Saturday 9th July 2022 – WHILE YOU ADMIRE …

… a couple of photos of the local kids taking the Leap of Death off the harbour wall into the sea, I’ll tell you about my day today, such as it was.

It started off as I mean to go on, by ignoring the alarms when they went off at 07:30, 07:45 and 08:00. In fact it was at 09:30 or thereabouts when I finally crawled into the Land of the Living. That’s much more like it.

And so after the medication I sat down and began to transcribe the dictaphone notes from last night. And if you are wondering why it took me all of the morning to deal with them, then read on. I haven’t crashed out yet today and that’s a surprise given the distance that I must have travelled during the night.

I’d been with someone shopping and we’d picked some stuff out and we had a tub of ice cream. We couldn’t carry that so we put it on the floor by the freezer and took the stuff over. We came back and I put that tub back in the freezer and picked one from right down at the bottom that would be nice and cold and hard because it was a hot day. Then we bumped into this girl called Marie or Maria. In real life she was someone whom I knew from Woolworth’s in Crewe in the 70s. We were chatting and then I said I’d take this ice cream over to where there was a desk. She gave some kind of vague indication. When I arrived there I realised that I didn’t know her family name so I was looking for some French-sounding family names because I was sure that her husband was French. In the end I found 2 desks with 2 people the same family name, a foreign-sounding name. There was a girl working at a desk nearby so I asked her which was Marie’s desk. She said “if you had been here yesterday …” “which I wasn’t”. “No, but if you had been here yesterday …” and was on the point of giving me some really long lecture.

The guy in this dream lives with his mother, not in a flat, and is dating Marie. They don’t live together because she had something weird in her separation agreement with her husband about having guys staying over so they are a couple. We were out somewhere in Scotland in the Central Belt with baked beans and sausage on toast talking but I can’t remember what we were talking about now. It’s all gone out of my head.

So while you admire a photo of Belle France doing a trip around the Bay, there was an unexploded mine that had drifted into a harbour where they were loading these ships with soldiers. I’d been detailed to take it to a disposal centre in my Cortina. A woman called Carol and I went to pick it up. We had to fight our way onto the quayside in this car. We eventually arrived at the end where we could hoist this mine up. In the meantime thousands of people were fighting to get into the Cortina to get away. We had to explain to them that if they got into the Cortina they would be travelling with an unexploded mine so they all left. We put this mine in the back of the car. A woman came over and asked if we’d seen a child’s coat. I said no, I hadn’t so she had a look in the back where we’d put this mine and there were two kids’ coats in there. She thought that one of them might have been the coat for which she was looking but could she order an extra coat from the stores just in case? I told Carol to make a note but she pulled a face. We had this mine safely aboard our car and had to turn round through these crowds of soldiers and leave for this mine disposal place

Somewhere in this I was at Marianne’s and she told me that I could make some tea. I switched on the oven and put a small mushroom pie in it. I had potatoes on the stove and some peas cooking in gravy. Later on she came to check and saw that I was doing OK so she went back to her book again and carried on working. She seemed to think that I was doing everything correctly and asked me if I wanted some Brussels sprouts. I replied “no” because she would overcook them terribly.

And while La Granvillaise and the lifeboat Notre Dame de Cap Lihou do a lap around the Bay I was back with this little girl and her father … “which little girl and her father?” – ed … again. They’d been round an amusement park and looked at the gardens and now gone to look for their plants. He couldn’t find his radishes but his wife and daughter found their plants. In the end he found his radishes in the wrong place so he went to dig them up. Just then there was some kind of commotion and he and his daughter fled. They scrambled aboard a spaceship that was one of the exhibits at this park and set off down this waterway. After a few hours they stopped. The girl was really nervous. She didn’t want to stop as they could easily be caught if they stopped so when he lowered the machine down onto the water she pressed the lever and it took off again and they went somewhere else. Eventually they came to another place. When they landed there and went out for some fresh air there was another young girl watching them. They took this young girl and put her on the spaceship as well. There were now 3 of them fleeing from whatever authority it was that pursuing them over these radishes.

Then I was in my bedroom and there was another girl here (and I wish that I knew who she was). We were talking about going somewhere. She moved her suitcase over to the wardrobe ready to pack it and my suitcase still had those hot cross buns in it so I had to go and make some room in the freezer to store them in there. When I came back in here she had gone. That awoke me with a start and for the first minute or two I was looking around the bedroom trying to find her, it was somehow so realistic that I thought it was real.

That was absolutely weird

Later on, while this kayak rows past this strange buoy that has appeared just here in the bay, there was some kind of geography field trip. Half a dozen or so of us had gone to the site of some shale deposits and were searching through for all kinds of stuff. I lost interest after a while. I had these things and I had 3 foam-rubber cushions on which I’d been kneeling. I knew later on that afternoon that we were going to go home so I was simply piling them up in a corner ready to post them off but putting them so they looked tidy and I was just stirring stuff around to pass the time more than anything else. There was only really one person working, running out into the shale to pick up fossils etc. There was someone there with 3 vehicles, a black saloon, a red double-decker bus and a green double decker Bristol Lodekka bus. While I was walking around I suddenly had the thought that I’d never driven a service-bus double-decker so I went over to him but he didn’t stop. He kept on driving. I had to run round after him. I thought that this was pretty pointless. I was determined to have a go at this bus for about 5 minutes. It was like a farm track or something so it wasn’t going to be dangerous but the guy wouldn’t stop to talk to me. I had to run after him. I thought that this is going to be a pretty futile exercise, I could see this, but it was going to be my only chance to have a go behind the wheel of a bus like this.

