It’s all about the river.

OK!  That was about as high as the water actually came last night.  So here are a few pics of how it looked at around 9.30 this morning.

 

All the bits of green grass you can see now were under water last night!

 

 

A line of sandbags was eventually put out to veer the flood water away from the street, but all that area of green was a-wash, except for a tiny triangle from just to the left of where you can see someone on the pathway, to the tree to the left of him, to the end of the path where the sandbags leave the road!

  The kiddies’ play-park is on the right of the fence.  This afternoon the water has gone down a lot and the trees are again above the river level! 

 

 

 

 

And on the other side of Tweed Bridge, the swimming pool, on the site of the old Tweed Mill, narrowly escaped the flood waters, just by a couple of feet.  The remains of the mill wall and the path are clear again, but there is a  line of leaf debris to show just how high the water came.

A few days ago after the last high water I went for a walk along that path past the pool and up to where the  Cuddy meets Tweed!  The water is still  higher than usual, as normally kiddies feeding the ducks are able to go right down to stand where the ducks are swimming in this photo.

 

Nicer weather, huh?

 

This is where the path leaves the riverside briefly to go up steps and cut along in front of the Hay Lodge, once the home of the prominent Hay family and now part of the Health Board…and that’s my favourite tree,

 

 

 

a beech that trails its branches in the river when the water is high. It’s just so graceful!

 

 

 

This is the Hay Lodge, its side windows in the round wall, looking out at the river.

As the path by the water beyond here was pretty muddy, I turned to go back by the same route and saw that it was a good day for sitting on a bench just watching, as Tweed  flowed gently down to the weir – the cauld as it is known in Scots.  It takes the cauld at speed then settles down for a fairly determined run down under the bridge and on past Peebles. 

  Just at the bridge the river was still trickling over the edge of its bank .  All that greenery was covered in water last night.  It’s the bit just outside the swimming pool, but it was fairly gentle  the other day.

Here’s some of the leaf debris showing how high the river came last time.  It’s amazing to think that all that green area was flooded last night, and the debris today was way behind that bench.  The bench couldn’t even be seen last night, and lots of  leaves and twigs were caught in it when the water retreated.  I should think the river water also poured into the wishing well too last night, but the other day the water had been nowhere near it….

 

 

 

and here’s the bridge with the swimming pool just visible through the arch, and the path where I stood last night to take pictures because I couldn’t go any further for the flood water.  We never dreamt that it would reach that point and get even higher a few days later!

Talk again soon.

Season of mists and…… rain and high waters…

The river has been up and down like a yoyo this last week or so!  It has flooded  its banks once then gone down, and is again up to the top, about to do the same again today.  It really must have rained hard during the night as yesterday it wasn’t that full!  

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At 2.00 this afternoon the water was again lapping the edges of the bank, maybe just a little further out than when this photo was taken from my window the other day.  It was a lot higher at 5.00 when I went for a walk down to the bridge.  However around 10.30 tonight I went down again to have a look at how the water level was going.  Being dark you can’t get the right impression from up here, but the water was right up to the fork in that path, between the bridge and the car!  Here’s what it looked like from  just a bit behind the car.    

I know it’s not a good quality photo, but not so bad for my wee point-and-click camera and a bit of playing with my computer!  Let me show you a couple more.

 

This photo looks over Priorsford footbridge to the Green.  The school kids use this bridge as a short cut to school.  Well, not tomorrow they won’t! 

On the other side of the bridge is a sign….

The road goes round to the left to reach a couple of houses and the start of the footbridge.

We really don’t often get floods like this, so of course when I was out looking, so were lots of others, mainly dads bringing their children to see.  I suppose it is quite exciting to see a fast flowing lake where there is usually a reasonably well behaved river!

The sandbags are out all along the street.  I do hope they are not needed.  This is a time when I am glad I am on the upper floor in a flat/apartment.

So we’ll see what tomorrow brings!

 

As for the mists – these were taken last week, again from my window. - Oh this is a good one to show you where the river has come out to.  It’s right alongside that path,  not over it yet, but I’ve jut taken another look and we now do have our toes in the water.  It has come from the bridge side, as in the first pic above, and is now pouring along the road below my windows, to meet another wash from the left.  Strangely the path being on a slight ridge, it is still walkable for most of its length.  Who’d want to walk it anyway?

