Category Archives: Liz_Terry Messenger

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 – I’VE NOT BEEN …

… feeling myself today.

“And quite right too” I hear you say.

But never mind that for a moment, I’m definitely sickening for something and I know that for definite because I’m off my food. Which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is not something that happens every day.

The day didn’t really get off to a very good start today , as seems to be usual these days, I missed the third alarm. Only b a couple of minutes, but nevertheless …

The notes on the dictaphone from my night’s voyage were interesting too. There were two new people who had started work on the radio – a girl and an older guy. I’d had a listen to a piece of music on the girl’s site and I wasn’t very impressed with it but everyone’s taste is personal. Anyway I was in the queue to ge tmyself organised when these two came over the hill. They were talking and the guy was saying something about “there’s only one song on your web site and it’s the same one that i’ve got”. She was saying things like “well I’m very new” but she’s only just started, all this kind of thing. I said “I’m quite happy to help anyone with any kind of help that they need” but they just drifted past as if I hadn’t said a word. They ended up in the queue in front of me to have their work dealt with and they were going on about this being new and all of this kind of thing. Then it was my turn so I gave me name and asked if there were any special instructions for me. he was looking down the list to see whether there was anything. I was going to say that if anyone like these two people needed a hand to get themselves started I would be quite happy to do it but instead I ended up dictating the notes of the journey.

But looking back, how long is it … ” that’s a rather personal question” – ed … since I’ve had some pleasant company with me on a nocturnal voyage? It must be an age – or, at least, it feels like it.

After breakfast I made a start on updating the journal entry for Sunday – the one that I had left hanging in the air. And by the time I knocked off for the evening I’d actually finished it.

However, there was a whole variety of interruptions today – tidying up being not the least of them. If I go video-conferencing, I need to have the place looking quite nice.

Terry came round too. he had an appointment in town and so came for the hat that Liz had left here the other day. And, furthermore, and even more importantly, he brought me a fresh supply of home-made cake from Liz.

So that’s one crisis solved.

At 11:00 I had my Welsh lesson on the internet. That meant doing quite a bit of preparation too, which was not easy because I don’t have the course book. In the end the tutor sent me a *.pdf version which was very nice of her

A few important things had come up during the lesson that needed attention so I had to organise those, and that meant once more a very late lunch.

It was another really gorgeous afternoon and so I decided once more to take my sandwiches outside and sit on my wall overlooking the harbour.

Not that I managed to go very far at first. In fact I came to a shuddering halt at the front door of the building. Regular readers of this rubbish will know about the underground refuse system here in the town and we’ve seen one or two lorries emptying them

But we’ve never seen a lorry this close with this much detail. Just look at how big these subterranean containers are.

Down at the wall, I was there all on ly own today. Everyone is either back at school or back at work and I was late as well.

But there was an awful lot going on in the harbour today. I’m not sure at all what was happening here but we had one of the smaller fishing boats tied up at the fish processing plant and there were a couple of people in a zodiac-type of boat inspecting it.

Mind you, in that depth of water they didn’t need a zodiac to go out there. They could quite easily have walked.

Mind you it didn’t stay there long.

Into the port came another one of the shell-fishing boats, a rather larger version. Our zodiac was clearly in the way so it set off and piddled off out of there

What that was all about, I really didn’t know because I couldn’t see at all what was going on.

It was pretty busy in the inner harbour too, and there was a queue of boats waiting at the crane for unloading.

In pole position for loading and unloading is our old friend Chausiais, looking as if she’s making ready to set off with a cargo for the Ile de Chausey. And behind her awaiting her turn – or maybe having already had hers and waiting for the harbour gates to open, is Normandy Trader

She must have sneaked in on the morning tide when I wasn’t looking.

Something else caught me rather by surprise too.

There I was, sitting there quietly eating my butties when suddenly a horn went off around the corner, that almost made me drop my book.

Of course, the tides are almost half an hour later every day, so it’s round about now that Joly France would be coming back from the morning ferry out to the Ile de Chausey.

And you can tell that the tide has only just started coming in.

The smaller boats with a shallow draught can pass over the sandbar at the entrance quite easily but boats like Joly France have much more trouble and have to go all the way over to the eastern side of the harbour entrance.

The water that drains out of the inner harbour has scoured a deeper channel on that side and that gives the larger boats more depth to play with.

Even so, when we went out there A WHILE AGO we grounded out on the way back in.

But Joly France didn’t hang around long. She dropped off one load of passengers, picked up another and headed back out to sea.

And as I watched her disappear, one of the medium-sized fishing boats came around the corner heading for port, presumably with a full load of shellfish ready to be unloaded at the fish processing plant.

She was travelling at a fair rate of knots too. At first I thought that she was a large speedboat of some description, making waves like that.

But better late than never – I came back inside and carried on with the work that I had to do. Choosing the music for a radio project was on the agenda this afternoon.

And I didn’t really have all that long to spend working because, with being rather late, it was time soon enough to go back out for my afternoon walk.

By now I reckoned that the harbour gates were well and truly opened because I have never ever seen so much nautical traffic just offshore as I have today

There were boats heading in all directions, and not just to and from the port either. This speedboat in the foreground was putting quite a spurt on heading along the coast towards Bréhal-Plage.

And those ships and boats in the previous photo – I thought that I recognised one of them.

And I was right too. It’s Chausiais. The harbour gates are definitely open now, because she’s been able to leave the port and head off on her little trip to the Ile de Chausey.

One of these days I’d love to be able to see what she’s carrying but her holds are closed in and with covered hatches so it’s not that easy at all. But I suppose that it takes all sorts of cargo out there.

Of course, if the harbour gates are open to let one boat out, they will be open to let everyone else out too.

And sure enough, out of the port right behind Chausias comes Normandy Trader off on her way back to the Channel Islands with another load of freight.

She’s an open freighter of course – a former car ferry by the looks of things, so it’s easy to see what she carries. But of course you can’t see anything at this distance.

As a small car ferry, she’s not really equipped to deal with the seas in the same way that a ship with a pointed bow would be.

And, for that matter, neither is Chausiais.

There’s quite a wind blowing out there and I had to take off my cap as I was walking around the headland. And the ships, with their less-than-conventional design were making rather heavy weather of the journey out to sea.

There was some beautiful spray flying around as Normandy Trader smashed her way through the waves. This photo has come out rather well, I reckon.

So that’s enough ships for the moment.

In the beautiful sunny sunshine I carried on with my afternoon walk around the headland and it was my turn to surprise some people. It looked as if they were practising Tai Chi, although I don’t think that you need yoga mats for that.

Anyway they must have seen me coming because as soon as I pointed the camera they folded up their mats and they too piddled off into the sunset as well.

It wasn’t my day, was it?

And what was quite amusing about this afternoon was that we seem to have had a tactical substitution of freighters in the harbour.

Chausiais and Normandy Trader may well have sailed out of the port on the afternoon tide, but the tide has also brought in with it another one of our old friends, Thora, also from the Channel islands.

And how I would have loved to have been at the harbour and watched her come in. There would have been an extremely interesting nautical danse macabre as all three boats were jostling for position in there.

The high winds have brought out a whole load of people and nautical craft as we have seen.

And you can tell just how windy it is out there, simply by looking at the sail on that yacht as it comes round the headland.

Look how much it’s billowing out. I bet that it’s pulling the boat along at a ferocious rate despite the load that it’s carrying. I can count at least 10 people on board and that’s quite a load for a boat like that.

But I bet that it’s exciting on there.

With all of the fishing boats out there, it’s no surprise that they are expecting a bumper load of fish and shellfish coming into the port today.

As a result there are three large artics, a smaller 17-tonne lorry and several other smaller refrigerated vehicles waiting at the fish-processing plant this afternoon

And the fork-lift truck – that has quite a load on it that’s goign to be deposited into the artic trailer over there. That’s a never-ending chain of product that will be stuck in there and the other vehicles.

There’s a really high turnover of product down there these days

And talking of high turnover of product, I used the last of my apple purée this morning. Time to make some more.

Six apples, one and a half pears, some desiccated coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg all put on the boil and then left to simmer. And when it was ready, the liquid was drained off and bottled, the solids were put in the whizzer and whizzed into a purée.

Then a handful of raisins was added, and all of that was bottled too. Of course the bottles were sterilised by giving them a minute in the microwave with some warm water in there to spread the heat.

But it wasn’t all as easy as that. Our Welsh group has set up a communication group on the internet. A couple of us set it up and were testing it – to such an extent that I completely forgot about the fruit on the stove and instead of 45 minutes simmering, it had just about two hours.

That’s not a good idea.

By this time I wasn’t feeling too good, and I don’t know why. I hadn’t been able to concentrate all day and I’ve done none of my Accountancy or Music studies because of it.

And not only that, I’ve lost my appetite, and that’s the sign of a major relapse heading my way – no surprise seeing how many months (over 4 months in fact) since I’ve had my four-weekly cancer treatment.

So no tea tonight, but I was determined to carry on with my running despite everything. So off I went, with all of my aches and pains and grouches.

Despite the wind, it was a beautiful evening and the colours were splendid. The big marker light on the rock just outside the harbour entrance, the sea, and the resort of Kairon-Plage in the background all came out really well

Surprisingly, after all of the excitement today, there wasn’t a boat to be seen anywhere at all in the baie de Mont St Michel. I wonder where they all went.

As fr me, i went off on my run all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury where one of my colleagues from the radio drove past and waved to me.

