Tag Archives: tidying up

Tuesday 17th October 2017 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH …

… will recall that I’ve been having certain issues about music and entertainment here in my little apartment. But today I’ve made a great deal of progress which has gone a long way towards dealing with the issue on a temporary basis.

And as we know, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

You may recall that a couple of years ago I bought an “old, new laptop”. They were on sale at give-away prices because although they were new and in working order, they had various defects and were sold “as seen”.

I have one of these data readers for modern vehicles that you plug into the vehicle’s data port to read off the fault codes. It works with a CD-ROM, which I didn’t have on my notebook (it uses an external DVD reader that runs off the mains) and that’s no good for out in the yard, and so a laptop with a working DVD reader was an essential.

The rest of the laptop wasn’t important, so when I ended up with one in which the mouse didn’t work, I wasn’t all that bothered. But then, of course, my plans all changed.

Many years ago, when I lived in Belgium, I rigged up an office with an in-house entertainment system that had a really good speaker system – a huge deep-bass speaker with a couple of all-round stereo treble speakers. And the sound was excellent.

And so today, I rigged up the “old, new laptop” with the speaker system, and it works a treat. I can play all of the music, whether CD or *.mp3, and DVDs, And with the USB Cassette machine that I bought a few years ago, I can even play cassettes through it.

There’s also a USB record deck here, so I can play my LPs on it too.

I’ve dug out an old desktop monitor too – quite a large one, and when I obtain an HDM1 cable, I’ll have large-screen film facilities too.

So having had an early night last night, I managed to raise myself from my stinking pit at about 06:10. It’s my aim to be up and about in between the two alarms as you know.

I’d been on my travels too. Back in Brussels, I was selling my final apartment somewhere on the north side of the city. It was laid out somehow like the place at Hankelow but, obviously, in much better condition. I’d bought it a few years ago but never done too much with it. With me was a girl, something like Cecile, and my solicitor. I was far too ill to take part in the proceedings, being confined to bed, so the solicitor and this girl did everything. After the sale had been completed, the solicitor came in quietly laughing. He told me that the woman had been lamenting about her son, and how she’s just saddled him with a mortgage at the age of 36. I was meantime adding up th cash on hand after selling all of my three places, and how it came to something like half a million pounds, and how I was too ill to spend it all.

I went down for a baguette a little later on. There is still the depot de pain in the newsagents here and the owner remembered me, which was nice.

Back here, I pottered around for a while, and … errr … had a little relax too – which led to a somewhat late lunch. And did some of the unpacking too. But only “some”. I need to gather up my strength to do the rest because it really did take a lot out of me, going around North America like I did.

Tea though was another one of my aubergine and kidney bean whatsits – with no olives because I seem to have run out and I forgot to buy any yesterday. There’s enough left over for three more meals.

So now, despite my early start, my little repose during the morning means that I don’t actually feel tired right now. It will take me a while to readjust to my habitual way of life.

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.

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

… 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.

I had also wanted to come here, seeing as it’s just 50 miles away from Rhys’s place. And for two reasons too –

I’d never been to Georgia before, so it’s one more place to cross off my list
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.

Here’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.

That 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.

My 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”.

Wednesday 20th September 2017 – HAVING HAD …

… a good night’s sleep in yonder motel last night, it was time to hit the road.

First stop was my little lock-up at Jarry. There, I liberated my electric kettle (coffee is now on the menu in motels) and a few books. I didn’t liberate the slow cooker because I have the one that I bought in Fredericton on my first day out.

And a good plan that was too. Since I’ve been on the road I’ve yet to pay for an evening meal or a breakfast, except on a ferry or in company.

Another thing that I did was to throw away the insulation. I bought a pile of that to insulate the truck cap when I was sleeping in it, but seeing as I no longer do that, it was just in the way, sliding over everywhere and stopping me accessing the things that I needed.

And so that’s gone the Way of the West.

Giving Strider a good clean-out (and putting all but 5 litres of fuel out of the cans into his tank) took me until lunch-time, would you believe.

And so I headed off down to the riverside, to a little park that I know hidden away in the docks.

It was a beautiful afternoon too and there were crowds of people, including an old couple from Massachusetts who had decided to park diagonally across two parking spaces and who received a piece of my mind.

I found a free table and made my butties for lunch.

and my ship truly came in while I was there tucking into the vegan cheese, tomato and lettuce rolls.

Or, rather, my ship truly went out, for here is the John J Carrick heading off downriver.

She’s not a “ship” as such but an oil tank barge with a deadweight of 11800 tonnes. She seems to spend most of her life on the St lawrence not going very far.

Much better luck with this one though. She’s the Toronto Express and she’s parked up in the container terminal next door.

She’s much more like a ship, with e deadweight of 56000 tonnes.

She seems to operate on some kind of circular route, calling at Southampton, Antwerp and Hamburg, and then back to Montreal. And probably knows the way there all by herself too.

Next stop was the Motel, and here we had a calamity. I mean to stay tonight in the Motel La Marquise in the rue Sherbrooke Est in Montreal. It’s a reasonable price for a big city, with free parking and right next door to the Langelier Metro station. All of that is very important.

And so I arrive and … no trace of my booking. Even showing the receptionist the confirmation doesn’t convince her.

But then se notices something, and draws my attention to it. It seems that there’s a motel of exactly that name in Sherbrooke, about 90 minutes away, and Brain of Britain seems to have in error booked himself in there.

I’m not going all that way, I can tell you, so I cancel that booking there and book myself in over the counter here – quite a mistake because the walk-in price is considerably different from the advance booking price.
ques
Josée rang me when her meeting finished, so I hopped next door into the Metro, bought a ticket, and headed out to Snowdon.

We had a coffee and a chat and then went to that Indian restaurant that I know for a meal. The food is really beautiful there and Josée enjoyed it as much as I did.

Josée took me to a bar that she knew in the rue St Catherine – the Foufounes Électriques. It’s one of these rock music bars and apparently one of the “in” places in the city.

And don’t jut take my word for it – the décor is something else here, including that which is on offer in the gentlemen’s rest room.

We watched the football – Montreal Impact were busily beating Toronto 5-3 and, to be quite honest, it was appalling. I’ve made a few derogatory remarks about Major League Soccer in the past and nothing that I saw tonight will change my opinion

And so I came home. I was going to do some work but I gave up and had an early night instead. It’s all beginning to tell on me.

Tuesday 12th September 2017 – I’M IN GOOSE …

… Bay right now, and this bed-and-breakfast is far too posh for me. Even the spare toilet rolls in the bathroom have little hats on.

But then I shouldn’t even be here. I should have been staying somewhere else but according to mine host here, the guy whom I’m looking for is “out of town” and that’s a huge disappointment.

It means that yet another one of my projects has tombé à l’eau, as they say back home in France.

Last night, I had another disturbed night’s sleep – maybe crashing out for an hour or two in the afternoon yesterday didn’t help. But it took ages to go off to sleep, and I was tossing and turning all night.

But I was on my travels too. Back running my business and it was a Saturday morning, really quiet, and so I wandered away. I ended up at a house ful of people who were visiting someone who was quite ill.People were being let in to see this person two at a time, and there was a lot of noise coming from that room. Eventually it was my turn, and found that the sick person was another former friend of mine. She had a puppy with her – apparently her cat had died. She wasn’t interested in talking much about anything serious – just chatting about nothing. I asked her why her house was surrounded by scaffolding and she gave me a weird look. The other person there said that the house was a wreck and falling down, and this was apparent, although the house wasn’t as bad as the one next door.
Somewhere along the line I was in my bedroom when I noticed a young rat in there. That filled me with dismay.

After breakfast, I set out to tidy up my living accommodation, and that took me longer than i intended too.

And then I had to take it all out and load it into Strider. Luckily I’d tidied him out the other dayso that didn’t take too long.

