Category Archives: Liz_Terry Messenger

Saturday 28th July 2018 – A DAY AT THE SEASIDE!

Kate, Darren, Dylan and Robyn are spending a week with Liz and Terry. Today they were going to the beach at Agon-Coutainville and Liz asked me yesterday if I would like to join them.

I’d had another one of those nights where I was wide awake at 05:00. I did manage to go back to sleep again, but I was up and about as the alarm went off.

After breakfast I had a shower and then made my butties for lunch. Caliburn and I then went off to the shops, spending most of the trip through the town stuck behing a grockle doing about 20kph in a caravanette as the driver and his wife admired the seagulls.

At LIDL there had been a power failure and only half of the tills were working. A fine start for one of the busiest days of the year, especially as the place was heaving with tourists.

Having been stymied with my attempts to find some black-faced melamine, I went to Mr Bricolage and bought a couple of pine plank boards, one at 40cms and the other at 30cms width.

They are both 2m long so the narrower one I had cut in half so that there are two boards of 1m length which will make two shelves over the desk. The longer one will go across and bridge the gap between the two cupboards, one on either side of the desk.

At LeClerc I remembered the new memory card. But the difference between a 8gb card and a 16gb card was just €1:00, so I bought the larger card. I hope that it will work in the big Nikon.

But apart from that I bought nothing special at all. Not for want of trying, but the place was heaving today. It was almost impossible to move around in there. Mind you I ought to have had a clue with all of the traffic about on the roads. It was nose-to-tail from the ring road to the town centre.

simca 1200S agon coutainville manche normandy franceIt was a comparatively quick drive to Agon-Coutainville so I was there first before the others, and so that gave me a chance to have a good look around.

And I’m glad that I did because I came across one of the rarest of all mass-produced Western European cars of the late 1960s parked up on the car park.

And when I say “rarest” I really do mean that because in total there were only 14,400 of them ever built.

granville manche normandy franceIt’s a Simca 1200s coupé ans in my opinion it’s one of the most beautiful cars ever produced, but the chances of me ever finding one for sale would be about zero, I reckon.

Apart from being a Simca, and with all of the associated quality issues that it would have had, the steering was very … err … imprecise and the brakes had a reputation for being, well, “unmatched” to the performance of the vehicle.

With all of that and with the car being something of an icon amongst the well-heeled and reckless youth of that period, they had a tendency not to last very long.

All eight of us (because Robyn had brought Strawberry Moose with her) went off for a coffee and the little ones went to buy some cakes too.

sand yachting agon coutainville manche normandy franceAnd then we went for the highlight of the afternoon.

It’s Darren’s birthday today and so for a treat Liz had arranged a session on sand yachts for him. And Kate, Dylan and Terry went along as well.

Dylan was rather light though and his yacht wouldn’t move along so easily. But he soon got the hang of it with a little personal instruction. The others didn’t have the same problems and had a great time, enjoying it thoroughly.

sand yachting agon coutainville manche normandy franceAfterwards, we headed off to a quiet corner of the beach and set up our little camp for a picnic.

We chose a little sheltered spot out of the wind where we would watch the next session of sand yachting, and ate our butties in comfort.

Which was just as well because it was now about 16:00 and my stomach had been thinking that my throat had been cut.

Our neighbours were a French man, his English wife and their two daughters, aged about 11 and 7. At one point, the mother asked the youngest daughter, in English “where’s Ruby?” (presumably the elder daughter).
The younger girl replied, immediately without even a pause for thought “elle est partie chercher des crabes” in perfect French.
There’s a family and a couple of kids who have all of the right advantages and who will go far in life, that’s for sure.

beach agon coutainville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I had a little bit of a snooze and later, being only half-awake, I had a very interesting conversation with Kate, thinking that she was Liz.

Kate took the kids down to the sea and they all had a good swim. The water was quite warm apparently but the sun had disappeared so they were frozen to the marrow when they came out.

So everyone had a good warm-up in woolly towels and then we all headed for home. It was 18:30 – amazing how quickly time flies when you are enjoying yourself.

I came back here, to discover that Brigitte had left the window of her car open so I had to ring her and tell her about it.

And during my evening walk I met another one of my neighbours who invited me around tomorrow evening for an aperitif.

But despite having had a good crash-out during the day, I was quite tired. So no tea and an early night.

It’s Sunday so I can have a lie in. And I need it too.

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Thursday 26th July 2018 – IT RAINED!

First time for at least 6 weeks I reckoned. On the way back here from Roncey we had a brief downpour for about five minutes. It was quickly here and quickly gone, but it rained just the same and that is something to note.

Last night was rather a mixed night. In bed early, I awoke at some time during the night, although I’ve no idea when, but I was quickly back asleep, where I stayed until the alarm went off. And then, to my own surprise, I was out of bed quite quickly.

The laptop had stalled during the night and so the transferring of the dashcam files had stalled to. And so I restarted it with the broken laptop as I suggested last night. And to my surprise, it was all done in a couple of hours, never mind a couple of days.

In the meantime I’d had my medication, had breakfast and even had a shower and a good clean-up.

Once everything was organised, I went out.

michel patrick granville manche normandy franceFirst stop was the harbour to check out the yacht that I saw yesterday.

She was still moored where I saw her, and so I made a note of her name. She’s called the Michel Patrick otherwise known as Milpat.

And having said that, I’m still none the wiser. I’ve not been able to find out anything else about her and she’s not in any database that I can locate.

So I headed off and and tried the remaining DiY shops, but again, no black melamine. So I fuelled up Caliburn and headed out with Strawberry Moose to take him on his holidays with Liz and Terry. Their grandchildren are arriving tomorrow and so he intends to have plenty of fun with them as usual.

Liz and I had a good chat and then some lunch, following which we went to Countances. Liz bought the contents of the LeClerc supermarket and then we went to the Biocoop for some stuff, where I found some gluten-free cornflakes.

