Tag Archives: eric hall

Friday 13th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And no, this isn’t a misprint with me copying from yesterday or the day before either – it’s just an exact replica of what has happened this morning. The same as yesterday, and the day before.

After coffee and breakfast and updating the notes and images etc, I set off through the driving rainstorm for town. We didn’t get far though because there was a deputation at the gate. It seems that Strawberry Moose is in great demand again – not for his charm, wit and eloquence, but the first of this year’s paternity orders has arrived

I told him that this year he will have to take precautions, but he told me that he always checks to see if her parents are asleep, and he puts vaseline on the living room door knob.

This weather though is completely out of hand. One of the ways into town follows the nothern shore of the Saint John River and there are several opportunities to stop and take a look at how things are doing. As you can see, they aren’t doing so well right now.

The river has burst its banks in several places, which is hardly a surprise given all of the rain that we’ve been having and if the rain carries on it can only get worse, and that’s a depressing thought. Luckily I’m quite happy in my Dodge. This is a splendid way to have a holiday, all happily installed in here

Into town and shopping, and running a few errands as I have plenty to do, and then off for the music. Today opened at the Barracks tent and the first artist was one of these rap artists. Not my thing at all of course – in fact I reckon that this is another spelling mistake and there’s a letter missing off the front of that name.

I went off to eat some food instead because I was in a rush. The legendary Canned Heat are playing in an hour or so and guess what?

Our Hero has been granted a photography permit for the show!

First onstage was Thom Swift from Halifax and I’m sure that he was the opening act when I saw Taj Mahal here two years ago. There was him, Geoff Arsenault on drums (and what a magnificent drummer he is) and Brian Bourne playing a weird machine that I later worked out seemed to be the modern equivalent of a double-neck guitar – bass and lead in the same instrument. Anyway he certainly knew how to play it.

Thom Swift was in a different class completely than anyone else that we have seen before – not a rockin’ blues performer like The Record Company but nevertheless extremely competent. No wonder that he was chosen to open up for Canned Heat.

However, onto the stage came the legendary Canned Heat – opening act for Woodstock 1969 so we are told although this isn’t strictly true as Richie Havens was first on stage.

Nevertheless, nit-picking apart, their performance was a stunning one. Considering how old they are, they gave it everything they had got and that was plenty. Everyone in the audience was up on their feet by the time the curtain came down.

Canned Heat are definitely the stars of the Festival so far although I was puzzled to see why they only have fourth place on the list of artists. Probably because many people have short memories and can’t recall the good-yime days of the late 60s and early70s

But never mind the stars of the Festival. The highlight for me was being awarded a photography permit – one of only 5 issued – to photograph the band and I shall wear the permit to bed every night.

I just hope that, given the primitive equipment that I have compared to many other photographers, my photos have done justice to the performance. The permits were only for the first three songs and so I only have about 50 photos of the band and if you would like to see them, then you need to look at my web page of the event, whichis now on line

I’d missed most of Garrett Mason and Keith Hallett’s show at the Hoodoo House but they are playing again tomorrow night and so, unless the dam upriver from the city overflows and we are all swept away in a tidal carnage, I’ll be there to see them again.

What I caught of their show was excellent and of the “ordinary” bands here, they have now moved into first place on my preferred list of artists, overtaking The Record Company and Steve Strongman.

Anyway, back to the campsite in the driving rain just like last night, and now I find myself caked in mud just like back home

. This is starting to become depressing. It’s a good job that I have the music.

-4

Thursday 12th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And no, this isn’t a misprint with me copying from yesterday – it’s merely a carbon copy of what has happened this morning.

However it did clear up enough for me to have a shower and make a coffee, and while I was on the computer Cécile appeared and so she had a guided tour of the Dodge and the campsite on Skype and the webcam.

Into town at lunchtime where the weather caught up with me again and I sought refuge in the library. With a stable internet connection I could do all kinds of things and catch up on a lot of stuff that I had let go for the moment.

