… 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.