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LIVE: Sunday 4th October 2026 – YET ANOTHER SUNDAY …

… where a late breakfast seems to be the order of the day. Some of these lie ins are really good, especially a few that I’ve had just recently.

And I need a lie-in after the events of last night. For example, it was about 00:30 when I went to bed, and if that’s not late, I don’t know what is. Mind you, it’s a very far cry from the good old days when I’d still be up working at 02:30 and later, and sometimes not going to bed at all.

During the night, as you might expect, I awoke at some point. I’ve no idea what time it was because I didn’t look. It took quite a while, but I managed to go to sleep later, only to wake up again at 07:40. I definitely went back to sleep at that point because the nurse awoke me when he came in.

He sorted out my legs and feet while I was still in bed, and then I went back to sleep again. When I awoke again, it was 10:35, so I decided that I’d better wake up. As usual, it took me a while to be able to get to my feet, and then I went to sort myself out in the bathroom.

It was 10:55 when I began to prepare my breakfast. I couldn’t be bothered to make croissants but there was some bread left, so I just had some ordinary, normal toast with my porridge, coffee and juice.

While I was eating, I was reading THE REPORT OF THE WOOLHOPE NATURALISTS CLUB 1870.

Today, our discussion on fungi is continuing. We’re discussing the edible fungi found in the woods and fields, but it’s not much use because they are using all these scientific terms which many people, including me, don’t know, so we don’t really have much of a chance of understanding them.

One interesting fact that I learnt was that the poor rural folk, such as farm labourers in the depths of darkest rural Herefordshire are so poorly paid that they only ever eat bacon. One of the guys in the Naturalists Club reckons “how their diet would be greatly improved” by adding a few slices of edible mushrooms to their diet. That’s fair enough, but you need to talk to these people in language that they understand, not in scientific language.

Back in here, there were a few things to check, and then I had the dictaphone notes to transcribe.

This was a weird dream, and I’d forgotten most of it when I reached for the dictaphone, but one thing was that it was someone’s birthday in Crewe. We’d been invited, or, rather, I’d been invited because I knew the person, and Nerina could come too. I had to find a birthday present for that person, so we went for a wander in the town, but, as usual, there were far too many distractions. Nerina wasn’t living with me any more, so she was buying things for her new place where she was living, and she was going round and round in circles with these things, not making up her mind, not buying anything, buying this, thinking that, and it led to some kind of complications in the house where we were staying because of organising this birthday present and organising some shopping, and we found that we were going nowhere and doing nothing. I wanted to crack on, and we could have had a lift to this party too if we’d been ready with a birthday present. And then we started talking about Nerina’s birthday and Christmas present. She said that she didn’t want anything at all, and I couldn’t think of what to buy her either. In the end, there was a train back from Stafford where we were, going back to Creze. I thought that if we went there, we could dump these things and go back to catch the train to where we were going, but Nerina couldn’t even make up her mind about wanting to go on the train to home. She had other plans, and I thought that I didn’t know what these plans were. But there’s more of this dream that’s missing, and I’m certain that it went on all night practically.

Nerina is making more and more of a regular appearance in my dreams these days. Not that I mind, because I did ask her to share my life with me. But it’s not like Nerina to dither around like this. Usually, she’d make up her mind quite quickly and decisively.

And notice that we were at Stafford railway station. I’ve only ever caught a train from there twice – once when I was sixteen or so and I’d been for a walk around Stafford one Friday night, and the second time was coming back from Birmingham after a “certain meeting”, and that’s another story that the World is not yet ready to hear.

Also, we’re flitting about from pillar to post, and so is this birthday bash. Trying to keep synchronised with time and place in a dream seems to be almost impossible.

This dream wasn’t recorded, but it was something else that was going round in my head when I awoke. I was in need of a new laptop for some reason, so a friend and I set out to buy one. We went to a department store that had an electrical department, but the shop was crowded with people and we had to fight our way through into the electrical department at the back. When we were finally served, they didn’t really show me any laptops but a kind of strange machine that was a laptop with some kind of box like a desktop computer. I asked them how they figured that this machine was portable, but they didn’t come up with an answer. They had loads of bits and pieces from dismantled desktop and laptop computers on shelves ready for sale, so I was at a loss as to why they didn’t assemble a few computers themselves and sell them on.

