Category Archives: as gavray

Sunday 4th March 2018 – WELL, THAT WAS AN …

… interesting afternoon, and no mistake.

I was planning on going to watch US Granville’s 2nd XI this afternoon but a flash up on the internet announced that it was postponed.

Never mind. Subsequent research indicated that La Brehalaise up the road in Bréhal were to play La Patriote St Jamaise. And so I duly made my butties and hit the streets.

At Brehal the ground was almost deserted except for a couple of guys hanging around. They were indeed players from La Bréhalaise and they told me that the match had been forfeited by La Patriote St Jamaise. So that was that.

as gavray es tirepied football manche normandy franceBut never mind. There was a 4th Division match at Gavray between AS GAvray and ES Tirepied and I had just enough time to get there before kick-off.

And, as an aside, I’ll be coming here again. There’s a small covered area for spectators and that will be very handy in inclement weather.

As for the game itself, ES Tirepied are rooted to the bottom of the table and AS Gavray ran out 7-4 winners. You might think that this showed some level of poor quality, but far from it. It was a very interesting match.

Being a 4th Division encounter, quality was very lacking as you might expect, but there were a great many thoughtful and intelligent passes and play during the game that had the quality been up to it, it would have been wonderful.

as gavray es tirepied football manche normandy franceES Tirepied were not at all as bad as the scoreline suggests. They matched AS Gavray blow for blow but the difference was that this was a match of two goalkeepers.

The US Gavray keeper made a couple of saves that any goalkeeper in a higher division would have been proud to make, whereas the keeper of ES Tirepeid was, and without wishing him any malice whatsoever, clearly a guardien de fortune, pressed into service, one assumes.

And he did his best, and you can’t ever fault anyone for that. Chapeau to him for taking it on and persevering.

Final word has to go to an “incident” in the 50th minute. Just as ES Trepied were pulling themselves back into the gale after being 4-0 down at half time (the slope here gives a decided advantage to whoever is attacking down it) the referee blew for a penalty against them. And even the AS Gavray supporters, with whom I was sitting, were totally mystified as to what the referee had seen. The ES Tirepied players were stunned into disbelief and I have a good deal of sympathy with them.

This morning, I had a lie-in until 09:30. And quite right too. It is Sunday, and anyway, I was exhausted after my voyage during the night.

I was on my travels with TOTGA last night – hardly a surprise I suppose as I was speaking to her just before I went to bed (wonderful things, these social networks). We’d been to a rock concert in Carlisle and we had to return home. But we both had vehicles so she needed to follow me as I knew the way. She was impressed with the Motorway system and asked me loads of questions about it, which I could answer her of course. The route out of the venue car park was jammed with traffic and we slowly inched our way out and found the motorway, but there was a complicated section where you joined the motorway, crossed all three lanes to the far side and then crossed back to exit, all in a space of a couple of hundred yards which was no picnic in heavy traffic, so I had to stop and explain it to her and make sure that she understood exactly what was required.
Later, we were both working in an office which was run by a former inept boss that I had very early in my career. The accounts that he had managed were in total chaos and so he had engaged someone to maintain them, someone whom he had been pursuing for two years, so it seems. I spoke to the guy who told me that he’d turned down the job previously but had been persuaded to accept it, and wished he hadn’t because he’d never seen anything like the disorder and disarray. And then he started to rant about the facilities. There was no reception room, no canteen, nowhere to take a rest (a subject very dear to my heart as I worked such long hours in that place) and a whole host of other shortcomings. “And a condom machine” I quipped, making TOTGA blush to the roots of her hair.

THis morning I didn’t do too much. It’s about time that I had a good relax. And then we had the football of course.

Tea was a vegan pizza of course, and rather overcooked. And I know why too. It’s the frozen mushrooms. For a change I put them in the oven to defrost while it was warming and I prepared the pizza, and you should have seen the water that cme off them. No wonder the pizza hasn’t been cooking thoroughly. I’ll have to do that again.

And a walk this evening. It was a gorgeous day for a change and tonight I have never seen Jersey so clearly – even the house lights, which is pretty astonishing seeing that it is just over 30 miles away from here.

Ordinarily that would be something that would bode well for the morning, but here the wind changes so rapidly that it could bring anything in overnight.

We shall have to see.

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Sunday 14th January 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall telling me … "on many occasions" – ed … that I ought to get out more.

