Tag Archives: Amber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I just can’t win, can I?

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Saturday 19th August 2017 – WE PULLED …

PREVOST COACH MONTREAL QUEBEC aout august 2017… 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.

prevost coach atlantic edmundston new brunswick aout august 2017A 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.

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Tuesday 18th October 2016 – THIS IS LOOKING OMINOUS AND I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL

Here in my little room at the head of the stairs, I was just dropping off to sleep round about midnight when a couple of people came in. They said goodnight to each other in a tone of voice that could have been heard all over the city, but just as I was about to go out and tell them to shut up, they went their separate ways.

But that wasn’t all.

About 15 minutes after the girl in 1204 had gone to bed, she was up and in the bathroom. In fact, she was in there twice. And now the whole toilet area in the first-floor bathroom is plastered in vomit and the smell is disgusting. Anyway, I’m not tolerating this for a moment and first thing this morning I was on the telephone to the owner to complain.

It’s not his fault of course and I went to great lengths to explain that to him. he can’t be held responsible for that, but he ought to know about it and to come round and apply his foot to the nether regions of the people responsible.

So much for my early night and my good sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours after that.

However, I must have gone off to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels. I was with a large group of people, refugees, heading somewhere or other. We camped for the night in a park, setting up our camps in little family groups. I of course was on my own but there was a small, young family quite close to me and I had to pass them to go down to the lake for water. There was something going on with three young cats too, but I’m not very sure as to where they all fitted in to this story.

And how nice it is to be back in my little room (disgusting neighbours notwithstanding). The alarm went off at 07:00, followed almost immediately by the morning cacophony from the church across the road. It’s good to be back. And so I managed an early breakfast.

Now, I don’t know if you have been paying much attention to what I’ve been writing here and there about the Muskrat Falls in Labrador – the new hydro-electric plant that they are building that I visited in 2014, and how it has been claimed that a German U-boat has been discovered at the foot of the falls.

It seems that there is some kind of progress being made in this direction, and someone has tentatively identified it as U-851, a U-boat that disappeared off Newfoundland on or after 27th March 1944. She was a long-range cruising U-boat and was on her way to join the Monsoon wolf-pack operating in the Indian Ocean when she vanished.

After breakfast I did some work on my website for a few hours and although I updated some of it, my heart wasn’t in it. I was too tired after last night, I reckon.

And so instead I went out to Caliburn to sort out a big IKEA shopping bag. With that, I went off to the Carrefour near the footy ground to do some shopping. I’d run out of hummus and the salad mix that I like. A nice, steady walk that will do me good.

Back at Caliburn, I picked up a couple of books (I’m running out of reading material here) and a couple of other bits and pieces that I need, and then I walked back here.

Having sorted myself out, next stop was to fill the IKEA bag (you knew that there had to be a reason, didn’t you?) with all of the dirty washing, including some stuff that I didn’t have time to wash in Canada, and nipped off to the launderette and did the lot. Now I have all clean clothes so I can have a good shower and a change of clothes tomorrow. And quite right too.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a minor disaster here. Being stranded from my camera on a few occasions in Canada, I’d taken some photos on my Canadian phone. This afternoon, having rescued he phone from my suitcase in Caliburn earlier, I extracted the memory card from the phone but … the photos aren’t on it. They seem to be on the phone’s internal memory.

And, you might remember from about two months ago, the data cable isn’t working so transferring them over isn’t an option that’s available to me.

I could transfer them onto another phone of course, but it’s my Canadian phone, tied to the Bell telephone network, so there’s no network access over here.

All in all, it’s a bit of a disaster right now. Amber is going to have to wait a good while for her tractor-pulling videos with Perdy in the Pink at Millinocket, Maine the other week..

But I couldn’t keep it up for long this afternoon. All of the difficulties of the night, plus my exertions of Sunday and my walk today have worn me out and I crashed out for three hours while a rainstorm raged outside.

Crashed out properly too, so much so that I was off on my travels. In Canada too, in Strider as it happens. I’d come down a steep bank to a junction with a main road which passed over a bow-girder bridge over a railway line. There were several trains about, so I make a complicated manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … to park up right by the bridge to photograph them. There was something else interesting down there next to the railway line – something like a holiday camp or a park – so I went to look at it. I struggled to find a place to park and ended up parked with the rear end of Strider hanging over the steps down to the place. I walked down with the crowds of people to a gift shop which doubled as the kiosk for entry into the place, but when I saw that the entry fee was $7:50 I changed my mind and walked back.

So now I’m awake and I’ve just had a really good chat with my friend Liz. I’m not in the least bit tired now so I can see me having another bad night’s sleep.

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Friday 7th October 2016 – ABSOLUTE, COMPLETE AND UTTER TOTAL B*****D

And that’s putting it mildly. There has been a major blow-up here tonight and there are going to be some serious repercussions about all of this.

But first, let’s put things in the correct order.

This morning, I was totally dreadful. I wasn’t going anywhere at all. Despite Hannah having returned from University last night I wasn’t up to very much – just leaving my bed to tell Rachel that I was going back to bed again. I was totally incapable of functioning.

I struggled to my feet again round about midday and Amber, who was staying at home told me that I had a few things to do, such as going back to the border and handing back my entry pass to the USA. That was quite important as I’ve had problems about forgetting to do that in the past.

So I set off down there, with my head slowly clearing the farther along the road that I drove. And at the Canadian border post I had a piece of luck in that I could hand it back there without having to cross the line.

On the way back down the road into Centreville I stopped by the river and ate my butty in the sunshine, having a little doze as I ate. But I can’t stay here for ever – I went back to the tyre depot to say goodbye.

Much to my surprise, my permanent insurance certificate has arrived. I put that in Strider and now he’s 100% legal (not that he wasn’t before of course but now I have all of the paperwork to prove it). I was able to fax to the insurance brokers the registration certificate and a copy of my French driving licence so they now have all of the information that they need. All I need now is for this insurance company not to change its rules and regulations and to keep me insured.

