Tag Archives: Hannah

Wednesday 11th September 2019 – EVEN THOUGH …

… I promised myself an early night last night, it didn’t quite work out like that. Just after I had finished writing up my notes, the heavens opened and we were soaked in a torrential downpour.

There are many advantages of tin roofs over the old-fashioned shingle roofs, but soundproofing qualities is not one of them, especially when there is a metal trailer roof parked right underneath my window.

As a result it was long after 23:00 when I finally nodded off.

we had what seemed to be the usual wake-up round about 04:00 and we must have been on a voyage at one point or another because there are some files registered on the dictaphone. No idea what’s in them yet but, as usual, I’m keen to find out.

The alarms went off as usual but I hid down the bed until Amber banged on the door. It seems that I’m doing the school run again today. Not that I mind of course – I have to make myself useful here and earn my corn.

The last time that I took the girls to school we had a thick fog and mist. Today we were having a torrential rainstorm. The next time I take them it will probably be a plague of locusts.

At the shop there were errands to run. I ended up having to go back to the house, rescuing a couple of pushbikes, bringing them back to the garage and overhauling them. It’s a long time since I’ve had to do that – I’ve not had any real involvement with pushbikes for almost half a century I reckon.

Once they were done I had to wait until lunchtime and then go back to Amber’s school to take her some money for the cinema tonight and to deliver the bikes (good job that I have a truck).

While I was at Amber’s school we had a delightful conversation –
Amber – “some boy called me a dumbass in class this morning”
Our Hero – “really? When’s his funeral?”

This afternoon we were having printer issues. The accounting program wouldn’t permit any printing so Yours Truly was required to look into the situation.

Eventually, after much binding in the marsh, I worked out that it seems that the program had performed an automatic upgrade at midday and for some reason that I have yet to understand it had created a clone of the accounts printer and was sending instructions to the clone, not the veritable one.

When I tried to transfer printers over, it still refused to accept the change – it simply stopped sending out any printfile instructions.

Finally, after about an hour, by going way back in my mind as far as 1998 and what I could remember about BIOS settings, I managed to make the program recognise the letter printer on another port and it’s now printing really satisfactorily from there.

But there have been so many printers connected up to that setup over the years that if it were me, I’d go through and delete every printer and device that is no longer active and go for a leaner, fitter machine. But it’s not my business, not my company, not my set-up etc.

This afternoon I was hit with another wave of fatigue. I’d been on the ropes once or twice during the morning but this was serious.

But what I couldn’t understand is that I had been swinging myself in and out of the back of Strider like I might have done before 2014 with no pain or effort whatsoever. Past experience tells me though that whenever I feel really well and really energetic, it usually means that I’ve had a substantial drop in blood count and that there has been a release of adrenalin ( as if there hasn’t been enough adrenalin released just recently). And still at least 30 days (and maybe more) until my next blood transfusion.

We were away from here fairly early tonight and back here Darren and I fixed the door (it has become unhinged since I’ve been here and who can blame it?) while Rachel fixed tea. Another one of her delicious herb-laden vegetable stir-fries in olive oil. Hannah lent a big hand to the mixture so there was plenty of garlic.

And I’m well-impressed (as always) with Hannah. She’s just had her annual appraisal at work – the end of her first year’s employment. “Above and beyond expectations” was the result.

Now I’m in my room with the bass guitar, hoping for another early night. Rachel is cooking chicken soup so the whole house smells of food, Zoe is doing Hannah’s fingernails (she’s off to Wisconsin in the morning) and the other two are out at the cinema.

But searching around on the internet I came across one of the albums of the days of my youth, featuring a bassist who I admired greatly.

Long out of print now, my album is scratched and damaged beyond all recognition these days (two years of living in vans and various squats in my youth didn’t help matters) so I hunted down a file ripper and downloaded the tracks.

That took an age but converting them to *.mp3 was quite quick. Now I’m up and running, over an hour later than I had intended.

So I’m off to bed. I’m not sure what the plan is tomorrow but I’ll work it out as I go along.

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Saturday 7th September 2019 – I HAVE THROWN AWAY …

… a whole lifetime today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I travel around the world in some kind of peripatetic idyll, all of my possessions either on my back or in one of my trucks (Caliburn in Europe, Strider in North America).

But today, up at the mill, I heaved almost all of my North American possessions into a skip (dumpster to you North Americans) and put an end to my nomadic lifestyle.

It’s simply that I can’t do it any more and it’s no point pretending that I can continue. Watching the blood count slowly decline over the last two years down to the critical level (which it must surely have reached by now seeing as I haven’t had it checked for almost 3 months) and knowing that my days are numbered, it’s just useless weight that I’m dragging around with me.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be up in Montreal and I’ll be emptying out my storage locker. The only thing that I’ll be salvaging from there will be the amplifier and speaker for the bass and the remainder will be joining the rest of the travelling gear in that great camp site in the sky.

That’ll be the first time in Montreal this year. It’s not like me, is it?

But I’ll tell you something. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my mentioning the rather lively back end of Strider, how we travelled mainly sideways down a variety of gravel roads in Labrador. “Lively” back in those days had absolutely nothing on “lively” today, with almost nothing on the pick-up bed.

If I ever make it back to Labrador, we shall certainly be living in interesting times.

Having crowed about my really good nights just recently, it’s almost inevitable that they should catch up on me sooner or later.

And so it was last night.