The music this evening started off at 19:30 and I was in the Hoodoo House. First on stage was a guy called LeeBoy from Monastery, near Antigonish in Nova Scotia.

He’d had success in some of these reality TV stuff and songwriting competitions and while I’ve seen better acoustic blues performers, I’ve also seen a lot worse.

He certainly put everything that he had into his performance which, although it might not have been a lot, was nevertheless quite an acceptable warm-up act.

Next up was a three-piece blues band – guitar, bass and drums – the typical blues power trio. At last, the right number of musicians on stage.

This was Steve Strongman from Hamilton Ontario. He’s been on the road for over 20 years, so they say, so I imagine that he’s pretty tired by now and his feet must hurt. They say that he is quite well-known, with a string of blues albums to his name.

His set was absolutely excellent. I really enjoyed this. Shame that he got the gob-iron out halfway through his act but then again I don’t suppose that you can have everything. Why do blues musicians think that they have to have a mouth-organ?

There was a half-hour break at the Hoodoo House and so I went for a wander outside. We had the usual street entertainers who have now moved in, seeing as how the streets are now blocked off. This guy was on a plank on a few tin cans juggling with flaming brands.

Yes, it is a flaming brand, not a perishing torch.

I also enountered a couple of Fredericton’s finest. Two women as well, patrolling the streets of the Festival, the first that I’ve seen here.

One of them (for I did ask) told me that there was just 8 on duty tonight patrolling the streets of the city, a Provincial capital at that. I compared that to a music festival in the UK where there would be 800 bobbies patrolling the festival alone, always assuming that the festival would be allowed to go ahead, given the pathetic UK Health and Safety rules.

I’d seen the Avett Brothers, a country and western band from North Carolina, doing a sound check in the Alexander Keith tent earlier and so I went over to see what they were up to, because it sounded interesting.

I don’t think much of Country and Western but if it’s really good then it’s excellent and I quite enjoy it. However this wasn’t as good as it was cracked up to be during the sound check and so I didn’t hang around for too long, just in case they started up with “I Lost Control Of My 18-Wheeler And Ran Over My Dog”.

At the Barracks Square, there was a band called Billy Dre and the Poor Boys playing.

They certainly lived up to their name because “Poor” was exactly the word, although there was a spelling mistake in the leader’s name – there was an “I” missing.

This was punk rock at its worst and I do not understand how the organisers of the Festival had let these people (I refuse to use the term “musicians”) onstage at all.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like their music, the singer/guitzrist had in my humble … "humble?" – ed … little technical capability and the bassist even less. I reckoned that this was bringing the Festival into disrepute.

Back in the Hoodoo House (to which I had fled) The Record Company, from Los Angeles, took the stage.

Another power trio, and another excellent power trio too. While they were not as technically efficient as Steve Strongman and his band, they certainly knew how to move a crowd and their performance was thoroughly enjoyable.

And so heading back to my campsite in the torrential rain, I mused on how I had seen that evening two of the best bands that I had seen for ages, and also musing on the fact that how a band like Billy Dre and the Poor Boys could pack them into a tent whereas Steve Strongman and The Record Company didn’t even have 250 spectators.

And all of this just goes to show that my opinion counts for nothing in moments like these when it comes to personal taste in music.

-4

Wednesday 11th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

… that awoke me this morning. Things aren’t looking so good for the Festival. Still, the show must go on I suppose.

And leaving the camp site I left behind the old suitcase, as I remembered when I arrived in Fredericton. Ahh well, that’s one less piece of clutter to worry about I suppose. Good job I emptied it.

The weather dramatically improved round about 14:00 and so I went for a walk along the old railway track bed along the southern shore of the Saint John River. Over there on the northern shore is the boat ramp where I had my lunch yesterday and so I took a photo of that as it looked so nice from here.

Back in town, I did a very silly thing.

When I was in Truro in 2010 I went for a wander around in a music shop and noticed a Roland Cube Amp. These little practice amps are about 15 or 20 watts and are battery-powered, running of 6xAA batteries or a 9-volt DC inverter. They cost $289 which isn’t all that much, and so I enquired if there was a bass version – one of these would really suit me back home.

