Friday 19th June 2020 – GUESS WHO …

… is back in town today?

And if you guessed Marité you get one point. Guessing Thora brings you another point. And if you guessed them both, you earn three gold stars, five merit marks and a night at the opera with your favourite film star

We’ve had what can only be described as a “busy” day in port today.

And if you had added Normandy Trader to your list, you would have won the entire internet.

She came into port on the morning tide by the looks of things because I noticed her in the harbour when I went out for lunch. Her turn-round wasn’t as quick as just recently as she didn’t leave until the afternoon tide by which time, as she was leaving, Thora was on her way in and they waved at each other as they passed.

Like I said, it’s been a busy day in port today. All we need now is a gravel boat and the Loch Ness Monster and we’ll hit the jackpot

So while you admire the photos of Marité manoeuvring … “PERSONoeuvring” – ed … her way into harbour this afternoon in the rainstorm, let me tell you about my day today.

Last night, as regular readers of this rubbish might have noticed, I crashed out well and truly long before I finished writing my notes. No sense in fighting to stay awake. i called it an early night.

But as what usually happens in cases like this, it didn’t do me any good at all because in news that will shock just about everyone, I was up and about long before even the first alarm went off.

When did that happen last?

So in the absence of any beauty sleep (and I need all that I can get of course) I had my medication and then had a listen to the dictaphone.

Unfortunately what went on during the night is not the kind of thing that I would like to recount so close to mealtime so I’m afraid that you’ll all have to do without it today. I accept no responsibility for your appetite.

However, a very warm welcome to Jem who made his debut appearance last night in my nocturnal meanderings. The list of visitors is growing and growing. We might even have a gravel boat and the Loch Ness Monster tonight.

Once I’d dealt with that, I mixed some dough.

Fresh proper bread flour now that I can get and with fresh yeast. I was impressed with the yeast that bubbled up just like it was supposed to and which I had never seen before. That was impressive.

The mix came out really well too – just as it should be. There’s a certain moment when the mix is just right where it starts to take the sticky dough off your hands and feels like a rubber or elastic ball.

That’s what you should be aiming for, and today’s was really good. So I left it and went to carry on with the notes from yesterday.

It took me about two hours to finish everything, what with one or two interruptions along the way.

One of them was from a school along the Lower North Shore of Québec. They wanted to use a couple of my photos OF ST PAUL’S RIVER on the “Forgotten Coast”.

Unfortunately she didn’t tell me which ones so they took some finding. And when I sent them to her, the mail was too big for her mailbox so I had to do a “wetransfer”.

By the time that the notes were finished, I went to look at the dough to see how it was doing.

And much to surprise it had risen – well over double the size that it was supposed to. So I quickly shaped it and put it in dish that I used to bake my bread, having greased it first.

Onto the side under a damp cloth where it stayed for half an hour or so. I went back into “the office” and made a start on this week’s music course. Have to try to catch up.

Half an hour later, I went back to look at the bread dough underneath the cloth to see how it was doing.

And to my surprise it had gone up like a lift and the cloth had lifted up right off the dish, so much had the bread risen.

This was obviously going to be a really good loaf, I reckoned. I put the oven on and when it was stinking hot, I stuck the bread in. 10 minutes on 230°C and 60 minutes on 210°C (I’ve decided not too cook it for so long this time) and we’ll see what happens.

And here’s the finished product.

Just look at this! It’s the first real loaf that I’ve ever made. It looked like bread, sounded like bread, felt like bread, sliced like bread and tasted like bread. I was so impressed.

So that’s the secret then. Decent flour, decent yeast, a decent mix, and not to cook it so long. I’ll have to see what the next one will turn out like, to make sure that it’s not “beginner’s luck”.

Another thing that I’m going to have a go at is fruit bread, like sultanas, dried fruit, walnut, fig, bananas and so on. Something for an afternoon snack.

For lunch I made my sandwiches with some of that lovely bread, and then went outside to sit on my wall in the sun.

This was when I noticed that Normandy Trader had come into the harbour earlier in the morning. They weren’t working on her, which probably means that she’s fully loaded ready to go as soon as the gates open.

But what’s she doing with a forest on board? I thought that Birnam Wood went to Dunsinane, not to Jersey.

By the time that I was ready to go for my afternoon walk, I’d finished my week’s music course. And now I can (in theory at least, because I’m useless on the piano) improvise the blues in diminished scales using the “motivic elements”.

And I’m actually noticing an improvement in my bass playing on the guitar – and not before time too, I reckon.

There was a telephone call this afternoon too. Ingrid rang me up for a chat and that was really nice. It’s been a while since we spoke.

She had lots of news to tell me and we chatted for ages catching up with our news. Despite her ongoing health issues she’s kept out of danger which was very nice to hear

When I went out for my afternoon walk the weather was still quite nice.

There were quite a few people about out there too enjoying the weather. And it was another one of those days where the views out to distance were really good.

We’ve seen Cap Fréhel away down the Brittany coast a few times just recently but today was certainly one of the better days in my memory. I reckon that the cape is about 70 kms from where I’m standing.

The above photo came out so well that you could actually see the fort and the lighthouse with the naked eye.

Or, at least, what I assume to be the fort and the lighthouse. Because they were so clear, I cropped the image and enlarged it to see if i could have a clearer indication of what those objects are on the horizon.

And I’m afraid to say that after all of that, I’m still none-the-wiser. I’m not even any better-informed either. The only solution I reckon is for me to go off for a wander with Caliburn one of these days.

It’s been a while since we’ve had an adventure.

The view out to the Ile de Chausey was quite interesting too.

To enhance the image I tried a little artistic effect but it didn’t seem to come out as I wanted it to. Still, it makes a change from a boring flat image.

From there, I threaded my way through the masses and walked on up to the lighthouse to see what was happening there.

The answer to that question was, as usual “not very much”. No aeroplanes, no bird-men of Alcatraz or anything.

What we did have though was a bunch of fishermen. We’ve seen dozens of these just recently, all taking advantage of the suspension of the detention à domicile to fit three months’ fishing into three weeks, even if it means, like these guys, doing it offshore in a zodiac.

But something that surprises me, and that is that in all the time that I’ve seen fishermen out here, and the numbers of fishermen that i’ve seen, I have never yet seen anyone actually catch anything.

And that goes for the fishermen on the rocks too.

We’ve seen dozens of those who have somehow scrambled down (never mind how they expect to scramble up again) the cliffs to the rocks at the water’s edge with their equipment. But today it was somewhat exaggerated. Every rock seemed to have its fisherman perched upon it casting his line into the water.

Te=he tide is on its way in too, and it comes in quite quickly. If they aren’t careful they will end up by being cut off from the shore.

No change in the chantier navale today. Still the same couple of boats, so I didn’t hang around there.

Instead I took a photo of a couple wrestling with a zodiac that they had dragged down with a van. It must be getting close to the time when the water will be deep enough to launch a boat from one of the ramps.

Back at the apartment, having finished the week’s work, I could make a start on the arrears.

A few (just a few) more photos from July 2019 edited, and I attacked one of the pages for the website that I’m in the process of rewriting. I need to push on with those.

But at 17:00 I broke it off and went outside.

By now it was teeming down with rain but I’d heard on the bush telegraph that Marité had been seen coming around the headland

First, though, we had Thora coming in.

She made her way down to her usual little corner underneath the crane where she can be unloaded. But how many times is it this week that she’s come into port?

Once she’d installed herself, Marité came in, as we have seen.

Apparently she needed some work doing which required her to be lifted out of the water. The boat lifts that we have seen here in the port de plaisance and the chantier navale have a lifting capacity of just 100 tonnes and as she weighs more than that, she had to go to Lorient where there was a bigger one that could lift her.

On my way back to the apartment I went to the other side of the headland to see if there was any sign of Normandy Trader

She was too far out at sea to take a decent photo, disappearing as she did into a rain squall.

How the weather had deteriorated in just the last two hours.

Back here there was the hour on the guitars and i’m feeling much more comfortable with them now, as I should be after all of the practice that I’ve been having just recently.

Tea was a burger with pasta and veg, followed by some more delicious apple crumble

It was then time for me to Go for my evening stroll.

It had stopped raining by now but still very wet underfoot. Nevertheless I set off up the hill on my run and instead of pausing for breath as I would normally do, turned the corner and ran down to the clifftop, bidding a cheery greeting to the itinerant as I passed.

And once again, we have fishermen just off the shore. A different group too than earlier, but by the looks of things, still having thr same amount of luck.

So with those people not accomplishing anything, I carried on with my walk around the headland once more.

Nothing much doing along there either so I ran on along the clifftop down to where I usually pause for breath.

Plenty of activity at the fish processing plant tonight. There was a lot of traffic out at sea fishing this afternoon and we saw some of it while we were out on our walk.

Tonight there are four articulated lorries with refrigerated trailers at the Fish processing plant tonight ready to take everything away tonight so that it will be in the seafood shops in the big cities tomorrow morning.

From there I ran on all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and round the corner at the end. And then I pushed on all the way down the rue St Jean, down the alley and back round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord.

No picnickers on the beach tonight but we did have a pile of kids scrambling around on the rocks down there tonight.

They don’t look as if they are fishing – at least, the couple nearest the camera, and I’m at a loss to understand what there is about this fascination with the rocks just recently

There was far too much cloud for a really decent sunset this evening which is a shame. We can’t win a coconut every time.

One photo came out really well though. It showed up the heavy cloud really well and made a strange reflection in the sea.

From there I ran on back to the apartment to write up my notes.

Tomorrow is Saturday and shopping. I don’t really need all that much, seeing as I haven’t been eating all that much just recently.

But I’ll go just for form’s sake. You never know what I might find at Noz.

Thursday 18th June 2020 – LOOK WHO’S BACK!

.She’s not been gone for five minutes either!

Well, she has, actually. But certainly not 24 hours, in one of the quickest turn-rounds that I have ever witnessed.

As I went out for my meeting this evening with the radio people, who should be tied up in the port but Thora, one of the two small freighters that plies between here and Jersey in the Channel islands.

Things must be heating up over there if they are now doing runs as frequently as this.

And as I watched, the crew put a pair of skids underneath the wheels of the car that was on deck and the crane driver lifted it off and onto the quayside.

There was quite a crowd watching it as well. It’s not every day that there’s a spectacle like this on the quayside. Free entertainment of any kind is well-worth having at the moment.

While all of this was going on, she was being refuelled too. I hope that none of the spectators was thinking about having a cigarette to pass the time.

But enough of this. Let’s return to our moutons. Just for a change I’m not going to mention anything about my early morning, except to say that it was another dismal failure – one of far too many right now.

And after the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone. And no wonder that it had been a long night. I HAD BEEN walking around a headland somewhere similar to here. There was a race going on and we had a yacht that was entered in it – a big streamlined thing. It was all about this yacht and preparing it and getting it ready.
Later on I was out buying cars. I already had two red Ford Consul II things parked in my drive that I had recently bought, and I saw this absolutely beautiful Zodiac III something like that so I went out and bought it. I thought to myself “well where am I going to keep this without everyone getting upset because my father is really annoyed about me having these two”? I thought that I could move those two on and sell them if I want and keep the black one and in the meantime park the black one down the street and hope that no-one realises that it’s mine. This led to a discussion about the radio. We were having a radio meeting and I remember looking at the interior of the boot of this Zodiac during this time and the boot was absolutely spotless, really nice. It led in the end to me having to apologise to someone at the radio for doing something but I can’t remember what that was either.
A bit later on I needed my driving licence changing over to a new one. I had to have a medical but who should be there giving me a medical but my doctor friend from school which of course took me by surprise. he gave me a medical and told me that I was fit to go and gave me all of the forms so off I went. But I suddenly realised that I hadn’t thanked him or even offered to pay. So I went to retrace my steps around this building but I couldn’t find where it was where he was staying, which office he was in. I was wandering around this building for ages trying to find his office
Later I was off waling down the street trying to walk for miles. One of the places that I had been to was that old BP garage that has figured in my dreams before on the edge of London. This time it had been demolished only this time there was a huge pile of sand there. I was thinking that I had better get back.

There was even more to it than this but as you are probably eating your meal I’ll save it until later.

Having written my notes I then went and had a shower – and afterwards I remembered to put the clothes back in the washing machine with some perfumed fabric conditioner, for I was off to the shops.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there are roadworks or something going on somewhere in the vicinity.

So walking down the street I had a quick glance underneath the arch where the drawbridge is, and sure enough, they have a little mini-digger down there doing something and the road is closed off.

No time to go for a look now. I made a mental note to look again sometime today when I would be passing and see if I could find out exactly what is going on.

Down into town I went, and along the Rue Lecampion.

There was a cherry-picker here from one of the local electricity companies. It looks as if they are restringing a cable between two of the buildings. Whether someone passing by underneath has snagged it, I couldn’t really say.

First stop for me was at the railway station. My old fogeys railcard has expired and I need to renew it.

But no I don’t. having waited for about half an hour in the queue behind some woman booking a load of railway journeys for all of her family, I was informed that all season tickets and cards are automatically extended by three months due to the virus.

Some good news at last and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

At LIDL I just bought the basic essentials. There was nothing there that caught my eye particularly, especially as I’m not eating all that much these days. But on the way back I called at La Mie Caline for a dejeunette

And how long is it since I’ve featured some bad parking on these pages?

It used to be a regular feature but things seemed to have quietened down with the virus, but now they are kicking off again. This guy here is parked half on the pavement and half across a pedestrian crossing, making life difficult for all of the pedestrians.

This is a service bus route too and the road is already narrow enough as it is. The selfishness of some people beggars belief.

back home I remembered to tae out the washing from the machine. And now the place smells RATHER LIKE THAT TART’S BOUDOIR ON NEWFOUNDLAND where we stayed back in 2010.

For a good part of the rest of the day I’ve been dealing with my studies. At long last I’ve finished week three of my accountancy course and although I’m well aware of the principles it’s still quite taking.

As well as that, I’m deep into week 4 of my music course. We’re doing diminished scales and chords this week and I do have to say that the practical aspect of this course is now way beyond me.

However I never ever pretended that I could play the piano. I’m here for the theory and for whatever crumbs that I can pick up that have fallen off the table.

Lunch was taken, for a change, on the wall overlooking the harbour. It was a lovely day, even if there was a bit of a wind. And I wasn’t alone either. A lizard came to join me and he enjoyed the bits of my pear that fell to the ground

Later on I went for my afternoon walk around the headland.

And it wasn’t just on the sea or on land that there were crowds of people. As I walked along the footpath I was buzzed by a low-flying aircraft. I couldn’t really read its number and one of the problems that I have now that I’ve been working with 3-D images is that I kept on trying to rotate the image to see it clearer.

Anyway, I’ll do some research into this plane at some point and see what I can find out about it.

My perabulation continued around the headland to the Point by the coastguard station.

And it looks to me as if the harbour gates are now opening and there’s enough water by the fish processing plant because the fishing boats, large and small, all now seem to be making their way back towards the harbour to unload.

At least, I assume that they are heading back to unload. There isn’t the usual crowd – or cloud – of seagulls accompanying them as we have seen in the past when a loaded fishing boat comes into port.

But if those two aren’t loaded, then it seems that everyone else is.

By the time that I had arrived at the fish processing plant everyone else had arrived and there was quite a queue at the quayside waiting to unload.

Quite a large collection of vehicles on the car park too. They are obviously expecting a bumper harvest today. And that is always good news for the port of course. We could do with all of the business that we could get.

