Wednesday, August 23, 2017

About the Quebec license plate.  Je me souviens.  I got local commentary to the effect that it means “I remember every time the English screwed us.”  I wouldn’t be surprised.  Adam Symansky, our National Film Board Producer friend, made a documentary about it.  You can find it at the NFB website https://www.nfb.ca.   You can see the English online just by searching there for “A license to remember” and clicking through.  His wife, Judy, wrote “In my totally unbiased opinion it is a very interesting film for anyone interested in Quebec, and it has some really funny moments, too.”  It might be hard for anyone who has not lived here to understand, but I found it spot on – if there’s a spot to be on.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

We had a quiet day at the Holiday Inn. I wanted Elvon to rest up for the big trip to Cornwall.  I washed and ironed and wrote that last blog you got.  For dinner, we met Marilyn and Ted Salhany at Le Sirène de la Mer.  Jo-Ann joined us with the Gascogne order for Cornwall.  I have known Marilyn since she was six, and she’s always fun.  The usually great restaurant disappointed, though.  The waiters had a little too much attitude, even for my taste.  I appreciated that they would not serve us Kebbe Nayeh, because they did not have a high enough quality of raw meat.  Too bad they didn’t tell me it was oyster night and I could have had a dozen, on the half shell, for $15.99.  The deep fried kebbe was good, mind you.  Ted had the fish and chips, because he had heard it was good, and I should have had it, too.  As it was, I had octopus, on the waiter’s recommendation, and it was no roaring hell.  The French fries came without the mayo I had ordered, and that took 10 minutes to get, while the fries got cold.  The restaurant was filling up and he was busy taking orders, but he could have got rid of us with a little bit of attention.  Then it came time for the bill.  There were five of us, but, as only Elvon and I had had dessert, and we had both had wine, and Elvon had shared in the fatoush (Lebanese salad), I figured we should pay a bit more.  So, we asked the waiter to divide by 6, give us three shares, Marilyn and Ted, two, and Jo-Ann, one.  Is everybody following me?  Well, the waiter wasn’t.  I explained about 3/6 being the same as ½.  I did the calculation for him.  No sign of intelligent life  Finally, Ted took over in Lebanese, and it still took another ten minutes before the guy got it.  Oh well.  We still had fun, because we brought our own wonderful company to the table.

Thursday, we were up at 6:00 am, a most ungodly hour, and on the road by 7:45 am.  There was just a bit of construction along our route and we arrived at John’s office at 9:05 am, for our 9:45 am appointment.  John’s 9:00 am had not shown up, so Elvon was in the hygienist’s chair by 9:15 am.  We were both out by 11:00 am, with clean teeth and clean bills of dental health.  Next stop, the LCBO to buy wine.  I decided to be silly with the whites and bought Hungaria, a sparkler, in honor of Rosemary’s and my Hungarian mothers, Monkey Bay, because I am one, Gato, an Italian cat, and Mateus, okay, so it’s a rosé, for old time’s sake.  The reds were better, Meiomi pinot noir and Sterling cab sav.  We got to Rosemary and Nick’s around noon, and manhandled Elvon up the two steps into their lovely flat house, the only private home I dared.  Susan Sidorchuk arrived just a few minutes later, with her eight-year-old Jenny.  We hadn’t seen her since she was a baby.

Gascogne’s croissants married Rosemary’s lobster salad, for a delicious and very welcome lunch.  A flock of Canada geese lighted on the lawn.  I took this picture and brought it back in to show to Nick, who taught me everything I know about composition.  His comment was “The heron’s plastic.”  Their neighbor put it there to keep the geese off their lawn.  It looks like it’s working.

After lunch, Elvon needed to go potty, so I put the toilet riser, that Jo-Ann had so kindly saved from last year, on to the john.  When he went to get up, he still couldn’t do it, without a grab bar.  So, three of us wrestled him off the thing.  That took a lot out of him, more than we realized.  We should have presented him with Grampa’s Captain’s chair, immediately.  We elected to walk him to the bed instead.  He didn’t make it.  Luckily Susan and I were still hanging on to him, and were able to lower him softly to the ground, when we could no longer hold him up.

We got him to the bed, and Nick helped us get him on to it.  After a good nap, and Nick found a transport chair in the garage, he was ready to join the party.  It was a good party, too.  John and Joanne and Sarah came over.  Sarah had to miss our dinner, as she had her very first baby sitting job to go to.  We had hors d’oeuvres on the deck, with the Hungaria, the Monkey Bay and an Oyster Bay, that snuck in.  Then we moved in to the dining room, and opened the Mateus.  It wasn’t all that bad.  I had been prepared to pour it down the sink, but we drank it.  We had corn-on-the-cob, the best in the world when it is in its very short season, and lasagna, and drank another Oyster Bay and both reds.  That’s seven bottles for seven people.  On boit, aussi.  I wheeled Elvon into bed, and we called it a night.

The next morning he was still shaky, so I wheeled him to breakfast in the chair.  I wasn’t feeling all that great myself.  I brought my computer out to charge in the dining room, and he spent a good half-hour explaining his 80^th birthday slide show to Jenny.  That’s the most he has said to anyone, in a couple of years.  Good on you, Jenny, for bringing him out.

After breakfast, which was brunch, really, we took advantage of Joanne’s being there, to wheel Elvon out the door and into the car.  Joanne is a physiotherapist, you see.  The drive to Montreal went well, and we were soon back in our room at the Holiday Inn, having stopped by the Gagcogne in Pointe Claire for all we needed for dinner with the Dedichiks.

Peter and Janet Dedichik used to be the Symanskys’ neighbors on Chesterfield.  We often shared a bottle of wine and Gascogne’s goodies before dinner.  More than couple of times, we actually made dinner out of them.  The Dedichiks live in the Eastern Townships now, near Knowlton, and miss the Gascogne as much as we do.  JoAnn, who was brought up on Chesterfield, joined us, but had to bring her own picnic.  Such are her allergies that she can’t eat a thing they make.  We had a ball, Janet’s smoked, salmon mousse, rilettes de lapin, mousse au foie de volailles, three wonderful stinky French cheeses, some bleu l’ermite, a good old cheddar, two baguettes, four bottles of wine and one of Pelligrino, heaven for us.  The Dedichiks walked us home and Elvon was fine.

Saturday morning, he wouldn’t get up and join Winnie Walker.  Luckily, I had had JoAnn pick up a urinal and a bed pan on her way over.  The urinal got used.  I tried to get him to get up every hour or so until I gave up around 1:30 pm, and started looking for a wheelchair.  The Holiday Inn would have been happy to provide one, but theirs had been stolen.  They went out and bought one, but it won’t be delivered until about Wednesday.  I found the phone number of the nearest Jean Coutu, and found they could rent us one for a $325 deposit and $20/week.  I hopped in the car and went right over.  That took longer than it should have, because Google thought I was on foot and led me down a cul-de-sac, where I could see the Jean Coutu, but could not drive there.

They loaded it into the car, because it was too heavy for me, and Pasquale at the Holiday Inn got it out.  I gave him a shower, right in it, and he was dressed and ready, when Roslyn and Real arrived with fabulous Chinese duck, Singapore noodles, Hong Kong noodles, beef and rice, and six daan tarts.  We wheeled Elvon down to the breakfast room, and had us a god Chinese feast.  Again, Elvon ate like a horse and was quite talkative.  He also had three of the daan tarts.

This morning, Sunday, he walked to the wheelchair, and we had Holiday Inn’s good breakfast.  After another rest, he walked Winnie to the bathroom.  We’re getting back to normal.

Monday, August 21, 2017

We got up and had a shower.  I love the water pressure in Montreal.  There is a lot of water in Quebec.  For as long as I can remember, there has been talk of exporting it.  We don’t though, not yet, anyway, so we just use all we want.  It’s not going to run out, unless we sell a hell of a lot of it. The contrast with California is stark.  Our shower could have been better, though.  What it needed was one more ability bar, so I wouldn’t have to reach around Elvon to put down or pick up the soap, or the shower head.  It’s an easy fix, so I asked for one.

Then we had breakfast and headed for the gym, just like home.  And, just like home, that meant that we hit the gym around 1:00 pm.  When we were done there, I took Elvon back to the room to rest and went to work across the room.

Around four, we left for Westmount village to pick up the eye drops at Jean Coutu, our local pharmacy chain.  JP used to own four of them.  Traffic was worse than I expected on the highway in, explained by the tow trucks loading five vehicles onto flatbeds, in the Turcot interchange. The pharmacy is across the street from my Montreal pedicure place, and I was in sore need of one.  If they took me right away, we could still make our reservation at Bonaparte.  They did, and I took four or five Duolingo Spanish lessons, while my toenails were being spruced up.  Three or four people took them with me and it was very jolly.

