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After a hike in Montebello and a refreshing swim and a lazy afternoon afterwards, Alison wanted strawberries. So I thought we’d take an earlie exit and go to the Jean-Talon market, which is located in Montréal’s Little Italy. However, on the evening of the World Cup soccer final that turned out to be a very bad idea. Especially when Italy has won.

We found out the hard way, because all streets were filled with crazed out supporters and all side roads leading to our part of town were closed off by the police. It took us more than an hour to get home, and we didn’t even have strawberries.

The maple tree, recently pruned, seems to be ill. The bark falls off, and underneath it’s crawling with insects. This process had already started before I cut off some branches, but it probably didn’t help.

Sorry tree.

[here should be a picture of the deed, but we couldn’t take it with us, because it wasn’t ready yet].

At the notary.

Alison with a colour coordinated outfit, scrambling to our sunbathing spot. The Hema bag is Dutch and has nothing to do with Québec’s blood bank.

The instruction on the website were not very clear and it was along time since I’d read them. I thought we were going to the piece of land our friend Suzanne has bordering the Rivière Rouge, but Alison didn’t want to go there unannounced.

So we went to the place that the website described. Also next to the Rivière Rouge, but downstream. We parked at a campsite for $5 and followed the instructions as I remembered them. But we followed the wrong path. It started out okay, but soon the path became a very tiny path and we had to scramble up and down to avoid steep cliffs that were near the water. After almost an hour I decided that this was foolish and we returned in our footsteps. When we reached the road we tried the side road a bit further away from the bridge and that proved to be a much better choice. After a 20 minute walk we reached the river, near a very serious rapids with a 3 meter drop. A couple of rafters came by but portaged their rafts around the rapids. What is the point in rafting when you don’t go through the rapids! I understood when I saw a kayaker descend through the rapids because even in a kayak it looked quite difficult and dangerous.
I myself didn’t do any paddling but just scrambled a bit over the very beautiful shaped rocks, cooled off in the water (the current was too strong to rally swim, and sunbathed for a while, until the sun disappeared behind the trees and we returned to the car.

I just looked it up and we were on the wrong river bank, but is sure was a nice spot.

On the highway back to Montréal we saw a series of strange accidents. There were three accidents, but they were all very far apart, about a kilometre each. The first one involved a passenger bus and a totalled car, the next was a car that had hit the security rail and the third a car that was located far to the right in the ditch. We tried to deduct what happened and the only explanation we could come up with was that a car had driven against the direction of the traffic and that other cars, trying to avoid him, went off the road.

Alison’s father today celebrates his 65th birthday so in spite of the fact that today is Québec’s provincial holiday, and also the Grand Prix Formula One, we head to Ottawa.
Everytime we drive to Ottawa, just before we enter Ontario and are warned of the Ontario speeding fines, we pass this strange field. Both sides of the highway move here far apart from eachother, leaving this field in between them, There are a couple of sharp turns in the highway just before this point and I often wondered why they have built the road like this. Now is road building in Québec certainly not a skill that is very developed, but even for Québec standards this is quite odd.

Today, when we passed this spot for the umptied time, it finally dawned to me. The road is constructed this way in anticipation of Québec’s sovereignty!
It’s so obvious, yet so subtle: The day Québec is going to be a real country and not just a province in Canada, the field will be turned into the waiting lanes for the border crossing. And the turns beforehand are there to slow the cars down before they have to stop, show their passports and tell the border control guard what they are smuggling.
Even though in my opinion it will take a while before this field will be covered with asphalt, the promise of separation it still is a good way to attract votes in the elections.
But apparently the road designers were thinking this could happen any moment. And so they created a very subtle landmark celebrating the imminent liberation of Québec from the evil Canadian oppressors.

Pepe had to have his teeth cleaned and the veterinarian found that three out of four of his canines (the big teeth on the corners of his jaws) had to be extracted. So now he’s almost toothless, and really has problems keeping his tongue inside his mouth. He still has all his molars though and uses them to crack the dog food we give him. We’re glad we don’t have to give him canned soft food yet, because it makes his poop stinky and fluid.

With only one canine left he’s almost feline now.

Because of the World Cup Football (soccer for some people) Montréal is filled with cars with flags attached to them. Usually Portugese, Brazillian and Italian flags, because those are the biggest migrant communities over here. When they won a match the cars drive through the streets, honking their horns and annoying the hell out of cyclists like me. But today I saw a Dutch flag and smiled.
Compare that with the streets in the Netherlands, many off them completely turned orange.