Bricomarche, my last hope, let me down for the black melamine, and that was that. It simply cannot exist. I shall have to think of a Plan B.

Back at Roncey, Terry cut the worktop just how I wanted it for my home, while Liz produced something out of the freezer for tea. And I’ve no idea what it was and, strangely enough, neither does she. But whatever it was, it was very nice.

We sat and watched the clouds close in, and then the lightning in the distance. And I told you about the rainstorm on the way back.

So a productive day meeting friends and shopping, even if I wasn’t able to find my melamine. But at least I can press on with my kitchen tomorrow.

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Thursday 21st June 2018 – I WAS WRONG …

… about doing a few bits and pieces and then having an early night last night.

Yes, its a real puzzle. That’s a couple of times that I’ve been so wrong just recently and that’s not like me at all. But then no-one can predict what is going to happen when it comes to dealing with the Worst Bank In The World.

There was an e-mail sent to me from them about this payment.
“In order to action your request we need to speak to you … please get in touch on ******** by 17:00 (UK time) on 21/06/2018…If no reply is received by the date and time quoted, your payment request will be cancelled.”

It’s timed at 18:30 which, coincidentally, is the time that their International Branch closes. But it arrived in my mailbox at just about 22:00.

So the bank that refused TWICE to speak to me about this transfer now wants to speak to me about this transfer.

The mail also read “We have been unable to contact you on the telephone numbers we currently have recorded on our system” which is hardly a surprise seeing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the bank entered my phone number incorrectly in its database.

But nobody speaks to me like this, least of all anyone who has so much of my money as they do. And so I hit the customer services department’s all-night line.

A 25-minute wait was not guaranteed to improve my humour at that time of the night and when I finally did speak to someone, the help that he gave me was “call back in the morning”. So he had an earful too.

After a great deal of discussion and much insistence on my part, I was eventually put through to the all-night complaints line. The girl there refused to listen to my complaint and after the discussion became rather heated, she hung up the phone on me.

And so I spent the next half-an-hour tracking down the on-line complaints department.

And do you want to see what you get when you click on the link to the on-line complaints service? It’s a real Third-World Bank isn’t it?

But I’m nothing if not persistent and I eventually tracked down a method by which I can make a formal complaint. And now they have had a 3,000-word formal complaint from me about all of this.

It also goes without saying that I didn’t call them back today either. I’ll call them tomorrow and if they don’t make the payment I’ll be closing all of my accounts. A man can only take so much garbage from the Worst Bank In The World.

The result of this was that I was completely stressed out after a couple of hours of extremely heated argument. In the old days I would have gone for a run – guaranteed to calm me down. But I can’t run these days, so I ended up having the worst night for quite some considerable time. None of my relaxation techniques seemed to worK

So much for trying to lead a stress-free existence these days.

Despite everything, I did manage to crawl out of the bed at an early hour, and following a shower and breakfast, Caliburn and I hit the road.

We called at Roncey to pick up Liz and then we went off to IKEA.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a year ago I bought the first instalment of furniture for this place, and I needed a second load.

However I’ve not managed to make it there in Caliburn, and as Liz wanted to go to purchase some bunk beds for her grandchildren who will be arriving shortly (much to Strawberry Moose‘s delight as they are amongst his most devoted fans). So today was the day.

We had a lap around buying the small stuff and making a list of the big furniture. Then we went for lunch, and I lost the list, so we had to go around again.

And having made a second list, we could buy up the stuff that we needed and load up Caliburn.

All in all, it took much longer than it otherwise might have done because there were plenty of coffee stops as we went around. It’s hard work looking for furniture, and even harder work hauling it about.

Back at Liz’s we unloaded her purchases and she made a baked potato, salad and beans for tea which was very nice. Saved me a job.

Caliburn and I returned home to find that there was a music evening in the town and all of the roads were closed. It took some negotiating to find our way back here.

Interestingly, despite the dreadful night and the exertions of today, I’ve not crashed out at all. Bizarre, that. maybe it’s because I’ve been keeping busy today and the adrenalin levels have been high. Perhaps I ought to argue with more people more often?

But not tonight. I really am going to try for an early night.

Tomorrow is another day as we all know.

I wonder which b@$t@rd$ are going to come along and spoil it.

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Tuesday 8th May 2018 – THAT WAS A LONNNNNNNNNNG DAY.

And it started with the alarm at 06:20 as usual.

By 06:30 I was up and about and by about 07:15 I was breakfasting.

A spin through the apartment to make it look something like respectable and then to complete all of the packing. There was even time for a quick shower (and it was quick too, seeing as I’d switched off the water last night.

At 08:30 I was down in town buying my bread for sandwiches and a half-baguette to eat with my lentil whatsit on the bus – and I also bought two half-litre bottles of water.

Not that I needed the water but with only staying two nights in Leuven I don’t need to take a full carton of soya milk or fruit juice (and I won’t be there in time to do an evening shop) so two strong half-litre bottles at, would you believe, just €0:29 each is the cheapest way to deal with these issues and who cares about the contents at that price?

I’m nothing if not resourceful.

Having made my butties and packed everything, Liz turned up bang on time as I knew she would and we set off for Avranches and a look around to get our bearings. And then we went for a coffee.

While I was saying goodbye to Liz a couple of cars drove past on the motorway heading east, pulling trailers upon which were a couple of vintage cars from the 1930s. “How interesting” I thought.

flixbus 712 gare avranches manche normandy france bruxelles gare du nord belgiumMuch to my surprise (and everyone else’s I suspect) the bus pulled in bang on time. A nice modern Mercedes 6-wheeler.

It was packed too – only a few free seats so I chose a seat next to a rather attractive student-type person of the female sex. If I’m going to be hemmed into a seat on a bus, I may as well take advantage of it.

We reached Caen at 13:30 for a lunch stop so I sat outside and ate my butties in the sun while the drivers had a break.