On to Bonaparte, where the street had been paved nicely and Elvon could again get in to his favorite Montreal restaurant.  His daughter, Cathryn, Matt’s father Lou, and his girlfriend, Patty, were already there.  Matt had to leave to attend his best friend’s funeral, back in New York.  So sad, too young to die.  Cat and Matt and Lou and Patty had been helping Ginger with her charity picnics.  They had hosted and entertained veterans on Saturday and were expecting about a hundred and fifty seriously disabled people tomorrow.  Ginger was likely calling that one off, though, as the weather forecast was grim.

Bonaparte is interesting.  Back in the 80’s I used it for expense account lunche, or had the simple lunch menu, when I had to pay for it myself.  It’s next door to Centaur Theatre, and still has a simple pre-performance menu, as well as high-end à la carte, and a six course tasting menu.  If we thought we could do six courses any more, that was only $81, and the quality is very high.  Cat and I had “Crème brûlée et foie gras de canard poêlé sur toasts de pain d’épices”.  The crème brulée was made of duck liver, egg yolks and cream, and was to die for.  The foi gras poêlé was divine, as seared foie gras usually is.  If you screw it up, it melts on you, and all you have is a puddle of grease.  Note the French word for “toast” in the description.  We could have made a meal of three of those, but would doubtless have been up all night.

As it was, we followed it with steak tartare and profiteroles au chocolat, and were fine.  Elvon had a salad, seafood linguini and two of my four profiteroles.  Cathryn wasn’t sharing.  Lou and Patty had the table d’hôte, which gave them a very nice salad, steak frites, and dessert.  Lou’s was lemon meringue pie and Patty’s was crème brulée.  A bottle of red, a bottle of white, nice cappuccinos, tea for us, and we were done.

Tuesday the twenty-second, Ginger’s party day, was a down day for us.  All she needed there, if she even had it, was one more cripple to take care of.  So, we stayed home.  Weather bug was pretty good.  There was a storm around 2:00 pm and another predicted for 7:00 pm.  It’s about time I told you about this Holiday Inn Express, too.  It has everything a HI Express has, but is a cut above.  It has four stars.  The décor is nice.  There’s a 3-foot Kugel Ball in the lobby, just like the Hilton in Hong Kong, when we were there.  The living room and library are very nice, and the breakfast room is large and well appointed.  Some of the chairs even have arms, for Elvon.  Tony, the Manager, is excellent, and he works with me.  I have a sweet deal on a couple of nights, not to move out, when we go to Cornwall.  They added a bar in the bathroom, too, as requested yesterday.  It’s that sort of thing that keeps us coming back.  Pasquale, Susan and Erika on the front desk bend over backwards for us, and our maid, Maria, is a darling.  The room itself is minimalist, but it’s a decent size and every piece of furniture works for us.  It has a king bed, an armchair with a footstool, that doubles as a breakfast table, with a towel as a table cloth.  The desk is a large two-table nest.  The part the computer is on can be pulled out and become our dinner table, with the desk chair and arm chair to sit in.

After all the usual, breakfast, work and gym time, I went out between storms, around 3:00 pm.  I drove West to St. Charles and North in a great circle route to the Western branch of l’obèserie.  For those of you new to this blog, that’s the Patisserie de Gascogne, now known simply as “La Gascogne”, the best bakery/pastry shop in the world, in our humble opinion.  I hit up the Royal Bank on St. Charles for $300 and kept going, passing another tow-truck, loading a banged up car.  There seems to be a lot of that around here.  I think I know why, but I don’t want to say, because I am a Quebec driver, too.

The traffic lights were out, as they were in all the stores on St. Charles, so I couldn’t hit that Dollarama.  I turned back East on Pierrefonds boulevard and went to the one on it.  It happened to be in the same little shopping center as a Tim Horton’s, so I had to have a donut before I toured one of my favorite stores.  Dollarama provided glass glasses to drink wine out of, a cutting board, a set of three kitchen knives, a pizza knife/server that is so good, I am going to take it home, a USB-MicroUSB cable, 24 wet-wipes, and a little bottle of rubbing alcohol, all for $25.  That sets me up for a couple of weeks.

I turned right on St. John’s Rd. and made for my true destination, La Gascogne.  There I put in an order for a croquant, which would serve 12, to be picked up by Jo-Anne tomorrow at 5:00 pm.  That would be dessert Thursday night at Rosemary and Nick Sidorchuk’s in Cornwall.  I added to that order, a little box of flaky appetizers, 6 croissants, 4 chocolatines, 3 carrot muffins, and 2 packets of chocolate covered orange peels.  Then I bought a baguette, a little pot of duck liver mousse, three Quebec cheeses, a Tiramisu and a key lime tart.  I already had a bottle of red wine, so we were set for dinner.

I moved the computer and paperwork to the top half of the desk and installed the lower table in front of our window.  I washed my dollar store purchases, opened the wine and laid out the spread, just in time for the sound and light show.  There was no lightning, as what it was, was a tornado.  It passed just a couple of miles from us, with lots of rain and 180 km/hour winds.  It uprooted trees, demolished cars, and threw roofs around.  We just saw our local trees bend, and the lovely rainbow when it was over.  Note the bottle of wine to the left, the seriously crappy industrial view in the foreground, the city and the rainbow in the distance.  It was pretty special.  Elvon’s favorite part was that he could see his bed from this particular table.  It didn’t hurt that every bite was of top quality.  Eating in can be very good in Montreal.  Bonsoir.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

We got up early and mustered, as we had a big day planned.  I actually went to the gym at 7:00 am.  I’ll never do that again.  It was packed.  I managed to get a treadmill for 10 minutes, but when I was ready to put my mat down, I couldn’t find a piece of floor that would fit a quarter of it.  So I went back to the room and lay down on a towel to exercise.  Now I know why I don’t get up early.  Everyone else does.

Elvon doesn’t, but I made him.  13 hours is enough sleep for anyone.  The Holiday Inn provided orange juice, sausages, scrambled eggs, hot frosted cinnamon buns and tea.  They provided a bunch of other things, too, but we couldn’t eat them all at once.  We were on the road by 10:15 am, and, despite the teeming barrel population on Montreal’s interchanges and bridges, we were in Lac Brome a little after Noon.  The duck place has expanded over to Asbestos.  That’s a town in Quebec, about 30 miles away.  They are born and raised for a short time here, and sent over there to fatten up and face their fate.  The store is still here, though, and I bought cans of foie gras, and appropriate condiments, for the women’s Technical Wine Group party in September.

On to Magog, for a visit with Glenn Coates, a retired Anglican minister, who used to live next door to Robert Lemire, in Danville, QC. Glenn was never your ordinary clergyman, and I’ll keep our secrets here, but we sure had a lot of fun.  His apartment is quite wonderful, complete with the gayest sofa I have ever seen.  I almost took a picture of it, but his view is too good to pass up. 

The geraniums are on his patio, what looks like a street is a bike path, and that’s the river beyond.  Not too shabby.  He doesn’t get to travel much, a prisoner of the too-good Canadian medical system.  Elvon felt that was a great shame.  It is interesting that Elvon is expressing opinions, these days.  I think traveling is doing him good. He even got to asking me what “Je me souviens” on the Quebec license plates means.  I knew it meant “I remember” but I didn’t know what they remember.  So, I googled, and you can, too.  There’s quite the controversy.  Which is why I don’t remember.

We left Glenn’s and checked into L’Etoile du Lac” where our own room had a pretty nice view.  This one is Lake Memphremagog” from our room.

And the weather looks threatening, but we were okay.  My phone said it would rain at 8:00 pm, and we’d be in the restaurant by that time.  We had a little party to show off this view before dinner, a couple of bottles of wine, a jar of “duck stuff” and some fabulous crackers, and we were done.  I got the wine glasses from the bar, along with an ice bucket.  I carried them back to the room myself, having refused the offer, in French, of a “bus girl”.  That’s how we talk here.

Our party consisted of our other family, Andrea and Paul Terni, JP and Ellen Morneau, and new friends, Andrea and Page Fairchild, who had thus far only been voices on the phone, booking cruises.  They are even better in person, and it was a perfect night.  Our restaurant, Au Gré du Vent, is a Table Champêtre, basically, farm to table.  They raise guinea fowl, wild boar, and a lot of veggies.  I had the wild boar.  Seven out of eight of us did.  It was lovely, as were the other five courses.  The wine was fine, and the company even better.  Paul wanted this particular picture, with some of the bottles.

