Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that Tuesday night’s sleep was bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet.

Because last night’s sleep beat just about everything. Wide awake at 01:30, tossing and turning and all of that. I really was having it all.

Nevertheless I did still manage to go off on my travels, but you won’t be interested in them, because such was the nature of my bad night that it will put you off your supper.

The torrential rainstorm that we had didn’t help matters much either. And it was so humid that the washing that I had hung up under the verandah seemed to be wetter than when I hung it out.

I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, having had a good meal before going to bed (and don’t large packets of crisps go off with an enormous bang when you kneel on them by mistake in the dark?) and so I did some stuff on the internet;

Despite the pouring rain, I emptied out Strider and tried to sort out everything – but that was quite a maul and wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either, so I was quite exhausted afterwards.

Pausing only to take a shot of my cabin and the lake (which, due to the weather I was not able to enjoy) I went up to the office to hand in the key.

Free coffee was on offer there and seeing the expense that I had had to incur, I took full advantage. And quite rightly so.

And then I headed off into the doom and gloom.

The drive to North Sydney, beautiful though it is, is one that we have taken on many previous occasions so I didn’t stop to take any photographs.

And at the ferry terminal, my luck was in. There were still spaces free on Friday’s overnight long-distance sailing to Argentia. And so we are now booked aboard.

It might sound expensive to some (and it certainly did to me) but you need to look at it in perspective.

I would have to pay a ferry fee for the short (ie 9 hour) crossing anyway, and that’s not cheap
I would then have a drive 900 kms instead of 130 kms – and imagine how much extra fuel I would have to buy for a rather thirsty Strider.
I’d be looking for at least one, if not two nights in motels and you’ve seen what motel rates are right now.
I’d be whittling into the victuals along the way
I’d be quite worn out at the end of it all
And not least – this is a ferry crossing that i’ve been wanting to make for quite a while

All in all, it makes good financial and personal sense to travel this way.

Next thing to do was to organise accommodation for tonight.

I like the privacy of motels, but not at the price that they want to charge right now. So I phoned up the cheapest B&B in the book that I had picked up yesterday.
“Sorry, we’re full”
“That’s a shame. Do you know anyone else with a spare room?”
“No I don’t … ohh – wait a minute – if you just want a basic room with just a bed in it I can fix you up. Is $55 for cash with breakfast okay?”
Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Off I went to the shops.

As you all may remember from previous excursions, food in northern Newfoundland and Labrador is shockingly expensive, and if I’m going to be spending a week or two out there, I need to stock up.

The Atlantic Superstore, the Dollar Store and Walmart all did the business and for about $100 Strider is now full of tinned and packet goods to last a couple of weeks.

Bread will be an issue of course, but we have packets of crisps if we can’t find anything on the road.

But I made a startling discovery at the Atlantic Superstore. Their “own brand” od wine gums don’t have gelatine in them. There’s a few packets missing from their stocks right now.

I had a very late lunch on the car park by the ferry terminal, and then went for a coffee at Tim Hortons where, shame as it is to admit it, I fell asleep.

Rousing myself from a dangerous slumber I decided to head out for my digs. The address wasn’t on the SatNav but Josee’s mobile phone picked it up (that was a good move on her part to lend me that).

The street signs were confusing though and I ended up going three times round a roundabout before I fathomed it out.

The cheapest digs so far, and seem to be the nicest too. It seems that I have the room of a student who isn’t due back until tomorrow. So I’m not complaining.

I settled myself in and promptly crashed out again, only to be awoken by the aforementioned student who has returned unannounced a day early.

I would gladly have shared half my bed with her, but the landlady rather unfortunately rose to the situation by ushering her off to a spare bed put up hastily in the office, which rather disappointed me – but you can’t win a coconut every time.

So I’m going to have an early night and try to sleep the Sleep Of The Dead.

Heaven knows I need it.

Wednesday 30th August 2017 – AFTER MY NIGHT …

… in the time-warp of the 1950s last night I was ready for anything this morning.

Especially the coffee. I had calculated that it had been something like 65 hours since I had had a coffee and the presence of a coffee machine in my room meant that I was going to take full advantage.

I needed it too, because I’d had a bad night. I’m not sure why, but I found sleep very difficult. It wasn’t the musty odour and it wasn’t the traffic noise outside (it might have been an idea to close the window, I suppose) – I dunno.

But it hadn’t prevented me from going off on my travels again. I was joined last night by, of all people, Cécile. I was still living in Granville but in an apartment that resembled more my old flat in Hankelow in the mid-70s. Some work had been done on it but nt very much but Cecile was complaining that two people had promised to do work for her at her house had never been. We ended up going fora walk through the old town and stopped in a cafe where we had to share a table with three men who were having a meal. “We’re cousins” they said as they were tearing into the meat.
Meanwhile back at my place I was thinking about a few re-arrangements. Cecile was saying that I wasn’t making enough use of the high spaces in the rooms but I reckoned that the “little” room in the middle would make a nice music room. But just then Vincent from the football club appeared. He had a pile of cash to give me which was a refund of the insurance. I counted it after he had gone – there was about €45 there which seemed crazy to me because I seem to remember only paying €15:00.

I organised a shower for myself and then started to pack Strider, and I would have been away about an hour earlier had I not … errr … misplaced the keys. I seem to make something of a habit of that, don’t I?

Chucking-out time was 11:00 and the keys turned up at about 10:45 so I just about made it out in time.

Stopping, of course, for the obligatory photo of the lodgings,and having quite a laugh at the sign.

“Newly-refurbished rooms” – yes, quite an old sign, that.

I’d arranged lunch with Hannah so I set off for Antigonish, but on the way there I made a very sad discovery. Being outside in Strider through the winter, something has happened to the CDs.

They are all mangled and stuck together. Not one of them that I tried plays properly and that’s devastating news because the little *.mp3 player is not very reliable.

So, being early for Hannah and taking advantage of the facilities that modern technology has brought me, I took the SD card out of the old Canada phone that is now worthless and put it in the ‘phone that Josée has lent me (must remember to take it back out again) afterwards.

And when Hannah turned up, I was busy trying to concoct a “playlist” of all of the albums on that card so that I could play them through the auxiliary input on Strider’s radio.

Hannah and I had lunch at the little place that we know in Antigonish, and spent several hours putting the world to rights.

