Tag Archives: shower

Sunday 15th September 2019 – I MISSED …

… an exciting day today up in Grand Falls. Apparently they were having a drag racing afternoon.

Nothing more exciting than watching a bunch of men dash round a town while dressed in women’s clothes, but I had other fish to fry unfortunately and I was quite disappointed to have let the opportunity pass me by.

In fact I was out near Meductic moving furniture. Zoe has, as I mentioned earlier, bought herself a little house and she doesn’t have much furniture, but someone was disposing of a clean two-seater bed settee that transforms into a double bed and that will be just the thing.

And so having emptied out Strider, we set off for Zoe’s where she and a friend clambered aboard and then we all shot off southwards towards Fredericton.

Putting the bed in the back of Strider was the work of a moment and it was soon strapped in place. Back at Zoe’s, we unloaded the sofa and then I came home. Totally whacked. I just can’t do things like this any more.

Mind you, I don’t know why, because it’s not as if I had much of a difficult night. In bed comparatively early and apart from a brief foray down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse, disturbing our overnighters on the way, and a few interruptions to record things on the dictaphone (and I wonder what they are?) I had the kind of lie-in about which I have only been able to dream just recently.

09:00 when I finally surfaced, and just loitered around until it was time to go and deal with Zoe.

This afternoon, I’ve had a shower and, would you believe, a haircut, and I look almost human. As well as that, Rachel was having a marathon clothes-washing session and I’m now up to date with all clean clothes ready to leave here Wednesday morning for Montreal to clean out my storage locker and hopefully to go for a meal with Josee.

But having seen the fuel in Strider evaporate before my very eyes, I’ve been searching on the internet with Darren and we have finally found a performance chip which claims inter alia to offer an 8mpg fuel improvement.

And I tell you what – that if I could get an extra 8mpg out of Strider I will really be impressed. So tomorrow I shall be on the case.

For tea tonight we had baked potato – the carnivores with salmon and we vegans with a bean medley. Quite delicious and prepared with my own fair hands. And if I can find the time tomorrow, I’m going to make a curry.

But I’ve been a busy boy this evening. I’ve tracked down the complete digital tracks to two more albums that I own. The first one is Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy by Brian Eno. That was his second solo album after Roxy Music and was such a surprising album that it left me speechless when I first heard it, and that’s not something that happens every day, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But it’s one of those albums that grow on you quite quickly and it’s always been in my top 100 albums out of the couple of thousand that I own.

The second one though is an album that means a great deal to me and for many reasons too.Warrior On The Edge Of Time features work that probably represents Michael Moorcock’s apogee as a science fiction writer, and several of the lyrics, adapted from works by Shelley and Wordsworth and set to Hawkwind’s space-rock music will penetrate deep into your bones.
“The golden void will speak to me
“Denying my reality
“lose my body, lose my mind
“blow like wind, I flow like wine
“Down a corridor of flame
“Will I fly so high again?”
Yes, what wouldn’t I give to be able to write meaningful lyrics like that after some of the things that I have done?

The album was thoroughly panned by the critics in the same was that A Passion Play was, and for the same reason too – that the critics didn’t understand what the musicians were trying to achieve.

The Melody maker wrote that Moorcroft’s poetry was delivered “with all the emotion of Davros being exterminated by renegade Daleks”, totally overlooking the fact that this was precisely the effect that Moorcroft and Brock wanted.

And when Lemmy wrote that ” ‘Opa-Loka’ was a lot of f***ing rubbish”, what he really meant to say that he didn’t play the bass line on it. It transpired much later that with Lemmy off on one of his little jaunts playing Hell’s Angels, Dave Brock refused to hang around and wait but played the bass line himself.

It’s quite true that Hawkwind has never ever recorded an album on which I have liked every track from start to finish, but “Warrior On The Edge Of Time” will be up there with the best of them.

But it has much more of a personal significance to me too. When the album was released I was dating Jackie Marshall. She worked at the Nantwich Library on Saturdays and used to scan the new rock albums that arrived, secrete them in a drawer, smuggle them out for me to record and then take them back next week. This particular album, she bought me for my birthday and inscribed a beautiful little message on the album cover which meant quite a lot to me – and still does.

But her parents hated me with a passion (like I said, I was a different person in those days) and so our fate was destined to unwind.

Strangely enough, I was driving a coach around North Shropshire a few years later and needed some cash, so on my lunch break I called in at Barclay’s Bank in Whitchurch. Who should be working there behind the counter as cashier but the aforementioned?

I had the briefest of moments to exchange pleasantries like you do, but not enough time to chat, so I determined that at the next opportunity I would go back.

And so I did – and on a couple of occasions too – but I never saw her again. We’ve often talked about TOTGA – The One That Got Away – but that particular girl was from a very different time and a very different era. Jackie was TOTGA from quite another epoch in my life and is probably the original one from which all standards are made.

Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to her.

Having had a play around on the bass, I’m ready for bed. The house is as quiet as the grave with everyone having retired and I suppose that I should really badger off to. But I’ve found the digital track to another album and I’ve made a start to re-record it.

But I’ll tell you all about that in the morning.

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Friday 13th September 2019 – WHAT A NIGHT …

… that turned out to be!

It’s one thing to be accompanied on a nocturnal ramble by people such as Castor and Pollux, but it’s quite something else when a dramatic appearance is made therein by my father and my brother.

And when all of the action (including five children all riding on the same push-bike at the same time) takes place in Edleston Road in Crewe, then that is the stuff from which nightmares are made.

And so it should be no surprise to anyone that I sat up bolt-upright at about 01:30 in the morning in a state of shock, anger and emotion and drenched in a feverish sweat.

