Tag Archives: maine

Tuesday 24th December … TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE …

… living in Panama, HIS NIBS and I wish you a Merry Isthmus

And so does Nanuk, a very friendly Polar Bear whom we met in the High Arctic Research Area in Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island in the Arctic Ocean where those of us on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR called for supplies.

Nanuk, or, I suppose, more correctly Nanu’q is Inuktitut for “polar bear”. Some words that I learned from the Inuit in the High Arctic seem to have stuck.

However, retournons à nos moutons as they say around here. It’ll be Christmas Day by the time that most of you read this so I hope that you have all been good and that Santa has brought you some nice presents. I know what he has brought me, and it’s the same that my namesake the mathematician will receive.

One thing that he will bring will be a nice lie-in. I’ve told the nurse to clear off, the alarm is switched off and that will be that. That’s the best present that anyone could want.

Not like this morning though. When the alarm went off I was already up and about.

It wasn’t as if I’d gone to bed early either. It was approaching midnight by the time I crawled into my stinking pit and once more, I was out like a light and felt nothing at all. Totally painless.

However, something awoke me at about 06:40 this morning, and it was another quite dramatic awakening. I’ve no idea what it was that went off but whatever it was supposed to do, it certainly did it.

Seeing that I stood a good chance of beating the alarm, I fell out of bed and had a most undignified crawl to the bathroom where I sorted myself out, and switched off the alarm when it went off.

In the kitchen I made sure that everything was put away and then took my medication for the morning

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what went on during the night. At one point I was having a really long, involved and complicated dream that was so interesting. I reached for the dictaphone and the dream evaporated immediately from my mind. I couldn’t recall a single thing about this dream at all

That must have been a real disaster, forgetting an exciting dream like that. But it’s like one of those projector slides that just slides down over the memory and blots it out completely.

Later on, Nerina and I had gone to the USA. We’d been driving around the Midwest just on a case of opportunism, looking at one or two things that were there, but otherwise just following our noses. We eventually turned up in this town in Wisconsin. There was a village fair advertised but which had taken place on 3rd June. We went to have a look at a couple of the notices that were on this site. After a while we worked out that we were actually on the training ground. There must be another site somewhere else where the events took place so we decided to walk across the road and have a look. There, we met some guy who was walking down the road. We said “hello” and ended up having a chat with him about the town. He wanted to know all about us and what we were doing there, a typical friendly American. He decided that he would show us around. The first thing that he took us to was what looked like a large rectangular area with grassed-over earth walls around it. He said that that was where a film had been filmed – one of these Space fantasies in the 1950s about people from Earth going to live on another planet. It had all been filmed there. Then next door to this was a huge office block that must have covered a dozen acres in a kind of Y-shape. It wasn’t very tall, about twelve storeys. This apparently was the offices for this fair. I thought that this was going to be an astonishing place. He took us round to the offices. When we walked around the corner there was this huge arena in the shelter of two of the arms of this Y-shaped building, a massive place. This was apparently where the events took place. We thought that for a little, small town fair this is an astonishing situation. He gave us a talk on it. We turned up at one of the corners of this building. There was a bar in there. he said that he was going in so Nerina said that we ought to buy him a coffee so what would he like to drink and what would he like. We’d had one of the most astonishing guided tours that I’ve ever had in my life.

This is another dream in which there’s a lot of mileage. Firstly, of course, Nerina appears in it. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I don’t mind at all her turning up. I invited her into my life all those years ago so she has every right to be there, and in any case, I wouldn’t have invited her if I hadn’t liked her and nothing that has happened since has changed a thing. They say that you can choose your friends but not your relatives, and that’s certainly true. She would be chosen ahead of a lot of other people much more closely related to me.

Then of course there’s the village, or small-town fair. That’s an institution in many rural areas of the USA and we used to always go to the one in Clinton, in Maine. They had tractor-pulling competitions there so my niece’s husband and two of his daughters used to compete with their monster truck. This fair, like all the others, was epic and there’s nothing like it anywhere else. Watching the kids take part in the piglet-wrestling competition is bewildering if nothing else.

And then there are Americans. Americans in groups are devastating but one American on his or her own in the rural regions is probably one of the most friendly people on the planet, as long as you don’t discuss politics. You’ll remember Isaac Weld saying something along the lines that Americans have a deep sense of curiosity and will ask the most intimate questions to enquire about you and your purpose of visiting their neck of the woods. That’s certainly true. They have a natural sense of inquisitiveness, more than any other people

But then there’s the huge stadium in the tiny town. That rings a bell with me because every now and again my website statistics are swamped by visits that come from the small town of Prineville in Oregon, with the browser being recorded as “other”. Prineville is a town of just 10,000 inhabitants and sometimes it seems that every one of those people visits my sites every day, judging by the number of hits.

However, the mystery is easily explained. In Prineville is the location of two massive data centres, one for a major telephone and computer supplier and the other for a huge social media company. So all these hits are actually coming from all over the World but accessed by the medium of the various private data network connections and the various “own brand” browsers.

There was a load of mileage in that dream.

The nurse came early today and didn’t hang around. I reminded him not to come on Christmas Day as I’ll be in bed. I’m sure that I can manage for one day without him being here sorting out my legs.

After he left I made breakfast and read MY NEW BOOK.

And in it, T Rice Holmes answers one of his own questions, and the answer is exactly as I expected it to be. He seems now to have forgotten his question about why the continued use of Palaeolithic tools even though Neolithic tools are in use on the continent. However, he does admit that "pastoral tribes do not turn to agriculture until their numbers have increased to such a degree that they have no prospect of being able to live by hunting".

Later, he says "but as their numbers multiplied and it became more and more difficult to find sufficient food, the struggle for life must have led to intertribal war, and men’s minds must have been exercised to improve their weapons"

So, as I said, if the old stuff works, keep on using it but, as I also said yesterday, "It’s only when something like a greater pressure from an increasing population comes along that new technology is considered"

He’s still stuck in the stereotypical myths of savage prehistoric man, which can hardly be the case bearing in mind the organisation that must have taken place to build the barrows, stone circles, hill forts and the like. He comments "matriarchy, it would seem, was the root of family life : descent was reckoned through the mother, for the father was often unknown.", and that on the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Today, I have done almost nothing at all. I have had a nice relaxing day. All that I have done in the way of work is to track down a couple of concerts that I knew were somewhere about, identify them and date them.

My friendly cleaner came round today instead of tomorrow to give the place a clean-up. And that included me, because I had my weekly shower. And didn’t I feel better for it? I can’t wait to be downstairs, have a walk-in shower installed and then hava shower every day.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with rice and veg, that didn’t drop onto the floor tonight. It was followed by ginger cake and soya dessert. Tomorrow it will be my Christmas dinner. I shan’t be doing much tomorrow, or celebrating. But I shall be eating well.

So I’m not off to bed yet, but I’ll finish my notes and take my time. A lie-in in the morning.

But while we’re on the subject of the town fair at Clinton in Maine … "well, one of us is" – ed … in one programme that we were given when we were there, it talked about the results of the previous year’s competition.
And there we saw the classic entry "Mrs Jones won the ‘throwing the rolling pin’ competition"
and a few lines further down – "Mr Jones won the 100 yards sprint."
I bet he did!

Friday 7th October 2022 – MEANWHILE, IN THE …

… kitchen –
Our Hero – “where’s the tin opener?”
Rachel – “with the utensils”
OH – “the what?”
Rachel – “knives forks and spoons”
OH – “Oh yes! But don’t use big words with me. I come from Crewe”

Yes, I’ve been cooking again. Tea tonight was a stir-fry. Mine had black beans in it whereas Rachel’s and Darren’s had chicken.

Interestingly, the only shop-bought vegetable that went into the frying pan was the onion. All the rest were harvested out of Darren and Rachel’s vegetable plot except for the mushrooms which were picked locally.

Darren has decided to “go back to the land”. With no tractor-pulling over Covid, he spent his spare time developing a large vegetable plot and buying another freezer, and he’s now well away. I was going to say “reaping the fruits of his labour” but in actual fact, it’s “reaping the vegetables of his labours”.

Last night I was certainly reaping the fruits of a really good sleep. I must have travelled miles according to the dictaphone, and even Zero came to visit me too.

Once again I waited until everyone had gone off to work before I arose from the dead, and then I had the medication followed by a shower and a washing of my clothes. I need to keep things up-to-date. And with it being a bright, sunny day and plenty of wind to go with it, the clothes would dry quite quickly.