And here’s a thing.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last week we saw some more plant and machinery being delivered to the boat ramp down on the rue du Port.

It looks as if I shall never know now why they were there and what is going to become of them. A lorry has turned up and is now taking them away again.

That’s a mystery to me.

Back here I carried on with my work and then headed off to this meeting.

On the way out I met a small lorry that was tipping a pile of rubble into the area that has been reserved for the workmen. It looks as if they are cracking on with whatever they are doing.

At the Grand Café I met the guy who wants to see me.

On the radio we run a series “Evenements et rencontres” where they interview people who visit the town or where there’s an important event taking place. And I’ve done a few of those, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

As it’s getting near to summer they need to build up a bank of programmes and as there has been no-one interesting or any important event taking place just recently they are scratching round for likely candidates. And they’ve decided that they want to interview me.

No idea why. I can think of 1000 people who have many more exciting things to say that I ever have. It rather reminds me of the legendary “Desert island Discs” programme where Roy Plombley learnt that Alistair MacLean was in tow so he dashed off to interview him.
After 20 minutes of dismal interrogation, the producer shouted down to Plombley “for God’s sake ask him about his books” only to receive the reply
“he hasn’t written any”.
It seems that the Alistair MacLean whom they had in front of them was the Alistair MacLean, President of a Canadian Tourist office and not the famous author at all.

A classic case of Omelette sur le Visage and the programme was never broadcast.

The meeting that we had tonight at the Centre Agora didn’t really accomplish a great deal, but we made a few plans for the future. Nothing that particularly effects me very much.

Some of us went back for a drink afterwards at la Rafake. I stayed for about an hour or so – I have to do my best to be sociable even if I don’t feel much like it.

And on the way back I went to check on the excavations at the rue Lecarpentier. I only had the small camera with me so the photo isn’t the best.

I shall have to go back tomorrow with one of the good ones and take a proper photo, and undertake a proper inspection of the works while I’m at it. Whatever it is that they are doing, it seems to be quite a serious undertaking.

As I passed the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord I noticed some activity taking place out to sea.

With only the small camera, I couldn’t do a really good job, but it seems that not only do we have one of the larger fishing boats out there, he had all of his tackle out there too.

A good close-up of his net dragging behind him would have made a really good photo and it’s always the case that I seem to be in the right place at the right time with the wrong gear.

Back here I was a baked potato with baked beans for tea even though it was late. Something quick and easy.

Following that I started to write up my notes but being overwhelmed with fatigue I left off and went to bed.

Tomorrow is another day and I can finish my notes off tomorrow.

Wednesday 17th June 2020 – I WAS RIGHT …

… yesterday evening when, having observed the lorry parked up near the unloading bay where the Jersey freighters tie up, that we would be expecting either Thora or Normandy Trader to be making an appearance sometime soon

So will I was out on my post-prandial perambulation this afternoon, I was not in the least surprised to see, on looking down over the walls of the medieval city, that Thora has come to join us this afternoon.

Sneaked in on the midday tide she has, I reckon. And I wasn’t there to wave her in because at lunchtime we were having the most appalling rainstorm.

She’s fully-laden too.

Normally she would carry scrap in from the island to bring here and then go back with whatever her charge would be. But that tractor there – a John Deere if’m right – looks from this distance at least to be far too good to be providing employment for the cutter’s torch.

But there’s all kinds of stuff on there and had I had the time, I would have hung around for a while to see what else was going to be coming off her.

So while you admire the little baby seagulls and their proud mothers that I saw on my walk this afternoon, let me tell you about my miserable day.

Now whether it was because I’d had that mega-crash-out yesterday late afternoon or whether it was the energy drink that I had had upon awakening – the first caffeine that I have had of any description for over two weeks I really don’t know.

But at 04:30 this morning I was still wide awake and working. And that was completely depressing for me.

There wasn’t any alternative except to switch off the alarms and let my body do its own thing. Pointless trying to be up at 06:00

Anyway, it was about 09:30 when I saw the light of day and it could have been much worse than that.

After the meds I sat down to look at the two radio projects that I had on the go. I finished off writing the text for the one that I had half-started, recorded it, edited the recording and then merged it into the broadcast at the relevant place.

Having made sure that that one worked correctly I turned my attention to the one that I did on Monday and which had this rather awkward silence in the middle.

As I expected, I’d stuck in something closer to the front and it had pushed the missing applause track 12.4 seconds further along, missing the gap that it was supposed to fill.

So while you admire the photos of Joly France – the old one – coming into port, I was cutting out 12.4 seconds of silence from that particular track (I’d been working in 6-track, not four-track as I thought) and it all went together as it should.

But there were a few imperfections that I had noticed and so I spent half an hour tidying it up. There’s still one imperfection that I can’t remove so that will unfortunately have to stay. But the rest is pretty good – apart from the poor quality but there’s nothing much that I can do about that.

For lunch I did something that I haven’t done for a considerable period. I’ve run out of home-made bread but there was some in the freezer so I took out a lump from there and let it defrost so that I could make my sandwiches.

In all honesty I have to admit that it’s far better than anything that I have done to date. But that’s not really the point. If I don’t keep on practising I won’t ever improve.

This afternoon after lunch I sat down to look at my accountancy course. In order to recap I reckoned that I would go back to the start of week 3 seeing as I had the time and whack my way through it.

And as always happens, as I was getting stuck into it, the telephone rang. Rosemary called up for a chat. We talked about pretty much nothing for a whole 1 hour and 45 minutes which meant that not only had I missed my habitual walking slot but that rather than advancing with my course I’d ended up further back than when I started.

At least the heavy rain that we had been having had stopped by now, which was always something, I suppose.

So without a raincoat I went and braved the late afternoon air and spent some time watching the activities of the nautical craft that were out there in the English Channel between here and the Ile de Chausey.

We had a fishing boat heading for home in a hurry, a speedboat, a yacht and a couple of open boats. And that was just in this photo too.

There was plenty of other stuff out there too.

Out to see off the shore at Bréhal-Plage was this cabin cruiser. It was parked up there and I’ve no idea why. The crew members were probably having a fishing break – after all, it was getting on for tea time.

There were more of these mysterious buoys out there too today. Either something to do with the sailing school or else they are some fishery stuff.

I walked on along the footpath in between the two rows of walls round to the corner that overlooks the beach at the Plat Gousset.

We’ve seen plenty of nautical craft in the water just now, but we also have some human company too. This guy here seems to be enjoying himself having a good splash about in the water.

And the yellow buoys that I assumed had broken loose from their moorings – it looks as if they are tethered to the beach where they are, judging by how they are floating just there.

So I pushed on … “pushed off” – ed … along the path to the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there has been a roofing operation going on there for the last couple of weeks. And it’s still going on too. They haven’t finished it yet.

Mind you, with all of the rain that we’ve been having, it can’t have been very nice to have been up there. But if they don’t get a move on it’ll be just as wet inside as it will be on the outside.

While I was there I could see the crowds out on the Plat Gousset too.

Not on the beach because the tide is well in and there is no beach to be on. So everyone is strolling around waiting for the tide to go out.

Nothing down there particularly interested me so I turned round and walked through the Place Maurice Marland to home, admiring the baby seagulls, the unloading of Thora and the arrival of Joly France while I was at it.

Back here it was time to start the guitar. And then tea. The left-over stuffing with kidney beans to make taco rolls with rice and veg, followed by my delicious apple crumble with coconut soya dessert.

On my evening run I pushed on all the way up the hill and without stopping for breath turned the corner and ran on down to the clifftop.

At least, that was the intention, but the itinerant stopped me for a chat. He says that he’s a painter and fed up of the detention à domicile that we have had, he came out here to reconnect with nature and seek inspiration.

It didn’t look much like that to me, but then who am I to judge? he certainly seems to be well-spoken.

Down at the clifftop – having pushed on an extra 50 metres to counteract the pause, I could see some more of the strange patterns in the sea. It’s a phenomenon that regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen on regular occasions and I really haven’t been able to find an explanation for it.

All I can think of is that it’s the little stream that feeds into the sea just round the corner that is of course fresh water rather than saline, and the water hasn’t dispersed yet.

But I doubt if that is the real explanation.

It’s not very often that we have some really spectacular clouds around here, but today was certanly an exception.

Having taken the previous photo I walked across the lawn to the other side of the headland and there I was treated to this magnificent specimen over the Brittany coast.

From here I ran on down the path to my first breathing point. No change in the chantier navale and Thora had departed for the Channel islands again. The crane had gone too. I recovered my breath and then headed off down the Boulevard Vaufleury.

Once more I pushed on all the way right down the rue St Jean, through the alley to the rue du Nord and then back up to the viewpoint there.

No-one picnicking on the beach which was a surprise because the sunset was another terrific one. But for some unknown reason the photo didn’t work as well as it has done just recently.

So I ran on home to write up my notes.

Tomorrow I have shopping to do in the morning, and in the evenig I have this perishing meeting that I really don’t feel much like attending.

But there’s all of this course work too, and that won’t be done by itself. One pace forward but two paces back.

Tuesday 16th June 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today!

So while you admire the photos of the frenetic activity in the chantier navale as they winch the fishing boat Saint Andrews out of the water on the boat lift and load a marker bouy up onto a flatbed lorry, let me tell you about it.

It actually started off quite well, for I was out of bed before the third alarm this morning and that’s not something that happens every day these days.

And then after the medication, I came back to listen to the dictaphone to hear where I’d been during the night.

I had a girlfriend last night – a nice young girl very slim, not very tall pale complexion, shoulder length black hair, black jacket and black jeans and I wish I knew who she was. We started to hang around together and we had to go to hire a car for her for some reason. We went (I don’t know why) to the local chemists near the airport to fill in the forms there but they said that they didn’t do it any more. We’d have to go to the airport itself, which dismayed me to have to go back to that place and fight with the crowds. I had a hard job trying to explain it to her – I didn’t want to disappoint her. So we set off to go to the airport ended up trudging through the streets of Nantwich, holding hands. It was all ever so sweet. We’d come down Hospital Street into Millstone Lane around Crewe Road end and were chatting about all kinds of things – food, hairdressing, meals and all this. In the end I ended up with her in my bedroom and she was on my bed. I was beginning to think that it was going to be my lucky day because luck is certainly what I need right now – as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any – but for some unknown reason she transformed herself into a black cat, lying on my bed as a black cat and I was just stroking her and she was purring, and I just couldn’t think of where to go and what to do next.

At some point during all of this there was a photo of a house near Shavington – the one on the corner of Eastern Road and Rope Hall Lane near where I used to live as a kid, dated 1917 and taken from Eastern Road to the east with the railway on the right showing that the house was surrounded by field guns. They were obviously using it as some kind of depot and anti-aircraft establishment. I was trying to get my hands on the book that the photo was in so that I could photocopy it and post it on the internet.

Yes it was all go last night and when I awoke I was covered in sweat – that’s something that I need to note because it’s a side-effect of one of my medications. The hospital always ask me about my night sweats and how else am I supposed to remember after almost 6 months away?

So having got all of that out of the way, I had a few things to do.

While I was doing them I had a listen to what I recorded for my radio project yesterday.

And I’m glad that I did because there’s an error in it. One of the “applause” tracks that I overdubbed into the project has become misplaced.

That’s the one problem with working with four-track recording and not eight-track – if you start from the end and work backwards as I sometimes have to do, if you forget to anchor what you’ve added in tracks three and four and then add something else onto those tracks in front of it, it shunts everything else ahead of it on those tracks further on down the line so that it no longer synchs in.

But me no daft, me no silly. Having been caught out like that before and having to completely re-do a project from the start on one occasion, I now save all my working files as well as the finished output so I simply rework the recording by cutting out a time segment of the appropriate length.

So that’s a job for some time later in the week.

Next job was to tidy up the top end of the apartment ready for my Welsh lesson. The place needs to look tidy if I’m broadcasting myself on the internet.

Having made the place look something like, I did the revision for last week’s course and then looked at the notes for today’s lesson.

One of the thing that we were discussing was the weather and it was interesting with people from the four corners of the world and the different weather that they were experiencing.

Shame as it is to say it, I almost fell asleep twice in the lesson and I’ve no idea why.

Well, actually I do, as I worked out later, but I’ll explain that as I go along.

After lunch I made a start on yet another radio project. There’s another live concert – one for the end of August that needs to be completed for Thursday night.

There’s no time like the present so I made a start on that. And that wasn’t straightforward either as one of the tracks that I had been sent had two seconds missing from it.

It wasn’t a commercialised track either so it took me an age to hunt down, record, covert and edit a replacement.

And, as it happened, I didn’t need it either. But that’s another story.

By now it was time for me to go out on my afternoon walk.

The weather was absolutely dreadful too. It was raining hen wragedd y ffin as they say in the Land of My Father (well, grandmother, actually) but wrapped in my yellow raincoat, i was fine.

Despite the weather there was plenty of activity out at sea today. And not just fishing boats either. The two cabin-cruiser type of boats were stationary so it may well be that they were indeed actually fishing, but I bet that they didn’t appreciate the speedboat roaring past them like that.

The itinerant was out there too, wrapped in his plastic sheet and sheltering under a tree. I really don’t understand that at all when there are so many places where he could seek shelter.

Carrying on through the rain my walk took me around the headland and back down the other side along the path overlooking the chantier navale

There was a pile of activity going on there this afternoon, including this fishing boat that was racing away from there and I’ve no idea why. I missed that little bit of excitement.

But we had the men in the little engineering yard putting one of the marker buoys that they had made onto the back of a small lorry with their JCB lifter.

And also, the boat lift was in operation, winching the fishing boat Saint Andrews out of the water, presumably to put it on blocks alongside the others that are still in here

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a while ago now we saw a giant crane come and settle itself down in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers to do some lifting work at an apartment that was undergoing renovation.

This afternoon, it’s back. And with its pattes extended, it’s clearly going to be doing some work sometime soon enough. That’s something to watch out for in the near future.

My walk back home was uneventful and I settle down to do some work. I wanted to finish off this radio project today so I started to write out the text.

And this is where it all went wrong.

Quite simply, I crashed out again after about forty-five minutes. And not just a little five minutes either but I was totally gone, curled up on my chair, for almost two hours.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been totally out of it like that – just like the worst of the days when I was living in Leuven. I’d missed my target, missed my hour on the guitars and when I finally awoke (at 19:05) I felt absolutely dreadful – the worst that I have felt for a good while.

No appetite either. I didn’t feel in the least like food. But to help me function, I had one of these energy drinks. I keep a little supply in stock for emergencies – I lived on those for a while in Leuven.
The foregoing notwithstanding, I still went out for my evening run. It takes more than a bout of serious illness to stop me in my tracks.

And for a change, I only performed four runs, not my usual six.

But there was a reason for this as well, and it’s something that I don’t understand. Whether it was the absence of food, or the couple of brazil nuts that I ate, or the sleep that I had, or the energy drink that I drank, I missed out two of my pauses for breath.

Straight up the top of the hill and without pausing for breath I ran on round the corner, past the itinerant and down to the clifftop.

Nothing happening out at sea so I walked on along the path to see how the War memorial to the Resistance was doing.

By not the weather had really brightened up and it was quite pleasant out there. I wasn’t the only one out there enjoying it either. There was a small group of people there admiring the remains of the Atlantic Wall and the War Memorial and as I drew closer (I’m not very good at drawing so it was a terrible likeness) I could hear that they were speaking German.

