Category Archives: pointe du roc

Thursday 10th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN A LITTLE …

… better today.

And that’s really a surprise because it was a late night to start with, and then it took me ages to get off to sleep.

But once I did, I stepped back into last night’s voyage at exactly the place where I had left it. And so it’s another evening where you’ll have to do without knowing where I was. Some of you have some delicate sensibilities.

When the alarm went off, I loitered around in bed for a while and then rose up from my stinking pit. We had the usual morning performance and then I took a shower. it’s been a few days and even I was noticing it.

So one good clean up, shave and shampoo later, I hit the streets.

First stop was the Post Office to post the letter that I had written yesterday.

Second stop was at the Bank. It’s all very well having on-line banking but if you don’t download the statements then you are in trouble. So I needed some instruction as to how to operate an internet banking service. It didn’t take long either.

Third stop was at the railway station to pick up my tickets. It seems now that my TGV tickets are only available on print-out, not from the station. So I mustn’t forget to do that.

Final stop was at LIDL.

But before I could reach there I had to pick my way through the roadworks at the roundabout at the top of the avenue LeClerc by the avenue Aristide Briand.

They are pushing on with the fibre-optic cabling but, according to the workmen here, there’s no timetable as yet for the actual connection. No-one has any idea when it might finally go on-line.

At LIDL, considering that I wasn’t intending to spend anything, I didn’t half spend a lot. As well as a new multimeter, there was a box of electrical accessories, some PTFE tape for plumbing and a pair of working gloves. Not necessarily for working but they are thin and very well-insulated and I can even work the camera with them – and that’s the point of buying them.

I walked back home, stopping half way up the rue des Juifs to see what was happening at the port.

There’s a huge pile of gravel now piled up on the quayside where the gravel boats dock. That must mean that we should be expecting a visit from Neptune or one of her sisters very soon.

Back here I bumped into someone delivering leaflets and was complaining about the cold. And it was all of 5°C too. I told him that he was lucky he didn’t live in the Auvergne.

In the apartment I had a coffee and then attacked the bank’s website. And much to my dismay there are only 6 months-worth of statements still held. That’s not enough but it’s the best that I can do. I printed them out anyway and added them to my file.

After lunch I filed everything away, checked off things on my checklist and then set to work to download my telephone statements. The bad news here is that they only go back 12 months but I’ve been on paperless accounts since March 2015. So I have all of the earlier ones (much to my surprise) and I’ve downloaded all of the later ones, but I’m short of the period 04/15 – 12/07.

So on the telephone to Orange. And what with waiting time it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes and having to tell my story to 3 different people. But eventually someone answered me with the news that they will pas my message onto the Accounts department who will send them to me.

And I hope that they do.

My afternoon walk was thus an early-evening walk after all of that.

There was a wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off, and went for tea. Burger on a bun with potatoes and veg.

Back out around the Pointe du Roc for my evening walk. it was a cold, windy evening (but not that cold). Quite pleasant to be out.

And away on the horizon near St Malo in the centre of the photo to the left of the trawler, I noticed a couple of moving lights

Based on no evidence at all except pure speculation, the only thing that came into my mind was that it could well have been the huge ferry, Pont Aven, setting off for Portsmouth. There is occasionally a Brittany Ferries departure from St Malo round about 20:30 or so.

I’m glad that I was out there though because the sky was really quite clear and beautiful.

You could see for miles tonight and the street lights across the bay at Cancale were quite prominent. And in the background the clouds in the sky over there were glowing orange with the reflection of the street lights from St Malo.

I really am going to have to treat myself to a better camera with a much wider ISO range.

You’ll remember the trawler that we saw in a previous photograph just now.

I’d taken so long in sorting myself out with the other photos and the 70-300mm zoom lens that the trawler had beaten me into the harbour.

Here she was, just tying up at the quayside ready to unload today’s catch. There’a a van down there ready to take it all away.

So now I’ve printed out my tickets (and I’m glad that I bought a new printer) I might even try for an early night again. i’m out tomorrow afternoon. And I’m not the only one who is out and about. i’ve had a message to say that my new computer is on the road too, heading this way.

trawler night port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Thursday 20th December 2018 – TOMORROW …

… I’m off to Leuven. So I’ve spent today packing (of a sort) and tidying up (of another sort).

I was out of bed surprisingly early this morning – but that’s what comes of being wide awake at 05:40. And it’s been a while since I was awake that early, hasn’t it?

And after breakfast, I had a little relax before getting myself going.

This time I’m taking the medium-sized suitcase, with a basic foodstuff supply in it. After all, I’m going to be gone for about 6 days and that’s a lot of shopping that I need to organise. As well as that, it’s Christmas and so I’m taking some specialty stuff with me too.

