Letters From (North) America #7

In which, after a very heavy night, we head up country...

* I've come to the conclusion I like bars with the word "Chapter" in their name. There's the Chapter Arts Centre, of course, just the place for continental lagers and sophisticated boozing in Cardiff - and then there's Chapter Eleven on Parliament Street in Cabbagetown, the venue for our host's 30th birthday party, where the landlady not only brought round free drinks but partook in the flaming sambucca session, getting her mouth burned by a tipsy Jenni who was unable to hold the lighter steady. The smell of singed hair lingered for rather too long afterwards. It was also the place that, thanks to a quiz devised by Debs, we learnt more about Nay - including the fact that she once managed to reverse over a goldfish bowl, getting out to discover her goldfish stuck in the tyre treads... Remembered any of the evening yet, Nay?

Drink had been taken by all concerned, including the photographer

Back home

* One of the strangest things about Ontario, at least from my perspective, is that the sale of alcohol is far more restricted than in the UK. Off-licences as we know them don't exist - instead, you can generally only pick up booze at LCBO stores, which are controlled by the provincial government (LCBO standing for Liquor Control Board of Ontario) and contribute significantly to its coffers, or at outlets of The Beer Store. As the name suggests, the latter are unlicensed to sell anything other than beer, but they do have a superb selection. Even more strangely, you make your choice(s), place your order at the counter and then wait for it to be fetched from the storeroom out the back. It's like Argos for alcoholics. Determined to stock up for our trip but flummoxed by this unfamiliar arrangement, Jenni and I took an age to decide what we wanted from the board on the wall and then proceeded to repeatedly forget our order. One of those miniature pens and an order form would have come in handy.

* Equally bewildering was our visit to the supermarket en route - it's a context and environment in which you instinctively feel at home, until you look more closely at what's on display and realise there's nothing whatsoever that you recognise. My eyes were desperately scanning the shelves for a tin of Heinz Beans or a jar of Marmite to which I could cling like a comfort blanket - instead, I was confronted at the deli counter by something called "headcheese", which looked like a whopping great cylinder of dog food, chunks of offal suspended in jelly.

* We might not have been travelling out into the sticks in a truck, but we did at least tune into the station all self-respecting baseball-capped truck drivers listen to in that part of Ontario. Naturally the fare was classic rock all the way: Eric Clapton, ZZ Top, John Mellencamp. At one point the DJ, who I may be imagining was called Randy Richards, mentioned the weather forecast for the next few days, claiming "It'll be a good weekend if you're doing something in your garage".

* I was under the impression the cottage we'd be staying in was in northern Ontario. Turned out, of course, that it was still very much southern Ontario - you have to drive for seven hours before you can think about claiming to be in the middle of the province. Ontario's real gem is the Algonquin National Park to the north of where we ended up, which, in the international unit of measurement for large things, is the size of Wales.

* In Canada, or Ontario at least, cottaging has a rather different meaning than it does in the UK. Usually situated in the woods near or on the banks of lakes and sometimes little more than glorified sheds, cottages are passed down through families, secluded summer and weekend retreats for those who live in apartments amidst the bustle of downtown Toronto or in the dull urban sprawl along the shore of Lake Ontario. The one we borrowed was wooden and lacked running water. Not quite back to basics, though - it had been "winterized" so there was central heating, and satellite TV to boot. So much for leaving the trappings of civilisation behind - we were on Glamor Lake, after all. Who wants to commune with nature and make like Ray Mears scrabbling around in the undergrowth for grubs when you can feast on prime Healthy Butcher steaks, quaff a marvellous assortment of ales (KLB Nut Brown Ale and Mill St Tankhouse Ale being my favourites, the latter with a tang of Turkish Delight) and play ten pin bowling and baseball on a brand new Wii all night?

* The weather the following day turned out nice (certainly good enough for doing more than just stuff in your garage) so three of us went for a walk round the lake - or, rather, were taken for a walk by Ouzo, an extremely friendly and apparently inexhaustible labrador-Rottweiler cross. While we were away, her owner, a local resident, phoned the cottage to ask about her whereabouts, only to sigh and ask for her to be sent home on our return. A good thing, too - I didn't fancy the prospect of being hunted down by a Mountie and put up on charges of dognapping.







* Being a man, and a man with an increasingly beardy visage at that, it was inevitable that I'd have to chop some wood. Unfortunately my manliness was undermined by the fact that, instead of wielding a mighty axe above my head and bringing it crashing down on splintering log after splintering log, I was wafting about a small hatchet and within a few minutes had managed to carve a neat straight line on the back of my finger.

"I'm a lumberjack and I'm OW! OW! OW!"

* What to do with the wood? Have a fire, of course! We made good use of the fire pit by the lake, clustered round as dusk fell, talking, drinking, trying not to get knocked off our seats by Ouzo's exuberance and starting every time there was a rustle in the undergrowth. It is bear country, after all (well, just about). When we went inside for cards and gin, I was secretly hoping there'd be a knock at the door and we'd be paid a visit by the bear from the video for Grandaddy's 'The Crystal Lake'. Perhaps he doesn't like Neko Case or Fleetwood Mac?

Glamor Lake

Ouzo - exuberance persondoggified

"What's trumps again?" "I don't know, fix me another gin..."

* No sooner had we arrived than it was time to go - back, past the carcasses of cars that had fallen victim to the climactic extremes, and through places called things like Coboconk, to the big city. Quiet time was over - the party was just about to get started...