Category Archives: Nerina Hall

Sunday 29th March 2020 – AND IF YOU …

… were wondering whether today was any better than yesterday, the answer is “I don’t know. I missed half of it”.

And that’s no exaggeration either. It might only … “only, he said” – ed … have been 11:00 when I awoke, but it was 12:05 when I finally heaved myself out of bed this mor … errr … afternoon.

So that was basically the day ruined.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have said … “on many occasions” – ed … that everyone should have one day each week when they can do nothing and not be ashamed of the fact, but as far as I’m concerned that was yesterday. I was hoping to be much more focused today.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone. And I’d certainly been much more focused during the night, that’s for sure.

Last night I had started off with Laurence and Roxanne when Nerina put in an appearance and wasn’t very happy to see me. It was an evening when I was on my own. The next morning along came Laurence and Roxanne and they had come to see me too. Nerina had turned up by accident by the way. As it happened there was some kind of swimming regatta so we got Roxanne to take part in this. It was like a swimming obstacle race. Of course she leapt in the water and went right round this obstacle race but something happened on the very last section and she had to be lifted out and whatever happened was put right and she had to jump back in. But they wouldn’t let her do the underwater somersault but we were urging her on to go back and do it. In the end she turned round and swam back but they wouldn’t let her do it so she swam away. Laurence went to fetch her. As we were walking back to our little spec of seats and Nerina walked past us with a scowl on her face and said “we met yesterday” and just walked off. Laurence came back and Roxanne was crying, really disappointed and we put her on a shelf. In the end she got off this shelf and went to stand up where we were sitting. These two girls who were using this shelf were having a bit of, well, not a moan but going on about how Roxanne had got their shelf wet but Roxanne said “I was sitting on the one above where there were just things” and not where they were sitting.
Some time later I was doing one of these extraordinary exploration things that come on the TV every now and again about phenomena. There had been a helicopter crash in a small village and it had been one of these normal things but suddenly a white stain had appeared on the parapet of a bridge and people wanted to know what it was. They were all so suspicious about it being the sign of the Gods or something. We went to track it down, a woman and I, and I had a look round and I could see that there was some kind of watercourse where rain water had been flowing out of a field discreety onto the road. This had changed its course since the accident. You could see that there was some discolouring in the earth of this little watarcourse that had made the earth go a lot whiter than the earth of the soil. Se we suspected that the crash had changed this watercourse slightly and it was just a natural phenomenon that the water was now flowing through where it never flowed before and was percolating up some kind of hidden fissure in the bridge. Then we were prowling around a churchyard. Someone else in Cheshire had observed a fire in the sky that went on for weeks in the direction of the Gobi Desert and the Sahara Desert about 150 years before any explorer had actually been there. We were walking around this churchyard and there was someone’s visitor book there and a page had blown off it that was a report about “St Anne’s Day” or a diary page for St Anne’s Day. It had blown onto the floor so I picked it up and put it back on the lectern and put a kind of embossed stone on top to hold it on. The woman with me said something like “we haven’t come here to change things around, have we?” all this kind of thing. I said “no, I’m just putting things back where they had blown from”. She was going on about changing things round and taking things away. Of course we weren’t doing that at all.

Breakfast at 13:15 is a much more reasonable way to go about things on a Sunday, and then I attacked the music.

Another four albums split up and filed without two many problems – just one album where a couple of tracks wouldn’t work and I had to hunt them down elsewhere which took some time.

While they were doing, I was catching up by working on the photos for July 2019. I’m now in Rif setting out on my walk to the Svodufoss waterfall and I remember that walk very well. The waterfall looked as if it was just a couple of fields away and it was too, but no-one said that there was a big river in the way so we had to walk in large figure “Z” shape to reach it. My fitbit at the end of the day showed 12.4 kms and I felt every step of the way.

Another thing that I did was to join up all of the speech files for the Grande Marée broadcast and intersperse the joins with beach ambience soundfiles. As for the speech, I’ve asked Laurent if he will do an introduction and a conclusion and he’ll get back to me. When he replies, I’ll see what he has to say and I’ll do a brief text for the other intervals.

Then of course, there was the hour on the guitar. Mustn’t forget that.

For tea tonight I had something of a bake-in.

With needing the oven for the pizza I’ve been baking desserts in there every Sunday evening and tonight, having remembered the cooking apples yesterday, I made an apple pie.

And with the left-over pastry and left-over apple, I rolled out the pastry and squared it off, added the apple and desiccated coconut, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar, and made an apple turnover.

The pizza was delicious of course, and so was the apple turnover with the soya coconut. I shall be attacking the pie as from tomorrow evening and I have high hopes.

With being distracted by the time and all that, it was very late when I went outside for my exercise.

And my first run was a dismal failure. There was a gale blowing out there that was the equal of some of the best that we have had and trying to walk around in many places was impossible. If you wonder why this image was so blurred, the fact is that I was being blown around in a Force 10 gale at the moment that I pressed the shutter.

Liz had told me earlier that the wind was coming from Greenland and that I ought to complain to Heidinnguaq. Well, I dunno about where it was coming from but I know exactly where it was going and it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Finding a spot that was out of the wind I managed a run in the end.

And that led me down a new alley that I hadn’t walked before. The rue des Degres. So at least all of this stuff is broadening my horizons.

Back here, I wrote up my journal as I listened to some music. It didn’t take me long because of course there wasn’t much to write.

It’s still late though so I’m heading to bed. It’s a busy week next week because I have two rock music projects to do, an audio diary to write and then to finish off this Grande Marée thing when Laurent lets me have his notes.

No matter what I do, the work still keeps on piling up, doesn’t it?

Tuesday 18th February 2020 – I CAN NOW ADD …

… to my list of accomplishments that of “tying up a trawler”.

I arrived at the harbour at exactly the moment that the harbour gates opened, and I actually do mean that because I was walking across the path on top when they started to close and I had to scramble underneath the barrier.

There must have been eight or nine fishing boats of various sizes sitting in the queue outside the gates waiting for the off.

Anyway, as soon as the gates opened, they shot in like greyhounds out of a trap and headed for their berths.

One of the later arrivals pulled up right by me as I was walking down the quayside. The skipper shouted “tie us up, will you?” and hurled me a rope. I missed the first time but the second time I caught it and looped it over a bollard and wound it round.

he seemed quite satisfied that I’d done it correctly so I cleared off. I had no idea that passers-by – civilians like me – were expected to know how to do things like this and be roped (if you’ll excuse the pun) into participating in the antics of the fishing fleet.

You learn something new every day.

Nothing new though in this morning’s antics. I missed the alarms again and it was about 06:45 when I finally arose.

But I’d been awake a couple of times during the night and on both occasions found myself dictating the account of a nocturnal voyage … into my hand. Dictaphone still on the chest of drawers.

It’s enough to make me wonder how many times I’ve done that in the past and what I might have missed.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone and … GULP there’s enough on here to keep me busy for a week or so, enver mind half an hour.

There was a group of kids, 7 or 8 or 9 and it was some kind of adventure quest. They had to travel to France for some reason or other, all dressed up, even two of them dressed as a pantomime horse with a girl dressed as a princess sitting on top, all dashing off down to Dover docks. I was one of the monitors – I had to follow them around and make sure that they weren’t getting up to any good. They had challenges that they had to meet on the way, like one where it was the task of this pantomime horse to actually involve itself in the encounter, this kind of thing. I pile of them made it down to Dover so I said “what happens now? Do you have to get your tickets?”. One said “ohh no. They said we could get our tickets at the other side” which sounded strange to me but they all seemed to agree that that was what was supposed to be happening. They were all jostling around for a place to sit. One of the girls was Helena who was probably a little older, 10 or 11 I dunno so i got talking to her. “What have you been doing?” “Well apart from having to drive my car to the Isle of Man, not a great deal” so I asked her to tell me about her kind of adventure in this particular thing but she didn’t have the chance to before I awoke
And I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Dictating a dream in my sleep without the Dictaphone. Strange. I was up on the Elm Drive estate in what should have been a council house but it was a big private house of mine. I was doing it up but I’d been taken ill as you know and couldn’t work so the work had really slowed down on this place. But Castor and Pollux were there and Jerry Kobalenko (welcome into my nocturnal rambles, Jerry) too. We were preparing for an expedition and it had started and we had lost a lot of equipment and I’d fallen through the ice. We’d had to arrange this kind of thing and ended up with no clothes so we were back at my house again drying off. I started to lend Jerry some clothes and stuff like that and get myself organised. Jerry borrowed my car which was a Mark IV Cortina RHD but with the gear lever on the right up against the door. He went off and did something and then I came back and took the car for a drive. Went down West Avenue and Richard Moon Street and out to Nantwich. Round Nantwich and back again all the way up Middlewich Road. I can’t remember where I ended up then, some town or other and had to do a U-turn. I pulled out of a side road and nearly knocked a lorry off over into the centre of the road. There was a huge power station where I did my U-turn and came back. Castor and Pollux were talking to me. They asked me what I intended to do about the house. I said that I was going to finish it off and live here. They were surprised and asked if I ought to be taking more care of my health. I gave them the usual story about wanting to enjoy what life I had left rather than being afraid and not doing anything. They were a bit surprised by this but I told them that was how it was. They asked what I was going to do for money. I wasn’t going to say anything but yes I’m OK for money, plenty of it. I said “you don’t need a job”. Castor said to Pollux “but everyone needs a job, you know” and Pollux was still wondering how you manage to live, all this kind of thing. I was trying my best to explain to her. I’d forgotten that bit about taxis when I was out in the car. I wasn’t supposed to be taxiing and I had to stop thinking about being a taxi driver. So this discussion went on and then was when I awoke to find myself dictating this dream out loud into my hand not the dictaphone so I’ve no idea what has happened there – and how many other times I might have dictated into my hand during my sleep and never been aware of it.
Interestingly, it proves the point that dreams are connected with memories and not out-of-body experiences – at least this one was. The area of West Street around West Avenue, Richard Moon Street and Middlewich Road has undergone all kinds of changes since the demolition of the railway works after I left the town. But not one of these changes appeared in my voyage around that area.
Somewhat later I was doing exactly the same thing again – dictating my dream into my hand while asleep. It was a cowboy situation – the James Brothers. One of them was an outlaw, fed up of them being on the run and wanted to go straight. He was talking to me about it. I went outside and there was the other brother trying to break in a horse. That was when I awoke to find myself dictating my dream in my sleep again
Later on I was with Nerina and we’d been working on a taxi. We’d had to have some letraset done to make some stickers and Karen Brierley had done it. The job was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t have had the patience to do this, as I told her, but this was really good. In fact we’d been talking about business cards prior to this. Someone had taken us to a place and the guy had opened up a set of drawers that he rented out, right by the doorway. “You’ll know what’s in here” he said and opened the top drawer but there was nothing in it. he opened the next one and it was full of business cards and that’s how we got talking about stickers. We much preferred stickers for the taxis because you could stick them everywhere. Anyway then people then were going on about this taxi, painted white and letraset it but it was really late. My family were all up and Nerina was really tired, and I needed her to do some more work. In the end I smiled and said “yes, go on Nerina, go to bed”. I said to my mother that I won’t be up very long either. Even though they were planning to be up all night I’d go to bed and do this first thing in the morning. She went off to bed and I went out to work on this car. But I came back because I was in a suit. I took off the jacket and shirt and went to get an old tee-shirt. And as for jeans I’d but on a pair of overalls to protect the trousers.

