The signature staircase.

We're safely back from a fun trip to Canada.

The jet stream was in playful mood and got us home in super quick time. Our flight back from Montreal took just over five hours. Many years ago I flew from Boston to London in four and three quarters but that was in the days when the L-1011 was still a thing and there were many fewer planes in the sky. Aircraft make a strange creaking noise not unlike a wooden sailing ship in a gale when being hurtled through the fast moving air but the noise wasn't enough to stop us sleeping solidly for the first four hours of the flight.

I thought Edinburgh airport had the title for the worlds most crowded airport. It's now clear that this title belongs to Montreal. A special hats off to whoever it was in the airport administration who thought it was a good idea to board three wide body flights in quick succession to Casablanca, Mexico City and London from Gate 53. The scene can best be described as straight out of Dante. Rather than gates to board the plane Montreal has those people carriers that they have at Dulles. Shepherding three hundred Moroccan football fans in 'party mood' onto a fleet of these is a sight that will long linger in the memory.

We also discover that Canadian weather can easily match Scotland in the rain stakes. On 'The Fonts'  birthday we had 100mm of rain. I would have thought a downpour of this intensity was physically impossible. The water on the train window didn't so much trickle down as sweep over the glass in a solid sheet. This is something we'd never seen before.  

Back in the UK there's a heatwave.  We can vouch for the fact that Heathrow with its glass walls and steel structure is not designed for heatwaves. Here in Scotland it's in the mid-20's and very pleasant. Our connecting flight left on time and arrived thirty minutes early. The flight was full of nice quiet American families heading to the Highlands with well behaved offspring soaking up the new culture. In fact I'd reckon that fully three quarters of those on board had come in this morning from the East Coast. Every single person onboard seemed to be enjoying themselves which is something you can't say about your fellow passengers on most flights.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal had an exhibition of Roman sculptures which we really enjoyed :https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/13205/

Like all museums it has a 'signature' staircase. To get up a couple of levels you have to walk up a long and gently inclined slope. It's one of those cost beats practicality features that all museum directors love. No museum worth its salt can be called a museum without an architectural flight of stairs.

The exhibition was exceptionally good.

It was also strangely quiet although the young woman at the entrance told us we had to wait ten minutes to avoid the crowds. Guess the word crowd means different things to different people.

The layout was intelligent and almost as outstanding as the Picasso exhibition we saw in Shanghai a couple of months ago. This is high praise. The visitors were of the stand in silence variety.

The lighting was particularly good.

In fact the lighting was very good.

Here the news is that Scotland lost 3-0 to Brazil in last nights World Cup match. This, presumably, means that the village teenagers will be heading back home soon. An update tomorrow after we catch up with the farmers wife and we've unpacked and settled back in.