Category Archives: normandy trader

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 – SO CARRYING ON …

… from where I left off last night, I ended up taking out the waste paper to the recycling bin. Such is the exciting life that I lead around here these days.

But at least it brought my day’s efforts to 101% of my target so that I could go to bed quite happily – albeit rather later than I had planned.

And during the night, I was off on yet another mega-ramble. One that was well-worth remembering, but unfortunately I can’t remember anything about it now. But all is not lost, because I recorded it for posterity on the dictaphone.

However, it comes to my mind that I have forgotten to copy it onto the laptop and transcribe it, so you’ll have to wait for another time before you can read all about it.

To be honest, I don’t know what I do with my days. Anyone would think that I was really busy, but that’s not the case. I’m just old, tired and ill.

But not so old, tired and ill that I couldn’t deal with the masses of photos that have built up over the last while. Including the ones that I mentioned yesterday. This one and this one were taken with the current lens on the big Nikon.

On the other hand, keeping to exactly the same settings, this one and this one were taken with the lens that I borrowed from Happy Cash.

I wish now that I had brought the spare lens with me instead of leaving it back in Virlet. I shall have to bite the bullet and buy another. This one is the one that I would really like, but I’m already selling my body on Boots Corner for the next 20 years so it will have to wait for a while. Does that place you know have anything cheaper, Rhys?

Lunch was spent sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour where I could gaze upon the activity.

And Normandy Trader sneaked in during the morning at some time. Here she sits, not yet loaded. Presumably waiting for a delivery.

The lizard that loiters at the foot of tha wall now seems to have become quite tame. He knows that I’m going to eat a pear, and he knows that some of it will fall to the floor. He’s a big fan of pears and at first he’d hide in the long grass and dash out for a quick bite and dash back in.

Now though, he comes out and hangs around waiting, even climbing over my foot to reach the piece that falls.

This afternoon I crashed out again and then carried on with the photos and a session on the guitar.

I went for my walk too, and they must have been flaming quick with Normandy Trader because she had badgered off. Slung her hook, you might say.

But they aren’t being flaming quick with Caliburn. He’s still at the garage and there’s been no phone call. Still, he’s out of mischief there.

Tea was a delicious mixed vegetables steamed in the microwave, vegan sausages and a nice thick creamy vegan cheese sauce. The freezer and the grated vegan cheese from the Loving Hut in Leuven haven’t half improved my diet. But I’ve run out of strawberries now.

Another walk this evening and now I’m ready for bed. And I need it too. I must remember to download my dictaphone notes tomorrow.

Thursday 17th May 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… seeing how things have been going just recently, I had tea tonight.

And not before time either because one of the two peppers that were left from the last weekend has gone off and ended up in the bin. The other one was just about edible so I made a pile of my patent vegan stuffing and had stuffed pepper with spicy rice and vegetables for tea.

But that wasn’t the main reason why. Being at LIDL this morning, they had yet more of the cheap strawberries. And, of course, seeing as I was in Belgium last week and went shopping at the Loving Hut, I have some vegan spray-on cream, don’t I? And I’m not going to let nature beat me to them like it did last time.

Despite a reasonably early (for me) night last night, I didn’t fel much like it this morning and it took me a while to haul myself out of bed. After the usual performance and breakfast I had a shower too. Must make myself pretty for the shops.

But I nearly didn’t make it to the shops this morning. I sat down on the settee after my shower and promptly fell asleep. And it was a rather panic-stricken me that staggered awake at 09:35.

It was a nice day too as I headed through town and out the other side. And Normandy Trader was in the harbour loading up. So I reckoned on passing back that way on the way back to take a couple of pics.

Dodging my way through the roadworks which have now restarted but on the other side of the street so we still have the previous amount of chaos, I made it to LIDL.

As well as the strawberries and the bread that I needed, they had some of the packet spices so I bought a packet of cumin and of ginger. I don’t need them quite yet but they never seem to have them in stock when I need them.

They also had some insulated gourds on offer. They were quite cheap too so I bought one – the idea being that when I’m out and about on a hot day (if we ever have one) I can make a cold drink and put some ice cubes in it, and hopefully it will keep cold for a while.

But all the fun at LIDL seems to be taking place outside on the car park these days. Poor parking is a regular feature of this blog, and here’s yet another example.

They had closed off part of the car park with all of the trolleys as there will very shortly be a marquee on here, but this hasn’t stopped someone deciding to find a way to park right where they will be working.