I was told that there was one in the pipeline but it wasn’t available yet.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … here in the music shop was a Roland bass cube amp, previously $319 (inflation over 3 years of course) reduced to a mere $149 in the summer sale. Borrowing a Fender Precision bass, I had a little play.

Now we are even more crowded here in the Dodge. Heaven alone knows what it will be like by the time we get to Woodstock, where we were half a mill … "you’ve done that twice already" – ed.

After finding a library book sale and a military tattoo (spelt correctly of course, this isn’t Maine), I went to listen to the bands. But not without being caught in one of the most trememdous thunderstorms I have ever seen. The lightning was magnificent and one burst of thunder, right over our heads, had everyone on the floor, including me, and we watched the rainstorm roar up the street to engulf us.

First band up was STU Jazz. 37 of them on the stage, so we are reliably informed, and that is about 34 too many if you ask me for my opinion. Like Mark Knopfler, I don’t give a damn about any trumpet-playing bands, and these weren’t up to all that much, even if they did have a lady bassist.

And while I was busy deleting a pile of photos thinking that I can do better than that, the performance came to an abrupt halt. The hurricane was heading back and the tent was not built to withstand it, neither was the grass floor.

We all trooped over to the Blues Tent to see World Party, a British blues duo.

They weren’t all that bad at all, and in fact could belt out some really serious blues when they really wanted to, which, unfortunately, wasn’t all that often.

And to prove how small the world has become, in the audience was a guy with a Nick Lowe tee shirt and we had a lengthy discussion about Brinsley Schwartz, a concert of whom I recently played on Radio Anglais, and it turns out that he’s a wine importer and
1 – he knows the Massif Centrale
2 – one of his clients is Simon Cowe, former bassist with LIndisfarne.

Headline act was a band from Florida, JJ Grey and Mofro. again, far too many musicians on stage – get rid of the horns and the keyboards would be a good start in my opinion.

And we had to wait until the middle of their set to see the first harmonica. Why can’t we have blues bands without harmonicas?

They were under-rehearsed and over-produced but could still belt out the serious blues every so often and I wish that they would have done more about that.

But then it was time to brave the torrential rainstorm again and, with a bag of chips from the Lebanese take-away, I headed for my camp site at the Mactaquac Provincial Park through the downpour.

-2

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.

I 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.

It’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.

-2

Monday 9th September 2013 – ZOE AND I …

… 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.

-4

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

… 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.

The 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.

-2

Saturday 7th September 2013 – JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

… we’ll start with a video. I’ve not done this before so if it doesn’t work then don’t worry – I’ll sort it out.
While Hannah snaked pretty heavily down the track, you have to remember –
1) Hannah is just 16
2) this is her first year
3) we were having a torrential downpour
4) the track was rubbish
5) she got off the starting line (which was more than a couple of competitors did)
6) she got farther down the field than many people who have been pulling since before she was born.
7) her performance won her some folding stuff, which is always the most importand yardstick by which to mesure everything of course.

As for the town of Clinton itself, it’s a stereotype of the typical American one-horse town in the rural backwoods. Tattoos spelt wrongly, beer everywhere, hamburgers and hotdogs with fries and extra relish, and while the Liver Birds on the Liver Building in Liverpool used to flap their wings when a virgin walked past, here they would flap their wings when someone walked past who was not obese.

Even the fairground rides, such as they were, had, in prominent display, “in the interests of safety, large persons may be refused a ride”. How this lot became the Master Race these days I really have no idea.

The Americans use the word “thick” a lot to describe people. In USA slang, that means “fat” of course but in British slang to call someone “thick” means to call them “stupid” or “ignorant”. So here in the USA it quite possibly means the ame.

So apart from preparing the tractor, watching the racing and then repairing the broken fuel line, that was it. We went to bed.

It may not seem as if we did a lot today but I can’t think of 5 minutes where there was nothing at all going on.

-8

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.