Something inside me was tempting me to go by and say Tschuss as I passed but I resisted the urge.

There was someone else out there this evening profiting from the beautiful weather.

He wasn’t alone either. As I passed, he shouted something at someone (not at me) and when I looked back I could see that there was someone else standing on another rock who had been out of my view.

It beats me how they manage to scramble down there onto the rocks and, as I said yesterday, how they manage to scramble back up with all of their gear and their catch.

It looks as if we might be having more visitors from the Channel Islands soon as well.

The lorry that brings in the freight has appeared on the quayside down there right now and is parked up. So my guess is that sometime over the next day or two we’ll be seeing either Normandy Trader or Thora coming into the port.

Or maybe even both. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they both came sailing into port one after the other last Thursday morning.

In the chantier navale there was no sign of Saint Andrews. It must only have been a flying visit and I was lucky to have caught her visit.

Having disrupted a couple of girls taking selfies, I ran on down the Boulevard Vaufleury, round the corner, right past my resting place and on down the rue St Jean.

Almost at the Place Cambernon I ran through an alleyway to the rue du Nord and back up to the viewpoint there. I don’t understand this at all – I really don’t.

There were no picnickers there tonight which was a surprise, but there was someone sunning themselves on the sand. And the towel that was down there with them suggests that they have been for a paddle in the sea.

The weather might well have been nice – but it wasn’t that nice. Says he who has been in it up to his knees (deliberately too) IN THE DAVIS STRAIT JUST 600-ODD MILES FROM THE NORTH POLE and up to his chest IN THE HAMILTON INLET IN NORTHERN LABRADOR

But let us return to our moutons as they say around here.

Whoever it was who was enjoying the evening sunshine on the beach had every reason to be there.

It was another one of those really beautiful evenings and the sunset scene was stunning. I took a pic of it and admired it for a while and then I ran on home.

Back here I’ve finished writing up my notes, and now I’m off to bed. I really don’t understand anything at all about how I could be so ill and yet have probably the longest run that I’ve done since about 1999 – cancer and all.

All part of life’s rich pageant, I expect.

Monday 15th June 2020 – I WAS HARD …

… at it all day today for a change) and by the time I knocked off at 18:15 I’d completed a whole radio project.

It was one of my live concerts which regular readers of this rubbish might think are usually easier than the usual ones – and usually they are. But not this one. Not at all.

Someone had very kindly send me a pile of music (which reminds me – if you are in a group and want your music featured on my shows, get in touch!) for a live concert, which was very nice of them and I never decry the effort, but it was all unusable.

It was a case of scouring the internet to see what I could find, re-manipulating and remixing the rest and then editing it and merging it all together. It’s ended up a bit of a dog’s breakfast, but there wasn’t all that much I could about it.

So in the end I wrote the intro, dictated it, uploaded it to the computer, edited it, and then merged it into the other part, and then had to edit everything to make it fit the on-hour time slot.

And if you think that’s a lot of work, it’s not all that I had to do either. And it didn’t help much that I missed the third alarm as well. Only by a few minutes but missed it all the same.

After the meds I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I had been during the night. I was actually working with someone for whom I don’t really care all that much in real life. We had a tyre depot or we had taken one over. It wasn’t particularly very busy but we were just doing odd jobs and things just to tide us over while we established ourselves. We’d taken it over from some other people, one of their depots and we noticed that we were getting into Novermber but we hadn’t had any calls to change tyres for winter or anything like that and I would have expected that to have been happening round about now. So I was wondering whether they were keeping all of the good jobs back from us and doing them themselves. I was talking to another friend on line and he was asking about how things were. I explained that I hadn’t had time to devote anything to any project that I particularly wanted to do because earning a living was the priority and as no-one wanted to employ me I’ve been having to create a business for myself and I was telling him about this tyre depot.

There were a few things that needed doing and then for the rest of the morning I dealt with my Welsh homework. And I found that I had forgotten most of what I had learnt last week so I had to revise it again.

There was the break for lunch of course, and also the brak for my afternoon walk.

It was trying its best to rain when I went out there this afternoon, so i didn’t like to hang around too much.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen piles of weird buoys and maritime markers bobbing up and down in the water around the coast. There’s another one here just now, with a couple of boats – a zodiac and a speedboat loitering around it.

It’s difficult to see what they are doing – whether they are fishing with rod and line or whether they are doing something with the buoy.

No prizes what this guy is doing here.

With not very much (and even fewer people) around on the lawn I wandered off around the headland to see if there was anything happening there. Again, not an awful lot except this guy fishing from the rocks.

It’s quite a scramble to reach that particular point and I bet that it’s even more difficult scrambling back up the hill, especially with a full catch.

And I’m not convinced about his choice of attire either, and I have a feeling that he’ll be regretting it before much longer.

Just look over there at the Brittany coast. That’s a couple of wicked rainstorms and they are heading right this way. I’m not too bothered because I’ll be home in five minutes. It’ll take him at least that to put away his gear and scramble up the rocks.

There are plenty of boats out there too and they’ll know all about it when the rainstorm hits them in mid-ocean or whatever

That’s not the best of it either.

My walk took me further around the headland to the south side and this was the sight that greeted me there. A huge rain cloud has blown in from the bay and enveloped the Pointe de Carolles in its wet and clammy grasp.

It’s slowly heading up the coast and as I watched it advance, it slowly spread its shround all over Jullouville.

“This isn’t the time to be hanging about” I reckoned, and headed back for my apartment

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the weekend we saw the “no parking” notices on the part of the car park that is on the public part of the Place d’Armes.

Being intrigued to see what was happening there I went round for a good look. It’s not easy to see what they will be doing but we have a builder’s mobile office parked here now.

Not only that, there’s a generator just parked there waiting for just anyone to come along, pick it up and drive away. Imagine that in the UK!

On my way back I saw Gribouille sitting on his windowsill so I went to give him a stroke, only to find Nicole there struggling with her drawers, with her hand still in a plaster.

Gallant me, I went to give her a hand. I glued them back together for her and slid them back into the unit.

Back outside it was now teeming down. The rain had caught me up so I came inside quickly.

After my hour on the guitars I ended up with a stuffed pepper for tea. And the amount of fresh food that I’ve had to throw away due to not eating is appalling. I hate throwing food away.

Later on I went for my evening walk and run around the headland.

First stop though was to see what was going on where the builders’ office was. And we seem to have acquired a pile of tarmac and sand from somewhere. They must be digging up somewhere, but I’ve no idea where.

Having examined that, I ran off up the road – a little bit (just a little bit) easier than it was been. And having recovered my breath I ran on down to the clifftop.

My itinerant was there again. I reckon that he’s here for the duration.

He wasn’t the only one here either – although he might well have been seeing as how quiet the whole area was. There was just one other couple here – a young couple sitting in the sun quietly watching it sink down into the sea

It’s a really nice way to spend a summer evening.

And talking about nice ways to spend summer evenings, I’ve had an e-mail completely out of the blue from someone who played a large part in my life 45 years ago and who I’ve seen on a few occasions since, but not for about 10 years.

So what’s happening here?

No prizes for guessing what’s happening here.

A couple of fishing boats out there, almost stationary. So I imagine that they have their fishing equipment out and are dredging up the sea bed for the shellfish. I’m determined to get out there one day and see how they do it.

Despite it being overcast, there was another excellent view all the way down the Brittany coast towards Cap Fréhel. Not as good as the last time but still impressive enough.

As I walked across the lawn by the Resistance memorial, the sun suddenly came dramatically out of the clouds and lit up the Chateau de la Crête.

Ordinarily I would wait until I’m down on the other side of the headland where there’s an unrestricted view, but the weather is being rather capricious just now and you can’t rely on there still being the same effect in five minutes time.

But at least you get to see one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall. They don’t feature very often in my photos for one reason or another.

Nothing else of any importance happened at all. My run all the way in its several stages) down to the viewpoint at the rue du Nord was pretty uneventful.

There on the beach though I could see that a group of picnickers weas just installing itself down among the rocks. I didn’t think that it was warm enough for that, but they clearly do.

But when you ae young you are pretty much immune to that kind of thing. Yes, since I had that e-mail earlier, I’ve gone all nostalgic and broody.

Instead of musing on the past, I straightened myself up and admired the sunset.

It’s another one of these wonderful mid-evening lights again and I really like the effect that it gives.

But I couldn’t stay for long. I had a chat with a couple of people admiring the apartment that’s for sale, especially when the woman stood on one of the bollards in the street to have a better view and it sank into the ground under her weight.

Tomorrow I have my Welsh class so I need to revise and prepare for it.

That means an early night, in the hope that I can be out of bed early.

Some hope, hey?

Sunday 14th June 2020 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes yet again.

And while you admire the photos of Joly France – the older one – coming into harbour and my second photo being photobombed by a seagull yet again, let me tell you what went wrong today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I left the washing in the washing machine for a couple of days and when I took it out, it did not exactly smell of roses.

So I said that I would buy some nicely-scented fabric conditioner on Saturday and then run the clothes again through the washing machine while I was out for my afternoon walk today.

Much to my own surprise, and probably yours too, I did actually remember to buy the fabric conditioner while I was out – but ask me if I remembered to run the washing through the machine again this afternoon.

It beats me why you lot pay me, you know (you DO pay me, don’t you?).

But returning to our moutons as they say round here, It’s Sunday. And that’s a lie-in day of course.

Mind you, 10:40 is something of an exaggeration, even if I didn’t go to bed until 02:30. I spent a while through the night working on the little job that I had on the go during which I crashed out yesterday afternoon.

While you admire the photos of the air-sea rescue helicopter flying around on an exercise, being photo-bombed by a seagull in the second image, I’ll carry on.

During the night I’d been on my travels again. Not too far though. I was out driving around the Whitchurch area for some reason. I needed a place to stay for the night. I found a lay-by or cut-off piece of old road at Alrewas, although Alrewas was nowhere near where I was supposed to be. It was more like Hanmer, that area. So I went to pull in there to have some sleep. But there was a village hall nearby and there was a party or disco going on there and the noise was keeping me awake. So I decided that what i would do first is to to sit and have a read until everyone went home. There were all these kids walking past the end of this cutoff heading towards this disco or away from it and i was wondering how long it was going to be before they had gone and I could get some sleep.

So after the meds I finished off the task that I had started, and then stripped down the two digital sound files that I’d downloaded the other day and converted them to *.mp3.

They then needed breaking down into the individual tracks – and that was when I found that for some reason or other, one of the tracks hadn’t been included on the master tapes.

That took some hunting down – It’s by a group that probably no-one else has ever heard of as they only recorded one album and then disappeared without trace.

However after going through many blind alleys I found a copy – and that was an *.mkv file, to my dismay.

But you can’t keep a good dog down. What I did was to resurrect an ancient laptop, load onto it all of my software that I use to do this kind of thing, and used that to resolve the issue.

Much to my surprise, it actually worked too, although it took an age of course.

We had a stop for lunch – well, breakfast really because I had some muesli. And then there was my afternoon mega-walk (I’m at 128% of my daily target according to the fitbit).

First person whom I bumped into outside the door was Gribouille, the big ginger cat, who came for a stroke.

Then off out on my walk and a look over out to sea to see what was going on.

And it was another day where there were crowds of people loitering around – not just on the footpath either but out to sea.

It might not have been very nice weather out there but that didn’t stop anyone.

In this photo that features the marker light on one of the rocks just offshore, I can count at least 6 boats, including a couple of really nice yachts, more of which anon.

And so, in the weather that was trying its very best to rain down upon us (and I had forgotten my rain jacket) I carried on my way.

Not very far though.

Looking behind me I could see that despite the weather, the little beach there at the foot of the steps was proving to be quite popular. A couple of small family groups seem to have set up camp down there, so good luck to them

There was even a guy swimming about in the water down there, which I thought was pretty brave of him. Sooner him then me.

It reminded me of the time that Castor and Pollux asked me if i was going to do the Polar dip with them in Cambridge Bay.
“I can’t” I replied. “I have a catheter port in my chest and I can’t immerse it in salt water”
Later on that evening when we had our famous encounter Castor asked me “if you didn’t have that catheter port in your chest what would you have done?”
“I’d have thought of another excuse” I replied.

On that note it’s probably better to move on and so I walked on along the path.

Someone here is obviously as fed up of the gregarious life as I am but he’s chosen another way to deal with the matter. he’s clambered down and onto the rocks with his fishing rod and is busy having a cast out to sea

It’s a mystery to me what people catch so close in to the shore because as we have seen, the slope is quite shallow here and the tide goes miles out, so they aren’t likely to catch anything bug enough to call a worthwhile catch.

My journey took me around the headland today, down the steps and around the farthest point.

There was a great deal of activity out to sea just there too, as this yacht out there negotiates its way around between a couple of speedboats that were roaring by it.

And while we’re on the subject of yachts … “well, one of us is” – ed … regular readers of this rubbish will recall the big black yacht that we have seen a couple of times just recently.

Having made some enquiries just recently I can tell you that she’s called Black Mamba

My walk took me down the old road, onto the quayside and alongside the rue du Port.

Nothing much going on here except that I was overflown by the air-sea rescue helicopter which we saw earlier. But nevertheless I went to have a good look at the heavy equipment that was dropped off here the other day.

And having had a good look at it, I’m still none-the-wiser. I’m not even better-informed. It’s still a mystery to me what they intend to be doing with it

Next port of call would be the footpath across the harbour gates to the other side. Unfortunately I was early, the tide wasn’t far enough out so the gates were still open.

But my walk wasn’t wasted because one of the yachts that I had seen earlier was on its way into port. I recognised it immediately because there is only one boat quite like that in the port that lives in the inner harbour.

Having been out of the harbour for, by my estimation, a good two weeks almost, back into her berth comes Spirit of Conrad

With my neighbour Pierre with a rope and his crewman at the helm she negotiated her way in through the harbour gates and made her way towards the quayside where she usually moors.

As for me, I gave chase around the harbour and caught her just as she had finished tying up. I shouted down to her and was invited aboard which was what I wanted, not the least reason of which was that it gave me an opportunity to try ont the new floating pontoons.

Scrambling across the deck of Aztec Lady I went for a chat. And as a result of that, a cunning plan is now forming in my head and further discussions will take place in due course.

On my way back through the harbour to catch up with Spirit of Conrad I went down behind the fish processing plant.

All of the fishing boats were tied up again in port today, including Coelacanthe, one of the larger boats that operates out of here.

There are a couple painted in similar colours so i wonder if they belong to the same owners, maybe operating as a kind of private fishing fleet.

But I don’t really know how the system works here

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a while ago I mentioned that I’d seen something that resembled a giant vacuum cleaner nozzle dangling inside the hold of a fishing boat.

Eventually I discovered that it was used to pump ice into the vessel for preserving the catch, and it was this notice that gave the game away. Distribution of Ice – how to use the chute to dump the ice into the boat.

So while I was here, I reckoned that I would take a photo of it for the record in case I need to refer to it again

—– TO BE CONTINUED ——

Saturday 13th June 2020 – I SPENT A …

… fortune today in the shops.

And for a couple of good reasons too, so while you admire today’s photos of the baby seagulls, let me tell you about it.

The spending spree started in NOZ, as you might expect. But what you won’t expect is the fact that food (and drink) played only a minor part the expenditure. Some of the alcohol-free beer that I like and the last of the breaded soya fillets, together with a tiny tub of vegan ice cream.