Then I turned my attention to the dictaphone. I started off working in a hotel room and for some unknown reason the only way that I could leave the room was to go out of the window and crawl along a ledge literally no more than 3 inches wide up to a kind-of roof balcony thing where I could climb over the wall and onto the lower part of the roof. That meant climbing up to the window, kneeling down, hanging onto the window frame, inching my way round. There was a key in the window that I could grab and hold on to. Then I’d have to find 1 or 2 other handholds while I shuffled along on my knees in order to get to this stone wall over which I needed to climb. I had to do this a dozen tiles during this dream and each time was a nightmare. The final time though, somehow the key had become disengaged and had fallen on top of the ledge along which I had to shuffle. It meant that one of my handholds was missing so I had to shuffle along with one less handhold, grasp other handholds which of course weren’t there. All in all, even in a dream it was nerve-wracking and frightening when I considered how high up it was and I was still trying to do it.

And then following the success of our Anglo-French group in France we thought that we’d start an Anglo-German group in Brussels. We’d learnt from out mistakes that this one would be a lot better. I was on my way out to Germany, to Achern, to do something. I thought that while I was there I’d look up a library to find some information about the town, how many people lived there etc. It would make a nice introduction to this Anglo-French group. I was in a car from the office so I asked one of my colleagues if parking would be reimbursed. She told me that it would be reimbursed so I decided that I would just park up in the centre of town where I could walk to the library and do what I needed to do there.

And finally I was with Zero last night, and so a big “hello” to her. It’s nice to see a friendly face on my travels. She came to see me last night somewhere in Europe. I had 2 bottles of whisky, some strange pink whisky that I was going to take back to her father. She decided that she would play a joke on her father by hiding in these bottles of whisky. We rigged up some kind of interior chamber in there, she climbed into it and we closed up the bottles. To carry them, I strapped them to my legs. I had to do a lot of skiing that day, a lot of climbing and then gradually turned up at his house. I said that I’d lost his daughter somewhere. I wondered where she’d gone to. I put these 2 bottles on the table-top. You could see her in there. We opened the first bottle but there was such a vacuum inside there that it broke the bottle when we opened it. The second one was OK but at first there was no sign of life at all. I was extremely worried. Gradually she came back to life again and started to breathe when she had some fresh oxygen. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. She told me that she didn’t want to do that again. I said “I don’t ever want to do that again either. I was so worried when we took off the tops and saw that you weren’t moving. For all the will in the world I wouldn’t have let you get in those 2 bottles if you hadn’t wanted to do it so badly”.

Anyway, I had to wait for a couple of hours until Rosemary re-contacted me. It’s the rear sunroof that’s broken so I had to drive down to Woodstock and Corey Ford. And we’ll have to have a bigger vehicle because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong so we were rather crowded in the cab.

Ordering the sunroof was quite straightforward, and then I had to go and do a little more shopping before coming home.

The trip to and from Woodstock took much longer than usual.

On the road down to Woodstock there’s some kind of commercial vehicle repairer. Sometimes he has some interesting things in there so I took a little detour to see if there was anything there today.

And I was in luck, because he had this beautiful beast in there – a Mack Thermodyne B51 articulated lorry tractor unit.

This was a model that was built between 1953 and 1966 and while elderly ladies in films can tell the difference between a 1955 and a 1956 saloon car at just a glance in films, I would have no idea at all about the actual age of this lorry

Looking at this one from this angle, it looks as if it might be the version with the longer rear wheelbase than the standard one.

That was quite common in Canada at the time because it enabled a greater weight to be carried in the trailer than with a normal configuration.

For someone like me, it’s really hard to say but what I can tell you is that this is the traditional “Mack” that everyone would imagine in truck-driving film of the cult years of the 1950s and 1960s.but, surprisingly, I can’t recall seeing one in CONVOY, good buddy.

They were the first Mack lorries in which a diesel engine was offered, and altogether, of the various models of B-series lorries, over 125,000 of them were manufactured, although I haven’t seen one about for ages.

What did for them was that they had a narrow power band, which was right at the top end of their RPM and so you needed a lot of gearchanges to keep the power going if you had a heavy load, and there was a tendency to over-rev the engines which drastically reduced their lifeespan

Climbing out of Lakeville we reach the top of a rise where the views over the surrounding countryside are quite spectacular.

Over there on the left in the distance is the USA and the State of Maine. We are so close to the USA here that my niece’s husband once said "you can spit into the USA from our house" – and so I did

On the horizon straight ahead is Mars Hill and that’s where I have my little piece of Canada. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the southern boundary of my property is the International frontier with the USA

Over there to the right, or east, is the valley of the Saint John River.

This afternoon we can’t see the valley too well but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, if we come past here early in the morning at this time of the year there’s a thin ribbon of mist over there.

That’s a good indication of where the river might be , and we can follow its course for miles.

It’s rather uncomfortable when you’re driving at the riverside because sometimes you’re up on a hill where the air is clear and then all of a sudden you drop into a dip where you’re enveloped in a thick mist and you can’t even see your hand in front of your face.

We haven’t finished our encounters with interesting vehicles yet.

Parked under a hedge at the bottom of a garden in the settlement of Jacksonville is this old Ford pick-up..

Not that I know very much about them, but that looks like one of the first-generation F-series vehicles with the “million dollar cab” designed in the late 1940s. And judging by the appearance of the radiator grille this is an earlier one rather than a later model. The radiator grille was redesigned at the end of 1950.

And the poor thing has seen better days, but I hope that it’s here under the hedge destined for some kind of restoration.

On the other hand, this isn’t destined for restoration at all but is going for breaking.

It’s an International Harvester Scout pick-up dating from the early 1960s and it actually was pulled out of a hedge in the vicinity, according to its owner with whom I had a little chat. It’s here in Woodstock on a forecourt waiting for space in the workshop when it can be pulled in and work started on it.

But also in the workshop is another one of these that is midway through restoration and parts taken off the one here are going onto that one. It seems such a shame, really, but that’s the way of the World with vehicles like this.

It was a good idea to stop here and chat to the guy at the workshop because there’s a view over the Saint John River Valley that I’ve never noticed before.

It’s a shame about the mist hiding the view but you can still make out the mountains in the centre of the Province away in the distance. We’ve driven over those mountains ON A COUPLE OF OCCASIONS on our way to and from the coast

By the time that I returned home it was threatening rain (it’s actually pouring down right now) so I took in the washing and came in here to edit the photos. Regrettably, instead I fell asleep for a short while.

Tea was a stir-fry with rice and now, having had a good play with a cat, I’m going to bed. It’s holiday weekend here so no work tomorrow. I suppose though that there will be plenty to do all the same.

So there were a couple of nightmares in that lot, especially with trying to drown Zero in alcohol. What a sad story that was. Nevertheless it’s interesting to speculate about what happens if someone dies in a dream? Do they write themselves out of any subsequent dream? Or do we only only encounter them on the second plane? Or do they keep on coming back all he same.

With plenty of people, it would really be interesting to find out, but definitely not with Castor, TOTGA or especially Zero.

Wednesday 24th June 2020 – I’VE BEEN …

… out and about on my travels this morning.

So while you admire the photos of the baby seagull, which now seems to be very fit and healthy, I can give you the account of my day.

And just for a change, it got off to a very good start, for I was actually up and out of bed before the third alarm – something that doesn’t happen too often these day. Maybe it was the early night that helped there – if you can call 23:45 an early night.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

Last night there was a group of us working on a new history textbook for schools and this involved rewriting quite a bit of stuff that was already in it including a load of songs and so on. So we noticed that these songs to fit into the new way of things and it was quite difficult for everyone to get into the habit of hearing them in the new way and I remember my brother being particularly surprised at some of the changes made to the songs in order to make the songs fit the times more than anything else
There was something else going on during the night and I’ve forgotten a lot of it but I’d been caught doing something and been punished in some way by having to do something, carry out a few tasks and at the end of that time I was given £30:00 in 2x£15:00 vouchers to spend. Whoever I was with – it might have been Nerina – was really upset about that and demanded to talk to me about it. The guy who was watching me, I held up the two vouchers and waved them about to attract his attention and said that I was going into the building. Nerina came with me and I had to find a quiet room to have a discussion. There were about 6 rooms in this building and there wasn’t really one that was suitable – the walls were flimsy and there were people in adjacent rooms. In the end we found a room where the photocopier was and we were about to go into there. And that was when the alarm went off.

And even though it was Nerina who was with me for part of the evening I do have to say that regardless of any of our issues, I would much rather have her company on my nocturnal rambles than many of the others who have been putting in an appearance just recently.