Back to the mists for a moment then – they often burn off during the morning giving us a beautiful day, but that day it stayed like this all day!

 

Driving up to Eddleston to meet Norma for a cuppie,  the farmhouse on the hill was slightly eerie-looking , and when I reached the tearoom it was just as bad with the hills hidden from view.

  However the sun did just manage to get through for all of 15 minutes before the mist rolled in again.  I don’t want to leave you thinking that we just get bad weather here.  Next time I’ll show you the river walk I did a day or two later. 

However a last look at the river tonight…  Well, it’s still rising!  There is only one small triangle of the Green left, and that’s outside my window on the other side of the road.  It will be gone tomorrow!  I’ll let you know!  It seems that the west has really been getting it far worse.  The Lake District and Dumfriesshire  are really suffering.

Talk again soon.

A weekend in Inbhir Nis

That’s the way it’s written in Gaelic, Inbhir being Inver, meaning the mouth of a river, and Nis being the name of the river, in this case, the Ness.  So where are we?  All together now -  Inver-ness!!!  Well done!  Aren’t we clever!  (Sorry ‘bout that!) So what was I doing in Inverness on Halloween weekend?  Visiting my friends Janet and Ray, who I have probably mentioned before!  Janet and I were at school together though not in the same year, and Ray is the great guy she met and married while she was living in County Durham, in the north of England some years later.  She managed to get him to move to the north of Scotland and I don’t think he’d move back now.

I took a sudden whim to go up on the bus not long after I got back from Canada – itchy feet still itching, I suppose.  Janet had said they had nothing much planned, so that was fine.   Anyway, it was a bus pass journey, so cost me nothing.  Not a bad journey, we stopped several times to pick up and drop off passengers, and once to change drivers.  They can legally only drive for so many hours without a break.  I was bemused by the senior citizen who boarded the bus at Inverkeithing, showing his bus pass and asking for a ticket to the terminus.  “Where are you going?” asked the driver, “ because I’m going to Inverness!”   She obviously realised he was just having a day out anywhere, using his free pass, and he, realising Inverness was a bit of a distance away, then asked, “Well, where else do you go?”  Technically the bus stops at just about every village on the way, if there are people waiting to get on or off, but she gave him the names of some of the bigger places, and the old fellow decided on Pitlochry  (nice place. lots to see! ).  The bus continued and we arrived in Perth.  Our “senior cit” got up and moved to the door.  He’d decided he’d just get off there.  I thought how nice it was that he could use the pass to just head off somewhere different each day if he got lonely or had nothing to do.  Keeps the mind working!  I hope he had a pleasant day in Perth.  Hope I can still do that when I reach his age!

A few hours later we arrived in the highland capital – the city of Inverness.  Janet wouldn’t finish work for another hour or two so I just pottered around the centre for a while, looking in shop windows mostly.   I’d never seen this type of whisky before, and liked the display of the bottles in a creel of lumps of peat (dried turf for the fire).

Down Church Street I had a look at Abertarff House,the oldest house in the city, built in 1593 and originally the home of the Frasers of Lovat,  Having seen the picture on the website I have linked to here, I will next time want to go through the gate and look at the building from the side!  I love  16th century domestic architecture.  There’s another picture of the house and other views of the town here. 

On the Saturday morning Janet and I came down the town and took a bit of a walk around.  Here’s the castle, built in the late 1890s as the jail.  There has always been a castle in Inverness since the 11th century but all have been destroyed by one warring faction or another.  Today this one is used as the court house.

On the castle hill behind the  buildings you see above, is the memorial to Flora Macdonald, who courageously helped the fugitive Prince Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, to escape to France, after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 put paid to his hopes of restoring the throne to the Stuart dynasty.    I wonder if she’s trying to shoo that seagull away.  Her hair is looking very grey these days.