Some of the rest went on a platform on wheels.

The way things are at the moment I’m not as young as I was and heavy lifting is a problem. I have a collection of wheeled platforms and indeed at one time I made my own, but everything is, of course back in the Auvergne and it’s not much use there.

However the crowing glory was a huge pile of history books. Occasionally NOZ has a book sale and I’ve bought a few from there (I’m currently reading a book that I bought there a while back on the history of Normandy in the Middle Ages) but today was a whole pile of interesting stuff .

Right now one of my bookshelves is groaning under the weight of 7 big new volumes of French and European history, all written from a French perspective.

That lot will keep me out of mischief for a while.

Round at LeClerc it was also an expensive day

But, once more, there was a very good reason for that. There’s a well-known UK frozen food manufacturer that has a large range of vegetarian products, one or two of which are vegan

It now seems that LeClerc has started to stock them and they had their products on an opening special offer of 34% off.

It’s rare to find high-quality vegan food at a reasonable price but right now there’s some room in the freezer so now there’s a pile of deep-frozen falafel and deep frozen vege-balls in there.

It wasn’t an offer that I could pass up.

Talking of passing up on thisgs, I managed to pass myself up into the kitchen before the third alarm went off this morning – something that doesn’t happen very often these days..

And no-one was more surprised than me.

So after I had my medication I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone

What a nightmare that I had last night too! I had a house on Osbourne Grove in Shavington. It had either caught alight or someone had planted a bomb in it and everything was due to happen at midnight. I was runing back there – it was nearly 3 minutes to. I got inside the house, I had to rip electrical appliances off the wall, thrown them out of the window, pick up my belongings, pick up Strawberry Moose. I could feel the time really really advancing . I was doing this faster and faster. Then I lost the way a bit and ended up in a telephone box thing – interview booth

Somewhat later on I was driving taxis last night and we were in Earle Street in Crewe where there was a taxi rank. I dunno whether there was something going on but one of the drivers whom I knew came over to me and in a kind of forceful way said “just you go and get me a packet of crisps – a packet of chips and wait for me on tha corner and give them to me when I come past. he was obviously going to do something to upset the other drivers but anyway I set off towards the chip shop round into Market Terrace. Walking down there I met Roxanne. We started talking and she was telling me about how when she was young she’d drawn a picture of her mother and made a remark about it. I said that I disagreed, so she told me about a drawing she had made of me. We had a chat about that, and she added “I had a really good imagination as a child”. Anyway I came round and I got to the fish and chip shop by this time and I was just about to walk in when the alarm went off.

It always does just as things are becoming interesting.

There was more to last night’s voyages too, but as you are all probably having your lunch or something I’l spare you the gory details.

Having dealt with the dictaphone notes I went and had a shower and a weigh-in. And while one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and it’s too early to start crowing, for a whole week now I’ve been below my target weight.

Whether I can keep it up is another thing. We’ll have to see about that but it’s encouraging.

That means that in 11 months since I had my major health scare in the USA I’ve lost 13kgs. Not a pleasant way to lose the weight but the ends justify the means.

It reminds me of the story about my wife, who proudly announced “this last two weeks I’ve lost 5kgs”
“Keep it up, dearest” I urged (I used to call her “dearest” because she was the most expensive thing I’ve ever had) “in another 26 weeks you’ll be gone completely”.

Off to the shops which I’ve already mentioned, swamped in the crowds and the traffic. The port was heaving today with the sailing school having a busy morning. Cars parked everywhere.

Back here I actually managed to unpack everything and even put some of it away without having to go and sit down. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that.

For lunch I had some of the baguette that I buy every Saturday and then came back in here to do some work.

And I really don’t know what happened after that. There was some work that needed doing which I started but the next thing that I remember was that it was 15:28. I must have been out like a light for 90 minutes or so and I don’t understand that at all.

Mind you, I awoke just in time for the kick-off of today’s football match – the Welsh Cup Final between Bangor City and Port Talbot Town from 2010.

Bangor City were expected to win this match at a canter and at 2-0 up after 15 minutes, it looked all over. But the Spuds stiffened up and began slowly to come into the game.

Bangor spurned a couple of good chances as the match progressed and when the Spuds pulled a goal back out of nothing after an hour, it was game on.

Astonishingly, in a frenetic end to the match, the Spuds scored an equaliser with just two minutes to go, only for Bangor to go back into the lead in injury time, to lift the Cup for the third year in succession.

But what a difference a decade makes. Bangor City were acquired by a couple of crooks (which I can safely say, having in my possession a list of their criminal convictions) whose financial manoeuvres saw the club lose its professional licence and expelled from the Premier League, and the Spuds who now play in the third tier of Welsh football

This was the time – about 90 minutes later than usual, for me to go for my afternoon walk.

From the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord I could see that down on the rocks and on the beach just there that the people were gathering in their masses.

When I came out of LeClerc earlier there was a torrential downpour going on and it had been pretty miserable. But now the sun had some out and brought with it the Saturday afternoon crowds

It wasn’t just on the beaches either.

The water was pretty busy too. We had a pile of plank surfers or whatever you call that sport out there two round by the buoys that seem to be marking the end of the swimming zone for the beach at Plat Gousset.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen them out there before. What the attraction is in that sport I really don’t know. But as long as they enjoy it, it keeps them out of mischief.

You probably noticed from the previous photos how beautiful the weather was looking right now. A real contrast from a few hours ago.

Over across the bay towards Bréhal Plage the colours really were magnificent and while the view into the distance wasn’t as clear as that which we saw the other day whe we saw the wind farm at the back of Coutances, it was certainly a nice sharp view over there.

It’s a shame that I can’t have a sharp view like this when the coast in the distance is clear.

But you can see what I mean about the crowds out here this afternoon.

That’s the way that I go when I’m walking around the wall – underneath the arch and onto the path behind the outer curtain walls. That was my first running track too when I started running back in the winter, but as you can see, there’s no hope of running down there today.

You’ll notice the puddles on the path too. There was that much rain that the water hasn’t drained off. You’ll also notice that the grass is still quite brown despite the rain of the last couple of days.

Surprisingly, the beach wasn’t all that busy. I was expecting to see many more people than that down there.

No-one swimming around in the water either this afternoon either, which was another surprise. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen swimmers in that water in all kinds of temperatures.

No-one in the tidal swimming pool which is a shame after all of the effort that they went to when they cleared it out a month ago. It’s still holding water.

So where were all of the people then who should have been on the beach?

This is where most of them seem to be. I’m not sure what the attraction is of the rocks and the stone ramp when there’s some nice sand to sit on.

But do you notice the boy on the left-hand edge of the photo? He’s having a space-hopper ride on one of the yellow buoys that’s broken away from its mooring point.

You can see its chain behind it lying in the sand.

My route now took me round through the crowds in the Place Maurice Marland where I could check on my seagulls, and then towards home.

But here in the rue Notre Dame I noticed that the roadworks that they taped off yesterday have not been respected. Someone has driven through the tapes (not this car) and broken them – and now a whole stream of vehicles is passing along the road.

No wonder they have to keep on redoing them if people will drive on the cobbles before the concrete has set.

On the way back to the apartment this view made me lauch.

Here’s Gribouille, the big ginger cat, sitting quite comfortably on his wndowsill admiring the view, taking absolutely no notice whatsoever of the seagull that’s on the windowledge just above his head.

What kind of cat is this? But then again when I was married we had four cats but there was once a mouse in the kitchen that they completely ignored.

Back here it was guitar time already so I had an hour or so on those, followed by tea again. One of my breaded soya fillets with a baked potato and vegetables. I do quite like them but they aren’t on sale in France officially.

However NOZ sells anything and everything that comes its way. I stocked up when I could and it’ll be a shame when the supplies run out.

Out for my run afterwards but I had to abort the first part of the first run.

There was a major gale blowing – a proper sou’wester. And the tall buildings on either side of the rue du Roc were funneling it straight into my face. It was hard enough to walk, and impossible to run in it.

Once I’d gone beyond the buildings on the north side I could break into a run but it was still agony.

The itinerant was still there, calmly reading a newspaper as I ran past him down to the clifftop.

And I could see what was going on from the top of the cliff. The strong winds that we had had had blown the storm out to sea and the eastern side of Jersey was now taking a right pasting, presumably from the same storm that we had had earlier.

Whoever might be out there in a boat right now is probably not enjoying that one little bit, I’m sure of that. It’s hardly a surprise that there’s no fishing boat in view.

However, one thing that can be said is that I’ve never seen Jersey looking so clear and visible so late in the evening.

With the big70-300mm LENS at full stretch I took a photo, and it’s amazing just how clear it is. We can see the tower at the entrance to the harbour which I reckon is St Helier, and on the right we can even see what looks like a church spire.

That’s not bad for 58 kilometres or so, I reckon.

From there I walked off across the lawn and round to the viewpoint near the coastguard station.

Down by the Sailors’ memorial I looked down onto the rocks and noticed a cuple of guys lounging around here. Nominally fishing, as you can tell by the rods, but the lines aren’t in the water and hey don’t seem to be too interested right now.

And I don’t know why they are there because it can’t be pleasant down there in that wind.

And they weren’t the only ones out there either.

This couple were here sitting on a bench by the old guard cabin, taking the full brunt of this sou’wester that was roaring up the bay.

Anyway, it’s none of my business, so I walked round, crossed over the road and ran on down to my first resting place, despite the crosswind.

The next stage of my route takes me all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and round the corner at the end

While I was catching my breath I walked back to the harbour to see what was going on there. Nothing much, but our heavy equipment is still there. I’ll go for a closer look tomorrow if it’s still there.

From there I ran on round to the viewpoint at the rue du Nord, but there wasn’t anything at all of any interest happening there either so I came on home again.

Sunday tomorrow, and a lie-in too. I suppose that i’d better do some work too, seeing as I have done almost nothing today. But I’m going to make myself an apple crumble for tea, I reckon. We’ve not had one of those for ages.

Friday 12th June 2020 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Yes, guess who put a load of washing in the washing machine on Thursday morning before going to the shops – and then forgot all about it?

It’s out airing on the clothes airer right now, but when I go to the shops tomorrow I have a feeling that I shall have to buy some nice perfumed fabric conditioner or something similar and put them through again.

As for my part, much to my own (and everyone else’s) surprise I actually beat the third alarm call to my feet this morning. I was in the kitchen organising my medication when it went off.

Back here afterwards (still no breakfast!) to look at the dictaphone – and … phew!

Last night I put in an appearance in an office where I used to work and went into one of the rooms which was room D and it was absolutely heaving with people. I’d been for a while in another room and getting a few things organised in there watching a couple of videos that kind of thing but I didn’t really want anyone else to know what I was doing so I was hunched up in a corner where no-one could overlook me. In this room it was crowded with people, hundreds of them. There was one little girl about 5 or 6 and a pile of these white fish fillet squares that she had got down all over the floor. There were a couple of guys in charge and they didn’t seem to be paying the slightest bit of attention. Before i’d gone in there I’d had a look out of the window and I’d seen someone disappearing off in a car towing a trailer pulling a petrol pump so I wondered if that had been something that had come off the beach around the corner so I went there to find out. I was told “yes” but the person didn’t seem to want to elaborate on it.
Later on during the night something had happened about something or other in Aberystwyth. It meant that I had to go home and fetch something and come back again. I was in an old mark V Cortina so I put my foot down i Aberystwyth and drove all the way back to Crewe where I got what I wanted . The journey back should have taken me about 45 minutes (well, yes!) but by the time that I had everything ready it was now exactly 1 hour 05 after I had left so I was going to have to do something about catching up this time. So I put my foot down. I hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards before I ran straight into one of these processions. Even though it was something like 01:00 – 01:30 in the morning there were all these processions like a Miners’ Parade or something. And of course as I set to move off a group of motorcycle policemen came round pushing their bikes following this parade. Of course I had no seat belt on and the car wasnt in any particularly good condition so the captain of the motorcyclists came over and asked me a couple of questions about the car. I’d only had it a couple of days so I couldn’t really answer him so he asked to see my documents. I gave him my driving licence which was stuck inside my purse and took ages to put out. he invited me to come in to his office. Of course I didn’t have time to do all of this but he interrogated me a bit and he got on his radio and radioed my licence number through. I asked “am I clear to go?”. he replied “you’re clear to go. Some guy said “that will be £50:00. I thought “£50:00? What the hell is this for?” He replied “it’s just for having your hair cut”. “But I don’t want my hair cut”. However a girl came round and threw a towel over my shoulders and sat me in the seat. I asked “what the hell is this all about?”. “It’s just something that he likes to do when he’s caught someone and letting them go. It’s a way of raesing funds”. I thought “yes, I bet it is”. And all the time I was supposed to be going to Aberystwyth. I was already running late, I had these things, these people would probably be long gone by the time that I get there and that will be a wasted journey. There I was being trapped in this seat having my hair cut for £50:00
When I went back to sleep I stepped right back into this dream where I’d been before and set off again. I was once more waylaid on the route but I don’t remember anything about it now. I do remember though thinking that this is absolutely ridiculous and I’m never going to get to Aberystwyth at this rate.

A little later still I was on my way to South Wales. I pulled in at Knutsford Services and there I had to hire a car for the weekend and get some food to eat on the journey, get some fuel and sort out some gearbox oil for my car. I’ve no idea why I wanted a hire car but I went into the office and started to make all of the arrangements. They said that they had a Crusader so I said that that was fine by me. They said “hang on, we’ll see what else we’ve got” but I said “no, a Crusader is fine”. They wandered away and I was talking about which guy it was who knew which car they were. They said “it’s the girl over there – the one who’s big enough to be a girl guide”. I thought “what the heck has this got to do with me renting a vehicle”. I thought that i’d better drive my vehicle somewhere, come back, pick up this hire car, go off and I have to be back before Monday. So I told them to make the booking until Monday. Then of course I could work out about what I needed and what I had to get.

After all of that, it was quite a surprise that I was out of bed so sprightly.

Today has been spent working on my music course. And by the time I reached the end of the afternoon I’d done a whole week’s work. And now I can play the blues on the piano in the Key of F, Fmin and F7 with the left hand playing 7/10ths and 7/13ths.

Or, at least, I could if I were any good at it. But you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

At lunch I had some more of my bread. And it’s still tasting quite good. This was, I reckon, something of a success although, as I have said … “on many occasions” – ed … there is still plenty of room for improvement.

What I might do, when I run out of cake, is to make a smaller loaf but crush some banana in it, or else add a pile of sultanas, and make a kind of snack bread. Apricots in it might be good too of course.

After lunch I took some time off work and made myself some orange and ginger cordial. The honey that I’m using isn’t very good though, but I’m hoping that soon I’ll be back in Belgium where I can find some more Manuka honey.

It had been pouring down for most of the morning but by the time that I went out for my afternoon walk, the rain had stopped.

There’s a strange kind of light when it’s just stopped raining in the summer. And with the air being cleaner these days, the views are generally better. Once more, Jersey is standing out really well and you can see the houses at St Helier.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few weeks ago I mentioned something about the lockdown helping to clean up the air.

The ile de Chausey was standing out really well today too.

The houses over there were quite clear to see too, and we could even see Joly France setting out of the harbour there on its way back to Granville.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that I’ve never taken a photo as clear as this of the Ile de Chausey from the mainland. We could do with a few more days like this.

The photo that I took, I split it into two parts. The previous photo that you saw was the left-hand half, and this one is the right-hand half.