We woke up on the 20^th to a glorious day.  There were still a few clouds about but it was mainly sunny.  The Auberge had an Eggs Benedict brunch that was sorely tempting, but we ate rich last night, and we had the fabulous Le Meac coming tonight.  We checked out and I popped into a Magog supermarket named “Le Vegetarian”, don’t laugh. It was breakfast.  I came out with some fruit, 4 small yogurts, 2 bottles of mango juice and 4 carrot muffins.  I also bought three Quebec cheeses to stock our refrigerator, because when we move back into the Holiday Inn, we’re staying.  I drove back near our hotel to a parking lot with a view.  The only problem is that it wanted $8.00 to park for the day.  People picnic there, walk the waterfront path, enjoy water sports, etc.  Luckily, a human being was collecting the money and he had a better idea for us.  “Vous continuez sur Principale, vous prennez Merry Sud, et c’est just passé le mec d’eau.”  Well “mec d’eau” was a new one on me, so I questioned it.  It was short for McDonald’s.  Breakfast was delicious, and we were soon on the road, bound for Montreal.  It was almost one.

Driving around the Eastern Townships, you always see a lot of bikers.  There are headquarters for Hell’s Angels and Outlaws, in these parts.  The bikers are ageing, just like us.  We saw more 4 wheeled bikes than the regular kind.  Why in God’s name anyone would want to ride a motorcycle with training wheels is beyond me.  Yes, I know, it’s when you no longer have the strength to keep the hog upright.  So, quit already, get a nice car and enjoy the ride.  I guess when you’re a Hell’s Angel, that’s not an option. To each his own.  We got to the Holiday Inn at around 2:45 pm, and had to wait a half-hour for our room to be ready.  Any old room would not do this time, as we were in for a couple of weeks. We went to the gym, and did the necessary there.  Then Elvon had a nice nap, and I unpacked and started this blog.

Google got us around the Montreal construction sites and to Le Meac about 15 minutes early.  We were soon joined by Linda Snell, Bev Rowat and Wendy Sissons.  Wendy and Bev are retired but Linda is still practicing and teaching medicine.  That was useful, because the steroid eye drops, that cost $US225 in Santa Rosa, are $CAD44.15 here.  Thank you, wonderful friend.  Business out of the way, we had a delightful meal, catching up on everyone’s travels.  I am sampling torchon de foie gras, from many restaurants, this trip.  My favorite presentation will be one of the small plates at WTWG in September.  This one was served with a pear condiment and a toasted brioche.  I have the ingredients for that, all but the brioche, which I’ll have to get locally, anyway.  I followed it with moules frites, another favorite.  We had to wait a very long time for the main course, so the restaurant comp’d us their famous pain perdu, for dessert.  It’s a three inch thick piece of French toast, from a brioche loaf, so soaked with egg and cream, that it’s practically custard.  Comes with gelato and butter and maple syrup.  Onyque.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

You would have thought Elvon would never travel again, after last year in Montreal.  But he wanted to come to see all our friends and our dentist, by whom he swears.  There’s good reason for that.  We both still have mouths full of our own teeth, with crowns only in the back, and three implants in Elvon’s jaw.  The kind of care we get from my cousin John, in Cornwall, would cost a fortune in the Stares.  It’s free to us because we are on Manulife’s Canadian dental plan.

That will easily cover the difference between what we have in the Bank of United, after the pelvis incident, and business class, non-stop. We’ll be back in the Holiday Inn Express, and, if it rains, our dinner partners will come to us with warm dead bird, Montreal smoked meat, or some ethnic treat.  There’s no shortage of good food for purchase in Montreal.  Leona and Norm are taking care of Sylly P with Pat Gustafson and Geri Novak visiting regularly, so she won’t be lonely.

We got up at 4:00 am and were almost read by 5:00 am.  At least I was in the lobby, fetching the bell cart.  The ever-reliable Eric was there already, and accompanied me back to the apartment.  He loaded up the cart and took it to the car, while I mustered Elvon out the door and re-entered a couple of times for little things I had forgotten.  Eric is an entrepreneur, and an author.  He used to own more than a dozen quit-smoking clinics, and has written a book on the subject.  Now he’s putting together a couple of “Fitness Festivals” for 2018.  He gets by on a couple of hours sleep and driving the likes of us around is recreational for him.  He knows his American History and can play devil’s advocate to any stance you may take.  Just what I needed at 5:30 am, mental stimulation.  We also got Vivaldi and I put him on to Music in the Vineyards, which I think he will attend and enjoy.

Check in was easy, and United’s Lounge was nice to spend time in, if rather pedestrian.  I don’t expect much from the airlines anymore.  And, here I am, in Air Crummy’s idea of Business class.  Somebody told me it wasn’t much, and it sure isn’t.  The seat is wider than my ass, but that isn’t worth $1000 more.  We got a barely edible breakfast and a couple of snacks, but nothing remotely special.  The entertainment selection on the miserable little TV set into the seat in front is the worst I have ever seen.  There is only one movie I have even heard of, HBO shows only one series, the music is unexceptional, etc.  They must be trying to force us to use the $20 Internet, which I refused to do, on principle.  Usually that doesn’t bother me, but when they are pushing you to it, it’s just wrong.

They landed on time, though, and by the time we got through customs, picked up our luggage and made it to the rental car pick up place, Jo-Ann Dery was there to help with Elvon.  He likes Jo-Ann and makes an effort to have a conversation.  The car is a golf cart.  I always pay for the cheapest and hope to be upgraded.  Last year I got a Grand Cherokee.  This one is a Nissan Micro, aptly named. It’s going to be great to park downtown.

For dinner with Jo-Ann, we picked Chenoys Deli, a Montreal institution, since 1936.  It’s a smoked meat place and there’s nothing like Montreal smoked meat.  Generations of McGill students fueled their studies at Ben’s.  I was one of them, although I was a picky kid, and had hot chicken sandwiches, while my friends ate that for which Montreal is famous.  It was only about twenty years later that I found out what I had been missing.  Yes, poutine was on offer, too, only not by that name.  It was just French fries and gravy then.

Getting to Chenoy’s was an adventure.  Jo-Ann had warned me I wouldn’t be able to turn left off St. John’s road to get in the place and suggested I turn into Baton Rouge’s parking lot and approach along De Salaberry.  I didn’t get that there was an entrance to Chenoy’s from De Salaberry, and turned left onto St. John’s to be in front of Chenoys.  Now, this is Montreal, still very much under construction, in the summer, and they are redoing St. John’s Road. (pardon me, Chemin St. Jean) There were barrels everywhere.  When I turned left, I chose the left lane, because that’s what you do when you turn left.  Well, I was all the way back over Highway 40, before I could get over to the right to go to a side street to make a U turn and try again.  On the second attempt, Jo-Ann guided me in by cell phone.  She could see me making the first left turn off De Salaberry from Chenoy’s parking lot.

I think the universe might have had a hand in all that, because as we were walking in Chenoy’s door, Ginger Petty was walking out.  What are the odds of that?   She was with her grandchildren, who are a lot older than I ever would have believed.  I knew their father when he was a kid.  Ginger looks fabulous, and the next day she would be hosting a hundred or so, very disabled people, for an annual picnic on Ile Bizard.   This year her house guests aren’t us, but they are Cat and Matt and Matt’s father and his girlfriend, Kathy.  Don’t you love the way the world turns?

Inside Chenoys, the wine was terrible, so we drank beer, and that was fine.  The smoked meat was still delicious.  We told Jo-Ann how much fun it was reading Travel & Leisure’s 100 Best Hotels list.  I had to get to number 27, before finding one I had stayed in, unless it was one of the tented camps in Africa, which dominate this year.  Number 27 is Hovey Manor in North Hatley, where we stayed for both of the Terni kids’ weddings and where my parents stayed on their honeymoon.  I wouldn’t compare it with the Shangri-La in HK, or Raffles in Singapore, but there you have it.  Jo-Ann wasn’t surprised.  The Clintons are staying there this week.

With happy tummies, we arrived at the Holiday Inn.  A lot of people check in at 11:30 pm, it seems.  After about ten minutes in line, I went out to get the rest of the luggage.  While I was out, our number came up and Elvon checked us in, all by himself.  Well, I’ll be damned and I was thrilled.  Up to our room we went and crashed.

Breakfast runs from 5:30 am to 10:00 am here.  I woke up at 9:50, lacking the enthusiasm to get down in time to forage breakfast.  I went back to bed.  The Ternis called about 10:30, which got me moving.  We had a shower and I went out to forage around 12:30 pm, we both having had Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Pretzels for breakfast.  Don’t leave home without them.

I went “home” to Westmount village.  I hit the hardware store for Goo Gone, as the golf cart came with a nasty sticky stain on its mini hood.  Then I went to Alain Assedo, to order a nice pair of dark sunglasses.  This purchase has had to wait for my second cataract operation, which happened in June.  I picked up a couple of millefeuilles at the Patisserie de Gascogne and ¾ of a warm dead bird at Chalet BBQ.

