Tag Archives: fredericton

Tuesday 31st March 2026 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it’s been today. And I don’t mean just this last twenty-one hours, but all twenty-four hours since 21:45 last night.

With having tea – the other half of Sunday’s pizza – already prepared, it didn’t take too long to eat and to come back in here. With not very much to write last night, I’d soon finished. It didn’t take long to do the stats and the backing-up either, or to sort myself out ready for bed. As a result, at 21:45, I was crawling into bed under the covers.

And how much sleep do you think that I had?

One of the side effects of one of the medicaments prescribed by Emilie the Cute Consultant is “insomnia”. Ad as I have enough trouble sleeping already, it doesn’t take much more for me to have what the French call a nuit blanche – a night where you don’t go to sleep at all.

So there I was, head tucked under the quilt, tossing and turning, doing in-bed physiotherapy and all kinds of things, but sleep just never came and I lay there awake all night.

When the alarm went off, I managed to haul myself out of bed, but it took a good while for me to find the strength, courage and energy to stagger off into the bathroom.

In the kitchen, I made my hot drink and took my medication and then came back in here to see if there was anything on the dictaphone. And, to my surprise, there was too. I must have gone to sleep at some point during the night.

There was something about the Royal Navy last night. It was supposed to be fitting out a ship but for some reason, the finishing time was being delayed for an hour here and an hour there and an hour something else and no-one was actually catching up with it. Then there was an explosion in Portsmouth harbour as one of the British battleships spontaneously combusted. It threw metal and everything all over the town. Everyone on board, including a load of sea cadets, were killed. That wasn’t the only catastrophe that happened to the Royal Navy. There were two ships on blockade duty off the coast of Belgium, and they somehow managed to collide with each other.

What the boat is doing being fitted out in my dreams, I don’t know. But the story of the exploding battleship reminds me of THE MONT BLANC – an ammunition ship that exploded in Halifax harbour after a collision, taking half of the town and half of its population with it in its way to the hereafter.

Whether that’s the reference to the collision or not, I wouldn’t know, but ships on blockade duty colliding with each other was a regular occurrence.

I was living in a small village where the highlights of the occasion were things like people ringing up the police saying that someone’s goat is free, things like that. And if you were to go into the police station, you would usually find the police officers asleep, slumped over the desk. Where we were living, there was something about someone with some kind of music list and when I was twelve, I reported it to the police for some kind of reason that wasn’t clear. I don’t really know what happened after that.

This sounds like several villages in which I’ve lived at one time or another, although I wouldn’t be the type of person to report anyone to the police.

But it does remind me of a sign that I saw once in Fredericton, New Brunswick, that read “on this day in” … (some year or other) “nothing happened”.

Isabelle the Nurse breezed in, all happy and relaxed after her week’s rest, much of which was spent with her daughter in Paris. I told her about my encounters with Emilie the Cute Consultant and the pills that she’s prescribed for me. She asked about the cough, so I explained that they were trying to sort out a thoracic scan and an appointment with a lung specialist.

After she left, I made breakfast and read some more of ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A Miller.

Today, we’ve been working through the story of Anna Komnena, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos. She wrote a biography of her father, which is said to be a fascinating eyewitness account of the Byzantine Emperor and the goings-on therein during the period 1081 – 1108.

There’s a translation of this into English, dated 1928 and I’ve actually found a copy to download. It will make interesting reading if ever I have the time to read it.

But that’s Miller’s book finished, and I certainly did learn a lot, which is the whole point of reading. Tomorrow we start a new book.

Back in here, I started a couple of things, but the next thing that I knew, it was 11:20. I’d fallen asleep in my chair for about two hours, and I can’t say that I’m at all surprised.

It comes as no surprise either for me to say that after that, I just couldn’t concentrate on anything. Most of my effort went on trying to stay awake.

However, I remixed the soundtrack for the concert that I’m preparing for the radio, and it’s a much better mix than the one that I prepared yesterday. It’s even a couple of minutes longer too, which means that I don’t have to write as much text.

Anyway, the text is all written for it now and I just need to find the time somehow to dictate it. There’s quite a bit building up in the pipeline right now that needs dictating.

There were the usual interruptions too. My faithful cleaner turned up to do her stuff and she chased me into the shower for a good scrub. While I was in there, she changed the bedding so the nice, clean me is going to have a good sleep in a nice, clean bed, if this insomnia has worn off. Which, judging by however many times I’ve almost fallen asleep this evening, it probably has.

There was still some time left at the end of the day, so I tried to prepare the next radio programme but my heart and my head just weren’t in it at all. I managed to make a few notes, but that’s about all. I shall have to do better than this tomorrow.

Tea tonight was a gorgeous bowl full of pasta and veg in a vegan cheese sauce, followed by more trifle. It’s beginning to break up now, the trifle, but it’s still delicious.

And that reminds me, I have to cover the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce.

But that’s tomorrow because right now, I’m off to bed, hoping for a better night than last night.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about ships and collisions at sea … "well, one of us has" – ed … one of my friends was telling me about a ship carrying blue paint that collided with a ship carrying red paint.
"Really?" I asked. "What happened?"
"The survivors were marooned."

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Saturday 25th November 2023 – I WAS HAPPY …

… that it was today that I went on the bus to the shops and not yesterday.

Yesterday was a cold, wet windy miserably day but today was one of the nicest days that we’ve had for ages and it was a real pleasure to be out.

It was the kind of day where, had things been different, I’d have made a flask of piping hot coffee and gone for a nice long walk northwards along the coast with the camera, but how things have changed in that respect.

Things changed a little in bed last night too because I seem to have had something of a rather more relaxed night. That’s a good thing from the point of view of sleep but a bad thing from the point of view of adventure. The only adventures I have these days are these rather vicarious ones at second hand as my ethereal spirit goes walkabout during the night.