I’m not going to go into the gory details of all of this, which I remember totally vividly without having consulted the lengthy notes on the dictaphone, because you are probably eating your lunch right now. But let’s just say that I’m a different person today than I was 30 or so years ago and the rage and anger that was consuming me at the time and for which there is no Statute of Limitations was, I thought, long-since dead and buried like a couple of people I could mention and that I’d moved a long way further on from there.

Consequently the emotion, the violence and the anger that was going around in my head when I awoke was something that took me completely by surprise and knocked me right off balance. It’s a good job that I don’t have too many wits these days because it took me quite a while to gather those that I still have.

Going back to sleep for a while was quite out of the question so I vegetated in bed for ages, musing over the events that had led up to my rather rude awakening. And it ended up as being one of those really uncertain events – did my family connections YET AGAIN contrive to put a spanner into the works and do their best to spoil any kind of enjoyment that I might be trying to have, or did my family all club together once more to save me from a fate worse than a fate worse than death?

Bearing in mind the vicarious pleasure that they once enjoyed from watching me skid towards the precipice a long time ago, I suspect the former. But things have a strange way of working themselves out for the best if you are able to stand back and review them from a detached point of view, and you are quite often able to find a totally different perspective.

Eventually I was off on yet another ramble at some point, to such an extent that I distinctly remember dreaming that I was dictating into a dictaphone some notes of a dream.

I didn’t quite manage to beat the alarms this morning, but I was good and ready for the girls when it was time to go to school (in nice weather too).

And I was right about the garage being empty this morning. There was a queue of vehicles, including a potato lorry, right across and down the yard awaiting attention this morning. We were rushed off our feet.

At lunchtime I came back home for a shower, a change of clothes, some butties and to do some work, such as converting to *.mp3 format a live concert that I tracked down on the internet last night.

The afternoon was spent running to Florenceville for parts and shunting cars around the yard as the pressure slowly eased off. And, of course, fighting off an enormous wave of fatigue.

This evening we had burgers for tea. The carnivores had bison burgers and we two vegans (and Amber) had vegan burgers, followed by lemon whirl vegan mousse.

With it being Friday night, everyone is relaxing. But I have too much to do right now so I’m working.

And I might be some time.

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Monday 9th September 2019 – WITH HAVING TO …

… go to bed early last night in order to be on form for today, it goes without saying that I had another bad night last night.

Still awake at 01:30, and when I finally did drop off, it was just in 20 minute segments where I was off on various travels. When I unwind the dictaphone at some point in the future I can tell you all about them, but what I can say is that at one point Castor and I were joined just for a change by Pollux.

Is it the first time that the aforementioned has accompanied me on a nocturnal voyage? I shall have to check

And it was one of those nights where I kept stepping back into the voyage at exactly the same place that I had stepped out. That’s something that I’m noticing is happening more and more frequently these days and when I was having similar situations back 15 or so years ago, I found myself able eventually to move onto a third plane, and that’s when it all became exciting.

That was during the period that we were researching dreams (that lasted from about 1998 to 2006 or so) for someone’s PhD at University and so our individual research was never individually published. But I still have the notes somewhere and I’ll have to look them out when I’m back home.

The spell was however unfortunately broken round about 04:00. The batteries in the dictaphone went flat at an inopportune moment and, determined not to miss a moment, I left the bed for a spare set.

They were flat too so I had to find some more and in the meantime find the charger to charge up the flat ones.

Unfortunately this meant that by the time that I was organised and went back to bed, I’d missed my spot and ended up going off somewhere else instead and isn’t that a shame?

When Amber banged on my door, I’d been up for quite a while. Before the third alarm in fact and that’s a rare deal right now. So we went outside ready for school.

Amber doesn’t like the idea of travelling cramped up in Strider so she had negotiated use of her mother’s car for me. It was cold, damp, misty and foggy outside and I had to clean off the car before we could go anywhere.

We negotiated out way through the queues at the covered bridge (the highway is down) and much to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, the St John River valley was clear of fog and mist. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s usually the place that GETS it first.

The girls clambered out at school and I drove back to the Co-op for apples (seems that we have a little fruit-eater amongst us) and to Tim Horton’s for bagels for me for breakfast.

At the tyre depot the morning passed quickly. There were lots of people around there and we were quite busy. I sorted out some paperwork and then, grasping the nettle, I telephoned the hospital back in Leuven.

They offered me a blood transfusion on 11th October on a “take it or leave it” basis. And so I took it. After all, chemotherapy and mapthera didn’t work as we know and the product that they are trying out on me is still in the trial stage so it’s not licensed as yet in North America.

And with having missed already three of my four-weekly transfusions, heaven alone knows what my blood count might be like. It was knocking on the “critical level” back in June.

Nevertheless, I’m going to try to see if I can push it back a week or so. I have may things to do that are as yet undone and there are many opportunities waiting to come my way and that won’t be accomplished if I’m not here.

After that I went to see Ellen. She’s quite ill too and doesn’t look anything like the woman that I remember. It’s a shame but I reckon that we will both be stoking the fires of eternity together, and quite soon too. But I kept her company for an hour or so and we had a good chat.

At lunchtime I took Rachel’s car back home and picked up Strider. Then went to the Irving for lunch. Afterwards I hopped off to pick up my mail from my mail box but SHOCK! HORROR! the whole battery or mailboxes out on the River du Chute road has been flattened.

A brief drive enabled me to find another battery of mailboxes but my key didn’t work. Off to the Post Office then, where she explained that the boxes have been moved and I needed a new key. She confirmed my Canada address and gave me a new key to a different box

But even more SHOCK! HORROR! It seems that my new licence tags for Strider haven’t come through. They expire at the end of the month so I need to chase them up before I go off to Montreal and Ottawa.