As you can imagine, it took me much more than half an hour to type out all of that. I had a break for breakfast at some point and then came back to carry on and it was right into mid-morning by the time that I’d finished all of that.

That meant that finally I could start on the notes for the radio project on which I’m working, but I wasn’t at it for long because I needed to go for my bread.

First task was to leave the house of course. And it was a bright sunny day so i’d planned a nice long walk.

Not that i would get very far though before I had to stop. regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m quite interested in the plant life around here – this kind of plant of course, not the other kind. So when I saw this mobile crane pull up on the other side of the harbour I stopped to photograph it.

No idea what it might be doing there. There’s already enough plant and machinery over there as it is.

As I walked down the boulevard des Terreneuviers I noticed that the fishing boats were now jostling for position at the entrance to the inner harbour even though the “traffic light” was showing red.

That could only mean one thing – that the harbour gates were closed but would be opening very shortly. I had a brief look at the chantier navale but there was nothing there any different from the last time I looked.

And so I pushed on rather rapidly, not even stopping to take a photo of the shellfish that they were hauling up from a boat at the fish-processing plant.

Just as I set foot on the footpath across the top of the gates the siren sounded. I moved rapidly but the barrier came down and the gates started to open before I could cross over.

Luckily I was on the far gate so I didn’t have to jump for it, but I still had to scramble under the barrier at the far side. But I’m glad I did because it gave me an opportunity to inspect the fishing tackle on one of the fishing boats.

So now I know where everything goes and what it’s for. I’ll have to get myself out there on a fishing boat one of these days and have a first-hand look at it.

So as all of the fishing boats cleared off into the harbour, I cleared off after them. And that was when I had my encounter with the other fishing boat that I had to tie up.

The guys were there with the pontoon and the large mobile crane. Having been rebuffed the other day I decided not to waste my time asking them anything but to wait and use my own eyes to see what was going on.

And I wasn’t to be disappointed at all, as you will see in due course.

Another one of the things that I’m doing right now is to go round by where the fête foraine – the funfair – will be for the carnival and see how they are getting on with arranging everything.

In the Place Godal, where some of the caravans of the entertainers are parked, there was this popcorn, toffee apple and ice cream stall.

Not that i reckon that it’s supposed to be set up there (although it wouldn’t come as any surprise) but my thinking was that they are waiting for the funfair to erect itself and then these stalls will fit in around the amusements.

So down to the Parking Hérel to see how they were doing.

And the big machinery is going up together quite nicely – and quickly. In fact the apparatus on the left was actually working, swinging back and forth. It made me wonder whether the inspectors were actually there today checking it over.

These machines are impressive but they are quite dangerous and can’t ply for hire until they have been inspected and have a permit to operate.

The Palais de Rire – the Palace of Laughter – looks impressive and they must have worked impressively to have it done this quickly. They had barely started on it yesterday.

But I learnt something today too, and I’m always in the market for learning new things.

There was a lorry there that was towing a couple of trailers – the typical “showman’s goods” lorry. So I asked someone with it what licence yuo needed to drive with more than one trailer.

The answer was (the Fench equivalent of) “a HGV Class one licence – nothing else”. In other words, any ordinary Heavy Artic licence. And I have one of those, don’t I?

But don’t worry. My days of driving all this heavy stuff are over.

From there I walked into town and La Mie Caline to pick up my dejeunette

And here across the road is something that wasn’t here this time yesterday. Clutching my bread quite tightly, I went for a closer look.

They are pushing along quite rapidly with the features for Carnaval as we can see. This is the stage from which they will make all of the announcements I reckon and where there might be some kind of entertainment during the evening – I dunno.

Yesterday I’d been past the car park in the Cours Jonville and seen them laying out the edges of the chapiteau – the big marquee where the Friday night Ball will take place.

And so I went that way today to see how they were getting on with it. And “getting on with it” they certainly are. It’s quite impressive the speed with which they are putting up these things and the marquee is certainly one of the more exciting things

So Friday night we’re going to ba having a Ball. Well, they are. I shall be tucked up in my warm little bed ready for the onslaught the following day.

The roadworks in the place des Corsaires have gone now and the street is open. Me though, I pushed on up the rue des Juifs until I was interrupted.

Excuse the dreadful shot but the sun was right in my eyes and in the camera lens. But here’s our mobile crane, now on this side of the harbour in the rue du Port and the big pontoon has sailed over here too.

And between the pair of them they are manoeuvring one of the pontoon supports into place ready for fixing against the harbour wall. I was lucky to catch this photo today.

Back here I had a late lunch and then set about my afternoon project.

Peel some ginger, dice it into some very tiny squares and then put it in a small amount of water to boil, then leave to simmer.

Meanwhile, peel four good juicy oranges and put them in the whizzer. Whizz them round and then filter out the orange juice which goes in the fridge in a bottle.

The left-over pulp goes into the pan with the ginger and it’s all left to simmer.

While that’s doing, put about 5mm of water in the bottom of your nice new big saucepan and add plenty of lemon juice to it.

hen peel, core and dice seven apples and three pears. When they are finely cut, add them to the water and lemon juice as you go along, swirling them around so that there’s some lemony liquid covering all of them to stop them browning.

Then add desiccated coconut and some cinnamon to the apples and pears, take off the orange and ginger and put the apples and pears etc onto the heat and bring to the boil and leave to simmer.

With the orange pulp and ginger add a couple of dessert spoons of honey and stir well in. Then add to the whizzer and give it a really good whizzing around to liquidise almost everything. Then when it’s cooled down, add to the orange juice and give it all a really good shake.

There’s a nice orange and ginger syrup to add to filtered water.

That was the cue to go for my afternoon walk.

There were crowds of people out there today because it was so nice, and I’m glad that I went out when I did because I saw a most unexpected sight. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing the new pontoons stacked up on the quayside the other day, but here’s one in the water heading across to the cranes that we saw earlier.

But how are them moving? They aren’t rowing them so maybe there’s an outboard motor somewhere, I suppose.

There had been a heavy rainstorm briefly a short while earlier but it had passed and was gone.

Not too far though because we had this gorgeous rainbow. We’ve certainly seen some impressive rainbows since we’ve been living here but this one is one of the best.

Back here I checked to see that the apples were done, and then strained off the liquid. That’s in a bottle ready to be diluted in early course.

As for the solids, they went into the whizzer and turned into purée for me to bottle. That’ll keep me going for a week or so.

Now I could finish off writing the texts and dictate them, just interrupted by a little 10-minute crash out. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to finish editing them before it was tea-time which was a shame.

For tea I had a stuffed pepper with rice followed by apple turnover and Alpro soya almond with chocolate sauce. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that now that i’m much better-organised my diet is improving 100%

Cutting out these shop-bought sugary drinks and their plastic bottles was really a good New Year resolution.

For my walk I managed my two runs and then headed back here to write up my notes.

And now bed-time. After my marathon adventures during the night last night I’m ready for a good sleep. I just hope that I remember to use the dictaphone if i want to dictate any notes.

Thursday 2nd January 2020 – LAST NIGHT …

… was not as early as I hoped it would be.

By the time I’d finished out stripping the applause from that live concert and filing it away, it was long after midnight.

There were still a couple of other things to do too and by the time I made it to bed, it was … errr … 02:40 or thereabouts.

My fitbit tells me that I had 4.20 hours of sleep last night, of which just 3.26 was restful sleep. It’s no real surprise then that although I heard the alarms go off, it was more like 07:00, not 06:00 when I finally struggled out of bed.

After the medication and before breakfast, I attacked the dictaphone notes from last night. Always time to go off on a little ramble.

There are some people whose company I positively welcome to accompany me on my little voyages, and regular readers of this rubbish won’t be unaware of who these people might be.

There are others about whom I have well, I suppose, ambivalent sentiments. I can take them or leave them.

But there’s a third group in respect of whom I would cross over to the other side and turn my back rather than to go anywhere voluntarily with them, even if they were proposing going towards Kate Bush and Jenny Agutter. And it was one of those who I encountered last night.

He was there last night and for a change he was being quite friendly, which was quite a surprise considering how things were before I left the UK and on one legendary subsequent encounter. He was going through all of his diary notes from years and years and years ago, all like little blue paper sheets put in folders. We were talking about a Crewe Alex match and the name of a player came up. I can’t remember who he was playing for when we discussed it but he neded up playing for Bury and we did say his name but I can’t remember it. He got his sheets out and said “yes, I went to see that match. The Alex played them on such and such a date and there was a crowd of 3,000-odd there (… in those days 2,000 would have been a really good gate …) only 35 different from the crowd today (… they are now getting over 4,000 …)” he said. “Things haven’t changed much, have they?”. I talked about the prices, all that sort of thing, that it costs a lot more to go in than it did in those days. Then there was something about going to see a house that we were thinking of buying, in a cul-de-sac somewhere like Franklin Avenue. The house had been empty for years and we really didn’t want people to know that we had bought it but we had to go. He had arranged an appointment with an expert to be there, so we had to be there at about 10:00 which meant that Nerina would be late for work that day. We had to wait around for him to come to pick us up. I was doing stuff in one room of the barn and she was doing stuff on her Wolseley in another back in Virlet. It was the first time that we had been back in Virlet for quite some time. There was a strong wind blowing so I went to see what the wind turbine was doing because there was a little ventilator thing on the desk in the room where I was working and that was going round like the clappers with the current. I went outside to have a look and the wind turbine was actually broken. A couple of the blades were shattered in pieces and the through-rod thing had dismantled and it was looking really really sad. I remember thinking that I should have spent the money on more solar instead. I didn’t want to say anything to Nerina to point out about the wond turbine having failed but anyway I was surprised to see her working on her car so I just said some kind of non-commital thing and didn’t say very much.

