Tag Archives: Zoe

Wednesday 4th September 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Just about to board my ‘plane in Calgary when … “Blimey – where’s my jacket?”.

And I know exactly where it is. Hanging up on a hook behind the door in the hotel of course.

It seems that I am destined to travel the world leaving a trail of my possessions scattered behind me as some kind of trail marker for wherever I have been. For example, my geological notes are festooning a beach on Devon Island and my lens cap is somewhere in Cambridge Bay.

And now the coat is in Calgary.

But I blame the stress myself. I had yet another bad night last night with very little sleep and it’s a good job that I was awake because the promised alarm call never came. I had to scamper down the stairs at 04:30 where the shuttle bus was already waiting.

Hardly surprising that something was left behind.

Having checked in, I went for breakfast at Tim Hortons. A couple of bagels, coffee and juice. The first Tim Hortons visit this year by the way.

Security was pretty painless and I had something of a wait afterwards for the plane.

But once on the plane I had something of a surprise – something that seems to be happening more and more these days.

A couple with three little kids were sitting behind me and I heard them talking German. So when I got up to go for a ride on the porcelain horse I said something back in German.
“Do you speak German then?” he asked.
“Only a little’ I replied. “But I’m from Europe anyway”
“We live in Europe too – in Munich”
“Whereabouts?”
He told me a name that I didn’t recognise
“I visit Munich quite often. I have friends in Eching”
“Ahhh – that’s where IKEA is. Are you off back to Europe now? We are, later today”
“No, I’m off to New Brunswick. I have family and friends there”.
“Ohh! Whereabouts? I was raised in New Brunswick”
“Some small settlement north of a place called Woodstock”
“Woodstock? That’s where I actually lived!”

This world is getting far too small for my liking.

At Toronto I did something that I should have done years ago and rekindled my SKYPE account, so I can make calls from my phone at wi-fi points. I rang the hotel and they had indeed found my jacket. I told them to hang onto it until I could work out how to pick it up.

I had a very pleasant companion accompanying me to Fredericton, and once there, Zoe came to pick me up.

We had a nice drive back through the rainstorm and tried three restaurants before we found one that was interested in serving us. One had closed down abd the other one, despite advertising as open until 21:00 had locked its doors even though the staff was inside looking out.

We went to Murray’s instead. I had home fires with vegetables followed by toast and jam. Quite a change from the cooking on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

Rachel and I had a very lengthy chat here and now I’ve retired to bed. I know that this bed is comfortable so I’m hoping at last to have a really good sleep. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. Anyone who wants me will have to come and get me.

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Monday 11th March 2019 – FOR THE FIRST …

… time since the football over two weeks ago, I had a mug of coffee – when I was at Liz and Terry’s. In fact I had two.

And that probably explains why I was still wide awake working on the computer this morning at 02:30, unable to sleep.

Eventually, I did manage to go to bed. And a short while later I did actually go to sleep.

When the alarms went off at 06:00,06:10 and 06:20 there was absolutely no danger of my leaving my little bed. 09:05 was mush more of a respectable time given the circumstances.

As a result, we can almost dismiss the morning as a write-off. by the time I settled down to do some work it was 12:20.

One thing that I had done was to get on the phone to my web hosts. My domain names need renewal and for some reason the direct debiting wasn’t working.

After several attempts I was connected to the French helpline where the formalities were completed. And I was struck by the accent of the girl to whom I was speaking. it turns out that not only was she a French speaker from Acadie in New Brunswick, she was actually there, and my call had been diverted to Canada.

a little later I nipped out to Caliburn. the memory card in the dashcam in Caliburn had filled up yesterday so I’d brought it in with me. This morning I uploaded all of the media onto the hard drive and then took the empty card back down to keep as a spare.

One of my neighbours was out there so we had a chat. But freezing in the howling wind, I came in quickly.

Lunch was as usual, and then I set to work with the shredder. Another huge mound of paper has gone to meet its maker and another day or two will see the rest of it on its way. And then there’s more to attack, to keep me out of mischief for the next 6 months.

armor charles marie la granvillaise chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThis afternoon I braved the hurricane and went outside, bumping into another neighbour on the way.