This seems to be pretty relevant, concerning the new Lenovo laptop and desktop that I bought earlier in the year, and the parts on the shelves remind me of the computer shop in Brussels where I used to buy my computer equipment and bits and pieces.

And funnily enough, later on in the day Rosemary telephoned me to tell me that her laptop computer has failed and wanted to know which new laptop I recommended. I told her about this refurbishment company that sells on Amazon and how I was happy with the Lenovo desktop and Lenovo laptop that I’d bought earlier in the year.

In fact, Rosemary phoned me up twice. The first one was only a short chat today – just 01:00:40 – and later on, it was a mere 00:16:10. We are definitely losing our touch.

Later on, I watched the football. The first match was Stranraer vs a strong Edinburgh City. This game seemed to go from one end to the other, but while there were plenty of shots at goal, surprisingly, there wasn’t one on target and neither goalkeeper had a save to make. It finished 0-0, which is no surprise.

However, as Clyde had beaten Elgin City quite comprehensively, Stranraer have found themselves at the top of the table this weekend, and this is quite unexpected considering where they were at this stage last season.

The next game was Greenock Morton v Raith Rovers, and that ended up 2-1 to Raith. Despite having sacked their manager … "and about time, too" – ed … earlier in the week, the first half was as dire as anything A Murray’s team has ever produced.

However, I don’t know what they put in the teapot for the half-time cuppa but I wouldn’t mind a drink of that myself. It was a different team that came out in the second half and they tore Raith to shreds. However, they couldn’t make their domination count for anything.

Nevertheless, if they play like they did in the second half of this game from now on until the end of the season, they’ll be well up the table and out of danger.

There wasn’t much time to do much else, because at 16:30 I went to make my bread for next week.

It went together really well today and has risen up like a lift. It looks wonderful, and I’ll tell you tomorrow how it tastes after I’ve had my toast for breakfast.

While I was waiting, I was rueing the passing of time doing nothing, so I washed and then cut up some potatoes into small cubes. And then with a big helping of peas, some mint and some parsley, I steamed them in my vegetable steamer in the microwave.

They turned out to be really nice, so I covered them with my vegan salad cream and put them in a glass container in the fridge.

When I’d finished making my bread, I made a small salad with lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, cucumbers, olives and kidney beans (for the protein), then added a couple of spoonsful of the potatoes and peas. That made a really nice, simple meal for tonight, and there’s plenty left for later.

Now back in here, I’ve finished my notes, and there are a couple of things left to do and then I’m off to bed.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about mushrooms … "well, one of us has" – ed … someone asked the fungi expert of the Woolhope Naturalists Club which mushrooms were not able to be eaten.
The expert replied "none of them. You can eat every single kind of mushroom that you find"
"Really?"
"Absolutely" replied the expert. "And with some mushrooms, just one on its own will be enough to feed you for the rest of your life."

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Tuesday 18th September 2018 – AND SO I WENT …

*************** 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.
***************

… to bed quite early (and missed all of the excitement too!) and crashed out almost immediately. The record that I was playing Colosseum Live … "now THERE’S a surprise" – ed … was still playing when I briefly awoke, so I quickly turned that off and fell back into the Arms of Morpheus.

It didn’t take me long to go off on my travels and a big Hello! to The Vanilla Queen who made her debut. “Vanilla Queen” indeed, living up to her alter ego! The stress is clearly getting to me, that’s for sure.

With having to be up and about so early I was awake at about 04:30. And again at about 05:15. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that and so I Arose from the Dead and started to tidy up and pack.

We’ve now entered Kangerlussuaq, the “Big Fjord” and so I took a few photos. No sunrise today unfortunately and not really all that much else to see. So I toddled off to breakfast where I had a lengthy chat with Dave about Glasgow and GreenocK. Heather came to join us too for a short while.

