Tag Archives: strider

Saturday 17th September 2016 – NOW THIS IS WHAT …

… I call “courageous”.

The weather looks really beautiful in this photo, but in fact there was a cold wind blowing and you could certainly feel it. So much so that I had my fleece on while I was sitting out there.

There was certainly no way that I was going to go for a dip in the Northumberland Strait and so hats off to those (and there were quite a few people in the water today) who had braved the sea.

And so last night, having finally dozed off to sleep, I only had to leave the bed once during the night. And then, there I was, gone, right up to when the alarm went off at 06:00. That was a good sleep.

And once more, I’d been away with the fairies during the night. I’d had a really exciting time although I forgot most of it as soon as I awoke. What I do remember though is that I was on the docks at Liverpool, climbing over a wire fence into an area where there was a line of half a dozen or so derelict steam locomotives parked in a parallel fashion on railway sidings, with an overhead traversing crane carrying a large, heavy object, passing overhead.

For an hour or so I caught up with a few things that I needed to do and then I left the comfort of my stinking pit to go for breakfast.

Once breakfast was out of the way I had things to do and they took up my time for a while. Subesequently, with it being Saturday, I was following the football results on the internet. It was a fairly good day for the results except for Bangor City who struggled for a hard-earned draw out at Carmarthen in the Welsh Premier League.

I made my butties and then headed for the beach, having an interesting encounter down at the entrance to the park. It’s one of these four-way stops where everyone has to stop when they arrive, and depart in the order in which they arrived. And I arrived at the same time as a taxi, so we both stopped at the same time – both started at the same time and so both had to stop again. In the end, to avoid any misunderstanding, I waved him on.

At the car park I gathered up my coolbox with the butties and drink in it, my bag with my books and camers and my folding chair, and hit the beach.

It was much busier than yesterday and there were dozens of kids there, all of them having a really good time which was really nice to see. It was hard for me to concentrate on my book in fact, watching some kids of about three or four running round chasing the seagulls. I was exhausted just watching them.

By the time that 17:30 came around, I was ready to leave. The wind was getting me down and it was clouding over.

I went for a walk down to the far end of the park, which wasn’t as far as I was expecting it to be. There were still quite a few people out on the beach having a good time.

For me though, I went a-looking for the gentleman’s restroom and found one in a complex of buildings down at the far end but, as you might expect at this time of the year, was closed.

But there were also some public showers and changing rooms too, and that can’t be bad for the people who visit the beach.

There was also a cantine, which, presumably, as Canadian for a fritkot. And as you might expect at this time of the year, this was closed for the out-of-season too. I really wasn’t having much luck.

And so in the end I walked back to Strider where I noticed, with dismay, that somehow, presumably on the car park last night, someone had put a dent in the driver’s side door with their door. And judging by the height, it was the door of a full-size pick-up.

Back in Strider, I went down to Sobey’s for more sandwich stuff, bottled water and the like for the next few days. And I found some grated vegan mozzarella cheese. Yes, now I can have pizza tomorrow night. But somewhere along the line I seem to have lost the hummus that I bought. No idea how I managed to do that.

Tea was oven chips with Heinz beans and burgers followed by the ice cream stuff and fruit salad.

Now I’m off to bed – early again, but I’m going to make the most of it. This bed here is really comfortable.

Thursday 15th September 2016 – AND WASN’T THAT A NICE …

… tea!

I had oven chips, proper Heinz baked beans (that even tasted like they ought to – Canadian baked beans are pumped full of sugar) and a VEGAN burger.

Yes, Canada is definitely improving.

This evening I went to Sobey’s to see if they had any malt vinegar for my oven chips (which they did actually have and that’s good news too) and there in the huge “diet range” that Sobey’s seem to have these days, I found the vegan burgers.

And they were delicious too!

My meal was followed by more fruit salad and the ice cream stuff. You’ve no idea what kind of life of luxury that I’m living since I’ve been here, although the food in Canada is costing a fortune.

Breakfast was just as good too, and I was ready for that. I had to nip to the bathroom once during the night but apart from that, I slept right through until about 04:45. And if that wasn’t enough, I went back to sleep a little later until the alarm awoke me at 06:00.

Breakfast consisted of vegan granola with soya milk, orange juice, a toasted blueberry bagel with strawberry jam and a pot of real coffee. Yes, living like a King while I’m here.

I had a pile of stuff to do this morning and it took me much longer than it ought to have done, basically because I fell asleep a couple of times. The drive to here yesterday, although it might only have been 350 kms, certainly took it out of me.

I went outside my little room – room 113 over there – to empty some stuff out of Strider and put them in the fridge seeing that I have one, and to put into the freezer the bottles of water that I use for cooling purposes.

And after that, I made myself some butties with the baguette, hummus, tomatoes and lettuce and put them into the coolbox. With a bottle of flavoured water and a frozen water bottle to keep everything cool, I was ready for the off.