At 4:30 pm, we were in the breakfast room of the Holiday Inn, feasting, with the bottle of Oyster Bay sauvignon bland that Jo-Ann had welcomed us with.  Just perfect.  You know us very well, Jo-Ann, as she should, it’s a 50+ year friendship.  The Holiday Inn let us eat us in their breakfast room, where we got free tea, in cups now embossed with this message:

They have it figured out.

Life could not be better, and so, good night.

I have been meaning to update this blog for over a year now, and it’s embarrassing that crass commercialism is making me do it today, but there you have it.  We moved into Fountaingrove Lodge last June, and now that the place is decorated to our taste and we have a bunch of great new friends, we couldn’t be happier with it.  I only took one trip, and it was a month ago, a cruise to Alaska, with Joan Westgate’s fabulous family.  I was too busy, working and playing to write, but do email me if you need tips on Alaska.  I wrote them up for another client who should just be back now.  But let’s stay with the décor, because it will lead me to my selling point.

The focal point of our living room is this custom made cabinet:

It was made by Dennis Douglas in Napa, at the behest of Deborah Robertson, who, with the help of Valerie Lasker, was our Interior Designer.  I had a lot to do with this cabinet, myself, and I am very proud of it.  Our little apartment is lovely, and we are very happy with it.

But, wanderlust still guides my life.  Elvon and I will be going to Montreal on August 17, and staying a couple of weeks.  Last year’s adventures taught me what I need to do to keep him well and happy.

Luckily, the Holiday Inn Express, pedestrian though it may be, fits our needs.  It’s flat, with elevators.   It has a good breakfast buffet, that I can forage at every day, just like here at Fountaingrove Lodge.  It has a gym, and they let us use the Breakfast room to entertain in the evenings.  So, when it rains and he won’t go out, the friends scheduled for that night will come to us, stopping at Chalet BBQ, or Chenoy’s or any on a zillion Montreal restaurants with good take out.  I am told it had been raining a lot this summer.  It’s a good thing we can eat a lot of warm dead bird.  It’s the best in the world.

Then, in February 2018, I am going back to work as a Concierge Host – Singapore to Hong Kong. 

If you’re looking for a special trip to beat the February blues.  I think I have it for you.  I have just been named Travel Leaders’ Distinctive Voyages concierge host for Celebrity’s Pingxi Lantern Festival Cruise, and I am taking Pat Gustafson along as my co-host.  FGL has proven it can take good care of Elvon.  I am so happy we live here.  So happy, that I sent this out to the entire lodge.

I’ll customize a three-day add-on in Hong Kong, where Elvon and I lived for many years.  My Hong Kong tours top Abercrombie’s.  I take my guests to the private clubs, where we, or our still good friends, were or still are, members.  That means horseracing at the Jockey Club in a Members’ Box, dinner at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, maybe the Hong Kong Club, or The American Club or the China Club.  We don’t have time for them all.  There are special Chinese restaurants to sample, too.  We can hire a junk and go eat at Lamma Island or Cheung Chau, anything the group decides.  Planning it is going to be half the fun.

So, first thing I did was call Celebrity, and here’s what I found.

It’s a very special cruise, because of the Lantern Festivals, and it’s almost sold out!  There were only 3 Verandah cabins left, 2 Family Verandah cabins, 5 Sky Suites and 1 Celebrity suite.  I grabbed the 3 verandah guarantees with fictitious names and I am holding them until August 13.  Want one?

It’s a deal!  Cruise only, but with a lovely choice of perk packages, including a $909 per person beverage package –  Total fare for two people occupying the cabin, the perk package, services of a concierge host (moi), a free shore excursion in Hue that includes lunch:  $7,353.60 for TWO!!  That’s 14 days of cruising on a gorgeous ship, for $3,676.80 each.  The Family Verandahs are just a bit more and the suites are almost double that.

I’ll put us up in fabulous hotels in Singapore and Hong Kong, because you haven’t lived until you’ve been pampered in Raffles, or the Mandarin Oriental, or the Shangri-La – and there are more.  I’ll also invite Hong Kong friends along for dinner, so you can interface with real people who are my real friends.  They won’t be shy with you, because they’ll know you are my friends, too.  The ad-on will be optional and you don’t have to take it.  You’ll still get my best advice, for free.

Here’s the Itinerary:

And here’s the link http://tinyurl.com/SporeHKFeb2018

Call or email me to grab one of the very few cabins that are left.

It’s the last stop, but it’s a PIP
An LGBT Cruising ship.
The food’s delish, the view is art,
Our new friends are the bestest part.
We are as happy as can be
You just have to come and see.

The Harrises of Fountaingrove Lodge

4210 Thomas Lake Harris Dr., Apt 117
Santa Rosa, CA, 95403
707-738-3178 

Elvon, Helen and Sylly P

Cat’s Ass Cards, by Helen
www.helenmegan.com
where you’ll find the back story

And here it is:

Yes, we went around the world for the fourth time and, no, it never gets old.  We love the Amsterdam, its officers and crew, and the good fiends we have made over the years.  Elvon is slowing down, though, and it’s getting harder to take care of him, and about seventy other people.  So, after a brief visit with the Grays in Florida, we came home on May 5, to sell the house we had lived in for 22 years, and move here by June 10.

Pat Gustafson moved to Fountaingrove Lodge in February, and Susan Harris thought it would be just the place for us.  It had just opened up to straight couples, and we would be a good fit.  So, our place was secured, for occupancy May 31, thanks so much, Susan and Pat.  As she was living in our house with Sylly P, Susan also landed the job of staging the house, with Kim McPherson, our realtor.  It didn’t feel like home, when they were done, but it sure sold in a hurry, which was, after all, the objective.

The hard part was downsizing by half.  I miss some of the stuff we disposed of, but surprisingly little.  It’s liberating living small.  All that cruising was good preparation.  So much for moving out.  We’re still moving in, but we should be done in another two or three months.  We might even hang some pictures.  We brought enough with us.  For now, we look at our view, which is spectacular, and I work at keeping these old bodies fit, and selling travel.  2016 was my best year yet.  I am proud and pleased to report that, at least in one instance, I beat  the biggest Internet Travel Agency of all, on price.  There was never a contest on service.

We’re staying home, at least until June, and only taking short trips.  We enjoy dinner parties, almost every night, with our wonderful new friends. One of them turns out to have been in Elvon’s graduating class at Occidental College.  Small, small world.  Sylly P has settled in happily, but still demands a shrimp every night. We are planning a short cruise to Alaska in June, and, if that goes well, Northern Europe on the Prinsendam in August.  We love visitors and  Fountaingrove Lodge has a comfortable guest room.  Do come.

Love and purrs,

Elvon, Helen & Sylly P

Correction to my surmise on the Harrises.  This is from Isabel Gray, who comes from Scotland and goes back there pretty much every year:  “I don’t believe there is a Harris tartan – but I can assure you that Harris tweed is still made on the island of Harris – a small island off the North coast of Scotland and the islanders are still doing a good job!!”

My old agency manager, Scott, had a lot more to say on the subject:  “I’ve been wanting to respond, as a Scot Scott, to your attempt to spirit away the Harris Clan from their rightful home in the Outer Hebrides (I.e. Scotland) to the land of your own ancestors. Lassie, that just won’t do! And no, I did not just call you a dog to get even!  I have thought in the past that Elvon’s facial characteristics would fit in nicely with my paternal Grandmother’s family, especially when I learned Elvon’s father was a Presbyterian minister. The clues add up–and indeed, there is a Scottish tartan for the Harris clan: https://www.scotweb.co.uk/tartan/Harris/28141 “  Thanks, Scott.  I didn’t want to buy a kilt, but it’s nice to know.

I last left you on a plane from Amsterdam and we are now on a plane coming home from Montreal.  We got to Montreal in the evening of August 20, and picked up our rental car.  This year’s deal got us a Jeep Grand Cherokee for the price of a compact.  It’s a great upgrade, but the thing is enormous.  I loaded it up, called Chalet BBQ and drove straight there to pick up one of our favorite dinners.

I had been warned that Montreal was a construction site.  It hasn’t been this bad since Expo ’67, when they built the Decarie Expressway, the Champlain Bridge, the Turcotte Interchange and the Metro (subway).  Of course, except for a flurry of activity around the Olympics in 1976, they haven’t done much maintenance on any of it.  The past few years, you were taking your life into your hands driving around the city.

