Tag Archives: carry on cowboy

Tuesday 26th August 2025 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve felt as ill as I have today?

And how long is it since I’ve been to bed well before 23:00 (21:56 was when last night’s notes were published) and slept right through until the alarm sounded at 06:29?

Yes, it has been a day of all kinds of records, some of them unwelcome, and I hope that things improve quite rapidly as I can’t go on like this.

Last night, though, I was in all kinds of states. I was feeling nauseous, my head was spinning round and I was absolutely flat-out tired. I dashed through my notes and staggered through my preparations for the night, and then fell into bed.

During the night, I remember nothing at all, and no-one was more surprised than me to still be asleep when the alarm went off. It’s been an age since that has happened. It took me a while to stagger to my feet too – for two pins I’d have gone back to bed – and even longer to go to sort myself out in the bathroom.

Once I was ready, which took a lot longer than it ought, I went into the kitchen to take my morning medication. I must try to return to my old routine now that everything is calming down. I’ve forgotten the medication more times than I care to remember just recently.

There was a task that remained uncompleted from when I was taken ill at dialysis yesterday. I was in the middle of splitting a music soundtrack, and I’d only completed “less than half” of it. There’s no time like the present so I had a good go at that to finish it off.

The nurse interrupted me with his visit, and I do have to say that since he’s come back from his holiday, he’s become quite likeable as he was when I first met him. He was disappointed that the Hound of the Baskervilles has left though.

Breakfast was next, and it was nice to have an unhurried, leisurely meal looking out of the window at the World as it walked by. Much as I liked the view from upstairs, outside here on the ground floor is much more animated.

Back in here, I can’t remember what I did next. It wasn’t to go through my usual routine of seeing what had gone on during the night and transcribing the dictaphone notes, that’s for sure. It was probably something to do with trying to find some of the things that I need that have been put into boxes, there to remain, probably forever.

There were a few people online with whom I wanted to chat, so that passed some time as well.

After lunch, I had a foot-fest. There had been a whole series of matches in the J D Cymru League yesterday and I had purposefully refrained from reading about them because the live match would have been when I was on my way home, so I wanted to watch it all in one go as if it were a live game.

So this afternoon I had Connah’s Quay Nomads v Y Fflint from yesterday afternoon. And having watched Llanelli throw away a 2-goal lead to go down 4-2 to Llansawel the other day, this time it was the turn of Y Fflint to throw away a 2-goal lead, to go down 3-2.

For the first half, Connah’s Quay were awful and Y Fflint made it look easy. But at half-time, the Nomads made no fewer than four substitutions, the first time that I have ever seen so many changes at half-time by one club. It obviously worked, because they stormed away throughout the second half.

There were also all of the highlights of the other matches, including Colwyn Bay’s impressive 1-1 draw against perennial champions TNS. After four matches, Caernarfon are currently leading the table, and it’s been a very long time since that has happened.

What with one thing and another, I’d almost forgotten the dictaphone notes. They were next on the list and the massive “War And Peace” from the previous night is now online. I’ve no idea what must have been going on during the other night, but there are tons of stuff, and it’s well-worth a read.

Having done that, I could then turn my attention to last night’s notes. At some point during the night I dreamed that my cleaner came down with a whole load of stuff that had been sitting around and about the apartment, and threatened me under pain of dire retribution to start to move anything around. However, I was in bed at the time and certainly didn’t feel like getting up so I didn’t say anything. I just left her to go about doing it. But after a good half-hour or so, I had a look at the time. It was 02:26 so it must have been a dream that I had had, probably because I couldn’t see any changes to any of the piles in here. So now I have to try to go back to sleep and hope that I can manage it before all my staff desert it all for the goldfields.

Firstly, I can’t remember awakening at 02:26. And then we’ve had dreams within dreams before now, and I always find them to be an interesting phenomenon. Finally, the incident about the staff deserting for the goldfields reminds me of a VERY AMUSING INCIDENT ONCE WHEN I WAS IN LABRADOR. Who will ever forget "Gold Strike at Bear Creek"?

Later on, we’d moved into some new digs. I was sitting there, comfortably thinking that when we all go out on Tuesday, I would go and buy a motorbike for myself. That way, I could travel to and from work and everywhere I want to go much more easily. Of course, my brother thought that the idea was silly. He said that it would be two weeks before I fell off it, or something like that. However, I decided that that was what I would do. In the end, I ended up having a discussion with the landlady of where we were staying. She talked about different things, and I happened to mention that I might go back on the buses. She said that that was a huge jump up from driving a car. Did I think that I’d be safe? Did I think that I wouldn’t have any problems? Etc. I told her that I used to drive for Shearings, which lit up her eyes. She said “ohh, well you’ll probably remember me then”. Just as she was about to say why, the alarm went off.

Apart from my family sticking the oar in, imagine these days still being asleep when the alarm went off. Had I been awake, I would have missed this little voyage.

All through the day, I had been feeling nauseous, my head had been spinning and by the late afternoon, my vision had become blurred and I could hardly see what I was doing. I couldn’t find the force to stand up and I wasn’t feeling at all hungry, even though I’d eaten nothing since breakfast.

However, I forced myself into the kitchen, later than usual, and made a bowl of pasta and vegetables with one of the vegan burgers that I have. I didn’t feel like eating it but if I don’t make an effort, I’m going to be seriously ill one of these days … "as if you aren’t already" – ed

Standing up afterwards, my head was spinning around and I could barely find the energy to stay standing upright, crutches or not.

But now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed, horribly late.

But seeing as we have been talking about the saloon in CARRY ON COWBOY"well, one of us has" – ed … in the same saloon, the local preacher came in to preach to the cowboys about the evils of the demon drink.
"Would you like a whisky first?" asked the bartender.
"No evil liquor should ever touch my lips" roared the preacher. "I would rather spend the night in a brothel with a woman of ill-repute!"
At that, several cowboys dashed up to the bar and handed back their whiskies to the bartender.
"Why are you doing this?" asked the aforementioned.
"Well" replied the cowboys "we didn’t realise that we had a choice."

Tuesday 25th February 2025 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I …

… call a wasted day today. I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done exactly three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … nothing.