For a start, we were still awake, the bass guitar and me, at well past midnight as I was picking away at various bass lines, unable to sleep. One thing about life on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour is that it has pumped music back into my soul.

But when I finally did manage to drop off, the dictaphone tell its own story. There’s a record on average about every 20 minutes over a three-hour period, and what I do remember from the various nocturnal rambles is that every single one of them concerned Castor pursuing me around the ship.

Not that I’m complaining of course. Usually, anyone pursuing me anywhere would be almost certainly brandishing the kind of offensive weapon that would paralyse a polar bear, so it makes a nice change to be pursued by pleasant company. What I don’t understand is why I thought it necessary to run away. I’m definitely losing my grip.

Once all of that was over I was up and about, only to find that we had run out of bread for breakfast. With Zoe not coming back last night, we hadn’t been to the shops had we?

Instead Rachel and I went straight up to the garage and made coffee, and slowly woke up.

Then it was that I attacked the emptying of Strider and that took me almost up to lunchtime. But lunchtime was late – there was a queue of trucks needing attention in the workshop and we couldn’t move one out until almost 12:45.

Zoe, who had by now put in an appearance, and I shot back to the house, picked up all of her belongings and, now that Strider was almost empty, whipped them down to her new house. And I’m glad that we had emptied Strider because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong and there wasn’t much room inside the truck.

Atlantic Superstore was next for a week or two’s load of vegan food so that I can eat properly, and also due to the fact that we are having another vegan messing with us for a while.

There’s a hurricane threatening here and out in the sticks a back-up generator is necessary. But believe it or not, in a household with 6 cars, three trucks, two heavy trucks and assorted 4-wheelers, snowmobiles, golf carts and Amber’s motor scooter, there wasn’t a drop of spare fuel.

Consequently Hannah had thrown a pile of empty fuel cans into the back of Strider and I came back from Irvings at Woodstock with 157.6 litres of petrol in the back of Strider. The rear end of Strider wasn’t bouncing around at all then!

Next stop was back at the garage. Darren had a rear wheel bearing, driveshaft oil seal, brake disk and caliper to change on the rear of a Chevrolet D5500 heavy truck – the one that I drove down to New Hampshire a couple of years ago to take that racing engine for repair.

It’s not difficult task but it’s heavy, dirty and complex, and four hands are always better than two working down a cramped inspection pit.

The task involved a judicious amount of heat and with an oxy-acetylene welding torch it brought back many happy memories. The last time that I did any welding on a car was the old Passat back in 1997 but that was with the mig-welder. With oxy-acetylene, the last time that I did any welding was stitching Nerina’s Ford Fiasco back together back in something like 1991. When I had my taxi company I was probably welding up one car or other almost every day.

We’d finished by about 18:00 and staggered off back home.

And I couldn’t resist a smile. Driving 20 miles with 157 litres of petrol floating around in the back of the truck and having to invent a makeshift stopper for one of the cans – getting out the oxy-acetylene welding bottles – crawling around an inspection pit in a garage taking driveshafts out of lorries and showering myself in Hypoid 90 – I thought that I had left all of that behind me more than 30 years ago.

You can take the boy out of Crewe right enough, but you can’t ever take Crewe out of the boy.

But then that’s why I like New Brunswick. It’s about 50 years behind the times and suits me perfectly.

Rachel came to awaken me later. It seems that I had crashed out for a while (hardly a surprise) and it was now tea-time. A chick pea curry which was delicious, and then we were descended upon by hordes of people. Amber is having a party and despite the rain and the winds, there are dozens of teenagers all attired in a variety of swimwear and heading for the hot tub outside.

I’ve locked myself in my room with the bass guitar and I am refusing to come out until the coast is clear. It’s a good job that it’s Sunday tomorrow and a lie-in is on the cards. I think that I’m going to need it.

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Friday 6th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to whoever has had the patience (or maybe it’s the motivation LOL) to sit and read their way through 29 pages of my website followed by no less than 55 pages of my blog.

I know that what I write is right riveting stuff but with 15 blog entries on a page, that’s 825 days’ worth of entries – not far short of 2.5 years and that calls for a lot of persistence and determination.

Either someone has nothing better to do with his or her time, or it’s someone else collecting evidence for my incarceration LOL. But just remember the Hispano-Roman rhetorican Quintilian who once famously said (with paraphrased lines much-later quoted by people such as Richelieu and Laubardemont) something along the lines of “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”.

But no matter what – I admire your persistence. Hats off to you.

Last night was another excellent sleep and I was off on a voyage or two during the night. High time I started attacking the dictaphone notes so that I can see where I’ve been.

Slept right through the alarms yet again and finally managed to crawl out of my stinking pit at about 10:30.

It took a while to come round but when I did, I made a start on going through the suitcase.

But, as usual, I was sidetracked. Since I had awoken, I had had a couple of lines of a poem going around in my head – something that I must have had going on during the night on a voyage somewhere.

These things usually escape me but for some reason or other, seeing as it was something rather emotional that related to something intense that happened on one of my voyages, I determined to write it down before I forgot.

By the time that I had finished, I’d ended up with a poem of seven verses and I’m working on an eighth) and a chorus, and by the time I’d read through it a few times I had a beat and a rhythm going on in my head.

There are a couple of 6-string guitars around here but could I find them? Could I ‘eck as, so I turned to the piano. The piano is not my forte so I dashed outside to Strider and rescued the perishing bass.