I could also take a photo of the caravan too. Expensive, but it was the only thing available and I was quite comfortable in there.

And so I went to cash up, and it wasn’t quite as painful as I was expecting. But then again, to do things like this you need to bite the bullet.

It also gave me an opportunity for Strawberry Moose and me to say goodbye to our crew.

Nothing had been too much trouble for them. I was made very welcome and I’ll be delighted to go back and carry out a further exploration.

The road into Cartwright the other day was beautiful and well-worth a photograph. But with it being late afternoon, I had the sun in my eyes to the west.

Not so this morning though. I have the sun at my back and the view is even better.

That’s Main Tickle over there again, I reckon.

Somewhere down there, I reckon, is Muddy Bay where the orphanage was.

It’s impossible, apparently, to go there by road and so we were obliged to go by boat the other day.

But the weather was nothing like as good as it is today and so the photography wasn’t as good as it might have been,
and that was disappointing.

At a certain point the Métis Trail goes over the brown of a hill and just for a brief moment there’s a view in the distance of what I reckon might be Paradise River.

You can see why Cartwright gave it its name, can’t you?

This new zoom lens that I have bought is doing really well and while it’s not as sharp as I like, it’s producing the goods fair enough.

Cartwright wasn’t clearly the only one who considered it to be Paradise.

It looks as if a native Canadian has chosen this spot for his homestead and, honestly, who can blame him?

It’s the kind of place where most of us would like to settle if we have the chance – and I’ll show you my preferred spot in due course.

This is one of the places where we always stop to take a photograph as we drive by – it’s where the Métis Trail rejoins the Labrador Coastal Drive.

It’s the first place where Labrador City appears on the signs – only 813 kilometres away – and it’s only another 500 or so kilometres from there to the North Shore of the St Lawrence and Highway 138.

And I’m not going to be there for a good while yet.

Although this is one of my favourite spots on the Labrador Coastal Drive, this isn’t my ideal place – at least, from a personal point of view.

But with a stretch of 414 kilometres without fuel and any kind of facilities whatsoever, this would be the ideal spot for a couple of fuel pumps, a small motel, a little food shop and coffee bar.

But of course they won’t let me in live permanently in Canada, will they?

Around here on the dirt road the speed limit is 70kph. And although I was doing … err … about 70 kph I was passed by a lorry as if I were standing still.

A few kilometres further on, there he was on the side of the road, receiving the care and attention of the local Highway Enforcement Office, a member of which was busily writing out a ticket.

It’s the first time EVER that I’ve seen Highway Enforcement out here, and if anything is a sign that times, they are a’changing, then this is it.

Somewhere hidden in those trees is another sign of the times – a Highway Labour Camp.

And they need it too because the road – bad when it was new in 2010 – was even worse in 2014, worse still in 2015 and absolutely disgraceful this year.

They can’t let it disintegrate much more than this, surely?

One of the main arguments put forward about the veracity of the Norse sagas of Vinland concerns the cattle.

The Norse are said to have brought cattle with them, and how they had them grazing in the meadows. This is dismissed as fantasy by the critics.

But there certainly are peri-Arctic meadows in this region – dozens of them in fact, and from what I have seen there are more and more of them developing as the forests are cleared, whether by fire or other means.

Another thing that there are plenty of are eskers. These are like sand ridges and stretch for miles.

But they aren’t brought by rivers but by glaciers. The stones caught up in the glaciers rub against each other and are slowly reduced to sand.

When the glaciers recede, the sand is dumped along where the edges of the glaciers would have been, and they are spectacular where roads have been cut through them.

I mentioned earlier where my ideal spot in Labrador would be.

If I could settle here, I would be extremely happy. But also extremely isolated too because it’s miles from anywhere.

Situated at N52° 52′ 30″ and W58° 19’52” in fact.

You can see what I mean about these peri-Arctic meadows. They are all over the place these days.

And assuming that the climate was kinder in the 11th Century – in the middle of the “Medieval Warm” period, there would have been many more too.

Bringing cattle here would not have been any problem whatever, especially if the cattle had been used to life in Greenland.

There’s another enormous work camp here at the side of the road.

We’re currently up on the Eagle Plateau and so it’s called, rather imaginatively, “Eagle Camp”.

I thought at first that it was something to do with Highway maintenance, but closer inspection revealed that it’s all “Valard” – the company that is constructing the electricity transmission cables across Labrador.

Mind you, the highway DOES need attention. It was resurfaced with loose gravel in 2015 and it’s already been ripped to pieces.

At one point I hit a hidden dip, the rear end of Strider lifted off the road and I was going sideways heading for the drop off the verge.

We had an exciting couple of seconds (which seemed like a couple of hours) as I wrestled for control of the vehicle. But we are still here.

I mean – you can see what the labrador Coastal Drive looks like simply by glancing in the rear-view mirror of Strider.

At this point we have loose gravel being thrown about everywhere and clouds – and I do mean clouds – of dust thrown up behind us.

No wonder that you spend so much time fighting for traction if you are thrown off course by the lumps and potholes.

But at least it’s not like the time in the Utah Desert where the trail was so rough that I was travelling slowly and the wind was so strong and in the wrong direction that I had the unnerving experience of being overtaken by my own dust-cloud.

But oh! Wait a minute! Look at this!

When we were here in 2015 we noticed that the asphalting of the highway had started – but had come to a sudden stop with patches of gravel road in between.

But now, the asphalting has extended far beyond where it was back then. There’s the sign telling you to prepare for the gravel road, and there’s the guy cleaning off the edges of the road.

Another 5 years and it will be asphalt all the way.

But despite how good the road might be, there are still challenges to face, such as the incessant climbs and descents.

We’re travelling from south-east to north-west and all of the river valleys around here are going from south-west to north-east.

You can see over there the line on the right – that’s the road back up the other side of this valley. On the left is the track of the Valard cable from Muskrat Falls.

But here is the final descent for now. That’s the valley of the Churchill River, and to the right are the towns of Happy Valley and Goose Bay.

That’s not quite my destination for tonight though – I’m driving on to North-West River where I have things to do.

But I’ll leave you here to admire the beautiful scenery.

But a little further on is the entrance to the controversial Muskrat Falls hydro-electric project.

And opposite is the camp of the protestors. Not quite as big as the Faslane camp, but it’s limited by law, and here all the same.

I’m not going into the rights and wrongs of the project, because everyone has his or her own opinion about it, but it’s one of these things where, from my own point of view, the environmental and cultural objections outweigh the profit considerations.

But then again, as I keep on saying, I don’t have to live here

But leaving aside Muskrat Falls for the moment, I clatter across the metal bridge over the Churchill River.

It’s been known by several other names, such as the Grand River (which it certainly is) and the Hamilton River, but it was renamed the “Churchill” upon the death of Sir Winston.

But whatever name it might have, it’s certainly the most famous river in the whole of Labrador,and probably the most important too.

As usual these days, arriving in Happy Valley, I find a different dirt road heading east and follow it all the way that I can.

And on this particular road, I can’t go any further. But it certainly brings me to a spectacular view over Goose bay and the head of the Hamilton Inlet.

It’s very easy to picture the scene as the first European explorers – maybe Louis Fornel the fur trader or maybe John Davis of the Davis Straits – or maybe even the Norse explorers – made landfall here.

But hats off to this guy here at Birch Lane Farm. It’s not everyone who would attempt commercial farming in a place like this.

But he seems to have plenty of crops and a good growth of hay, so it looks as if he can make a good go of it.

It totally undermines the opinions that people have about the “Frozen North” – just as it did when I saw the shipping container marked “Alaskan Agriculture”.

A quick call in to the port here at Terrington Basin in Goose Bay to see who’s about.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a “Ship of the Day” and we strike it lucky here. We have the heavy load carrier Fairlane who left Shanghai on 12th July and came here via the Suez Canal.