Montreal is turning 375 next year, and planning a big bash.  So, in true Montreal fashion, they are doing a “grand ménage”.  There are cones and barrels everywhere, excavators and earth movers, “acces au chantiers”, and no access to the street you want to drive on.  Somehow, I reached my destination and picked up our fragrant bag of chicken and fries.

We were staying at Ternis’ condo on Sherbrooke, because it was an apartment in an elevator building, and beautifully central.  Andrea and Paul don’t us it much in the summer, as they are mostly in their main house in Magog, in the Eastern townships.

Marc Edéry, a kind neighbor, had the key for us, and was waiting, when we arrived a little after nine.  Luckily, he’s substantial, or we would never have got in.  There are only two small steps into the building, but there’s no railing. Elvon just can’t handle that any more.  It’s as much a brain thing as a physical thing.  But, he placed his confidence in, and a good bit of his weight on, Marc, and made it into the apartment, while I parked the car under the building.

That was an adventure, too, and also required Marc’s help.  When they built that garage, there were no such things as Grand Cherokees.  It literally covered its parking spot.  We got the luggage out, and up to the apartment, just in time for Marc to join his friends at the cinema at 9:45 pm and Elvon and I tucked in to the wonderful offering from the Chalet BBQ.

That was it for the night.  We were exhausted.  I unpacked the bare necessities and we crawled into bed.  When we got up, in the morning, we were both in sore need of basic cleanliness.  But the apartment had only a tub, not a walk-in shower.  Elvon can’t get in and out of a tub.  So I gave him a sponge bath on the toilet seat.  When I was done, he couldn’t get off the toilet.  It was too low.  With a lot of effort, building up the level with towels on every attempt, he finally stood up, clutching the sink vanity.  He moved himself over to the door jam and glommed on to that.  I moved Winnie Walker into position and steadied her.

His hands were eight inches above the walker, and he would not let go of the door jam.   I spoke softly, and loudly, I pleaded, and swore.  I explained that he had no choice, he had to transfer to the walker or he would eventually fall down from exhaustion.  That was the path he took.

He managed to bum his way into the bedroom, but he could not get up on to the bed.  Over an hour had passed and I was at my wits end.  I took a shower to clear my head, and because I need one after a full day of travel and all that activity.  The shower did clear my head and I realized I needed help of the strong male variety.  If I called the cops, they would get him up, but they would also likely take us to the hospital for diagnosis.  I didn’t need a day there to know what’s wrong.

I called the Mapps, where we were scheduled to go to dinner.  My plan was to get Elvon up and take him straight there, while I moved us into a hotel with an accessible room and a gym.  God bless good old friends.  Chris came, with a lovely friend.  While they were on the way, I started packing.  They got him up, I got him dressed, stripped the bed, and we took everything, including the Ternis’ sheets and towels, to the Mapps’.  Marge gave us breakfast, while the clock struck noon.  It had been a four and a half hour exercise.

I put a load into their washing machine and found us a Holiday Inn Express near the airport.  While the Mapps finished our laundry, I went to the hotel, checked in, unpacked and managed 15 minutes of quiet meditation.  Then I went back to Mapps’, as dinner had been called for six.  I stopped by the liquor store on the way, but it closes early on Sunday, so I would have to deliver our wine next week.

Ginger Petty, and Andre and Jo Ann Dery, were the other guests, more dear old friends.  They were just what I needed.  It was the perfect evening.

To complicate matters further, my phone is dying.  Amazon agreed to replace it, but they can’t ship to Canada, so the plan was to pick it up in Newport on Monday, and have lunch with the Ternis and Fairchilds.

Monday, we slept a lot, showered, and used the hotel gym, which is a godsend.  We were going over to Linda and Bev’s for cocktails and consultation, and on to the Dump for dinner with Theresa Benedek, Kathie Keefer and their main squeezes, George and Peter.  Linda and Bev’s house presented problems, too, just a few steps up, but no railings for Elvon.  Luckily, the two of them are sturdy.  The Hong Kong Restaurant was easier, six steps with a nice serviceable railing.  The lobster and duck were as delicious as ever they have been.  The place has gone up and down in the forty years we have been frequenting it, but it’s at its peak now.

Tuesday, we went to Cornwall, where my cousin, John Sidorchuk, takes care of our teeth.  Usually, we sleep over at Rosemary and Nick’s in Long Sault, but tonight we had an event to attend back in Montreal.  Ellen and J.P. Morneau were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary, and we wouldn’t miss it for the world.

It took an hour and a half to get there from the Holiday Inn.  Without traffic and construction delays, it would have taken fifteen minutes.  Getting around Montreal is totally ridiculous.  The party was lovely, and it gave us a chance to connect with the Ternis.  Everything was delicious and the cake was unbelievable.  It was decorated with roses from their original wedding cake.  Ellen had kept them in her freezer all these years.  You would never have known they weren’t new.

Wednesday, August 24, we went back to Cornwall, for dinner with the family there.  We stopped at the Gascogne in Pointe Claire for Mille-feuilles, and other fine patisseries, chocolatines for breakfast, etc.  We enjoyed wine and appies on their lovely waterfront deck, and got to see John and Johanne’s lovely daughters, Sara and Lily, who are growing into fine specimens, indeed.  Best of all, we got to catch up with my closest relatives, and getting in to their lovely flat house wasn’t too hard.  Even there, we needed Nick’s strength and ingenuity to get over the two steps in, with no railing.  We also carry around a toilet raiser, so Elvon can get off the pot, when necessary.  We used it.

Thursday, we stayed in Cornwall until mid-afternoon, then drove to Montreal for dinner with Wendy Sissons.  We didn’t even bother to go back to the hotel, but just went straight to pick her up in Westmount.  It was another interesting construction avoidance exercise, but we had plenty of time.  We had settled on Elvon’s favorite Montreal restaurant, Bonaparte, in Old Montreal.  Wouldn’t you know it?  They had dug up the street in front of the restaurant and replaced it with plywood slabs, with eight inches of gravel between each one.  There were about 80 feet of this to get to the door of the place.  I went in and made my apologies, but I wasn’t even going to attempt this one with Elvon.  The Garde Manger, just down the street, had room, and it is usually a two month booking window.  Of course it did, no one could get there.  Our parking attendant drove Elvon right up to the door, where there was just one step, but, alas, nothing to hang on to.  Elvon wasn’t having any of it.

I remembered Le Bourlingeur, just at the corner and ran down to suss it out.  It’s just a modest bistro, in a very old building, six steps up from the curb, but it was fine.  The six steps were accompanied by a stout railing.  I went in and checked the location of the washroom, and it was on the flat, so we were good.  It was a few stars down from Bonaparte and Garde Manger, but my calf’s liver was excellent, as were Elvon’s fish and Wendy’s three kinds of sausage.  Profiteroles come in groups of three in Montreal, and they made a delicious dessert.  No French fries, though.  The city of Montreal won’t let them have a deep fryer in a heritage building.  We had a lovely time in spite of that.  Wendy is always fun.

Friday, we went to Ginger’s on Ile Bizard.  There, too, there are steps without railings to get in on the main floor.  So we came in through the garage under the house, on the lake side, where there’s a railing.  The place looks better than ever.  Both house and grounds are fabulous.  Ginger has a nice new three-tiered fountain, now.  It was a gift from Fox movies.  They filmed X-Men – The Apocalypse, on her property across the street.  They recreated their school there, with the fountain and a lot of special effects and moved the fountain to Ginger’s property when they were done.  There are glimpses of her grounds in the movie, and of her son, Mike.  Ginger’s personal assistant is Debbie Brousseau, who bought my 425 Victoria in 2000.  She had been in the Event Planning business for seven years, not so long ago, and still had all the contacts Fox would need to facilitate production in Montreal.

Debbie was there that afternoon, and it was great to reconnect with her, too.  Even Scruffy looked great.  Ginger has taken over his grooming and she’s doing the best job, ever.  We had fabulous butter and rosemary potatoes, filet mignon, and desserts from about three pastry shops.  When it came time to go, we reversed the process and all was well, until we got to the bottom of the stairs, when Elvon refused to transfer from railing to walker, again.  The three of us had to wrestle him off the railing, keeping him upright in the process.  That was the last straw.  Ginger called it.  We had to go home.

Cat and Matt were coming on Wednesday, though, and I didn’t see how I could take him away from a rare meeting with his East Coast daughter.  Ginger, however, just went into action.  Before we were even back at the hotel, she had called Cathryn and told her she had better get to Montreal in a hurry, because we could not go on as we were.  By the time I called Cat around nine-thirty in Saturday, she had rearranged her schedule and they would be in Montreal by Monday night.