After breakfast I made a start on Project 009 but I didn’t get far before I broke off for a shower and a general clean-up.

After all, it is Thursday and that is shopping day at LIDL.

So off I set but I didn’t get very far before I was waylaid. Out there in the bay there was something moving about, and I only had the Nikon 1 with the standard zoom lens. But I took a photo of it to see what it might be, with the aim of blowing it up (the photo, not the object of course) back at home.

And here you are. It’s one of the small fishing boats that goes out for the shellfish, heading off into the English Channel.

Talking of fishing boats, there was more action in the inner harbour.

The harbour gates had now opened and so the larger fishing boats were slowly stirring themselves into life. This one here, with a crew of two on the deck and presumably a third at the wheel, was now heading off out to sea.

In the background we have Granville, the newer of the two Channel Island ferry boats. behind it, pretty much obscured, is Victor Hugo, the older one and quite probably the more reliable of the two.

The walk up to LIDL was a little more painful than it has been recently and I’m not sure why. But I reached there without a great deal of effort and did a little shop.

For a change, there was nothing in the weekly sale that interested me so it was a relatively light shop. More than usual because I’m not going to be here on Saturday for my weekly shopping so I need to make sure that I have enough food on hand until I can visit the shops again.

Back here, I unpacked the shopping and put it away and then resumed my work on the project.

There was a break for lunch (I’d remembered to pick up my dejeunette) and then back to the grind. And by the time that I’d finished, it was time for my afternoon walk.

It wasn’t really cold out there, and it wasn’t as windy as it has been either.

Consequently there were hordes of people milling around outside making the most of what is really unseasonable weather. These were just a few of the people out there today.

No dogs in this shot, which is surprising because there were quite a few round about and at one point we were treated to a little scrap between a couple of them. It certainly livened up the proceedings.

Way out across the bay I’d noticed something unusual on the beach way past Donville les Bains so I took a photo of it to blow up back home.

My initial impression was that it might have been some oyster beds or something similar, but a closer examination of the photo reveals that it’s a large heap of rocks being used as a reinforcement or storm-breaker in front of the little holiday camp out there near the airfield.

With the winds and the storms that we’ve been having, I reckon that they are going to need it too.

Talking of storms and the like, you can’t see it clearly on this photo unfortunately but there was quite a storm brewing out over there off the Brittany coast.

There was a patch of sea about 2kms square that was receiving a right pasting from a torrential downpour. I took a photo of it with the hope of being able to digitally enhance it back in the apartment but it didn’t work out.

You’ll just have to take my word for it if you can’t see it.

Something else that has appeared at the Pointe du Roc just recently is this stele that resembles the headstone of a grave.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the past year they’ve gradually been trasforming the Pointe du Roc into a pilgimage site for the French Resistance and they’ve erected all kinds of monuments and flagpoles and the like.

This seems to have sprung up overnight too – I don’t recall having seen it before. It’s another memorial to the Resistants and I don’t know why they feel the need for another one without explaining why it differs from the big one just around the corner.

There seems to be signs of movement at the chantier navale too.

Spirit of Conrad is still there and there are a couple of people, one of whom may well be my neighbour, working on it. The smaller fishing boat is also still there.

Conspicuous by its absence though is the larger trawler-type of fishing boat. It looks as if that may have gone back into the water on the early morning tide.

And in the background Joly France and Chausiais are still over at the ferry terminal. They don’t seem to have moved for a good few days.

Back here, I had a little think. There’s a life-changing event taking place in Europe in four weeks time and it’s something that I ought to be commemorating, even if I’m not allowed under the terms of my contract to discuss it.

But Pete Seeger once famously said “Songs Are Weapons” and I have plenty of weapons, and even a launch pad to fire them off. Consequently I spent some time searching for suitable weapons and after about an hour or so I’d ended up with more than enough.

If I put my mind to it, I can come up with something quite formidable and that will be impressive.

For tea tonight I had the other half of the curry from the other night and then went for my walk.

There were a few people, mostly young kids, loitering around but I still managed my run. However I ended up just 10 feet from the top of the ramp before I ran out of steam.

So back here to write up my notes, and then off to bed.

But the good news relates once again to the fitbit. In December I walked 264.95 kms – almost 9 kms per day, and ran for 1 hour 48 minutes – about 3.5 minutes per day. There were only 9 days when I didn’t make the magical 100% and there was one day where I made 179%.

That’s not bad for an Old-Age Pensioner and I’ll go with that any day of the week. But I’m not going to rest on my laurels. I’m going to push on (or push off as the case may be) and see if I can do even better than that.

It’s never too late to try to achieve a satisfactory level of fitness and I do have to say that it seems to be working because I’m feeling better now than I have done over the last few years.

Onwards and upwards, hey?

Sunday 10th November 2019 – EXCUSE ME …

… a minute while I shave the palms of my hands.

We’re getting close to that time of year again and probably within a day or two we’ll be having a full moon. It won’t affect me of course, because although I used to be a werewolf, I’m all right nooooooooooooooooow!

Nothing wrong with a bit of lycanthropy when yuo can get it, is there?

You’re probably looking at the huge pile of photos from today and thinking that I’ve really been out on the prowl today.

And that’s quite true. I’ve done over 100% of my day’s target according to my fitbit and I haven’t failed to notice that the daily target for the new keep-fit me has increased from 7.7 kms to 9.0 kms as a result of my increased athletic activity.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t go out on the prowl today. No-one was more disappointed than me to wake up, despite having a rather latish night last night, at 06:09. And on a Sunday too.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. If anyone thinks that i’m goign to be doing anything at that particular time of the morning on a Sunday, they are totally mistaken.

What I did was to turn over and go back to sleep, where I stayed until a much-more realistic and appropriate … errr … 11:25.

Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a day like that!

Plenty of time to go on a nocturnal ramble, you might be thinking. And you’re dead right.

Last night I was helping out in a cafe somewhere taking the cash from people and paying it into the till and there was some confusion about what went where because I couldn’t see where the 5 cents went. I just left them on the side while I carried on working .later, the manager came in and had a look round. “Ohh the 5 cents go in here” he said, pointing to a space in the till. But that had all kinds of rambling writing in it from someone. We had a look at it and quite a laugh because the narrative was changing from “us” to “we” to “I” as if he wasn’t really sure about who he was writing about (… there’s a Sherlock Holmes story about this …) in his long rambling speech. We had a good laugh about it and I said that I hadn’t wanted to disturb it otherwise I would have missed the start of this conversation, something like that. he said “yes” – it’s very important to get the start or you just have to wait a year and get it when it comes round again next year”. We began to talk about music lessons and I’m not quite sure how that fitted into the arrangement anywhere and I was saying that I wanted to learn the guitar and the piano and a third instrument and I lost my way into a rambling incoherent thing after that and woke up – that was at 06:09.

As I said, i went back to sleep and ended up in Leek last night – but don’t ask me why – and it wasn’t Leek at all but some strange town. I was walking through it, although there wasn’t all that much to walk through and I wanted to find a way to walk through the town. I found a street that was called James Lyette Way or James Wysse Way or something like that and that name rang a bell with me in this town – I could not think why. So I thought that I would go this way. So I got round that way and I was kicking something in front of me which wa making a rattly noise and I’d only gone about 30 yards in front of me when I came to a dead stop because there was a huge set of double doors in front of me with glass and this was the shopping centre. I thought “yes I remember this” so I walked in. There was a group of young people in there all over the place milling around, standing, talking, leaning against the wall, sitting and I noticed that they were all wearing a kind of plaid overshirt, the type that I used to like to wear but they were wearing them two by two – like if you were in a couple you had to have the same overshirt as your partner. They were lounging around and drinking coffee and so on and I said to whoever I was with “God this is where everyone – a heavy place to hang out”. There were no shops but just like little rooms with glass fronts for little groups to sit with coffee. There were stairs so we went upstairs and there was like an art class going on and people were around there doing art things, all young people all wearing these plaid shirts in couples. I was hoping to find a door through here so I could get out and find my way onto the main road, or find some shops or something interesting but this shopping precinct in James Lyette Way was really strange because there are no shops, just these rooms with these groups of young people in them sitting around.
But somewhere in the middle of all of this I had an old Ford “T” and I was having to drive somewhere. This Model “T” was old and creaking and the steering wheel was weak and about to break in two but I was driving it all the same (… and people were noticing me and watching …) on this road that was taking me towards Leek. It was all up and down hill and round bends and over canal bridges and I seem to remember that this vehicle was going really well and I was doing about 40mph and I thought to myself that at times I’ve gone down here at 60mph and it’s seemed to be really slow so I thought that it must be something to do with the particular make of car or type of car and that was when I got into Leek. And it was strange because I had to walk though the streets and they had traffic lights to control the flow of pedestrians on the pavement because the pavements were so narrow and they didn’t want you to be walking into the street.
(… something that I maybe ought to add because I can still remember it even if I didn’t dictate it – that on my way back downstairs I noticed sitting on a window ledge a young girl with glasses and curly hair all sticking up around her head. Although she was wearing a plaid overshirt she didn’t seem to strike me as being the kind of person who would have a partner (although I’m not sure why because I thought that she was quite attractive) but having a good look round I found a tall girl on her own wearing the same plaid overshirt …)

With a late start to today (almost an early start for tomorrow in fact) I had my medication and subsequently my breakfast rather later. And I did without lunch too.

instead, I cracked on and transcribed the night’s dictaphone notes, and then carried on updating the web page that I told you about the other day, and the relevant files that go to it.

And reviewing what I wrote at the time, I can say without fear of contradiction that I’m glad that I don’t write like that any more and that I’ve moved on from those days.

That took me nicely up to the time for my afternoon walk, having missed my morning walk.

