Gloomy last day

As I walked around Halifax today, I felt profoundly sad. Was it the after-effects of taking child-specific antihistamines last night? Was it gloom at the course my life has taken? Was it the comedown from too strong a cup of coffee at 2 If By Sea? Or was I just ruddy knackered after all this charging about Canada without a break?

Certainly I ran sluggishly this morning; I couldn't attain the 10k pace I'd been hoping for. I blamed that on being tired and not eating properly last night, although to do a slow run in Dartmouth is pretty poor, after all the advantages of cool weather that I've got right now.

We spent the morning slowly making our way to Halifax from Dartmouth. Dartmouth is notable for its large number of tattoo shops, and because they filmed parts of Hobo With A Shotgun, the Rutger Hauer grimfest, there. I think the film paints a slightly unfair picture of the town's attractions. Slightly.

Over the water in Halifax, there are plenty of historic buildings (being demolished to make way for skyscrapers to block the views from any remaining historic buildings) and various shopping malls that don't have many shoppers (or shops) in them. There are some good restaurants though: we met friends at the Wooden Monkey (shamefully omitted from the menu) then wandered around buying tartan and fudge. (Those are the main industries of Nova Scotia, if you forget about shipping and fishing.)

The day plodded on, and I grew sadder and sadder as the sky got greyer and greyer, and we ended up in the ferry port, by a terrifying carving of Pierre Trudeau, with me fit to burst into tears. Instead, we took the ferry back to Dartmouth and then I lay down and tried to sleep, but got distracted by a book Jeremy Paxman had written about the English, and then by some very boring news about the new Amazon Kindle.

Could the slightly-less-than-exhilarating news of some new e-reader devices be the source of my distress? It's really hard to say. Fortunately, after that we got to go out to dinner at Neighbours, a slightly odd pub in a metal shed, with a vending machine selling potato crisps in case you're too shy to order food from the bar, and Enormous Portions. I had a never-ending plate of home fries (diced fried potato) and a pint of beer, and I liked the glass so much that one of our friends got two of them, plus some commemorative baseball caps, from the bar.

Then I defragmented my mother-in-law's computer, and I felt content. Which suggests I don't know what about booze, hats, and Microsoft Windows, but these are all things I'm too tired to contemplate. And so to bed.