Nothing much happening out there, except at the chantier navale where Armor, Charles-Marie and La Granvillaise were receiving attention.

But the funfair seems to have gone, and so does Neptune. She set off at 06:08 on her way to Whitstable.

chocolate birthday cake liz terry messenger granville manche normandy franceBack here, I opened my birthday present from Liz and Terry. A gorgeous chocolate cake.

It won’t keep for too long and seeing as I’m off to Belgium on Thursday half of it went straight into the fridge.

But I also cut myself off a slice to taste. And it’s delicious, as you might expect. As I have now run out of apple pie, I’ll be having a slice here and there for pudding with my coconut-flavoured soya cream.

Rosemary rang me up later and we had quite a chat – 1:33 of it, to be precise. She’s back now in France and here she intends to stay.

Tea was the pizza that I should have had yesterday, followed by the last slice of apple pie.

moonlight night ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceAnd then the walk around the walls.

There was only a thin sliver of moon but with the clear sky there was a beautiful reflection on the sea.

The wind had dropped and it was cold, but there was no-one around at all, apart from a new black cat that came for a stroke.

So now I’m going to bed. Nice and early. I want to have an early start tomorrow as I have a lot to do.

But before I go, spare a thought for my niece’s eldest daughter. Her boyfriend was seriously ill and his chances of survival were slight. He had proposed marriage to her and they tied the knot on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately their time together was short. He passed away on Saturday morning.

Poor Zoe.

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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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Monday 12th September 2016 – I WONDERED …

… as regular readers of this rubbish will recall from last year, why it was that Strider had a tendency to wander about on the road. I put it down at the time to a worn damper, but now I know the truth.

Yes, the insurance has come through. This morning I went down to the tyre depot and I faxed off my application form. I left things to stew for half an hour or so, and then called up the company to pay them over the phone. But, as you might expect in this long-running saga, the person dealing with the matter was out of the office.

I called them back just before lunch and luckily, the person “had just returned to the office”, so we were able to deal with the payment. Surprisingly, the credit card that was blocked in Montreal the other day was accepted for the payment and 10 minutes later I had a faxed copy of the insurance card in my sweaty little mitt.

The original will follow in the post “in due course” but knowing Canada Post as I do, and as you do if you were around here back in 2011, it will mean that I’ll receive it about a week after the expiry date of the policy. But a faxed copy is good.

And so at lunchtime, as Zoe was going past the house, I had her drop me off and I could drive Strider back to the tyre depot.

Once we had dealt with a headlight in a Chrysler HHR and a tyre on a farmer’s lorry, we could wheel Strider into the garage and stick him up on a ramp. And this is where we found that a track rod end was almost hanging off. No wonder he was wandering about a little.

So a new track rod end is on order and should come tomorrow mid-morning, and that will (hopefully) mean that Strider should have his safety certificate (MoT to you lot) by lunchtime. Then I can go down to Service New Brunswick in Florenceville and tax him, and we will be on the road.

Once we had done the check on Strider, we had an hour or two spare and so we started to strip down the axle on this Chevrolet lorry. Taking the half-shafts out was straightforward (although it wasn’t that easy) but dismantling the bearings in the axle casing was anything but.

The reason for this is that they are held on by a nut that requires – would you believe – a socket of 3.25 inches, and 8-sided at that. And who in the world – apart from a Chevrolet lorry dealer – would have one of those? It’s almost as if they make them like that deliberately to stop anyone other than a main agent from doing the work. We had to order one and it won’t be here for a few days.

But I might not be here by then. The sea is calling me.

Back here, there was some kind of ladies’ party going on here. Rachel was having one of these demonstration things and we were surrounded by women. But this kind of thing does have its advantages, such as when someone asks me to empty half a bowl of home-made guacamole. Luckily there was a bowl of crisps handy and so I was able to oblige.

So now I’m off to bed – and I deserve it as well. Although my night was slightly better last night, waking up definitively at 05:50, it still wasn’t as good as the one just recently. But having worked hard today at the tyre depot I’m fairly exhausted.

This might mean a really good sleep. I hope so!

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Sunday 11th October 2015 – I THOUGHT THAT I HAD LEFT …

… the rain behind me yesterday but over the night it seems to have caught me up again and this morning we are all being drenched.

