Watch! I think there’s a wasp’s nest somewhere around here.
Charlie was cleaning and oiling our bike chains and I was packing my bike outside of Dutchie’s house. The insects were swirling around, just two or three, then suddenly twenty, thirty and more of them. Charlie got stung on the wrist. We looked around and finally spotted an enormous paper globe under the deck. 
Good thing we did too because this deck is one that the local kids like to hang around as it’s the deck leading up to the store. Most of Linda and Dutchie’s sales are low-cost cigarettes (supposedly for the First Nations people) but they also sell the usual nutritious stuff like chips, ice cream bars, pop and little brown mystery bags of candy. I bought one. It was jammed full with gummy, sugary treats. I don’t eat things like that often and Charlie, never, but I confess; I really like Maynards sour wine gums. If I buy them I’m liable to make my jaw sore from eating them, one after the next, until they’re gone. So I don’t buy them……often. Another reason it was good we’d discovered the nest was because Dutchie planned on staining the deck this weekend. Maybe that won’t happen….
Charlie and our host had gone to meet Maura and Jol at a nearby intersection to retrieve our panniers. Once again we were fully loaded but we had everything again. We have very little as it is but really, we have what we need.
Today we were headed to Cape Breton Island. 
I sang small parts of Rankin Family songs to myself all day. I can’t remember whole songs, only bits of them, and those parts reverberated in my head over and over and over again. 
Interestingly, we are hearing a lot of country and western music in this region. We passed a home with a sigh that read: “Little Nashville” and stopped to take a picture. An older man came out the front door and we chatted for a while. He plays guitar and spoke of the big parties they used to host. “Oh yeah, there are some good singers around these parts”. 
When we got to the sign welcoming us to Cape Breton, we were held back by the rotation of the bridge. 
As we waited, who should appear but Craig, the English guy we’d met on the ferry. 
He was still in touch with the two young guys, Chris and Matthew who kept inviting him to “wild camp “with them. Age, I think changes us a bit. He, like I, prefers camping at a campground where there are showers, laundry facilities and other people. He also enjoys going out to dinner at a nice pub. I’m in agreement with that too.
Our situation tonight ticked off half of those criterium. We did go to a pub for a pint and fish and chips. 
We had a good wash at the sink in the restaurant and now, since the campground is full, we’ve pitched our tent at the manse, in the shadow of the old Catholic church. We went to ask directions from the house beside the church and were invited to pitch our tent on the lawn. 
Now I just have to hope I won’t have to pee in the night. But I know myself. I will….. So I’ll just try not to pee on their flowers.
Wendingourway:Across Canada by Bike 2017 
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