Sunday 30th August 2015 – I HAVE HAD THE WORST …

… night’s sleep that I have had for years. Unfortunately, it seems that Ford’s designers went astray when designing the Ford Ranger and he is not meant at all for sleeping in. For a start, the seat doesn’t fold back flat, and that simple little thing would have made a whole world of difference.

I can hardly say that I was tossing and turning because there wasn’t the space for that, but no matter what position I chose, I just couldn’t get comfortable and everything was in the wrong place. This is quite a disappointment, but you live and learn, I suppose.

I had breakfast at Dysarts, in keeping with my policy of being financially grateful to everyone who helps me out on my travels – hash browns, toast, jam, coffee and orange juice, and then I hit the highway.

My drive today has taken me through some really beautiful countryside, but I haven’t had the time to stop and admire it as I’ve been tracking down RV sales yards today.

I’ve managed to do four but as you might expect with it being a Sunday, everywhere is closed. Consequently when I found a really cheap motel right in the centre of my route I holed up here for the rest of the afternoon. There’s no point going much further on and wasting fuel only to find that I have to come back by here anyway tomorrow.

The motel is called “The Whispering Pines” and it’s at Skowhegan. It’s run by a very friendly old couple and is like a timewarp, stuck in the 1970s. Mind you, the prices are also stuck in the same timewarp and that suits me fine. I don’t need anything more than this when I’m on my travels. A good shower, an internet connection and a comfortable bed.

The plus side is that there is a fridge, so everything has gone into there until morning, and they also have ice-box facilities so I’ve filled a couple of bottles with water and I’m freezing them off too, to use as cool packs.

Strawberry Moose met a friend today too.

In Skowhegan there’s a huge ice-cream parlour with about 1,000 varieties of ice-cream so seeing as it was a gorgeous day, I went for a look to see what they could do for me. There wasn’t much in the way of ice-cream but they had several varieties of dairy-free smoothies.

They had a crazy golf course there too so I relaxed with my smoothie watching the antics of the performers on the course, while His Nibs went to chat to his cousin for an informal family reunion.

Later that night I found a pizza place and ordered a mushroom, black olive and onion pizza. They had two sizes, small and large, so I asked for a large, and no wonder I had a look of surprise with my three slices of vegan cheese. The “large” was 16 inches, so I reckon that it’s pizza for breakfast and lunch too.

Back here I watched a film but I don’t feel much like it. I had a bad night and it’s been a long hot day and I’m going to fll asleep in a min ….

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Saturday 29th August 2015 – I’M NOT DOING VERY WELL …

… trying to find a slide-in camper back for Strider, but I’m doing my best and having some dreadful luck.

Having had one of the best night’s sleeps for quite a long while I was up and about ready and eager to go at all of … errr … 05:30 this morning. It just goes to show you the benefit of an early night and a good bed.

Mind you, I might have been ready to go, but I doubt if anyone else would have been, and so I spent a good couple of hours catching up on stuff on the computer and on the internet and also made a list, in distance order, of places that I need to go to in order to find out about campers.

By 09:00 I was ready for the off and first stop was Oakfield for some fuel and breakfast. Strider’s fuel consumption has improved a little too, which is good news.

Breakfast, including coffee, came to $3:07 but seeing as I had no loose change, I offered $4:00. “I just love your accent!” said the woman on the checkouts, passing me back $1:00. “No need to load up your pockets with change”. It’s the first place that I’ve ever been to where the staff have tipped the customers.

The RV place at Medway told me more about this camper that they have on offer. It’s 1997, been sitting on a park site for God knows how long and they want $3,000 for it. And there are no accessories with it. We arranged an appointment for “after 16:00” to go to see it, but I shudder to think what it must be like.

I drove on down to Bangor as there were three places to visit there. One of them had nothing, and seemed quite uninterested about the situation (so much for US business techniques). The second one, Harveys RVs, still had listed in the inventory the one that I was originally offered, but which had been sold from underneath me. I reminded the salesman that it was still up there on the list, “but it’s sold” said the salesman. “But we have a couple of new ones you can look at”. Now I understand the sales technique. Quite simply, it seems to be to “get people onto the lot at any price”.

The third one, which I visited on spec, had something extremely interesting and we spent an hour or so going over it. And I would have driven away with it too but when we came to measure up, it was 3 inches too wide and about a foot too long. That was definitely a major disappointment to me. Mind you, they did have a brand-new one that would have fitted on a pick-up smaller than mine and which weighed about half of what any other would weigh, but it wasn’t a fold-down top and in any case $20,000 is much more than what I want to pay.

Still, we had a really good chat for ages, helped no doubt that I was the first person in North America to recognise the photos of his Pride And Joy and correctly identify it as a Mercedes 190 Ponton. This kind of thing helps to break the ice at parties.

Home Depot came up trumps yet again. I need a new Ryobi plus one circular saw (which would have cost me $69:00) but they had a starter kit of saw, basic drill, charger and lithium battery at just $79:00. And a pack of two lithium batteries came to just $49:00. Things are definitely looking up in North America from that point of view.