At 14:00 we were back on the road and went via Rouen (where my travelling companion alighted), Amiens (where we overtook those two old cars that I mentioned earlier), some tiny wayside village where just one person alighted, and Lille to Brussels North Station. Arrival time was programmed at 21:00 and we arrived at … errr … 20:58.

I was impressed.

interior flixbus 712 franceAs for the bus, it wasn’t as comfortable as a North-American long-distance bus and certainly not as comfortable as the train. We were all just a little cramped in here

However not having to drag a heavy suitcase across Paris was a huge plus as far as I was concerned. And it was that which made the difference.

I wouldn’t abandon the train for the bus under normal circumstances, but it was certainly an acceptable substitute at half the price. And when I have my huge suitcase to move about with me on a Canada trip I shall be giving this matter of the bus some very serious consideration.

sncb brussels gare du nord leuven belgium may mai 2018There was a 20-minute wait for a train – an Intercity Express direct to Leuven so I was quite lucky about that.

And we nearly had a “Nicole Gerard” incident too. So engrossed in my book that I almost missed my stop. Mind you, she was even more engrossed than that and when she looked around her, found herself to be in the carriage sidings and had to be escorted back to civilisation by a cleaner.

Being decanted out of the train in something of a rush I had a pleasant perambumation down here and seeing as I was late found my room key in the safe on the wall.

My room is small but quite nice but it’s right on the front and there was a street party last night. The row was intense.

As well as that, I have some noisy neighbours so I’m not too happy. Trying to crash out here, but it’s almost impossible. Not to mention a thirst that you could photograph.

But my tea – the lentil-mix stuff that I made last night – and bread, all of which I ate on the motorway between Gent and Brussels, was delicious. A good plan, that.

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Wednesday 2nd May 2018 – I HAD A SURPRISE …

… visitor this morning.

Some time round about 09:00 (I have really no idea) there was a buzzing on the door. Terry had an appointment in town and was early so he came round for a coffee.

But it’s always the case though, isn’t it? I can have this place looking spotless and clean as a new pin and no-one ever comes round at all. Yet here I am, still not properly unpacked from Africa, papers all over the place yet to be tidied away and me not having cleaned up seeing as I’m not too well, so I have a visit , don’t I?

Not that I’m complaining of course. I don’t see enough people and so visitors, especially good friends, are always welcome round here. But it always happens like this, doesn’t it?

I had another miserable night last night, but I had made sure that I’d switched the alarms off before going to bed so that I could sleep until I awoke. Which was several times during the night, unfortunately. And so much for my good sleep too, because I was up and about at something silly like 07:20.

Terry told me that he had sent a message to tell me that he was going to call round but one of the difficulties that you have when you switch off the alarms is that you have to switch off the phone too, so that explains that.

It’s been another one of those days where I haven’t done very much. I managed some breakfast but didn’t feel like anything at all for lunch. And so you can tell that there’s something wrong with me if it measn that I’m off my food.

beautiful sunset pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceBut I did manage my two trips out today again. And I’m glad this I did because we were having yet another famous night.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen some magnificent sunsets since we’ve been here. Nothing like as magnificent as what we saw on Long Island Sound in New York State back at the beginning of October last year, but pretty good all the same

And last night’s was a belter.

beautiful sunset pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceThe thing is, though, that there was nothing like as many people out enjoying it as I would have expected, so I had a pretty good spec all to myself.

And there I stood for a good 10 minutes watching the sun slowly sink down below the horizon into a stormy sea.

And if I’m managing to wax all lyrical about it, then you know that it must have been good. Shame that there were no more than three or four people out there with me.

storm at sea wall granville manche normandy franceBut “stormy” was certainly the word. That was probably why there were so few people out there enjoying the sunset.

Clutching grimly … "lucky grimly" – ed … onto my hat i staggered off into the wind along the path at the foot of the old town walls to the little spec overlooking the casino and the Place Marechal Foch

And there I could watch the waves crashing onto the sea wall

storm at sea wall granville manche normandy franceThere were a few intrepid pedestrians down there dodging the waves as they crashed over onto the promenade.

And they needed to be intrepid too because some of the waves were quite impressive. I was lucky enough to capture one of the best ones right at its apogee and I shall enjoy this photo for a while.

There was a tremendous storm here on 3rd January which kept me in the house all day. That apparently caused a considerable amount of damage down there and I regret now that I never managed to struggle out to see it. It must really have been something.

Tea was more oven chips, sausage and beans followed by strawberries and kiwi sorbet. Delicious all of it too. And with a helping of sausages and some grated vegan cheese left (I can get some more next week) I’m going to go for cauliflower, sausages and cheese sauce for tea tomorrow.

Yes, all this talk of food. I must be feeling better than I was just now.

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Saturday 28th April 2018 – PHEW!

That was some football match tonight. US Granville were playing US St Malo tonight at the Stade Louis Dior and even though I’ve still not properly recovered from my recent exertions I walked out there this evening.

US St Malo are third in the table and US Granville are 8th so it was always going to be a difficult task, but Granville matched them toe to toe for the first 50 minutes. While it was evident that St Malo were technically the better side and had more of the possession, Granville looked far more menacing when they were going forward.

And then Granville won a penalty for a mistimed tackle. No card given, but that’s not a problem – it was clearly an attempt to play the ball. And the penalty was beautifully struck – and there was an even better save from the St Malo keeper.

In fact, I don’t know what the St Malo keeper had been drinking but I wouldn’t mind a pint of that. He brought off half a dozen stunning saves that would not have been out of place in the Premier League and he single-handedly (or double-handedly) kept his club in the game.

Granville did score a goal after about an hour, but 10 minutes later St Malo equalised and that was probably the right result. But it was easily the best match that I have seen for some time.

Last night was another disturbed night unfortunately. But not so disturbed that it stopped me going on a midnight ramble.