My opinion is, for what it’s worth, that when she graduates, she should go off to Toronto and do two years in one of these high-powered, forward-looking modern business organisations.

She can pick up all kinds of modern techniques and hints, as well as the confidence to put her ideas into practice, and then got to look for a small business somewhere in order to demonstrate her talents.

if she stays in Toronto she’ll gradually absorb their cultures and lose her own. After all, there’s no place at the executive table for someone who finished 15th (out of 62) in the North American national tractor-pulling championships.

Taking my leave, I shot off to the tourist information office at Canso – stopping at Auld’s Cove for fuel. And on his just over three-quarters of a tank of fuel Strider did 484 kilometres.

And if he can do that every time, I shall feel much more happy. That’s about 60 kms more than his previous best. You need to remember that he’s a 4×4 with an ancient-technology 4.0litre V6 engine.

Now I remember why I usually wait around until the beginning of September before going on my travels. Working my way through the travel guide that I picked up, everywhere that I called was booked up.

The only place free was an extortionate log cabin on a camp site near Baddeck, and so gnashing my teeth quite considerably, I set off.

The road is quite pretty around here.

It’s what they call the “Cape Breton Highlands” and we’ve visited them before on several occasions, usually going round the coast road.

But in something of a rush, I came right up the middle of the island and we’ve been this way too on a previous occasion.

It’s not as spectacular as the coast road but there are still some nice views.

But what spoils it all is this incessant “Highland Heritage” nonsense. The “history” of the different tartans and all of this nonsense dates from Queen Victoria’s time and that’s 100 years AFTER the Highland Scots came to settle here.

It’s certainly true to say that the different clans had different colours, but that’s because each clan lived in a different glen where a different dyeing plant would be more predominant.

But that’s all that it ever was until someone decided to amuse Queen Victoria. There was none of this weaving of intricate patterns and all the like.

It’s just like all of the bagpipes around here playing “New Britain” (the tune to which the hymn “Amazing Grace” is sung). That wasn’t written until 1829, 50 years after the Scots arrived, and had never been played on bagpipes until something like 1972.

Leaving aside another good rant for a moment (I’m far too cynical to be a good tourist guide) I come to a shuddering halt at the side of the road.

Here in the Bras d’Or lake are some weird objects and I was interested to know what they might be.

Consequently I buttonholed a passing Mi’kmaw who told me that it was a fish farm where they reared rainbow trout for the market, and it was something of a profitable venture.

He went into great detail about the nature of what they do, much of which is quite unfit for publication on pages such as this.

For some reason or other I missed my turning to the Bras d’Or Lake campsite and ended up in Baddeck.

We’ve been here before too, when we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum.

But it’s still a nice place to stop and take some photographs, because the views of the lake are quite attractive, and would be wonderful in nice weather.

Somewhere over there on that promontory is the former home of Alexander Graham Bell.

You might think that the museum ought to be over there instead of over here, but the property is still owned by his descendants who use it as a summer home and jealously guard its privacy.

And so that rules it out as a place to visit, unfortunately.

Eventually I manage to track down the camp site, and here I am. And if this is a “luxury cabin” I’d hate to see the basic ones. I’ve been quite unlucky with my accommodation so far, haven’t I?

To make matters worse, there’s no bed linen and no towels provided, so I’m rummaging around in the plastic boxes in Strider at some silly time of the night.

Luckily, hanging up the solar lantern in the back window has enabled it to keep its charge so at least there’s something to see by. But the mess that I’ve made means that i’ll be having to sort all of this out yet again in the morning.

Right now, I’m off to bed.

But not before I’ve had a shower and washed my clothes – now that I’ve found my towel.

Tuesday 29th August 2017 – AND SO …

… having had a reasonable night’s sleep last night, it took the alarm to summon me out of my stinking pit this morning.

But I’d been on my travels last night too. There had been a court case and this big gorilla of a man had been found guilty of several violent offences and sent to gaol. He was accompanied from the van by a policeman and a policewoman, neither of whom could be called “powerful” by any means and the inevitable happened – that he broke away from them. We then had this stand-off in that he couldn’t run away but they couldn’t lay hold on him and they were dancing around this car park for quite a while.
A little later I was in my house and I had visitors. Someone knocked something through the window (we were only 6 floors up) and I asked what it was. “A stuffed toy thing” was the answer. When I went down to let them out I picked up the stuffed toy – a stuffed cat as it happens – and began to stroke it, and it transformed into a real kitten. I went for a walk around the town, which was similar to the “old town” of Granville, all the time stroking this animal that I had against my shoulder. Under the archway where people were passing, they suddenly closed it off and a group of schoolchildren led by a teacher came there. He was giving them a talk about the history of the place but they were all distracted by me and my cat.

As it grew light, I nipped out to Strider to pick up some stuff and there dieseling down the Bay of Fundy in the distance was a nice big ship.

Saint John is quite an important port, not just for bulk carriers and containers, but also for oil tankers due to the presence of the huge Irvings oil refinery on the edge of town.

I was quite optimistic that we might have a good ship-spotting morning here today as I went on my errands.

And I wasn’t wrong either.

Heading into town and down the big bank, I noticed a huge MSC container ship in the harbour.

This is the MSC Kim, all 41,000 tonnes of her. Built in 2008, she’s 265 metres long and 32 metres wide. She’s come in from a tour around the Gulf of Mexico, last stop being New York.

Her claim to fame is that when she was unloading in Antwerp a couple of years ago after a trip from Ecuador, Belgian police discovered almost half a tonne of cocaine in her cargo.

But this was far from being the only excitement here on the docks.

While the Silly Brits are busy selling off their heritage in order to raise cash to pay off the massive debt that the country has, other countries are happily snapping up the bargains.

Here on the quayside recently unloaded is a fleet of AEC double-deck buses to add to the ones that we have seen parading around the streets of Montreal.

Won’t be long before the Brits have nothing left to sell, and then the fun will begin.

And that’s not all either.

The way that the Canadian government works, railways are a thing of the past in the country. Seeing a Canadian train is a rare event.

And so no-one was happier than I was to catch a train of three locomotives, two power cars and a partridge in a pear tree go clanking through the port pulling a load of oil tankers

From there, I went off to pay the insurance for Strider. And here we had some bad news – and some worse news.

It seems that I’m not entitled to a No-Claims Discount, having a foreign driving licence. That’s pretty miserable.

