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Thursday 14th September 2017 – I’M NOT SLEEPING …

… very well at all just now. It was another pretty miserable night from that point of view and I didn’t have much sleep.

I’d been on my travels too, but no idea where to because it’s all gone out of my head … “beacuse there’s nothing in there to keep it in” – ed … now.

Another thing that I didn’t do is to take my tablets. Not when I have an early start like today where I need to be on the road by 08:00.

And I arrived in North West River at 08:45, beating my local guide by about 30 seconds.

While he was busy provisioning the motor boat, I was busy provisioning myself. We are going quite far today – a lot farther than WE DID AT CARTWRIGHT.

It’s for this reason that I need to stock up with the supplies because there’ nothing whatever where we are going.

And so leaving North West River behind us, we head off down Hamilton Inlet.

We’re heading due east, in the general direction of Rigolet and the open sea.

But we’ll be turning off a long way before then – going probably about a quarter of the way down and then turning off to the north.

The first settlement that we pass is the rather enigmatically-named “Butter and Snow”.

I’ve no idea why it was so named, although it is known that the family who lived there, called Rich (although I have seen it spelt “Ritch”) owned a cow.

There was still a permanent resident there a couple of years ago, and he would be here today had he not died in a skidoo accident.

While you admire the absolutely stunning scenery of the Hamilton Inlet, maybe I should fill you in on a little history of Inner Labrador.

In the late 18th and early 19th century the Hudsons Bay Company recruited Scotsmen mainly from the outlying islands of the North, to come and work here.

That explains the proliferation of family names such as McLean, Campbell, Baikie, Goudie and the like.

There was a very strong French-Canadian presence here too and a rival company from Paris – Revillon Frères – set up competing posts in the area.

That explains the presence of French family names, the most famous of which is Michelin.

The job of these Europeans was to liaise with the natives and deal with the furs that the Innu and Inuit brought in.

Very often, being left to their own devices out of season, these “European” people would go off on their own to spy out the possibilities of the land.

Many chose to stay here after their term of engagement ended, and they quite often set up on their own account as trappers and fishermen.

But the fact is that they all would have died, because the climate here and the living conditions can be vicious.

The only thing that saved them were encounters with the Inuit – or occasionally Innu – women.

Most of the men took native women as partners and it was they who showed them how to survive in the extreme Labrador climate.

Each family would settle in its own cove or river mouth, and that was where they would fish, and hunt and trap in the hinterland.

Occasionally though, you might find a mixture of families living in the same cove.

What might have happened is that a family only had daughters, and sons from neighbouring families would marry the daughters.

These men would stay on to inherit the traplines of the wife’s family, rather than taking the daughters back to their own coves.

And the fishing and trapping lifestyle was carried on until, I suppose, the last 60 or 70 years.

Firstly the huge American air base and secondly the Government’s controversial resettlement programme resulted in the exodus.

But everyone here who is native to the area is what one would call a Métis – the offspring (sometimes many generations removed) of a “European” male and a “native” female.

A former phrase used quite commonly until about 50 years ago is now considered to be offensive

People still come out here regularly to the cabins of their ancestors, whether for weekends or holidays.

And a limited amount of trapping is still carried on. There’s a fur buyer in Goose Bay and a couple of fur auctions in Montreal and Winnipeg.

But mainly it’s to escape from the towns and return to the olden days.

Rather than take the direct route, because there’s quite a storm brewing up in the Inlet, we are hugging the coast.

And threading our way through the offshore islands – the North West Islands in fact.

According to the censuses of 1935 and 1945, these were inhabited by the “Baikie” family. Hordes of them in fact.

So after about 90 minutes of sailing (or, rather, motoring) we arrive at our destination.

This is the abandoned settlement of Mulligan, and it’s probably the most famous of all of the settlements out here.

And its claim to fame is that is was the home of possibly the most famous person in Labrador – Lydia Campbell.

I’ve come here with one of Lydia’s descendants. He’s going to show me around the settlement and later on, we may well be going to meet her.

And so we moor the boat up an the bank and step ashore – back into almost 200 years of history because the “Campbell” of our story is a late arrival.

He didn’t turn up from the Orkneys until the early 1840s

Mulligan was a huge settlement by the standards of the day. At one time there were 20 families living here and the settlement had its own school.

By the time of the census of 1935 there were 6 families of 32 people, all Baikies and Campbells.

And in 1945 there were 8 families of 39, and we have acquired a family called “Chaulk”.

the hump of earth that you can see in the foreground is said to be the site of the cabin of the more famous Campbells.

Of course, it’s long-gone now, just as they are. But it’s still interesting to see the site where they are said to have lived, even if there is very little left to see.

No memorial of course, because it’s not exactly on the tourist track here.

Of the more modern descendants of Lydia Campbell, that is their own former family home from before the relocation.

It still receives some occasional use and is currently undergoing a process of renovation.

Who knows? We might even end up with some more permanent residents. Wouldn’t that be interesting? But it’s unlikely.

By the time of the turn of the 20th Century most people had forsaken the traditional log cabin for a wood-plank house.

And then promptly realised their error, for nothing is as suitable to the Labrador environment than a traditional log cabin.

But one family has kept its original log cabin, and kept it in excellent condition too, regularly painted and maintained.

This is what all of these villages would have looked like 150 years ago – minus the paint of course.

By now, after all of our issues, it was lunchtime. So we sat in the shade and ate our butties.

I was regaled with stories of life out here 70 years ago, and life in Labrador in general.

But one interesting fact that I was told was that the red berries – the partridgeberries – were unknown in Mulligan when the place was in permanent occupation.