Not far from the castle is the old Town House, a beautiful gothic building also of the 19th century.  Looking up the website to find out something about the building, I read that to the left of the door is the…. MEERCAT Cross!!!!! I kid you not!  That’s what it says… in black and white!   Copied and pasted from the same website I used last time, (scroll down till you come to the bit about the Town House and you’ll find this:)  "Outside on the left hand side of the main doorway is the old Meercat Cross”. Of course all you Scotophiles will know that the word should be MERCAT, meaning MARKET.  I’ve told the story before on my Peebles blog about the American tourist in Peebles looking for the Meercats she insisted she had seen marked on the map.   Maybe she should have been in Inverness instead!  (Yes, I know anyone can make a typo, but that’s a good one!)  Anyway, you can see the MERCAT Cross in my photo.   It’s between the two downstairs double windows on the left of the building – just about in front of the second pair.  Next time I’ll take a closer look, because I’ve never noticed it before!

Facing the Town House is a very classical looking building, now in use as a pub but built originally in 1847 for the Caledonian Bank (which later became the Bank of Scotland).  You can tell by the banner that it’s Hallowe’en!.

Looking down from Castle Hill across the river Ness is the Scottish Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Andrews, almost completed in 1869, but for two spires that would have been added if funds hadn’t run out at the time. 

 

 

 

And this is the main bridge over the Ness, continuing into High Street.  Just past the church is the Caledonian old bank.  Across the road you can just see the little spires on the Town House.  The Castle is on the hill off to the right of my picture, and way ahead at the other end of the street is the modern Eastgate shopping centre, which I haven’t mentioned yet.  First I wanted to show you the strange things that you sometimes see on the bridge!   What do you call a quantity of Santa Claus’s?  We decided on a Merry of Santa’s!

 

 

Now here’s the Eastgate Centre, with the War Memorial in the plaza looking like a modern Mercat Cross.    Inside the centre, as well as all the best-known High Street shops, you’ll find the clock, which does things on the quarter hour.

 

Things revolve, or go up and down or side to side.  Doors open and close.  Mrs Noah catches a fish…. great fun for the kiddies!

 

 

Saturday night was Halloween,

 

so we went  out to eat, and were served by a waiter dressed up as the devil and a waitress who was also meant to be from the dark side!  There were pumpkin lanterns all over – no turnip lanterns to be found anywhere these days!

The rest of the weekend was wet and dull, so we stayed in, Ray continuing to convert the downstairs cloakroom into a shower room and utility room; Janet and I, relaxing,  playing on the computer, watching DVDs, drinking copious cups of tea, and nursing the cat!  Pickles is gorgeous, cute and fluffy, with fabulous whiskers, and quite vocal with her mews and mrrrrows.  She loves to be brushed and purrs like the proverbial engine, and she just adores to be sitting on someone – and a lot of the weekend that someone was me ,        not that I was complaining.  I love to gave a cat on my knee.  By the way, do you know why a cat’s tail goes up in the air when you stroke its back?  It’s to stop your hand falling off the end!  Oh alright then.  So it wasn’t that funny!   Pickle-y Pussycat has a kink in her tail, though with all the fluff you don’t notice it, but I think she got her tail caught in a door when she was a kitten cat.  It doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

And so the weekend passed and Monday morning came around again.  Janet wasn’t feeling too good so stayed off work – no it wasn’t the alcohol. We actually didn’t have any!  Ray went off to work though, taking me down to the town first, so I could catch my bus back to Edinburgh and then home to Peebles.  What a nice weekend!  I should do things like that more often!

Talk again soon.

My last day in Canada

Suddenly it was my last day!  At least I had the whole day, as my flight didn’t leave till almost midnight.  The plan was to go to Ottawa and spend some time there then Gail and Peggy would take me out to the airport.  So, bags packed – that case was pretty heavy – we loaded them into the boot of the car and prepared to  leave. so just a last couple of photos of the house in Buckingham,  with the halloween decoration Peggy had put out,

 

 

 

and the piles of leaves in the garden that Gail and I had raked some days before, with Maggie the dog acting as overseer.

 

 

Maggie hadn’t been speaking to me that last morning and wouldn’t let me take her photo, so here’s one I took earlier with Gail!  She’s a lovely dog.

