Saturday 23rd May 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day today.

Not that I’m complaining, because it’s all my own fault and I’m well-aware of that. Going to bed at about 01:00 or thereabouts and not being able to sleep for ages, and then expecting to be up and about somewhere in the vicinity of 06:00 is pushing it a bit in my state of health.

What was even more surprising was that I actually did make it out of bed by 06:00 too. Well – not exactly, but I certainly beat the third alarm by something of a comfortable margin and that’s astonishing as there have been times when I’ve not been able to do that even after a good sleep.

Plenty of time to go on my travels too. I was driving a Mercedes 800 series minibus last night. As I pulled up to a set of traffic lights in Crewe some woman came up and started to talk to me about the condition of the bus. She pointed out the chassis, in fact the front engine subframe which had corroded through in a few places. There was all kinds of little things, no speedo on the bus so someone had strapped something onto the speedo cable. It was quite clear that she was an official person although she didn’t produce any documents . I was waiting until she was goigng to make some kind of formal report before I asked to see them. She was generally pulling this bus to bits. Then she went and unscrewed the oil cap. As she did so a jet of hot oil and caught me right on the side of the body all down my clean white shirt. Of course it was really hot and in my anger and shock I shouted “you bitch”. She took a great deal of exception to that remark. In the meantime there were two guys standing nearby and they were making notes. They started to take my side in this matter and started to argue with this girl. I awoke in the middle of this which was a shame because I would have loved to have known where it was going.

There’s also the distinct impression too that there was much more too but I’m blowed if I can remember anything and there’s nothing on the dictaphone to help me.

After breakfast, I went shopping. First stop was at LIDL where I should have gone yesterday. Nothing of any great excitement there except that those nice vegan burgers were back and I didn’t have any room in the fridge.

Next was NOZ where the new hygene regulations are being enforced (it’s the only shop that has them). No-one is allowed in without disinfecting themselves and store-only trolleys, no private bags.

Just now I said that there was no room in the freezer. However when I first went to live in Belgium in 1992 all that I could get for vegan meals was a kind of soya steak in breadcrumbs which were delicious, but I’ve not seen them for years.

NOZ is renowned for having all kinds of end-of-ranges short sell-by stuff from all over the EU and there in the freezer were packs of these. €0:84 for a pack of two so I thought that I’d squeeze one in the freezer somehow.

At the checkout “there’s 30% off those” said the girl. So I went back for another packet regardless.

Things are looking up in LeClerc. Flour is now back on the shelves (so “Flour To The People”, everyone) and boxes of yeast are there too. Only boxes though – they are empty – having been stripped bare by the first visitors this morning.

Give it another three weeks and we might be somewhere with that.

Back here I had a coffee and put the frozen stuff away but that was all that I was good for. I was thoroughly exhausted by this point.

After lunch I had a go at a couple of web pages but crashed out – crashed out good and proper too and nothing was done at all.

kitesurfer plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hallAt this point I went out and found that there was a wicked wind blowing away outside. I didn’t remember this earlier this morning.

It wasn’t very good for walking, that’s for sure, but as they say, “it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good”. Someone was taking full advantage of the wind that was blowing and the heavy seas that were coming with it, and having a good old kitesurf.

He was the only one out there with his kite though. I think that any other kitesurfer must have had more sense than that.

beach volleyball plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hallThe Birdmen of Alcatraz were absent from the air too. Even though the groundsman’s daughter would have had no difficulty getting off the ground in this wind, Heaven alone knows where she would have ended up.

There were however a few other sportsmen and sportswomen out there, like this group setting up as if to play beach volleyball. That should be exciting with this north wind blowing right off the sea.

It reminds me of the time that a couple of us played a game of table tennis aboard The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour in a Force 8 gale. That was … errr … challenging

object on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hallWhile I was idling gazing out along the beach to see what was going on, my eyes fell upon this object.

At first I thought that it was a horse – after all, there are some horses that train on the beach – so I took a photograph with the aim of cropping it out and blowing it up (the photo, not the object) so that I could see more clearly.

It’s certainly not a horse, but apart from that I really don’t have a cue. What I’ll have to do is to wait until the tide is right out and go for a walk over there to see if it’s still there and if so, what it might be.

roofing place marechal foch granville manche normandy france eric hallRegular readers of this rubbish will recall that they’ve been ripping off the roof from a building in the Place Marechal Foch over the past few days.

Yesterday while I was passing I forgot to take any photos of it so today while I was down that end of the medieval walled town I leant over the ramparts for a closer view.

It looks to me if they are well-advanced with the work that they are aiming to do and if they start to put on the slates next week they should be finished in a few days.

Mind you, the trimming of and edging takes some time to do and then there’s the tidying up of the work and removing the scaffolding.

heavy duty crane port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallMy walk took me through the Square Maurice Marland, where the abandoned clothign was still there in the waste bin, and out to the other side where I had a look over the wall and down to the harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen some real heavy engineering stuff around here just recently, and there are a couple of big diggers that have recently put in an appearance. But what I want to know is what they are going to do with these?

This is the kind of stuff that you call serious engineering and they haven’t come here to play about – of that i’m pretty certain. It’ll be interesting to see how this evolves.

Back here I stirred a few papers around but didn’t accomplish all that much. My hour on the guitar was interesting because with my new way of playing with the bass it’s much more exciting and the half-hour passes quite quickly.

For the half-hour with the 6-string, I’ve started to give myself some impromptu concerts.

There’s also an on-line music course that I’ve found for blues improvisation on the piano. That sounds interesting and while I can’t play the piano (there is a little electric one here) I can follow the theory and see what I can churn out after 8 weeks.

Tea was one of my breaded soya steaks with a baked potato and veg in vegan margarine, and it brought back many happy memories of life in my little apartment in the Avenue Reyers in Brussels. The apple crumble was equally delicious.

waves storm high winds baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hallMy run tonight was misery. If anything the wind had increased and I was getting the lot in a real headwind coming down the hill towards me as I was trying to run up it.

Eventually I made it to the top, not without difficulty, and after a breather ran on down to the cliff. And you can see from the waves here what I was having to put up with.

The tide wasn’t far enough in right now to send the waves over the harbour wall but it would have been the kind of stormy sea that would have been really intense at high tide.

small fishing boat tender port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallThere wasn’t much happening at all this evening as far as movement went.

There was this little pilot tender boat taking someone over to Joly France at the ferry terminal, but that was about it.

There weren’t very many people about either, and the sunset from the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord was miserable too. Consequently I didn’t hang around too long and came home. I’d done all of my 6 runs, not without difficulty

Totally exhausted today, and a bad day where I’ve accomplished nothing at all. I’ll have to be doing better than this, but at least tomorrow is Sunday – no alarms so with a bit of luck I can have a really decent lie in. I have to admit that I need it.

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