At the hospital they keep on asking me if I want sleeping pills, and I keep on turning them down. My little nocturnal voyages are about all the fun that I have, given the way that things have turned out.

When the alarm went off I fell out of bed and struggled to my feet, and then having dressed, I toddled off into the dining area to take my medication.

Back here I transcribed the dictaphone notes from last night – and it didn’t take me long. I was with a bunch of pirates last night. We’d gone ashore in the High Arctic somewhere amidst all the snow and the ice. Some of the descriptions that the crew was giving off about the are in which they found themselves were extremely poetic, including things like “if it wasn’t for the cold you’d never realise the danger” etc. A couple of the crew wandered away during the night to explore and we didn’t know if we’d be lucky enough to see them next morning etc. As it became light next morning we were rounded up into some kinds of fishing parties. We’d tried to do some fishing the evening before and had caught some cod but this morning we were going to go out on a full-scale fishing operation to revictual the ship. That involved a couple of the rowing boats with a net spread between them and the two rowing boats rowing round in a circle towards each other to tighten the catch inside the net. We were busy organising this when I suddenly awoke

It’s a shame that it ended at that point because I would have loved to have seen how our fishing expedition unfolded. When Richard Hakluyt transcribed John Cabot’s notes in order to include them for publication in his “Principall Navigations” in 1589 he came across Cabot’s delightful description of the Labrador coast and "The cod were in largeness and quantitie … that they stayed our ships".

When my book about the Labrador coast finally hits the shelves, you’ll notice the difference. Constant over-fishing by industrial trawlers decimated the cod fishery so much that in 1992 the Canadian Government imposed a moratorium on cod-fishing. And so all the big industrial trawlers moved off elsewhere and the small subsistence fisherman along the coast was deprived of his livelihood and fell into desolation and despair.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall us working our way down the Nova Scotia coast on our voyages of 2003 and 2010 when we picked our way through the decay and dereliction of piles of abandoned fishing equipment.

strawberry moose, buccaneer, near moyock, north carolina, usa, eric hall, photo, 30th september 2017But while we’re on the subject of pirate ships … "well, one of us is" – ed … we’ve encountered pirate ships before.

In 2017 when we were on our way back from visiting Rhys in South Carolina STRAWBERRY MOOSE and I came across a pirate ship. His Nibs quickly recruited an ad-hoc crew and set sail for the Spanish Main in order to wreak havoc amongst the treasure ships heading back from New Spain to the Old World.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, his antics on the High Seas on his way home from looking after Kathryn at University in Ontario in 2011 led to questions being asked in the Canadian Parliament.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed there was a story about me being at some kind of formal party with about half a dozen other people, having an enormous amount of difficulty trying to keep still, having to keep moving my legs quite regularly. This led to some kind of commotion about food but I can’t now remember very much about this issue of food except that it was something that had caused it.

There was time for a quick wash and brush-up and then I headed for the bus. He was late arriving and with not being able to move around it was quite cold.

However there was a really beautiful blue sky. Jersey stood out really clearly on the horizon this morning and it looked as if I could reach out and touch the Brittany coast across the bay, it was so clear.

There was no ice or frost on the car windscreens which is no surprise as we are only 50 feet from the sea here and in the face of the prevailing westerly winds, but once we were out of the wind, all of the cars parked at the side of the road were iced up.

At St Nicolas no-one made the sign of the Cross today, but after I’d done my shopping I had a pleasant chat about historic buildings with the guy drinking coffee next to me as I waited for my bus home.

The only marzipan that they had was this tricolour stuff but I don’t suppose that it matters under icing. I have to use what I can.

They did have soya yogurt to make my naan bread but it’s only sold in packets of 8 so I’ll be making a lot of naan bread dough tomorrow.

Coming back up the stairs was another nightmare. There’s no doubt that I’m actually moving easier – that was quite evident today and I’m pleased about that – but I can’t lift my leg high enough to climb the steps and we had another gymnastics morning.

But I’ll have to have a word with Severine when I see her again and find out what she can do for me.

Having put the food away I made my cheese on toast and then came in here, where I promptly fell asleep.

A ‘phone call awoke me. The paperwork has come in from the engineer and the co-property committee has decided that they want a couple more quotes. Could I organise it?

When I lived in Expo, that was a co-property and there were enormous issues about an apartment owner who would launch himself into all kinds of unauthorised adventures and then bombard the committee with all kind sof paperwork, and I remember very well many of the issues that arose.

Consequently, I told them that if they give me an authorisation I’ll do it quite happily but I’m not doing it without any authorisation.

This afternoon I soaked all my fruit – and found that although I had all kinds of things in my baking box I didn’t have any glacé cherries, or bigarreaux confits as they call them around here. They had some advertised in LeClerc’s home delivery catalogue so I hope that they’ll still be in stock when I send off my order.

So we now have currants, sultanas, raisins, figs, cranberries, some of that dried gelified fruit, desiccated coconut, ground almonds, banana chips, dried orange chips and the odd partridge in a pear tree divided into two lots – a small one for the pudding and a big one for the cake – soaking in a mixture of vanilla, fleur d’orange, rum essence, brandy essence, all kinds of spices and probably a few other things too.

It’ll be in there for a week or 10 days, being stirred and fed with more liquid over that period ready for a baking session next weekend.

But the essences of rum and brandy are interesting. It’s not available in France – after all, if you have the real stuff, why use artificial? But there’s a chain of shops called “Bulk Barn” in all of the big cities in Canada – something like an old UK “Weigh and Save” on steroids.

Rural Canada is just like the 1950s which is why I really like it, and home baking and that kind of thing are major occupations. And when I was in the one in Fredericton last year I made a wonderful discovery and several bottles of essence found their way into my suitcase for future use.

And by God is it strong!

Back here afterwards I crashed out again, for ages this time, and since then I’ve been de-duplicating one of the backup drives.

Tea tonight was baked potato with salad and a veggie burger in breadcrumbs and that was as delicious as usual.

