Tag Archives: suske en wiske

Saturday 26th September 2020 – I WAS WRONG …

… about the weather last night. We didn’t have the rainstorm today. Or the plague of locusts either. But we had just about everything else.

The high winds are still here and still wreaking devastation about the town. I blame the baked beans that I had for tea the other night.

We also had one of the coldest days that I can remember for a good while too.

That’s probably why I didn’t feel like springing into action this morning and leaping joyously out of bed. Consequently I missed the third alarm. Only by 10 minutes or so, but missed it all the same.

And that’s hardly surprising as I must have been exhausted after my travels last night. I was with my aunt and we were doing a lot of stuff on the computer quite happliy working away. There was another guy with us as well. Suddenly my computer hard drive caught fire. This boy was all for dashing off for phoning up the fire brigade. Of coure I wouldn’t let him do that – I put it out myself. The fire brigade would just smother it in foam and ruin everything. In the end I managed to put out the fire. Of course the hard drive was ruined. My aunt and this boy were going into the City – Bishopsgate, although I don’t know why I thought Bishopsgate because it wasn’t there that I meant. There was a huge computer shop there. I felt really annoyed because I’d been to a computer fair that day and I could have bought a new hard drive there for peanuts had I known but it’s too late now. I asked this boy if he knew about this computer shop. Oh yes, he knew it very well. I asked “while you’re up in London with my aunt can you nip in there and pick me up a hard drive?”. I told him the one I wanted. He said “wouldn’t it be better to pick up a differet type for a MAC or something like that?”. He only ever uses MACs. I said that I use PCs and I’ve used them for years and I know them pretty well so I’m going to stick with them. He had a little bit of a chunter about that. Then I thought that I would have to get him some money as well and I probably don’t have enough cash on me so how am I going to do that? Then it came to booking the tickets so I went to look on the railway site. It turned out instead that I was looking at the bus site. It took endless goes for me to log in on it because everyone was meithering me and I kept on typing the wrong word. Eventually I got in to find that it was buses that we were looking at because we were now actually living in Bath. The first thing my aunt said was that they don’t have a direct bus service from Bath to London any more. We have to go on the train. We had to start looking for things like that. In the meantime we managed to find the times of the buses which would at least get them some of the way. Then the phone rang. My aunt talked to whoever it was and so on. When she hung up she said “that was George and that’s strange. He’s after his wages for the taxis. He’s on holiday and he wants it posted to him in York by cheque”. She couldn’t understand why he wanted it. I said “he’s probably going to buy something special while he’s in York”. “Yes but it’s early. he doesn’t get paid until Thursday but anyway …”. She had a chunter about that. Then I had to go and get her ready for this bus so they could get on it and this other guy too and head off into London
A little later on there was a girl and she was a lot older than she ought to be and she still had a dolly that she cuddled. People used to make remarks about it (Wiske and Schanulleke, anyone?). They decided that they would pass a Law about it. Somewhere inside there they inserted a clause that people who cuddled a pet or other object or person for the purpose of comfort would be exempt, which of course wiped out the whole purpose of this Law anyway. So we all had a debate about it.
Just then this other girl turned up. She was in a purple and gold kind of trouser suit kind of thing that looked more at home in a Middle-Eastern harem. She had long dark-brown hair that was cut in the style of an Egpytian, really precise cuts and edges and so on.
There was much more to it too but as you are probably eating your meal right now I’ll spare you any discomfort.
And once again I was dictating without the dictaphone in my hand. Either this is starting to become a habit or else it already is and a whole load of stuff has slipped quite literally through my hands.

After a shower, Caliburn and I hit the streets and headed to the shops.

NOZ is always on my shopping list. That’s a shop that buys job-lots of bankrupt stock, overstocks, that kind of thing from all over Europe.

In the past I’ve found plenty of useful things in there and also a whole variety of different foods to vary my diet somewhat. Today they had stocks of Sharwoods products on offer so I now have some vindaloo and madras sauces as well as some mango chutney. Stocks of curry in the freezer are getting low, an I’m also going to learn to make poppadoms, I reckon.

At LeClerc I didn’t spend very much, and most of what I did went on fruit. The place is now looking like a greengrocer’s, which is good for my health (and that reminds me – my kiwi, lemon and ginger cordial is delicious and I’ll be doing that again – hence more kiwis today).

One good thing is that, after much searching, I finally found the fresh figs. So back here, I finally set my kefir en route. How that will pan out remains to be seen.

This afternoon I had a whizz through some more photos of my adventures with Spirit of Conrad in July and we are now in our anchorage for the final night aboard. I reckon that there are about 50 more to edit before I finish.