And secondly, there has been a substantial (and I do mean substantial) hike in insurance premiums over the last 12 months.

I bought Strider because it worked out cheaper than hiring a car for two months – and it still is, but the gap is narrowing rapidly again. I need to think of another plan.

Licking my wounds I went off to Service New Brunswick to join the massive queue for the new licence tags. Luckily they haven’t increased in price – that’s the only consolation that I can offer.

The insurance company offices are close to the Irvings refinery and I’d seen a tanker unloading there.

And so off i trotted to find a suitable vantage point to take a pic of her.

She’s the Palanca Luanda from the Marshall Islands where they have more ships than people (due to the 3% Corporation Tax rate). 11,000 tonnes and built as recently as 2012.

She’s come in from a trip down to Baltimore and Wilmington.

Having had a dismal morning I wandered off.

I stopped for lunch at a petrol station on the way to Moncton. In the gorgeous sunshine and warm weather I had a little snooze too, and then fuelled up.

Strider’s fuel consumption has improved a little, which is good news, but only to be expected after he’s had his overdrive fixed, but not enough for me to ever recover the money that it cost me.

But then, off to Moncton.

Missing my turning into the Value Village car park so turning round in the Costco car park up the hill and not being able to find the (only) exit, which then decanted me back the wrong way and I had to turn round again.

But at least I had some luck. A tin opener, a knife, fork and spoon, a proper pyrex microwave bowl and a couple of books.

But nothing at the Salvation Army shop, nothing at Home Depot and I didn’t even bother with Princess Autos.

I was back on the road – the old road out of town across the Tantramar Marshes.

On the outskirts of Memramcook I found this beautiful girder road bridge, so I stopped for a photograph.

There’s a vestige of the extant Canadian railway network behind it too – the line from Halifax to Montreal which runs passenger trains a couple of times per week.

And here we have a calamity.

The motel where I had chosen to stop – it’s now private flats and apartments. Two others were closed down, one in Sackville wanted me to buy the building, not stay for the night (I didn’t pay that much in Labrador!).

So I moved on to Amherst.

The cheapest place was fully-booked, and the only rooms on the town were, well, even worse than in Sackville.

But then this is what I have a mobile internet connection for.

A room was available at a slightly less ridiculous price at Pictou – only 90 minutesdrive down the Trans-Canada Highway. But at least it’s in the right direction so equipping the ship for silent running, off I set.

90 minutes later, I was there or thereabouts. But the motel wasn’t where the satnav said that it was. And so I spent another half an hour doing some detective work and I eventually arrived there, beaten, bedraggled and bewildered.

And I know now why the room was free. A genuine 1950s design, with furniture, decor and musty smell to match. Had I not been thoroughly exhausted, I would have walked away.

But at least we had a microwave so once I’d figured out how to use it, I could cook some of the pasta meal that Rachel had prepared for me.

And grateful I was too.

Monday 28th August 2017 – I WONDER IF …

… you can guess where the Saint John River might be.

That’s right – it’s over there where all of the cloud is. Late August and already we are in the cold early mornings,
the rapid heating and the resulting condensation.

It’s not looking good for the autumn – but then I say that every year and I somehow seem to manage.

And it’s not just along the river either. Everywhere there was a patch of water there was a hanging cloud hovering in the vicinity.

Down there in Lakeville, for example, where there is, as you might expect, a lake, there was a large patch of it and I was drifting through patches of fog all through the morning.

I’d had a good sleep last night and even been on my travels but once again, I’ve no idea where to. And it didn’t take long for me to pack up the last remnants of my stuff and hit the highway.

Just Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly to start with but by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong.

Remember last year when I saw that old car here in Woodstock?

Well, we can do much better than that today because we don’t just have one old car, we have three old lorries.

And quite interesting lorries they are too.

The flatbed lorry on the right is an “International” and the pick-up in the centre is a Chevrolet.

And we’ve seen these Chevrolets before – out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina back in 2005.

The one on the left with the tyre issues is the most exciting though. That’s an REO Speedwagon.

It’s amazing what you find in the backs of the barns occupied by these old potato farmers you know. All kinds of treasures are in there.

At Fredericton I bought an entire Walmart – including a slow cooker because Brain of Britain has left his other one in the lock-up in Montreal. How clever is that?

The Value Village came up with a few odds and ends, but Home Depot and Princess Autos (there’s one in Fredericton now) had nothing of interest.

From there I drove on towards Saint John and stopped for lunch at a convenient lay-by.

I was joined by a couple of locals who told me the legend of the maple Tree here but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was half-asleep with fatigue.

In Saint Johns I soon found a motel. Rather expensive and needs a good coat of paint but it had a microwave so next stop was Sobey’s and a bag of spuds.

I went to the Dollar Store for a microwave dish too and a few other bits and pieces, and cooked myself potatoes, sausages and beans.

But the beans left over from last year were nasty and found their way into the rubbish. I reckon that I’ll bin all of that stuff and buy some new.

So now I’m off for another early night. No need to go to the hospital as Ellen has now been expelled so I can pay my insurance and move on.

Sunday 27th August 2017 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL …

… a good night’s sleep!

Despite all of the time that it took me to drop off to sleep last night, it was … errr … 08:50 when I awoke this morning – the joys of it being Sunday and no alarm clocks!

And I had been on my travels during the night too – but just don’t ask me where I went because as soon as I awoke this morning it all went clean out of my head.

With it being a Sunday, it’s the legendary Taylor Breakfast Brunch day and so we had to loiter around until 11:00 until everyone gathered their wits and we started cooking. And by 12:00 we all had our snouts in the trough.

I was starving too for some reason (I’ve probably got worms) so I ended up making some more toast.

After lunch, Rachel proposed some washing so I nipped and had a shower while my dirty clothes walked off on their own into the washing machine. And then it was time to load up Strider.

I’m not sure what’s happening here but either I’ve lost a pile of stuff or else I’m getting better at packing him, because there seems to be much more room inside.

That will come in handy because I’m leaving here tomorrow and getting on the Trans-Canada Highway at Woodstock. And despite there being just Strawberry Moose and me inside when we set off, by the time we get to Woodstock we’ll be half a mill … "ohhh no!" – ed.

Much to my surprise, one of the LED light sticks and the portable battery pack still had charge in them. But everything is being charged up and there are some water bottles freezing in the freezer ready for the 12-volt fridge.