So now I’m off for a hot drink or two and then I’ll dictate the radio notes ready for tomorrow when I’ll prepare the programme. There’s naan dough to make as well as I’ve now run out.

Something else that I’ve run out of is chocolate biscuits. However when tidying up the shelves the other say I found a couple of packets of industrial ones about which I’d forgotten. I’ll finish these off and bake another batch of biscuits next weekend.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while.

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Thursday 20th October 2022 – JUST IN CASE …

… you’re wondering what is going on, I’ve caught the ‘flu. And this is the ‘flu to end all ‘flus. I’ve never felt as bad as this.

Normal service will be resumed when I’m feeling better.

For a while I was actually not too bad and even managed to run down to Fredericton in Strider to deliver some feed from the mill and to do a little shopping ready for going home, but things just went slowly worse throughout the day.

But in the meantime, I’ve been going off on quite a few voyages. I was moving into my house in Winsford. I was talking to someone on the internet. They were also planning on moving in to a new house so we were just basically chatting about that. My father and his second wife were around. Suddenly a vehicle identical to the one to which I was just talking pulled up in the drive of the house and all these people got out. They began to move suitcases etc about. I could see that they were to people to whom I’d just been talking. It looked as if they were going to be my neighbours just across the road. We began to chat a little then we moved out of their way to give them room to manoeuvre their suitcases.

And later we were going somewhere. I can’t remember who was with me now. We were in Caliburn. We came to a set of road works controlled by traffic lights. We were let through when they changed to green but had to wait a moment while a tarmacking machine went past. Then we had to set out to climb this steep hill to a road junction. They had really freshly tarred it so trying to find a grip on it was pretty much impossible. There was a great danger that we would slide everywhere. By now, instead of being in Caliburn I was on a bike. That made things a hundred times worse. There were people coming from all kinds of directions. I didn’t want to have to swerve around too much in case I’d fall over with there not being any grip on this road as yet with the hot tar.

My friend from near Ellesmere was going to come over so I had to make all kinds of arrangements with her. I had to speak to a pub landlord about making sure that she was welcomed etc so I had to fill in a questionnaire. I was in this pub with someone else while the pub landlord was reviewing the questionnaire. It was also the birthday of one of the daughters of my niece so I found an envelope and had to write a little message to her but I kept on confusing the names and was writing this message to my friend but of course it was to my niece’s daughter to whom I wanted to leave it. On the way out of the pub I had to pick up the questionnaire that I’d filled in. I saw that he’d given me 11 out of 11. He said in some rudimentary and basic French that my friend would be welcomed over there when she passed through so I picked up the paperwork and began to walk out.

At another moment I was with my friend from South Carolina. We’d been in a chemist’s shop and asked if he had a box. A chemist’s shop in a shopping precinct. he thought that he’d thrown out all of his boxes but in the end he found a box that he gave to us for which we were grateful. Then we were wandering around this shopping mall. Next morning we had to leave quite quickly. I was chatting to a Welsh tutor about some kind of problem that had arisen that had had him talking to his students for hours during the night. We were wondering how many other tutors had been disturbed by this and their families upset at ridiculous hours. My friend stopped to have a cup of tea. I didn’t think that we had time but he did anyway. He took the tea and someone asked me if they’d made it properly. I said “as long as the water is poured when it’s absolutely boiling that’s absolutely great”.

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Wednesday 12th October 2022 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I had one of the best sleeps that I have had for a long, long time. So much so that there was absolutely nothing at all on the dictaphone. I must have been really deep in the arms of Morpheus.

In fact, I was in bed quite early too. I fell asleep while I was listening to the radio but I must have awoken at some point to switch it off because the laptop was off when the alarm went off.

There was no time to hang around this morning. For a start, I had to clear off a huge pile of ice from Strider’s windscreen. We’re in the grip of autumn here with sub-zero temperature through the night and cloud-free crystalline skies.

But when I could see where I was going, I set off for Woodstock.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the Saint John River isn’t far from here. It runs in a deep valley and early in the morning at this time of year there’s a hanging cloud in the valley, slowly rising up.

Up here we’re well above the cloud but Woodstock is deep in the valley and I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face. At one point I drove through a red traffic light that I couldn’t see was there

Having fuelled up, I went to pick up my passenger and we set off for the hospital at Fredericton, about 110 kilometres away.

Following the river valley on the Trans-Canada Highway, we were sometimes in a fogbank, sometimes above it. But by the time that we arrived in Fredericton the fog had cleared away.

My passenger alighted at the hospital and I went to Tim Horton’s for a coffee and bagel – my first visit to a “Timmy’s” for three years – and where the guy at the counter got my order completely wrong.

Next stop was at Bulk Barn. People from Crewe will remember the “Weigh and Save”, where produce was displayed in barrels and you bagged and weighed as much as you wanted of it. It was an excellent shop but Bulk Barn will knock it for 6.

And I had some really good luck there. They had the artificial rum and brandy essence that you can’t buy in France so I bought a few bottles. Now I can make my Christmas cake and Christmas pudding with the proper ingredients

Value Village was next. They don’t have charity shops in Canada as they do in the UK. They all club together and have just one outlet in a town and the price labels are colour-coded so that you know which organisation is which. I bought a couple of books and a couple of CDs to add to the collection and I would have bought more but like most charity shops these days, their prices are somewhat exaggerated.

My passenger wasn’t ready yet so I loitered around in a Sobey’s until she texted that she was ready so I went to pick her up.

We stopped half-way home for coffee and toast and then went back to Woodstock the pretty way where I dropped her at home and she gave me some vegetables for Rachel.

My next port of call was the Scotia Bank at Florenceville to make “certain arrangements” and then went on to the mill.

Just before I left Canada in 2019 I ordered a chip for Strider to curb his enthusiasm and improve the fuel consumption. Darren had fitted it when it finally arrived and I have to say that the fuel consumption has improved slightly and the racing spirit had evaporated somewhat, which is good news for me. Strider has an old-type 6-cylinger long-stroke engine and it’s not made for high revs in low gear. It’s much more comfortable using his torque to pull him along.