You can see the houses in the little village at the northern end of the island and if you look just to the left of them you might just be able to make out the church. It’s said that there’s a bit of a Liberator bomber in there – one that was shot down over the bay just after D-Day.

The building on the eminence in the middle, that’s the chateau I reckon, a converted fort that was at one time owned by the Renault family.

You can see MORE PHOTOS OF THE ILE DE CHAUSEY here.

The fine weather that we were having now that the rain had stopped had certainly brought out the crowds.

As you can see, the path around the cliff and up by the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall were heaving with people this afternoon all catching what sun here was.

The lighthouse is looking good today , and the four flags are still flying up by the war memorial – the British one hasn’t yet made good its bid for freedom

It wasn’t just on the lawn by the lighthouse that there were the crowds either.

The steps down the path round the end were pretty busy, and there were people here down by the old watch cabin enjoying the view and the sunshine. And who can blame them?

You’ll notice that the cabin still has its roof and it’s pretty watertight. It’s just one of half a dozen places where our itinerant could seek shelter from the rain if he so chooses.

So despite the crowds, I headed off on my walk down the other side of the headland.

Nothing much going on down there this afternoon – still the same three boats in the chantier navale and nothing else of interest. But there was this speedboat roaring past with le feux dans ses fesses – a fire up his … errr … posterior – as they say around here.

It’s quite stimulating being out on the sea at that kind of speed, but it’s not so good for the wildlife and the Noise Abatement Society would have something to say about it too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last few weeks we’ve been seeing all kinds of heavy plant parked up at the side of the Rue du Port.

Today there are a couple more things that have arrived. In fact the lorry that dropped them off is just pulling away as you can see. We seem to have acquired a kind of cherry picker and a fork lift elevator.

But I’ve no idea what they are doing with them. We see all kinds of weird things arriving or parked up there and after a day or so they just disappear.

Yesterday we saw the installation of a set of traffic lights to control the traffic in the old town while the roadworks are taking place.

It was my intention to go round to see where the other end was, and sure enough, it’s here at the edge of the Place du Parvis Notre Dame – not where I was thinking it would be at all.

So traffic at this end of the rue Notre Dame can come out of here the wrong way dow the one-way system and the lights are there to stop any unfortunate encounter.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I decided that I would go off and see how the roadworks were doing.

But down the rue St Jean I saw something that I hadn’t noticed before. In the good old days, it was the fashion in France to have huge advertising notices painted on the side of the buildings and it’s always been my regret that the practice has ceased. Here’s an old one advertising “Les Ilots” – café restaurant, with furnished rooms.

That’s going back a few years, isn’t it? Another lifetime ago, I reckon.

But at least there’s some good news at the roadworks.

Everything seems to be done and dusted now and the cobbles have been recemented into position. It looks now as if they are just waiting for the cement to dry and the road will probably be open tomorrow or Monday.

So in that case I’m glad that I came and photographed it today.

Back here I carried on with my coursework and by about 17:15 I was finished. I even managed to find the time to do a few photos from July 2019

Only a few though. Most of the time was spent hunting down the name of a church that I had photographed from The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. And it took some doing too.

Nothing is straightforward with me, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

My half an hour on the bass was spent playing along to Arthur King’s “Born Under A Bad Sign” – which is how it feels sometimes. And the half-hour on the six-string was spent playing along to Springsteens “No Surrender” and also Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A’Changin'”

A couple of lines of the lyrics leapt out at me from the latter.
“Come writers and critics”
“Who prophesize with your pen”
“And keep your eyes wide”
“The chance won’t come again”

Yes – “the chance won’t come again”. I’m back on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again aren’t I – one night at the beginning of September in the North-West Passage of Canada. All I need now is Kris Kristofferson and “I’ll give all my tomorrows for a single yesterday”

And do you know what? I would as well!

For a change, I had tea tonight. The last aubergine and kidney bean whatsit from April. I’ll have to buy another one and make some more. But I have peppers and potatoes that need using up so it looks like a pepper, potato and spinach curry is on the menu next week.

We’d had a tremendous thunderstorm earlier on in the afternoon, followed by a really heavy rainfall. But when I went out for my evening walk, it had stopped and the weather was reasonably bright.

But my eye had been caught by a few notices like that dotted around outside. It looks as if something exciting is going to be happening here on 15th June – maybe roadworks or something.

Anyway, anyone who has a car parked there has been instructed to move it and no-one else can leave their vehicles there.

“That’s something to look forward too” I mused as I ran off up the road.

Things were a little (just a little) easier tonight as I made it up to the top of the hill, I felt that I had a little left to spare in the tank.

But I recovered my breath and ran on down past the itinerant to the clifftop. The storm that had battered us earlier is still there – just out to see and round by Bréhal-Plage and Montmartin sur Mer.

It looks as if it’s having a right old hammering over there and I’m glad that I wasn’t out there earlier in that. And it beats me why the itinerant is sticking it out.

haing recovered my breath again I walked on around the corner.

Where we saw the speedboat earlier, we now have a yacht strutting his stuff just offshore. But apart from the boat itself, I was intrigued by the colours now that the rain has washed out the sky.

The whole coast round from Kairon-Plage through Jullouville round to the Pointe de Carolles is really brightly lit this evening. And the white hotel buildings down by Mont St Michel are really clear too.

It really was nice.

The next couple of legs of my run took me all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and round the corner – and once more I overran my mark by a good 20 metres. And I could have done more too I reckon.

But I walked back to have a look down at the harbour and see what was happening. And once more, nothing much. Chausiais is there moored up against the harbour wall so she won’t be going very far very soon.

And Granville and Victor Hugo, the two Channel Island ferries, they are still there too. I’ve not had a latest update as to when the service will start again, but I’m going to try to hitch a lift on Thora or Normandy Trader one of these days.

From here I ran on all the way round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord.

There didn’t seem to be the crowds of picnickers down there tonight – I did look – but instead we have a young couple who are playing beach bowls down there. You can see the guy tossing the “ball” at the pins.

It looks as if they have been having a party too. I can see a bottle of wine down there and with no cork in it, I’ll fathom a guess that it’s empty.

There wasn’t a decent sunset tonight – not even an impressive cloud formation.

But that’s no surprise either. Not with the weather that we’ve just had. And as I said yesterday … “and on many other occasions too” – ed … we’ve had some beautiful ones recently, and we can’t win a coconut every time.

Back to the apartment I ran but seeing that I was up to 90% on the day’s activity, I went for an extended walk to clock up the 100%

Hence the reason that I’m rather late tonight.

But I had an interuption this evening. Someone from the radio contacted me – someone not actually in my list of top 10 contacts. Would I like to go for a drink with him before our big meeting on Thursday night?

So what’s that all about, I wonder. Why would he want to see me before the meeting? I smell a rat, and I’m not talking about the contents of baldrick’s apple crumble.

Tomorrow it’s shopping. And I don’t need that much stuff either. A good start, I hope, and then a relax as we have football on the internet tomorrow afternoon.

High time we had some live football too. I’m missing my football fix.

Thursday 11th June 2020 -I WAS TREATED …

… to a delightful little nautical danse macabre this morning down in the port.

Normandy Trader had come in on the morning tide – in fact she was waiting outside the harbour for the gates to open earlier – and was tied up at the unloading point while the workers on the crane were busy unloading her.

And into the harbour, full steam ahead, came Thora. She almost came to a dead stop when she saw Normandy Trader moored just there. Being too far over to moor up at the side, she had to go into a delightful 360° outside turn in order to get herself into position to moor in a temporary unloading place.

Mind you, while we’re on the subject of a berth being occupied, mine was occupied for rather longer than intended this morning.

Never mind the third alarm – it was 06:30 when I finally crawled out of bed again.

No breakfast once more so I came back here to listen to the dictaphone. We were on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again and we reached the Far North of Iceland although it was much more bleak and much more cold and much more icy than the Far North of Iceland – it could easily have been the far North of Greenland. There was some kind of settlement there which was pretty much abandoned – there weren’t many people living there. There was one building made of wood and the whole front had been washed away by a high tide in a storm. We typed something into a search engine about this place and it came up with a couple of shots of the boat that we were using to ferry ourselves back and to to the ship and also the World War II 4-engined bomber that had crashed somewhere in the vicinity. Of course I was really keen to go ahead and find out where this plane was but that was when I awoke, with a massive attack of cramp that knocked me right for 6.

So how did this end? I’ve no idea because after I’d eased the cramp off and went back to sleep I missed the restart and that was that.

Looking back on things, I’ve spent so much time during the night on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour that I shudder to think what the bill would be if ever Adventure Canada find out and decide to send me a bill for my stays.

Next job was to finish off the Tax Return and type a letter to the Tax people to explain my particular circumstances. A shower, and a weigh-in, and then off to LIDL

Not that I got very far.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the roadworks that we saw yesterday in the rue Notre Dame. All of the traffic is having to travel down the rue St Jean and as we have seen on many occasions, it’s pretty narrow.

As a consequence they have installed temporary traffic lights now at the Porte St Jean. I shall have to go for a wander and see how far they stretch down the street.

Off I continued on my travels, but I didn’t get very far.

Around the headland came our friend Normandy Trader. As she approached the port entrance I prepared myself ready to take a photo of her entering port, but she came to a shuddering halt just outside the harbour.

Of course, what has happened is that the tide isn’t quite in far enough and the gates are closed. She’ll have to wait until they open but for some reason she’s decided to wait outside.

At last I could push on down the road and down the Rampe du Monte Regret.

And there seem to have been a few changes there too. Everyone is preparing for the summer and as there’s no Nuit des Soudeurs this year, it looks as if they are installing a kiddies’ open air play area of some description with a little casual café.

People won’t be travelling on holiday this year of course so we’ve seen all kinds of preparations being undertaken to make sure that people enjoy their holidays at home.

And on that subject, I’ve no idea what’s going on here.

These look pretty much to me like the beach cabins that we’ve seen them installing on the Plat Gousset just now, but I’m wondering what on earth they are doing unloading in the middle of the town centre here in the Place General de Gaulle.

All will be revealed in due course, I imagine. I see that the route of my Sunday perambulation is already panning itself out without me having to sit and think about it.

Up at LIDL I spent a lot of money but without anything substantial to show for it. A pile of bin liners was one thing, but the principal expenditure was on olive oil. I always cook with olive oil and I’m getting rather low, and today they had two-litre bottles at a ludicrous price. So one of them found its way into my shopping bag.

On the way back I went to the Tax Office to deliver my letter. It’s closed one day a week and regular readers of this rubbish will recall, having followed my exploits around the world often enough, which day of the week it’s going to be.

So I slipped it into the letterbox and headed back towards home.

Thursday is the day for a little treat. Calling at La Mie Caline, I picked up my dejeunette for lunch. I know that I bake my own bread these days but it’s still nice to have something different.

Pushing on I went via the Rue Paul Poirier to see if I could see the roofing works in thr Place Marechal Foch from a different angle.

And from here, there’s a completely different perspective on what they are doing up there. It’s quite a big roof, that much is evident, and it must have been something of an effort to put the scaffolding up in the gap between the two wings.

But on the fork-lift trucks they have a hod of slates so they are clearly pressing on with the job and it won’t be long before they will finish it.

Up the hill in the rue des Juifs, I could see Normandy Trader at her berth.

They are cracking on with the unloading and with Thora awaiting her turn they aren’t going to be long in turning her round ready to leave port.

So I pushed on back home to sort out the shopping. There wasn’t any more excitement on the way back which was a shame.

Having gathered up my strength I went to have a look at Week 3 of my Accountancy course. There are actually 38 modules in this week’s session which makes this “four hours of study per week” look a bit ridiculous.

But by the time that 15:30 came round, I’d done 21 of them, and that was despite a stop for lunch.

At 15:30 though, just as I was planning to leave for my afternoon walk, Rosemary called me up. We ended up having a lengthy chat – to such an extent that it was after 17:00 when I was ready to go for my afternoon perambulation.

And just for a change, it was pouring down outside. and I can’t say that we didn’t need it. All of the grass here is scorched dark brown and needs a really good soaking.

Dressed in my raincoat I was fine and I could watch in comfort yet another nautical danse macabre as a fishing boat sailed into the bay just here, performed an exquisite U-turn and sailed back out again.

If you look at the photo, you can see its wake quite clearly. But the point of it quite clearly beats me.

The weather might be bad for some people but others are taking full advantage of it right now.

Here’s someone down there dressed in the right gear and fishing off the rocks. I’m not quite sure what he might catch down there, apart from pleurisy, but it did remind me of the old guy who once told me that having sex these days was very much like fishing.
“Why is that?” I asked
“Well” he replied, “these days you get your rod out and you never know what you are going to catch”

On that note I strolled off around the headland and down along the path on the other side of the promontory.

That route takes me above the chantier navale where I can look down and see what’s going on down there. And today we have another occupant. A large fishing boat has come in to join the others.

And only just come in too by the looks of things. The crew are still down there with her giving her a good hose down. Not that she’ll need much in this weather.

A rhythmic tapping from further down the Boulevard Vaufleury told me that the roofing work down below in the rue du Port was still going on.

Not that I would want to be working on a roof in weather like this, but the answer to that is that with no roof on the building in a rainstorm you are going to get wet anyway so it doesn’t make much difference.

Talking of getting wet, standing here watching the workers on the roof was having that effect on me so I came on back home. There was my hour on the guitars to occupy my time.

After the session on the guitar I would normally go for tea but I wasn’t feeling hungry at all so I caught up with a few little bits and pieces, only to develop a raging hunger round about 20:30.

What’s going on here?

Anyway it was far too late to worry about food now with so much to do – like going for a run.

A few biscuits filled a little hole and then I set off into the rain again. Up the hill a little easier than it has been just now, which reminded me that my climb up the hill to LIDL had passed without the slightest hint of drama.

Having recovered my breath I ran on down to the clifftop past the itinerant who was sheltering under a plastic sheet. And that’s what I don’t understand. All of the World War II bunkers of the Atlantic Wall and the couple of stone buildings from the 18th Century fortress in which he could be sheltering, all of which are out of the rain and all a mere cockstride from here, and he’s sheltering under a plastic sheet under a hedge.

There was nothing much happening out to sea so I carried on walking around the headland to the other side of the promontory.

It must be getting close to gate-opening time, I reckon, because the fishing boats were starting to head for the port. 105 minutes before High Tide, so I’ve been told, that the gates open and it’s not so very far off that right now.

But no seagulls hanging around the boats tonight. Probably the rainstorm is proving to be too much for them too and they’ve gone off to seek shelter elsewhere.

The next stage of my run takes me down past the chantier navale and down to the end of the path where I always stop for breath.

And I was right about the harbour gates being on the point of opening because just look at all of the fishing boats here. And that’s not by any means all of them either. There were another three or four out of shot behind the harbour wall, not to mention those still out at sea.

But the gate didn’t open while I was there so I carried on with my run.

All the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury, around the corner and up to the second pedestrian crossing. But once more I ended up a good 20 oe so metres beyond it.

Back down at the harbour I had a look at to see what was going, accompanied by someone else who was taking a few photos of the place. What caught my eye were the couple of little boats that were moored against the new pontoons in the shadow of the larger boats.

But what I was trying to understand was why they would want a ladder at the end of the pontoon going down into the water. That’s another mystery to me.

The fifth stage of my run takes me now all the way to the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord where we usually see the sunset. But not this evening of course. Not in this weather.