Some of it has been my own fault, as you might indeed expect, but some of it hasn’t. I really need to motivate myself better if I am ever going to accomplish anything.

The most obvious excuse to use is that I was thoroughly, completely and utterly exhausted. The other day, returning from dialysis, I was in bed at 21:30 and last night it was 22:20. and I was lucky that I made it that far because I really wasn’t in the mood.

Once in bed though, going to sleep was another matter. “At least, being in a horizontal position is resting and relaxing” I kidded myself.

Eventually though I dozed off into oblivion and had yet another turbulent night. For a change though, following a dialysis session, I was actually asleep when the alarm went off at 07:00

At that moment I was with a friend of mine and we were trying to go into her office. There was a security reception desk and the girl on there was known to be rather strict so it was necessary to fill in an application form, and when you went for an eye test, the optical test, it would come up with several people similar and you had to guess which one you were. The aim was that I would find someone similar to me and say that I’d lost my card. She would give me a new card and I would go in. This however wasn’t working and there was nothing very similar to me at all so my friend had to think of another excuse. The girl at the reception desk took an absolute age to deal with all of this before she finally handed me a duplicate card. My friend said “this is just typical of this girl. She knows that this is a fraudulent application because we have thousands, and she’s just taking her time about it as she always does”. We went in a walked down a corridor, then we had to climb down into a courtyard and up the other side. Climbing down was fine but climbing up was almost impossible for me so I had to think of another way of doing it. At that moment a man came down and sat in the corner to begin to smoke a cigarette. I thought that the easiest way was to strike up a conversation. This place looked rather Asian so I talked about having a Japanese garden in here. My friend came back to look for me. He asked her “how long have you worked here?”. She replied “oh, years. I came here in August” and said which year it was. He asked “how do you find it?”. She replied “I made a mistake because I came here in a jumper and I regretted it”. She wandered off and he said to me “she’s a tough girl, isn’t she?”. I said “someone who had had the problems that she had had and survived, anyone would be tough”. He was looking at me and could see that I was disabled and said “oh please sit down”. I replied “I can’t because if I sit down I can’t stand up”. Then he began to panic saying “oh please sit down, sit down, sit down”. I wondered what was going on. This place where we were was like a volcanic crater although it was a garden with pavilion-type Japanese buildings in it, all ringed by a really jagged range of mountains in a huge circular form that looked just as if it was inside a volcano but with a garden inside instead of a crater.

That’s an interesting idea for Security, isn’t it? Being able to choose who you were. After all, NAMES ARE FOR TOMBSTONES, BABY. And I had a friend for a while in Brussels who had been a diplomat in Japan, but it wasn’t she. But if I’m going to be disabled and handicapped in my dream, then it rather defeats the point of them, doesn’t it? Not much point in escapism if you can’t escape.

Into the bathroom for a good wash and then into the kitchen for medication; Finally back in here to listen to the dictaphone because there was much more than just the above. I’d been working on a radio programme and I couldn’t ever make it right. It never seemed to go anywhere as how it was supposed to do. It was continually failing the quality control check. After several weeks of editing I finally had it something like and was ready to send it off. The recording engineer and some of the producers were however rather fed up of having this come up on their desks every week so they were determined to stop it but I sent it off anyway but they still came back and refused it. What should have been a deadline for the 28th of April was now running into May. They basically said that they wouldn’t edit it again and it was finished. I replied “well for failing it this last two or three times on tiny issues, it shows a serious lack of goodwill particularly when I have worked as hard as I have done over the past day or two to put the issue right. If there was nothing substantially wrong with the last one you should have accepted it” but they were still very unwilling to move on this particular issue and I could see this programme running on and on and on.

There have been radio programmes that have taken an age to do because the editing has been so complicated. There was the one a few weeks ago that took several weeks, and the worst part of it was that it overran so I had to edit it, and one of the bits that went was the bit where I’d had all of the difficulty

There was a girl from school directing a film last night. She was running through the scenes. I had a look at the scenes and towards the end of the film there were thousands of scenes every second, so many scenes to go through and they lasted a blinking of an eye. I was appearing as an extra in it and so was a friend of mine. We’d been to makeup and we’d been dressed up and put our costumes on. As the film was being filmed it was passed through some kind of computer animation so people became like cartoon characters as they were going through the motions for real. When I looked at my image and the vision of the girl who was with me, the images were horrible, the faces were all distorted and nothing seemed to be correct at all. We were standing on the set waiting to be directed. The girl from school came along, took one look at us, took one look at the screen effects and told us to leave the stage. We thought “that was a waste of an entire day. What a shame. Our chance for fame and fortune”.

This is another girl about whom I haven’t spent a day thinking since I left school. So why she would put in an appearance right now I really don’t know.

Later on I was with another girl. We’d stopped somewhere to look at something that we’d seen earlier. All of a sudden I had a horrible realisation that I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t have a clue as to how I’d arrived at this place, or the name of the place or what I was doing here anyway. I left the girl with the car and walked a little way up the road to see if I could see anything. On the left-hand side of the road was a funeral director’s place with gravestones in it but it was all closed, dusty, and hadn’t been open for years by the looks of it. I decided to turn round and walk back to the car and drive until we find a village and see the name. What I could also do later was to look through the dashcam videos and see if I could identify the route. As I was walking back a lorry that was coming up behind me stopped at the side of the road behind me. The driver alighted and stood by the side of his cab. A lorry that was coming towards me, he stopped too and he alighted from his cab. He was carrying a small puppy and he stood by the cab. I was effectively blocked in between these two lorries, and my car and my friend were beyond them. As these two guys stood there I had this horrible menacing feeling that something pretty awful was about to happen.

So who are all these girls who keep on appearing? I wish I knew. Some nice, charming, pleasant company would be just what the doctor ordered and to actually have them present and allow them to slip away so easily like this is something of a shame. And I know that regular readers of this rubbish will recall saying on many occasions that I never “know where I was” but in this dream it was for real. As for those two guys in the lorries, I know THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THEM .

isabelle the nurse breezed in this morning, late as usual due to having to do all of the blood tests that her oppo doesn’t want to do. She had a few cheery words of greeting and then rushed back out. She’s been working on her float for Carnaval and making the costumes and she’s promised me plenty of photos after the parades this forthcoming weekend.