I had a rest after that (I’m not as young as I was) and when Darren came home from cutting tyres we did some work downstairs.

Cue another rest.

The wi-fi here is a little flaky so Darren had bought a new modem and router so this was my task for the evening. And you can see that it all works.

As well as that, I made some garlic bread for our pasta supper.

So now I’m off for an early night – my last night here for a while. Tomorrow I’m hitting the road to Saint John for Strider’s insurance and licence tags, and to go and see Ellen who is in hospital there.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while;

Saturday 26th August 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

And I’ve slept through most of it, I reckon.

Despite my early night it took me quite a while to drop off to sleep and then, once I’d gone, I stayed gone until the alarm went off.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels during the night. I’d been arranging a convoy of driverless lorries to travel along the road somewhere, and having assembled that, I went off to somewhere else to assemble another convoy to attach on behind it as it passed by. But while we were all waiting for the first convoy to arrive, I noticed that it was running on a parallel road and that had me all in a panic because I didn’t have a header-lorry to lead this convoy so it had absolutely to attach itself to the first one otherwise we would be stuck. So I was dragging this convoy behind me as I was dashing down side roads trying to connect up with the first convoy.

As a result of this I was late leaving the stinking pit and didn’t have time for breakfast. I did however manage to grab a big glass of my almond milk.

At the tyre depot there was just Rachel and me in the office and Darren and his father in the workshop. And you’ve no idea how busy we were.

We had to give someone some very bad news today too. They had just bought a car that had just gone through a safety inspection and they wanted Darren to check it.

You’ve all heard me talk and you’ve all seen photos about what kind of bodywork is or isn’t acceptable in Canada, so for Darren to turn round and say that this car shouldn’t be on the road at all gives you some idea of how bad it really was.

After we finished at lunchtime we went to the shop. Saturday is a good time to go as there are lots of reductions and rachel has a big freezer. We loaded up quite a bit of stuff.

I hadn’t eaten at all so far so I was starving by now, and so I made myself a huge pile of butties – and then I fell asleep for a couple of hours.

I managed to pull myself together and start to clean out Strider. But I didn’t get very far. I didn’t have the enthusiasm.

The OSB shelf in there has collapsed and all of the contents decanted all over the floor, including the rice and pasta.

And I clearly can’t have been feeling myself either because although I had given Rachel some stuff out of Strider, there was another lot in a plastic bucket that I had evidently forgotten to bring in.

Too late to bring it in now though – the extreme cold had shattered a couple of the glass jars and we had jam and tomato sauce all over the stuff and in the bucket – so that all needed to be washed off.

That much exercise totally wore me out and I was back on my bed and fast asleep. And that’s were I stayed until Rachel summoned me for my stir-fry tea (which was delicious).

Now I’m back in my room and it goes without saying that I can’t sleep.

But then isn’t it always like that?

Friday 25th August 2017 – I DUNNO …

… what I’ve done now, but my whole back is aching and groaning like it hasn’t ached for 30 years.

And I can’t think why either.

Admittedly I’ve been throwing sacks of corn around, but they only weigh about 20kgs and I’ve not been throwing them very far. I haven’t even had to move any car tyres either.

That’s something of a shame because last night everyone had a decent sleep – even Darren managed over 7 hours and he’s not done that for 20 years he reckons.

And as a result everyone was in a really good humour for most of the day and that’s good too. Even the cause of all of our problems yesterday, although present in the building, kept a discrete distance.

I went out to run errands around Florenceville this morning and went to pick up my post from my post box while I was out. And here’s a thing – Strider has been recalled by Fords due to an airbag issue. I need to follow that up.

It went really cold this afternoon – uncomfortably so. Summer seems to be over already, and that’s pretty depressing.

I’ve had tea and now I’m lying on my back stretched out, hoping that the pain will go so that I can sleep.

Tomorrow is another day and I hope that I’ll feel better. I’m moving on on Monday

Thursday 24th August 2017 – CANADIAN WINTERS …

… can be pretty brutal on mild steel.

No wonder Strider was dancing and hopping around on the road last night coming back from Fredericton with a pair of shock absorbers looking something like these.

The hoods were completely corroded away and the telescopic shafts were pitted, meaning that there was no effective seal.

Add to this an oil change, fixing a leaking rear differential, a safety inspection and …gulp … two new tyres (and I’ve fitted the best, none of your cheap rubbish) and I’m now lying down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

But at least Strider handles like he ought to handle, and I’m well-prepared for the far north of Labrador in a couple of weeks time.

I have the licensing and the insurance to deal with too next week. But even so, it still all works out cheaper than hiring a vehicle.

And I’ve worked out how Strider managed to go to the transmission shop to have his overdrive problem fixed when everyone was so busy that they couldn’t spare the time. And it can’t possibly be Amber who drove it there, can it? After all, she’s only just turned 14 and isn’t allowed to drive a motor vehicle on the public highway.

Last night was a very bad night for me. I have felt it coming on for the last couple of days and knew that it wouldn’t be long in arriving.

All day yesterday I was feeling out of sorts and coming back from Fredericton was a struggle. I went to bed almost as soon as I arrived back here but sleep was… shall we say …fitful.

I didn’t feel much like it this morning either and didn’t have any breakfast, but I gradually came round and by 10:00 I was feeling rather better.

But the strain that everyone is under here in Ellen’s absence is telling and we had what can only be described as “an unfortunate outburst” this morning.

This led, rather surprisingly, to two people not at all connected with the events rounding upon the perpetrator and telling him precisely what they thought about the event – and in no uncertain terms either.

This led to the perpetrator “going out to deliver some hogfeed” and that was the last that we saw of him all day, which suited everyone else quite fine.

We even had a “team meeting” and summoned the local computer programmer to come up with a new accounting system to replace the one that Noah had used to calculated the finances of building the Ark.

Amber was out with her boyfriend this evening but Hannah’s friend had arrived (they are going back to University tomorrow) so we were still pretty numerous for tea. Rachel had made me a nice salad and soup.

Now I’m off to bed – an early night. I have a lot of sleep to catch up on after yesterday.

Wednesday 23rd August 2017 – ANOTHER EARLY NIGHT …

… is called for tonight.

I’ve had a hectic day.

It all went wrong at about 04:00 when we had the most tremendous thunderstorm. That, I reckon must have awoken almost everyone in the neighbourhood. And the torrential rainstorm made it almost impossible for everyone to go back to sleep.