I’m still not eating breakfast so having done a little work, Caliburn and I headed for the hills – Gavray, in fact.

When I arrived in the town I took a wrong turning and I’m glad that I did because I found something that I would otherwise have missed – an old disaffected railway station.

There was a “Light Railway Act” in France similar to that in the UK of 1896, and for a period of about 50 years the whole of France became honeycombed with what they called the tacot or “rattletrap” – a narrow-gauge voie metrique railway network.

It’s the kind of system that was highlighted in the Alec Guinness FATHER BROWN series of films in the 1950s of the books by GK Chesterton

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen plenty of examples of this on our travels, especially in the Auvergne where I used to live and also here in Normandy along the coast.

There was also a voie metrique that went across-country from Granville to Conde-sur-Vire, opened in 1910 and closed in 1936 (and we’ve seen lines closed much quicker than that too). That line passed through Gavray and there would almost certainly have been a railway station here.

That has always been one of the things that I’ve been aiming to do – to track it down – and having taken a wrong turning in Gavray when I was looking for something else, I find myself falling right on it, quite by chance.

So while you admire the photos of the kayaker and othe rpeople in various water craft out there fishing today, I was busy tracking down the garage that I had come to visit.

Eventually I tracked it down and the guy had a good look at Caliburn. He reckons that it’s perfectly possible to do something with Caliburn. There’s no rot except in one wheel arch – the rest of it is simply rubbing down, rust-proofing, zinc priming and about a ton of underseal.

He’s not going to end up as he did out of the factory 13 years ago, and it’s not cheap either. But with my lifespan that’s left there’s no point in buying a new vehicle just for three or four years.

Caliburn and I may as well go out together.

So I headed on back to Granville and I’ll wait for the estimate to arrive. But I’ve decided that i’m going to have it done anyway.

When I reached the outskirts of Granville I took the by-pass and joined the traffic queue heading south towards St Pair sur Mer.

Brico Cash was where I was heading, to see what they had on offer today as I haven’t been there for a while.

And the answer is “not an awful lot”. There wasn’t anything that caught my eye particularly although I picked up some French plugs. A couple of the appliances that I brought from The Auvergne when I was there just now still have British plugs on them.

Traffic queues back here as well. I was stuck behind a grockle in a motor home admiring the blasted seagulls instead of advancing in an orderly fashion.

Back here there was still plenty of time before lunch so I had another look at the web pages that I’ve been amending.

That one is now completed and I’ve made a start on the next. I’ve now crossed over the border into Great Satan and I’m on my way to Bar Harbor in Maine.

By now it was lunchtime.

It was beautiful and warm and bright and sunny so I made my sandwiches (home-made bread, home-made hummus and salad) and went and sat outside on the wall again.

Even though the tide was well out and there were no ships or boats in the harbour, there was still quite a bit of activity going on down there today, despite it being the lunch hour.

There was a mobile crane down there and as I watched, it was joined by another one – the big mobile crane that comes here every so often.

The big crane extended its jib and they were both performing some kind of activity out there. I couldn’t see what it was, so I shall have to go out that way on my Sunday walk to see what has changed.

It can’t be anything too complicated because all the way through the manoeuvre … “PERSONoeuvre” – ed … one of the Joly France boats – the newer one – was moored right there and with the tide being out, it wasn’t moving anywhere else.

Back at the apartment I tackled the last week of my Accountancy course. I’ve finished it, not very successfully I have to say because I can’t remember all that much about what I just learnt.

That’s one of the penalties of old age. Two things happen to you then.
The first is that you forget absolutely everything that you are supposed to remember.
And as for the second thing – well, I’ve forgotten what that was.

There was the usual break for my afternoon walk.

Today, in the gorgeous hot sunlight I went for a walk around the walls of the medieval town. From there I could look down on the beach at the Plat Gousset and watch all of the crowds enjoying themselves.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and the brats aren’t in school so the beach was busier than normal, and that’s not a surprise. Given half a chance, I’d be down there myself.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago we saw the local council clearing out the old tidal swimming pool with a lorry and a digger – clearing out years of accumulated silt.

They’ve done a really good job by the look of it. It’s actually retaining some water and it’s attracted quite a crowd of people, splashing around in there.

And the people in the flourescent jackets – I’m convinced that they are the lifeguards, although how they are expected to swim while wearing those is anyone’s guess.

My walk went on along the walls and around to the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch.

There’s been a roofing job going on on one of the roofs of one of the buildings down there for as long as I can remember, and they still don’t seem to have finished it.

Not long to go by the looks of things, but I recall having said that before. They were doing really well at one point but seem to have gone off the boil just recently.

From there I passed through the Place Maurice Marland to check on my seagull chick, and then walked on to the viewpoint over the harbour.

There’s some activity down there right now. A lorry has turned up and there’s a fork-lift truck that looks as if it might be thinking about unloading the lorry. Does this mean that either Thora or Normandy Trader are going to be paying us a visit some time soon?

And we have another group of fishermen over there wrestling with a rather large fishing net

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing is the works van that appeared on the city walls near where they did all of that repointing.

The pointing on part of it in the Parvis Notre Dame was pretty poor so i speculated that the work might be something to do with that, and it seems that I was perfectly right. There are two men down there cleaning it all up

You can see how much excess cement that one of the guys has scraped off the wall – it’s all lying on the ground behind the car.

Back here I carried on with the course and, shame as it is to say it, crashed out a couple of times too. This is really getting on my nerves.

But I finished the course in the end and there was time to edit a few more photos. Tomorrow I’m going to start the final part of my music course. I want that out of the way too.

After the guitar I made tea. There was some left-over stuffing so I added some kidney beans and tomato sauce and made taco rolls

Somewhat later than usual, iw ent out for my evening run. It was far too warm to go out at the usual time.

All the way up the hill and down to the cliff without stopping, saying hello to the itinerant sheltering under the tree. Out to the sea there was plenty of activity and we have already seen some of the boats. We haven’t seen this yacht though, sailing back from the Ile de chausey into port, towing its dinghy behind it.

It’s making me all broody again and I’m going to have to do something about all of this before too long.

Just for a change there was no family group picnicking in the old gun emplacement.

There were however plenty of people down on the viewpoint by the old watchman’s cabin and they were having a good time by the looks of things

Quite a few fishermen too, down there on the rocks casting their lines out into the water. It seems to be becoming quite a regular thing these days.

My run continued on along the path on top of the clifftop on the south side of the headland

No kids jumping off the sea wall tonight, but instead we seem to have had some activity down at the chantier navale. One of the fishing boats that has been there for quite some considerable time seems to have gone back into the water.

There were a few other people down there taking photos of themselves in the evening sunshine. All in all, it was quite busy.

And not just there either.

Way across the port on the sea wall that protects the port de plaisance – the yacht harbour – there were crowds of people milling around tonight. They were certainly making the most of it.

As for me, I cleared off and ran all the way round down the Boulevard Vaufleury and the rest of my vastly elongated route round to the viewpoint in the rue du Nord.

The tide is right in right now so the chances of finding any picnickers on the beach was extremely remote.

However that little shelf that we noticed a few days ago – that seems to be the place to be these days as there are a couple more people making use of it.

And I’m still trying to work out the optical illusion surrounding the guy on the left. It looks thoroughly weird to me.

The people down there were enjoying another magnificent evening.

There were quite a few people up here enjoying it too, and quite rightly so for although it wasn’t as good as last night’s, it was still something special.

having watched it for a while I headed on home to write up my notes.

Tomorrow, it’s shopping day. There’s not much that I need but it’s stuff that I can’t do without so I shall have to go.

And then i’ll make a start on the last week of my music course. I want to get that out of the way before the weekend. It’ll give me a chance to do some other work that’s been sitting on the back burner for the last month or so.

High time I got a move on.

Wednesday 7th November 2018 – WHILE I WAS …

… cooking my evening meal, I was suddenly taken by surprise by an album that appeared on the playlist on the hi-fi.

Another one of the huge pile of underrated groups of the early 70s I saw the O Band supporting Man sometime in the early 70s in Liverpool and they stuck in my mind. And when I came across their album The Knife in a second-hand shop in Stoke on Trent it was added to my collection. And subsequently it became one of the first LPs to be upgraded to CD.

The second half of the album – several track which, combined together make one long rock opera – is totally phenomenal. It brought back a very bizarre memory of my playing it on a continuous loop along the I95 near Bangor, Maine, USA while I was looking for a motel for the night, coming back in Strider from seeing Rhys in South Carolina last year.