All the way back to Millinocket afterwards to find this camp site and I must have driven around every dirt track and mountain trail in the whole of Upper Maine but with no success as far as this camper went. This was something of a wasted journey and I was quite annoyed about that. The road was exciting though and didn’t ‘arf rattle my teeth, but I can see the benefit of decent all-weather tyres on a 4×4, instead of high-speed road tyres on a town car, when driving on dirt tracks.

So I headed south on Highway 11 back to Bangor, on one of the nicest roads that I have ever driven. A new, refurbished black-top with scenic views, lakes, and lovely bends and you’ve no idea how much Strider loved the trip.

I had the speed limiter set to 55mph all the way down here and it really was an enjoyable drive, but Strider has a tendency to wander a little around the road, I’ve noticed. I’ll have to have a look at the dampers – maybe one or two need changing perhaps which is hardly surprising giving the battering he’s just had.

Brownville in Maine came up trumps, and for several reasons too – not the least of which being this gorgeous steel girder bridge across the river. It could do with a coat of paint of course, as well as all of the power lines that surround it pulled down so that I can have a decent shot of it, but I still think that it’s quite good nevertheless.

And where I had stopped to take the photo was on the corner of “Railroad Street” with an old sign directing me to the “railroad station”. What more can any man desire?

There’s quite an important railway junction here, with three lines merging in a triangular junction. I did notice a building that might have been a railway station but it was festooned with US flags and “Private Property” signs – clearly the home of Republicans, and so I wasn’t going to risk a bullet in the back of my neck by photographing it, such is the paranoia and the fear gripping most Americans these days.

But from the other side of the tracks, braving the “private property” and “no trespassing signs”, I could take a photo of the busy goods yard and tell you that the station is on the other side behind the railway wagons.

Upper Maine is noted for its lumber industry and there is ample evidence of that all over the place, especially here at Pleasant River where there is the biggest pile of timber that I have ever seen. It looks much more impressive in real life than it does on film.

In the foreground is the finished product – wood for the building industry all cut and planed, and shrink-wrapped to keep out the damp and for ease of shipping. All of this of course might explain the busy railway goods yard at Brownville Junction just up the road.

There were lots more things to see too but the light had gone by now and it was going dark. I’ll have to come back here another time.

But I had noticed that I hadn’t seen a single motel all along this road and so I headed for Bangor. And by the time that I arrived at Bangor in the pitch black, I still hadn’t either.

As for a motel, a cheap cat-house wanted $99:00 for a room so we can forget that, and so I headed to Dysart’s truck stop for tea. And much to my astonishment, Dysarts now has vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

They also had nice, thick artisan-type blankets at $9:99 and if I’m going to end up sleeping some nights in Strider, there’s no time like the present to make a start. It beats $99:00 in a cheap motel.

Friday 28th August 2015 – HERE’S STRIDER …

… all loaded up with a huge domestic fridge and a big cooker, and in a few minutes we are off to Sharp’s, the metal place just outside Woodstock.

I’m taking my leave of Darren, Rachel and family and heading off into the hills. I mean – I’ve been here 10 days and that’s not like me at all to put down roots like this.

At Sharps, there was nearly a lot more metal hauled into the yard as I failed to see a dark purple car against the dark vegetation background as I pulled out to go across the road. That was rather embarrassing, to say the least, especially as I had something of an audience watching me.

Anyway, having done that, I went down the road and to the border with Great Satan at Houlton. Crossing into the USA there took ages with the queue of traffic (but nothing like what it took to get into Canada the other week) and just for a change, every single one of the border guards was friendly, cheerful and helpful. If all border crossings could be like this one, travelling would be a lot less stressful.

However, just to prove that little of the underlying spirit of the USA has changed very little, while I was there, four people were chosen from the queue to receive closer attention

me – with a foreign passport
a black guy
a long-haired hippy-type
an oriental family

Still the same old stereotypes, so it seems. But as I said, even though I was selected for closer attention, it wasn’t a stressful experience by any means – just a friendly chat.

In Houlton, I struck lucky yet again at Marden’s and it made me wish that I hadn’t spent that monay at Canadian Tire the other day because they had everything that I needed there and at half the price too. But this is the thing with Marden’s – their stock is very much of the moment. It’s all bankruptcy, liquidations, fire sale stuff and it comes and goes. You can’t ever rely on them for having anything.

I fuelled up Strider as well, and I’ve come to the conclusion that his fuel consumption isn’t as bad as I was fearing. I let him run quite empty, to a rather depressing 425kms (not enough for Labrador) but to refill, it took 15.4 US gallons – about 55 litres. It’s still not very good, but at least I know what to expect.

Consequently, at the Walmart at Presque Ile, where I went next, I picked up a second 20-litre fuel container, just to be on the safe side.

And here, I struck lucky too. 2-tonne trolley jacks on sale at just $18:86. Anyone who has tried to jack up a vehicle on a dirt road with a sill jack (as we did in 2012 out in northern Quebec) will know the value of having decent tools and equipment for tyre changing. I could have done that job in 20 minutes, not three hours, with decent equipment.

Back on the road again, I didn’t go far. Just as far as Bridgewater in fact

This is a 1919 Mack fire truck, “used” here in Maine at a fire depot until 1960. Then it was converted to a tow truck but was never used and was simply laid up, until the present owner acquired it.