Once I’d sorted myself out, I headed off into the wilderness – destination Pointe du Chêne, or Oak Point, where I planned to eat my butty.

This is quite a famous place in its own right because it features quite heavily in two or three Canadian subjects about which we have had an enormous amount of discussion in the past and in which we’ll probably have more discussion in the future, provided that I do actually have a future.

We’re actually on a promontory, much of which is natural (although much of it is artificial) and over there, across Shediac Bay from where we are standing right now, is the town of Shediac.

You can easily see how big the bay is here, and it immediately caught the attention of the business magnates of the Maritime Provinces during their relentless search for an ice-free port (which we have discussed on several occasions) for ships during the long Canadian winters.

An early railway line, the European and North American Railway, had its terminus here on this wharf, curving round from Shediac, and its track bed – because like most railway lines in Canada- was ripped up years ago – can still be traced over there.

In previous years we’ve discussed the Chignecto Ship Railway, the railway that was planned across the Chignecto isthmus to ease the transit of goods between the eastern coast and the Strait of Northumberland. This railway was another line that was planned for the same purpose, although the goods would be trans-shipped, rather than the ships being hauled onto the trains.

We also spent a good deal of time talking about Donald Bennett and the very first commercial flights by Imperial Airways across the Atlantic just before the outbreak of World War II.

These flights took place in flying boats, the famous Short Empire flying boats, and they used Shediac Bay as a staging post and refuelling point, as did the American Pan-American company and their Boeing Clippers.

And so you can see – it was all happening here back in the olden days.

As for me, I parked up right on the quayside and attacked my butty. And this was when I discovered that I’d somehow managed to forget my banana.

And then, shame as it is to say it, seeing as how it was such a nice warm day and the sun was shining and inside Strider was so warm, I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes and there I was, gone. Well away with the fairies too. Totally painless.

In between the bouts of sleep, of which there were plenty, it has to be said, I went for a walk around and a good look at the facilities on offer.

It’s no longer a commercial port by the looks of things – no warehouses, cranes, or anything like that – but a pleasure harbour with all kinds of cabin cruisers and the like. That’s a bit of a come-down from its heyday back 80 years ago but I suppose that this is the way of things today.

I ended up sitting on the wharf reading a book – something that I haven’t done for ages. And that was where I stayed until about 17:40. There were loads of fisherpersons (of both sexes) casting their lines into the bay, and you might not believe this but I did actually see one of them catch a fish.

Mind you, it wasn’t the correct kind of fish (it was apparently a perch, not a mackerel) and so it was put back into the water.

A couple of people came over to chat, which was nice and friendly of them. It does me good to chat to people every now and again.

So now I’m going to have a shower and then an early night. I reckon that I deserve it.

Wednesday 14th September 2016 – AND AS FOR LAST NIGHT …

… while I was in bed and asleep early enough, I had to make a little trip down the corridor at about 00:40 and that was that until 04:45. Not the best night, but not too bad, is it?

I’d been on my travels again too. There was this wartime motorcycle, in yellow desert camouflage paint, and there were three of us on it – a woman driver, her young child as a passenger, and me bringing up the rear on the pillion. We rode, with her driving, quite some distance into Europe, and then she asked me to take over. This became rather embarrassing because I couldn’t make it move. It seemed that there was too much slack in the throttle cable so winding the throttle on was just taking up the slack. Some man came by and gave me some advice and lent me some rubber gloves to pick up the front end and pull it over a wall (I’m not sure how I intended to do that, with the weight of the bike) – and then the man had a flash of inspiration. He reckoned that this bike was a wartime European Army bike, and he picked up the telephone to call some kind of registry. It turned out that we had bike n°60, which was used by a Belgian by the name of Crabbe, from Liège. And he had died in 1960, so he was interested in how come this girl had obtained the bike.

Breakfast was rather late this morning and so while I was waiting I loaded up Strider with everything that I was planning to take to me, and once I’d eaten, I hit the road.

I didn’t make it very far though before I shuddered to a stop. only as far as Woodstock in fact.

On the edge of town isn’t darkness – at least not at that time of morning, but a car body repair shop and here sitting in the parking area was this magnificent beast. We’ve not had a Car of the Day yet in North America.

It’s actually a Buick Special and dates, according to the guy in the garage, to 1937. The bodywork is in good condition and although the interior is rather worn and tatty, it’s complete and undamaged. I need to empty my suitcase to take this home with me.

I stopped off at the Atlantic Superstore in Woodstock in order to buy stuff for lunch – including some hummus of course but also some vegan cheese seeing as how the stuff that I have is a little bit on the old side (it’s at least a year old, you know). They had a new variety of vegan cheese on offer and so I decided that I would give that a try.

And that reminds me – where does a native American do his shopping?
Answer – in a Siouxperstore.