So at last  I said farewell to Buckingham  and we were off to Ottawa.  I’d only seen little bits as I came from the train station the week before, and on the night we met Pascale.

When we arrived in Ottawa it was another glorious day and with lots to see ahead of us we parked the car and got going.

This is a view of the skyline of Ottawa from Nepean Point.  On the extreme left are the twin silver spires of Notre Dame Cathedral.  The three glass triangles, as I think of them, are part of the National Gallery of Canada.  The high tower in the centre of the picture is the Peace tower, part of Ottawa’s Parliament buildings, and to the right of  it  is the library. The Rideau Canal emerges down a series of locks, the bottom of which you can see in the centre. On the skyline at the top of the locks is another of the Fairmont hotels, the Chateau Laurier.  I have been trying to find out what the castellated building is to the left of the Chateau, but without success.  I’ll have to ask Gail!

Getting a bit closer, here’s the Chateau on the left with the canal in the centre.  It was a major feat of engineering, completed in 1832, that allowed boats to navigate their way from Montreal to the Great Lakes, by-passing the St Lawrence River, after  conflict with the Americans on the British colony made the latter route too hazardous.  Only 10% of the route from Kingston on Lake Ontario to Ottawa  is actually manmade.  The rest is made up of lakes and rivers, including the Rideau river from which it gets its name.

In winter the canal passing through the city is closed to boat traffic, and  becomes the longest skating rink in the world when it freezes over, and the Winterlude festival ensures everybody has a good time, with stalls selling hot drinks and food – including Beavertails – all along nearly 5 miles of frozen canal with skaters and people generally out on the ice to have a fun time.

  Here is the parliament building on Parliament Hill, taken from the beautiful Major’s Hill Park.  The peace tower is to the left with the library the squat building on the right.  The autumn colours here were just stunning.

Also in the park is the statue of a native Indian scout .  He used to be found over on Nepean Point beside Sam de Champlain, but was moved here recently.

 

I pinched this picture of Parliament Hill!  I’m not that good an artist.  However I didn’t get a picture of the front and this  is probably much better! The House of Commons meets in the main block with the Senate in the west block to the left of the picture.  

Gail told me that the tower on the east block is known locally as the Clown Tower. See the face?

There were loads of young people milling about here, mostly in fancy dress costumes, and obviously bound for Parliament Hill.  It must have been some kind of student protest but we never did find out what it was about.

I didn’t know it at the time but they must have been crossing the top of the Rideau locks here. I never saw the locks properly, so something else for next time!

The skyline photo above was taken from Nepean Point where Samuel de Champlain stands on his pedestal, holding up an astrolabe, which apparently is a historical astronomical instrument which Frenchman Samuel would have used in his extensive explorations and mapping of North America.

Just below where he stands is the open air Astrolabe Theatre constructed for the Canadian Centennial of 1967, a great place from which to see the fireworks over Parliament Hill!  It has a stage and is used for concerts in the summer.   In the background here you can see the “three triangles” of the National Gallery roof.  We took a peek inside to see the “sails”  in the tower/dome… what would you call the three triangles roof?

Further along outside the gallery is a very unusual sculpture.  It is called “Maman”  -   French for Mother - and it towers over pedestrians who can walk directly beneath it.  The sculptor says it reminds him of his own mother who was a powerful creative person, who wove tapestries. Well, Maman certainly does weave, so let me introduce her.  Here she is!!     Maman

 

 

  She’s a 30 foot tall spider, one of 6 such castings by Louis Bourgeois.  I think she’s rather lovely!

 

 

Maman faces the Ottawa cathedral of Notre Dame, founded by Monsignor Joseph-Eugene Guigues, first Bishop of Ottawa, in the early 1850s.

 

 

His monument stands outside the cathedral.

 

 

 It has recently had a facelift inside and is beautiful.

I must show you just a few more pics.

 

 

Just look at those beautiful pillars….

(We were waiting for Peggy, who was attending Mass)

 

…and take a look at this view up to the ceiling.

 

 

 

 

…and looking back towards the door, and the organ gallery above  It’s stunning!