My run ended up at the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord and I had a look over the wall to see how we were doing for picnickers tonight. And do you know what? After all of the excitement here over the last week or two there wasn’t even a one.

But not to worry. Because as I was musing over the situation, down the steps came a few young people carrying blankets and bags, and they began to settle themselves down in the evening sun.

And evening sun there was plenty of tonight.

We’ve had some good ones just recently but tonight was one of the best. But I didn’t hang around too long. I just stayed for a minute or two and then ran on back home.

Tonight I made a determmined effort to finish my notes even though I didn’t feel like it. And now I’m off to bed, rather later than I had hoped.

Here’s hoping that I feel a little better tomorrow because otherwise we’ll be heading for a tragedy again.

Sunday17th May 2020 – I’VE HAD A …

… bad day today, and I’m still not feeling myself.

Which is just as well because it’s a disgusting habit anyway.

The day didn’t start off too badly either. I was awake at about 09:30 and out of bed by 09:45. I had to make some muesli for breakfast (I seem to have run out of cornflakes) as well.

Nothing on the dictaphone from the night so I could spend the rest of the morning tidying up the tip that is my apartment.

Liz and Terry came round and brought me a nice home-made vegan walnut and date cake that really is delicious. In exchange, I gave them a slice of my red fruit pie which impressed them quite considerably. Liz gave me a few useful tips about making pastry too.

.It was a really beautiful day so we went for a nice walk.

All the way around the walls of the town by the rue du Nord and then down the steps to the Plat Gousset. Hordes of people around too, enjoying the weather. we walked onto the beach to take advantage of the mayor’s relaxation of the restrictions.

And it felt really good to be down there too. The ozone that hit us as we went down the ramp was an odour that I had missed.

One of the things that I had wanted to do was to go to have a look at the tidal swimming pool.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen them over the last week or so with a digger and a couple of lorries digging out the sand that has accumulated over the last few years to encourage the water.

That’s going to be difficult with the breach in the wall like we see here to the right

There weren’t too many people out here today. Obviously didn’t want to puss the mayor too far, I suppose.

But while we’re on the subject of the mayor’s relaxations, the thing about the camp-site is the the mayor has relaxed the regulations there too and vehicles from a radius of 100kms from here are authorised to use it.

It seems to me to be a pretty strange decision, bearing in mind the fact that we have managed to keep this town effectively virus-free during the pandemic. There’s bound to be a second wave and with all of this gratuitous movement of people they’ll just spread it about even wider.

We went off to find a little corner to sit. Not to “install” ourselves on the beach (which is not allowed) but simply to catch our breath.

And having caught our breath for a while we headed on back to my apartment.

Living here as I do, I can actually invite people to lunch. So we had taco rolls with salad with fruit to follow. Having people to lunch is a luxury that I could never do back in the Auvergne of course.

And while he was here, Terry checked the wiring and he reckons that the system will run a 30-amp fuse for any oven that I might want to install here.

That’s good news because with all of this cooking that I’m doing these days, I ought to have a decent oven. This table-top oven is doing its best but I’ve gone beyond what it is capable of doing.

After they had left I started to tidy up, but that was when I had my relapse. I crashed out on the chair for ages and when I awoke I felt dreadful. It’s been a while since I felt as bad as this.

However, I made my pizza dough and following Liz’s best instructions about leaving the yeast longer to ferment, to leave the dough longer to rise and to let it rise in a warm place when I had shaped it for a good half-hour, I had the best pizza base that I have ever made.

And it rose too – all nice and spongy. And followed by my fruit tart with some of that new coconut stuff which was very delicious.

No evening run tonight. I’ve not been feeling up to it. I’m going to finish this and then go straight to bed.

Here’s hoping that I feel better in the morning.

Sunday 1st March 2020 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… day without a single photograph. And, eve, worse, the first day for a month that I’ve done less than my 100% daily effort.

And one of the main reasons for that was that there wasn’t much of a day today to have a go at.

What with one thing and another, I ended up not going to bed until 03:30 this morning. I had things to do, I was on something of a roll and there was good music on my playlist. No alarm on a Sunday either.

And so consequently when I awoke at 07:50, and was even out of bed at one stage, there was no chance of that ever continuing. A much more reasonable time after a late night like that was …errr … 11:50.

Consequently, breakfast was … errr … somewhat late and then I had a look at the dictaphone. And I rather wished that I hadn’t.

Because what a nightmare that was! I was in West London and I’d fallen in with a family a bit like one that I knew once in Scotland, pretty undisciplined and wild with loads of kids. When we got to their house there were dogs overrunning the house – 20 or 30 dogs. Absolutely terrible. You coudn’t do anything for dogs barking and jumping up at you, all this kind of thing. In the middle Keith Emerson came in for a piano lesson as the guy who was running the house was teaching him to play the piano. That just made the whole thing wilder. I don’t think that i’ve ever been in a house so dirty and disgusting, especially when I’ve been in a dream, something like that. An old school friend was there. There was a TV going in the background and the woman came down and told Liz off about turning on the TV, quite bossy about it and switched off the TV. And on and on went this dream
A little later last night I was walking with one of my nieces through London. She was having a row with her mother about doing something about estate agents. There were a lot of properties that needed some kind of descriptive sheet drawn up. She was saying that some kind of things were not needed but her mother was saying that she did and there was this talk about it. The girl came out with this “well I don’t care what Northern people have to say. It’s not how it’s done”. We were walking over this huge railway arch overbridge type of place. We could see railway lines that kind of thing below us heading towards London docks. We were walking through the streets and somehow she and I became separated, I was on my own. Someone touched me on the shoulder, a young guy. He said “you know all about this agency thing don’t you?” I said yes so he said “do you know what it is that the mother wants?” “yes, it’s like ‘this apartment is in a sunny situation, one bedroom, fitted kitchen’ that kind of thing of descriptive”. So he handed me a couple of forms and said “could you write them out for these places?” I noticed that there were three or four other people near me who were doing the same thing so I had to write out a descriptive for these flats. The first one was at the address where my aunt lived, a flat in her building. I said “God, how strange” but no-one seemed to pick up on that so I said it again and again but no-one seemed to pick up on it so I made a start. Someone else was writing something and saying “I wonder if she’s going to get much work done on her place?” I replied that I knew the apartment because my Aunt lives in the building there. They are allowed to work on the interior but not on the exterior. A guy said “yes, that’s right. That’s how I had my place – it was like that as well”.
One of the people in the previous dream came out with the old Kenneth Williams “I’m Alan Watermain and I’m bursting with indignation at having to do this”
I was in Granville again later on and it was the Carnival parade and everyone had to interview the owners of the floats. I’d interviewed a few and one or two other people but someone was having no luck at all. In the end he just stopped broadcasting so he had to fill in all of the events. One of the questions that we asked was “what brought you to Canada?” and they recited a bit of their history and that sort of thing. Anyway this drifted on into the night. Next minute I was up early and started to ring people again. They were looking for me on the radio – they had a TV monitor that they used to zoom into the crowds. Eventually they picked me up and used various hand gestures as I was having to take things easy myself otherwise I’ll be creating these people with all their health issues. They asked me what I was doing, so I told them that I was still hunting for people to talk to the radio.
I fell asleep again while I was dictating a dream, this one about the circus procession thing. I probably mentioned about how the French were no good at building up the tension – they were good at reporting on the actual events but didn’t have very much idea about setting the scene or building up the tension, anything like that.

So I don’t have a clue about any of that.

There was still time for me to attack one of the digital files to split that into its components, and that’s one that will have to be done because the tape seems to have been damaged – there’s a frequent blip that appears at regular intervals right through it as if the tape has been pierced at one point.

Caliburn and I hit the streets and headed for Brehal-Plage. One of the guys from the radio lives there and we had some things to talk about – making plans and all of that. Just because things aren’t going our way right now, that’s no reason to down our tools. I have plenty of ideas and if the loud-mouth in the “team” (a phrase which I use very carefully) doesn’t like our ideas then we quite simply won’t seek his approval and by-pass this selection “committee” upon which he sits. We’ll just plough our own lonely furrow.

From there, I went to Roncey. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last Sunday it was my birthday and I had been invited for a birthday tea to Liz and Terry’s. However, I had to skip it because of this debâcle in which I was involved and so I was invited today instead.

We had a really good chat and I discussed one of my projects, which will (hopefully) involve Liz and STRAWBERRY MOOSE – but that’s not going to happen any time soon unfortunately, due to various things getting in the way.

Tea was delicious. We had a dahl – a lentil curry with garlic naam bread followed by apple crumble and custard. Even better, there was plenty left for a doggy bag to bring home.

And best of all, Liz produced a chocolate and orange cake as a special birthday treat and I shall be trying that as soon as I can.

On the way home, the heavens opened and Caliburn was drenched. And if that wasn’t enough, I went over a speed bump and the passenger-side mirror glass fell out of its surround and broke.

So bed-time now, and tomorrow I shall be back at work. I have my travel arrangements to make and a few other bits and pieces to do too, as well as organising the music for the next series of music programmes.

It’s all go here, isn’t it? But at least there is cake.

Friday 7th February 2020 – I HAD VISITORS …

… today, and that’s always good news because it obliges me to do something about the state of my apartment and get on and do some cleaning and tidying up.

And also to unblock the sink. I seem to have been a little too lax with the carrot peelings from yesterday. And that involved dismantling the cupboard, which meant getting everything out.

And while everything was out I could clean it.