Yes, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

With having had a reasonably early night last night, leaving the bed at the appropriate hour wasn’t too difficult. And the howling gale from last night was still blowing too. All very wild outside.

After breakfast I did a few bits and pieces of tidying up and then attacked the second day of the High Arctic trip, when I was in Yellowknife.

And by the time that it came round to lunchtime, I’d finished the pages and was working on the meta tags. It might even be on line by the end of the day tomorrow if I have a good afternoon at it.

Lunchtime was taken indoors today. It might have been nice and sunny outside but with the wicked wind outside it would have been impossible to sit down in comfort.

This afternoon I was hunting for documents to go with this form that I need to send off tomorrow. That took a while and I’m still one or two missing.

That took me up to walk-time and so I headed off into the wind, which by now had abated a little.

But that was merely a hint of things to come. Away in the distance out in the English Channel there was a major storm raging.

I hope that it isn’t heading my way because I don’t fancy the idea of being out in that when it arrives here.

My walk carried on around the back of the College Malraux, but I didn’t get very far.

Lying on the floor by the entrance to the sports hall is the gate and the gateposts. And it looks as if someone with a great big jemmy has been there trying to open it.

Whoever it was who did that did it with an incredible amount of force and I wouldn’t like to meet him down a dark alley late at night.

Even though the wind had died down somewhat compared to yesterday, there was still a considerable amount blowing around.

As I rounded the Pointe du Roc I got the lot of it and I could see it all crashing down against the harbour wall.

You can see that the tide isn’t right in either, but there was still enough force in the wind and the waves to make a imressive scene.

But what’s going on here?

There ars the Pompiers and the SAMU out there, and they have brought their inflatable dinghy with them too.

It looks as if there’s something going on out there on that yacht. All of the medical people seem to be out there having a good look inside the yacht’s cabin.

While I was being harassed by a dog that was not attached to a lead and while I was booting it up the rear end and telling its owner what I thought of him and his mutt, I took a photo of the scene with the zoom/telephoto lens.

Back here, I cropped out a section and blew it up (which I can do these days, despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) to see if I could see any better.

It seems that they are manhandling a piece of equipment – a generator or a pump or something similar – either into or out of the cabin. So I’m still none-the-wiser.

Back home, I sorted out some more things for the form that I’ve been completing and then had to write a covering letter to go with it.

Tomorrow morning, if I can make the printer work, I’ll print out the paperwork and take it with me to posy off on my way to the shops.

Tea was a burger with rice, vegetables and mushroom gravy. And delicious it was too. But I’m running out of frozen carrots so I must remember tomorrow to buy some more for freezing. This lot that I blanched and froze came out rather well.

Later on, I braved the wind and went outside for my evening walk around the walls. And took a few photos of the waves in the dark.

The waves were making quite a noise as they crashed down on the cliffs at the foot of the medieval city walls. And much to my surprise, the 50mm lens actually managed to pick up the waves despite the poor lighting conditions.

I was very impressed with this. A similar photo with the 18-105mm lens didn’t pick up anything at all.

Further on around the walls, I came to the cliffs overlooking the Plat Gousset.

The tide iswell on its way out now and we’re a little sheltered in the bay, but it was still an impressive sight to see the sea storming in onto the beach.

I suppose that I should have been round here an hour or two earlier for the best effect.

While I had the 50mm lens on the camera, I decided that I would take advantage of it by taking a photograph of the old gateway that leads into the Place d’Armes.

This has come out rather well too, and you can see all the way down the rue du Roc to the bottom where the lighthouse is situated.

I do have to say that i’m very impressed with this new 50mm lens.

So after all of this, I’m really quite exhausted. An early night might do me the world of good.

Waves crashing down on Granville harbour sea wall in storm

SAMU and pompiers examining yacht in Granville harbour

Waves in the storm at the Plat Gousset, Granville

Sunday 23rd September 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that I have given endless amounts of grief to all kinds of Border Patrol, immigration and security services in the past, and on occasions too numerous to enumerate.

And so I take my hat off to Officer Allen of the US Immigration Service who saw me today at Bridgewater, Maine today. If every Immigration Officer were as friendly, courteous and helpful as he, travelling from one country to the next would be an absolute pleasure.

Yes, I’ve been out and about on my travels today. But it was touch and go at one point.

What didn’t help was that, despite it being Sunday, I forgot to switch off the alarm and so that’s guaranteed to get me off on the wrong foot.

I was in the middle of the High Arctic too, doing a guided tour in, of all things, Bill Badger, the old A60 van that I had in the 1970s. When the tour was over, two people – a couple – came over to offer me their services and while I took down their details I knew that I wouldn’t ever be using them, for the least of the reasons being that there are only two seats in the front of the van.

With it being early, I loitered around for a while and then when others started to move around I joined in, had my medication (I’ve found it now) and a coffee.

We all poured out of the house where Amber’s boyfriend was waiting for us, and we shot off down the road to the border. I need a Green Card to cross over, and so I had my pleasant encounter, and then off to Presque Ile in Maine.

It’s my custom when I’m here to treat everyone to Sunday lunch so the Oriental Pearl Chinese buffet was the place to visit. They all tucked into the buffet while the chef made me a vegetable stir-fry with rice.

Next stop was Marden’s.

That’s like Noz only bigger and with more stuff, and many of the tools in Strider have come from there in the past. But today, I bought nothing. Strider and I won’t be going far so I don’t need much.

Back here I hit the wall again and I was gone. Three hours this time, and isn’t this becoming ridiculous? I dunno where I’ll be going with all of this and if I don’t sort myself out soon I won’t make my bus back to Montreal on Friday night.

But later on I came round and surprisingly, had a new lease of life. I could even manage a sandwich. George was back from Winnipeg so he came round and we all had a chat.

But now I’m off to bed. I need to be on the road tomorrow and I have a lot of things to do.

But first I need a good night’s sleep.

8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

Wednesday 4th October 2017 – SO HAVING …

… forgotten to take a photo of my comfortable motel this morning, we can move on quickly.

I was up and about quite early as usual and cracking on with some stuff that I needed to do. But not so “cracking on” as I might otherwise have been, because I’m starting to feel the aches and pains.

And a good go under the shower didn’t do much to revive me either. I think that the late night last night, and the whole total of the journey is starting to catch up with me now.

Breakfast was quite quiet (and I remembered at the second attempt to take in my soya milk) although the couple from Virginia did their best to liven things up.
“How far is it to Canada?” they asked.
“About three and a half hours” replied our Hero. I’m even beginning to think and talk like a North American now!

I tip the rest of the fuel in the petrol cans into Strider (the cans are empty now) and set off on the road. I head due north – I want to cut out Bangor (another bottleneck) before rejoining Interstate 95.

But my best-laid plans go all awry when I misread “Hartland” for “Howland”. Howland is on the I-95 north of Bangor but Hartland is south of it. So here I am, with the I-95 at my feet and still a long way to go. But never mind – in for a penny, in for a pound.

Surprisingly, there’s no traffic on the Interstate and even Bangor seems deserted. I’ve never known it like this before. I hardly notice the city as I drive my way around.

But I’m fighting off the fatigue. It’s all catching up on me now but only a couple of hours before I can stop.

Island Falls has a population of 837, and every one of them came out to see what I was doing while I was stopped to eat my butty on the car park at the side of the town hall. One of “those” places, isn’t it?

But I was soon on my way back to Houlton where I did some shopping – Rachel had sent me a list of things to buy for her.

At the Border Crossing I had that miserable girl again but at least she didn’t make my life difficult. And the printed-out Visa (thanks, Rhys) avoided the complications that we had on our initial entry to Canada almost 7 weeks ago.

Everyone was pleased to see that I had made it safely back (I must owe them money or something) but right now, I’m going to lie down for an hour or so before tea.

A little lie-down will do me the world of good. See you in an hour.

Tuesday 3rd October 2017 – SO LAST NIGHT …

… wasn’t such a good night as it might have been. Not that there was anything wrong with the motel where I stayed – it was just that there were things wrong with me, I reckon.

I couldn’t sleep very well al all – very difficult to make myself comfortable, and the odd trip down the corridor didn’t help much either.

Mind you, I was back on my travels again. Round at the farm as it happens doing some repairs. And they certainly needed doing too because one of the walls had entirely disappeared and was just propped up with tree trunks.

But anyway, back to the plot. And don’t worry about the lack of photos right now. I’mm having an “upload” issue that might not be solved until I return home.

So read the stories and you can come back to look at the pictures next week or so.

