in the air between Montréal and Heathrow
The showcase at Rideau was fun: we were the entire Joli Bois company complete with Sylvain radiating cool guitar vibes and Pierre dancing, and our slot on stage was in between a kind of Indian/Indonesian/jazz flute fusion combo, who were rather good if a bit incongruous at 10am, and 8 a cappella girl singers who were, uh ... well, let's not talk about them.

Anyway, the PA seemed to sound OK, 'Avec un avocat' in particular went really well, and Élisabeth was delighted, so job done. Tick (Alison's rehearsal signal that it's time to move on to the next piece). 

After a rather surreal journey via a back door through the Musée ('Help, we're trapped forever in a museum!' 'Welcome to the world of early music, Suzie ...') we made it out on to the street as it began to rain - it's unusually mild for Québec in February, where the streets are still decorated with ice sculptures from the weekend's carnival. Chris, Pierre and Sylvain scattered to various taxis and lifts, and the remaining four of us headed off in a successful search for food and relaxing ambience, and my first beer for a very long time. So there I was, quite oblivious to the conspiratorial discussion of 'deserts' going on between the waiter and Suzie and Betsy, and the next thing I know a becandled birthday cake (which Betsy had smuggled in) and some Veuve Clicquot and glasses appear. Wahey! I don't think I've had a restaurant sing Happy Birthday to me since I was 21. Big smiles.

DMcG and Suzie LeBlanc try out repertoire for a forthcoming jaws harp ensemble album

And then it all started to get silly as I had to try out my presents of 3 different sized jaws harps, a blues harp and a thumb piano. Various duets ensue. DG almost got 'happy birthday' out of the thumb piano. 

There was just time for a quick burst of present shopping for my kids and then Betsy and I hit the road back to Montréal, in time to hit a serious blizzard for the first hour or so. Not the most pleasant driving experience ever, in fact pretty scary, but it cleared eventually and we only had driving rain to contend with for the last couple of hours. I got to the check in desk just in time.

later, on the flight to Glasgow
The flight north from London left about an hour late, thanks to fog and this morning's 'reorganisation of Scottish airspace'. I don't normally fly BA - probably an irrational prejudice based on their management's unpleasant reputation in the 90s, and my past experiences of patronising staff - but I have to admit that the British Airways cooked breakfast is a bringer of great happiness. Everything feels better after inflight sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and tomato. And now the clouds have cleared and I can look down at the snow on the tops of the hills in the Lake District.