Tag Archives: orleans express

Saturday 16th December 2023 – WHEN THE ALARM …

… went off this morning at 07:00 I was already sitting half-dressed on the edge of the bed.

Being a light sleeper, the slightest thing awakens me but I usually go back to sleep quite quickly. However there’s definitely something going on that’s awakening me in the morning before the alarm went off.

But anyway I wandered off into the kitchen for my medication and then came back in here to have a look to see where I’d been during the night.

However, I didn’t go far before Liz contacted me. She has a good recipe for a vegan wellington that she serves up to her daughter and her family on Christmas Day and so she sent it over for me to look at, and we had quite a chat about it.

The big issue about this is that it requires a lot of stuff that I don’t have in stock and LeClerc won’t deliver. If I’m back from hospital in time to go on the bus to the Carrefour at St Nicolas before Christmas I can conceivably find the things that I need.

However, if I don’t come back in time, I shall have to think of a Plan B. But I’ve really no idea when I’ll be back. The letter that I received just said un hospitalisation – “a stay in hospital” and apportez vos affaires – “bring your things”. No idea of any dates or anything.

Once Liz wandered off to do family things, I carried on with the dictaphone notes. There was something going on about a railway line, something to do with a murder mystery. Someone whom I suppose was Hercule Poirot was investigating it. He eventually came to the railway line and saw that a train was about to leave from the railway station so he ran after it. The other person with him tried to prevent him. But it all came out when he eventually managed to arrive there and found things like pie moulds etc hidden behind the door. It was something to do with the guy with him who was causing all of these difficulties and not however it was who was the chief suspect

I actually had a girlfriend with me from school. I don’t know who she was but I wish that I did. We’d been out for a walk around a seaside town and had come to a kind of industrial plant like a foundry or similar. Everywhere was all very tight. They had a Morris Minor pickup that they’d cut down so that it could pass under these beams and round tight corners and down a type of hairpin bend ramp carrying a load of stuff that was needed at the bottom. We stood watching it for a while. In the end we realised that we needed to be back in the street which was quite some way up some steps. There was a kind-of escalator for pedestrians that people could use to go to the top. It was a heavy-duty thing, more of an industrial type than the type that you’d find in a shop. I asked for permission of we could use it and a guy there said that we could so we jumped on board. It didn’t ‘arf go quickly. I had the feeling that when it reached the top I’d have a lot of problems trying to dismount. I was right. It practically threw me off at the top, it was that quick. I had a real struggle to regain my balance after that. The girl with me pointed out someone and said that it reminded her of another girl from school whom I knew but it wasn’t her. Anyway we set out to walk home. When we were close to my house I asked her if she’d like to come in for a coffee. She certainly agreed. Just as I was about to open the front door and let her in I awoke! Can you imagine!

Yes, I actually dictated “can you imagine” in my sleep. But that’s no surprise. The other night I had Zero on my plate and just as I was about to stick my fork into it, I awoke and she disappeared. And here I am tonight in exactly the same position. Just about to lure a willing young lady into my lair and the same thing happened again.

"Gone! And never called me ‘mother’" yet again.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed I had been out somewhere with Zero’s father. We’d had quite a few little adventures and were going back to Virlet. It involved walking over a railway bridge. When we’d been over there a few times in the past there had been some plots of land being used as scrapyards etc. We noticed that they had seemed to be starting to clear them away. When we went over tonight all the scrap had gone. There was just the rear axle of a lorry sitting there in the middle of it. We imagined that it’s some land that will now sit vacant for 25 years before anyone does anything. We carried on, came back to Virlet and walked up my drive which was a load of uneven rocks. He fell over and hurt his ankle, and walked on a tin can that he’d overlooked. With my huge collection of keys and huge collection of padlocks I actually found the correct one straight away, to my surprise, so I could unlock the padlock to the garage and we could go in. There was an arm of the hinge that went over the corner of the door that meant that despite the door being high, a high vehicle couldn’t go in. I was thinking about changing that. He’d gone off to look at next door’s garage where there had been a similar problem. He came back and said “how long do you think it would take to shift that arm?”. I replied “probably about an hour”. He answered “yes but after all that time it’s still there. They’ve done a few things but the arm is still there” and we went inside the house.

Yes, Zero’s father. But not Zero herself, which was rather depressing.

Later on I was actually inside Virlet. The place was a tip as usual. I thought that while I was there this time I would really make an effort to tidy it up. But one thing led to another led to another as usual. It was coming close to going back home and I’d hardly done anything. I began to look for 1 or 2 things but couldn’t find anything. In the middle of the doorway between the front room and the rear room a little girl was sitting there. Every time I walked past she seemed to be putting tea leaves into a jar or teapot. I asked her what she was doing. She replied that she was making tea. I asked “when is going to be ready? You’ve made it long enough”. She replied “I’m putting the tea leaves in now and then I can put in the water when it’s ready”. I wondered when that would be but she didn’t really seem to have any idea herself. She was just sitting as if she was playing “house” sitting in the middle of the doorway getting in the way of everyone else who was trying to go past.

And then I was in my Luton Transit. I’d been to High Street in Crewe to pick up some things and were on our way to an Indian restaurant. There was a bunch of kids wandering down the street. As I let out the clutch to pull off I stalled the van. Of course all the kids cheered so I started again, let out the clutch and as it swung round out into the street the wing mirror hit one of them on the back and almost knocked him over. I thought “I’d better go and disappear into the ether for a while”. I had someone with me. It wasn’t Zero and it wasn’t Roxanne but a very small person, someone who was only used to ever being in the house because we had a talk about how she felt being outside in the street for the first time. I had a feeling that it was one of my cats. The cat was talking about the winter and how the winters were uncomfortable but they made the most of them. We were just driving around Crewe town centre becoming more and more confused about the correct side of the road, one-way streets, going up them the wrong way. The cat was talking about being outside for the very first time and enjoying it very much.

This final one was another dream where I found myself dictating into my hand again. I was back in the previous one with this little girl or cat. On Chester Bridge in Market Street I decided to stop to take some money from the bank seeing as the road was quite wide there. My passenger seemed to be in something of a hurry and was rather impatient to get under way again. That was something else that confused me because just sitting there doing nothing, it wasn’t as if she was in any kind of hurry etc but it seemed that she really just wanted to leave that spot at that moment.

So back in the same dream at another time on a couple of occasions. I can manage to do that on a fairly regular basis, but never when I want to, such as when I have Zero around or when I’m just about to invite a girlfriend from school into my lair.

It’s almost as if my subconscious is deliberately putting the brakes on my nocturnal activities. Obviously it’s a much stronger influence than my conscious mind that never seems to slow me down sufficiently when I’m about to run amok in real life.

But then, it’s strange little facts like this that the project that we are doing is all about.

It’s actually been running now for 25 years or thereabouts and I often wonder what conclusions were reached. I can’t even remember now who it was who organised the project, never mind whether his thesis was ever published.

The Luton Transit is still down on the farm after all these years, slowly dissolving into the landscape. But it’s the aluminium body on the back that’s interesting. There is a pair of MkIII Cortina rear quarters in there for the 2000E saloon that’s in the warehouse in Montaigut for a start, and you can’t buy those at any price these days.

There are a couple of engines and gearboxes, petrol and diesel, for Volkswagen Passats, a 2.3 diesel and type 9 5-speed gearbox from a Ford Sierra that were going to go in the red Cortina estate that’s also in the warehouse in Montaigut, to mention just a few things.

If my memory serves me right, there’s also in the back of the Luton Transit a big diesel generator that we used to run on recycled plant oil.

There’s a funny story about that diesel generator. I had it, with a huge pile of other stuff, in the back of the LDV when I was stopped by a flying customs patrol.

They wanted to look in the back so I told them that I’d open it because I knew exactly what was going to happen.

One of the guys brushed me aside and wrenched open the rear doors.

Have you any idea of how loud a person can scream when a huge single-cylinder cast-iron Lister diesel generator drops onto his foot from a great height?

Most of the rest of the day has been spent, when I’ve not been away with the fairies, on the photos from Canada 2022.

Right now I’ve alighted from my train at Moncton and am now heading west on the “Coach Atlantic” towards the border with the USA.

And that train journey was the most depressing train journey that I have ever undertaken.

There’s only one passenger train in the whole of Canada east of Québec City (the miners’ train to Schefferville excluded), I was on it and Canadian National, and in particular its “Viarail” subsidiary would like to wipe this one out too.

There’s been no investment on the line for years, the 2 locomotives that pulled it were built in 1985 and if you want to see what the carriages are like, THIS WAS HOW THEY WERE IN 2010 and they are now even worse.

The promised investment that was mentioned in 2010 never ever took place. But I don’t suppose that anyone ever really believed that it would.

And being used to hurtling around the European continent at speeds of over 300 kilometres per hour on a modern 21st Century rail network, we covered the 1095 kilometres from Montréal to Moncton in, would you believe, 19.5 hours.

That’s an average speed of 56 kilometres per hour or 35 mph.

