Tearful Return

On Friday last week I was told that I had to go on my first business trip. Where would be the best place to send a Brit who had only been in the country for a few months and might be feeling a bit homesick? Yes, the UK! Sarah wasn’t happy with my having to go because after Vegas I had been to hospital with chest pains and Sarah was worried that the pains might return (I’ve had it checked out by the doc and it is inflamed and I’m on anti-inflammatories), and cried at the thought of me going.

I made the most of the trip to the UK and my family came down to Hastings to see me. This was wonderful of them as it was a long drive and I wouldn’t have been able make the drive after work. We had a walk around the abbey in Battle and saw the site of the Battle of Hastings. This turned out to be a field. I don’t know what else I expected!

The hotel I stayed at was a little outside Battle down country lanes and only my colleague was insured on the hire car, so when I fancied going into the village one evening I had to walk. It was about 8pm when I left and the sun was still up. However, I misjudged how far the walk was and by the time I got to the village it was getting dark. I bought Sarah some of the trashy gossip magazines she loves and was walking back down the unlit lane, which had no pavements and had to jump into the bushes whenever a car drove past. I was nearly back to the hotel when a car came down the lane and stopped next to me. It was a police car and they asked me if I was ok and what I was doing jumping in and out of bushes in the dark with trashy gossip magazines. I told them I was walking back to the hotel and they insisted on giving me a lift. Thankfully they didn’t cuff me, even when I made an awful joke by asking them how much I owed them.

I got back to Ottawa on Friday evening and Sarah and I went out for a meal at Fratelli’s in our neighbourhood. Sarah had been there before with her cousin and had a better meal then, but the food was still nice and the atmosphere was intimate.

Yesterday we went to my boss’ wedding. He married his Italian fiancée in a lovely service. During the speeches at the reception, a letter was read out from the bride’s mother who was too ill to have travelled from Italy. It was a very touching letter and made Sarah cry.

Today we had a day out in town. I wanted to go and see Ottawa’s newest sculpture, the 20ft high lead statue of a spider outside the national art gallery. The statue has been getting a lot of publicity as it is very controversial. It cost $3.2M to make which annoys a lot of people, including Sarah and other people wonder what a spider has to got to do with Ottawa. I like it because it is controversial. We also visited Ottawa newest museum, the National War Museum. This is a really well presented museum and has lots of interesting exhibits. I rate museums on how often you would have to go back in order to see all the exhibits and the Canadian War Museum would take a least four visits, so is a good museum. I found the story of Anglo-French wars in Canada interesting. It all came down to a battle on the Plains of Abraham outside present day Quebec City where the British won and cut off the Western French army from supplies lines. What I hadn’t realised previously was that the war with France over Canada was in part responsible for the American Civil War: the British had heavily taxed the new Americas in order to finance the war in Canada. The Americans didn’t appreciate this and declared war on England. The Americans even tried to push North and had they won even a single battle North of the 49th parallel, Canada would just be another American state.

Sarah liked the hall of remembrance and cried at the letters and poignant stories from soldiers at war.