 

 

 

 

This picture taken late in the afternoon looks across the Ottawa River to Hull. Soon it was dark.  We had a last meal together in the city before it was all too soon time to make for the airport.

Last pics then  - Gail and Peggy,

  and me and Gail, at the airport before we said goodbye.

So that was it!  Holiday over and now I can’t wait to go back!  I had such a great time.

Thanks Don and Nancy, Jean and Jimmy, Peggy and Gail for making it so special!

Talk again soon.

The day we went to Montreal

The next day was reasonable when we left Buckingham for Montreal, but by the time we reached the small church of Grande Fresniere,  St Eustache, a small red brick building pretty much in the middle of nowhere, it was looking like a very grey day indeed. 

 

 

 

Just across the road was one small house, but otherwise the land all around was farmland. 

The two buildings weren’t just any old buildings, and we weren’t there to go to church – well, we were sort of – or to visit the people in the little homestead by the roadside. 

The house had once been the home of  Gail’s ancestors John Inglis and his family, who had emigrated from Scotland in 1829. Originally it was a stone house but someone later added the wooden siding/cladding and presumably the veranda. It has quite a history to it too, as just before the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837/8 and the Battle of  St Eustache it  was taken over by the rebel patriots to use as their headquarters.  Gail sent me an account of events, written later by John, which included a list of goods stolen and a description of the treatment her great great great grandmother suffered at the hands of the rebels.  Pretty scary.  All I can say is that Isabella Inglis was one brave tough woman!

The church was built on Inglis land donated by William, son of John and Isabella.  The clay for the bricks also came from the land and William helped to build it.  Unfortunately we could not see inside, but we were able to look around the small cemetery to one side.

The red marble Inglis gravestone stood tall near the front of the cemetery, in memory of a family that saw much of the development of the Canada we know today. At least three generations lie here in this now peaceful place among the people they probably grew up with and lived amongst.

We continued on our way to Montreal, arriving there to find the city high-rises in fog.  This is part of the old railway station, and it was here we had something to eat in a restaurant that took its decor inspiration from an old railway carriage.  It was excellent. 

 

This is a corner of the same building –La Gare Windsor or Windsor Station.

 

 

 

It was so wet we really didn’t fancy going out and getting soaked, so we just drove around downtown, and I took photos through the window when I had the opportunity.  This is in Place d’Armes with Notre Dame Cathedral on the right and the Art Deco Aldred Tower on the left. The Aldred tower built in 1931 was set to rival the Empire State Building but the stock market crash of 1929 put paid to all that!

This time the Aldred Building is on the right, dwarfing what was the first skyscraper in the city, the New York Life building.  Place d’Armes was being dug up for some reason, hence all the orange and white striped bollards.

 

 

We drove around the old town of Montreal, situated alongside the St Lawrence River, up and down little cobbled streets that no doubt would be fascinating to wander through if the sun was shining!

You can see how wet it was by the reflections on the road at this old town corner.  It just didn’t let up!

 

 

 

Same in Chinatown with its beautiful lion gates with their ornamental pagoda roofs.

 

 

Then we  passed part of  the internationally famous McGill University.  It’s a large university with several buildings around the city.  I thought  this one was rather splendid – and look!  The pavement – the sidewalk – is dry!!! for the moment!

Surprisingly, though this huge 20th century basilica dominates the hillside of Mont Royal, it is extremely hard to find a description of it in the guide books.  It is called  the Oratoire St Joseph, and was at first intended to be only a small shrine to St Joseph, but through public donations, like Topsy, it just growed – and growed. 

There’s a viewpoint somewhere on Mont Royal from where you can view the city, but for one thing we couldn’t find it – or didn’t find it, to be more accurate – and for another I don’t think the views would have been too spectacular that day anyway!   So it can be something to do next time!

There really wasn’t much point in staying around in the rain, so we just headed for home again,   where we had a quick visit

with Sonia. Gail’s sister-in-law,

 

 

and the kids

 

 

…and the new kitten.  Coco was so cute.  I warned them that they might have to search my pockets as I left!   I got the spider to take home though!

Talk again soon.

Historical around Ottawa!