I was walking along Hightown in Crewe with, of all people, the mother of the boy with whom I spent several weeks in France during my schooldays. A girl was with us too – she might even have been his sister although she probably wasn’t – and someone else. I was pointing out to them all about HIghtown and how it ws 30 years ago and how much it had changed. We were looking at a place that was a venue for high-class wedding services exhibitions but which was in fact probably a secret bar and next door was the old church that became a rock venue and now it had gone up-market and was available for hire for wedding celebrations. But the girl with us was coming out with comments as if she knew Crewe really well which was quite a surprise. This led me to mention the story about a girl aged 7 or 8. She had only been to a certain place a couple of times but we used to send her to the shops there because she could remember the way. This woman, who had now become my niece, said “who do you mean?” and mentioned the name of one of a pair of twins, to which I replied that it was the other one. And that was surprising too because the girl whom my niece had mentioned was much brighter than the other one. We ended up somewhere down Victoria Street in a house with two grey cats and they were huge – massively overweight monsters of things – so I asked my niece whether they were bad-tempered but she replied “not at all. They are the softest cats you could ever imagine” so I gave the biggest one of the two a stroke. My niece then wrote out a shopping list to take to the Chinese takeaway – a bag of chips for 10, 8 food boxes, 1 portion of pie, 1 portion of sausages and all of the usual kind of takeaway food. I offered to go to fetch it. On the way out I heard some people arguing about something and I thought that they were inside the house but it turned out to be a mother and daughter standing outside the door in the street having this argument. In the meantime I glanced at the shopping list and noticed that there was nothing on it for me. It was all meaty stuff, so I got to wonder what was I going to have for tea while I was out there buying tea for everyone else.
Leaning over the edge of a parapet, my notebook fell out of my hands right into the foreign waste and it was a long way down to go to collect it. But I needed to go to retrieve it and bring it back with me. But to get there meant passing through what was to become the first German victory, so I had to crawl along the side of the building under the machine gun fire. But earlier in the evening there had been an opportunity to climb out onto the roof of where we were being held captive – or rather to climb up onto the top and walk about on the sheets that were protecting everyone from the sun -the weather there was absolutely magnificent.

Despite everything I still beat the second alarm, and then after the usual morning performance I had a shower and a general clean-up, followed by a change of clothes.

And then the shops!

LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc and I bought nothing whatever of any importance. I simply did a lap around and came back with the usual stuff.

But I didn’t stay at home long because I had a phone call. Liz and Terry were in town and would I like lunch? So back to the LeClerc and the buffet.

We had a good chat for a couple of hours to catch up on news, and then I came back.

But I didn’t stay at home long because I had to go out for the footy.

renault scenic bombed by seagulls granville manche normandy franceOn the way back from the football I saw something that made me laugh, and so I had to take a photograph of it.

This is why it’s necessary to wear a hat when you go for a walk around here because the local seagulls have an accuracy that puts RAF Bomber Command to shame. You can see just how well they have done with this car that has only been parked here for a couple of days.

That’ll require a little cleaning before the driver goes too far in it. But what do you expect, living on a rocky crag by the seaside?

All in all, 105% of my daily activity so at least I’m keeping going. But I felt the strain just a little. An early night and a nice long sleep will do me the world of good.

You just watch someone come along to spoil it!

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Tuesday 3rd April 2018 – I HAVE BEEN …

… out to visit an apartment today.

Not that I have all that much intention of buying anything, but when you see a one-bedroom duplex apartment with sea view and private parking for just €70,000, you have to go to look (at least, one of us does) otherwise I shall always be wondering about it.

It was on the edge of St Pair sur Mer so I met Liz in the town and we met up with the estate agent who took us on a scenic tour of the town until we found it.

And much to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a ruin as some that I had seen at much more of a price. But it was small and inconvenient and there was no way that the accommodation could be rearranged to make a decent kitchen and fit the washing machine in. And so I politely declined.

Back at the Estate Agent’s office, we found that the Estate Agent had locked himself out so we left him to it and went for a coffee at the bar on the corner where we encountered France’s entry in the “World’s Worst Waiter” competition.

st pair sur mer manche normandy france The coffee was followed by a walk along the beach in and amongst the groups of schoolkids having their “classes découvertes”.

And there’s a lot more to St Pair-sur-Mer as I discovered as we walked along the beach. Although I’ve been here on many occasions this is the first time that I’ve walked along the beach, and I never knew that there was a river here.

Yes, I may be none-the-wiser but I’m certainly learning a lot.

And having made a conscious decision earlier today to take all of the old cardboard boxes to the dechetterie on the way back, I promptly forgot, and had to turn around halfway home to go back.

This morning it was a struggle to leave my bed at 06:30 and I failed to beat the second alarm. So a slow steady morning during which I caught up with some of the weekend’s undone work and assembled my new chair (which doesn’t seem to be as comfortable as it was in the shop). But then again what do you expect for €36:00?

Tea was stuffed peppers (with too much hot spice in the stuffing) and spicy rice, followed by my walk during which I was waylaid by the long-haired black cat.

So I need to organise myself so much better tomorrow. I have a lot to do and it won’t ever be done at the rate at which I seem to be working right now.

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Saturday 31st March 2018 – YOU MISSED …

cite des sports us granville cs villedieu football granville manche normandy france… an exciting football match this evening.

US Granville were playing CS Villedieu – a team one Division below them – in the Normandy Cup, and ran out 5-1 winners.

You might think that this indicates that CS Villedieu were on the receiving end of a right spannering, but nothing could be further from the truth. The scoreline is extremely unfair to them.

The game hinged on a two-minute spell after about an hour. Up until then the teams had been very evenly matched and although Granville were 1-0 up thanks to a goal after about 15 minutes, the lead was by no means whatever a comfortable one.

But then CS Villedieu broke away upfield with some nice play and had a shot on goal that beat absolutely everyone, including the US Granville keeper, but flashed about half a millimetre wide of the post. Had they scored, it would have been no more than they deserved.