Just so that there’s no mistake or misunderstanding, with what I would have had to pay for hiring a vehicle over the last two occasions that I’ve visited Canada (2015 and just now), then if you calculate the cost of buying Strider, taxing, insuring and maintaining him, I am now in front. And if I do come back next year, I shall start to be well ahead. Buying Strider was definitely the right decision, as I knew that it would be.

And not only that, I have had an e-mail from the insurance company to say that anyone with a Canadian driving licence and with their own vehicle insurance can drive Strider too. I printed out a copy of that and stuck it in Strider just so that it’s there for the record.

But by now it was 15:00 and I had gone again. Completely. To such an extent that I fell off the chair on the office. Rachel picked me up, dusted me off, gave me the key to the house and sent me home where I crashed out completely. I should have gone to Darren’s sister’s husband’s birthday party at 18:00 but I was going absolutely nowhere.

I had to haul myself out of bed at 20:45 because this was the time that I had to go to catch my Maritime Bus back to Montreal. It leaves the Irvings petrol station at 21:3O so I wanted to be there by 21:15.

And so we were. And so we waited. And 21:30 came round, but the bus didn’t. And neither was it there at 21:45. The petrol station closes at 22:00 and so I went over to the girl to ask about the bus and … it had arrived at 21:00 and because there was no passenger there, he had cleared straight off without waiting for me.

The b*****d.

So we rang up the Maritime Bus headquarters using both the numbers provided by the girl in the petrol station – and as you might expect, “we are now closed. Please call back during office hours” – which is of course absolutely no use whatever when you are running an overnight bus service with overnight passengers waiting in overnight bus stops in isolated locations.

And so we phoned the Maritime Bus stop at Grand Falls. And he had just left there too, half an hour early. I thus called up the coffee-stop at Edmundston (a mere 140 kms away) and asked them to hold the bus, and we set off to give chase.

Rachel drove like the wind – I shan’t tell you how fast we were going in case the farces of law and order are reading this – but when we arrived at Edmundston he had left. It seemed that he had refused to wait.

The double b*****d.

We stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons and Rachel had some business to, which must be done before midnight. And then we set off for the next 110 kilometres to Riviere du Loup. Here is the bus interchange where I need to board the Orleans Express that comes down the Gaspé Peninsula to Montreal. I usually have an hour’s wait there and so at least we had plenty of time to do the final leg.

Although the Coach Maritime Bus was at the bus depot, the driver had long-gone to his hotel, so I wasn’t able to tell him what I thought of him. But the ticket agent was quite interested in my story. He wondered why the bus had arrived at 23:50 instead of the more usual 00:15.

The triple b*****d.

Rachel ended up having to drive a total of 520 kilometres and a journey whereby she would be home at about 21:50 took her until 04:30 the following morning, just because some Coach Maritime Bus driver wanted to get to bed half an hour early. By the time that I finish with him and his company he can have as many early nights as he likes because he won’t be driving a bus again.

The quadruple b*****d.

So now I was ensconced in the bus terminal waiting room waiting for my bus back to Montreal. There would be no confusion about this one.

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Thursday 6th October 2016 – I FELT THE PAIN …

… this morning of the last two days on the road. It was a struggle to crawl out of bed and start out.

but I had to do it because I have a very long day tomorrow and so if I’m going to take a break, tomorrow during the day is the best time.

So we went off to the tyre depot, in another load of fog and hanging cloud, to say hello again to everyone and for a coffee. And once that was accomplished, there was work to do. Rachel had some deliveries that needed to be made in Florenceville. Everyone else was busy and so I volunteered to go. “Sing for your supper” and all of that.

Next stop was Woodstock, and so I set off down the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River. Not that I could see anything because the fog billowing off the river was blanketing everything.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was rather crowded in Strider. The fog was lifting too. I went into the Atlantic Superstore for some shopping for lunch, and here I hit the jackpot. Not only were hot-cross buns on sale, but there were a few packets reduced by 50%. As you know, I have a long way to go tomorrow night and also, the food is pretty miserable on Air Transat. The hot-cross buns will fill in the gap quite nicely.

river meduxnekeag woodstock new brunswick canada october octobre 2016There’s a grassy area and boat slipway at the back of the Council car park in Woodstock, overlooking the River Meduxnekeag, and this is one of my favourite places to stop for lunch. And here I am yet again.

In the sunshine, eating my butty, reading my book, chatting to the boaters and … errr … closing my eyes to relax in the beautiful weather with the glorious autumn colours on the trees on the opposite bank of the river, there’s nothing more pleasant than this.


river meduxnekeag woodstock new brunswick canada october octobre 2016Once I’d come back into the Land of the Living, I had work to do. Tomorrow, Strider is being laid up for the winter and so I need to have everything sorted out.

A huge pile of rubbish went into the bins for a start, and then I tipped everything out of the back, sorted and stacked it into the boxes where it will live for the winter (and threw away another pile of stuff) and then slid the boxes back under the bed.

Some of the foodstuffs won’t keep, especially as I’ve no idea when if ever I might be coming back, so I made up a box of all of that to give to Rachel. And then there was some stuff that I wanted to take back to europe with me.

On the way back I stopped at the car wash and gave Strider a good going-over with the pressure lance ready for putting away. And once I’d arrived back at Rachel’s, I took out everything that was to come out. There wasn’t anyone about though and so I settled down in the sun to read a book. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Darren came back and I had a guided tour of the garage. While I’d been away he’d tidied up in there and the place was looking quite impressive. It won’t be long before he’ll be in a position to strip down the engine on Perdy in the Pink.

Once Rachel and Amber returned, we had tea and then we chatted for hours about this and that. After all, I have to be realistic and say that I’ve no idea if ever I’ll be able to come back to Canada. This might be my last chance to see them.

But I was soon in bed. I hadn’t been up to much all day and by now my batteries were really flat. I’m struggling along now and I can feel everything – all the aches and pains all over the place.

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Sunday 25th September – I MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED …

…last night. Crawled into bed round about 09:30 and I remember nothing whatsoever – not even going to ride the porcelain horse – until the alarm at 06:00.

But being awake is one thing, being out and about is quite something else and I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit for a considerable number of hours. It was definitely something of a strain this last few days.