Then it was breakfast time and MY BOOK time.

Today we are discussing miscellaneous earthworks again and despite his dismissal of much that has been assumed or inferred on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, he seems to conclude that everything uncertain is “probably” something astronomical or astrological, or both. However, he is yet to post one single piece of evidence to suggest what it is that is supposed to be indicated or observed, and the position of the stars and planets in the sky hasn’t changed that much in the last 5,000 years. The earth rotates through something like 1° every 7000 years.

His “pottery works” on the shores of the Thames estuary in Essex was excavated in the 1930s and identified as an Iron Age or Roman salt evaporation site, and not only did I manage to find the report of the excavation, I found a treatise on the operation thereof and now I would be quite confident in running my own sea salt production facility if the need ever arises. It would have been the kind of thing that, had I found it 20 years ago, I would have gone to try it to see if it would work.

Back in here I had all of the replies to deal with, and you’ve no idea just how many there were. Do I owe you all money or something? Once again, a great big thank-you for your continued support.

No Welsh today, so I decided to deal with the “Taste of Woodstock” radio programme. First task is to see what “songs played at Woodstock” I have in my live music collection As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I can’t use material actually performed at Woodstock unfortunately.

The answer to that is “not as much as I need” so I edited what I had and then set out to hunt down more music but I was waylaid. One of my neighbours, the President of the Residents’ Committee, wanted to come to pay me a visit. She’d left me a birthday present yesterday, which was nice of her.

She came along and we had a very nice chat for a while and discussed several issues, one of which was, surprisingly, one of the topics that I’d discussed with Rosemary the other day. It seems to be something that’s on the minds of a lot of people right now.

Next was my little great niece (or is she my great little niece) who arrived back home in Canada last night from Ecuador. She showed me all of her photos and videos of her trip and I told her how impressed I was with her. And I am too. These opportunities for travel only come along once in a lifetime and you should seize the moment. Sitting there with her feet straddling the equator beats the one that I took of Alison straddling the driehoek – the three-cornered border between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and also beats the one of Rosemary, STRAWBERRY MOOSE and me straddling the Arctic Circle.

Had His Nibs and I been able to reach the North Pole in 2018 I might have trumped it but, regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we stopped 700 miles short. My niece has 50 years ahead of her to do that, and good luck to her.

And while we’re on the subject of Rosemary … "well, one of us is" – ed … she rang me again today for a short chat. And it was short too – only fifty-three minutes. She needs the birth certificates of her parents and didn’t know how to go about finding them. Consequently I had a very happy time delving deep into the bowels of the Public Records Office in Kew and to my delight, I came up trumps too. When I was in Wandsworth working in that Italian restaurant I spent a lot of time in the PRO

The radio programme for this coming weekend needed chaeking too. That’s now done and sent off, but there was no time left to carry on with any more work. I was late as it was. But making a taco roll with rice and veg followed by date bread and soya dessert doesn’t take long.

So now I’m off to bed ready for shower day tomorrow. And I hope that I have a more productive day than today was. I can do without too many days like that. However, I’ll never turn down an opportunity to talk to a friend when the opportunity arises. There are more things in life than working.

But while we’re on the subject of working … "well, one of us is" – ed … One of my friends had sent me a message for my birthday, saying "I hope you managed to lay your hands on something tasty for your birthday"
And so I replied saying "unfortunately not. The nurses at dialysis kept well out of my reach."

Saturday 10th August 2024 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… all that much better today than it was yesterday. There has been a slight improvement to be sure but almost anything would be an improvement over what surely must have been one of the worst days of my life.

It was another late night last night. and I’m not talking about midnight or anything respectably late but I’m talking about times like 02:00, that sort of thing.

Something awoke me at 05:45 and I’ve no idea what it was. At te time I was in the middle of some kind of panic attack thing about how I must catch a bus to somewhere, a long-distance coach. I have to be somewhere else by 08:00 to board this bus and I’ve no idea what time it is and when the alarm goes off will I have time to go – another one of these panic attacks. But whatever awoke me sounded so real that I actually left the bed to answer my phone, which hadn’t rung or even received a message, so I’ve absolutely no idea why I would have done that.

Having made sure that there was nothing going on that might have been of an importance I went back to bed.

These days I’ve had a few of these panic attacks while I’m asleep.. I wonder if some part of my body is telling me something and that I need to take heed. But I really can’t think where I have to be that involves any kind of travel that I would undertake in a long-distance bus. The only place where I would ever be likely to want to take one would be between Montréal and Florenceville in New Brunswick, but not even that bus runs any more.

Once I was back in bed there I stayed until the alarm went off.

When Billy Cotton ROARED HIS RAUCOUS RATTLE I staggered off into the bathroom to have a good scrub, wash my night-time shorts and change my clothes. I have to look my best for Isabelle’s last day before she goes off on a well-deserved break.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. I was in a scrapyard somewhere and we had an old Class 20 or similar shunter. For some reason we had to go to a quarry. At the quarry was another one of the same type of machine. There was some issue involving the driver of that particular machine so as we were there one of our people drove it. There was a huge argument and he ended up escaping in this machine, not before he’s destroyed half of their infrastructure, driven over the top of a crane cutting the bodywork etc. The bailiffs or someone turned up at our place and wanted to take away our machine thinking that it was theirs but when they compared the registration numbers of our train with the registration numbers of the locomotive from the quarry they found out that it wasn’t the same so they couldn’t take it, so they left Then the guy turned up with this machine from a quarry so we ended up with two identical machines due to people losing their temper

Actually, I know someone who has a Class 20 diesel locomotive. He might even have more. He’s the neighbour of a former friend of mine and runs a company in Staffordshire hiring out locomotives to various railway companies and has a useful side-line ingoing round various locomotive breakers yards rescuing the more valuable spare parts. He started off with just one locomotive that he had bought to preserve but made a fortune hiring it out to the builders of the Channel Tunnel and, like Topsy, his business “just growed”.

Isabelle was in “chat” mode again today and she spent some time here. Having covered for her boss’s absence on holiday she’s now going off for ten days. He starts back tomorrow and their cycle of “one week on, one week off” begins again.