Today, there are partridgeberries everywhere all over the ground. You can’t move for stepping on them.

There’s something else around here that you can’t move without stepping in.

I can personally vouch for the fact that it’s a lie – bears DO NOT go to the bathroom in the woods.

Before we move off from here, there’s just something else to see. And it’s how Mulligan has been brought into the 21st Century.

One of the cabins here has not only an array of solar panels but a wind turbine too. Just like me back home.

So let’s hear it for the solar panels. Hip, hip, array!

Now comes the exciting bit – we have to get across there to thefar bank of the river.

And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a sand bar blocking the passage for the boat. I have a feeling that the next part of our adventure is going to be very cold and very wet.

And I don’t have waders.

We’ve made it across to the sand bar anyway, but our adventure is only just beginning.

We now have to reach across the creek to the shore and I’ll tell you something for nothing – this water is deep and it’s freezing cold.

And I have no footwear either – no point in having that soaking wet.

So up to our waists almost we were obliged to wade.

And then a good trek through the woods in bare feet, which was probably not a good idea.

But we made it all the same, and here we are at Mulligan Cemetery, the home of the most famous woman in Labrador – certainly in the 19th Century.

and here is the heroine of our story, Lydia Campbell.And what an effort it has been to reach her grave.

She was born in 1818 and in 1848 in a second marriage she married Daniel Campbell, not long out from the Orkneys with the HBC.

Family tradition has it that Campbell knew absolutely nothing about life as a “liveyer” and Lydia taught him absolutely everything.

Later, as she grew older, she lamented about the loss of traditional “liveyer” skills, apparent even in her own lifetime.

As a result, a visiting clergyman encouraged her to write a book about the traditional liestyle of a “liveyer” woman and the result – Sketches of Labrador Life by a Labrador Woman is probably the most significant book ever to come out of Labrador

My guide took me to see the grave of his grandmother, Druscilla. I’d seen from the various censuses that his grandfather had lived alone with his children and I had wondered why.

And the date on the tombstone gives us a clue as to the cause of death.

November 12th 1918. That was at the height of the Spanish Influenza epidemic. It wasn’t as overwhelming down here as on the coast but nevertheless it had quite an impact

Of all of the other graves here in the cemetery, this one is quite important. In here are buried what are believed to be three bodies

One night, part of the bank underneath someone’s house collapsed and a pile of bones, believed to be of three people, were washed out.

They were sent to St John’s where there were examined and said to be “Inuit bones of historical date”. They were reburied here in 2004.

We’d spent so long in the cemetery that the tide had come in quite a way, and if we thought that it was deep coming in, it was even deeper going out and I was perishing.

Not only that, the wind had got up and the Inlet was now a churning mass of waves . We were going to be in for a rough passage.

Our trip to the abandoned settlement at Pearl River was summarily abandoned and we turned back.

But what made my day, and made me quite proud was my guide who tol me, afer all of the wrestling that we had done with the boat and the river “you’re some tough cookie”.

We were heading back that way, in the general direction of North West River, and that was what was awaiting us.

In fact there were several storm clouds building up all around us

They do say that Labrador is very much like the Auvergne in the respect that “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes – it’ll soon be different.

It was round about here that we had the legendary moment of
Our Hero – “is that a sailing boat over there?”
Local guide “it’s an island with a couple of trees growing on it”
Note to self – arrange appointment with opticians on return

But then, I suppose, if I’d been able to see what I was doing, I would never have set out.

Our next stop, which was going to be our last one given the weather, was the settlement of Sabesquacho.

Or however you might like to spell it because I’ve seen it spelt a thousand different ways

There never was an approved way of spelling many of the place round here in the 19th and 20th Centuries and people wrote down the names as they heard them

This was the home of the “Michelin” family – or, at least, one of their homes because they had spread out quite a way down the bay.

My guide told me that at one time there had been as many as 12 children (and presumably the adults too) living in that house.

Big families were not necessarily prolific here though. You’ll find many families with 6 or 7 children but the death rate was appalling.

Despite this being a British colony until 1949, there was no Government Health Service here until modern times. From about 1900 until the 1980s you had the “Grenfell Volunteers” and prior to that, there was nothing at all.

As well as the Michelins, there were a few Pottles living here in the vicinity in the censuses of 1935 and 1945

And of course we still have the summer cabins for the families, mot of whom resettled in North West River.

The cabin on the left is said to be a cabin of former permanent occupation but the one on the right is more modern.

And you’ll notice the ty bach on the extreme left. No plumbing of any sort here.

Having made a race of it when conditions allowed, we made it back to North West River, beating the torrential downpour by a matter of minutes.

There were some kids playng around on the quayside when we arrived. “I wonder how long it will be before one of them falls in” I said

“Pushed in, more like” muttered my companion

And so considerably lighter in weight and considerably wetter, I headed for home. My wallet was considerably lighter too but I may not be coming here again and I needed to make this visit now

Final trip for today was to Goose Bay airport.

My landlord had told me where there were several planes on display, including an Avro Vulcan “V-bomber” of the 1950s and 60s

Of course I didn’t want to miss out on seeing that and so I took a deviation on the way home topay it a visit. After all, I remember these from my childhood on the beach at Ramsgate

and remember yesterday when we saw the football ground in town?

Here, would you believe, is one on the air base. And it’s in much better conition too.

Actually, it’s no surprise really to find a football ground here. There were various branches of NATO air forces(British, Dutch, German) who came here during the war so I imagine that it’s something to do with them.