I had some endives and a pile of Brussels sprouts that needed preparing, blanching and freezing. I prepared the endives but I didn’t like the look of the sprouts because they were all old and brown. Trying to find something nice in those would take me an age. There won’t be very much left to freeze if I do it properly so I was really not looking forward at all to doing that.

All of that and not a single TOTGA, Castor or Zero. I hope that they put in an appearance while I was away otherwise it’s going to be a pretty poor do. It’s been an age since I remember them coming to see me.

Once more, I’ve had no lunch. I’m trying my best to keep on top of my weight. There’s still plenty that I could do with losing to bring me down to what I consider to be my optimum weight. While I was in Minnesota and North Dakota in 2019 I actually made it too and I kept it off for a while until I was obliged to stop running.

This afternoon I made a desultory start on the photos from June and my trip around Europe. There are plenty to go at and I didn’t feel like pushing myself too hard.

And in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been out to the shops today.

Instead I went out for my usual walk around the headland.

The first thing that I did was to go over to the wall at the end of the headland and look down on the crowds on the beach.

And crowds there were too. Plenty of people taking advantage of the nice warm weather and beautiful sunshine, even if there wasn’t all that much beach for them to be on this afternoon. The tide is well in right now.

Quite a few people actually brave enough to take to the water too. They were all having a whale of a time this afternoon, and who can blame them?

There were plenty of people wandering around on the path up here on top of the cliffs too.

And that’s not all because we had one of the sparrowhawks too this afternoon. There’s a colony of rabbits down there in the cliffs and I imagine that the bird is on the lookout for a juvenile to take home for tea.

From what I’ve seen, I think that there are at least two of them working the cliffs around here. Usually there’s just one of them but I have seen two on a couple of occasions flying around there.

While I haven’t actually seen one of these here manage to catch something, I’ve seen plenty of them in the Auvergne when I lived in Virlet that were clutching some kind of rodent in their claws.

That wasn’t all of the aerial activity that was happening either.

As I wandered along the path I was overflown by our old friend the yellow autogyro.

It was heading towards the airfield when it overflew me but immediately afterwards did a rather dramatic U-turn and headed back down the coast towards Mont St Michel.

Apart from that we had a few full-size jets flying by overhead at 35,000 feet but I haven’t seen a light aeroplane for a while. With it being summer, I would have expected to have seen them out and about more-or-less permanently.

However, there were plenty of fishermen out this afternoon.

Every rock seemed to have its own fisherman today. There were seven just in my field of view here at the end of the headland, although only three made it into this photo.

And with all of the activity going on out at sea today, because there was much, much more than that which you have seen in the earlier photos, there was no-one at all sitting on the bench by the cabanon vauban enjoying the spectacle.

Having taken several photos here and there of the various water craft I wandered off along the path on the other side of the headland.

The kids were there on the sea wall leaping off into the sea so I watched them for a while and took a few photos. Apart from that, there was nothing else going on in the harbour that we didn’t see yesterday.

What we did see yesterday were a couple of marquees that hed been erected down at the far end of the harbour.

There was some music going on from down there this afternoon and quite a crowd of people around there watching whatever was going on. They all seemed to ba having a good time.

Back here I had a strawberry smoothie and then true to form, bang on cue, Rosemary rang me. I’m sure that she’s hidden a camera in here somewhere.

We had a good chat about all kinds of things including her adventures with her Ukrainian guests at the local Prefecture when they went to register.

And little Miss Ukrainian is ill, so I heard. That’s really sad because I quite like her. I hope that she gets better soon.

Tea was a baked potato with veg and one of these breaded quorn fillets that I like so much. I’m running quite low on those now and that’s a shame. I don’t think that Noz will have any more of those.

So I’m going to have a relax before I go to bed. Tomorrow is Sunday so I’m having a good lie-in. It’s been several weeks since I’ve had a really good interrupted sleep and I am quite looking forward to it.

Friday 8th July 2022 – BACK IN THE …

… same old routine now that I’m home. It didn’t take long, did it?

So while you admire several photos of the activity that is taking place out at sea this afternoon I shall regale you all with tales of my first day back at home.

But before I do, I’ll mention a couple of things that I forgot to say yesterday. Firstly, I cut my hair and secondly I’m 2kg lighter than I was before I set out. Maybe the two events are connected. I dunno.

Anyway, when the alarm went off, I was in no hurry to leave my bed and it was much more like 09:15 when I finally staggered out into the light. And I’ll probably do the same tomorrow too.

Having had my medication I downloaded … GULP … 47 sound files off the dictaphone, all of which will have to be transcribed at some point in the near future.

However, I did transcribe a couple of them that related to my travels last night. I was on another road trip. There was me, someone who might have been my youngest sister and a few other people. We were all in a car going places. For some reason one of these people was taking so long getting ready that in the end I ended up with a mouthful of her Pringles. She looked at me and asked “where did you get those Pringles?”. I replied “I don’t know”. The little girl laughed and said “they are your Pringles because you didn’t come”. I asked the little girl if she still had the notebook of where we were supposed to go. She couldn’t find it so I had to look back at the table where we were sitting. In the end she did find it and gave it back to us. I had to then get into the car and prepare to drive away. It was all a very happy, cheerful dream of lunchtime out on a road trip although I had a feeling that the circumstances around the trip were not so joyful.

