Friday 19th September 2014 – NEWFOUNDLAND

I was half-expecting to find myself on the old “Caribou” again seeing as how we were sailing from Cape Breton Island to Newfoundland. Not the old, old Caribou because that was sunk by a U-boat in 1943 but its replacement, which was out here still when I passed by in 2010.

However, Marine Atlantic has been spending your (or, rather, the Canadian Government’s taxpayers’ money) on some new ships, such as the Highlanders, which brought us over here to Newfoundland.

But don’t be misled, because it might be new to here, but it’s not “new” by any means”. IT is in fact the old Stena Traveller, built in Russia and which formerly did the run between Hoek van Holland and Killingholme in the United Kingdom until it was retired.

She’s now had 40 feet cut out of her middle, been rewelded, and is now sailing across here on one of the roughest ferry crossings in the world.

Once I’d sorted myself out I set off up the coast, passing one of the most famous sites in Newfoundland.

These are the Twin Hills, and remind me of something out of a Leslie Nielsen film. And may a Newfoundland schoolboy has doubled up in laughter at seeing them, which just goes to show that it isn’t only me with a Juvenile mind.

From here I went on to Cape Ray lighthouse.

The lighthouse itself is of no real significance (it’s the third on the site, the other two having burnt down) except that it guards the entrance to the Strait of Belle Isle, but it’s here that the first submaring telegraph cable was laid between Newfoundland and the North American mainland, as far back as 1856.

There have also been archaeological excavations here that revealed a fairly complex Dorset-Inuit settlement, a camp for hunting harp seal.

Carrying on northwards we encounter some typical Newfoundland scenery. Mountains, rivers, lakes, islands, flat plain and trees.

And not to mention the heavy rainclouds because Newfoundland is noted for its somewhat excessive number of rainy days per year – about 300 or something like that.

But considering that this is at sea level or thereabouts, you can see that the climate has changed dramatically since we crossed the Gulf of St Lawrence.

This is the Boutte de Cap St George – the head of the peninsula that sticks out to guard the entrance to the bay, the name of which I can’t remember, upon which the town of Stephenville is situated.

Beautiful weather isn’t it, but you’ll see across the bay the storm that is raging. And five minutes after taking this photo I got the lot right upon my head.

Newfoundlanders are noted for their … well … eccentricity, so I feel quite at home here. And I would do too in a garden such as this. This is one of two in the small town of Mainland that have been imaginatively decorated, so hats off to the owners.

But as you might expect, I’m probably the only vehicle to drive down here for the last 6 months or something, yet when I stopped to take a photo here, half of the town turned out in their vehicles to create an almighty traffic jam.

It always happens to me.

Tonight I’ve found a small campsite just outside Corner Brook. It’s been a good few days since I’ve had a shower and a shave so that’s the reason that I’m not dossing in a layby. A good shower will do me the world of good.

Thursday 18th September 2014 – WHICH FINISHES WITH OUR HERO ALL AT SEA

I was wide awake at about 06:30 this morning, having had another one of the best night’s sleeps that I’ve had for a while. However, leaving my stinking pit was quite another story and it was probably a good hour or so later that I heaved myself out, to make myself a coffee and to finish off the notes from yesterday.

Now that my notes are up-to-date and having taken a couple of photos of my overnight spec, the harbour at St Lawrence and this is another good find with which I am very impressed, I can head for the hills. Or rather, the coast, for my days in the mountains are over for the moment.

Further down ther road there’s a sign here for Dingwall, so Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly decide to go down there to see if Ross County is playing.

In fact the team doesn’t seem to be at home but here’s the view from the end of the road and it’s magnificent as usual. Just like most places along the coast here at the nothern end of Cape Breton Island.

I find the Coastal Loop a little later, and this takes me to White Point.

There’s a camper just gone past me down there that’s from the same company as the one with which I was playing leap-frog along the Trans Canada Highway on Monday. It isn’t the same one though, because when I arrived at the bottom of the hill I had quite a lengthy chat with the couple. They were from the UK and they’ve been on a long exploratory voyage on trains planes and campers all over Canada and were on their way back from Newfoundland.

And the weather, out of the wind, is absolutely gorgeous. The sun is beating down and there’s a perfect blue sky. What more could any man desire? Apart from Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush of course, to sooth my fevered brow.

That’s the view from Lakies Head whoever Lakie was when he was at home, if he ever was. And at this scenic turn-off (why don’t they ever have scenic turn-ons? It’s much more appropriate) there was a Park Ranger standing behind a sign saying “chat to me”. And so I did. As if I ever need any invitation …

And just a few hundred yards further on from here I was overwhelmed by the smell of damp seaweed. I haven’t smelt it quite as strong as I have just here so I don’t know what’s going on about that.

At Ingonish Harbour, not the harbour at Ingonish, that’s somewhere completely different, we’re back at the mouth of the Aspy Fault, the faultline that links up with the Great Glen in Scotland.

Here’s probably the best view of the fault line, the cleft between the mountains that stretches right into the interior of Cape Breton Island and maybe even far beyond. It’s quite astonishing that this fault line stretches all the way to Scotland and that these two land masses might even have been connected in the dawn of time.

Many years ago I read an ancient travel book which described inter alia someone’s nightmare drive over the desperate road over Cape Smoky. While it’s certainly exciting, I wouldn’t say that it was terrifying, but these days, the road around the Cape is hacked out of the cliff face.

Here, where the modern road is about to swing round to the left to descend one of the steepest parts of the trail, a section that has been hacked out of the cliff, we can see what may well have been the old road straight ahead continuing to climb into the mountains.

The descent on the new road is stiff, as I said, and if this is climbing away from here, then the descent on the other side must have been phenomenal, at least twice as steep as the modern road. It’s hardly surprising therefore that people became so worked up whenever the road over Cape Smoky was mentioned

If you want to see what the modern descent is like, we can travel maybe half a mile to a pull-in and if we peer through the haze that’s rolling in off the sea, you might be able to see it.

It just goes down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down, all the way to sea level right down there.

From the bottom of the hill I’m caught in a whole series of road works all the way to Sydney. One after the other and it takes hours to arrive in the town. At the shipping company offices I do the necessary and then go for a wander around to stock up with supplies.

But here’s a sad legacy of the railway here at the port. Many years ago there was a rail ferry over to Newfoundland from here but the entire railway system in Newfoundland was demolished in this ruthless Canadian Government anti-rail programme – there’s not an inch of Government track left in the province – and the rilway network here is abandoned too.