However, from the goal-kick, Granville roared upfield and won a corner. And the Granville centre-forward had a free header into the net.

From the restart, the US Granville midfielder intercepted the ball, played it upfield and with some neat passing play from the forwards, the n°10 (I think) found himself in a one-on-one with the Villedieu keeper and made no mistake.

So within 60 seconds of what should have been 1-1, CS Villedieu found themselves 3-0 down.

After that, things went from bad to worse for Villedieu. They were still playing some nice football and even pulled back a goal, but every time Granville had the ball up front they looked dangerous. As well as 2 more goals, we had two point-blank saves from the keeper and a resounding, thunderous volley that came back off the foot of the post.

5-1 it was. 2-1 would have been a fairer result but it could so easily have been 7 or 8 for Granville.

And I’ll tell you something else that I missed too. And I’m as malade as a perroquet about it, as they say around here.

There’s been a dash-cam in Caliburn for several years and it’s never ever recorded anything interesting. And yet today, there we were at the roundabout near LeClerc and a motorist a few cars in front of me stops to give way. A tourist behind (yes, it’s grockle-time again), too busy admiring a seagull, runs slap bang into the rear of him. Ad here I am with the dash-cam running!

Or, at least, I thought I was. But it turns out that the SD card filled up about 100 yards beforehand and so had switched off. How upset am I?

With having had a late night last night I didn’t have much sleep . And although I’d been on my travels, all memory of it disappeared in the time that it took to reach for the dictaphone.

We had the usual morning ritual followed by a shower and a general clean-up, and then it was shopping-time.

LIDL and NOZ came up with nothing much of any excitement, and I went to Mr Bricolage for some PTFE lubricant for the machine heads of the bass guitar.

We then had the accident, and as I was pulling onto the car park at LeClerc, I almost collided with Liz and Terry coming in the opposite direction. So we went for a coffee, that passed into lunch, and I’m very grateful to Terry for hosting me.

Nothing much of any excitement in there either, but I do now have an office chair (even though I don’t have an office as yet – but I will in early course) and that was quite by accident.

With all of the time that it took for chatting and so on, it was just coming up to 14:00 when I was driving past BUT and they were reopening after lunch. And there was a big sign outside – “Clearance Sale – Massive reductions – Free Installation on Fitted Kitchens”.

So I went in to see about a kitchen for here because I hate what I have and I want something much better than this. However, it won’t be happening from BUT. The “free installation” only applies to purchases of over €2500 and I’m looking to spend a tenth of that.

But I had a look at the office chairs and there was one that was quite comfortable and quite robust. Not quite like the one that I had in Brussels that I could (and did on many occasions) curl up and go to sleep in, but it was €79:99 – which is cheap in itself – reduced by 50%! And they had run out of stock so after much discussion they let me have the display one for €36:00. I’ll go for that.

This evening I had a brisk walk out to the Cité des Sports in the rain and howling gale for the football and because I’d brought a flask, the Hall and bar were open. Isn’t that typical?

And on the way back I grabbed a portion of chips for tea. It’s good to catch up with old habits.

Tomorrow is of course a Bank Holiday and a Sunday, so I’m going for two lie-ins.

And why not?

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Saturday 24th February 2018 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

And it was so nice to receive so many greeting from so many different people.

And it’s so nice to be here too. It’s been a long, hard road this last 27 months or so and there’s plenty more to come as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But despite everything, I wasn’t here last night. I was away with the fairies.

I’m not sure now who I was with at the start of last night’s travels but it quickly developed rather distressingly into a family affair and I don’t need that right now. But first I was with two other people – whom I forget right now – and I can’t remember what it was that we were actually doing. But it had snowed quite heavily and there was plenty about. All of these kids were enjoying themselves in the snow and we quickly organised them into two teams, one of boys and one of girls, and arranged for them to have a snowball fight. My father made an appearance and made a ribald remark, to which I replied that the boys were at the top of the hill and the girls at the bottom, and no doubt they would all meet in the middle at some point in the fullness of time. But what depressed me was that here the kids were, having no end of harmless fun and the headlines on the local radio news programme were all about “gangs of marauding youths rampaging through the town” – and it was nothing like that at all.
From there we repaired to my brother’s house. He was having all kinds of printer issues so I spent a while examining everything. It appeared that he was putting too much paper in, for a start, and was aligning it wrongly so that only one of the guide wheels was picking up the paper, and so pulling it in off-centre. So I told him what to do and showed him how to do it, and left him to it. Half an hour later he told me that it was still doing it, so I went to see. And not only had he changed the printer from the one that we had used before, he had the bad habit of pulling backwards on the paper – just like you would do with the elastic of a catapult – just before the printer went to drag it in. And so the paper missed.
Next stop was my niece. She was printing her right-wing revolutionary tracts in a kind of purple-red ink but she too was having printing issues. Her scanner had an automatic feed but it was feeding all of the papers in at a time rather than feeding them in one by one as it was supposed to. And as a result we ended up there for hours having to feed them in one by one by hand.

And it was cold in the living room too when I awoke. The temperature outside had fallen to minus 1°C outside during the night. And while that’s a far cry from the minus 16C and minus 19°C that we used to have in the Auvergne, it’s nevertheless the coldest that I had recorded since I’ve been here.

After the medication and breakfast and so on, I had a shower and then went off to the shops. And I spent more than I intended too too. I’ve let supplies run down a little this last few weeks and I needed to stock up somewhat.

So LIDL And LeClerc felt the benefit of my largesse, as did NOZ. I treated myself to three DVDs – an obscure spaghetti wewtern and a couple of 1950d cowboy series collections. As well as that, there was a kind of shoulder bag thing, quite small but with several pockets and just the right size for the new camera and telephoto lens. Only €4:99 too.