While I was having breakfast I was reading about the Maginnis Gulch Stampede, or Montana’s Phantom Gold Rush, an incident that was played to perfection in CARRY ON COWBOY

But for those of you who have expressed an interest, the book is called FOLLOWING OLD TRAILS, written by a newspaperman called Arthur L Stone.

Later on in the morning there were the highlights of last night’s game between Queen’s Park and Livingston, and then I joined that guy I mentioned the other day, Blair McNally, for a trip to the East end of Glasgow for Vale of Clyde v Port Glasgow Athletic, a proper amateur football match in about the eighth level of the Scottish Pyramid.

This afternoon I’ve been tracking down concert dates. And much to my surprise, because of all the ones that I’ve done this is the first, I came across one that took place on a date on which I will have a radio broadcast within the current cycle of programmes that I’m preparing.

So on 21st March next year we’ll be having a live concert from the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago in 1974. This afternoon I’ve mixed the music for the concert and I’ve written half of the notes. I could have written more but unfortunately I was away with the fairies for a while at some point.

While I was at it, I came across a few other interesting bits and pieces, and finally turned my hand to downloading a concert that had been sent to me by one of the musicians who took part, featuring the almost-last concert on which my hero Deke Leonard played.

It’s a real pity though because of how the dates fall, this one won’t be broadcast for several years yet.

Tea tonight was one of my favourite quorn steaks in breadcrumbs, with baked potato and vegan salad. And it was delicious as always. Something that I eat every week but why not if I enjoy it.

So now I’m going to dictate the next batch of radio notes and then I’m going to try to go to bed at something like a reasonable time.

But talking of “Carry On Cowboy” reminds me of the two bandits (one of whom was Sid James) talking to the Indian chief Big Heap (Charles Hawtrey)

Big Heap – "And this is my son, Little Heap"
One Bandit – "How"
Other bandit (Sid James) – "How"
Big Heap – "And this is my squaw. I bought her for two buffalo skins"
One Bandit – "How"
Other bandit (Sid James) – "Never mind how. Where?"

Saturday 6th July 2019 – HAVING SAID …

… last night that it was bound to rain before long, I can say that it didn’t at all today, which is always very nice.

And for a change, I was up and about early yet again. Straight after the second alarm went off. That gave me a good 45 minutes to bash away at what I wanted to do before breakfast, which is something that I like to do otherwise tend up falling behind.

After breakfast, we had to get ready as we were going off on a zodiac cruise to shore and a town called Rif. There’s a strange guy there who runs a theatre and hostel, and he was to entertain us for half an hour.

The ride in was good, not too rough so we weren’t soaked. And just for a change, we were first off out of the blocks. That doesn’t happen every time.

The guy there gave us a talk and a few songs, and I talked to one of the residents, a girl called Sonia.

But it was the wrong time of year to be visiting Rif as the centre of the village is well-known for its colony of nesting terns and right now, the eggs have only just hatched so the birds were quite aggressive. Several of us were dive-bombed and received little gifts from the heavens, but one or two of the people where physically attacked by the birds and injuries were suffered.

There was a church in the vicinity that I had wanted to see but the aggressive birds put quite a few areas out of bounds. For the same reason it wasn’t recommended to walk to the town of Hellisandur either.

A waterfall , the Svodufoss, 4kms away was a very good substitute so some of us went there instead. But I don’t know by what route they calculated the 4kms but my fitbit made the round trip 12.1 kms – a bit of a difference and I could certainly feel it.

And it’s as well that I hadn’t had much to drink. After all, you can’t go behind a bush in Iceland because there are no bushes to go behind.

Of course I was not alone out there .Strawberry Moose came with me and took full advantage of the situation, being photographed in several exciting places.

Back on the zodiac and it was lunchtime. I was good and ready for it too, having walked all of that way in just a morning.

After lunch I went and had a shower and washed my clothes. It’s been a couple of days and I bet that they could pick me up on the ship’s radar. And then we had a series of lectures on different subjects.

One of our lectures, on the geology of Iceland, was interrupted. A blue whale had been observed off the port bow so we abandoned the lecture – another “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” moment as in Carry On Cowboy. We were in luck too because there were two of them and they gave us quite a performance.

After tea we sailed past a series of very high cliffs at a place called Latrabjarg. And very impressive they were too. We weren’t the only ones to think so either because right at the point of land (it’s the extreme western edge of Iceland) there was a scenic viewpoint with quite a few cars and people admiring the view.

There was a rep from Nikon there too offering us a trial of various equipment. She had a very high quality 28-300mm lens amongst her hire equipment so I have borrowed that for a few days. I’m interested to see how that shapes up, so I’ll let you know in due course.

Now I have a few things to tidy off and then I might go to have an early night. The sunset might be a good one again but I really need to catch up with my sleep.

Thursday 6th September 2018 – DESPITE MY …

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.

You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

… rather late night last night looking at the midnight sun, I was still awake before the alarm went off. And much to my surprise, I find that I’m starting to rely on this and include it in my timetable, and that’s something that will never do because in the long run it’s all going to end in tears.

However, I did stay in bed until the alarm went off, and then I was straight out and on deck with the crowds who were also up there early. Our captain had managed to find the pack-ice. My fellow-voyagers were all trying to see the wildlife but as for me, it’s not my thing at all, unless it’s a polar bear of course.

I’m much more interested in the landscape and the historical aspect of it all. But the land was rather far away and swathed in fog, and we’ve yet to touch on the historical aspect, at least from my own point of view.

It was at this point that I realised that I hadn’t had my medication and so I went back down to my cabin.

Breakfast was the usual. Bran flakes with raisins and fruit, with toast, coffee and orange juice. And then I made an appointment to see the Cruise Director about an issue that has suddenly developed.

I was going to add “unexpectedly” but regular readers of this rubbish that I write will recall the fact that the only thing unexpected about all of this is that it’s taken so long for me to get myself into trouble.

After this, I’ve been keeping a low profile. After all, it’s not like me to court controversy, is it? After all, Henry Hudson was cast adrift by his colleagues and subsequently lost on an Arctic voyage after one such confrontation.