If anyone wonders why passengers are deserting the railways in North America in record numbers, then this journey told me everything that I needed to know.

In the good old days, I’d walk out of my digs in the Rue St Hubert in Montréal, go round the corner to the coach station in the Rue Berri 200 yards away and catch the “Orleans Express” coach that goes to Gaspé.

I’d alight at Rivière du Loup and 90 minutes later the “Coach Atlantic” from Moncton would come in. When the driver had had his break he’d turn round and go back, with me on board. Seven hours from door to door.

However, with inter-Provincial travel being prohibited with the pandemic, “Coach Atlantic” turned round at Edmundston, 120 kilometres away from Rivière du Loup on the New Brunswick side of the border with Québec.

And since inter-Provincial travel restarted, only “Coach Atlantic” knows the reason why it hasn’t reinstated the service northwards over the Appalachians to the St Lawrence and instead of 7 hours, I’m stuck with a journey of no less than 27 hours.

So abandoning another really good rant for the moment, I went and had my tea. Baked potato and salad with one of those breaded quorn fillets that I like. And I’ve actually now mastered the art of baking potatoes in my air fryer and they are delicious.

There are some radio notes to dictate and that’s really it for today.

Tomorrow I have biscuits to bake and when I was tidying out the shelves the other week I came across some coconut oil. If I use that instead of vegan butter I could make some stunning chocolate biscuits

There’s some bread to bake too because if I’m going to be at the hospital for 11:00 and won’t be admitted to the ward until 13:00 I’ll need some butties because lunch will have gone by. I asked my cleaner to pick up a lettuce while she was in town as I’d run out and she duly obliged so I’ll have some really nice salad sandwiches for lunch on Monday.

There will be a few other things to do too, I reckon, but I’ll worry about that at the appropriate time.

As if I don’t already have enough to worry about.

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Sunday 2nd October 2022 – AS I TYPE …

… these notes I’m sitting in a train that’s rocketing eastwards along the south bank of the St Lawrence River.

For reasons that only they will know and, if the rest of us were to know them, we still wouldn’t understand them, CoachAtlantic has taken off the service that runs between Moncton and Rivière du Loup.

Back in the old days, I would catch the “Orleans Express” bus from Montreal to Gaspé, alight at Rivière du Loup and await 90 minutes for a bus to come in from Moncton and turn round. But that’s no longer possible.

What I’m having to do now is to catch a train that goes to Halifax, alight at Moncton and wait three hours for a bus to take me back north-west. It’s like travelling 270° of a circle and what started off as a journey of about 9 or 10 hours has now become a journey of 26 hours.

Any British person who is complaining about the effects of Dr Beeching on the British railway network would have apoplexy if ever he were to examine the Canadian railway network. There is only one passenger train east of Québec in the whole country and I’m on it. There is absolutely nothing else. And although I paid for four nights in my hotel I only ended up staying for three because this train only runs a couple of days per week.

And that’s the Canadian National Railway. The whole of the Canadian Pacific network east of Québec, freight as well as passengers, has been ruthlessly hacked off, every inch of it. There’s a railway station right at the back of Rachel and Darren’s mill but that hasn’t seen a train since 1982.

And that’s why you’ll see a lot of “misinformation” about “The First Transcontinental Train” going from Montreal to Vancouver. In its embarrassment, Canadian Pacific is trying its best to shove under the carpet the fact that it had at one time a huge network in the Maritime Provinces.

And if anyone is wondering why I’m not flying, I’m refusing flat-out to pay … gulp … $1335 for me and my baggage.

If you don’t have a car in Canada, you are really in some extreme kind of difficulty and for that reason I’m seriously thinking of selling Strider and going back to hiring a vehicle at the airport. I can’t do this kind of journey again under any circumstances.

But retournons à nos moutons as they say around here, I was wide-awake, and in total agony by the way, at 06:30 and I went off to have my medication.

And having dealt with that I could get on with what I had to do. And while I was doing it, I was sitting with my right foot in a bucket of ice-cold water. I have to do something to try to improve my foot.

There was some stuff on the dictaphone from last night. I was going away with a girl but first of all I had to go back to the office to pick up my car, the beige MkIV that we had. When I arrived there, parked outside was the chocolate brown one with Nerina sitting in it. I had to basically chivvy her up out of the car so that I could get in and take it away with me as I had a ferry arranged for later that night. She said that I couldn’t go yet as there was a problem with a couple of the cars. The beige one had just quite suddenly cut out. She did say what was up with the second. The way that she described it, it was simply a wire off the beige one that I could fix in a matter of seconds. Then she said that one of the drivers had all the wages. I asked “which driver?” so she gave me a name but I didn’t recognise that driver. I asked about the rest and she said that it was in our lock-up. I thought that I’d better go and collect that. She said “you’ll need to go quickly before they go and fetch it”. I set off but I had to go back and ask where the lock-up was. She told me then I had to go back to ask which lock-up it was. I could see this lasting for hours, not finding the money, not fixing the car, not going away.

Later on, Mrs Ukraine was asking me why I was so interested in the fate of refugees in France. I explained briefly to her the story of my mother as a child being evacuated with 10 minutes notice to go to live with strangers. I told her all that story. Then I was on patrol with the Ukrainian Army but in France. They had found the coast and were making more of it. A helicopter then flew in. The first thing that it did was to winch out my brother. I imagined that I’d be next but it looked as if someone else was preparing to go, a woman. In the meantime my brother and two people were standing on a cloud playing football. As other people started to be winched in one of the guys came up to me to say that he needed a cannon. They had to make certain what it was that he actually wanted. It turned out to be a self-propelled armoured vehicle with something bigger than an 0.762mm machine gun. I said that I’d try to see what I could find for them and started thinking in my head about people I knew who might actually have that kind of equipment and I’d go along and negotiate it out of them.

As for the story about my mother, regular readers of this rubbish in a previous version will recall having seen a photo of where my mother lived as a child. It’s a small terraced house at the side of the road in Birchington in Kent, about 200 yards away from the end of the runway of Manston Airfield which was a major RAF base. At the fall of France and the first stick of Luftwaffe bombs dropping on the airfield, all of the children in the vicinity, my mother and her younger sister included, were rounded up with 10 minutes notice, put on a train and evacuated. My mother and my aunt ended up living in Somerset with people whom they didn’t know and had never met, with just one small suitcase each. Listening to my mother’s stories, what happened to them must have been an appalling nightmare for little kids like them and as a result I have a great deal of empathy for anyone else fleeing from their homes under a stick of bombs, no matter who they are and where they are.

Another thing that I did was to have a shower and to clean myself up ready to leave, and then to tidy up my room. And in many senses I’m sorry to leave this place. It’s much smaller than the place where I stay in Leuven but it’s much more modern and better-equipped. Had I been more mobile this place would have been pretty high up on my list of places to stay but the stairs killed me off.

My foot had gone down somewhat and it was easier to walk about. Putting on my elastic stocking made it go down a little more and although it was still difficult to put on my shoe, I was able to move around a little better than I did yesterday and that was a relief.

On my way to the station I stopped for a quick snack before getting on the Metro. It’s as well to have some food before leaving because I’m not sure what the arrangements for food will be on the train. There is a restaurant car on board but whether there will be anything that I can eat, or whether I can actually afford it anyway if there is, are interesting questions.

At the station I had to check in my suitcase witn STRAWBERRY MOOSE on board and then wait for boarding. I declared myself as in need of assistance so someone accompanied me down the escalator – It’s a long, steep drop to the bottom if I fall.

interior viarail train Montreal central station Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022We’ve SEEN VIARAIL TRAINS BEFORE when we were in Halifax and they seemed to be are absolutely ancient and in poor state of repair.

These days, nothing much seems to have changed. And that’s not all. The interiors are like something out of the 1960s, all leather and chrome, but it looks to be supremely comfortable.

Having had assistance to board, I was one of the first to find a seat. The train ended up to be crowded although I was one of the lucky few who didn’t have a neighbour. Mind you, someone is sitting right behind me with a couple of toddlers by which time it was too late to change seats. It’s going to be a long, noisy night.

Montreal by night Canada Eric Hall photo October 2022After what seemed like for ever, our train pulled out slowly from the railway station and we eventually found ourselves out in the open air.

It was going dark quite quickly and as the train looped round to the south to cross over the St Lawrence there was a really nice view of the city with all of the buildings illuminated.

We aren’t exactly in a hurry. It’s not what you call high-speed travel. In Europe this kind of pace would be embarrassing. It’s going to be a very long journey, I reckon, but at least I was right about the seats. They are comfortable and I have two to myself so I can spread out.

Something else that I can tell you about Viarail and the Canadian National railway network, such as it is, is that passenger trains have a very low priority. By the time we’d gone an hour out of Montreal, already we’d ground to a halt twice to give precedence to freight trains.

Having now had a coffee, I’m going to settle down while it’s quiet. I’ll probably be awoken a dozen times during the night so I need to take advantage of whatever quiet I can find.