And I forgot to add that with the road up there being as it is and with Strider being as he is, it was an exceedingly lively drive. Next time that I go to Labrador I shall need to take with me a change of underwear

This afternoon there was yet more work to be done. Darren needed to take some heavy springs down to the welders in Woodstock so I went along to help. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong but in the big Chevrolet lorry there was plenty of room.

Having brought the petrol back on Saturday it was the turn of the diesel. But this time, now that the lorry is mobile again, we had a proper licensed fuel tank to move the stuff about.

I have deliberately refrained from mention the world’s worst customer service that I have ever received – service that would knock Belgium’s legendary incivility to its customers into a cocked hat.

I rang Walmart in Fargo about the splash screen on my laptop and after repeating my story 7 times to 7 different people the best advice that I was given was to “reformat your hard drive and tough s**t for your data”.

That’s advice and assistance that I can well do without.

There was a major issue trying to reconcile the cash account this evening on closing so we had to stay behind to resolve the problem. Eventually, at about 18:30 we suddenly twigged – payments received after closing on Saturday lunchtime, credited though on Saturday, had been put into the till on Monday instead of being added to Saturday’s pouch.

Of course, neither I nor Rachel had been there at close on Saturday or opening on Monday, had we?

It meant that we weren’t back home until 19:00 and, much to our surprise, the girls had cooked tea. I went for a shower afterwards and then tried some of Rachel’s home-brew ice coffee, which was delicious.

Now even though it’s early, I’m off to bed. It seems that the school run is required for tomorrow (the school bus arrives too late, what with the issues on the bridge and Amber has already been cautioned once by an unreasonable Principal, and she can’t take a passenger on her scooter) and once more, Yours Truly has drawn the short straw.

And a big hello to my new readers from Montreal and Mississauga.

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Thursday 5th September 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the bed in here.

It took me a while to settle myself down but once I’d gone, I’d gone for good and I had the best sleep that I have had for at least two weeks.

Off on a few voyages too, for the first time for a week, and I’ll tell you all about them once I’ve organised the dictaphone.

During one of my voyages, I heard one of the participants call my name, so I sat up bolt-upright. I’ve not had a moment like that for several years and when I did it was usually a plea for help or for me to get in touch.

For a fact, I know that Castor was in one of my voyages, and so, when I heard the call, I wondered if it was she. But who knows, and this is not the moment for me to find out, I reckon, even if, to paraphrase the words of Adolphus Greely whose expedition came to grief on Cape Sabine, “I know of no law, human or divine, that was broken …”.

If Castor wants to get in touch with me then she can. She has the means or if not, she can find them. But it’s not the moment for me to be taking any initiative.

For once I slept right through the alarms and it was 10:30, when the telephone rang, that I awoke. I wasn’t quick enough to answer the telephone though.

Instead I carried on with a few tasks that needed attention – I still wasn’t in work mode – then round about 14:30 went for a shower and a clean-up.

Back in bed afterwards until Hannah came home and we had one of our lengthy chats. I’m glad to see her doing so well after her spell at University.

She’s been offered a chance to study for her CPA but she’s not sure. I was explaining to her the benefits, particularly if someone else is paying for the course.

Darren came back later and we had a chat while Amber made tea. And even though it’s only 21:45 I’m off to bed.

I have a lot of sleep to catch up on.

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Tuesday 3rd September 2019 – I HAD …

… another sleepless night last night. Too much turmoil going on around my head, I reckon, as there has been over the last week or so.

The artist Samuel Gurney Cresswell, who accompanied McClure on an expedition to the Arctic once remarked that a voyage up there “ought to make anyone a wiser and better man”. But it didn’t do that for me, did it?

Still, you live and learn.

So this morning I was up and about early, having been awake for hours. I had my medication, much of which fell down behind the TV cabinet, and then went for breakfast.

Back up here I had a shower and then vegetated for a while before hitting the streets.

One of the streets near here is a shopping thoroughfare so I went to buy food for lunch and a bit of an explore. I eventually found a couple of thrift shops and had a browse but no CDs or books of interest.

No guitars either, and nether were there ukeleles so I couldn’t have a strum. I’ll have to deal with that in due course.

After lunch I attacked all of the e-mails that had arrived while I was out of contact. Piles of them, there were, and it took an age to go through them and the ones that I had saved from the previous trips. Some housekeeping too was in order.

When I was at the shops I bought a huge carton of almond milk so instead of any tea tonight I waded my way through that.

But here we go again. I had a raging thirst for the last few days, the shakes yesterday at the airport and now I seem to be off my food. It seems that I’m heading for another bout of illness (I recognise the signs now) which is no surprise seeing as I have missed 2 sessions of blood transfusions and I have a third to miss as well.

Not that I object though. I wouldn’t have missed this adventure for the world and I’m so pleased to have done it. There might have been a few problems but some of us don’t have problems, we have solutions.

Now I really am tired so seeing as I have a ridiculously early start in the morning it’s high time that I tried my best to sleep.

See you in the morning.

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Tuesday 27th August 2019 – I HAVE SPENT …

… a very pleasant day in the company of those two two very pleasant young girls whom I have mentioned previously. I’m not sure quite why, but I seem to be Flavour Of The Month right now – a situation to which I’m not accustomed at all

When we saw the polar bear the other day the younger one of the two who was wandering around the deck on her own wasn’t able to pick it up with her camera very well To help her out, I put her memory card into my camera and let her take a few photos using the big zoom lens. No kid should ever go around being disappointed if there’s someone around who can lend a hand.

Unfortunately I had my camera set on RAW data rather than *.jpg so her camera couldn’t see it, as I came to realise afterwards. But I was working with the laptop in my little corner in the upper lounge today when they both came past, so I grabbed her memory card, edited the photos for her, converted it into *.jpg format and, for good measure, slipped her a photo of my walrus from yesterday as a little present.

