Tag Archives: thomas edward lee

Monday 6th May 2024 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… I might be having another visitor.

Most of the morning has been spent working out routes across half of north-west Europe to see if there’s anything that fits in with someone else’s peripatetic voyages around Europe and who knows? Maybe it’ll all work out.

What I can’t understand is why I suddenly seem to have become the flavour of the month. I’ve already had more visits this year than I’ve had in all the rest of the time that I’ve been here, and there are several more already organised to come

And then here I am with someone else who might want to try to visit.

Not that I’m complaining, of course. I m not usually the sociable type so I don’t visit many people myself, and even fewer since I’ve been disabled, so I’m quite happy usually with my own company – after all, with dissociative identity disorder you are never alone – but nevertheless it’s nice to see real people now and again. Real friends are just as important as your imaginary ones.

So last night, with a great effort, I was only 5 minutes late going to bed. And as usual these days I fell asleep quite quickly, a long time before my little scenario about which I talked last night finished.

And it was another deep intense sleep again. I remember nothing at all of anything that might have been going on. When the alarm went off there was something going on about girls in a school; but it evaporated from my mind as soon as I stood up, which was a shame.

Having switched off the alarm I staggered into the bathroom and then into the dining area for my medication. I then arranged the room how the nurse likes it and prepared for his visit but somehow I had a couple of very severe pains at the top of my hips at the front of my body. It hurt like hell when I walked or lifted my legs.

Despite all of that, and in spite of all of the pain, the nurse changed the dressing on my foot and put on my puttees. He thinks that I won’t need to bother soon because the wound has healed really well. He thinks that soon I can go back to wearing these elasticated socks.

After he cleared off I checked my messages and discovered one asking for travel advice so I’ve been working on that all morning. Crossing Paris by public transport in order to catch a train to come here is quite simple and straightforward, but not for someone who has never seen a train and doesn’t know how a Metro works. You have to explain everything in great detail and make sure that you don’t take things for granted and miss out a step “because everyone knows that”.

After my lunchtime fruit I had a listen to the dictaphonz to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an Avro Lancaster that flew to some remote valley in Austria and landed on a deserted airstrip. It had come from the UK and was full of wounded and full of all kinds of other stuff that the Resistance might need. The wounded were lying around in chairs and in the bomb bay. After every hour they had to change position with someone who was less comfortable than they were and so it went on. They landed on this deserted airfield and unloaded the goods that the Resistance wanted, they unloaded the goods that they’d brought with them, they unloaded the wounded and then collected up a lot of stuff that had been put there for them to take away. They taxied to the end of the runway, turned round and took off from it again. There was some rugby equipment that they’d been told that they could take and all kinds of electronic stuff and electrical stuff. They were leaving things like instructions behind on how to do certain things etc. It was really interesting to see what their plans were but I’ve no idea why they took a lane full of wounded with them to leave behind in Occupied Austria.

There were many occasions where British aircraft, usually Lysanders, would put down in Axis-occupied territory to unload supplies for the Resistance and pick up or drop off passengers, and it’s certainly true that on a couple of occasions larger aircraft did make use of abandoned airfields in Occupied Europe to make a quick landing and take-off on behalf of MI6. However, this idea of dropping off wounded personnel is certainly a novel one.

And then I was in a library checking for a former schoolfriend’s thesis that he’d prepared on leaving school. It had been filed away and referenced but there was no trace of it anywhere in the library no matter how hard we looked. I’d had to make some kind of summary report at one time so I mentioned this and I happened to mention that it would be nice if I had some extra staff. But then it turned into something of an argument with the head of this project saying about my demand for extra staff. I replied that I hadn’t really demanded extra staff – I’d just made a note on the report. That led to a bit of an argument which was a shame because I liked the guy usually. No matter how hard we looked and no matter where we searched there was no trace of this project anywhere. We’d even gone through all the pages of these books that were on display to make sure that it hadn’t been misfiled but there was absolutely no trace of it at all.

That reminds me of my fruitless search in the library of the University of Laval in Québec for one of the theses of the archaeologist Thomas Edward Lee.