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Tuesday 15th October 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about it being a very long day today. And I felt almost every minute of it too.

The Orleans Express bus was due to leave Riviere du Loup at 01:15 and much to my and everyone else’s surprise, it was bang on time, pulling into the bus depot at 00:50 ready to load up.

It was crowded, as I expected too. I had to share a seat so I wasn’t at all comfortable and I felt every jolt and bump at least as far as Sainte-Foy. But I did manage to drop off for a short while afterwards and awoke again as we were pulling off the highway at Longueuil.

After we had pulled into the bus station at Montreal bang on time at 06:15 I performed my usual task of disappearing for a ride on the porcelain horse for a while to catch up on my beauty sleep, such as it is, and then repaired to the cafe for breakfast.

At about 09:00 I wandered round the back of the bus station to my hotel. The room wasn’t ready at all, which was no surprise, but the guy on duty made me a coffee and I watched a TV programme about the treasure of Oak island amidst a wave of serious fatigue.

A little later I went for a walk down to the old harbour, along the canal and then back up rue Peel to the rue St Catherine.

Lunch was taken at the Subway in the Complexe Desjardins in the rue St Catherine. And I had to explain to the “Sandwich Artist” not once, not twice, not three times but FOUR TIMES that a “vegetarian with no cheese” really DOES mean “no cheese”.

I really don’t know where they find these people.

But I tell you what I DID find in a Dollar Store were some sweets that passed very well for the aniseed balls of my youth – when I eventually managed to buy them because the whole queue was held up by some guy arguing with the girls and the manageress at the check-out.

By now my room was ready so having fought my way in with this stupid key and stupid door lock, I could have a shower and wash some clothes.

And to … errr … catch up on some more beauty sleep.

Later on I took the metro to Cote Vertu for some bananas and grapes at the wholesaler’s, and then across the road for the Indian cafe.

No I’m back, and it’s bed-time. No alarm in the morning because it’s going to be another long and painful night tomorrow.

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Saturday 29th September – IN 30 HOURS TIME …

… I’ll be back in miserable, dreary, depressing Europe again.

But let’s not dwell on the bad side of life. Let’s talk about today’s activities.

We only had about an hour or so to wait at Rivieère-du-Loup for our Orleans Express bus. And we all clambered aboard ready for the off. The driver was somewhat surly but that didn’t matter too much as I don’t remember very much about the journey.

I vaguely remember waking when we pulled into Sainte-Foy but I wasn’t awake for very long. And then I remember pulling into Longueuil for the students. That was where, I suppose, you might say that I awoke.

From there it was 10 minutes into the coach station at rue Berri.

I performed the usual trick of going for a relaxing ride on the porcelain horse and caught up with my sleep for about half an hour or so, and then to the cafe for breakfast and to deal with my notes of yesterday.

Round about 09:00 I headed off to my hotel.

As I expected, it’s the cat-house to end all cat houses, run by an oriental guy who was as inscrutable as his reputation. Very nice, very charming, but refused to budge on the 18:00 check-in time.

He allowed me to leave my things there, which was good of him, and I went for a walk.

First stop was the other side of the old Dalhousie railway station to take a few photos of it from a different angle than last time.

And then down to the docks. Oakglen had gone, but way down in the new port there were three ships. Far too far away to see what they are.

There was also another ship in the western quay but I’ll need to do some research into that.

It was a beautiful warm, sunny morning so I sat on a park bench and had another half-an-hour’s repose. Did me good too and I felt a little better after my sleep in the sun.

Into the old town afterwards to see the new Customs House, which is also the HQ of the Environmental Ministy – and here I was expecting a log hut roofed with turf. Not big on irony, these North Americans.

It also gave me an opportunity to take a couple more photos of things that I had missed on previous occasions.

In Subway for lunch (where they had run out of ice for the drinks machine) we had another delightful conversation –
Sandwich Artist – “what would you like on your vegetarian?”
Our Hero – “a bit of everything”
Sandwich Artist – “do you want spinach on that?”.

After lunch I wandered through Chinatown (for no particular reason) and the Complexe Desjardins (ditto) and up and down the rue St Catherine Est, dodging (and occasionally being caught in) the rainstorms.

The Hudsons Bay Company shop was disappointing. It’s all high-class perfume and clothes these days and they looked at me strangely when I asked which floor I needed to visit to trade my walrus skins and polar bear fur for a new kayak and some pemmican.

In the music shop I had a lovely half-hour playing a neat Ibanez five-string bass that I would love to bring home with me. But it was the only instrument in the shop without a price tag. And in the shop I heard the most delightful Franglais conversation that I have ever heard.

By now I’d pulled a muscle so I hobbled back to my hotel. 16:30 and my room still wasn’t ready, but he relented and had it done in half an hour.

And I slept for the following couple of hour, only interrupted by a couple of attacks of cramp.

A little later, I went out for food. A couple of years ago I’d been to the Cote-Vertu metro station and outside I had found an Indian café rather like what used to be (and probably still is) in Handsworth in Birmingham.

That was tonight’s destination, where I had quite a fiery vegetable biryani.

So now I’m settling down to sleep, totally exhausted. It’s been a hard day? And it will be an even harder one tomorrow.

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Friday 28th September 2018 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

And in spades too. The kind of thing that only I can do, and I’m pretty good at it, having had years of practice.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves right now. Retournons à nos moutons as they say around here.

Having extolled the virtues of a really good night’s sleep yesterday we returned to our customary habits by being wide awake at 01:45, for a reason that I can’t fathom, save as to say that it disturbed me.

From there on in I drifted in and out of sleep until the alarm went off. And then I dashed out of bed because I wanted to see Hannah. It’s homecoming weekend at St F-X so she’s off to Antigonish to meet up with her former colleagues and do a little celebrating.

And quite right too. It’s a kind of end of a long goodbye to an important period in her life. She’s graduated (with distinction, I’m proud to say) from the best University in Canada with enough certificates to cover her bedroom wall and she’s ready to move on into the big wide world.

But she needs to say goodbye in this one before she goes.

She’s like a typical young University graduate – torn between home and family on one side and what the big wide world has to offer on the other side, and so why make your own mistakes when you can listen to the mistakes that other people have made?

And as a result we had a good chat for several hours. After all, no-one has made as many mistakes in their life as I have in mine.

I hadn’t bought her a graduation present because, after all, what do I know about people’s tastes? I gave her some cash and told her to choose a really nice piece of jewellery that she likes, and wear it for me. And then I bunged her a bit more cash to go and have a party.

With having had a bad night, I was ready to go back to bed for half an hour or so. And that turned out to be a couple of hours or so. I still can’t shake off this health issue. I might be feeling better than i was earlier in the week, but that’s a long way from saying that I’m well.

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had a shower, packed my suitcase and had a very late lunch. Following which I leapt aboard Strider and we went down to the office.

Zoe was there, telling us about her wedding plans. She’s Rachel’s eldest daughter and decided a few years ago to make her own way in the world. She’s finding it tough going and struggling along, and this wedding is proving to be quite a problem.

She’s seen a wedding dress that she absolutely loves and which is apparently beautiful, but she has to pay a 50% deposit to secure it and have the fitting done, and she can’t rustle up the money.

No girl should ever have to settle for second-best on the most important day in her life (a comment which will have made Nerina’s eyes pop out on stalks wondering how she managed to end up with me) and so I gave her her wedding present in advance. Tomorrow she can go and sign up for her dress.

There were a few of us down there this afternoon, with people coming and going, and we ended up having quite a chat.

So much so that we were down there long after closing time, which was just as well because quite late on, someone phoned up with a speculative enquiry about tyres to solve a crisis, and we could actually help out.

Tea was, basically, everything that was left over from earlier in the week and you would be surprised at how nice you can make stuff like that when you have a good imagination and some culinary talent. I certainly enjoyed mine!

Time to hit the road now and so I said goodbye to Darren and Amber. And not wishing to leave Amber out, I slipped her a little present so that she could go shopping. I also had a little word or two in her ear about something or other.

Rachel and I trundled off to Florenceville and the Coach Atlantic bus. Plenty of time to wait and so I started to search my pockets to see what I had forgotten to leave behind.

I found the pot of glue that Darren had given me to look after, and then I boarded the bus.

We stopped at quite a few places along the route, and at the coffee pause at Edmundston I realised that I hadn’t continued the search of my pockets.

And so I did – and found the keys to Strider and Rachel’s spare front door key.

D’ohhhh! That’s really the kind of thing that only I can do, isn’t it?

At Rivieère-du-Loup where I change for the Orleans Express bus to Montreal, I had a chat with the Coach Atlantic driver. She’s doing the return to Moncton tomorrow afternoon and, as luck would have it, is having to call at Florenceville on her way down.

So I negotiated an envelope from the guy in the ticket office, put the keys inside and she dropped it on the dashboard of her bus.

And I settled down ready for the next stage of my journey.

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Friday 31st August 2018 – THIS EVENING JOSEE ASKED ME …

… what I had done during the course of the day and, do you know what? I was hard-pressed to remember.