I was still awake when the alarms went off and at 07:00 I was up and about, breakfasting and making my butties.

We had a rush to get into work this morning but eventually everyone arrived there and for the first time for quite a while we had a full house (excepting Ellen of course).

And so I was something rather supernumerary so I carried on with a little project that I had started yesterday on the laptop as well as chatting to one or two customers who were waiting.

Apparently there’s a family of ospreys who have made a nest in the pipework of the cornmill and we were admiring their handiwork.

Later on this afternoon Rachel ran me down to Fredericton to pick up Strider where he was having some work done.

And that wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem. There were piles of queues on the roads, roadworks, a police stake-out, and eventually the road that we needed was blocked off by road works so we had to back up and go the long way around.

And all the time we were dealing with telephone calls from the office about accounts enquiries. No wonder we were all so stressed out when we arrived.

I went to the Atlantic Superstore for some groceries and then picked up some fuel at Keswick before coming back.

And my odyssey isn’t over because there seems to a be a shock absorber that has burst judging by the bizarre handling from the nearside rear that had me all across the road on a couple of occasions.

So now; totally exhausted, I’m off to bed. I”ll need my strength to sort out this rear end tomorrow.

Tuesday 22nd August 2017 – I DUNNO …

… how Rachel must be feeling right now but I’m certainly getting myself stressed out over this accounting thing, and I’m supposed to be here relaxing on holiday!

It took the alarm at 06:00 to awaken me this morning and after an hour or so on the laptop trying to find a solution for this stuck keyboard, I managed to grab breakfast and be in work (!!!) at 08:00.

This morning I was errand boy running around to the Post Office, the supermarket and stuff like that, as well as brewing up and entertaining the customers who were waiting.

This afternoon though, I was receptionist for the telephone and the counter fielding some of the more simple enquiries without bothering Rachel too much.

Darren and Hannah returned from the tractor pull in Bowling Green (Hannah came 15th out of 62) and went off to unload the trailer. But Hannah came back just before closing time to go through the accounts again.

It was an early finish for us tonight – we closed and locked up by 18:30 and then round to the bank to cash up before going home.

Only a scratch tea tonight because everyone was tired and exhausted, and now I’m having an early night.

At this rate, I’ll need another holiday to recover from this one.

Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

… to go to sleep last night – to such an extent that I was away on my travels.

I was in Winsford having to go to Northwich and there was a choice of two routes to take. And they were the same distance too so I couldn’t decide which one to take, especially seeing as I was going on foot. But eventually I arrived there and came out of a building that might have been the railway station (but which isn’t). On the left was some kind of 1960s tower block which the town council was using as its headquarters and to the right was an old Victorian building rather like a school which was owned by the Council and which had been their previous HQ but was now derelict, and there was some scandal about the deal which had led to the Council vacating the building and leasing the more modern one for a fee which many people considered to be excessive. I was in a crowd across the square watching this old building, in the company of none other than Liz Ayers – and how many years is it since she’s been on a nocturnal ramble with me? I saw a movement over the roof of this building and couldn’t explain what it was – something like a shadow but I called it a light, which it most certainly wasn’t. But as I said it, six red lights appeared in the sky quite low down just underneath the fullish moon. “Space Laboratory” immediately came into my mind. I tried to explain this to everyone but as they all turned to look, some old woman on a broomstick – a witch – came flying out of the moon.

It was a very restless night last night with me tossing and turning so much, but I was asleep yet again when the alarm clock went off. Sleep is one thing – crawling out of bed is quite something else.

But I had a quick breakfast, made my sandwiches and went with Rachel into the office.

Making myself useful, I cleaned out the bathroom from top to bottom and threw away tons of stuff that had accumulated in there. Now it’s quite clean and shiny, but it did take ages and I had to sit down for a while afterwards.

Having gathered my strength I went round with Rachel to Bob’s house and finished off the vacuuming now that I had located the bags. And we did some general tidying up too.

I hope that I’m still in this kind of mood when I return home.

We had a knotty accounting problem to deal with this afternoon. Ellen is still running the accounts on the basis of Canadian 19th Century accounting, poor Rachel is struggling to understand it and explain it to me, and I’m trying to do it with British 21st Century accounting principles based on Ellen’s templates and Rachel’s explanations. And so between the two of us we ended up in a hopeless tangle.

But we sorted it out eventually once it suddenly clicked with Rachel and she could explain it to me.

In the meantime I’d crashed out, woken up, and gone for a walk around the old railway station site for some fresh air.

Amber and her boyfriend brought me back here where I promptly crashed out again. But a shower brought me round and a nice tea of the rest of the salad and soup from Saturday made me feel even better.

Now I’m having an early night and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. Because my legs have swollen up again and that has depressed me mightily.

Sunday 20th August 2017 – NOW HERE’S A SURPRISE!

Despite having had an early night last night and despite having crashed out for a while during the day, I slept right through until the alarm went off this morning.

I don’t even know why I had an alarm seeing as it’s Sunday – but there we are.

But a nice early start gave me an opportunity to catch up with a couple of things that I had let slip over the last few days and prepare myself for brunch.

Toast, beans, hash browns and home fries with plenty of coffee – what a way to start the day. But then we had work to do. With Ellen being in hospital, Bob is finding it difficult to manage and so while he was out visiting her, Rachel, Amber and I had a major blitz on his house for a couple of hours.

And we would have done much more had we been able to find some vacuum cleaner bags and stuff like that. But imagine me cleaning someone else’s house! I have enough problems cleaning my own!

That having been organised, the three of us set off for Woodstock. And by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong … “here we go again” – ed … so it was pretty crowded in Rachel’s car.

The vegan range of food products in Sobey’s has expanded even more so I bought a fair bit of stuff to keep me going for the next week or so until I hit the road. After that it was the Walmart but there was nothing there that I needed.

By now it was supper time so I invited Rachel and Amber for a meal. Still a dearth of vegan food in the restaurants here but one place rustled me up a couple of vegan wraps and more home fries.

Not exactly what I would call “adventurous” but at least it shows an awareness and a willingness which is more than you can say for some places.

More tidying up here when we arrived. Last night a bear had attacked the dustbin and there was rubbish strewn all over the driveway. Amber and I attacked that and cleared up the mess while Rachel put the shopping away.