You can see how one thing leads to another and once you get started you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

Last night wasn’t as early as I would have liked, and as a result I found it hard to leave the bed. In fact I missed the third alarm completely and ended up leaving the bed at 07:10 and that’s no good at all.

After the medication I had a look on the dictaphone. And sure enough I’d been on my travels during the night. I remember very little about this except that there was a group of us going away from somewhere presumably being chased by someone’s mother and we were down Pillory Street in Nantwich. later on we were again in a group and there was some wise intelligent old man there, a teacher or something and the girl with me, he was talking to her and he said that he was going to draw her a jigsaw now and of course we were all puzzled about what he meant. He drew a jigsaw piece and he wrote a word in it. I can’t remember the word now but when you turned it upside down it created another word that made perfect sense as well. It was a long word – about 15 letters or so and it actually resolved a word no matter which way up you had the piece but obviously it was a different word with a different meaning.

Once breakfast was over I started to cut up another sound file but that was agonising. Nothing whatever corresponded to the track descriptions that I had, and although I knew the album I didn’t know the name of the tracks and that didn’t help. After having done about half of it, I reckoned that I’d better crack on and do the tidying up.

Just as the place was looking more respectable, Liz and Terry came round. I could finally give Liz her birthday present, and then we went for a walk and a coffee at La Rafale.

After they had left, I could go for my walk into town for my bread.

The tide was out so I could go across the harbour gates and on the other side, I found that Charles-Marie and Spirit of Conrad had been moved. They are right in front of where I’m standing and in their place are a couple of pontoons with scaffolding.

So what’s the why of that? We seem to be living in interesting times in the harbour.

Ignoring Chausiais for the moment I went to look at the work that they had been doing on the docks.

It’s not at all clear as to what they are intending to do here, and there was no-one around to ask either. So my curiosity still isn’t satisfied and I’ll have to come back when there are people around.

That is, if ever I can manage to find my way down here early enough. I’m not doing so well right now.

We noticed yesterday that Thora had come into port, and we saw her in the earlier photo above.

My route took me past the ship to see if there was anyone around but no such luck. That’s something else to do another time.

But they ought to start thinking about a coat of paint or two. She looked so nice and fresh when she first came in here almost two years ago and she needs to get back her good looks.

La Mie Caline was next for my dejeunette. But there were none on the shelves. But no matter. They found me one directly out of the oven and that’s one of the benefits of being a regular customer.

Back here I finished off the splitting of that digital music track. After all of that, it seems that the digital recording contains the same track twice and that’s why everything is right out of sync.

After lunch I sat down to write the notes for the next project but crashed out completely for half an hour.

Once I managed to get my head together I did some of the work and then went out for my afternoon walk.

The tide was coming in so the fishing boats were heading our way to unload their catch. There were dozens of them just offshore heading into harbour this afternoon, presumably coming back from Guernsey now that the Guernsey authorities have capitulated.

Yes, it’s all very well catching as much fish as you can, but it’s no good if you can’t sell them, as the stupid Brexiters will find out soon enough.

“Heading into harbour” I said, didn’t I?

Well, the early birds were already there and this will give you an idea of just how many active fishing boats there are that operate out of here. Add that lot to the dozen or so that were heading our way and you’ll see that it’s a quite busy fishing port.

Just imagine what it must have been like in its heyday when the fleets of Newfoundland and Grand Banks trawlers were in here

While you admire the rest of the fishing boats out to sea, I came back to the apartment.

To warm myself up (because it was cold and windy outside) I made myself a coffee and came to sit down on my comfy chair. And here, I fell asleep again. A proper deep sleep for half an hour or so, really away with the fairies.

This is something that is depressing me very much.

Nevertheless, I did manage to press on and not only finished the notes but actually dictated them too.

That means that tomorrow when I come back from the shops I can crack on with this one and get it done. And then, maybe on Sunday, do the third.

Tea tonight was a slice of lentil and bean pie that I found in the freezer followed by an apple turnover out of the freezer, with raspberry sorbet.

One thing that I can say is that I’m eating really well.

We mustn’t forget the evening walk. Cold and windy and I had forgotten my hat but I pressed on all the same.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the walls round by the place du Marché aux Chevaus are now closed off to the public due to the instability of the walls, but unless I’m very much mistaken, they might be starting work here ver soon.

At least, they have dumped a load of scaffolding off at the site, and I’m sure that this wasn’t here earlier today when I was out.

So having admired the scaffolding for a while I carried on with my walk and two runs. The second run was agony but I have to push on and keep going while I can.

Minette was there on her windowsill so we had a chat for a while and I gave her a stroke, and then I came back.

Just in time for the football. Caernarfon Town v Bala Town in the Cymru Welsh Premier League.

In a howling gale, it was always going to be a lottery and skill would count for nothing. The play was about equal but Bala won 2-1 and also missed a penalty. They were much more clinical in front of goal.

But one thing amazed me. I don’t know what was going on in the referee’s top pocket but he must have had a pop-up toaster in there.

Anyone looking at the stats and seeing that there were 7 or 8 yellow cards must have thought that this was a dirty match. But in fact, in my opinion only one of the tackles warranted a yellow card and the rest were for faults about as minor as you could get.

I shudder tho think what would happen if he were ever to referee a match between Stoke City and Uruguay.

So it’s now rather late and I’m off to bed. Shopping tomorrow, and I bet that I’ll forget half of the stuff that I need. Better have a god night’s sleep.

Saturday 18th January 2020 – I’VE FINALLY MADE …

… it back home after my adventures of yesterday.

The last thing that I did before hitting the sack was to change the times of the alarms from 06:00 etc to 08:00 etc. And it worked because I awoke at 07:55.

Having a quick check, I found that there’s a file on the dictaphone but that’s going to be another job for again. I’ve not had time quite yet.

We had breakfast and then we decided to go for a walk.

The guy who runs the radio station where I work comes from Roncey and he had told me about a weird edifice on the edge of the town.

As it happens, Liz and Terry know about it. It’s not too far away from where they live as it happens and they know where it is so we agreed to go out there.

Terry lent me some wellingtons which was just as well because we needed them in the mud and water but eventually after much binding in the … errr … marsh – and when I say “marsh” I really DO mean “marsh” – we arrived at the Caveau Auguste Letenneur

The aforementioned was someone from Roncey who had made his fortune in St Lo with several grocery shops, taking advantage of the benefits offered by the railway line and the products that it could bring in.

He decided that he wanted something really splendid as a mausoleum so he had one built.

As well as being really wealthy he was also clearly very eccentric because the statue outside is, well, rather … err … suggestive.

Apparently it’s supposed to be symbolic of man’s inferiority to women in the process of creation of life, but we’ll have to take his word for that. It’s certainly very … errr … individual.

And so we went over to have a closer look at the building itself. we tried to go up onto the roof where there is a really good vantage point but the gate to the stairs was locked.

As for the building itself, what I can tell you is that the first stone was laid in 1900 but I haven’t been able to find out when it was finished.

Surprisingly, it has a dining room and a couple of bedrooms. And at least two dead bodies in it. Letenneur intended it to be used for himself, his wife and his descendants. He was killed in a farming accident in 1916 and was placed inside, and there’s at least another one.

We continued on our way into the village and stopped for a coffee for a while. We deserved it.

And then we headed back to Liz and Terry’s. They went for lunch and I went to the shops.

The shops in Coutances as so much better than in Granville, that’s for sure. Bigger and better and more choice too.

At LIDL I bought a good deal of stuff including three bottles of artisanal bio lemonade at €1:69. The lemonade will be nice but I’m more interested in the glass flip-top bottles that they come in. The bottles alone would cost me €2:49 in LeClerc.

Action had nothing but LeClerc came up trumps.

As well as the usual stuff, they had plenty of porcelain on offer and I bought a few things including two porcelain bowls, microwave-proof so that I can dispose of the old plastic stuff.

They had sheets on offer at half price too so I bought another blue one for the other set of bedding

There was a lovely electric kettle there, a glass one, but they didn’t have one in stock and they wouldn’t do a good deal on the demo one. Instead I ended up with a smaller cordless kettle and – touch wood – it seems to work

And on that note I came home, nearly wiping out some stupid old woman who drove out of a parking space into the traffic without stopping or looking.

First task was to make some coffee. And shock! horror! I’d run out. I had to open the last packet, so I mustn’t forget to but some more some time.

After lunch I went to check the mail and some more stuff has arrived. All I need now are the keyboard stickers and the 67mm UV filter. But the bracket on the microphone stand is the wrong size so I need to contact the makers to obtain another one.

There was football on the internet too. Newtown v Airbus UK Broughton in the JD Cymru League.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen Airbus this season. They are adrift at the foot of the tale and had shipped quite a few goals so i was expecting something of an exciting match.

And an exciting match we had too. It actually finished 0-0 but Airbus gave the lie to their league position as they looked the better team. And they hit the bar with the keeper beaten too.

Tea was, as usual, out of a tin and then I went for a walk.

On the way back, I noticed that the car park barrier here was broken so I’d had to park in the publics. I’m not sure what happened to it.

There were one or two other people out there but nevertheless I managed two runs to make up for the one that I missed yesterday.

And I’m glad that people take the effort to read my notes. having had a search of my site from Granville, a menu has now miraculously appeared in the window of La Contremarche.

Ordinarily I would have photographed it but it was far too dark and I couldn’t read it.

It’s now hopelessly late and I’ve not crashed out today. So I’m off to bed and no alarm at all with it being Sunday. So who’s going to anger me by awakening me tomorrow?