With it being a Sunday with a Bank Holiday to follow, and a nice afternoon to boot, the place was absolutely heaving. I’m sure that I can say with confidence that I have never ever seen so many people out there, even on a summer Sunday afternoon.

No idea what was going on at all

And it was certainly a nice day for being out there.

Although there was something of a wind, the air was perfectly clear and I could see for miles. Even parts of the Channel Islands that I have never ever seen before were perfectly visible with the big zoom lens this afternoon.

And I felt really sorry for the couple behind me asking each other if they could see with the naked eye whatever it was that I was photographing.

It wasn’t just on land that there were hordes of people either. It was pretty crowded out there on the water too.

This yacht was one of the many out there today having a really good time, and we were once more photo-bombed by some kind of flying thing.

Although I have spent many years doing plenty of bird-watching, and with binoculars and huge telephoto zoom lenses, it wasn’t this kind of bird that I was watching so I’ve no idea what it is. Craig thinks that it’s a cormorant but I wouldn’t know.

And that brings me round to one particular occasion when we were aboard The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and they announced that we were going to have a lecture on birdwatching.

“Not a problem” I replied. “I had plenty of those from Nerina when I was married”

“Hordes of people in the water” I said just now. And I was right too.

We’ve seen plenty of stuff in the English Channel, but the Baie de Mont St Michel was heaving with vessels too enjoying the wind.

And you can see how clear the weather was today too. Even the hotels down at the foot of the bay near Mont St Michel are clearly visible in this photo, and that’s without me making any special effort to include them in the image.

From the Pointe du Roc I carried on down the path and into town along the harbour.

One of the reasons why I’d come here was to have a closer look at this strange van that has been parked at the fish processing plant for quite a while.

Either the rear suspension has collapsed or else there’s a really heavy weight in the back of it because the rear end is almost touching the roadway.

And it looks to me as if someone has jemmied the back doors of it at one time too. They are held together at the moment by a cord tied across the back.

Another reason for my being down in the port area today was to go and have a look at the strange boat that has just appeared in the harbour.

The tidal gates were shut as I strolled leisurely past the fish processing plant, but just as I was about to put my foot on the top of the gates, the siren went off, the barrier went down and the gates started to open.

It seems that I had missed them by about 2 seconds. But I contented myself with watching them open, and then walked around the harbour to the other side.

That new boat was still there, tied up at the quay in between Vicor Hugo and Charles Marie.

And I can put a name to her too. She’s called the Chausiais and she’s out of Cherbourg.

But interestingly, she’s painted up with the advertising from the company that runs the ferry service out to the Iles de Chausey, so does this mean that they are now going to be running some kind of freight service out there?

Talking of freight services to the Iles De Chausey, we’ve seen La Grande Ancre go out that way on a couple of occasions with what looked like a load of freight.

More recently though she’s been going back and to into the bay to carry out what looks like fishing activities.

But here she is, at rest today in the harbour with some kind of pontoon or lighter tied up to her.

What with one thing and another, there’s a lot of activity in the harbour these days even if we haven’t seen a gravel boat for quite some time and it doesn’t look as if there’s one due any time soon.

With it being such a nice day today I decided to carry on with another long walk.

My journey took me through the town and out along the old harbour railway in the general direction of the Parc du Val es Fleurs.

It’s a walk that I’ve taken on a few occasions but it wasn’t until today that I looked up onto the top and saw this building.

It’s called the “Institution Sevigne’ and it’s some kind of secondary school. The school’s advertising blurb (crudely translated by Yours Truly – after all, if you want any crudity then, in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man”) says that it’s a “Catholic Educational Establishment of which the aim is to help young people become adults”, whatever that is supposed to imply.

In the Parc du Val Es Fleurs there is some kind of zoo place where there are several animals of all kinds – terrestrial as well as aquatic ones.

With the crowds of people milling around the park, all of the animals were out there looking for some petting or, maybe, some food, although feeding the animals is strictly forbidden.

This horned sheep and these hens were eyeing me rather suspiciously, but I’m a vegan, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall

There’s a path and a set of steps at the back of the park that lead up to the top of the corniche and the road to Donville-les-Bains.

We were starting to lose the light by now but there was still a good view out across the rooftops and I could see a yacht out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel making the most of the last of the weekend’s sunshine, with the Brittany coast in the background.

The seagulls perched in a line on the roof were enjoying it too.

There’s a back way down the hill to the Place Marechal Foch.

That was the route that I took, and found myself amongst yet another madding crowd of people. Although the wind has died down considerably from how it was a few days ago, there’s still quite a powerful force embedded in the sea.

All of the people were thoroughly enjoying it, even when they received a drenching from the spray. And we’re still half an hour from high tide too.

But here’s an object lesson for you all.

Never stand on the boat-launching ramp when the sea is powering its way into shore like this. One of the waves caught the edge of the ramp just in the right place at the right moment and we had this huge cloud of spray thrown up.

When the wind caught it and blew it inland, that guy there knew all about it.

For a change I climbed up tall the steps and headed home for tea. A vegan pizza, which was delicious and properly cooked too, seeing as I’ve moved the oven shelf down one row to the bottom.

Rice pudding too for afters.

Even though I’d had a really good walk this afternoon, I still went out for my evening promenade.

One or two people out there too enjoying the chilly night, and so was I because I could take my time. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow so I can have a lie-in.

The pleasant evening enticed me to linger a while, leaning over the wall and looking down to the Place Marechal Foch where I was earlier this evening.

And then back home, but not before I include this photo of the Parc Val es Fleurs.

The reason why it’s so interesting is that you can see just how far down it is and that gives you some idea of the steps and that path that I had to climb up to the top.

The slope is about one-in-three and I actually managed to run about 100 metres up it too, and I was well-impressed by that.

And not only that either. On my way back from my evening walk I managed my evening run and made it all the way up to the top of the little ramp too – the one that in the past has always defeated me.

Things must be looking up.

So now it’s bed-time. No alarm for me tomorrow as it’s a Bank Holiday. And if I have a sleep that’s only half as good as the one that I had last night I’ll be happy.

There will be more albums to record too. So far tonight I’ve done seven.

And the guitar too. This afternoon I’ve been working out the chords to Traffic’s “Dear Mr Fantasy”.

But before I go completely, I’ll let you make up your own minds about what these kids were doing in a quiet corner of the Primary School playground down by the little stream.

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fishing pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

yacht motor boat english channel granville manche normandy france

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yachts baie de mont st michel pointe de carolles granville manche normandy france

privateer Le Pelley de Pléville dit la Mouette granville manche normandy france

chausiais granville manche normandy france

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Tuesday 10th September 2019 – IT MIGHT BE …

… only 20:00 right now, but what I don’t understand is that I’m absolutely whacked and I’m going to bed in a moment.

In fact I’ve been fighting off the Sandman (and not always successfully either) since about 15:00.

It’s not as if I have done anything exerting either. I had a reasonable (for me, anyway) night’s sleep with an awakening round about 03:00 as seems to be usual.

Not sure where I was during the night (I’ll find out when I listen to the dictaphone) but Nerina was in there somewhere, presumably come to keep an eye on me. She used to have that rather bizarre knack of turning up just when she was needed or when it was most useful, and I was convinced that she was much more in touch with her spirit side than she ever let on.

Ghost hunting (in the days when I lived with a ghost), water divining, she was quite good at all of that and much much more. In fact it wasn’t until I started to meet other women after we moved off down our separate roads that I realised how lucky I had been for nearly 9 years. I just wish that we had learnt to talk to each other.

But back on the subject of dreams and changing planes, I remembered that on several occasions on board I had dreamt that I had dictated my dream into the dictaphone, only to find that I had dreamt it and not done it.

So that’s at least a climb up onto the third plane, so I am moving about quite dramatically.

This morning, I didn’t have to do the school run. Instead Darren came to fetch me and we went back down to Woodstock to pick up the springs that we took down yesterday. With a hydraulic press the size that they have, it didn’t take them long at all to push put the seized bolts and bushes. And so successful were they that two of the bolts were reuseable – although we aren’t that desperate.

Back at the house I made my lunch and then went on down to the depot. We were really busy today and most people were pleased to see me.

Zoe took the afternoon off so I quickly went into Florenceville. The insurance on Strider is due for renewal and needs paying, and because I’m a non-resident with a foreign driving licence they punish me severely. Nevertheless, it’s still cheaper than hiring a vehicle and there’s no-one complaining about where I go and what to do. And a 4×4 high ground clearance vehicle is important in many places in which I travel.

Thanks to Scotia Bank for helping me with the e-transfer

At the depot this afternoon I was doing a bit of everything. But I did recall a sign that I once saw in a garage in the USA –
OUR HOURLY RATE IS CALCULATED AS FOLLOWS –
Talking to the customer – 5 mins
Looking at the job – 5 mins
Fixing the job – 5 mins
Testing the job – 5 mins
Looking for the tools that we had in our hand 5 minutes ago – 40 mins.

That was me this afternoon. Changing a fuse in a radio connection is a 30-second job, but not when you then spend 25 minutes looking for the top of the fuse holder that you just had in your hand.

The accounts balanced at the first attempt so Rachel and I were leaving at 17:20, and collided straight away with someone who wanted to know if we had any scrap tyres.
“Just one or two” we said, waving our arms about in the general direction of the large scrap pile.
He’s coming back tomorrow to take some away.

This evening I was alone for ages so I had some of the left-over chick pea curry with rice. Everyone came back all at once so I retired to my room in peace and quiet, and here I’m going to stay.

I need an early night today too. Apart from the fact that I’m whacked, Darren is on his own in the garage tomorrow so I’m expecting to be rather busy fetching and carrying, and lifting heavy objects.

Still, it could be worse. I could be on holiday.

Saturday 7th September 2019 – I HAVE THROWN AWAY …

… a whole lifetime today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I travel around the world in some kind of peripatetic idyll, all of my possessions either on my back or in one of my trucks (Caliburn in Europe, Strider in North America).

But today, up at the mill, I heaved almost all of my North American possessions into a skip (dumpster to you North Americans) and put an end to my nomadic lifestyle.