Almost every petrol station had a queue at it this morning too, and so as I was quite low I fuelled up with diesel. And then had a close encounter with a motorist who decided to reverse out of a car parking space without looking, right in front of Caliburn.

Back here, I … errr … had a relax for a while and so consequently had rather a late lunch. And then set about to organise a load of washing. However I was interrupted as one usually is when one is in a rush so I was rather late going out.

Liz and Terry had invited me for a Birthday tea so I went for a good chat too. Liz made me a nice vegan birthday cake but with no candles on it. Apparently she’s rather concerned about Global Warming. I did tell her that these days you work backwards and count the years that I have left, but that cut no ice with Liz.

ON the way back the floodlights were on at Cerences so I stopped to watch the last 20 minutes of football. I couldn’t tell you who they were playing because the guy whom I asked mumbled something that I couldn’t understand. So I asked him again, and he repeated it in exactly the same fashion so I’m none the wiser now.

And in the time that I was there nothing exciting happened either.

So now my birthday is over. And I’m off to bed. Will I still be here next year? Who knows. But what I do know is that my next six-month session of treatment starts at 08:50 on Thursday 15th March.

I am not looking forward to that at all.

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Tuesday 13th February 2018 – THE BEST-LAID SCHEMES O’ MICE AN’ MEN …

… gang aft agley, as the old saying goes.

And that’s certainly true of many people, particularly of me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall only too well.

I’d had yet another decent sleep, and been to Brussels to see my old friend Enzo, who proudly told me that he had a job of work to do at 16:00. And that was a shame, as I also had a jo for him to do at 16:00. But never mind. With a smiling grace, he cheerfully accepted both jobs, so I left it to him as to how he was going to work it out. My next port of call was to wander around Nantwich to a small marquee where several expensive cars were on display. One of them was a Rolls-Royce – or maybe a Bentley – and the salesman was showing a surprising disinterest in his product. When I queried it with him, he told me that he has just been sacked for having made, in what he thought was a secure confidence, some kind of derogatory comment about the product that he was selling. It had reached the ears of his employers and they had told him that when he goes home at the end of the day, not to bother coming back. He was complaining that he now had no work to do, and so I told him that my friend Enzo had two jobs to do at the same time, and he wasn’t complaining.

I just about beat the second alarm, organised the medication and then had my breakfast. I put the heater on in the bathroom and was settling down waiting for the bathroom to warm up, and the telephone rang. Terry was once more having vehicle issues.

He’d been taken to a garage down in Avranches but had no way of returning home. So I quickly had a shower, set up the washing machine and then headed off down there.

Finding the garage was not easy, and then we had to wait ages while they sorted out all of the paperwork. As a result it wasn’t until midday that we arrived at Roncey. Luckily Liz was back from work so she made coffee and lunch and we had a good chat.

After that I headed home, only to find that all of the post offices are closed for Mardi Gras. So all of the letters that I had written yesterday – they’ll have to wait for a few days now.

Up to that point the weather had been absolutely gruesome – one of the worst days of the year. And that didn’t bode very well for the Carnaval procession. But dramatically, the clouds cleared and we even had a little sun.

Consequently I nipped down to the town to watch it all go by yet again, was once more pasted in confetti and had a couple of dances with a couple of female performers. That’s not like me, is it?

But I couldn’t keep it up for the rest of the afternoon and came back here, for a … errr … little relax.

For tea I finished off the tortillas and stuffing, with spicy rice, and then had my usual walk.

Tonnes more photos to edit and upload, something that I was planning to do this morning. But that will all have to wait now. I’m not sure when I’ll find the time now to get around to it.

But now it’s bed-time. I have an early start in the morning as you know. With it being Shrove Tuesday today, it must be Sheffield Wednesday tomorrow.

And as I’m writing this, I realise that, in the confusion, I have forgotten to do my urine sample for the hospital. So I won’t be taking the p155, which is a shame.

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Sunday 7th January 2018 – HEROES!

us granville girondins bordeaux stade louis dior manche normandy franceThe players and officials of US Granville do a lap of honour around the pitch after their match against the Girondins of Bordeaux.

And quite rightly so, because they have just pulled off the Shock of the Century in French football. A part-time team playing Regional football in CFA2 North-West – the equivalent I suppose of the Conference North in the UK, have just knocked Premier League Bordeaux out of the French FA Cup.

And they made it look easy too.

Getting to the ground was quite something because the street was cordoned off and I had to drive miles to meet Terry. But we made it in plenty of time. And I was interviewed on France 3 too! My fame is spreading!

us granville girondins bordeaux stade louis dior manche normandy franceAnd it’s just as well that we got there early because the Stade Louis Dior was packed.

We ended up standing on the bank on the training ground looking aross at the pitch because it was the only really decent vantage point.

And we were treated to an event that I for one won’t ever forget.

I’d had another less-than-impressive night and despite it being Sunday I was wide-awake at 07:30.

Mind you, I’d been on my travels during the night, and a welcome return to our nocturnal rambles of Nerina and Zero. Formerly regular visitors but have been conspicuous by their absence for a while. Nerina and I were trying to book ourselves into a hotel in West London and having an inordinate amount of difficulty doing so, and I was close to losing my cool. Nerina suggested that we went for a walk to cool down, so we went outside and found ourselves aongst a large numger of Orthodox Jews who were diriving horses and carts laden with goods and produce pretty much as they might have done in the late 19th Century. We ended up walking along the towpath of a canal and Zero went skipping off with her head in the clouds. I was pointing out these tourist signs of historic object and the like and trying to interest her in them but like most kids of that age she was more interested in flowers and butterflies and the like.

I waited until 08:00 to leave the bed and by 09:00 I had breakfasted. And then – SHOCK! HORROR! I went working on a Sunday. I brought up the television and assembled it, and then had to do some rearranging of my living room to find a place to install it. That even involved some more vacuuming!

Configuring it was another thing – not helped by the fact that there were no batteries in the remote control and I had no fully-charged ones lying around. I’m short of good AAA batteries so I need to buy some more.