Everywhere else that I wanted to visit in town was closed by the time that I returned wo I went back to my digs, had a coffee and shower, and washed my clothes in the washing machine.

Tea was potatoes, veg and onion gravy made into a kind of soup, and then an early night. I was totally exhausted.

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

I’ll say!

I gave up at about 22:00 last night and fell straight asleep. And that was that until the alarm went off at 06:00 (or 06:30 in fact as Newfoundland is 30 minutes in advance). I remember nothing at all.

It’s not as if I had been doing anything either – there’s nothing that I can think of that had particularly worn me out.

Mind you, when I say that I remember nothing, that’s not entirely true. I do remember a couple of young girls who needed taking somewhere so I hd to organise them onto their bikes and make sure that they followed me closely. And anyone who knows anything about young girls will know that that is a pretty difficult task.
And later there I was on the top deck of a bus with a friend going up Middlewich Road past “the Rising Sun” and seeing an end-of-terrace house that I’d been hoping to buy but hadn’t, and thinking that it would make an ideal place from which to operate a taxi business. There were two other people on board the bus and we ended up talking about taxis. And as the bus took us down Coppice Road the guy I was with was explaining that there aren’t many taxis in the centre of town but each suburb and little village seemed to have its own little taxi business. One of the guys came over to us and in an intimate fashion started to speak to us about his friend who was rather simple and needed a great deal of guidance.

So having missed a good bit of the morning already, I started the porridge and had a shower. Put things in their proper order.

And when I came out of the shower the internet was down so that made me rather miserable.

Not only that, the place was deserted. No-one about, no-one in the car park, no-one in the restaurant etc. Just like the Marie Celeste in fact.

So I breakfasted off my own stocks of porridge (which as usual took ages to cook) and some coffee that I “liberated” from the public area (they had only given me one serving).

And pushed on with the blog entry anyway – that’ll teach me to have an early night.

By 10:30, all done and dusted, I hit the trail west.

First stop was on the Trans-Canada Highway on a stretch of road overlooking Clarenville.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we stayed there in 2010 where I arrived in the dark and then had a flat tyre to deal with, so we didn’t take much in the way of photos.

But you can see just how beautiful the place is, and there’s even a ship in port, although my fleet database insists that the port is empty.

I’ve been down this road before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and even wrote two pages about it – this one and this one – so I shan’t bore you with too many photos.

But there’s one here where I turned off the Trans-Canada Highway.

That’s Gander Lake down there and it is for the lake that the town of Gander is so named.

This was where I planned to have my lunch stop (it was that time already) but before I could stop and eat, I had important things to do.

You’ll notice up there on the crest the flags of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the USA and the fourth one, representing the town of Gander.

Up there is the site of the worst ever air disaster to take place on Canadian soil, and dates from 12th December 1985.

A DC8 flying from Cairo to Kentucky stalled just after takeoff from the airport at Gander just across the main road and crashed to earth, killing all 256 people on board.

The 248 passengers were almost all members of the American 101st Airborne Division and were returning to base after having undergone a six-month tour of duty as part of the multi-national peacekeepers in Sinai.

They had stopped for fuel in Cologne and again in Gander, but despite the miserable weather and the time of year, the aeroplane was not de-iced on take-off.

Furthermore, its reported laden weight had been considerably under-declared.

Even today, the scar where the aeroplane came down is clearly visible and the intense heat of the fire (the plane was carrying a full load of fuel) means that little will grow in the area today.

And although the generally-accepted cause of the accident is the icing and overloading issue, there are as many controversial conspiracy theories as you like about the accident.

As for me, I left the site of the accident and went down to the lake in the gorgeous sunshine to read my book and eat my butties.

And to fight off a dog that had taken a fancy to my food – there was quite a crowd of people down here today.

But then again, why not? It really was pleasant and I found it difficult to heave myself out of my seat and hit the road.

And here’s a thing!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I came by here 2010 I had a fierce argument with the people here about their Lockheed Hudson.

Their labelling stated quite clearly that Donald Bennett flew it from Gander to Aldergrove in Northern ireland – the first aeroplane to complete the “Atlantic Ferry”.

In his autobiography Pathfinder Bennett makes it perfectly clear that he didn’t fly the aeroplane but was in fact the navigator.

And also that his aeroplane wasn’t the first to arrive either.

And while the Museum is still vacillating over the “first” bit – they have in fact amended the plaque to show that he “captained” the plane.

So some progress is being made.

But as for the Karrier Bantam that was here, that has, unfortunately, bitten the dust. “Too bad to keep”, so I was told.

And they had even been offered another one – in even worse condition apparently – and turned that down!

I despair.

Having seen what has been “preserved” in Canada, and just how they preserve it, the Bantam should have been child’s play.

Next stop was Lewisporte up on the coast, and I came to yet another shuddering halt as I arrived on the edge of town.

The Lewisporte branch of the Newfoundland Railway was probably the most profitable, with the town being on of the island’s most major ports, and here is a collection of artefacts too remind us of its history.

At least locomotive 902 – one of the GM NF110 locomotives, is in marginally better condition here

I mentioned that Lewisporte was one of the busiest coastal ports on the island. In the old days, almost every ship destined for Labrador sailed from here.

That slowed down as the road network improved and came to a shuddering halt when the Sir Robert Bond was laid up once the road over the Mealy Mountains was opened in 2010

Today, only the Astron, a small freighter, leaves Lewisporte for the north, calling at Black Tickle and ports north of the Hamilton Inlet, and she won’t take passengers.

But in something of a forlorn hope I presented myself at the port offices to enquire about anything that might be going out, but as I suspected, I was disappointed.