After much discussion we all decided on a take-away from the Chinese restaurant in Florenceville so I drove down there to pick it up. I’m not a big fan of Chinese, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and this was nothing special. But I’m going to have to like it because there’s enough for several days.

So now I’m off to bed. There’s nothing to do tomorrow so I’m going to have to find a shipper for this sunroof and book myself a hotel back in Montreal for when I’m on my way home. It’s only a short stay this time, nothing like the usual three months, so I need to organise myself so much better and so much quicker.

As if I could do something like that.

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Wednesday 9th October 2019 – WE’VE HAD …

… another tremendously busy day down at the tyre depot.

This morning, with nothing much to do although everyone else was rushing around, I filed away all of the bills, invoices and charging sheets. And that wasn’t the work of five minutes either. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve been very busy just recently and done a lot of work.

This afternoon involved even more of an effort on my part. I had to go off down to Bristol and the auto spares shop for parts for not one but two jobs that were ongoing in the garage.

And then we had an extremely complicated enquiry about tyres.

Someone has a pick-up with tyres on it that have long-been obsolete and reliable heavy-duty ones can no longer be obtained – except at some kind of silly astronomical price for “specials”. We managed to source a set of wheels of a different diameter and then we had to hunt down a set of tyres for those wheels that would have exactly the same circumference as the original tyres on the original wheels.

It was a good thing that I made the old laptop work yesterday because I could sit down and hunt for a tyre conversion program on the internet – and in the end I found one – and having downloaded and installed it, I could get it to work it gave me a choice of half a dozen different tyre sizes.

And this will please the guy intensely because one of the sizes of tyre is a much-more mainstream size of truck tyre, and even with the cost of new wheels for his truck, he’s going to come out ell on the right side.

I ought to be on a commission.

But that wasn’t all the excitement. yesterday as we were closing a guy came in for a new wheel that he had ordered and to have a tyre fitted on it. All in all, there wasn’t much change out of $1000. When it had been done, he just threw it into the back of his truck.

“Aren’t you going to strap it down?” asked Darren
“no” replied the guy. “It’ll be fine in there. Its own weight will hold it in”.
So Darren shook his head and came back in.

This afternoon the guy came back for some other things.
“You know that wheel and tyre that you sold me yesterday afternoon?”
“I do” replied Darren.
“Well, it’s in the river”.

Luckily he managed to rescue it otherwise that would have been very expensive.

Last night, with having not felt so good, I was in bed something-like and even though I heard the alarms go off, it was still 07:15 when I finally surfaced.

The girls had a ride in to school and so I had another leisurely breakfast followed by a nice stinking hot shower which made me feel so much better.

Plenty of time to make my lunch and then head off to the tyre depot. And I’d noticed that we were low on bread so I stopped to buy some another couple of loaves. Only to find up at the office that Rachel had also noticed that we were low on bread this morning and had already bought two on her way in to work.

Later this afternoon I fetched Amber from her cheerleading practice after school and brought her home. Rachel had gone to Fredericton so there were just us at home. Our little visitor had told us a while ago that she had a really good recipe for a vegan chili so we set her to work in the kitchen this evening.

And I’ll tell you all something for nothing – and that is that it really was excellent too. So much so that Darren, who isn’t usually a fan of exotic vegan cooking, helped himself to a second full helping.

I made a second visit to the pan too and decided that she can cook again for us!

So it’s bedtime now, and I’m looking forward to another decent sleep. I certainly need it. So goodnight to everyone, including my readers in Celbridge, Ottawa and Montreal. One day you really will have to introduce yourselves and say “hello”.

Meanwhile, I’m saying “goodbye”. Until the morning.

‘.

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Wednesday 4th September 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Just about to board my ‘plane in Calgary when … “Blimey – where’s my jacket?”.

And I know exactly where it is. Hanging up on a hook behind the door in the hotel of course.

It seems that I am destined to travel the world leaving a trail of my possessions scattered behind me as some kind of trail marker for wherever I have been. For example, my geological notes are festooning a beach on Devon Island and my lens cap is somewhere in Cambridge Bay.

And now the coat is in Calgary.

But I blame the stress myself. I had yet another bad night last night with very little sleep and it’s a good job that I was awake because the promised alarm call never came. I had to scamper down the stairs at 04:30 where the shuttle bus was already waiting.

Hardly surprising that something was left behind.

Having checked in, I went for breakfast at Tim Hortons. A couple of bagels, coffee and juice. The first Tim Hortons visit this year by the way.

Security was pretty painless and I had something of a wait afterwards for the plane.

But once on the plane I had something of a surprise – something that seems to be happening more and more these days.

A couple with three little kids were sitting behind me and I heard them talking German. So when I got up to go for a ride on the porcelain horse I said something back in German.
“Do you speak German then?” he asked.
“Only a little’ I replied. “But I’m from Europe anyway”
“We live in Europe too – in Munich”
“Whereabouts?”
He told me a name that I didn’t recognise
“I visit Munich quite often. I have friends in Eching”
“Ahhh – that’s where IKEA is. Are you off back to Europe now? We are, later today”
“No, I’m off to New Brunswick. I have family and friends there”.
“Ohh! Whereabouts? I was raised in New Brunswick”
“Some small settlement north of a place called Woodstock”
“Woodstock? That’s where I actually lived!”

This world is getting far too small for my liking.

At Toronto I did something that I should have done years ago and rekindled my SKYPE account, so I can make calls from my phone at wi-fi points. I rang the hotel and they had indeed found my jacket. I told them to hang onto it until I could work out how to pick it up.

I had a very pleasant companion accompanying me to Fredericton, and once there, Zoe came to pick me up.

