45 years ago today ...

... I set out for a three month holiday in Canada.

Here's the ticket!

I had been working as a waitress in Switzerland at a couple of hotels during the previous year and had the time and money to spare.

I had no job, nor any idea what work I might do once I was back home from Switzerland.

So on 27th June, I flew to Montreal, with the intention to catch the train out west later that day to see my aunt, uncle and cousins in Alberta.

But, it all fell apart when I realised that although I was there, my luggage was not.

I had checked in in plenty of time at the BOAC terminal in Victoria, and caught an airport bus out to Heathrow.

Arriving in Montreal to find it 90 F (35 C) and extremely humid, and with airport staff refusing to speak to me in English was horrible.

I had only just about adjusted back to speaking English, rather than German, and could not remember any useful 'O'  level French. 

Many thanks are due to a London based Canadian who had given me a Montreal based relative's phone number the day before I left.

This lady, once contacted and she'd sorted out her children, swooped down and took me to her home.

She fed me and took all my clothing and laundered it for me, lending me some of her clothes.

The following day, having sorted out Air Canada's luggage people, I was put on the train with clothes and food to sustain me for the three day (2 night) journey.

I ended up staying very nearly five years in Canada, but that's another story.

... and a year went by ....

I can't quite believe that all those posts I composed in my mind didn't make it onto here.
So, here's a quick summary of a busy 12 months:

This time last year I was heading off to Skipnorth. this year's Skipnorth is now 10 days behind us.
It was another memorable visit to points north with great company.

This time I did remember to take a rather grainy photograph of the patterning in the centre of the ballroom floor at the hostel in Haworth. This may have uses in designing knitwear.

But, back to last year and some of the things that happened and places that were visited.

In March 2016, we put our family home in north London on the market, thus ending a lifetime connection to Finchley.
It sold in early August, once my brother had moved to France.
This completed the realisation of my mother's estate.
My father had designed the house in the early '60s, and we built it from Easter '64, moving in at Christmas '66.

April 2016 saw Ian and I visiting Japan for the first time. Japan deserves several blogposts, so here's a glimpse of the cherry blossom in Sendai. We were travelling in Japan for four weeks, and nearly a year on I haven't fully taken it all in.

In late August we had another lengthy trip, this time to Canada.
Firstly we flew to Toronto and spent a fortnight driving around busily visiting many friends in Ontario.

Here's where I was living when I left St Catharines in May '77. It was a compact apartment built over my landlady's garage, cold and draughty in winter, too hot in summer. It is not much changed visually since I lived there.

After that we had a couple days in Montreal before embarking on the Marco Polo to cruise back to Britain. We spent two weeks gradually making our way up the St Lawrence Seaway and visiting places in the province of Quebec and the Maritime provinces.

In October we had a day trip by plane from Lydd to Le Touquet in order to visit the war grave of one of Ian's great uncles at the Etaples cemetery. This was together with Ian's brother and his family.
We combined flowers and foliage from our gardens to form a small bouquet.


December saw us visiting Devon for a few days, staying at a Landmark Trust property in Lympstone.

Then we closed the year by flying out to Limoges to see Tony and his rural property.
This was just a short visit of four days, conveniently in and out of East Midlands airport.

20 years ago I did something foolish ...

... and as a result my watch stopped working.
Now this wasn't just any old watch bought cheaply from the local jeweller or department store.

It is a Tissot with a stainless steel housing that I bought in Switzerland in 1972.

I can't now remember how much it cost me, but it was pricey for the time.
I had saved my meagre tips when working in the dining room of a hotel in Arosa and used them for this luxury.

It replaced the basic Timex I had been given aged eleven when I started at secondary school.

Fast forward to the summer of 1995, and we were on holiday in British Columbia.
Touring around Vancouver Island, it was late afternoon and we were in the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve between Tofino and Ucluelet.

We walked out to the coast, and gazing at the Pacific I indulged in one of my favourite activities, beach-combing.

I saw a pretty stone or shell, I can't now remember which, purple in colour.
I reached out to pick it up out of the sea, forgetting that I was wearing my watch.

Disaster, although I hastily removed my hand from the water and tried to dry it off, it stopped working.
When we got home I took it to a jewellers to see if it could be revived, and was told it wouldn't be worth it.

So, I bought a basic black Casio digital watch, no fancy leather strap this time.

Fast forward once more to 2015, and now I own another Swiss watch, a Mondaine once again purchased in Switzerland.

The Mondaine was just out of it's 2 year warranty when it seized up as we were travelling home from a five week visit to Australia at the end of June.
Taking it to a shop in Derby resulted in gaining a new movement, which was cheaper than I had expected.

When retrieving it, I asked whether they could take a look at the Tissot.

So on Friday when I had other errands to run in Derby I picked up the Tissot and put it in my bag.
I had finished everything else and went in to the jewellers, and told them the story.

The young man I was speaking to said, "There is nothing wrong with it!".
He handed it back to me, and apart from the date being the 27th rather than the 7th it was fine.

I've wound it each morning since, and it is keeping time.
Why it slept for 20 years is beyond me.

Colours of June - Ontario

We started our trip by visiting a vineyard with a wine tasting. This was a common sight for me when I lived down in Niagara in the '70s, row upon row of grapevines.

Walking on the Niagara escarpment, we saw some trees with damaged bark which made great patterns.

Vast skies and power lines, some very new. I didn't get round to sketching these new pylons, just snatched a photo from the car.

These salad greens are growing in a half barrel in a friend's tiny back yard in St. Catharines.

Colourful signage on the corridors at Brock University. This was always one of the great features when I worked there in the '70s. 

 

We got together with Bob, who had been my boss in the library at Brock and went down to the canal to look for passing lakers. This is the new fencing at the Lock 3 viewing platform on the Welland canal, complete with patriotic maple leaf topping. Not the nicest thing if you should fall against it!

I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like a type of raspberry. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. As it grows in the shade, not the easiest of items to photograph. The colour really zings when you see the flowers.

An exciting display outside a hardware store in Toronto. Presumably this all comes in each night and is displayed again daily. I loved the cards showing the prices for milk, ice cream etc. Click on the image to read all the options.

This amazing moth was lurking by the garage at Pia and Tom's place in Barry's Bay. This proved hard to photograph as there was little light. It was very obliging, and stayed still until I had fetched my camera from the house.

All the temporary bollards we saw had the same format, but with the contractor's name emblazoned on them. This wasn't the best name I saw, but getting such an item in focus from a moving car isn't easy.

A beautiful old car, colourfully painted, lurking near a yarn store with a fantastic name! 

This store is in Port Perry, and we only came across it accidentally, having taken a wrong turn. We were meaning to take a brief break, and turned into a shopping complex rather than up the main road. Coming out of the slip road this was lined up straight in front of us. I called out "We have to stop to see Never Enough Wool". They had moved down a few doors earlier in the year. Ian paused to look at some local history information about the lake, and I took a look at the inspiring range of yarn.

Now to hunt out my colours of July, back home here in Derbyshire.