00 to last me to the US border and Canada but I’m beyond caring. It’s 20:00 and well past my bedtime.

And so I bite the bullet, pay up, find my room and crash out.

ZZZZZZZZ.

Sunday 1st October 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about last night’s sleep.

Still wide awake at 02:00 not being able to sleep

But I must have gone off to sleep at some point because the alarms did go off to awaken me at 05:00 – and again at 05:15.

Nevertheless I did manage to bring the paperwork up to date (well, sort of) and do a few other things before leaving the motel. But there was no coffee, which was rather disappointing, to say the least.

It was a cloudy day when I sat off, but I didn’t go far because there was a Food Lion just down the road. That called for some bread and some orange juice (although I forgot the orange juice).

And once more, when I said that I didn’t have a fidelity card, the girl at the checkout said that she loved my accent and gave me the discount anyway, which was nice.

After about half an hour of life on the road I came to to the Virginia – Maryland State Line.

I’d blinked and missed it on the way down as you might remember, and so I made sure that I stopped here on the way back up just to take a photograph.

And they had no coffee in the welcome centre either, which was even more of a disappointment. They are missing out on loads of commercial opportunities here in the Capitalist USA.

I must have missed the Delaware State Line somewhere, and I’m not sure how. But when I hit this enormous traffic queue somewhere near Laurel I noticed that all of the number plates were Delaware plates.

But never mind the licence plates, just look at the queue. And I’ve no idea why there would be a queue here either because there’s nothing particular to hold up the traffic.

A sudden downpour of rain didn’t help matters much either.

But there were a few cars here that caught my attention.

It looks as if there had been some kind of hotrod contention and there were dozens of cars in the queue that looked as if they had been heavily modified.

This VW on the trailer was one example – and looking at how the suspension has been arranged, it’s no surprise that they had to trailer it away.

All of the others that I saw were however running on the road (although I’m not sure how, given how they were all set up).

But had I not been in a hurry, I could have stayed around here for a while. I saw a kids football match – only the second one that I would have seen in North America, and on several occasions there were old vehicles at the side of the road that I would ordinarily stopped to photograph.

Nevertheless, I did stop for two minutes at the local bank to withdraw some cash. My supply of American cash has started to dwindle down almost to nothing.

But having missed the entry sign for Delaware, I take the opportunity to photograph a suitable convenient sign just to prove that I did make it here.

It’s the second-smallest State in the USA, with only Rhode Island being smaller. Quite easy to blink and miss in fact, at about 2,500 square miles.

But I bet that you are wondering why I’m actually in Lewes, and what this sign is all about.

The answer to that is quite simple. They have long-distance thru-way ferries in Delaware too.

And so I turned up at the ferry terminal, which was pretty crowded. No room on the 13:45 ferry but there was a place on the 14:45 so I took that.

It saves a long, winding trip through all of the traffic around Wilmington, Philadelphia and Camden

There were clearly a few people who didn’t turn up for their booking on the 13:45 because a few of us early arrivals were passed forward. And that’s good news.

An 18-mile crossing, taking 95 minutes, and all for $37:00 too. And in the Capitalist USA too.

Does anyone get the feeling that someone is taking the Mickey out of the British Cross-Channel ferry passengers? How much would you you have to pay for a crossing like this across the English Channel?

The mouth of the Delaware River is an absolute Paradise for ship-spotters too. Well worth the price of admission just for that alone.

I counted about a dozen out here either heading upriver or downriver and while I couldn’t read their names, I could still photograph them with the telephoto lens.

Here’s a couple of them to be going on with

I didn’t have time to take a photograph of my ferry – the “New Jersey” – but instead I can show you a photo of her sister travelling the other way.

There are three of them apparently and run every hour during the day at this time of year.

It’s a comparatively modern service too. Despite having been first proposed a long, long, time ago, it was only set up about 50 years ago, which is a surprise, seeing how many miles and how much time it saves.

While you admire the New Jersey Shore and Cape May in particular, I can tell yuo somethign exciting about the ferry.

Having missed out on my coffee so far this morning, it seems that on board, you pay $1:95 and you can have as many mugs of coffee as you like.

And as I’m sure that you might have guessed, I took full advantage of this opportunity – even taking one with me in Strider.

So here we are, just pulling in to the ferry terminal at Cape May, New Jersey. From here, it involves heading north-eastward sup the New Jersey coast.

I was planning to stop for the night at Atlantic City with the casinos and the glitter, but with me running an hour early, I was quite well ahead of myself;

It’s my policy not to stop until 18:00 hours unless an irresistible opportunity presents itself or I’m feeling ths strain, so I pushed on.

One thing that I did want to do was to visit Long Beach Island – scene of my triumphs back in 1999.

I was looking for the motel where I stayed back then and although I found the site, it’s not there now – the ground’s all flat.

That’s a shame, for I had had a really good time there. And there are many other motels that merit” removal” well before this one did.

I ended up at Seaside Heights as 18:00 ticked over. Full of motels but for some unknown reason, no-one was about at all.

In the end, I managed to persuade the proprietor of the Sea Palace Inn to open his doors, having agreed on a very reasonable $68:00.

No complaints with that – seeing as there’s a fridge and a microwave. A few potatoes and a tin of chili beans went down well for tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE – and back in 1999 too – on one of my very early forays into North America.

However I didn’t remember all that much about it. I wasn’t as sophisticated and prepared in those days, with a dictaphone and a digital camera, and so I was keen to have a look around, even though it was dark.

That was one of the reasons why I had come here this evening. Another reason being, of course, that my motel from 1999 had been demolished.

My notes in those days were non-existent and relying on my memory is a pretty pointless exercise these days, so I have to say that I didn’t recognise anywhere at all

The dark didn’t help very much in stimulating a visual trigger, but it had its compensations because everywhere always looks so much nicer in the dark when the lighting can bring out some spectacular effects

And the big ferris wheel in the background – that was one of the things that I’d noticed on a photograph that I’d taken back in those days

But anyway, I continued on with my stroll along the boardwalk.

One thing about the Atlantic coast of the USA (I’ve never visited the Pacific) is the beaches. The sand is really nice and looks so good, even in the pitch-black.

Anyway, after a good while and a good wander, I ended up back at my motel. In the words of Maréchal Macmahon, j’y suis, j’y reste – at least until tomorrow morning when I shall be hitting the road.

There’s still a long way to go.

EPIC HALL

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