We had a nice drive back through the rainstorm and tried three restaurants before we found one that was interested in serving us. One had closed down abd the other one, despite advertising as open until 21:00 had locked its doors even though the staff was inside looking out.

We went to Murray’s instead. I had home fires with vegetables followed by toast and jam. Quite a change from the cooking on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

Rachel and I had a very lengthy chat here and now I’ve retired to bed. I know that this bed is comfortable so I’m hoping at last to have a really good sleep. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow. Anyone who wants me will have to come and get me.

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Friday 21st June 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… day where I’ve not been able to do anything like as much as I would have liked.

I had an exciting night though. And what a night it was! I started off in the Free French infantry or Resistance or something, trying to track down something that had gone on at a certain crossroads. I’d been out there in Caliburn a few times but I’d never managed to see the mayor or never managed to find out very much about any of this. So there I was on a Saturday morning, there was a train at 08:58. It was 08:48 and I was just getting to the station. I had all these plans to go to see whatever it was at these crossroads. I had to walk on foot from the station at the other end, hope that the mayor would be in on a Saturday morning and I could get some answers and have a physical visit of the spot. I felt that it was going to be a really long walk for me at all.

Later on, I was on the Ocean Endeavour talking to some people about the possibility of hiring it. We discussed the ship – that it was old and not luxurious and needed one or two little things to make it better like a coat of paint and de-rusting, things like that. They were saying that it was free on December and January and how to get in touch. Here’s the number – it’s this company here on the internet that you need to contact. They asked what I had in mind for it, but I didn’t want to tell them because what I had in mind was something that they might not like – it’s up to the people who wanted to hire it to negotiate. This company who owned it looked extremely interesting because they owned all kinds of car ferries, with routes going across the South Atlantic and South Pacific, car ferries. And if that’s the case I was hoping to get down there with Caliburn and see where we could all go.

And later on yet, I was out with a patrol of cowboys kind of people and we were hunting down some Indians. We came across where these were and they threatened to attack us. So we dug ourselves into firepits or trenches. There was one guy there who wouldn’t dig himself in. he was the officer of the troop we had come out to relieve. His excuse was that he had no shovel so someone gave him one, a short blue one, but he wouldn’t dig, coming out with something else, clearly not interested in digging, wanting someone else to dig it for him I imagine. We were quickly in these firepits and disporting ourselves around, a case of who was going to defend what, who would fire at what? What happened if they got in behind us? But that wasn’t too much of a problem because there was a little cave facing behind us and in there they had secreted a guy with a Maxim gun so if they came behind us he could take care of them and the noise of the Maxim would alert us.

There was much more too, including a trip to the library somewhere along the line.

All of this led to a rather late start. I’d heard the alarms go off but it was more like 06:45 when I crawled out of bed.

After breakfast I had a go at transcribing the dictaphone notes – the stuff from last night and then some stuff out of the backlog. And the backlog is now down to just 34. Doing 7 per day will give me just enough time before I leave, although I’ll be pushed to do that, as I will explain in due course.

Some of these files were quite large and what with various interruptions that took me right up until lunchtime, which was taken indoors because as I was making my sandwiches, they all fell apart and I ended up with a mixed salad.

This afternoon was a paper-chase looking for all of the bits and pieces relating to my medical examinations, and then I set out.

Firstly to the estate agent’s to give them a copy of my insurance certificate and to check that I was up-to-date with everything before I leave (I am).

Next was the railway station to check train times because I’ve had some good news, to wit that I need to present myself at the Préfecture at St-Lô on Tuesday morning between 08:30 and 12:00.

That means a train at … gulp … 06:57, something to which I am not looking forward at all.

Then to the laboratory for all of my test results. I’ve no idea what they might mean, so I telephoned the doctor and arranged an appointment for Monday at 08:45 to have them interpreted.

I’ve no idea what the outcome would be, but if it requires any action after Wednesday it will be rather a shame, won’t it?

Back into town and the library book sale. No books that interested me unfortunately, but there was a copy of Humble Pie’s “Live at the Whisky a-Go-Go” for just €2:50. A magnificent live album including a 21:25 version of “I Walk On Gilded Splinters”.

Seeing as how beautiful it was today, I treated myself to a sorbet while I was out – a coconut and mint one. I felt that I deserved it.

Rosemary rang me up when I returned and we had a lengthy chat that took me right up to tea-time. A vegan burger on a bap with oven chips and the rest of the baked beans from the other day.

Later on, when it was going dark, I went out for a walk.

It’s the musical evening tonight with groups set up all over the town in various corners.

I made a few interesting discoveries – a bassist playing with a very rare acoustic dobro bass, and another bassist playing with a Rickenbacker 4003.

In the darkening evening I had a good wander round, experimenting with the low ISO settings on the new camera.

It’s not too bad down to about ISO51200 but beyond there the quality drops off quite rapidly. At H2.0 it’s unusable.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to take photos at 1/640 in the dark with a 18/300 zoom lens. I’m itching to get out and about with the 50mm f1.8 lens in the dark.

When I went back to see the group with the Rickenbacker, they were just finishing, which was rather a disappointment because I was intending to stick out and hear the rest of the set.

But I did manage to have a chat with the guy with the Rickenbacker. He was quite sociable, unlike the last Rickenbacker player who I had met at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

They are still making them apparently, but I don’t imagine that they would be as good as those of the 1960s.

So despite wanting a early night, I was editing the photos until i don’t know what time. That’s going to set me up for a good day tomorrow, isn’t it?

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Thursday 27th September 2018 – I’VE BEEN FEELING …

… much better today.

That is of course a very long way from saying that I’m feeling good, or even well, but it’s certainly an improvement over the last three days or so.

And one thing that I have noticed is that these spells of ill-health are becoming more frequent, deeper and lasting longer than they did before;

of course, I knew all about this because I have been told. But it’s still rather disappointing to see myself sliding slowly into the abyss. Getting ready to see my forebears, I imagine. And we’ll all be stoking the fires together. But at least I’m more fortunate than Goldilocks. She only had three.

