October 8th – Birthday Boy in PEI

For the occasion of my 43rd birthday, we were in the quiet town of Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. To make a sleepy town even sleepier than normal, it was Canadian Thanksgiving, which meant that this was not going to be a raucous place for my celebrations.

In the morning, we walked the tranquil streets of Canada's smallest provincial capital – a place of wide, leafy streets, wooden clapperboard houses and very little activity on an autumnal bank holiday. We visited the Province House, the place where it was agreed to form the Canadian Confederation in 1867 – and so start Canada's role to nationhood; and we had a bracing walk along the boardwalk of the waterfront.

This was all just a warm up to the main event – lunch. PEI is renowned for having Canada's best lobster, its best oysters, and for producing 90% of its potatoes, so naturally enough, I chose oysters to start, followed by a delicious lobster and chips. The restaurant we chose had the live lobsters in a tank, so I went out to choose my victim, who I felt was about to die of natural causes anyway, so I was just putting him out of his misery.

I ate way too much food – it felt like I was sweating seawater by the end of the meal, so it was time for a lie-down back on board, before the celebrations continued tonight with yet more food. Many more days of gluttony like this and I won't reach my 44th birthday.