Friday 17th January 2020 – I BET THAT YOU ARE …

… all wondering where I’ve been with the posting of today’s activities, aren’t you?

The fact is that I didn’t get home tonight at all. In fact, it wasn’t until about 16:40 on Saturday that I put my sooty foot through the front door of my apartment.

And with not having had lunch either, I ended up running considerably later than planned. But then, that’s what plans are all about, aren’t they?

But anyway, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

It was another morning of missed alarms. Another 07:00 start and I really need to get a grip and get myself organised otherwise I’m just going to fade away.

But then after the medication I attacked the dictaphone in order to see where I had been during the night.

Strange as it may seem, I was back in my house back in Gainsborough Road and it was an absolute tip (I know that I live in total chaos but it has nothing on how my house was, last night, I’ll tell you). There was stuff everywhere all over the place and there was the football on – it was the World Cup or something like that – the European Nations match and I was trying to watch it on TV but there was just so much disorder going on around me that I couldn’t. I went into the kitchen to get something and the place was in such a state clothes and bits everywhere and someone shouted something like “come on, your tea’s ready”. It turns out that my brother and a younger boy had been given their tea and it was probably about midnight or whatever. I went into the room and it was the back room and there was one of my sisters sitting on a chair. I hadn’t seen her for ages and she was talking to someone, another one of my sisters. I went up to her and said something like “what are you going to do tomorrow morning, if you get up early?” She said “I’m going to come and wake you up”.
It was some time shortly after that that we found a young boy hanging upside down by his feet in a four-poster bed. We pulled back the curtains of this four-poster bed and there he was hanging upside-down by his ankles. What was quite bizarre was that after going back to sleep after dictating the first part of it, I stepped right back into it where I’d left off. And it’s not the first time by any means that I’ve done that either.

There was lots more to this voyage too but as you are probably eating your meal or something I’ll spare you the unpleasantness.

Once breakfast was out of the way I attacked the radio project that needed finishing. And that took a lot longer than I expected too, basically because the 10-minute audio file that I had dictated turned out to be only 04:20 by the time that I had edited it and so I had to find a completely different song to end the show than the one that I had planned.

Anyway, I eventually managed to complete it and that was mu cue to go off and buy my dejeunette from La Mie Caline

Having seen a white speck out in the English Channel I went to photograph it, only to find that I’d forgotten to put the memory card in the camera so I had to go back upstairs for it.

Downstairs again, I could photograph it and then in the comfort and safety of my own little office I could blow it up (the photo, not the object of course).

The result is inconclusive but probably a trawler-type of fishing boat I reckon. And you can see the Jersey coast in the background behind it. That gives you some idea of how far out the boat was.

Off then on my jaunt into town, but I didn’t get very far.

It’s all change in the inner harbour today. Chausiais and Joly France II have moved position. They’ve crossed over to the other side of the harbour and are now moored up in fromt of their sister over by the old cold store.

That’s a surprise for me. The only thing that I can think of is that they don’t want any debris from the car park renovation to drop onto the deck. And it also indicates that Granville and Victor Hugo are not going to be back home anytime soon

Yesterday, the regular readers of this rubbish and I saw them setting out a pile of “No Parking” signs in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers.

Today I went that way to see if I could pick up any clues about what might be happening down there.

Having had a look, I’m not really a great deal wiser. Apparently we are going to be having travaux – some kind of works – taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. That should be interesting to I shall have to go for my walk that way for a butcher’s.

There was excitement too down at the Chantier navale too right now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve had four boats in there this last couple of days. But in about ten minutes time we shall only be having three of them.

Spirit of Conrad is still there and so are two of the fishing boats but the third one, the blue and yellow one, is just about to leave the scene.

Here she is, in the mobile sling, being lowered down into the water. And in a couple of minutes she’ll be sailing … “dieseling” – ed … off into the wild blue yonder.

So with another empty space in the place, does this mean that we are going to be having a new visitor?

But it also means that the tide is quite a way in, which also means that the harbour gates will be closed which also means that the path across the top will not be accessible and I’ll have to go along the rue du Port.

And as I went along the rue du Port I could see strange goings-on on the boat-launching ramp down into the tidal harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen the dredging operations out by the ferry terminal and we had a look at the machinery the other day.

But today they are giving one of the huge dumper-lorries a good hose down with a pressure-washer, presumably to remove all of the silt that has accumulated thereupon while they have been working.

Off I went to la Mie Caline to pick up my bread, and then I headed back home.

What I spend the afternoon (with a break for lunch of course) was to deal with the Johan Gallon (the coach of US Granville)’s speech.

It’s been completed now, with all of my questions edited in, and I’ve been going through to edit out the joins, the silences and the stumbles. When that’s completed I’ll be going through and making another pass to remove the irrelevances and I’m hoping that I’ll have it done for Monday morning – at least, that’s the plan.

At 16:00 I called it a day, grabbed a few things together and then Caliburn and I headed for the hills.

First stop was at the dechetterie. The European Cardboard Box Mountain has now been consigned to a skip along with the old broken office chair and I can now get into the back of Caliburn if ever I need to.

Second stop was at Liz and Terry’s at Roncey.

We had a good chat and I gave them their Christmas present, after which we had tea. Burger and chips with salad followed by ginger cake.

Terry and I then headed off in Calburn down the motorway towards Caen and the Stade Michel D’Ornano. It’s the last 16 of the Coupe de France and Granville have pulled a plum out of the bag for this match.

They are “at home” against Olympique de Marseille but the match can’t be played at the Stade Louis Dior as was the Bordeaux match two years ago. There, there is a capacity of just 3,000 and it’s very uncomfortable at that size too.

But the Stade D’Ornano at Caen is free and has 20,200 places. Even so, it was sold out in about 4.5 hours but I managed to obtain 2 tickets.

We were doing really well until we hit the outskirts of Caen when a road accident slowed our progress. An hour it took to advance 6 kilometres.

Then we hit the traffic heading to the stadium, became tangled up in the mesh of red lights, and then I lost count of the number of roundabouts that we passed in the frantic search for a parking place.

Spotting an ad-hoc parking place, we quickly stuffed Caliburn into it and ran down the road towards the next roundabout. Not seeing the stadium, we asked a passer-by who sent us back where we had started. Brain of Britain had miscounted, and parked Caliburn at the roundabout right by the stadium.

As a result we missed the first 30 seconds of the game.

Having been frisked at the stadium we were allowed in, but finding a seat was impossible. We ended up standing, with about 100 others on the stairs, with a couple of people who had made themselves comfortable sitting on the top step complaining about the “new arrivals blocking their view”.

But at a time like this and in a crowd like this, it’s “every man for himself”. Sardines had nothing on us.

The first half of the match was a surprise to most people.

It was pretty clear that Olympique de Marseille were the better team but it was also clear that US Granville weren’t going to lie down and roll over. They were pegged back for much of the half, that’s for sure, but they were breaking away quite regularly and going forward down the wings, with William Sea throwing his weight around up front.

The Granvillais goalkeeper was the busier of the two but it wasn’t by any means a one-way street.

At half-time we were treated to a display of drumming as the drummers marched around the touchline having a right old bang. There were also two teams of kids having a penalty shoot-out.

What was even worse was that I was dying to use the bathroom and desperate for a coffee but I had no intention of moving away from my good spec on the stairs having fought my way into it.

So we stayed put and waited for the second half to begin.

The second half carried on where the first left off , with Olympique de Marseille attacking, US Granville absorbing the pressure, and then hitting them on the break.

And then the match turned rather sour.

maseille had worked out early on that the danger men for Granville were little Lamrabette with his merry, mazy runs with the ball through crowds of players, and also big William Sea who was showing that despite his injury he still had what it takes to mix it on level terms with the Olympique Marseille central defenders.

As a result, they were flattening the two of them with regular monotony, but being very careful firstly not to do it quite enough to earn a caution and secondly to take it in turns so as no individual would be cautioned for persistent infringement.

It was saddening to watch a display like this from a team like Olympique Marseille against a bunch of amateurs and if that’s the idea of how Villas-Boas wants his team to play then he should be ashamed of himself.

Anyway, it had the desired effect because with round about 15 minutes to go, William Sea was finally fed up of being grabbed from behind every time he had the ball. He lashed out behind him with his elbow and unfortunately caught a Marseille player full in the face.

Having had a yellow card earlier in the game, that was that for Sea and he was off down the tunnel for an early bath and Granville were down to 10 men.

What was sickening about this was that the player who had been fouled them followed Sea to the touchline and taunted him about being sent off. A couple of Granville staff had to grab hold of Sea before he put the Marseille player over the stadium wall and out into the street.

And that, I’m afraid, was that.

At the Press Conference I’d mentioned that the danger time in every game where the professionals meet the amateurs is the final 15 minutes when the lack of fitness shows through and the amateurs run out of steam. And even more so when you are only 10 against 11.

And so it proved. 2 minutes later, Olympique de Marseille went ahead. They added a second 10 minutes later and then deep into stoppage time, a typical US Granvillais “lack of concentration” about which I have moaned on more occasions than many in the past gifted them a third.

Although before the game the general feeling was that had Granville come home with a 3-0 defeat they would have done really well but after the match that we had seen, a 3-0 defeat was a travesty.

And the tactics of a team riding high in the French Premier League against a bunch of students, supermarket shelf-fillers, taxi drivers, teachers and the like have left a bitter taste in the mouths of many, including mine.
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The drive home was no better than the drive out. We had to fight our way through the maze of traffic lights which took an age and then another accident on the way back had us queueing again for yet another lengthy period.