I had to be in Centreville at 11:00 and so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to leave my comfortable motel, but eventually I was back on the road again, having stopped at Tim Horton’s for a coffee.

I was early at Centreville and so I hung around talking to Bob for a while,and then when Zoe was ready we drove off down to Woodstock and Zoe’s salon. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so we were rather crowded in the Ranger, but Zoe and I spent a good two hours or so down there tidying up, throwing out some rubbish and measuring up for some new furniture that she wants.

Back in Centreville and at Bob and Ellen’s, Rachel and Darren returned from their weekend away and Hannah and Amber came back from an afternoon out. A few other people turned up too and we all had a Thanksgiving meal together, even if Thanksgiving isn’t officially until tomorrow.

I’m back at Darren and Rachel’s now. My wanderings are over and I need to clean and tidy up Strider so that he’s ready to be put away for the winter. Darren is very kindly lending me the bottom end of his hangar now that the big caravan has been sold and that’s where Strider will be kept.

Anyway, I’m off for an early night. I need to acclimatise myself for being ready back in Europe.

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Thursday 27th August 2015 – WHAT A STORM!

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

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

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

canadian pacific avondale station road woodstock new brunswick canadaThere’s a road near here called Avondale Station Road and I’ve had a wander down there on a couple of occasions looking for the station site without success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

worlds longest covered bridge saint john river hartland trans canada highway new brunswick mars hill maine usaIt’s not a road that I travel very often and so I don’t know all of the good views, but here’s a stunning viewpoint from a few miles south of Hartland. We can see the Saint John River of course, and in the background we have the wind farm up on Mars Hill in Maine, USA (my plot of land is to the right of the hill).

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

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

mack thermodyne B61 lakeville new brunswick canadaBut there are always exceptions to this, such as this absolutely wonderful Mack Thermodyne B61 of the early 1950s.

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

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

And this was when the storm hit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Tuesday 24th September 2013 – I’ve been stirring the …

… errr … brown and smelly stuff today.

And quite literally too.

At a small town called St André, about 100 kms from here is a farm owned by someone called Laforge. It’s a dairy farm but he’s expanding into all kinds of other farming activities seeing as how he has abundant supplies of … errr … fertiliser. The reason for this is that it’s all the by-product of Canada’s biggest methane generators, for which he uses the waste matter from his cows and whatever else he can find.

Darren showed me a video of the operation the other day, and then quite casually mentioned that they were customers of the feed mill. Of course, my eyes lit up and a phone call or two later, Rachel and I set off.

Impressive is not the word, that’s for sure, and we spent a very pleasant couple of hours there talking to the guy. And he knows his stuff too, even down to sourcing a supply of wood ash to mix into the inert waste matter in order to produce a balanced fertiliser.

His experiences, mostly with the hide-bound Government officials, were interesting too and full of difficulty as you might expect. But the rewards are equally as good, especially as he’s now planning other exciting activities such as using the waste heat to warm greenhouses to grow tomatoes with the fertiliser that he has. Even more interestingly, using the fertiliser to the maximum he’s just starting on his fourth hay crop whereas his neighbours have managed two this year.

That’s not the only bit of brown smelly stuff we encountered today. Zoe and I were in Woodstock today sorting out her salon and running other errands and while in Tim Horton’s Zoe was surfing the local small ads. “Chevy Silverado pick-up, 1997, $2500 or best offer” and so seeing as it was on the way home, we went for a look. And this is where the brown smelly stuff came in, because even though the pickup was white, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate description.

Seeing as I’m leaving here tomorrow I shall just have to resign myself to not having a pickup again. But these rental charges are killing me.

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Friday 20th September 2013 – AND WE’RE OFF …

darren taylor perdy in the pink tractor maine usa… tractor-pulling again. Just the four of us this time, namely Darren, Hannah, Yours Truly and of course Strawberry Moose. We’re going to a place called Millinocket which is deep inside darkest rural Maine and miles off the beaten track, so I shall be quite at home there.