-2

Thursday 5th September 2013 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… in New Brunswick now, at Rachel’s house. And arrived an hour late too because, although I know it better than most other people and I even have an extra clock programmed into my computer especially, it went clean out of my mind that the Maritime Provinces are in a different time zone to Québec.

The route itself is quite interesting. For example, when was the last time that you saw a 1940s Morris 8 in the UK? Seeing one over there today would be quite something so seeing one here in Canada is quite something else. This is an E series Morris 8, production of which lasted 10 years from 1938 to 1948.

It’s for sale too and I had a good look, but having the world’s worst body repair and the world’s worst spray job and with loads of bits missing, it’s something that doesn’t have too much of a future unless someone does something about it pretty quickly

Something else that doesn’t have too much of a future is KB882, my Lancaster bomber at Edmundston in New Brunswick. THe owners of it have no idea what they have here – it’s one of only 7 surviving Lancasters and one of only three that flew active service on missions in World War II over Germany and it flew into this airport in 1964 when the locals stuck it on a plinth. And here it sits, 50 years after, having been looted and pillaged ever since.

I have called these people “clowns” and other uncomplimentary names and I know for a fact that they have read my remarks and so I shall continue to call them that until they swallow their pride and hand this aeroplane over to someone who appreciates its value and gives it the respect and repair that it needs. The treatment that KB882 has suffered at the hands of the good burghers of Edmundston is nothing short of a national scandal.

-4

Wednesday 4th September 2013 – NOT MUCH TO SAY …

… today, people … "hooray!" – ed … as I’ve been doing my Jack Kerouac impressions – I’m On The Road.

I’ve not had time to go to search for a ferry to take me across the St Lawrence unfortunately but in keeping with my project of always trying to cross the river by a different route each time, I took to the Pont Pierre Laporte, the Pieere Laporte suspension bridge. That bridge would ordinarily merit a report of its own, being the longest suspension bridge in Canada, but here it’s dwarfed by the magnificent Pont de Quebec, a huge cantilever bridge like the Forth Bridge. You can read all about this bridge here if you like.

The shape of the southern border of Quebec is bizarre – decided by a Dutch arbitrator in 1848 and so if you want to travel south you first have to trave (a considerable way) north-east if you don’t want to set foot in Great Satan. That gives me ample chance to follow the southern shore of the St Lawrence – not my favourite of course as it’s far too urban and civilised, but at least it’s water.

Across the river in Lévis (pronounced Layvee, not Levi’s) there’s a stunning view of the Falls of Montmorency. They are higher than the Niagara Falls, as it happens but not as spectacular and while you can park a car and a thousand people inside it for just $5:00 and wander about to your heart’s content at Niagara for no further charge, here, to even stop your car to admire the falls costs you a whopping $12:00.

Having been threatened with arrest by a civilian in charge (you can see, with all the “no parking” signs on the public highway all around the best views of the place just how much the Canadian authorities are co-operating in this farce, and this official’s comment merely confirms it) after I told him to **** off when he wanted me to remove my car from the public highway back in 2010. another one of my missions in Canada is to find all of the best specs for you to see the Falls for nothing

Many people don’t realise this but General de Gaulle’s imfamous “Vive Québec Libre” speech was not a political statement. He was simply expressing his disgust at having been stuck for a whopping great sum of money when he went to visit the Falls of Montmorency.

Nevertheless, the way that things are panning out right now, I’m not going to have my annual pilgrimage to the Charlevoix, which many of you know as my spiritual home and the most beautiful place on earth. Nevertheless, from a bluff overlooking the river and by judicious use of the 300mm telephoto lens (excuse the blurring – there was so much wind that it blew down the tripod) I could see the twin towers of the town of Baie St Paul, about 15 miles or more away across the river.

Yes, I shall have to have my pleasure of the Charlevoix and the north bank of the St Lawrence vicariously this year, which is a shame. As for you, if you start at this page
and follow on from there, you can read all about the Charlevoix as far as I’ve progressed with my notes from last year

Anyway, I’m now esconsed in na habitual spot for me – in the marshes along the Riviere des Vases St Lawrence just east of Rivière du Loup. You’ve all seen this place before so I won’t bore you with it again but it’s the place where they gathered eel grass for use as stuffing in car seats back in the early days of motoring, and you can still see the ruins of the old quayside where the loaded barges left for their journey to Detroit

-3

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 – IT MANAGED NOT TO RAIN TOO MUCH TODAY.