And so with this in mind I went out this afternoon in the beautiful sunlight to St Pair.

football us st pairaise as gavray st pair manche normandy franceUS St Pair were playing AS Gavray so I headed to the stadium in the rue du Croissant.

And I found a really nice stadium, well-maintained with a grandstand and even a social club and pie hut – but of course it goes without saying that both of those were closed.

And furthermore, the match wasn’t played there anyway.

football us st pairaise as gavray st pair manche normandy franceOne of the players pointed me in the direction of the second pitch here, which was nothing like as comfortable as the first. And there was a pie hut here too, which was likewise closed.

As for the match itself, for the first 20 minutes or so it was all St Pair and they could have had several chances to take the lead had their finishing been any better.

But gradually Gavray hauled themselves back into the match and started to look dangerous. As a result the St Pair trainer made an early substitution, which had the desired effect as with almost his first touch of the ball, he lobbed the goalkeeper beautifully to open the scoring.

In the second half Gavray came out of the blocks quicker and soon equalised. And after that, the match swung back and fro. Unbelievably, in the middle of their best spel, Gavray conceded a second goal from a breakaway with a swerving shot that totally deceived the keeper and instead of parrying it to the floor, he parried it into his own net.

If that wasn’t bad enough, what happened next was appalling.

St Pair broke upfield again and in the penalty area, a Gavray defender madea brilliant tackle to take the ball away from the attacker. Unbelievably, the referee pointed for a penalty. He was the only one in the ground who thought that it was a penalty – even the St Pair trainer with whom I had been chatting, was astonished. He was as convinced as I was that it was a fair tackle.

So 3-1 down out of nothing.

Gavray were well-inspired by this and soon scored a second goal, a really good header from an excellent cross. And they had the ball in the net a third time, but the goal was disallowed for offside.

But while they were pushing forward for the equaliser they were caught on the break again ans St Pair scored a fourth with an overhead kick that, quite frankly, could have gone absolutely anywhere. I think that the scorer was more surprised than anyone else.

But there ere a few really good moments of skill from several players on the pitch – but they eren’t consistent with it. They would do something really impressive at one moment, and then make a hash of something simple.

However, this was the first match that I have seen where teams played the ball early (but still not early enough for my liking) and also here the teams were very quick on cosing down the opposing attackers. It’s a feature of the modern game that defenders seem to give attackers too much space and too much time on the ball, and it doesn’t suit me at all.

FInal word must go to the referee, who, apparently, seemed to be refereeing a totally different match than the one that everyone else as watching.

And so much for my lie-in. When I awoke it was still dark and I didn’t dare look at the time.

When I finally plucked up the courage, quite a while later, it was just 07:46. No chance of my leaving the bed at that time – I had a little relax and finally crawled out at 08:45. Still not what I wanted though.

Nevertheless, I’d been on my travels during the night. Living in some spurious accommodation on the edge of Nantwich at the Welsh Row end. And having to visit the centre of the town, I set off quite jauntily and confidently. My route took me past the Swine Market and up the High Street into the Square. Of course the Square was nothing like what it really is – just a huge open grassy plain on a couple of different levels with some impressive brick-built buildings across on the other side. I only had my phone camera with me at the time so I couldn’t do much with it so I went over to the buildings for a closer look. The basements told the true story though. The buildings had been thrown together any old how, with rising damp so evident that it was actually dripping back into the basement. Some old couple had followed me down into the basement and there was something not quite right about them. It made me uneasy, especially when the old guy started to brandish around like a weapon a large piece of heavy metal rod. I was trying to take these photos and yet every one that I took seemed to have him brandishing his metal rod around in a very menacing manner.

After breakfast I didn’t do much – after all, it IS Sunday. I finished off the soup for lunch and then went to the football.

Back here afterwards, I made myself a hot chocolate and tried to keep warm.

I’ve had a vegan pizza for tea and been for another walk. And my thirst is back. That’s usually a warning sign.

But I’ll be off to bed in a minute. It’s going to be a tiring morning tomorrow.

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Saturday 25th November 2017 – YOU MISSED …

accident abandoned car park LIDL granville manche normandy france… all of the excitement this morning.

We arrived at LIDL to find this sight greeting us. No idea what had happened but someone has been hit in the rear and the car abandoned on the side of the LIDL car park. There’s a story here, right enough.