It’s simply that I can’t do it any more and it’s no point pretending that I can continue. Watching the blood count slowly decline over the last two years down to the critical level (which it must surely have reached by now seeing as I haven’t had it checked for almost 3 months) and knowing that my days are numbered, it’s just useless weight that I’m dragging around with me.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be up in Montreal and I’ll be emptying out my storage locker. The only thing that I’ll be salvaging from there will be the amplifier and speaker for the bass and the remainder will be joining the rest of the travelling gear in that great camp site in the sky.

That’ll be the first time in Montreal this year. It’s not like me, is it?

But I’ll tell you something. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my mentioning the rather lively back end of Strider, how we travelled mainly sideways down a variety of gravel roads in Labrador. “Lively” back in those days had absolutely nothing on “lively” today, with almost nothing on the pick-up bed.

If I ever make it back to Labrador, we shall certainly be living in interesting times.

Having crowed about my really good nights just recently, it’s almost inevitable that they should catch up on me sooner or later.

And so it was last night.

For a start, we were still awake, the bass guitar and me, at well past midnight as I was picking away at various bass lines, unable to sleep. One thing about life on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour is that it has pumped music back into my soul.

But when I finally did manage to drop off, the dictaphone tell its own story. There’s a record on average about every 20 minutes over a three-hour period, and what I do remember from the various nocturnal rambles is that every single one of them concerned Castor pursuing me around the ship.

Not that I’m complaining of course. Usually, anyone pursuing me anywhere would be almost certainly brandishing the kind of offensive weapon that would paralyse a polar bear, so it makes a nice change to be pursued by pleasant company. What I don’t understand is why I thought it necessary to run away. I’m definitely losing my grip.

Once all of that was over I was up and about, only to find that we had run out of bread for breakfast. With Zoe not coming back last night, we hadn’t been to the shops had we?

Instead Rachel and I went straight up to the garage and made coffee, and slowly woke up.

Then it was that I attacked the emptying of Strider and that took me almost up to lunchtime. But lunchtime was late – there was a queue of trucks needing attention in the workshop and we couldn’t move one out until almost 12:45.

Zoe, who had by now put in an appearance, and I shot back to the house, picked up all of her belongings and, now that Strider was almost empty, whipped them down to her new house. And I’m glad that we had emptied Strider because by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong and there wasn’t much room inside the truck.

Atlantic Superstore was next for a week or two’s load of vegan food so that I can eat properly, and also due to the fact that we are having another vegan messing with us for a while.

There’s a hurricane threatening here and out in the sticks a back-up generator is necessary. But believe it or not, in a household with 6 cars, three trucks, two heavy trucks and assorted 4-wheelers, snowmobiles, golf carts and Amber’s motor scooter, there wasn’t a drop of spare fuel.

Consequently Hannah had thrown a pile of empty fuel cans into the back of Strider and I came back from Irvings at Woodstock with 157.6 litres of petrol in the back of Strider. The rear end of Strider wasn’t bouncing around at all then!

Next stop was back at the garage. Darren had a rear wheel bearing, driveshaft oil seal, brake disk and caliper to change on the rear of a Chevrolet D5500 heavy truck – the one that I drove down to New Hampshire a couple of years ago to take that racing engine for repair.

It’s not difficult task but it’s heavy, dirty and complex, and four hands are always better than two working down a cramped inspection pit.

The task involved a judicious amount of heat and with an oxy-acetylene welding torch it brought back many happy memories. The last time that I did any welding on a car was the old Passat back in 1997 but that was with the mig-welder. With oxy-acetylene, the last time that I did any welding was stitching Nerina’s Ford Fiasco back together back in something like 1991. When I had my taxi company I was probably welding up one car or other almost every day.

We’d finished by about 18:00 and staggered off back home.

And I couldn’t resist a smile. Driving 20 miles with 157 litres of petrol floating around in the back of the truck and having to invent a makeshift stopper for one of the cans – getting out the oxy-acetylene welding bottles – crawling around an inspection pit in a garage taking driveshafts out of lorries and showering myself in Hypoid 90 – I thought that I had left all of that behind me more than 30 years ago.

You can take the boy out of Crewe right enough, but you can’t ever take Crewe out of the boy.

But then that’s why I like New Brunswick. It’s about 50 years behind the times and suits me perfectly.

Rachel came to awaken me later. It seems that I had crashed out for a while (hardly a surprise) and it was now tea-time. A chick pea curry which was delicious, and then we were descended upon by hordes of people. Amber is having a party and despite the rain and the winds, there are dozens of teenagers all attired in a variety of swimwear and heading for the hot tub outside.

I’ve locked myself in my room with the bass guitar and I am refusing to come out until the coast is clear. It’s a good job that it’s Sunday tomorrow and a lie-in is on the cards. I think that I’m going to need it.

Monday 22nd April 2019 – WITH IT BEING …

… a Bank Holiday I have imitated the example of the the mathematician who shares my name and I have done three fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing.

We started off with a turbulent night where I couldn’t manage to go off to sleep for very long. Long enough to go on several nocturnal rambles though, and to leave my bed to go to look for some new batteries for the dictaphone too.

I started off with a group of students back at school outside the old “Room 10” having a huge discussion about something but I can’t remember now. Then a band in the assembly hall struck up some kind of high-tempo dance number. Most people disappeared to go off to this dance. One of the girls just standing around was a very studious type, long brown hair in a pony tail and glasses 3 or so years below me, very prim and proper and the correct uniform. I took hold of her and started to dance with her. She pulled such a face so I asked what was the matter. She just grunted something at me which was a bit of a shame.
A little later I was in Crewe, Davenport Avenue, painting the living room. I can’t remember who I was with. It might have been Marianne or Liz. There were huge plasitc sheets everywhere masking everything off. It was thick white emulsion. I had been masking everything off while she was painting and when I’d finished that I was daubing the paint on with a kitchen towel. I asked if there was a paint brush, and I was given a big old paste brush which wasn’t so good and I was smearing it on with that. For some unknown reason I had to go outside, with Nerina by now and we were at Gainsborough Road to the road down the side. We saw a large black plastic pipe so we walked down the road to look at it. It was sticking up out of the road then a 90° bend down the street with a drop so as to allow passage into the back entry and then back on and down the street. On the way back we went past the entrace to my drive and in there on the drive was my brown Cortina TNY. I thought “what is this doing here? It should be in its lock-up garage. How come it was suddenly appearing here? What was the tenat of the property doing with it on his drive? How had he known where it was? How had he obtained the keys to the garage?” I’d had a vague recollection that one of my Cortina estates had been seen on there but I had dismissed that as unlikely gossip. But now I wasn’t so sure. There were probably 20 vehicles on this driveway, all from the 60s and 70s and in all kinds of states of repair. I wondered what was happening. This was so realistic that I sat bolt upright at this point. It’s a recurring thread, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, about me having Ford Cortinas in various lock-ups and parked up all over the town and not knowing where they were or worrying about them.
Later still I was in a supermarket last night buying something and TOTGA was the manageress there. I can’t remember whether there had been some kind of issue between the two of us. I was in the queue waitig to pay when the cashier was called away. I saw TOTGA walk past but she didn’t see me but as I was in the queue I couldn’t leave it to go up to her to go and tap her on the shoulder and say hello. She stopped at a display rack where there was bottled water and rearranged something. She turned towards me and I waved hoping to catch her eye but then my view was blocked by a couple of people walking past. After they had gone I waved again but now it was a different girl so I felt rather silly. Another cashier came back now and took my item. I said something about TOTGA being there. She replied “ohh you’ve decided to come back to the shop then have you?” as if I have been boycotting it, which I didn’t understand.
And even later, I was here in my apartment with Terry. I was toasting hot cross buns for both of us and took the first lot out of the toaster and put them on his plate. He took some margarine and spread it over and ate them. He made some remark – is this margarine apple-flavoured? I looked and it was something and pineapple. He replied “God what a horrible thing!” so I asked if he wanted something different. I went to put mine in the toaster but his second round was still in there so I took them out and put them on his plate – this was when he made the remark about the margarine, but he put his knife into the same butter and spread it on the others too and I didn’t understand that when he didn’t like the stuff and there were other things that he could have asked for.

By the time that I arose from my stinking pit it was after 09:00 so I had my medication and caught up with a few things, and then just as I was about to go for breakfast Rosemary rang me.

We were chatting for a good hour or so, so I ended up with a very late breakfast.

Later, I attacked the dictaphone. I transcribed the notes from the night and then attacked a pile from the backlog of stuff. That was interrupted by someone coming on line and wanting a chat.

As a consequence I was very late for lunch and so seeing as it was Easter Monday I ate my vegan Easter Egg instead.

This afternoon I was intending to carry on with some work but I was interrupted by a special one-off sale of 3D items that involved spending an hour or so surfing through the web site to see what might be of interest.

That was interrupted my Ingrid ringing me and we had a really long chat for well over an hour.

That meant that my afternoon walk was rather late.

But when I finally did make it outside I was immediately struck by the strange lighting conditions that we were experiencing.

There was some kind of light grey light reflecting off the sea and the Ile de Chausey was standing out silhouetted on the horizon. I’m not quite sure why this should be.

And it goes without saying that I wasn’t the only person out there this afternoon enjoying the weird light.

There was a painter out there too doing his thing. He had drawn quite a crowd of spectators eagerly admiring his work. And it wasn’t bad either. I wouldn’t have minded it hanging up on my wall.

He isn’t the first painter that we have seen in action either. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we encountered one in Québec in 2011.

Yesterday I mentioned that the path around the Pointe du Roc had been reopened. This afternoon I went that way to see what it was like.

You need to be quite athletic to enjoy the trip because there is a considerable number of steps down to the bottom. And what goes down must come back up, as we all know.

But it’s worth it because there’s a view of the coastguard station that I have never seen before.

But something else caught my eye while I was down here.

regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve spoken quite considerably in the past about the construction of the Atlantic Wall during the latter stages of World War II to defend the coast against invasion;

Here on the floor I found a fine example of 1943 graffiti drawn into the concrete, presumably drawn by one of the workmen when they were pouring the concrete.

Another view that I haven’t seen was the Cap Lihou from the rear.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen the sentry’s cabin on the headland before on several occasions but we haven’t seen it from this angle.

And I’m also interested in what looks as if it might be a cave just down there to the left. One of these days when there’s a very low tide I shall have to walk around there for a good look.

As for the walk itself, it’s very picturesque, but it’s also very difficult and very narrow.