And that is always a blessing. After a restless night with high winds, trucks again starting up at 04:00 in the morning and diesel horns from locomotives at the level crossing about 2 miles away (you have no idea how far sound can travel in open countryside in the dead of night) I was back on the road (or, at least, the Chemin du Roy) again.

This is the kind of thing that I’m looking for – you can see in front of this house near Portneuf the low wall and flattened surface (the Chemin du Roy was a plank road made of cedar). The bits of gravel close to the camera and farther away behind give the game away a little and it’s nothing like as easy as this to find them normally.

Still, it all keeps me out of mischief, I suppose and it’s quite interesting as I keep on encountering all kinds of unexpected things while I’m on my travels.

Another thing I’ve been looking for is the site of Fort Jacques Cartier. It’s the last place in Nouvelle France that held out against the English.

Strangely enough though, there’s no mention of it anywhere and although I had the co-ordinates (which you can’t reach) there’s not a sign or anything, quite surprising when you consider just how militant Québec is. In fact if I hadn’t seen this bridge and its name, I would have been convinced that I had the co-ordinates totally wrong.

Into the city of Québec and past my beloved Tracel de Cap rouge which I’ve told you about before, and then into the city centre to take some photos that I missed when I was here last time – which you can see on the index page for the Tracel photos.

The Quebec Railway Station was high on my list of places to visit. The outside is magnificent, one of thse typical Nouvelle France fairytale buildings, but the interior is superb as you can see. It’s kept all of its splendour which makes a change, seeing as how normally allof this kind of stuff is swept away in a wave of vandalism as we saw in other places in the swinging 60s.

Strawberry Moose made a few friends in Québec too, but that quickly turned sour when someone called him a toutou. Definitely a moment, that was.

Tomorrow I’m leaving the St Lawrence because I have other fish to fry, and so I’ll head for the hills and an early night. See you all soon.

-7

Monday 2nd September 2013 – AT FIRST, I WROTE …

… “Monday 2nd December” for the title of today’s posting. Not an error, as you might think, but a Freudian slip because it is winter here today. Black skies, lashing down of rain, hurricane force winds (trees uprooted and all that kind of thing in Montreal) – so much so that it wasn’t until 16:30 or thereabouts that I took to the road, all heaters in the Dodge blazing away.

It wasn’t like that at first though. Dawn came early to my little spec on the bluff above the Riviere Ste Anne and it looked as if it might be a lovely day – and I know that the dawn came early because I sa it, having somehow managed to park in the middle of a moquito nest and having been bitten to pieces during the night. I didn’t even cook a meal for fear of disturbing them.

Anyway, as the morning drew on, the day clouded over and as I was fuelling uo the Dodge, the heavens opened and that was that. I found a convenient motorway service area and parked up. With a coffee and an internet connection, I attacked a pile of paperwork and read a book.

By about 16:30 the weather improved a little in the sense that it stopped raining and we just had occasional showers. I hit the road and went off to the village of Deschambault.

This was an important stage on the Chemin du Roy and although the village has altered considerably over the last 275 years, it is said that much of the traces of the original 1734 road are still said to be there if you know where to look.

Judging by the alignment of the church and the presbytery, and the site of the old fort that Champlain had built against the Iroquois (you can see part of the wall as the boundary wall of the cemetery) I reckon that this might be a good-enough bet.

It continues along the headland from here to the new road, but about 400 metres behind me is a sudden stop. Coastal erosion, particularly along the clay cliffs, was always a serious problem and one of the main reasons for some serious alignment of the road.