No picnickers out there either tonight which is no surprise either, but we did have some more fishermen doing their stuff. One of them was a young boy whom I watched scrambling over the rocks until he foud a good position to cast his line.

Once he’s put his hook in the water I ran on back home to write up my notes.

So later than I anticipated I’m off to bed now. No idea who I’ll be meeting during the night but I hope that it’s someone interesting and exciting. After all, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Tomorrow I’m going to finally get to grips with my music course and spend the day learning blues piano. It’s free so I may as well make the most of it.

Wednesday 10th June 2020 – OUR BABY SEAGULL …

… has left the nest today.

Staggering around the roof on its own two pins while mummy watches. He’s a good week or so behind the others unfortunately but better late than never.

And that brings me sadly round to the fate of his sibling. Mummy has now left the nest as we can see, but the second egg has not hatched. It’s just sitting in the nest doing nothing at all.

So unfortunately that one won’t ever see the light of day, which is a shame.

But talking of the light of day and staggering around on a rooftop the little baby seagull is doing better just then than I was this morning at 06:15 when the third alarm went off.

At that particular moment I was flat out in my nest too and it was more like 06:30 when I finally crawled out of bed.

There was nothing on the dictaphone either so anyone would have thought that I would have cracked on and had a good day’s work today.

But if only ….!

And for a whole variety of reasons too, not the least of which being that it took me several hours to find my bearings and summon up the motivation etc. Story of my life these days, I’m afraid. I’m finding it very hard to concentrate, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Nvertheless by the time that I knocked off work at 18:00 I had

written all of the rest of the text for the programme
recorded same
uploaded same to computer
edited same
split same into the relevant passages
used the passages to link together the pairs of music tracks (5 of those)
added in the speech of my invited guest
worked out the time left of my hour slot
knocked off 30 seconds of the time left for the final speech
found a track to fit the remaining time
wrote out the speech
recorded same
uploaded same to computer
edited same
added same onto the end of the radio project
merged the final track into the project at the appropriate place
found that I was over by 8 seconds (which is always better than being under by 8 seconds) so I had to hunt down 8 seconds of speech that could easily be edited out.

There was also some time left to start to assemble the paperwork for the Tax Return.

And how much more could I have done had I not drifted off into the arms of Morpheus at some point during the afternoon?

That loaf of bread that I made the other day is still doing well and I’m quite pleased with it. There is still plenty of room for improvement but we’ll get there slowly.

However, I had to throw away a few tomatoes today. That few days when I didn’t eat anything has caused a few items of food to start to show their age.

There was the afternoon walk of course. And I put on my raincoat because although it was no longer raining, it was still quite miserable outside.

First thing that I noticed that the Montée st Jean, which leads up to the Parvis Notre Dame has a roadworks sign up there. “Closed 200 metres ahead” which at least puts it after the Square.

That’s the way that I’ll be coming back so I can have a good nosey around to see what’s happening when I get round there.

My route is taking me round by the rue du Nord and then along that side of the walls.

Following usual custom and practice I looked over the wall to see if we had any picnickers this afternoon. I thought that that was unlikely and indeed I was proved right. But we did have someone out there practising the peche à pied

It was difficult to see what the person out there was collecting but she seemed to be having some good luck.

Despite the heavy, low clouds there was another really excellent view out to the north today in certain places.

The lighthouse at the Pointe d’Agon was clearly visible, as was the marker at the mouth of the River Sienne. And the range of hills way out at the back of Coutances where there is the wind farm is probably the clearest that I have ever seen.

If you look carefully at the image you can just about make out the wind farm on the crest of the hills over there.

A few days ago, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw the beach huts now put out down at Donville les Bains.

It seems today that the town of Granville is following suit because they have all been brought down to the Plat Gousset and they are being installed in position.

It looks as if everyone now is preparing for summer, so I hope that we aren’t going to have another one of the storms that we had earlier in the year. Imagine all of that lot being smashed to matchwood.

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that we saw the other days a row of yellow marker buoys stretched out across the beach presumably at the outer limit for swimming.

But it seems to be a case of “Ten Green Bottles” as far as the yellow buoys go because there are a lot fewer now than there were when we started.

And if you look closely, there’s one lying on the beach at the bottom right of the image, having broken away from its moorings. And there was one higher up the beach bear the wall.

So they didn’t last long.

My walk carried on around the walls and onto the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch

From here I could see down and over to where they were working on the roof. It seems now that they have finished that one and they are now working on the building behind it.

They are cracking on with it too. They have the felt already on and they were riveting the laths onto the beams. That is nearly finished too so I imagine that the slates will be going on there tomorrow.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that on Sunday we saw some kind of portable office erected on the quayside near the ferry terminal.

There was no indication of the purpose that it was serving but this will probably give us a clue. We’ve seen them digging up the quayside over there on a couple of occasions, but today they are back there with a digger, a hole and a pile of earth.

It makes me wonder if it has anything to do with those heavy mounting brackets on the quayside that they installed a few weeks ago.

A little earlier we saw the signs for the road closed up in the rue Notre Dame.

When I reckoned that I’d catch the works from the other side, I was sure that I would be proved right. And voila!. They were digging up all of the cobbles in the street and chipping away at the concrete at the edges.

That’s going to prove to be interesting over the next few days when we find out what they have been doing and, more importantly, why.

There was a new young cat sitting on the windowsill where Minette used to live, so I stopped and gave him a stroke. And then I moved on down to the Place Cambernon.

That building that we have seen encased in scaffolding and netting for the last I don’t know how long now seems to be almost complete around the front and most of the material has gone.

It’s looking quite smart with its new front too. “Apartments” is what i’ve been told, but it would be nice if some sort of commerce other than a souvenir shop would open on the ground floor.

Picking my way gingerly through the works in the road in the Rue Notre Dame, I passed on along the street towards home.

My attention was however drawn to the Montée du Parvis Notre Dame where we had a cherry picker or some such parked here. I’ve no idea what they were doing because it was very difficult to see, but they had some heavy equipment to do it.

From there I made my way back home to carry on with work. It won’t be finished on its own.

Knocking off at 18:00 or so I had a good play with the guitars tonight and I found that with the 6-string I was switching between the F chord and Bb chord quite easily without looking. Even I was impressed.

Next thing that I will try doing is triads of C F and G so see how they fit together. But I’ll get there.

Tea tonight was the second of the two time-expired burgers that I bought at the weekend. Delicious it was again, followed by strawberry flan and soya coconut cream.

Only two meals again today, but I did make myself a mug of hot chocolate with soya milk at mid-morning.

And one more thing of note – it’s now over a week since I’ve had any coffee. And you can tell that I’ve been ill if I’m not drinking coffee. I used to live on that at one time.

So off later on my run around the Pointe du Roc

And it really was a little (just a little) easier to run up the hill and down to the clifftop past the itinerant who was in his usual spot. And at the clifftop I was treated to a beautiful nautical danse macabre as a couple of speedboats, a zodiac and a big fishing boat all came together.

Unfortunately there was no collision and it all passed off smoothly so I made my way on

Around the headland towards the other side of the promontory. But I didn’t go very far.

Something down in the water had caught my eye and at first I thought that it might have been a porpoise or a dolphin. But on enlarging the photo I could see that it was a kayak with a fisherman in it – I assume that they are fishing rods that he has sticking up there

What also caught my eye was what looked like an outboard motor on the stern of the craft, so it’s not a traditional kind of kayak whatever else it might be.

Around on the other side of the headland I carried on with my run and reached my mark where I stopped for a rest.

A fishing boat came chugging around the corner while I was resting and, thinking that I recognised it, I took a photo of it.

And I was right again. It’s our old friend Joker, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw her over quite a perios when she was up on blocks in the chantier navale a while ago.

They obviously did a good job on her

While I was there, I had a good look down at the fish processing plant.

This evening it was heaving with boats coming in to unload at the quayside and there was even an articulated lorry with a refrigerated trailer parked there waiting for a catch.

Down the Boulevard Vaufleury I ran, and pushed on beyond my end marker by a good 20 metres without a great deal of difficulty. I’m pleased about that for only another 20 metres to go and I’ll be on a long downhill slope

Down at the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord there was no-one picnicking, which was a surprise.

The sunset tonight was not one of the better ones, but you can’t win a coconut every time, can you? We’ve had some really excellent ones in the past.

So with nothing else to do, I ran on back to the apartment to write up my notes. And now that I’ve finished I can go to bed.

It’s shopping tomorrow and I need some stuff – mainly to replace that which I’ve had to throw away that I didn’t eat while I was ill

So here’s hoping for a good night and some interesting and congenial companions.

Tuesday 9th June 2020 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I actually beat the third alarm to my feet this morning.

So while you all admire the Birdman of Alcatraz who came to grief on the lawn at the Pointe du Roc this afternoon. I can tell you all about it.

Actually, I cheated. That’s because I went to bed earlier than usual – something round about 23:40 if I remember correctly.

But, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall because it’s happened a few times just recently, including once just the other day, I awoke at about 04:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep again.

But then, there’s a reason for that too.

Last night I’d been on numerous voyages, starting off walking through the hospital into the downstairs part of the waiting room where the haematology patients went, where there was a small swimming pool. The weather was really rough, raining and storming and there was even storming in that swimming pool. There was a dead body of a man with longish black hair and moustache, white shirt and beige trousers floating in it. He was clearly dead so I had to get hold of a telephone and telephone the police but I couldn’t get through so I telephoned the switchboard. They wanted to know exactly where I was but I couldn’t get out the words properly. In the meantime other people started to come into the area where there was this swimming pool. No-one else noticed this body except me so I was wondering whether I was really seeing it or whether I was having hallucinations.

But having complained the other night about the lack of congenial company on my nocturnal rambles, I was joined last night by a girl with whom I used to work who could accompany me anywhere, as she did on one occasion skiing in Bulgaria and on another occasion skiing in Italy.. We were in the EU and I hadn’t long started and we were discussing all kinds of different things. How it started was that I’d gone into work on a Saturday. They asked me where I was going so I said “to such-and-such company”. Just at that moment this girl walked out of the door and I said “yes, where she works. Ohh yes she knows me and she’ll vouch for me, all this kind of thing” so they let me in. I went up the back but I couldn’t remember her room. I bumped into one of the directors and I’ll tell you his name in a minute, not Barros or Moratinos but a German guy (and not Heusgen either). I asked if he could point me in the direction of this girl’s office and he said “come with me” I asked him where she was so he took me downstairs onto the 5th floor and said “it’s just that office over there” and I thought “that’s the office that she used to be in before she moved up to the 8th floor – useless type”. Then I bumped into another girl and I was telling her about this. We ended up talking and this is where this other girl suddenly transformed herself into my friend again. We decided that we would go out for a walk. She started to run so I ran after her. We ran up some steps and down this fine gravel path. We were talking about work and how she had started. A lot of people had started but they wanted to get rid of some so they gave them all kinds of crappy work hoping that they would get fed up and leave pretty quickly. She said she stuck it out and I came a few months later. So off we went for a run. We were running for a bit. She said “are you comfortable running?” I said “well as long as it’s on the flat and the thing about Brussels is that it’s always on the flat, so yes, I’m comfortable running”. Se ran and did some strange exercises a bit like Castor would do strange exercises when she was running about. She ran a bit further on and slowed down for a walk. I slowed down to a walk and rather tentatively put my arm round her. She said “I’m going to go over there” pointing to somewhere off the path amongst a couple of trees. It was dark by this time. I said “shall I come with you?” She said “yes” and went off. She had some kind of coconut matting blanket and put it down on the floor and sat down. I sat down with her.

And there you are – the bird on my plate, just about to get my fork stuck in it, and I flaming well awoke!

It’s always the case, isn’t it? You could bet your mortgage on it.

But obviously my subconscious is telling me something. And I wish that I knew what it was.

Anyway, I didn’t leave the bed at that point (well, I did, actually. I went for a ride on the porcelain horse). I did all that I could to go back to sleep and step back in to where I left off, but to no avail.

Actually, I did go back to sleep, but I’ve no idea where I went – if anywhere at all.

Mind you, as I explained, I did haul myself out of bed before the third alarm and went and had my medication.

After transcribing the dictaphone notes, I had a few things to do. First was do hunt down a couple of digital copies of albums. I’d been provided with a couple of clues as to where I might find them, and this was indeed correct.

So that’s two more from the “outstanding” pile now added to the collection. And now that I’ve acquired a tape player (thanks, Liz) there will be a few more very soon.

Next stop was to prepare for my Welsh lesson. That involved not just reviewing my notes from last week and examining those for this week, but also tidying the kitchen end of the apartment.

That’s the big issue with video conferencing. I don’t want people to see the disorder in which I live.

And that reminds me – there was a headline in one of today’s digital newspapers about “the clue to alien life maybe found in dust”. If that’s the case, there must be loads of spacemen and Tory politicians sharing this apartment with me.

After my lesson it was time for lunch. And I do have to say that while there is plenty of room for improvement with my bread, this loaf is what I would call a success and I’m impressed with it.

It they keep on coming out like this I shan’t complain too much at all.

After lunch I had work to do.

Despite having already done one radio project this week, I wanted to do another. And by the time that I came to knocking off at 18:00, I’d chosen the music, combined the music in pairs and written half the notes.

So that’s the task for tomorrow I reckon – finish that lot off and if there is any time left, do my tax return and so some of my music course.

Really though, I could have made more time available by doing more today but I … errr … had a little relax for a short while.

But never mind, there was still the afternoon walk to undertake, even if I didn’t feel much like it after my slumber.

The sea was heaving today with all kinds of traffic out there. mainly fishing boats of course, because it’s during the week and many people are now back at work with no time for pleasure-boating.

It was difficult to count how many fishing boats were out there today but here’s a couple as an appetiser.

And it wasn’t just on the water that there were people either.

Although our photos of our birdman don’t show it, there were dozens of people loitering around the Pointe du Roc, and even down on the beach we had people walking around, studiously obeying the injunction not to “install oneself” on the beach.

The only surprise about this was that even though it was a nice day and the tide was quite a way out, there were so few people down there this afternoon.

We saw our Birdman of Alcatraz just now. I didn’t actually see him come to grief but he sailed past me at a very low altitude and when I went around the corner he was already on the ground trying to take off again.

What was so amusing was that just a few seconds after he had become unstuck – or, rather, stuck – the Air-Sea Rescue helicopter came roaring past. It made me think that it had come by to rescue him from his plight.

But there was no need because he eventually managed to take to the air again – and without flapping his arms either.

And so I carried on with my perambulations around the Pointe and along the walkway at the top ofthe cliff.

From there I could see down into the chantier navale and there’s been a change of occupant today. There’s a small fishing boat now appeared on the left-hand side of the row of boats.

Having made a note I wandered back to my apartment to carry on with my work. This kind of thing doesn’t get done on its own and there’s no-one else here to do it for me. HIS NIBS isn’t that well trained as yet.

Knocking off at 18:00 I had a session on the guitars. And the time on the base was spent playing along to Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House” and “Foxy Lady” – numbers that I used to play when I was in a rock group in the 1970s.

Of course, “Foxy Lady” – the name as well as the lyrics – has a much more recent significance, as regular readers of this rubbish who followed my antics in the High Arctic last summer will recall and it certainly ignited a flame that had been doused for quite a while.

For the fist time for a week, I had a hot meal this evening. A handful of pasta and a vegan burger – one of those that was running out of date.