I’m definitely cracking up, aren’t I?

One thing that I do remember was being awoken by the fridge and the air-conditioning, which seem to be programmed to come on together at about 04:30 or something like that.

However I was quickly back to sleep again until the alarm went off at 05:20.

For some reason or other the morning went really quickly. I had just the usual amount of work to do but there just wasn’t enough time to do it, even with only a short pause for breakfast, and in the end I ran out of time to do it.

Instead, I went off down to the Jean Coutu chemists in rue St Catherine Est. And this is another place where the staff are so unhelpful.

It’s a huge chemist’s with all kinds of stuff on sale – just the kind of place where you need some professional advice – but there was no-one on the floor. In the end I buttonholed a shelf-filler and she told me “aisle 6” – but there was nothing in aisle 6 that I could see that was of any use to me.

As I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I just don’t know what has happened to North American customer service.

Having dropped off my purchases (such as they were) at my hotel room, my next stop was the bus station. I need to book a ticket from Florenceville-Bristol to Montreal.

But even here I didn’t have any luck.

Montreal is serviced by the Orleans Express coach company, and New Brunswick by Coach Atlantic. And as my trip starts in New Brunswick it has to be made with Coach Atlantic and not Orleans Express. So that was rather a waste of time.

Still, you live and learn.

The next stage of my walk took me down to the port.

Having had to go into the Berri-UQAM metro station to renew my transport ticket and being confused about the exit, I found myself a-wandering down through the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de L’Université de Montreal) campus, where I had never been before…

champ de mars montreal canada august aout 2018Bursting out into the sunlight at the back of the hospital it took me a second or two to get my bearings.

And then I realised that I had come out at the back of the Champ de Mars.

I walked along the Avenue Viger for a moment to admire the buildings across the Boulevard Ville-Marie. These are some of the Government and the City’s administration buildings

From there I wandered down to the harbour for a good stroll. MSC Alyssa had gone, but Oakglen and Gullwing were still there.

chestnut port de montreal harbour canada august aout 2018We also had a new arrival.

Moored up at one of the inner berths near the entrance to the Lachine Canal was a ship called the Chestnut. There was a good view of her from up on one of the upper piers

Although she might not look it, she was built as recently as 2010 and has a gross tonnage of about 20,000 tonnes. She had called in on her way from Bayuquan in China to Hamilton, Ontario.

promenade port de montreal harbour canada august aout 2018There were quite a few good views from up here too.

One of them was of the promenade and the park down on the quayside. I’d not seen it from this perspective before.

I also saw in the distance two railway locomotives heading down towards the port. So I waited for them to arrive. But just before they got into range they stopped, reversed and never came back.

amphi tours montreal canada august aout 2018We’ve seen one of these before, haven’t we?

Back in Halifax when we were there in 2010 of course, wandering around the town with fare-paying passengers on a sightseeing tour.

And so there’s another one here in Montreal doing a similar job. And if I’m not mistaken, I might have seen if before.

site of marguerite bourgeoys school montreal canada august aout 2018I’m not sure if I’ve seen this building before though.

It’s not the building that interests me – nice though it is – but it’s the fact that on the spot where it’s situated is said to have been the site of the first school run by Marguerite Bourgeoys

We are told that her school was created in 1658 and was in an old stone stable given to her for the purpose

citroen 2cv montreal canada august aout 2018This is even more exciting.

Of course, 2CV citroens are two-a-penny (figuratively speaking) back home in France and so hardly noteworthy. But here in Canada, this one is only the second that I have ever seen

and if the registration number on it is correct, it comes from the Ile-de-France – Paris-Banlieux district of Val-de-Marne.

By now it was long-after lunchtime so I stopped off at a Subway for a sandwich and a drink. And something of a rest because it seemed as if I’d been on my feet for quite a while.

Another thing was that I needed a few bits and pieces to make my sandwiches for the flight. Not that I might need them because, after all, we were only going to be a couple of hours in the air, but I’ve been caught out like this before, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember.

gare montreal metro st michel canada august aout 2018One thing that I’ve been doing while I’ve been on my perambulations around Montreal is to go to the terminus of each of the metro lines to see what happens there.

I didn’t recall having been to Saint-Michel before so now seemed to be as good a time as any.

But I was in a sense disappointed because I recognised it from some time ago. Once when I’d been out to the Galeries d’Anjou and I had walked back.

But never mind that now. I took a photo of it and walked back in the oppressive heat to the metro Jean Talon, making a few stops in the shade on the way back for a rest.

Josée was awaiting me at the Metro Place d’Arts. Apparently she had been able to leave work early.

four drummers free concert centre desjardins montreal canada august aout 2018Hearing some kind of noise from within the Centre Desjardins, we went in for a look around to see what was going on.

It turned out to be a group of no fewer than four drummers giving a free concert.

Not the kind of thing that you might have expected, but it was certainly interesting. I actually enjoyed it.

We went to watch the pavement chess for a while and then headed off for food and drink.

First stop was Josée’s favourite bar – the one that we visited on a previous occasion where they have the rather artistic toilets.

Next stop was the food, and having had a late lunch, I wasn’t all that hungry so settled for a bag of chips. Josee had a hamburger

Now here’s a thing.

Anyone who has ever known anything at all about will know that due to certain events in my childhood I have a horror of musicals. I shan’t dwell on it here, except to say that when Josée invited me to the Opera I was perturbed.

But as I have said before, it’s not where you are or what you are doing, but who you are with that counts so I tagged along.

Whether or not I like opera, I can always recognise good music and good singing when I hear it and there’s no doubt that even given the weaknesses of the story in Madame Butterfly, the performance was excellent. Josée wasn’t a big fan of the direction but I thought that it was particularly good.

All in all, it was a far better night that I was expecting it to be.

Josée wandered off home again and I went to my hotel. First job is to make my butties.

Second job was to make sure that everything was packed.

Third job was to do my best to crash out. I’ve an early start in the morning.

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Tuesday 10th October 2017 – JUST HOW SILLY …

… can you get?

There I was with an appointment to go out for an evening meal with Josée and we arranged that she would telephone me when she finished work and came outside.

And so she did. She telephoned me at 16:30 and 16:30, sent me a couple of texts, a message or two on my social media page, and then became fed up and went home.

And where was I when all of this was going on?

In case you haven’t guessed, I was flat out on my bed, well away with the fairies and totally inconscient of anything that was going on. And I must have been too, to have slept through the cacophony that was going on.

keolis orleans express montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017I blame the bus myself.

I can’t sleep on buses (except whrnI’m driving them). At best, I just fitfully doze and let every bump shake me awake.

But that doesn’t apply to everyone. As we pulled into Montreal a girl suddenly stood bolt upright.
“Is this Montreal?” she asked, in a panic
“Yes it is” replied the driver.
“What happened to Sainte-Foy?”
“We stopped there and everyone there got off”
“But I should have got off” she wailed.
“Not much I can do about that” said the driver. “I can’t go around waking everyone up to see if it’s their stop”.

The bus was quite busy too. Everyone going back after Thanksgiving with the family.

We were 10 minutes late getting into the Bus Station. 06:10. Far too early to go to my hotel and so I sat around with a coffee and did some work.

And if you think that our family tree is complicated, you ain’t heard nuffink yet.

Apparently my mother any my aunt were daughters of their mother (my grandmother Ivy)’s SECOND marriage. That’s a new one on me. Ivy had apparently been married before to someone called Cyril Ralphrul Hogg who had been her singing tutor.

He was apparently quite famous and had studied at the Conservatory in Vienna.

They married in July 1918 but he was swept away in the Spanish Influenza outbreak of December 1918.

Now that took me by surprise.

At 09:00 I took my stuff round the corner to the hotel and left it there. Of course my room wasn’t ready so I went round the corner to Tim Hortons for breakfast.

gare viger montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017From there I decided to go down to the docks to see what was happening.

My route took me close to the Gare Viger, which, asregular readers of this rubbish will recall, is my favourite building in the whole of the city.

We haven’t seen it from this angle before though. It looks quite eerie with the morning sun reflecting off the autumn leaves of the trees.

barnacle port montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017Our walk continues round to the docks to see who is there.

The Winnipeg is still there of course, but we also have the Barnacle. She’s a bulk carrier of 30,000 tonnes and is on her way to Ghent in Belgium from Hamilton in Ontario.

her cargo is “Agricultural Products” – by which, presumably, they may well mean “wheat”. Montreal is one of the world’s biggest ports for the handling of wheat.

vieux port montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017. There doesn’t seem to be a great deal of activity around the rest of the commercial part do I wander off down to the old port.

Not too much going on around here either but at least there’s a good view of the city from here. It’s looking quite splendid in the early morning autumn sunlight.

And you can see the twin towers of the cathedral right in the centre of the image.

artania montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017However, at the cruise terminal we have the Artania of 44,000 tonnes. Operatedby a German cruise company, she set out from Hamburg on 22nd September.