Two years since it’s been out and about and much to my surprise it was still in tune (these mobile phone apps are quite good) so I picked out a bass line, a rhythm and a lead break.

It needs more work of course, but I’m impressed about how it worked out.

By now Amber was back from school so we had a chat. And it looks as if I’m going to resume my duties as a driving monitor at some point. She’s spent her summer shop wages on a car – a VW Jetta diesel – and now she needs to put the hours in. She shouldn’t have any trouble though – she’s been throwing around a 3,500hp tractor for the last two years so a Jetta should be child’s play.

And I’m still wondering who it was who took Strider down to the garage that day just over two years ago when it needed the gearbox linkage adjusting. Amber was the only one here but she was only days past her 14th birthday. She wouldn’t have done it.

Rachel came in and went out again, then Hannah came in later. We exchanged a few words and then she and Amber went off to do girly things down in Woodstock.

I waited for Zoe but she never turned up, so I went to make myself some beans on toast – only for the tin opener to hold onto the lid and drop the can and all of the beans all over the floor. Last tin of beans too.

It’s not my day, is it?

Darren and I had a chat about trucks and his plan for the new tractor-pulling season and then I went off to my room.

There’s a lot to do tomorrow. I’ve made a conscious decision that I’m not ever going out roughing it in Strider (or anything else) again so I’m going to throw away all of my gear – stuff that I won’t need any longer.

There’s a skip at the mill right now so I’m going to take full advantage of it.

So I need to gird up my loins and gather my strength.

And if my phantom follower is still out there, then good night to you, sir! Identify yourself and I’ll buy you a beer.

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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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Friday 28th September 2018 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

And in spades too. The kind of thing that only I can do, and I’m pretty good at it, having had years of practice.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves right now. Retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Having extolled the virtues of a really good night’s sleep yesterday we returned to our customary habits by being wide awake at 01:45, for a reason that I can’t fathom, save as to say that it disturbed me.

From there on in I drifted in and out of sleep until the alarm went off. And then I dashed out of bed because I wanted to see Hannah. It’s homecoming weekend at St F-X so she’s off to Antigonish to meet up with her former colleagues and do a little celebrating.

And quite right too. It’s a kind of end of a long goodbye to an important period in her life. She’s graduated (with distinction, I’m proud to say) from the best University in Canada with enough certificates to cover her bedroom wall and she’s ready to move on into the big wide world.

But she needs to say goodbye in this one before she goes.

She’s like a typical young University graduate – torn between home and family on one side and what the big wide world has to offer on the other side, and so why make your own mistakes when you can listen to the mistakes that other people have made?

And as a result we had a good chat for several hours. After all, no-one has made as many mistakes in their life as I have in mine.

I hadn’t bought her a graduation present because, after all, what do I know about people’s tastes? I gave her some cash and told her to choose a really nice piece of jewellery that she likes, and wear it for me. And then I bunged her a bit more cash to go and have a party.

With having had a bad night, I was ready to go back to bed for half an hour or so. And that turned out to be a couple of hours or so. I still can’t shake off this health issue. I might be feeling better than i was earlier in the week, but that’s a long way from saying that I’m well.

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had a shower, packed my suitcase and had a very late lunch. Following which I leapt aboard Strider and we went down to the office.

Zoe was there, telling us about her wedding plans. She’s Rachel’s eldest daughter and decided a few years ago to make her own way in the world. She’s finding it tough going and struggling along, and this wedding is proving to be quite a problem.

She’s seen a wedding dress that she absolutely loves and which is apparently beautiful, but she has to pay a 50% deposit to secure it and have the fitting done, and she can’t rustle up the money.

No girl should ever have to settle for second-best on the most important day in her life (a comment which will have made Nerina’s eyes pop out on stalks wondering how she managed to end up with me) and so I gave her her wedding present in advance. Tomorrow she can go and sign up for her dress.

There were a few of us down there this afternoon, with people coming and going, and we ended up having quite a chat.

So much so that we were down there long after closing time, which was just as well because quite late on, someone phoned up with a speculative enquiry about tyres to solve a crisis, and we could actually help out.

Tea was, basically, everything that was left over from earlier in the week and you would be surprised at how nice you can make stuff like that when you have a good imagination and some culinary talent. I certainly enjoyed mine!

Time to hit the road now and so I said goodbye to Darren and Amber. And not wishing to leave Amber out, I slipped her a little present so that she could go shopping. I also had a little word or two in her ear about something or other.

Rachel and I trundled off to Florenceville and the Coach Atlantic bus. Plenty of time to wait and so I started to search my pockets to see what I had forgotten to leave behind.

I found the pot of glue that Darren had given me to look after, and then I boarded the bus.

We stopped at quite a few places along the route, and at the coffee pause at Edmundston I realised that I hadn’t continued the search of my pockets.

And so I did – and found the keys to Strider and Rachel’s spare front door key.

D’ohhhh! That’s really the kind of thing that only I can do, isn’t it?

At Rivieère-du-Loup where I change for the Orleans Express bus to Montreal, I had a chat with the Coach Atlantic driver. She’s doing the return to Moncton tomorrow afternoon and, as luck would have it, is having to call at Florenceville on her way down.

So I negotiated an envelope from the guy in the ticket office, put the keys inside and she dropped it on the dashboard of her bus.

And I settled down ready for the next stage of my journey.