So two meals today, for the first time for a while. I’m getting over this illness which is good news. It comes in cycles, so they say, which I suppose is better than coming on the bus.

And that reminds me of the sperm bank that opened in London a good while ago which was a total failure. They only had two potential donors but one of them missed the tube and the other one came in a taxi.

On that rather sad note, I suppose that I’d better call it a day and go for my evening walk.

Outside here down below, the tide is now in,, and we had a speedboat with several people on board who seem to have more than just a passing interest in the rocks just there.

It goes without saying that I’ve no idea why, and it wasn’t possible to ask them either. I just shrugged my shoulders and set off on my run.

With no-one hurling gratuitous abuse this evening I ran all the way up the road to my resting point at the end of the hedge – a little easier than last week – and then stopped for breath.

Having recovered, I ran down in a blistering headwind past the itinerant who was comfortably installed in his little spec, down to the clifftop to see what was going on.

And it’s pretty easy to guess what these people in this zodiac are doing here. The rod and lines are quite a giveaway. At least – they look like rod and lines from here but you can never be sure.

A little earlier I mentioned about all of the fishing boats out on the sea this afternoon.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall, we’ve seen the fishing boats starting to exploit new and (as far as I am aware) previously unexploited areas of the oceans. The Baie de Mont St Michel tonight was crowded with fishing boats yet again and there are three of them in this photo.

There were probably nine down there in all, hard at it this evening as far as I could see

My run carried on along the top of the cliff past the chantier navale and down to my next resting point.

Unfortunately, it seems that I was just a couple of minutes too late. It looks as if the harbour gates have just opened and a whole line of fishing boats was streaming into the inner harbour, led by our old friend La Grande Ancre, although it doesn’t look like fish that she has on board right now.

And there’s a lorry down by the loading bay for the Jersey freighters. Is he delivering more stuff? Or taking stuff away?

Of course, what goes in must come out too.

And while there was a line of boats waiting to go into the harbour, there was an equally long line of boats waiting to go out. Here’s a group of three of the seven or eight that were waiting for the gates to open.

The small boat in the middle looks quite cute just there. And you can also see another three fishing boats working away down in the Baie de Mont St Michel

But this was interesting and it took me somewhat by surprise.

This would seem to be one of the boats that has just left the harbour but if you look very closely he has his dredging plates out already, judging by the cable out at the back.

Not that I eat shellfish anyway – or any kind of fish for that matter, but if I did, I don’t know whether I’d be wanting to eat any shellfish off the sea bed right by the harbour entrance. Not with an endless stream of boats passing directly overhead.

The next stage of my run took me all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and 20 metres beyond my usual mark. Then I walked back to check on the port activities.

It’s clear that they are expecting a bumper haul of seafood tonight. Down there at the fish processing plant there are no fewer than 5 refrigerated lorries waiting to carry away the catch as well as a handful of smaller lorries and vans.

And the fishing boats are still coming in too. there are a couple of them here coming into the harbour to pull up at the quayside and unload

from there I ran on round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord to see the lie of the land out there.

We had the sun obscured by clouds unfortunately, but there was a small gap in them right over some of the outlying islands of the Ile de Chausey and the effect was just as if they had been illuminated by a spotlight.

That fishing boat just creeping onto centre-stage was very picturesque too. I had to wait a few minutes for it to take up position but it does set off the image nicely.

There’s only about an hour and a half before high tide but that’s not stopping our picnckers from partying tonight.

There were a couple of groups out there tonight and I was particularly impressed by the little group who have managed to lodge themselves onto a shelf halfway up the cliff. I’m not sure if that’s going to be out of the water in 90 minutes time.

Having finished my exertions I ran on back to the apartment to write up my notes. There’s plenty to do.

There’s plenty to do tomorrow too. I’m supposed to be retired but you would never think so, given all of the work that I have to do these days.

An early night would do me the world of good but then I’d just awaken at 04:30 so it really defeats the purpose.

Monday 8th June 2020 – IT DOESN’T SEEM …

… to matter these days how busy I am, or how busy I’m not, I can never seem to finish anything like I intend to.

Missing the third alarm doesn’t seem to make much difference either – when it went off this morning I was having a guided tour of an apartment that was for sale and it took me a couple of minutes to rouse myself from my slumbers.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where else I’d been during the night.

To start off, I was doing a quiz in the USA somewhere about some Miami gangster who had gone north for the good of his health and had taken over the running of operations in New York and New Jersey, that area. The newspaper clipping was about 20 facts associated with him and giving his membership of secret societies and his donations of public works which were immense and his treatment of arresting people who weren’t wearing trousers or still in a nappy or something like that as well I dunno. Yes I was here with these 20 questions. There were some words as well – to guess the meaning of these words like gangster English – yes when i awoke just now I was busy doing the work as well.
And having complained the other day about none of my regular companions featuring these days in my travels, Percy Penguin and I had had an argument last night and she wasn’t speaking to me. I’d retired but I’d been working for them and he had slowly started to pay me back the money that ha owed me, her father, and I’d been doing work for him as well. But even after we’d had an argument I was still working there. Instead of me going to the farm on Thursday night to get paid he came down to see me. he had someone else in the car – I can’t remember who now and he paid me the money. My parents were watching out of a window while this was going on – it was at Little Heath at Audlem. I knew from Caroline that they were going out this evening so I said to him “what time are you going out?” He didn’t know and was prevaricating a bit about this so I asked him again and he didn’t really give a clear answer so I said “tell Percy Penguin that I’ll ring her tonight” thinking that I’ll ring her round about 17:00 after she gets out of college and before they have tea. It was all very iffy.

But well done to Percy Penguin for making an appearance, although she actually didn’t even make an appearance herself. She was just there in spirit

No breakfast again this morning. Instead, I went to finish off the notes from yesterday. And I hadn’t realised that there were so many because it took hours to do. I really excelled myself yesterday, so it seemed.

Once I’d finished that, whenever it was, I had a go at the Welsh homework. That took longer than anticipated too due to unforeseen format challenges. I fixed it in the end but for some reason the *TAB* key ended up working backwards.

The rest of the day has been spent on working on another radio project and forgetting almost everything else that I had to do, I finally finished it at something like 19:15. That was an effort and a half.

There were however a few interruptions.

Lunch was one of them, and the loaf of bread that I made was just like a loaf of bread should be. The crust was rather armour-plated and I’m not sure about what to do about that but the bread inside was delicious

There was a ‘phone call from the people at the radio too, wondering how I was doing. We ended up having quite a chat and I ended up missing the time when I usually go for my walk.

Eventually though I made it outside where I could see what was going on.

We were in the grip of a gale-force wind again so there was almost no-one down on the beach. And that was a surprise because they would have had all of this beach to play with

The tide is about as far out as it might go right now and the yellow buoys that mark the end of the swimming zone (if that is indeed what they are ) are looking quite silly having settled down on the sand.

There might be almost no-one on the beach but there is plenty going on out to sea today.

There are a couple of the trawler-type of fishing boats out there right now in the English Channel heading towards each other looking as if they are going to have a chat. Seeing as they are surrounded by seagulls, it looks as if they may well have their fishing gear out.

There are a couple of other boats out there on the horizon but they are too far away for me to be able to say what they are.

It’s not just over there that it’s busy either.

Over by the Ile de Chausey there’s a lot going on too right now. A couple more of the trawler-type boats are out there too but I can’t see whether or not they are working or merely passing through on their way elsewhere.

Mind you, they must have been out for quite a while as the harbour gates will have been closed for several hours and it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to reach that spot.

My walk took me around the headland and down along the clifftop on the south side of the headland.

A rhythmic tapping told me that someone was doing some work somewhere, so I set out to track it down. And it seems to me that we have another roofing job being undertaken in the vicinity.

These guys down there on that house roof in the rue du Port look as if they are going at that job hammer and tongs. It wasn’t like that yesterday, that I’m pretty certain, but I’m not sure about the wisdom of taking outs some of the roofing structure so that they can climb through it

Here’s something else that i didn’t notice yesterday.

It looks as if they have fitted some lifesaving equipment on the pontoons this morning. I’m sure that I would have remembered seeing that red lifebelt housing and the light down there on the pontoons.

But anyway, I came back here, had a slice of cake and carried on with my work.

No tea either tonight – a packet of bombay mix that needed eating will keep me going until the morning, I reckon.

Surprisingly, or maybe it isn’t, I was sitting here doing not very much when I … errr … closed my eyes. I’m not sure why but it was, I suppose, better than falling asleep in mid-afternoon.

Nevertheless I almost missed my evening run so I had to leg it outside quickly.

The run up the hill was a little better than it has been of late so I was pretty pleased for once, despite the offensive comments hurled by a young girl out of a car window. But there’s still a long way to go before I’m satisfied.

having recovered my breath I ran on down to the clifftop past the itinerant who is still there.

There was nothing going on out in the English Channel so I carried on around the headland.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall yesterday the sunlight flashing off the objects over across the Baie de Mont St Michel round by Terreboulet.

There was the same effect this evening too, and if anything it was even better.

We also had several fishing boats out there this evening. Some of them were clearly working but one or two were heading back to port, presumably to unload.

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that I have a thing about people taking photographs.

Down by the old sentry cabin right at the end of the Pointe du Roc we had a woman taking aim with a telephone camera, presumably at the guy who was standing perched on the rock right down at the end.

It’s not entirely certain how he’s managed to make his way down there, but I reckon that it’s going to be interesting to watch him as he tries to scramble back up again.

My run continued around the corner and along the clifftop on the south side of the headland.

However before I set off I took a photo of the harbour wall down there. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen people standing on that harbour wall before and while they aren’t jumping in, the only other thing that I can think that they are doing is fishing.

And the evenig sun has caught St Pair Sur Mer beautifully this evening.

While I stopped further down to catch my breath I noticed Le Loup – “the Wolf”. That’s the name that’s written on the marker light just outside the harbour entrance.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing is the marker light standing well clear of the water, perched upon its rock at low tide. This evening, we’re not too far off high tide and if you compare the photo WITH THIS ONE you can see just how high the tide rises – and there’s still time at either end yet.

It’s said that here at Granville we have some of the highest tides in Europe and I can readily believe that.

From there I ran all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and even pushed on 20 metres or so beyond my marker, which pleased me somewhat.

While I was recovering my breath I wandered down to the viewpoint over the harbour to see what was happening. A little earlier we had seen a couple of fishing boats heading into harbour to unload. Here’s one of them with its catch being winched up on one of the little cranes.

You will have noticed the socks of fleagulls in attendance in case the loas happens to slip.

From there I ran on up the hill and round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord to have a look at the sunset.

The tide was in of course but that didn’t stop the picnickers. I exchanged pleasantries with a couple of women carrying bowls of food and glasses of wine who were going to sit on one of the benches in the communal garden to have their evenign meal.

And who can blame them?

As for me, I ran on home where I bumped (literally) into a neighbour.

So an early night tonight. Tomorrow I have my Welsh class and there’s a lot of preparation to do. There’s another radio project that needs doing too, a couple more courses to attend to, and then a pile of arrears to catch up with.

It’s all go round here, isn’t it?

Sunday 7th June 2020 – IT’S SUNDAY TODAY …

.. and so I have followed the example set by my namesake the mathematician, and done
three fifths if five-eights of … errr … nothing.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I believe that everyone should have one day a week where they do nothing at all without feeling guilty about it, and that for me is a Sunday.

Mind you, there was an extra reason today because I considered that I had done more than enough during the night.

I was with someone called Bob last night and we ere wandering around doing something with regard to a zoo. It involved drinks and the subject came up about a certain type of animal and I can’t remember which one it was. It led to some discussion about drinks – whether we could only have had half a pint or a pint. Because we had a pie we both had hung on to our pints really tightly so that no-one could take them away
A bit later I was supposed to be going off somewhere and this involved going with one of my sister’s daughters. She hadn’t come in and I was concerned that I had to go into work but I had to get this organised but the girl wasn’t there. So I went round to see my sister and my mother and “ohh she went out on a ramble last night and she went to so-and-so’s and spent the night”. I said “what time is she expected to come in?” but they didn’t know. No-one knew what time she was coming in and I was getting a bit agitated about this. I went back a little later on and all my family was around there. Nevertheless I got hold of this girl, my sister, and asked her again. She gave me far more precise details “she went off with X and then they went here and there and then somewhere else”. But there was still no word of when they were coming so I said to my sister’s other child “make sure that I’m told straight away as soon as she appears” and they promised that they would. But I was still pretty wound up about having to wait and miss out on a day’s work and a day’s money, all this kind of thing.

There was a group of us and we had gone off onto Ellesmere Island last night and trudging on northwards through the freezing weather. Trying to peel an orange was horrible. We stopped for the night and someone had brought with them a prefabricated wooden chalet to sleep in and I thought that by the time that they have gone very far with this, they’ll regret it. They put it up and I was invited to shelter in it. There were deer all around and female cows and we were noted the fact that there were no males. We ended up waiting for the bus. I was with Rosemary by this time and we had to check the bus to make sure that it was going to the right place – the Savannah College. Rosemary and I got on it with all of our equipment. It pulled into Hull and this was where we had to get out as we had to changed buses here to go to the hospital. I got off but Rosemary was taking an awful lot of time getting off. You could hear the struggle she was having with this equipment. I shouted up to her to see what she was doing and that was when I awoke – bang on 06:00.

But no danger of my getting up at that point. I went back to sleep again and ended up with a former friend of mine and we were cycling through Chester but for some unknown reason he put on a really fast spurt. I had to go like hell to catch hime up otherwise I would have shown him where I lived when I first came to Chester, because we were right by that area. He didn’t realise that I had lived in Chester when I told him, and I told him about my little room in Lightfoot Street as well. They we cycled off and came to this little building site and it turned out that the reason why he was having to go there was because his father was having a week off work and with a shortage of labour he was having to help out. At the same time he was fielding phone calls from Shearings about driving coaches and saying that he wasn’t available that weekend. Somewhere in the proceedings was a story about a cup with Inuit patterns on it but I don’t remember much about that but I do remember that when we reached the work compound in there were a load of old Standard forward-control vans like the Standard Atlas only different. He was saying to one of the guys there that if ever they get rid of it to let me know

My apologies too to Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear these days in these pages anything like as often as she deserves.

She used to accuse me of snoring when we were asleep together – not that I ever did much sleeping when we were together as there were plenty of other things to be doing, but that’s another long story.

I used to deny it strenuously but having once more fallen back into unconsciousness in mid-dictation and left the dictaphone running, all I can say is … well … errr … quite.

But when I did take up the dictaphone again, I said that I don’t know if that registered so I’ll dictate it again about putting my house on the market – the house in Shavington where I was living at the time although it was how the Yoxalls had it organised with the garage, all that kind of thing. As I was passing an estate agent’s he had some houses in the area so I put it on sale with him. But I put it in a few newspapers as well including an American one. My father had seen it in an American one and was going around telling everyone that I was moving to the USA. Of course he was quite upset about that, i’ve no idea why. The discussion came round to a neighbour of my niece who had advertised his Mercedes coupé in the newspaper. I explained that he had had a lot of use out of it when he had first bought it but over the last few years he had been working away and had never used it except the odd weekend when he was home. She said “well that’s a waste then, isn’t it?” I said ‘that’s probably why he’s selling it”. I told her the story about how I had bumped into it (not literally of course) when I was down in the USA one time and he was down there on his holidays too

So it looks to me that not only did I dream it but I must have dreamt that I dictated it – and that’s when all of this becomes interesting.