As a result it was 01:00 when we finally reached Terry’s, and he offered me a bed for the night. By that time and after all that, I was totally done in anyway so I took up his offer and here I am and there I stayed.

Sunday 8th December 2019 – I REALLY DON’T KNOW …

… what is happening right now but the clock seems to be running down rather rapidly and I don’t seem to be doing anything at all.

And there’s a huge backlog of work and I just don’t seem to be getting through any of it.

Last night I was up until some ridiculous hour sorting out the day’s photos and videos. Much later than usual, and much later than I hoped, I tottered off to bed.

There were a few travels during the night too. I’d been on board the ship again that might have been The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I’d made friends with three different women and girls. I’d been spending quite a lot of time with them. On the last night we had to leave the shop at about 03:00 and one of the girls – it might have been but I don’t think it was Castor – said something like “why don’t you come down to my room tonight?” Another one of the women had said exactly the same thing to me as well, so I replied that I’d see how things develop. Then she discovered me on the deck of this other girl with my suitcase – quite obvious where I was going so she said “yes will I see you or won’t I?” I said “it’s pretty hard to say. I have to go round to say my goodbyes to people” – pretty non-committal as I had intended. Then we got talking about this third woman She was a flighty type and I hadn’t seen her around that day. “What happened to her?” I asked. “She was supposed to be round her tonight too” “Ohh she got sent home from the tour last night. Didn’t you know?” replied the first woman. “Ahh well” I thought. “That’s why I didn’t see her”. There was another couple on board the ship who talked to me (I had more passengers talk to me in my sleep last night that I did in the whole two months that I was really on board) and they talked about us going dancing. My attention fastened on the girl however so I said I’d see how things develop. But things had obviously developed quite dramatically and quite rapidly after that as I wasn’t allowed to see this girl at all. I was basically shunted off into this corner and it was too late to make arrangements with anyone else. We all filed off the ship, the last day, last morning. I bumped into someone. “Hey, did you hear about such and such a woman” the conversation went. “What happened to her?” “She got sent home” all the usual kind of gossip. We were waiting near a tram stop and I noticed that Castor (so it very likely was Castor earlier) was actually standing at the stop waiting for a tram. I thought it’s our final day and we’re all going. Now that Castor is on her own whould I go over and speak to her, try to make my peace and salvage something of what had all gone wrong. I was debating things – should I or shouldn’t I go over there? In the end I decided that I would. Someone asked “are you coming up to us, Eric?” I said that I’d see how I feel but I have one or two things to organise. I thought that with Castor I could just go for a walk around the town, a chat anything, as long as we were together but that was when I awoke at that particular moment. This was another one of these occasions, of which there have been far too many just recently, where I have been plagued by a wicked kind of indecision during the night and it’s becoming quite a regular pattern. However, the bit about being too late when I finally make up my mind is rather a new twist to this although it does have quite a bit of relevance.
There was also a bit somewhere in here about us on the docks and we had to go to the islands. Some were going to the British islands of course and the trader but I was going to the little offshore island. I can’t remember his name but the girl came out to see me go, found me in the state of a swamp and got the girl Crystal to come and take over the business. Of course they didn’t want you and your party to be there. They wanted the glory that came from the Government but without the other party being there too, and make it happen (anf if you can understand any of that garbled nonsense, please let me know).
Somewhat later I was at some hotel in Germany in a Bavarian type of setting there and had to go to the airport and call a taxi. It needed to be quick and the taxi turned up. I had tons of luggage and the driver was just wedging it into the boot any old how so I had a word with him about that. Then we set off for the airport and then I don’t remember very much about this after that.
Later still I was given my shopping list – a pile of potatoes, at least 10 really thick milk of +10% and coffee. When I came back the barrels of coffee had been arranged like an entrance to the town and this was upsetting one or two people. Someone made the remark that Americans aren’t like this but I said that there is certainly some who are and anyone who has ever read anything I’ve written will know that while I’m pretty much opposed to the USA I’ve always said that when I’ve found Americans on their own I’ve found them very nice, friendly and charming people.

As you can see, it was a very busy night last night. Quite exhausting in fact so it will be no surprise to anyone that when I awoke at 07:30 I simply turned over and went back to bed. 09:45 is much more like it on a Sunday.

By the time that I was wined and dined etc, it was almost 11:00 and the first thing that I did, that I haven’t done for a while, was to back up the computer. I’ve been somewhat lax from that point of view just recently and I can’t afford to make to many errors in this respect.

That took longer than it should have done too so there wasn’t much time left to start yesterday’s blog before I had to go down into town to buy my dejeunette for lunch.

The harbour gates were closed so I could walk that way round on the walkway over the top of the gates and around the harbour.

And I’m glad that I went that way too because while I was standing on the edge of the harbour looking at some of the fishing equipment I fell in with a couple of people of the fisherman-type who clearly knew what they were talking about, so I seized the opportunity to ask them about this equipment that has been puzzling me for quite a while.

And they are indeed shellfish dredgers. They scape them along the sea bed to uproot the shellfish. The shellfish stay in the cage but the silt is washed out.

So having satisfied myself on that score I could move on.

Chausiais is now back in her berth, moored in the inner harbour next to her fellow ship Joly France, so we could say “hello” to her, and then push on to the shops to buy my dejeunette for lunch.

It’s certainly a good idea for me to come out in the morning-ish for my lunchtime dejeunette every day. I need to exercise much more than I do and this is all good for me.

After lunch I carried on with the blog entry – just one of the five or six things that I needed to do today before I did anything else, but ran out of time before I’d even finished that one.

Liz and Terry are leaving in a few days so I’d been invited round there to Roncey for tea. Rather embarrassing because Liz’s birthday present hasn’t arrived yet and neither have their Christmas presents.

But never mind. Off I went into the wind and rain (strangely enugh, coming back with my bread earlier I’d been thinking to myself that the walks seemed to have missed most of the rainstorms just recently, and almost immediately the rain had started up), stopping at LeClerc to fill up with diesel.

And here’s a thing. The diesel that I put in prior to this was put in in March, and the time before that was 8th October last year. And neither of those three fills was filled right up. In a little over 13 months I’ve travelled about 700kms – a far cry from the first two years when I owned Caliburn and did 66,000 kms.

It’s been a good while since I had the chance to have a good chat to Liz and Terry – so much so that it was almost 22:00 by the time that I left. Left with a carrier bag too because not only was there my Christmas present (more of which anon) but the remains of the meal- vegetable wellington with carrots, broccoli and fried parsnips. And apple turnover cake too.

They do look after me, and it’s nice.

So a drive back here and it’s very late and I’ve still not caught up with everything. Yesterday’s blog is still in a “to be continued” state, I’ve not done today’s photographs and, even worse, this week’s project is far from finished and it needs to be done by 09:15 tomorrow morning.

But I can’t do it now because I’m far too tired and I’ll just make mistakes.

Looks as if an early start is on the cards.

Saturday 23rd November 2019 – ANYONE RECOGNISE …

… anyone – or even themselves – in this photo that I took this evening?

Yes, I’ve been out and about again this evening on my travels to see a few of my friends from my High Arctic adventures. They are here in Granville to celebrate the twinning of the town with the town of Uummannaq in the far north of Greenland where I was last September and they are heading off back home at the beginning of next week.

They were giving a concert at the Archipel, the theatre that is burrowed into the rock next to the Casino so I went along to say “goodbye”.

Mind you, I’m not sure that it was a good idea because I wasn’t in much of a state to go there after the night that I had. I had promised that I would submit a handful of good photos from the evening’s meeting to the organisers so by the time that I had finished doing all of that and writing up my notes it was long after 03:30 yet again when I went to bed.

The alarm went off as usual but I ignored it. It was 08:55 when I awoke.

While I was waiting for the medication to work, I went to fetch the dictaphone and download the details of last night’s voyage. I definitely remember being on my travels and I definitely remember dictating something but on the dictaphone there was nothing at all.

But then, this isn’t the first time that this has happened, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. I’ve noted a couple of occasions where I’ve been on the second plane of consciousness – ie I’ve dreamt that I was dreaming, and that it was in my dream I dictated the notes.

When things happen like that, it starts to become exciting.

Once breakfast was over I dashed out to the shops. LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc felth the benefit of my largesse today. And I spent a reasonable amount of monet too, although there wasn’t much to show for it all. But at least I can eat now for the rest of the week.

Back here, having fought my way through the crowds and the inconsiderate van drivers who, not finding a parking space right where they wanted to be and being obviously unable to walk 20 metres from a vacant one nearby simply abandon their vehicles on the highway, I put away the stuff and then had a good shower. I didn’t have time before I went out.

And – SHOCK! HORROR! – a haircut. I needed it too!

It was lunchtime now so I made my butties and then did a pile of tidying up. I even vacuumed the floor. I know that this is getting serious but I was expecting visitors.

Sure enough, bang on time, Liz and Terry turned up. We had a really good chat and then we had food. Liz had brought some carrot and red pepper soup and I made some garlic bread, and we had a meal fit for a king.

It was now time to head off to the concert.

It wasn’t just the kids performing. Their mentor, Nive Neilsen, was there with her group, Nive Neilsen and the Deer Children.

Of course I know Nive. I’d met her fleetingly in Uummannaq last year but this year we’d spent a pleasant two weeks together on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour in the High Arctic and I’d got to know her, her partner Charlie and her delightful little twins.