I was still exhausted from the previous week, and took advantage of that by asking her to stop off in Newport, VT, and pick up my phone replacement.  Then I called United Airlines and brought our flights forward from September 10 to August 31.  I made sad phone calls to Ternis and Fairchilds, too, but was much relieved that all this was settled.  I don’t think it would have been all that safe for me to put in six hours of driving on Monday.  I wasn’t feeling that strong, and my heart was very heavy.

I finally caught up with my email on Saturday, and found out that the Simons had to get Sylly P out of their house, as Pati had developed a pretty severe allergy to her.  Luckily there was a contingency plan in place with The Lodge, and now she wouldn’t even have to wait long for us to come home.  Pat Gustafson met the Simons when they dropped her off, and visits her every day, so she doesn’t get too lonely.

We had Dim Sum at Kam Fung in Brossard with Roslyn and Real and stayed at the hotel on Saturday night.  We didn’t need much food after that.  We shared a bottle of wine and some cheese and duck liver paté from Gascogne, and were perfectly content.

Sunday we didn’t do much during the day.  I find I need a lot of sleep these days and I am indulging myself.  Elvon can sleep any time, anywhere, so it’s something we can enjoy together.  We have also been able to keep up our exercise program, thanks to the hotel gym.    Jo Ann Dery came over for a visit, around four-thirty and we met Rod and Claude for dinner at Le Petit Four Manago, on St. Charles Blvd., after checking that it was very flat.  They would have had us to their house, but we aren’t doing any more private homes.

We love Rod and Claude, and we had a wonderful meal at Manago.  I, for one, ate way too much, but the veal scaloppini with fettuccine Alfredo on the side was just too good.  Never mind the profiteroles.  Oh, my.  Oink.

Monday morning, I went out and replaced the cheap suitcase, which had broken, with another one.  I was ready to buy something better, but nothing I really wanted presented itself, so I went for another temporary solution.  Then I came back and emailed vcom that we wouldn’t be hosting around South America on the Prinsendam, in January and February.  We are going to stay home, and get help setting our lives up better.  Elvon will need a wheelchair, and I’ll need training in how to push it.  We’ll be welcoming visitors to our cruise ship that doesn’t leave the dock.

I spoke to Cathryn, as they were driving up, and suggested I go to Chalet BBQ and get us a meal that we could eat at the hotel, when she brought the phone by.  Matt was under the weather, so this turned out to be a good suggestion.  It’s nothing fancy, but very good, and a few pastries form Gascogne would make it special.

Tuesday, I packed, we exercised, and Cathryn came over to the hotel.  We went to Le Méac for dinner, and ate foie gras, rilettes, steak tartare, scallops, moules et frites, oh, yes, and crème brulée and profiteroles.  It’s time we get out of Montreal.  I can’t seem to do a fast day here.

Huge thanks to all our family and friends in Canada and California, for physical assistance, wonderful meals, moral support, and wise counsel.  Apologies and sincere regrets to those we missed.  We love you all.  I am going to have a nap now.

Footnote, September 3.  After a couple of days back at The Lodge, things are looking a lot better for us.  We are resting and picking up all our old activities, and then some.  Yesterday, we joined a discussion group on presidential elections, led by a resident named Terry Regan, and he’s a Reagan relative, too.  My grandfather Larry Megan, married a Mary Meehan, so I get that.  Today, we did a balance and movement class, that Elvon could follow from a chair.  He couldn’t do everything, but he followed along when he could and pronounced both classes of interesting.  He’ll come to anything, as long as I come, too, and seems to enjoy.  His favorite time remains dinner.  Mine, too.  It’s fabulous here.  Call me and we’ll buy you one.

No pictures.  My phone died and took them with it.

We made it to mainland Scotland on Monday, August 15.  Our port of entry was Invergordon, port for Inverness and Loch Ness.  I finally got to get off with Pat and Paul.  Now that I have a little less to do, and they are leaving the ship a little later, the planets aligned.  Elvon got his gym time early and, between the Olympics and the Presidential Election, he has lots to watch on TV these days.

We walked along the main street of town, and this one is nothing like Westmount.  After a mile or so, we got to the train station.  It took us a while to figure out which track we would be going out on, and that we could buy our tickets on the train.  No matter, because, we had about 40 minutes to the next train.  It was a lovely ride through the countryside, and we enjoyed it.  The weather helped.  This was the first day of the cruise that we were walking about in sunshine.

Pat had an app, and she had picked a nice walking tour along the river Ness.  I shortened it by about half, because I was flagging.  They are much more experienced walkers.  I spent the extra time in Pringle’s shop.  The cashmere sweaters were disappointing, designed in Scotland and made in China.  The designs weren’t even unique.  They were the same old twin sets that I likely have a dozen of.

I turned to tartans and made the interesting discovery that there was a lot of Harris tweed about the place, but there doesn’t seem to be a Harris tartan.  Did they actually ship the entire Harris clan to Ireland 200 years ago?  I am pretty sure that’s where Harris Tweed is headquartered. I have therefore deduced that Elvon is Irish, the good kind that fought with the Catholics, no less.

I ended up buying some shortbread sheep and went out to the street.  Pat and Paul were just about to cross the bridge to Pringle’s, so our timing was spot on.  We made the next train and I took Elvon to “The Music of the Highlands” at 4:45 pm in the Silhouette Theatre.  It was pretty amateurish, but they put their hearts into it.  The Ghurkas in Hong Kong did a better sword dance.

We had too much fun at dinner and missed the show, but the Masqued Ball on Deck 3 was fun.

We overnighted in Edinburgh on August 16.  I had been looking forward to it.  I had tee’d up dinner out at a swell restaurant on the Royal Mile, where the best of Scottish food could be had.  Willy Grey had chosen The Witchery for us, but it was very full, with four Fringe festivals in town, and not very accessible.  The nice lady there, with whom I had been corresponding, said they had another, fully accessible, restaurant, called The Tower, where the food was exactly the same and the view was better.  It probably has less old world charm, but it looked like the place for us.

But, “the best laid plans of mice and men, gang aft aglay”, as Robbie Burns put it.  There wasn’t enough water in the Leith harbor and we had to tender 2.5 miles.  I canceled the resie.  I worked all day, getting a letter ready for distribution on the 17^th, on my travel business and on personal stuff.

We had a nice dinner and went to a more professional Scottish show.  I have now had enough kilts and bagpipes to last me a good while.

We met Pat and Paul for breakfast, on the 17^th, with the printed letters.  They collated them, with the comments cards, and distributed them, while Elvon and I went to the gym.  The plan was to meet up in Edinburgh, but it never happened.  By the time I got to town, by tender and public transportation, they were half way up Calton Hill.  I had slept wrong, and had a sore shoulder, so I opted for the HopOnHopOff bus, sat upstairs, because it was nice and sunny, and rode it all the way around.

Then I got a bus back to Leith, that took me to Ocean Terminal, home of the Royal Yacht Britannia, decommissioned in 1997 and brought here.  It has a very nice audio-guide tour and I can recommend it.  I got back in time for us to meet Pat and Paul at sail away and proceed directly from there to our reservations at the Lawn Club Grill.  Celebrity has a devil of a time getting people to go to its specialty restaurants, as the free meal in the dining room is so good.  We got our meal for a little more than half price and it was fabulous.  They had enough heaters in The Lawn Club, that we could take off our jackets.  There was a great salad bar and you could make your own pizza.  One lady even tried to give her dough a twirl.  It was fun and funny.  The steaks and lamb chops were tender and done just to order, and the dessert was ridiculous.  It was a chocolate chip cookie, partially cooked in a crème brulée ramekin, with ice cream and chocolate sauce.  We loved it.  The experience was well worth the $25 each that it cost.  Regular price is $45, though, and I don’t know if I would have paid that, with the dining room so good.  We missed the entertainment again.  Too much to do…

Aug 18 was our last sea day.  Four people came to office hours, to say “Good Bye” and hand in their comments cards.  That was OK, I needed to pack. I got most of my packing done and we had another nice dinner and a show, It was Voce, four divas, singing everything under the sun in strange costumes.  We have heard better.

On Aug 19, we docked in Zeebrugh, the container port for Bruges, Belgium.  I had so wanted to get out early and in to Bruges, of which I have fond memories from about 1998,  However, when I assessed the state of my packing and realized I would have to schlep all the paper I didn’t sort through, I decided to do a little work.  We could not neglect the gym, either, as the next day we were flying to Montreal, and would never have time.  Then, my cell phone’s battery was drained because it had suddenly decided to object to that fact that it wasn’t on an ASUS charger.  I fussed with that a lot and went out with a tethered charger.  The upshot of all this is that it was after one when I got out.  The free port shuttle got me to Zeebruge, 31 km from Bruges.  The 20 euro shuttle was no longer running.  I had no idea how to do it on public transportation, as we were docked in a different place.  By the time I had walked up and down and assessed the situation, the two taxis, that had been waiting, had left.