But don’t let appearances fool you.

Despite having just crossed the Atlantic with a load of passengers, had she been simply going back and forth across the English Channel she would have been scrapped long ago because she is actually 33 years old

She was built in 1984 and sailed for many years as the P&O liner Royal Princess.

woman taking dogs for a run montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017I’d caught a glimpse of a container ship down in the Oceanex container terminal so, with nothing better to do, I headed that way.

However, my perambulations were interrupted by this most bizarre spectacle of a woman taking several dogs for a job.

You might think that it’s hilarious but the poor little dog being dragged behind, clearly unable to keep up wasn’t enjoying it one little bit every time their leader broke into a run.

oceanex avalon montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017So here in the Oceanex terminal s the Oceanex Avalon.

She’s a small container ship of 14500 tonnes and seems to work a shuttle between St Johns in Newfoundland, Saint John in New Brunswick and here.

I imagine that rather than half-unload a huge container ship at Saint John and have her shuttling around, they will completely unload her for a faster turnaround and have the Oceanex Avalon doing the distribution.

I had a wander around the port to see if there was a better view, but not today.

montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017On the way back I walked down alongside the Lachine Canal and today for some reason you could clearly see where the former dry docks used to be.

I can’t think why it was never so noticeable as this before.

But like most canal-side enterprises they have long-gone. Montreal has lost a lot of its importance since it started on this monolingual anti-English crusade.

workmen testing concrete flyover montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017But this was interesting to stand and watch.

We’ve seen … “on several occasions” – ed … the shambolic nature of much of the city’s concrete infrastructure as it weathers and disintegrates.

These men were up on a sky jack tapping the concrete supports of the flyover with a hammer to see whether the concrete was still sound, or whether it was being eroded away from within.

site of ville marie montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017One thing that I haven’t yet done – and I can’t think why- is to go to visit the site of “Ville-Marie”.

That was the original name of Montreal, but it’s more properly applied to the site where the first European colonists installed their settlement

As far as it’s possible to tell these things, that column just there marks the centre of the original settlement. We can’t go to visit it for a closer look unfortunately.

site of first parliament montreal quebec canada Octobre october 2017That’s because the Place d’Youville, site of St Anne’s Market, is currently undergoing archaeological excavation and everywhere is fenced off.

This is a historically important site because St Anne’s Market became home of the Canadian Parliament in 1844, moving here from Kingston in Ontario.

That was a controversial move and in 1849 during a debate to consider the losses that had been incurred by the population during the rebellion of 1837-38, a mob stormed the building and burnt it to the ground.

From here I went for a butty and then back to the hotel to sign in for my room, followed by all the nonsense that I mentioned earlier.

Later, I went for a walk and something to eat at the little Lebanese restaurant at Sherbrooke. And here, I watched a television debate that rather amused me. Should the captain of the “Montreal Impact” football team be a French-speaker?

You can tell what kind of society you are dealing with in Quebec when a person’s language ability is considered to be more important than his professional qualifications.

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Wednesday 16th August 2017 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED …

… with our series of calamities yet.

First thing is that the keyboard on the laptop has now seized. I’m not sure how that has happened – it must have been when I closed the lid in a hurry and trapped a pen in between the keys, and this has somehow triggered off the key-lock combination.

Having tried all kinds of combinations that I (and several gallant friends) could remember, it’s still stuck firmly solid.

I discovered this this morning when I went to type of the results of my travels during the night. I was in charge of two young girls – aged about 9 and 5 – and I had to make a sandwich for them. The 9 year-old was straightforward enough but for the younger one it was the tiniest lump of baguette with next-to-nothing on it. It was clear that this wasn’t going to do her much good but I told her to eat it and if it wasn’t enough she could have a bit more. She was quite clear that she needed more than this. Nevertheless, I told her to eat it “and then we’ll see”.

I was awake at 02:30 this morning but no chance of me staying awake, even had I wanted to. I went back to bed and to sleep. 05:00 was much more like it.

I’d put the Canadian mobile phone on charge in something of a forlorn hope last night. USB data cables clearly don’t work so I’d tried the mains charger and it seemed to have done the business.

But here’s the next problem – in that there’s no credit on it apparently even though I had put $100 on it just before leaving. And so that’s never right. Just one more thing sent to try me, I suppose.

And yet another calamity surrounds the hotel. I’ve stayed here before but that was due to having to leave here at about 05:00 long before breakfast would be ready. This time though, there’s no issues about breakfast so I was quite looking forward to it – only to find that the place doesn’t serve breakfast.

The nearest Tim Horton’s is a fair walk away but nevertheless off I trotted for bagels, coffee and orange juice.

While I was there, and having a think – which I occasionally do – WhatsApp came to mind. using the Tim Horton’s wi-fi service, I downloaded it and configured it on my Europe phone.

My European service provider supplies a service for North America at €29 per fortnight and this doesn’t work out to be much more expensive while I’m here than my Canadian phone supplier would be, and the interesting thing is that I can use that in the USA.

All I need now is for Rhys to tell me the final two digits of the phone number that he’s using so that I can check that I have it and add it in.

Off I trotted down the street to reserve my bus for New Brunswick, and much to my surprise and delight, there are evening buses at the times and on the days that I want them. So I’m off on Friday evening at 21:30 to arrive Saturday morning at 09:00. But there’s a wait at Ste-Foy and … err … 2 hours wait at Riviere-du-Loup.

Next stop was the Dollar Store to organise a North American USB transformer for the phone. It takes about a week to fully-charge off the laptop. And it came up trumps with that and some other stuff too.

childrens crocodile rue st catherine est montreal aout august 2017And outside, we had a strange sight. Loads of nursery-age kids wandering around the streets with guardians and the like. A couple of groups were in multi-pushchairs like the old “knife box” stage buses of the 1870s and I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, but I was for this arrangement that I thought extremely interesting.

At Bell Telephones I found the reason for my difficulties. The contract that I have has been abolished and, not only that, an upgrade to the system has rendered my phone obsolete.

And when I told the people that I wasn’t interested in buying a new phone, they lost interest in me completely. So that’s the end of Bell Telephones, then. I can’t say that I’m sorry.

It did occur to me afterwards that this was the same Bell shop that threw me out a few years ago. Perhaps it’s just an issue with this place and its manager, but I couldn’t care less now.

Not too far away is a computer shop, so I popped in. And popped out again with the cheapest USB keyboard in the place. If this doesn’t work then I’m stuffed (and it clearly does, because that’s how I’m managing to type this).

I’d arranged to see Josée so off I went to her place of work. The street where she works is a strange one – there’s a southern half and a northern half, with a bit missing in the middle.

And so, of course, Brain of Britain walked along a street that passed through the gap in the street so I had gone miles beyond it before I realised. And so I had to retrace my steps.

belvedere mount royal montreal aout august 2017That had given me an opportunity to see a part of the rue Sherbrooke that I had never seen before. You might all recognise what that it up there, because we’ve stood on that point a few times before.

That’s the belvedere up on Mount Royal where there is that stunning view over the city that we’ve photographed on a few occasions. We’ve not seen it from this angle before though.

musee des beaux arts fine arts museum montreal aout august 2017And what we have here is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. We’ve not seen this building before either.

The First Nation totem pole – yes, I can go along with that, but the purpose of the pile of used vehicle tyres totally defeats me. It’s nothing that I would call Fine Art, but then regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I do have issues with this kind of thing.

parc jeanne mnce montreal aout august 2017Here’s a view that we all might recognise, because we’ve seen this before too. And had I known that Josée worked right here I would have been here in a flash without all of this messing about.

This is the park in the rue du Parc with Mount Royal park on the left and the Parc Jeanne Mance on the right; and Josée’s office backs onto the big skyscraper where I came in 2011 to talk to those guys about wind turbines and the like. It’s an uncomfortably small world these days.

And who was Jeanne Mance when she’s at home – if she ever is? She was the first lay (non-religious) nurse of the infant Montreal community and is the symbol of nursing here in the same way that Florence Nightingale is in the UK.

What with all of my prevarications, Josée had gone to lunch when I arrived and remembering that there was a “Subway” around the corner, I went and grabbed myself a butty too.

After lunch I finally met up with Josée. And being aware of my plight, she had brought in a spare mobile phone that she had lying around. Not only that, she knew a place where they would do a decent contract for a couple of months at a price far less than Bell could offer and with far more functions too.

That was well-worth a coffee so off we went for a drink and a chat and to catch up on everything that had happened since we had last seen each other.

With it being such a nice afternoon we set off to walk down to the river.

marguerite bourgeoys school for girls montreal aout august 2017I was distracted on the way by this notice carved onto the wall of this building just here. Near this spot was where Marguerite Bourgeoys had her school for girls.

We remember her – she was the woman who came out with one of the very earliest groups of colonists to Montreal to look after the welfare of the women and children of the colony.