Here’s a very sad-looking former railway station at North Sydney and the rails from beyond here down to the port have been lifted.

So now I’ve had a leisurely evening and I’m taking my place in the queue at the port for the next stage of my journey.

-2

Wednesday 17th September 2014 – I AWOKE THIS MORNING TO AN UNEARTHLY SILENCE

And long after the usual waking-up time too. It seems that the battery in the European phone went flat during the night and so that was that as far as that phone was concerned. However, I couldn’t understand why the Canadian phone didn’t ring at all. Subsequent enquiries revealed that I can’t find it anywhere. I wonder if I have left it at the motel where I stayed the previous evening. It’s just like me to do something like that, isn’t it?

But last night I did manage to wake up last night after crashing out at about 17:00. It was just long enough to cook tea and edit the photos, and then I was off again, flat out once more. I must have been tired yesterday.

So having recovered from my exertions, I made myself a nice hot coffee and sat drinking it, looking at the sea for a while. You have to admit that I chose a superb spot for last night.

And I was feeling much better than the weather too. It’s all grey and overcast this morning. There are some right heavy dark clouds and I reckon that we are going to have a rainstorm before we’re much older. There is however a bit of blue sky out to sea. Let’s see if the wind blows it back our way.

I also had to fill up with fuel too. Well, I didn’t, but I’m on a little more than a quarter-tank and I’ve no idea what it might be like for fuel further on along the road. 136.4 cents per litre too – that seems to be the going rate around here. That’s a portent of things to come, isn’t it?

A few miles out of Inverness we turn onto Highway 219 to go around the top of the island. That is the road that I’ve been aiming for. If you think that the route has been picturesque to date, just wait until we’re driving along here.

This is probably one of the most beautiful views in the Maritimes, or at least it would be if the weather were to brighten up. This is Margaree Harbour, a few miles north of Inverness.

Crossing over the river at the bottom of the hill is a new bridge – I don’t remember this bridge when I was around here in 2003 and I don’t remember what was here in its place.

And here’s a surprise. It’s starting to rain.

This is the village of Grand Etang, and its harbour. The coast has plenty of these small harbours, a reminder of the days when everyone earned his living from the sea and there was no road communication between the village and the mainland.

And my wind turbine from 2003 is right behind where I’m standing, and still working too. I still don’t understand why they don’t go in for wind turbines in New Brunswick. It seems totally bizarre to me.

At Cheticamp there was a Tim Horton’s with a reliable internet connection so that I was able to update everything. I contacted Hannah and she contacted the motel from the other night and, sure enough, the Bane of Britain did indeed leave his mobile phone there. Hannah has set off to rescue it.

The place was decked out in advertising for this new Dark Roast coffee blend, and all of the fibre cups were plastered with the advertising. And so Yours Truly asked for a dark roast coffee, only to be told that “we don’t have it yet. The machine hasn’t arrived”.

Just after here we find ourselves on the Cabot Trail and in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. And a whopping $7:40 to drive around it too, even just for the day but she seems to have given me the seniors discount again as I’ve been charged a mere $6:40.

This is where I want to be and I shall have a good time here, especially as the weather has now improved and we are having a beautiful day.

You can see the road that i’ll be driving in a few minutes, climbing away over the headlands along the coast.

It’s one of the most beautiful places that I have visited. But just a word of warning. I’m only going to post a couple of photo here out of the hundreds that I took, because there isn’t room for them all.

And I could have taken thousands more had there been a place to park safely.

From the top of French Mountain there’s one of the best views in the whole of Canada – all away along the coast to the tip of Cape Breton Island to Meat Cove, the farthest northernmost point of the island.

And here I fell in with a couple from Rhode Island. We had a very lengthy chat about wind turbines and the like. But I wasn’t impressed with the notes from the Canadian Tourist Board –
“No-one knows who first explored these waters – probably Mikmac and other native cultures fished and hunted here long before Jacques Cartier’s voyage of 1534”.
There was nothing about Cabot. After all, this is called the Cabot Trail and a place just along here is claimed to be his landing site. And why is there nothing about the Norse? Not a single mention. It’s quite depressing.

A little further along the road is a quite amazing descent into the village of Pleasant Bay. Normally I let the car run down hills under its own steam, but that wasn’t the right course of action to take here. I might have made the first bend but not the second or subsequent.

And the village certainly lived up to its name – I’ll tell you that. But there again everything was stunningly beautiful around here.

We had a slight problem on the way out to Meat Cove. A set of road works that delayed us for quite some considerable time.

It seems that the old bridge has collapsed and a temporary bailey bridge has been installed. If you look carefully, you’ll see the old bridge underneath the current one. Meanwhile, major roadworks are under way to build a more permanent bridge and this is what is holding up all of the traffic. The old bridge clearly wasn’t holding anything up.

Out at Meat Cove I stopped to recreate the photo that I took in 2003 but I was amazed at the difference in the scenery over the last 11 years. It’s totally different today.

There were quite a lot of tourists around here too – maybe the camp site had something to do with that, and I was tempted to book myself in here, but I had my eye on another place that looked even more suitable.

But more of this tomorrow.

Tuesday 16th September 2014 – I’VE REACHED THE SEASIDE.

This motel where I found myself last night would have been really good value (apart from keeping on dropping the internet connection which annoyed me intensely when I was trying to work) but it was not at all the kind of place that I was looking for.

And I had a really bad night’s sleep too. That coffee that I had with Hannah did me no good at all.

Seeing as it was dark last night after I had left Hannah, I went off this morning for a little wander around the University campus to see what there was to see.

And it seems that apart from being at the most prestigious University in Canada, if not the entire English-speaking world, Hannah is also at probably the most beautiful one as well, because it really is nice and civilised here.

There’s a railway line here at Antigonish, which is a surprise as Canada really out-Beechinged Beeching when it came to decimating the railway network.

Judging by the rails it receives plenty of use, but the station doesn’t get any at all which is a tragedy for many people living around here. Canada really was ruthless when it came to gutting its passenger facilities. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is the main line for the oil that’s landed at Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton Island, this line would have been long gone too.

From here I wander off along the Nova Scotia coast because it certainly is beautiful around here. I have thousands of photos that I took and it’s hard to find just one that would do justice to the view.

This one is as good as any, taken from the end of the road down to Williams Point, just a few miles outside Antigonish. If you’re a fan of the outdoor life, then the coast of Nova Scotia is certainly the place to be.