We ended up having quite a chat, that started at about 15:00 this afternoon and went on until … errr … 00:30. And I’ll tell you something for nothing – and that is that they are far more intelligent and interesting and have much more to say for themselves than any of the adults on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

And that, unfortunately, is not saying very much either. To tell the truth, this is a pretty miserable lot of passengers on board the ship for this section of the voyage. There’s not even one of them with whom I’d choose to spend any of my spare time, and I’m pretty certain judging by the number of times that I’ve sat at a table and taken my meals all alone that the feeling is pretty much mutual.

Not that it bothers me at all though. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m much happier with my own company and It seems as if I’m condemned to prowl the deck of the ship totally on my own until all kinds of late hours until I fall overboard, rather like Joshua Slocum, which is par for the course these days.

Mind you, I don’t know how I do it because I had another dreadful night. Wide awake at 01:00 and then not going back to sleep at all. And I was feeling dreadful too – fearing a recurrence of my trouble of the other week.

I know what caused it though. Basically, I was in a totally foul mood and it was eating me up all yesterday evening.

Yesterday or the day before, I’d mentioned that we have someone from the Archaeological Service of Canada Parks on board and as a result things are being run “by the book” on board, to the total exclusion of everything else.

Consequently, even though I’ve travelled for 40 days and spent not far short of $40,000 over two years to travel to a certain point and to take a certain photograph, it’s been decided that I won’t be permitted to take it.

I was furious (to say the least) about the idea of missing out on the photo that I really wanted to take, and it was preying on my mind. But being wide-awake enabled me to have a good think and it gave me the opportunity to come up with a solution.

And so at breakfast I buttonholed Rachel the Archaeologist and bent her ear somewhat (poor girl), telling her of my utter dismay and disappointment. She replied that she would “take my concerns on board”.

It was snowing slightly outside and freezing cold, as you might expect up here in the High Arctic, but we all warmed ourselves up in our really warm expedition clothing and hit the zodiacs. 10 minutes later we were on Beechey Island. at last, after all of these years.

We visited the graves of the three sailors who died at the start of the Franklin expedition and I took the photos that I wanted. Permission had been obtained (although, I suspect, unofficially, and I thought it best not to make further enquiries). We then walked on through the rain and the howling wind past a passing gyrfalcon down to Northumberland House (or the remains thereof) built by William Pullen’s expedition to relieve Franklin should he still be alive (which he wasn’t)

The whole place is covered in old tin cans, barrel staves and barrel hoops from Franklin’s and the relief expeditions in the 1840s and 50s and that all adds to the mystery of the place. But at long last I have made it there and that was what I’ve come all this way to do.

But one thing that I couldn’t do was to deal with yet more of this red tape. There’s a shipwreck – the yacht Mary – dating from the 1850s on the island, and known since at least 1854. I was hoping to be able to visit that but because it didn’t form part of the permit that the company had obtained (apparently no-one thought that it would be of much interest to anyone) it had been taped off and an “unofficial excursion’ was out of the question with this official loitering around.

So instead, I cursed my bad luck.

The zodiac ride back was wild, totally wild. You’d pay good money for that in an adventure park. We were all soaked to the skin and frozen to the marrow, so when we returned I had a hot shower to warm myself up.

After lunch I was on deck for a while and then fell in with the girls. They are cousins apparently, both mad on music and keen players of the ukelele. So I’ve been having private ukelele lessons all evening.

There was a concert in fancy dress this evening. Strawberry Moose dressed up for it and won a prize.

Later on in the evening while I was chatting to the girls and learning to play the ukelele, two boys joined in. One of them was no mean guitarist and the other could sing really well and so we had a jam session until long after midnight, all five of us.

And as a result, a cunning plan is developing. But more of this anon. I’m off to bed.

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Thursday 22nd August 2019 – JUST FOR A …

… change I was out like a light last night quite early, and stayed out until about 05:20 (which would have been 06:20 in real money of course). I ended up going back to sleep for a while and it was something of a struggle to sort myself out when the alarm went.

After the medication etc I went for a walk on deck to take some photos and it took me a while to find the early-morning orange juice, which wasn’t in the same place as usual. People shouldn’t go around changing my early morning habits when I’m walking around only semi-conscious.

One of the staff joined me briefly for breakfast, and then it was back down here to prepare myself for the morning out.

We’re in a fjord off Disko Island and the plan is to go ashore. We’re divided up into different groups, so I chose to go off with Marc the geologist and learn some more about rocks. And we had a great time too. We’re on proper original bedrock from 3.8 billion years ago, layered with dozens of layers of volcanic rock which had been eroded away by glaciers in certain areas so we could see all of the strata.

As well as that, Rachel the archaeologist had found some old fox traps and we inspected them. The traps were used to catch foxes more for their furs than their meat although that would be eaten too if necessary.

And the walk around the island as far as I went was quite interesting too. I even stumbled upon one or two of our party drying some caribou meat ready for one of the Country Food evenings that we have sometimes. Well, they have, because as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m a vegan.

On the way back we were unlucky enough to miss a whale. One or two of the previous zodiacs had seen it but not us.

On board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a shower and another clothes-washing session and then headed off for lunch. I sat with a guy who for some reason that only he knows, didn’t want to speak and who left the table rather abruptly.

I must change my after-shave.

This afternoon we had a series of lectures (during which I fell asleep) and a singles party. But I’m no good at socialising so I didn’t benefit from it.

There was a Francophone table at tea so I joined it and we had a chat, and that was followed by a disco. I dressed up Strawberry Moose and took him along and he proved to be quite popular as usual.