That’s a long way to come for any ship and it makes me wonder what it was that she was bringing in.

At North West River we hit a temporary setback. My contact isn’t answering his telephone so that rules out my accommodation and my project for tomorrow, which is a disaster.

Not only that, the B&B in the town is fully-booked up.

The motel has a room, but it requires me to drive all the way back to Goose Bay to pick up the key as the unit here is unstaffed. And the girl at reception is particularly unhelpful.

So badger that for a gale of soldiers. A quick telephone call (thanks, Josée for the ‘phone) conjures up a bed in a B&B in Happy Valley, at a price rather less than the motel. I can do that so I cancel the motel room.

But it’s frightfully posh in here – way out of my league. The spare toilet rolls in the bathroom have hats on.

I’m more used to the kind of place where you can “spit on the deck and call the cat a b@$t@rd” as you know, but beggars can’t be choosers, not by any stretch of the imagination

At least I can use the microwave here, so it’s beans, sausages and spuds for tea. And then an early night.

I’m whacked!

Thursday 7th September 2017 – A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO …

… we went to visit the SS Kyle, the last of Reid’s famous “Alphabet ships” still in existence.

Today, we are going to visit another one of Reid’s Alphabet ships.

And if you are wondering how that might be possible seeing as I said that there’s only the SS Kyle left, then that’s the SS Ethie just there

Or, at least, all that remains of her, poor thing.

One bad night in 1919 she was running her usual route up and down the Strait of Belle Isle when she found herself in serious difficulty due to hurricane-force winds and ice build-up on the decks.

The weather was far too bad for launching lifeboats so the captain took a calculated risk of running her aground so that at least the passengers and crew might have a chance of saving themselves.

The captain’s decision doubtless saved the lives of many of the people on board, but it spelt the end of the SS Ethie

And here she sits, or rather, what’s left of her does.

98 years she’s been there, being looted and pillaged, tossed about on the waves and smashed to pieces on the rocks by the storms.

It won’t be long before there’s nothing left of her at all.

Part of the Newfoundland folklore has it that a brave dog risked his life to save several passengers from the ship, but that’s never ever been substantiated.

In fact it was not mentioned as part of the story at the time and no eyewitnesses to the rescue remember the dog. It seems to have been something that was tacked on several years later.

Consequently, historians tend to discount it as being nothing more than a journalistic embellishment.

Meanwhile, last night I went to bed fairly early and slept the Sleep Of The Dead.

Not quite so dead that I didn’t go off on one of my nocturnal rambles, but I don’t remember very much at all about it.

I was with some girl and we were waiting in a van in a street that was very narrow but which broadened out quite considerable further down. We were actually outside a dingy hotel which was displaying its price in some kind of illuminated scroll sign like an old bus route display. The price was 29 of whatever the currency was and we knew that it changed to 39 every so often but on this occasion the scroll broke and there was just the light. We knew what happened of course, and we decided to go in for some reason. The bar was crowded and we fought our way to a table but almost immediately decided not to stay so we fought our way out. I was carrying a few bags and knocking people with them and this led to some very sharp words. Outside, I’d lost my partner so I thought that I had better hurry back to the van, but I needed to visit the bathroom. But did I have time? Was it better to go to meet my companion first? Should we get in the van and drive away first?

Of course it was then that I awoke. And no surprises as to where I went.

surprisingly, I actually managed to beat the alarm by 30 seconds too, which was good news. I’m becoming quite lax in my old age.

While porridge was cooking I finished off a few things that needed attention and after breakfast went out to attack the long-promised tidying-up session that I had been promising myself.

But no such luck today. We were engulfed in a torrential downpour the like of which I haven’t seen for quite a while. And to add insult to injury, I left the slow cooker out on the porch last night and the box was just a soggy mass of cardboard.

That’s upset me.

In a brief dry spell, while the clouds had gone back to fetch more supplies, I nipped over to hand back the key.

The verdict on the Lush’s Cabins was that it was pretty expensive for one person, but a family of four, if they could have the same deal, would do well.

It’s old and tired, but everything works like it’s supposed to and that makes a change in a place like this.

You’d need to enjoy each other’s company though, because you aren’t actually spoiled for entertainment in the vicinity.

W’ve travelled down this road on several occasions so there aren’t going to be many photographs.

You’ll need to look for the entries for October 2010, September 2014 and September 2015 to see more of them.

But I didn manage to stop and take one or two, despite the lousy weather.

My route takes me northwards through the Gros Morne National Park, which is certainly one of the most spectacular places on the planet.

In the clouds and mist thought it looks quite unreal and mysterious like something out of one of these Gothic adventure films.

Hinging clouds are not a phenomenon that is unique to the Auvergne after all.

It was here though that I fellin with a yooungcouple whose footsteps were to dog me for most of the day.

I’d stopped here to take a photograph of the view up over the hill in the distance and so had they. And our paths crossed subsequently on several occasions.

But that didn’t explain the overwhelming smell of fish when I stepped out of Strider just here.

The road north hits the coast near the town of Rocky Harbour.

It’s quite a large town – or what passes for a large town around here, And it’s so surprising therefore that I’ve never actually visited it.

One day in the future I’ll have to spend a couple of weeks having a good explore all around the island.

As I was driving by St Paul’s, the beautiful scenery grabbed me … whole attention.

We’ve stopped here once before where I tok a couple of photos of the river and the bridge, but I can’t remember if I took anything of the mountains in the background.

So just in case, I poked the camera into the gloom of the torrential downpour that was still going on.

Just a few miles north at Daniel’s Harbour there are a couple of waterfalls that come cascading out of the mountains into the glaciated valley.

Having a play around with the depth-of-field on the new camera, now that I’ve found out how it works, I’ve managed to produce this photograph.

It’s come out just as I wanted it to and I’m quite pleased with this.

But what struck memore than anything else is the amount of gardening taking place.

When we’ve been around here before, we’ve seen the odd plot or two growing some sad speciments of plant life, but today, there are plots everywhere.

A great deal of fertiliser has been used by the looks of things, and the plant growth is certainly luxuriant

Just down there is the small town or village of Bellburns.

This was where I stopped forlunch – did a small amount of tidying up inside the cab of Strider and threw away my tomatoes by mistake so I had to go and rescue them.

It’s the kind of thing that I do when I’m not paying enough attention.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph the small river that ran through the edge of town.

Just here, there’s an excellent example of coastal drift in miniature.

The shingle beach is being carried northwards by the currents and winds and this has diverted the mouth of the river towards the north from its original course

Back on the road, I turn off the main road and head into Port Saunders.

First thing that I see is a ship repair yard so I call by to see if there is anything exciting happening.

There are a few people loitering around in the vicinity but nothing of any great importance seems to be happening today.

But from the previous photograph you can tell exactly what kind of town it is.

That’s right. You can’t move for fishing boats around here.

Like most places, fishing is the be-all and end-all of life on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. And how these places were hit by the 1992 cod moratorium.

And so like most places, the fishermen who used to visit the Grand Banks have had to diversify.

What we have here are rowsand rows of lobster pots. And everywhere, in everyone’s garden in the vicinity, there were lobster pots far too numberous to count.

And that’s one thing that puzzles me. It must take loads of patience to train a lobster to go on one of those.

Outside the town on the way to Port-au-Choix (we’re looking back to Port Saunders right now) there were some really nice beaches if only the sun would shine.

And much to my surprise, considering that we have the Labrador Current flowing down here direct from the Arctic, the water was … errr … not too unpleasantly cold.

Too cold for me to go swimming, but then I’m nesh as we all know. Other people might be pleasantly surprised.

But Port-au-Choix is the place to be in this part of the world.

There’s a big “Foodland” supermarket on the edge of town, bigger than I’ve seen in many places

And not only that, there’s a Chinese restaurant here too, and isn’t that a novelty for North-East Newfoundland?