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Thursday 27th September 2018 – I’VE BEEN FEELING …

… much better today.

That is of course a very long way from saying that I’m feeling good, or even well, but it’s certainly an improvement over the last three days or so.

And one thing that I have noticed is that these spells of ill-health are becoming more frequent, deeper and lasting longer than they did before;

of course, I knew all about this because I have been told. But it’s still rather disappointing to see myself sliding slowly into the abyss. Getting ready to see my forebears, I imagine. And we’ll all be stoking the fires together. But at least I’m more fortunate than Goldilocks. She only had three.

I did know that I would be feeling better though – my sleep could have told me that. Deep and intense, turning over slightly whenever I heard a noise, and then going back into my deep sleep until the alarms went off.

There had been an interesting voyage too. Being short of money I’d gone to see what work was available at the local pub and they had offered me three nights a week as a pianist. I took it of course, even though I couldn’t play, and it wasn’t until I was due to start that I reckoned that I really ought to withdraw. The pub itself was set in a large, kind-of abandoned quarry, well-worn down and surrounded “up on top” by cheap local authority housing.
A little later, I wanted to take a shower, but the bath was full of dirty clothes. I mentioned it to Rachel but she told me to go ahead and just walk on them. That’s how I take a shower when I’m on the road anyway, washing my clothes in the shower around me.

It took me a while to organise myself, which is no real surprise, and then having done all of the preparation, I was off. Strider and I haven’t been on a voyage so far this year, so we hit the road and headed to Fredericton.

Not for any good reason, but because it was there, it was a place to go and I couldn’t think of anywhere else.

Once Strider warmed up, he ran really well. But our persistent misfire has come back and the fuel consumption has deteriorated again. I suppose that he’s getting old like I am. 10 years old now, he is.

First stop in Fredericton was at the Value Village. I’ve talked about these places before. In Canada there aren’t Charity Shops like there are in the UK.There’s just one big one and everything is centralised.

My treat today was a pile of books, some of which I’ll bring back to France and the rest I’ll leave in Strider for if I ever return. I dunno.

After that, it was Home Depot but since I no longer live at the farm there’s nothing there that excite me these days. Princess Autos came up with a circuit tester for the new tow hitch. Need to make sure that Strider’s electrics are up to the job if I’ll be towing trailers.

Scotia Bank next, where my account took a substantial hit. And for a couple of good reasons too, but I’ll talk more about those in due course.

I called at a Subway for a rather late lunch and a rest, and followed that up with a coffee at Tim Horton’s, as I was feeling a little under the weather by this time.

There was still time to go to the Bulk Barn. I’d noticed in Montreal that Gram Flour was really cheap there and I can’t usually find it in France. So I bought myself a kilo and I’l smuggle it in at the border if I can.

On the way back, I came by the scenic route, across the Saint John River and along the north shore, where the roadworks that slowed up Rachel and me last year are still going on.

Roadworks everywhere in fact and it took an age to get to the cheap petrol station at Keswick to fuel up.

On the way back I stopped off at Mactaquac to photograph the dam there but instead was greeted by a car fire, with various fire engines, police and ambulances around trying to look busy. Rather sad, that was.

From there, the return was quick enough but I still hadn’t finished because I had to run up to Centreville for some whipping cream.

Hannah was the chief architect of tea tonight. They had all kinds of fishy things and I had a pasta with veg and tomato sauce. But Hannah excelled herself with the falafel. A mix out of a packet but delicious nevertheless.

We watched TV for a while until everyone decided to watch this anatomy programme. And once they started talking about surgery and operations I beat a hasty retreat to my room. I can’t be doing with any of that.

Now as tomorrow, I wonder if the improvement will continue or will I have a relapse? I’m on the road to Montreal tomorrow night so I’m hoping that it will be good.

We shall see.

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Wednesday 26th September 2018 – WHAT AWOKE ME …

… this morning at 06:30 WAS the sound of a couple of potato wagons roaring by (it’s THAT time of the year already!). And I found that the bedroom light was still on and the laptop still running. That’s the kind of state in which I ended up last night. Totally hors de mon assiette as they say back home.

I’d been on my travels though. I noticed yesterday evening that somebody had been searching my blog for details about Longport in Stoke on Trent and there’s only one reason why anyone would want to do that, and that is for McGuinness’s Scrapyard.

It must have been playing on my mind somewhat because I ended up in a scrapyard last night, sitting in an old Ford Transit pickup watching the world go by. And I ended up talking to the owner of the place about all of the good stuff that I had had from there, including my purple 1982 car transporter and trailer. Someone mentioned that the best vehicle that I had ever owned was another vehicle and how that came from a different scrapyard but I shut them up. Walking back to my car, three girls who worked in the place came over to start to talk to me and besociable, but as for what and why now, I can’t remember.

Being awake is one thing – being up and about is of course something else completely. And even though I managed my medication, it was a good few hours before I was in any kind of position to think about breakfast.

But breakfast I did and even managed some lunch, although it was a struggle.

In the afternoon I went down to the shop in town to chat to Rachel and Hannah. I only managed to fall asleep twice which is good news, and apart from that I began to feel a little better.

Later on after everyone had gone home I helped Darren replace the brake pipes and bleed the brakes on a one-ton pick-up. It took a while to do it correctly and it was about 19:30 when we left and headed for home.

Almost running into a County Mountie who was doing something or other at the side of the road.

Tea was mixed vegetables and vegan sausage, and I managed to chat for 20 minutes with everyone.