There’s a town called Monastery along the coast and it is so-called because there’s a monastery here. This is it, a couple of miles outside the town, and it’s called Our Lady of Grace.

It’s not very well-known but I once tried the monastic life, but I didn’t last too long. It was the monotonous diet that did it for me. There were only two monks who worked in the kitchen, the Chip Monk and the Fish Friar.

There’s the Canso Strait just down there at the bottom of the hill and Cape Breton Island is over there on the other side of the strait. That’s our destination for this afternoon and we’ll be there in 10 minutes with a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby.

The south side of the island isn’t all that interesting apart from the old French fort at Louisbourg, I drove the central road in 2010 and so I’ll be going up along the north west coast.

We mentioned the decimated Canadian railway network earlier, and this is my lunch stop at the site of the old Troy railway station.

There used to be a railway line that ran from the Canso Strait to Inverness as there used to be all coal mines out around there and the railway was used to haul away the coal. It opened in 1901 but passenger traffic ceased in 1959 and goods finally ceased in late 1980s although been tottering along on the edge of closure for years. Of course, the mines have all gone too. In fact I can’t think of any coal mine still operating on Cape Breton Island.

Coming out of the back end of Port Hood on the old gravel road over the headland, you’ll see why I’ve chosen this particular way round the island. The views from up here are really stunning looking north towards Inverness

And you are lucky that I took this photo. 5 seconds later and I was shrouded in dust from a school bus that roared past me like there as no tomorrow and it was like a Sahara dust storm.

One of the “games” that we play on our travels is “101 uses for a redundant school bus”. School buses are only licensed for a certain number of years and so the countryside is littered with abandoned and redundant school buses. It’s interesting to see what people do with them.

Transforming them into pickups is certainly one of the best ideas that I’ve seen.

The biggest town on this part of the coast is Inverness and it’s quite famous for its wonderful beach. This is what I’ve come here to see, and you can tell that they aren’t wrong about that.

And although it’s not by any means late (despite how dark it looks), my bad night has finally caught up with me. I’ve not been able to find a coffee place and I’m too tired to make one, so I’m going to crash out right here.

-2

Monday 15th September 2014 – ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Next morning I troll off early towards Antigonish. It’s a long way away and I have plenty to do en route.

It’s quite an uneventful drive at least as far as Fredericton where I stop to pick up my purchase from Saturday. And in due course I’ll post a photo of it and tell you all about it.

Back on the road south-eastwards and at a certain moment a few miles south of Fredericton, I’m surprised by three tanks that drive over a bridge across the Trans-Canada Highway. And I don’t mean water tanks or that kind of thing, but proper great big self-propelled armoured machines with long guns. I wonder what’s up with them.

Just gone past me is a campaign bus for one of the candidates in the forthcoming elections and if you look very carefully on the nearside you might see something black flapping in the wind. It seems that someone has put out one of his windows, and the driver has covered it over with a black plastic bin liner to keep out the rain, but that’s burst now due to the air pressure as he’s been driving along.

And as we approach Moncton it seems to be brightening up now. We have blue skies and there might even be some sun about to make its appearance. It makes a change from the grey miserable misty morning that we had.

I struck gold in Princess Autos. They are having a sale and I bought an 25-inch power bar for $9:99, a set of 22 spanners, 11 metric and 11 AF, for $12:00, and a tyre pressure gauge for $0:99. An absolute bargain, that all was.

The only downside of this was that they didn’t have a cheap set of sockets to go with the power bar. But these were unbelievable prices.

And at the Salvation Army Thrift Store down the road they gave me a senior citizen’s discount on the CD that I bought. I’m not sure whether to be pleased of humiliated.

And on the Trans-Canada Highway, which is effectively a motorway with dual carriageways, just outside Moncton there’s a railway level crossing. And there’s another one too just a mile or so further on, by the Dieppe and airport turn-off. This isn’t something that you see every day on a motorway. We would have endless amounts of fun with a railway level crossing on the M25 in the UK.

Bob Dylan once sang “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, and that’s certainly true around here, isn’t it?

I’m at my lunch stop and you can tell that we are at the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia because tthere’s a pile of wind turbines down there taking full advantage of this screaming wind.

Where I am is actually in New Brunswick and there’s not a wind turbine in sight. I know that I have a “thing” in favour of wind turbines, owning four myself, but this lack of wind turbines in New Brunswick is just plain absurd.

Where I am is actually at Fort Beausejour and we’ve been here before, haven’t we?

It was freezing cold then in the middle of winter so I didn’t stay there long. And I didn’t stay here long today either as I was in quite a rush – just long enough to take a couple of photos and eat my butties. I’ll have to come back here yet again.

I made it to Antigonish right to the minute and Hannah was bang on time too. We went for a meal and a really good chat and she told me all about her first couple of weeks at University. She’s the first of our family to go to university straight from school by the way, and she’s at St Francis-Xavier University, the best University in Canada if not the English-speaking world. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m intensely proud of her.

The downside of this is that I have left it far too late to find a spec for the night and I’ve ended up in a wickedly-overpriced motel. Still, you can’t have everything.

Sunday 14th September 2014 – BACK IN CENTREVILLE

Last night, I had one of the best nights sleeps that I had ever had. Flat-out almost from the moment that I pulled up at the truckstop at Kings Landing and I didn’t feel a thing, except for the torrential rainstorm that hit us at about 04:00 or something like that.

And I have to say that I needed that sleep because I was dead to the world.

I bOught a coffee in the truckstop and then moved on along the highway a good few miles to warm up the car as it was quite cold. Then I stopped to type up my notes.

On the way back to Rachel’s, I came over the brow of a hill to see Mars Hill swathed in a misty haze way in the distance and it was looking quite spectacular.

You can’t see the wind turbines in this haze and you can’t see my property, but it’s to the extreme right og the hill on the downward slope.

Meanwhile, back at Taylor Towers, it seems that out little jaunt into the USA has been cancelled. There’s been a bereavement in the family and of course that takes full priority. Rachel and I thus spent a very pleasant and fruitful few hours tidying up the house and sorting out a huge pile of rubbish which we burnt outside in the fire pit. Clearly Neitzsche, who once very famously said that "out of chaos comes order" never met anyone from our family.

When the family returned from paying their respects, Darren and I moved a huge pile of stuff from outside and stashed it away ready for the winter. It’s not going to be long before it’s here.

Saturday 13th September 2014 – DAY FOUR OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Little did I know it last night, with everything being so quiet and peaceful where I had parked last night, that the tents around me were packed full of infants.

