Category Archives: Eric Hall

Friday 11th May 2018 – AND WHAT WITH …

… no tea last night, a very very tired (despite having slept for much of the way home) me crawled off to bed at about 22:30 and promptly passed stark out.

The alarms went off at 06:20 and 06:30 as normal, and I do remember leaning out of bed to switch them off but it was more like 07:20 when I finally crawled out of the stinking pit. Aching all over too. Obviously not feeling myself this morning (which is just as well for it’s a disgusting habit anyway).

Despite all of that though, I’d been on my travels during the night. To some local council somewhere where there was an enormous waiting list for the more “upmarket” council houses – the brick-built 1920s semis with gardens – instead of the usual poor-quality council flats. And how there was uproar when it seemed that someone had been “parachuted in” from elsewhere. But council house exchanges were quite a well-known phenomenon back in the old days. People would want to move house and area for all kinds of reasons and would often advertise for someone willing to swap in the area to which they wanted to move. As long as either council saw no good and valid reason to refuse the exchange (which they very rarely did) then the exchange would go ahead regardless of waiting lists and priorities. It’s quite a normal, logical procedure when you consider the necessity of having a mobile labour force. But you try to explain that to people who have been on a waiting list for 20 years.
A little later, I was involved in some kind of defensive operation to fortify a residential area against an invasion. But it was a very desultory, half-hearted affair and I don’t remember too much about it now.

We had the usual morning performance and then I actually managed to unpack some stuff and put it in the fridge. Only the food that I had bought though. The rest can wait until tomorrow when I’m feeling more like it.

A little later I went on down into town. I needed a couple of things for lunch and for breakfast tomorrow. The Coccinelle supermarket has been taken over by Super U so I had a little look around and it’s not any different than it was.

And it’s come back!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a while ago that we had a visit from a rather elderly and somewhat disreputable Bedford CF box van that had been converted into a mobile home.

And here it is again, parked up just where it was the last time. And it’s not looking any better either, poor thing. But it does have to be said that it deserves a medal for still being here.

For lunch I went to sit on my wall but the weather had changed dramatically. Earlier when I was out it was windy but nice and sunny. By the time that I was sitting on my wall the wind had increased and the sun had gone.

And it wasn’t long before I had gone too – I wasn’t going to stay out too long in that.

But I did stay ut just long enough to catch the boat lift lowering a boat into the water from the ship repair yard.

It’s been one of my ambitions to catch the thing at work as you know, and today I was in luck. In fact, there were quite a few people enjoying the spectacle.

Later on in the afternoon the weather had deteriorated even more and round about 18:00 it was raining.

Welcome home, hey?

But in between lunch and my walk I crashed out rather dramatically and was well away. I’m always like this after my journey back. Out for about an hour or so. And it was only the telephone that awoke me. Some medium thinking that he could tell my future. But I know my future much better than he does, don’t I?

Tea was a burger and baked potato, with some rather over-cooked vegetables that I had left too long in the microwave. That’ll teach me.

And then with the rain having subsided, I went for another walk

And then with the rain having subsided, I went for another walk this evening.

But now we were having to contend with a rolling sea fog that made life difficult. Especially for me as, peering through the gloom I noticed some shapes that didn’t correspond with anything that I recognised.

This is where a good long-range telephoto lens comes in handy. I can snap the image, bring it home and crop it to size and then digitally enhance it.

That’s when I find out that it wasn’t a collection of ships at all but a couple of offshore islands that I hadn’t noticed before.

But the time that I spent sorting out the above image meant that I was just that little too late to catch the sun descending over the horizon.

In fact, I was amazed at the speed at which it did go down. Took me quite by surprise. I only just managed to catch the final segment.

Impressive nevertheless.

Another early night is called for. I have shopping to do tomorrow and I need quite a bit of stuff. I’ve been letting supplies run down again, haven’t I?

Thursday 10th May 2018 – I’M BACK HOME

Yes, with Alison being busy I haven’t hung around in Leuven this time. I came straight back on the train today.

But let’s start at the very beginning – a very good place to start, as Julie Andrews tells us.

As for last night’s sleep, that was one of the best yet.

With having had a hard day yesterday I was struggling to keep awake even while I was writing last night’s blog and once I’d finished and had lain down on the bed, that really was that, even though it wasn’t quite 22:00.

And for that reason, when someone knocked on my neighbour’s door at 05:00 to awaken him for work, I didn’t mind at all. For that was the first noise that I had heard all night.

First real noise, that is, because there had been plenty of others during my nocturnal voyages. We started off doing something that involved someone – an accountant from Vancouver – from where I used to work. What was interesting about this was not the voyage itself, but the fact that I awoke from it (although I didn’t) and thought that I had better write it down. And so I did – in a kind of spidery hand that when I looked at it after I had read it, I couldn’t make out a word. But of course I didn’t write it down at all. It’s quite amazing where these nocturnal voyages can take me.
A little later I was with Nerina again. She was in bed and she protested that I had hit her. I explained that there was some animal chasing a squirrel- a squirrel that was covered in fleas and maggots and the like – and the squirrel was trying to take refuge in the bed with her, and so I was preventing it from doing so. But of course you would never convince her of that.