The day after the Montebello visit, Gail, Peggy and I took off in the car once more!   First stop was at the Hogsback Falls, and the weir above them that prevents flooding caused by the construction of a dam that diverts the water from the Rideau river into the canal!  The falls incidentally were also created by the construction of the dam raising the water level and replacing the rapids that had been there originally!   Sound complicated?  Apparently it was, in the 1820s when construction of the dam took place!    It fell apart three times and one contractor resigned before they got it right!

Further along the Rideau river is the 19th century  Watson’s Mill in the township of Manotick, a historic  and very attractive place indeed.  The Mill itself was constructed in 1859/60 by a Mr Dickinson and his business partner Joseph Currier, who I will mention again later.

Machinery on the top of the dam moves across it in order to open and close the weir gates

 

 

It was Dickinson who called the place Manotick, and the mill, though called the Long Island Mill at first, soon took this name, until a later worker in the 20th century bought the place and changed the name to his own - Watson’s Mill. 

The square in front honours Dickinson’s name, and across it, opposite the mill, is the house where the Dickinsons lived, painted in my favourite colours too.  Unfortunately unlike the mill, it was closed for the season, so we had to be content with the outside view.  It is a beautiful clapboard house with all the appearance of an elegant British Georgian house.  After 30 years of mill ownership Harry Watson sold the mill to the local conservation authority who have restored the workings to their original condition of 1860 and now run the mill as a tourist attraction, with a series of actual milling days operating through the year from late spring to early autumn.

Of course the mill has to have its ghost story and the ghost in question is that of  Ann Crosby, wife of James Currier who was the partner of Moss Dickinson at the start of the mill. Ann, aged 20, had only been married to James for a month when  the first anniversary of the mill was celebrated.  Ann was touring the mill when her skirt got caught in a revolving turbine.  She was flung back against a support pillar and killed.  Currier was so distraught by the accident that he quite lost interest in the mill.  He sold his shares to Dickinson and left the town.   Those who have seen a ghostly apparition at the mill say it was a tall flaxen-haired young woman.  Is it Ann?

We took a short walk along Mill Street looking at some of the old houses.  This was a house originally owned by a tailor whose shop was next door.

 

 

 

 

The conservation authority restored  the exterior of this next property …

The Miller’s Oven, now a cafe run by the town’s senior citizens – we had a wonderful strawberry shortcake and cup of tea there - was once the general store, telegraph office, post office, and later a  hall upstairs with barber shop below, and even a public library and pool room! 

This little house, the Mill Street florist, dates from 1877 and was built by Moss Dickinson for his workers.  It used to stand on the roadside but was moved back at some later stage.  It is also in the style of Dickinson’s own house  – very classical in appearance.

There were so many lovely houses that I really couldn’t photograph all of them – but I made a pretty good attempt – before we turned and came back towards the mill.  

 

 

Ahhh!  Those trees!     The colours!

 

 

Just then the school bus came round the corner and stopped to release some homebound students.  I liked the way the Stop sign at the side of the bus unfolded out to warn any other road users that there are children about.  At the front too, a lever  swings out  to warn the children not to cross in front of  the bus.  Our school buses are not dedicated to carrying just school children, but are also in general service, but I think these two safety features could be employed over here.  I know of a few terrible accidents that have happened when either the bus driver or overtaking car drivers have been unaware of  road crossers.

So, a last photo before it was time to leave and this is looking from outside the mill to its left, to the Presbyterian church, that replaced the previous brick built church of 1877.

Have I said yet about the amount of trees there are over here?  It’s wonderful!  Even in the cities there are avenues of trees all over the pl;ace!

So then we  headed off to Ottawa where we were meeting up with Peggy’s daughter, Pascale, and going for supper.  She chose a lovely Italian restaurant in the city’s downtown market area where we had a lovely meal, and afterwards as we passed a street stall on the way back to the car, I was persuaded to try another local delicacy…..

  It’s OK.  They weren’t the real thing – well not real animal bits!

They are a kind of deep fried elongated pancake, with cinnamon sugar sprinkled over – well that’s what I had.  There were other choices of toppings too but that was the basic.  Mmmmmm!  (Licks lips at the thought!)  Yes, I would be quite happy to try another of those!

