A Flurry of Flights and California Beckons

This flurry of flights all over the place is nearly over. The last one, to California, starts on Monday, with a train to Paris, a hotel stay because I can hardly ever find a train to meet a plane, then an eleven hour flight to San Francisco.

When I say it’s all too much, people mock me. “Oh you poor thing, having to go to California.”

Well, of course California is fun, although it’s not the Hollywood and beaches bit that everybody seems to have in mind. It’s a remote valley further north where most people imagine Canada to begin, because very few realise just how far north California extends. Anyway all of that’s fine. It’s the airport stuff I’m fed up with.

The first trip to Quebec, at the beginning of June, was really enjoyable. I went to an opera and ate some lobster, But more to the point, it included two cruises on the St Lawrence river, and it opened my eyes to the huge and fascinating port activities at Montreal – 16 miles of cranes and silos and godowns all along the river banks. So much of the old nineteenth century ironwork is still intact and those silos are immense even though most of them, I’m told, are obsolete They stored the grain that probably put my grandfather out of business when he was trading wheat out of Romania a hundred years ago.

The second brief trip was to England for a bikers’ meeting, the Adventure Bike Rally at Ragley Hall. I talked and sold books, and found myself sitting opposite a Vintage Bike Stand, so I got myself a picture with a Brough.

My own vintage bike, the one in the museum in Coventry never made it to the rally. I was hoping to find that frying pan in the pannier and maybe fry an egg or two. But that story (check out last week’s blog) has a weird twist to its tail. The frying pan that Bob Newcomb’s dad said he lifted from my bike wasn’t my frying pan at all. I remember mine very well, it had a handle you could fold into the pan. I wonder if I’ll ever hear the rest of that story.

I’ll be gone for three more weeks, but don’t let that stop you from ordering books. if you can just wait a little I’ll get to them as soon as I’m back. So, if you possibly can given the horrible things that are happening in this world, enjoy your summer.