Back on the ice and watching the wildlife. At least – they were. And later we were all given a lecture on bird-watching. I had plenty of those from Nerina when I was married, as you can imagine. But again, I wasn’t all that interested. The only birds that I am likely to be interested in watching aren’t likely to be found in the Lancaster Sound.

Later, there was a talk on navigating the North-West Passage. I was really looking forward to this but once again, I was confounded. Rather than a discussion on McClure and Franklin, with maybe Amundsen thrown in for good measure, we had someone else from the staff going on an ego-trip about how he once sailed around the passage in a catamaran.

I really don’t know where they find these people. But the ordinary punters quite like it. So I suppose that we have to cater for them. After all, they are in the majority.

But I’m not here to listen to that, as you know. I’m all out to hear how the ancient explorers did it, and then to go out and do it with them.

We took a diversion up Burnett Inlet to have a look at what wildlife we might see up there.

Someone saw a few walruses, and, well, I suppose that they were once I magnified the image.

Someone else saw a dozen or so musk-oxen on the slope leading up to the glacier. And all that I can say is that I’ll have to take their word for that.

I managed to see the seal though. So at least that’s something. It would have been nice to see a polar bear stalking him but I suppose that that’s a luxury I’ll have to do without.

We settled down for lunch but we weren’t there long. The cry went up “beluga whales on the port bow” so we had another “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” moment as everyone dashed outside.

Quite frankly, I wouldn’t recognise a beluga whale if I were to trip over one on my doorstep, so I didn’t really know what I was shooting at. But later on and the end of the evening, several things that I had photographed that I thought were ice – floes are in fact the aforementioned. So how about that?

Of course, Vera Lynn would have no such difficulty. As everyone knows, she was once a cook on a whaler up her, and the legendary cry from the crew of her boat of “Whale Meat Again!” still echoes out across the icebergs… "are you sure about this?" – ed.

As we exited the Inlet, I was convinced that I saw something black on the horizon that I was convinced was a ship. No-one else could see it, even with binoculars, and were of the opinion that I was hallucinating.

But anyway I took a photo of it and with a little judicial “crop and enlarge” I could certainly see something.

And when I enlarged it even more, I’m even more convinced that it’s another ship.

Back to lunch, and I suddenly came over all peculiar. I’d noticed yesterday evening that I was having a shaking fit which I put down to something that I must have eaten, but it certainly erupted while I was trying to finish my lunch. It’s not very often that I have to walk out on a meal but I did today.

Later on we went into Stratton Inlet, and the cry went up “walruses on the starboard bow” so yet another “Gold Strike At Bear Creek” moment as everyone dashed upstairs.

This time I was lucky and actually managed to see them. And I’m glad that I did too, because there were a couple of dozen of them – dominant males, females, and loads of pups splashing around in the water.

There were several workshops going on later in the afternoon. I was torn between the Geography of the North West Passage or the Camera demonstration and lecture, and chose the latter.

To be honest I didn’t really learn much, except that my equipment is total garbage and my technique is even worse. Seeing other people’s gear and the output that they can obtain makes me want to delete all of mine and send them to the recycle bin?

I’m totally demoralised.

The day’s ice report hadn’t come in and so we all went for a sail in the zodiacs. I had the camera and the zoom lens with me and took a few pics, a couple of which came out okay, but still not good enough for what I want.

When we arrived, we were told the bad news. The channel ahead is blocked and we need to retreat to go around another way.

And this is really bad news for me because the four places that I had wanted to see had now all been by-passed. We aren’t going to reach a single one. I’m now totally inconsolable. I may as well get off at the next stop and fly back home for all the good that this trip has done me.

I was reminded of a quote from a certain Lieutenant Skead who accompanied Collinson on his leisurely stroll around the fringes of the ice back in the 1850s. He said An ordinary yachtsman might have taken his craft (there) and his wife and daughters to boot. I’m afraid to think of what we shall do if we meet with difficulty

However, a little bit of research did tell me that in November 2015 our captain had almost sunk the ship in the Antarctic after a rather injudicious encounter with an ice-floe and this had cost the company a considerable amount of money and prestige.

It’s quite apparent therefore that he’s going to be even more cautious whenever he encounters any ice, and that can only be a disastrous thing from our point of view.

All afternoon, I’d been trying to have a crash out as this illness slowly takes hold again. But each time I’ve gone to lie down, and there were dozens of such moments, something else has come up to disturb me. And so it was this evening as I was invited to sit at the top table.

Everyone is supposed to be dressed to impress but badger that for a game of soldiers. I’m here with three tee-shirts, two fleeces, two pairs of trousers and several undies – washing them in the shower as I go along.

Talking of washing clothes, I’d had another bad attack out there on the way back to the ship in the zodiac. Still quite shaky, I went back to my cabin and had a nice hot shower and a clothes-washing session.

They say that you aren’t allowed to wash your clothes yourself, but the small print says quite clearly “with detergent”. I’m using the soap provided in the dispenser. That will keep my clothes going for quite a while.

After tea I came back and started to work on my photos and to write up my notes – constantly being distracted by thing happening outside, like a glorious sunset, a rising crescent moon as thin as a rake and, despite what everyone has been saying, another ship on the far shore.

Not to mention a wonderful Arctic daylight at midnight
“A wonderful Arctic daylight at midnight?”
“I told you not to mention that!”

And there’s already a record that has been chosen that sums up my currently manic-depressive mood. For the last few days I’ve had Colosseum Live going round and round in an endless loop, especially “Skellington” and “Lost Angeles” which somehow seem to be quite appropriate right now.

There’s one bit in “Skellington” about “Make damn sure your reflection can look you in the eye”. Hmmmmm.Quite!

And I’m going to check the binnacle in a moment because there’s something bizarre going on with the way that the ship has been manoeuvring in the last half-hour or so.

Wednesday 5th September 2018 – THUS ENDS THE WEB

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.


You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

Despite it being 00:15 when I finally toddled off to bed, it was yet another miserable night. Not that I didn’t sleep of course – far from it in fact – but I was wide awake again at 04:30.

At 05:30 I gave up the struggle and after the medication routine, came upstairs. Too dark as yet to take any real photographs which is a shame, but I did the best that I could;

It’s also really foggy outside yet again. I hope that this means that our trip ashore isn’t cancelled yet again.