When I’m in Canada, I’m usually up quite early – the alarm goes off at 06:30 and I’m usually awake long before that, but these kids beat me easily to the draw. It’s a good job that I wasn’t planning on a lie-in this morning.

I dashed through the photos and the texts and then set off for the Tim Hortons on the edge of Fredericton to upload everything to the web, stopping off at the petrol station at Keswick where fuel is just 122.9 cents per litre.

I wandered up to Value Village to see whether they had anything in the line of a new tote bag to replace the one where the zip has broken and sure enough, the place did me proud. There was a new $50 rucksack in there at just $12.99. Not quite the cavernous one that I was hoping to find but it’s certainly bigger than anything else that I might find at that price.

Parking at Fredericton was horrendous today. It took me ages to find somewhere that was near the city centre, and there was still a long walk into town. Still, needs must when the devil drives, I suppose.

First person whom I stumble upon is Mike Peters. He’s had a promotion this year, playing at the CBC busking spot in the centre of town. You may well recall that last year he was playing stuck around the back of everywhere by the footbridge over the by-pass.

I’m not quite sure where he will go from here, but it’s a shame, if not a tragedy, that he can’t be given a place as a support act at one of the more formal venues. He’s streets better than some of the performers we’ve seen on there.

Here at the Officers Square, this is Double Dutch Hutch whom we have seen before. I’m not sure when but it might have been 2011, I reckon. I just caught the tail-end of their show and saw them perform Londa Ronstadt’s "You’re No Good" and Bob Dylan’s "Mr Tambourine Man" and I wish that I had caught some more of them too because I really enjoyed their music.

And as for his team of go-go dancers, then good luck to them, and good luck to him too.

Carrying on into the Mojo Tent, we have Morgan Davis on stage. He was at the Officers Square – was it yesterday? He had Rick Fines with him today and we met him too in 2011 – I remember speaking to him and the bassist whom he had with him at the time, a female bassist whose name I have also forgotten but who I remember was pretty good.

Bassist tonight is Alex Fraser, and we have of course the famous Jeff Arsenault on drums.

With Morgan Davis and Rick Fines together on stage you don’t need to say too much about their performance do you? Traditional simple home-spun blues, and played to perfection too, especially when it’s backed by Alex and Jeff.

It’s a shame that many of the performers here can’t keep things simple and basic. There’s quite a place for this kind of simplicity here at the Festival

These are the Revivalists and it’s much easier sitting on top of the bleachers at the back of the marquee with the big telephoto lens. And another Gibson bass as well.

and all that I can say is that I’m really sorry that I missed most of their set because I was quite enjoying what I heard. They finished with the old Blues Brothers standard “Somebody to Love” and did quite a good job of it too.

The Chris Robinson Brotherhood is another Southern Rock band. The musicians are somewhat under-rehearsed but they have the crowd bouncing around as well and this is going to be a good concert if they can keep going like this

So as well as a very competent moog synthesizer player we had a duelling guitar solo right at the end just like most Southern bands and it was really good. The drummer is excellent too but I did notice that he was counting the bars as he was playing.

But the sad thing about all of this is that with not having been to bed until long after midnight, and waking up at 06:00 to do the photos and the notes, I’m crashing out here, even in the middle of a rock concert and so in the end it’s all too much and I head back to the car to crash out there.

I’d parked the car near to the Government Offices in Fredericton and as I passed, I noticed a woman setting up a tripod to photograph the floodlit building. I fell in with her and we had quite a chat about all kinds of things.

I realised that I don’t actually have a decent night photograph of the building and so while I was talking, I added one to my collection.

And then I hit the road

And I’ve been spending more of my money today, more of which anon

-3

Friday 12th September 2014 – DAY THREE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

Mind you, it might not have been, for I’d been on my travels again during the night.

I’d been working for years in an office and was to retire in a couple of days. I’d several files on a shelf behind me where they had been for several years, files that I hadn’t been able to deal with. I was planning to surreptitiously shred them so that no-one would find them. It did occur to me that I could simply leave them and it wouldn’t make any difference as I wouldn’t be there to face the consequences, but my pride wouldn’t let me do that.

There were also some items hanging on a chain link fence and they needed to be removed too, and Nerina put in an appearance to lend me a hand.

On that note, I awoke to something of a chill, but also to a little sunshine. The weather had improved considerably during the night, but there was quite a strong wind blowing.

There was so much work to do from yesterday so I had to press on without stopping to make a coffee – I could fuel up at a Tim Horton’s when I upload everything to the internet. However it took a while to make it to Tim Horton’s as I came across a Salvation Army thrift shop (but no books or CDs for me) and then went shopping in the Atlantic Superstore.

Once I’d had the coffee and done the work, it was into town as things were starting early today.

This is the Alex Bailey Swing Band apparently, although there wasn’t a swing in sight, no matter how much all of the children here would have loved to have been on it. Playing in the fine weather on the free stage at Officers Square to a contented crowd sitting in the sunshine.

For me though, the music didn’t do much to warm me up as Jazz isn’t really my thing and so I wandered off to see whatever else I could find.

This is a group called Kill Chicago. They were featuring at the Barracks Tent, taking part in the Galaxie Rising Stars Showcase.

They were another group that blew hot and cold as well – sometimes some of their stuff was quite enjoyable and at other times it didn’t appeal to me. Still, I have to admit that i’m getting old and it’s going to be very rare that a group of musicians 30 and 40 years younger than me would play music that would keep me riveted in my seat.

Technically though, there wasn’t much wrong with them, and that’s the kind of thing that is always worth admiring.

Back on the Free Stage at Officers Square we had Morgan Davis and his long-time drummer Jeff Arsenault. They are Festival regulars although it’s a shame to see them relegated to a Free Stage in an early afternoon rather than as a support act in a marquee venue. Sign of the times, I suppose. And shame as it is to say it, I can’t remember the name of the bassist, whom I have met before.

His set was exactly what you would expect it to be – a very competent and talented set of home-spun blues. And I did like his reference to the “United Snakes of America”.

First up this evening in the Blues Tent was, at long last, a real Blues performer. Gord Downie, The Sadies and The Conquering Sun. And that was a belting, powerhouse performance, well worth the wait for this. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this performance.

He had the correct number of musicians on the stage too – with no keyboards, no horns and no harmonica either, and his lead guitarist was one of the best that I have heard in years as well. During one track he played a lengthy solo right up at the top end of the scale of his guitar and that somehow found its way into my bones.

Downie was a showman and a performer if ever there was one too, and he was also a few other things besides, but we won’t go into them on these pages.