I didn’t feel like any breakfast right now – I’d rather let the time slip somewhat – and so I tidied up everywhere in here and prepared for the road.

We had free coffee to take away, which is always a good plan, and with plenty of ice around I was able to fill up my water bottle with stone-cold root beer.

But having seen how many motels these days have fridges with little freezer units, I’m going to pick up a cheap ice cube tray from somewhere.

And it’s true!

I thought that I had seen a sign for “Hicksville” – the traditional name for every small-minded mid-west town – and while this might not be the town itself, it’s the next best thing.

It must be embarrassing to tell people that you actually live and work in Hicksville though.

And so we hit the road. I’m not in a great hurry. According to my timetable I have two days to travel 8 hours or so, so it’s not going to be a big deal.

I find a motorway service station to stop and eat a couple of bagels with jam, and to exchange cheery greetings with my neighbour.

There’s ascenic turn-off (why don’t they call them “scenic turn-ons”? That’s much more appropriate) on the side of the Highway overlooking the Mystic River.

Despite being only a short river (3.5 miles or something like that) it’s almost entirely tidal.

It’s also famous in that the European settlers attacked a native village here in 1637.They destroyed the settlement and massacred all of the inhabitants and, according to contemporary writings, were quite proud of the fact.

My attention was however diverted by the ship over there. A traditional three-master was what it seemed to be.

Mystic River was formerly an important shipbuilding area and in 1929 it was all turned into a maritime museum.

The ship that you can see is the Charles W Morgan. Built in 1841, she’s said to be the last of the wooden sailing whalers in existence and probably the oldest merchant vessel still afloat.

Laid up for many years, she was donated to the museum on her 100th birthday and has undergone a full programme of restoration. She’s now completely seaworthy, apparently.

Next door in a northwards direction from Connecticut is Rhode Island, or, to give it its full official title, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

This is the smallest State in the USA despite having the longest official name of all of them, and although there was a shorter route which would have saved me half an hour (and a lot more as it subsequently was to turn out) I arranged my journey so that I would pass this way.

One more State off my list then.

The capital of Rhode Island is Providence, and the Highway takes us right through the centre of town.

It’s said to be one of the oldest cities in the USA, being founded in 1636 and named in honour of “God’s Merciful Providence” that brought the early settlers here.

Today though, you can see that it’s just like every other big city in the USA – no difference at all. You are hard-pressed to say where you might be in the USA’s urban environment.

Having come this way, there is no alternative but to wrestle with the Boston traffic.

There’s an inner ring road and an outer ring road. I pick the outer one, which costs me about 15 minutes in journey time but saves the congestion, or so I thought.

And I was glad that I was travelling north, not south. Just look at that lot over there!

So I said at the time. But it wasn’t long before I was decanted into the traffic queues.

I knew that Boston was a nightmare and so I had picked my time carefully and picked my road too. But it wasall of no avail.

40 minutes we inched along the outer ring road and it did make me wonder whether I should have bitten the bullet and gone for the town centre.

But at least it wasn’t the 6 hours of New York traffic from yesterday.

We’ve been to New Hampshire on many occasions, but here’s a reminder of where we are now.

New Hampshire, at least down on the coast, is another one of these places where you blink and miss it, so I wanted to make sure that you and I didn’t.

It’s still quite early too – only about 17:00. Despite the hold-ups in Boston I’m making good time. Only 6 hours or so to the US/Canada border.

Much to my surprise, Portland in Maine is comparatively quiet. And so like Jackson Browne in “Nothing But Time”, I can “roll down (or in my case, “up”) I-295 out of Portland, Maine” without any inconvenience – except for the barrage of toll barrages.

In the end, totally, fed up, I leave the Interstate and try Highway 2 – and that’s even worse as I seem to be stuck behind every slow-moving vehicle on the planet. It’s so frustrating that in the end, I see another “Interstate 95” sign and bite the bullet.

As I approach the town of Lewiston, it’s 18:00 and there’s a “Motel” sign on the side of the Interstate. Unfortunately in Maine, they don’t tell you the names of the motels on the signs like they do in most other States so it’s pretty much pot luck.

Having had good success in the past, here I strike out (well, i’m in the USA!). One look at the cars in the car park tell me that this place isn’t for the likes of me.

But never mind. Lewiston is a biggish town. Bound to be some more.

And famous last words they were too. I’ve never seen a town with so little in the way of accommodation – at least, at my kind of price. The commercial centre is out to the north so that’s the place to look – but that comes up empty too.

Still, I head north on the grounds that something will show up sooner or later. But by 19:20 at Livermore Falls and low on fuel in the pitch blackness, a very vocal local yokel in the petrol station tells me that at 15 miles up the road in Farmington are a couple of cat houses that will do the job.

He’s not wrong either!

The Colonial Valley Motel in Farmington conjures up an excellent room for just $70:00 all-in and I’m quite happy here. Even breakfast is included in the price.

The manageress adores my accent, but I’m not sure what she is going to make of the registration formalities –
Identity – British passport
Proof of address – French Driving Licence
Vehicle registration – New Brunswick plates
Mobile ‘phone – Quebec number
Payment – Belgian credit card

Yes, sort that lot out!

There’s a microwave here in the room so tea is a couple of tins of stuff slung into it. Cheap and quick.

But here’s a problem – my *.ftp server has corrupted and I don’t have the settings to reset it. That means that I can’t upload my photos to the internet.

So you’ll have to do without for a while until I return home.

Monday 25th September 2017 – SO HERE WE ALL ARE …

… not sitting in a rainbow, but sitting on a rest area on Interstate 20 – in Georgia. Strider, Strawberry Moose and I.

This morning, although the alarm goes off at 05:00 when I’m here, I was up and about and packing at 04:30. The old body clock is working well.

Rhys works as a bus driver for the local education authority and has to be in work at 05:30, which means leaving here at 05:00. And that was when I had planned to be on the road

Sure enough, at 04:55 a hand reached into the bus and deposited a nice, hot cup of coffee. That disappeared smartly into my thermal mug, and at 05:00 we were off.

Rhys went one way, and I went the other, heading south on Interstate 20. And when have you ever seen me on the road this early?

I’m glad that I had seen Rhys. We had studied together at University and I had been best man at his wedding. As I said a few days ago, this may well be my last visit to North America and I wanted to see him while I was here.

I had also wanted to come here, seeing as it’s just 50 miles away from Rhys’s place. And for two reasons too –

I’d never been to Georgia before, so it’s one more place to cross off my list
At 33.4735° N, it’s the farthest south that I have ever been, beating Arizona 2002 by about 20 miles. It’s little things like that which amuse me

We arrived here about an hour before it was light enough to take photos, and that gave me an opportunity to try to bring some kind of order into chaos. As we know, Neitzsche said “out of chaos comes order”, but he had never met me.

And I’m glad that I did too, because I had a major stroke of luck.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that I had lost Strider’s new licence tags.

In New Brunswick you buy the annual licence tags and stick them on the number plate. As I would be away when Strider’s needed renewing, I had bought them well in advance and “put them somewhere safe” so that I would know where they would be.

That’s famous last words, isn’t it? Once I’d put them in a safe place, that was the last that I had seen of them and I was afraid that they had gone for good.

However, moving the passenger seat, there they were, down the side. And then I remembered – I’d “tidied” the passenger seat in a hurry when I’d picked up Hannah in Antigonish. And they must have fallen down the side.

So Strider now has his licence tags properly installed, and I can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Once I’d done the photography bit, I retraced my steps all the way back up Interstate 20, back through Lexington and Columbia and back to Interstate 95 just north of Charleston.

That’s the Road that will take me all the way back to Houlton in Maine, just across the border from where Rachel and Darren live and where Strider stays when he’s not on the road.

But I’m not going back straight away. It’s nearly 1900 kilometres and I’m in no fit condition to drive that kind of distance. Three consecutive days of over 750 kms per day last week plus an 05:00 start this morning have finished me off.

I’m really in no fit state to go anywhere right now and it’s pointless trying to do it. It will all end in tears.

But just down the road is Myrtle Beach. It’s a huge holiday resort, just like Blackpool, and the best way to describe it is to say that it’s like Miami Beach on Welfare.

It’s cheap, and tacky, but a small 2-room apartment with wi-fi, free parking, cooking facilities and a sea view of sorts, just 20 yards from the beach, is costing me just $39 per night. It’s the ideal place for me to hole up for three nights while I gather my strength for the trip back to Canada.

Three nights at the seaside, I said, didn’t I? So having had all of that heatwave for the last few days, it’s now overcast and trying to rain.