It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

On the way back I went to the harbour to see Normandy Trader. But as you might expect, she had p155ed off already. That p155ed me off, I’ll tell you.

Back here I had a coffee and then I had things to do until lunchtime.

It was even nicer later on although the wind was a nuisance. But I still took my butties and my book and went to sit on my wall for an hour, thinking to myself that this would have been a good opportunity to try out the gourd.

This afternoon I had more things to do, a guitar session and a walk too. And I didn’t crash out at all, which is certainly good news. But what with my evening walk I’m at 114% of my daily activity so I’ll probably pay for all of this tomorrow.

And a nice tea too. Things are looking up.

NO plans for anything tomorrow so it looks like a “me” day instead. You just watch someone come along and spoil it.

Wednesday 28th March 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… go into town today either.

One look out of the window was enough to tell me all that I needed to know. It wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday but it was near enough.

Another reasonable sleep though – out like a light and slept right through to the alarms and then the usual morning performance.

Once the medication had done its job I started to attack the pile of photographs here. And I don’t want to tell you how many went into the bin because you probably wouldn’t believe that I even had that many. But I’m whittling this down – not necessarily into manageable proportions but at least disposing of unnecessary duplicates … "and triplicates and quadruplicates etc etc" – ed.

And it’s just as well that things are advancing because delivery 2 came today. A 4TB hard drive. The old 250GB one that has run for ever is now overflowing, the 750GB one I’m going to use just for backing up data and so the 2TB one is going to have its work cut out.

And to give you some kind of idea as to how things are shaping, I paid more for the 250GB one that I paid for the new 4TB one, and I do remember that thanks to its mammoth size I won’t ever need anything bigger than 250GB. But then, that was back in the days when a high-quality digital image was 25KB, never mind 25MB.

After lunch and the session on the guitar I went out to brave the howling gale, seeing as the rain had stopped.

And “howling gale” were definitely the correct words to use as, once gain, it was blowing a good ‘un. It is starting to depress me just a little this weather. It’s been a miserable, wet clingy winter that seems to have gone on for ever

Ready for a change, aren’t I?

The high winds and bad weather weren’t clearly upsetting too many other people though.

They have suddenly put quite a spurt on with this house that they are building, and have now started to put on the roof.

Not much of a pitch on that though. It’s a good job that they don’t have snow like in the Auvergne. We’ve seen roofs collapse under the weight of the snow that we can have down there.

It didn’t stop Normandy Trader from making her way into harbour either.

No idea what she brought in today, and when I took this photo she was fully-loaded and ready to depart.

And depart she did because when I was out and about this evening, she had left her berth and gone back to Jersey. She and Grima do seem to be keeping quite busy just now.

Back here, I had a coffee and really good chinwag with Rosemary on the ‘phone about this and that. She’s feeling a little miserable after her operation and needed cheering up.

And then tea. Tidying up the other day I had found a leftover pepper and so it was a case of “stuff that for a lark” – and I duly did. Delicious too, as were the strawberries and vegan cream for pudding.

When I went out for my walk is was still comparatively light, so I took a nice photo of some of the houses in the the Medieval town through the gateway at the back here.

20:46 in the evening, that was too. The nights are definitely getting shorter now. It was only a couple of months since it was pitch-black at 17:00.

This year is going just so quickly that I can’t keep up with it? Whatever happened to that six-weeks summer holiday that we had that used to last for ever?

JUst 15 minutes later though it was a totally different story.

By the time that I had gone round to the fortifications on the north-east edge looking over the Place Marechal Foch and the Casino it was pretty dark.

I had the 50mm lens with me too, but that has an issue with it, so it seems. The aperture ring isn’t locking, according to the camera, although I can tell that it is. I was going to take some photos with that tonight, but instead, tomorrow I’ll be looking at that to see what’s wrong.

And my mate the black cat was there again tonight. But he wasn’t in very much of a sociable mood, and neither really was I.

And just in case you were wondering, I’ve reached “Marillion” on the playlist. Can’t you tell?

Thursday 22nd March 2018 – IT WAS BUSY …

… down in the harbour this morning.

First of all, we had the Normandy Trader in. She’s on one of her shuttle trips between Jersey and Normandy bringing in a load of scrap, and I couldn’t see what she was taking away.

That was because by the time that I had got down there, she had loaded up and gone out. She didn’t hang about at all.

The reason for my delay was that another bit of movement in the harbour had caught my eye.

La Grande Ancre was just setting out on the tide – presumably heading towards the Iles de Chausey (she was back a short while later).