Anyway, in the comfort of the ship’s lounge, with no-one else about at all, I did some more work, catching up on where I’d left off a while back, as well as organising a few photos for His Nibs.

Breakfast as usual and then we had to organise ourselves for our day out.

We’re just off the coast of Devon Island, the world’s largest uninhabited island at 59,000 km². It wasn’t always uninhabited. The Thule people had various settlements here and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had an outpost here and it was these that we had come to see.

Mind you, it might not be possible to see anything in this kind of weather because not only do we have a fog we have a blinding snowstorm and it’s going to be quite uncomfortable out there today.

We’ve been divided up into three groups – the advanced hikers who are going off to visit the two sites and climb the mountain pass in between, the intermediate group who are going to walk to the two sites but have a boat ride in between, and the easy people who are just going to be dropped off on the beach for a wander around.

Had there been any archaeological ruins up on top or had there been any chance of having a good view, I might possibly have forced my way up to the top. But in this weather I’m not going to even consider it.

Instead, seeing as I want to visit the two sites, I’m going to go the intermediate way.

So we changed into our wet-weather and winter clothing (and I still think that telephone boxes would be appropriate for this kind of thing) and boarded the boat.

I took Strawberry Moose with me so that he could have a good photo opportunity. One of the cleaners very kindly found me a large bin liner in which to carry him out of the rain.

Having organised ourselves on shore eventually at Morrin Point (whoever Morrin was when he was at home if he ever was), we set off. The experts on this trip were scattered around the various sites of interest and we started off by being given a lecture on lichens. Not the kind of thing that would be of much interest to me but nevertheless it’s all included in the deal.

The experts weren’t the only people to be scattered around. Our group perimeter was constantly guarded by trained polar bear observers. We had to stay within the perimeter and not move out. And the bear observers had to keep the bears outside.

Not that we saw any, but that’s a situation that won’t last over the next couple of weeks.

Next stop was much more exciting.

There’s a Thule village with several houses dating from the 14th or 15th Century here on the headland and this is what we had come to see.

Thule people had several criteria that decided where they were going to build their houses. A piece of flat land, some shelter from the winds and a view of the sea were things that were so important to them.

And this is exactly what we have here. All three criteria come in to play.

There’s a walrus haul-out here on an island in the bay, and there were several meat-stores that were clearly (according to the archaeologists) for the storage of walrus meat.

They kept it in here until they needed it, and it was probably well-putrefied by the time that it came to being used, but to disguise the smell the Thule stuffed the cracks of the walrus cache with aromatic herbs.

As for the houses, they were stone and sod, with some kind of support structure such as whale bones that would support a covering made of walrus hide. That’s very thick and, of course, weather-proof.

All visible trace of that is now long-gone but no archaeological excavation has taken place at this site as yet to give any definite opinion of what went on here.

From here back to the zodiacs to go on the next stage of the journey, watching the advanced hikers disappearing off into the distance.

Just down the bay there was another beach and there we alighted and had to trek up a hill. And in the boggy terrain, the wind and the rain, I was feeling the strain I can promise you that. I was glad that I didn’t go on the advanced hike.

From the top there was a good view of the old abandoned Royal Canadian Mounted Police post.

The story behind this post is all to do with the question of Sovereignty in the High Arctic.

Much of this area was explored and claimed by the British until about 1880 and then given to Canada, who chose not to continue the explorations.

As a result, we had other nations such as the Americans and Danes exploring the High Arctic in this region and there was a risk that they would claim the Arctic islands for themselves. As a result, it was necessary to establish some permanent settlements

As part of this process, here at Dundas Harbour in the 1920s the Royal Canadian Mounted Police established a Post here and it remained active until the funding crisis of the Great Depression brought about its closure.

The Mounties were supported by a few Inuit Special constables and their families and hence a small settlement sprang up. Some Inuit were resettled here from Cape Dorset but they didn’t stay long.

The job of the Mounties was to set up cairns on the outlying islands to claim them for Canada and to generally keep an eye out for interlopers.

But it was a lonely life and hard on the inhabitants. One Mountie committed suicide and another one, who had gone off hunting walrus, was later discovered dying with a gunshot wound, although no-one was able to work out what had happened.

They are buried in a small cemetery up on the hillside at the back of the post. This is claimed by some to be one of the most northerly Christian cemeteries in the world

After the end of World War II the Cold War caused the post to be reactivated, but it only lasted a couple of years. By 1951 the post had closed down again, this time for good.

Strawberry Moose arranged to have himself photographed here a couple of times for the record. And quite right too.

After that, we all headed back to the zodiacs and retraced our steps to the ship. And not before time either because in the three hours that we had been ashore, the bay was starting to ice up.

Once I’d divested myself of my wet-weather and winter gear, I came up to my room and had a nice hot shower and washed my undies. They’ll be dry pretty quickly because the cabins are quite hot when they switch on the heating.

Lunch came along too after this. And today they managed to find me some chick peas to go with my salad. That was very nice.

And I had to laugh (even though I know that I shouldn’t) at The Vanilla Queen. She went up there for her food and some woman came up to talk to her. Even as The Vanilla Queen was collecting her food, this woman insisted on continuing the conversation. The Vanilla Queen then started to eat her food with her fingers but the woman went on and on (and on).

Eventually she said “well, I suppose that I’d better let you eat your meal” and then carried on the chat for another 5 minutes. By this time The Vanilla Queen was totally frustrated and I was almost in tears of laughter – which I know that I shouldn’t have been, but there you are.

This afternoon we started a series of lectures but the first one was interrupted when a cry went up from the Bridge “Polar Bear at 11 o’clock”. The lecture room deserted itself in the same fashion as the cry of “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” did in Carry On Cowboy.

Some people, including The Vanilla Queen, saw the bear but Yours Truly didn’t. So it’s one each right now, for those of us keeping the score.

The lectures eventually carried on, with everything running late of course, and with a freezing audience too, because it was cold out there watching the pack ice and the ice floes drift past.

I missed some of it as, overwhelmed by sleep, I went to crash out. Only to find that the feeling had passed by the time that I got onto the bed.