There’s a big grocery store on the edge of town so I stock up, and then head to the Polynesian Beach and Golf Resort.

Here’s a photo of the place – taken at night because, quite frankly, it looks much better in the dark.

But don’t misunderstand me at all. What I have here for facilities at $39 per night (and there are rooms at $29 per night if that’s too expensive) with a beach 20 yards away you wouldn’t get anywhere else in the world.

We’ve been paying $140 per night in some places, and $150 per night to live in a caravan and we haven’t had facilities as good as this. I’m on the economy plan, remember, and this is a good deal.

First thing that I do when I arrive, after checking in, is to crash out. And an hour later, the sun is trying its best to come out and it’s quite warm too, so I have a wander down to the beach to eat my butties.

Back here again, and crash out again. And I’m gone for … errr … several hours. These last few days have been too much for me.

That means that I miss my tea, and instead, go for a little walk around the area.

As I said earlier, it looks so much better in the dark

But I also said that if your budget is rather limited, you won’t find anywhere else better than this to go for a self-contained break.

One thing about Americans is that they are (mostly) restrained, and there’s a security guard on the premises.

My nocturnal perambulations took me briefly onto the beach. It’s a fine powdery sand so it’s difficult to walk upon in shoes.

It’s been claimed to be the best beach on the Eastern Seaboard, but while it’s good, I’ve seen much better than this – but in places that don’t have any tourist infrastructure so they aren’ easy to visit on a trip like this.

This will do me for a few days.

And talking of nocturnal rambles, I didn’t tell you of the two that happened today.

While I was asleep in Rhys’s bus, TOTGA – The One That Got Away – came to visit me. She brought with her one of her children and, surprise, it wasn’t the one with whom she’s mostly associated. What was even more surprising was that when I checked my social media page later, there she was in a photo with the child that she had brought with her, and that’s somethign exceptional.
And later, when I was having a crash, I was underneath a car changing a steering joint or a wheel bearing or something. Someone was helping me and I was giving them instructions like one would do to a child. I suddenly became aware of this and apologised, to which my father, who was watching, said “that’s why I like to do these jobs myself”.

Tuesday 18th October 2016 – THIS IS LOOKING OMINOUS AND I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL

Here in my little room at the head of the stairs, I was just dropping off to sleep round about midnight when a couple of people came in. They said goodnight to each other in a tone of voice that could have been heard all over the city, but just as I was about to go out and tell them to shut up, they went their separate ways.

But that wasn’t all.

About 15 minutes after the girl in 1204 had gone to bed, she was up and in the bathroom. In fact, she was in there twice. And now the whole toilet area in the first-floor bathroom is plastered in vomit and the smell is disgusting. Anyway, I’m not tolerating this for a moment and first thing this morning I was on the telephone to the owner to complain.

It’s not his fault of course and I went to great lengths to explain that to him. he can’t be held responsible for that, but he ought to know about it and to come round and apply his foot to the nether regions of the people responsible.

So much for my early night and my good sleep. I was tossing and turning for hours after that.

However, I must have gone off to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels. I was with a large group of people, refugees, heading somewhere or other. We camped for the night in a park, setting up our camps in little family groups. I of course was on my own but there was a small, young family quite close to me and I had to pass them to go down to the lake for water. There was something going on with three young cats too, but I’m not very sure as to where they all fitted in to this story.

And how nice it is to be back in my little room (disgusting neighbours notwithstanding). The alarm went off at 07:00, followed almost immediately by the morning cacophony from the church across the road. It’s good to be back. And so I managed an early breakfast.

Now, I don’t know if you have been paying much attention to what I’ve been writing here and there about the Muskrat Falls in Labrador – the new hydro-electric plant that they are building that I visited in 2014, and how it has been claimed that a German U-boat has been discovered at the foot of the falls.

It seems that there is some kind of progress being made in this direction, and someone has tentatively identified it as U-851, a U-boat that disappeared off Newfoundland on or after 27th March 1944. She was a long-range cruising U-boat and was on her way to join the Monsoon wolf-pack operating in the Indian Ocean when she vanished.

After breakfast I did some work on my website for a few hours and although I updated some of it, my heart wasn’t in it. I was too tired after last night, I reckon.

And so instead I went out to Caliburn to sort out a big IKEA shopping bag. With that, I went off to the Carrefour near the footy ground to do some shopping. I’d run out of hummus and the salad mix that I like. A nice, steady walk that will do me good.

Back at Caliburn, I picked up a couple of books (I’m running out of reading material here) and a couple of other bits and pieces that I need, and then I walked back here.

Having sorted myself out, next stop was to fill the IKEA bag (you knew that there had to be a reason, didn’t you?) with all of the dirty washing, including some stuff that I didn’t have time to wash in Canada, and nipped off to the launderette and did the lot. Now I have all clean clothes so I can have a good shower and a change of clothes tomorrow. And quite right too.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a minor disaster here. Being stranded from my camera on a few occasions in Canada, I’d taken some photos on my Canadian phone. This afternoon, having rescued he phone from my suitcase in Caliburn earlier, I extracted the memory card from the phone but … the photos aren’t on it. They seem to be on the phone’s internal memory.

And, you might remember from about two months ago, the data cable isn’t working so transferring them over isn’t an option that’s available to me.

I could transfer them onto another phone of course, but it’s my Canadian phone, tied to the Bell telephone network, so there’s no network access over here.

All in all, it’s a bit of a disaster right now. Amber is going to have to wait a good while for her tractor-pulling videos with Perdy in the Pink at Millinocket, Maine the other week..

But I couldn’t keep it up for long this afternoon. All of the difficulties of the night, plus my exertions of Sunday and my walk today have worn me out and I crashed out for three hours while a rainstorm raged outside.

Crashed out properly too, so much so that I was off on my travels. In Canada too, in Strider as it happens. I’d come down a steep bank to a junction with a main road which passed over a bow-girder bridge over a railway line. There were several trains about, so I make a complicated manoeuvre … "PERSONoeuvre" – ed … to park up right by the bridge to photograph them. There was something else interesting down there next to the railway line – something like a holiday camp or a park – so I went to look at it. I struggled to find a place to park and ended up parked with the rear end of Strider hanging over the steps down to the place. I walked down with the crowds of people to a gift shop which doubled as the kiosk for entry into the place, but when I saw that the entry fee was $7:50 I changed my mind and walked back.

So now I’m awake and I’ve just had a really good chat with my friend Liz. I’m not in the least bit tired now so I can see me having another bad night’s sleep.

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

When I awoke this morning, bright and early, I went out to grab the cereal and soya milk from the back of Strider. And by heck, I wish I hadn’t!

Winter has definitely arrived, that’s for sure. Just look at this lot outside. It’s just like back home in the Auvergne isn’t it, with the hanging cloud, the cold and the freezing fog that has blanketed the Appalachian Mountains round about here on the edge of Kedgwick.

I had had a bad night last night despite just how comfortable it was in my nice big bed in my nice big room.

I’d crashed out by about 21:00 but I was tossing and turning all over the place and was really uncomfortable. Somehow I was tired and completely fast asleep and somehow I wasn’t, and I’m not sure that you’ll understand what I mean. But anyway, I was wide awake at 01:00, with the radio still playing, so I turned it off and this time I managed a decent sleep, until about 05:00

I’d been on my travels too, with the welcome return of Nerina, who hasn’t set foot in these nocturnal rambles for quite a while. We were at my house, in its usual state of papers all over the floor and we were looking for some papers that really ought to have been there but weren’t and this was all becoming far more complicated than it ought to have been. At he same time, Zero was at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up. She was being her usual cheerful self and we were discussing smoking. She said that she had tried a cigarette once, so I smacked her bottom for her.

When I sat down to breakfast I found that I had forgotten to fetch the spoon so I ended up eating my breakfast cereal with a fork and trying my best not to crash out again. I’m clearly not well at the moment.

Still, I can’t sit around here all day moping about the bad weather. I need to be moving on despite the fog. And this time, I didn’t forget to go and take a photograph of the night’s lodgings just for the record.

I’d been low on fuel too last night and there was an Irving’s next door – one of the reasons why I had stopped here – so I went off and fuelled up. I now have 97 Air miles after that – isn’t that good?

When I was on my way in the other direction 10 or so days ago, I’d stopped at the supermarket in town where I’d discovered baguettes on sale at half-price. I popped back in there on the way past this morning to see how the land lay and, sure enough, baguettes were on sale again. And so with what I had bought yesterday at Matane, that was lunch organised.

