Further delights

I omitted a few of the weekend's pleasures from Monday night's description, such as the sweet corn picked in a field on Saturday morning, flown from Iroquois to Ottawa by Yiwen, with Pete and Chris as passengers, so that a dozen of the cobs could be shared out at Don's and Carol's house on Saturday evening. Then there were the lovely flights over the forested hills north of Montreal on Sunday and Monday (with the added bonus of a tail wind), beneath our wings a view of boats zipping around every accessible lake (the Montrealers at play), and from ground level at Trois-Rivières, we could gaze at the ships gliding along the river.

Once again I looked at the monument to the explorer who was born there:

En cet endroit était située la maison où naquit le 17 novembre 1685 le plus illustre des trifluviens Pierre Gaultier de Varennes Sieur de Lavérendrye découvreur des Montagnes Rocheuses et de l'Ouest canadien

(To my amazement, I find that one of his company has just begun to publish an illustrated blog.)

Children at the Délices d'Automne festival had their own boats to play in. Water everywhere, and on Monday morning, Carol and I swam in the garden pool.

Délices

We flew back to Trois-Rivières, this Labour Day weekend, and slept last night at the same gîte as before, on August 4th: Le Fleurvil, in the quietest, most historic part of town. Our four friends who came with us this time found the place as attractive as we did.

It was by sheer luck, apart from the weather being perfect for this trip, that this time our visit to Trois-Rivières coincided with a food-sampling event on the waterfront, Les Délices d'Automne. What fun. From the rue des Ursulines it was a short walk through the convent gardens and the Parc Portuaire to the booth where we could queue for coupons allowing us to sample the delights and delicacies ("délices" means both) of the regional harvest, which, to stretch a point, included some Swiss produce, such as Tête de Moine cheese crumpled into rosettes by a special kind of scraping tool and served with a dob of jam (I happily gave up two coupons to try this) and the Dôle wine Chris and I used to drink 28 years ago when we lived in Bern. Ah, nostalgia! Although tempted by the wild boar sausages and wapiti(!) terrine, the crêpes, the pies, the homemade icecream and the wonderful, fat, red tomatoes, I spent my other coupons on a tasting of ice-cider from a cidrerie and a tub of fresh raspberries, my favourite fruit. Elva acquired a large bagful of ground-cherries which she was still passing around back in the clubhouse at Rockcliffe airport this afternoon. Carol and Don came home with several bottles of Quebec cider and Chris spent all five of his coupons on a beer from the Microbrasserie Nouvelle France, manned by two young men in tricorne hats.

As if we hadn't seen enough food we then repaired to Le Grill on the rue des Forges, as recommended by our host at the gîte, and very good it was too; although noisy and crowded, this place was run with impressive efficiency. From there we walked back to the riverside where the alcohol stalls were still in business.