Another surprising thing is that back in Europe the broadcasts of the Welsh Premier League are blacked out for those living outside the UK. But here in North America they aren’t. I don’t understand that. So I took advantage by starting to watch yesterday’s TNS v Bala Town match.

But after about 15 minutes I was obliged to give up. And 5 minutes later I was flat out on the bed. I crashed out for a good 90 minutes, and crashed out completely too.

Now of course I can’t go back to sleep.

I just can’t win, can I?

Saturday 19th August 2017 – WE PULLED …

… into the Sainte-Foy coach interchange about 15 minutes early having missed out on Longueuil on our way down.

Not that it did us much good because the café was closed up.

I can’t believe the commercial opportunities that people are turning away these days – and then they are complaining about a recession when they have captive clients and they are turning them away.

But enough of my rant for the moment. The wait of 45 minutes was quickly over as the bus out of the city down the Gaspé puled in early too so we all clambered aboard for the next leg of our journey – alighting at Riviere-du-Loup.

A two-hour wait here even though the bus was already in and waiting. No electricity either and a “confused” internet set-up too.

I curled up on my seat and tried to sleep, but not that it did me much good because I couldn’t drop off very easily.

With arriving 15 minutes early in Florenceville I had to wait 5 minutes for Rachel and she drove me down to the tyre depot. With Ellen being ill, Rachel is having to work today.

It was quiet there today – Darren and Hannah are away tractor-pulling in Bowling Green with Perdy in the Pink, but there was plenty of coffee on offer. And I needed it after my overnight Odyssey.

Amber and her boyfriend were going back to the house at lunchtime so I cadged a lift, made myself some toast and coffee and then had a nice hot shower.

And, as you might expect, crashed out completely. According to the fitbit I’d had 1:06 of sleep during the night on the bus.

Rachel was back at teatime and we spent a long time putting the world to rights, and then made a mega-soup for tea. We were joined by one of her friends who is helping out with the accounts at the moment while Ellen is indisposed.

She had made a really good salad that went down a treat too.

But I wasn’t up for long. It’s cold and wet outside, not at all like a Canadian summer, and I was feeling quite tired so I made my excuses and had an early night.

Tomorrow is Sunday and the legendary Taylor breakfast brunches. I need to be on top form for that.

Friday 18th August 2017 – SO HERE I AM …

… sitting on the coach station in Montreal waiting for my bus to Florenceville, totally exhausted. Luckily there’s a seat right by the gate that I need because I won’t be able to crawl much farther – I’ve had a hectic day!

I had another good sleep last night – which is hardly a surprise after all of the walking that I did yesterday, and then spent half an hour trying various key combinations of the laptop to see if I could fire up the keyboard, because you’ve no idea how inconvenient this external keyboard really is.

But all to no avail.

I nipped out to Tim Horton’s for breakfast and, much to my dismay, we were having a torrential rainstorm. What a way to finish my last day in Montreal.

Back here I started to pack and despite having emptied some stuff out of the suitcase, it seems to be even more full than it was before and it’s becoming something of a struggle to close it up. Either I shall have to dump some stuff or Strawberry Moose will have to go on a diet.

First stop was round at Josée’s. She works as a co-ordinator of some kind of project for reinsertion of people into the mainstream and part of their work includes running a series of craft workshops. It’s Zoe’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to buy her a present, and I’d seen some stuff there that looked really nice.

So braving the rainstorm off I set, and I did have quite a lucky find. I stumbled across a second-hand computer shop where they had 50 laptops for sale, all of which seemed to be at bargain prices. Far from being the latest spec of course but if this one is about to give up the ghost I can organise a quick replacement.

Taking my leave of Josée I wandered up the hill to see what was going on. I noticed that a corner of the park had been closed off.

It seems that there’s an open-air music concert this weekend and they were all there setting up the stage.

Well, I wish them all the best of luck and I hope that the weather improves because it will be rather miserable if it doesn’t.

These people can give you much more idea of what the weather is doing right now.

I bet that you wondered what happened to all of the Routemasters that were phased out of London. The Londonders might not appreciate them but the rest of the world does and they are scattered all across the globe.

This is JJD274D with its top cut off being used as a sightseeing bus and the passengers are clearly enjoying it despite the rain.

You’ll notice that the rear platform has been “turned” for “driving on the left” operation

The weather slowly started to clear itself up so I headed back into town.

I’d heard about “Chinatown” and on my walk with Josée the other day I’d actually gone past it, so it seemed like a good idea to go into town that way.

But I do have to say that despite the banners and artificial arches it’s something of a disappointment. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was expecting more than this

By now it was approaching lunchtime so I made my way into the big Complexe Desjardins.

There’s a huge food court in the basement and also this magnificent fountain that’s really well-worth admiring – a performing art in its own right.

I had a good prowl around the different food outlets but ended up as usual at the Subway for my 12-inch vegetarian without cheese, and mustard sauce.

And here’s a thing!

Do you know what the must surprising thing in the world is?

It’s to discover that you are sitting on one of these toilets that has an automatic flush that sets itself off into motion about 30 seconds after you’ve closed your eyes for a little doze.

You may remember from yesterday that there were some ships in port but I was unable to read their names.

The weather wasn’t right for sunbathing so I reckoned that I’d go for a walk along the docks to see what they were.

That was however not counting on some kind of invasion by some kind of colonial troops. Not British “redcoats” quite clearly, but there was obviously something going on somewhere.

But I wasn’t in the mood to go and check it out – despite the depressing weather there’s an ice-cream van selling vegan ice-cream down at the Old Port and I reckoned that I deserved a treat.

We’ve seen the clock tower – the war memorial to the Canadian merchant marine victims of World War I – on several occasions, but never from this angle.

I’ve taken a little detour round to the offices of the Montreal Yacht Club to make “certain enquiries”.

One idea that has gone through my mind on several occasions is the idea about hiring a cabin cruiser for a week or two to have a cruise down the St Lawrence, and the Yacht Club seemed like the best place to make enquiries.

But apparently that possibility doesn’t exist on the St Lawrence, which is very depressing.

There are however plenty of “organised” river cruises something similar to this one, but that idea doesn’t appeal to me too much.

And Josée told me about the cruise liner that sails from Montreal to the Iles de la Madeleine, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw that ship in dry dock downriver a couple of years ago and we had a good look over it.