But woe is me. I made a dreadful mistake. One of the little kids on board (the different one from the other night) who I put at about 11 if she was lucky is in fact just 13 and was most put out when I had a guess at her age and got it so wrong. I’m no good with ages at all.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve had another major go at the photos and am now up to 18090980 and well into the photos of this trip.

Things are looking up.

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Wednesday 21st August 2019 – WE GAIN …

… an hour tonight.

Well, we don’t actually. We really gain two hours tomorrow night but seeing as we are not going near any community tomorrow during the day we will put our clocks back one hour tonight and we’ll do the other hour tomorrow night.

And I can’t say that I’m sorry, because I’m exhausted. And for once I had a decent night’s sleep too. Took me a while to drop off but once I was gone I was gone and I remember nothing at all until the alarms went off. I only just beat the third alarm – and by a matter of seconds – too.

It was a late breakfast but I didn’t take advantage because we are now in another fjord hard by Disko Island with the Eqip Sermia glacier at the end of it. Only a small glacier but a very lively one – one of the fastest glaciers in the world apparently.

Too fast in fact, for just as we were unloading the ship a large piece of ice broke away and calved, causing a tidal wave that crashed one of the kayaks against the rocks and damaged it before the crew had time to secure it..

The resultant chaos took ages to sort out and a 09:00 departure was more like 10:30.

We had a good sail around the face of the glacier watching some calving while they prepared a decent landing for us and eventually they were ready for us at the landing site.

An easy landing, and a beautiful environment but due to the earlier mishap not enough time to visit it properly. By the time that I’d had a geology lesson from Marc and a lengthy history chat with Rachel I was struggling to reach the waterfall.

But when I did – drat and double-drat! I’m not sure how many waterfalls I have visited just recently but I don’t recall visiting even one that didn’t have the sun shining directly over the top spoiling the photos. And this one was no different.

For the money that we are paying for this voyage, you would think that the company would have turned the earth around 90 degrees to give us all a sporting chance.

Back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour we had a barbecue and then I had a shower and washed my expedition clothes. They’ll dry quite quickly. And I … errr … closed my eyes for a second or two (or maybe more.

We had some more lectures (during one of which I fell asleep) and then tea time. I sat with Jerry Kobalenko the explorer and we had a good chat too about all kinds of things, especially diet in the High Arctic.

Another good day for photo editing though. I’m now on 19080785 and just leaving South Pass on my way back to Montana and Winnipeg. So it’s not going as quickly as I would like it. But I’ll get there somehow some day.

Although I’ve a feeling, comparing my screen with a known photo that I took a while ago, that I might have to do all of this editing lark again when I get to a decent screen, whenever that might be.

Only time will tell.

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Tuesday 20th August 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… bad night.

Not at all helped by the fact that I had to get up and go hopping around the cabin for 10 minutes to try to overcome a really bad attack of cramp in both ankles. No idea why that might be. maybe it’s because I don’t have enough salt, and watching one of the staff sprinkle salt all over his chocolate ice cream this evening and tell us all just how wonderful it is, then maybe I ought to try it too – except that I don’t eat ice cream of course..

With no rush for the morning, I was in no rush either and I was comfortably beaten by the three alarms. But it’s been weeks since I’ve had a proper Sunday lie-in and a real day of rest so I reckoned that I deserved it.

We’re now in the fjord at Ilulissat, famous for its icebergs. And there are plenty in here too. They are all ground out on the terminal moraine that’s at the entrance to the fjord and it’s only when they melt a little, when there’s a really high tide or when there’s enough force in the congestion behind them that they can pass over into the sea.

They move something like a maximum of 35 metres per day but that’s not a daily total. It’s a daily average over a period of several weeks. Sometimes they won’t move at all for days.

We went out in the zodiacs to look at the icebergs but ended up whale-watching instead as a pod of fin whales and then a pod of hump-backs decided to strut their stuff right by where we were sailing. It all gave quite a surprise to the fishermen who were hauling in their long lines with halibut.

After lunch we went to town – literally. I’ve been here before but I still like the place so Strawberry Moose and I had a nice long walk out down the boardwalk to look at the ice congestion in the fjord. It really is so spectacular.

And much to my surprise I could remember the short-cut back home again.

There’s a museum in town – the birthplace of Knud Rasmussen, who probably just about beats Vilhjalmur Stefansson to the title of “Last of the Famous Polar Explorers”, so I went in there to have a look around. It was extremely interesting to me, and His Nibs found a couple of photo opportunities there.

There is an old church in the town too so on the way back to the ship I took myself over there to see it. It looked quite interesting too but it was locked up so it wasn’t possible for me to go in to inspect it.

While we’d been down at the boardwalk another cruise ship had come in. It was the MSC Orchestra with a capacity of 3200 passengers.

Watching them try to unload with a series of lighters and tenders was amusing – the weight of 240 passengers at a time on the jetty was causing it to sink below the waterline and they were wetting their shoes. They had gazebos to protect the poor dears from the sun (in the High Arctic!), all of that, and an endless procession of guides.

But 3200 visitors in a town of about 4500 is impossible, and the situation at the boardwalk must have been ridiculous.

On arriving back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a good shower and clothes wash, and then carried on the photos while we had the debriefing. And I fell asleep too.

After tea I went up to the top deck lounge and carried on with the photos until fatigue brought me back down again. I’ve now reached 19080553 from the late afternoon of 8th August. Still tons to get through but I’ll just have to keep on trucking, won’t I.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed.

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Monday 19th August 2019 – WE’VE BEEN …

… to Nassuttooq, or Nagssugtoq today – or Nordre Stromfjord as it is more usually known to west Europeans.

At least last night we weren’t interrupted by anything tangible such as a bellow from the bridge down the PA system. However I failed to take full advantage as I had yet another miserable night where I couldn’t really drop off to sleep. It’s really annoying, especially following some of the really belting sleeps that I’ve had on land just recently. The demons must have caught up with me again and I can’t shake them off.