For tea tonight they rustled up some tofu and vegetables, and we had an interesting chat with the team’s historian about all kinds of things.

There’s mixed news about our future plans. The wind is shifting round, which means that the weather will clear a little. Some of the places that we want to visit will be clear of ice, but the changing winds will have blown the ice across Lancaster Sound into the harbours of other places in which we want to visit.

It is, apparently, the worst year for ice for many years and will continue to confound all of our plans.

Later that night we went out on the upper deck in the snowstorm to watch the midnight sun and the ice floes, as we are now back in the ice again. She’s convinced that she saw a seal but it’s no use asking me. I could hardly see a thing out there.

But one thing is for sure. Following the appearance of His Nibs on shore today, his cover as a stowaway has been well and truly blown.

But he’s been accepted as a bona-fide traveller. He’s been given his own name badge and allowed to share my cabin officially. He was even invited to take control of the ship for a while.

Furthermore, it’s been proposed that the official Expedition photographer will take some official photos of him.

And that can’t be bad.

But there’s also been a dramatic change in situation here on board the Ocean Endeavour

I have rather foolishly … “he means “recklessly”” – ed … allowed a certain situation to develop completely out of hand and my emotions have run away with themselves, like they all-too-often have a tendency to do.

if I allow it to escalate any further it will be to my own detriment, as has been the case on many occasions.

I’m not very good at forcing decisions, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. My usual practice is to roll with the road and follow my star wherever it leads me, but this is neither the time nor the place for vacillation.

As Marillion once famously wrote –
“The time has come to make decisions
The changes have to be made”

And so I need to know precisely where I stand in this particular circumstance.

This evening there was the ideal opportunity – presenting itself in a moment of high tension. And so I grasped the nettle.

The result was not what I had optimistically hoped but it was what I had realistically expected, and it killed the situation stone-dead. Which is not really a bad thing, I suppose, because in all honesty I don’t really have the time for distractions. I have much more important things to be doing.

“Thus Ends The Web”

Wednesday 24th September 2014 – THE GREAT DECEPTION

Yes, I’m going to be talking rubbish … "well, there’s a novelty!" – ed … in a minute.

harbour goose bay labrador canada september 2014But before I do that, let me show you my nice and comfy little spec on the harbour at Goose Bay this morning.

Last night, I finished off my notes, made a good tea and then went to bed. Thoroughly painless until the alarm went off at about 06:50. I didn’t feel a thing.

And even though the temperature had dropped to zero by the time I awoke, with ice on the puddles outside and ice even on the inside of the windscreen, that didn’t inconvenience me for a minute. It was the sleep of the dead last night.

By 07:04 I’m on the road. I need to warm up the car, defrost the ice and charge up the laptop so I’m not going to hang about until all of that has been done. I’ve fuelled up half from the fuel can too, saving half of it for later. It has to be emptied before it can go back into storage anyway and it has served its purpose, easing my mind around these enormously long stretches of fuel-less highways. For the next few sections of the highway, it’s a more-realistic 300 kilometres.

old car happy valley labrador canada september 2014While the car is warming and the laptop is charging, I go for a drive around Happy Valley to see what there is to see.

We find a grass lawn – yes, real grass growing here. It’s not quite the High Arctic here. And we also find an old early-1950s car. However have they managed to protect this from the elements?

The queue for Tim Horton’s is enormous. The longest one yet. I upset everyone by driving in through the out door as Idon’t want the drive-in services, and the queue inside is just as long. I have a little smile thinking to myself about what might happen if I were to imitate Charles Hawtrey in Carry on Cowboy and shout “Gold Strike at Bear Creek”. But not only would the customers immediately shoot off like lightning, so would the personnel and so I would be no better off. Old Frontier traditions die hard in Labrador.

and coffee at Tim Horton’s was first money (apart from fuel) that I have spent since Deer Lake and how many years ago was that?

But how times have changed here over the last four years.It’s like the M6 down here too this morning. There are 5 or 6 vehicles in front of meand one or two behind. And we are in the flaming sub-arctic. This place isn’t anything like what it was four years ago at all. In those days you were lucky to see one car per hour.

log cabin trans labrador highway canada september 2014Now, this is how I always pictured Labrador to be. Log cabins by the side of rapids in fast-flowing rivers, and I’m glad to see that at least there is some of it left.

No dog sleds though. I’m told that the last working dog team in the region was retired in 1994. Everyone has snowmobiles these days, but where do you find fuel for them in the wilderness? And you can’t eat them if your supplies run out.

innu tribal gathering gull island Tshiashkueish trans labrador highway canada september 2014This is Gull Island, or as it is known by the local First Nation Innu community, Tshiashkueish. And I can’t even pronounce that with my own teeth in.

I’ve arrived during the Innu celebration gathering, which is taking place from 22-26 September and once more I’m disappointed by everyone arriving in 4×4 pickups rather than dogsleds. Whatever happened to native traditions? But still, it shouldn’t be overlooked that it’s these tribal gatherings are what is keeping the Nation together and I’m glad about that. These days, it seems that the emphasis is on supressing minority customs and traditions.

trans labrador highway canada september 2014But I’m having a huge disappointment on this road. When I came by here in 2010 I struggled for hours and hours over some of the worst roads in the world. Not today, though. With the exception of 30 kms in the middle, the entire highway has been re-aligned and surfaced with asphalt as you can see. There’s a bit of the old road over which I desperately struggled, and you can see what it looks like today.

A length that took me five hours to drive, I’ve just done it in 50 minutes at … well, 80kph is the official speed limit here but the road is so much better than that.

Of course, I’m the first to realise that I don’t have to live here and drive it every day, so who am I to complain? But the solitude for which I’m craving has gone for ever here. Now, it’s like any black-top highway anywhere else in the world and the adventure has gone.

Anther advantage of the road is that prices have now normalised. Fuel at Goose Bay was just 140.1 per litre – only 6 or 7 cents higher than in the urbanised areas of Canada. That’s something for the locals to cheer.

bird's nest trans labrador highway canada september 2014This is the current ohm of some local type of sub-arctic bird. It’s done well to build its nest up there.

But it needs to be careful. It would be shocking if it were to fall out of its nest – quite revolting in fact.