We were at the Gare Viger yesterday and although the building is still there, it’s difficult to see where the railway lines ran, due to modern construction that seems to have wiped out part of the track bed.

But not far away is this road viaduct that doesn’t seem to be serving much or a purpose these days.

It made me wonder if the railway lines passed underneath here at one time as they curved round to join up with the lines that run through the port.

There were steps up to the roadway so I climbed up. This was the road out of the city to the east and so I followed it.

Underneath in the shadow of the Pont Jacques Cartier is this weird building that looks like some old steam pumping house.

The slogan carved on the walls is “Concordia Salus” which is the official slogan of the City of Montreal, so it was formerly a municipal building of some description.

This on the other hand is a building belonging to the Quebec Provincial Government as you can tell by the Quebec flag that’s flying from the roof.

If you are thinking to yourself that this has something of the air of being the local nick, you are quite right – it’s the “Prison des Patriotes” – the old “Pied au Courant” gaol where the perpetrators of the 1837-1838 rebellion were incarcerated.

It’s now a museum.

but let us turn our attention to the Pont Jacques Cartier for a brief moment, seeing as we are passing underneath it.

That bit that we see here isn’t even half of it. That’s the Ile Sainte Helene over there – not the south bank of the river, and there’s just as much, if not more bridge on the other side of the island leading over to Longueil

While I was wandering around the docks earlier I fell in with a couple of Port security guards, so I asked them about the Manitoba.

They hadn’t even noticed that it had been there moored up for over a year so they couldn’t tell me what was going on with it.

But they did say that it was attended and that there was the occasional maintenance crew aboard, so it wasn’t abandoned or laid up.

Nevertheless, according to my own research, she’s been in port now for 486 days – since April 17 2016/

The next ship in at the docks is the Damia Desgagnes.

She’s a gas tanker of about 15;000 tonnes and has arrived in port from a voyage around the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal.

You’ll remember that we stuck our noses into the Welland Canal on our trip in 2010

Way over there in the distance we have the huge Algoma Guardian.

Not as huge as all that though – a mere 23;000 tonnes and built in 1987.She’s come in from Quebec, having been on a voyage down through the Great Lakes.

And even as I speak she’s back on her way up the lakes again.

Final ship – at least – that I could see, is the Ferbec, a bulk carrier of just over 27;000 tonnes.

Owned by the Canadian Shipping Lines, as you can tell, she arrived in port almost 3 weeks ago on a marathon journey that started on Christmas Eve in Shanghai.

Yes, I’ve been having my money’s worth here in the Port of Montreal, haven’t I?

It’s a long walk back into the centre of town and so, dodging the hordes of beggars that seem to be on every street corner here in ?ontreal; I headed back down the rue Ste Catherine Est.

And no surprises for guessing what I have stumbled upon here. I’ve heard about the installation of speed cameras here in Quebec and this is what one of them looks like.

But judging by the state of the roads around here, I wouldn’t want to be doing any more than 50kph. I’ve seen parts of the Trans-Labrador Highway that are in better condition than this.

I don’t know where the City is spending all of its money, but it’s certainly not on the public highway.

For those of you with a musical bent, you’ll enjoy Montreal right now.

I talked earlier today about the open-air concert and we’ve mentioned the public pianos when we’ve been here in earlier years.

They are still here – at least, this one in the rue Ste Catherine est is – and the guy who was tinkling away at the ivories wasn’t all that bad at all.

Not only that, while I was having a coffee outside the Tim Horton’s; some giutarist came and set himself up to busk in the street.

“I’ll take a photo of him in a minute when I’ve finished my coffee” I mused to myself” but by that time he had packed up and cleared off. It had been a long day and I was pretty exhausted.

But my luck was in – if that’s the correct phrase – higher up the street.

I happened to catch a performance by the worst bagpiper in the world – and I’ve heard some bad pipers, I’ll tell you that.

Everyone has to learn and that everyone has to start somewhere, that’s for sure, and I’m all in favour of live music, but there ARE limits all the same.

I’d be embarrassed to be out on the streets playing like that for money.

While I’d been on my travels I’d been looking out for a likely place to eat, and I’d noticed another falafel place. That was my next stop as by now it was after 19:00.

But to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. The food was reasonable but the price ended up being utterly extortionate so I’ve crossed that place off my list for next time.

A stagger back to the hotel for my suitcase which I had left in the cupboard, and then off round the corner to the bus station.

The bus was in early so I could grab a comfy seat, which is always nice and useful. Internet and electricity too so that I could listen to some good music.

And the irony of having spent a good hour or so crawling underneath the Pont Jacques Cartier is that we actually drove over it on our way out of town.

Didn’t stop at Longueuil though – no-one wants to board there apparently, so next stop is the Sainte-Foy interchange on the outskirts of the city of Quebec.

Thursday 17th August 2017 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the disasters were quite limited today and I had something of an interesting day.

One of the things that I’ve been doing each time that I come here is to go to the end of the line of a different metro line to see what goes on there, and I’ve exhausted them all. But I’ve been a regular traveller on Bus 202 when I was out in the sticks and never seen what’s at the end of that. And so that was today’s plan.

I’d had a reasonable sleep, which always seems to put me in a better humour. And I’d been on my travels too. I was teaching an “English as a foreign language” course and at the interval I had some goodies to share out. But for that I needed some spoons and the ones in my drawer were so dirty – so I went off to wash them. It took ages too and in the end the person who was supervising me suggested that I abandon the treat that I had lined up, went back to my classroom and re-started the lesson a little early so that we could finish early and go home.

Breakfast was at Tim Horton’s as usual and I made full use of their internet. I noticed on one of these mapping sites that it’s possible to download maps for off-line use, so I downloaded a map of Canada just to be on the safe side. I’ll download a few others too while I’m at it.

After spending a few hours back here doing some work I went out to hit the Metro. And here I had quite a major surprise too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will remember that the metro trains here were old, filthy things from when the lines were built 50 years ago and had received nothing in the way of upgrade ever since then.

Well, all of this has changed.

There are still plenty of the old trains knocking about on the system but there are also some shiny new ones and I was lucky that the one that I wanted was one of those.

They are clean, nicely illuminated with “traffic lights” on the doors and you can walk the whole length of the car.

With them being open like that you can see some interesting views as the trains snake their way around the system and it occurs to me that at some point I might do a video of it.

I found a nice length of track that would be suitable.