And I said “used” in inverted commas, because it’s done a verified 1900 miles since new.

Never mind shaft drive, this is chain-drive – in fact twin chain drive – as you can see.

It’s a 4-cylinder engine, displacing 600 cubic inches, and has a belt-drive clutch, which is bound to make for exciting motoring on the modern highway. And it does run too – in fact the owner takes it out to park it on the verge every morning and then brings it back inside at night.

You all know where this is though – it’s at the place where they have the scrap Rolls-Royce that has featured on these pages in the past. And he also has a 1925 Dodge Brothers (NOT a Dodge) convertible, a 1924 Renault, a 1910 Panhard-Levassor (and we spent ages discussing the merits and otherwise of sleeve-valve engines) and, would you believe, a Kawasaki motorbike with an Isuzu 4-cylinder 1700cc diesel engine fitted.

I couldn’t take a photo of it because they were still “work in progress”, but I’ll be back here next year to see how he’s getting on.

Not I’m in a motel just off the highway going south. I’ve had a shower, washed my clothes, and had beans and chips for tea. Now I’m ready for anything.

Thursday 27th August 2015 – WHAT A STORM!

Totally terrific. Lightning, thunder and the most astonishing rain that fell in just 10 minutes. And the worst thing about that is that I had left Strider’s drivers-side window open and so at least on the way home I washed my underwear.

I had a disturbed night, with something of a record of having to leave my bed – and I blame this half-litre of thirst-quenching drink that I had had with my tea. And I also slept through the alarm clocks too and it was 08:30 when I finally rose from my stinking pit

I’ve said … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that there was an old Canadian Pacific railway line that came up to Centreville from Woodstock and I’ve been following its path in a desultory kind of fashion.

There’s a road near here called Avondale Station Road and I’ve had a wander down there on a couple of occasions looking for the station site without success.

But having tracked down the route using aerial photographs I’m pretty convinced that this is the track bed of the railway, although the station site is well-overgrown – to such en extent that it’s not clear on which side of the road it would have been.

From here I headed off to Woodstock again and ended up having to go on a marathon detour almost to the USA border due to roadworks. And I met my bus from the other night too while I was on my travels around.

I ended up at Walmart looking for clothes and some guy in a wheelchair thought that it was fun to get in my way whenever I was trying to pick something up. Eventually I managed to reach something, and he made a remark like “Why didn’t you ask me to move?”
“Because I used to be married – I’m used to people being difficult”.

But I did have another piece of good luck in Walmart. A small lightweight 1/4 – 3/8 drive socket set at $9:00. This toolkit is building up slowly.

At Tim Horrton’s we were once again surrounded by Miltonists. About 10 staff on duty, one of whom was at the drive-in, another of whom was at the counter, a third was making wraps and as for the rest, “they also serve who stand and wait”.

After my coffee I went round to see Zoe’s shop and for a chat to see how she was doing. She could be doing better of course, but it’s hard to tell a 21 year-old about your 40-odd years of sometimes-bitter experience. They would much rather make their own mistakes. And then round to Sharp’s to see if they would take the scrap metal that we have (they will).

I went back to Centreville along the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River.

It’s not a road that I travel very often and so I don’t know all of the good views, but here’s a stunning viewpoint from a few miles south of Hartland. We can see the Saint John River of course, and in the background we have the wind farm up on Mars Hill in Maine, USA (my plot of land is to the right of the hill).

In the centre of the photo is the bridge that took Trans-Canada Highway version 2 (or is it 3?) over the river, but in front of this you’ll be able to make out the world’s longest covered bridge at Hartland.

My way back to Rachel’s took me over the river and back via Lakeville where there’s a car body repair shop. He always has some interesting stuff there but as he’s one of the best body repairers in the region his output is far too good to be suitable for these pages.

But there are always exceptions to this, such as this absolutely wonderful Mack Thermodyne B61 of the early 1950s.

It’s been stood for ages but he’s managed to make it go, however the water pump has failed. He says that it’s up to the owner to source one, and he wishes him good luck. The plan, I imagine, is that once it’s running he’ll restore it, and I’ll love to see it when it’s finished.

Hannah was supposed to be ringing me up to give her a hand to mow the lawn but she never did, and so I popped by to see how she was doing. But she had done it all on her own without my help and now she and her friend Journee were making a beer-pong table for her party tomorrow night. I went on to the shop and waited for closing time.

And this was when the storm hit.

Later in the evening Darren and I loaded up Strider with a huge fridge and a big stove. On my way round to Great Satan I’ll be heaving them out at Sharp’s.

Wednesday 26th August 2015 – I HAVEN’T MENTIONED …

… the rain as yet. But every morning this week, at about 06:00, we’ve had a rainstorm for about half an hour, and then it’s gone off on its way. This morning though, it loitered around for most of the morning and at times it was quite wet.

After breakfast I went up to the shop for a while but then Strawberry Moose, Strider and I set off out to Woodstock, and by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded inside Strider.

The junk shop came up with nothing at all – no books or CDs – and I had to stop at Zoe’s shop to pick up her waste bin that was rolling around the car park, and then for a coffee at Tim Horton’s.