We had tentatively arranged to meet up before the concert for a chat but it wasn’t to be. She had far too many other things to worry about and, as we all know, folding stuff takes priority over everything.

Nive and her colleagues entertained us for well over an hour and it was a thoroughly enjoyable show. The sound though was pretty dreadful and the least said about the lighting the better.

As usual on these occasions I took dozens of photos and when I’ve edited and organised them I’ll make up a page with them all on and post the link so that you can all see it.

Most of them could be better but one or two of them are really good.

We came back via the bar up here but that was packed out so we didn’t stop. Liz and Terry went off home and I came in to write up my notes of the day.

But now, with the photos not done, I’m off to bed. I’m exhausted so a good night’s sleep will do me good. There’s no alarm tomorrow as we all know so I can have a really deep and guilt-free lie-in. So just watch someone come along and spoil it.

Friday 1st November 2019 – I FOUND …

… the fitbit after all that. On the passenger seat in Caliburn where I must have left it when I was fitting the battery yesterday.

And I’d got up nice and early this morning specially to look. Even managed to beat the third alarm – and by a country mile too – and that’s not something that happens too often these days.

It was a reasonably late night too – mainly due to listening to some good music on the computer. And there’s nothing wrong in that as long as I’m working – which I was. In fact I updated some more of the web pages.

And so it was a short night too – but still plenty of time to go off on a ramble or two.

I started off back in the UK last night. I was in Cornwall walking around a headland and it was something (I don’t know what) to do but it was Marc Bolan and camping and he’d written the final verse of his song “Elemental Child” (… which I had been listening to just before going to bed …). They were broadcasting it over the radio and getting everyone to join in so anyone who was walking past or walking in the area they went and asked them if they would join in. This girl – she joined in too and did all of the song and to play it on the guitar or banjo or something. She asked about the lyrics so we pointed to where the lyrics were and she was brilliant. She had a really good go at it, this girl did. It really was a shame that I awoke.
A little later on, we were on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again last night and it was time to go home. There were a couple of coaches come to pick us up. They had already been and we’d packed but then we had to go off on a lecture or something so the buses were put back and were to turn at at 12:00. This lecture finished at about 11:55 and it was all about book-keeping, this kind of thing, and the guy who was giving the lesson afterwards went to print off some stuff and I went to help him but he didn’t need me. he was talking to some other guy and the other guy was saying that in Accountancy they were still using BBC Micros but they no longer dominate anything so they don’t actually see anything of what they do. The other guy said that he learnt his Accountancy on a BBC Micro. I said that I did my Finance First Part on pen and paper – but no-one took the slightest bit of notice of me whatsoever which seems to be normal procedure these days on board that ship. Then I had to get to my cabin and it was 11:55 and there was already a bus on board and people getting on so I had to fly throught the crowds and the ship like lightning to my cabin. Luckily I had packed before hand but there were still a few things out that needed putting away. I reached my cabin which was right at the back of my ship and the porthole was open so I could see the second coach pulling up and feel a nice cool breeze blowing through the porthole. The first thing I did was to grab a drink – some of my orange Vitamin B12 drink. There wasn’t much left but I took a swig of it and thought “Gid this is warm, this drink but it will do me until I get to wherever it is that I’m going and then I can think again”. At that moment the alarm went off.

10 minutes later I was up and about and tackling the notes from the night while I was waiting for the medication to work so that I could have breakfast.

Once it started to become light I went outside with the purpose of retracing my steps from my afternoon walk to see if the fitbit was anywhere about. But as I said, I didn’t get any farther than Caliburn.

Back in the apartment I attacked the 20-minute dictaphone entry from 30th July. And miles of it there was too, starting from when I left the motel in Lamoure all the way across North and South Dakota.

By now it was midday so I headed of for my morning walk. Down to the Super U for some garlic and a lettuce. The lettuce is exhausted and I have no garlic at all and I need to deal with that issue. And as I left the apartment and headed off down the street we were hit with a torrential rainstorm. Luckily I went in my rain jacket and so I managed to keep something-like dry. But there were plenty of others who weren’t so fortunate.

For lunch I had half of the carrot soup (which wasn’t so bad after all) and then attacked my little project. What I did the other day, I’ve undone it and started again because I could do better than that. And it’s all turning out rather nicely, although doing it in French is rather challenging.

There was an interruption in my activities when I went out for my afternoon walk. And I was not alone for even though the weather was miserable this afternoon there were still plenty of people on the beach.

It’s that time of year when we’e having the highest tidal range – the grand marée – and the lower beaches are uncovered.

These areas are beyond the limits that are leased out as commercial fisheries so anyone can go out there for the peche à pied – fishing on foot – to scavenge what molluscs they can.

And I was right about the miserable weather too. Just look at the storm clouds.

But all of a sudden there was a hint of sun and we had the most magnificent rainbow. I managed to take a really good shot of it too.

It seems to be ending down in the town somewhere and I was tempted to back to my apartment to search for a spade.

There was an interruption after that. I received a text message “are you in?” to which I replied in the affirmative.

A few minutes later Terry and Liz turned up, with Darren, kate and the two kids. It was pouring with rain again so we went for a drink and a good chat. When the rain stopped (which it did for half an hour) we went for a good walk all the way around the walls and the headland and then they went home. I told Robyn to take good care of Strawberry Moose and she gave me a hug.

For tea I had two more taco rolls with the rest of the stuffing from the other night. Not enough though so I added a small tin of lentils so there was too much. No good for me, seeing as I’m supposed to be cutting down.

Football tonight on the internet. Not been too many of those this season. Connah’s Quay Nomads v TNS in the pouring rain in the Welsh Premier League.

In the first half, the nomads were dreadful and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times they made it into the TNS half. Meanwhile TNS were rampaging upfield at will and could have had a hatful. As it happens, one goal disallowed for offside and a good save from Lewis Brass the Nomads keeper was all that they had to show for it.

Connahs Quay made three substitutions early in the second half and after that we had much more of a match, with the Nomads taking the game much more to TNS.

And so it goes without saying that TNS finally scored with a breakaway goal after all of that.

We then had bizarre incident where the referee gave a penalty to TNS for a handball, spotted the ball, and just as Greg Draper was about to run up to take the kick, he changed his mind and gave a dropped ball which Brass smothered.

From that, the Nomads raced upfield and with Insall (who should have been on from the start) having a shot saved, Michael Wilde running in fastened onto the rebound and scored – his first shot on goal in the whole game.

So 1-1 it finished, and it leaves me shaking my head. I’ve seen many more much batter games than this one, and I’m totally bewildered by that weird first half.

So not having done too much I’m going to bed and I’ll start again tomorrow. I must get myself going.

rainbow arc en ciel granville manche normandy france

Friday 25th October 2019 – I’M ALL …

… alone here tonight. And I will be for the next couple of weeks too.

Strawberry Moose has gone off on his travels again to see some more of his fans.

No-one is quite sure when he’ll be back again but I bet that he will have a few stories to tell me when he returns. It’s all right for some, isn’t it though? Some of us have to stay behind and work for a living.

Not that you would notice, though, around here. Despite the three alarms going off this morning, it was still 07:40 when I finally hauled myself out of bed.

But then I’d had another late night (albeit not as late as the other night) scratching my head over this blasted Javascript menu. I told you last night when I wrote my blog that I was a just a couple of inches away from a breakthrough. And so by the time that I went to bed I must have advanced about half a millimetre.

It wasn’t all work though. TOTGA was on-line so we had a good chat for an hour or so too. It’s been ages since we had a really good chin-wag and it was nice to hear her dulcet tones again.

The purpose of my chat was to try to persuade her to come and join in the fun in Leuven. But without success. “A Prior engagement” she said. Not like Kenneth Williams who once turned down an invitation on the grounds of “a subsequent engagement”, so I suppose that I ought to be thankful for that at least.

So this morning after the medication and breakfast, I had a stinking hot shower and then dashed round to tidy everywhere up. I was expecting visitors and the place was something of a tip with my having unpacked a l’improviste.

By the time that Liz and Terry turned up, the place was looking something like, and they could at least sit down.

We had a coffee and a good chat about this and that – not about the other because that is of course sub judice right now – and I told them of my (mis)adventures on my voyage just now.

I’d mentioned it to TOTGA last night and she told me that she had never heard me talk like I did at that moment (which is not really true because she remembers me when I was someone else, although she was only a kid at the time) so I made an effort to restrain myself (something that doesn’t come easily to me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) when talking to Liz.

Nevertheless Liz was rather aghast. Not that this means that she was surprised. She used to be a primary school teacher in a deprived area of the UK so she’s seen human nature at its worst, but I suppose that with the voyage being as expensive as it was, we both expected a better class of person with a better standard of behaviour.

So they wandered off and I sat down to crack on with my Javascript menu. I forgot about my additional walk.

By 16:00 I had made a breakthrough – of sorts. I can now make Javascript tags pick up web pages on my own site but not on an external site. Still, it’s progress of a sort and it means that I can go onwards.

To celebrate, I made lunch. Yes – at 16:00 because I had forgotten earlier, being engrossed. And it was something of a disappointment because the bread that I had left in the ice compartment of the fridge and which I had taken out to defrost – well, it wasn’t very good at all and it all ended up in the bin.

But it’s Saturday tomorrow and I’m going for a walk to LIDL where I can buy some more.

Not wishing to forget another walk, I nipped out straight afterwards for a lap around the headland and then back to carry on with my menu.