But of course it didn’t last. I was soon flaked out and headed off for the comfort and privacy of my little room.

Today was an improvement on my health position, which is always good. But I’m still going to try for the early night.

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Sunday 23rd September 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that I have given endless amounts of grief to all kinds of Border Patrol, immigration and security services in the past, and on occasions too numerous to enumerate.

And so I take my hat off to Officer Allen of the US Immigration Service who saw me today at Bridgewater, Maine today. If every Immigration Officer were as friendly, courteous and helpful as he, travelling from one country to the next would be an absolute pleasure.

Yes, I’ve been out and about on my travels today. But it was touch and go at one point.

What didn’t help was that, despite it being Sunday, I forgot to switch off the alarm and so that’s guaranteed to get me off on the wrong foot.

I was in the middle of the High Arctic too, doing a guided tour in, of all things, Bill Badger, the old A60 van that I had in the 1970s. When the tour was over, two people – a couple – came over to offer me their services and while I took down their details I knew that I wouldn’t ever be using them, for the least of the reasons being that there are only two seats in the front of the van.

With it being early, I loitered around for a while and then when others started to move around I joined in, had my medication (I’ve found it now) and a coffee.

We all poured out of the house where Amber’s boyfriend was waiting for us, and we shot off down the road to the border. I need a Green Card to cross over, and so I had my pleasant encounter, and then off to Presque Ile in Maine.

It’s my custom when I’m here to treat everyone to Sunday lunch so the Oriental Pearl Chinese buffet was the place to visit. They all tucked into the buffet while the chef made me a vegetable stir-fry with rice.

Next stop was Marden’s.

That’s like Noz only bigger and with more stuff, and many of the tools in Strider have come from there in the past. But today, I bought nothing. Strider and I won’t be going far so I don’t need much.

Back here I hit the wall again and I was gone. Three hours this time, and isn’t this becoming ridiculous? I dunno where I’ll be going with all of this and if I don’t sort myself out soon I won’t make my bus back to Montreal on Friday night.

But later on I came round and surprisingly, had a new lease of life. I could even manage a sandwich. George was back from Winnipeg so he came round and we all had a chat.

But now I’m off to bed. I need to be on the road tomorrow and I have a lot of things to do.

But first I need a good night’s sleep.

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Friday 21st September 2018 – I MADE IT …

… outside today.

Strider and I were reunited at long last and we went for a good blast up the road.

Mind you, I didn’t feel much like it. Another miserable night waking up several times and each time the nocturnal ramble in which I was travelling disappeared into the ether before I could grab the dictaphone.

I vaguely remember ships but that’s about all.

With Ellen now being supernumary it means that Rachel has to open up the office at 08:00. I didn’t realise that of course so when I finally drifted into the kitchen at 07:50 Rachel was on the point of drifting out.

And so I drifted back to bed again, but having first checked the availability of the shower. And Hannah told me that there were some new products to try.

10:30 is a much-more realistic time to raise myself from the dead and so coffee and toast brought me round somewhat. And then I went for my shower.

In the shower I find the coconut (because I love coconut) shampoo, the strawberry (in honour of my Recent Travelling Companion) shower gel and the vanilla (because it was nearest) soap for shaving.

I now smell like a rather bizarre dessert – something that brought a great deal of ribald comment from some (erstwhile) friends.

But I suppose that it’s better than smelling like a badger.

Hans suggested a topping of whipped cream. He would gladly do the whipping, and I replied that it would be OK as long as he found someone nice, young, friendly and female to lick it off me afterwards.

Rachel had ordered on-line the licence tags for Strider but they had never arrived. I bet my mortgage that they were in my mailbox up on Mars Hill Road so I took Strider off for a drive. And on a few occasions I forgot just how light his back end is.

And Strider has acquired not only a block heater but also a really good and new tow bar and attachments.

Arriving at the battery of mailboxes I had a nervous 5 minutes when I couldn’t remember which box was mine. I ended up having to empty out Strider until I found my mailbox contract.

The tags were in there, as was a letter telling me that I had been pre-approved for a life assurance policy, without a medical. If only they knew …

Back at the mill I had a chat with Rachel and Bob and then Strider and I headed off to Woodstock.

And by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong so it was pretty crowded inside Strider, I can tell you.

First stop was Service New Brunswick. I pay my property taxes on Mars Hill by direct debit but I had received a bill. Turns out that there had been a revaluation and a subsequent refund, but they had refunded the wrong amount. So I needed to pay some back.

Subway for lunch and then Atlantic Superstore and Sobey’s for supplies. I’m running out of stuff in Strider. I remember emptying him out last year.

Tim Horton’s for a new coffee mug and a coffee, and a very bizarre conversation as I tried to explain to at least four people what it was that I wanted and somehow they didn’t understand.

Back here I had vegan hot dogs and beans for tea and then we all settled down to watch TV. First programme was one of these medical ones where they cut people open, so I bid a hasty retreat back to my room.

The air in here is rather gloomy today. It’s my father (Rachel’s grandfather)’s funeral today back in the UK and Rachel thinks that I should be upset by it. But Rachel didn’t have the childhood that we had.

All I ever wished for was that his end would be quick and he wouldn’t suffer – I wouldn’t wish suffering on my own worst enemy – and in that at least he was lucky.

Whatever else I was intending to write, I’ll keep it to myself.

No reason to inflict my problems on you lot.