I did know that I would be feeling better though – my sleep could have told me that. Deep and intense, turning over slightly whenever I heard a noise, and then going back into my deep sleep until the alarms went off.

There had been an interesting voyage too. Being short of money I’d gone to see what work was available at the local pub and they had offered me three nights a week as a pianist. I took it of course, even though I couldn’t play, and it wasn’t until I was due to start that I reckoned that I really ought to withdraw. The pub itself was set in a large, kind-of abandoned quarry, well-worn down and surrounded “up on top” by cheap local authority housing.
A little later, I wanted to take a shower, but the bath was full of dirty clothes. I mentioned it to Rachel but she told me to go ahead and just walk on them. That’s how I take a shower when I’m on the road anyway, washing my clothes in the shower around me.

It took me a while to organise myself, which is no real surprise, and then having done all of the preparation, I was off. Strider and I haven’t been on a voyage so far this year, so we hit the road and headed to Fredericton.

Not for any good reason, but because it was there, it was a place to go and I couldn’t think of anywhere else.

Once Strider warmed up, he ran really well. But our persistent misfire has come back and the fuel consumption has deteriorated again. I suppose that he’s getting old like I am. 10 years old now, he is.

First stop in Fredericton was at the Value Village. I’ve talked about these places before. In Canada there aren’t Charity Shops like there are in the UK.There’s just one big one and everything is centralised.

My treat today was a pile of books, some of which I’ll bring back to France and the rest I’ll leave in Strider for if I ever return. I dunno.

After that, it was Home Depot but since I no longer live at the farm there’s nothing there that excite me these days. Princess Autos came up with a circuit tester for the new tow hitch. Need to make sure that Strider’s electrics are up to the job if I’ll be towing trailers.

Scotia Bank next, where my account took a substantial hit. And for a couple of good reasons too, but I’ll talk more about those in due course.

I called at a Subway for a rather late lunch and a rest, and followed that up with a coffee at Tim Horton’s, as I was feeling a little under the weather by this time.

There was still time to go to the Bulk Barn. I’d noticed in Montreal that Gram Flour was really cheap there and I can’t usually find it in France. So I bought myself a kilo and I’l smuggle it in at the border if I can.

On the way back, I came by the scenic route, across the Saint John River and along the north shore, where the roadworks that slowed up Rachel and me last year are still going on.

Roadworks everywhere in fact and it took an age to get to the cheap petrol station at Keswick to fuel up.

On the way back I stopped off at Mactaquac to photograph the dam there but instead was greeted by a car fire, with various fire engines, police and ambulances around trying to look busy. Rather sad, that was.

From there, the return was quick enough but I still hadn’t finished because I had to run up to Centreville for some whipping cream.

Hannah was the chief architect of tea tonight. They had all kinds of fishy things and I had a pasta with veg and tomato sauce. But Hannah excelled herself with the falafel. A mix out of a packet but delicious nevertheless.

We watched TV for a while until everyone decided to watch this anatomy programme. And once they started talking about surgery and operations I beat a hasty retreat to my room. I can’t be doing with any of that.

Now as tomorrow, I wonder if the improvement will continue or will I have a relapse? I’m on the road to Montreal tomorrow night so I’m hoping that it will be good.

We shall see.

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Monday 24th September 2018 – WINTER IS ACUMEN IN …

… Lhude sing Rudolph.

I woke up this morning … "der der der der DER" – ed … to a heavy frost and a temperature of -2°C. Yes, we are going to be in for a belting winter and no mistake this year.

Frosts and freezing already. I’m not looking forward to it.

And due to some kind of confusion yesterday in the Great Satan, the phone seems to have gone on to New England time so it was an hour later when it went off, and by this time everyone had already left.

So I turned over and went back to sleep for a while, and had pleasant dreams of the High Arctic yet again.

But once I was awake again, I started work.

But not for long.

Darren and George came back. They had to go to Fredericton to pick up an engine, a big-bore Chevy 505 racing engine for a pulling truck. This meant uncoupling the big trailer so seeing as they were struggling I dressed and went to lend a hand.

Once we’d done that, I took the opportunity to leap aboard and we set off south-east, grabbing a coffee on the way past.

And as we were early, we stopped off for a meal. It was a good job that we were early too because it took half an hour for them to prepare our meal. “Something had gone wrong” with the order and I can guess what it was.

We were visiting a guy called George who is apparently the leading North American expert on gas-flowing cylinder heads and I would die to have a garage like his. He’d rebuilt this engine and we had come to pick it up to deliver it.

And if you think that I could talk, you aint heard nuffink yet. We were there for two hours – half an hour to load up and the remaining 90 minutes while he told us “a little story”.

We drove back via the yard where George (our George) picked up his truck, and then we came back here to find that in view of the weather we had run out of heating oil. What a fine time for that to happen.

And it took an age to locate a supplier who actually had a tanker on standby that had fuel in it ready for delivery.

Another thing that I did was to book my bus back to Montreal on Friday night, and a hotel for Saturday night.

And Brain of Britain has done it again, hasn’t he?

Sitting there wondering why hotels were so expensive and in the end booking a cat house even worse than the usual. And then suddenly realising, far too late of course, that the prices quoted are in Canadian Dollars not Euros and hence the difference!

Tea was potatoes, beans and vegan sausage for me and then I called it aday.

It comes to something when something even as simple is this is laying me out on my back.

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Wednesday 19th September 2018 – WE FINALLY STAGGERED IN …

… to Lester P Pearson Airport quite early – as in something like 02:20 or whatever. A far cry from our intended 20:00, wasn’t it? And then the interminable file through customs, immigration and baggage collection.

I was well on my last legs right now and so I was rather glad that no-one crossed my path.As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t really become tired when I’ve had a very long day. Instead of tiredness it’s my irritability that increases and I’ve had some interesting and exciting encounters after a 36-hour working day.