And, as is quite often the case, the simplest solutions are usually the correct one. I was struggling away for quite a while trying to work out how to display a vertical line. ASCII codes, ALT codes and all of that didn’t work, so in a moment of despair, I tried
document.write( ‘|’);
and much to my surprise, it actually worked. And I’d wasted an hour or so on it too.

Another thing that I tried to do was to figure out how to make a space in Javascript. Once again, after much binding in the marsh, I tried the simple
document.write( ‘ ‘);
and that worked too.

After that, passing onto a new line was easy. Yes. I tried
document.write(‘br /’);
and that just printed out the br /. So I tried
putting the br / bit in the “greater than” and “less that” brackets, and that worked just fine.

There’s probably a far easier method to do it all, but at least I know that what I’ve programmed seems to work well enough for now. And having it all saved in an external file, I only need to update it once for it to update on every page on my site.

Just two tasks to work out now.

The simplest one is how to access an external page via a Javascript link. I’m hoping that that won’t be too difficult, but knowing me, it probably will.

More difficult will be the task of nesting Javascript files. I want to make a sidebar file with the menu, the hit counter, the stats analyser and the Amazon blocks in it. Then I can just import the main Javascript file into every page on my site with all of the subsidiary blocks in it, and an amendment to the main Javascript file will make the amendment on every page.

Iframes or *.php would ordinarily be the answer, but Secured sites won’t display iframes and I know nothing about *.php, and at my age I’m too old to learn this kind of thing.

Talking of being too old, I went for my evening walk around the city walls and at one stage broke into a run. I kept it up for a couple of hundred metres too.

That surprised me immensely, because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that after my operation in January 2016 when they ripped out half of my insides, I couldn’t even walk and had to have re-education.

It really impressed me, that little bit of running did. Maybe it’s something to do with losing all of this weight. I dunno.

This evening I carried on with the Javascript menu, listening to a couple of really belting albums. Elegy by the Nice was the first one. No relation to Grey’s “Allergy to a Country Churchyard”, it’s one of the all-time classic albums that will always be on my playlist.

The second is much more exciting. One of the ones that I picked up in Ottawa.

After Arthur Brown disappeared from “The Crazy World of …”, Vincent Crane and Carl Palmer recruited a couple of new musicians and carried on as “Atomic Rooster”. Palmer left to join ELP, but Crane struggled on for quite a while, with a revolving door of new members and mental health breakdowns until he committed suicide in 1989.

In 1980, during one of their more active periods, they played at the Marquee Club in London. No bassist – and no vocalist either, so the guitarist John Du Cann sang on the vocal tracks. And while he will be the first to admit that he’s no vocalist, he gave it a really good go and the energy and enthusiasm that roared off the stage on Live at The Marquee 1980 is absolutely phenomenal.

But now it’s bed-time. And I have a lot to do tomorrow. All on foot too!

And I almost forgot to say “hello” to Pollux who put in an appearance during the night. First time for a while too.

Saturday 22nd June 2019 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… this year as far as I am able to tell, it actually felt like summer today.

And it’s been a long time coming, especially now that the solstice has been and gone.

Last night I didn’t get much sleep at all but whatever I had was certainly a deep sleep. I slept right through without moving until the alarm went off, and I lay abed until about 06:45

There were definitely some nocturnal voyages at some point, but they disappeared out of my head before I even had time to grab hold of the dictaphone.

After the medication and breakfast I did a little (only a little) tidying up and took the rubbish out to the bins. This idea of having a much smaller bin in the kitchen seems to work because it was full after only a week and I was obliged to take it out. With the bigger one, there was a tendency for the rubbish in there to hang around so long that it walked out of the apartment on its own.

Liz and Terry came round and while Terry went off to finish a job at brigitte’s, Liz and I went to the bar for a coffee. Terry joined us later and we had a lengthy chat about nothing in particular.

Later we went to LeClerc where I did a little shopping, and then we went for lunch. I had chips with a side-salad.

back here, Liz and Terry dropped me off and I came in to crack on with the dictaphone notes.

By the time that tea-time came round, I’d reduced the outstanding number to 25. I’m hoping for a good day free from interruptions and if so, I’ll be in a position to finish this before I go away on Thursday morning, which will be nice.

Tea tonight was out of a tin. I had a fancy for some spicy beans so I had a tinful with some rice and vegetables followed by the leftover pineapple rings and cocnut soya cream.

When I’d gone out with Liz and Terry earlier in the morning, I’d seen lots of boats out in the Baie de Mont St Michel and the English Channel.

So when I went out this evening I took the camera, hoping to see another pile of naval craft out there on the water.

And I wasn’t going to be disappointed at all.

There were dozens of water craft out there this evening, ranging from jetskis out to full-blown three-master yachts.

Due to the distance and range I couldn’t see which yacht the two-master might be. I’m wondering if it might be La Granvillaise having an evening out, but I couldn’t really be sure.

But there’s a zodiac-type of craft in the foreground just there, and doesn’t that bring back many happy memories of last September up in the High Arctic?

But here’s a boat that we all recognise, even if we haven’t seen her since a fleeting glimpse last summer.

By definition, she’s actually a yawl and was built in 1914 in Arcachon down in South-West France for a German owner but was seized as war reparations.

She fell on hard times and was laid up in the 1980s, before being saved in 1990 and subsequently underwent a complete refit.

Talking of complete refits, I went for a look around in the chantier navale to see what was going on.

The long-term trawler has now disappeared. Maybe they have finished it and it’s gone back into the water.

Instead, alongside the Belle de Carentan we seem to have acquired one of the lightweight fishing boats of the type that goes out for the more-inshore varieties of aquatic life.

One day, I’ll have to actually go and find out what it is that boats like these bring in.<

Last night, I was certain that I saw a silhouette of three tall masts in the harbour.

And I wasn’t wrong. Marité has turned up back in port. Apparently she came in yesterday afternoon from Cherbourg just after 15:30, but I don’t recall seeing her as I came back from my afternoon out.

One of these days I shall have to go for a sail out in her, even though I don’t think all that much of the people who represent the organisation.

Tomorrow is Sunday and this is going to be my very last lie-in for quite some considerable time. I hope that I make the most of it.

Saturday 15th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

… out and about today. and not just once but a couple of times too.

The day actually started off quite well, with me being up and about (well, on my feet anyway) for the third alarm at 06:20.

That’s a rare occurrence these days.

And it’s a surprise because it was the annual firework display last night, as I found out round about midnight when Iw as rudely awoken from my slumbers.

With having an early breakfast I was able to attack the dictaphone notes and deal with a few of those – get them out of the way. And shame as it is to say it, I dozed off for 5 minutes in between.

My little sleep was interrupted by the doorbell. Liz arrived. So we had a coffee and some chocolate and a chat before hitting the streets.

LIDL came up with nothing special, and our next stop was Centrakor.

Here in the apartment I have a big 100-litre waste bin and it’s ridiculous because I never create enough rubbish to fill it (and I’m not talking about the blog either). However I forget to empty it regularly and I don’t realise about the state of it until it comes to look for me itself, by which time it’s rather overwhelming.

As is usual, I need to be pushed into doing things so I bought a nice 20-litre waste bin today. That’s much more like it. It’ll take a week or so to fill and then I shall have to take it outside – much more regularly than I do right now, and that has to be good.

LeClerc came up with nothing special but we had a nice lunch, and that’s always welcome.

This afternoon, there was football on the internet. The Welsh clubs are preparing for the Europa League and Champions League matches and Barry Town were playing a representative side from the Punjabi FA who are on tour in the UK.

The match was streamed live on the internet so I watched it. And Barry will have to play much better than they did if they want to progress in Europe. They were extremely rusty and off the pace.

Tea was veg and pasta, and then I went for my evening walk. First time for a few weeks. It was rather uncomfortable but I have to press on and get myself back on form.

Sunday tomorrow so a Lie-in. And I hope that it’s a good one.

Saturday 8th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN SHOPPING …

.. today.

But the shopping expedition started before I went out, actually.

Liz turned up as planned, but she had stopped off at the chemist on the way here and bought some arnika tablets and some calendula oil.

The arnika is for easing the pain and bruising, and the calendula oil is a natural anti-inflammatory preparation for rubbing on the knee. and seeing as nothing else seems to be working right now, it’s worth a chance.

Last night was, for a change, an excellent sleep. I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off, and even though it’s not a Sunday, I lay in bed until about 08:25.

After a coffee Liz and I went to the shops, fighting our way through the grockles.

Nowhere came up with anything special, although we had a nice lunch in LeClerc. I also helped Liz check her tyres – there was a lack of pressure in the rear left-hand tyre.

Back here, I crashed out not once but twice, and then hung out the washing that I had done while we were at the shops and changed all of the bedding.

For a change I didn’t feel much like tea but there were a few baked beans left so I had them with a couple of small potatoes.

An early night now, I reckon. And Sunday is a lie-in. So I’ll bathe my leg in calendula oil and hope that it produces some good results.

Liz is impressed by how much easier I am moving compared to last week, and for that I thank the salt baths. Let’s hope that the calendula can add to that.

Tuesday 30th April 2019 – I’VE NOT HAD …

… a very profitable day today as far as my backlog of work goes. But there have been a few very good reasons for this.

Not the least of which being that I had yet another bad night. Tossing and turning for too much of it without actually departing hence.