Then, there are the 400 or so from my voyage into Eastern Europe and once they are completed I can turn my attention to the 3000 that remain from the High Arctic in 2019 and the 2000-odd from the High Arctic in 2018.

And then, finally, I can write up the notes for all of this.

The burning question of the day is not Rafferty’s motor car but whether I’ll finish all of this before all of this finishes me.

A few more albums bit the dust too, some more work was done on revising the web pages, Rosemary rang me and we had a chat for just over an hour, and I even found time to crash out for 15 minutes.

And as for that latter, with everything else that I’ve been doing today, it’s hardly a surprise. I must have been exhausted by then so I’m not too disappointed, even if for the last couple of days I’ve managed to keep going.

chez maguie bar itinerante closed granville manche normandy france eric hallThe day is far from finished too. There’s football this evening so I headed off into town.

And here’s another sure sign that the summer season has ended. The beach cabins have gone and they’ve taken down the diving platform at the Plat Gousset already, but now the itinerant bar Chez Maguie has folded up its tent and crept silently away in the night.

It’s a very significant sign for some of us, but for others it means that the locals can have their boulodrome back until next summer.

football stade louis dior fc flerien flers us granville manche normandy france eric hallProfessional football started back up a few weeks ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. But this weekend amateur football has had the green light.

Consequently I headed off up to the Stade Louis Dior to watch Granville’s 2nd XI play FC Flerien, the team from Flers, in Normandy Regional 1.

For the first 15 minutes Granville’s control of the ball and their passing and movement was extremely fluent, but by the end of this little period they were already 2-0 down – a corner that the goalkeeper dropped into the path of an onrushing forward (he seemed to have a good pair of teflon gloves) and a misplaced header under pressure back to the goalkeeper that went to another onrushing forward.

After that, a couple of heads dropped, and the Fleriens got into their stride. We had to wait 55 minutes for Granville’s first shot on target (and about 10 minutes before the end for their other one) and 65 minutes for their first corner.

It was literally men against boys because Granville’s team was quite youthful whereas Flers had three or four old hands who had clearly been around the block far more times than the Granville players could handle.

The match ended 2-0 but really Flers could have had half a dozen and no-one in Granville would have complained.

And I’m glad that the match finished when it did because I was absolutely frozen to the marrow. It’s a long time since I’ve been this cold. I’ve been much warmer than this in the Arctic and next time I go to the football I’ll put on the thermal undies that I bought on Thursday.

blue light pedestrian crossing ave matignon granville manche normandy france eric hallOn the way back, here’s something that I haven’t noticed before – mainly because it’s been an age since I went into town in the dark at night.

But now there seems to be blue lights shining down on all of the pedestrian crossings on the main roads. Presumably to give motorists a better chance of spotting civilians trying to cross the road.

It brought back many happy memories of a press release that we wonce received from the Parisian authorities when I worked at Shearings – “The policeman who directs the traffic at the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe will from now on be floodlit to make sure that motorists don’t miss him in the dark”.

marite port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallMy route home had to be extended tonight for the simple reason that “if I’m out, I’m well out” and there’s no point in going home with just 90% on my fitbit. I may as well push it up to 100%.

For that reason I wandered on down into the port to see what was going on.

“Nothing much” was the answer to that. Marité was there of course, tucked up in her little corner and so were the two Channel Island ferries, Granville and the older Victor Hugo.

As an aside, we haven’t seen a gravel boat in here for almost 6 months. I was hoping that this new mayor would do something about stimulating the freight trade to the port.

restaurants rue du port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallMy route continued along the rue du Port.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen several photos taken of this street in the dark, all of which have been taken from the cliffs up above.

And so tonight, in an effort to do something different, here’s the reverse-angle shot taken from the street looking back towards the cliffs.

Not that you can actually see the cliffs in this (lack of) light. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

moonlight baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallOn the climb back up the Boulevard des Terreneuviers I stopped (for breath) to look at the tidal port.

There was a beautiful bright moon tonight, even though it’s only half-full, and there was a wonderful reflection of light down in the Baie de Mont St Michel looking across to Jullouville and the Pointe de Carolles.

Actually, considering that this photo was hand-held and taken with the little NIKON 1 J5 with the standard lens, it’s not come out too badly, even if I did have to stop it down by 8 (in fact by 10 because normally the camera has to be opened up by 2 since the lens was repaired).

Back at the flabberblok there was yet more football so I grabbed a bowl of rice pudding and settled down in a ringside seat in front of the internet.