Once more awake long before the alarm, it was still a struggle nevertheless to leave the comfort, warmth and safety of my stinking pit. But there I was up and about something-like, and on the deck in time to take a few photos of the early morning sun. it was then that I remembered that I had forgotten to take my medication.

Breakfast was fairly early today, following which we were fitted for our boots. Not like the army – “too large? Stuff this paper down them!” or “too small? Hold on while I chop off your toes!”. They were actually a decent fit in my case, and even had they not been, an exchange was possible.

Lunch was ridiculously early, like 10:30, and then we hit the zodiacs heading for a landing.

They’d found quite a nice landing today, throwing us out onto a bed of rock and then we had a walk around the area where there was something for everyone. Our archaeologist, Rachel ten Bruggencate, found some fox-traps but Yours Truly, wandering off on his own, found the remains of some ancient temporary hunting lodges and three graves, and I was pleased about that.

Highlight though had to go to the geologist, Marc St Onge, who found the exact pressure point where two continental drift plates had collided with each other. Embedded in the resultant agglomerate were some garnets, formed due to the high pressure exerted by the colliding plates.

Another one of the passengers found a wonderful erratic boulder (there were plenty of those of course but this one was exceptional) that had also come from a similar colliding point but where there had been some volcanic rock.

Back on board the ship we had the usual debriefing and the agenda for tomorrow and also a couple of presentations, one of which I missed due to taking the opportunity to have a shower and wash some clothes. And now the clothes line in my shower has broken.

The marine biologist is an Irish guy whose name I didn’t catch and we had a lengthy chat at tea, following which was our Inuit musician giving a concert. So I went along to listen.

No young girls out exploring the ship this evening and needing assistance to find their way home again, so now it’s bedtime for me. I had passed out in one of the presentations, which means that I must need an early night.

But not before I’ve edited yet another pile of photos. I’m now up to about 365 but it’s not making much impression as the more I edit, the more I seem to be adding in.

I shall never get on top of all of this.

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Sunday 18th August 2019 – I HOPE THAT …

… tonight isn’t as lively as last night was.

While it was interesting if not exciting, to see the Aurora Borealis and I don’t regret it for a moment, it interrupted my sleep pattern somewhat and I couldn’t get back off to sleep properly. Tossing and turning throughout the night with a very shallow sleep, I was not very rested at all.

Nevertheless I was out of bed at something-like and in time to see the early morning sun. Although I couldn’t see much through the thick sea mist.

We had breakfast of course and then a briefing about the day’s activities. Sisimiut is our destination today and I’ve been here before, although that’s not important. It gives me a chance to revisit a few places that I saw last time, only with a decent camera. And for Strawberry Moose too, for last time he was here he went kayaking and thus didn’t see too much of the town.

We had the customary guided tour around the town and then back to the ship for lunch. And afterwards, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out for quite some time. Mind you, that’s hardly a surprise given the events of the precious night

It was nice and warm outside so I discarded my fleece and went back into town with His Nibs to take some photos and to visit the museum of the history of the town.

The weather though was quite deceptive. It WAS bright and sunny and warm out there, but then a fog bank came rolling in off the sea and it went really cold – which is hardly a surprise seeing as we are north of the Arctic Circle.

Sill, a good chance for a wander around and a photo opportunity or two for His Nibs.

Back here there was a kayaking demonstration so I took advantage of everyone’s preoccupation to have a roasting hot shower and a clothes-washing session. Travelling light as I am, with just three tee shirts, three sets of underwear and two pairs of trousers, it’s important to keep on top of everything.

There was the usual resume of today’s events and then a briefing about tomorrow’s activities, followed by the evening meal. We had a staff introduction afterwards and I chatted to a few members of the team.

But now it’s bed-time. It’s not likely that we’ll be disturbed by any nocturnal sightings because there’s a thick sea mist outside and you can’t see anything. A good sleep will do me good, especially as I’ve edited 212 photos today in between everything else.

But not before I’ve shown one of the two little girls here back to the stairway to her cabin. “Lost” she said. But more like “having a good explore” if you ask me. And why not? Being a little kid is all about exploring

So right now, having organised her, I’m off to explore my bed.

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Thursday 15th August 2019 – IT”S BEEN ANOTHER …

… very lazy day today.

Yet another decent sleep although I did wake up a couple times but that didn’t bother me too much.

And for a change just recently I leapt out of bed and within an hour or so I’d medicated, breakfasted and showered.

It took a while to organise myself and I left a few things behind that I no longer needed for the benefit of whoever needs them, packed the car and set off.

And then went back for my cap that I had forgotten.

First stop was the car wash. $27:99 for a wash and valet, and then I had to send it back because it wasn’t done well enough. It still wasn’t satisfactory after that but it was an improvement.

And I’m glad that it took so long because I went for a walk round and discovered the rarest of the rare cars – a streamlined Nash Airflyte of the late 1940s – the earliest of the models with the exterior fuel cap. It was sitting in a very sorry condition on a trailer in a compound full of other sorry-looking vehicles, close to the car wash.

From there I nipped to Bulk Barn for some gelatine-free wine gums, and then to the little park on the hill overlooking the railway line and the town centre, where I ate my butties.

The hotel today is under renovation so there were builders everywhere, and my room wasn’t yet ready. But I dumped my stuff anyway and took the car back to the Car Hire place.

I was sorry to see the little Kia go. We’d had a good time and I had enjoyed it very much. They didn’t say a word about the mileage (all 4000-odd miles of it) so I left and caught the shuttle bus back to the hotel.