When we were at Troyes we went to see her birthplace, if you remember.

pedalo vieux fort montreal aout august 2017We didn’t actually make it as far as the river. It was a beautiful, warm afternoon and the pedaloes on the little lake looked so inviting. And besides, I don’t have enough exercise as everyone keeps on telling me.

And so we took to the water and had a really good pedal around the lake for half an hour.

There’s quite a strong current in there too so heading upstream was quite a fight. And we ended up being quite out of breath by the time that we finished.

grande roue vieux port montreal aout august 2017And do I remember this from last year? Or is it new?

Whatever it is, it’s a Big Wheel of course and part of the entertainment that’s provided along the old port of Montreal, although right now it’s not doing very much entertaining because there’s no-one about.

I don’t imagine that the view of the city is up to much though, because we are quite low down here and we are surrounded by tall buildings.

Seeing as by now Josée was exhausted and that I’d paid for the pedalo, she summoned up a taxi to take us to our final port of call – the jazz club in Montreal. There was a live act on and she had booked a table for us.

It has to be said that the live act was, well, not up to the standard that I might have expected given the nature of the venue. Even worse was that despite having ordered a vegan meal, they could offer me … errr … nothing.

I ended up with a salad and that was my lot. And with a bottle of water and the cover charge for the entertainment my bill came to $37!00. I shan’t be going there again, that’s for sure.

We put the world to rights on the way back and I ended up having an early night. My first day in Canada and it was a long one too. I was ready for a good sleep.

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Saturday 8th October 2016 – AND SO AFTER ALL …

… of the shenanigans of last night, the Orleans Express bus from the Gaspé Peninsula turned up bang on time and we were all ready and waiting. It set off on time too, which was nice to know, and I settled down for the long drive to Montreal. Those hot cross buns that I had bought in Woodstock were really nice – I’ll tell you that.

For the first part of the journey I didn’t drop off to sleep at all. Probably far too wound up after the drive up from Florenceville. Instead, I curled up on my seat and carried on reading my book. At Sainte-Foy there were no toilets opened and the one on the bus was occupied so I curled up on my seat again and this time I managed to drift in and out of sleep all the way into Montreal.

At the bus station I had a really good half-hour power nap in the usual little hidey-hole. And then I was ready for anything. Unless you’ve tried it, you’ve no idea just how comfortable you can become when you ride astride the porcelain horse.

“Anything” was the bus station café. A huge cup of coffee and a couple of bagels were just the job for breakfast but I didn’t stay there for long. The internet connection was rubbish and I was keen to see how Rachel was doing (she finally arrived home at 04:30). And so I went to track down the 747 bus to the airport.

It doesn’t stop in the coach station any more. According to my friendly neighbourhood bus driver, they’ve upped the standing fees in the bus station and the STM – Societe de Transports de Montreal – is refusing to pay them. Instead, the bus leaves from down the road outside the Berri-UQAM metro station. There’s no ticket machine in the bus station either now, so you have to go to the machine at the metro station. I bought a 3-day ticket ($18:00) because it’s cheaper than two one-day passed (2x$10:00).And it was pouring down with rain outside. Whatever happened to the Indian Summer we had been having.

I found a comfy bench at the airport, with yet another flaky internet connection. Nevertheless, I was able to catch up with a few things there, despite being interrupted by a vocal local yokel who wanted to discuss Facebook with me. There’s a “Subway” in the airport too and so seeing as I was thirsty I went and had a giant sized root beer and I ordered a sandwich to take away. The Comfort Inn is rather out on a limb and there isn’t anything available to eat in the vicinity.

Having organised all of that, I phoned for my shuttle, and that brought me here to the hotel. It’s fully-booked and so there wasn’t a room available at that moment. Still, there’s a comfy chair, a good internet connection, a power point and a free coffee pot in the foyer. What else do you need when you are waiting for your room?

I didn’t have to wait long for my room, and the first thing that I did was to have a stinking hot shower and to wash my clothes – I’m running out. But it must have been Eskimos … "Inuit" – ed … who had this room before me. The heat was off but the fan was on blowing cold air around and it was about 10°C in here.I whacked the heating up and resolved not to move until the temperature reached 25°C.

I had my butty, chatted to Liz and one or two other people for a while, and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing in and out of sleep. it’s been a hard day so far.

Nevertheless, I made it out for the bus 202. I missed the first one so went back in. But I was out for the next – in fact just in time to step straight onto the bus as it was going past. As you might expect, I ended up at the Cote des Neiges, and here I had a terrible shock. It’s all been gentrified and many of the smaller businesses have been cleared away and replaced with trendy boutiques. It took me a while to track down an assiete falafel, but when I did, it was well worth it because it was one of the best that I have had in North America.

So that was me fixed.

On the way back, Rhys ‘phoned me up and we had a really good chat until the battery on my phone went dead. I spent the next hour or two having a huge melancholy nostalgia fit listening to music. Leaving Canada always makes me feel maudlin.

So now I’m off to bed. My last night in Canada and I’m inconsolable. If my health continues to deteriorate at the rate it seems to be deteriorating, I shan’t ever be back again.

That’s enough to make anyone feel maudlin, never mind me.

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Friday 7th October 2016 – ABSOLUTE, COMPLETE AND UTTER TOTAL B*****D

And that’s putting it mildly. There has been a major blow-up here tonight and there are going to be some serious repercussions about all of this.

But first, let’s put things in the correct order.

This morning, I was totally dreadful. I wasn’t going anywhere at all. Despite Hannah having returned from University last night I wasn’t up to very much – just leaving my bed to tell Rachel that I was going back to bed again. I was totally incapable of functioning.

I struggled to my feet again round about midday and Amber, who was staying at home told me that I had a few things to do, such as going back to the border and handing back my entry pass to the USA. That was quite important as I’ve had problems about forgetting to do that in the past.

So I set off down there, with my head slowly clearing the farther along the road that I drove. And at the Canadian border post I had a piece of luck in that I could hand it back there without having to cross the line.

On the way back down the road into Centreville I stopped by the river and ate my butty in the sunshine, having a little doze as I ate. But I can’t stay here for ever – I went back to the tyre depot to say goodbye.

Much to my surprise, my permanent insurance certificate has arrived. I put that in Strider and now he’s 100% legal (not that he wasn’t before of course but now I have all of the paperwork to prove it). I was able to fax to the insurance brokers the registration certificate and a copy of my French driving licence so they now have all of the information that they need. All I need now is for this insurance company not to change its rules and regulations and to keep me insured.

Just so that there’s no mistake or misunderstanding, with what I would have had to pay for hiring a vehicle over the last two occasions that I’ve visited Canada (2015 and just now), then if you calculate the cost of buying Strider, taxing, insuring and maintaining him, I am now in front. And if I do come back next year, I shall start to be well ahead. Buying Strider was definitely the right decision, as I knew that it would be.

And not only that, I have had an e-mail from the insurance company to say that anyone with a Canadian driving licence and with their own vehicle insurance can drive Strider too. I printed out a copy of that and stuck it in Strider just so that it’s there for the record.

But by now it was 15:00 and I had gone again. Completely. To such an extent that I fell off the chair on the office. Rachel picked me up, dusted me off, gave me the key to the house and sent me home where I crashed out completely. I should have gone to Darren’s sister’s husband’s birthday party at 18:00 but I was going absolutely nowhere.

I had to haul myself out of bed at 20:45 because this was the time that I had to go to catch my Maritime Bus back to Montreal. It leaves the Irvings petrol station at 21:3O so I wanted to be there by 21:15.

And so we were. And so we waited. And 21:30 came round, but the bus didn’t. And neither was it there at 21:45. The petrol station closes at 22:00 and so I went over to the girl to ask about the bus and … it had arrived at 21:00 and because there was no passenger there, he had cleared straight off without waiting for me.

The b*****d.

So we rang up the Maritime Bus headquarters using both the numbers provided by the girl in the petrol station – and as you might expect, “we are now closed. Please call back during office hours” – which is of course absolutely no use whatever when you are running an overnight bus service with overnight passengers waiting in overnight bus stops in isolated locations.

And so we phoned the Maritime Bus stop at Grand Falls. And he had just left there too, half an hour early. I thus called up the coffee-stop at Edmundston (a mere 140 kms away) and asked them to hold the bus, and we set off to give chase.

Rachel drove like the wind – I shan’t tell you how fast we were going in case the farces of law and order are reading this – but when we arrived at Edmundston he had left. It seemed that he had refused to wait.

The double b*****d.

We stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons and Rachel had some business to, which must be done before midnight. And then we set off for the next 110 kilometres to Riviere du Loup. Here is the bus interchange where I need to board the Orleans Express that comes down the Gaspé Peninsula to Montreal. I usually have an hour’s wait there and so at least we had plenty of time to do the final leg.

Although the Coach Maritime Bus was at the bus depot, the driver had long-gone to his hotel, so I wasn’t able to tell him what I thought of him. But the ticket agent was quite interested in my story. He wondered why the bus had arrived at 23:50 instead of the more usual 00:15.

The triple b*****d.