Y Fflint, newly promoted to the JD Cymru League this season after a 20-year absence were entertaining Barry Town. Barry, usually a strong competitive side but who misfired so spectacularly in European Competition earlier and then against TNS on the opening day of the season, have yet to grace my screen this season and I’ve only ever seen Y Fflint play once, in a cup match a few years ago.

The match was quite entertaining because while Barry were much more powerful and street-wise (which you have to expect), Flint matched them blow for blow and I was quietly impressed.

There were three significant items in this match

  1. Alex Titchiner, Flint’s ace striker, was carried off injured after just 2 minutes.
  2. Mike Lewis, in the Barry goal, played the game of his life and made a couple of stunning reflex saves (and that’s not to say that our old favourite, Jon Danby, formerly of Connah’s Quay Nomads, now next-door in the Flint goal didn’t have his moments too)
  3. and had a Flint defender kept his head when Matt Jarvis burst into the area and not conceded a penalty

then the new boys would have had something from this game. They are no mugs, and certainly not cannon-fodder like some promotees have been.

And if TNS managed to sweep away this Barry side so convincingly, then just HOW good are TNS?

There is also some exciting news from Deeside too. It seems that the idea to build a new football stadium on Deeside to be UEFA-compliant for junior international matches, and European club competition and to be shared by next-door neighbours Connahs Quay Nomads and Y Fflint has taken a giant step forward.

Who knows? It might even become a reality if the two clubs can keep up the momentum they they have established over the last couple of years. The announcement that “certain funds have been made available” is major news but, as expected, BBC Wales, with its hands so deep in the pockets of the Welsh Rugby Union to an indecent depth that it imposes a news blackout on Welsh football, has totally passed it by.

But by now, it’s late. Long after midnight, so I’m off to bed. I’ll write up my notes in the morning – if I’m here. It’s Sunday and a day of rest and I might sleep in long past midday.

Tuesday 28th January 2020 – IF YOU WANT …

storm brittany coast english channel granville manche normandy france eric hall… to know what the weather was like today, this photo here will tell you everything that you need to know.

Miserable, horrible, grey and overcast with huge and violent rainstorms and incredibly high winds stirring everything up. In fact, a typical day on the western Normandy coast for just recently.

And when is it going to end? It looks as if this weather is here for the duration and isn’t going to let up very easily.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I could hear the howling weather quite clearly and ashamed as I am to admit it, it drove me back underneath the covers where I stayed until just after 07:00. This wasn’t the kind of weather that would make anyone want to raise themselves from the dead, least of all me.

After the medication I had a look to see where I’d been during the night. I had been at a house with a group of people and we needed some things from a shopping parade down the street. There had been a really heavy snowfall and it was difficult to move around so I said that I would go. I had to go on foot because Caliburn was at the menders and I could pick him up and bring him back on the way back so that was what I decided to do. As I was leaving, one of the girls in this house shouted out “don’t forget it’s time to go and get your food and organise this and Eric’s going to get this and that”. I don’t know why she did that. Anyway I was off. I went to get a coupe of shopping bags. It was a really steep slope down the hill to this shopping parade and with the snow it was quite icy and slippy. There was a group of people coming up the hill. One of them was a girl dressed a kind of white smock kind of arrangement and she had a couple of other kids with her running up there. All of a sudden they slipped, came down the hill and collided with me. They knocked me over onto the ice, and there was me, this girl and a boy sliding down this hill and where the road went round a bend we went straight on over the edge and crashed into a snow bank. The girl was laughing about this and the boy said to her “you’re disgusting”. She said “yes, I know that I’m disgusting”. It all went rather downhill from there.

Those rubber spatulas proved their weight in gold today. Ordinarily I would have said that I had run out of apple purée for breakfast but with the rubber spatula I managed to scrape enough out of the jar for a small portion for breakfast.

After breakfast, I attacked the travel notes. In a change to previous voyages, I’m not taking all of my files with me on the laptop. I’m making a “travel noes” file where I can record everything, and then bring it back home and edit the entries into the various data files. It’s much less confusing that way.

But it seems that I’ve made a bit of an error with the radio projects. I’ve forgotten to leave a space for the live concert at the end of February. As a result, everything that I did that was labelled “Project 16” has now to be labelled “Project 19” to preserve the integrity of Projects 17 and 18 and the series of material from which I draw is now out of order and needs to be changed.

concrete breaker ferry terminal port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallWhile I’d been in Leuven I’d found something that a friend of mine had asked me to see if I could find. I’d been successful so i’d wrapped it and I took it with me to post on my way to pick up my butties.

