Canada:Halifax:Nova Scotia. Chocolate and Pecan Pie with the Wired Monk

Episode 3

Seeking to keep my cost to a reasonable amount, I found that the Dalhousie University in Halifax rented out their student accommodation during the summer. Above the door of the high rise dorm block is inscribed the motto, 'Inspiring Minds.' To me this brick and glass utilitarian building was one of the least inspiring edifices in Halifax, but some of the later campus buildings were much better to look at. The rooms were no fuss singles, with a wash basin and there were male and female toilet and shower rooms on each floor. More importantly there was a wonderful view across the sound, so I could keep an eye out for the arrival of the boat that was carrying my motorbike to Canada.

(You can find the terms and conditions for staying at Dalhousie at this website. http://www.dal.ca/dept/summer-accommodations.html)

 



Gerard Hall of Residence, Dalhousie University, Halifax.

 

Having unpacked, I left my mascot Eeyore watching from the window while I went out to explore. Halifax is a lovely little city on the waterfront with a modest population of 400,000 and has a history dating back to the early days of Canada. The commercial shipping docks have moved further upriver, or across the sound to Shearwater. This has enabled the capital city of Nova Scotia to refurbish the old wharfs by making the worlds longest harbour front boardwalk that stretches the whole length of the old harbour. Walking down the hill to the old harbour I was pleased to see that the older clapboard houses with their cedar shingle clad roofs still managed to co-exist alongside their bold new neighbours. One thing that did strike me was the amount of cables that festooned the streets, they didn't seem to have buried any of them. Sometimes I would find an attractive angle to photograph a building, only to see that the wires obstructed the view to such a degree that it was not worth taking the photograph.

The Harbour Boardwalk in Halifax



I felt very much the tourist here, but had no difficulty in reminding myself that this was to be just a pleasant interlude before the real thing. I purchased a book of maps covering the whole of North America, plus a couple of highlighters and also a book on wild bears and the dangers thereof. My greatest fear on this trip was of meeting a bear on the trail or in a campsite, because I intended to go through some wild and desolate places far away from the nearest civilisation. Having briefly explored downtown Halifax; it took me ages to figure out that 'downtown' just means 'the shops' to North Americans, I can be really thick when language says something it doesn't mean; I wandered back down Hollis Street towards my accommodation.
 

The Boardwalk and Downtown Halifax.

Modern office blocks in downtown Halifax

 

Where Hollis meets Morris, sounds good that phrase, where Hollis meets Morris there is a small bistro on one corner called 'The Wired Monk'. Part of the building is used as a jazz club, and the name of the bistro honours Thelonious Monk, the jazz pianist. I stopped for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie and fell in love. They make the most wonderful pie I have ever tasted, chocolate and pecan. It was not on the menu every day, but when it was I stopped to worship.

 

 The Wired Monk, where Hollis meets Morris.

 

Another reason for sitting there at an outside table was so that I could watch the traffic. Here in Canada and in many of the US states, you can ignore a red light if you are turning right and the way is clear. Remember that they drive on the right over there. On junctions with no lights, the person who reaches the junction first has the right of way. This the drivers courteously abide by, as do they observe the rule that pedestrians always have the right of way. If I was walking and not sure of the direction I needed to take at a road junction, I soon learnt to step away from the kerb as I brought whole lines of traffic to a stop by just hovering there. Out of sheer embarrassment I crossed even if I realised I needed the other direction. Coffee and pie done, I headed back to my room for a nap and then a shower before going out to find somewhere to eat.

 

From my dorm. window: Early morning mist across the sound.

 

Tomorrow: Out of the fog appear the ghostly shapes of tall masted ships.

Canada. Episode 2:- The sad tale of the man in the queue.

 

 



 

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

 

I was feeling excited, this was my first day of the actual adventure and as the passengers from the 'plane from London filtered into three zig-zag files, each file destined for one of the dispassionate looking immigration officers, I wanted to tell as many people as I could that today was the first day of my new life. Today I had chosen you, Halifax, to be the recipient of my first step into the 'New World'. 'One small step for man, but one giant leap for Stagbeetle', aka Derek.

 

"Look at me," I wanted to shout, "I not just here on holiday or a boring business trip, I'm here to look at the creators works and get the full on, Technicolour, stereo, hi-fi, 3D, Blue-Ray, HD, Road to Damascus Revelation that will make me a god!!!"

 

Here begineth the first lesson. You ain't the only one who has a story to tell.

 

The elderly man in front of me was well built and a few inches taller than I, he being about six foot high, albeit that he lost a little of his height due to a slight stoop. He wore a full beard, now liberally streaked with grey, a dark brown fur hat and a long old fashioned, grey overcoat that was unbuttoned with its belt hanging loosely in the belt loops. His brown leather shoes were polished and of the sort of quality that I had only been able to choose once or twice in my life. Russel and Bromley in my case but I know not the origin of the shoes of the man in the grey overcoat.

 

"Have you been to England on holiday?" I asked, hoping to find an opening to crow about my madcap adventure.

 

"No," he replied, " have been to Europe to find my wife who was kidnapped two years ago."

 

I mentally fell off my self erected pedestal with a dull thud.

 

"The man who did this thing," he continued, "has now been sentenced to eight years in prison thanks to the work of Scotland Yard and Interpol."

 

"And your wife," I asked in wide eyed amazement, "is she okay?"

 

"Physically, yes; but she no longer recognises me."

 

We both shuffled forward with our hand luggage as the queue shortened by one body.

 

This mild looking Canadian man then told me his story. "Look it up," he said with a throw away gesture of his hand, "it's in the Canadian papers."