But anyway, I was up with the alarm at 06:20 and went through the usual morning ritual, followed by a nice hot shower. Need to be fresh for my journey back home.

Having nipped out for a baguette, I made my butties for the trip and then made ready to leave. And then having to go back for the hat that I had forgotten.

While I was in the office and seeing as I know my plans (or, rather, Alison’s plans) for the next month, I booked my room. Appointment is on the Thursday so I’ll be arriving on the Wednesday, staying Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night (I’m determined to get to see the railway museum in Schaerbeek) and then back home on the Saturday.

At the station I bought my ticket for Brussels and stepped out of the ticket office to find a Brussels train already at the platform. And so I leapt aboard. And wasn’t that a mistake?

It’s a Bank Holiday in Belgium today and so many people are bridging the gap over to the weekend and having four days by the seaside on the Costa Stella. And the train that I had leapt aboard was the express to Blankenberge. So standing room only, I’m afraid.

But at least I was in Brussels with plenty of time (like two hours) to spare before my train; And the time would have dragged had I not found an abandoned Sudoku book with a couple of games still uncompleted.

Up on the platform I took my … errr … station where the noticeboard indicated that my carriage would stop, but the blasted thing shot past me without stopping and I had to run halfway down one of the longest platforms in Belgium.

It seems that instead of a 16-car unit, it was only an 8-car unit today – the bit that comes down from Amsterdam and Antwerp.

And packed too. It took ages to find my seat and then there was a regular change of companion until we finally settled on a young Dutch girl with a 7-month old baby. That kind of thing does my self-esteem a pile of good, I’ll tell you.

Across Paris with little or no effort at all, and then joining the crowds of people waiting at the Gare Montparnasse, where I ate my butties.

The train to Granville was heaving too and I had a fit of confusion, taking four attempts to find my seat, disturbing a couple of piles of people in the process.

But eventually I found the correct seat and settled down for the uneventful journey home. So uneventful in fact that I slept for much of the journey home, despite having the headphones on and listening to stuff on the laptop.

All of this travel is clearly getting to me

The walk back up here was likewise uneventful which suited me fine and it didn’t take too long to be back. And I seem to have brought a streaming headcold with me yet again.

And remind me not to travel on a Bank Holiday ever again.

Wednesday 9th May 2018 – AND SO DESPITE …

… all of the racket going on around me last night I must have gone to sleep at some point because I remember being awoken by the alarm at 06:20.

And not only that- I’d been on my travels during the night too. I’d been in a car accident and was filling out a form to claim my losses from the other driver. I wasn’t sure about something so I went to seek advice from a qualified person (I can’t remember now who it was but I have a feeling that it was someone connected to the defendant). She told me that on no account must I fill in this form. This form related to actual, tangible losses only and if I were to submit it, I would be nullifying any claim to abstract losses such as compensation for the pain and suffering and the inconvenience etc.

Funnily enough, when I awoke this morning, a friend of mine came on line to talk about the issues that she was having with regard to the sequel to a car accident that she had had a couple of months ago. Small world, isn’t it?

We had the usual morning pantomime and then I leapt under the shower for 5 minutes. A quick scrub does me the world of good.

There were a few things to do around here and then I headed off for the hospital. It was grey and misty when I set out but I hadn’t been out long before the sun broke through. And by the time that I arrived at Castle Anthrax I was half-undressed and sweating like a horse.

But I did stop off along the way in the Brusselsestraat to take a photograph. And you might have to look at this for a while before you work out what’s wrong with it.

It’s the kind of thing that you only ever find in Belgium

10:50 was my appointment, and at 10:50 I was already being seen to. My monolingual nurse again so we did it all in Flemish and that cheered me up no end (although it would have cheered me up even more if Doctor Piglet and Doctor Winston had been there to practise their art.

Once I’d been all wired up and plugged in (and I’ve lost another kg which has surprised me considering everything that I ate in North Africa) I was stuck in a chair and left to get on with it.

Eventually the doctor came round to see me. While my protein count continues to be really depressing (and even more so) there’s some good news on the blood count front. Last month it was 9.0. This month it’s 9.4.

They are quite happy with that, so it seems – to such an extent that they fixed up the final three appointments. 7th June, 5th July and 2nd August. That means that a trip that I have planned for the end of June may well come to pass, and also that an early trip to Canada might possibly be on the cards.

But I’ll need to find out what their plans are after August. If it’s a 2-month visit I shall be laughing. Even more so if it’s a three-month visit.

Once they kicked me out I walked on back into town and did a little shopping in the Delhaize and the Loving Hut, picked up an ice-cream sorbet to celebrate, and then came back here where i … errr … relaxed for a while.

