Paradise re-gained and on the (rail)road again
After the inevitable strictures placed on space, quietude, and diet consistent with living with a family of 10 in two motor homes, the past week in Canada has been almost surreal. In the most pleasant of ways!
Pre-conditioning for the time in Canada was achieved by spending 2 days alone with Eldest Daughter, zipping up to York (UK) and back to Heath Row, using a very swish hire car and staying in very comfortable accommodation. Then we flew to Ottawa and were met there by L’s old school friend, & whisked away to her parent’s spacious home in a delightful, tranquil, wooded and rather exclusive part of that city.
There I was given the exclusive use of a large bedroom complete with sauna and en suite and a large library to dip into! What luxury! Our hosts were erudite and entertaining; their hospitality gracious; their conversation wide-ranging and enlightening. It was a really relaxing and enjoyable time. And I even managed to get in a short bike ride, alongside a quiet bike path beside the river.
But that was just the beginning. From Ottawa we drove several hundred kms to the Grandparent’s “seaside cottage”. We had been warned that this was not exactly a cottage in the British sense of the word – but the reality still hit us smack between the eyes and left us reeling in semi-dis-belief. This ‘cottage’ turned out to be a beautiful mansion, part Mediterranean-Italian, part art-deco in appearance, set at the upper end of gracefully sloping farm and woodlands.
Well-manicured lawns, shrubs and flower beds gave the grounds a park-like appearance and the croaking of frogs from the nearby swimming swimming pond provided a rural soundtrack as a backdrop to this little corner of Paradise. We did not see them but we were told that the local wild life often drops by to keep an eye on things: fox, wolves, deer, an occasional moose, not to mention squirrel, chipmunk and moles.
And again I found I was assigned a large bedroom all to myself with a balcony overlooking the garden, the woodlands and stretching out to the Georgian Bay part of Lake Huron. This area is prime Vacation Land in this part of Canada, and it is easy to why. In the summer, sailing, windsurfing, fishing, golf, tramping and cycling are all available within a short distance. The facilities are superb and the people warm and welcoming.
Good coffee is to be had in cosy coffee shops and superb ice cream is also available!
Nearby orchards provide a plentiful supply of fruit in season: apples, pears, nectarines, cherries, strawberries and blueberries. Local entrepreneurs bake these up into the most delectable pies. If I wax rather lyrical it is because this really is a blessed corner of the world and it was a joy to be immersed in it for a while.
And again our hosts showered us with blessings. I have been quite happy to sleep on the floor of a Mongolian Yert, a Kowloon couch, the hard bunk of a train in China, the seat of an all-night bus to Berlin, the floor of an attic in Estonia and so on – but who can deny the pleasure of having a large comfortable bed all to yourself and to be woken by sun streaming in across the walls of a large, beautifully-decorated room, with the prospect of descending to a sunny breakfast room replete with anything your taste-buds could desire? Yes we have really been blessed by this marvelous interval.
Now I have left Daughter: I am on the Trans-Canada train
heading for Vancouver (in 3 days time) and D is spending another week with OSF and then heading back to NZ (and WORK) I am just a day into this trip and am having a great time. I have a little one-man cabin – most ingeniously designed and very comfortable.
I have 3 meals provided – good meals too, I might add. And as much tea or coffee and muffins as I may care to eat in the interim! I have already met such interesting people at the dining table – what extra-orrdinary tales the most ordinary-looking people have to tell!
And so the journey continues. I am looking forward to the rest of this train trip, then a few days in Vancouver, and then back to the UK to take up where I left off, with the Intrepid Travelers, back to the Motor Homes. Bye-bye luxury – hello more adventures!
Tags: Digs, Family, Food, People, Transport, Travel, Tag Index
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