Afterwards I finished packing my possessions and then I had to wait around for ages to see what was happening.

Before I could check out. We received a USB stick with all of the voyage details thereupon, and I was able to go back upstairs to upload the photos of Strawberry Moose in his kayak.

Eventually we were called down to the zodiacs and were transported to the shore. We passed by Linda, the cruise director, and I’m afraid that I couldn’t resist it. I said to her “I suppose you’ll give me that e-mail address tomorrow”.

I really am wicked! But serve her right.

A fleet of buses was awaiting us – some modern monstrous machines and also a couple of really elderly vehicles, including a Kassböhrer-Setra and, much to my surprise, a DAB-bodied 1984 Leyland bus.

We went past the ruins of Kellyville, an old American radar base and then up the hill to the old American submarine radio base. Long-since dismantled, you could see how tall the antennae must have been by reference to the concrete base and the size of the cable stays. They were massive.

Much to my surprise the diesel generators were still present – a couple of really old straight-eights. I was about to give them a good look-over but before I could do so we were summoned back to the bus.

Back down the hill again and past the cupola for the gun that defended the port installations and the runway for the airstrip at Kangerlussuaq in World War II. In (and out) of the town to look at the Pride and Joy of the urban area – the new bridge that replaced the one that was washed out in an ice-flood in 2012.

We were told of the volume of water that passes through the bridge at the height of the melt-water season and I can’t remember now what our driver said it was but it was certainly impressive. Today we had a floating plaque of ice that was jammed up against the culvert with all of the water passing underneath.

He showed us the site of the old bridge and explained that if we were to dig down in the collapsed morass we would probably be able to recover a digger that was swept away in the confusion.

Up to the top of the mountain on the other side.

There was a beautiful view of Kangerlussuaq from the top, as well as the old radio and radar installations from the Cold War. Some of the equipment is now utilised by the Danes to pick up the data that is transmitted from weather satellites that pass overhead.

And I found some beautiful glacier-polished rock right on top of the mountain. It looked really splendid.

Back down to the airport – the largest in Greenland with the longest runway – another Cold War legacy. Plenty of time to kill before take-off so I went to watch the Air Greenland planes take off. This is the only airport in which the big jets can land so they unload and turn round here and there are endless shuttles of smaller planes that feed the passengers in and out and on and beyond.

I took the opportunity to eat my packed lunch too. Not that it took me all that long. Laszlo and I clearly have different ideas about the size of my appetite.

Still hordes of people congregating around so I spent quite a while chatting to Sherman, Michael, Christopher and Tiffany. They were sharing out the crisps which I thought was quite nice of them.

Eventually we made our way to the departure lounge and I had another stand-off in what laughingly passes as “security”.

“Empty your pockets!” barked a woman with a badge.
“Would you mind saying ‘please’ to me when you address me” I replied.
This led to an extremely warm 5 minutes until she buckled under.

And now our plane is 90 minutes late. isn’t that a surprise? It’s so late that the second plane has in fact arrived first.

I thought that it would be absolutely awful watching the others depart before us, but they sat for half an hour on the tarmac without moving – and then the rood opened, the stairs came out and the pilot descended.

The cynic in me started to work out all kinds of depressing scenarios and in the words of JRR Tolkein “all are dark and unpleasant”.

We were later told a story of what had happened. Apparently some kind of aeroplane had come to some kind of grief on the runway. Our plane couldn’t land and so had flown back to Iqaluit.

But none of this explains why plane 2 had managed to land on the runway, and why another aeroplane from Air Greenland had managed to land. And why they hadn’t grabbed one of the towing dollies that I had seen in action earlier and yanked the plane off the runway.

20-odd years of working in the tourism industry has imbued me with a desperate sense of cynicism that will one day surely be my undoing. However, I am guided by the comment that “a cynic is someone who sees things as they are, not as they are meant to be”.

And seeing the n°2 aeroplane take off before our (earlier) one had landed did nothing to dispel my feelings.

The tour company offered us a meal of sorts. And after much binding in the marsh they managed to rustle up a salad for me. A blind man would have been pleased to see it, I suppose.