Having … errr … relaxed at the hospital I reckoned that I might have got away with it, but it’s obviously the heat.

later on I went to the fritkot on the railway bridge. And when I say ‘no tomato sauce on the veggie burger” I really do mean “no tomato sauce on the veggie burger”. Bar-steward!

A little walk around a couple of the back streets afterwards because I don’t really know the area behind the railway station.

But never mind that for a moment. My attention was drawn to this car that was parked up here. I’ve no idea what it is and there was no maker’s badge or anything to identify it. I thought at first that it might be a Subaru, but that’s not a Subaru emblem on the grille.

But whatever it is, its number plate tells me that it’s quite modern.

Arriving back here, I was attacked by the hotel cat yet again.

Bed-time now. An early night. A long day ahead of me tomorrow as I return to the Land of thr Undead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m nothing if not resourceful.

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

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

Much to my surprise (and everyone else’s I suspect) the bus pulled in bang on time. A nice modern Mercedes 6-wheeler.

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

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

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

I was impressed.

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

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

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

There was a 20-minute wait for a train – an Intercity Express direct to Leuven so I was quite lucky about that.

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

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

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

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

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

Monday 7th May 2018 – EVEN AS WE SPEAK …

… there’s a pot of lentils, carrots and peas simmering away in the slow cooker. That’s for tea tomorrow night with some onions, garlic and tinned potatoes because, believe me, tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

And just for a change, there’s some good news. And regular readers of this rubbish will know that it’s a long time since I’ve had any. I was checking the route of the 712 bus – like you do … "like one of you does" – ed … to find that its final stopping point is … errr … Brussels North Station.

So why get out at Lille, struggle up the road to Lille Europe TGV station, buy a ticket, wait for a train etc when I can be half-way there in what I hope will be a comfortable seat? So first thing this morning I had another attack at the website and now I’m booked all the way through.

The bus arrives in Brussels at 21:00 (in principle) and I’ve still 20 or so miles to go. So heaven alone knows what time I’ll be arriving. But at least I’ll be sitting down all the way and not having to struggle across Paris with my suitcase.

Even better, talking to Liz and discussing my trip and bewailing the bus issue to Avreanches from here, and she has volunteered to drive me. Isn’t it nice to have some really good friends? As I have said … "on many occasions" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but it’s quality that counts not quantity, and I have the best friends in the world.

Getting out of bed was difficult this morning at 06:30 but I did manage it. And after a leisurely start to the day I had a little relax and then set to work.

I’m having some kind of fridge issues right now. It seems that somewhere on my travels I had left the freezer compartment door open and it had frosted up so I couldn’t open it. No more ice cubes. So it’s high time that I defrosted it.

And here’s my patent method for defrosting the fridge –

Unplug the fridge
empty the aforementioned
put aforementioned in bath
make a coffee

For a change I walked down into town at lunchtime to buy one of the baguettes that I like. And having made my butties I went back outside to sit on the wall. It’s been a good while since I’ve done that, but it really was a beautiful day today, although the sea mist meant that vision was somewhat restricted.

This afternoon I had a little … errr … relax followed by a session on the guitar and a good chat with Ingrid. She’s feeling a little better at the moment and that is certainly good news.

Tea was a stuffed pepper seeing as I had a pepper left, and then my walk around the walls.

Just at the right time too, because I was able to watch yet another glorious sunset. So glorious in fact that I have set up this photo as my desktop wallpaper for the next while or so

We’ve been having quite a few of these just recently as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Makes a change from the miserable, gloomy winter and spring that we’ve had to date.br clear=”both”>

Not being in a very great hurry, I stayed out there for quite a while and was rewarded for my patience by catching the final glimmer of the sun as it slowly sank into the sea.

And this turned out nicely too, didn’t it?

There’s no doubt whatever that I’ve picked an absolutely beautiful spot to come for my retirement, here on this rock overlooking the sea.

But sounds of raucous laughter away in the distance told me that I wasn’t the only one out enjoying the sunset.

There was some movement on one of the small beaches away in the distance and as I still had the big zoom lens fitted, I could take a photo and see what was going on.

A huge, heavy telephoto lens that’s difficult to hold steady and in the low light of the evening on a long exposure means that it’s slightly blurred, but even so, you can still see the crowds of people down there.

I was half-expecting a blast of “Hurry On Sundown” to come filtering up to me.

I’m back in the apartment now, and once my lentils are cooked (and they take a while) I’ll be making my tea for tomorrow night and then going to bed.

As I said, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.

Sunday 6th May 2018 – THIS ISN’T GOING …

… to work out very well either.

Toddled off in the heat down to the station this evening to enquire about the trains, only to be told “you need to come back tomorrow evening. We’ll only know the night before”
“So why did your colleague tell me to come back this evening then?”
“I dunno”.
And so the discussion went on.