Now here’s something upon which the Brexiters can reflect for the next 50 years, and that is that the Canadian Prairies are the breadbasket of the world. More grain is produced here than almost anywhere else in the world and with the economies of scale that are practised here on the huge farms, the costs of production compared to a British farm are negligible. No-one can produce wheat as cheaply as the Canadians. And so the cost of a baguette here in a Canadian superstore is $2:89, which is about £1:90. In a French supermarket, it is €0:75 – or about £0:65.

Leaving the EU might save the silly Brits £350 million (which, the Brexit leaders have now decided, won’t be given to the NHS despite using that reason as a major plank of the Brexit campaign) but the European agricultural subsidies will go. And then listen to the Brexiters complain about the dramatic increase in the price of food.

The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy comes in for some severe handling in the popular press, but the writers and readers of these articles have never compared the price of food in the EU with the price of food in the rest of the developed world.

And so abandoning another good rant for a while, I drove on South-West.

At Fredericton I called at Value Village, the Co-operative Charity Shop. I managed to pick up a copy of Pierre Berton’s Arctic Grail. Berton was one of the leading Canadian historians and wrote his books in a very engaging style, although occasionally he did manage to slip into a little bit of polemic when he wasn’t paying attention. I’ve quite a few books by him now.

With all of the roadworks going on at the top end of Fredericton I missed the turning to Home Depot and ended up back on the bypass. So never mind – I’ll have to catch up with that in due course on the way back.

Halfway down to Moncton I stopped off to make my lunch. And this is where the rain started. You can tell that I’m going to the seaside for my holidays, can’t you?

As the rain came down heavier and heavier, I arrived at Shediac. This is where I’m going to be staying for a week or so.

And it was here that we had a major catastrophe.

Looking for a motel, I drove out through the town and not finding anything, I went to do a u-turn in a lane at the side of the road. And as I was turning round, the edge of the road collapsed under the weight of Strider and we slid irrevocably into the ditch.

No matter what I tried, I couldn’t extricate myself from here. But I wasn’t alone for long. A woman driving by stopped, and offered me a lift down to a nearby garage. They came out with a breakdown truck and within 5 minutes, had lifted me out of the ditch. My stupidity cost me $60:00, but it could have been much worse, and you have to pay to learn.

The tourist information here found a place for me to stay. Seeing as how it’s now out of season there are some reasonable deals going around and I’m in a studio, with a bedroom, living room, bathroom and fully-equipped kitchen. It’s lovely and I would be quite happy to live here for good, I’ll tell you that.

Having installed myself, I went out into the rainstorm and down to the supermarket in the town where, for the first time since I don’t know when, I did a week’s shopping. And the lack of European food subsidies didn’t half hurt the pocket. And with having a freezer here, I could buy ice-cream (well, sorbet) and stuff like that. I could really become used to this kind of life.

And back at the flat I made myself a pizza for tea, and it’s been a while since I’ve done this too, isn’t it? And followed by some tinned fruit salad and ice-cream for pudding.

Now, I’m heading off for a reasonably-early night in my comfortable (for it really is) bed where I’m going to sleep until the sun comes back.

Tuesday 13th September 2016 – AND I DID TOO!

Last night I was saying that I hoped that I would have a good night last night.

And what actually happened was that I went almost straight to sleep and there I stayed, without moving even once, until 05:40. That’s about 7 hours sleep straight through and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a sleep like that.

And not only that,I was on my travels. And quite significant they were too. I remember having a long and involved chat with someone with whom I’ve been speaking at length on the internet just recently – she put in an appearance – and I was also dealing with wind turbine issues at home. The small Rutland WG901 had lost its tail in a high wind and the bearings had seized, causing it to smoke as it tried to rotate. By some incredible feat of gymnastics up the top of a ladder I managed to remove it and replace it with the spare Air 403. Although I hadn’t anchored the mast correctly (and I’ve yet to understand at all why there where two masts) the turbine went round, but the guide light on the charging panel changed from green to orange. A closer inspection showed that the voltage across the battery system was a mere 9.0 volts rather than the 12.7 that it was supposed to be, so there was clearly something wrong. Leaving the fridge running while I was away couldn’t have accounted for that.

But anyway, enough of that. I eventually headed for breakfast and then Rachel and I set out for the tyre depot where I was going to work on Strider – but it didn’t quite work out like that, as indeed you might expect, given the way that things have been going just now.

As well as all of the stuff that had been booked in to be fixed, there had been a breakdown on the Trans-Canada Highway and a holidaymaker from Ontario had limped in to the place with a rather sick car first thing this morning.

It’s only natural that the folding stuff takes priority over any other kind of arrangement and so what with that, and a steady stream of other work that came in, very little was done on Strider before lunch. Rachel and I went off to the restaurant here for lunch, and I had home fries with onions, peppers and mushrooms and a side order of baked beans. I treated Rachel and her friend to lunch, seeing as how Rachel has been treating me to meals for the last week or so and then we headed back.