But the biggest laugh is yet to come.

After the meal they gave me a bottle of water – unopened and sealed – out or the restaurant so I strode back into the waiting area. And they wouldn’t let me pass with it and we had quite an argument about it.

But behind me were the tour managers with 200 of the identical bottles of water and they passed those into the security area, right enough. And so we had another argument about that too.

In the meantime, the clock in the waiting room had ceased to function. That’s always a handy stand-by when people are feeling the drag of waiting around. They don’t notice the passage of time if the clock isn’t working.

The plane finally arrived at about 20:35 – a good 15 minutes after the “latest update” time and well over 4 hours after its due DEPARTURE time. And in the meantime Sherwin had given us an impromptu concert to pass the time. One suspects that a certain well-filled brown envelope had changed hands at some point. We even had Latonia singing along.

And once the aeroplane had landed, they started up the clock again.

I really must develop a more positive attitude, as I have been saying for quite a while.

Departure time should have been 16:30. We took to the air at 22:15. That was me thoroughly depressed.

What depressed me even more was when I talked to the cabin crew. They told me that there had been a “maintenance issue” and that, together with the associated paperwork, had delayed the take-off

Clearly someone is being … errrr … economical with the truth somewhere.

And I felt really sorry for The Vanilla Queen. She lives in Iqaluit but was having to take the charter flight to Toronto, and then make her way home via Montreal. So where do you think that we stopped for a refuelling break?

Much to my surprise they actually did have a vegan meal on board. And even more surprisingly, it was quite reasonable too, as far as airline meals go.

But that was as good as it got. My good humour that had been slowly disappearing over the last few days – well, the last vestiges have disappeared into the ether now. As Doctor Spooner once famously said, “I feel like a hare with a sore bed”.

I tried to settle down to sleep but no chance of that. I shall have to stay wide-awake with only my good humour to keep me company.

I don’t think.

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Wednesday 28th September 2016 – WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY?

Apart from the fact that this is one of the most comfortable beds that I’ve ever slept in. I didn’t take long to drop off and although I was awake again soon after (and for quite a while too) I ended up back in a deep sleep and apart from one visit down the corridor I was well away when the alarm went off.

I’m not sure about all of the layers of blankets though – I can see them giving me problems – and the beaver skin went on the floor (and if I had my way the stuffed otter would be out of the window) and it’s all very twee, with lots of ornaments and everything in just the right place. It must be a nightmare to clean and dust.

But the guy who runs it is super-friendly and I couldn’t ask for anything more than he is prepared to give. It’s a bit overwhelming in fact, because it’s a long time since I’ve been cosseted quite like this. And who knows? It’ll probably do me good.

Breakfast was at 08:00 with my notaire friend and his wife. And I made a mistake yesterday because he isn’t actually the notaire of Pontaumur but the retired notaire of Pontaumur, because he’s sold up and they are now on their travels visiting places that they have always dreamed of visiting in North America. And it’s a 6-month itinerary too, so good luck to them.

Once I’d had breakfast I came back up here for a rest and to do a few things on the laptop. And if I thought that the internet at my house was slow, then it’s like lightning compared to how it works here. And it keeps on dropping the connection too. It’s extremely difficult to work with.

Lunchtime came around and so I went downstairs to Strider to make myself some butties. And it really was windy – very unpleasant. It rather destroyed the effects of it being a beautiful sunny day. But I’m not here to do nothing and so I put on an extra fleece and set out to brave the tempest.

godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016Here’s a nice little pavilion here on the shore, just like a little Chinese pagoda. There are a few of them dotted around here and there. That would seem to be an ideal place to eat my butties, even if the sides are opened and I’m going to be buffeted about by the wind.

I’m not sure about my book though. The pages are being blown about like nobody’s business and so I’m not going to be able to relax here.


Consequently I decide to move on.

cartier cross godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016Last night I’d seen a white light in the shape of a cross shining from somewhere in the hills. Today I can see a cross over there where the light was. My host told me that there was a path up there, with some stunning views from up on the top, and so I decided that I would go for an exploration.