Another place on the route is a town called Portneuf, about 10kms further along. Someone shored up a river bank and this led to dramatic changes in the action of the river and created a fine port for the goélettes, the little ships that plied up and down the St Lawrence, of which you can see long-since abandoned here. Gradually, the port was expanded until there is now a quay that stretches more than one kilometre into the St Lawrence, and even the biggest ships can tie up here, although not that they ever do these days.

The quay is actually situated right at the apex of one of the sharpest meanders in the whole of the river and there are some delightful optical illusions with a long-range telephoto lens as you capture photos of ships such as the Canadian Shipping Line’s Atlantic Erie fighting the current and the meander and having to make a hard-over turn to port to round the headland without colliding with the quay.

And look at the waves – you can see what I mean about the howling wind and the storm that we were having.

Dusk came pretty quickly after this, which was no surprise, and so finding myself back on Highway 40 I retraced my steps to the Motorway Service Area to batten down the hatches for tonight. I’m not going to be doing anything else.

-2

Sunday 1st September 2013 – NOW ISN’T THIS A LOVELY …

… place to stop and eat your morning bagel? This is a place called Pointe au Lac just outside Trois Rivieres and the lac concerned, Lac St PIerre, isn’t actually a lake at all but a widening of the St Lawrence.

Just up the road a little is one of the earliest water mills in the whole of Canada, dating to the early 17th Century, and I’m going for a visit there in due course, but let me eat my bagel first and while I do, I’ll tell you abaout my parking space last night.

I didn’t see the sign that said two hours parking only and any longer than that involves all kinds of diabolical punishments, none of which happened, and I didn’t see the sign that said “long stay parking around the back of the service station” either which was a shame, because it would have been much quieter than were I was sleeping. However the noise didn’t disturb me for most of my stay – I must have been tired.

So now I’ve eaten my bagel we can go to the moulin. It’s actually two mills in one, with two water wheels. One wheel powers the corn-grinding apparatus and the other, a later addition, powers a sawmill and in the sun it all looks beautiful.

But Pointe-au-Lac is a surprising community. Not only is there the mill but an addiction centre for drugs, alcohol and gambling, a friary with a high school that burnt down (like everything else in Quebec – there is a great deal or arson about in the province) in 1994 and a church in the graveyard of which there is someone resting ready for the resurraction (he’ll have a long wait) and someone else who claimed to be the son of Noah, presumably by his second wife, Joan of Arc.

I had a leisurely drive along the St Lawrence as far as St Anne de la Perade and then turned inland as I had a little mission to undertake.

. We had a few moments of light hilarity when a local estate agent in my neck of the woods in France advertised a property for sale in St Christine d’Auvergne, thinking that it was the one along the banks of the Sioule. However, despite its name, it is actually in Quebec and so here’s a photo of it just to prove that it does exist.

From there I went to visit a local hydro-electric plant and it was such an extraordinary spot that I decided that I would spend the night there.

And you’ll all have to wait until tomorrow to see the photo.

-3

Saturday 31st August 2013 – I’M NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED …

… last night but I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds at about 18:30 and that was the last thing that I remember until about 07:00 the following morning.

Well, not quite. I had another exciting dream again, which shows you just how comfortable I am inside this Dodge at night. I had exchanged Caliburn for Terry’e van and another car (as if I am ever likely to exchange Caliburn for anything, but never mind). On my way back to work after Friday lunchtime, I parked the van in a narrow alley near to work, a place with high brick walls all around. I decided that I didn’t want to stay here because I’d be stuck in the traffic for leaving, but I couldn’t move the van from its position. Driving out is not the szme angle as reversing in, of course.

Anyway, a nearby truck starting up his motor shattered my reverie otherwise I would still be there now, so calm and peaceful was my little neck of the woods at this transport café that is, would you believe, actually on the central reservation of the motorway.

And after a visit to the cleanest beichstuhl that I have ever seen in a transport café and breakfast of coffee and bagels with strawberry jam and maple syrup I sat down and brought up to date all of my notes and photos in a marathon session

Once I’d organised that, I spent half an hour reading a book – making the most of a quiet morning, and then set off in search of the vestiges of the Chemin du Roy. There are loads of remains of this road, which has been constantly rebuilt over the 300 years of its existence, due to floods, erosion, avalanches, earthquakes, attacks by Iroquois, bridge collapses, fires and the like, some of these vestiges being signposted and some not so and open to speculation.