After lunch I went across the road to the County Planning Department to discuss my plans for Mars Hill Road. My friend Gerrit has moved on but the new guy was just as helpful and doesn’t see a problem. He gave me a great deal of useful tips and hints that should make the project go easier.

And there’s good news on this front too. 4 or 5 years ago, connection to New Brunswick Power for electricity was compulsory for a new-build, but today, it’s not. You have to submit plans and they are considered on their merits. If you have 110-volt electricity, it needs to be certified but if you have a 12-volt DC system with an inverter, you need a certificate for the inverter and an electrician’s certificate for the 110-volt system that you have installed from the inverter onwards. As for a DC circuit, he’s never encountered one, so he suggests just submit it and see what happens. But solar panels and wind turbines developing 12-volt is quite a common thing these days.

They are even encountering people who wish to live with no electricity at all. 5 years ago, that wouldn’t be tolerated (people equated lack of electricity with poor quality of life) but now, it’s not uncommon to receive applications where the details of electricity installations are described as “none”.

As for rainwater harvesting, he doesn’t see any problem at all with that, but a certified sewage disposal system is an essential and there is no way around it.

But to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I’m giving serious consideration to going towards a 48-volt system with 12-volt lighting and 110 volt power.

At the organic shop across the road, the girl who runs it was very helpful. There are apparently three co-ops in the area where vegetarians and vegans combine every two months to place bulk orders for their supplies and she gave me their addresses.

And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, Sobey’s has greatly increased its supply of vegetarian and vegan food and we now have several different varieties of vegan cheese, although vegan ice-cream is only available next door at the Atlantic Superstore.

In other worlds, even in fairly-rural Canada, things are looking very much up.

If that wasn’t enough to be going on with, I hit the jackpot at Canadian Tire. There’s a clearance sale going on there, and a big reinforced plastic tool box, a Flexible 3/8 drive ratchet with spark plug sockets and extensions, a big set of wobble extensions, two big sets of 1/2 impact sockets (AF and metric), a converter from 3/8-drive to 1/2-drive and one or two other bits and pieces – all of that came to just over $100 – or £50:00. Add that to the tools that I have already that I need to pick up from my box at Montreal and I now have enough for almost anything. And if I can make it to Marden’s in Presque Ile and see what they have too, I might well end up with a very decent tool kit. You can’t have too much of this.

So it was hardly surprising that I didn’t do all that I had intended to do today. It was 19:00 by the time that I returned and then after supper I helped Darren repair and service the lawn-mowing tractor (which is bigger than my Kubota) and we overhauled a fridge that was in the basement.

But I have made a decision – and that is that on Friday early morning, I’m moving on. I’m becoming far too comfortable here. I’ll be trying to Enter the Dragon and go southwards through the forest to the Hudson valley then back up to Montreal for my stuff.

Tuesday 25th August 2015 – THE GOOD NEWS …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To which Amber replied “what?”

-1

Monday 24th August 2015 – I WAS ON MY TRAVELS …

… during the night. Although I wasn’t really.

In fact I was back home again watching this huge crocodile of children stream down the track at the back of my house, all singing and being happy. meantime there was someone who had come to visit me, someone official, and I’d sent him away with a flea in his ear. However he was loitering around on the public pathway between my barn and my house and was urinating up the wall of my well so I dashed out there and gave him a piece of my mind (not that I have much to spare). Meantime, all the kids were streaming back up the other side, on the pathway in front of my house.

From here, I was invited to take part in a very low budget horror film, about being the brother of a young girl who, at full moon, turned into a terrifying flesh-tearing zombie with huge claws. We had to build a rocket and time machine so that we could take her to the future before she transformed again, where treatment would be available Anyway we built it and set off – and there were quite a few others like us in there. We just made it away on time but we were held up at a railway level crossing in Crewe – a real cliff-hanger. The producer/director said that we would have to finish the film next week but one of the actors couldn’t make it so we needed to write him out of the play. We planned to stage a crash at the level crossing and set him on fire so as to write him out, so I had to go off and look for the petrol which had been left behind in a dump at Edleston Road near where Woottons used to be. And it amazed me – here we were in Crewe and we had little dumps of stores all over the place and no-one had given a single thought about them being looted by the inhabitants.

After breakfast we all went up to the shop and – surprise surprise – I started to tidy up the place there a little. As you know, my adventures with tidying up are legendary, mostly o account of when I do ever do any the place always seems to end up worse than it did before. This time however, you could see a difference.

And it also inspired one or two others to do some too, and that always helps. The place could do with it, I reckon. And I would love to give it a total reorganisation too, although that’s never ever likely to happen.

Later on, I went out and about. First stop was to the insurance to have the details of Strider’s new licence plate recorded. That needs to be up to date. And from there I went off to the Dollar Store to see if I could find some headphones for the Samsung phone, but with no luck there.

At Service New Brunswick I had a chat about the postal code for my property. It seems that although Service New Brunswick is responsible for the address, it’s Canada Post that is responsible for the postal codes – a typical Government-organised confusion. And so that was my next port-of-call, althugh not before finding out where I can take these two big fridges around here. Surprise as it might be, there are no Government-organised recycling centres here in this part of the world, no public rubbish dump service other than the weekly waste collection. The only answer is to hire a skip, and that costs $400:00. No wonder there’s all kinds of stuff all over the place.

