Sunday 21 November 2021--Marc is up and out early this morning; he's back at work tomorrow, and has things that need doing at home. I sleep in again, and check out as late as is permitted. Drive across the Rivière des Prairies onto Montréal's twin island of Laval, where I find coffee and a bagel at Tim Horton's. Horton was a popular hockey player whose alcoholism and penchant for domestic abuse were not widely known during his career. He died driving drunk in 1974, at age 44. After his death, his business partner bought out his wife's interest in the chain, which at the time numbered about forty shops, mostly in the Toronto area. Today there are about 5,000, and Tim's is a Canadian institution. Fifty years on, I imagine that mention of his name brings mostly thoughts of donuts and coffee, rather than of a deeply flawed hockey hero. It was a long time ago...nobody seems to care much. I like the bagels.

I drive north, then west past Mirabel, Montréal's second airport, toward Ottawa. It's not the most direct route, but I'm not in a hurry. Enter town from the north, crossing the Ottawa River from Québec into Ontario. It's been fourteen years (I think) since I was here last, but I remember my way around town well enough. My hotel is about a kilometer along Elgin Street from the War Memorial, the figurative center of town. There's a lot that has changed here--the streetscape has been spiffed up a lot, some of the older blocks redeveloped. I check in and find my room, which has a balcony overlooking Minto Park. The areas east and west of Elgin are handsome residential neighborhoods.

I've scouted the Elgin Beer Project, a few blocks from the hotel, as a likely place for a few pints. It looks nice from the outside...inside, I'm disappointed. Industrial chic is one thing, but this place just looks like a storeroom. The extensive beer menu is accessible via a QR code, but there's no wifi. (I generally keep data turned off on my phone, and don't use it at all outside the US.) The waitperson grudgingly leaves her conversation with a friend at the other end of the bar to give me very minimal help. I drink the IPA she recommends, and leave. It might be that the hipsters aren't happy to have a geezer invading their space...or maybe they're just rude and self-centered.

Flora Hall is a ten-minute walk to the west. Here's a handsome and comfortable brewpub and restaurant, polished but not slick, housed in a former fire station (or fire hall, as they say here). It's on Flora Street--I don't find a complementary Fauna Street, so I suppose it's named for Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald, who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to evade capture in 1746. Or maybe just somebody's mother. Whatever...the beer is good, and the food, too.