Back here I had a shower and a clothes-wash, and then crashed out on the bed for an hour, musing on the fact that for the last 7 weeks I’ve been living in no more than 2 tee-shirts, 2 pairs of trousers and 2 sets of undies, washing everything as I’ve been going around.

Rosemary rang up so we had a chat, and then I caught up with some housekeeping chores.

Tea was my final tin of soup with the left-over bread, and then a walk down to whatever Atlantic Superstore is called around here for a look around.

An early night is on the cards. I’m flying back to Toronto tomorrow for part IV of my adventure so I need to be on form..

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Wednesday 7th August 2019 – ANOTHER HECTIC …

… day today.

It started off with yet another Sleep of the Dead and I remember nothing whatever about my night. I must have dictated something at some point because the dictaphone was still on but I remember nothing whatever about it and I’ll be interested to see what I might have said.

The bed was the most comfortable that I have slept in for quite a while (mine at home excepted of course) and the facilities in the room were second to none. The microwave was magnificent.

Only downside was the shower. The hot water was one of those ‘instant heat” arrangements that are either on or off and there’s no midway. With it taking a while to warm up and pass through the heater matrix it was impossible to set it at the right temperature. It was either hot or cold and that was that.

In the end I just washed my hair and rinsed myself off quickly.

On the road and after a photo opportunity for His Nibs I followed the route of the Johnson County War, when the stock growers tried to force the sodbusters off their lands.

One thing that I was planning to do on arrival at kaycee (the site of the famous KC ranch) was to go and visit the “Hole In The Wall”, the legendary hold-out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but I looked at the route on an aerial photograph and decided against it. Had I been in Strider I would have gone for it, but not a small hire car with street tyres.

Instead I went to find Fort Reno and luckily I tracked that down without too many problems at all. There was a sign to say where it was but that was about all.

However in the immediate vicinity there was a big flat beaten surface (like a parade ground might be) surrounded by heaps that had all the air of crumbled adobe from decayed western buildings, so that is my guess.

My route from Fort Reno brought me through some beautiful countryside and also through the oilfields of east-central Wyoming, famous for its role in the “Teapot Dome” scandal where a US Government Minister sold the navy’s oil reserve to a friend in exchange for a very large and thick brown envelope.

This road took me through Casper and out past the Sinclair Oil Refinery (a descendant of the oil company involved in the Teapot Dome scandal) and past several historical trail markers to Douglas where I ended up at Fort Fetterman.

When the Army was obliged to pull back from native American lands and abandon its forts there, it built a Bozeman Trail fort on the US side of the North Platte River. This was named Fort Fetterman after the recently deceased soldier about whom we talked the other day.

With it being on US soil, it was never disputed and so was not a stockaded fort like those further north.

A couple of buildings still exist today, having been used as a ranch house and barn after the fort was abandoned, but the rest is just disintegrated adobe around the parade ground.

And it’s just as well that a couple of buildings are still standing because another visitor, the Park ranger and I were caught in the most tremendous thunderstorm and had to seek shelter.

While I was waiting I asked the Ranger about motels. He told me of the Holiday Inn. When I mentioned that I was a budget traveller he tried to tell me about the Best Western. I don’t think t hat, like many Americans, they understand the meaning of the word “budget”. They just go out and get a bigger loan or overdraft.

Now I’m in Douglas in a crummy motel, the Four Winds. It’s the only room in town in my budget and it’s only thanks to the guy at the fort that I had it, so I can’t complain.

he also gave me a booklet on the Oregon and California Trail which I shall be picking up tomorrow sometime.

But I’ve run out of Vitamin B12 drink so I nipped to the Dollar Store, where I overheard this delightful conversation –
Customer – “how much are those cigarettes?”
Assistant – “4 dollars and six cents”
Customer – “how much are two packets?”
Assistant – “errr … let me see … errr 8 dollars and 16 cents!”
And they call this lot the “master race”.

But I’m not exempt. I bought a cheap tin of mushrooms to liven up my soup tonight, only to find that I need a tin opener which I don’t have.

So I’ll hope for another good sleep tonight. I’m winding down now ready to return to Winnipeg by next week end.

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Friday 2nd August 2019 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I can’t sleep tonight and I don’t know why.

So effectively I’ve given up and I’m back working again. But for how long I don’t really know.

Just for another change, I slept the Sleep Of The Dead last night with just the odd tossing and turning until the alarm went off. After the medication I had yet another shower and then pressed on with a pile of work, including doing some tidying up.

The soup bowl that the landlady lent me came in useful yet again because I made my porridge in it, and at last I had some decent breakfast.

Eventually I hit the road and headed off northwards along the Powder River. I managed to identify on the map by virtue of the text in the old histories the sites of two of the engagements between the US Cavalry and the Native Americans (the others are impossible to locate) in the earlier Powder River Wars but accessing them is something else completely. We know about the Americans’ mania for private property and guns.

One site I could pick out (just about) with the telephoto lens but you’ll have to take my word for the other.

And damn and blast if I didn’t have a puncture. Another tyre on a hire car ruined on a dirt road. Luckily everything was much more accessible on this car than the old Dodge and it didn’t take too long, even though the jack and wheelbrace were the usual cheap rubbish.

Space saver tyre too, and how I hate those with a vengeance.

So in the wilderness miles from anywhere on a dusty dirt road. And to the three motorists who stopped and asked if I needed help (after I had almost finished), many thanks again.

And to the three people who drove on by without stopping, you aren’t Christians at all. Just the worst kind of hypocrites. I would never leave anyone standing by the side of the road in those conditions.

But that’s just USA Christians, isn’t it? Total hypocrites. Pro-life when it comes to someone else’s body and personal issues, yet carry guns to blow away intruders and clamour for the death penalty when it’s their own affairs. They aren’t pro-life then.