At the Sheraton Gateway hotel, check-in was easy and I departed to my room. By now I’d gone beyond the threshold of tiredness and couldn’t sleep. It was 04:00 when I finally tucked myself up under the blankets and waited for dawn to come.

Sometime during the night I must have gone to sleep because the 08:00 alarm awoke me. The 08:08 and the 08:19 alarms also awoke me. I was having a bad morning.

Something like 09:30 when I hauled myself out of the stinking pit into the shower. And then we had the dramatic search for the clean clothes which I was convinced that I had put into my rucksack, but apparently not. In the end, the dirty clothes had to do.

Breakfast finished at 10:00 so I made it with 30 seconds to spare – only to be told that it wasn’t included in my booking and that I would have to pay extra. I dropped my coffee and orange juice as if I had been scalded and legged it quick.

And then had to leg it back equally quickly, for I had discovered that I had left my camera back at my pseudo-breakfast table.

I went off to Tim Horton’s instead and made contact with the rest of the world. A mere 91 messages on my social networking site awaiting my attention. I dealt with about 5 and discarded the rest.

The coffee, orange and bagels did their best to cheer me up, and so I went for a walk around to see the sights. And there I bumped into Aaron and Deanna doing the same. We had a little chat and then just like the Knights Of The Round Table, we went our separate ways.

Checking in the suitcase was reasonably straightforward. I could even fit a few more bits and pieces into it to make my rucksack more manoeuvrable. The “security” was interesting too, with a few more of these jobsworths who don’t have a clue about what they are doing, trying to make themselves look important.

Having bought bagels to eat for lunch, I was surprised to encounter a “Subway” inside the security area. I bagged a footlong vegetarian to eat, and I can save my bagels for later

Our ‘plane to Fredericton is a Bombardier Q400 R003 – a much-more modern version of the Dash-7 that we had to go from Yellowknife to Baffin Island. Clean and tidy and comfortable (although the leather on the seats was showing its age).

I forgot to note its registration number so if I can see it on the photo I can tell you all about it in due course.

The flight attendant had a weird sense of humour – “if you don’t like the on-board service, there are four emergency exits …”. That’s the kind of humour that I appreciate.

It was something of a shock to arrive in Fredericton. It had been warm and sunny in Toronto but here it was wet and windy – and cold. In fact the cold was more of a shock than anything else. It had been cold of course in the High Arctic but a different kind of cold and it didn’t feel half as bad as I was feeling right now.

Rachel and I drove back into town where she picked up some things that she had ordered from Kent Hardware. I fuelled up her car for her and then we went for a coffee at Tim Horton’s, where she told me that while I had been away, my father had died.

I think that she was expecting me to show more emotion than I did, but the fact is that I ran out of emotion about my family a very long time ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Anyway, I shan’t bore you with my problems.

We drove back here and Rachel rustled up something quick to eat. Meantime I had a chat to Darren, Amber and Hannah. It’s been a good while.

And then I staggered off to bed. It’s been a very long day with lots of interruptions and I’m thoroughly exhausted.

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Monday 28th August 2017 – I WONDER IF …

saint john river woodstock NEW BRUNSWICK canada aout august 2017… you can guess where the Saint John River might be.

That’s right – it’s over there where all of the cloud is. Late August and already we are in the cold early mornings,
the rapid heating and the resulting condensation.

It’s not looking good for the autumn – but then I say that every year and I somehow seem to manage.

hanging cloud lakeville NEW BRUNSWICK canada aout august 2017And it’s not just along the river either. Everywhere there was a patch of water there was a hanging cloud hovering in the vicinity.

Down there in Lakeville, for example, where there is, as you might expect, a lake, there was a large patch of it and I was drifting through patches of fog all through the morning.

I’d had a good sleep last night and even been on my travels but once again, I’ve no idea where to. And it didn’t take long for me to pack up the last remnants of my stuff and hit the highway.

Just Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly to start with but by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong.

international chevrolet reo speedwagon woodstock NEW BRUNSWICK canada aout august 2017Remember last year when I saw that old car here in Woodstock?

Well, we can do much better than that today because we don’t just have one old car, we have three old lorries.

And quite interesting lorries they are too.

chevrolet international reo speedwagon woodstock NEW BRUNSWICK canada aout august 2017The flatbed lorry on the right is an “International” and the pick-up in the centre is a Chevrolet.

And we’ve seen these Chevrolets before – out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina back in 2005.

The one on the left with the tyre issues is the most exciting though. That’s an REO Speedwagon.

It’s amazing what you find in the backs of the barns occupied by these old potato farmers you know. All kinds of treasures are in there.

At Fredericton I bought an entire Walmart – including a slow cooker because Brain of Britain has left his other one in the lock-up in Montreal. How clever is that?

The Value Village came up with a few odds and ends, but Home Depot and Princess Autos (there’s one in Fredericton now) had nothing of interest.

lunch stop highway 7 NEW BRUNSWICK canada aout august 2017From there I drove on towards Saint John and stopped for lunch at a convenient lay-by.

I was joined by a couple of locals who told me the legend of the maple Tree here but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was half-asleep with fatigue.

In Saint Johns I soon found a motel. Rather expensive and needs a good coat of paint but it had a microwave so next stop was Sobey’s and a bag of spuds.

I went to the Dollar Store for a microwave dish too and a few other bits and pieces, and cooked myself potatoes, sausages and beans.

But the beans left over from last year were nasty and found their way into the rubbish. I reckon that I’ll bin all of that stuff and buy some new.

So now I’m off for another early night. No need to go to the hospital as Ellen has now been expelled so I can pay my insurance and move on.

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Thursday 24th August 2017 – CANADIAN WINTERS …

ford ranger rotted shock absorber strider aout august 2017… can be pretty brutal on mild steel.

No wonder Strider was dancing and hopping around on the road last night coming back from Fredericton with a pair of shock absorbers looking something like these.