But I was asked if I wanted to buy a car ferry of my own.

She was the Capt Earl W Winsor, built in 1972 and sailed for over 20 years as Prince Edward from Pictou to Prince Edward Island until the Confederation Bridge was built.

Then she came here, acquired her current name from a local politician, and sailed for nearly 20 years on the service to Fogo Island.

And when you think that she cost a mere $300,000 when the Newfoundland and Labrador Government had budgeted $12,000,000, that has to be the deal of the Century.

We discussed Apollo too. Everyone agrees that she is well past her sell-by date, but they reckoned that the Government has no money to replace her.

“There’s plenty of money when it comes to St John’s or Muskrat Falls” I interjected, to which they all concurred wholeheartedly.

On my way out of the port, I was distracted by these.

It’s 30 years or so since the railway on Newfoundland was abandoned but here on the docks you can still see rails embedded in the surface of the tarmac.

You can tell that it’s a narrow-gauge line too – just 3″6″. And that was one of the reasons for the downfall of the railway.

While it’s cheaper to construct and better in tight curves that you find on the mountain sections, it means that everything has to be trans-shipped at North Sydney or Channel-Port-aux-Basques, and that was just too much.

So now I’m off to my motel for tonight, the Westwood Inn at Grand falls. And it took some finding too.

“Come off at Exit 17 and it’s there” they said. And so I did. And after driving around for about 20 minutes and getting back onto the Trans-Canada Highway, I saw it way across the other side and had to do a naughty “U” turn to arrive.

It’s the most expensive place where I’ve stayed, although you wouldn’t think so. Holes in the bath carpet, internet that only works when it feels like it and a kettle that took three hours and still hadn’t boiled

And if I ever have a child I shall call it “Happy” after the receptionist, because I have never yet met anyone who couldn’t care less about her job, her establishment and her customers.

If I had been in charge, she would have been long down the road because her bad attitude is the kind that discourages anyone from coming to stay here again once they’ve had the pleasure of her company.

Sunday 3rd September 2017 – THE HOLY GRAIL …

… of ship spotters everywhere, and here she is, in all that remains of her sad glory.

This is the Kyle and she is probably the most famous ship in the whole of North America.

As Labrador and the coasts of Newfoundland opened up at the turn of the 20th Century, someone by the name of Reid started a regular shuttle service along the coasts serving most of the isolated habitations.

You need to remember that the network of roads in Newfoundland and Labrador is a comparatively recent phenomenon.

He had a series of ships built in Scotland and on the Tyne and named them after places there, in alphabetic order, and these ships became known as the “Alphabet Fleet”.

The most famous of all of these ships was the Kyle. Built in 1913, she was not the biggest, but she was certainly one of the fastest. And she was certainly the strongest, being specially reinforced for fighting her way through the ice up the Labrador coast.

She was the longest-lasting too.

With modern shipping regulations, the abandonment (voluntary or otherwise) of many isolated communities, the start of the modern road network and marine disasters in the treacherous waters, the Alphabet Fleet diminished quite quickly, although Kyle survived and passed on to the whaling trade

At the end of her working life in the late 1960s she was moored up as discussions were taking place as to her future.

But one night in 1967 she broke free of her moorings and ran aground here at the head of the bay at Harbour Grace.

And here she sadly remains, and will remain here until the end of time, I imagine. It’s impossible to refloat her, as she’ll break her back and attempts to sell her for scrap have been met with the most vehement opposition by the inhabitants of Harbour Grace who see her as the symbol of a bygone age.

But The Kyle is not the only famous symbol of Harbour Grace – it’s quite a famous little place.

And its main claim to fame is the role that it played in Transatlantic air history.

You are reminded about that by the presence here of a Douglas C47 Skytrain, the freight version of the DC3 Dakota.

This is CF-QBI “Spirit of Harbour Grace”, built in 1943 and had an eventful 50 year working life firstly with the US Air Force in North Africa and then with a variety of small businesses, spending many hours in the air around Newfoundland and Labrador.

When she was finally laid up in 1993 she was donated to the town as a static memorial to the aeroplane heritage of the town.

And this is the reason for the claim to fame of Harbour Grace’s footprint in the history of Transatlantic Air History.

There were a great many attempts to fly the Atlantic in the period 1919 to 1939 – some of which succeeded and many of which didn’t.

And many of those attempts took place from the improvised, hastily constructed air strip here.

The sad thing about it all is that, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve visited many sites from where these early flights left, and there is nothing much left today

Here at harbour Grace though, it’s probably the best-preserved of all of the early Transatlantic airstrips and it was somehow very pleasant and satisfying to be walking in the footsteps of people like Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post.

But we were lucky though.

It’s clearly not an airfield up to modern standards, and a radio listening post was stuck on here during World War II.

After that, it was left to decay and would have been completely overwhelmed by nature had not a spirited campaign by local people not led to its recovery and restoration.

Last night I’d had a good night’s sleep at Donald’s – his sofa really is comfortable – and after breakfast we had another really length chat.

So comfortable had I been that I was even able to go off on another ramble, although it wasn’t a very pleasant one. I was in something of a panic. I’d arrived in Portsmouth (and Southampton) and I needed to be at the airport – presumably in London or somewhere like that. It was early morning and my flight wasn’t until about 13:30 but even though it seemed as if I had plenty of time, there just wasn’t the transport to take me there. For example, a train leaving at 06:45 didn’t arrive until 12:40 which was far too late. it was just totally bizarre for London (or Birmingham, or even Manchester) wasn’t anything like that far away.