The author James Enterline quotes from Lee’s theses which concerned the excavation of what might have been a Norse building in Ungava Bay in the north of Labrador in Canada. He gives the complete references of Lee’s works.

Armed with the details I set off accordingly to the University to track them down in order to refer to them and check Enterline’s information.

Both the theses are registered at the University Library – I know because I saw them on the index – but the librarian and I could only find the second one and not the first one, no matter how hard we looked.

However a very interesting fact was that Lee was a very controversial and confrontational person, not at all your typical academic. His forthright, sometimes intimidating style of writing clearly ruffled a few feathers and his application for a grant for a third year of excavations was refused.

As far as I’m aware, no-one has continued his work and the excavations have lain incomplete for 60 years.

Another disappointment was that having spent a couple of years writing my Magnum Opus on Eustache Lanouillier’s CHEMIN DU ROY between Montréal and Québec in the 17th Century, the actual plans for it are also at the University of Laval and I didn’t find that out until later.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent pairing off the music that I chose yesterday and then writing the notes for about half of it. I’ve not really been in any rush to complete it.

The cleaner came round with some soya milk that she found in the local supermarket which was nice. And then LeClerc rang up. They’d seen my complaint about my missing soya milk. Would I like a refund?

And so I explained that I’d rather have the milk, that I’m handicapped and can’t buy it any other way except through them. So sure enough, a delivery driver turned up with 6 cartons of milk later in the day

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper and there’s stuffing left over for a taco roll tomorrow night and probably for a leftover curry too. My diet might be monotonous but my meals really are delicious

So that’s all I’m doing for tonight. I’ll be in bed soon ready to rise again nice and fresh for my Welsh lesson, I don’t think

As someone once asked me "what happened to all of your ‘get up and go’?"
The answer to that is simple. I told them "It’s all got up and gone a long time ago."

0

Monday 18th September 2017 – WELL THAT WAS …

… something of a wash-out.

I’d come to Quebec mainly to do some research at the University of Laval, but I abandoned round by lunchtime.

I was going to say that I’d had a good night’s sleep but I’d had a very bad attack of cramp in the night – I’ve been having a few of these again just recently.

So a nice early start with coffee and porridge made in the microwave, and then a pile of paperwork to prepare things. And then I hit the road.

Reaching the University was one thing – finding where I was going was something else. I ended up going up a one way street the wrong way – twice! And through a red traffic light too.

Parking is weird there too – you either pay for an hour or for a day. There’s no in-between., and it isn’t cheap either. I can’t help feeling that there’s someone making an awful lot of money out of parking fees.

In the reception, a couple of helpful people at reception pointed me on my way to the library, and there, a very helpful lady helped me find what I needed – none of this incestuous academia like at Cambridge a few years ago.

Why I was here was in respect of a researcher by the name of Thomas Edward Lee.

An author by the name of James Enterline had written a book in the early 70s with a well-thought-out but very flaky argument about the Norse presence in Ungava Bay in the north of Quebec.

He had quoted Lee as one of his sources, but Lee’s works weren’t in the mainstream. The Centre of Nordic Studies at the University of Laval had funded his research and I had discovered that they till held his thesis.

And so I came here to read it.

And, as I said, it was a disappointment.

Lee, being aware of Enterline’s arguments, succeeds in undermining, if not demolishing them. But his own excavations at Pomiok Island are disappointing.

He’s sure that he has found a Norse Longhouse here, but his conclusions are based on coincidence rather than any hard discovery. The only substantial artefact – a Norse iron axe-head – wasn’t discovered by him but handed to him by an Inuit who had apparently found it many years earlier. And so its provenance could not even be verified.

The net result of all of Lee’s labours that he incited a great deal of discussion amongst his peers, and his funding was stopped.

I wasn’t impressed by his confrontational and polemic style of dialogue either. It struck me as being most un-Academic.

As a result, I decided to abandon my research, thinking that he couldn’t really tell me anything concrete about the Norse presence in Ungava.

At the end of the day, it was difficult to decide how much of Lee’s funding issues had been due to the inconclusive nature of his discoveries, how much was due to the un-academic manner of presentation, and how much was due to the confrontational, polemic style of his debate with his peers

battle of st foy parc des braves quebec canada september septembre 2017Lunch was next on the agenda and so I removed myself to the Parc des Braves.

