15 June

A harbour view for the Mariner, yessir! I’m so maritime, it hurts.

I’m eating fresh smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and sipping Earl Grey tea, goddamnit … in the conservatory of an 1830s villa, in the centre of a World Heritage Site.

And all I’m thinking is – how the hell did I end up in this exact spot, right here right now?

Oh, the guilt.

A handwritten note nailed to the door of the postcard Anglican church up on the hill – ludicrously handsome – sends me packing back down to the harbour, where large crowds are gathered for a tall ship getaway, which absolutely no-one told me about.

For everyone else caught unawares, those 10am cannons are loud enough to stir the dead and, sure enough, I’m soon surrounded by some late-to-the-party hungover zombies, as well as a few vintage red-eye retirees.

We all exchange morning pleasantries like old friends, which is slightly weird, but I go along with it.

(did I meet any of these people last night, I’m wondering … ?)

Bluenose II eventually stirs and leads the convoy out of the harbour – slowly – en route to Toronto, Ontario.

Me and my assembled mates wave semi-enthusiastically … as if anyone can see us do this.

Once those boats are disappeared, I swim through rainbow colours and chalked words on the sidewalk (“Breathe”, says one helpful pavement slab) to get back to the Anglican church, the one fully restored after a great fire but never rebuilt. Which seems at odds with some of the photos, which show a building barely there in places, charred embers still smouldering.

Inside, burn marks on the pews and on the altar. This is why we smoke e-cigarettes now.

In the basement, volumes of vintage local newspaper cuttings.

Yet the one that jumps out at me is the early 1900s clipping of the suicided Lunenburg bank clerk: the final scrawled words being: “I do not blame my misdeed on a …”

… capitalist apocalypse? … tyrannical boss? … faulty Colt revolver?

Funny how it’s all black-and-white at first appearances with the church, until you look closer, behind closed doors – usually down in the basement.

Back outside, above ground, where no-one knows why one steeple is taller than the other … make something up, goddamnit! We’d all believe it. We are gullible sightseers!

Further up the hill, the irregular gothic lines of an academy, which would dominate the landscape for miles around, if it weren’t for the assorted groups of trees besieging it. And the graveyard ghouls all around me, as always, being followed by canine vampires. And bikers.

I rescue myself in town, on the steep San Francisco streets where I can breathe easily, and take myself straight out the other side.

To Blue Rocks to mourn the morning, the passing of time, where those rocks hold steady but the kayaks will roll over given some gentle persuasion.

The landscape here is as improbable as life itself, yet we’re all here crawling over each other, parallel parking by the water’s edge, cameras in hand.

I clamber over the rocky promontory for a short while, trying to escape the daytrippers, before giving up and fleeing back to town, to stand outside a toilet block in Lunenburg for half an hour, because I chose to stand outside the one john where someone happens to be dropping anchor.

Eventually relieved, I drive around the cove to the other side, to a view which is not quite as good as the one I saw on a postcard last night.

Picnic lives, by the jetty. Giving away / giving way … into the sea, into the brine.

We lead out onto the highway, trying to undo the things we left behind. This is difficult when you’re trying to drive.

I arrive on the outskirts of Halifax, not knowing where I’m going and getting lost quite easily.

In the middle of all this, the liquor store presents itself, preaching a kind of therapy (and a place to read the map). Easy enough to pick out some winnings from the fridges, then pay for it all on credit.

Somehow I end up travelling down the remote winding road to an unpronounceable harbour, yet I’m not even going there – my destination is Petpeswick Harbour, which is entirely pronounceable.

I arrive at my loft apartment above the garage, the one with the impeccable interior and near-impeccable view of the water.

Being as near-perfect as it’s possible to be, I ensure I lock myself out of this. In the process, I take a cold beer, and I’m grateful that – for once – I’m one step ahead of myself.

Yet the flies are several steps ahead of me, waiting, sensing human prey. The shorefront is where it all kicks off, and sure enough as I savour my tin of craft ale in the hot sun, the local hornets are themselves queuing up to enjoy me.

When Isabel returns after receiving my smoke signals to be let back in to the loft, it’s apparent that her psychic powers are poorly developed … ie – having a pleb turn up and immediately lock themselves out was a foreseen event, by all accounts … but not so much that a spare key might have been left anywhere handy.

I’m convinced about spoiling her day, yet my host is graciously smiling. A forced smile, but a smile nevertheless.

It’s easy enough to soon forget all this, to enjoy the view and the colour-coordinated furnishings. I feel like a cross between Bear Grylls and Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen.

Sunset creates a fitting picture, framed by the postcard window.