While I was there I took advantage of Donald’s shower (which was beautiful) and he bunged my clothes in the washing machine which was really nice of him.

It goes without saying that I appreciated the hospitality.

Stocking up on fruit, veg and breadat the Dominion Superstore later, I noticed this handy device.

That’s the kind of thing that I need if ever I change Strider for a smaller car. It can sit in the rear of the car until I go off on my travels and everything can be dumped on there and chained down.

And so I made a mental note.

Having done the shopping, I left St John’s on the Trans-Canada Highway and headed off in the direction of Harbour Grace, the Kyle and the airfield, stopping to make myself a butty on the way

And having done what I needed to do, and booked a room at a motel in Carbonear, I set off through the town.

There’s a big port here – which used to be one of the bases for the Alphabet Fleet of course, but now it’s mainly fishing boats that tie up.

And that includes the massive 3600-tonne clam harvester Belle Carnell, based out of Halifax.

Built in 2004 she was previously the Norwegian Siddis Skipper.

he most famous of all of the Harbour Grace inhabitants must surely be the pirate Peter Easton.

That’s the Customs House from the 1870s there, but it’s said to be built on the site of Easton’t fortress.

he would think nothing of sailing out with his men to capture a Spanish treasure fleet, and his men became the richest pirates on the North American seaboard.

He himself retired in luxury to the south of France and ended up as Marquis of Savoy.

This however was not so pleasant.

It’s the Church of the Immaculate Conception and despite being a place of worship (and it’s a Sunday too) it was all closed up, the gates were chained and there was a “Private – No Trespassing” sign on the gate.

I shan’t go in to all of this because I’ve said it so many times before. You all know that it’s an attitude that totally dismays me.

Instead, we can admire the scenery.

The museum with the flight log of the airfield was, as you might expect, closed. But in the grounds was this sculpture to commemorate the Transatlantic flyers, particularly those who lost their lives in the attempt.

Europe, the destination of most of them, is right out there, 2000 miles away to Ireland with nothing in between.

But yesterday I mentioned just how beautiful Newfoundand was, and showed you a photo to prove it.

Today’s photo, looking right across Conception Bay here, merely underlines it.

I was lucky with the weather too because despite the wind it had turned out to be a beautiful day.

And so I shot off down the road to Carbonear and my motel for the night.

Tea was pasta, tinned vegetables and tinned soup all mixed up in the slow cooker – and delicious it was too. I’ll do that again.

And despite having so much to do, I’m so tired that I’m off for an early night.

See you in the morning.

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.

Wednesday 30th August 2017 – AFTER MY NIGHT …

… in the time-warp of the 1950s last night I was ready for anything this morning.

Especially the coffee. I had calculated that it had been something like 65 hours since I had had a coffee and the presence of a coffee machine in my room meant that I was going to take full advantage.

I needed it too, because I’d had a bad night. I’m not sure why, but I found sleep very difficult. It wasn’t the musty odour and it wasn’t the traffic noise outside (it might have been an idea to close the window, I suppose) – I dunno.

But it hadn’t prevented me from going off on my travels again. I was joined last night by, of all people, Cécile. I was still living in Granville but in an apartment that resembled more my old flat in Hankelow in the mid-70s. Some work had been done on it but nt very much but Cecile was complaining that two people had promised to do work for her at her house had never been. We ended up going fora walk through the old town and stopped in a cafe where we had to share a table with three men who were having a meal. “We’re cousins” they said as they were tearing into the meat.
Meanwhile back at my place I was thinking about a few re-arrangements. Cecile was saying that I wasn’t making enough use of the high spaces in the rooms but I reckoned that the “little” room in the middle would make a nice music room. But just then Vincent from the football club appeared. He had a pile of cash to give me which was a refund of the insurance. I counted it after he had gone – there was about €45 there which seemed crazy to me because I seem to remember only paying €15:00.

I organised a shower for myself and then started to pack Strider, and I would have been away about an hour earlier had I not … errr … misplaced the keys. I seem to make something of a habit of that, don’t I?

Chucking-out time was 11:00 and the keys turned up at about 10:45 so I just about made it out in time.

Stopping, of course, for the obligatory photo of the lodgings,and having quite a laugh at the sign.

“Newly-refurbished rooms” – yes, quite an old sign, that.

I’d arranged lunch with Hannah so I set off for Antigonish, but on the way there I made a very sad discovery. Being outside in Strider through the winter, something has happened to the CDs.

They are all mangled and stuck together. Not one of them that I tried plays properly and that’s devastating news because the little *.mp3 player is not very reliable.

So, being early for Hannah and taking advantage of the facilities that modern technology has brought me, I took the SD card out of the old Canada phone that is now worthless and put it in the ‘phone that Josée has lent me (must remember to take it back out again) afterwards.

And when Hannah turned up, I was busy trying to concoct a “playlist” of all of the albums on that card so that I could play them through the auxiliary input on Strider’s radio.

Hannah and I had lunch at the little place that we know in Antigonish, and spent several hours putting the world to rights.

My opinion is, for what it’s worth, that when she graduates, she should go off to Toronto and do two years in one of these high-powered, forward-looking modern business organisations.

She can pick up all kinds of modern techniques and hints, as well as the confidence to put her ideas into practice, and then got to look for a small business somewhere in order to demonstrate her talents.

if she stays in Toronto she’ll gradually absorb their cultures and lose her own. After all, there’s no place at the executive table for someone who finished 15th (out of 62) in the North American national tractor-pulling championships.