By this time someone else, driving casually past the tyre depot, suddenly remembered that their car needed a safety inspection so that was another unscheduled job that needed attention. But we eventually managed to get around to Strider and finish the work and perform the safety check.

Of course he passed and so I could go down to Service New Brunswick in Florenceville to have him licensed. And now he’s fighting fit and ready for the road, which is good news, especially as I fuelled him right up. Petrol doesn’t keep like it used to and there’s been nothing put in since the last lot in October last year, so some fresh stuff wouldn’t go amiss. I made sure that there wasn’t much in the tank when I laid him up, so that there would be a full tank at the earliest available opportunity.

Having done that, the next stop was Great Satan. Documentation rules for visiting the USA have changed quite considerably over the last year or so and I needed to know whether I was in order or whether I had to find some more paperwork. But a very friendly (and doesn’t that make a very pleasant change!) couple of US border guards went through the documents that I had, and nothing more was required. I was issued with my entry permit on the spot.

Back at the tyre depot I helped Darren replace some track rod ends on an old Ford saloon that was in for a safety inspection. Had this been the UK, the bodywork would have been a long way short of passing but this is not the UK and we have seen on these pages some examples of what is considered acceptable over here. It wasn’t the worst that we have seen, and not by a long way either.

We all came home after this and as soon as we entered the house I crashed out for well over an hour. I’m definitely not as young as I used to be, am I?

But now that I’m awake again, I’m making plans. Tomorrow with a bit of luck I’ll be off to the seaside. I want to relax in the sun and hear the crash of the surf.

Monday 12th September 2016 – I WONDERED …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

It 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.

Friday 9th September 2016 – THAT WAS A MUCH BETTER …

… night last night. Even though I had to make a few trips down the corridor I did manage to have something of a decent sleep – right through to when the alarm went off. And I was on my travels last night, although if you are probably eating your lunch right now you don’t want to hear about them.

I had breakfast with Rachel and once I had organised myself, I had a task to perform.

Did I mention that a mouse seems to have found its way into the back of Strider? It hibernated in there over the winter and you can imagine that the mess that it has made is quite considerable. And so I resolved to empty everything out of the back and give it a good clean.

Of course, these days, everything takes me ten times longer to do than it did before, and emptying Strider was no exception.

One of the storage boxes was broken and it was in there that the mouse had lodged, so the box and most of its contents were filed under CS. A pile of other stuff followed it too, and once Strider was empty I gave him a good brush out and all the mess was removed.

I’ve redesigned the bed slightly too so that works better (that aggressive rough-cut saw that I bought last year is an impressive tool) but I can’t finish it off as the batteries for the Ryobi plus One drill are flat (on charge even as we speak).

Once I’d had lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so (can’t stand the pace these days, can I?) and then I went downstairs to start to reassemble everything.

And here’s the finished product, such as I had been able to reach at that particular point. It’s comparatively tidy in there as you can see and we have the Canadian Tire fold-up chair in the background and the little Walmart folding table in the foreground. You’d be surprised at just how comfortable it can be in there.

But the condensation on the aluminium roof is the big issue as you know once the temperature cools down. If I do manage to make it back here another year I’ll have to attend to that issue.

While I was out there organising myself, Darren came back from work. He was stopping off on his way to Woodstock to do one or two things, and so I hitched a ride. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so it was pretty crowded in the truck, but there was enough room for a new tote box from Walmart – a nice colour-coded purple one to go with the light green one, the black one and the blue one.

Back here after tea I loaded up the new tote box with what was left from the damaged one and added a few bits and pieces that were lying around all over the place, and now the tidying is completed.

We have had a minor inconvenience though. I’d been charging up my Canadian mobile phone with the 12-volt car charger, but when I removed it from the socket I left half of it behind. I need to disconnect the battery and pull out the missing bits with a pair of long-nosed pliers, and hope that it will all reassemble. It’s the “good” lighter socket too.

All of this has worn me out considerably today but at least it’s a job well done. I didn’t feel at all guilty about having an early night. And so checking my mails, I found that I had finally received the proposal form for Strider’s insurance. I need to print it out, fill it in and fax it off (and pay for it of course) and as soon as I can do that, I’ll have the insurance card in the next post.

Strider needs his safety check (the equivalent of an MoT or a controle technique) and then his licence tags, and we will then be ready for the off.

I fancy a week or ten days by the seaside.

Thursday 8th September 2016 – THAT WASN’T VERY GOOD

Not very long at all after I went to bed last night, I was off into the Land of Nod. But I didn’t stay there too long. About half an hour later I was awake again and that’s how I stayed for most of the night – to such an extent that I actually spent most of the night working on the laptop.

There are probably a few reasons why I had trouble sleeping, but one of them is that I have once more picked up a heavy cold and streaming nose and this is just so uncomfortable for me. It’s really pretty dismal just how easily I can catch this stuff.