At one point I must have been away with the fairies because I was off on my travels again. There was an exam taking place last night and I was doing part of the English syllabus. I was there in the exam room struggling my way through the first of three questions that I needed to answer when I suddenly found out that I had been named as a volunteer to take place in some kind of exam. They had needed someone to act as a “prop” to lie down while they danced a Highland Fling over and around, rather like a Highland sword dance. I was grabbed for this and taken out of my own exam before I’d even finished the first question. I was made to lie down and was dragged all the way across the floor and these ice floes until I was in the correct position. By now I was miles away from where my exam was taking place. All of these people turned up in a whole collection of old cars, motor bikes, pedal cycles. Even a unicycle that didn’t have a rider, an autonomous one. They all seemed to be symbolic of death. An old vehicle pulled up with a coffin in it and I had to lie there while they did this dance around me. I didn’t have a clue what was happening. Everyone was going on about their exams but I replied that they could consider themselves lucky. I hadn’t finished my first question yet, I only had three hours and I’d been dragged away over here and I don’t know when I’m going to end up back. All these kids started to join in. At one time a kid was trying to do a handstand balancing on two shovels. He could get himself off the ground like this but then he fell over and all the while I was panicking about my exam with all these old cars and people all around me trying to get me to be the prop for this Highland dance thing.

Nevertheless, just for another change I was up and about before the third alarm went off, but with some not inconsiderable effort too;

The usual morning performance was followed by a shower. I need to get myself clean and tidy because I’m having visitors. That also meant a really good clean-up around the apartment too to make it look more respectable.

Liz turned up bang on time so we had a coffee, biscuits and a good chat for an hour and a half until she had to go off for her appointment. I made a start on the dictaphone notes.

But I didn’t get very far. I had two interruptions, one half an hour after the other.

The second one, the most important one, I’ll tell you about in a day or so’s time when I’m ready. Instead I’ll tell you about the first.

In a few months time I’m hoping to go a-voyaging again and I shall be having my hands full as usual. Changing the lenses over with one hand free with the Nikon 1 is quite possible with practice, but with a full-size camera it’s impossible.

And so idly surfing the internet like you do … “like YOU do” – ed … a week or so ago I found one of these.

It’s second-hand, so I paid nothing whatever like the full retail price on here, but it’s only meant to be for use when I’m travelling on foot or on the train, not in Caliburn.

It means that I only need to lug around this one and the 50mm f1.8 lens for indoor shots, rather than all of the equipment.

The trouble with a lens like this is that with it trying to be everything, it ends up being nothing so I’m not expecting the quality to be as good as a pure focal-length lens, but it won’t have all that much use.

But anyway, you can judge for yourselves with the photos below.

Lunch was taken indoors again as there was a high wind and then I sat down to finish off the dictaphone notes.

Just as I did the last one of today’s batch, I crashed out. i’d already been away once or twice during the morning but this was more serious. I ended up in bed for 40 minutes, feeling like death.

Still feeling not much like it, I fitted the new lens onto the Nikon and went off on the prowl.

First thing that I noticed was a nice yacht in the distance. I reckoned that this might give me a good opportunity to try out the lens to see what it’s like.

And it’s not as bad as I was expecting.

We had a trawler right out to sea too heading back towards the Fish-Processing plant here in Granville.

It was unfortunately into the sun, but it was still worth an attempt. And it didn’t come out too badly either, although I had to manipulate the image somewhat to make it different.

Tomorrow, I’ll go out with the polarising filter and have a play with that and see what difference it might take. It might cut down some of the reflected sunlight off the surface of the water.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been saying for a while that these long gaps between seeing Normandy Trader and Thora in here must be down to the fact that the turn-rounds are so quick that I have been missing them.

And this is a case in point.

Just as I rounded the headland, I noticed Normandy Trader slipping silently out of the harbour.

She wasn’t there last night so she must have slipped in on the early morning tide, unloaded while the tide was out, and gone out again at the first available opportunity.

And I know what she does to earn her living too.

Her trips from Jersey to here are generally chartered by a co-operative of shell-fishermen who engage her to bring their catch over to Granville.

In an effort to catch Normandy trader heading off into the sunset, I wandered back over to the other side of the headland.

However I was rather disrupted by the noise coming from out of the bay over near St Martin de Brehal.

We have one of the Ile de Chausey ferries doing a trip around the bay. And whoever is giving the running commentary has no need of a loud-hailer or a tannoy.

It was quite a long wait for Normandy Trader to put in an appearance so I had to wait for a while.

But she turned up sooner or later and I wa sable to take a really good photo of her, with the Ile de Chausey nicely silhouetted in the background;

I really am going to gave to try the polarising filter and see if that gives me any better effects.

Back here, I dealt with the photos and then amended a few blog entries. I’m now back as far as Thursday 18th April.

That took me up to tea-time which was the rest of the falafel with steamed vegetables and cheese sauce, followed by rice pudding.

Later on I went outside for my usual evening walk.

My route took me past the house that is being renovated on the corner of the rue du Nord where I could inspect the progress that they have been making.

I noticed that the driveway for the house has been gravelled and levelled out, just as if they are about to drop a load of concrete onto it. It should be quite interesting to see it in a couple of weeks time

Further on along my walk I heard a noise coming up from the beach.

Having a look down over the wall, I noticed that there was a little party going on on the beach by the Plat Gousset.

It wasn’t that warm as far as I was concerned but I don’t suppose it matters if you are pretty well fuelled up. It’s all good fun if you are in good company.

So I’m off to bed. I have lots to do tomorrow and I have – surprise surprise – an appointment at 15:00 tomorrow. There’s a cunning plan rearing its head.

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Sunday 21st April 2019 – THIS SPENDING SPREE …

… is continuing.

Having received a totally unplanned and unexpected windfall the other day, I’m taking the opportunity to improve my situation somewhat.

Not to any major degree, it has to be said, but simply to make me feel better. I’ve been examining the hobbies and pastimes (such as they are) with which I seem to spend most of my time, moving out a pile of substandard equipment and replacing it with some much better stuff.

Browsing around on the internet, I’m surprised at how much decent second-hand gear there is on the market, as the purchase of that lens for the Nikon 1 the other day proved.

So I’ll keep you posted as and when things start to arrive.

having had a late night last night, I slept right through until about 08:15. Not quite as long as I was hoping, but better than some nights that I had.

I’d been on a voyage too during the night. I had been driving a coach somewhere around the Worcester-Gloucester area, a route that I’d driven on a couple of occasions, and I was close to the lunch stop. The bus pulled up at what is in fact Millstone Lane in Nantwich and the passengers alighted. I drove on empty to the lunch stop, but the passengers never arrived. The place was becoming busier and busier and I thought that if they don’t come quickly there wouldn’t be any room for them. Then I realised that I hadn’t told them where the lunch stop was so I took the coach to go to look for them. I found them all at the pickup point waiting for me so I loaded them up to take them to the lunch stop. But the street that I was in was narrow and was blocked. One driver in a car – e Renault Dauphine – reversed to let me past but I had to manoeuvre around a dark green Jeep Cherokee – and scratched the coach and the car in the process. The street then narrowed and narrowed until it became nothing more than the back-entry between two rows of houses. It was so narrow that I was amazed that the coach could fit down there and one passenger said that it was because the coach was so high that the walls of the back yards were passing underneath the bodywork.

After breakfast I did some much-needed tidying up and cleaning, because I was expecting visitors. And sure enough, at about 11:00 Liz and Terry turned up. With Liz’s elder son, his partner and their little child.

We all went out for a good walk around the walls and ended up in la Rafale, the café down the road, for a drink.

later on we went for a picnic lunch next up on the grass by the lighthouse, and then down the steps to the beach.

A lovely walk out to the sea and it was really amusing because the tide was going out quicker than we could walk towards it.

Once the tide started to come back in again, we retraced our steps back up the beach.

I’m not as young as I was and my health issues don’t help very much, so the steps – all 112 of them – back up to the town killed me off.

I wasn’t the only one feeling the strain either, so it was back to la Rafale for all of us yet for another coffee.

They all cleared off afterwards and I made tea – another delicious pizza followed by rice pudding.

There were quite a few people out there tonight enjoying the warm evening sun.

And out here a delightful conversation took place
Young girl – “did you see the dolphin”
Our Hero – “no, I didn’t. Where was it?”
Young girl – “in the sea”.

Well, yes.

There was another group of people down there at the Cap Lihou enjoying the sunset, with the bright orange glow reflecting off their faces.

And the good news is that according to another group of people, the footpath all around the headland is now repaired and open, so we can walk all the way around it now instead of taking the short cut through the car park.

I’ll have to go for a good look around there tomorrow and see what it’s like.

But now, it’s bed time. A Bank Holiday tomorrow so no alarm. And I intend to make the most of it.

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EPIC HALL

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

Category Archives: Liz_Terry Messenger

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 – I’VE NOT BEEN …

Sunday17th May 2020 – I’VE HAD A …

Sunday 1st March 2020 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

Friday 7th February 2020 – I HAD VISITORS …

Saturday 18th January 2020 – I’VE FINALLY MADE …

Friday 17th January 2020 – I BET THAT YOU ARE …

Sunday 8th December 2019 – I REALLY DON’T KNOW …

Saturday 23rd November 2019 – ANYONE RECOGNISE …

Friday 1st November 2019 – I FOUND …

Friday 25th October 2019 – I’M ALL …

Saturday 22nd June 2019 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

Saturday 15th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN …

Saturday 8th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN SHOPPING …

Tuesday 30th April 2019 – I’VE NOT HAD …

Sunday 21st April 2019 – THIS SPENDING SPREE …

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