Later on a girl called Judith (not the one we know) rang me up and asked me to pick her up somewhere across the Spanish border at Sinfin. I asked her what Sinfin was and she replied that it was a place. She couldn’t give me any more details and hung up. Just then another girl, a girl I used to know in Stoke on Trent, a small cheerful girl came round as I was going and asked if I could run her across the border to somewhere else. She got in and I drove her over there. I said that I had to go to pick up Judith. She replied that Judith was absolutely wasted. I explained that when she rang me up she didn’t sound too bad at all but this girl was quite insistent. I asked her if she knew where this place Sinfin was. She had no idea so I went back to the border where I thought that i’d speak to a guy in one of the bars to ask him. There was no-one around and when he came out he was busy. Following my instincts I drove off down this road and came across a cottage with the big word SINFIN written on the side. There was a girl asleep in the hallway so I walked in and shouted “taxi”. She jumped out of her skin. I said that i’d come for Judith. She replied ‘I don’t think that Judith’s here”. We had a chat about Judith and a chat about the place and a chat about the party that had gone on etc and I awoke right in the middle of it. I’d love to know how it ended.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent dealing with the photos from July that i’d taken while I was away.

When I go out later I’ll be taking photos of course (if the camera works) so I need to know which number I’ve reached. There weren’t too many and I wasn’t in a rush. and dozing off for half an hour or so didn’t help much. And that after having a lie-in too!

There was the usual pause for breakfast of course, the remains of yesterday’s baguette sliced in two lengthways and stuck in the toaster. But no lunch. Having managed to lose some weight while I was away, I’m going to try my best to keep it off.

Not that I imagine that I’ll be very successful.

Rather later than usual, thanks to my little … errr … rest, I went out for my afternoon walk.

And as usual, just to show that I haven’t forgotten anything, I went over to have a look down onto the beach to see what was happening there.

It’s the holiday season right now. School has broken up for summer and so we can expect the crowds. And there were several people down there enjoying the sun.

And by the looks of things, it seems that a few people had even been brave enough to try their luck in the sea. However they managed to scramble out before I could take a photo of them in flagrante delicto.

Surprisingly there weren’t very many people out here on the path this afternoon so I didn’t have to dodge around anyone to avoid their germs.

Across the car park I went down to the end of the headland to look at what was happening there. There was someone down there having a fish from off the rocks but we didn’t see him catch anything.

What was puzzling me however was why he had decided to take his dog with him. There can’t have been very much of interest that would have attracted the dog’s attention and kept him amused.

The tide was well in today too so there wasn’t any room for anyone at the pèche à pied.

Nevertheless there was plenty going on out at sea and we have seen a few photos of the action too. There was much more too that I didn’t photograph.

And they had an audience too. As I watched, someone walking around on the lower path walked down to the bench by the cabanon vauban to have a good rest.

There were actually quite a few people down there on the lower path, including a rather bored toddler who was having something of a mini-tantrum. He wasn’t enjoying it.

But that’s a problem for himself and his parents. I cleared off along the path on the other side of the headland towards the port.

Having been away for almost three weeks, I wanted to see what was going on in the port.

First … errr … port of call was the chantier naval, which had been quite busy before I left. What we had today (and yesterday because I saw her as I drove past) was Philcathane.

She’s looking quite smart and so I wonder if she’s had a new coat of paint while I’ve been away.

If you look closely you can see the Plimsoll Line on her beam. That’s some kind of weird complicated drawing with horizontal lines that indicate how she must ride in the sea, depending on the type of sea that she is to sail.

It’s always interesting to see a ship’s “WNA” (Winter North Atlantic) load line and see how it differs from any other line that is included in the Plimsoll Line. Those seas can be extremely rough and you don’t want a ship to be too low in the water in case it’s swamped.

As for the rest of the chantier naval there isn’t anyone at all in there.

The last time that we were here, the chantier naval was occupied by L’Alize III Charles Marie II and Wavecat Express but they all seem to have gone back into the water. And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m keen to know what’s going on with Wavecat Express

Over at the ferry terminal we have Belle France and I’m not sure why because she won’t have time to make it over to the Ile de Chausey and back on this tide now and the next high tide will be late at night.

Her sisters however aren’t out there at the ferry terminal though so they are presumably out at the island.

No-one playing Musical Ships today so I wandered off down the path towards the inner harbour.

No trace of Marité today though. She has gone off for a trip out and about and is at Lorient even as we speak. She left Granville on 26th June, so I believe.

The boat that is there at her berth is, I think, Les Epiettes, the boat from the Ponts and Chaussées and over there on the right is the trawler Cap PIlar.

On the quayside they are erecting some marquees. Some time during the summer there’s a Festival of Working Sailing Boats and I wonder if they are preparing for that.

When we were here last before we set off on our trip, Victor Hugo wasn’t here.

But now, she’s back at her berth in the inner harbour. It looks as if they aren’t all that busy running out to the Channel Islands right now, which is a surprise.

Also over there is Chausiaise, the little freighter that runs out to the Ile de Chausey.

Back here I made myself a coffee and worked through the photos that I’d taken while I was out on my afternoon walk so that I would be up to date. The photos for June, I’ll deal with them in due course.

Tea tonight was pasta and a burger, and then I came in here to write my notes. Once they are on line I’ll be off to bed. No shopping tomorrow but I’ll walk down into town to buy a baguette, and see how I get on walking back up again. I don’t think that there will be an improvement but I hope that things aren’t worse.

Thursday 7th July 2022 – "WHAT MORE CAN I SAY?"

“IT’S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE BACK HOME” as Barry Hay said in Amsterdam in 1992.

And as I sank into my chair in my bedroom this afternoon and breathed a sigh of relief I totally agreed with him. It IS good to be back home even if I’ve “got my friends in every town, from border to border, every place that I’ve been”.

Last night in that nice motel in eastern Normandy I slept for 10.5 hours and enjoyed every minute of it. There is however plenty of stuff on the dictaphone and I suppose that one of these days I’ll have to type it all out. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to and (more importantly) who was with me when I was doing it.