In the living room Amber was watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and so I went to join her. Darren was there too so we had a good chat about this and that too. When Rachel came back we attacked a huge mound of washing up followed by a pot of coffee but I couldn’t keep going and it wasn’t long before I was back in my room again and that was that for a couple of hours.

Later in the afternoon we had to empty the trailer of everything that was in it. The pulling season is over and everything needs to be cleaned, tidied and put away. I grabbed my tote box with all of my stuff in it and put it back into Strider and then joined in the general mayhem.

The garage needed to be cleaned and tidied too because the engine is being taken out of the pulling truck. Every year or so it’s taken out and dismantled to be checked for wear and tear. After all, it’s an impressive high-performance alcohol-fuelled racing engine and subject to incredible strain. The garage has to be scrupulously clean so that dust doesn’t enter any of the working parts and so that wasn’t the job of five minutes either.

Eventually we had the garage clean enough and we could winch the pulling truck out of the trailer and have it ready for dismantling, but by this time it was tea-time so we all knocked off. I had a lovely vegetable stir-fry.

We had quite a chat later – about all kinds of things but mainly about what I intend to do when I return to Europe. Of course, I have a few ideas but they are all unpleasant ones and quite disappointing but it helps to put things on the table and discuss them. But by this time I was out of it again and after a brief attempt to watch another film with Darren and Amber I was back in my little room.

And for good this time.

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Saturday 24th September 2016 – WELL DONE AMBER!

And quite right too!

But first, let us turn to this morning. And when I awoke at about 05:30 I was frozen to the marrow. I’ve never been as cold as this for a long time, not even when I was up in Labrador last year, I reckon.

dodge lorry trailer perdy in the pink tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016But here’s a thing – I was locked into the trailer. That was necessary because with all kinds of items of considerable value in the trailer with me, you never know what is going to happen through the night when you are parked up in the Wilderness.

And what made things even worse was that Darren and Amber in the truck awoke at about 08:00 and fired up the engine to warm up the truck, and thinking that I would be still asleep, they left me to it. When they finally let me out, I was in no state at all.

mount katahdin tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016A big plate of beans on toast soon brought me round and then we had work to do. First, though, I walked down the field and round the corner to have a look at Mount Katahdin. It’s the highest mountain in Maine, at just over 5,250 feet, and it’s always impressed me, even if it does happen to be shrouded in cloud today.

But back at the ranch, we pull the tractor out of the trailer, started it up and tuned it up, and then Darren let Amber have another little run around the field in it, because he has a cunning plan.


tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016You may have noticed that earlier this morning when we awoke, we were alone on the field here by the airstrip. But a couple of hours later, you can see that there has been a dramatic change in circumstances.

There are over 60 trucks and tractors pulling here at Millinocket today, apparently. There are about 8 different classes of tractors, but Perdy in the Pink only has one competitor in its class, and that’s it just there.


4x4 diesel tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016One of the classes is for diesel 4×4 trucks, and that’s quite interesting to watch. Not for the puling itself because, to be quite honest, I’ve seen sports that are much more exciting than this, but because of the plumes of smoke and diesel emissions from the trucks, that blanket the whole arena

I’m not quite sure what the local environmental inspectors would make of all of this, but remember that this is the USA and the Environment is not all that high on the agenda.


amber taylor perdy in the pink tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016By the time mid-afternoon came around, it was time for Perdy in the Pink and the 2-wheel drive modified truck competition.

And do you recognise the driver in the truck? It’s not Darren, and it’s not Hannah of course because she’s gone back to University. In fact, young Amber is making her competitive debut behind the wheel of Perdy in the Pink in front of quite a large crowd of people.


amber taylor perdy in the pink tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016And here she is down the end of the field at the end of her first competitive run. She confused herself a little somewhere along the road and had the steering wrong and as a result, could only manage a run of 287 feet at a maximum speed of 32.1 mph. The other competitor in the class made 324 feet.

But what you have to remember is that this is only her third ever time behind the wheel, and the very first time that she’s actually been coupled up to a load. As a result, she can be very proud of what she has managed to achieve today.


tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016After that, while other competitors were lining up to take their runs, we went back to the trailer for an inquest on the first run, with Amber walking on air! Darren chatted to Amber and gave her a few more tips, and then we went for some food.

I discovered that the chips had been fried in oil which was good news for me, and so I went to buy a plate, only to find out that they had sold out.And the coffee, the first of the day, was totally disgusting. Back home, I wouldn’t even wash Caliburn’s windscreen with it.


amber taylor perdy in the pink tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016We didn’t have too long to mess about though, because as the sun went down in the evening, it was time for Perdy in the Pink’s second and final run.

And so off set Amber down the track again, with the beautiful Mount Katahdin silhouetted in the setting sun in the background.

And I wish that they had started the competition an hour earlier today so that we would have had some light to see what was going on.


amber taylor perdy in the pink tractor pull millinocket maine usa canada september 24 septembre 2016And she makes it down to the end of the track in one piece again, much to everyone’s delight, especially Darren’s.

And with very good reason too because Amber had taken on board her father’s advice she managed to increase her distance. Not by 10 feet, or 20 feet, or even 50 feet, but she covered a magnificent 357 feet – an increase of 70 feet, at a maximum speed of 30 mph.

Her competitor managed to increase his distance for the second run, but only by about 20 feet, which meant that Amber had actually won the second leg, in only her second ever pull, and that is an astonishing achievement against someone of 40 years experience.

of course, as we pulled the tractor back to our little camp, Amber developed her own little fan club of supporters and I noticed a discreet exchanging of e-mail addresses going on.

And here’s another thing – there were competitors here today by the name of Pelletier, Voisine, Michaud and a few other names of French origin, all of whom lived in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont. It just goes to show you how much of Upper Canada the British signed away at the Treaty of Webster-Ashburton

Just so that that there is no mistake or misunderstanding, Amber can’t be only 13 years of age because the minimum age to drive a vehicle in this competition is 14. So now you know.

We loaded up everything into the trailer and then set off for home. And finding a new way through the lanes that completely missed out the town of Millinocket, we were back on the highway heading north in no time at all.