Rachel and I had breakfast together and that gave us the opportunity to have a really good chat about this and that. So much so in fact that she ended up being late for work.

As for me, I stayed on here. After all of my exertions these last few days I wasn’t feeling up to all that much, particularly meeting people, and anyway I had had a bad night as you know. I had plenty of stuff to do too.

It took me all morning to catch up with what needed to be done (I wasn’t in much of a rush) and then it was a question of organising lunch. I had some vegan cheese in Strider and so I went down to look for it. I found it, but I also found something else that didn’t make me very happy – namely that a mouse had found its way into my living quarters in the back.

And so that’s tomorrow’s job, isn’t it? Emptying out the rear of Strider and clearing up the mess. I’m not looking forward to that one little bit.

One thing that I didn’t manage to find – and for ages too no matter how hard I looked for it – was the coffee. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I managed to track that down.

But in the meantime, I’d been chatting with Rhys on the phone. He’s passed his school bus driving test in South Carolina today, which is excellent news, and is now off for his Commercial Driving Licence next. So well-done to Rhys.

It goes without saying that I couldn’t keep this up all day. By mid-afternoon I was stark out – and properly out too because when Darren came home from work he popped in to see how I was doing, and I didn’t notice a thing – and that’s not like me at all.

I wasn’t alone either. I had Cujo the Killer Cat to keep me company. She was curled up on the bed right next to me when I awoke – clearly I’m warmer than the windowsill in the living room.

Rachel cooked a lovely tea this evening – a big dish of mixed vegetables soaked in olive oil and done in the microwave for 15 minutes. It was totally delicious. I’ll have to remember this.

I didn’t stay up for long after tea. My bad night was catching me up and so I came down here to my little room and went to bed. This streaming nose is still getting me down in more ways than one.

But i hope that I can have a better night tonight.

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.

But 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.

Coming 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?

But 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?

By 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.

Saturday 11th June 2016 – YESTERDAY AFTERNOON …

… I sat down and sent off a whole ruck of e-mails about accommodation, asking for appointments to view for this weekend. And how many replies do you think that I’ve received?

Krys guessed right (good old Krys!). She said “none”. As I have said many times before … "and you’ll say many times again" – ed … there is no such thing as a recession. There is just a whole load of people who are letting all kinds of income-generating opportunities melt away before their very eyes. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall dozens of similar occurrences – solar panel suppliers in March 2009, caravan suppliers in July 2015 – two examples that spring readily to mind.

And not forgetting two suppliers of slide-in camper units for Strider whom I visited, one in New Hampshire and the other one in Quebec – and asked them to send me quotes for the Spring so that I could order one ready for the summer. That’s an order worth over $12,500, would you believe, but it’s too much trouble for any of the sales staff to reply to me.

Anyway, enough of my ranting. I have better things to do.

Like waking up at 07:00, long before the alarm, finding out that two of my friends are on line already, and having a chat that went on to … errr … 13:00, with me missing breakfast. And then just as I was about to nip off, Liz came on-line for a chat and so I was here for another 90 minutes.

Not that I am complaining, of course. Far from it. It’s nice to see friends and chat aimlessly for ages. I’d much rather chat to a friend than eat breakfast. That’s much more important.

And so I eventually made it out to buy a baguette for lunch. Dunno if I mentioned that yesterday I finally discovered a boulangerie so I went there first. But by that time they had long-since sold out. I ended up at the Bio-Planet where I bought a lovely artisanal baguette, sampled a pile of delights and had two free cups of coffee. You have your money’s worth in the Bio-Planet.

Back here in my room it was stifling, but I’ve managed at long last to force the window so that now I can open it, and listen to the arrival of a serious rainstorm as the weather has broken.

But not before I went out to make my tea. The chick peas left over from Thursday had gone off already and so I ended up with pasta, tinned vegetables with chick-peas already mixed in, and tinned mushrooms followed by the usual pudding.

Tomorrow will be an exciting day for me as I’m taking all of my possessions to my new digs in Leuven. I hope that they are okay but for the money that I’m paying to stay there, I’m not expecting too much. It’s all a question of money’s worth, as you all know already. I’ll put up with inconvenience if I’m not paying very much – I’m on the economy package.

So i’ll clear off now and listen to the rain. It sounds lovely outside.

Sunday 21st February 2016 – OHH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING!

As indeed it was too. I crawled downstairs at about 08:00 this morning and opened the door into the kitchen where I met a whole host of shafts of bright sunlight streaming into the room.

You’ve no idea how much that cheered me up today seeing that. It’s just like the first day of Spring and it did remind me very much of that early morning in Labrador in late September – that freezing cold night when I had been sleeping out in the Wilderness in Strider and the sun bursting out over the horizon. That made me feel so much better too!