After a good shower I hit the road and headed for home. The journey was completely uneventful and there was nothing to report at all.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav brought me into Caen eventually and then I hit the autoroute for the rest of the journey home.

As I arrived in Granville I noticed that diesel has reduced from 206.9 to 197.9 while I was away. It’s not all bad news.

And while I was at LeClerc I popped in for some shopping just to make sure that and I’ll have stuff to eat.

Back at home, the first thing that I did was to check on the new bus route that stops outside my door. And to my surprise it doesn’t go to the railway station. That’s bad news. That’s no use for me at all and I’m not impressed.

Next thing was to come upstairs with a few things – nothing like everything that’s in Caliburn. That’s going to take me several weeks, if not months, to bring it all up here.

Up here, I made a strong coffee and collapsed into my chair. and apart from making some sandwiches at some point during the afternoon that’s all that I’ve done. I’ve had a very relaxing afternoon and quite right too because I’m worn out. I was thinking of going to the USA maybe at some point later in the year but that’s not going to happen. 500kms yesterday finished me off.

So now I’m going to bed and have (hopefully) a really good sleep ready for everything that I have to do tomorrow.

And Barry Hay is right. It’s always good to be back home.

Wednesday 6th July 2022 – I CAN’T BELIEVE …

… that I spent several days in Belgium and didn’t patronise a fritkot while I was there.

Something else that I can’t believe is that I’m only 200 kms from home and I’ve hit the wall. I can’t go any further.

It’s true that I’ve driven over 500 kms today and that’s the longest that I’ve driven in a day in quite some considerable time but the days when I could drive 32 hours non-stop towing a trailer are long-gone, even if it was only a few years ago that I last did that.

What a state to be in!

Mind you, I started early today. I was actually on the road at 07:50 this morning. And I’d had a late night and a rather depressing attempt at going to sleep, an attempt that didn’t work.

Alison banged on my door when she awoke and I had time to have a shower and pack my things before she headed off into the sunrise. I headed off too but I was going south, and for a very good reason too.

Trying to go round Brussels in the rush hour is impossible so I headed through the country lanes as far as Wavre where I juelled up and then went across the lines of traffic southwards to the suburbs of Charleroi where I picked up the motorway for Paris.

The motorway took me west for 100 kms until I hit a massive queue at the roadworks so even though it was still a few miles fro my turning that takes me eventually to Amiens I left the motorway and headed down some nice country roads.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav took me down roads that I had never travelled before and even found ways to by-pass Arras and Amiens. In fact I didn’t hit any big city at all the entire length of my route so far. It was slow but steady.

At one point we had a problem. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Caliburn had his windscreen replaced last winter. They must really have mauled it about because the plastic trim on the driver’s side that seals in the windscreen was only held in with one of the four clips and that suddenly broke off.

So after a brief stop along the way the plastic trim is now super-glued in and taped down with gaffer tape. But I’m not a very happy bunny.

Back on the road after lunch and a pause and I crossed the Seine south of Rouen. Normally The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav directs me over the Pont de Tancarville near Le Havre but I like this route so much better.

At 18:00 I used the telephone to find me a hotel “in the neighbourhood” and it came up with the Libre Hotel at Le Vespière near Orbec. I’ve not heard of this hotel before but it’s a good choice by the looks of things. Definitely upmarket from the usual Première Classe and not that much more expensive – still cheaper than in Belgium though.

But regardless of the time I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted and I can’t keep on going like this for much longer

Tuesday 5th July 2022 – HERE I AM …

… at Alison’s house near Leuven.

“I need to charge up my phone”
“Why?” asked Alison
“The battery is almost flat and I need to book a hotel room”
“Don’t be silly! Stay here!”

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I don’t have many friends but those I do have are the best in the world.

Last night’s hotel, after all was said and done, was quite comfortable too. I had a reasonable (for these days) sleep with a few voyages during the night (there are now 37 on the dictaphone waiting to be transcribed) and I even treated myself to a little lie-in.

The shower was quite nice too but surprisingly I had to wait for quite a while for the medication to take effect – much longer than usual.

Once I was ready I could hit the road and I headed for Leuven. I stopped to buy bread for lunch and then went to the hospital at Pellemberg – the one where I stayed for a while back in 2016 with the beautiful grounds – to eat my butties.

With plenty of time on my hands I finished reading my book on submarines and had a good doze in the afternoon sun as well but then later I headed into town.

There was a handy place to park in a side street in the suburbs and a good walk took me into town where I met up with Alison. We had our burger at Green Day and a coffee at Kloosters Hotel before heading back to her house.

She has an early start in the morning, and that means so do I, so I’m not hanging around. I’m going to bed and tomorrow I’m starting on the first leg of my journey back home. If I’m lucky I’ll be back by the weekend.

Monday 4th July 2022 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER …

… go at having this tyre fixed.

As I came into Liège at lunchtime today I came past a tyre place that advertised second-hand tyres as well as new ones. I thought that that was a good idea because if they couldn’t fix anything they could probably sort out a tyre for me from somewhere.

But anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … they detected a leaky valve in the tyre that keeps going down – the valve that was supposed to have been replaced – and they put a plug in the tyre that had been nailed.

They did it so quickly that I had to check to make sure that they actually had done something, and it wasn’t cheap either. So I hope that it all works this time.

Last night’s hotel was really comfortable and excellent value for what I paid. I would stay there again without any hesitation.

This morning I had a nice hot shower and then set off for a slow ramble through Aachen and into Belgium.