But then, maybe it isn’t so surprising.

In the controversial resettlement programmes under which people were “encouraged” to leave the outlying settlements and settle in approved “points of growth”, Port-au-Choix was one of the places that was approved.

Quite obviously, if you are selling the idea of “resetlement” to people on the grounds that there will be better facilities in these “points of growth”, then you need to make sure that the facilities are there.

One of the things that Port-au-Choix had going for it was a big natural, sheltered harbour.

That kind of thing is very important in a maritime community and so naturally there’s a busy port here and even a modern fish-processing plant.

No sense in encouraging “resettlement” if the people still have to travel a distance to take their fish to the processing plant. They may as well go to live there.

There was a rumour at one time that the MV Apollo – the ship that works the ferry between Newfoundland and Southern Labrador – would be replaced by a more modern ship (she is about 50 years old now) and that the new ferry service might sail out of here.

I duly went to the local Government Marine Patrol offices to find out what they knew, but they were … err … rather dismissive of my enquiry.

Wasting my time in fact.

But I can’t leave Port-au-Choix without drawing your attention to this oblect.

It’s some kind of barge or passenger ferry of some description, and by the looks of it, it’s been burnt out. And quite a while ago too, so it seems.

But I wonder what it was andhow it came to be here. And there was no-one around to ask.

I did think about asking the guy in the Marine Patrol office, but he had the air of having far more important things to attend to than to talk to me.

Going at full steam down the highway I overshot my motel and had to turn around. I upset everyone by going in the private entrance, which is always a good start.

My room looks like something out of the 1950s but the bathroom is modern and tidy. But first things first – before the shower I chuck some pasta, vegetable soup and tomato sauce in the slow cooker.

As for the internet – another night without it. You can’t expect too much here which is just as well, because that’s what I’m getting – not too much.

As long as the bed is comfortable, that’s all that I care about tonight.

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

… of a disturbed night last night. And I’ll tell you why in due course.

And it took the alarm to rouse me from my slumbers – and I was still there when Billy Cotton wailed out his reminder 15 minutes later.

Furthermore, I wasn’t in much of a state to do much when I awoke. Something of a difficult morning in fact.

Eventually I made it in for the inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t much of a breakfast either. It might have helped had I taken my soya milk in but I wasn’t thinking too much about that.

A little later I did manage to attack the blog and bring it up to date, as well as tidying up the room and making it look presentable. By 10:30 I was on my way.

Last night I’d made a little miscalculation. Grand Falls where I ended up was about 50 kms beyond where I wanted to me so I had to go all the way back.

I ended up back at Botwood – one of the towns that had been very high on my list of places in this part of the world, because it’s another place steeped in history of the kind that I appreciate.

The area was first officially visited in 1810 by an exploration party led by David Buchan

An early claim to fame is that it is the place of death of that last two known Beothuk natives.

had you come here even 50 years ago, the bay here would have been a hive of activity.

There were quays here and the railway brought wagon-loads of paper from the pulp mills at Grand Falls-Windsor and ore from the mines at Buchans.

But all of that has long-gone – the ore in 1984 and the paper in 2009. Nowadays they don’t have one ship per month in here.

And had you been here between 1937 and 1945 you wouldn’t have been able to move out there either.

For this was the raison d’etre of the town during this period.

It’s another one of these places that played a leading role in the development of Transatlantic flight, because the first commercial transatlantic passenger flights came into land right there.

The town, originally called Ship Cove and renamed Botwood after an early Minister, was originally tied to the sea as you might expect.

It developed a lumber business at the turn of the 20th Century and then, once the railway arrived, became a throving port.

But just after the First World War, the legendary airman Sidney Cotton – pioneer of modern aerial photography – chose Botwood as a base for his seaplane that he used for surveying and seal-spotting around the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts.

Charles Lindbergh, the “flying fool” was employed by Pan-American Airways to locate sites for the airline’s fledgling fleet of flying boats.

He and his wife flew into Botwood in 1933 having heard of Cotton’s base here. They surveyed the bay and approved its use as a base for flying boats.

As a result, Pan Am issued a contract with Boeing to develop a huge flying boat capable of flying the Atlantic, and the Boeing 314 “Clipper” was born.

In the meantime, BOAC had been doing research of its own into long-distance flight to link up the major cities of the Commonwealth. This led to the development of the “Short Empire” flying boat.

The two airlines co-operated in research for transatlantic flight, and in July 1937 the first several Transatlantic survey flights were made with the co-operation of both companies.

And in June 1939, the first regular commercial transatlantic passenger flights began. The route was Southampton – Foynes – Botwood and then either Montreal or New York.

During the Second World War, the “Empires” were requisitioned by the British military authorities and it was left to the “Clippers” and a few older Sikorsky S42 flying boats to continue the service.

In fact, somewhere out there in the area shown in one of the earlier photos, there’s a Sikorsky flying boat – a more modern VS44 named “Excalibur”.

On 3rd October 1942 she “bounced” on take-off and went under. 11 of the people on board were killed and, strange as it might be to mention it, the US military authorities are still even today searching for the bodies of the four people who are missing.

The area really came into its own during world War II.

This was when the concrete slipway was built (the big flying boats were loaded and unloaded by boat).

The British – and later the Canadian – government based a squadron of flying boats here that were used for anti-submarine defence around the north of the island.

That’s because the slow “Sydney Cape” or “SC” convoys used to assemble off Sydney and then sail up the Strait of Belle Isle and out around the north of the island.

German submarines were quite active in the area as you know from our previous discussions.

The port itself was protected by a couple of batteries of heavy artillery, of which the gunners passed what could only be a very boring war.

We actually have on display here a PBY flying boat – one of one of the types that was based here during the war.

This machine was taken out of service in the late 1980s and was donated by the Canadian Government to the town.

It’s official recognition as some kind of reminder or memorial to the role that the town played during the war in the fight against the submarines.

We talked about Excalibur a short while ago. Somewhere out there in the bay are twomore aircraft.

One of the military flying boats, a PBY Canso, crashed on landing in the bay on November 8, 1943 and seven people were killed.

A Hurricane, flying to Gander, ran out of fuel and attempted a landing on the ice. Unfortunately it broke throuh and sank, but the pilot was saved.

That out there was formerly an island. The “causeway” that links it to the mainland is an artificial causeway and dates from the Second World War.

The island itself is hollowed out and was used as a bunker or store for munitions and the like and there’s a whole series of entrances over there in the rock.

You might think that that’s enough wartime excitement for a small town like Botwood, but that’s far from the case

Probably the very first Act of War in North America took place here.

A German ore carrier, the Christoph V. Doornum was in dock here on the very day that War was declared, loading ore from Buchans to take back to Germany.

She was immediately seized by the local police, her crew arrested, and she was impressed into the British merchant fleet.

She didn’t last long though, being damaged beyond repair by a mine off Margate on 9th June 1940.

And so having “done” Botwood I drove back to Grand Falls for a look around. And there’s nothing that’s really any reminder of the importance of the town.

I did the final load of shopping (having to go into three shops before I could find a lettuce), fuelled up, and then hit the highway to drive non-stop to Deer Lake.

On my arrival I negotiated for myself another over-priced accommodation in a cabin – Lush’s cabins – in the mountains at Cormack, but not before I’d noticed another significant milestone.

Just down the road from my cabin, Strider passed over the 200,000 kilometres. So happy 200,000 kilometres, Strider.

The cabin that I’m in sleeps four and although it’s tired around the edges, it’s not too bad. Four people would have a really good time here I suppose.

All of the cooking gear is here and there’s a microwave too, so it’s potatoes, beans and bangers for tea tonight.

And then an early night because I’m whacked. In fact, I fell asleep speaking to someone on the internet.

At the start of tonight’s rubbish, I mentioned that I had had a disturbed night and that I would tell you why.