Taking my leave, I shot off to the tourist information office at Canso – stopping at Auld’s Cove for fuel. And on his just over three-quarters of a tank of fuel Strider did 484 kilometres.

And if he can do that every time, I shall feel much more happy. That’s about 60 kms more than his previous best. You need to remember that he’s a 4×4 with an ancient-technology 4.0litre V6 engine.

Now I remember why I usually wait around until the beginning of September before going on my travels. Working my way through the travel guide that I picked up, everywhere that I called was booked up.

The only place free was an extortionate log cabin on a camp site near Baddeck, and so gnashing my teeth quite considerably, I set off.

The road is quite pretty around here.

It’s what they call the “Cape Breton Highlands” and we’ve visited them before on several occasions, usually going round the coast road.

But in something of a rush, I came right up the middle of the island and we’ve been this way too on a previous occasion.

It’s not as spectacular as the coast road but there are still some nice views.

But what spoils it all is this incessant “Highland Heritage” nonsense. The “history” of the different tartans and all of this nonsense dates from Queen Victoria’s time and that’s 100 years AFTER the Highland Scots came to settle here.

It’s certainly true to say that the different clans had different colours, but that’s because each clan lived in a different glen where a different dyeing plant would be more predominant.

But that’s all that it ever was until someone decided to amuse Queen Victoria. There was none of this weaving of intricate patterns and all the like.

It’s just like all of the bagpipes around here playing “New Britain” (the tune to which the hymn “Amazing Grace” is sung). That wasn’t written until 1829, 50 years after the Scots arrived, and had never been played on bagpipes until something like 1972.

Leaving aside another good rant for a moment (I’m far too cynical to be a good tourist guide) I come to a shuddering halt at the side of the road.

Here in the Bras d’Or lake are some weird objects and I was interested to know what they might be.

Consequently I buttonholed a passing Mi’kmaw who told me that it was a fish farm where they reared rainbow trout for the market, and it was something of a profitable venture.

He went into great detail about the nature of what they do, much of which is quite unfit for publication on pages such as this.

For some reason or other I missed my turning to the Bras d’Or Lake campsite and ended up in Baddeck.

We’ve been here before too, when we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum.

But it’s still a nice place to stop and take some photographs, because the views of the lake are quite attractive, and would be wonderful in nice weather.

Somewhere over there on that promontory is the former home of Alexander Graham Bell.

You might think that the museum ought to be over there instead of over here, but the property is still owned by his descendants who use it as a summer home and jealously guard its privacy.

And so that rules it out as a place to visit, unfortunately.

Eventually I manage to track down the camp site, and here I am. And if this is a “luxury cabin” I’d hate to see the basic ones. I’ve been quite unlucky with my accommodation so far, haven’t I?

To make matters worse, there’s no bed linen and no towels provided, so I’m rummaging around in the plastic boxes in Strider at some silly time of the night.

Luckily, hanging up the solar lantern in the back window has enabled it to keep its charge so at least there’s something to see by. But the mess that I’ve made means that i’ll be having to sort all of this out yet again in the morning.

Right now, I’m off to bed.

But not before I’ve had a shower and washed my clothes – now that I’ve found my towel.

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;

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.

Saturday 19th August 2017 – WE PULLED …

… into the Sainte-Foy coach interchange about 15 minutes early having missed out on Longueuil on our way down.

Not that it did us much good because the café was closed up.

I can’t believe the commercial opportunities that people are turning away these days – and then they are complaining about a recession when they have captive clients and they are turning them away.

But enough of my rant for the moment. The wait of 45 minutes was quickly over as the bus out of the city down the Gaspé puled in early too so we all clambered aboard for the next leg of our journey – alighting at Riviere-du-Loup.

A two-hour wait here even though the bus was already in and waiting. No electricity either and a “confused” internet set-up too.

I curled up on my seat and tried to sleep, but not that it did me much good because I couldn’t drop off very easily.

With arriving 15 minutes early in Florenceville I had to wait 5 minutes for Rachel and she drove me down to the tyre depot. With Ellen being ill, Rachel is having to work today.

It was quiet there today – Darren and Hannah are away tractor-pulling in Bowling Green with Perdy in the Pink, but there was plenty of coffee on offer. And I needed it after my overnight Odyssey.

Amber and her boyfriend were going back to the house at lunchtime so I cadged a lift, made myself some toast and coffee and then had a nice hot shower.

And, as you might expect, crashed out completely. According to the fitbit I’d had 1:06 of sleep during the night on the bus.

Rachel was back at teatime and we spent a long time putting the world to rights, and then made a mega-soup for tea. We were joined by one of her friends who is helping out with the accounts at the moment while Ellen is indisposed.

She had made a really good salad that went down a treat too.

But I wasn’t up for long. It’s cold and wet outside, not at all like a Canadian summer, and I was feeling quite tired so I made my excuses and had an early night.

Tomorrow is Sunday and the legendary Taylor breakfast brunches. I need to be on top form for that.

Monday 14th August 2017 – AT THE HOSPITAL …

… the news is not so good.

While the blood count is up slightly at 9.6 from 9.5, something else in the body (and I’ve forgotten what it was) has plummeted by over 25% – from 39 parts to 29 parts.

This has caused a few raised eyebrows and they wanted me to come in again to see if it might be just an errant result.

But no chance of that! My flight to Montreal is at 15:20 and I intend to be on it – and I won’t be back until 12th October. So my appointment is on 13th whether they like it or not.

And here’s a thing – I asked the hotel manager whether it’s cheaper to book a room over the counter or over the internet by a booking agency. To my astonishment he replied “over the internet”.