So despite her being registered in Cherbourg, it looks as if she’s now a permanent fixture here in Granville, and I’m all in favour of that as you know.

Also in the harbour today is a piece of history.

She’s the Lys Noir – the “Black Lily” and was built in 1914 in Arcachon as a pleasure yacht for a German prince. But on the outbreak of World War I she was confiscated by the French authorities as a prize of war and subsequently sold into private hands.

She was rebuilt here in Granville in the 1980s and now belongs to an Association to which she has given her name.

In front of it is the ferry that goes to the Channel Islands – presumably being prepared for the season.

But my attention was caught by the name that has been painted out underneath. She is in fact the famous former “Bornholm Express”.

She was built in Singapore in 2006 and came to Denmark on the deck of a cargo ship. Her task was to operate a fast ferry service between Sweden and the island of Bornholm. But the ferry service was unsuccessful and closed down.

And this is where she has ended up – arriving in 2014.

So apart from that, last night was a better night’s sleep and I was off on my travels.

I was in fact at a football match – Altrincham v Morton. But at the ground the end where I usually stand was full of yellow-shirted Southport supporters. However, walking into the ground (there was no-one on the gate) I was just in time to see Morton’s second goal – and we hadn’t played 15 minutes yet. A beautiful shot from a narrow angle on the right wing across the keeper. I headed to an open spot on the far side and found myself in a group of about 50 Morton supporters who were clearly delighted by the result. I started to chat to a young girl there, with half an eye on the game, but a group of very tall men came and stood right in front of us. Despite me asking, they weren’t inclined to leave so we went down to the front – a wooden wicker fence to keep the crowds off the pitch, but there out view was obstructed by a concrete wall which was actually the support of a motorway flyover

We had the usual morning performance, and then the shower, shave and general tidy-up, and then it was shopping time.

And remember the roadworks by LIDL? There was a workman loitering in the vicinity so I went over to quiz him, but he saw me coming and walked away.

Did I mention that there’s a new line of product on sale at LIDL? I can’t remember.

But we have kangaroo meat now on offer, and I bet that you are hopping mad about that.

As for me, I didn’t buy anything out of the ordinary as such but they did have some of the Swedish vegan oatmeal biscuits on offer – the second box half-price – so two large boxes came home with me. And delicious they are too.

On the way back I stopped at the building site that we saw last week, to see what was going on.

They are still clearing the site at the moment, but I did notice that they have put some retaining supports in between the two houses on either side.

The are obviously worried about movement while there’s nothing in between them holding them up.

They say that Auvergnats have a reputation of being près de leurs sous, as they say around here. But Auvergnats have nothing on a Normandy Solicitor.

Solicitors in FRance are allowed to act as Estate Agents and their price calculation is worked out on the basis of the asking price for the client, plus 6% to cover the expenses of the transaction.

So have a close look at the price of this property for sale in a solicitor’s office.

While I was on the docks just now, another thing that regular readers of this rubbish might recall is the piles of shipping containers that arrived for the people rebuilding the harbour gates.

You can se what they have done with them – made two walls and put a roof of sorts over the top.

And I can’t say that I blame them either what with this weather that we have been having.

After lunch I had a few things to do, and then I went off for my afternoon walk.

And I was right yesterday about “Spring is Sprung”.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning the topiary guy the other weeK. He’s been back and cut the bushes and this gave me an opportunity to inspect them.

And sure enough – the first buds of 2018 are out already, although you might not believe it given the weather that we have just been having.

There are also hundreds (and I am not joking either) of Primary School kids wandering around Granville at the moment in the company of dozens of adults. Being a firm believer in “if you want to know the answer, you have to ask the question” and so having buttonholed a teacher I was told that it’s “Classe de Découvert” – discovery class, and the kids (at least, those to whom i was talking) had come from Nancy for the week.

But when was the last time that you heard of British kids being sent halfway across the country for a week for a Discovery Class?

Tea was stuffed peppers and spicy rice again, and then my evening walk.

And now I’m off to bed – see where I end up tonight, hey?

Monday 12th February 2018 – IT’S SNOWING!!!!

We had bright sunlight quite early on and I’d turned the light off early today. But round about 10:30 it went pitch-black outside.

And so out of curiosity I went for a peep out of the window and sure enough, we were having a fall of snow.

No-one was more surprised than me to see it, that’s for sure. I love the snow as you know, and I was bitterly disappointed to think that I might have missed out.

Mind you, when I say “snowing” – that’s something of an exaggeration. Especially when regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen photos of the Auvergne where I lived and where we could have half a metre of snow at the drop of a hat.