I went on a ramble last night – a ramble that lasted most of the night and I was out and about all over the place.

I started out in some kind of town – an old run-down type of place falling to pieces and I was looking for some documents for a driving test. Id been told where to go but I couldn’t remember so I accosted a local. He pointed out a few places but one was closed a few days ago and the other one had closed a few months ago. Everything was in such a derelict mess – just in fact rather like Calveley Airfield.
And then I came across a boy whom I knew who was trying to burn a load of papers – it was very important that all of these papers would be burnt. He’d put them in some kind of incinerator and closed the door but the conveyor belt wasn’t working. He was kicking a football against the door and all of a sudden there was a bang from inside the door – something like a paper bag bursting. We opened the door to see and saw the big box disappearing – the conveyor belt was now working – but there was still a load of paper, some bubble wrap and a few bits and pieces lying around. I told him that all of these needed to be removed as they had people’s addresses on them and they were visible, so he took some of the stuff and left the rest behind. The first thing that I noticed was a big file of mine about an insurance claim with my name and address clearly marked on it. I made him move it but he just took it out and dumped it on the side, which resulted in me having a huge “go” at him about this.
Round the corner was a public bar and I went in, and on the TV was England playing Norway at football. England conceded a goal after just 30 seconds. The goalkeeper for England was Viv Anderson – a full-back from the 1980s. Apparently the England goalkeeper had been injured in a previous match. This made me wonder why they didn’t have a reserve or anyone better than him because he was dreadful – running away from his goal after balls that he would never ever win. At the start of the second half Norway scored again straight away but for some reason it was disallowed. The Norway players were extremely unhappy about this. And by this time Anderson was playing like the full-back he was, rushing around over the pitch and leaving the goal empty and on a couple of occasions the other defenders had to dash back and kick balls off the line. Roy Hodgson was the England manager and he was giving vent to his feelings, but actually doing nothing about it.
By this time I was looking for somewhere to go for the toilet, but there was no toilet in this house where I was staying – just a bath and a sink. So I went out and about looking for one and couldn’t find one anywhere in the vicinity. I thought about nipping down a suitable dark alleyway but there people down there. There was a small park down the hill at the end of this football ground that might have done, but there were a couple of cars and people all around – so I just couldn’t get to go.
At this point, I awoke. and no surprises for guessing what I needed to do.

Back to bed – and who should appear in last night’s voyage but a girl whom I haven’t thought about in a long time and who is making her debut in my nocturnal rambles. Even when she was a young kid we all knew that she was going to be “something” and I can tell you a couple of stories about how we met up quite a few years later.

But going on from here, something came up that meant that I had to go to visit this house, and it was the home of her parents. I was rather embarrassed because it had been a good few years since I’d seen this girl and I was expecting her mother to make a few comments to me. But it seemed that she was suffering from dementia and was making quite a few comments to everyone. There were loads of people there, including her brother who was giving me the cold shoulder, and several people had bought their guitars with them. I was saying that it was a shame that I hadn’t come in my van because I would have had my bass with me. Then the girl appeared – blonde hair and thick-rimmed black glasses, nothing at all like she used to be and I had a hard time convincing myself that it was she (which it wasn’t of course).
From there I was back doing something with a guy I knew from Wandsworth who was now running a taxi company. He’d left a piece of paper on his desk about an old taxi run that he had done, giving the address of the street and which road to take to enter it – and “take a trailer”. A little later I was outside discussing this thing on the phone with someone else when he came on the tannoy that I was wasting my time as the job had been done last week (which I knew anyway and which wasn’t the point) and they had charged £54. I went off there to find out why the specific street to use had been mentioned, and found that the rest of the street was blocked off by a street party. I was in a bus and hordes of people climbed aboard just to chill out. When it was time o go I had to usher them all off – and do it two or three times too. And then we gathered up the waste into two large oil drums and started to burn it. They took off really well but one flared up and was in danger of setting alight some overhanging branches (we’d not been to careful) so we had to move it, flames and all. Another person tried to light a fire but was completely unsuccessful so we sent people off to look for more rubbish to add to his pile.

Friday 1st September 2017 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

… that was the cheapest place where I’ve spent the night so far. And funnily enough, it was the best night’s sleep that I have had since I’ve been back on the road.

But although it was a better night than just recently, it still wasn’t what I would call ideal. I was still tossing and turning in my bed, although not as much as the last couple of nights.

Liz and Terry came to join me though – or, rather, I went to join them. They were moving house and had a couple of boys to help them – and the had done so well that there was only a couple of things in the garage underneath that needed to go. And I reckoned that if we planned it properly we could fit everything into the two vans and do it in one trip. Just then, as we were sitting thinking about it, some English couple (because we were abroad) were push-starting a car – a white-coloured car something like an ADO16 – down the hill at the side. The woman behind the wheel couldn’t control it on the bed and it came round and collided with the side of Liz and Terry’s house, which was made of metal (well, quite!). This is the kind of thing that would happen just before the new owners were coming to take possession. So Liz went out to attend to them. I went off into town to do something and on the way back the town was thronging with school kids being kicked out of school. There was a loudspeaker announcement about the end-of-year results (hence them hanging around) and they started to announce the names of the pupils who had done exceptionally well and had earned a reward. Back at Liz and Terry’s, it seemed that Liz was disappointed about something. “I bet they’ll argue about the time” she said, presumably referring to the people who had collided with the house. “What time do you say that it happened,” she asked me. “16:15” I said confidently. “Well there you are” replied Liz. “At least you agree with me”.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and so did I. in fact, I awoke again with quite a start at 06:11 and only just made it out of bed before Billy Cotton’s strident summons at 06:15.

I’d organised breakfast for 08:15 so that gave me a couple of hours to catch up with stuff that needed doing, and then off to rejoin the Land of the Living.

The people here – other guests as well as the landlady and her father – were very pleasant and we passed quite an agreeable hour or so chatting.

And I learnt something thing morning. According to the old guy who had worked out in Labrador, it was the berserk behaviour of the compasses of the aeroplanes of the Atlantic Ferry flying over Labrador and Upper Quebec that first alerted people to the presence of the iron ore deposits.

Breakfast was really nice – they respected my diet – and the home fries and fruit was superb. along with toast with vegan margarine (the landlady had some in stock). She even let me check the label on the container.

Orange juice and coffee too, and as soon as you had taken a coupe of sips out of your mug the old guy would totter by and fill it up.

After breakfast I had a shower and started to organise my stuff. I need a blanket and pillow for the boat and not much else so I could go through my rucksack and eliminate what won’t be needed until I dock.

That was my cue to hit the road and having safely and correctly negotiated the roundabout, I eventually arrived in North Sydney.

But I didn’t go very far, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that amongst our projects that we undertake on our travels is to find the local football ground.

It’s not exactly what I would call a stadium, and I don’t think that a pair of wingers would be of any great advantage on this pitch, given how narrow it is, but it’s a football pitch all the same and that’s a rare thing to see in North America.

Ahhhh – so THAT’S what happened to Superfast IX.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a company organised a ferry service from Rosyth in Scotland to Zeebrugge in Belgium.

It picked up two giant ships from the Baltic that had been part of a (failed) project launched by the Swedish government in the early years of the 21st Century to run a ferry across to Rostock.

The Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry service didn’t last too long either and the ships were delared surprlus to requirements. I don’t know where one of them went to and I didn’t know about the second – Superfast IX – but I do now!

Here she is, in all her glory, back in service as Atlantic Vision and I’ll be travelling on her this afternoon to Argentia.

Fastest ferry on the North Sea she was in her day, and I hope that she lives up to her reputation across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

And while I was taking a photo of Atlantic Vision I was treated to something of a ballet just outside the port.

As the Blue Puttees was reversing out of her berth on her way with the lunchtime sailing to Channel Port aux Basques, Lief Ericson, the truckers’ ferry that runs between North Sydney and Channel Port aux Basques, was pulling in behind her.