From there I went off to the Post Office and chatted to them. It seems that I’m also allowed a public mail box too. However the manager of the Post Office wasn’t there so I couldn’t sort that out on the spot.they will call me back

Darren and Hannah came back from Ohio this afternoon and so we unloaded all of the stuff out of the trailer (they had been gone for 12 days) and spent the rest of the day catching up on things.

And the woman from the Post Office didn’t phone me back, but then, I wasn’t really expecting it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-2

Saturday 22nd August 2015 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day in today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He now has his number plates fitted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

… waiting around.

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 19th August 2015 – HERE I AM …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hardly a surprise.

-2

Tuesday 18th August 2015 – LAST DAY IN MONTREAL

Last night’s sleep wasn’t anything like as good as the previous night’s, but that can be explained by the fact that as soon as I came in last night, I drank about a litre of spruce beer.

Being on my travels didn’t help matters either. I’d spent much of the night in the company of a young person who was having gender issues. He or she had half-undergone the hormone therapy necessary to change sex, but then had had a change of mind and not only stopped the treatment but was changing back. This led on from here to me taking a taxi – one of mine as it happens – to go to a white house somewhere. The driver was completely new – I was his first customer – and the journey was interesting to say the least, including undertaking another driver at a road junction and overshooting the destination. The driver said “well that was a bit of a disaster, wasn’t it?” to which I replied “don’t worry. We all have to start somewhere”.

So after breakfast I cracked on with some more work on the computer and this took me right up until 11:00. I had my airport shuttle booked for 11:15 and didn’t want to miss it, so I made sure that it arrived on time by pouring myself a full cup of coffee at 11:14 precisely. Works every time!

It took 5 minutes to get to the airport from where this hotel is, and I spent the time helping out a couple of people who needed to travel into the city. There was a 747 bus already in at the stop and the driver took 10 minutes to sort himself out, during which time a woman with three kids came onto the bus. She told them to sit down “as it’s going to be a long ride”
“And if I know anything about Montreal bus drivers, a wild ride too” I added.

And sure enough, off we shot and arrived at the coach station at the rue de Berri just 35 minutes later, shaken but not stirred.

Ten dollars it cost to leave my bag in the consigne, which is quite expensive, but then imagine what it would have cost in time and so on to go all the way back to the hotel to pick it up and then lug it all the way back here through the city later this evening. This had to be the sensible option – the hotel shuttle to the airport and then the 747 bus directly to the coach terminal.

And I can’t believe this but in a Dollar Store just round the corner from the bus station as I continue my stroll down rue St Catherine Est I find exactly the right adapter for the Swiss electrical plugs. That’s an amazing find, and something else to add to the travel bag

This is a beautiful little street isn’t it – a pile of beautiful little houses down there and some typical Quebec maisonettes of the type that you see in all of the urban areas.

Balconies and open staircases – must be beautiful to sit outside on them on a lovely summer’s evening but it must be hell, absolute hell in the middle of a Quebec winter trying to get to your front door.

But why I stopped was to look at the corner of the street at this new building is that it’s the site of the Ouimetoscope.

That was the very first cinema to be opened in Montreal – in January 1906 in fact, and the following year was rebuilt to be come the largest cinema in North America at the time.

There’s some kind of scheme going on here in Montreal at the moment – what they call the Piano Publique. They have dumped a load of pianos about in different parts of the city and are encouraging people to sit down and play them.

This guy isn’t too bad at all as it happens. I could sit and listen to him for quite a while, but I just don’t have the time.

Look at this gorgeous art-deco building here on the corner of St Catherine and Alexandre Deseve, at 1560 rue St Catherine Est. There’s been a “Club Sandwich” here in the past as well as an Irish bar and the Hotel Bourbon.

It’s the Complexe Bourbon, quite a favourite spot in the city in the past, and at one time was up for sale for $8,500,000, but that was several years ago. It looks as if it will be pulled down before its much older and what a shame because it’s beautiful.

This church was formerly the Sacre Coeur de Jesus down at the end of the rue Alexandre Deseve.

The church doesn’t function as a church any more and the big house at the side, the ancienne Presbytere, is now a centre d’accueil pour les jeunes en difficulte – possibly the Association les Chemins du Soleil which is situated, according to a poster that I saw plastered about the church, at 1155 rue Alexandre Deseve.

At the parc Charles Campbell, a lawyer and philanthropist of the 19th Century who left all of his money to create parks for children to amuse themselves in the open air, they are having a Neighbourhood Fair tonight, with entertainment, food and all kinds of stuff going on.

And you might not be able to see him but there’s a guy sitting in that tree just there pulling that banner up at the far end of that rope.

I had lunch at the Subway down here, asked once again if i wanted cheese with my “nothing but crudites”, and ended up by dropping half of it on the floor and making a huge mess everywhere.