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Thursday 20th September 2018 – AND SO …

… after the vicissitudes of the last three weeks or so, I crashed out good and proper at some kind of unearthly hour yesterday evening in the busom of what remains of my family.

But not for long.

My guilty conscience was clearly pricking at me again because I was wide-awake at about 03:00 and again an hour or so later. And what was remarkable about all of this was that not only did I not remember any particular nocturnal ramble, on the latter occasion I was totally disorientated and had to recycle myself back through the last four or five weeks in order to work out where I was.

It was all rather short-lived though.

Next thing that I remember was that it was about 10:00. Everyone here had gone to school or to work except for Cujo the Killer Cat who still remembered me and came for a really good cuddle and stroke.

There’s a new cat too, called Oscar. Hannah adopted one at University and brought it back when she graduated. Cujo is definitely not impressed.

Four pieces of toast and three coffees later I was tempted to jump into Strider and go in search of food but I was in no condition to move. I had a go at starting to update the blog with the missing entries and managed one and a half.

This is going to be a very long job.

Amber came back from school and we had a chat, and then I went back to bed for another three hours.

When Darren came home I had a chat with him and then also with Rachel and Hannah. But I was pretty-much done and that was that.

I went back to bed where I shall sleep for the next 100 years. This has taken so much out of me

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Wednesday 19th September 2018 – WE FINALLY STAGGERED IN …

… to Lester P Pearson Airport quite early – as in something like 02:20 or whatever. A far cry from our intended 20:00, wasn’t it? And then the interminable file through customs, immigration and baggage collection.

I was well on my last legs right now and so I was rather glad that no-one crossed my path.As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t really become tired when I’ve had a very long day. Instead of tiredness it’s my irritability that increases and I’ve had some interesting and exciting encounters after a 36-hour working day.

At the Sheraton Gateway hotel, check-in was easy and I departed to my room. By now I’d gone beyond the threshold of tiredness and couldn’t sleep. It was 04:00 when I finally tucked myself up under the blankets and waited for dawn to come.

Sometime during the night I must have gone to sleep because the 08:00 alarm awoke me. The 08:08 and the 08:19 alarms also awoke me. I was having a bad morning.

Something like 09:30 when I hauled myself out of the stinking pit into the shower. And then we had the dramatic search for the clean clothes which I was convinced that I had put into my rucksack, but apparently not. In the end, the dirty clothes had to do.

Breakfast finished at 10:00 so I made it with 30 seconds to spare – only to be told that it wasn’t included in my booking and that I would have to pay extra. I dropped my coffee and orange juice as if I had been scalded and legged it quick.

And then had to leg it back equally quickly, for I had discovered that I had left my camera back at my pseudo-breakfast table.

I went off to Tim Horton’s instead and made contact with the rest of the world. A mere 91 messages on my social networking site awaiting my attention. I dealt with about 5 and discarded the rest.

The coffee, orange and bagels did their best to cheer me up, and so I went for a walk around to see the sights. And there I bumped into Aaron and Deanna doing the same. We had a little chat and then just like the Knights Of The Round Table, we went our separate ways.

Checking in the suitcase was reasonably straightforward. I could even fit a few more bits and pieces into it to make my rucksack more manoeuvrable. The “security” was interesting too, with a few more of these jobsworths who don’t have a clue about what they are doing, trying to make themselves look important.

Having bought bagels to eat for lunch, I was surprised to encounter a “Subway” inside the security area. I bagged a footlong vegetarian to eat, and I can save my bagels for later

Our ‘plane to Fredericton is a Bombardier Q400 R003 – a much-more modern version of the Dash-7 that we had to go from Yellowknife to Baffin Island. Clean and tidy and comfortable (although the leather on the seats was showing its age).

I forgot to note its registration number so if I can see it on the photo I can tell you all about it in due course.

The flight attendant had a weird sense of humour – “if you don’t like the on-board service, there are four emergency exits …”. That’s the kind of humour that I appreciate.

It was something of a shock to arrive in Fredericton. It had been warm and sunny in Toronto but here it was wet and windy – and cold. In fact the cold was more of a shock than anything else. It had been cold of course in the High Arctic but a different kind of cold and it didn’t feel half as bad as I was feeling right now.

Rachel and I drove back into town where she picked up some things that she had ordered from Kent Hardware. I fuelled up her car for her and then we went for a coffee at Tim Horton’s, where she told me that while I had been away, my father had died.

I think that she was expecting me to show more emotion than I did, but the fact is that I ran out of emotion about my family a very long time ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Anyway, I shan’t bore you with my problems.

We drove back here and Rachel rustled up something quick to eat. Meantime I had a chat to Darren, Amber and Hannah. It’s been a good while.

And then I staggered off to bed. It’s been a very long day with lots of interruptions and I’m thoroughly exhausted.

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Monday 9th October 2017 – HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And everyone around here is celebrating and giving thanks – for tonight I’ll be on the bus back to Montreal – always assuming that it doesn’t forget me like last year.