An uneventful drive brought me into Liège where I had my tyres repaired and then I had a drive around the city centre. Liège is quite a depressing place – it’s far from being my favourite city – and it’s not improved one iota since I last drove round it 20 years ago.

On leaving the city I stopped for some groceries and then drove down alongside the Meuse as far as Huy where I stopped for a very late lunch and to read my book in the sun on a bench by the river.

And then to go back to Caliburn where I crashed out for an hour. Absolutely and completely too, the first time since I’ve been on my travels.

Later on I booked a room in a hotel – the Premiere Classe hotel in northern Liège. I’ve stayed here before several years ago. The hotels in Belgium are more expensive than in France and Germany and this one needs a good coat of paint and a clean on the facade but the rooms are OK. But €57 in Belgium compared to €35-€42 for the same hotel in France tells its own story.

For tea I finished off the rest of the sandwiches and now I’m off to bed. An early night will do me good ready for my final day on my holidays tomorrow. Starting on Wednesday I will have done everything that I’m going to do and I’ll be heading for home.

Sunday 3rd July 2022 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about what I’d be doing at some point this morning. Sure enough, it was to change yet another tyre on Caliburn – the third on this trip so far. And it was the old one that I’d fitted to replace the new one that keeps on having these mystery losses of air.

At least there was a good reason for this particular puncture – a big nail stuck in the tyre – but that’s not really all that much consolation.

What else wasn’t much consolation was that I didn’t have much sleep last night. I’m not sure why, because the bed was quite comfortable and it wasn’t too warm. Evidently nothing on the dictaphone which was a disappointment. I really enjoy my nocturnal rambles, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

To my surprise, I was the first awake so I wrote up my notes for yesterday and put them on line, using the “tethering” function of my telephone to access the internet. That’s quite a useful function.

When Jörg came back from the bakery we had breakfast and then we went to change the wheel. It’s a good job that I’d picked up both of those tyres two years ago. And it’s amazing how quickly we can change a wheel when there are two of us. I told him that I’d sign him on as pit crew for the rest of the voyage.

And I do seem to have done my right knee a permanent mischief after yesterday. I can’t put any weight at all on it.

Jörg went out later so Jackie and I had a long chat for several hours about all kinds of things. We had a lot to say for ourselves.

Later on we all had a coffee and then it was time to go. Jörg took me to the nearby petrol station to check the tyre pressures and then I was on my way.

Yet more umleiden to confuse The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav but apart from that the journey was pretty uneventful. However I did manage to arrive in Aachen and drive past the football ground 10 minutes after the final whistle when I was swamped in football supporters and police.

Now I’m in Eschweiler about 15 miles north of Aachen in a modern unit hotel and at €42:00 per night it looks as if I’ve struck lucky. This is definitely one up on the unit hotels that you find in France in the same price range.

This is probably my last night in Germany. Tomorrow I’m off to Liège – a town in Belgium that I hate but where I stand the best chance of having my tyres fixed. I’m not comfortable speaking in German when it comes to this sort of technical detail and so French is my best bet.

We’ll see what they can come up with – after I’ve had a good night’s sleep. I need one after the miserable failure of last night.

Saturday 2nd July 2022 – START AS YOU …

… mean to go on.

So I started this morning by changing the wheel on Caliburn. The tyre that they said the other day that there was nothing wrong with had gone down again overnight. This is becoming too much of a habit.

But anyway, I had a really nice sleep last night in a bed in which Noah and his wife had slept during their voyage on the Ark and which had been rescued from Mount Ararat, and then I wandered off for a shower.

Not that I needed to bother because I was all hot and sweaty within five minutes of leaving the hotel.

And I’m not sure what they had used to tighten up the wheel nuts at that garage in Eching but I ended up jumping up and down on the power bar to free them off. At one stage I fell off and landed on the sore spot on my bad knee right on the corner of my toolbox. That’s ruined me for life, I reckon.

Eventually it was all done and dusted and I could clear off, musing that for €45 I had had a pretty good deal.

My route meandered north and I crossed the Saar at Mettlach. There’s an old suspension bridge there that’s still used for traffic and it’s quite pretty around there so I stopped to take a few photos

When I arrived at Luxembourg Malou wasn’t available. She’s hosting a Celtic-themed walk around the city all day and into the evening so I headed north for Cologne.

At one point coming over the brow of a hill into the Rhine valley there’s a beautiful view of the city so I stopped there to take a few photos and then pushed on to Jackie’s house on the north side of the city.

Finding a place to park wasn’t easy because it’s a narrow street but I managed to sort something out, and we went off to a restaurant by the riverside for a meal and a really good chat to talk about old times. It’s 18 years since we first me, so she informed me.

No room at any old inn in the vicinity but as luck would have it, her partner’s friend wasn’t staying over tonight and so that solved the problem completely, for which I was extremely grateful.

But guess what I’ll be doing first thing tomorrow before I set off? This really is unbelievable.

Friday 1st July 2022 – WHATEVER HAPPENED …

… to the Vanilla Queen?

She was the “fascinating lady” whom I met on MY TRIP AROUND THE HIGH ARCTIC IN 2018 and who came to “haunt me, even in my dreams” for a while thereafter.

While I was driving around this afternoon THE SONG FROM WHICH SHE TAKES HER NAME came round on the playlist and that got me thinking that I’ve not had the pleasure of her company for a quite a while.

She certainly blew down my fences, and I wasn’t the same for quite a while – until the following year when it all kicked off again when I had that rather bizarre encounter with Castor. I don’t know what it is about the High Arctic.

