...ontheroad

I'm not bräve, just naïve...

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Farewell to England...

There's no turning back now. On Sunday afternoon my plane bounced along the runway at Gatwick and hurled us skywards and towards Canada. My last sight on England was through pretty crappy cloud cover over the green fields of the Home Counties. A little while later County Donegal was my last glimpse of Ireland, slipping away beneath the wing to my right.

I arrived in Montréal on Sunday night. Having been here before made all the difference. Montréal may not feel like home, but it certainly doesn't feel foreign to me any more. Due to rather sad circumstances, I'm going to be apartment sitting for a few weeks, maybe months. However, it'll be a great way to set up in Montréal without having to go through the stresses of house hunting for a while. As well as practising my French, I am also touching up my cat loving skills - I have four house mates who need my love and attention from time to time...!

More news to follow!

*j*

Friday, September 09, 2005

God bless all who sail in her...

Buying a 2000cc petrol engined car just as the price of unleaded hits £1/litre might not have been such a good idea, but the Saab got us back to Castle Acre safely, though mammoth thunder storms that nearly flooded some of the roads we were driving that night.

And to complete a perfect road trip, the Brown family tradition of carrying a Piglet doll on the dashboard can now continue. Pictured here is a reunion of three of the four Piglets that have kept me, my father and my grandfather company in the cockpits of various Royal Air Force planes and family cars (for instance: a Spitfire, an Airspeed Oxford, an Auster, a Meteor jet, a Sabre jet, a Hunter jet, a Canberra jet, a VW Passat station wagon, four Volkswagen Golfs and a Skoda Octavia...). When BM heard about the tradition, she dug out a half finished Piglet she'd started as a child, but never got round to stuffing or giving eyes. Piglet number four now sits proudly above the dashboard of the Saab.

*j*

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Leaving Belfast behind...

On board the MV Mersey Viking, with the city of Belfast and a year in Northern Ireland slipping away into the mist behind us. Most of my major travel decisions this summer have been dictated by special offers. I'm going to Montréal on the first of the cheap autumn fares, and conveniently enough this was the last cheap car ferry crossing to Birkenhead from Belfast (£59 incidentally - wowza, and that saved about 200 miles driving at the other end).

We even got a bargain free three course lunch. See... there is such a thing... kind of...

*j*