But a crisis at the local truck stop (not the big one where we stopped last time). My fries turned up, well, sort-of okay but my beans had bacon in them despite me specifying “just beans – no cheese and no bacon or anything else”. Apparently a simple request like that is beyond the capacity of some trukstop waitresses in the USA. “However did this lot become the new master race?”, as I have asked myself before.

Today started off early as it was Inspection Day at Zoe’s salon. A couple of last-minute tasks needed to be carried out and so Yours Truly was roped in. This little desk with two shelves that we bought (was $60, when we first saw it, it was reduced to $40 and when Zoe bought it it was further reduced to $20) is an absolute bargain and does exactly what it’s supposed to do, and more besides.

Then I went off to Tim Horton’s to give two people the shock of their lives. There they were sitting at a table next to me quietly nattering away, and then I caught the “long Jaaaa”. “Jullie komen uit Nederlands?” I asked them, and then we had a very interesting 10-minute conversation in Dutch. Probably the last thing that they were expecting in a coffee bar in a small town in rural New Brunswick.

The rest of the day was spent running errands. They are short-handed in the tyre depot again and deliveries were piling up and so with Zoe as navigator (her salon passed its inspection and as soon as Darren finishes welding the sills on her car she’ll be in business) we went off around Bath, Florenceville and Bristol with a pile of parcels and envelopes. And of course the bank. I don’t know if I mentioned last time the fun that I had trying to get US dollars out of US cash machines with my Canadian bank card, and so I went to the bank and took out some USA cash.

Now I’m sitting at the side of a deserted runway in rural Maine watching the stars and the full moon, and waiting for things to happen.

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Tuesday 10th September 2013 – I HAD THE MOST UNEVENTFUL …

… drive down to Fredericton that I have ever had. There was nothing going on and nothing to report whatsoever … "hooray" – ed …

But in Woodstock earlier a few things happened.

Zoe and I picked up her price list and stuck it on the wall of her salon where it looks pretty good and effective. We did a few more things (and I’ve still forgotten to fasten her cupboard handles) and then I wandered off to see someone about another little project that I have in mind.

However, that won’t be happening, said he with deep regret.

A small piece of land that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while, well, they want a telephone-number kind of price for it. Its situation is such that it merits a few extra shillings, to be sure, but the price that they are asking is simply delusional. Even half of the asking price would be expensive.

In Fredericton I went to Value Village – the charity shop – to scan the books.

Here in Canada, there isn’t a variety of different charity shops as there is in the UK. All of the charities have joined together and have a charity megastore, and all of the items are colour-coded, the purpose of this I suppose is to tell which charity each item belongs to.

I always visit it because it’s a really good source of books on Canadian affairs, history, grography and the like, and I wasn’t disappointed. Six new books have found their way into the Dodge and now this place looks more like a library than anything else.

strawberry moose harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswickI picked up my Media Pass from the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival offices at Regent Street (it helps, having your own media outlets back in France – good old Radio Anglais).

And Strawberry Moose was in his element – not only were there floozies to admire but they even dressed him up in Festival Gear and allowed him to be photographed with them.

What more does any Moose require?

Lunch was at the side of the river near the boat ramp and for some reason or other I crashed out here. And for a couple of hours too. It’s not as if I’ve been overdoing it or anything just recently.

What woke me up was the book sliding out of my hand and crashing down to the floor of the Dodge. I’d probably be still there now otherwise.

So off to the camp ground – this is at a place called Mactaquac about 20kms outside Fredericton and close to the big dam for the hydro-electric power station. This has created a huge lake and the campground is on the shores of the lake.

deer camp ground mactaquac provincial park new brunswickIt’s a wilderness campsite run by the Province of New Brunswick and so there is a good deal of wildlife hanging around and because it’s protected, it doesn’t have too much of a fear of man.

Consequently there was quite a deputation of Strawberry Moose’s friends and admirers from previous years awaiting his arrival, all keen to continue their acquaintance.

So I’ve emptied the Dodge and tidied it out, and made tea. Now I’m off to bed for an early night. Of course, you can guess what Strawberry Moose will be doing.

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Monday 9th September 2013 – ZOE AND I …

river meduxnekeag woodstock new brunswick canada… went to Woodstock again this morning. Mind you, it was pretty crowded in the Dodge because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, of course … "you said that the other day" – ed.