We passed a few of our fellow competitors on the way back, and then turned off at Bridgewater to go down to the border crossing. there, we had to re-do the paperwork and reclaim our documents, and then we could cover the remaining 5 miles or so back here.

Once we were safely installed, I grabbed a couple of rounds of toast and that was me, gone. I was totally wasted and went straight to bed.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

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Friday 23rd September 2016 – I WAS OFF …

…so early and in such a rush this morning that I forgot to take a photo of my motel at Caraquet last night. I’d had a communication during the late evening to say that the lorry had been fixed and the tractor pull was on. It’s only about 350 kilometres from here to Centreville but it’s over some dreadful roads through the mountain and they were planning to leave at 15:30 so there was no time to hang about.

Not only that, the weather was dreadful. It was freezing cold and the gorgeous sunny day that we had had yesterday was now miserable, grey and wet with this freezing rain that was getting in everywhere. I wasn’t going to enjoy this drive one little bit.

But stil, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish and I hit the streets. Leaving behind me my breakfast cereal as I was to discover later. There’s always something that I leave behind me, isn’t there?

The drive as far a Bathurst was quite uneventful, apart from the dreadful weather, that is, and I found a cheap Ultramar service station where I could fuel up Strider. Shortly afterwards I found a huge Atlantic Superstore where I could stop to lay in supplies for the next few days, and where fuel was even cheaper that at the Ultramar – but then, that kind of thing always happens, doesn’t it?

mount carleton provincial park new brunswick september septembre 2016The road from Bathurst over to the Saint John valley goes right into the mountains and through the Mount Carleton National Park and some of the roads through there that we will have to take are quite dreadful.

It’s all up and down, through the rainstorms and the low hanging clouds and with a good length of dirt road that I remember driving on back in winter 2003 through the pitch black and the snow … "no you didn’t – you came a different way" – ed

mount carleton provincial park new brunswick canada september septembre 2016Further into the mountains and the weather hadn’t improved any. In fact I was beginning to wonder if we would be having snow any time soon – that was what it was looking like to me.

In fact I was starting to become rather worried. If the weather doesn’t improve any, we can forget all about tractor pulling and I will have had this long and exhausting drive for nothing. And after a good spell on the dirt road, Strider was looking disgraceful. He’ll be needing a wash.

Hitting the Saint John valley I drove along the old route of the Trans Canada Highway for a while and found a place to park for lunch right by the river, at the back of the seasonal camp site. And having demolished my butty I was back on the road again for Centreville, completely forgetting that I needed to go to the bank at Florenceville for some US money. I shall just have to do without, I suppose.

amber taylor perdy in the pink millinocket maine usa canada september septembre 2016We went back home and sorted out the tractor and Amber hopped into the driving seat to move it around.

It’s the first time that she’s actually been behind the steering wheel under power so Darren kept her under close supervision. After all, it’s a mere 3,500 horsepower so I was told, and it’s not every young girl of Amber’s age who will have the opportunity, never mind the confidence, to handle that kind of power.

She was doing really well too. She wasn’t just along for the ride

Eventually we set off and had the usual histrionics at the USA border. There’s an extremely long and complicated (and expensive) procedure to be undergone and as a result no-one has really bothered with it in the past. But a Canadian tractor-puller took his vehicle across into the USA – and sold it. And these things are worth hundreds of thousands – the engine is worth $80,000 on its own. And because the border crossing wasn’t registered he escaped paying the import duty and the sales tax.

As a result, the people at the border post had their derrieres very soundly kicked by Head Office and so now everything is done by the letter of the law. And it takes ages to do.

But we were soon back on the road and headed off down towards Millinocket, stopping off for diesel and also for some food. And as we headed south, the clouds blew away. By the time we arrived, the skies were clear and you could see millions of stars.

It was also freezing cold.

What might have been a major problem was that the raceway was all chained up and padlocked – there was no way in. But regular readers of this rubbish will remember from several events that have occurred in the past that a chain and padlock isn’t going to keep me out for long. Five minutes and we were inside, and no-one would ever guess how we managed it.

Darren set a methanol fire – about two inches of methanol in an old saucepan and he tossed a lighted rag into it. The liquid doesn’t burn – just the gases – and the evaporation is slow enough that it lasted for about an hour or so. We were crowded around it to try to keep warm and that wasn’t easy. After a while I could smell something burning, and I was shocked to realise that it was me! I had to move my chair back into the cold.

By now I was pretty tired and so I sloped off to bed. Darren is having the front seats of the lorry, Amber the rear and so I’m having the mattress in the trailer.

I’m glad that we are only staying for the one night.

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Saturday 10th September 2016 – NOW THAT WAS MUCH MORE LIKE IT!

In bed at a reasonably early hour and despite the odd trip down the corridor it was totally painless and I didn’t feel a thing until the alarm went off at 06:00. I wouldn’t mind doing that again. I felt much better after that.

And we had a slow start to the day seeing as how not much was likely to happen here. Darren and Amber went off to the tyre depot, and after a somewhat late breakfast Rachel and I spent the morning doing stuff and having a long chat about this, that and the other.

But these insurance problems are never-ending, aren’t they? We went to print off the proposal form – and the printer ran out of ink. It’s almost as if I’m destined not to take out this insurance, isn’t it?

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … we don’t have problems, we have solutions. So I forwarded the e-mail up to the tyre depot and they printed it out up there and brought it back when the place closed. So what’s going to be the next hitch now?

For lunch I had a couple of wraps filled with vegetables and my vegan cheese, and then we we had a little task to perform. The golf-cart had broken down and so it needed to be looked at. After quite a few complicated manoeuvres and procedures, one of which involved a rather large hammer, we came to the conclusion that the starter solenoid had failed. That’s a mail order job for a later date.

But while I was down there I washed off all of the small plastic storage boxes that I had taken out of Strider the other day and forgotten to clean off. They’ve come up nicely and are sitting there drying out now, ready to go back inside the pickup.

We hadn’t finished yet either. The air-conditioning unit in the living room had packed up a while ago and a new replacement had arrived. We decided to fit it, and that involved cutting a new wooden blocking panel as the new unit is larger than the old one.