The next taxi that dropped a group off, approached me to see if I wanted to go in to Bruges.  Well, I did, but not for 50 euros.  He finally met my price, which was 20 euros, but he was only taking me one way.  I stupidly got in.  He was a nice young Armenian man, who had been in Belgium about 17 years.  I sat in the front seat with him, answering a lot of questions about how life is when you are getting old.  I am not sure I want to be an expert on this subject, but, I guess I am.

When he dropped me off at the town square, all he showed me was where the taxi rank was, and told me to go there and make up a group, when I wanted to go back.  By this time, I had little more than an hour, and got so focused on that project that I never had a mussel, a French fry, or a piece of chocolate.  I was lucky to even get back.  All the taxis were pre booked, mostly by groups of 6, 8 and more.

Eventually, I found Marc, a sinewy, gap toothed, dissipated looking guy, with a nice small black car.  He was waiting to take back the people he had brought, but there were only two of them.  If they agreed, I could get in.  The odds were good, so I waited ten minutes with him.  His fare was a young German couple named Dietlin and Karl.  Dietlin is a doctor and Karl, a consultant.  We never managed to find out his field, though, which made me suspicious.  Politics?  Arms?  Military?  It wasn’t likely computers and communications.  We talked about where we worked and Hong Kong came up and I illustrated how good it was to work there, with my usual Hutchison AT&T Network Services launch story.  A little later Marc said he would bet that I had worked for IBM and one point. We never talked about big blue, how would he know?

He said it was the way I talked.  His girlfriend worked for IBM, you see.  I would love to meet the IBMer who would date this character.  But, he was fun, and he was clever, and he got us back to the ship on time and that worked for me.  I gave Karl 20 euros for my share.  Karl made a mistake and didn’t give Marc enough money.  Marc chased us and got everything he was owed, and, hopefully, then some.  It was a trip.

I cut up a set of labels, printed a fresh manifest, collected the comments cards that were in the envelope, and we went up to The Sunset Bar, where the sky off the stern looked very threatening.  There were two of my couples there, at a large table, and we joined them.  It was about 4:15 pm.  The ship left just in time to avoid the downpour and sailed just fast enough to outrun the rain, but not so fast as to freeze us out.  Another couple came around five and sat with us until six, when I retrieved the last of the Comments Cards, and we finalized who went into the envelope.  In the end, we drew from only 19 entrants.  Our very popular winner was my lady, who can use some cheering up, because her husband just died a couple of months ago.

The four of us had our last lovely dinner in the dining room and went to bed early, as the wake-up calls were set for 5:30 am.  It has been such a pleasure having Pat and Paul aboard, not only for the lightening of my workload, but for these lovely dinners every night.

On Aug 20, we disembarked in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  We got up at 5:50 am, had breakfast at 6:30 am, were off the ship by 7:45 am, in the taxi by 8:15 am and at the airport by 9:30 am.  That’s as efficient as it gets.  It slowed up waiting for a wheelchair for Elvon, and going through the whole airport performance, so I didn’t get to shop Schipol, but that’s probably just as well.  I am writing this from the plane.

Yes, yes, we’re in Montreal – and catching up

I forgot to mention that we finally caught a Celebrity show, after dinner on August 10, as we sailed from Dublin.  It was an all-singing, all-dancing, with acrobatics and all, one, called “Life”.  We enjoyed it, even though it was so new, we didn’t recognize a single tune.

Thursday, August 11, found us in Liverpool.  The omelet was, indeed, the best breakfast.  Ours was cheese and onion, something simple to go with a lot of bacon, sausage, toast and jam.  Then we did the gym and I went to work on the phone and computer.  The day before a tour can sometimes be a lot of work.  I thought I had done most of it on the 9^th, but it just kept coming.  I logged, I blogged, I sorted out all kinds of details.

I had decided to just pay for the 10-year-old third person in cabin.  His mother was sure she had been promised the tour and I didn’t want a bad taste in their mouths.  Luckily, I found out that kids were half-price, so it wouldn’t be so painful.  Having decided to do it for one, I put out a phone blast, last night, that anyone, with children wanting to come, should call me for very good news.  I could also use the blast to maybe drum up a bit more business.  Two more cabins signed up.

It was 6:15 by the time I got out and blowing stink.  I had planned to call Mary in Dublin, while I walked, but the wind was too high, and my Sim card had somehow disconnected itself.  I couldn’t fix that on the street.

When I got back I had a couple more phone calls to deal with.  One passenger was worried about being sick on the bus, as she had been a couple of days before.  I assured her it was just a city tour, and that she could have a handicapped seat in front.  We don’t have anyone badly handicapped.

We had another lovely dinner with Pat and Paul, and stayed up for yet another Beatles Tribute show.  We still like the music.

On Aug 12, the day of our tour, we docked in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at 10:00 am.  Around 9:00 am, I returned a phone call that had come in last night and sent out a short blast reminding people to be punctual at NOON, at our meeting place.  Since we had time, we had another omelet.  This time I replaced the toast with a waffle, for the best breakfast yet.  Then we did the gym and it was time to meet the group for our tour in Belfast

Paul came by the room about 11:30 to pick up his manifest and head out to meet the buses.  He texted me the info we needed.  I sent the lady who was handicapped by the possibility of bus sickness, out first.  Then I called the room to order and gave them instructions on how to get to Paul and the buses.  Pat and I compared our lists and we had accounted for every one of them.  We were down at the buses 10 minutes early, the best I have ever done.

Both buses did a city tour, Pat and Paul’s bus did the gaol first and then the pub.  My bus did it the other way around.  Our 72 people behaved beautifully, throughout, with no delays at all, at all, as the Irish would say.  We didn’t get much time to talk to them on the buses, though.  Irish guides have the gift of the gab and you can’t get a word in edgewise.  We all learned a lot and had a wonderful time, though.  Many. Many people told us it was the best tour on the cruise.  We hear this a lot.

The gaol guides won everyone’s hearts.  They must use acting students.  They put a lot of drama into it.  Then again, they’re Irish.  I can say this, ‘cause so am I, half, at least, Catholic from the North, no less.  No matter.  We learned that the tourism industry in Northern Ireland is very young.  It only started up around the year 2000.  Before the Good Friday agreement of 1996, no one wanted to come here.  Let’s face it, the place wasn’t safe.  “The Troubles” had left a terrible legacy of mental health issues, and a lot of doctors learned good plastic surgery.  No one wanted all that fighting.  The silent majority had to make itself heard.  Britain had decreed, 200 years ago, that no one who was Roman Catholic, or even Presbyterian, could have a decent education.  The Presbyterians were the Scots-Irish, who had been sent over to colonize Ireland and defend it from its enemies.  They fought with the Irish, against the British all through the troubles.

Now that equality has come, Belfast appears to be a lovely place.  The linen industry has moved to Asia and ship-building is a shadow of its former self.  The dry docks make good movie studios, though, tourism is catching on, and there are KFCs all over the place.  There’s also a lot of street art, both the un-commissioned murals of the troubles, and newly commissioned pieces, like the giant salmon, which is supposed to symbolize differing communities coming together in peace.  Canada should be proud that Bombardier is Belfast’s biggest employer.

On Aug 14, we were at sea, on the way to Scotland. We had a room service breakfast, and I talked to the guest who was looking for Edinburgh information.  I then went to the desk, where I was soon joined by Pat and Paul.  It was particularly quiet, and I ended up working there for an extra couple of hours, and a couple more after I had taken a gym break, with Elvon. I got a lot of PhotoShopping and blogging done, which felt good.

I was still there an hour later, when Lois Bacon came by all pumped up by an exercise class that had taken place on the dance floor on Deck 3, at the foot of the atrium.  She highly recommended the Lawn Club Grill, which we will do one night.

We had another nice dinner with Pat and Paul and the entertainment was a West End tenor named Andrew Derbyshire, who was tall and thin, so was his voice and performance.  Can’t win ‘em all.

On Saturday, August 6, we boarded and got to work in earnest.  Roxana, the Event Coordinator, met with me about 3:30 pm, and our lists matched.  I found out where our desk would be and we set the hours.  I adjusted my mail merge and the wonderful Roxana printed out the letters, with the Dates & Times document on the back.  Then I met with Pat and Paul, at our desk, and, in no time, we had added this last item to the packet and applied the labels.  We fanned out over the ship and everything was delivered by six o’clock.  I was on everyone’s voice mail by 6:30 pm, and we were in the dining room by 7:00 pm.  That’s as easy as it has ever been.  It’s wonderful having help.