But something else I missed were the little hand-held whizzers with three attachments that they had on special offer. just before 10:00 when I arrived here, and they had all gone.

I was pretty disappointed by that.

It had been a good night last night too. I’d had a decent sleep yet again and even been on a mega-ramble too.

We started off last night in an airport in the UK (might even have been Manchester) ready to fly out to Canada. And whether we had actually flown, we found ouselves in a very neglected and overgrown field that was used by the kids as a rock concert venue. I had a caravan there. But instead of being there, we ended up in some kind of library or bookshop hiding out, because there were some weird goings-on reporte from there. And so after a few hours, three small kids appeared from out of the wall. We let them go about their business for a while and then took them up. They were telling us that there was a fourth sibling who was very ill but they didn’t have the right to fetch a local doctor. We insisted that their mother be sent for, and when she arrived she was a young girl with curly hair and glasses. One of the boys with us announced rather surprisingly that she was his wife and so he was the father of the kids, so he went off to find a doctor. We all adjourned back to my caravan where the field was even more overgrown with weeds and nettles up to head-high. And there were several (British) policemen milling around in there. Someone said that they would be wanting to speak to me later, and everyone disappeared out of what was a very overgrown entrance. I noticed that there was a wooden booth, rather like the old beichstuhl that I built years ago, that was blocking half the entrance. We’d moved it there a while ago and I was sure that the police would want us to move it back, but I knew that it wouldn’t survive another removal.

After breakfast and a shower I hit the streets and went to LIDL as aforementioned. And my little back street route seems to be fine – did the business yet again.

From LIDL I went off to NOZ. And here I spent some cash. For a start, they had some of the seat cushions that I like for the kitchen chairs. And at €2:50 each too. They didn’t have four the same colour but they did have four different shades of dark brown so I bought one of each shade.

Another thing that I did, to put me in the Christmas spirit, was to buy a chain of different coloured LED lights for Christmas. And a few other bits and pieces, bottles of drink and that kind of thing. And some caramel-flavoured soya milk which is delicious too and I wish that I had bought some more.

At LeClerc it was just the usual stuff with nothing particularly exciting, although I was dismayed to be stuck in a queue behind a woman and a cashier who preferred to spend all of the time talking to each other than dealing with the customers in the queue behind them.

granville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I went for my usual walk around the headland. But I didn’t get very far because we were having some unusual weather.

I’ve never seen Jersey as clear as it was this afternoon. Almost everything was visible with the naked eye today,especially when just for a moment, the sun shone down through the clouds and illuminated the island.

Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough with the camera at that moment, but there will be other moments.

rainstorm cancale franceBut as far as the weird weather went, I was quick enough to take a photograph of the rainstorm that was raging ovet there across the other side of the bay near Cancale.

Luckily, there was a northerly wind blowing and that was pushing the rainstorm south down the bay so it wouldn’t be coming across here and soking me.

But it really was impressive

cancale franceAs the rainstorm moved south, the sun came out over there for just a brief minute.

And just for a change I had the camera ready, complete with the zoom lens and so I could take a quick snap of the little bay upon which Cancale is situated.

It’s 18 miles across the Bay as the crow flies, but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s a darn sight farther than that when you go there by road. It took me well over an hour last April to drive there.

baie de mont st michel franceI followed the storm down the bay, and I snapped this photo of a village away in the distance down at the foot of the bay.

I’ve no idea which village it might be but it’s in the area of Hirel and St Benoit des Ondes.

And having done all that, I carried on with my walk and back to the flat for my afternoon coffee and, unfortunately, another little doze. I just can’t shake this off.

foorball cerences as cerensaise us gavray manche normandy franceAnd later on this evening, I braved the cold and damp and went out. No football in the vicinity but there was a local derby under floodlights at Cerences where AS Cerencaise were taking on hated local rivals US Gavray.

I’d taken a flask with me and so as you might expect, there was a pie hut here and furthermore, it was open too.

3rd Division of District football, and that’s how it started off. And how the second half started too. But apart from that it was a very good exciting game. Cerences won 2-1 in a match that could have gone either way. I shall have to come here again.

Back here I took an age to warm up, but in the meantime I made myself some baked potatoes and beans. And still freezing cold, I went to bed. may as well have an early night.

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