We had already made a start when Darren’s brother-in-law turned up. He’s a joiner by profession and had all of the right tools with him in his truck, so he took over the work and the job was done in half an hour. Having the correct tools doesn’t half make a difference to a task like this.

By now it was tea time and we were quite numerous – Amber had a friend round and there was also Darren’s sister and her husband (he who had helped us with the air-conditioning), so tea stretched out for a good couple of hours while we sat around chatting.

garden fire centreville new brunswick canada september septembre 2016It was a beautiful evening and as a rather large pile of rubbish had been gathering all around the place, we decided that we would have a garden bonfire.

This was really quite pleasant, all of us sitting around outside toasting ourselves by the flames in the warmth of a September evening, and it’s a shame that the photo hasn’t done the scene very much justice.

You might remember back from March that the big Nikon D5000 has now officially ceased once more to function, and I’m having to work with a cheap one that I bought in Quebec in 2012 when I had a similar difficulty. I was planning on buying a much better camera but I’m not sure whether there’s much point in spending a shed-load of money on something like that, given my state of health.

I wasn’t out for all that long. It was soon bed-time for me so I came inside, ready for an early night and hoping that I would have just as much of a good sleep as I had had the previous evening.

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Wednesday 7th September 2016 – WHAT A GOOD DECISION …

… that was, to book into that hotel at the back of the coach station.

I was stark out as soon as I laid down my weary head. We did have an interruption at about 23:45 when a baby started to cry, but that can happen in the best of places and it was a thing of five minutes. And then I needed to make a trip down to the corridor at about 03:00. I finally came to my senses, such as they are, at 04:45, having had a good night’s sleep in this extremely comfortable bed. The night porter’s call at 05:00 was therefore rather superfluous but it was nice to know that it was available and that it works.

But I’ll tell you this – $30-odd less per night than sleeping out at an airport hotel and while the comfort is rather less, I don’t need most of the difference. For the time and money that I save and for the convenience of being in the city centre, if I do ever make it back to Montreal I’ll be coming here, even if it does involve a 500-metre drag of the suitcase. And remember – when I stayed in Lille the other year I dragged it farther than that – and uphill too!

Let’s face it. It’s seen better days, this hotel, but I had a good shower, a really comfortable sleep, and no-one stole my boots. What more do you need?

I was too early for breakfast of course, but that can’t be helped. My bus was more important. I was at the coach station in no time flat and a friendly security guard unlocked the door to the left-luggage room and took my voucher so that I could recover my suitcase and Strawberry Moose, and we took our place in the queue, chatting to a guy who said he was a scouser, although he sounded more Northern Irish to me.

The trip to Sainte-Foy, on the edge of the city of Quebec, took just under three hours and I spent the time in half-asleep mode. After all, it was quite early in the morning. And it’s a good job that I didn’t go to sleep (or is it?) because this bus apparently goes right out to Sept Iles, somewhere else where we’ve been before and where I can catch a train to Labrador.

But when we reached our destination – Sainte Foy, not Sept Iles – a couple of mugs of coffee and a few rounds of toast and jam revived my spirits somewhat, although I’m not sure that you really need to say more than once that you don’t want butter on your toast.

viagra condom machine st foy coach station quebec canada september septembre 2016But what’s this all about? That chewing gum was disgusting – $2:00 for three slices and it tasted of nothing but rubber. As for the viagra however, I tried that once many years ago whilst in the company of the much – maligned Percy Penguin, who didn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserved to back in those days. And I clearly didn’t swallow the viagra quickly enough – I had a stiff neck for a week.

And you all know that the wish that I have about my departure is to go suddenly while in the arms of a nubile nymphet a third of my age. Were I to be lucky enough to find a willing volunteer, the viagra would come in handy in those circumstances. But it would take them three days before they could put the lid on the coffin.

ship of the day pierre laporte bridge st lawrence river quebec canada september septembre 2016Coming over the Pont Pierre Laporte, which we’ve visited before, there was a ship a-sailing … "a-dieseling, you mean" – ed … by, up the river towards Montreal. It’s too far away to see what it is, but it’s the only likely candidate for today’s Ship of the Day and so we’ll include it in here.

We’ll see if we can identify it at a later date when I can access the record of the Port of Montreal … "he couldn’t" – ed.

But on the subject of Pierre Laporte, the whole world is currently up in arms about what they perceive as brown-skinned terrorism, but never forget that Pierre Laporte, a leading Canadian politician, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in cold blood by white-skinned Catholic terrrorists during a major terrorism in Canada – and some of the perpetrators of the crise d’Octobre were given a free passage to Cuba by the craven Canadian Government.

And not only that, some modern-day Quebec politician proposed to erect a plaque in their honour. Yes, and the Canadians complain about brown-skinned terrorists. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

orleans express bus sainte foy riviere du loup canada september septembre 2016But now the bus is in, and it’s two hours from Sainte-Foy to Riviere du Loup.

So feeling a bit more like it after the coffee, I did a pile of paperwork on the laptop and listened to some good music to pass the time. I’m in Traffic mode right now and I had a good listen to Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired from the magnificent On The Road album, because that’s just how I’m feeling right now. And if he can play a lead guitar solo like the last four minutes of that track when he’s feeling do uninspired, whatever could he do if he were to have some inspiration?

holland hurricane express bus edmundston new brunswick canada september septembre 2016By the time I got to Phoe … errr … Riviere du Loup I wasn’t all that far behind where I wanted to be. But we were late and the connecting bus was already in so I had no chance to buy something to eat and drink. Luckily, I still had a packet of the vegan crisps that Alison had bought for me in Belgium and which had survived the voyage across the Atlantic. They didn’t survive the voyage down to Edmunston anyway.

And our Holland Hurricane has internet available and I can actually configure it to work. All I need now is a few people on line to talk to, but as soon as all of my friends see me come on line, they all clear off rather smartish-like.

We had a 15-minute stop at Edmundston (it’s nice to be back in New Brunswick anyway. Home Sweet Home, an hour in front of Quebec time of course) which was plenty of time to visit the gentleman’s rest room and to pick up a coffee. That’s me organised now for the two hour journey that remains.