What didn’t help either was that there were hundreds of other people out there enjoying it too so there wasn’t much room to move about.

Because of all of this, it’s not something that you would want to do in the dark either. It’s definitely going to have to be a daylight job.

Back here someone else wanted to chat so by then end of that I was hours late for tea. So I didn’t bother. I went for a walk around the walls in the twilight instead.

Now I’m back here and I’m going for an early night. I have a lot to do over the next few days and I need to be on form.

ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

zodiac baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

cabanon vauban pointe de carolles granville manche normandy france

atlantic wall pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

flags pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

fishing boats baie de mont st michel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Friday 12th April 2019 – I’M NOT SURE …

… what kind of day it has been today.

It’s been one of those days where I haven’t felt like doing too much, but at least I kept on working and managed to be productive. So it can’t be all that bad.

What didn’t help was that despite the nice clean bed and the nice clean me, I didn’t have a very good night at all. I hardly felt as if I had any sleep at all last night.

However I must have done, because I went on a nice long ramble or two during the night.

My first voyage was something to do with the railway – the line blockages. a group of us were talking about someone who wanted to go off photographing and we had seen a place where a tram coming into town turning right at a curve and one coming out of town was turning right at the same curve (like at a T junction) and it all looked so beautiful that we thought about having some kind of choreography photographs of trams darting around bends in opposition to each other like this. Someone else asked “what do you think about this situation?” and showed us a model of a train that had derailed because the points had moved underneath it. Someone said something like at the front of this incident was a shop that was 2m60 away and all of his electricity was stopped because it was outside the limit of 2m from the accident where the current was broken, to give everyone time to escape. Electricity was only available very close to the accident. One feature of this railway line being blocked was a very large photo or model of someone that had apeared over the end of the railway line behind this accident blocking it off – someone like Nigel Garbage or another one of these far-right people. people were discussin ghow this could possibly be that a dummy like this could block the line. Wasn’t that just typical of the far right that in the interest of free movement they are blocking the railway line
A little later there were three of us on a voyage something like out of the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, me, another guy and a girl. And I knew even though I was asleep that I seemed to join this in the middle of the voyage. At first I thought that this girl was Nerina. She was ill in bed with a heavy cold moping around so in the end I asked her if she would like some Vicks Rub. Her ears picked up at that “Vicks Rub? Yes!! Do you have some?” So I had to search through my medical case and I found some so I gave it to her. her eyes lit up at that and she immediately got better. The three of us were in a car driving up Stewart Street and Valley Road with this most amazing moon or sun, rather like a half-eclipse of the sun. I suggested that we turn right down a side-street for a better view but then I thought that there would be a better view from a side street further on. We went on to that turning and then found that somehow the moon had gone behind the sun and it wasn’t as good as it had been earlier. That was quite a shame. We carried on, had a couple of adventures, things like that. In the end it was all over and we were due to go home. We were walking back into Sandbach from near where the M6 is. The guy went off somewhere to do something, which left me and this girl. She said that she was going to get a coffee. When she came back she was in tears, about how the guy with whom she was living had been quite nasty to her about the fact that she had been away. I was consoling her. Now, even though I was asleep, I knew exactly how it ended – that she ended up by leaving this guy and the two of us became a couple, but it was this little step in between where I couldn’t find the courage to take this step to ask if I could see her again, even though I knew exactly how it was all going to end up – very positively in my favour.

The alarms went off as usual, and it still took me 15 minutes to haul myself out of the not-so-stinking pit this morning.

After the usual morning ritual I attacked the dictaphone. And despite a few interruptions for nothing in particular, I was still going on at lunchtime.

There’s a whole whack of them now done and that’s made me feel a little better.

With it being such a beautiful day although it might have been a little cold, I went out with my butties and sat upon my wall.

Down below in the harbour, we might not have had any ships of any importance in there, but it doesn’t look as if it will be long before there’e one i-cumen in, just like William de Wycombe’s sumer.

The gravel lorries from the quarry are back in the port tipping the gravel. And tipping it on the quayside near to the conveyors rather than the bins too.

That can only mean that we should be expecting the arrival of a gravel boat in the not-so-distant future. Lhude sing cucu.

When I came back, I did a little tidying up (not too much of course) and then ran the vacuum cleaner around the floor for a short while. It makes the place look a little tidier.

The rest of the day was spent dealing with the photos for June 2018, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either because I didn’t recognise half of them.

I ended up spending an hour or two on Google Earth trying to mate up images with screen shots. But in the end, I managed all but one. That’ll teach me to lose my dictaphone in Caliburn during that trip to Germany, won’t it?

There were two little interruptions during the day. The first one was for a little … errr … snooze, and my second was for a walk arounf the Pointe du Roc.

My attention was drawn to some movement way offshore so I coupled up the big zoom-telephoto lens to take a photo to see what it might be.

It turns out to be a zodiac going flat out there way out to sea. That’s a lot farther out than I would be happy to take a zodiac, that’s for sure.

While I was out there with the zoom lens I scanned the horizon to see if there was anything else of interest out there.

Round to the right not too far out from Saint Martin de Bréhal is another one of these buoys that miraculously appear every now and again.

At one time I thought that it was something to do with fishing, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of any fishermen tending to it.

Around the corner into the Baie de Mont St Michel I heard a little putt-putt-putt of some kind of small diesel engine.

A few seconds later a little yacht came round the corner and hove into view. It would have been nice to see it with all of its sails unfurled, especially in this wind when it could have taken full advantage of it.

I can understand why a yacht might need a diesel engine, but not why anyone might be using it in the open sea in this weather. br clear=”all”>

Pathetic parking is a feature of these pages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

We’ve seen some pretty miserable stuff but this here really does take the biscuit. Here’s a van driver far too lazy to even walk across the street.

Bad parking doesn’t get much worse than this. it really is quite shameful if you ask me. Whatever is the world coming to?

Back here I carried on with the photos and the research, and then stopped for tea. There’s a pepper lying around here that needs eating so I made myself a stuffed pepper with spicy rice.

That was followed by pineapple and soya cream, and a chat with Liz, another one with Alison and a third with rosemary. I’m in demand right now.

I had to cut the chats short though because it promised to be a beautiful sunset and I didn’t want to miss it.

Unfortunately there was a large cloud on the horizon over the Ile de Chausey so I didn’t get to see the sun sinking slowly down below the horizon this evening.

But never mind. there will be other opportunities, especially with what I have in mind for later this year, if it all goes according to plan.

Back from my evening walk, I watched the football. Bala Town v Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League. And Bala have come right off the rails just recently and Colin Caton has lost the plot a little.

Bala, totally disorganised at the back and leaderless up front, were easily swept aside for the third match in succession. What we were watching ir real relegation fodder for next season, and if only the Nomads had played with a decent striker, they could have scored 14, never mind just 4.

So I’m off to bed. No shopping tomorrow as I’m on my travels on Sunday. So i’ll have a little wander down to the market instead and see how the land lies.

It’s not an early night tonight, so I won’t be on very good form tomorrow. But I’ll see what I can do.

chateau de la crete baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france

pecheur de la lys chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 – WINTER IS …

… back again.

When I awoke this morning, it was raining. In fact it rained for most of the early part of the day and was still going at lunchtime. And so I ate my butties indoors.

This afternoon it stopped and the sun came out for a while. But this evening there is a dreadful gale howling around outside and it’s freezing cold. In fact, I only made a few hundred metres of my evening walk before I changed my mind and came back indoors.

This morning, much to my surprise, I was up and about by 06:20. And it’s been a long time since that’s happened too.

There was plenty of time to go on my travels too. Last night I was in New York with a group of people and we came across a taxi driver – a little middle-aged type of typical Brooklyner. We were talking about him and his business and his car. I crawled underneath his car to have a look. It was in reasonable condition with oil splattered around all underneath but the paint was coming off the underneath and the surface was rusty. I got him to come down and have a look underneath it, and I explained to him that if he were to to the underneath of this and touch up the bodywork there was no reason why this car couldn’t go on for ever. I was showing off a little I have to admit. He was looking at a kind of dirt guard that went underneath the car. One of the nuts had come off the studs so that’s why the car was making a noise from underneath, he said, with the dirt guard loose in once corner. We were chatting about another taxi driver friend of mine who worked from 18:00 Friday to 03:00 Saturday, from 12:00 Saturday to 03:00 Sunday and from 12:00 Sunday to 03:00 Monday. He made enough out of that to live off for the whole of the rest of the week. This guy was going “wow”. I then had to sit down and do his accounts but I had no idea what to do. I’d found an explanatory booklet so I’d sit down with this guy and work out some accounts. There was a girl there – it might even have been Nerina – who said that she needed her accounts doing too. I replied that once I had done this guy I would have more of an idea of how to do them. I could then sit down and do hers properly. But I seem to recall having been in this taxi with this guy going uphill and the car was coughing and spluttering a little. But going downhill again it picked up. He said that it was the spider that was always doing this when he goes uphill. What he was meaning were the plug leads, as I eventually worked out. Of course it would be a V8 under the bonnet

After breakfast I attacked the outstanding pile of work.

First problem was to untangle the mess in which my blog had ended up last night. I must have clicked inadvertantly on an “update now” link that must have popped up while I was working. My blog hung up for 20 minutes and when it finally reloaded, it had gone back to how it was when it uploaded to the previous version.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the fun and games that I had trying to configure it back then, and I was in no state to do it last night.

Last time, it took me a good few weeks to sort it out and it’s still not how I like it. This time I had to do it straight away and it took a good couple of hours before it was back to how it should be.

That was depressing.

I did a couple of test runs with a few blog entries, and it needed a further tweak or two.

Once I’d done that, I then had other work to do. A large amount of correspondence had built up so I spent much of the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon after lunch scanning a few documents, printing them out, and writing a few letters.

And then, of course, filing away the papers. I’m getting good at this now.

Once I’d done all of the letters and attachments, i went down into town.

In the harbour this afternoon was a boat that I didn’t recognise, and so fighting my way through a pack of schoolkids on a classe découverte, I went to see what it was.

It turns out that it’s Les Bouchots de Chausey, and we’ve seen her before in the harbour.

While I was there, I went to have a look at the big yacht that has been there for a few days in the berth usually occupied by Marité.