 

I cannot remember every detail but will relate what I remember of what he told me. He and his wife had been happily married for many years, when coming close to his retirement he noticed that his wife was becoming forgetful. The family doctor diagnosed the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and was unable to suggest any treatment. Her brother lived just outside of New York and suggested that she should come to see him for a short holiday while she could still remember who he was. They packed the car and he drove her there, returning home to continue with his work for a few weeks until it was time to collect her again. That was the last time he saw her for over eighteen months, and the last time she knew who he was. In the few weeks that followed he had a few phone conversations with her, although one or two were confused and he wasn't sure she knew to whom she was talking. Subsequently he learnt that some of the later phone calls were made from Europe. When he could no longer reach her mobile phone, and deeming that she had been away long enough, he went to pick her up and bring her home. Only her brothers house was in darkness and her mobile phone rang plaintively somewhere deep in the house when he dialled it. The Police were unable to help, saying that she was old enough to determine her own life, and sad as it seemed, if she had decided to leave him, that was her affair. Only after involving the Canadian Mounted Police, following him getting a letter of concern from the family doctor, did the FBI tell him that she had left the country on a flight to Paris, and that her brother accompanied her. He flew to Paris and contacted Interpol. Here he had to assert that she had been kidnapped while being in no mental state to make the decision to come to Europe. Interpol were only able to tell him that her brother had bought a ticket on the Euro-express to London. Scotland Yard were of no immediate help, informing him that a certain time must pass between him saying she was missing and them recording it as so. Dejectedly he returned home. Some six months or more passed before Scotland Yard contacted him to say that they too were now concerned about his wife, since their investigations had led them to a private care home, where the doctor who attended the guests there confirmed that in his opinion she was not capable of making life decisions for herself. Furthermore on being told of the deterioration in her condition her brother had removed her from the home. He flew to London and went to see for himself. He told me that he found a large mock Tudor house with large gardens, clean rooms and a caring staff. The matrons description of his wife's condition appalled and dispirited him and a further six months or so were to pass before he heard more. Then Interpol called his local Police to say that they had located her and her brother in the south of France. He flew to Paris immediately and was reunited with his wife who did not have the faintest idea of who he was, and cried for her brother, the only person she recognised. The French Police could do nothing, since no crime had been committed in France under French law. Scotland Yard could however, since removing her from the English care home, without the permission of her legal guardian, her husband, was kidnapping. The tale ends with him taking her once more to the English care home which she recognised and was happy in, her brother being sentenced to eight years imprisonment in England and him returning home where an empty house awaited with a bitter retirement. How cruel for him to lose those last few months when she remembered who he was and how their life had been. He had by now reached the head of the queue and headed for the Immigration desk and a lonely journey home. Some endings are neither happy nor cathartic.

 

Tomorrow. Chocolate and Pecan Pie with the Wired Monk!

Canada, The start of it all

It is five years since I hung up my boots and helmet; my, how time flies! This is the story of how I overcame the grief that pierced me to the core following the death of my wife on October 26th 2005 at 7.10pm in The Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, King's Lynn, Norfolk. That grief caused me to breakdown at my desk at work one year later, but for a day. My personal pagan beliefs forbid me suicide, or I would have taken that ride instead! My motorcycle trip would needs fill the time until the pain in my heart became bearable.

 

My wife died in my arms that evening in October. The day had a bright, mild, autumnal feel about it outside; family members were arriving at the small side ward and chatted to each other casually. Inside the room a scene of Wagnerian proportions was taking place as forces beyond me stretched down and beckoned the spirit inside my wife's poor ravaged body to leave and move on. Her Earthly journey was now complete.

 

"I love you but I want to go now." she gasped in a barely audible whisper, with that certain stubborn look she  sometimes had.

 

"Okay darling," I replied holding her close, "wait for me on the other side."

 

Gazing straight at me a feint smile flickered across her face and she let out a long slow sigh as the lights of life dimmed and disappeared. I was alone, as I knew I would be in the end as we struggled through her brief and intense fight with cancer together. Her spirit seemed to hover above her for a few seconds before I bade it farewell with all the positive love I could muster at that moment after our 35 happy years together.

Chris, when we were young.

 

A year later and the pain suddenly burst out of me, I had to get away and find myself again. Had to re-establish my identity and find out the purpose my life has, if any. Was I just a freak of random chemical reactions that had found sentience, or could there be a higher purpose to existence? I was prepared to place my fate into the hands of the gods, not caring one way or the other what way the chips came down. Maybe, just maybe they could show me a glimpse of our purpose for being here, or not.

 

"Who are you now?" kept ringing through my head. "You have no function, your family has grown and although people love you in their way, it is not in the same way that wraps you up in a blanket of love and mutual dependency that I used to know."

 

"I must go!"

 

But let's not be totally reckless here, I maybe stupid, but I'm not unintelligent. I would start in Canada just in case the earnest faith I had in my inner light was misplaced and I ended up a gibbering wreck.

 

The following July, clad in my motorcycle boots and touring jacket I stepped off the aeroplane in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was, and still is, a wonder to me that as vast and wide as the Atlantic Ocean is, it was further from here in Halifax to Vancouver than it was from Halifax to London which I had left just a few hours earlier.

 

My motorbike, a secondhand BMW f650, (named Christine, after my wife, and not after the horror story), was following me by sea and I still blush at the scene at the docks at Southampton when disembarking from the Transit van. I over-balanced on the plank and crashed to the floor sideways. Not an auspicious start.

 

In the weeks and months (months and weeks?) preceeding my departure I had sold my house and most of my belongings, made a will, said farewell to family and friends, convinced them that I knew what I was doing, had several trips for inoculations, nearly missed the flight and was now standing in the Immigration and Customs queue at Halifax Airport. Perhaps now my adventure could begin.

-ooOoo-

Tomorrow, the sad tale of the man in the queue.