I was lucky enough to be treated to a very rhythmical dance as the ferries manoeuvred around each other

As for Lief Ericson, what can I say about her?

We all know about her and probably many of us have travelled on her before in her previous existence as Stena Challenger.

Built in 1991, she was named for the lost Space Shuttle and spent the first 10 years of her life operating out of Dover to Calais and occasionally Dunkerque, with a little relief spell on the Holyhead-Ireland route.

As for Blue Puttees, she was one of the two ships that came here a couple of years ago to replace Caribou and Joseph and Clara Smallwood.

Built in 2006, she was formerly the Stena Trader and she and her sister (here as the Highlander) ran the short-lived ferry service from Hoek van Holland to Killingholme in the UK.

She takes her name from the nickname given to the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall is the regret that I have for the decline of educational standards throughout the western world.

It’s not particularly important (but it’s still sad nevertheless) if Joe Public can’t speak English correctly.

But when a body like the North Sydney Historical Society and the North Sydney Town Council don’t understand the basics of English grammar then it really is something that depresses me enormously.

Mind you, having said that, poor English grammar is one thing. The North Sydney Historical Society’s rewriting of history is something else completely.

I don’t know who it is that they employ as a proof-reader but I wouldn’t pay them in washers because this isn’t the kind of error that would normally sneak by un-noticed.

I just wonder what was going through the minds of the people who wrote the text, the proof-readers who checked it and the printers who printed it.

Having been for a good walk around the town I went back and sorted out Strider. But not before I’d been accosted by a particularly aggressive beggar who became most upset when I told him to clear off.

Thanks to the laundry basket that I bought yesterday, all of the food is now assembled in one place. Everything else is filed away tidily thanks to the cargo net that I bought last year.

It was thus quite easy to locate my blanket (the one that I bought at Dysarts two years ago), my towel and my little pillow and they are now nicely stored in my rucksack ready for the sailing this afternoon. I intend to be as comfortable as I can.

And so I went back to where I’d met the beggar (and photographed the ships) with Strider to make my lunchtime butties and sit in the sun admiring the ships.

If you look at the photograph above which shows the dancing ships, that’s actually the site of the coal staithes and the dock in which the coal ships going out to Newfoundland and the outlying islands would have been moored.

A branch of the railway line came down here bringing the coal from a local mine. But unfortunately there’s not a single trace of anything from that period still remaining.

The interesting thing about it all is that it’s actually an artificial “island” – formed by the rocks brought as ballast by the ships that came here empty for the coal.

At the dock entrance we had a nightmare. I had found the tickets but I needed to produce my passport and my driving licence. And I couldn’t find them anywhere, despite stripping out Strider.

The last time that I had had them was yesterday when I handed them over to the girl who took my booking. And so the girl in the booth telephoned just about everyone to see if I had left them and they had been handed in.

But no such luck. I’m hopeless when it comes to finding things as you know, and so I have to discipline myself to have a proper place for anything. And when they aren’t there I’m cooked.

But luckily I still have my powers of persuasion and I was eventually allowed to join the queue of vehicles heading for the ferry.

In the ferry office I hustled them there but it was to no avail, and so back outside I started to strip out Strider properly. My driving licence I can at a push live without, but my passport is something else and it must be found.

And then after about 30 minutes of sheer panic, the light suddenly went on. The little bag that I wear around my neck where I keep my bank cards and my North American money. Sure enough, in my haste, I’d stuffed them in there, hadn’t I?

So everything is now back in its proper place where it ought to be. I really ought to be much better organised than I am if I’m going to have a seamless, trouble-free trip around the world.

We were ushered onto the ferry comparatively early and we were lucky, being one of the first aboard.

I left His Nibs in charge of Strider and composing modern-day sea-shanties for the 21st Century.

I suppose that he has to keep himself entertained until we reach Newfoundland – he’ll have plenty to occupy his mind once he’s there.

The lift was occupied so I had to stagger up several flights of stairs – and steep they were too.

But I managed to grab a good spec on board – right at the bow of the ship with a stunning view out over the ferry terminal.

And next to one of the very few working power points on the ship too. Routine maintenance doesn’t seem to be the strongpoint of Marine Atlantic.

Much to my surprise, because I’m from Europe, we started up bang on the dot of 17:30

We reversed out and this gave an opportunity to have a good view over the town. Not that there’s a great deal of the town to see are there are vacant plots of land all over the place.

This isn’t just an indictment of the collapse of the town’s industry with the end of the mining and railway operations here, but also of the three devastating fires that have destroyed the town.

And we missed the oportunity to have our own ballet just offshore because we hadn’t gone more than 5 minutes out of harbour before we saw Highlanders coming down the inlet.

We know all about her because we’ve sailed on her before. She’s formerly the Stena Traveller and was likewise on the short-lived Hoek van Holland-Killingholme service.

It’s nice to see Marine Atlantic spending money on upgrading the fleet, and with the F A Gauthier in Matane replacing Camille Marcoux, that only leaves poor Apollo as a relic of a bygone age still struggling across the Gulf of St Lawrence.

But there’s plenty of shipping in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

With the telephoto lens on the new camera I can take pictures miles away but photographing through a double-glazed marine window with a telephoto lens from a moving platform such as a ship means that it’s always going to come out blurred.

But never mind. We’ll have better luck later.

As darkness fell we were treated to a folk singer.

Mike Averill, his name was, and he entertained us for quite a while with his acoustic guitar, his songs and his semi-biographical stories particularly about his father Garry.

And it’s a good job too because catering facilities on this ship are … errr … minimal. There’s an a la carte restaurant and some kind of fast-food place that does hot dogs and sandwiches, but that’s your lot.

There’s nothing here for me to eat, and so I have a feeling that this is going to be a very long voyage for me.

As soon as this folk-singer finishes, I’m going off to look for the reclining seats and bed myself down for the night. But not until he finishes because I’m enjoying his music.

Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that Tuesday night’s sleep was bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet.

Because last night’s sleep beat just about everything. Wide awake at 01:30, tossing and turning and all of that. I really was having it all.

Nevertheless I did still manage to go off on my travels, but you won’t be interested in them, because such was the nature of my bad night that it will put you off your supper.

The torrential rainstorm that we had didn’t help matters much either. And it was so humid that the washing that I had hung up under the verandah seemed to be wetter than when I hung it out.

I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, having had a good meal before going to bed (and don’t large packets of crisps go off with an enormous bang when you kneel on them by mistake in the dark?) and so I did some stuff on the internet;

Despite the pouring rain, I emptied out Strider and tried to sort out everything – but that was quite a maul and wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either, so I was quite exhausted afterwards.

Pausing only to take a shot of my cabin and the lake (which, due to the weather I was not able to enjoy) I went up to the office to hand in the key.

Free coffee was on offer there and seeing the expense that I had had to incur, I took full advantage. And quite rightly so.

And then I headed off into the doom and gloom.

The drive to North Sydney, beautiful though it is, is one that we have taken on many previous occasions so I didn’t stop to take any photographs.

And at the ferry terminal, my luck was in. There were still spaces free on Friday’s overnight long-distance sailing to Argentia. And so we are now booked aboard.

It might sound expensive to some (and it certainly did to me) but you need to look at it in perspective.

I would have to pay a ferry fee for the short (ie 9 hour) crossing anyway, and that’s not cheap
I would then have a drive 900 kms instead of 130 kms – and imagine how much extra fuel I would have to buy for a rather thirsty Strider.
I’d be looking for at least one, if not two nights in motels and you’ve seen what motel rates are right now.
I’d be whittling into the victuals along the way
I’d be quite worn out at the end of it all
And not least – this is a ferry crossing that i’ve been wanting to make for quite a while

All in all, it makes good financial and personal sense to travel this way.

Next thing to do was to organise accommodation for tonight.

