Drink Canada Dry

I'm in Nova Scotia, en route(within the week) to Hull, via Iceland, feeding an insistent black and white bunny rabbit , recovering from the effects of a massive hangover, dealing with the emotional repercussions of meeting a cat with twenty seven toes, and trying to decide whether to sell my house to a Mexican cab driver. So do'nt expect this entry to make any sense.

En route to Nova Scotia, I passed through Rekjavik, where at the bar, I met several members of the Pete Best Band. Pete Best was the Beatles original drummer and I was getting coffee when I heard the distinctive Liverpool accent. I introduced myself as a fellow Scouse, and we immediately began discussing, (as Liverpudlians are wont), how great Liverpool is, how we hate living there, how soft Southerners are, and swapping tall tales. The PB band members have tales of lost cannabis stashes, and wild parties, and I counter with some Frankie Goes to Hollywood memories. They come back with playing gigs in the Deep South behind iron mesh, but I save the best till last and trump them with getting attacked by black bears in the Adirondacks. Rock and Roll is fun, but nature wins.

In Nova Scotia, I'm fixing our house up, getting it ready for sale. On the second day, I get the news that my dad is well and leaving hospital that day. The same day, I've met my friends, and have re-affirmed that people like these are met with infrequently. The previous statement should be read as an example of British understatement at its most extreme.

Later that day, I'm painting and thinking that if I could find a way to keep this house, (so that we had an excuse to see our friends more frequently), I would take it. I decide to buy a lottery ticket. At a particularly nostalgic moment, when I'm reminiscing about a place in the house where my great friend Idaho nearly sanded through a wall with a belt sander, Minch-cat, the moggie with twenty seven toes, appears, sits in her (used to be) usual place, and miaows impatiently. Minch-cat belongs to CC, JV and Alligator, and was a frequent (nearly permanent sometimes) visitor to our house while we lived there, and we loved her almost as much as her owners. Memories of barbeques, friends and good times come flooding back and its all too much, and I bawl like a baby, while continuing to try to paint. After about three hours, I assess my work and decide that I should probably to re-do most of it, because it looks as if a mid-forties male has been attempting paint while crying like a baby, but keeping a stiff upper lip at the same time ( a difficult balance to maintain).

Despite this I'm grateful to Minch. She's opened the flood gates, and when the next day I meet a Mexican cab driver who might want to buy our house, I 'm actually very interested, and I abandon the idea that I had begun to hatch, which was to do such a bad job of painting that no-one would want to buy our house and I'd have to keep it. I realise that memories are'nt in the place, they're in the people, and the people are still here.

We all go out that night for Wings at Your Fathers Moustache, and attempt to, as the old jingle has it, drink Canada dry. Its great to be back.