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had a rather difficult night. Not as far as sleep went – that was just as normal – but the voyage that I was on was one that was very uncomfortable, almost to the point of being distressing. I was working with a group of other people in a laboratory doing some tests on radio-active material. We broke off work to have the office party and I ended up dancing with a young girl, the daughter of one of my female colleagues. Afterwards, we went back to work, carrying on checking these samples for radio-activity. Suddenly, we found one that hadn’t been accounted for. It had been dropped in its watch-glass on the steps of the enclosed booth where we did the tests. This of course was a monumental error as the radio-activity could spread like wildfire, worse than the bubonic plague. As I had instituted this activity and was responsible for the tests, the woman actually carrying out the tasks asked me whether I intended to report the matter and accept the serious consequences. I immediately reported it and there was immediately a plant lock-down. Two women who were in one particular area of the factory were left behind and locked in and we could see, through the glass door, them dying an agonising death as the radio-activity spread across their bodies. The factory and its personnel dispersed but the personnel started to die off. The woman who had been carrying out the tasks went home and her mother who lived there, who was old and feeble, developed the radio-activity. She became seriously ill and her daughter, my colleague, was trying to reassure her and her own daughter (the one with whom I’d been dancing earlier) but kept fainting and collapsing, obviously gravely ill but doing her very best not to let anyone notice. The young girl was really frightened by all of this, hiding behind a door. She had two sons too and they didn’t know what was happening either. As everyone was dying out rapidly and my brother had put in an appearance by this time (what on earth was he doing here?) I asked him if he would go and check on this family to make sure that they were okay. He reckoned that they hadn’t been up to anything so they shouldn’t have any problems, not being aware of the woman’s involvement with the missing sample. I ended up back at home, in bed, and Nerina came round to visit. She had a bed at my house when she stayed the night and tonight, she needed a couple of extra pillows so I told her that she knew where they were. At this moment I noticed that I was starting to become ill. I had a touch of dysentery and thought that this isn’t like me and suddenly the revelation hit me that the radio-activity was now affecting me. I started to panic and wondered just who was going to be left over if even I was starting to succumb. We were all going to die and there would just be this young girl left. What a nightmare she would have, being surrounded by nothing but dead bodies of her family and friends.

No wonder I had an uneasy night with all of this going on. I really was happy to see the sun this morning.

i’ve spent most of the day watching the English cricket team totally humiliated by the South Africans (“just a blip” says the England captain but he’s clearly been watching – and playing in – a different series of matches than everyone else has been watching) and Manchester City bring the FA Cup and the game into disrepute by fielding a weakened team in a 5th Round competition. How I hate foreign footballers and foreign football managers who have no sense of pride and achievement and want to change the game to suit their own requirements.

Apart from that, I’ve finally finished the dictaphone notes for the 2015 trip to Canada. I’ve made a start on the notes of a voyage I made to Central France just before I left and I’m hoping to finish those tomorrow. Then, there will be the Germany trip and before that, the 2014 voyage to Canada.

But it won’t be done tonight as I’m going to have another early night in a bit. And I hope tomorrow will be just as lovely as today was. 16°C outside this afternoon, apparently.

5th January 2016 – BACK IN HOSPITAL

I told you yesterday that I had been summoned to the day ward today for a blood transfusion, so after at 7:00 am alarm and breakfast, I was off. There wasn’t much on the roads – at least as far as Montlucon – so I was lucky to arrive early and finding yet another good spec for Caliburn, right outside the hospital building.

And I’d remembered to take the second bank card too so that I could stop off at the bank on the way in. And now the Fighting Fund is looking a little healthier.

It was a good job that I arrived earlier at the hospital too because they were … errr … somewhat under pressure. I was lucky in being the first to arrive, for I could have the pick of the chairs in the day ward – right in the corner by the window by the power point. The others weren’t so lucky and to give you some idea of what was going on, our little ward for two people ended up with five of us in it – two on the beds, two in armchairs and one on a trolley. Maybe they REALLY couldn’t have fitted me in yesterday.

Putting the drain in my arm was another complicated manoeuvre that didn’t do me too much good and I can still feel it now.

We did have a stroke of luck though. Just after I arrived, the woman in charge of the kitchens came up to our ward to chat to the staff there just as they were counting heads for lunch. Hearing that I was “difficult”, she came over to chat to me about my vegan diet and, much to my surprise, at lunchtime I ended up with couscous, chards in sauce and a portion of lentil salad. It just goes to show what can be accomplished if you happen to fall in with the correct people.

Another surprising thing was that the blood was already there waiting for me. But it was freezing cold, so to warm it up I had to stick it up my jumper (and I bet that you think that I am joking too – the old traditional methods are much more effective than anything that modern science can come up with). And that meant that by 13:30 I was all done and dusted, and they threw me out.