I’m quite enjoying spotting suggestive-looking earthworks and depressions, and trying to link them up into a consistent route and one day I’m sure that I’ll have the route traced out as much as is possible.
Lunch stop was at Trois Rivières, one of my favourite cities in Canada although far from the nicest of course. I was here at the same time as the Labour Day weekend celebrations and there was a lot going on, circuses, street performers, a local market, and the whole place was heaving with people and was quite exciting.

Not as exciting though as looking at the local police on their new modes of transport. These are called T3 Mobiles, electric powered, with disc brakes and can travel at seppds of up to 30kph – and much better than a pushbike as I was reliably informed because, as you might have guessed, I went up to the coppers and asked them about them. No point in being here and not satisfying your curiosity.

I had a wander around the town in the afternoon and visited a few more bits that I had missed. I’ll have to pad out my Trois Rivieres pages even more now, and that will keep me out of mischief for a while.

As it grew dark I headed for the highway to a transport café that I had seen and I shall dig myself in here for the night. Hopefully not for the morning though – I’ve lots to do.

-6

Friday 30th August 2013 – I’VE HIT THE ROAD, JACQUES

Up early again though and brought all my photos up to date (I wish I could say the same about the notes, though) and having made a couple of trips to the car, it’s now loaded up and Strawberry Moose and I are now comfortably installed inside.

Once we finally managed to leave the car park (which wasn’t easy) we headed off across the city and rhe traffic to go to look at the rapids of Lachine. This GPS that I bought all those years ago is really doing the stuff and I am impressed with that as I am with my galvanised steel dustbin

First stop was however to find some food for lunch for the next few days and so I headed for a convenient supermarket. But never mind the food for a moment, take a look at this car.

It’s a Dodge Saturn, and let me ask you, when did you last see a car as rotten as this on a British road? I have to think long and hard and maybe 30 years ago you might have seen one like this. I don’t even remember any of my tawis being this bad.

The area that we are in, by the way, is clearly an impoverished area of the city judging by just about everything. it’s called Verdun, and the name seems to have been inspired by a group of soldiers returning to Canada after World War I and having witnessed the French city of Verdun after a FRanco-German artillery duel there.

The rapids at Lachine, for all their hype, aren’t all that much to write home about and in a sense are disappointing. But they were certainly much more disappointing to Jacques Cartier who was hoping to find the promised North-West Passage to “La Chine” and the Indies through the St Lawrence and instead came to a shuddering halt at the rapids.

Still it was a nice morning and the walk through the park was very pleasant in the sun so that was something.

After lunch I drove back through the city and along the road that passes by the docks and out to Repentigny where I rejoined my previous quest for the search for the remains of the Chemin du Roy – the old highway of the 17th Century that was built to connect Montreal and Quebec. I managed to do a little work but was interruped by a thunderstorm and driving rain. With that I scuttled to shelter, a motorway service area on the Highway at the back of Lavaltrie, and I’ll be staying here for the night. No point in moving on in this weather.

-2

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: eric hall

Friday 13th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Thursday 12th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

Wednesday 11th September 2013 – IT WAS THE DRIVING, POUNDING RAIN …

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

Monday 9th September 2013 – ZOE AND I …

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

Saturday 7th September 2013 – JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

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

Thursday 5th September 2013 – I’VE ARRIVED …

Wednesday 4th September 2013 – NOT MUCH TO SAY …

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 – IT MANAGED NOT TO RAIN TOO MUCH TODAY.

Monday 2nd September 2013 – AT FIRST, I WROTE …

Sunday 1st September 2013 – NOW ISN’T THIS A LOVELY …

Saturday 31st August 2013 – I’M NOT SURE WHAT HAPPENED …

Friday 30th August 2013 – I’VE HIT THE ROAD, JACQUES