That was the last thing that I was expecting because I know how much commission these booking agencies charge. But if that’s what he wants me to do, then that’s what I will do.

Despite being awake at about 06:00 or something, there was no chance of me moving. It took the alarm at 07:00 to shift me from my stinking pit. And after breakfast I came back here and attacked yesterday’s magnum opus.

That took me up to shower time, and then a slow meander down the road to the railway station.

And my luck was in too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the trains to Leuven run at peculiar times – there are three all at once and then nothing for 40 minutes.

And so no-one was more delighted than me when an Inter-City pulled in just as I arrived at the station.

It was a double-decker too. Very nice, comfortable and modern, so I went off to sit upstairs.

Of course, Brain of Britain had forgotten his book and so he had to sit there and admire the scenery for the whole route.

Not of course that he was complaining about that too much.

At Leuven we had a nightmare of queueing for a new travel ticket – mine is on the verge of running out. But once it was organised it was off on the bus to the hospital and my appointment with Destiny.

I walked back through the town, picking up some stuff for lunch tomorrow as well as a nice sorbet as a treat. I reckoned that I had earned it.

You know about the irregular running of the trains between Leuven and Brussels. But here again I was in luck.

The train to Knokke was running late so just as I arrived on the platform, so did the train. otherwise I would have had an uncomfortable wait for the train from Welkenraedt.

These trains are old, dirty and rattly but they are here and that’s the important bit. I was soon back here.

We had another disaster for tea tonight. I’d been saving my plate of lentils for tonight but after they had taken my order and having waited for 20 minutes, they told me that “lentils were finished” even though I’d seen a plate in the cooler.

I ended up with a bag of chips instead.

It seems that I’m fated to have bad luck with my meals this time round. And so I’m glad that I’ve bought some emergency supplies for the plane tomorrow, to go with the crisps that Alison gave me on Sunday and which I forgot to mention.

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.

Tuesday 8th August 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

I had to go to the Bank this morning. And as I was running a little low on fruit and stuff I decided to make a list and go to the fruit shop in town and pick up a baguette while I was there.

So down I strolled, picked up my fruit, picked up my baguette – and then came straight back up here having forgotten all about the bank!

I’ll just have to go another time, won’t I?

Bu I don’t think much of the fruit shop though. It’s quite expensive and the quality is nowhere near as good as in the Leclerc.

I’m still not getting the hang of this sleeping thing though. 02:30 when I went to bed last night and awake after just 4 hours and 28 minutes of sleep, of which 3 hours and 58 minutes was restful sleep and the other 29 minutes was restless. Maths is clearly not the strongest suit of my Fitbit, is it?

A minor crisis in which I have run out of muesli, but I’m not making a batch just for a couple of days. Luckily there’s a packet loitering around here from when I was living in “digs”. That’l do until I go.

And talking of going, I’ve been synchronising the computers today. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a new laptop in the sales in June. I still have the old one, slow that it is, because of its light weight and extraordinary battery life. That will be coming with me on my travels.

Despite being the worst, slowest computer that I’ve ever owned, it’s done some sterling service and been on some incredible travels. And it will be on some more too. The synchronisation isn’t finished, but I’ll be dealing with that on Friday.

Not possible to go for lunch on the wall today. Every time one sets foot outside one’s apartment one is drenched with a squall of rain.

This afternoon I was on my travels again. I’d been invited for tea chez Liz and Terry as a pre-holiday treat.

Having had a shower to make myself look pretty (hence the Fitbit stats – I charge it up while I’m under the shower), I took the opportunity of

going to the railway station to pick up the railway tickets for Saturday (you can’t trust these machines to work when you need them).
That was exciting because there was nowhere to park (I pinched a car hire space in the end) and also because the machine wouldn’t give me the tickets either without the bank card that I used to order them.
“See the clerk in the ticket office” said the machine. And so I did. And she asked me for my bank card too.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me being stranded in Arizona in 2002 when a bank card was “suspended due to unusual transactions – and so now I have six different cards – and so we had quite a performance trying to decide which the card that I had used.
Eventually we sorted it out and I went outside to be greeted by the manager of the car hire concession and we had words.
going to Centrakor to buy some luggage labels. All luggage has to be fully-labelled these days and my suitcase – would you believe – does not have a luggage label supplied. At that price too!
So I bought a pack of flourescent lime-green ones. They’ll stand out on a baggage carousel.

But the traffic through the town was horrendous. One of these huge mobile home things driven by a novice having difficulty in manoeuvring through the streets. And so much time at the railway station that I was stuck in the rush hour and it took ages to move through the town.

Liz had made vegan burgers, which went down nicely with chips and peas, followed by fruit salad and vegan chocolate cake (and a doggy-bag for me). Liz let me borrow her printer to print off my flight tickets too, so that’s all sorted out.

But I was struggling to keep awake all evening so I made my excuses and left. No walk this evening – it was pelting down outside so I sat down to do wome work on the laptop.

But having fallen asleep three times in the middle of a couple of keystrokes, I gave it up and went to bed.

Totally wasted.

Saturday 5th August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that I had been having a few quiet days then this one takes some beating.

It all went wrong before I went to bed actually. A blasted firework display at bang on midnight that went on for hours.

In the end I was praying for one of those occasions that rings a bell in the back of my mind from London 2 or 3 centuries ago when a spark from the first firework fell into the bucket where all of the others had been stored.

Instead of a beautiful one-hour display observed by 10,000 people, you had a half-second of something that was heard by everyone across the whole south-east of England.

So that set the night off on a bad foot.