I’d had a really early night again last night – alone again, as it happens, and I’d been off on my travels again. back in Virlet as it happens, and everyone was poking fun at me, although there didn’t seem to be any reason why. But I approached the Secretary of the Commune and she explained to me that I was wearing odd shoes. I had a look, and it took quite some doing, even on a close inspection, to see that they were different. How anyone else had noticed from a distance away at a casual glance was beyond me. I asked which “pair” she preferred, and she replied that the “dark blue” shoes were preferable. However they looked the same colour to me and while it might have been dark blue in reality, on my travels last night I reckoned that they were black. So off I trotted back home to look for a matching shoe, but instead found a pair that were a real pair, but were black, and nothing like as highly-polished as the ones that I was wearing (because they really were highly polished). And so, do I ignore the catty remarks, do I carry on hunting for “the other shoe” or do I put on the black, dirty shoes and if so how would everyone else in the village react?

When my alarm went off I went off to ride the porcelain horse, and encountered Cujo the Killer Cat on the way back. I went back to bed seeing as no-one else was stirring, and she stayed there with me for a while before disappearing off.

Eventually, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen told me that Rachel was up and about so I went to help her prepare the breakfast brunch. Famous the whole world over, as I have said.

My share of the breakfast was the beans on toast with hash browns and one of my vegan burgers.

In the afternoon, Amber’s boyfriend came round and we all chilled out and did precisely nothing at all. Round about 14:30, Hannah and her friend left to go back to University at Antigonish and the rest of us, having said goodbye, carried on chatting.

Tea for me was the rest of the vegan burgers, the rest of the beans, and some left-over potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal, followed by rice pudding ditto. Then I went for a shower to wake myself up.

At 19:45 I took my leave of everyone and Rachel drove me to Florenceville and the bus stop. We were an hour early which I preferred after the dreadful performance last year that inconvenienced just about everyone except the bus driver.

We weren’t alone either. One of Rachel’s neighbours was there, putting her son on the bus back to Montreal where he’s at University studying aero-engineering.

maritime coach atlantic riviere du loup quebec canada october octobre 2017We were there quite early, as I have said.

And so, as you might expect, the bus was late arriving.

And Coach Atlantic is spending its money too, so it seems, because this was a modern, clean, comfortable coach, which makes a change from one or two that we’ve travelled on.

Not to say that they were ever dirty or uncomfortable – far from it. But they were starting to become rather long in the tooth. This one was brand-spanking new, with wi-fi, but, alas, still with no power points.

And no data tracker too. Most buses and coaches these days have data trackers fitted so that you can go to the website of the company and see where the bus or coach is. Once Coach Atlantic fits these to their coaches, there won’t be any of this “missing the bus” or waiting around for well over an hour in the pouring rain.

Because pouring rain was what we had had all day. I’d never seen anything like this rain. Heavy, yes, but not persistently so all day.

So having dozed all the way to the St Lawrence, I’m now at Riviere du Loup waiting for the bus that’s coming from the Gaspé that will take me on to Montreal.

It’s always a long night on the overnight bus but at least I don’t have far to stagger from the bus terminal to the hotel where i’ll be staying until tomorrow evening.

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8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

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Thursday 5th October 2017 – FOURTEEN HOURS.

I told you last night that I was just off to lie down for half an hour or so to rest.

And indeed I did. But not for half an hour though. I hit the sack round about 18:45 and it was just before 09:00 that I awoke. That’s just over 14 hours of sleep. I must have needed it – I’ll tell you that!

So 09:00 it was that I awoke. But it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of bed. And if it hadn’t been for the necessity to go and stroll the parapet, I would probably still be in there now.

I was on my travels too during the night. Hanging on underneath a bus watching the prop shaft revolve around to see where the problem with it was – a highly dangerous occupation perilously close to the ground. And my brother was there alongside me, giving me “solidarity”, something that would never ever happen to me in my life seeing that members of my family wouldn’t share a bus shelter with each other during a monsoon.
And from there we progressed onwards to me confronting a Border Crossing person – a very young female who was carrying three small teddy bears hugged to her chest. Despite the altercation, I did have to admit that I found her extremely attractive and when I confessed this to a friend he suggested that I go and chat her up. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. But even on a nocturnal ramble I could work out that a 40-year age gap was a mountain too high to climb, despite the encouragement from everyone else.

So, a “somewhat late” breakfast, and then I loitered around here foe a “somewhat late” lunch – not doing too much to exert myself.

But after lunch I stripped out the back of Strider, collected up about three tonnes of rubbish which found its way into the incinerator, and sorted out the stuff that wouldn’t survive the winter, and brought that inside for Rachel.

Tonnes of stuff left over for food – I didn’t eat all that much while I was away. The tinned stuff and vacuumed stuff will keep, though, but the stuff in glass bottles and the easy-open tins that can burst when they freeze up in winter, they came inside.

And here’s a surprising thing. Strider has travelled over 12,000 kilometres in just 5 weeks, and as well as the dramatic improvement in fuel consumption, Strider didn’t consume a single drop of oil.

There’s still the same amount in that there was when we set out. And for a vehicle with 209,000 kilometres on the clock that’s pretty much extraordinary.

I didn’t do too much later. I reckoned that that was enough. Darren and Rachel came back from work and we had a good chat, and then Hannah turned up from University for the weekend with another cat that she cares for.

Of course that was a big mistake. The cat here is not called “Cujo the Killer Cat” for nothing.

So I’m off to bed now. It’s past my bed time. I’m going to have another relaxing day tomorrow as well. Apparently there are “plans” for the weekend.

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Monday 25th September 2017 – SO HERE WE ALL ARE …

interstate highway rest area Augusta georgia usa september septembre 2017… not sitting in a rainbow, but sitting on a rest area on Interstate 20 – in Georgia. Strider, Strawberry Moose and I.