She is in fact displaying a nameboard to say that she’s La Granvillaise, and if that’s really the case, then all I can say is that they have done a really good job on her because I didn’t recognise her at all.

There were a few people loitering around her, and ordinarily I would have gone over to chat to them, but they seemed to be very busy working.

Leaving the port, I wandered over to the Post Office. A couple of my letters went straight into the letter box thanks to La Poste’s system of stamped envelopes. As for the rest, they needed to be weighed and stamped. Everything in there is now automatic, just as Alvin Tofler predicted in The Third Wave.

On the way back, I went to the Boulevard des 2eme et 202eme de ligne to inspect the chantier where they are repairing the wall that was closed off.

They are doing a good job with that and I’m reasonably impressed. But it brings back many happy memories when I spent a whole summer in 2012 doing that down on the farm.

So having admired the workings, I came back for a drink of hot chocolate.

i spent the next few hours doing a pile of dictaphone notes. That’s another lot gone into the great filing cabinet in the sky. I’ve reached the notes for my trip around the Somme battlefield now.

Tea was some taco wraps with stuffing, followed by apple crumble.

We had the half-walk this evening, but that’s enough. I came back in and did some more work. And now it’s time for an early night. I’ve had a long day and, much to my surprise, I managed not to crash out at all.

les bouchots de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Saturday 23rd March 2019 – I HAVE JUST SEEN …

… the most one-sided football match that I have ever seen in my life.

US Granville were totally clueless today. They had just two shots on goal, one of which was collected easily by the keeper and the second went over the bar.

What didn’t help matters was that US Granville had a player sent off after 30 minutes. And it was probably the most ridiculous sending-off I have ever seen. A foul in front of me on the left winger by the Granville right-back, who is booked. The Granville left-winger shouted something from right across the field at the referee, who went over and booked him. So, immediately, the left-winger said something else that was probably equally uncomplimentary.

The remainder of the match was spent camped in the US Granville half with the FC Lorient goalkeeper playing centre-half. And he could easily have played centre-forward too and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

And so we had relentless attacking pressure on the US Granville defence, all of which led to nothing whatever because FC Lorient’s attackers couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument.

The Granville keeper made two or three excellent saves, but for the rest of the match he was a virtual spectator.

But he could have been the saviour of the hour too, if only he had thought quicker. On two occasions late in the game he made good clean catches in his own area. But with the opposition keeper standing in the centre-circle, I would have gone for a good Route One clearance right down the centre of the pitch over the keeper’s head and who knows? One of them might have found the back of the FC Lorient net.

Instead, the match petered out surprisingly to a 0-0 draw and I reckon that the teams could still be playing there for a whole week and the score would still be the same.

Last night was an interesting night. I was tossing and turning all night and hardly recall having any sleep at all. But there was plenty of time to go on a few voyages, and did I voyage!

Last night I was in a Tax Office somewhere where there was a young guy examining some tax returns while I was looking through a drawer full of weeded-out files held in green envelopes. This guy asked if he should e completing a tax return, which I thought was rather strange seeing as where he was working, but then I noticed a huge file for the Duke of Somewhere, with a note that “no returns to be issued to this person”, and I was wondering whether this young guy had inherited the title. But even so, he should be making tax returns so I decided to send him a few and if it was inappropriate, he could always put them in the waste bin.
At some other point I’d been living in an apartment with several other people, mainly girls. I decided that I had to get up and get ready for work, even though it was only about 00:30 and most people hadn’t even gone to bed. Going to get washed was quite an adventure because it meant a walk of several miles down some old cobbled street rather like the Via Appia Antiqua in Rome. On the way down there I met Terry who was on his way to work on some church that was down there. He asked me if I would like to help him, which interested me not because of the work but the chance to get to see inside the church that was normally kept closed.
I was living in a house near to the sea and the tide was quite high and there had been floods. And at the next high tide I went out to see what was happening. It was clear that the waves were coming over the top of the sea wall – not very many at first but we still had a few inches of flood water. Nerina was there insisting that I come inside otherwise I would end up in a tragedy.
Finally, and last but not least, I was in school, going around with a girl who was much younger than me. But we couldn’t have some time together alone because people kept on interrupting us, riding bicyles around us, talking loudly, misbehaving, all of that, so in the end we walked back to school and I dropped her off at ther class. I walked on up several flights of stairs and the higher up I went, the more out-of-breath and ill I became. so that by the time I was almost at the top, all of my friends kept on rising out of their seats asking me if I was OK and did I need any help. I arrived at the top eventually and to go down for a drink, which I badly needed, it was quite a jump – three and a half storeys I reckoned, and I told the boy who was with me that I didn’t fancy the idea of jumping down there at all.

At 06:30 I was out of bed, and I had an early breakfast too. A shower and a shave and a good clean-up saw me hit the streets and the shops.

There was the usual round – LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc – and I bought nothing at all of any interest and forgot my pears to boot. There was another dark-blue sheet in NOz on special offer, so I added that to the collection.

Back here, I didn’t have the strength to unpack. Instead I sat on the chair and crashed out for a while. I’m still not getting better. I had to wait until after lunch before I could manage it. And after that, I didn’t do anything – just gathered my strength ready for the walk up to the football.

Tea when I came back was out of a tin. And now I’m heading off for an early night. Sunday is a lie-in and I reckon that I need it.

Tuesday 29th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day.

There was so much that needed doing and so much that I wanted to do, but I spent the afternoon flat-out on the bed under the covers.

And I’m not just talking about a little 10-minute snooze, or even a really deep one-hour sleep. I was flat-out from about 14:30 to long after 17:00. I’d awoken at 16:50 but there was absolutely no chance whatever of me getting up.

Going back a couple of years, I can remember when I could go a whole day without dropping off. And gradually we started with the little 10-minute snoozes. And then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I started to complain about the hour-long sessions that were coming my way. And look where I have ended up now.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the beginning of the end.

It probably has something to do with the late night that I had had. Despite pushing on for all day yesterday, I still wasn’t tired at bedtime and I couldn’t go off to sleep.

Mind you, I must have done at one point because I was off on my travels. I was doing a huge load of tidying up at my old apartment in Brussels, and much to my surprise the person who was actually helping me with tidying away the paperwork was Nerina.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual although it was more like 07:00 when I actually arose from the dead. After the usual morning performance I had a shower and a good clean-up too. High time – and I do mean “high” too.

This morning I attacked some more photos and then there was a slight interruption. I have to make a file up of all of my official expenses and the like over the last … gulp … 5 years, but amongst the papers that I can’t find are two of my household charges bills – for 2013 and 2015.

I’d written to the Hotel des Impôts in Montaigut for copies and so I received copies for … 2016 and 2017. Clearly no good.

And so I had to telephone them to find out what was going on.

It turns out that they no longer keep hard-copy records. Just those for the last two complete years. Any further information for other years needs to be obtained from the Tresorerie in Riom.

And so I had to write a letter.

Another project that I had in mind was to start printing off my bass guitar lines. I have the rhythm tabs saved on the laptop but I want to print them off to take with me to places now that I have a decent printer. First off was “Bobby McGee” – the old Kris Kristofferson song.

And that took me longer than it might too, because the printing wouldn’t align with the paper, or vice versa

We had lunch of course and then I came back in here to carry on. “In here” refers of course to my bedroom, because the long wall in here has been transformed into a rather comfortable office.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t last long. And I missed my afternoon walk, my guitar session, my afternoon coffee, my slice of Christmas cake, all of that too.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then biting the bullet, I went for my evening walk.

When I had awoken this afternoon, there was a howling gale outside and a torrential rainstorm going on. This evening though we still had the hurricane but the rain had gone. At least, for half of my journey. For the second part of my walk I got the lot and was like a drowned rat by the time that I returned.

Another day when I haven’t spoken to anyone at all. And I’m not tired after my afternoon sleep. It’s all becoming some kind of circular performance and I can’t break out of it.

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 – IT’S SNOWING!!!

Well, it was this morning.

it started at about 09:30 and went on until about 11:00. And by that time there was a healthy white covering across the courtyard out here. Not exactly an Alpine vista but it’s the first snow that I’ve seen this winter. We just don’t get it in Normandy like we did in the Auvergne.

You might be excused for thinking that having gone to bed last night and not set the alarms for this morning, I might have missed it. But with it having been an early night, by the time that 05:00 came round I was wide awake.

But wide awake is not the same as being out of bed.On a Day of Rest (to replace my Sunday lie-in) 08:00 was much more like it, although I have known better.

And Nerina put in an appearance last night. She was apparently doing some kind of research into performing dogs and I remembered that I had actually written a document on this during my University studies. So I started to sift through everything that I had written but to my dismay I couldn’t find it. I thought that it was at some time during the last year or so but I’d been all the way back for a few years and it wasn’t there. So I was wondering if I had written it but not yet submitted it. This all went on for quite some considerable time.

While I was watching the snow falling, I attacked some work that needed doing. making all kinds of enquiries about my lost passport. But provided that I can negotiate the TGV back to France tomorrow, the urgency has lessened. I’ve had another message concerning something that I need to do and for which I need my passport, and that’s not going to happen for quite a while.

At lunchtime I nipped outside into the snow to buy a baguette from the supermarket down the road. Tomato and vegan cheese baguette was delicious.

This afternoon, I didn’t do very much at all. I drifted around going through some more paperwork and then made a start on the packing. But I couldn’t keep going for long and ended up having a little … err … repose for an hour or so. This really is getting somewhat out-of-hand and I’m becoming more and more dismayed by the fact that I simply can’t keep it up any longer.

It was about 18:30 when I finally came to, having missed the opportunity to go out and buy the second instalment of my medication. At least there’s enough to keep me going for the next month, and then we’ll have to see how we go.

Tea was my second weinerschnitzel with potatoes and frozen veg. Just as delicious as yesterday. And followed by the rest of the raspberry sorbet. With everything (almost) now finished off, I had a mega-washing-up and cleaning session; followed by the rest of the packing. Leave the place as I would like to find it, which will come as a major surprise to anyone who knows me.

It wasn’t that cold when I went out for my evening walk. A mere minus 2°C. There was some scattered snow about and everywhere was quite icy, and for that reason there weren’t many people about at all. And I didn’t go far either. The walk does me good but there’s no point in going mad.