While we’re on the subject of being haunted in our dreams … “well, one of us is” – ed … I had another weird encounter today. I was crashed out for an hour or so this morning in a layby and while I was asleep I saw someone walk past me – someone in his 40s with dark thinning hair, a thin face with a prominent pointed nose and a red, pink and white patterned shirt.

It wasn’t as dramatic as seeing Zero a few weeks ago but it was pretty close.

This morning there was tons more stuff on the dictaphone that I’ll have to transcribe later.

And after a shower I went for breakfast that was included in the price. All in all it was excellent value, the hotel, and I’ll stop there again.

As well as that I almost managed to drive away without paying. I’m never sure whether this booking agency makes me pay in advance or not. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I was just on the point of driving off when the receptionist came running after me.

It was raining quite heavily this morning and cool too so it was a pleasure to drive. But I couldn’t keep going for long. I found a lay-by down a lonely road and crashed out for a while when I had my strange encounter.

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful. Nothing much happened and I even crossed the Rhine without really realising it.

There was however a bad attack of the Jimmy Ruffins as I entered Stuttgart. ‘I’ve passed this way before” I sang to myself. Even the traffic jams, and there were plenty of those between Stuttgart and Pforzheim, looked strangely familiar.

And the diversions too. In fact there were plenty of those all over Germany. Getting in my way wherever I try to travel. But at least the weather improved later on in the day as I went further north.

Right now I’m at a hotel in Pirmasens a couple of hours from Luxembourg. The hotel is like some kind of Gothic horror out of the 1960sbut then again so are the prices. I’ve never stayed in a hotel as cheap as this anywhere in Europe apart from a unit hotel at a French motorway exit.

So tomorrow I have a choice of several directions to take. It all depends how I’m feeling and how is about, I suppose. We shall see.

Thursday 30th June 2022 – MEANWHILE, IN THE …

… Hotel Adler in Eichstätt in Bavaria –
Receptionist – “I’m afraid that it’s a rather small room”
Our Hero – “No problem. I’m a rather small person”.

We also have a very happy small person in the Auvergne too today. The Amazon fairy has been past and she is now in possession of a little 3/4-size guitar with love from me and another large book on animals (in French) with love from STRAWBERRY MOOSE.

Every child deserves the right to be happy and have nice things and I hope that she enjoys them.

Last night was a slightly better night but even so there are still tons of stuff on the dictaphone that need transcribing when I find a place where I can settle down be comfortable. But that looks as if it’s going to be back at home.

What has happened is that I’ve made an executive decision – and for the benefit of new readers, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that an executive decision is one where, if it goes wrong, the person who made it is executed – that I’m not going to Austria, or Italy, or Croatia. I’m going home.

But this morning after I had a shower I went round to Hans and Ulli’s for breakfast and a nice long chat. And then we had some errands to run around the shopping centre at the back of Eching.

Back in the apartment, after an unsuccessful trip around, we carried on chatting until it was time for Hans to prepare to go to work, so in the best traditions of the “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Having fuelled up Caliburn I headed northwards towards Landshut; a medieval town with the tallest tower in Germany. The idea was to stop there and go for a walk around but the place was heaving with people, it was 34°C and there was nowhere handy to park.

Instead, I just stuck Caliburn anywhere, took a couple of photos and drove away.

Next stop was the medieval town of Regensburg where I had the same issues so I adopted the same solution.

We had some excitement there with a fire engine trying to beat the red light but having already been stuck at the lights for longer than I cared to be I cut him off and left him stranded across the traffic.

And serve him right.

It was a pleasant drive through rural Germany to the town of Eichstâtt where I arrived right in the middle of a street festival that was taking place right outside the hotel.

Despite the comments of the receptionist, I’ve stayed in many worse places than this. I’ve had a shower and washed some clothes, and then went for a walk around where I stumbled across a live group playing at a bar.

Back at Caliburn I made some butties for tea and then came back up here to write up my notes.

Tomorrow I’ll be pushing on northwards towards Karlsruhe and Metz, and see where I end up from there. Give me another week and I’ll be back home, and I can’t say that I’m sorry.

Wednesday 29th June 2022 – HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE …

… to repair a puncture and to put two flatpacks onto an IKEA trolley?

Hans and I set off on our travels to have these errand done at 10:00 and we returned home at … errr … 15:00.

This is of course Germany, the home of efficiency where everything runs like clockwork. God only knows what would have happened had we been in Belgium.

There wasn’t even a puncture to repair either, apparently. Just to replace a leaky valve and that was that.

Yesterday I remember saying that a good sleep would do me good, but I wonder whether I would have one.

The answer was that I didn’t. I was in bed early and fell asleep quite quickly. But I awoke at 01:20 and then couldn’t go back to sleep for an absolute age, tossing and turning around in my bed.

But I did eventually go back to sleep and there was tons of stuff on the dictaphone. But you’ll have to wait until I have a few quiet days on my own when I can transcribe everything before I can tell you all about it.

When the alarm went off though I was already awake. I had a good shower and then Hans and Ulli met me. We went off for Hans’ birthday breakfast at a local hostelry, which was really nice and was the first place that I have encountered for an age where vegan milk substitute was on offer.

Then we went off to have the tyre repaired, waiting around for an age while they messed about with this and that. But eventually they finished it and it’s now back on Caliburn. At least I don’t have to scratch around underneath him like I did in Switzerland on Sunday.

Newt stop was IKEA. I have this oven that I picked up in Macon so I wanted a unit to fit it. And the price that they worked out was so good that in the end I decided to buy two of them.

We paid for them at the cash desk and then had to go round to the pick-up point, and that was where we had to wait for ages while they went off to find them. I can’t believe how long it took them.