If I had been writing these notes 30 years or so ago I would have described this as an outrageously camp performance, but I’m not so sure that these terms are acceptable these days. I will have to think of another way to express exactly what I mean.

Their performance finished with a high-energy punk number, and having seen a few of these here this last couple of days, all I can say is that Downie and his bands put these other punk musicians to shame and if punk music had been played as he and his band played it, it would never have been classed as the nadir of performing music.

What an amazing concert. I really enjoyed this set, so it’s “hats off” to Gord Downie, who cheered me up immensely and restored my faith in the festival. But it was sad to see so few people enjoying this concert with me.

This is a busking group out there on the free stage at the Fredericton Tourist Information Office and I’ve heard worse than these too. They are called the Arlens, I think.

I can think of many worse ways to pass a free half-hour of my time. The audience enjoyed it anyway, boogie-ing about even if the music was a little hit-and-miss. As for the singer though, well, he must have been having an off-day I reckon.

Shame as it is to say it, I was somewhat disappointed by Blackberry Smoke.

However this was entirely due to the video that I had seen of one of their live performances, and that was something quite extraordinary, but then as a promotional item they would always use the best publicity available and I’m fully aware of that kind of thing, so I was expecting it.

So perhaps I wasn’t really disappointed after all.

What I wasn’t expecting though was the tirade launched from the stage about the Canadian Customs and Border Control. It seems that they have had the same issues with them that I have been having.

Had I caught the group unawares, I would have been enthralled by what I had seen because as a Southern Rock jam-band (from Atlanta in Georgia apparently, which should come as no surprise to anyone), they might not have been in the same class as The Outlaws or Widespread Panic, but they would be by far and away the best band that I would ever likely to catch a l’improviste.

And a Gibson bass too. What bliss! I was beginning to think that I was the only bassist in the world still to be playing one.

They did the track about “One More Silver Dollar” – the Allman Brothers one – and that involved a jam that went on for about three hours (and quite right too – my only complaint being that it didn’t go on for four hours). And somewhere along the line the managed to fit in a sample of “When the Levee Breaks” – the old Led Zeppelin show-closer.

All in all, I enjoyed this show too. It did drag a little in the middle but when they did break out into a jam solo here and there it lifted my spirits again. “Naked self-indulgence” I hear you say, and even if it might be, ask me if I care. I’d go along to see these again.

One thing that I will be doing as soon as I return home, whenever that might be, will be to try to track down a live performance somewhere to use on the radio.

If you have read my remarks on harmonicas, you would be forgiven for thinking that I hate the instrument. But that’s not really so. What I hate about it is
1) Almost every Blues musician thinks that it’s an essential part of the blues, and no blues can ever be performed without it.
2) Most harmonica players don’t know how to play the instrument.

So how will we get on with Blues Traveler, who is really a harmonica soloist with a few vocals here and there and a backing band?

The answer to that is that he’s the only blues musician who knows how to play it properly, and when I noticed that his bassist had a collection of 5-string basses on stage (unfortunately, all Fenders but you can’t legislate for that) I suspected that this could be an excellent performance with much more to the music than just the harmonica.

And I was right too. This was a stunning performance. We did, of course, have “Canadian Rose” – that was odds-on, wasn’t it? And we had a magnificent keyboards solo during one of the tracks. But as for the harmonica playing, well everyone else might just simply throw away their harmonicas for they will never ever be able to reproduce the sounds that came out of this one. It’s a waste of time trying.

The net result of all of this is that with Gord Downie and His Mates, Blackberry Smoke and Blues Traveler, I’ve had one of the best night’s entertainments that I have ever had, and I was walking on air on the way back to the Dodge, long after my usual bedtime.

Only downside of the day was that when I returned to the camp site I discovered that someone has pinched my spec and was having a barbecue there. I wasn’t in the mood for confrontation and so I cleared off and found another pitch somewhere else.

-1

Thursday 11th September 2014 – DAY TWO OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

It was much warmer this morning and I felt much more comfortable, although I’d had something of a turbulent night. I had lots to do this morning and that kept me pretty much occupied for quite a while and then it was off to find an internet connection. Once again, Tim Horton’s came up trumps and I reckon that the free wifi service that they offer will pay for itself in spades with the amount of custom it pulls in.

However, while I was in there, the weather changed. You may remember me telling you that they had turned the tent around at the Barracks Square and it’s now on the grass rather than on the hard-standing. I mentioned that if it ever started to rain everyone would be up to their knees in mud by the end of the evening.

And so it comes as no surprise to notice that it’s now raining. And as the afternoon wore on, the rain came down heavier and heavier. After doing a few more things that needed to be done, and going for something to eat, I had an hour or two to spare before the evening’s entertainment began. So I took refuge in the public library and read a book on Canadian Railways.

So here in the driving rain, although it’s quietened down a little from how it was half an hour ago, we have Lee Fields and the Expressions on the stage.

Again, there are far too many musicians on stage for my liking with his brass and his horns, and whether or not you would call him good would depend upon your own point of view, he has bags of presence and certainly knew how to get to a crowd, there’s no doubt about that. He’s a showman if ever there was one.

He had his first hit record in 1969 which is quite surprising seeing as how I haven’t ever heard of him. Still, soul music isn’t my scene at all.

I wasn’t impressed with his dress sense. I thought that the silver lurex suit was a little too 70s for my liking.

But I do wonder what must be going through the minds of the organisers when they have soul singers at a jazz and blues festival.

Pogo Ray on the drums, Scott Sutherland on the bass and of course, Samantha Fish on guitar and vocals. She played a superb set, and I will tell you now that I thoroughly enjoyed her concert.

I only heard three songs, what with other things that needed to be done, but I’ll make a special effort to catch her act later on tonight at the Hoodoo House so that I can hear some more.

And so I did. I caught up with her later, just in time to catch her doing the most astonishing version of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs that I have ever heard, and I told her so after the show. She has also put me in touch with her record company so that I can obtain a copy of one of her live performances for Radio Anglais.

Hers was the best act so far and although she hasn’t had much competition up to date, nevertheless she’s now way out in front by my reckoning, and by a country mile too.

Meanwhile at the Hoodoo House there can’t have been more than 70 people watching Shirley Jackson and her Good Rocking Daddys. Mind you, I can’t say that I’m surprised. I didn’t hang around very long and for three good reasons too –
1) I had other fish to fry (including Samanthat Fish of course)
2) Jazz isn’t my scene at all
3), technically, Shirley Jackson and her Good Rocking Daddys were, well, not quite at the races in my opinion and the guitarist was, well, a little way behind the others.
I’ve seen worse than these, to be sure, but I’ve also seen a whole lot better too.