In the end, the guy at the ticket office at the station made me aware that there was a bus from Avranches to Lille every day at lunchtime. He gave me the details and cancelled my outward journey. So that’s at least something.

Sure enough, there’s a bus at 12:04 on Tuesday lunchtime, and to Lille it’s only €39:99. Takes all day of course, but it’s better than nothing.

Now to check up on the local buses. Ahh yes – a bus at 10:05 – gets to Avranches at 10:57. That sounds ideal to me. An hour to have a coffee and to compose myself (rather than Beethoven, who spent 60 years composing and 400 years decomposing).

but wait a minute. “Does not run on school holiday dates” – and Tuesday in France is a Bank Holiday isn’t it?

At the limit I could go to Avranches in Caliburn, but then he would be stranded down there until I could go to fetch him back, whenever that might be.

Yes, this is not turning out too well right now is it?

Last night, I was in bed at a fairly respectable time, where I stayed until about 09:00 this morning.

I’d been on my travels though, being my usual obnoxious annoying self, and so a car came to pick me up – something to do with Hearts Football Club I believe. The driver invited me to go for a drive with him and we ended up at the local prison. The chief warden met me there and gave me a conducted tour of the premises, showing me all of the dark recesses and crooks and nannies of the place. We arrived at the communal area where some women, inmates I reckon, were washing the floor. He showed me where the buckets were, showed me where the hot water was, the soap and a mop, and invited me to help clean the floor. I was concerned about walking over the area where the women had already cleaned, but they told me to clean the chute in the wall where the cats come in. It seems that a pile of cats come in at night to keep the inmates company. “At least there’s some good news” I thought. I had to move a bed to get to this chute – a three-tier bunk bed with cheap, thin horrible mattresses, and with a young woman dressed very poorly in a sweater and yellowy-brown slacks sitting on the top. And behind the bed was the most indescribable filth and less. Clearly these women were only cleaning what they could see, and no-one cared about the rest.

After breakfast I vegetated around for quite a while without doing too much (it IS Sunday after all) and then just for a change I had some lunch. Afterwards, I tidied up a huge pile of the backlog of e-mails and, would you believe, found an e-mail from Plenty’s dad asking for copies of the photographs of his lorries that we saw parked up here back in March.

We then had the Welsh Cup Final where Connah’s Quay Nomads saw off Aberystwyth Town without too much effort, although it could well have been a different story had the far-side linesman’s guide-dog been paying proper attention.

From there, I went for my walk to the station and then back here where I made another pizza. The pizza base that I bought yesterday was a dsiaster by the way. Stuck to the greaseproof paper and wouldn’t come off. And when it did it went just about everywhere except where it was supposed to.

And then another walk this evening. And the camera lens, about which I have moaned on a regular basis, has now completely given up the ghost. I’ll be sending it back when I return from Belgium.

Final word is that I seem to be being attacked by ants. There’s a pile of them that have somehow found their way in here. Now I need to find them a way out.

Saturday 5th May 2018 – THIS ISN’T WORKING …

… out like it ought to.

This evening on the way out to the football I stopped off at the station to pick up my train tickets for Ruesday. And with the times being all messed up on there, I went into the ticket office to confirm the departure times.
“But that train’s not running!” said the cashier
“Why not?” I enquired
“Because there’s a strike on Tuesday”.
“So what hapens now?”
“Well, we can change this one (the departure from Granville) to Monday.”
“What about the Paris to Brussels?”
“That’s not changeable”
“But I bought the two at the same time. And if I can’t get to Paris because of your problems, then I certainly can’t get from Paris, can I?”
And so we had a very long discussion which ended with me having to go back tomorrow evening sometime between 17:00 and 19:15 when the service diagrams for Tuesday will be published.

In the meantime, I suppose that I had better think of a Plan B.

But all of this sums up my day because it hasn’t been very good.

It all started to go wrong last night when I was planning to go to bed and A Passion Play turned up on the hi-fi. And so I sat in the dark and listened to it. And then in not-so-quick succession we had Aqualung, Benefit, Stand Up and Thick as a Brick. 5 of the best rock albums ever recorded of course.

By the time that they had all finished (and I played a couple of them twice) it was 05:40 and getting light. No chance of getting up at 06:20 so I switched off the alarms and went to bed.

11:30 is much more like a time to leave the bed after a night like that – not that I regret it of course for good music is good music – but it meant that I had missed my trip to the shops. Still you can’t win a coconut every time.

Breakfast was therefore very late and I lounged around for a couple of hours listening to the radio and laughing at the Clayheads who are relegated from the Premier League. And then I nipped into town for a pizza base for tomorrow’s tea.

Back here there was more football as the season draws to a conclusion and then I headed off out, via the railway station.

At the Cité des Sports US Granvillaise’s 3rd XI were playing US Mortainaise, hopelessly adrift at the foot of the Basse-Normandie Division 1. Their trainer told me that with the beautiful weather three of their players, including the goalkeeper, had gone harvesting and another half-dozen has gone away for a long weekend.