Struggle out of bed, but a shower soon revived me. Trip down the road for the baguette, and lunch on my wall in the high winds. Blasted uncomfortable too.

Apart from that, I’ve been doing something interesting on the laptop and following the football results too – the season has restarted today. Where did summer go?

Tomorrow there’s a fête up here in the walled city. Music, dancing and, of course, the buvette. Nothing whatever takes place in France without a buvette, and if there is none it’s a national scandal.

Must be on form for that!

Wednesday 2nd August 2017 – I HAD A …

… slightly better day today.

Probably due to the good sleep that I had last night – out like a light and that was how I stayed. And it was something of a struggle to heave myself out of the stinking pit (the bed, I mean).

A good shower and a change of clothes made me feel like a new man (pretty fed up of the old one) too.

What with the weather (torrential downpour for most of the day) all that I’ve managed to do is to struggle through the floods for the baguette. No possibility of going to sit on the wall with my butties at lunchtime.

So I hope that it’s better tomorrow – I need some things from town.

Tea was more aubergine and kidney bean whatsit – the longer it sits the better it tastes which can’t be bad. Just one more lot left for tomorrow.

Despite the weather I’ll be off for a walk in a bit. To stretch the legs and to see the outside. It’ll do me good to go out and about, even if it is into a rainstorm I suppose.

Hopefully it will be another good night like last night, and then a good walk into town should do me good.

Friday 28th July 2017 – NOW HERE’S A FIRST!

Yes, I’ve been for a walk in the dark.

In fact, I’d just finished tea when Rosemary telephoned me. And with chatting about this and that, and all things considered, it was about 22:15 when we hung up.

A couple of weeks ago, that would have been broad daylight. But not so tonight. Cold, cloudy, windy – and dark! I can’t wait for it to be dark at a sensible hour so that I can have an hour outside with the new camera and see just how good its much-vaunted “low light” facility might be.

And Rosemary is just as bewildered as I am about what is happening in the UK right now. But don’t get me started on politics. I vowed that I would avoid them in this reincarnation of the blog.

I’d had a really good night’s sleep too. out like a light without a care in the world. And off on a mega-ramble too that was so exciting that I reached for the dictaphone to record it. And by the time that I’d put my hand upon the aforementioned, every single thought about where I’d been had completely evaporated.

Something that’s happening far too often these days.

After breakfast and a nice shower, I went off to the shops. And apart from a pack of button-cell batteries on offer in LIDL (I remember thinking when I had the remote-control issues the other day that I didn’t have any of those) I bought nothing exciting at all.

My trip – just to LIDL and LeClerc, came to a mere €23:00 and I was back here for 11:00.

But I do like the frozen vegetables in LeClerc, and when I come back, I’ll be buying a small freezer. The choice is endless and won’t that improve my diet!

Frozen veg is generally fresher than fresh veg, and you have much more choice – living alone means that you can only buy small quantities, and they don’t do small quantities of leeks, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, that kind of thing.

And diesel – down to €1:10 at LeClerc – and queues a mile long too.

Lunch was on the wall as usual in the uncertain weather, and the Woman With The Dog came to say hello. As I said, people are noticing me now. I’m not sure whether that is a good or bad thing.

Apart from that, I’ve been on the blog doing the Canada 2012 updating. It’s not easy and I’ve only managed to unravel two pages – this one and this one – so far.

But never mind the slow progress – that’s two more pages than were done yesterday so we’re heading in the right direction.

The big question is though – will I finish this rewriting, or will the rewriting finish me?

Tuesday 25th July 2017 – I KNEW …

… that it was going to be a lot of hard work today when Terry offered me a slice of Liz’s home-made vegan ginger cake as I arrived.

And I wasn’t wrong either.

I’d had a bad night too. With crashing out so convincingly earlier, it was well after 01:00 when I went to bed. And it wasn’t half an ungainly stagger into the bathroom this morning when the alarm went off.

Having done a bit on the blog (I’m trying to update at least 2 entries every day no matter what) I hit the road. But it wasn’t so easy as it might have been as the telecommand for the barrier didn’t work. I had to rely on a helpful neighbour.

Calling at the Casino for some fuel and the boulagerie in Cérences for some bread, I arrived at Terry’s for coffee and cake.

A quick dismantle of the remote control showed that the battery wasn’t seating right. So I took 10 minutes to repair it properly and even made the warning light function – and that’s a first.

All morning was spent sanding down the walls that we had filled yesterday. Terry had the machines and I was doing it by hand in the corners where the machines wouldn’t reach – Terry couldn’t do that because of his shoulder.

By the time we stopped for lunch we were looking like snowmen.

This afternoon we finished off the sanding, and then we had the cleaning. And I’m not sure which took the longer either.

Final job was to sweep the chimney, which was blocked. This involved a trip around all of the neighbours until someone produced a brosse de ramonage – Terry had packed his so well when he had moved house that he had no idea where it might have been.

Terry was up on the roof and I was down below holding the ladder and checking the fire.

By 17:00 I was totally finished off (remember that I had given up all of this work) and came home. First thing that I did was to have a shower (I forgot yesterday) and rinse my clothes of the plaster dust.

Second thing was .. errr … have a snooze, and until 20:00.

I’d had the remains of Liz’s apple flan for lunch, but Terry had sent me home with the remains of Sunday’s hot-pot so that was tea quickly organised. And just as well too because I’ve seized up, aching everywhere and in far too much pain to move.

But I’ve freed off a little now so I’ll go for a short walk around outside, just to say that I’ve been.

And then an early night – I reckon that I’ve deserved it.

EPIC HALL

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