Talking of Christmas, I erected the little mini-Christmas tree that I had bought the other week at Noz for €3:99 – the tree with its electric lights and baubles. It’s not too bad either. i’m pleasantly surprised.

Lunch was as normal, and I had two walks today. one was, as usual, around the Pointe du Roc.

And in the harbour I saw Neptune manoeuvring her way out of the harbour. She must have come in on the early morning tide and loaded up pretty quickly because I didn’t see her arrive during the evening.

I’ve not seen her turn round as quickly as this. She must be in quite a hurry today

But later on in the early evening when it was dark, I went into town.

To Super-U for some fruit seeing as I have run out, and to the boulangerie for one of the baguettes that I like, for my lunchtime butties.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to go around the Cours Jonville and photograph the Christmas decorations. They aren’t so good this year as I remember the and it’s rather disappointing.

Tea was a slice of my pie from the other week, with veg and mushroom gravy.

So now I’m going to have a shower and then go to bed. I’m having an early morning tomorrow, ready to hit the road. It’s a long way to go.

storm sea wall port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

harbour pilot port de granville manche normandy france

christmas lights rue lecampion granville manche normandy france

christmas lights place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

After lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

Folligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

Monday 15th October 2018 – BACK INTO …

… the routine again. I don’t think!

Certainly the alarms went off – at 06:00, 06:10 and 06:20 as usual. But to say that I was eager to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit would be somewhat economical with the truth too.

I’d also been back in the High Arctic again. There were 50 of us leaving the voyage, trying to get into three zodiacs arriving one after the other, each one with a capacity of 12 persons. So that’s going to work, isn’t it? But it seemed that no-one was too eager to go in the first boat, and neither in the last one. So everyone was more interested in clambering into the middle boat. You can see immediately why this might cause a problem.

After breakfast, I did some tidying up so that this place looks more like a home, and then sat down and had a look at last night’s photos.

They have all been edited and reworked as appropriate and uploaded them to yesterday’s journal entry where they can be seen in all their glory.

That took most of the morning, which might come as a surprise to many people, but not when you consider that for some part of the morning I was … errr … away with the fairies.

It was my intention to go and sit on the wall and eat my butties but at that moment it was overcast so I ended up eating in here.

This afternoon I re-reviewed the photos from the Ile de Chausey on Saturday, chose a few as good samples and then started to rewrite the entry and add some photos. I didn’t get anything like as far into this as I was hoping, but you can see where I’m up to right now and this may well yet change.

But once again, I was somewhat overwhelmed. The effects of the last few days have caught up with me yet again.

There was a nice afternoon walk around the headland, and seeing that I’m in a photography mood right now, I took the camera with me.

I’m not sure it I’ve previously taken a photo of the blown-up bunker and so I took one this afternoon.

I’ve told you previously … “at great length” – ed … about the Atlantic Wall that the Germans built here in the early 1940s. And after the war the French set about trying to remove the casemates and bunkers.

But they were built much more substantially than anyone realised, and all that they succeeded in doing was moving half a dozen enormous lumps of concrete a couple of yards away from their original position.

And so they gave up any further attempt and left the rest of the bunkers here.

While I was there, I noticed some of the local council workmen carrying out a bit of work on the car park round the corner on the Pointe du Roc, so I went over to have a quick look to see what they were doing.

It seems that they are laying some paving stones as if there’s going to be some hard-standing for some purpose.

I’ll have to have a wander over there in a couple of days time to see how it’s evolving and what the purpose of it all will be.

Having taken my photo I carried on a-wandering around the headland to the little spot where I can overlook the harbour.

The tide is well on its way out of the tidal harbour right now and it was interesting to watch some of the larger ships settle down on the silt as the sea disappears.

The yellow one seems to have settled in the wrong direction so I hope that it won’t flood when the tide comes back in. It should really be careened over onto the landward side

But my reverie was interrupted by something of a racket coming from the shipyard.

It seems that they are carrying out some kind of major work on a fishing trawler that’s been hauled out of the water onto the top of the quay just there.

I’m not sure if they are in the process of dismantling it or whether they are renovating it. This is another thing to go back and check on in a couple of days’ time.

Tea tonight was steamed vegetables, sausages and vegan cheese sauce, and it was totally delicious too. I really enjoyed it and I shall make some more of that in due course. My frozen sprouts are working well.

Later on, I was back out in the evening for my walk around the walls. I took plenty of photos too with the new Nikon lens.

I went through them later and added them to the blog so that you can see them.

And I’m sure that you’ll be as dismayed as I am with the quality of the photos that I took in the Arctic when you see what this new low-light lens can produce under these kind of conditions.

In the previous photo you saw the lights of Donville les Bains in the background.