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25th Sep 2005
Belmere
Sunday, 25th September, 2005
A lazy day. Overcast and leisurely. Pat showed me the original images of the barn before it was converted in about 1973-4 and I spent a couple of hours nipping round outside for some re-takes; a nice commentary of the transition from agricultural community and building … to home with garden.
Anne explored just outside and took a few snaps of the chipmunks playing around in the dry stone walls and tinkered Andy Goldsworthy style with some red leaves in the maize field.
After lunch we decided to tackle the issue of Belmere and set off to Magog and Georgeville and eventually we arrived outside the new and heavily fortified gates of Belmere. (Editors note: for those of you who don’t know it’s a glorious old farm property on the shores of Lake Memphremagog, once owned by Sir Hugh Allan, a Scottish /Canadian Shipping magnate and later through to a great aunt of Anne’s. It has its own photo history from the early days and we visited and stayed here in the mid and late 80’s and were keen to see the changes wrought by the new owner.)
The intercom system connected us with the caretaker’s son and after a few minutes, Junior Cramer, the caretaker himself, came along, slightly on the offensive to begin with but relaxing fractionally as we talked. He was under way again through the gates into ‘the camp’ after a minute or two and although we caught a glimpse of him at one stage later in the afternoon, that was the last we saw of him.
After five to ten minutes, the speaker on the intercom came to life and an answer from Gratton was relayed that he was about to leave the property and he didn’t remember anyone … if we wanted to arrange a visit, we should phone his office in Montreal to discuss. It was hopeless trying to discuss the matter with a flunky and young Cramer’s comment was simply ‘I guess you’re out of luck’.
Well we sat for a few minutes, uncertain whether there was going to be any further dialogue; it had been left kind of hanging. Eventually, I decided to at least get the number of the office in Montreal. At the time it seemed reasonable that he might be on the brink of going and we had arrived unannounced … and so tomorrow morning seemed a distinct possibility following contact.
Just as I was about to tackle the intercom, pen and paper in hand, we heard a car approaching; a blue, V70 Cross Country … which duly stopped the other side of the gates, activated the mechanism and then pulled through. Luckily there wasn’t a puddle for them to drive through or they’d have probably drowned me from head to toe.
I stood to one side as they did expecting some form of acknowledgement … but I might as well be still waiting!
Although his hair was by now grey … it was the bold boy himself, with wife chauffeuring. She, to give her some credit, nodded, he looked straight ahead as they swept by and the gates closed themselves.
I put in a call via the intercom to get the office number and young Cramer gave me this he then chuckled that Gratton had just driven past me. I said that I knew that, but that he obviously wasn’t keen on stopping. I got the office number and we drove on and took a few pictures towards Magoon Point.
It was really dull day and getting wetter, so we drove slowly back across to Pats via Ayers Cliff.
Out this evening to a great meal in the front room of a house along at Hatley, doubling as a French restaurant. It was run by quite a young couple, he as chef she at the front … and they had two mischievous children who were reluctant to go to bed and so noticeable, as they were carted through the dining room a couple of times. It was amusing to see the youngest one get up to all sorts of mischief as soon as her mother had picked up an armful of plates to clear!
Starter of rabbit; lambshank and a crème brulee to finish. Back to the barn quite late and then I spent a bit of time sorting through some music files.
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