I like the privacy of motels, but not at the price that they want to charge right now. So I phoned up the cheapest B&B in the book that I had picked up yesterday.
“Sorry, we’re full”
“That’s a shame. Do you know anyone else with a spare room?”
“No I don’t … ohh – wait a minute – if you just want a basic room with just a bed in it I can fix you up. Is $55 for cash with breakfast okay?”
Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Off I went to the shops.

As you all may remember from previous excursions, food in northern Newfoundland and Labrador is shockingly expensive, and if I’m going to be spending a week or two out there, I need to stock up.

The Atlantic Superstore, the Dollar Store and Walmart all did the business and for about $100 Strider is now full of tinned and packet goods to last a couple of weeks.

Bread will be an issue of course, but we have packets of crisps if we can’t find anything on the road.

But I made a startling discovery at the Atlantic Superstore. Their “own brand” od wine gums don’t have gelatine in them. There’s a few packets missing from their stocks right now.

I had a very late lunch on the car park by the ferry terminal, and then went for a coffee at Tim Hortons where, shame as it is to admit it, I fell asleep.

Rousing myself from a dangerous slumber I decided to head out for my digs. The address wasn’t on the SatNav but Josee’s mobile phone picked it up (that was a good move on her part to lend me that).

The street signs were confusing though and I ended up going three times round a roundabout before I fathomed it out.

The cheapest digs so far, and seem to be the nicest too. It seems that I have the room of a student who isn’t due back until tomorrow. So I’m not complaining.

I settled myself in and promptly crashed out again, only to be awoken by the aforementioned student who has returned unannounced a day early.

I would gladly have shared half my bed with her, but the landlady rather unfortunately rose to the situation by ushering her off to a spare bed put up hastily in the office, which rather disappointed me – but you can’t win a coconut every time.

So I’m going to have an early night and try to sleep the Sleep Of The Dead.

Heaven knows I need it.

Sunday 27th August 2017 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL …

… a good night’s sleep!

Despite all of the time that it took me to drop off to sleep last night, it was … errr … 08:50 when I awoke this morning – the joys of it being Sunday and no alarm clocks!

And I had been on my travels during the night too – but just don’t ask me where I went because as soon as I awoke this morning it all went clean out of my head.

With it being a Sunday, it’s the legendary Taylor Breakfast Brunch day and so we had to loiter around until 11:00 until everyone gathered their wits and we started cooking. And by 12:00 we all had our snouts in the trough.

I was starving too for some reason (I’ve probably got worms) so I ended up making some more toast.

After lunch, Rachel proposed some washing so I nipped and had a shower while my dirty clothes walked off on their own into the washing machine. And then it was time to load up Strider.

I’m not sure what’s happening here but either I’ve lost a pile of stuff or else I’m getting better at packing him, because there seems to be much more room inside.

That will come in handy because I’m leaving here tomorrow and getting on the Trans-Canada Highway at Woodstock. And despite there being just Strawberry Moose and me inside when we set off, by the time we get to Woodstock we’ll be half a mill … "ohhh no!" – ed.

Much to my surprise, one of the LED light sticks and the portable battery pack still had charge in them. But everything is being charged up and there are some water bottles freezing in the freezer ready for the 12-volt fridge.

I had a rest after that (I’m not as young as I was) and when Darren came home from cutting tyres we did some work downstairs.

Cue another rest.

The wi-fi here is a little flaky so Darren had bought a new modem and router so this was my task for the evening. And you can see that it all works.

As well as that, I made some garlic bread for our pasta supper.

So now I’m off for an early night – my last night here for a while. Tomorrow I’m hitting the road to Saint John for Strider’s insurance and licence tags, and to go and see Ellen who is in hospital there.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while;

Saturday 26th August 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

And I’ve slept through most of it, I reckon.

Despite my early night it took me quite a while to drop off to sleep and then, once I’d gone, I stayed gone until the alarm went off.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels during the night. I’d been arranging a convoy of driverless lorries to travel along the road somewhere, and having assembled that, I went off to somewhere else to assemble another convoy to attach on behind it as it passed by. But while we were all waiting for the first convoy to arrive, I noticed that it was running on a parallel road and that had me all in a panic because I didn’t have a header-lorry to lead this convoy so it had absolutely to attach itself to the first one otherwise we would be stuck. So I was dragging this convoy behind me as I was dashing down side roads trying to connect up with the first convoy.

As a result of this I was late leaving the stinking pit and didn’t have time for breakfast. I did however manage to grab a big glass of my almond milk.

At the tyre depot there was just Rachel and me in the office and Darren and his father in the workshop. And you’ve no idea how busy we were.

We had to give someone some very bad news today too. They had just bought a car that had just gone through a safety inspection and they wanted Darren to check it.

You’ve all heard me talk and you’ve all seen photos about what kind of bodywork is or isn’t acceptable in Canada, so for Darren to turn round and say that this car shouldn’t be on the road at all gives you some idea of how bad it really was.

After we finished at lunchtime we went to the shop. Saturday is a good time to go as there are lots of reductions and rachel has a big freezer. We loaded up quite a bit of stuff.

I hadn’t eaten at all so far so I was starving by now, and so I made myself a huge pile of butties – and then I fell asleep for a couple of hours.

I managed to pull myself together and start to clean out Strider. But I didn’t get very far. I didn’t have the enthusiasm.

The OSB shelf in there has collapsed and all of the contents decanted all over the floor, including the rice and pasta.

And I clearly can’t have been feeling myself either because although I had given Rachel some stuff out of Strider, there was another lot in a plastic bucket that I had evidently forgotten to bring in.

Too late to bring it in now though – the extreme cold had shattered a couple of the glass jars and we had jam and tomato sauce all over the stuff and in the bucket – so that all needed to be washed off.

That much exercise totally wore me out and I was back on my bed and fast asleep. And that’s were I stayed until Rachel summoned me for my stir-fry tea (which was delicious).

Now I’m back in my room and it goes without saying that I can’t sleep.

But then isn’t it always like that?

Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

… to go to sleep last night – to such an extent that I was away on my travels.

I was in Winsford having to go to Northwich and there was a choice of two routes to take. And they were the same distance too so I couldn’t decide which one to take, especially seeing as I was going on foot. But eventually I arrived there and came out of a building that might have been the railway station (but which isn’t). On the left was some kind of 1960s tower block which the town council was using as its headquarters and to the right was an old Victorian building rather like a school which was owned by the Council and which had been their previous HQ but was now derelict, and there was some scandal about the deal which had led to the Council vacating the building and leasing the more modern one for a fee which many people considered to be excessive. I was in a crowd across the square watching this old building, in the company of none other than Liz Ayers – and how many years is it since she’s been on a nocturnal ramble with me? I saw a movement over the roof of this building and couldn’t explain what it was – something like a shadow but I called it a light, which it most certainly wasn’t. But as I said it, six red lights appeared in the sky quite low down just underneath the fullish moon. “Space Laboratory” immediately came into my mind. I tried to explain this to everyone but as they all turned to look, some old woman on a broomstick – a witch – came flying out of the moon.

It was a very restless night last night with me tossing and turning so much, but I was asleep yet again when the alarm clock went off. Sleep is one thing – crawling out of bed is quite something else.

But I had a quick breakfast, made my sandwiches and went with Rachel into the office.

Making myself useful, I cleaned out the bathroom from top to bottom and threw away tons of stuff that had accumulated in there. Now it’s quite clean and shiny, but it did take ages and I had to sit down for a while afterwards.

Having gathered my strength I went round with Rachel to Bob’s house and finished off the vacuuming now that I had located the bags. And we did some general tidying up too.

I hope that I’m still in this kind of mood when I return home.

We had a knotty accounting problem to deal with this afternoon. Ellen is still running the accounts on the basis of Canadian 19th Century accounting, poor Rachel is struggling to understand it and explain it to me, and I’m trying to do it with British 21st Century accounting principles based on Ellen’s templates and Rachel’s explanations. And so between the two of us we ended up in a hopeless tangle.