But after lunch I strolled down to the metro station to tale the train all the way down to Honore Beauregard, the end of the line

That’s the view down rue Sherbrooke est down towards the famous Olympic Stadium and its leaning tower. Anyway, I’ll walk down here for a little while, the old Chemin du Roy, and see what I can find, if anything.

Right by the Langelier metro station is a Motel le marquis. Cheapest room is about $80 – not too bad, I suppose. I’ll have to remember that.

And from here I caught a bus that took me all the way down the Boulevard Langelier towards the Galeries d’Anjou.

That’s all of the big buildings near the end of the autoroute at the junction between Highway 40 and Highway 25 there and the Galeries d’Anjou are somewhere to the right of that.

And I’ve found the Value Village! Furthermore, it’s 30% off on Tuesdays for senior citizens! Spend! Spend! Spend! But I could only find one book and one CD that interested me. Rather a waste of a senior citizen’s discount if you ask me.

Canadian Tire have tents at $29:99 and $34:99- that’s the three-seater one which is 7 feet wide so my bed will fit in there quite comfortably whereas the cheaper one is only 6 feet at its widest and that might be a struggle. Then we start to get into the realm of big tents after that. I mean, why would you have a tent to sleep 14 people? I don’t even know 14 people, let alone 14 people with whom I’d like to go away on holiday, but then they do go in for big families in Quebec.

In rue Jean Talon I’ve just seen the rustiest cars that I’ve ever seen, any of mine and the Cortina parked down my field since 1997 included. I didn’t take a photo of it because it isn’t the polite thing to do but it’s so rotten that the windscreen is about to drop out – the whole windscreen surround including the roof corners have just gone. Makes that grey Cortina look good and that’s stood in a field for 18 years.

And it’s suddenly occurred to me what I haven’t seen at all ever since I’ve been in Canada on Saturday, and I haven’t seen a cat.

This is the sports ground at the rue Jean Talon and way over there behind the floodlights in the distance and across the motorway behind it is the motel where I stayed the very first night that I was ever in Canada.

But what had caught my eye was the drinking fountain so I had a good wash to cool me down, filled my cap with water and stuck it on my head. All of the cold water ran off down the back of my neck and believe me, it was the best feeling that I had ever had.

I got to see one of the new Transits from close up and I reckon that there are differences to the European ones inside. In fact there seem to be quite a few differences so I wonder what has happened here that the differences haven’t been carried forward, because it is reasonabily impressive.

There’s no model designation on it either, which surprises me – just a ” Ford”, and made in Kansas City judging by a sticker on the windscreen. Body number begins 1FT(or 2)NR1CM

There’s a little process of gentrification going on in the rue Jean Talon – it’s been a bit down-at-heel in places but in other places there are bits of building going on and it’s all starting to look quite nice

These new bank buildings are on the corner of the Boulevard Viau and rue Jean Talon and are typical of what is going on all around here

I walked on quite a way past Viau, past Pius IX and past a couple of metro stations and by this time I was starting to lose interest. Time was slowly passing on, the only pizza places that I has passed (I really fancied a pizza tonight and I had my cheese all at the ready) were these ethic places full of grease, and I was hot, sticky, exhausted and footsore.

So I hopped onto the metro all the way to Snowdon where I still didn’t find the pizza that I wanted (and I had my vegan cheese all ready too) and eneded up back at the falafel place at the Cote-des-Neiges, for want of anything better.

It was just outside here that I met my first traditional bus driver. There was a bus stop just outside the restaurant and there was a bus just pulling up. I asked him if he was going to the Snowdon metro station down at the bottom of the hill, to which he replied that I was facing the wrong way – the station was just “back there”. And then he drove off.

The station “back there” was in fact the “Cote des Neiges” so I don’t know whether he was having a mental blank or whether he was just being difficult. Anyway, I trudged back up to the Cote des Neiges metro station and went round to the coach station.

Having rescued my suitcase I ended up chatting with two women, one aged 84 and the other aged 91, who were regular bus travellers, even at their age. They were off to visit their third sister somewhere in the USA. This passed the time quite nicely until my bus pulled in, and then I was off.

We went over the Cartier Bridge and then into Longueuil for more passengers, and then we were off. I curled up on my seat and dozed off to sleep.

-2

Monday 17th August 2015 – LAST NIGHT …

… could have been a night just as good as the previous one, and that’s exactly how it was heading. And then it all came to a sudden halt at 01:30, for Bane of Britain here had forgotten to switch off his European alarms.

If I had had a quid for every time that I’ve done that while I’ve been in North America I would be dictating this to half a dozen secretaries draped all over my knee and thereabouts. You would think that I would have learnt by now, wouldn’t you?

To make matters worse, I was away with the fairies somewhere at the time, and by the time I’d composed myself afterwards, it had all gone.

I was still up before the alarm at 06:00 (I’m doing my best to keep to some kind of semblance of time) and after breakfast cracked on with a few things.

And here I am, on the bus heading towards the railway station. First stop is Namur and the Walmart, which comes up with a cap at $5:00, a big bottle of water, and 150 sheets of A4 paper at just $0:10 in the back to school bargain sale and you can’t say fairer than that. A useful thing to have around seeing as how I’ve forgotten my graph paper.

