Tag Archives: edinburgh city

Saturday 16th February 2019 – THAT WAS AN …

… exciting football match.

The semi-finals of the Irn-Bru Cup, where various Scottish clubs compete against selected invited sides from Wales, The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Tonight, Edinburgh City were playing against Connahs Quay Nomads of the Welsh Premier League for a place in the finals. It was something of a scrappy match – with Edinburgh City having more skill but the Nomads having more possession and more directness.

The Nomads went behind after just one minute, but after that, Edinburgh didn’t really threaten the Nomads’ goal very much, except from corners.

After that, the Nomads equalised from another long-throw, and hit the woodwork a couple of times.

We ended up with extra time and penalties, and Jon Danby in the Nomads goal did really well to save two penalties to push the Nomads through into the finals. This competition is certainly putting the Welsh premier League on the map, and not before time either.

Last night was quite a reasonable night.

I had a decent sleep for once, and was off on my travels. I was meeting a guitarist somewhere in Granville. he lived in the flats on the left halfway up the rue Couraye but when I pulled into the courtyard, he wasn’t there. His wife came down for a chat and as we were talking, her husband turned up. The asked me if it was me that they had seen last night coming back down from the football stadium. I replied that it was, to which they added that I needed to be careful if I were going there that evening because there would be crowds and there was some violence threatened.
This led on to two people being chased around a park by a polar bear. They climbed up a ladder to escape but to everyone’s surprise, the polar bear climbed up after them. They climbed down another ladder and ran off, leaving me looking at the polar bear. So it came over towards me. For some reason, I didn’t run either and as the bear approached me, it suddenly transformed itself into a tall, thin youth with a bushy black beard.

Despite the alarms, it was more like 07:00 when I arose. and after going through the usual ritual I had a shower and then set a washing machine on the go. It was a nice sunny day outside so I wanted to put the washing in the window to dry.

bedford cf caravanette boulevard des terreneuviers granville manche normandy franceOnce I’d organised the washing in the window, I headed off into town.

Our old friend – and I do mean “old” – the CF Bedford transformed into a mobile home was back there in its usual spot overlooking the harbour.

One day i’ll get to speak to the owners and find out more about it. It’s a pretty anonymous vehicle in the sense that it doesn’t even display its département number on the number plate.

new house construction rue du port granville manche normandy franceWhile I was down there I had a look over the wall at the new building that that they have been constructing.

The back wall is finished now and I imagine that they will soon be putting in the windows.

But my attention was drawn to the rear of the house, and in particular the annex extension. I was wondering what it is supposed to be and what they are intending to do with it.

tide out boats aground port de granville harbour manche normandy franceFrom there I walked down the stairs and across the rue du Nord and onto the harbour by the fish processing plant.

Dodging the seagulls dropping the crustaceans onto the concrete to break them open, I crossed over via the harbour gates that were closed.

The tide is well out and all of the boats in the harbour are aground.

fish dock tidal harbour gates granville manche normandy franceWe’ve seen a few times the layout of the fish dock underneath the fish processing plant, but we’ve never had a close look at it.

One of these days I’ll go for a walk around underneath and see what it’s really like, but this is the best view that we can have of it for now. We’ve not seen it from this angle before.

You can see the tidal gates to the port here on the right, and you can see from the stains the height of the tide when it’s in.

bollards quayside port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn the southern side of the harbour there were a couple of guys messing around with tools and measuring tape and all of that kind of thing.

And on the principle that if you want to know the answer to a question, you need to ask the question, and so I did.

It seems that they are erecting bollards along the edge of the quayside, presumably to stop motorists driving off the edge into the harbour.

la grande ancre port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOur old friend Le Grande Ancre is in port today, moored up at the other side of Marité

There’s some kind of interesting tractor with double rear wheels, parked on the deck of the boat. I wonder what that’s for and where it might be going.

There was also a boat there too – presumably the lifeboat for the ship if ever she were to sink. As we know, she’s actually been involved in one rescue a few years ago, as a rescuer, not a rescuee.

gilets jaunes place charles de gaulle granville manche normandy franceIn the town centre the gilets jaunes were out there in force, disrupting the traffic.

Regardless of whether or not their protest is a valid one, they should be protesting against the politicians and the tax officials and the like.

That’s far too difficult, however. They aren’t brave enough for that. Their level is just about coming to a peaceful market and harassing the passers-by and the motorists. It really does get on my wick and I wish that they would all clear off.

indoor market granville manche normandy franceAnyway, I made it to the market today for my special baguette.

And as you might expect, the boulangerie is on holiday this week so I had to do without. I picked up some pears though, and also some cooking apples. I’m going to make an apple tart when I come back from Belgium.

I went to another boulangerie for a baguette and then went home.

After lunch, I pushed on with updating the blog and I’ve made it back to 15th December 2018. Still plenty to go at.

I would have done even more, except that round about 14:30 I had to go to bed. No idea why because I’d had a good sleep during the night. I was out for 90 minutes yet again.

yachts baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceStill plenty of time to go out and join the madding crowds milling around on the Pointe du Roc.

Hordes of people out there, even more than yesterday. And that was no surprise because it really was a beautiful day today.

Out in the bay there were the yachts out again having a bit of a sail around in the Baie de Mont St Michel. It made me want to be out there with them too, and one of these days I will.

armor chantier navale granville manche normandy franceThere was quite a racket coming from the chantier navale while I was out there, so I went for a look around.

Armor, the ship from the diving people, was still in there and receiving attention. It looks as if they are taking off all of the paint for it, presumably ready for giving it a bare-metal respray.

When I come back from Leuven I’ll have to go over there for a look and see what they’ve done to her, if she’s still in there.

Tea tonight was out of a tin and then we had the football. Now I’m off to bed because I really need a decent sleep as I do have to be up early.

There’s a lot to do.

tide out boats aground port de granville harbour manche normandy france
tide out boats aground port de granville harbour manche normandy france

market rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france
market rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france

steps rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france
steps rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france

lifeboat memorial baie de mont st michel st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france
lifeboat memorial baie de mont st michel st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france