Day 148 - Shoes

 Painkillers on board I managed a gentle jog around my 5k route 👍

Leo did not want to do any school work so opted to go to the woods with his brother.  I dropped the tools down for them and popped in to see Saskia for a quick cuppa.

Back at home I managed to get Oscar's school work done and looked into his shoes.  I had a box of shoes I'd saved from Ellis and Leo thinking they would still be way too big for him but they only just fit! Can't believe he's been wearing such trashed shoes when he had a box of nice ones sitting in his wardrobe this whole time.  Anyway, I then spent loads of time going through all his clothes and uniform and worked out what we still needed to get.

We then popped out to Sports Direct but they didn't have what we needed so had to go to another one to see if they had more stock.  Thankfully they did and I got Oscar sorted. 👏

I made a banana loaf in the afternoon and Leo and Ellis were home by 5:30pm ish for their food.  Ellis cooked another meal but with my help this time as Rob was hungry and needed it quickly.

I was still going through clothes and making lists at 10:30pm!  I really shouldn't leave it all so long, but I always do, plus with lockdown and not having a holiday etc the boys have just been making do with whatever they had, so a lot needs sorting and buying all in one go.  Not looking forward to the shopping trip with the big footed two. 🤑

In bed gone midnight again.  Think I might just make this my new bedtime and that way I won't ever be going to bed late 👍

Where they to? 14th August Quebec

I don't think we've ever tried to sleep in a hotter room than we did last night. I was on top of the covers lying with my bare back against the painted concrete wall, trying to cool down. Mush was doing the same, across the room from me, in her bed. If someone had knocked on our door and offered us a fan for £100, we wouldn't have flinched. I even tried using the little handheld face-fan that I carry as part of my anti-chucking-up kit for when I fly but it was like trying to use an ice-cube to cool the Med. Besides, the blood was draining from my arm and, try as I might, I couldn't prop the poxy fan up.

We moved back to the place where we stayed the night before, today. We have the only room in the place with a balcony, which is something of a bonus. We're on the top floor, too, so we have views above the treetops all the way out to the airport. Check-in isn't until 2PM so we left our bags behind reception and got the bus into the Old Town.

Inside the walls, lies a beautiful city where there is something new and different to see around every corner. Street performers use every available vantage point from which to ply their trade and the clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage is never more than a minute away.

We stopped and sat on the grass for a rest in the Town Hall Square, just as a street performer was roping off his area right in front of our feet. 5 minutes later, we were in the front row of a throng of spectators waiting to see what this whip-cracking eccentric was about to do.

He picked four gullible-looking suckers from the crowd and made them stand in the corners of his performance area. He then lit 4 petrol doused juggler's torches and handed one to each of the suckers and made them stand with the torch held aloft as though they were doing an impression of the Statue of Liberty.

What he didn't anticipate was that one of the aforementioned suckers has all the coordination of a table. Enter stage left, Rob. Standing in the middle of the stage, the performer turned to the first torch-bearer and beckoned to him to throw the torch. It was a bit of a heavy throw but he managed to catch it, to the sound of a few oohs and aahs from the crowd. Then, this was it, my big moment. My mind was racing. I didn't want to blow it. A Brit amongst the French - there was national pride at stake. A gentle, cushioned lob was all that was needed. I raised my arm slowly behind me and followed through gracefully. Thud. It landed a good 6 feet short. Bugger. The performer gestured towards me dismissively, as only a Frenchman could do, with his thumbs pointing down. Jeered by the crowd, I slunk back to the grass without even turning to see how the other 2 did. No doubt, they did triple-pike somersaults and caught it between their teeth, or something, just to magnify my gross ineptitude. The show continued with a variety of stilt-walking, dancing and juggling. The climax found the performer's assistant contorted on the floor, balancing a ring of fire, with daggers attached, on her belly. The performer took a run-up and leapt, head-first, through the hoop, landing with a forward-roll at our feet. They're crafty like that, those street performers, save all the easy tricks for themselves.

We wound through the alleys, passed more performers and watched the portrait artists work. It always strikes me how some, often the caricature artists, are so rubbish and yet the person next to them produces work that, to my untrained eye, wouldn't look out of place hanging on the wall of a fine art gallery.

After reading about it on the way to Quebec, I was determined to find the spot where the English snuck up on the French and took the City. We meandered along the ramparts, looking out to the other side of the St Lawrence river where the English launched their attacks and fired their cannons from, passing an acoustic guitar playing Frenchman who was singing Achy-Breaky Heart by Billy-Ray Cyrus in the style of a pub singer. About 300 yards from the main fortifications, we found the spot where the English mounted their devious, unforseeable assault. I mean, if you were a French General, it wouldn't even cross your mind that your enemy would show such guile as tocross the river fully 300 yards upstream, would it? 300 yards, come on, that's a long way. It would take, quite literally, oooh, minutes to cover such a distance. But we Brits are nothing, if not bold. And so, it came to be, a daring risk by General Wolfe inflicted a rare military defeat on theFrench.

To be honest, it was an unforgivable error on the part of the French. Take a look at the picture below. I mean, come on, there's even a well maintained wooden stairway all the way to the bottom of the cliff. You'd think that even the French would be clever enough to cover that, wouldn't you?

(Note to any French people reading. While it may not look like it to you, this is not simply a picture of an empty stairway that you are looking at here. There is actually a courageous Englishman making his way up to the top using a little-known stealth procedure called walking. Merci.)

We had a bit more of a walk around the town and hopped on a bus to take us back to our accommodation. We got off the bus and there was a commotion in the direction of where we are staying. Hundreds of blue-rinsers carrying deckchairs were heading the same way that we were. We didn't know what to expect. Some kind of sit-in protest? What could it be? It turns out that the park in front of where we're staying has a small bandstand in the centre and there was a performance by a Mexican Quartet. Not wanting to miss out on a freebie, we bought ourselves a slush drink and nestled up against a tree to watch the show. They did all the old favourites: La Bamba, La Cacaracha, OlÈ olÈ olÈ olÈ Bristol City.

Starting to feel a little tired, we decided to retire to our balcony, where we could still hear but no longer see the band, to watch the sunset and eat our sophisticated English dinner, ravioli on toast. Wonderful.

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