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that last year on my travels I saw a really nice church and took a photo – but forgot to note the name.

That was on my list of things to do and so I went off for a little perambulation; seeing as I was in the vicinity.

And my luck was in too, and doesn’t that make a change?

Some guy was loitering outside doing stuff and seeing me admire the building he came over for a chat

He told me that it’s the Eglise Ste Croix and its claim to fame, because it certainly has one, is that it was moved here stone-by-stone 80 years ago (1931 as I was to find out later) during some redevelopment work.

Today it’s a museum and as there was some kind of event going on there, I was allowed to enter it for a look around.

I couldn’t take my bag (or my camera unfortunately) in there with me but I managed to smuggle in the telephone, and the results aren’t too bad, I suppose.

Although I wish that the stained glass windows had come out better.

There were all kinds of exhibits in there, mostly relating to works by local craftsmen through the ages.

Lots of carpentry – 18th and 19th-Century furniture and the like but it wasn’t possible to photograph them.

Here in a quiet, discrete corner there was the possibility to photograph this group of religious statues which I found quite impressive.

And so back to the DuCollege metro station down the road and the Bus 202. And off we set down to the end of the line, with me making careful note of where all of the bus stops for the interesting places like IKEA were.

You can do that now because with the modernisation of the Montreal Public Transport system that seems to be taking place, they have a stop-announcement system as the bus is driving – “prochain arrêt Cotes de Liesse Cavendish” which is where you alight for IKEA.

There are roadworks going on all over the motorway network here in Montreal right now, and when we were here last year I showed you why.

This year, our bus stops at the traffic lights right by another fine example of Quebecois motorway engineering.

The whole system is like that.

Our bus stops at the Dorval railway station – which I’m determined to try out one of these days – and then turns off into “Dawson”, which is the street where it is supposed to finish. And I prepare to alight.

But instead, the driver changes the headboard sign and we continue on. I wasn’t expecting this.

We skirt the huge Lac St Louis which is absolutely beautiful and where I was expecting to go for a walk, but we still carried on driving. For hours, it seemed.

But all good things come to an end and we fetch up at a huge shopping centre on the edge of the city.

And I’ve been here before because there’s so much that I recognise. And the funny thing is that we aren’t all that far from the airport. but what a road we took to get here.

I go off to organise lunch and then for a good prowl around the Walmart and the Home Depot down the road. Couldn’t find a Canadian Tire but there must be one somewhere in the vicinity.

I have two choices of going back to the city – one is to retrace my steps on the 202 and the second is to find the express bus 485 that operates in the vicinity.

I eventually track that down and leap aboard. A few stops around the immediate area and then onto the motorway into town, with a stop at Dorval railway station and the persistent queues in the roadworks and rush-hour.

I’m dumped at the Lionel Groulx Metro Station and take the metro to the Place d’Armes.

It’s a different way to the Old Port from the one that I usually take and I’m glad that I came this way.

There’s not much left of the original dockside buildings of the mid-19th Century when the port was in its heyday but I manage to stumble on one of the very few surviving areas.

This is just how the place – or any Victorian city in the British Empire – would have looked 150 years ago abd I bet that it won’t be here much longer.

And bingo! I strike it luck down on the Vieux Port.

We passed the ice-cream van yesterday and I hadn’t paid much attention to it. But today, in the heat, I give it a close examination and there we are! Vegan ice-cream!

Of course I cannot let an opportunity like this pass me by, can I?

Several ships in the harbour too; including our old friend Manitoba who still seems to be there from last year

I couldn’t read the names of most of the ships but this one seems to be the Federal Spey.

Although she’s in the colours of the Canadian Shipping Lines she’s another one of these that’s registered in the Marshall Islands, something possibly not unconnected with the fact that Corporation Tax for maritime activities in the Marshall Islands is just 3%

And people are so upset about refugees receiving a couple of hundred dollars!

And we had a miracle in Montreal too.

As I was walking by St Pauls … errr … I mean – the docks; the sun suddenly appeared through the clouds right between the arms of Jesus outstretched on top of his church or whatever it is.

Nothing wrong with a bit of divine intervention every now and again.

I carried on to my usual spec at the clock tower to sit on the steps, watched a young girl of about 3 playing with her parents, and admired the Manitoba and the Pont Jacaues Cartier.

They say that a good many historical places in the New World are named for the Europeans who discovered them.

And I’ve often wondered what Jacques Cartier must have said when he arrived here on 2nd October 1535 and discovered this bridge.

My road back into town took me past the Marché Bonsecours.

This is one of the most spectacular buildings still remaining in the old city and we’ve visited it a few times.

In fact on one occasion last year I crashed out in the coffee bar when I had a funny turn when I was out a-walking.

Luckily I’m feeling a little better this year than I did back then.

This group of people caught my eye, all dressed in white.

And if you want to know what they are doing, you have to ask them. And so I did.

It’s one of these crowding things, apparently. They all assemble at a certain spot and these are off to eat a sandwich somewhere in the city -in the street.

They’ve even brought their chairs with them

It’s not possible for me to come here without going to see the most beautiful building in the whole of Montreal.

This is the Gare Viger – the old Canadian Pacific railway station that was abandoned when they CPR pulled out of the east of Canada and is a sad reminder of the collapse of the Canadian railway system.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it was in a very sorry state and threatened with demolition at one time – which would have been a tragedy.

It has however been undergoing a programme of renovation and as luck would have it, a workman had nipped outside leaving the door open.

It goes without saying that as he nipped outside, I nipped in behind him and took a few photos before I was thrown out.

I have to say that I don’t think all that much of the renovations, but at least it’s been saved for the future – something that 5 years ago was looking very unlikely.

Now I’m sure that I can’t be the only one who sees the total irony in these two signs next to each other at the Chapelle de Notre Dame de Lourdes/

One of them reads “this church was erected in the Glory of Mary thanks to the generosity of her Friends” and the second one reads “it is strictly forbidden to loiter or to seek alms whether inside or outside the Chapel”

It’s this kind of thing that gives the Catholic Church the kind of bad reputation that it has today.

On this point I went off to a Lebanese restaurant that I’d noticed the other day and they served an excellent assiette falafel with diced potatoes. And didn’t that go down a treat?

Now it’s off to bed for an early night. My last day in Montreal tomorrow and I need to be on form because I’m on the overnight bus tomorrow night.

No sleep for me!

EPIC HALL

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