This was just a bare covering of snow, and unfortunately it didn’t last long. The weather quickly brightened up and within 20 minutes it had all melted away.

But it’s snow nevertheless, and here are the photos to prove it.

I’d had another good night’s sleep and been travelling again. I can only remember a small part of it, and that involved a cruise liner with a scene something reminiscent of Carry On Cruising. There was also a pile of loose change to be considered too, and the pieces of money were large and mis-shapen, nothing like what you would expect coins to look like these days.

Medication and breakfast, and once it all worked I settled down and attacked the European Photo Mountain. I’m at the stage where I can slowly start to add things back into the stuff on the external hard drive. It’s certainly a lot tidier – and a lot emptier – than it was when I resurrected it.

But there’s still tonnes of stuff missing and I do wonder where it’s all gone to. There must be another external hard drive somewhere, but I’m badgered if I know where it might be.

With a minor interruption to look at the snow, I carried on with it until lunchtime, and soup again.

Back at work and I had a phone call to make. It’s another one of these cases where you send a letter to someone telling them of your change of address, so they send the next document to your old address. I’m fed up of all of this.

And then there was a letter to write. That involved a lot of work and research, but that’s done now. And then there was a pile of stuff to print off. My Health Insurance want a declaration that I’m still alive (I’m not even sure of that and I’m sure that you aren’t either) and there are some documents from the Health Insurance to hand in to them. All of that needed to be printed off in order to take with me on Wednesday.

And then I tidied up and filed away a load of paperwork that had been lying around.

It was a beautiful, bright, warm sunny afternoon so I went for my afternoon walk around the headland again.

And I was in luck – just in time to see Normandy Trader cast off forr’ead and cast off aft, and set sail … "diesel" – ed … out of her little mooring.

Yes, the tide is right in, so there’s no point in my going down to look at this new gate arrangement thing to see what they have done.

So with a touch of “left hand down a bit”, Normandy Trader negotiated the exit to the tidal harbour and headed off out to the open seas.

I thought that we might have had a maritime disaster on her hands as just as she was leaving, two fishing boats appeared coming in.

But keeping starboard to starboard instead of the more usual port to port, there were no shipwrecks, nobody drownding and nothing to laugh at at all.

Back here I had a cold drink for a change – it was so warm (for the time of year) and then my exertions caught up with me.

Half an hour later, I had a session on the bass guitar – this time picking out the bass line to “Ride a White Swan” by T Rex. As the skunk said when the wind changed, “it all comes back to me now”.

Tea was more tortillas (I want to finish off the packet before I leave) with another load of my home-made stuffing mix, which really is good, even though I say it myself.

The wind had got up again when I went out for my night-time walk. It seems like the easly Spring has come and gone.

So I’ll have an early night, I reckon. Plenty to do tomorrow and there’s the Mardi Gras parade for the carnaval tomorrow afternoon.

Not to be missed, so I’m told.

Thursday 8th February 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

… that will surprise absolutely no-one – certainly not the regular readers of this rubbish – having been deposed from the top of the pile by our historical favourites the Royal Bank of Scotland having risen briefly from the dead, the Credit Agricole of Granville go back in front in the race to reach the bottom of the barrel.

Having had a telephone call yesterday from my “service agent” asking me to confirm that everything was in order, at 23:00 last night I had a message from my mobile phone and internet supplier to tell me that th monthly standing order has been missed.

It was previously being paid by the Credit Agricole in Pionsat and the account that I wanted to be closed. And I imagined that it was also being paid from my Granville account, because I remember distinctly taking all of the paperwork there back in the early summer.

And futhermore I had sent the details to the Bank on the 5th of January and again a week or 10 days ago.

So now I’m wondering about my Electricity account and my annual insurance payments.

Just for a change I had the Sleep of the Dead last night. And I went on an exciting voyage too, although every memory of it disappeared the moment that I awoke.

After the medication and breakfast, I had a shower, a shave and a change of clothes. Need to make myself look pretty because it’s shopping oday of course. And the weather was, just for a change, beautiful. Cold but very little wind and -SHOCK! HORROR! – some strange golden thing in the sky.

First port of call was the offices of my phone supplier. I explained the situation about my payments and they gave me a telephone number to call. I could have done the change of bank details then and there, but Brain of Britain hadn’t brought his details with him.

Next stop was the railway station, and that took some finding seeing as how a fairground seems to have grown up around it.

