… once famously said, “THERE’S ONE THING I ALWAYS GOTTA SAY – IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE BACK HOME”.
As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … this is really the only place where I’ve ever felt comfortable – really at home. And when I fell in through the door this afternoon I breathed a big sigh of relief.
Having lain awake last night listening to a Paul Temple episode, I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave the bed at 05:10 this morning.
But leave it I did. It didn’t take long to tidy up and make my sandwiches.
By 05:35 I was on my way down the street.
On the way into the station I stopped to have a good look at the Martelarenplein now that most of the work has been completed, to see what they are up to these days.
And by the looks of things, Birnam Wood has come to Dunsinane. There’s a forest springing up outside the railway station right now. I wonder if they are going to be there permanently.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen trees and the like springing up in all kinds of unlikely places, presumably as part of this “green drive”. But they will need much more than this.
And it was a good job that I arrived at the railway station quite early.
The 06:33 to Brussels was running quite late and I might have been pushed for time. But the 06:08 was here, an AM96 multiple unit going to De Panne via the airport and Brussels and that will give me plenty of time. I prefer to be early rather than running around against the clock in a panic.
There was nearly an hour to wait in Brussels so I nipped into the Carrefour for a small bottle of water. Just recently I seem to have developed the kind of thirst that you could photograph and I only had a couple of cans of energy drink on me. They won’t go far.
They posted the platform for my train to Paris quite early today, which is quite unusual.
There are two trainsets in this train. 4539 is one of the PBA – Paris Brussels Amsterdam – trainsets and 4344, the one on which I travelled, is one of the PBKA – Paris Brussels Cologne Amsterdam – trainsets.
And it’s a good job that they had two trainsets on the job thins morning because it was packed to the gunwhales. I think that I must have been the only person who didn’t have a neighbour.
We arrived in Paris bang on time which was just as well because I’m not going from Montparnasse today. Having booked my voyage differently because of my stopover in Paris I was free to choose a different return and there was a quicker way of going home – from St Lazare via Caen.
However, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain for promis’d joy”. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last week when I wanted to go sightseeing, the metro was closed. When I wanted to go to St Lazare today, it was the turn of RER Line E to be closed.
It took me a few minutes to work out where I needed to go in order to reach St Lazare – on the normal metro Line 5 to “Republique” and then Line 3. That will take an age and I don’t have much time. And when I missed the first Metro train by a whisker I thought that my goose was cooked.
To my surprise things rattled on nicely (for a change) and I burst onto the platform at St Lazare with 5 minutes to go.
They were making the train ready to leave so I scrambled aboard quite quickly.
The train is one of the Bombardier Regio 2N double-deckers that run the line between Gare St Lazare, Caen and Cherbourg.
They are quite comfortable and if I have the opportunity I’ll be going this way again because I made a startling discovery. On board the train is a coffee machine and the coffee that it produces is quite reasonable.
And so drinking coffee and reading a copy of Carl Rafn’s “Antiquities Americanae” of 1837 – the first “modern” work to take seriously the Norse visits to North America, We hurtled off to Caen.
At Caen my train was already in so I had to leg it across the station.
THis one was packed out as well and I think that I managed to grab the last free seat. And we were soon off on our way to Granville, where I took this photo. My train is on the right and the train in the reverse direction, from Rennes to Caen, is on the left.
The crowds had thinned out somewhat by the time that we arrived in Granville. But nevertheless it shows you just how ridiculous it was when they tried to run this route with an express bus.
On the way down into town I called in at Carrefour here too. It’s pizza day tomorrow of course and I need fresh mushrooms
IN town I had an errand to perform.
But first I had a look around at the town centre. It’s Saturday today so it’s market day complete with charcoal-burning barbecue lorry much to the chagrin of the previous mayor who tried to stop them. And the kiddies’ roundabout is back too after a little break.
But I had to go to the chemist’s. I’d ordered some Aranesp for my injections before going to Leuven and I had forgotten to pick it up. To my surprise it was still there and hadn’t been thrown away.
Mind you, I did ask the owner if I had to pay rent for the storage of the device.
And now, with the batch that they gave me at the hospital, I now have enough to sink a ship.
It was a dreadful stagger up the hill this afternoon.
For the first stretch I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. One was at the viewpoint overlooking the Bar Ephemère, “Chez Maguie”. That’s now properly up and running for the summer season and will soon be drawing in the crowds.
There were a few people down there this afternoon too which wasn’t surprising because it was quite a warm and sunny afternoon.
But there weren’t any boulonauts down there this afternoon. I don’t know where they have gone to. It’s not like them to miss out on the opportunity.
The further up the hill I went, the quicker I seemed to have recovered my second wind.
From another breathing point I could see right into the chantier naval and took a photo, not that it will turn out too well because it’s only the NIKON 1 J5 with the standard lens.
Le Roc A La Mauve III is still in there (I think) but what had caught my eye was the trawler that was in there. I couldn’t read what was written on the beam but it looked like the letter J with a number indicating that it’s a Jersey-registered vessel.
So what’s she doing here that she can’t have done to her in St Helier?
No prizes for guessing who is tied up at the fish processing plant today.
It is of course L’Omerta, currently afloat because the tide is in but she’s unattended by the looks of things so I imagine that once the tide goes out she’ll settle down in the silt as she usually does just there.
There’s another boat behind her too but I can’t tell who she is from this position. She may well be unattended too because there is no activity on the quayside as there usually is when there are fishing boats unloading or having something done to them.
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Most of the other fishing boats were, as far as I can see, all in the inner harbour. It looks as if they are all having the day off.
The Channel Island ferries weren’t there today either. The service has restarted because they have been seen bringing passengers into St Helier, so they must all be still out there working.
But there’s a visitor in the harbour over there on the left. She looks very much like the dredger, St-Gilles Croix-de Vie to me. But what’s she doing here in port now? She usually comes here earlier in the year when there is less pleasure traffic.
Eventually I made it back home but it killed me bringing my suitcase upstairs. There was tons of stuff in it today with having to bring home three months’ worth of medication and three months’ of vegan cheese and vegan mayonnaise.
When I went to open the windows to let in some air I noticed that there was a wedding going on at the Civic Rooms.
While we’re on the subject of weddings … “well, one of us is” – ed … someone attending a wedding a couple of years ago parked in the parking place of a neighbour of mine.
When she said something to them about it, they gave her a torrent of abuse.
Not to be outdone, she went into the apartment, dressed in her best clothes, and went and gate-crashed the wedding reception and helped herself to free food and drink for the afternoon.
Having made a coffee I came in here to start work and ended up crashing out. I was totally wasted after my efforts today.
Later on, I recovered in time for the football. Caernarfon Town v Cardiff Metropolitan. A game that wasn’t a classic but flowed from end to end and was eventually won by Caernarfon 1-0. Probably the right result.
After tea I had to work myself up to write my notes. I was dead on my feet and I have a feeling that it’s going to be a bad day tomorrow. I know all of the symptoms right now.