It’s not quite such a climb as it might appear, because there are steps that lead up there. That should make it somewhat easier to reach the top.


godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016Godbout is situated in a sheltered bay that is flanked by two rivers. This is the river at the eastern edge of the town, the smaller one of the two, and I’ll tell you its name in a minute when I can remember it or whenever I can track it down.

But there’s a footpath that leads over the bridge and along the top of the shore in the general direction of the cross that I saw, and so I headed out along here as a good place to start.


jacques cartier cross godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016I stumble across a flight of stairs heading up the side of the mountain and so I start to climb up there. This must be the way to the cross.

It was pretty tiring climbing all the way up here because there are quite a few and I lost count long before the top. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and I do have to say that the view down to the eastern beach at Godbout was stunning from this position. I bet it’s even better from the top.


jacques cartier cross godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016403 steps in fact, according to the number carved into the top step, brought me up to the very top where I could see the cross. It’s actually an aerial or antenna support which was rather disappointing because I was hoping that it might have been a Cartier cross.

There were crosses erected all over the cost of the Gasoé peninsula and the shore of the St Lawrence at the places where it is believed that Jacques Cartier landed on his voyages of exploration during the 1530s.

But it goes without saying that if he had landed at every place so claimed, he would still be out there now.


godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016And I was right about the view from the top and its a shame that I have the sun shining into the camera lens – the camera can never do justice to the real view.

That’s the view of Godbout down there with the harbour in centre view. You can see how beautiful the area is here and I’m glad that I managed to make it up to the top of the stairs to see it.

And so here I sat for half an hour or so to read my book and to catch my breath.


belvedere godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016Back down to the bottom of the steps (with 399 carved at the bottom so something is clearly not correct) I walked on along the road and came to this beautiful belvedere with a view out across the river.

Here I fell in with a very vocal local yokel who spent quite a while chatting to me. he said that he was driving past here in 2002 when his car broke down. While it was being repaired he walked around the village, fell in love with it and once his car had been repaired, he came back later and bought a house here.


f a gauthier godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016While we were busy chatting, the F A Gauthier came steaming … "dieseling" – ed … into port, making quite an impressive photograph.

I told you that she’s the first brand-new ferry on the St Lawrence for a good number of years, but I didn’t tell you that she was built in Italy – which must have been a major blow to Canadian shipbuilders, and also to John Brown’s of Greenock who have built many ships for the St Lawrence in the past.


f a gauthier godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016But anyway, here she is. She’s 133 metres long and 22.4 metres wide, displacing about 16,000 tonnes, although she might not look it.

There’s a carrying capacity of 800 passengers and 180 vehicles, which means that the queue of unreserved vehicles that used to miss the boat on the Camille Marcoux and which we almost joined when we were here in 2014 may well be a thing of the past.


f a gauthier godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016My vocal local yokel told me that there were the remains of the village’s old hydro-electric plant somewhere along the trail. I wanted to have a look at them if I could and so I set out to see if I could find them.

But I was defeated by the steepness of the climb up into the hills and the looseness of the rocks on the trail – by the time that I was halfway up I was going up one pace and sliding down three. However, there was a beautiful view of the docks and the F A Gauthier from where I was standing.


beach godbout st lawrence river north shore cote nord canada september septembre 2016I walked back to my digs via the beach. There weren’t many people about (I counted two) but it was beautiful along here despite the wind that had sprung up once again.

And I did what I had wanted to do by coming here, which was to have a good wash in the water of the St Lawrence. It’s a rather symbolic gesture that I like to perform, and as this might be the last time that I come here, I was keen to do it.

By now I was thoroughly exhausted and so I went back to my room where I crashed out for a good while, aching all over.

And for tea, I was organising my potatoes for baking but my host told me that he had cut far too many chips, so would I like to cook them with my sausages and beans? That was extremely nice of him and it made a nice change from baked potatoes. Only drawback was that I forgot that I had some malt vinegar for them.

And that was that. I came up to my room and I was out like a light – probably gone for good.

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