I had a list of things that needed doing on the north shore of the St Lawrence – a list that has been current since 2013 – and so I decided to attack that.

Especially as the Parc des Braves was included thereupon. I’m not sure how I had managed to miss that out before.

battle of st foy parc des braves quebec canada september septembre 2017If, like me, you were educated in the 1960s you would have received the same kind of Empire-building jingo that I had had.

And we were taught that the UK always won, and came through every test with flying colours.

And the magnificent victory on the Plains of Abraham that General Wolfe had had, which had won French North America for the British crown.

I was even in “Wolfe” House in my primary school.

battle of st foy parc des braves quebec canada september septembre 2017But that is, unfortunately, far from the truth.

It’s certainly true that the British had beaten the French at Quebec and occupied the city, but the fighting was far from over.

A French relief force had set out from Montreal and engaged the British in Battle at Saint-Foy, right where we are standing – and defeated them soundly.

battle of st foy parc des braves quebec canada september septembre 2017The British retreated behind the walls of the Citadel of Quebec and the siege was on.

And had it been a French fleet that had been the first to break through the ice on the St Lawrence in the following Spring to reach the city, not a British one, the History of Quebec would have been very, very different.

And, of course, we were taught nothing about this at school as it didn’t fit in with the image of the Powerful All-Mighty UK (or “England” as we were taught then).

One thing left to do – and that was to go to find the Ursuline Convent – something else that I had spectacularly overlooked when I was here last.

ursuline convent parking issues quebec canada september septembre 2017Finding a parking space was, as usual, the issue in Old Quebec, but we soon come across more of this religious hypocrisy here.

We’ve seen so much of this on our travels – not just in North America – and you’re all probably very tired of me drawing your attention to it.

But whatever happened to the Forgiveness of Sins, or of Turning The Other Cheek, or Giving All That Thou Hast To The Poor.

There’s nothing whatever in the Bible about the towing away of offenders.

ursuline convent quebec canada september septembre 2017The Ursulaines – three of them – came over here in the 1èth Century to give instruction and education to the girls of the city – in the same way that Marguerite Bourgeoys did in Montreal round about the same time.

And the education part is still continuing, as you can tell, because I seem to have arrived round about chucking-out time and there are brats everywhere.

ursuline convent quebec canada september septembre 2017And you can tell what kind of school it is simply by looking at the clothes worn by the girls.

It’s the fashion in North America for exclusive private schools to dress their girls in plaid. And the more plaid, the more exclusive the school.

Here, they are wearing full-length plaid smocks. You don’t get more exclusive than this.

ursuline convent quebec canada september septembre 2017And the mothers picking up their daughters in their expensive Porsche Carreras is another sign of exclusivity too.

Somehow, you get the feeling that here at the Ursuline Convent and the Ursuline School, the message of Jesus Christ has has become extremely distorted.

I bet that Mother Marie of the Incarnation, the original founder of the Institution here in Quebec, is turning in her grave.

city hall quebec canada september septembre 2017When I was here for my mega-ramble in 2012, this particular Square was fenced off and undergoing a great deal of renovation.

I was therefore extremely curious to see what had become of it and so I directed myself here.

And I wasn’t disappointed. They seem to have made a very fine job of it and I was quite impressed. I like the laurels particularly – and the fountain.

On the way back to my motel I stopped off at a “Maxi” Supermarket for some soya milk. And ended up with a few other things too, including Spruce Beer and also some grapes at 89 cents a pound – which didn’t last long.

Back here, another couple was moving in next door and they took quite a liking to Strawberry Moose.

But here’s a thing.

When was the last time that I crashed out? I mean – seriously?

It all caught up with me yesterday afternoon. I started to yawn at about 16:30 and that’s all that I remember until 21:00 when I found myself fully-dressed under the bedclothes with the internet radio blaring away. I was gone for good by the looks of things.

It took me a while to come round, but I still managed to make tea – and then I was gone again.

Mind you, I’m not surprised that it’s caught me up. I’ve been going at quite a pace just recently and something had to give.

0