Back in Hans’ apartment I had a little … errr … relax for a while and then we went down to the beer garden. Our little concert was called off as the guitarist who was due to play with us is ill. And that was rather a disappointment as far as I was concerned. I had been looking forward to it for several months.

Instead we had a nice meal, some cake and a really good what with a group of his friends.

Now I’m back in my room writing my notes and then I’m off to bed. We’re going off for breakfast again tomorrow and then I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do next. I only have the vaguest of plans for the next stage of my journey, and plenty of time to do them

Tuesday 28th June 2022 – THIS THREE HOURS …

… that they recommend you set aside to visit Dachau Concentration Camp – I was there for a couple of hours yesterday and back there by 10:00 this morning. And when I left at 14:00 there was still plenty that I hadn’t seen.

But it was just so depressing reading about everything that had happened there. It’s very hard to believe how inhuman man can be to his fellow men. And how things like that can be allowed to happen today.

Surprisingly, there was no oppressive atmosphere that I felt when I was at Mathausen 35 years ago. There, you could really feel the evil in the air, but there was nothing like that at Dachau.

Last night was another depressing, dynamic night with plenty of movement as struggled to go to sleep with this thunderstorm raging all around me and a torrential downpour going on.

Tons of stuff on the dictaphone too and when I have some time to myself I’ll transcribe it all and add it to the notes.

After a shower and breakfast I slung my hook and we headed off for Dachau where I wandered around the camp and the crematorium for several hours.

Hans sent me a message to say that he was on his way home so I wandered off that way and at his apartment I had a nice strong coffee and a good chat with him and Ulli.

There’s a festival, the Torchwood Festival, going on in Munich. It’s a music festival and craft fair with all kinds of street food so we headed that way on the train, taking advantage of the €9:00 monthly public transport ticket.

We were caught in a rainstorm but nevertheless we had a nice vegan Indian meal, a few drinks, listened to a few musicians and met some of Hans’ friends.

Later on we caught the bus and the metro into the city centre and wandered around aimlessly in the rain for an hour or so. Mid you, I managed to find a pharmacy that was open so I could stock up with magnesium tablets and Aloe Vera cream.

116% of my daily activity in my condition finished me off. I almost fell asleep on the train on the way back. Now that I’ve finished my notes I’m off to bed and I’m not sorry. We’re going out for breakfast tomorrow so a good sleep will do me good.

But will I get it?

Monday 27th June 2022 – I’M SITTING …

… not on top of the World but in the attic of a guest house in Allershausen in Bavaria after a very busy day today.

For a change I had quite a good sleep and didn’t go too far on my travels. Once more I was awake long before the alarm went off and I was soon in the shower once the alarm went off.

While I was checking my mails and messages I was disturbed by the cleaner who was clearly trying to make me leave my room so I took the hint, packed and cleared off.

It was a beautiful morning so I went for a walk for an hour or so around Memminghem. That’s a really nice town but the odour that was coming off the canal put me off my stride for a moment or two.

On the way eastwards I came across a military cemetery. But it wasn’t what you might think. It had graves of French prisoners from 1870-1871, many nationalities including British from 1914-18 and then just about every nationality from 1939-45, including a couple of Romanian soldiers and several enormous mass graves of hundreds if not thousands of Russian prisoners.

That leads me to think that there must have been a Prisoner-of-War camp here.

There were also several hundred graves of German soldiers, so was there a hospital too? Or were they also prisoners?

When I return home I’ll have my work cut out to track it all down.

Rather later than usual I stopped off for lunch and I also fell asleep for half an hour. The heat was totally unbearable and there was no shade at all anywhere.

But once I was back on the road I went to Dachau.

When I’ve visited Hans in the past I’ve seen the signs for Dachau so I’ve come here a day early with the aim of coming to see the camp. They say “allow three hours for a visit” but at closing time I was still in the exhibition centre and hadn’t had tile to wander around the grounds.

However I’m not meeting Hans until tomorrow afternoon so I’ll go again tomorrow morning to carry on where I left off.

On the internet I found a place to stay. It’s all quite expensive here because I don’t want a dormitory or shared facilities ad I don’t want to be at the airport.

First thing that I did when I arrived was to have a shower and wash my clothes. I was hot and smelly. And then I crashed out again for 15 minutes.

For tea I nibbled on something and then went for a walk. I found a couple of young girls lounging around in one of these rocking seats so as I went past I gave it a good rock

It was a good idea to go for a walk when I did because the heavens have opened and we ae having a storm. Thunder, lightning and rain and probably plagues of locusts too. I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep with all this racket but I’ll try to do my bed.

Sunday 26th June 2022 – I DIDN’T ENJOY …

… seeing that this morning.

Putting all of the stuff into Caliburn his morning I noticed that I had a flat tyre on the driver’s side front. One of my brand new ones too.

Luckily I still had the two winter tyres and wheels in Caliburn that I’d picked up last time I was in the Auvergne and there was still a legal amount of tread on them.

But having a wheen was one thing – changing it was something else. Luckily I still had my mega power-bar and 21mm heavy duty socket in Caliburn and of course there was the trolley jack but what defeated me was trying to get up after I’d lain down to put the trolley jack under Caliburn’s front wishbone.

That was what I call a struggle.

Eventually though I’d changed the wheel and I was ready to go.

In fact had it not been for the puncture I’d have been ready to go much earlier because I was actually up and about long before the alarm went off. And on a Sunday too! How about that?

After a shower I had breakfast and then packed and prepared to go, tyre and all.

After 20 minutes and again 20 minutes after that I had to stop and check the wheel nuts to make sure they were tight. And than I could carry on in safety.

The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav and I had several disputes about our route. She’s set to avoid toll roads but for some reason she doesn’t recognise Swiss motorways as toll roads.