Much to my – and everyone else’s – surprise, the bus was bang on time to the minute on its arrival at Florenceville. Rachel, my niece, was already there and waiting and so that was ideal. She had a few errands to perform and then it was off to Centreville and the tyre depot. Rachel went on to do some more errands and I came back here with Darren and Amber.

First task was to sort out Strider. He’s been in his little hidey-hole since last October and needed to see the light of day. Even though the battery had had the odd trickle-charge it was a little flaky so that will need to be replaced, and the tyres were down. And not just that, but some creature or other had made a nest with the soundproofing from underneath the bonnet. But it’s good to be back behind the wheel of Strider again – just like old times and as soon as I can resolve this continuing insurance issue we’ll be in business.

Darren and I had quite a chat but I eventually called it a night. It’s far too much for me these days. It’s amazing just how tired you become doing nothing but sitting around all day on a bus.

And it’s nice to see some friendly faces, but a couple of weeks with me will soon take care of all of that.

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Tuesday 12th APRIL 2016 – I’VE BEEN OFF AGAIN …

… on yet another mega-ramble during the night. I must be sleeping a little better, which must be a sign of something, I suppose.

Last night, I started out with a girl who was supposed to be Amber, my niece’s daughter (but who bore a startling resemblance both in looks and character to my younger sister) and her friend Julianna. And we were in Canada, on our way west towards Centreville to be reunited with Amber’s grandmother. But Amber (or my sister, take your pick) was certain that her grandmother wasn’t there and that when we arrived she and her friend would have to take the ‘plane to fly on to wherever her grandmother was staying. I was surprised at this because it was the usual time for me going to Canada and she was always at home when I arrived (and why we didn’t telephone to check up was something that I don’t understand either). By now, it was late at night and we stopped for the night at a motel. We had our beds in the foyer so everyone had to go past us to enter their rooms and with me and two young girls the place soon became a real dump, with stuff everywhere for I had had to turn the luggage inside-out to find the food to make sandwiches and I’d been finding all sorts of things. But Amber (or my sister) mentioned the name of the town where her grandmother usually stayed so I looked for it on the map but couldn’t find it. But in a moment of inspiration I looked inside the front cover of the map and there was a rubber stamp from a used-car salesman from the town where she might be. I couldn’t read the writing so I asked one of the girls to look. Amber (or my sister) had a look and told me the full address, and the nearest city happened to be about 250 miles in the opposite direction right near where Hannah goes to University at Antigonish. I told Amber (or my sister) to telephone straight away to her father to see if grandmother was at this address, because now that we had it, we could have a good night’s sleep and head down there directly in the morning. And it was here that I noticed that Amber (or my sister) was having a crafty smoke of a cigarette, so did I have words to say to her about that at her age!
From here, the action moved on to Brussels and a group of Russian “nouvels arrivants” living there. Some of these Russians were fairly young but they were all quite street-wise, and everyone seemed to be concerned with some kind of storage of illicit spirits. One of the girls, called Alina (and who bore more than a passing resemblance to girl called Alina whom I once met) was more determined than the rest and was keen to secure her independence. She had once been dared to work out how to break into one of these secret warehouses and much to everyone’s surprise she had managed to do so. Now, she intended to break in for good and clear out all of the stock and, unsurprisingly, in a fit of boredom and lack of excitement in my life, I volunteered to help her. Terry and Liz offered to help as well. So she turned up, worked her way into the warehouse and we loaded up a van with all of these spirits and Terry quickly drove it off while Alina and I sorted out the finances. When I met up with Liz and Terry afterwards, they were both keen to know all about Alina and my involvement with her and how come she felt so confident as to be able to handle all of this at her age, and on reflection I had to admit to them that I knew nothing really concrete or substantial about her and I couldn’t really see how I had come to let myself be involved in all of this, knowing what the Russian Mafia could be quite capable of “arranging”.
After this, it was the turn of my middle sister to make her debut in my nocturnal ramble. There she was with another girl and both had babies in pushchairs. We were all planning to go off somewhere and the bust was at 08:13 but they were taking far too much time to prepare themselves and their charges and I was trying to urge them on. It was a good 10 minutes walk to the bus stop and I looked at my watch – it was 07:56 and I was feeling that if they don’t organise themselves right this minute, we wouldn’t be going anywhere at all.

It wasn’t 07:56 though because I checked. It was 07:23 when I awoke and, much to my surprise, I was feeling a little (but only a little) better. I actually managed to attack my breakfast with much more confidence. I had the usual repose during the morning, being evicted by the cleaner while she did the room and that gave me an opportunity to do some research into the laundry room. There’s a washing machine there that for €2:00 will do all of your clothes so I’ll be sorting that out tomorrow.

I felt a little better going down to the shops for my bread and when I could finally bring myself to eat it, I felt much better after that. So much so that I postponed my afternoon nap until 16:30 and was back up and about at 18:00.

For tea, remembering to go out early so as not to end up locked out like last night, I had pasta and tomato sauce – to take away – for a mere €5:50. Living in an area overrun with students is paying massive dividends with deals like that. And for once, I really enjoyed it and managed to eat it all without any hesitation.

So I’m off to bed in a couple of minutes. I’m glad that I’ve been feeling better today and I hope that I can maintain the improvement tomorrow – especially if I can keep eating like this.

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Wednesday 13th January 2016 – I’VE BEEN WORKING …

… today. And outside too! Snow is forecast from Friday until next Wednesday and the woodpile is starting to look a little low. Terry had salvaged some beams from a previous construction project and so he set out to cut them up. He handed me a small hand-axe and I went to attack another pile of waste wood in order to reduce it to kindling.

We were out there for an hour or an hour and a half or so and ended up with quite a respectable pile that will keep us going for a while. But I’m clearly not fit – even chopping up a pile of kindling was wearing me out.

But that wasn’t the most exciting part of the day. That was reserved for something of a non-event. There I was, up and about and all ready, a good few minutes before 08:00, and waiting for my nurse to come and give me my injection. And waiting. And waiting. By the time that 11:30 came around, I realised that he wasn’t going to come at all and I could have had a decent lie-in.

