… while I was in bed and asleep early enough, I had to make a little trip down the corridor at about 00:40 and that was that until 04:45. Not the best night, but not too bad, is it?

I’d been on my travels again too. There was this wartime motorcycle, in yellow desert camouflage paint, and there were three of us on it – a woman driver, her young child as a passenger, and me bringing up the rear on the pillion. We rode, with her driving, quite some distance into Europe, and then she asked me to take over. This became rather embarrassing because I couldn’t make it move. It seemed that there was too much slack in the throttle cable so winding the throttle on was just taking up the slack. Some man came by and gave me some advice and lent me some rubber gloves to pick up the front end and pull it over a wall (I’m not sure how I intended to do that, with the weight of the bike) – and then the man had a flash of inspiration. He reckoned that this bike was a wartime European Army bike, and he picked up the telephone to call some kind of registry. It turned out that we had bike n°60, which was used by a Belgian by the name of Crabbe, from Liège. And he had died in 1960, so he was interested in how come this girl had obtained the bike.

Breakfast was rather late this morning and so while I was waiting I loaded up Strider with everything that I was planning to take to me, and once I’d eaten, I hit the road.

I didn’t make it very far though before I shuddered to a stop. only as far as Woodstock in fact.

On the edge of town isn’t darkness – at least not at that time of morning, but a car body repair shop and here sitting in the parking area was this magnificent beast. We’ve not had a Car of the Day yet in North America.

It’s actually a Buick Special and dates, according to the guy in the garage, to 1937. The bodywork is in good condition and although the interior is rather worn and tatty, it’s complete and undamaged. I need to empty my suitcase to take this home with me.

I stopped off at the Atlantic Superstore in Woodstock in order to buy stuff for lunch – including some hummus of course but also some vegan cheese seeing as how the stuff that I have is a little bit on the old side (it’s at least a year old, you know). They had a new variety of vegan cheese on offer and so I decided that I would give that a try.

And that reminds me – where does a native American do his shopping?
Answer – in a Siouxperstore.

Now here’s something upon which the Brexiters can reflect for the next 50 years, and that is that the Canadian Prairies are the breadbasket of the world. More grain is produced here than almost anywhere else in the world and with the economies of scale that are practised here on the huge farms, the costs of production compared to a British farm are negligible. No-one can produce wheat as cheaply as the Canadians. And so the cost of a baguette here in a Canadian superstore is $2:89, which is about £1:90. In a French supermarket, it is €0:75 – or about £0:65.

Leaving the EU might save the silly Brits £350 million (which, the Brexit leaders have now decided, won’t be given to the NHS despite using that reason as a major plank of the Brexit campaign) but the European agricultural subsidies will go. And then listen to the Brexiters complain about the dramatic increase in the price of food.

The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy comes in for some severe handling in the popular press, but the writers and readers of these articles have never compared the price of food in the EU with the price of food in the rest of the developed world.

And so abandoning another good rant for a while, I drove on South-West.

At Fredericton I called at Value Village, the Co-operative Charity Shop. I managed to pick up a copy of Pierre Berton’s Arctic Grail. Berton was one of the leading Canadian historians and wrote his books in a very engaging style, although occasionally he did manage to slip into a little bit of polemic when he wasn’t paying attention. I’ve quite a few books by him now.

With all of the roadworks going on at the top end of Fredericton I missed the turning to Home Depot and ended up back on the bypass. So never mind – I’ll have to catch up with that in due course on the way back.

Halfway down to Moncton I stopped off to make my lunch. And this is where the rain started. You can tell that I’m going to the seaside for my holidays, can’t you?

As the rain came down heavier and heavier, I arrived at Shediac. This is where I’m going to be staying for a week or so.

And it was here that we had a major catastrophe.

Looking for a motel, I drove out through the town and not finding anything, I went to do a u-turn in a lane at the side of the road. And as I was turning round, the edge of the road collapsed under the weight of Strider and we slid irrevocably into the ditch.

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t extricate myself from here. But I wasn’t alone for long. A woman driving by stopped, and offered me a lift down to a nearby garage. They came out with a breakdown truck and within 5 minutes, had lifted me out of the ditch. My stupidity cost me $60:00, but it could have been much worse, and you have to pay to learn.

The tourist information here found a place for me to stay. Seeing as how it’s now out of season there are some reasonable deals going around and I’m in a studio, with a bedroom, living room, bathroom and fully-equipped kitchen. It’s lovely and I would be quite happy to live here for good, I’ll tell you that.

Having installed myself, I went out into the rainstorm and down to the supermarket in the town where, for the first time since I don’t know when, I did a week’s shopping. And the lack of European food subsidies didn’t half hurt the pocket. And with having a freezer here, I could buy ice-cream (well, sorbet) and stuff like that. I could really become used to this kind of life.

And back at the flat I made myself a pizza for tea, and it’s been a while since I’ve done this too, isn’t it? And followed by some tinned fruit salad and ice-cream for pudding.

Now, I’m heading off for a reasonably-early night in my comfortable (for it really is) bed where I’m going to sleep until the sun comes back.