Not too far though. I had to go up to the ward where I will be confined during my surgery, to pick up a letter from my surgeon. Of course, it goes without saying that it wasn’t ready (half a day is far too short a notice for a civil service secretary) but it did give me an opportunity to spy out the land while I was there. And I’ll tell you something – there are a few nurses up there who can sooth my fevered brow any time they like! There have to be some compensations for being seriously ill.

On the road again, I went round to Amaranthe to pick up some vegan cheese, only to find that it was closed for stocktaking, and to Leader Price to buy some Cheddar for Terry, but was sold out in both the branches that I visited.

I had more luck at the Clinique St Francois where I was finally able to pay my bill for the blood tests. And I’ll tell you what – I’m glad that I’m not having my operation there. The back wall of their clinic is the side wall of the local cemetery. I suppose that it’s quite handy for discreetly disposing of the surgical failures – a quick heave over the wall in the middle of the night – although it must be a discouraging view for the patients in the rooms at the back.

At Pionsat I picked up my outstanding medication, and so I went off to blag my way into the doctor’s for the injections that I need to have done to bolster my immune system (once the spleen goes, I’ll be relying on those to keep me going) but it appears than Bane of Britain has forgotten to bring the prescription with him.

But here’s a thing. Diesel at the Carrefour in Montlucon is currently 104.9 centimes. At the Intermarché in Pionsat, it’s just 99.9. It’s the first time that I’ve ever seen it cheaper there. Of course, I took the opportunity to fuel up – it’s over 100kms round trip to Montlucon and back even if I don’t go anywhere else, and that soon gets through a tank of diesel in Caliburn whose maximum range is about 750 kms or so. It’s a good job that I don’t have Strider here, who is much more thirsty and struggles to do 450 kms.

Back here I crashed out. I wasn’t up to anything at all. No food, no drink – nothing. Just like in the bad old days in mid-November. I had my injection and then crawled off to bed at some ridiculously early hour – even more ridiculous than the 20:00 of late.

Talking of bed, I’ve forgotten to tell you about last night’s adventures. I bet that you were counting your blessings, thinking that you had escaped from it all.

Not so lucky, are you then?

Anyway, last night was yet another night where there was so much going on and yet I can only remember a small amount of it. Going to bed at 20:00 or thereabouts just recently is certainly doing something for me.

We started off back at a house that I clearly recognised, but which I can’t now recall. I’d been somewhere in a car (and I can’t now recall which car) and by the time that I returned, the car was full of rubbish and totally untidy, not an unusual occurrence of course. I needed to empty the car completely before the long-suffering Nerina came back to witness the disorder, and my brother (what’s he doing here again?) came along to give me a pile of gratuitous advice. Nerina did indeed turn up, and sooner than expected too, but her car was in an even worse state than mine although that didn’t deter her from making a few acid comments.
I then moved on to another house where I was living with my family, although I don’t recognise this house at all. It was crammed with people and, furthermore, we’d let a room to three young men, a French guy (someone whom I’ve known for years but who bore more than a passing resemblance to a guy whom I know in Germany), the guy who married my youngest sister and a third guy, who may well have been the brother of the second. This had involved shuffling around the rest of the inhabitants and it was certainly causing a whole pile of confusion. It started off with me having to help a young boy of about 5 years old feed himself but that wasn’t working. He was being difficult about it and so I had to go up to the room where he had been sleeping to fetch something. He was one of the people who had been shuffled around but I had forgotten this, so I barged straight into the room where these other three people were. Back downstairs, by the time this boy had finished his meal, I reckoned that it was time for him to go to bed but he wasn’t convinced. There was only one clock in the house that was anything like reliable, and that was the bedroom where he had been sleeping. So up I went to check and, forgetting about the change of rooms, barged yet again straight into the room where these three guys were, without knocking. I was full of profuse apologies, to which they replied “it’s not a problem – it wasn’t as if we were doing anything”. My response was that knocking was a form of politeness (a comment that has a strange parallel with an event that occurred in “real time” a couple of days ago). Anyway, the young boy was correct – it was only 18:30 and far from being his bed time. It was however dinner time for the grown-ups and all of the family was there tucking in. And a few minutes later we were joined by our friends from upstairs who had to fight their way into the table as our family gives no quarter when it comes to sticking our snouts in the trough.

But all of this is really bizarre. There are several people making little cameo appearances in my night-time rambles. There are some to whom I’ve given no thought whatever for probably the last 45 years (if I ever gave them any thought back then), some people who wouldn’t give me the time of day in real life (and boy, could I tell you some stories about that), some people whose actions on the second plane totally contradict their actions on the first plane, and some people who remain totally true to type no matter on what plane of existence they are.

But never mind. As I have said before, and I’ll say again … "and again and again and again" – ed … my nocturnal rambles are much more exciting that what is going on currently in my real life, and that’s not something to be rejected.

I just wish that it was me doing the casting, choosing the characters who could take part in it. I’d have a much more exciting cast than this current lot (one or two people excepted).