When he came round in the evening, he was surprised to learn that he had forgotten. he had had quite a few blood samples to take (and they always have to have priority – no-one likes to hang around for too long waiting for breakfast) and then was carried away with the rest of his work. I’m not complaining though – as you know, I’m fed up of being used as a dartboard and if I can have half a day off, then so much better for me.

After lunch, Terry went out on an errand to visit someone out near Menat and I stayed here (just for a change). I didn’t do too much in the afternoon except work on my animation course. I wasn’t up to much and ended up going for an early night.

But then again I’d been on yet another major mega-ramble during the night and having the dictaphone right by my bed, I had recorded almost everything that had happened. And this news is bound to depress you because there was tons of stuff, a great deal of which totally surprised me when I came to type it out for I didn’t remember even half of it. It does make me wonder what I’ve been missing out of my nocturnal rambles over the last few years when I’ve not had the dictaphone to hand.

And so – here we go. You have been warned.

Terry and I were watching Convoy but, as well as I know this film, it was a Convoy with loads of scenes right at the beginning that I had never ever seen before. We were discussing the relative merits of the “cab-over” and the bonneted cab configuration of modern lorries. I said that Darren, my niece’s husband, hated cab-overs (which is hardly a surprise when you consider the machinations that a mechanic has to go through in order to reach the engine). We went out in an American lorry (and I’ve no idea what cab configuration it was) and we came upon a peloton of American cyclists who were all cycling nude. This led us onto a scene where there were two young girls, one of whom had had a text from her boyfriend referring to something about her going to have a really good seeing-to and the second making a joke about it, and then telling her mum that she had to go because she was “needed elsewhere” with all kinds of other things to do.

A bit later on, we had yet another family reunion as my brother once more entered into the fray. And as usual we were arguing. This time about a car workshop manual. And this took place as we were walking down the street in Welsh Row, Nantwich. I ended up tearing it into shreds, throwing it into the street and telling him to … errr … go away. And as I turned to storm off down the street I heard him call out “Goodnight” to my eldest sister, mentioning her name. And I didn’t know if she was really there or not, or whether he was merely saying that to make me turn round. Anyway, I didn’t turn round and carried on walking down the hill. It was pub-closing time when I reached the town centre. Everyone was milling around at the night clubs and I walked through the Crown Hotel (which wasn’t the Crown Hotel, but since when has that ever had anything to do with where I go and what I do at night?) where all of the people were leaving and the staff was busy clearing up the place. I walked out of the other door into the corner of Pillory Street and Hospital Street (which is of course nowhere near the door of the Crown Hotel) right opposite the old Boots shop to confront a big silver Mercedes saloon coming the wrong way up the one-way street, to the hoots and derisions of all of the pedestrians on the pavement. We ended up watching one of these tests about “what do you do if you have all of these chemicals and fireproof blankets and a fire breaks out?” The person running the test told us how to make a cocktail of these ingredients (which I shall be trying just as soon as I go home, believe me) and what effect it would have, but it’s also a by-product for treating eczema. And if you are treating someone with eczema who has been possessed by the devil, you don’t need to earth them to make the devil leave when you paste this tomato-like paste on their eczema.
Now here’s a thing. Of all of the family who have been recently making an appearance, you will be doubtless wondering when my niece in Canada will be putting in an appearance. Well, wait no longer because tonight, she finally walks onto the stage. We set out with me back home, packing, making ready to go to Canada, but for some reason, when I was all ready to go, I ended up not going. However, I went off to my office with all of my suitcases. My colleagues were curious about this and kept asking me where I was off to and so I explained about my trip to Canada. I then had to go to speak to someone, and I learnt that they were in the swimming baths – and I’d just come from there! All my swimming clothes were wet but nevertheless I had to go back there, change into them, and then go back into the pool. And the person for whom I was looking was no longer there. I went back to the dressing room and changed, being fed up, cold and wet, and went back to the room where my suitcases were. We then had a lengthy discussion that instead of me going to Canada, I was going off the Germany for a few days. But I had to book a bus – and you REALLY DID have to book it too, you couldn’t just turn up and get on – and I hadn’t done that, with just an hour left before the bus departed. Anyway I set off for Germany but it wasn’t Germany to where I was going but somewhere else and here I met up with my niece and her youngest daughter. We were having a really good chat but the surrounding were quite uncomfortable so she suggested that we all go back home again. For my part, I wasn’t too concerned and felt that it would be okay if I were to find a put-u-up bed or something. We each had a hot cup of syrup – mine was mint but I can’t remember what the others had. However my niece decided that she wanted hers cold so I had to put some seawater in it to cool it down. Daughter and I set off to find the seawater (the idea that the syrupy drink would be cold long before we returned never entered our heads) but outside the building was a pile of puppies and a kitten. Daughter saw them and fell in love with them of course. Someone in the neighbourhood shouted a puppy’s name and all of the puppies and the kitten scampered off. We walked off up the street and here we met someone with a pet raccoon. Daughter fell in love with that too and so we ended up having a good chat to this person. We eventually ended up where this water was, and it bore more than just a passing resemblance to the back of the city centre of Chester with the little streets that went down to the by-pass (which was the water line for us). The tide was in and the water had come up to the steps so in principle you could just wade in a grab some. However, the water didn’t look very clean and the faster-flowing water closer to the centre of the river would be much cleaner and so that was the place to go. This involved climbing up a stairway and along a raised brick and stone walkway to a tower right at the end, all of which was fenced in by a tubular metal hand-rail. But to reach there, with the tide being so far in, you ended up to your neck in water. I told daughter to make sure that she stayed on the steps on the shore and I set off , wading out to these other steps to take me up onto the walkway. However, the stairway was fenced off so I had to retrace my steps and swim right around to find a way up (how I was going to bring this water back without spilling it was yet another thought that hadn’t occurred to me). When I finally clambered up onto the walkway, someone was around there shouting to everyone to keep away as there was a raw sewage outlet just offshore a little further out. Daughter then put in an appearance – she hadn’t stayed where I had told her to stay. And so we had to think again about where we could obtain some more seawater.
The three of us (me, niece and daughter) ended up driving through Stoke on Trent with another guy in the car. I was explaining to him just how derelict The Potteries was, showing him many of the derelict sites around the city. We were heading from Hanley out towards Ash Bank and came to a big roundabout (bearing more than a passing resemblance to the roundabout on the outer ring road of Brussels right by the Woluwe Shopping Centre) but the roads over it, particularly the slip-road heading to the south, was completely overgrown with weeds. We had quite a laugh about this as I did a couple of laps of the roundabout, but despite the roundabout being very large, I ended up with two wheels on the kerb at one point. We took the exit that led off to Longton (which bears no resemblance whatever to the “real” Longton) and found the town to be crowded, loads of people around. We arrived at some temporary traffic lights controlling traffic at some road works. One of the workers had a pneumatic road-breaker digging up the road, but when the lights changed to green, he carried on digging so no-one could move. The lights changed back to red, and then to green, and he was still there digging. I rolled the car forward until it was right up against his spine but he still carried on. In the end, I left the car and switched off his machine so that he could hear me and I could ask him why he wasn’t watching what was going on and watching the traffic lights and so on.