Rachel ended up having to drive a total of 520 kilometres and a journey whereby she would be home at about 21:50 took her until 04:30 the following morning, just because some Coach Maritime Bus driver wanted to get to bed half an hour early. By the time that I finish with him and his company he can have as many early nights as he likes because he won’t be driving a bus again.

The quadruple b*****d.

So now I was ensconced in the bus terminal waiting room waiting for my bus back to Montreal. There would be no confusion about this one.

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Tuesday 4th October 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in New Brunswick tonight.

And I’m not sure if that is disappointing or not. I wanted to stay in Godbout, that’s for sure. But I also wanted to head off. I was having itchy feet and needed to feel the road again.

Last night though was bizarre. I thought that I had had a very disturbed night but when I sat down and analysed it, it wasn’t quite like that at all. I was late going off to sleep and, just for a change, I’d managed to close everything down, and I’d only been off down the corridor once. When the alarm went off too, I was stark out, so it couldn’t have been that bad.

But I had been on my travels though. Caliburn had an electric fault and the cigarette lighter socket was no longer functioning. So I took him to someone’s house where there was an old man whom I thought could help me. I had to reverse him all the way down the drive at the side of the house (it was a bungalow) into a wooden shed that was there. I knocked on the door and the guy’s son (he reminded me of the son of Labbe -the farmer who uses the field behind my house) came to the door. I asked him if his father was there and he replied that he was, but that he was asleep in bed. His sister (of the son, that is) came to the door and climbed into Caliburn. I drove her into town because it was market day. We walked around the market together and after we were half-way around the circuit she asked me if we had seen any wheelchairs (this was the first time that she had spoken during the entire trip). There had been a couple of people with what looked as if they might have been wheelchairs that we had passed right at the beginning and so we went back to see, but the people had gone and so, presumably, the wheelchairs (if they were wheelchairs) hadn’t been for sale.

I had my breakfast and took my leave of my landlord. I’d had a really good stay and enjoyed myself there. And it turned out that I had had a good deal there too. I hadn’t even made the slightest enquiry as to the price of the room, and in the end I was charged $75:00 plus taxes per night for my seven-night stay.

That was what I call real value. I was well-impressed with that and, having seen an “Orleans Express” bus passing through the village, that gives me a cunning plan for the winter, if I’m up to it.

caravan st lawrence ferry terminal godbout quebec canada october octobre 2016When all was said and done, Strider and I headed across the road to the ferry terminal.

And I was ever so impressed with this caravan that was parked up in one of the lanes. I wouldn’t mind having one of those to tow behind Strider. But seriously, I reckon that it really was some kind of garden shed that was being delivered across the St Lawrence.

We didn’t have to wait too long for the F A Gauthier to set sail. Bang on time, in fact which was impressive. I took a comfortable seat right at the front of the cabin and settled down for the journey.

ship st lawrence river ferry quebec canada october octobre 2016I didn’t stay settled down for all of the journey, though. I had seen a pile of ships sailing along the St Lawrence River and so I went for a closer look.

There were three of them, miles away so that I couldn’t read their names, not even with the zoom lens on full magnification. This was one of the ships, that looks as if it might be a bulk carrier. The second was a container ship and the third might have been a tanker.

Going back to my seat, I was distracted by the smell of chips coming from the galley. I did say that I wouldn’t have anything to eat until I left the ferry, but I was overcome. So much for the strength of my willpower.

We docked bang on time too and I headed off to the IGA supermarket to stock up for the last time. A baguette of course, and some hummus, tomatoes and lettuce for my lunch. I’d decided that the chips that I had had were nothing more than a snack.

And then The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav led me on a merry, mazy way through Matane – and I do have to say that I had more of an idea where I was going than she did. I overruled her on a couple of occasions.

My route took me up the riviere Matane valley and then over the top down to Amqui. I have mentioned before that I have to stop by water to eat my lunch, wherever possible, and for some reason or other there was nowhere suitable. It wasn’t until I reached Causapscal that somewhere suitable hove into view – a nice little park by the bridge over the river.

I had a nice lunch, a good read of my book and a little relax there, with leaves falling upon me like autumn rain. All of that did me the world of good and I ended up being so relaxed that I forgot to take a photograph of it.

All the way down the Matapedia Valley I had noticed that there were railway wagons loaded with sawdust parked in almost every railway siding along the railway.

canadian national locomotive pick up goods train restigouche river quebec canada october octobre 2016All of this was explained, rather surprisingly, when I passed over the bridge into New Brunswick. In the distance on the old line on the north shore of the Restigouche River I could see a train heading my way.

Could this be the first moving train that I have seen this year? I couldn’t remember so I had to stop and photograph it. And not only that, the idea of a train on this run-down line, and the existence of what might be described 60 years ago as a “pick-up goods” – well, they were all things that made this train and its locomotives well worth photographing.

And when I do find five minutes, I’ll tell you all about the locomotives too. But I find myself estranged from my Jane’s Train Recognition Guide at the moment.

Nearly spearing a passing vehicle as I exited my parking place, I set off again and headed into the hills, direction St Leonards. You probably noticed the shadows lengthening in the previous photograph. Time was drawing on and I was tired, and I knew that there were several motels along the way.

Funnily enough, nothing appeared for a good few miles until I reached the edge of the town of Kedgwick. I was looking for fuel too as I was about to drop into the final quarter of the tank. An Irvings loomed out of the gloom, and right next door was the O’Regal Restaurant and Motel.

$71:00 taxes included was the price, and although there was no microwave and the place was rather tired, the value was stupendous. There was a lovely, comfortable sofa and I could have held a ball in the room, so big it was.

They rustled up a pizza for me (I still had some cheese left) which was rather expensive, but there wasn’t a lot of competition about and I didn’t want to wander far. This will suit me find.

The bed seems to be comfortable anyway, and so I’ll make the most of that.

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Wednesday 7th September 2016 – WHAT A GOOD DECISION …

… that was, to book into that hotel at the back of the coach station.

I was stark out as soon as I laid down my weary head. We did have an interruption at about 23:45 when a baby started to cry, but that can happen in the best of places and it was a thing of five minutes. And then I needed to make a trip down to the corridor at about 03:00. I finally came to my senses, such as they are, at 04:45, having had a good night’s sleep in this extremely comfortable bed. The night porter’s call at 05:00 was therefore rather superfluous but it was nice to know that it was available and that it works.

But I’ll tell you this – $30-odd less per night than sleeping out at an airport hotel and while the comfort is rather less, I don’t need most of the difference. For the time and money that I save and for the convenience of being in the city centre, if I do ever make it back to Montreal I’ll be coming here, even if it does involve a 500-metre drag of the suitcase. And remember – when I stayed in Lille the other year I dragged it farther than that – and uphill too!

Let’s face it. It’s seen better days, this hotel, but I had a good shower, a really comfortable sleep, and no-one stole my boots. What more do you need?

I was too early for breakfast of course, but that can’t be helped. My bus was more important. I was at the coach station in no time flat and a friendly security guard unlocked the door to the left-luggage room and took my voucher so that I could recover my suitcase and Strawberry Moose, and we took our place in the queue, chatting to a guy who said he was a scouser, although he sounded more Northern Irish to me.

The trip to Sainte-Foy, on the edge of the city of Quebec, took just under three hours and I spent the time in half-asleep mode. After all, it was quite early in the morning. And it’s a good job that I didn’t go to sleep (or is it?) because this bus apparently goes right out to Sept Iles, somewhere else where we’ve been before and where I can catch a train to Labrador.

But when we reached our destination – Sainte Foy, not Sept Iles – a couple of mugs of coffee and a few rounds of toast and jam revived my spirits somewhat, although I’m not sure that you really need to say more than once that you don’t want butter on your toast.

viagra condom machine st foy coach station quebec canada september septembre 2016But what’s this all about? That chewing gum was disgusting – $2:00 for three slices and it tasted of nothing but rubber. As for the viagra however, I tried that once many years ago whilst in the company of the much – maligned Percy Penguin, who didn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserved to back in those days. And I clearly didn’t swallow the viagra quickly enough – I had a stiff neck for a week.

And you all know that the wish that I have about my departure is to go suddenly while in the arms of a nubile nymphet a third of my age. Were I to be lucky enough to find a willing volunteer, the viagra would come in handy in those circumstances. But it would take them three days before they could put the lid on the coffin.

ship of the day pierre laporte bridge st lawrence river quebec canada september septembre 2016Coming over the Pont Pierre Laporte, which we’ve visited before, there was a ship a-sailing … "a-dieseling, you mean" – ed … by, up the river towards Montreal. It’s too far away to see what it is, but it’s the only likely candidate for today’s Ship of the Day and so we’ll include it in here.

We’ll see if we can identify it at a later date when I can access the record of the Port of Montreal … "he couldn’t" – ed.

But on the subject of Pierre Laporte, the whole world is currently up in arms about what they perceive as brown-skinned terrorism, but never forget that Pierre Laporte, a leading Canadian politician, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in cold blood by white-skinned Catholic terrrorists during a major terrorism in Canada – and some of the perpetrators of the crise d’Octobre were given a free passage to Cuba by the craven Canadian Government.