Back on the metro to Berri-UQAM and the long long walk to the coach station to buy my ticket for Florenceville tomorrow. $114 – arrgghh – and that’s with the senior citizens discount too. Heaven alone knows what it might have been at full price. But with 10.5 hours on the bus (changing at Riviere du Loup) it’s not really all that bad, I suppose. But 22:30 I leave, 09:00 on Wednesday I arrive – I am not looking forward to this, but since they ripped up all of the trains there isn’t much of an alternative.

So I had a really good chat to Rachel on the phone, giving her enough advance warning so that she can flee the country, and then a wander through all of the galleries – or, at least, as many as I could find. It’s cooler in there than outside.

That cheap technology shop near the railway station had nothing of interest although I did start to notice in one or two places that Government energy stickers are slowly starting to appear in the shops. A sign of the times, hey?

And look at this! This is not a new Ford Transit but a replacement for the Ford F-series panel vans. And if you are wondering why many of the very useful white-van-man features of the previous Ford Transit have mysteriously (and surprisingly) disappeared from the new version on sale in Europe, then look no further.

They don’t have white-van-man in North America. His equivalent over here drives a 4×4 pick-up and that’s where you will find the interesting bits and pieces. White vans here are just used for furniture removals and parcel deliveries and a little bit of urban maintenance and so are a completely different breed.

So if any North American has had a hand in designing the new Transit, that will explain why, as far as facilities go, the new Transit is essentially a backward step. I’m convinced that Transits of the model such as Caliburn
actually had a white-van-man on the design committee and it’s sad that Ford Europe doesn’t have the muscle to have pushed forward their observations to whoever was on this global design panel.

Abandoning another good rant for now I head off down the rue St Catherine where there’s a big new shopping mall type of place on the right as you go down the hill. All clean and bright, with a Subway sandwich place down in the basement. Ahh! Lunch!

And for the first time ever, since I’ve been visiting a Subway, when I asked the Serving Wench for my 12-inch with just crudites (yes, if it’s crudities you want, then I’m your man) she did not ask me if I wanted cheese with it. I made a comment about it, to which the aforementioned replied "well, I’ve been working here for quite a few years now so I’m used to it"

They had a fountain here too so I took a photo of it seeing as how pretty it looked, and as soon as I had started to leave, it erupted, so I came back for another photo.

Back outside and down the street they had the giant chessboards out again and so I watched 3 or 4 games in the company of a woman, and we were exchanging comments about the games. One game was ultra-defensive and everyone lost interest after a while, including the two players who abandoned the match.

Another one was however quite exciting. It was a younger girl against an older man and was played in what you might call something of an aggressive spirit, swinging like a pendulum from one way to the next as they traded piece for piece. She made a couple of moves that had mystified me, but then suddenly she caught his king in a trap against her pawns. By this time he just had his king and a knight and she a bishop (or fou as they are called in French, so I discovered) and a king, and they both had four pawns each.

What helped my concentration was that there was an ice-cream parlour right next door, and I can thoroughly recommend the coconut milk sorbet.

Further down the road in St Catherine Est I came across a bookshop selling second-hand books and CDs and so that’s me spent up yet again for another year.

The Chapel of Notre dame de Lourdes was erected to the glory of Mary so we are told (but just WHAT is the Glory of Mary?) thanks to the generposity of the local people.

However that generosity does not extend to giving out help to those who ask for it. There’s a big sign outside saying that it is forbidden to solicit alms either outside or inside the Chapel.

Just what kind of Christians are these?

My reverie was interrupted by the rather bizarre noise of something different coming down the street. Luckily I had my camera to hand to photograph it.

I couldn’t get close enough to this to see what it was, which was a shame, but it looked very much like a three-wheeled batmobile to me. It bore something of a close resemblance to The White Swan that we saw on the Saguenay Ferry in 2011.

I had my falafel for tea as well. I walked right up the bank to the rue Sherbrooke and then rue St Denis to where I had had my tea one night in 2014.

Just up the road from here is this magnificent building, the address of which is 3725 rue St Denis, and one day I’ll find out much more about it. It has to be something quite important or have an interesting history.

The metro from Sherbrooke brings me all the way round to the metro DuCollege, and then back on the bus. And I ended up being guide to a couple of French tourists from Picardy on the same bus who were trying to find their hotel.

I had a shower, for by this time I was steaming and then to bed for my last night for a while in Montreal.

Sunday 16th August 2015 – PLEASANT COMPANY EXPECTED

If you thought that last night’s two drivers were unusually friendly and helpful, then the encounters today have topped all of that off in spades, I’ll tell you that.

I was up at the crack of dawn this morning (lucky dawn!) and after a good shower I set to work. First thing to do was to try to remember my nocturnal ramblings. I was in van somewhere in England (yes, England, not the UK) and I was on a photography expedition going somewhere but every time that I tried to take a photograph my camera fell apart and thos kept on happening with monotonous regularity. There was one place that I particularly remembered – a tiny village in a low valley where the road took a sharp right-hand bend right by the village green where there was a telephone box.

But anyway, enough of that for now.

The breakfast room at the hotel was crowded and we ran out of coffee and jam – and I remembered to make something of a little note about this – but while I was looking for the breakfast attendant I came across a second breakfast room which had apparently been missed by everyone else because it was quite empty.

