… the second alarm call YET AGAIN – and I’ve no idea why because it’s quite clearly programmed in.
And so when what I thought was the second alarm call went off and I glanced at my fitbit and saw that it was 06:20, no-one was more disappointed than me.
There I was, deep in the arms of Morpheus and I wasn’t alone either, because the Girls from Uummannaq were in there with me.
What was going through my mind was a quote from the report of Vaino Tanner, a Finnish anthropologist who had studied the Inuit in Labrador and reported, in his book “Outlines of the Geography, Life and Customs of Newfoundland-Labrador” of 1944 that inuit girls …
- … are the hardest-working of all of the Inuit people (and then goes on to list all of the household tasks that they are expected to do in the home)
- … are very keen to marry settlers of European descent
- … have an extremely sensual nature
There he was, wondering how he found out all of this, and there I was, about to put Point 3 to the test (and wondering how Tanner discovered that particular point) when, with sitting bolt upright like that, it all immediately disappeared from my mind.
So having had a disappointing medication and breakfast followed by a shower, I attacked the dictaphone notes, totally forgetting that I was supposed to be going to LIDL.
Eventually, it clicked with me, so I dressed and made a hurried exit.
Stepping out into the street, I was nearly flattened by a JCB pallet lifter that was in something of a hurry going down the street.
And when I expressed the fact that I had almost bee flattened by this thing, al of my friends expressed their regret.
They’ve been working on another house here in the old town, this time in the rue St Jean, and they’ve had a delivery of metal plasterboard struts.
Our pallet lifter was on his way to lift them into the house, blocking the entire street as he did so, much to the dismay of all of the motorists.
I, however, had a delightful five minutes watching him have all kinds of problems trying to unload the pallet, with part of the metal struts wedged under the load bar of the pick-up.
The weather was looking rather miserable today and was on the point of rain.
Over there you can see a nice storm cloud hovering over the town right where I’m heading, and with the rays of the sun shining somewhere else.
There was this feeling that it was not going to be my day today.
While the wind had dropped considerably from the previous few days, you would never have thought so by looking at the waves down there.
The tide is quite a way out still as you can see and yet we already have something crashing down on the loading ramp at the Plat Gousset.
The amount of energy there is in the sea and yet there are some people who don’t want to harvest it.
Down in the Place marechal Foch I had better luck.
The workmen were there today and they didn’t run off when I approached them like they did yesterday, so I was able to talk to them.
And I was right. It’s more fibre-optic cable trunking going in. And they don’t have a clue as to when the system will be going live. After all, it’s only been about two years now. There’s no hurry
Having said that, I hurried, right up the hill at something of a good pace all the way to LIDL. And I can tell that I’m doing better because I was talking to myself all the way up. if I can do that, I can’t be too out of breath.
At LIDL there was nothing special that I needed so I just bought a few bits of fruit and veg, some drink and some boxes of rice. I’m on my last box of that so I need supplies.
But how about this that I bumped into on the way home? You don’t see too many of these about and I haven’t seen one for ages.
It’s a Jaguar XJ-8 2+2 coupé, and the reference to the “8” in the model name relates to the fact that it’s powered not by the standard 6-cylinder or v-12 engine but by a V8 engine.
These were launched in 1997 as a kind-of replacement for the XJ-S but because of the reputation that the earlier vehicle had, they just never caught on at all and as I have said, I haven’t seen one on the road for years
Having fought my way through the town and stopping off for my dejeunette, I headed on back home again.
And peering over the wall, I noticed that our old friend Normandy Trader is back in town again. She must have sneaked in on the early morning tide.
Of course she would, wouldn’t she, when I’m running so late that I don’t have time to go down to say “hello”
That wasn’t all of the excitement in the rue des Juifs either.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I encountered a young black cat in the vegetation up on the city walls. Today, it was the turn of this very young tabby and white to make my acquaintance.
We had quite a chat too for a few minutes before it went off to do some more exploring.
There was half an hour or so to go before lunch so I attacked some more dictaphone stuff. And by the time that I knocked off, I was down to just 59 outstanding entries.
Mind you, the ones that I attacked today (and will be doing for the next few days) are the ones when I was slowly reaching a crisis point and they make rather grim, if not gruesome listening.
There was all kinds of turmoil going on in my head round about this time and that much is clearly evident in what was going on during the night.
After lunch, I started to attack the web pages, to carry on with the updating. By the time I was ready to go for my afternoon walk, I had done 13 of those.
That may not sound like much compared to yesterday, but there were plenty of distractions going on while I was trying to do it and I was lucky that I did that many.
By now we were in the middle of a rainstorm but I didn’t let that deter me.
Out in the English Channel towards jersey I could make out something moving in the gloom so I tok a speculative shot to work on when I returned to the apartment so that I could see what it might be.
And it’s another bunch of fishing boats out there doing what they do best, and i this weather too!
However, I’m absolutely certain that we haven’t seen this much activity out there in preceding years. It seems to me that things are changing, and changing quite rapidly too, in the fishing industry.
Further on around the headland and, as Bob Dylan famously sung, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” around here.
The tide is right out now as you can see. if you look at the beacon there between the trees, that’s almost totally submerged when the tide is fully in.
As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … we have the highest tides in Europe right here on the coast.
But the rain is now closing in again quite quickly and I have a feeling that I’m about to get the lot of it.
Look at that storm brewing up over the Pointe de Carolles.
That triangular lump just there by the way is part of one of the old bunkers that formerly formed the Atlantic Wall.
After the War they tried to demolish the bunkers and so they packed the first one with explosive.
With the force of the explosion they managed to break every window in Normandy, Brittany and the Channel Islands but as far as the bunker went, they managed to move a hatful of concrete about half an inch.
They decided then to give it up as a bad job.
By now it was pelting down again so I didn’t hang around for long. I headed for home.
The Chantier Navale had its usual complement of boats so I didn’t stop to take a photo, but Normandy Trader was still at her berth by the crane so I took a quick photo of her.
And then I came back to the apartment, where I spent some time working on my “Girls of Uummannaq” web pages
There was some curry left over from the other day for tea, but not a frightful lot of it so I added a small potato and some spinach. And it was just as delicious.
For pudding, I had realised that I’d had some soya coconut cream stuff open for quite a while so I thought about that with my pineapple. But it looked rather dubious to me so it went don the drain and I had blackcurrant sorbet instead.
Out and about in the dark I thought that I was alone until I was barked at by a dog, with its owner standing in a deep shadow. It’s a good job that I wasn’t doing anything that I wasn’t suposed to be doing.
But it was dark down there tonight. They had switched off the lights on the Plat Gousset so although the waves were beating down on the sea wall, you couldn’t see them.
Nevertheless, I did my best
Not so much of a problem in the town though.
The upper floors of the buildings on the south side of the rue Lecampion for some reason mooked quite good this evening, very well illuminated by the street lights.
So much so that I couldn’t resist a photo. And I do like the shadow effect on the stone walls.
No-one about tonight so I had a good run, making half the way up the ramp at the end of my little track. One day I’ll measure it and see how far it is. It’s only about 300 metres, I reckon, if that.
Minette the old black cat was there on her windowsill so she let me give her a little stroke. It seems to be my lucky period for cats right now, although i’m not sure why. I probably smell of fish.
So tomorrow I’m having a day at home. For once I don’t have to go anywhere, but nevertheless I still have a lot of work to do.
To do some information files for my projects for a start. And once they are done, I can tell you all about it.
So there are one or two other little things that need to be done tonight and then I’m off to bed. I’m hoping that I can slide back into the arms of Morpheus and carry on my experiments from last night.