And not only that, some modern-day Quebec politician proposed to erect a plaque in their honour. Yes, and the Canadians complain about brown-skinned terrorists. You couldn’t make this up, could you?

orleans express bus sainte foy riviere du loup canada september septembre 2016But now the bus is in, and it’s two hours from Sainte-Foy to Riviere du Loup.

So feeling a bit more like it after the coffee, I did a pile of paperwork on the laptop and listened to some good music to pass the time. I’m in Traffic mode right now and I had a good listen to Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired from the magnificent On The Road album, because that’s just how I’m feeling right now. And if he can play a lead guitar solo like the last four minutes of that track when he’s feeling do uninspired, whatever could he do if he were to have some inspiration?

holland hurricane express bus edmundston new brunswick canada september septembre 2016By the time I got to Phoe … errr … Riviere du Loup I wasn’t all that far behind where I wanted to be. But we were late and the connecting bus was already in so I had no chance to buy something to eat and drink. Luckily, I still had a packet of the vegan crisps that Alison had bought for me in Belgium and which had survived the voyage across the Atlantic. They didn’t survive the voyage down to Edmunston anyway.

And our Holland Hurricane has internet available and I can actually configure it to work. All I need now is a few people on line to talk to, but as soon as all of my friends see me come on line, they all clear off rather smartish-like.

We had a 15-minute stop at Edmundston (it’s nice to be back in New Brunswick anyway. Home Sweet Home, an hour in front of Quebec time of course) which was plenty of time to visit the gentleman’s rest room and to pick up a coffee. That’s me organised now for the two hour journey that remains.

Much to my – and everyone else’s – surprise, the bus was bang on time to the minute on its arrival at Florenceville. Rachel, my niece, was already there and waiting and so that was ideal. She had a few errands to perform and then it was off to Centreville and the tyre depot. Rachel went on to do some more errands and I came back here with Darren and Amber.

First task was to sort out Strider. He’s been in his little hidey-hole since last October and needed to see the light of day. Even though the battery had had the odd trickle-charge it was a little flaky so that will need to be replaced, and the tyres were down. And not just that, but some creature or other had made a nest with the soundproofing from underneath the bonnet. But it’s good to be back behind the wheel of Strider again – just like old times and as soon as I can resolve this continuing insurance issue we’ll be in business.

Darren and I had quite a chat but I eventually called it a night. It’s far too much for me these days. It’s amazing just how tired you become doing nothing but sitting around all day on a bus.

And it’s nice to see some friendly faces, but a couple of weeks with me will soon take care of all of that.

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Wednesday 14th October 2015 – SO HERE I AM THEN …

bus orleans express coach riviere du loup montreal quebec canada canada… in the coach station at Montreal, having alighted from my bus.

We reached Riviere du Loup in the small hours and had just a half-hour wait until the bus from the Gaspé arrived. But waiting isn’t so bad. It’s in the back room of a big Irvings petrol station and so it’s warm, there are seats, there are toilets and there are food and coffee available for anyone who feels the need. It’s not unpleasant at all.

The bus was quite full but the seats are quite comfortable so it wasn’t too much of an issue, and I missed most of the journey because I’d dozed off before we’d even left the premises.

I was awake though for when we stopped at Ste-Foy on the outskirts of Quebec, and I woke up again for when we stopped at Longueuil. And wide-awake for when we pulled into the coach station. 20 minutes late, it has to be said, but that’s more to do with the amount of traffic on the road at that time of morning.

The 747 bus for the airport leaves from right down at the far end of the coach station and opposite the booking desks there’s an STM (Société des Transports de Montreal or whatever) where you buy your bus tickets. As the airport is outside the limits of the Montreal urban area, you need to buy a $10:00 day ticket (or an $18:00 3-day ticket) to travel on the bus to the airport.

No point in going to the airport yet though, because I’m hours too early. But round the corner from the bus stand is a café that does a very democratic breakfast and coffee, with free wi-fi and power connections available, and so I dug myself in there for a while.

The bus ride was totally painless. 30 minutes is the advertised time but I had no idea of how long it took because I had a comfortable seat and I was reading a book. It seemed like just a couple of minutes and I was taken by surprise when we arrived.

Upstairs to the baggage check-in and I deposited my baggage. And wimp that I am, my luggage weighed just 20.3 kg, hand luggage included. That’s astonishing because I’m always usually pushing it to the max when I come back.

Downstairs again now. First call was to the Immigration Service to enquire about the procedure for obtaining this mythical form IMM 1442 next time that I come back. Apparently, when I present myself to the immigration desk, I mustn’t let him stamp my passport. I have to be sent to the offices behind the check-in desk and ask there for the form. I’ll probably be interviewed and I have to explain things to them and I should be given the form that I need. The girl that I spoke to didn’t see it as being anything more complicated than that.

Second port of call was to the Subway. There’s one of them in the airport and it’s the cheapest, quickest place to buy lunch. And I’ve learnt now that, in order to avoid any confusion, I order a végétarien sans fromage and that is simply that. No confusion at all.

queue for passing security gates aeroport pierre elliott trudeau airport montreal canadaIt’s a very good job I came back early from my lunch because you can see more of the pantomime that is now taking place at the airport.

You’ll recall the 2.5-hour wait that we had to enter the country, and now we have a 40-minute wait to pass the “security” gates. On interviewing one of the people who was “controlling” the queue, we asked what would happen if the delay here meant that you were late for your flight. She just shrugged her shoulders.

Strangely enough, there was only an American woman and me who thought that this was objectionable. The other 800 or so people in the queue simply accepted it. I can’t believe just how docile and cowed the Westerners have become over these last 10 or 12 years since the Government started grinding their faces in the dirt. 800 people in uproar over this would change things in minutes but Western people these days have lost their sense of fighting spirit.

I spent most of my time in the queue chatting to a pleasant girl from Manitoba, and then we hit the “security” gates.

Pig-ignorant security guards barking out commands without a single “please” and that annoyed me intensely. I had another stand-off with another one of these very sad people and in the end I got her to say “please” when she asked me to take off my boots. I can’t believe that in modern-day Montreal it’s necessary to go to war to obtain a bit of basic and elementary human decency and politeness.

lufthansa airbus A340 300 aeroport pierre elliott trudeau airport montreal canadaThe plane was late, as you might expect, but it was well-worth waiting for. An almost-new, magnificent Airbus A340-300. Packed out to the gunwhales it was too, with just two free seats – one of which was next to me and so I was able to spread myself out.

The food, as you might expect with Lufthansa, was excellent indeed and the cabin staff was very helpful. Not much on the entertainment system, though, but I was able to see a couple of old Bundeslegia matches – Borussia Dortmund v Schalke 04 and then Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund, and then I dozed off while watching the new Asterix the Gaul film.

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Wednesday 19th August 2015 – HERE I AM …

prevost orleans express bus montreal riviere du loup quebec canada… at 03:30 at Riviere du Loup, and this is the bus that brought me here – a Prevost.

It took that length of time for the bus to come all the way out here but to be honest I don’t remember all that much about it. I managed to have something of a doze.

But here, I had to change buses as this one that I was on is off down the Gaspe Peninsula. I’m waiting for the Coach Atlantic bus that will be here at about 04:00 ready to leave at 04:30 for Moncton, and that’s going to drop me off at Florenceville.

prevost coach atlantic bus edmundston new brunswick canadaAnd this is the Coach Atlantic bus, an older Prevost, that brought me to Florenceville. We’re at Edmundston when this photo was taken, stopping to pick up and drop off passengers and also parcels because the bus does a parcels delivery.

And that gave all of us the time to have a coffee and to visit the bathroom, which I for one needed after all of that drive.

Strangely enough, we arrived at Florenceville on time, and Rachel and Amber were there to meet me. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I will do this bus trip again. It was extremely painless, and much more comfortable than I ever imagined it to be.

I was dropped off at the garage to pick up my new toy, Strider the Ranger, and then took it round for its safety check. It passed okay, but I’ve had a new spare tyre put on it. The one that was there was quite worn and in any case it was the wrong size. I may as well have it done first as last, and it gave me an opportunity to clean and grease all of the spare wheel fittings.

Armed with a valid safety certificate, I went off to the insurance and there I had to lie down in a darkened room while I recovered from the shock. North American motor insurance is horrendous, even worse than Belgium.

I took the certificate back to the garage so that he could have a copy and so that he could register the sale and obtain the number plates. At the moment, Strider only has a temporary registration certificate.

On the way back up here, I noticed that Strider has a chronic misfire on one cylinder so I’ve booked it in on Friday to have a full service – that’s something else that I may as well have done before I go too far.

The three of us (Darren and Hannah are tractor-pulling this weekend) went out for a meal later at Woodstock and a good old chat, to catch up with what we have missed since last October. And then I came back here and crashed out.

Hardly a surprise.

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