The dinner special was roast beef.  It was delicious and we were ready for it.  We were also ready for bed, right after.

We were at sea on Sunday, August 7, and so we had office hours.  We got to the desk around 10:45 am.  I gave Pat a manifest and set her to collecting Passenger Ticket Contracts.  Then I gave Paul a camera, to capture pictures of whomever turned up.  We had a couple who had never heard of DV and the husband was pretty sure we were selling something, but she wanted to check.  We assured her there were no time shares on offer, and explained vacation.com and the DV the program to her.  She was thrilled.  Presently her husband appeared, they signed the Passenger Ticket Contract and she went off to Shore Excursions to cash in their Celebrity excursion for that day.

One very nice lady dropped off her waiver, but did not stop to chat.  Pat checked the list and saw there was a husband on the booking.  She questioned our lady at the cocktail party and found out he had died a couple of months ago.  They had planned a longer cruise, but she had cut it back to just this one.  We won’t talk about him anymore, as she really tears up, poor lady, but she is doing the right thing.

Next were a couple from Quebec, Roland and Ginette.  They were delighted that Pat and I spoke French, and we’ll never forget how she explained her name.  She’s “a little bottle of gin”. They are celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary, and Roland’s 80^th birthday, this year.  They look at least 10 years younger.  What’s with these Quebeckers? I am sure glad to be one.

Another couple brought their waivers in, and the wife asked if the ship had dealcoholized wine for the party?  I promised to ask.  When I mentioned it to Roxanna, she had to wonder why anyone would want it, as it’s terrible.  I had to agree.  I drink it one month out of every year, when I go off alcohol to clean out my liver.  It is terrible.  She promised to ask for it, but no guarantees, there.

We stayed until after one, but no one else came, except a couple who were DV hosts themselves.  We had a nice chat about the job.

I went back to my state room to work.  First, I put the camera into the charger and put out a phone blast to remind everyone to bring their Passenger ticket contracts to the cocktail party, and to remind them to discuss any handicap they might have with me.  It’s a strenuous tour.  This serves as a subtle reminder to attend the cocktail party, and caused one guy to call in that they had lost their welcome packet.  I promised to bring extras to the cocktail party.  I updated the manifest, wrote the cocktail party speech, and had it printed, along with three extra welcome letters, three long versions of the tour description, three updated manifests, and one copy of the 2017 DV brochure, which I had downloaded from the Internet.

We got ourselves dressed up, as it was Formal night, which on Celebrity, is now Evening Chic.  Men can get away with a sports jacket, but there are always a few, like our quebecois, who want to wear their tuxes.  I had Paul and Elvon put on dark suits, to be sure we all looked dressy.  Paul had to go out and buy a suit.  He hadn’t worn one since he retired, and none of the old ones fit.  He looked very nice in it.  See:

We were mobbed.  Pat managed to register 68 people, but we think she missed about ten.  Celebrity did a beautiful job on the drinks, which included some very colorful martinis, and the hors d’oeuvres, which were multicultural and delicious.

As usual, having people sing out their names, and where they are from, was fun and interesting.  We have groups from Texas and Oklahoma, this time.  There’s rivalry.

On Monday, August 8, we anchored at St. Peter Port, Guernsey.  I had high hopes for this port, as ex-Montreal friends, Daniele and Jean Schère, had a house here for years, so I had good information.  I also had a lot of work, and both Elvon and I needed some exercise.

We had Eggs Benedict in the Oceanview Café, the buffet on Deck 14.  They were disappointing, overcooked and served on a piece of toast.  If they aren’t on an English muffin, they aren’t Eggs Benedict.  We’ll need a new favorite.  We had chocolatines as a consolation prize, and made for the gym.  By the time we got out of there, it was after eleven, but we felt better about ourselves.

By the time I had caught up enough with my work to feel comfortable, it was 1:45 pm, and last tender was at 3:30 pm.  There was exactly one other person on the tender, one of the lecturers.  Lawrence had worked at NASA, which reminded me of Ken Stein, and had pretty much the same subject matter.  His specialty was space suits, and he had worked it through all the manned missions.  He had pretty much the same goals I had, some exercise and something interesting to see.

So, off we went, with a map and some guidance from a volunteer on the pier.  It was too late to walk all the way to our friends’ ex-house, but we actually came close.  We might have done it, if it weren’t still up a steep hill, and we were not at a level with Hauteville House, which Daniele had highly recommended.  Victor Hugo lived and worked there, in exile, from 1856 to 1870.  He had opposed Napoléon III’s coup d’état, you see.  Hugo once said “I missed my vocation: I was born to be an interior decorator.”  I am not sure any of the Interior Designers I know would have agreed with him, but one follows the mood of one’s times and tries to innovate.  It’s very dark and ornately carved, with magnificent workmanship, tapestries, and ceramics.  The ideas are exciting, and the views magnificent.  I wish I could say we saw all of that, but we got there too late to go on tour, so we just got to peep in to the hall, see the gift shop, and take a walk in the garden.  It has magnificent views, though:

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The line for the last tender must have had a hundred people in it, all neatly arranged in cattle gates.  Luckily, there was a pub, right there, and the enterprising publican had set up a beer station outside.  It was $US7.00, but it was good, local beer, and it sure helped pass the time in line.  I invited Lawrence to dinner, as I thought Pat and Paul would get a kick out of him.

I came back to a few phone calls about our upcoming excursion.  I called them all back and wrote to our tour operator, with passenger count (69) and handicapped count (4).

We had a long wait for dinner, with pagers, and the dining room was right next to the Martini Bar.  Lawrence insisted we should try the “Martini Flight” and we did.  It was quite a show, and, if you haven’t had it, I won’t spoil it for you.  Do it the next time you are on Celebrity.  I won’t tell tales on our dinner conversation, either.  We have to leave some things to talk about when we see you in person.  We might have had Tee many Martoonis.

The next day, August 9, started the same, with fried eggs instead of the Eggs Benedict.  They were better, but still somewhat overdone.  I made a note to try the omelets tomorrow.  They looked pretty good.  After our time in the gym, I got back to work.  There were a few phone calls to deal with, tour details for Belfast and advice for Scotland.  That reminded me to make two bookings for 4 in The Tower Restaurant, next to the Castle in Edinburgh.  The Witchery was already all booked up, and my emailing there, about accessibility, discouraged me from bring Elvon.

Finally, around 4 o’clock, I got out in Cobh, with no chance of getting to Cork.  So, I just walked around.  The part of town I walked was pretty sad.  Many of the stores were vacant.  I had seen that in Guernsey, too.  I hope it’s just re-development, but fear the worst.  The headline on the local newspaper was interesting, too.  It read “It’s time for Gay Priests”.  Haven’t we always had them?  I could have bought a 300g box of After Eights for 6.89 Euros, and passed.  I was pretty sure Mary could find me cheaper ones.

On Wednesday, August 10, we docked early in Dublin, Ireland.  I had been looking forward to this port, as Mary and Sean O’Beachain live here, and this is probably the first time, since high school, that more than ten years have passed, since we have seen each other.  The weather was nasty and the gangway was steep.  None of that dampened my spirits, but Elvon dug his heels in and refused to go, even though Mary’s car was 50 yards from the gangway, and two big guys and a wheelchair had been summoned to get him off.  You can’t reason with him, once he has decided he won’t do something.  So, I took him back to the cabin and went out without him.

It was so good to see Mary and Sean.  Sean made himself scarce while Mary and I knocked off almost everything on my shopping list.  There’s nothing like knowing a local.  Around 1:30 pm, we met Sean for lunch at Wynn’s Hotel, about the last place where you can get an old fashioned Irish lunch, in my case it was lamb chops and three kinds of potatoes.  Even they have gone modern, though.  They included a piece of turnip, two beans, and a few carrots.  I have a picture in case you don’t believe me about the three kinds of potatoes.

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I have a picture of Mary and Sean, too.  They’re well and now have six grandchildren, all between the ages of 2 and 7, two in each of Dara’s, Mairin’s and Sean’s families.

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We had a wonderful time catching up and reminiscing.  We have known each other for more than 50 years, and have shared more than enough binding experiences.  We are still there for each other, always.  On our post-prandial peramble, Mary was the recipient of a present from on high, and had the occasion to thank the lord that cows don’t fly. She can also thank me for having Kleenex and Wet Naps.

In 2017, we have two assignments on Holland America’s 647 passenger, ms Prinsendam, January 3, 2017, it’s a 67-Day Grand South America & Antarctica Voyage. There’s a 37-day segment, too.
and next summer, it’s the ms Prinsendam again, August 18, 20-day Iceland, Greenland & Scottish Explorer. We would love for you to come along. Just shoot me an email and I’ll get you a quote.