Tuesday 13th October 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the question of fuel consumption for Strider has been causing me some little concern. Darren and I have talked at length about this, and one of the options that came up in the conversation involved fitting a diesel engine in him.

This is not as strange an idea as it might sound, and for three reasons too.
Firstly, the Ford Ranger is made under licence in Japan as the Mazda B3000 and that comes with a factory-fitted option of 3.0-litre diesel engine.
Secondly, in Europe it’s available with the same diesel engine as is in Caliburn
Thirdly, the engine is based on the old Ford V6 Cologne engine that was fitted in the late Taunuses and early Granadas, Sierras and Transits, and I actually have two diesel engines on my farm – a 2.5 NA and a 2.3 Sierra diesel – that would bolt straight in on the bellhousing.
I would lose a great deal of power of course with a diesel engine but why on earth does a Ranger need 207 hp? 163 hp is plenty.

Not only that, if you’ve been following my adventures around North America, you’ll remember that about 5 weeks ago, I met a guy in Bridgewater, Maine, who has a diesel fetish and has fitted diesel engines into almost everything that he owns, including a motor bike.

And so this morning after breakfast and after spending some time at the tyre place saying goodbye to everyone, I went over across into Maine to see him.

As you might expect, he wasn’t there. But his ladyfriend was and we had a good chat for a couple of hours about this and that.

Back in Canada, I went down to Woodstock and by the time we got … "you said that yesterday#34; – ed … I went to pick up another tote box. Leaving everything in Strider and leaving Strider in an open hangar means that we might attract all kinds of things and so I need to have everything in boxes and properly closed. Walmart had some tote boxes like the one that I bought last year, for just $6:00 and they also had, for $6:00, a three-drawer set of plastic drawers. I’ve been looking for one of those for a while, to put the cutlery and stuff like that in. I wasn’t going to pass that up.

I went to Tim Horton’s to catch up with the internet, and then round to the car wash to give Strider a really good going-over and to vacuum him out. I’d also bought a pile of mothballs and some sheets of Bounce. Folklore in New Brunswick is such that if you scatter them about liberally, they keep away mice, skunks and all of that kind of thing. Consequently, Strider is stuffed full of them.

After supper, we took the battery off Strider and put him away in the hangar for the winter. And it was at this moment that the diesel guy from Maine called me up to say that he needed to see the gearbox bell housing before he could do anything. And so that will have to wait until next year, won’t it?

Rachel ran me up to Florenceville and we had a big goodbye when the bus pulled in at the Irving garage to take me off to Montreal. It’s hard to believe that my 8 weeks in Canada is up already. I feel like I have been here for ever and quite frankly, I wish that I had been and that I could.

The bus journey to Montreal is quite painless. The buses are big, clean and roomy and then there aren’t too many people on them. I had two seats to myself and so I could spread out and make myself comfortable as we shot off to Riviere du Loup where we change for the bus that comes up from the Gaspé.

Monday 12th October 2015 – IT’S THANKSGIVING.

And with Thanksgiving being a public holiday in Canada, everyone had a lie-in this morning and we ended up later having one of the legendary Taylor Breakfast Brunches, with plenty of toast and hot coffee.

I’ve spent all of the afternoon stripping Strider right out and I’ve disposed of enough rubbish that will surely make Strider go 5 mph faster. I’ve certainly filled both of the 40-gallon incinerator drums.

I’ve found a few things that I’d forgotten about, including the tin opener that I had bought at a charity shop in Moncton. No wonder my bed had an uncomfortable spot in it. And I’ve also pulled out everything that needs to go back with me, such as the Ryobi circular saw, the batteries, the CDs and a couple of books.

There’s a load more room in there now, which should be no surprise. All of the tins are now on the shelf above the bed and all of the loose clothes and papers, as well as the food that’s in packets, has gone into the green tote box that is under the bed. You can actually see the floor now.

Rachel did some washing for me too so that everything is now clean, and when it’s dry I’ll put it all away and that will be the lot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: strider

Saturday 17th September 2016 – NOW THIS IS WHAT …

Thursday 15th September 2016 – AND WASN’T THAT A NICE …

Wednesday 14th September 2016 – AND AS FOR LAST NIGHT …

Tuesday 13th September 2016 – AND I DID TOO!

Monday 12th September 2016 – I WONDERED …

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

Friday 9th September 2016 – THAT WAS A MUCH BETTER …

Thursday 8th September 2016 – THAT WASN’T VERY GOOD

Wednesday 7th September 2016 – WHAT A GOOD DECISION …

Saturday 11th June 2016 – YESTERDAY AFTERNOON …

Sunday 21st February 2016 – OHH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING!

5th January 2016 – BACK IN HOSPITAL

Tuesday 13th October 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Monday 12th October 2015 – IT’S THANKSGIVING.

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

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