Hell is full of hypocrites like them

So back into town where I have just come from, and 1 hour later and $115 lighter (no second-hand tyres to be had) I can set off again.

Down another dirt road, all 70 miles of it this time, and I find quite easily the site of the Powder River Battle of the 1876 campaign. Although the US Army inflicted some damage on the Cheyenne, it simply drove them into the arms of the Hunkpapa and Ogallala Sioux and when the US Cavalry caught up with them again, the combined numbers of Native Americans was sufficient to inflict Little Big Horn upon them.

But the drive along the Powder River is one of the most beautiful in the whole of the USA and I would gladly come here again. I enjoyed the drive considerably.

Back on Highway 14 in the sweltering heat (I have a lovely photo of a couple of diesel locomotive shimmering in the heat haze like in a spaghetti western) I found a nice shady nook under a few trees behind an abandoned corn silo to eat my sandwiches. And they were very welcome.

But I was disturbed as two railway locomotives travelling light rattled within about 20 yards of where I was parked.

Onwards pressed I and after a couple of hours driving I ended up at Fort Phil Kearny about which I shall talk tomorrow. 5000 feet up in the Rockies and it’s beautiful here. And the Ranger there put me in touch with the local motel in Story – the only one in the neighbourhood.

They had a sot-of room left, the emergency room. And if they keep this room aside for emergencies the main rooms must be wonderful. It’s the most expensive place yet, but once more it’s right where I need to be (right in the battle zone with one of the conflicts just down the road a few hundred yards) and it really would be worth the money.

For some reason she couldn’t make my Canadian debit card work so to end all issues I paid cash. Now I need more funds.

So having sorted out loads of things, charged everything up, dealt with the dashcam and programmed it properly, and showered (again!) and washed the dust off the clothes from the tyre incident, I called it an early night,

But now I’m still up. I’m hungry but I can’t go out to the car as there’s a bear outside in the yard at night and he doesn’t recognise my smell yet (s if he would want to). So I’ll just carry on.

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Thursday 1st August 2019 – HERE I AM …

… holed up in a dusty motel at a dusty crossroads in a dusty town in Montana called Broadus. Yes, I’m in another State that I had yet to visit although I did cross over a corner of Wyoming (which I visited in 2002, whenever that was.

All this dust explains very well why this area is called the “Powder River” country. Because of all the dust in it, the river is said to be “too thick to drink, but too thin to plough”.

Last night was a beautiful night’s sleep. I went to bed, thoroughly exhausted, before even 20:00 and despite awakening on several occasions during the night, I didn’t finally show a leg until the alarms went off.

There was plenty of time to do everything, including a shower and general spruce-up. Make myself look nice. I even managed breakfast too.

So then packed and off into the sunset looking for the Walmart that I glimpsed yesterday evening. And that took some finding too.

‘Twas a good idea for a good clean-up because the lady at the check-out told me “ohhh do talk some more. I just LOVE your accent”. She didn’t knock anything off the bill though.

At a suitable petrol station in the vicinity I fuelled up the Kia. And it’s not as economical as you might think – 11 US gallons (about 40 litres) to travel about 610 kms.

It had been cloudy and overcast earlier but as I headed into the Black Hills it started to rain. Not enough to dampen my spirits (I was in surprisingly good form today and I’ve no idea why) but rain nevertheless. It didn’t detract from the journey and the beauty and I even wired up the dashcam so that you can see it later.

Round about midday I arrived at Deadwood and headed for Mount Moriah cemetery up in the hills. There I found, lying side by side, the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. And listened excruciatingly as a Septic tourist guide explained to his tourists slowly, in words of one syllable (and they were Septics too) that he is NOT the same person as Buffalo Bill.

I despair.

After a while looking around the cemetery and the scenic viewpoint there I headed into town where I was waylaid. This time by a motorcycle restorer who allowed me to catalogue his exhibits.

Pride of place without any doubt at all must go to the Indian 4-cylinder in-line from 1939. Rare as hen’s teeth, which is hardly a surprise as the torque on that motor rotating in the same direction and the heat at the rear cylinder would have made for a very brief riding experience.

Nevertheless I would have taken it home in a heartbeat.

Main Street was nothing to write home about. The parking fee was horrendous so I didn’t stop. I filmed it instead for posterity. Nothing of the original seems to remain. The place has been swept by fire on several occasions since the Gold Rush.

For the first time since Toronto (whenever that was) I had lunch. A butty with hummus and bread followed by a banana. And then I pushed on for almost 140 miles in the now-glorious sunshine across the corner of Wyoming and into Montana.

Reaching Broadus I found a motel. And I’m glad that I did because it’s here that I need to be. It’s in the Powder River Valley and all long here for 50 miles north and south are the sites of skirmishes and fully-fledged battles between the Native Americans and the US Military farces.

Everything about this motel is very 50s, except the landlady who looks old enough and stern enough to have fought the Indians out of this plot of land single-handedly back in the 1880s and, of course, the prices, which are very 21st-Century.

But there’s no other motel for at least 60 miles and it’s right slap-bang where I want to be so it’s not all bad news.

My neighbour is friendly too. Another motorcyclist on his way to the Sturgis motorcycle rally. We had a good long chat about bikes and all sorts of things.

The filter on the air conditioner hasn’t been cleaned in donkey’s yonks though, and having let it run for a couple of hours, my room now smells just like my socks did before I washed them earlier. Yes, I’ve done the laundry, and washed myself at the same time.

Two showers in a day! Whatever next?

The landlady lent me a soup bowl so I’ve had tomato soup (with some pasta) and bread for tea. Three meals today. I hope that it’ll stay in today. And plenty of vitamin drink to keep up the health even though I’m not eating much.

Tomorrow I’m off on the war path so now I’m off to bed. Another night like last night will do me the world of good.

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