On the way through St Quentin the other day I’d noticed that there was a railway station in the town, on the old abandoned Canadian National railway line between Campbelltown and St Leonard.
There were a few railway artefacts on display outside, and so I’d pencilled the station in for a visit on the return trip and so here I am.

The little locomotive had caught my eye and I wondered if it really was a narrow-gauge locomotive that had been rescued from a mineral line somewhere. But in fact it was built in 1985 out of scrap and recycled materials by a couple of Canadian National employees from Campbelltown.

That wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye either. What do you reckon about this?

It’s a platelayers’ trolley but enclosed (a necessity given the severe winters around here) and with a petrol engine rather than a pump-action handle, which is a bit of a cheat. They were used by the track maintenance crews during their duties, which included fire-watching because sparks from the steam locomotives setting the forests alight was a real problem.

So much so that it will come as no surprise for any regular reader of this rubbish to realise that the station building here at St Quentin is not the original one. That, just like any other building here in Canada, caught fire and burnt down.

However, the most exciting exhibit here at the railway station must be this weird machine.

I’m not sure of the proper name by which this machine might be known, and I certainly have never seen one of them before, but I think that it’s magnificent and I definitely want one of these.

There were lots of other stuff actually inside the station, which was by the way not only a museum but the local tourist information office and the offices of the local Chamber of Commerce.

There was some kind of collection of railway wagons here too and so I went for a browse.

This caboose caught my eye – and not just because it’s a caboose but because of the message that’s on it. It reads “Dessert tout le Canada” which, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s any “crudely” involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) as “serves all of Canada”.

However, that’s clearly a spelling mistake. It should read “Désert tout le Canada” which means “Abandons all of Canada” – which is certainly true these days.

This is why I have to mess around on buses and rely on Rachel to pick me up in Florenceville when there’s an abandoned Canadian National railway line that passes at the bottom of her garden and an abandoned Canadian National railway station right next door to the tyre depot.

By now the hanging clouds had gone, the sun was out and I was coming out of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful day now so I headed to St Leonard and the Saint John River to find a place to eat my butties.

I found a nice place to park up for my lunch – the car park for the Rendez-vous des Artistes in St Leonard. It was closed up so I didn’t think that anyone would mine.

What appealed to me about this place was that it had a good view over the river and right by one of the few remaining railway lines in New Brunswick. And I thought that I had heard a locomotive whistle too and so I prepared the camera, but nothing came by while I was here.

That over there across the Saint John River is the town of Van Buren, which is in Maine, USA. I was sitting right by the border crossing on the Canadian side of the river admiring the view and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

And I wasn’t alone either. They say that there’s one in every village, and the one in St Leonard sought me out for a chat. He was speaking French and what with his accent and a speech impediment that he had, I couldn’t make out one word in every ten that he was uttering.

Nevertheless, we put the world to rights for half an hour and then, in the words of the reporters of the long-gone and long-lamented “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Back up the hill and I hit the highway southwards, and aren’t I grateful for speed limiters and cruise control? I set the speed to 108kms and settled down for the drive back to Centreville, and it was then that I noticed in my rear-view mirror a County Mountie slowly closing up on me. But with the speed limiter I didn’t have too much to worry about in the normal run of events. He eventually passed me, having a good glance as he went by, but with the cruise control in operation he had no reason to pull me over and he eventually pulled away in front.

I was having visions of David Crosby and his
“It increases my paranoia”
“like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car”
“But I’m not giving in an inch to fear”
“‘cos I promised myself this year”
“I feel like I owe it to someone”
and reckon that it applies to me – I certainly owe it to myself, that’s for sure after all that I’ve been through this year.

I tracked down my mailbox too. And talk about a local postal service – my mailbox is about 7 or 8 kilometres from my plot of land. It’s astonishing. How I’m supposed to go and get my post in the middle of winter is totally beyond me.

But there was some really good news for me. Regular readers of this rubbish might recall that the motor insurance on Strider was cancelled about my head last year when we had the driving licence issues. There was a cheque in my mail box for the refund of the cancelled policy, minus the time on risk value, and this was not far off the total premium of the new policy. The cheque had timed out and so I took it back to the brokers in Florenceville and they wrote out a new one.

Waving that around in my sweaty little mitt, I went to the Scotia Bank and paid it in. I did a few more financial manoeuvres … “PERSONoeuvres” – ed … there, and now I reckon that I could keep on going over in Canada for a good while if necessary.

Back at the tyre depot I met up with everyone, had a coffee and a chat, and then we went back home to Rachel and Darren’s. Rachel made a lovely tea and we had a good chat, and then I crawled off to bed at some really early, ridiculous time.

This six weeks gap between treatments is evidently too much, but I’m not complaining. Despite the health issues that have now caught up properly with me, I would never otherwise have come here and I wouldn’t have missed my trip to Canada for the world.

Saturday 24th September 2016 – WELL DONE AMBER!

And quite right too!

But first, let us turn to this morning. And when I awoke at about 05:30 I was frozen to the marrow. I’ve never been as cold as this for a long time, not even when I was up in Labrador last year, I reckon.

But here’s a thing – I was locked into the trailer. That was necessary because with all kinds of items of considerable value in the trailer with me, you never know what is going to happen through the night when you are parked up in the Wilderness.

And what made things even worse was that Darren and Amber in the truck awoke at about 08:00 and fired up the engine to warm up the truck, and thinking that I would be still asleep, they left me to it. When they finally let me out, I was in no state at all.

A big plate of beans on toast soon brought me round and then we had work to do. First, though, I walked down the field and round the corner to have a look at Mount Katahdin. It’s the highest mountain in Maine, at just over 5,250 feet, and it’s always impressed me, even if it does happen to be shrouded in cloud today.

But back at the ranch, we pull the tractor out of the trailer, started it up and tuned it up, and then Darren let Amber have another little run around the field in it, because he has a cunning plan.

You may have noticed that earlier this morning when we awoke, we were alone on the field here by the airstrip. But a couple of hours later, you can see that there has been a dramatic change in circumstances.

There are over 60 trucks and tractors pulling here at Millinocket today, apparently. There are about 8 different classes of tractors, but Perdy in the Pink only has one competitor in its class, and that’s it just there.

One of the classes is for diesel 4×4 trucks, and that’s quite interesting to watch. Not for the puling itself because, to be quite honest, I’ve seen sports that are much more exciting than this, but because of the plumes of smoke and diesel emissions from the trucks, that blanket the whole arena

I’m not quite sure what the local environmental inspectors would make of all of this, but remember that this is the USA and the Environment is not all that high on the agenda.

By the time mid-afternoon came around, it was time for Perdy in the Pink and the 2-wheel drive modified truck competition.

And do you recognise the driver in the truck? It’s not Darren, and it’s not Hannah of course because she’s gone back to University. In fact, young Amber is making her competitive debut behind the wheel of Perdy in the Pink in front of quite a large crowd of people.

And here she is down the end of the field at the end of her first competitive run. She confused herself a little somewhere along the road and had the steering wrong and as a result, could only manage a run of 287 feet at a maximum speed of 32.1 mph. The other competitor in the class made 324 feet.

But what you have to remember is that this is only her third ever time behind the wheel, and the very first time that she’s actually been coupled up to a load. As a result, she can be very proud of what she has managed to achieve today.

After that, while other competitors were lining up to take their runs, we went back to the trailer for an inquest on the first run, with Amber walking on air! Darren chatted to Amber and gave her a few more tips, and then we went for some food.

I discovered that the chips had been fried in oil which was good news for me, and so I went to buy a plate, only to find out that they had sold out.And the coffee, the first of the day, was totally disgusting. Back home, I wouldn’t even wash Caliburn’s windscreen with it.

We didn’t have too long to mess about though, because as the sun went down in the evening, it was time for Perdy in the Pink’s second and final run.

And so off set Amber down the track again, with the beautiful Mount Katahdin silhouetted in the setting sun in the background.

And I wish that they had started the competition an hour earlier today so that we would have had some light to see what was going on.

And she makes it down to the end of the track in one piece again, much to everyone’s delight, especially Darren’s.

And with very good reason too because Amber had taken on board her father’s advice she managed to increase her distance. Not by 10 feet, or 20 feet, or even 50 feet, but she covered a magnificent 357 feet – an increase of 70 feet, at a maximum speed of 30 mph.

Her competitor managed to increase his distance for the second run, but only by about 20 feet, which meant that Amber had actually won the second leg, in only her second ever pull, and that is an astonishing achievement against someone of 40 years experience.

of course, as we pulled the tractor back to our little camp, Amber developed her own little fan club of supporters and I noticed a discreet exchanging of e-mail addresses going on.