Another not very successful day for shopping but at least Zoe has much more of an idea as to what she wants. And a stroke of luck – while we were there at her salon, there was an old woman sniffing around outside and so I packed Zoe off to make further enquiries, with the result that Zoe now has her first paying customer for tomorrow at 11:00. Good old Zoe.

I had some rather mixed fortunes in Woodstock though. Did I tell you that I have broken the zip on my suitcase? That’s rendered it impossible for further service and I was wondering how to bring my stuff back home. But we went into a second-hand shop in the town to look for an office desk for Zoe, and while we had no luck there for that, they had an enormous suitcase even bigger than mine. Not quite as many pockets though, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially at $10:00.

The bad news is that the Dodge was running rather roughly this morning and I wasn’t happy at all. I had a look at Woodstock and it seems that the rear brakes have been binding. The handbrake is one of these foot-pedal ones by the door pillar and it’s not as cleverly placed as it is on a Mercedes and it’s possible that I’ve stepped on it by accident and not noticed. Driving the Dodge around the car park a couple of times in reverse seems to have freed it off and so now I’ll have to see how I go with it.

Anyway, an early night is called for tonight as I’m hitting the road tomorrow for a week or 10 days. I’ll see you soon.

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Sunday 8th September 2013 – “NOTHING IS MORE EMPTY …

clinton agricultural fair fairground maine USA… than a deserted fairground” said John Betjeman in his book First and Last Loves.

So I reckon that he must have been to Clinton, Maine in the past because, believe me, this was empty and deserted. Mind you, it was something silly like 07:30 in the morning in the middle of a torrential rainstorm so that might have something to do with it.

Anyway, we didn’t hang around any and we were on Interstate 95 pretty early heading back northwards. A stop at Dysart’s truckstop for breakfast (for me, beans on toast with hash browns on the side) but, unfortunately, no cheerleaders, and then off shopping to a place called Sam’s Club.

Anyone from the UK will immediately recognise the concept only under another name – Makro – a trade warehouse for small businesses.

We ended up with three trolley-loads of stuff to bring home but I reckon that I won the prize, finding a copy of “Dragon”, the speech recognition software that works with my new dictaphone, and all for $45, which is cheap in any kind of currency.

We were so long in there that the sun was out when we left, and by the time we arrived at Houlton, it was a pleasant evening. Here we changed partners. Darren and Rachel were in a rush to get back home but Zoe still needed some shopping so I swapped passengers, and Zoe and I went on a rather fruitless expedition around some of the Houlton shops.

abandoned rolls royce scrapyard bridgewater maine USAThe border crossing is at Bridgewater in Maine – that brings us over to Centreville, and here at Bridgewater is a junkyard and a sight that you don’t see every day – a scrap Rolls Royce. THat shows you just how much these new Rolls Royes have degenerated since the days of the Silver Cloud in the earky 1960s.

It’s not the first Rolls Royce that I’ve seen in a scrapyard. The legendary McGuinness’s in Longport, Stoke on Trent had a Rolls Royce in there for a few years, but that was full of silt to a depth of about 9 inches – clearly major flood damage and probably only Third-Party insurance. Beyond the financial capability of anyone to put right, I imagine.

But this one seems to be undamaged in the general scheme of things – I reckon a major repair bill that is beyond the capacity of the owner to put right and enough to frighten off any prospective purchaser.

But what a way for a Roller to meet its end – stuck at the back of a junkyard off the beaten track in the wilds of Maine. That’s a sad story.

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Friday 6th September 2013 – I HAD AN “AT HOME DAY” TODAY

The only difference being that I wasn’t of course at my home but at Rachel’s. I slept for at least part of the night with a cat curled up next to me, something that brought beck memories of course, and after breakfast (and the typical frantic hunt for keys) Zoe and I went off to do a few things.

We went too look at my little kingdom up on the USA border, and then went to see someone to chat to him about Ford Rangers. The Bank in Florenceville was the next port of call but I couldn’t get done there what I needed to do, so we headed to Woodstock. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong of course and Zoe took me to see her new salon. Now that she’s a qualified and licensed aesthetician after her year ot college in Miramichi she’s planning on opening her own little business and has rented two small rooms. They will be ideal for a newcomer to the business once she sorts herself out.