And so they had 11 players (and no substitutes). And the goalkeeper – well, three Tommy Lawrences could have fitted inside his jersey and you could have fitted at least two Jon Scullions inside the jersey of the n°8, who touched the ball three times in the whole 90 minutes.

The result was therefore a foregone conclusion and the game was over after 25 minutes with Granville 3-0 up. And then Granville switched off and strolled leisurely around the park with the ball.

They scored another just before half-time, a fifth after about an hour, and rattled in two more near the end as Mortain ran completely out of steam.

But that’s not all the story. It’s really no exaggeration that Granville could have had half a dozen more from the chances that they created. On one occasion the ball bobbled around the Mortain penalty area like a pinball, bouncing off the keeper, the woodwork twice, a couple of defenders and a couple of attackers before bouncing away to safety.

And the miss of the match, of the season and probably of the century came from a beautiful ball over the top to the Granville trainer (who had come on for a run-around near the end) who beat the offside trap all ends up, advanced on the goal, rounded the keeper and squares it across the goalmouth to the n°7 about three yards out with an open goal in front of him. And the n°7 whacks it with all his might – up into the crossbar and back upfield. Anyone who remembers the famous John Aldridge “goal that never was” – well, this was 10 times better than that.

What was even more disappointing was that had Granville really tried hard instead of messing about, we could have had a cricket score here. And Granville need to learn how to concentrate on a match for the whole 90 minutes and demolish opposition like this.

I walked back here (114% of my daily activity) and made a plate of pasta and vegetables cooked in olive oil, which was delicious.

Now it’ll be bed-time. And I’m hoping for a better night than last night.

And final word goes to the sunburn that I picked up in Africa. My skin is now all peeling. Coming off in shreds.

Friday 4th May 2018 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!

Yes, May the Fourth be with you.

And I started off today as I meant to go on, that’s for sure. Flat on my back asleep.

And to 09:10 as well. This idea with me being ill of not having an alarm going off to disturb me is clearly doing me some good, I reckon. Sleeping all the way through until I wake up. You can’t say better than that.

It’s certainly making me feel a little batter too because, much to my surprise, I actually put all the washing away this morning after breakfast. There had been some here on the dryer since before I went away last month and although that was put away, the only reason was to replace it with the stuff that I washed on my return. So that’s some good news.

Not only that, I did a little more vague-ish tidying up and then sat down to edit another huge pile of photos. So if you scan back through a few of the last couple of days, you will probably see some photos and a bit more text that you hadn’t seen last time that you looked.

It was another beautiful afternoon with the window open once again to let in the air.

And while this was going on, I let myself out to go for a walk in the sunshine.

Crowds of people there were out there too, all taking advantage of the gorgeous weather. And I can’t say that I blame them either because it really was nice and the views were outstanding again over the Baie de Mont St Michel.

But I can see it becoming really busy here before too long and I’ll be back on my Friday shopping trips to avoid the rush.

And it wasn’t just pedestrians who were out there taking advantage of the weather.

We had a few more of these vulture-like people soaring up and down over our heads, reminding us of how primitive man must have felt when he had pteranodons and Pterodactyli to contend with.

I’m still waiting for one of these to end up as a crumpled heap at my feet because it’s bound to happen that a couple of these will become tangled up while heading for the same stretch of sky.

Is there some kind of Highway Code for these people?

With the general improvement in my health I found that I could concentrate once more on a course that I’m studying. I mentioned that I found a free 3D program called Hexagon where you can create your own props from “primitives” – that is, basic shapes such as cubes, circles and pipes, that kind of thing that you can combine together. I had a go at it a while ago but didn’t make much progress

However I’m not sure if I mentioned that I found a whole series of videos on Youtube which give a thorough grounding in the basics of the program. So before I was taken ill just now I had started to work my way through them.

But it’s hard going. The presenter might be good at what he does but he drives me berserk with his “pacifically” instead of “specifically” and his “access” instead of “axis” and his “gyro” with a hard “g” (as in “garden”) instead of a soft “g” (as in “German”). I’m not sure if I’ll make it down to the very end at this rate – I really don’t.

As well as that, I’ve had my first session on the guitar for quite some time. Things are definitely looking up here a little.

But not so much that I fancied any lunch. I’m still not feeling that well.

On the other hand, tea was a vegan lentil-and-pepper curry from last November (such are the benefits of having a deep-freezer) but no strawberries – I was right in saying that they wouldn’t last until this evening.

The walk this evening around the walls was almost completely uneventful,

I say “almost”, because there was a large group of people having a late-evening picnic on the grass at the Square Maurice Marland. They certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves, although they didn’t say why.

So I wished them all good health and carried on with my walk.

So now it’s an early night for me. The alarms go back on tonight for it’s a trip to the shops in the morning. Back into the old routine, hey?