And here’s another thing – there were competitors here today by the name of Pelletier, Voisine, Michaud and a few other names of French origin, all of whom lived in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont. It just goes to show you how much of Upper Canada the British signed away at the Treaty of Webster-Ashburton

Just so that that there is no mistake or misunderstanding, Amber can’t be only 13 years of age because the minimum age to drive a vehicle in this competition is 14. So now you know.

We loaded up everything into the trailer and then set off for home. And finding a new way through the lanes that completely missed out the town of Millinocket, we were back on the highway heading north in no time at all.

We passed a few of our fellow competitors on the way back, and then turned off at Bridgewater to go down to the border crossing. there, we had to re-do the paperwork and reclaim our documents, and then we could cover the remaining 5 miles or so back here.

Once we were safely installed, I grabbed a couple of rounds of toast and that was me, gone. I was totally wasted and went straight to bed.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

Friday 23rd September 2016 – I WAS OFF …

…so early and in such a rush this morning that I forgot to take a photo of my motel at Caraquet last night. I’d had a communication during the late evening to say that the lorry had been fixed and the tractor pull was on. It’s only about 350 kilometres from here to Centreville but it’s over some dreadful roads through the mountain and they were planning to leave at 15:30 so there was no time to hang about.

Not only that, the weather was dreadful. It was freezing cold and the gorgeous sunny day that we had had yesterday was now miserable, grey and wet with this freezing rain that was getting in everywhere. I wasn’t going to enjoy this drive one little bit.

But stil, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish and I hit the streets. Leaving behind me my breakfast cereal as I was to discover later. There’s always something that I leave behind me, isn’t there?

The drive as far a Bathurst was quite uneventful, apart from the dreadful weather, that is, and I found a cheap Ultramar service station where I could fuel up Strider. Shortly afterwards I found a huge Atlantic Superstore where I could stop to lay in supplies for the next few days, and where fuel was even cheaper that at the Ultramar – but then, that kind of thing always happens, doesn’t it?

The road from Bathurst over to the Saint John valley goes right into the mountains and through the Mount Carleton National Park and some of the roads through there that we will have to take are quite dreadful.

It’s all up and down, through the rainstorms and the low hanging clouds and with a good length of dirt road that I remember driving on back in winter 2003 through the pitch black and the snow … "no you didn’t – you came a different way" – ed

Further into the mountains and the weather hadn’t improved any. In fact I was beginning to wonder if we would be having snow any time soon – that was what it was looking like to me.

In fact I was starting to become rather worried. If the weather doesn’t improve any, we can forget all about tractor pulling and I will have had this long and exhausting drive for nothing. And after a good spell on the dirt road, Strider was looking disgraceful. He’ll be needing a wash.

Hitting the Saint John valley I drove along the old route of the Trans Canada Highway for a while and found a place to park for lunch right by the river, at the back of the seasonal camp site. And having demolished my butty I was back on the road again for Centreville, completely forgetting that I needed to go to the bank at Florenceville for some US money. I shall just have to do without, I suppose.

We went back home and sorted out the tractor and Amber hopped into the driving seat to move it around.

It’s the first time that she’s actually been behind the steering wheel under power so Darren kept her under close supervision. After all, it’s a mere 3,500 horsepower so I was told, and it’s not every young girl of Amber’s age who will have the opportunity, never mind the confidence, to handle that kind of power.

She was doing really well too. She wasn’t just along for the ride

Eventually we set off and had the usual histrionics at the USA border. There’s an extremely long and complicated (and expensive) procedure to be undergone and as a result no-one has really bothered with it in the past. But a Canadian tractor-puller took his vehicle across into the USA – and sold it. And these things are worth hundreds of thousands – the engine is worth $80,000 on its own. And because the border crossing wasn’t registered he escaped paying the import duty and the sales tax.

As a result, the people at the border post had their derrieres very soundly kicked by Head Office and so now everything is done by the letter of the law. And it takes ages to do.

But we were soon back on the road and headed off down towards Millinocket, stopping off for diesel and also for some food. And as we headed south, the clouds blew away. By the time we arrived, the skies were clear and you could see millions of stars.

It was also freezing cold.

What might have been a major problem was that the raceway was all chained up and padlocked – there was no way in. But regular readers of this rubbish will remember from several events that have occurred in the past that a chain and padlock isn’t going to keep me out for long. Five minutes and we were inside, and no-one would ever guess how we managed it.

Darren set a methanol fire – about two inches of methanol in an old saucepan and he tossed a lighted rag into it. The liquid doesn’t burn – just the gases – and the evaporation is slow enough that it lasted for about an hour or so. We were crowded around it to try to keep warm and that wasn’t easy. After a while I could smell something burning, and I was shocked to realise that it was me! I had to move my chair back into the cold.

By now I was pretty tired and so I sloped off to bed. Darren is having the front seats of the lorry, Amber the rear and so I’m having the mattress in the trailer.

I’m glad that we are only staying for the one night.

Sunday 11th September 2016 – IT’S SUNDAY …

… and that can only mean one thing.

Well, two things really while we are here in the bosom of our family, but let’s take them one by one.

Firstly, it means “no alarm clock”. We can have a lie-in. But that wasn’t much use today seeing as how Yours Truly was wide awake (well, sort-of, anyway) at 04:28. Yes, my night was nothing like as good as the previous one and that filled me with a pile of regret, didn’t it? And it got me thinking too, which is always a dangerous thing to be doing. There has been many a night when I haven’t even been in bed by 04:28. Ohh how my life has changed!

But at least I could crack on with a few things that needed doing and try my best to bring things up-to-date, as well as having a couple of nice chats with friends on-line.

As dawn broke, all that I could say was that I was glad that I didn’t have plans to go anywhere. Someone has stolen the sun and the blue sky and it was all damp, grey and miserable outside.

And as the morning wore on, I could safely say that things didn’t stay like this for long. By about 08:00 I decided to close my eyes a little to give them some rest, and the next thing that I remember was that it was about 10:30. Now isn’t that more like a Sunday?

What awoke me was Rachel clattering away in the kitchen, and that brings me round nicely to the second thing that comes to mind on a Sunday, and that is the legendary Taylor Sunday Brunch. People travel for thousands of miles to attend one of these and quite rightly too because Rachel does everyone proud. Even for a vegan like me there was beans on toast and grilled potato slices with onions and carrots, apart from the usual breakfast items. And if you are a carnivore, there’s no limit to the stuff that’s put on the table to satisfy your appetite.

I mentioned the weather a little earlier, and how miserable it was looking. And so we had a change during the late morning. The most incredible torrential downpour suddenly hit us and the place was transformed into a lake in just seconds.

A short while later we had a thunderstorm with lightning and all kinds of stuff. It was definitely the hammer of the Gods that was coming down on us this morning.

As a result, all plans for today were cancelled and we just sat around and did family things. And it’s a long time since I’ve done any of that, isn’t it?

I reckoned that during the afternoon I might go and have a little snooze, but that was ruled out because the bed was already occupied by something black and furry. The weather was so miserable that not even Cujo the Killer Cat fancied going outside.

Towards late afternoon the weather did improve. We had the sun back, but there was a cool wind blowing with it, so it does look as if the weather is turning here and autumn will be on its way any time now.

Darren and I took advantage of the weather by doing some work here. There’s a three-ton Chevrolet lorry here – the same on that I drove down to Maine the other year – and the oil seals have gone in the back axle. Darren wants to overhaul it and fit new seals and bearings so we reversed it into the garage and started to strip it down. That kept us busy until tea-time.

After tea, Rachel baked a cake for a party that she was giving on Tuesday night so I lent a hand. And then after watching a little television (actually it was a big television but I watched it for a short time) I called it a day and came to bed.

It’s hard to believe just how tired you become when you don’t do very much at all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: maine

Tuesday 24th December … TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE …

Friday 7th October 2022 – MEANWHILE, IN THE …

Wednesday 24th June 2020 – I’VE BEEN …

Wednesday 7th November 2018 – WHILE I WAS …

Sunday 23rd September 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

Wednesday 4th October 2017 – SO HAVING …

Tuesday 3rd October 2017 – SO LAST NIGHT …

Monday 25th September 2017 – SO HERE WE ALL ARE …

Tuesday 18th October 2016 – THIS IS LOOKING OMINOUS AND I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL

Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

Saturday 24th September 2016 – WELL DONE AMBER!

Friday 23rd September 2016 – I WAS OFF …

Sunday 11th September 2016 – IT’S SUNDAY …

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

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