THey are, in the sense that you have to pay a toll to buy a sticker to travel on them and Caliburn and I are already on record as toll evaders so I didn’t want to be caught again. In the end I had to disable the motorway option. Which I did, and which I forgot to reconnect when we crossed into Germany.

WHile I was stopped for lunch I had a little … errr … relax for half an hour in the heat and then I carried on. June, her husband and Catherine were at a swimming lake outside the town where they lived so I headed that way and we had a chat and a coffee.

Back in town I found a place to stay and then we all wandered off for a meal and a good chat. That was nice too.

So now its time for my beauty sleep. And I need it too. In fact it will take more than 8 hours of sleep to make me look beautiful

Saturday 25th June 2022 – I’M GOING INTO …

… the innkeeping business.

This afternoon while I was driving through the Jura mountains in eastern France I came across a tavern called L’Auberge du Grand Git. With a name like that I just HAVE to buy it, don’t I? It’s quite appropriate.

But anyway, be that as it may, this morning I was up early yet again and had a nice shower.

And I can’t believe how much stuff there was on the dictaphone either. And shame as it is to say it, it didn’t get off to a good start. In the time that it took to find my dictaphone I forgot most of the first adventure but it was to do with writing out notes about something and something to do with a guy but I can’t really recall what was happening about this so I’ll have to forget it and think about it again.

Later on, someone had written out a list of subjects like “can you ride a bike” or “do you know someone who speaks a foreign language” etc and had published it in one of the newspapers that I read. I decided that I’d have a go at this little game and try to work out who was living there and what they were doing and what they’d heard as well. I made a start on it but it was much more difficult than I thought trying to think of different people who had done this and that in the past. It was very complicated.

This was something else about lists that you’d have to write out about things that you’ve done, people that you have seen. It was rather more complicated. I went all the way down to the very last question before I ran out of time and inclination to finish it off. I went back to the Jeep in which i’d been sitting and sleeping etc.

There was one of these great big Winnebago mobile home things that hadn’t been moved for years. We had to go to take a present round to someone, their kid so we decided that we’d get this thing going and go round in that. eventually we managed to make it fire up but it must have bene stuck in gear or something because it lurched backwards and went rhrough a kind-of ad-hoc fence and a few plant pots and things like that

I was back working at Shearings or somewhere. Some man asked this actress or someone who was speaking if she’d thought about plastic surgery. She said that she was all in favour in certain circumstances so he asked why she didn’t go to have something done instead of coming round visiting him and scaring the children looking how she did right now

Finally I was in a hotel wanting to get into the lift to go up to my room. The lift wasn’t working and I can’t go up the stairs so I had to wait in the foyer. It was occasionally going up and they said that they had workmen in to fix it but I didn’t see any workmen. In the end there were more and more people waiting downstairs and this went on. The clerk wasn’t paying very much attention. We were waiting there 3 hours. In the end after waiting 3 hours I went over to the clerk and told him that having waited 3 hours I’d shown that I’d been patient enough and insisted that they take me upstairs in the lift immediately. The receptionist went into the lift and rode it manually up to my floor with a few other people. We could hear some kind of knocking going on from somewhere but we didn’t see any workmen. I asked “where are these workmen who are supposed to be fixing the lift?”. He replied “they are definitely here” but I don’t think that anyone at all believed him.

After we’d had a leisurely breakfast Jacqueline went for a walk into the village as she had things to do.

Jean-Marc and I went to see his mother and on the way we stopped off so that I could buy some flowers for her.

She’s 91 but still quite active and energetic and I enjoy talking to her. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours reliving the time back in 1970 when I stayed with her and her husband, Jean-Marc and his sister for several weeks.

Back at Jean-Marc’s we had lunch of the vegan pie that Jacqueline had made, and then while I made some space in Caliburn, Jacqueline cleaned the oven and we loaded it into the van.

So now I have a proper oven at last. I just need a unit in which to install it but as I mentioned the other day, if things go according to plan I’ll end up just half a mile from the biggest IKEA in Germany.

In temperature of 33°C I hit the road and melted on my way eastwards through the Jura mountains. The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav picked a new route for me today, one that I haven’t used before, past my favourite inn.

Where I am right now is a little further on down the road in the Cluse de Pontarlier.

It is an ancient route between what is now Switzerland and what is now French and in antiquity was a very important trading route. There are all kinds of traces of ancient watchtowers and the like but in 1227 there is the first mention of a Chateau de Joux.

This gradually involved, following a series of renovations and additions into the Fort de Joux that we see up there today.

In the later years of the 18th Century and up to 1815 it was a prison and many notable people were detained here and since 1996 it’s been a Monument Historique

Just down the road I cross the border into Switzerland near Neufchatel.

A few miles further on we began to drop down the hill towards the Lac de Neufchatel. It took me a few minutes to get my bearings as I usually come in by Lac Leman, or “Lake Geneva”

There were some kind of roadworks here with a working area where I could pull up, because the view of the lake from here was really spectacular. It gave me a good opportunity to stop and take a few photographs.

After I’d passed Neuchatel I began to look for a hotel and found one in the small village of Dombresson.

And it took some finding too because the road on which it’s situated is quite a long one that passes through several villages all of which share the same postcode.

Although it’s expensive, it’s the cheapest that I could find. I keep forgetting how expensive Switzerland is. And breakfast is included in the price so it’s not quite so bad. I’ll have my money’s worth there.

But right now I’m off to bed. I had a bad night and I’m surprised that I kept going all day without crashing out.

Tomorrow I’ll be carrying on into Germany if all goes well..

EPIC HALL

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