But we sorted it out eventually once it suddenly clicked with Rachel and she could explain it to me.

In the meantime I’d crashed out, woken up, and gone for a walk around the old railway station site for some fresh air.

Amber and her boyfriend brought me back here where I promptly crashed out again. But a shower brought me round and a nice tea of the rest of the salad and soup from Saturday made me feel even better.

Now I’m having an early night and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. Because my legs have swollen up again and that has depressed me mightily.

Sunday 20th August 2017 – NOW HERE’S A SURPRISE!

Despite having had an early night last night and despite having crashed out for a while during the day, I slept right through until the alarm went off this morning.

I don’t even know why I had an alarm seeing as it’s Sunday – but there we are.

But a nice early start gave me an opportunity to catch up with a couple of things that I had let slip over the last few days and prepare myself for brunch.

Toast, beans, hash browns and home fries with plenty of coffee – what a way to start the day. But then we had work to do. With Ellen being in hospital, Bob is finding it difficult to manage and so while he was out visiting her, Rachel, Amber and I had a major blitz on his house for a couple of hours.

And we would have done much more had we been able to find some vacuum cleaner bags and stuff like that. But imagine me cleaning someone else’s house! I have enough problems cleaning my own!

That having been organised, the three of us set off for Woodstock. And by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong … “here we go again” – ed … so it was pretty crowded in Rachel’s car.

The vegan range of food products in Sobey’s has expanded even more so I bought a fair bit of stuff to keep me going for the next week or so until I hit the road. After that it was the Walmart but there was nothing there that I needed.

By now it was supper time so I invited Rachel and Amber for a meal. Still a dearth of vegan food in the restaurants here but one place rustled me up a couple of vegan wraps and more home fries.

Not exactly what I would call “adventurous” but at least it shows an awareness and a willingness which is more than you can say for some places.

More tidying up here when we arrived. Last night a bear had attacked the dustbin and there was rubbish strewn all over the driveway. Amber and I attacked that and cleared up the mess while Rachel put the shopping away.

Another surprising thing is that back in Europe the broadcasts of the Welsh Premier League are blacked out for those living outside the UK. But here in North America they aren’t. I don’t understand that. So I took advantage by starting to watch yesterday’s TNS v Bala Town match.

But after about 15 minutes I was obliged to give up. And 5 minutes later I was flat out on the bed. I crashed out for a good 90 minutes, and crashed out completely too.

Now of course I can’t go back to sleep.

I just can’t win, can I?

Saturday 12th August 2017 – THE LAST TIME …

… that I had to be up and about for a train, I remember saying something about the internal alarm clock. And so itwas this morning.

With the alarm set for 06:00, I was wide awake at … errr … 04:27.

Of course it goes without saying that I … errr … rested until the 06:00 alarm went off. And by 07:00 I was sitting down having had breakfast, cleaned the bathroom and toilet and tipped bleach everywhere (I’d washed the floor last night before going to bed).

Not only that, I’d taken all of the rubbish to the collection point and washed the wastebins too.

The bus was on time more or less and it was all pretty painless. But Brain of Britain has struck again – battery in the camera is flat. So no picture of the train this morning. I wasn’t going to use the phone camera, seeing as we are now in the middle of a torrential downpour. Flaming August, hey?

The train is only as far as Versailles – the Versailles Chantiers railway station. There’s a lot of perturbation on the Paris railway network with the construction of this new metro line so we are having to take the bus.

It took its time too getting to the Vaugirard railway station and then I had to fight my way through the metro.

We started off as we meant to go on, with the new suitcase being jammed in the turnstile and I had to appeal for help from the staff.

But the new suitcase proved its worth – being quite easy to pull along, unlike the previous one. And it’s a much more convenient shape too for passing through the crowds.

But there was a curious incident at Paris Gare du Nord.

Some young guy stopped me to ask me the way to the metro. And a minute or so later, as I was fighting my way through the exit turnstile, my bumbag became disconnected and fell to the floor.

Was someone trying to disconnect it in the crush? I couldn’t see how because they couldn’t have got away, but it was weird all he same.

The TGV was packed to the gunwhales and it shot along at a fair old pace into Brussels. I was soon installed in my hotel – the Midi-Zuid where I stayed with Hannah back in March.

Having fought of waves of sleep on the TGV, I wasn’t so successful here and was out for about an hour. And when I awoke, it was with a severe attack of cramp – so severe that I can still feel the pain in my calf even now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I suffered terribly from cramps in the leg but apart from a brief one about a week or 10 days ago, I’ve not had one for months and months. But this one was the daddy of them all.

I went out a little later for some food, but as luck would have it, I ran straight into the Foire du Midi.

It’s that tile of the year again when the whole of the central reservation of the big boulevard around the city centre in the area by the Gare du Midi is transformed into a giant funfair.

Hordes of people and all kinds of events taking place here.

I fought my way through the crowds to find something to eat – and that wasn’t easy because I found myself in the wrong street – I’m definitely losing my touch.

But having satiated my appetite I went back to watch the entertainment for a while. It’s all good fun and you could hear the screams from across town.

It would certainly put me off my chips being up there with them.

So now it’s an early night and prepare myself for the fray tomorrow. I’m meeting Alison and we’re going for a walk around the market. That should be fun.

Friday 11th August 2017 – MY FITBIT …

… told me this morning that I could reach today’s fitness target by doing 4:46 hours of cleaning.

So it’s really true! Mt fitbit can really see into my apartment!

After my early night (and it was early too) last night, I was up with the cock and having breakfast at a reasonable time. And then I set to work.

Tidying up was one thing of course, and giving everything a really good clean around. The apartment is now looking as if someone actually lives here, which makes a change of course, and it’s vacuumed too.

The floors aren’t washed though. That’s the last job before going to bed so that I can mop myself into the bedroom and let it all dry through the night.

But I am though. Showered and shaved and haircut and fingernailed. I look almost human.

Tomorrow it’s to clean the toilet and the sinks in the kitchen and bathroom – drop tons of bleach down them.

I was in town too at lunchtime. Everything is still okay at the bank – the rent is paid, but still no money transferred over and this is beginning to annoy me no end. I paid a fortune (I’ve run out) in the little Carrefour for a bit of lettuce for lunch and for my butties tomorrow. They will keep me going through the day tomorrow.

Suitcase is finally packed and that was a nightmare. It’s only barely big enough and ended being something of a struggle. I hope that I don’t need anything out of there in a hurry.

Tonight I went round to socialise with the neighbours. A very friendly bunch but as you know, I don’t “do” socialising so I only stayed for a while. I came back to cut my hair and my fingernails ready for my trip.

So an early night and up with the cock tomorrow. 06:00!

But the good news, which I have saved for last, is that the hi-fi is now working. It must have been full of damp – which is no surprise – biut it now seems to have dried out. And so I’ve been on a major nostalgia trip listening to all of my cassette tapes from the 1970s.

The left speaker channel is flaky and the controls on the amp are confused – I ended up wiping a good ten seconds off Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which is a tragedy.

I can see me making a few purchases in early course as soon as I come back.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: tidying up

Tuesday 17th October 2017 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH …

Thursday 5th October 2017 – FOURTEEN HOURS.

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

Wednesday 20th September 2017 – HAVING HAD …

Tuesday 12th September 2017 – I’M IN GOOSE …

Thursday 7th September 2017 – A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO …

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

Friday 1st September 2017 – STRANGELY ENOUGH …

Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

Sunday 27th August 2017 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL …

Saturday 26th August 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

Sunday 20th August 2017 – NOW HERE’S A SURPRISE!

Saturday 12th August 2017 – THE LAST TIME …

Friday 11th August 2017 – MY FITBIT …

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