It’s hardly surprising that I was totally worn out after all of that. How long can I keep this up? 2023 words tonight and it’s enough to give me another dose of writer’s cramp.

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Tuesday 25th August 2015 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… is that the address of my little kingdom out on Mars Hill Road has now been approved by Canada Post and I now have a Canadian postal code.

The bad news is that it’s a different one to the one that I’ve already given out to everyone.

And so that’s going to complicate things even more when I give one lot of information to one group of people and another lot to others. But there again, if life were so easy and uncomplicated, no-one would be in too much of a hurry to leave it. In any case, it’s hardly my fault that it took Service New Brunswick almost 4 years to allocate the property address.

As for the postal code, the details had been sitting in the Centreville Post Office and they had somehow overlooked to ‘phone me back, but with Rachel needing a pile of stamps, it seemed like a good opportunity to go down there and chivvy them up a little.

More good news is that I have a Community Mail Box for my post, but the bad news is that it’s not inside the Post Office itself (that’s payable) but in a battery of boxes at the side of the road on the main drag up near my land. I can picture a soggy mass of animal-chewed papier-maché when I go back there after 10 months away.

I’ve also been running errands today. A pile of stuff for the shop has been delivered to different addresses and needed to be picked up, and what’s the point of having a pick-up if you don’t put it to good use? It gave me a chance to go to the food store and stock up with goodies.

And I needed to as well, for my little voyage during the night had left me starving. I’d started off in Liechtenstein This all started off with me making a visit to the barracks of the Liechtenstein Army and there were all kinds of goings-on going on in there that ended up completely out of hand and which led to me making a formal complaint to the commanding officer.

From there Liz and I were travelling somewhere and we had a young girl with us. We stopped somewhere for a coffee and we were joined at our table by another couple who were intrigued to find out what was going on. Liz and I were discussing the radio programmes and planning on making a few changes – I was going to introduce some kind of discussion about French football and Liz would include a little craft section. Then Liz got up to go somewhere and this girl went with her, and I noticed that she was wearing my boots.

This left me with rather cold feet, I can tell you.

This afternoon Darren took Strider for a ride. He reckons that the little misfire that I’ve been noticing isn’t a misfire at all. He thinks that it’s either a flat spot on the tyre or a warped brake drum. And bearing in mind the high fuel consumption, my money is on the brake drum.

This evening Darren and I made major plans to have a mega-tidy-up before I get on my way elsewhere and that seems to be our project for tomorrow night. I’ll go down to the scrapyard at Woodstock and see what they will take.

But the high spot of yesterday was the very lengthy discussion that Darren and I had about economy, false economy, and all kinds of things that young people will find useful a little later in life. And Amber was sitting there by the side of us. So I turned round to her and said “have you understood all of that, Amber?”

To which Amber replied “what?”

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Sunday 23rd August 2015 – SUNDAY IS A DAY OF REST

And that applies even in Canada. No alarm calls over here on a Sunday so I could have a decent lie in. And even when I awoke, there was no rush as nothing starts here much before 11:00

The Taylor Breakfast Brunches are legendary and this was another one of those. No-one leaves the table hungry after that.

This afternoon, I finished off emptying out the big freezer that had developed a problem. Most of the remaining stuff was stowed into the other freezer and what was left didn’t really matter too much. I then switched the thing off, shovelled out the loose ice and spent a while every half an hour doing that. Finally I filled it with newspaper to soak up the water as it defrosted, and changed that several times.

Eventually the freezer was empty and dried off, and now we have to leave it to evaporate. Once it’s totally dry, I can check the wiring and see where the fault in the circuit might be. I suspect the wall socket, but we shall see.

We went out for another meal. Rachel has done some good cooking just recently and she deserves a night off. Nowhere exciting, but going out is going out after all.

Back here, Amber had a copy of the Grumpy Cat film so we watched that. And then I went off to bed.

I can’t remember when it was that I have last had a Sunday en famille. I’ll have to watch out – I might be starting to become used to this.

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Saturday 22nd August 2015 – I HAD A QUIET …

… day in today.

Rachel, Amber and Amber’s friend Julianna went off to the beach at Mactaquac, even though it was a cloudy, misty day, but I had so much to do that I decided to stay in and do it, in the company of Kujo the Killer Cat.

Of course, my day was plagued with interruptions so I didn’t get done anything like as much as I was hoping but nevertheless I’ve broken the back of a lot of the outstanding stuff that has built up over the last couple of days.

One of the interruptions was the start of the new Welsh Premier League season and newly-promoted Llandudno were playing Aberystwyth. With the benefit (for once) or a very-high-speed internet connection, I was able to watch the whole match and see Llandudno win their first-ever game in the WPL.

When Rachel came back, she brought me a pizza from the place down the road in Woodstock, which was really nice of her. We had quite a chat and then I went off to bed. Clearly the strain has been far too much for me today.

I shall have to have a little rest tomorrow to recover.

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