Next group on stage were supposed to be the Belles, but they were announced as Always, or something like that … "it’s ALVVAYS" – ed … or my hearing is going, one or the other.

It was enjoyable new-romantic pop but technically they have been bettered by quite a few other bands. I spent most of my time watching the bassist with his Paul McCartney Hofner bass guitar, and playing all of the bass lines. And I was playing them, well, totally differently.

What didn’t help the group was that the sound mix was so awful, although it probably sounded much better at the back than it did at the front where we were, hemmed into the tiniest protographers’ pit I have ever been in.

This is someone called Doctor John and I had a little bet with myself that with a name like that it would be odds-on that he would produce a harmonica at some point during the proceedings.

So we did have Doctor John (without a harmonica for at least the first three numbers that I saw) and I had to say that the stage was the wrong way round – he had his back facing towards the organ and drums (but facing across to the guitarists and female backup singer who was doubling up on trombone).

Again, an enjoyable act that was technically very good, but not my scene at all.

David Clayton Thomas’ act looked quite ominous – there’s a whole pile of trumpets and horns and so on being wheeled out on stage. That makes my skin creep a little.

So He is someone quite well-known in certain circles (but not mine) and even brings with him his musical director – the guy in the green shirt playing trumpet on the left of the front row. I mean – who has a musical director in a show like this?

Anyway, he’s enjoying it and so are his musicians. They are having a whale of a time up there and I’m sure that some of what he is saying on stage contains some kind of in-jokes amongst them all, so good luck to them – and good luck to the crowd toon because they were having fun. But it wasn’t my cup of tea.

And for all of their rehearsals and musical directors and so on, I did detect a few, well, shall we just say “impromptu notes” and “uncommon timing” floating around here and there. It didn’t seem to hang together like it should – a bit bitty.

These are the Arkells and they are another 24th Street Wailers, aren’t they? I was exhausted just watching them for three numbers – dunno how the rest of the crowd got on for an hour or so, and as for playing it, well, I did have my suspicions about one or two of them. The second guitarist, for example, looked quite … errr … animated.

It was like the punk music of the late 70s which was quite surprising as the bassist was doing a very good impression of Glen Mattacks, bassist with the Sex Pistols, who just stood there and played while the others got up to whatever it was that they were getting up to. But unlike the punk bands of the 70s, these could actually play to a certain degree.

In contrast to the 48th Street Wailers though, the anarchy on the stage was totally uncoordinated and we had musicians crashing into each other every now and again as they jigged around the stage. At least the Wailers had some kind of coordinated stage act.

The Arkells had the crowd, mostly of teenage girls, quite animated too and the audience participation was thoroughly excellent and the crowd loved the performance. And it was the largest house of the night by far in what has been a pretty poorly-attended festival so far, so I’m clearly in a minority of One.

I’m probably far too old for this. I went to catch the end of Samantha Fish’s stage act at the Hoodoo House before going home to bed.

-1

Wednesday 10th September 2014 – DAY ONE OF THE HARVEST JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL …

… so I need to organise myself properly. Quite an impossible task, for many have tried and all have failed.

To start with, here’s a photo of my pitch at the Mactaquac Provincial Park. I’m sheltered by bushes and trees on two sides, which means of course that the wind is coming from the other two sides, as you might expect.

And it was cold during the night. Really cold. I went to bed fully-clothed, and that was uncomfortable when I had a bad attack of cramp at about 04:00.

And it was even colder at 07:00 when I was up and about. I almost went to look for a jumper but a hot coffee followed by an even-hotter shower did the business.

Strawberry Moose had some visitors too – presumably collecting maintenance payments from last year, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Having read the news recently, His Nibs is quite keen to play his part in diversifying the species – in fact, any species that he can. It’s why he’s so insistent upon coming here with me.

Mind you, if his friends don’t learn to move off the road quicker than they do at the moment, they might need all of the help that he can give them in that respect.

I had quite a few things to do this morning, and then I went off for lunch at the boat-launching ramp across the Saint John River from Fredericton. The view from here across to the city is quite phenomenal, especially in the magnificent weather that we were having at the time.

And having dealt with that, I went off for an explore around until the early evening when the Festival is supposed to get under way.

But there’s something that isn’t quite right here this year. The headline act, Blues Traveler, aren’t opening at the Playhouse Theatre, as most of the other headlining bands have donein the recent past. The Hoodoo House isn’t erected yet and won’t be opening tonight, and the Barracks Square tent isn’t open either. Furthermore, it’s been turned 90° so that it’s only half the size and instead of being on the hardstanding, it’s on the grass lawn. That will be interesting if we have a heavy downpour of rain at any time.

First band up on stage were the Wood Brothers in the Blues Tent. Apart from a bassist, Chris Wood, who spent a great deal of his time dancing with his instrument, I’m not quite sure what to say about them.

I made a note that they were more folk-country-rock than blues but that wasn’t necessarily the case. They chopped and changed styles and like most people who try to be something to everyone, they ended up being nothing to anyone – or at least, to me. Technically they were excellent, there’s no doubt about that, but their diversity didn’t appeal to me.

At the Mojo Tent I missed Gypsophilia – they were walking offstage as I arrived.

Next up was a group called Thus Owls, or something like that. They consisted of a guitarist, a drummer, and a woman playing keyboards and “things”, singing and using her voice for sound effects.

I wasn’t sure what to make of them. They were something like a Sigur Ros but singing in English, not Icelandic, and I’m not sure exactly where they were supposed to fit in at the festival because whatever they were, it was neither blues nor jazz, and this experimental avant-garde chamber music isn’t really for me. I’m not able to comment on the technical ability as it isn’t easy to understand what it is that they were really trying to do.

Back at the Blues Tent, we had Matty Andersen and the Mellotones, a name sounding like something out of the Blues Brothers. He’s from New Brunswick and his claim to fame is that he won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2010.

He wasn’t alone either. He had four brass musicians (they were also playing horns and the like too), three guitarists including himself, a bassist, a keyboard player and a drummer, and probably a partridge in a pear tree too somewhere.

Mark Knopfler said something about not giving “a damn about any trumpet-playing band. It ain’t what they call rock and roll” and I’m afraid that I have to agree. His performance, which I have to say was quite competent by anyone’s standards, didn’t need half of these musicians on the stage. It’s just, in my opinion, unnecessary clutter and it tends to distract from the music.