It took me ages to try to find the “DVD” switch on the remote control and in the end gave up. But I installed the DVD player anyway (and the remote control for that has stopped working) and much to my surprise the TV recognised automatically the signal from the DVD and started to play the disc.

So I sat and watched a film. And it really is nice to watch a DVD on a decent screen after all these years. 80cms is pretty big in my apartment.

And then the football.

Quite frankly, the Girondins of Bordeaux were abysmal. They had a midfielder by the name of Jérémy Toulalan. In his career he’s had 36 caps for France, transfer fees of almost €20,000,000 and when he was in Spain he was on a salary of €4.2 million. And yet if ever there was a player so disinterested in a match I have yet to see it, even in District football. In my own personal opinion he should have been ashamed of himself because it’s players like him who ought to be pulling his team up when they are down, not chickening out of the game.

If there ever was a gulf between the two teams, you would have said that it was Granville who were the Premier League team. They took the match by the throat and went on the rampage from the kick-off. And Bordeaux had no answer.

Had Granville’s finishing been any better they would have been 3-0 up after half an hour. They missed a penalty after 10 minutes and had two other shots at point-blank range either saved or blazed over the bar. And that’s not counting the shot that the keeper completely misjudged and had to hastily scramble over the bar to save a load of omelette sur le visage.

The Girondins of Bordeaux scored with their first attack after 37 minutes, but that was their best effort. US Granville’s keeper didn’t have too much to do.

In the second half, Granville came out as they went in – storming down the field driven on by the n°2 and the n°8 who had the games of their lives. And as the match progressed you could sense that it was not impossible that they might do something here.

And as we drifted into the final 5 minutes with Granville camped in the Bordeaux half the most amazing thing happened. The Girondins began to lose their discipline. We had a rash of yellow cards and then, totally inexplicably, the Girondins right-back put in a dreadful challenge on the Granville winger right out on the touchline. There was no need for it – the winger was going nowhere and it really was a vicious tackle. Result – a RED CARD.

Girondins of Bordeaux down to 10 men.

4 minutes of injury time and with 3:50 played, the Granville n°2 put in a low cross into the area. It took a wicked deflection, right into the path of a Granville attacker who sidefooted it straight into the empty net. He was probably more surprised than anyone else in the Stade Louis Dior.

The crowd was in raptures.

There was just enough time for Bordeaux to kick off before the referee blew for time.

No replays in France – we play on. And Bordeaux for once started to play. They looked quick and keen but by now Granville’s tail was up and they kept them out quite comfortably.

And then a break downfield. No fewer than two Girondin defenders missed the ball and it fell right in front of the Granville centre-forward. Surely he must score with an open goal – but a Bordeaux defender wrestled him to the ground.

Bordeaux now down to 9 men – and the penalty? Well, Stanislaus wasn’t going to miss aanother one. Granville take the lead – and they deserved it.

We haven’t finished yet. Granville, with a two-man advantage, burst forward yet again and a midfielder hauls him back by the shirt. The referee goes over to speak to the midfielder about it, and we will never know what the reply was. But it must have been good because the referee reached into his pocket and pulled out a straight RED CARD.

Bordeaux down to 8 men.

The rest is history. You can’t come back with just 8 men on the pitch and Granville hung on for the most unlikely victory which they richly desrved and did a lap of honour around the pitch.

The manager of the Girondins of Bordeaux said after the match “it was just one long nightmare of a Sunday afternoon”. His side, losing its cool like that and having three players sent off against a bunch of regional part-timers was disgraceful. US Granville came out of the game with credit.

We walked back to the car park and I drove home. Frozen to the marrow and I’m still cold now even though the heating is going full-blast and I cooked a pizza in the oven.

I’ll probably be ill for a week now, but ask me if I care? I’ve had a memorable afternoon and there won’t be another one quite like this.

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Tuesday 2nd January 2018 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… on the sofa last night at about 22:30.

And so when I awoke at about 23:00 or something, I dragged myself off to bed.

And there, I had a bad attack of cramp getting into bed and that, dear reader, was that. I didn’t have a wink of sleep at all.

I’d set the alarm for 07:30 but by the time that it went of, I was up and about and doing things. I was expecting visitors.

Working for 10 minutes on and half an hour sitting down I whizzed through the apartment and while it would be wrong to pretend that it was neat and tidy, all of the rubbish had been taken out and the important bits were all properly presentable. And I was able to have a shower too.

At about 11:15 Liz and Terry turned up. back from the UK, they popped by to see how I was getting on and I was able to reassure them. As you know, for a while I was at death’s door but this doctor pulled me through.

We had a really good chat, caught up with all of out news and made a couple of plans for the Spring. A trip to IKEA might be on the cards in the near future.

This afternoon I recovered from my exertions and, much to my surprise, even though it’s now almost 23:00 I’m not in the least bit tired. And that’s a surprise after my nuit nlanche. I wonder if I’ll get to bed tonight as well.

As for food, I had my usual bowl of porridge at breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything for lunch. Later in the evening I made another pot of soup, tomato this time, and heaved in a couple of handfuls of macaroni in it, as well as a tablespoon or two of olive oil. I need the fats and proteins right now.

Tow mugs of that went down nicely and I could even manage the sp.

One idea for the next time that I’m out is to buy some of this very fine, small pasta and I can keep on adding that into soups as I make them. That will be easy to eat and it will give the soups some body.

But here’s a surprise. Several weeks ago I bought from NOZ a couple of tins of cinnamon biscuits. It was the tins that caught my eye, never mind the content. Not large enough for my cake unfortunately but big enough for all kinds of things, and just €1:99 each. And when I saw that the biscuits therein were vegan, I snapped up the last two.

With Liz and Terry being here, I cracked open a tin. And I was totally surprised as to how nice they were. THis will have to go down as one of the deals of the year.