Of course, everyone is preparing for Carnaval, and it looks like it might be exciting. I shall have to go for a good walk around tomorrow evening to see what gives.

At the station I picked up my rail tickets for next week, and I noticed that the times have changed. There are engineering works on the line so the train is departing half an hour earlier, at 08:34. That’s going to upset my plans a little, isn’t it?

Up the hill to LIDL – the usual struggle – and in there I didn’t buy anything exciting at all. I’ve run out of carrots and seeing as they don’t sell t hem individually, I had to buy a kilo. That means before I leave here, I shall have to make some carrot soup and freeze it.

On the way back I popped into the harbour to see what was going on. The tide was in, and so was our old friend the Normandy Trader.

Not in the usual berth for the freighters – I wonder why that is. Probably due to the lock gates and the depth of water in the basin I reckon.

But with the tide being in, there wasn’t much point in going to photograph what they were doing. I’ll have to go again.

Lunch was the remains of the vegetable soup and then I attacked the European Photograph Mountain. Having been out today, I’m exempt from a tidying-up session.

As well as that, I’ve been tackling a little bit on the database, playing the guitar and ringing up the number that they gave me in the phone supplier’s. That at least is up-to-date, no thanks to the Credit Agricole. I really don’t know why I pay them for the service that I’m receiving. They should be paying me.

Having bought some peppers at LIDL, tea tonight was a pepper stuffed with the last of the stuffing that I made the other night. And how delicious that was too.

As yet I’ve not been for a walk. There’s footy on the TV – Bala against Cefn Druids in the Welsh Premier League. And I’m glad that I’m not in Bala – the weather over there is worse than we’ve had.

But I’m on 96% of my daily fitness total so I’ll go for a brief walk around later after full-time. A shame to stop so short of my target.

Thursday 11th January 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… pf this rubbish will not be at all surprised by today’s news.

I believe that I mentioned that I had tracked down the mobile telephone repairer in Granville – there is only one. And so this morning I set off to pay him a visit. And there on the door was a notice “Gone on Holiday”.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

I had another excellent night’s sleep, and off on my travels yet again. My mother was having yet another one of her “performances” and so I left home yet again. I found myself in a big house where there was a place for me to stay – but it involved climbing up a rope and leaping across a three-foot gap, hanging on by my fingers and hauling myself up. But somewhere along the line I had acquired a cat, and trying to climb a rope with it in my arms was difficult, and jumping across a three-foot gap would be impossible. And then what made it worse was that another cat decided to come along and join in the fun. He climbed up into my arms too.

After breakfast I had a shower and general clean-up, and then it was tile to hit the streets.

First stop however was the port.

I’d seem them the other day unloading a pile of stuff n the quayside and so I reckoned that it might be Grima coming in. But instead it’s his rival, the Normandy Trader.

She’s a converted landing craft as you can tell, but apart from that I’ve not been able to find out anything about her history. I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s a former Caledonion-MacBraye island hopper, but who knows?

The phone repairer was closed as I said, so I struggled on to LIDL. And it was a struggle up the hill as you can imagine. I’m not really in fit state to go on foot but I do need to push myself onwards.

And seeing that I didn’t want anythinf really, I did well to spend €25:00 in there. But they had unleashed some more towels so I grabbed another set to make two now. And the last set of AAA batteries (but it’s not the batteries that are the issue in the remote control – it must be goosed).

But on the way back, I made an exciting find.

I had to make a sharp deviation to avoid being run down, and found myself face-to-face with the letter boxes of the Associations that use the public rooms.

And there are a couple of things on here that I find quite interesting, as you might expect. I shall have to make further enquiries.

Back in the town, I had a cunning plan.

Being frustrated with this message limit that is blocking my credit card from making on-line payments, I headed to the Post Office. When I was there the other day I’d seen pre-paid credit cards on offer. One of those, with a payment up front, should enable me to complete this driving licence.

But regular readers of this rubbish will not be in the least surprised to learn that the Post Office has sold out, and doesn’t plan on having any more.

You can’t make that up either.

But not to be outdone. I went to the Orange shop and had a bit of a moan at one of the salesmen. And hey! Presto! A quick manipulation with my phone and a raft of messages suddenly appeared.

You might think that I can now go ahead and complete the form, but I have a better idea that might take a couple of days to come to fruition.

All in all, I was out for almost three hours,and I’d done 82% of my daily exercise, so I’d earned a sit-down. And at lunchtime I made myself a thick vegetable soup with pasta and bulghour in it. Delicious it was too, and I even managed some bread.