Godd though it may have been, it wasn’t my cup of tea. I put my camera away and prepared to leave for the Mojo Tent.

It was at this moment that we had one of these priceless occasions that happens only once in a lifetime. As I was standing by the door putting the Nikon away, a “Security” guard came running over.
“I saw that!” he shouted accusingly, pointing to my camera bag (generally speaking, DSLRs are forbidden at the Festival)).
“Did you see this?” I said, thrusting my Media Pass under his nose.
One rather red-faced security guard beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back to the Mojo Tent, I was harassed by yet another beggar (there are a few of these about) and while he was busy trying to cadge half a dollar, his mobile phone rang. And it was a much-better smartphone than I could ever afford. And so I told him what I thought about it all, in no uncertain terms.

This is the kind of thing that annoys me intensely.

Final act onstage for tonight was Bahamas, not bananas – at the Mojo Tent.

They consisted of a singer-guitarist, another guitarist, a drummer, a backing vocalist and – shock, horror – not a bassist in sight. What a sacrilege! I can’t think why any blues or jazz band would ever want to play without a bassist, and how it would even be possible. That is just the kind of thing that would have me on the back foot before we even start.

I didn’t make a single note or comment about the group’s music so they clearly made no impression at all on me. I’ll have to give them a rather neutral mark.

As a Media representative (Radio Anglais does have some benefits after all) I’m allowed to photograph the first three numbers and then I can stay and watch the rest of the act. But I ended up leaving and going back home for an early night.

I have to say that on Day One, I’ve seen nothing that has grabbed my attention. In fact, to be honest, I’ve been rather disappointed with the music that I’ve seen so far. I hope that things pick up considerably for Day Two.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-1

Monday 9th September 2014 – HALL TOWERS …

… is looking rather worse for wear these days. It seems that a little bit more of the gable roof has disappeared. So much for my plans to donate it to a worthy cause. I tried several of these historic villages to see if anyone wanted it, but no-one did, even if I offered to pay the transportation.

I only hope that if it does fall right down, it’ll fall across the border into the USA. Usually I seem to be able to attract trouble without going out to look for it, so a frontier incident or border war should be right up my street.

Talking of frontier incidents and border wars, last night I was working for the STIB – the Société de Transports Intercommunale de Bruxelles as a bus driver. They started me off on an easy route, just following one main road, but even I managed to complicate matters and deviate from the plan … "no surprise there " – ed.

The next day they were planning to send me out driving the route 23. I’ve no idea where that goes to but last night in the Land of Nod it was the bus that hugged the roads back and to across the linguistic frontier between Flanders and Wallonie. That was a route that was the subject of endless confrontations between drivers and the public as a French-speaking driver would be harassed by the Flemish and a Flemish driver would be harassed by the Walloons, and there was no way of having a typical Belgian compromise and splitting the route. Putting an Anglophone driver on the bus would be a red rag to everyone.

However the depot where the 23 was garaged was also the subject of complications. It was far too small for the purpose of garaging the buses that were needed in the vicinity – just an island dividing two carriageways, but neither the Flemish or Walloon communities would agree to its expansion or its displacement elsewhere as it would give some kind of advantage to the other community.

Sounds just like real Belgium, doesn’t it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will not need to be told where the Saint John River might be. It’s in a steep-sided valley, and although it is nothing like as steep as the valley of the Sioule near home, it’s steep enough and you’ll be able to guess quite easily.

Yes, it was cold during the night and when I took this photo, at about 08:30, it was a mere 7°C.

I went to see the guy who was supposed to be looking for a vehicle for me, and his (rather predictable, I’m afraid) response was “ohh, I forgot all about you after a month or so”. It seems that it’s too much like hard work for a businessman to haul himself out of a chair and earn a couple of dollars these days. Rather sit at home and let the dollars flow through his fingers. What a sad state the Western World is coming to when businessmen can’t even be bothered to earn some money.

I tell you now, customer service in North America is disappearing rapidly down the tubes. It’ll be like Belgium soon.

So after checking on Hall Towers, I crossed the border into the USA. I went over at Riviere de Chute, the same crossing point as last year, and it was the same miserable old whatsit on duty, but just for a change he was cheerful and happy. No idea what was happening there.

So negotiating the Amish horse buggies I arrived in Presque-Ile to some devastating news. The huge Salvation Army Thrift Centre has closed down. I had a pile of good books and music from there last year and this was my main reason for going.

Still, I could always go to the local florists and buy some suitable flowers to express my feelings, but if Cooks Florists had any flowers to express the feelings that I was having right at that particular moment I would have been very surprised indeed.

I wonder if there’s a Trading Standards Bureau in the USA that checks for misleading advertising. I think we should be told.

Still, not to be outdone, I went old-car hunting, and look at this!

This is a Freeway, a three-wheeled vehicle made by a company called HM Vehicles in Burnsville, Minnesota. That was a company that made vehicles for just 3 years, 1979 to 1982, before closing down.

This vehicle is one of only about 700 ever made, so it’s as rare as hens’ teeth, and what remains of it, because you would need to be dedicated to have a go at restoring this one, is available for purchase at a mere $2500, or near offer.

I suppose that there would be some takers at that price, and I might be interested myself. It would fit into my suitcase and would probably come within the weight of my baggage allowance too.

That wasn’t the only interesting car either. There were plenty of others, including this one. This is a Nash Metropolitan, either a Series III or a IV, and the claim to fame of these cars is that they were built by Austin at Longbridge for Nash, the American car company and were imported for sale in North America – the first car ever to be totally built abroad on behalf of a USA manufacturer. There will even probably still be the old 1489cc BMC B-series engine in there.

A few were sold in the UK and people with long memories will remember the pile of them dumped and abandoned for years on the waste land at the side of Grocott’s garage in Wistaston, Crewe in the late 1960s and early 70s.

I could cry when I think of that, how rare these cars are now.

I headed on back to Canada afterwards, and at the frontier I was once more given a hard time, this time by a Canadian border official. I just don’t understand what it is with border officials. Do they have to undergo a surgical operation to remove their goodwill, good humour and pleasant disposition before they are appointed to a post?

Sunday 7th September 2014 – BACK TO CANADA

You wouldn’t believe, given the beautiful morning, how evil he weather had been last night. We woke up to clear blue skies and a pale dawn sunshine. And also an enormous amount of dew and some freezing cold weather.

We weren’t long in setting off, and went to Dysart’s in Bangor for breakfast. That’s an enormous truck stop just off Interstate 95 (at mile marker 180) and long-term readers of this rubbish will remember that I met a team of cheerleaders here last year. I had toast and jam, with home fries and mixed vegetables, and enough coffee to sink a ship – although whether it is correct to call this hot brown-coloured liquid “coffee” is a matter of some debate.

From there we went on up to the exit at mile marker 188 and Sam’s Club. This is one of the leading wholesale outlets in the north of Maine and Darren and Rachel needed to stock up the shop at the tyre depot. I limited myself to a pack of 4 of the bottled gas that I use in the cooking stove – all of $5:49. I don’t really need it but it’s the kind of stuff that you can never ever find when you need it and if I’m going off up to Labrador I might need it.

We fuelled up at Oakland, which is the cheapest fuel in Maine apparently, and then crossed the border into Canada. Here in the Maritimes, the time is one hour in advance of the Eastern USA and so it was 19:30 when we arrived here.

I’m staying here for a day or two and then I’m off to the Jazz and Blues Festival at Fredericton. I’d better polish up my guitar.

Saturday 6th September 2014 – WHAT A FARCE …

… this tractor pull has been.

The morning started fine enough, a beautiful bright blue sky and nice hot weather. And I had a most enjoyable breakfast too.

After that I went for a walk and it wasn’t difficult to find Rachel, Darren and Amber. They were parked up by the fence of the pits.

The security staff wanted to charge me $10:00 for an entry into the pits but enough was enough. It appears that, for the Dodge, I’m paying the same price to stay overnight as one of these monster caravans pulled by one of these monster trucks. A family of 6, occupying six times the footprint that my Dodge is occupying, is paying the same price that I’m paying.

Not only that, the “bigger” pitches have water and electricity too – I don’t have anything like that and so you can see that I’m being ripped off even more by the Clinton Lions Club and I am extremely unhappy (to say the least) about all of this. So there was no way that I was paying an extra $10:00 on top of all of this to visit the others. I made “other arrangements”.

Darren needed some help to fetch “Perdy in the Pink” out of the trailer but before I could volunteer, I was overwhelmed by Amber who rushed to his assistance.

With Hannah now having started University Darren finds himself a pair of hands short, so I can well imagine Amber stepping into the breach in a couple of years time. Nothing like starting early.

So having done that, we all relaxed and chilled in the sunshine while we waited for the competition to start.

There are various classes of pulling vehicles. This is one of the competitors in the diesel 2.6 – 3-litre class and it looks like an old-time steam train roaring across the prairie or up into the Rockies or something. I’m glad that there were only a couple of competitors in this class, and so is the planet.

So Darren went to pull but found to his surprise that his tractor was overweight. With Hannah having driven it until recently it was set up for her. Some of the weight balances had to be taken off the tractor and as it was easier to do it from the back, this was from where the weights came out.

This also meant that the tow hitch was too high and this needed to be wound down a couple of inches.

As a result, the machine was totally out of balance and so the first run wasn’t particularly impressive.

We spent the next couple of hours readjusting the weights and rebalancing the tractor so that the weight was correct and all in the right place, but as Darren was about to start his second run, this was when the heavens opened and we were all drenched in a torrential downpour, the like of which I had rarely seen. There was no grip on the track for Darren so the tractor simply slid across the track when it set out with the load.

The competition was immediately cancelled and that was that. We were there in the pouring rain cleaning off the tractor before we put it back in the trailer and that was that. We went off to the fairground where I had chips and onion rings for tea. And after that, an early night, in soaking wet clothes.

And who in his right mind builds mudguards with pointy aluminium front ends? Cleaning off the front tyre, I’ve ripped open the side of my thumb. That isn’t half painful, I can tell you.

Friday 5th September 2014 – MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CAMP SITE …

… I had had one of the best nights sleep that I had ever had – flat-out for about 9 hours non-stop and I was awake quite early.

So after updating my notes on the computer I had a lovely wash (but I’m still drawing the line at paying for a hot shower on top of whatever campsite fees I’ve paid already) and then a breakfast of bagels, strawberry jam and coffee (the orange juice has gone off, so it seems).

It was still early and so I went for a wander around the lake in the early-morning sun.

And the place was as quiet as the grave too, even though there were quite a few campers on the site. I came to the conclusion that I would have been quite happy to have stayed here for a few days in the peace and quiet. I might have found a little peace, but I’m not sure how I would be able to keep her quiet.

One of the places that I encountered on my travels was this building here in Concord, New Hampshire. This is the site of a house called Mount Pleasant which was the home of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Scientists. The building now on the site was formerly the Home for retired Christian Scientist parcticioners and nurses.

I shan’t pass any comment about what I think about Christian Scientists, but any religion, and I do mean any religion, that owns a place like this and reserves it for its personnel when there are billions starving and living in poverty needs to have another good read of the Scriptures, and in particular the bit that says “give all that thous hast to the poor”.

But from here I’ve had a couple of illusions shattered, and another opinion strongly reinforced.

Firstly, I stopped at a place that was selling redundant school buses – dozens of them all about the place, but despite it being 11:00 in the morning, the place was as deserted as the Mary Celeste. Not a soul about at all – no-one to try to sell me a school bus. Normally, whenever you set foot in a shop in the USA you are immediately overwhelmed by sales personnel. Here, when you really do want to find one, there’s no-one about at all.

Secondly, at a caravan sales place, a salesman was summoned to talk to be about jack-leg pickup bed caravans, but on the way over he stopped to talk to someone else for a good five minutes leaving me like piffy on a rock. When he finally came over, even my taunt of “if you’re far too busy to talk to me I’ll come back later” didn’t elicit even a hint of an apology. Yes, the legendary American customer service is really going down the pan.

The other incident relates to the Royal Bank of Scotland, with which I an unfortunate enough to bank. I went into a branch of the Citizen’s Bank of New Hampshire, the North American affiliate of the RBS, to withdraw some cash, and my transaction was declined. This was the final straw in a long line of miserable dealings with what I consider to be the world’s worst bank, and I shall be sorting out this sorry state of affairs when I return.

From there it was a case of driving all the wy across Maine and I arived at Clinton at 16:00, eactly as predicted.

I’ve witnessed a childrens’ pig scramble (which with the present state of affairs in the USA you are not allowed to photograph) and a tractor pull event, and had chips (fries) for tea.

And then I proved that it is completely possible to sleep through a tractor pull event, but not a firework display.

EPIC HALL

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