Still, the rest did me good, didn’t it?

Thursday 3rd May 2018 – NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT.

With my recent health issues, I’ve not been setting an alarm in the mornings and sleeping until I awake.

So this morning, instead of the previous 02:30 and 05:00 or whatever it was, it was a glorious 10:10 when I finally left my stinking pit. And if I hadn’t had to go down the corridor for a ride on the porcelain horse I would probably still be there now.

With it being Thursday, it’s my usual day to walk up to LIDL. But with not having eaten all that much just recently, there’s no urgent need for anything so I can have a day off.

There was even time for me last night to go off on my travels. I was back working for Shearings again and ended up with not one but two coaches under my control. One came back on a Saturday and the other came back on a Sunday and the SUnday one particularly needed a lot of cleaning and tidying before it could go back to the depot so I missed the departure of the shuttle service. Going into the office though, I found two credit cards on the floor. I assumed that these were the new fuel cards for the coaches that I had so I picked up the cards and walked out. The next problem was to return the coaches to the depot. I could drive one, but how would I return home? Had I done that with one of them the shuttle coach service on Saturday evening, I could have had a feeder coach back leaving me with just one to deal with. But with two to move and no way of returning home this was going to be complicated. Just then Nerina put in an appearance. She could drive up behind me in the old gold Cortina that we had and bring me home, that would solve one of the problems. And I was thinking that it was a shame that she couldn’t drive a coach otherwise we could take the two coaches both together. But then we would still have the problem of coming home afterwards.

Breakfast was rather late of course, but at least I managed to eat it okay. But with having a late breakfast I eschewed lunch yet again. No point in forcing the food down and I do need to lose some weight, especially after all that I must have eaten in North Africa.

None of the foregoing stopped me from going for my walk this afternoon, where I met Gribouille and his owner. And he (Gribouille) let me pick him up again and give him a stroke, something that apparently he doesn’t allow everyone to do. But he really is a beautiful cat.

There were crowds of people about this afternoon too enjoying the weather. And plenty of these hang-glider people too circling around like vultures overhead.

It’s a good job that they aren’t real vultures though because I wouldn’t appreciate a bird of that size circling around above me – and for a variety of reasons too as I’m sure you can imagine.

And they weren’t the only airborne creatures with which we had to contend today.

There was one of these motorised hang-gliders soaring about overhead, presumably from the airfield alng the coast at Bréhal. It looks marginally safer than being in a hang-glider, I reckon, but you still wouldn’t get me up there in one of those things either.

I’m all in favour of terra firma – in fact, the more firma the less terra.

And that’s not all either.

With it being such a really a delicious day for once, there was a wedding party out on the promontory this afternoon and a wedding photographer was busily engaged about her business.

I just hope that she doesn’t ask them to step back one pace too far, because it could end up being the shortest marriage on record.

As for tea, I did have my veg, vegan sausages and vegan cheese sauce. And it was just as delicious as I was hoping that it would be. But the strawberries are about giving up I reckon. I’ll be lucky if the ones that are left will be good enough to eat tomorrow.

So a really beautiful day – the first time this year that I have had the windows here open. If we are’t very careful, summer may well be acumen in. Lhude sing seagulls, hey?

And now another early night, and once more there will be no alarm. I’ll need an alarm on Saturday to go to the shops of course but I intend to take advantage of the rest of the week. I’m feeling much better and in a day or so I’ll probably be all right.

Or, as right as I will ever be.

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 – I HAD A SURPRISE …

… visitor this morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I did manage my two trips out today again. And I’m glad this I did because we were having yet another famous night.

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

And last night’s was a belter.

The thing is, though, that there was nothing like as many people out enjoying it as I would have expected, so I had a pretty good spec all to myself.

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

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

But “stormy” was certainly the word. That was probably why there were so few people out there enjoying the sunset.

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

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

There were a few intrepid pedestrians down there dodging the waves as they crashed over onto the promenade.

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 1st May 2018 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… better today.

I was in bed at some really silly time last last, like 21:00 or something. But that’s not the same as saying that I went to sleep. I definitely heard the immersion heater switch on at 22:25.

But drop off to sleep I did, sooner or later. But with having been stark out on the sofa on several occasions, I was wide awake and up and about at … errr … 02:15.

No chance of me making that any kind of time to be up and about on a permanent basis, and I eventually went back to sleep. I’d turned off the alarms of course, with my health issues, and 08:20 was much more of a reasonable time to be out of bed.

No breakfast today – I somehow couldn’t face it. And I spent the morning stretched out on the sofa. Taking it easy, which is not a bad idea. Liz came on line to see how I was. She had heard that I was unwell.

I did manage a butty or two for lunch – another very late one – and then I crawled off out for a walk. I wasn’t feeling at all like it and it was probably a silly thing to do, but I have to push myself onwards otherwise I’m going to be stuck on the sofa for the duration.