I was going to say that I had a good relax all afternoon, but that’s not quite true. It was such a beautiful afternoon that later on I tore myself off the sofa and staggered outside for a walk around the headland.

There was a strange-looking yacht out there too. It’s either sailing at a strange angle or else it’s one of these historic yachts of the type that you see around here every now and again.

UNfortunately, without the zoom lens it’s difficult to say.

Yesterday I mentioned the lighthouse here on the Pointe du Roc.

I did say that I’ve yet to take a good photograph of it, and so I resolved to put that right today.

I’ve mentioned … "on many occasions" – ed … that each lighthouse is painted a different colour so that mariners can distinguish them in the daytime, and different sequences of flashes so that ditto in the night.

But I think that they could have been a little more imaginative with the colour scheme here. But at least it blends in with the ruins of the Atlantic Wall.

There’s also a coastguard station here, operated by the French Military.

It’s complete with a radar installation as you can see. A really impressive piece of equipment.

And so I continued on my way around qnd passed the 100% mark so I’m now feeling very virtuous. And quite right too. It’s been a while, although I know that I’m going to suffer for this.

Back here I had a spell on the guitar and listened to the music on the new hi-fi. And we’ve now passed onto Tangerine Dream.

I’m not too keen on some of their more experimental music, but they went through a stage – well, two stages actually – of producing some albums that were unbelievably superb, and bring back many happy memories of when I was living in Hankelow in the mid-70s.

And talking of superb, let me tell you about tea tonight. Not really knowing what I fancied, it was mashed potato with cheese, and a huge plate of mixed vegatbels with bulghour and gravy. Tons of protein in that lot.

That so buoyed me up that I went for another walk (well, more like a stagger) this evening. And I’m now up to 128% of my daily activity.

So I’m off to bed now to easy my aching joints. God knows what I shall be like tomorrow.

Thursday 7th December 2017 – WE HAVE …

… a new visitor in the harbour today.

Thrashing her way into harbour today came Normandy Trader. She’s not a sister ship to Shetland Trader and Islay Trader but she is in fact a converted landing craft of the type that we have seen on several occasions in different places around the world.

She’s not by any means new to Granville – in fact she works a shuttle to here from Jersey on a regular basis just like Grima, and so I’m surprised that I’ve never seen here here before.

But here you can see her smashing her way through the storm into the harbour. It really is wicked outside and the spray is flying everywhere as the waves crash into the concrete sea walls.

The wind has turned round and is now blowing from the north-west, and that’s right into the harbour mouth. No wonder that Normandy Trader is making heavy weather of it. Landing craft aren’t designed for conditions like this, especially with a gross tonnage of just 73 tonnes. She was being tossed around like a cork out there.

Last night was a reasonable night for me. Although it took me a while to go off to sleep, I was well away. I somehow missed the first alarm, although I must have responded as the phone was in my hand when I awoke, not under the pillow where it usually is.

But anyway, the second alarm of Billy Cotton and his “Wakey waaaaaaa ….KEYYYYYY” took me completely by surprise.

After breakfast and a little rest, I had a shower and then braved the wind and rain up to LIDL.

Had I still been living on the farm, I would have bought quite a bit of stuff from their special offers this week. But with having changed my lifestyle considerably, there’s nothing that I really need.

But had I been Rhys, I would have been spending my money there. He’s trying to organise some interior lighting for his bus, and they had the rows of 12-volt LED striplights that I like so much. 212 lumens, which is the equivalent of about 18 watts of incandescent power, but drawing 0.1 watt. And you can link them together to give you a running strip light.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a pile back down on the farm and use them as work lights over the work benches. And they are great.

I walked back here in the rain and was almost trampled to death in the rush of a pile of little kids descending from a school bus. And back here, I had a coffee and a … errr … relax.

After lunch I braved the wind and gales and went for a walk around the headland. And I was the only person out there. And that’s no surprise given the weather.

Tonight I went out for my other walk around the walls – and I’ve done 105% of my day’s target according to the fitbit.

The wind has changed further round now and so I stood for hours on the headland watching the waves down below crash over the sea wall and onto the promenade. It’s an amazing spectacle, the power of nature out there.

Rosemary rang up and we put the world to rights for an hour, and I booked my trip to Leuven for next week too. I’ll be staying at the flathotel at the back of the prison.

Tea was steaeed vegetables and vegan sausages in vegan cheese sauce – and delicious it was too.

So seeing that I have no plans for tomorrow, I’m going to have a nice quiet day of relaxing and organising myself for Leuven

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality