SYDNEY

Had a lovely private tour of the Cape Breton area of Nova Scotia. Visited the local landmarks of Sydney before we set off to Louisbourg to visit the fort that has been faithfully reconstructed to how it was in the 1700's. There are a lot of re-enactors taking roles of people who lived in the fort at the time. We followed the route followed by Gen Wolfe who besieged & captured the fort. The actors do a great job, making it much more enjoyable, especially the assistant engineer we met.

The coastline is very rugged & beautiful here with lots of sandy bays and little lobster fishing villages.

The guide was very knowledgeable about the whole area and told us about the coal miner riots that happened after one the union leaders was shot dead by a company official.

The local Mi'kmaq sung to us.

We saw a bald eagle & should have seen a donair but didn't - what's that I hear you say, well I am going to try and find one in Halifax tomorrow & will let you know.

Is that the biggest fiddle in the world, or what.

That narrow peninsula gave me vertigo 

PEI

We are in Charlottetown, PEI. Charlotte was George III missus & Prince Edward, their famous son. (but only famous for his daughter). Linda is a bit confused - she saw a sign for best PEI fries you can get. She said "surely they don't cook them in that"

Really nice city, easy walking. Good job really as we spent a bit time searching for an ATM to get some $Cad to use on the buses. Unlike London & other major European cities you can't tap to pay with a debit card, cash is king. The Historic House, Beaconsfield House, was interesting - one, because the owners paid for the pre-existing house to be moved across the street & two, I was born in the front room of a house of the same age & with same Victorian features. Spooner Historic House? Nice view they bought 'tho.

Did you see I found Wally(Waldo)

Lot of Anne of Green Gables going on. I read the book sailing over - not as good as Biggles for me. The author Montgomery was born on the island & AOGG is set here.

We're meeting up with friends from Plymouth Ma soon, and I was looking at the Spooner house, a museum in Plymouth. Their website has family letters & there are several Walters in the family & I was born on the anniversary ofu one of their daughter's birth. 

It's scarecrow time - what on earth is the red scarecrow doing!!!

QUEBEC CITY

What a lovely place Quebec City is. Really friendly people, murals on the sides of houses, really strange pink babies, a fabulous hotel on the top of the cliff, funicular railway, waterfalls & giant Basilica. All this comes complete with whales in the St Lawrence and the only copper repousse embossers in the world.

We have been here 2 days now & enjoyed ourselves tremendously. Learnt some of Quebec's Heritage. French here since the early 1600s, but defeated by Gen Wolfe in 1759. The Treaty of Paris had interesting effects - Article 1 gave the Catholic church full freedom. Today there are virtually no practicing Catholics in Quebec, no monasteries or convents & churches turned into apartment blocks. Article 2 guaranteed the French language which is taught in schools & you have to be able to speak French to be employed. The unintended consequence of this is labour shortages that prevent restaurants being able to open week, hospital treatment delayed & class size problems. Article 3 retained French law. Bizarrely this means you cannot change your surname, not when you get married or for any other reason. New borns can be given Mum's name, Dad's name or both names hyphenated in either order. If 2 double barrels give birth their children can have a maximum of 2 surnames.

We would like to come back & spend more time here, perhaps in the Hotel Frontenac, which looks fantastic - let's see.

SAGUENEY - WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

In Quebec now, nice run up the St Lawrence & then the Fjord To Sagueney. We docked in La Baie, Saguenay only existed from 2002, made up of 8 districts that were little towns founded in the 1600's by the French. 

We planned to go to the Fjord Museum & pyramides of road signs, closed Monday, what might have been, eh(WMHB). Forecast was good with light winds, so off on a stroll - tearing gale WMHB. OK so hop on to the HoHo, for a trip around the district, nope - huge queues & fully sold out, WMHB. There is a theatre in town that a history spectacular of Sag's origins, 140 performers, horses, goats on stage, the full 9 yards, closed 15 Sep for the winter, WMHB. Never mind, the locals were great welcoming us ashore, see my new girlfriend's. Went fishing with a big pal of mine, he caught, but I blanked. Nice, but strange free museum of Romeo Boivin. Full of all sorts of things that you & I would consign to the bin. He kept his cars plus his toilet roll holders & certificates of deceased relatives. Steward brought us some water - 12 bottles in one go?

CANADA

5 big ships left Southampton together Q Mary, NCL, Disney, P&O Arvia & ourselves in convoy down the channel. The weather has not been great going across, high winds, rough seas keeping people out the pool areas making the inside public areas very crowded. Shows packed out, the best we've had has been Andy Reid an ex-army guy who lost both his legs & 1 arm in an Afghan IED bomb hidden under the road. His talk on his life & how he'd dealt with all this was truly inspirational.

Arrived in Corner Brook, Newfoundland today. Nice town in the Humber estuary, established in the 1920's with lots of original shops & buildings. Festival going on in the high street with music, dancing & there was a screech in, which is some form of Newfie welcome that involves kissing codfish???. Town is dominated by a paper mill. Local people don't seem to have a Canadian accent. Funny Canadian rules forced us to have only one bar open per deck on the ship.

BOARDING

Busy old day in port, 5 large cruise liners, 15000 people or so not including crew. Roads were really congested into port, cabbie was really fed up. Congestion also getting on board, took an hour to drop our cases & pass through security. Otherwise all good, had a snack & drink in the buffet, cabin is really nice, 2 big rooms right at the front of ship, view over the bow & to the side. Just trying to sort out dinner, Italian tonight. Just to cap it all Lil's nil, Arsenal one. Norris also good.

SOUTHAMPTON

Good run down to Southampton, lovely Uber to Waterloo, carriage to ourselves on the train - left home 11:15, in hotel 3pm. Cases are a bit weighty, packed for one months journeys in unknown weather!  Good dinner in Slug & Lettuce, espresso martinis two4one for afters. Then off to the theatre to see Aladdin. Now lying knackered in bed - hoorah

ON OUR WAY

Travelling again, just back from Pompey, & now off to Southampton to board our cruise to USA & Canada.

Portsmouth was good, can you see what was making the ripple on the water. The Hovercraft was excellent, fast, comfortable & such a rapid turnaround, land, disembark, board & off again - all in 10 minutes. See Queen Elizabeth in the background?