Back here, I had a coffee and then watched a DVD – well, some of it anyway.

Just for a change, I did manage some tea tonight. Oven chips, beans and sausage. Followed by strawberries and some of the sorbet that I made the other day. And I have to say it – it does taste as good as it looks and my sorbet maker churned it up nicely.

After tea I did go for another walk and met Minette, the black cat. She was lying in wait for me, possibly because she hasn’t seen me in a while.

So it’s yet another early night. The sore throat has almost gone but I’m sneezing like mad with a streaming head cold.

I just can’t win.

Monday 30th April 2018 – I HAVE SPENT …

… almost all of the day curled up on the sofa under the quilt.

My exertions from the other day coming back from North Africa have finally caught up with me and so that was that.

When the alarm went off at 06:20 I did manage to struggle out of bed and I even ate breakfast too. But that was followed by a blackcurrant, hot lemon and honey drink to try to ease the throat.

There’s some cough mixture too left over from last time and I had a couple of teaspoons of that. And much to my surprise, that seemed to work to some extent.

For lunch, I did manage a sandwich and some fruit (it was a very late lunch though) and then back on the sofa. I put a few DVDs on (the remote controller that I bought does actually work) but I would be lying if I were to say that I saw very much of them.

And although it’s quite early, I’m off to bed. No tea either because I’m really not feeling very much like it.

Let’s all hope that I’ll feel a little better tomorrow.

Sunday 29th April 2018 – HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Even as we speak, here I am curled up on the sofa underneath the quilt and wearing about 10 layers of clothing.

And I’m still freezing!

And in news which will cheer up almost everyone reading this rubbish, I have lost my voice too. I’m definitely sickening for something yet again!

It all started this morning, when I awoke, at the nice and gentle hour of 09:00, and found that instead of a throat I had two sheets of sandpaper there. And as well as that, I was rather unsteady on my feet. None of that was looking very good.

However, it hadn’t stopped me going on a midnight ramble. Last night I was out in North Africa, a very sandy, dusty city and I was part of an army that was on the attack. But the farther we advanced the more cut off we were becoming and there were fewer and fewer of us able to progress. Our situation bega to look quite desperate.
Just like the situation in a book that I was reading on the train the other day about the First Day on the Somme in 1916 in fact.
And later I’d been looking for somewhere to stay. I met up with some man who took me off to place that would be quite comfortable, and he would come to pick me up at 08:00 next morning to take me back to my car. But by the time 08:30 arrived he hadn’t turned up and there was so much to do, like loading my car (the mattress on which I had been sleeping needed to go right at the bottom for a start, so everything needed to be unpacked) before 10:00, the official check-out time. So to save time I set off to walk along the road along which he had brought me because there was a vantage point on a bend with a good view. I had my big red cantilever tool box with me as I walked through the countryside. And it was now 08:45, I was installed on the bend with a village down below but still no sign of this guy and I was wondering if I had done the right thing by moving, and worried that I would be locked out of my accommodation at 10:00 without all my possessions.

We had the usual morning routine of course and then I sat on the sofa and vegetated. On Sundays there is no alarm of course so I can stay in bed as long as I like. And as Matt Dillon so eloquently put it, “Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it”. We all deserve a day like that.

This afternoon I made some butties and a flask and headed out to the Stade Croissant. US St Pair’s 3rd XI were playing US Roncey-Cerisy in a bottom-of-the-table encounter in Division 3 of the regional league. It was cold and windy and at the kick-off the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour.

Luckily there’s a grandstand there and so at least there was some shelter but I was getting colder and colder as time wore on.

As for the football, there was a general lack of skill as you might expect but at least US St Pair played with a plan and some shape, and they were quite adventurous in what they tried. Had they had some individual skill, or a proper centre-forward (because their “attack” was very lightweight) they would have run away with this match.

They did score once, but penalty was well-saved by the US Roncey-Cerisy keeper who rode his luck quite well. But US Roncey-Cerisy had their moments too particularly in the second half when they strung a few nice balls together and even managed to score an equaliser when the US St Pair keeper slipped on the greasy turf.

Three players who impressed me, all on the US St Pair team, were the old, balding left-winger, the red-headed central midfielder, and the rather portly centre-half who dominated his defence and played some excellent balls upfield.

ON the way back I had the heater on full-blast in Caliburn because I was now shivering. And back here I grabbed the quilt and dived underneath it on the sofa where I crashed out for an hour.

I did manage to make tea though – another excellent pizza.

So now, I’m not bothering with a walk in this weather. I’m going straight to bed and I’ll sleep for the duration.

Ask me if I care.

Saturday 28th April 2018 – PHEW!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then the shops!

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

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

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

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

On the way back from the football I saw something that made me laugh, and so I had to take a photograph of it.

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

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

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

You just watch someone come along to spoil it!

Friday 27th April 2018 – GOD, IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. I ached in every joint and every muscle.