This morning, although the alarm goes off at 05:00 when I’m here, I was up and about and packing at 04:30. The old body clock is working well.

Rhys works as a bus driver for the local education authority and has to be in work at 05:30, which means leaving here at 05:00. And that was when I had planned to be on the road

Sure enough, at 04:55 a hand reached into the bus and deposited a nice, hot cup of coffee. That disappeared smartly into my thermal mug, and at 05:00 we were off.

Rhys went one way, and I went the other, heading south on Interstate 20. And when have you ever seen me on the road this early?

I’m glad that I had seen Rhys. We had studied together at University and I had been best man at his wedding. As I said a few days ago, this may well be my last visit to North America and I wanted to see him while I was here.

interstate highway rest area Augusta georgia usa september septembre 2017I had also wanted to come here, seeing as it’s just 50 miles away from Rhys’s place. And for two reasons too –

  1. I’d never been to Georgia before, so it’s one more place to cross off my list
  2. At 33.4735° N, it’s the farthest south that I have ever been, beating Arizona 2002 by about 20 miles. It’s little things like that which amuse me


We arrived here about an hour before it was light enough to take photos, and that gave me an opportunity to try to bring some kind of order into chaos. As we know, Neitzsche said “out of chaos comes order”, but he had never met me.

And I’m glad that I did too, because I had a major stroke of luck.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that I had lost Strider’s new licence tags.

In New Brunswick you buy the annual licence tags and stick them on the number plate. As I would be away when Strider’s needed renewing, I had bought them well in advance and “put them somewhere safe” so that I would know where they would be.

That’s famous last words, isn’t it? Once I’d put them in a safe place, that was the last that I had seen of them and I was afraid that they had gone for good.

However, moving the passenger seat, there they were, down the side. And then I remembered – I’d “tidied” the passenger seat in a hurry when I’d picked up Hannah in Antigonish. And they must have fallen down the side.

So Strider now has his licence tags properly installed, and I can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Once I’d done the photography bit, I retraced my steps all the way back up Interstate 20, back through Lexington and Columbia and back to Interstate 95 just north of Charleston.

That’s the Road that will take me all the way back to Houlton in Maine, just across the border from where Rachel and Darren live and where Strider stays when he’s not on the road.

But I’m not going back straight away. It’s nearly 1900 kilometres and I’m in no fit condition to drive that kind of distance. Three consecutive days of over 750 kms per day last week plus an 05:00 start this morning have finished me off.

I’m really in no fit state to go anywhere right now and it’s pointless trying to do it. It will all end in tears.

But just down the road is Myrtle Beach. It’s a huge holiday resort, just like Blackpool, and the best way to describe it is to say that it’s like Miami Beach on Welfare.

It’s cheap, and tacky, but a small 2-room apartment with wi-fi, free parking, cooking facilities and a sea view of sorts, just 20 yards from the beach, is costing me just $39 per night. It’s the ideal place for me to hole up for three nights while I gather my strength for the trip back to Canada.

Three nights at the seaside, I said, didn’t I? So having had all of that heatwave for the last few days, it’s now overcast and trying to rain.

There’s a big grocery store on the edge of town so I stock up, and then head to the Polynesian Beach and Golf Resort.

polynesian beach and golf resort myrtle beach south carolina usa september septembre 2017Here’s a photo of the place – taken at night because, quite frankly, it looks much better in the dark.

But don’t misunderstand me at all. What I have here for facilities at $39 per night (and there are rooms at $29 per night if that’s too expensive) with a beach 20 yards away you wouldn’t get anywhere else in the world.

We’ve been paying $140 per night in some places, and $150 per night to live in a caravan and we haven’t had facilities as good as this. I’m on the economy plan, remember, and this is a good deal.

First thing that I do when I arrive, after checking in, is to crash out. And an hour later, the sun is trying its best to come out and it’s quite warm too, so I have a wander down to the beach to eat my butties.

Back here again, and crash out again. And I’m gone for … errr … several hours. These last few days have been too much for me.

myrtle beach south carolina usa september septembre 2017That means that I miss my tea, and instead, go for a little walk around the area.

As I said earlier, it looks so much better in the dark

But I also said that if your budget is rather limited, you won’t find anywhere else better than this to go for a self-contained break.

One thing about Americans is that they are (mostly) restrained, and there’s a security guard on the premises.

myrtle beach south carolina usa september septembre 2017My nocturnal perambulations took me briefly onto the beach. It’s a fine powdery sand so it’s difficult to walk upon in shoes.

It’s been claimed to be the best beach on the Eastern Seaboard, but while it’s good, I’ve seen much better than this – but in places that don’t have any tourist infrastructure so they aren’ easy to visit on a trip like this.

This will do me for a few days.

And talking of nocturnal rambles, I didn’t tell you of the two that happened today.

While I was asleep in Rhys’s bus, TOTGA – The One That Got Away – came to visit me. She brought with her one of her children and, surprise, it wasn’t the one with whom she’s mostly associated. What was even more surprising was that when I checked my social media page later, there she was in a photo with the child that she had brought with her, and that’s somethign exceptional.
And later, when I was having a crash, I was underneath a car changing a steering joint or a wheel bearing or something. Someone was helping me and I was giving them instructions like one would do to a child. I suddenly became aware of this and apologised, to which my father, who was watching, said “that’s why I like to do these jobs myself”.

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