And this is the only hint of wildlife that I saw. I was chatting to a couple of maintenance men here and they were telling me that the new road and all of the traffic has driven away everything that I saw when I came over here.

solar panel air 403 wind turbine trans labrador highway canada september 2014But this is good to see. About 70 kms from Labrador City I come across someone with a similar lifestyle to mine.

Here we have an Air 403 wind turbine going round like I wish that mine would, and solar panels. And he’s had to shin up a ladder to clear the snow away from them.

So bully to him. I’m glad to see that he’s doing it and making it work. We need more people like this.

wabush trans labrador highway canada september 2014THis is the town of Wabush in Labrador. And this could be mistaken for any suburb in any town that you might care to mention. Not a dog sled in sight

But make the most of this photo because in 5 years time it will be nothing like this. It’s a mining town and talking to the local security guards there, they tell me that the mine is exhausted and a new mining project in the vicinity has been cancelled.

People are being laid off and many have already left the community to seek work elsewhere. If nothing is done about the new mining project, then this place will be a ghost town.

And on that depressing note, I went to find somewhere to lay my weary head. I’ve driven 520 kilometres and not even broken sweat. Ohh, how times have changed.

Wednesday 7th October 2010 – THE ONE THING THAT I’VE …

salmon fishing New York State USA… learnt about Americans, especially in upstate New York is that they provide more entertainment for the tourists than Disney ever did

I’d stopped at this hydro-electric generator to look at the waterfall over the barrier and I have to say that I have never ever seen so many fishermen there. That astonished me because the speed that the water was coming over was incredible and I didn’t expect any fish to be hanging around there at all.

I talked to a couple of the fishermen to ask what they were fishing for. Salmon is the answer, but neither of them had caught anything that day (and it was now early evening). But just then this guy was dragged off downriver with something – and whatever it was must have been impressive) on the end of his line.

He was there for quite a while struggling with this fish (I assumed it was a fish and not a submarine or something) and after a while he was clearly getting the upper hand. But the fish put up one hell of a fight and it was by no means certain.

salmon fishing new york state usaBy now there were few people fishing and the crowd of spectators in the background were all transfixed on this little scene. Someone produced a fishing net and joined in the fun and as the fish started to tire, the fisherman began to reel it in.

It still wasn’t all over as the guy with the net needed a few grabs – the first time he missed it completely, to the accompaniment of loud guffaws from the crowd – but eventually he managed to get it into his net.

It’s quite a big fish too. Someone reckons that it was 30 pounds and someone else said about 25. But of course they both could be right. It might have been 30 pounds at the start and during the struggle it could have burnt off pounds of flesh that would have cut it down to size a little.

salmon fishing new york state usaAnd so there’s one proud fisherman on his way back home. His wife can put the chicken back in the freezer and it’s fresh fish with the chips tonight.

But the funny thing about it all was that the fish had the last laugh. As the fisherman was taking the hook out of its mouth the fish bit him.

And serve him right!

Now I’m sure that you are all wondering where it took place. And as a matter of fact, so am I. And that’s because today we have had a calamity. My old hand-held tape dictaphone that I have had since 1993 and which has accompanied me on my travels everywhere has finally given up the ghost. I think that the drive belt has snapped.

I’m having to use the digital one that I bought to replace it and which I don’t like at all as it’s nothing like as spontaneous as the old one. I dunno what I’ll have to do now but I bet it won’t be cheap

twin rocks motel ontario new york state usaAfter last night’s excitement, I’m pleased to report that I had a really good night’s sleep and I was ready for anything (except the dictaphone) this morning.

Even sweeping off a huge pile of leaves off the bonnet and roof of Casey (autumn is definitely here and no mistake) didn’t cause me any problems, and I was on the road pretty quickly.

bear creek ontario new york usaWhile I was on my travels last night looking for food, I’d seen a sign for “Bear Creek”.

Carry on Cowboy is definitely one of the top three Carry On films ever made and the scene where Big Heap alias Charles Hawtrey dashes into the saloon and shouts “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” still has me in stitches even now.

Of course, that was a long time ago but no harm in going to see if there is anyone here.

lake ontario pultneyville new york usaPultneyville is an interesting little town down along the shore of Lake Ontario.

First settled at the end of the 18th Century, it was the scene of a confrontation between local militia and a small British naval force in 1814. It was also a quite important port on the lake and even had its own railway line, but the opening of the Erie Canal led to its decline. Now, it’s mainly a seasonal resort town.

After spending an hour or so watching the antics at the dam, I took another deviation down to Cape Vincent.

tibbetts point lighthouse cape vincent new york USALake Ontario narrows spectacularly here and we are at the entrance to the St Lawrence Seaway. There’s obviously a need for the narrow to be illuminated and thus we have Tibbetts Point Lighthouse.

There have been several here since Captain Tibbetts donated the land for the lighthouse. This version dates from 1854 and, rarely, still has its original Fresnel lens.

rover P6 new york state usaNow how about this? After the SDI yesterday (was it yesterday?) I’ve now found myself a P6 Rover. And it’s a TC as well which means that it will most likely be a 2000 or a 2.2, not a V8 3.5-litre. Now how about that in the USA?

It’s been ages since I’ve seen an old car (SD1s excluded of course) and I was certainly not expecting o see a P6 anywhere like around here.

thousand islands bridge ontario canada new york state usa st Lawrence seawayThat’s Canada that, just over there. You can see how close I am to it here.

That’s the Thousand Islands Bridge going over the St Lawrence Seaway. It was built in 1937 and finished 10 weeks ahead of schedule, which goes to show that it wasn’t a Local Government project, and modernised in 1959.

It’s actually a series of bridges, not just one, that bridge the St Lawrence by using the islands as stepping stones. Its total length, including access roads, is about eight and a half miles.

And now it’s getting dark, and I’ve found a motel and a Walmart. I spent ages in Walmart copying my next batch of photos onto CD. It said “it will be done in minutes” – and fair enough, a hundred minutes is minutes so no dispute there.

I also found a Lowe’s  where I stocked up on electrical items – plugs and sockets and the like,including some colour-coded ones which will be useful.

And now I’m just a stone’s throw from the Canadian border and I’ll be there tomorrow.