We ran quite a few errands for her while we were there and after lunch it was back to the Bank where a few (but by no means all) things were sorted out. I went on to the Great Satan to sort out my entry permit and then back to Rachel’s where we loaded everything up for the weekend.

This led to the immortal conversation
Hannah “Will 2 packs of water be enough for us for the weekend?”
Yours Truly “How much beer do we have?”
Hannah “two 36-packs”
Yours Truly “why do we need water then?”
Yes, I’m fast becoming a redneck, aren’t I?

Rachel came with me in the Dodge on the long drive to southern Maine and the highlight of the journey had to be eating chips (or “fries”) in Dysart’s, a typical American truckstop and a team of cheerleaders coming in. A scrawny, scraggy lot, it has to be said but cheerleaders all the same. No, you can’t make up a story like that and I wish that I had taken a camera into the truckstop to prove it.

The pulling track at Clinton, Maine, is cold and wet.

But so what? So am I.

But at least I’ll feel better in the morning.

Hopefully.

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Thursday 8th November 2012 – I’M BACK!

And I bet that you didn’t know that I’ve even been away.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago a small group of us went round to Nan’s for some kind of soirée – well tonight, we all went round to chez Gilles.

6 of us there were – Nan, Cécile, Zoë, Gilles, Yours Truly, and Isabel. We wined and dined and then played a board game.

It’s quite rare this – me socialising, isn’t it? But I think that I really ought to get out more, and that’s an opinion which everyone else shares.

This morning I didn’t have my usual go on the website.

In a change to the advertised programme, straight after breakfast I attacked the shelf unit and varnished it all. This would give it much more time to dry, of course.

And then I had a problem.

When I went to take off the lid of the varnish tin, I discovered that it had rusted on and so I had to chisel it off. And what I had to do to it to make it come off meant that it was clearly in no fit state to go back on afterwards.

It was a large tin – and expensive too – and so I had to find a few more paint tins, throw away the content, clean out the tins and pour the varnish into that.

Such is life.

Once the varnish had dried I fitted it all into the cupboard – not without having to do a few little alterations, it has to be said, butnow it fits beautifully – exactly as it should.

7 shelves there are, and soon there will be 8.

The metal shelf unit that I had brought upstairs and put in the shower room to store some of the bits and pieces that were loitering around – what was on there didn’t even take up one shelf on the new unit.

Yes, it’s a monster and quite right too.

Actually I’m impressed – it goes quite well in there and fits the little cupboard quite nicely.

And it’s amazing – with that I’ve already managed to put on there, there’s already so much more room to move around in the bedroom and work

When I’m organised – whenever that might be – and the house is well-advanced, there will be tons of room in there to store all kinds of stuff – you can’t have too much storage room.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off rounding things up and stacking them on the shelves. and once it’s all done I might even have enough room to start cutting plasterboard again.

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Thursday 25th October 2012 – A BIG THANK-YOU …

… to everyone who thought about me while I was ill. I appreciated it very much.

A couple of you have suggested taking it easy for a while – sentiments with which I totally agree. Accordingly when the alarm clocks went off, I turned over and went back to sleep for a while.

Most of the day has been spent with paperwork – or rather, fiddling about with the printer so that I could print off a pile of paperwork.

It didn’t print in black last month and so I did everything in blue, but today I spent ages cleaning the heads and managed to get half a black printout.

One of the nozzles is blocked, and so I went to clean the heads again, and it ran out of black ink. I changed the black ink, but it still wasn’t printing properly and so I cleaned the heads again.

This time it ran out of blue ink.

I changed the blue ink, cleaned the heads, and it’s still not printing properly in black.

This means that for the foreseeable future I’m back to printing everything in blue again. I never seem to have any luck with printers.

This afternoon, I selected all of the music for the rock programmes but this evening was something exciting and unusual – Nan was having a little do and I was invited, as were Cécile, Gilles and Zoe.

We had a snack and played charades and so on for a few hours. It’s not like me to be sociable, is it?< Tomorrow is recording the Radio Anglais rock programmes for Radio Tartasse and so I won't be doing too much tomorrow morning either.

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