The hoods were completely corroded away and the telescopic shafts were pitted, meaning that there was no effective seal.

Add to this an oil change, fixing a leaking rear differential, a safety inspection and …gulp … two new tyres (and I’ve fitted the best, none of your cheap rubbish) and I’m now lying down in a darkened room to recover from the shock.

But at least Strider handles like he ought to handle, and I’m well-prepared for the far north of Labrador in a couple of weeks time.

I have the licensing and the insurance to deal with too next week. But even so, it still all works out cheaper than hiring a vehicle.

And I’ve worked out how Strider managed to go to the transmission shop to have his overdrive problem fixed when everyone was so busy that they couldn’t spare the time. And it can’t possibly be Amber who drove it there, can it? After all, she’s only just turned 14 and isn’t allowed to drive a motor vehicle on the public highway.

Last night was a very bad night for me. I have felt it coming on for the last couple of days and knew that it wouldn’t be long in arriving.

All day yesterday I was feeling out of sorts and coming back from Fredericton was a struggle. I went to bed almost as soon as I arrived back here but sleep was… shall we say …fitful.

I didn’t feel much like it this morning either and didn’t have any breakfast, but I gradually came round and by 10:00 I was feeling rather better.

But the strain that everyone is under here in Ellen’s absence is telling and we had what can only be described as “an unfortunate outburst” this morning.

This led, rather surprisingly, to two people not at all connected with the events rounding upon the perpetrator and telling him precisely what they thought about the event – and in no uncertain terms either.

This led to the perpetrator “going out to deliver some hogfeed” and that was the last that we saw of him all day, which suited everyone else quite fine.

We even had a “team meeting” and summoned the local computer programmer to come up with a new accounting system to replace the one that Noah had used to calculated the finances of building the Ark.

Amber was out with her boyfriend this evening but Hannah’s friend had arrived (they are going back to University tomorrow) so we were still pretty numerous for tea. Rachel had made me a nice salad and soup.

Now I’m off to bed – an early night. I have a lot of sleep to catch up on after yesterday.

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Wednesday 23rd August 2017 – ANOTHER EARLY NIGHT …

… is called for tonight.

I’ve had a hectic day.

It all went wrong at about 04:00 when we had the most tremendous thunderstorm. That, I reckon must have awoken almost everyone in the neighbourhood. And the torrential rainstorm made it almost impossible for everyone to go back to sleep.

I was still awake when the alarms went off and at 07:00 I was up and about, breakfasting and making my butties.

We had a rush to get into work this morning but eventually everyone arrived there and for the first time for quite a while we had a full house (excepting Ellen of course).

And so I was something rather supernumerary so I carried on with a little project that I had started yesterday on the laptop as well as chatting to one or two customers who were waiting.

Apparently there’s a family of ospreys who have made a nest in the pipework of the cornmill and we were admiring their handiwork.

Later on this afternoon Rachel ran me down to Fredericton to pick up Strider where he was having some work done.

And that wasn’t as straightforward as it might seem. There were piles of queues on the roads, roadworks, a police stake-out, and eventually the road that we needed was blocked off by road works so we had to back up and go the long way around.

And all the time we were dealing with telephone calls from the office about accounts enquiries. No wonder we were all so stressed out when we arrived.

I went to the Atlantic Superstore for some groceries and then picked up some fuel at Keswick before coming back.

And my odyssey isn’t over because there seems to a be a shock absorber that has burst judging by the bizarre handling from the nearside rear that had me all across the road on a couple of occasions.

So now; totally exhausted, I’m off to bed. I”ll need my strength to sort out this rear end tomorrow.

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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.

1937 Buick special woodstock new brunswick canada september septembre 2016I 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.

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Sunday 20th September 2015 – YOU MAY REMEMBER …

… the other day when I told you that I thought that it had rained during the night?

Well, there was absolutely no mistake this morning. There I was, busily taking down the tent, and the heavens opened. I was drenched.

I was intending to leave the tent out to dry out the condensation but I’ve had to forget that. It’ll be soaked even worse and so I just flung it into the back of Strider.

I had almost 200 photographs to edit too, and that wasn’t possible as I had nowhere to sit comfortably. I went off to the shower room and had a really good soak, changed my undies, and had a shave instead. No breakfast though – I heaved everything else into the back of Strider and headed off to Tim Horton’s for coffee and a comfortable seat.

All of these photos took hours to edit. My camera, which has been quite flaky since I dropped it in Quebec in May 2012, is now teetering on the edge of whatever it teeters on and the photos are getting worse and worse. A new camera is in order when I return home if I can’t find anything over here. I can’t go on like this. But I do need a really decent lens – something like a 28-85mm lens that drops down to f2.8 or beyond for this kind of work. I can’t keep going on the equipment that I have.

But the net result of this was that I had to move on. Not that I actually had to, but Tim Horton’s is very good to me when I’m on the road, what with washing facilities in the disabled loos and with the free internet, so I don’t want to abuse the facilities.

I found another Tim Hortons quite a way down the road and so I had another coffee and finished everything off, and that took me to 17:30, there was that much of it to do. And what I hadn’t realised was that when I finished, I was the only person in the place except for the staff who were hanging around waiting. It seems that the place was to close at 17:00 so that renovations could start, and I’d been holding up the work.

I hit the road after that, and Strider and I ended up on the big Irvings truckstop on the outskirts of Moncton. Tonight is the first night that I am to spend sleeping in Strider and so I needed to organise myself.

It took ages to clear everything out and I even cooked some simple food for tea. And that little table that I bought the other day is perfect for that. I did however spill all of my pasta all over the floor and that will need all cleaning out now.

The bed is just the right length and it’s reasonably comfortable too although I want to do better. But the truckstop is the wrong place for me to have spent the night – at least where I was. Lorries were coming and going throughout the night and it took me ages to get off to sleep.

I must do better tomorrow.

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