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Sunday 3rd December 2017 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

… about going to bed early is that there’s a tendency to wake up early. We all know this and we are all prepared for it, but even so, being wide-awake at 01:30 is rather an extreme example.

And so, after a couple of miserable hours of being awake and not being able to go back to sleep, I was resigned to being still there when dawn broke.

Nevertheless, I did manage to go back to sleep, and even managed to go a-wanderding.

We started off in a very rare coach – a “P” (as in 1975)-registered Duple Viceroy-bodied coach but fitted with a MAN diesel engine (in the days when the only foreign-engined coaches on the UK roads were the very occasional Volvo B58s) and how after about 30 years the company was considering upgrading it to a more modern one, and there was I hoping that I would be chosen to drive it.
From there we passed to much more exciting things. Some young guy was arrested for belong to some kind of secret organisation -and these people were possessed of a certain power in that firstly they could fly, and secondly they could change identity with anyone of a similar grade in their organisation. how they did that was to hold up their hads with a number of fingers visible – the number of fingers visible being the grade to which they belonged. Anyone of a similar grade seeing the sign would hold up a similar number of fingers and they would exchange identities. This young guy escaped from police custody and there was a hue and cry, but he succeeded in exchanging identities with several people, including the policean who was chasing him and taking his girlfriend as part of the deal.

It was 09:20 when I finally crawled out of bed. That was much more like it for a Sunday.

However, that kind of behaviour means that a great deal of the morning has gone – and with it my plans for (thinking about) tidying up the apartment. So why is it that when your living accommodation is spotlessly clean and tidy, no-one ever comes to visit; but when your place is like a disgusting tip because you’ve been too ill to clean it for the last three weeks, half of the building comes to call?

After lunch, I had a shower and then I hit the road. It’s Liz’s birthday very soon so we were having a little party. I’d picked up some chocolates for her from the manufacturer in town.

The road were greasy and muddy, and Caliburn is in a right filthy mess now. But we all had a good chat and Liz had made some vegan meat loaf, with enough left over to make a doggy bag for me.

But I didn’t stay too long, because I’m not up to much just now. I came home, clutching a Christmas present. And I can guess what it is.

Back here, I went straight to bed. No walk tonight and no surfing about on the internet. I’m definitely feeling the strain. Let’s hope I have a better day tomorrow.

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Sunday 5th November 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… very nice, busy day out today.

I’ve been round at Liz’s for most of the day. We decided a while agos ago to have a bake-in one of these days – an so we fixed on today.

We spent most of the day baking and making soups, and ended up with a huge pile of stuff. There’s –

home made baking liz messenger roncey manche normandy france

  • carrot, coconut and ginger soup
  • pepper, squash and tomato soup
  • apple crumble
  • vegetable piee
  • coriander hummus
  • beanburgers

There’s enough here to keep us going for a couple of weeks, I reckon.

We split the proceeds between us but I could only bring a few bits and pieces home as my freezer is, as you know, pretty full right now. And I do wish that I had bought a bigger one.

I can pick up the rest another time.

This morning it’s Sunday and so there was no alarm. And so no-one was more surprised to see when I awoke that it was all of … errr … 05:10. But badger that for a game of soldiers. I went back to sleep until a more realistic 09:10.

I’d been on my travels too. A long complicated voyage but all that I remember of it now is being on a couple of cable-hauled barges going in opposite directions on the Manchester Ship Canal.

After breakfast – and nice fresh muesli too – I had a shower and a clean-up. And then I hit the road in the driving rainstorm. Liz’s two neighbouring kids were there and were in quite a chatty mood. Once they had gone, we could attack the cooking.

Lunch was carrot, coconut and ginger soup, and tea was pie and mash with peas. And delicious it all was too. But it was quite exhausting doing it all and I found it hard to keep awake. In the end I had to come home and crash out for an hour.

In view of the weather I didn’t feel like going for a walk. It’s not a good diea too because I seem to have acquired a streaming head cold after my night out last night. I’m going to bed in a moment instead.

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Wednesday 25th October 2017 – FIRST TODAY …

… in the freezer are some packs of lentil pepper and carrot curry. I made a huge batch this evening.

So many thanks to Terry who came round this mornng and helped me drag everything up into the apartment and drag all of the old stuff down into the back of Caliburn ready for the tip tomorrow.

And I’ll tell you something – and that is that Terry had to do most of the lifting on his own because I’m out of it. It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t all that long ago that I was hauling engines and gearboxes out of cars all on my own. Nowadays I can’t even walk up the stairs, never mind carry anything up with me.

Just for a change just recently, this morning I was awake long before the alarm went off. At 05:09 in fact. And I was up before the second alarm went off. That’s been a while since that happened.

I reckon that going for a walk before going to bed might be doing me some good.

And I was on my travels during the night too. In the company of TOTGA who made a welcome return. She was on her way to a hospital appointment in Munich but part of the motorway was closed off. As a result, she was hours late for her appointment, which mean tthat she wouldn’t be finished in time to come home. As a result I had to ring around to find a hotel for her to stay during the night, and then contact her to tell her what to do and where to go to stay the night.

For breakfast I made a pot of coffee. But here’s the bad news. The machine has a timer on it that switches off after 40 minutes. So when you go back for another cup at 09:00, it’s cold. That’s no good at all

When Terry and I had finished our efforts with the moving I invited him to lunch. There’s a fish and chios lace down in the town where we went for a coffee on Sunday, so we went today to try out the food. Good it is, but it’s flaming well expensive.

After Terry went home I crashed out. And a proper crash out it was too. I was in agony in every joint. Ingrid awoke me with a phone call and we chatted for nearly half an hour. Things aren’t going so well for her in the Auvergne and I hope that they improve.

With tea out of the way I went for a walk again. I hope that it tires me out and I can have another good sleep. Tomorrow, I’m off to the dechetterie and then to buy some frozen food.

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