Before going to bed, I finished the packing and had a good check-around to make sure that I’ve not forgotten anything. I’m fed up of losing stuff and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, over the years I’ve left a trail of my possessions scattered all over the Northern Hemisphere.

An early start in the morning. I can’t afford to hang about.

Sunday 13th January 2019 – THIS WASN’T HOW …

… it was supposed to work, was it?

The big trouble with going to bed early is that I have a tendency to awaken early. And 05:35 is absurdly early, especially on a Sunday.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I just lay in bed and vegetated until I had to go and walk the parapet round about 08:05.

Mind you, I had been on a little voyage during the night. Not only was I with Nerina but we had gone into Birmingham to look for something. And coming off the M6 at one of the raised levels we ended up at af all places a Workingman’s Club. There must still be one or two left somewhere, I imagine. We parked up and walked around an old road layout which had been abandoned due to a realignment. In there we found a quiet lounge where we ended up talking to some woman who had something to do with the running of the place. But she wasn’t much help for what we needed so we left and went back to our car. By now I was back driving a Shearings coach – an overnighter with people wearing red and yellow woollen hats fast asleep curled up against each other. I started to feel like going to sleep too which wouldn’t have done many people much good but just then a car came round the corner, crossed the white line onto the wrong side of the road and hit the front of the coach a glancing blow. That was that for the coach and we were all rescued, and I had to spend the night sharing the room of another driver. We were looking out of the window of this hotel at the snow and ice and thinking about all of the fun that was going on down there in the snow.

After breakfast, I had a lot to do and it took me quite a lot of the day to do it.

I’ve liberated all of the files from the old desktop computer but there was a whole series of algorithms that I had created back as long ago as 2008 when I could remember what I was doing, and all of these needed unravelling.

That took me until early afternoon and then I had a back-up to perform on the laptop to extract all of the files from there.

There was an interruption for lunch of course, and there might have been an interruption for going to watch the football at St Pair, but instead Rosemary phoned me. We ended up having another two-hour chat that took up most of the afternoon. As I have said before, it’s nice to talk to friends.

Tea was a pizza of course, and I forgot to put the garlic on it. But it still tasted very nice.

Later on, I finally managed to get outside for my walk. There was no-one about at all which was hardly a surprise. there was a hellish wind out there.

One thing that surprised me was that despite the fact that I’d had a depressing start to my day, I didn’t crash out at all. There was the odd wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off.

So what will tomorrow bring? My new computer, I hope. And then I’ll have a few days of setting it all up. That will keep me out of mischief.

Friday 28th December 2018 – WHAT A …

… horrible day.

It didn’t start off too well. I was in bed early enough and away on my travels too.

I shall spare a few blushes by mentioning no names but it concerns someone who went away from home in the afternoon to see a friend and I didn’t see her after that. So I locked the door and went to bed. She turned up at some time during the night, well the worse for drink which would have been quite an unusual thing. Although I knew really what had gone on, I had a member of my family round and so she explained that she had gone to meet a friend at the Wistaston Manor Hotel who was crying in her cups about a failed relationship. This had led to something of a consolation drinking session, which then overflowed into the evening. Consoling her friend took much longer than it seemed so she came back home late, found the house locked, thought that I was out and so went round to my parents’ house in Davenport Avenue – but they were out. So she went across the road to the Social Club which was still serving, and so waited in there until my parents returned home. But of course, she couldn’t wait there without making use of the facilities of the club, such as the bar. A load of nonsense of course, but it wasn’t in my best interests to contradict her in public.

The alarm went off at 06:00 and again at 06:10 and 06:20, and I was up and about at some reasonable time. But it ended up being a late breakfast as I was sidetracked by a few issues.

After breakfast I started to work but at about 08:30 I started to yawn again. And from then on, despite a second coffee, I couldn’t keep going. A short time later I lay down on the bed and the next thing that I remembered, it was 10:45. All in all, it was sometime after 11:00 that I managed to haul myself out of bed.

That wasn’t all either, because this afternoon I had another trip away into the wild. The stresses of the journey yesterday are proving far too much for me.

Most of the day has been spent in debate on a group in my Social Networking account. The affairs of Doctor Beeching and Ernest Marples crop up quite regularly and lead to a huge chasm between the participants, depending upon which side of the political fence one sits. And my regular contribution is to post a pile of facts into the argument, which don’t fit too well with either party. It rumbled on for most of the day until the group Admin closed the debate. That was a shame because everyone was (for a change) conducting themselves with respect and dignity and all in all, it was quite enjoyable. Harks back to the days of OUSA Debate.

The rest of the day has been spent in editing photos and tidying up a pile of directories on my laptop. I’ve freed off a huge pile of space on the laptop by doing that.

We had our usual couple of walks of course today.

It’s obviously “that” time of the year because there were loads of people out there on the beach with buckets and spades and the like, presumably searching for seashells among the rocks and in the sand.

Flexing their mussels, one might say. Still, it keeps them out of mischief.

It wasn’t just at Granville that they were doing their Neville Shute impressions.

Down there at Donville les Bains it looks as if they are bringing in a boat. There are some oyster or mussels beds out there and it looks as if they have been out there servicing them.

They have certainly picked a nice day for it.

Remember last night when there was a fog that had descended over the Baie de Mont St Michel?

It’s still here this afternoon. The pillar with the marker light for the entrance to the harbour is swathed in mist. That puts visibility down to about 800 metres, I reckon.

When you consider that a modern supertanker required several kilometres to pull up to a dead stop, it’s not the kind of day to be out there on board ship without a radar.

Tonight’s meal was a pepper, sweetcorn and mushroom curry from 15th January. And it was just as delicious as it was when I cooked it.

later on after tea, I was out again for my evening walk.

The fog has lifted pretty much, and there were a good half-dozen or so fishing boats already in, tied up at the fish-processing plant and unloading.

Not only that, there were about another dozen fishing boats loitering in the vicinity waiting to come in on the evening tide for their turn to unload.

So now I’m going to have an early night. It’s shopping in the morning of course, being a Saturday and I need to be on form.

people on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

winter fog haze baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night fishing boat port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 23rd November 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… for quite some considerable time, we’ve had rain today.

Not enough to prevent me from going for my series of perambulations but enough to make me put on the raincoat and do up the hood. And it’s not a long knee-length raincoat, Rhys.

With having had a reasonably early night, I had a good sleep too.

During the night last night there was something of a family reunion. I’m no longer sure of the beginning or even the middle but right at the end I can remember going to bed – in Vine Tree Avenue of all places. But when I went to get into bed with Nerina, my younger sister was asleep in there too. When I awoke her to find out what was going on, she told me that there was someone else asleep in her bed so she had to find somewhere else to sleep. I went to look in her bed and found that one of my friends had actually gone to sleep in there.
As an aside, in real life whoever was asleep in her bed later became her husband. But that’s another story.

It wasn’t a particularly early start this morning either. I had a bit of a lie-in, and then I attacked the breakfast.

This morning I’ve been a busy little B. The blog for the last week or two is up to date and you can see where I updated starting from this page and working forward.

When I’m more organised, I’ll be starting from the end of October and working backwards, doing three or four a day until it’s all done. It might take me several years to do it but if I don’t start, I won’t finish.

Another task that I’ve done this morning that took me far longer than it ought was to merge the clipbook libraries.

The program that I use the most is a text editor called Notetab. I do evrything with it, from making brief notes right up to hand-coding my own web pages.

The main advantages that it has are that

you can have several *.txt or *.html files open at any one time
you can build up a whole series of clipbook libraries, so that you can save a regular block of text or coding that you use on a regular basis, and just one click inserts it into your document, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall

There are enough old computers here to sink a ship, and there are backups that date to about 1999, so this morning I started to extract the libraries from the various machines and merge them together.

having done a couple this morning, I then did a big back-up of the laptop and I’ll be backing up my data a couple of times a day from now on, always assuming that I remember.

While I was searching for something else, I came across a rare book going back to AD731 that has now been uploaded to the internet and available for free download. And so I’ve now added a copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People to my virtual library.

This is one of the very earliest histories of England and, along with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was the basis of much of what was known about English history in the Dark Ages.

And that reminds me. I brought my Domesday Book with me from the farm, but did I bring my Anglo-Saxon Chronicle?

This muesli that I made really is wicked. It went down a treat on my butties at lunchtime and there is still plenty left. And after lunch I came back into my little office and carried on with Day Four of the High Arctic.

There was a break for a walk around the headland. Although it was raining, it wasn’t all that bad-certainly not bad enough to stop me.

At the ship repairers, Aztec Lady was still there, up on blocks. There was a ladder up to her deck but I couldn’t see any sign of any work being done.

The trawlers are still up there too receiving attention. I’m not sure what they are doing to the pink and white one that we saw being lifted out of the water.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back when they were dredging out the harbour, they had a digger in the tidal basin here at low tide.

It was digging out a deep channel at the outside of the fishing quay by the fish processing plant.

This was done presumably with the aim of making a cut there that would provide access to the quay for a greater part of the day

There’s a whole line of smaller boats that have been queueing up outside the harbour now on their way in to tie up and unload.

If you look at the surrounding tidal harbour, you can see that it’s a long way from being submerged right now.

It certainly seems that the little channel that they dug out is working, and in spades too, which is good news for the port and the town.

More time available to unload means that more fishing boats can use the facilities

Just by way of a change I’d been chatting to a couple of neighbours too – one as I left the building and the second as I arrived back. It’s all go here, isn’t it?

In the mail today I’ve had the bill for the taxe d’habitation – the Council Tax – for next year for my house in the Auvergne. Eat your hearts out, you UK dwellers. My council tax for next year is all of €24:00.

Ingrid phoned me up after I came back. And we had a lengthy chat for a good hour or so about all kinds of things. She’s not too well right now, so I told her that some nice, relaxing sea air would do her the world of good.

There was a pepper left over so tea tonight was a stuffed pepper. I need to rid myself of the perishable stuff before I go away on Sunday.

Then, back into the rain. There was just one other person out there this evening but Minette, the black cat, was there on her windowsill. She had a good stroke and even allowed me to pick her up for 30 seconds.

But for some reason or another, I’m feeling quite tired. No idea why – it’s not as if I had a bad night. But I do seem to think that I’ve not had my usual afternoon doze so that might account for it.

It’s a good enough reason to go to bed.

EPIC HALL

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