Thursday 15^th November

Moncton is a city located in the adjacent province of New Brunswick but is only about 70 km from where we are staying in Amherst. We had arrived at the airport here a week ago and wanted to return to look over the city. It is known as the geographical centre of the Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island). Moncton has a population of about 150,000 people and is a commercial, distribution, transportation and retailing centre.  There are also 37 call centres in the city employing over 5000 people.

While trawling through their Champlain Mall we found these two shops, both named Laura, and as this is our elder daughter’s name I couldn’t help but take these photos.

 

Our neighbours here, Bill and Sandy Kane had invited us to share dinner with them promising to have mussels on the menu.  Bill is retired and does most of the cooking as Sandy is a nurse and while they are here in Amherst she works night shifts. He cooked at least 5 kg of mussels in a large pot with a lovely flavor of garlic, onions and wine.  They were so easy to eat and enjoy.  This was followed by an array of salad, hot vegetables and pork spare ribs glazed with a rhubarb jam – beats Colonel Sander’s in the “finger lickin’ good department”.  Sandy had made a light lemon fluffy pudding to be then followed by her home-made chocolate peanut clusters, decadent and delicious.

Bill and Sandy have travelled quite extensively and also enjoy cruising so we had a few stories to compare on that note as well. The beauty of dining with neighbours is that the stagger home is only a few metres  and particularly for Bob as he and Bill tested that dark rum in a few different ways!!