Talk again soon.

Another day out in Quebec

This was the day I ate poutine!   Apparently the roadside cafe we went to at Montebello does the best poutine!  What is it?  Well, it’s a Quebec dish originating  in the 1950s, consisting of french fries – chips to us Brits -  with a topping of fresh curd cheese, and then smothered in a light gravy.  The Quebec pronunciation is something like pootsin.  The word poutine MAY derive from the English word pudding , but could alternatively come from a word for a  not very appealing mixture of various foods!

Fries?  Fine!  Gravy?  Good!  Fries and gravy?   Mmm?  Maybe!  Curd cheese?  Not too sure!  All of the above together?  Not very sure at all!  However I was prepared to give it a go, and you know, it wasn’t too bad!!  The curds were like small chunks of  melted cheese and didn’t taste sour as I had thought they might do !  However, I’m not a fan of soggy chips/fries at the best of times, so poutine would only be a once-in-a-while dish for me!

Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a photo – not like me at all, eh? – so you’ll just have to imagine it!

Just along from the cafe I had spotted a small house, with its garden full of Canada geese!  I went to investigate and found very plausible life-size fake geese – probably hunters decoys – as the house turned out to be a shop for hunters  and fishermen!

Now who would have known they weren’t real – except for the feet!

 

 

 

From there we carried on in the car a little way to see another rather fabulous and unusual Fairmont hotel, the Chateau Montebello – the great  red cedar log-cabin hotel!

Built in just a few months in 1930 it was at first a private retreat, but when it was taken over by Canadian Pacific  Hotels and opened to the public it soon became a popular  place to visit.  Over the years, various famous people have stayed here, including politicians and royalty.   The website has some beautiful photos in its introduction to the hotel and  others on their photo gallery which you can find on the intro page,  but I’ll show you mine here!  The main building centres round a huge tall  hexagonal stone chimney with  a lounge area on the ground floor and a fireplace on each of the six sides of the chimney. 

 

 

The next two floors are galleries circling round - so you can look down on the lounge area, or find a quiet cosy corner to relax in -

 

 

 

 

and are connected by beautiful  rustic wooden staircases.

The bedrooms are in the several wings that radiate out from the main building - it must look like a child’s drawing of  the sun from above –  along with the dining room in a further wing.  It too has a gallery round it at the first upper floor level.

What a place!  It would have been nice to sit and relax for a while over a cup of hot chocolate and a cake but we had to get home as Ken was due to be coming for tea. 

After a quick walk in the grounds and a look at the Ottawa River, it was time to go, and sadly when we got back we found that Ken was unwell and not able to call round, and in fact I never did meet him, his problem persisting throughout the whole week.  So we ate the pizza bought for the meal and the chocolate cake that was to have been Ken’s birthday cake, and in fact breakfasted off pizza and cake for the next couple of days too!!!  I wasn’t complaining!  So instead we had a quiet evening at home, during which I caught up with reading some off the letters that were written  in the mid 19th century to Gail’s ancestor by the ones who stayed in Scotland.  It was fascinating to read of their lives – who was ill or who had died; what prices of potatoes or wheat etc, were, had the crops been good this year - and interesting  how some of the Scottish family were considering joining the new Canadians, asking questions about how easy it might be to get a place on a farm,what would the pay be like, would it be long before they could afford their own farm, what was the land like, was it good soil, etc.  I think the freedom in sending goods between the two countries was most interesting – from apples to machinery it all just went by ship with no customs or rules and regs about what could or couldn’t be transported.  Letters were sent in a box with the expectation that they would get  there sometime - it took months sometimes - and letters that arrived back home in Scotland were passed around so that news from Canada was probably  received several times over by the different families.

Gail began to transcribe the letters some time ago but the writing was hard to decipher in some cases and virtually impossible in others!    What is most incredible though is that the letters were retained at all,  and passed down through the family in the writing case that the old fellow himself  had used.  Once again I can’t think why I never photographed that old box and its contents!

In a couple of days on our way to Montreal I was to see the little church built by Gail’s ancestor at Grande Fresniere, and the little churchyard where he and his descendants are buried .

Talk again soon.