But as usual, I was side-tracked by the sound of a pneumatic drill coming from the other side of the harbour and seeing as the gates were closed, I could go over the footpath on the top to see what was happening.

And it’s not a pneumatic drill at all but a hydraulic concrete breaker on the jib of one of the diggers that have been dredging the harbour just now.

concrete breaker ferry terminal port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallWhat they seem to be doing is chiselling out the rocks at the foot of the sea wall at the ferry terminal.

This will explain the pile of piles that regular readers of this rubbish will have seen with me the other day – removed so as to give access for the concrete breaker.

But does this mean that, with the dredging of the harbour to make it deeper and removing the rocks at the side to make it wider, are we going to be expecting the arrival of a new ferry boat that is larger than those that we have at present?

We are living in interesting times indeed.

rocavi 2 port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallThis fishing boat, the Rocavi II is quite interesting.

There has been an article in the local newspaper about the Rocavi II just recently. It’s a brand-new fishing boat that has only recently been launched and on Saturday it was blessed by one of the local priests.

What with living in France, I suppose that breaking a bottle of champagne over the bows is pretty ordinary stuff and nothing whatever special at all.

scrap metal port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallA little further along the port, it looks as if Thora has been here while I’ve been away.

Much of her work involves taking building supplies out to Jersey and she doesn’t seem to have a regular load off the island. Instead, her owners collect scrap metal and as there are no scrapping facilities on the island they bring it here for processing. Regular readers of this rubbish will have seen quite a few loads of scrap on the quayside.

This lot of scrap metal looks as if it has been part of some structure that has been destroyed by fire.

With all of these distractions I missed the post. So I went to la Mie Caline and picked up my dejeunette and headed for home.

After lunch I made my own apple purée. Four apples peeled, cored and diced, a pear ditto and some cinnamon put into a saucepan with some water and boiled for about 45 minutes.

And it’s not a success. I’ve used far too much water – or else the fruit was too juicy – and it’s more like an apple drink than an apple purée. But I’ll use it over the next few days just to dispose of it and then I’ll make some more – with much less water this time.

But pears, bananas, rhubarb, apricots, all kinds of fruit can go into it and I’m hopeful of making some good stuff with this. I need to push on and do a lot more about being self-sufficient.

And then I started to write the notes for the first of the radio projects. But I wasn’t at it long because it was walk-time. What hadn’t helped was that for about 10 minutes or so I had … errr … had a little relax.

chausiais port de granville manche harbour normandy france eric hallWhile I was out there earlier we had had a moment of sun. But not now. A howling gale and the rain that we had seen over the Brittany coast had caught me.

For that reason I didn’t hang around very long. Chausias was over there at the ferry terminal in a NAABSA (Not Always Afloat But Safely Aground) condition so presumably they are expecting her to be doing something in the near future.

The two passenger ferries were moored up in the inner harbour where they usually stay.

But no Channel Island ferries. Both Granville and Victor Hugo are currently moored up in Cherbourg and I have no idea why.

chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallSpirit of Conrad has made good her escape from the Chantier navale so I was keen to see who had taken her place.

The answer is that there isn’t anything special in there right now. We have two of the inshore fishing boats that haul in the shellfish and one of the trawler-type of fishing boats that is over there where Spirit of Conrad used to be.

So at least there’s plenty of work for the shipyard to be doing and that should keep them out of mischief for a while.

Back here I finished off the writing and then dictated the notes. They are going to need some hefty editing too as I seem to have been somewhat extravagant.

Anyway, I had made a start by the time that I went to make tea. Vegan burger on a bap with baked potatoes and vegetables, followed by fruit salad and sorbet. And there’s still that left-over slice of apple pie in the freezer from before I went to Leuven. But that’s an oven job so it will probably be to go with the pizza on Sunday.

high winds storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hallHowling gales and torrential rain tonight, and I was out in it. To make it worse, I had to go for a longer walk than usual as I was in touching distance of my 100% target so I may as well push on over.

The storm was raging and although the tide wasn’t all the way in, the waves were still crashing down on the Plat Gousset and soaking everything. It’s disappointing that they haven’t left the lights on along the promenade so that we can see the waves better.

And despite the miserable weather I managed to fit in my two runs this evening. My two little tracks were quite well sheltered.

But Iw as feeling the strain, I’ll tell you. It seems that the spell of good health I had in December is about as good as it is ever goign to be.

So having finished my notes, I’ll wait until “Yes In Concert” finishes ad then I’ll go to bed. The problem is that I have far too much good music here to which to listen to waste my time by going to bed and sleep.