Montreal

No, that is not a picture of Montreal, but a shocking picture of Hongsibao, China. The photographer, Benoit Aquin, won an award presented by Kofi Anan for his depiction of the dust bowl of China. We saw it in Montreal as part of an astonishing photography exhibition at the Galérie Pangée on the rue St Paul near the Vieux Port. Other places we walked past were the McGill University campus, Square Victoria, the Science Centre on the river bank where they show IMAX films and advertise "Science for Kids"—oh, that does annoy me. Why say that, as though science were for kids only?—and the archeology museum at Pointe à Callière where people were queuing up to get in, as they were outside the Cirque du Soleil tents. Chris and I carried on as far as the Clock Tower on the eponymous Quai de l'Horloge where we climbed the 192 steps to see the view from the top of the tower, above the clock faces.

We had driven to Montreal to meet our son George whose conference in New York finished on Friday. He took the Amtrak train, the ADIRONDACK, that left Penn Station, NY, at 8:30 and was supposed to pull into Montreal's Gare Centrale at 19:10, except that it was an hour and a half late due to problems with three of the passengers (not George and the Danish girls with whom he was sharing window seats) at the Canadian border. Therefore before driving back to Ottawa with George Chris and I had a long wait for him on the station concourse ... There could be worse places to wait; it is quite comfortable there.

In any case seeing George again was absolutely worth the wait!