Spent the first three days of last week with the RV in storage, and myself in the Delta Marriott in Montreal with 150 women from CFUW. A pretty good conference – great food and interesting speakers – and I spent a lot of time describing my current RVing lifestyle to people wanting to know my ‘story’. Last time I was at one of these conferences (in Windsor), the subject of my Scotland sojourn came up at a lunch table with 8 – 10 strangers, and one woman (again I emphasise ‘total strangers’), suddenly said, “Are you Ontario to Orkney? I follow you all the time!” – an absolute highlight of the conference for me.
Before I forget, I want to make note of the restaurants I ate in that week: Île de France Le 9e (posh, excellent service, good food); Escondite Old Montreal (Mexican, fun, delicious tacos and margaritas); and Auberge Knowlton (great location, good food).
After the conference the CFUW Sherbrooke chapter hosted us in their homes and toured us around the Eastern Townships for three days. My host was club president, a lovely lady named Ann Louise, who let me park my RV in her driveway. We visited the town of Knowlton (setting for the Inspector Gamache Three Pines village); Lakes Magog and Massawippi (stunning scenery); and the Haskell Free Library & Opera House that straddles the Canada/US border in Stanstead (yet another example of Canadian/US camaraderie that has been f******d by you-know-who). Oh, and we met Louise Penny. Yup, you read that right – our hosts arranged for Louise Penny to come and meet us all at the Knowlton bookstore and café. Wow.
Based on these past three days, I’ve re-vamped my last week of my trip to re-visit this area with LL. I cannot recommend this region enough.