I’d had a bad night too – couldn’t manage any sort of decent, continuous sleep.

Not that any of this stopped me going on the kind of mega-ramble that I haven’t been on in quite some considerable time though.

We started off with a whole bunch of us in some seaside area or resort and where I was staying was out of the town centre so I had to walk in every day down this same old road to get into town. But it was coming up to our time to leave so we were assembled waiting outside a building for something to happen. After a while I decided that I would go in the building. In there was a load of people whom I knew – probably most of them in fact – and we all ended up having a big chat. Someone began to talk about the time that he had been for a drive with Nerina and the exhaust had become detached from the manifold on the black Cortina and how she had driven over it. I told a few moe stories about car problems that we had had. I happened to glance out of the window to see everyone else starting to come in and they all looked really wet. I asked if it had been raining, and the people replied that it had been snowing too. After a while Anne and Mike (although it wasn’t Mike) decided that they would have to leave regardless of the weather. They went outside but just then two young girls came past on bikes and shouted to Anne “we’ve done it – we’ve done it”. It turns out that Anne and Mike were some kind of medical consultants or the like and had to go to change someone’s bandages, but these two kids had done it instead, and successfully too. I asked what this was all about, so someone explained it to me. And then another two kids appeared. They announced that they had done something else to someone else who needed medicl attention. This ws all very exciting, listening to the accomplishments of these kids. They wandered off so I followed them around the corner. There was this big fat muscular old man there wearing a fez. I went back into the building and ended up in a dark corner doing something, but there was some kind of commotion, and I heard a gruff voice say “right then, we’ll go to his room”. There was the man, dragging roughly a boy from my childhood heading obviously to my room. It was clear that a large amount of force had been used on this boy so I asked him if he was ok. The boy replied “no, not after what he’s just done to me”. That made me pick up the phone to start dialling 999. this man came round to my side of the desk to see what I was doing. I told him that I was phoning the police. He replied “no you aren’t” and went to snatch the phone from me. My response was to pick up one of these dagger-like envelope openers and plunge it straight into his stomach. That’ll settle his hash.
A little later I was changing jobs within an office and all of my old work was going to be taken over by someone else and I would be having new work. I was very very unhappy about this because there were lots of things that I ought to have done yet hadn’t done, and I didn’t want my shortcomings to be exposed to anyone else. In view of this, and seeing that I was beyind retirement age I decided that I would simply retire and walk away. I wandered over to a nearby school to see if any of the school buses needed a new driver, seeing as it was chucking-out time. I had realised that I would be terribly lonely in my retirement as I liked people and was always pleased to see them (!!!). As these kids came streaming out, a young blonde-haired girl came over and greeted me as if we were really old friends. For my part, I had no idea who she was. I couldn’t remember her at all. Nevertheless I told her that I was retiring and that leaving was going to make me fed up. She said that that wasn’t a problem as she baked quite regularly and she promised to contact me each time she baked something and I could come along and buy some cakes off her. We can exchange the money right outside the accountants’ office where I work and that will make him really agitated, seeing me receive money. So I wandered off and ended up in the company of two boys. I ws looking for stones because what I had been doing was building up a breeze-block wall on an earthen bank. But the bank kept on collapsing and as I tried to hammer the breeze block into the cement on the top of this bank it was either making the bank crumble away more or else shaling the breeze block. I needed the stones to make a stabilising layer. My search took me down this cut-off part of road where I encountered these two boys. One of them had a very long pointed stick and he was killing everything that he encountered – deformed stillborn animals, seals caught up in fishing nets – by stabbing them with this pole. I was outraged by this. Halfway down this cut-off we came across a really strong and powerful half-man, half beast thing. He said that if we want to pass, we would have to fight him for it. I immediately volunteered this boy who had been killing everything. I said that he seemed to be in the right kind of humour for the task. But of course, like most bullies, he immediately chickened out. We turned round and retraced our steps much to my disappointment with this boy chickening out of this fight. But that was only to be expected, I suppose. I wasn’t going to get my stones, was I?

With all of that going on, no wonder I was exhausted.

After breakfast and the usual morning routine I sat down and attacked the two missing days. So now Tuesday’s entry and Wednesday’s entry are both on line.

And when you consider that the total amount of words came to just a little short of 5,000, you’ll understand why it took me until 19:50 this evening to finish it off.

It might however have taken less time had I not … errr … had a little relax after my afternoon walk. A good hour or so I was gone. It’s all catching up with me, this jet-setting lifestyle. I’ll be non compos mentis for a while at this rate.

Tea tonight, seeing as I don’t have a great deal of variety in the house just now, was stuffed peppers. I remembered to buy some at LIDL yesterday. And then we had football. Cefn Druids comfortably beat Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League, live on the internet.

Afterwards, I went for a walk in the dark around the headland, and now I’m off to bed. An early night is called for as there is a lot to do tomorrow, as well as a football match in the evening.

I need to be on top form.

EPIC HALL

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