With it being Sunday, the buses didn’t start running until late so it gave me an opportunity to have a good session on the computer and catch up on a few things. I had a good look out of the window too, and I do have to say that the view from here is one of the best that I can hope to have.

It’s not as noisy as you might think with the new generation of jets, and it’s a shame that the big KLM jumbo jet takes off in the dark.

And then it was off to the town.

First stop was to buy some water where the girl at the cash desk gave a big sigh as I was counting out the cash. What a way to start the day, so I gave her a little “piece of advice”, as they say in the Police Farce.

I went onwards to the Tourist Information office for a map (I’d left mine behind) and there I fell in with a woman who was on her was from Vancouver to Newfoundland. She was travelling via the Trans-Canada Highway and so we had a spritied discussion about going via the Trans-Labrador Highway and across from Blanc Sablon.

In the Place Jacques Cartier just around the corner we were treated to some street musicians.

In fact every Saturday and Sunday during July and August various little groups of musicians entertain the crowds, and these five people are from one of the many music academies around the city. I do have to say that while their selection of music was not my type, I quite enjoyed the atmosphere – which is one of the best reasons to be here.

I had a wander off down to the Quai de l’Horloge to sit in the sun, lap up the atmosphere, watch the river and (most importantly) to eat my butties as it was now my kind of lunchtime.

There was plenty going on on the river – lots of marine traffic and the like, but nothing over about 15 tonnes which for me, at any rate, was something of a disappointment. Where’s the 150,000 tonne tanker when you need it?

And, if the truth was known, I had a little doze in the sunshine too. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, and I find that the water is quite relaxing.

With nothing here worth photographing, I wandered off down to the Point by the clock tower to see what was in the docks and I was lucky in that the Algonova was there. She had been there for a while too, having come from Corner Brook in Newfoundland.

She might not look it, but she’s quite a modern ship, dating from as recently as 2007, and cost about $43,000,000, which is a lot of money to have sitting idle, tied up at the quayside.

So having mused on that for quite a while, I was all ready to move off when a couple of teenage girls squeezed in next to me. One of them was discreetly trying to look at my map so I let her have it.

We started off a conversation – ohhh yes, I can still chat up the females, even though, at my age, I can’t remember why- and of course, my plans to leave were completely abandoned.

Their parents joined in the chat too. They are from Winnipeg and visiting Montreal for a holiday. The chat quickly led to a much wider field and of course, Labrador came up in the chat. The Labrador Tourist Board ought to be paying me a commission.

Once everyone had cleared off, I went to have a look at my favourite building – the Gare Viger. They’ve knocked down a few more internal walls but that’s about all. Nothing much else is being done.

But here I had another one of those legendary encounters. Some woman van driver needed to do to an address in a street behind me, but it had all been cut off by roadworks and she wondered how she was going to get there. As soon asI openedmy mouth, she said “sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t local” – but as it happened, I did know the area where we were and I knew how to get to the address concerned.

And then she drove off with my rucksack and I had to run after her.

On the underground, I went to the Cartier metro station at Laval, to see the riviere des Praries. From the Pont Viau there were some lovely views with all kinds of things to see, including a car trying to drive up the cycle path.

There was a lot of maritime activity here too, including some water-skiing. And that I found quite astonishing. If the river has that much of a slope on it, how come Quebec Hydro hasn’t put a dam across it and fitted a few hydro turbos?

The end of the orange line at Montmorency is actually the big University campus at the back of Laval. Leaving the station, I went for a wander around but I didn’t stay too long. There wasn’t anything interesting (from my point of view) to see.

But there was a guy of my age pacing up and down outside.
"You look as if you are waiting for someone" I said
"Yes, my daughter" he replied
"Well, I’d forget about her and take someone else. I’ve seen a few girls that I wouldn’t mind taking home instead of my daughter."

Parking featured quite a lot on these pages at one time, and here’s a good example of street parking in North America.

Not so much of how the cars are parked but the size of the parking places. Anyone from Europe could park a lorry in spaces as big as this, never mind a compact car. It did remind me of the time that I reversed into a car parking space somewhere in the USA, watched by quite a crowd.

And someone asked me why I’d reversed in, to which I replied “because I can. I’m from Europe”.

There was an incident on the metro and traffic was “perturbed”. But eventually I arrived at Cote-des-Neiges and my plate of falafel, salad and chips. There was a football match on the TV, a Major League Soccer match. And I have to say that I wasn’t impressed. A couple of stars of European football having one last pay-day and a few local players, and it was all about Third or Fourth Division standard

In the Metro supermarket was a note – “due to Quebec Employment legislation, we are only allowed to employ a maximim of four people after 21:00, on Sundays and Public Holidays”. No-one in the supermarket thought that strange. But I can’t imagine any other Government, anywhere else in the western world, putting maximum limits on how many people are allowed to be employed in an enterprise in the middle of an employment crisis.

Another friendly, chatty bus driver on the way back and even though it was only 21.45 I crashed out yet again.

And what a nice day too. I’ve met loads of helpful, friendly people and had a few interesting chats with some very pleasant company.

EPIC HALL

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