09:30 when I finally saw the light of day, a reasonable time for a Sunday morning, I reckon.

There was no breakfast this morning, but instead I mixed some dough to make bread. As well as a sachet of “old” yeast, I used half a sachet of new yeast to see what kind of difference.

And having decided that if I’m going to be hungry at lunchtime I’ll have breakfast, I simply mixed it (and even though I say it myself, it was a perfect mix) and left it alone.

While I was at it, I rolled out the (now unfrozen) pizza dough, greased a pizza tray, put the dough thereupon, and left that too.

Back here I made a start on finding the documents to complete my Tax Return but I gave up after a while. It’s a Sunday and I didn’t feel like working.

In the end, I didn’t really do anything at all except just lounge about.

After lunch I went and checked on my bread dough. It had stood for about two and a half hours and had certainly risen – but by 100% I couldn’t really say. Anyway, I folded it over again, shaped it and dropped it into the greased dish that I use as a bread mould, covered it with the damp cloth again and left it.

Being Sunday, it’s my day to go for a long afternoon walk if the weather is nice.

And if the weather is even nicer, to go for my weekly ice cream too.

And there was no doubt that the weather was nice today. There was some wind but the view was one of the clearest that I have seen for quite some considerable time.

And the crowds – which we have already seen, were certainly out there making the most of it.

As we saw in the previous photo, the view across to Jersey, 54 kilometres away, was ideal.

There’s some kind of lighthouse or beacon that stands prominently off the entrance to the harbour at St Helier and as you can see in this cropped and enlarged image, that came out clearly in this photo.

There’s even a seagull, heaven alone knows how many miles out to sea, that features clearly in the photo too, in the top right.

Pivoting round slightly to our right we have the Ile de Chausey.

Not really an island but an archipelago, where there are 365 islands at low ide and 52 at high tide – or is it the other way round? I can never remember.

But today, it was standing out there beautifully and even the colours had come out somewhat through the sea haze, just for a change.

Out of interest, I cropped out a section from the centre of the previous image to see if I could see anything special.

And “not very much” is the reply. The main island, or “Grand Ile” is the only one that is inhabited these days. We can make out plenty of the houses on there and, of course, the lighthouse to the left of centre.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we went there once and TOOK DOZENS OF PHOTOS. One day I’ll get round to writing out the notes for the place.

Further on along on my walk I noticed an interesting phenomenon right across the Baie de Mont St Michel on the Brittany coast.

There’s a beach over there, the Plage de Port Mer, in between Cancale and the Pointe du Grouin, and the sunlight today was catching it at the absolutely perfect angle.

It was illuminated as if someone had pointed a floodlight onto it and the bright orangey pink colour could be seen for miles. Remember that that is probably 20 or so miles away.

Further on around the coast and out at the mouth to the harbour at St Malo, there was something that looked as if it was moving on the horizon.

Not being sure what it was, because there’s quite a lot of stuff that moves in and out of the harbour over there, I took a photo to crop and enlarge when I returned to the apartment.

And it seems to be a yacht with a very dark blue or even black sail. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen one of those around the Baie de Mont St Michel a few times just recently.

While I was at it, I noticed that the Brittany coast all the way down to the Cap Fréhel was pretty clear today too.

That’s not something that happens every day either, so I took a photo to manipulate when I returned to the apartment.

If you look closely you can see the Cape – slightly to the right of centre in this photo. As I said the other day when we talked about it, it’s about 70 or so kilometres away from here, so the cameera is doing well to pick it out.

But my intention was drawn to something that I noticed on the photo when I enlarged it for a closer look. Hence I croppd a section out to enlarge and examine in greater detail.

It’s really difficult to see anything in any detail. But on the Cap Fréhel is a lighthouse and a fort with a tower, and when they are viewed from this particular point, they might give the cross-reference that e can see on the extreme right of the image.

It’s also true that Marité, our three-masted schooner left port this morning for Lorient and she would be somewhere in that direction right now, although that doesn’t look like the kind of silhouette she might make.

So that’s another mystery to unravel.

Musing on the aforementioned I wandered on down the steps, round the path at the headland and sown the old track into the port.

On the way around the Point, the view into the Baie de Mont St Michel was absolutely splendid today. The tide was far out so there were people down there performing the peche à pied for the shellfish (which they must share with their friends – after all, you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish). and our beacon was sitting ther eilluminating its rock at the entrance to the harbour.

The beach in front of Jullouville and Kairon-Plage was looking magnificent too today.

Down in the harbour there’s another piece of heavy machinery here.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a couple of diggers and a hydraulic breaker parked here a couple of weeks ago, and I never did find out what they had come to do.

And so I don’t suppose that I’ll have any luck finding out about this digger either. It’s a mystery to me why they come here when they don’t seem to be doing very much

My perambulations took me round the back of the fish-processing plant. As the tide was well out, the harbour gates were closed so I could cross over on the path on top.

One of my neighbours had mentioned that Marite had gone off on her travels, and so her berth was empty today. I’m not sure how long she’ll be away but she’s not due to dock in Lorient until 9th of June.

But you can see on the extreme right of the photo a few more Birdmen of Alcatraz hovering about on the thermals as they try to advance along the cliff-edge

There’s something new on the docks today – at least – I don’t recall having seen it before today.

There’s a series of portacabins stacked here to make some kind of office complex, witn an old shipping container at the side which is presumably to be used as a storage facility.

There were loads of posters plastered on the front giving various warnings about the Virus and so on, but I don’t think that it has any connection with the medical profession.

It could of course be something to do with the digger across the harbour, but whether that’s the case remains to be seen.

On eof this things that I wanted to do was to see how they had got on with installing the new pontoons at the ferry terminal.

They now seem to have them down both sides of the terminal, which is quite useful, I suppose, for when both of the Joly France boats come in together and when Chausiais is moored here too.

There’s a length that seems to be missing on the nearest row of pontoons, and none of this looks particularly level to me – not that I suppose that it matters because passengers probably wont be boarding when the tide it out.

When the tide is in, the pontoons will of course be floating.

Regular readers of this rubbish will have seen the concrete block that appeared on the quayside here when we last came by.

Now, there’s a ramp up to the top, complete with handrails, and there’s a really impressive-looking ramp that goes down to the pontoons. But no artisanal wooden steps as we saw over where the fishing boats are moored.

It goes without saying that this has all cost a fortune (much of it needlessly – see many of my earlier postings) and so it will come as no surprise that there has been an “adjustment” of the tariffs for passengers.

The net ticket price remains the same, we are told, but the taxes and port taxes have increased. Someone has to pay for the expenditure.

Chausias that prevent us from seeing what cargo it is that she takes out to the Ile de Chausey.

There’s a drop-down ramp at the front and also a small crane, which I imagine would be for the ease of taking large bulky objects out to the island. I don’t recall seeing any unloading facilities out there on the island.

Parked up behind Chausiais is one of the Joly France boats that provide the passenger ferry services out to the Ile de Chausey.

This one is Joly France I which, I suspect, is the newer of the two. It’s difficult to tell them apart from the front but from the side the newer one has deeper windows and a smaller upper deck, and from the rear the newer one has a cut-out in the stern

But the pontoons look impressive from here, especially with the handrails to stop eager tourists pushing each other into the water in their rush to board the ferries.

It’s a tidal harbour here, and the inner one is a “wet” harbour due to a pair of lock gates that close as the tide goes out, leaving water trapped behind to keep the boats afloat.

Some of the water has to be drained out however to allow the level to sink slightly so that the water pressure equalises and there’s a constant level between the inner harbour and the outer tide for when they can reopen the gates, which is 105 minutes before the high tide.

It’s also said (and how true this is I don’t know) that there’s a stream that runs into the inner harbour from inland.

So the surplus water need to have a drain out somehow and over there we can see the drainage channel for the water to run out.

To the left we can see one of the boat ramps underneath the fish processing plant and on the extreme right we can see part of the security fencing.

International passenger ferries dock here, coming from Jersey and they don’t want people to nip over the other side into the country without going through passport control and immigration checks

Having exhausted myself over here this afternoon I had a leisurely walk in the sunshine through the port de plaisance and into town, stopping off for one of my vegan ice-creams and a chat to the café owner.

He told me that business was not picking up as he had hoped, but it’s true to say that the last week or so has not seen very good tourist weather.

From here I had a slow walk back up the hill enjoying my ice-cream. And back at the apartment I checked on the bread dough to see how it was doing.

It had gone up like a lift – exactly how people said that it should. And so i switched on the oven, waited until it was hot, and then stuck the bread in it.

This time I remembered to reduce the heat after 10 minutes or so, and set the timer for 90 minutes. That’s longer than recommended but my oven is pretty much hit-and-miss and I’m sure that the thermostat isn’t correct anyway.

After an hour or so I went and prepared my pizza for tea and when the oven clicked off, I took the bread out and stuck it on a wire rack to cool, then bunged the pizza in.

The pizza was excellent, using my own dough of course, and as you can see, the loaf of bread actually looked like a loaf of bread today. It’s certainly the best that it has been to date.

The proof of the pudding though is in the eating and I’ll tell you al tomorrow about how it tastes.

No pudding tonight – it was a struggle to finish the pizza – so I went for my run.

And I’m not sure about what was going on, but while I’m not going to say that it was easy tonight, there certainly wasn’t the suffering of the last few occasions. It seems as if the illness that I had was brewing for a while.

The itinerant was still there, I noticed, as I ran down to the cliff top, but there was nothing else happening down that end so I walked round to the other side of the headland.

And it’s true to say that the excellent visibility that we had had this afternoon was continuing. The buildings across the Baie de Mont St Michel on the Brittany coast were all quite clear this evening with something clearly visible on the range of hills in the background slightly to the right of centre, about 20-25 miles away.

And the evening sun had caught a few things over on the coast at Terrelaboulet and we were having some more heliograph reflections from them

With the sky being so clear tonight, the view down at the head of the baie de Mont St Michel was also probably the best that we have ever seen.

The white hotels down at Mont St Michel are standing out really clearly tonight. All of the buildings down at Carolles-Plage were looking quite nice too, and we could even see waves breaking on the rocks down at the Pointe de Carolles

It won’t be like this for long, I reckon, so make the most of it while we can.

From here I ran on all the way down across the top of the cliffs past the chantier navale where there is still no change in occupant.

Over at the ferry terminal both of the Joly France boats are now moored there and we can compare them to see the differences. The smaller upper deck cabin and deeper windows on Joly France I – to the right – can be clearly seen

There’s another row of yellow marker buoys over there, like those that we saw the other day at the Plat Gousset. The Plage de Hérel – the beach that we saw a few weeks ago – is over there so I’m more convinced now that they must be the limits beyond which one is not supposed to go swimming.

Having recovered my breath I ran on down the Boulevard Vaufleury to the bottom and my resting place at the second zebra crossing – well, actually about 5 metres further on seeing as I was in good form.

As I had gone past the harbour I had noticed some activity down there so I went for a look to see what was going on. Aztec Lady is now back home from her little sojourn in Scandinavia where, I believe, she was detained in quarantine in the Lofoten islands on her way back from Svalbard.

That must have been a very exciting voyage, I reckon. I’m sorry that I missed it

There was also something going on much closer to home too.

One of the fishermen had one of the electric cranes working and they were lowering one of the dredging plates down into the back of a fishing boat.

These plough up the sea bed and release the shellfish out of the mud, which are then scooped un in a kind of metal dredging basket that we have seen on a few occasions before which allow the silt and the smaller examples to pass through the slots and back out to sea.

There were a few people round at the viewpoint at the rue du Nord as I discovered when I ran around there.

Still a good while before sunset but the sun sinking slowly into the clouds really was a nice effect so along with a few other people I stayed and watched it for a while, and then ran back to the apartment.

Tonight there’s a lot to do and I probably won’t finish off all of my notes but that’s the first task for tomorrow.

Then there’s the Welsh homework to do – we’re almost half-way through this course – followed by the two other courses that i’m doing, and then two radio projects this week.

Sometime too I must push on with the photos from the Transatlantic adventure from last year, and then there are the website-updating projects to continue.

And I’m supposed to be retired and taking it easy too.

Saturday 6th June 2020 – IT’S BEEN A …

… somewhat better day today again.

And while you admire the photos of roofs full of seagull chicks staggering around taking their first steps, let me tell you about it.

And in what will probably come as much of a surprise to you as it did to me, then despite my not going to bed until about 00:40 last night, when the first alarm went off at 06:00 this morning I was actually up and about and in the kitchen.

And when was the last time that that ever happened?

In fact, I was wide awake at 04:45 and couldn’t go back to sleep at all.

Mind you, I know what had caused it. When I awoke I was holding the dictaphone and scratching my head in bewilderment in the middle of dictating a dream

I was back in Gainsborough Road but it was the family house then and it was full of rubbish, all this kind of thing and the garage was half falling down. I’d spent a lot of time trying to work out getting a concreting plan going so I could concrete it over and make a nice base, demolish the garage, make a nice base to start with and get everything tidied up. I’d asked at work and they had put me in touch with a few people. Then we were having a family meal and I mentioned it to my fater “when are we going to do this?” He said “ohh we have a concrete mixer at home. We could do it ourselves”. The discussion became a little heated, all this kind of thing. In the end I just said “as far as my sisters are concerned and my brother is concerned and I’m concerned we’re all fed up of living in a dump. It’s always going to be ‘yes, we’ll do it nexr week – we’ll do it again – we’ll do it some other time – yes, we’ll do it ourselves'”. He turned round and said “it’s all your fault anyway. You can’t bear to get rid of that white Cortina of yours. He started listing all of my junk that was lying around and it was quite true – there was plenty of mine there and I didn’t really have an answer to that and the conversation started to become extremely heated.

What was bewildering me was the fact that I couldn’t think of an appropriate answer to the story about the white Cortina.

The rest of the story I recognise only too clearly.

But what’s annoying me at the moment is the fact that for the last few weeks I’ve had all kinds of unpleasant companions with me when I’ve been a-wandering during the night – people whom I’d normally go well out of my way to avoid during my waking hours.

Whatever happened to TOTGA? To Castor? To all kinds of pleasant companions who used to come with me on my travels? What has stopped then coming round? We’ve not even had a nocturnal group ramble around Crewe for months.

No breakfast again but I had a shower, and succeeded in smashing my porcelain soap pumper thing. I’ve had that for over two years without breaking it and that’s an amazing feat I suppose.

Today’s shopping was a rather miserable affair. I didn’t buy all that much at all. But then not eating for four days means that I still have plenty of supplies in.

NOZ had some more of the alcohol-free beer that I like and some decent hole-cutters as well as another pack of these breaded soya fillets. LeClerc had nothing of interest in the cheap range but a pack of vegan burgers (as if I don’t have enough) in the expiry-date range.

Mind you, while I was in there I suddenly developed a raging thirst so I bought – and promptly consumed – a litre of orange juice. Past experience tells me that this means that whatever I’m suffering from has now started to move on.

Back here I tidied up a few things and then edited a few (just a few – I’m still not on form) photos from July 2019.

Another surprising thing is that I stopped for food. If the thirst is a sign that my appetite will return I may as well make a start. So I made a sandwich and had some of the apricots that I bought.

This morning I had used the last of my home-made orange and ginger cordial so after lunch I made some lemon and ginger cordial. Four lemons but they didn’t produce anything like enough pulp and juice that they would normally do, so this batch isn’t going to last that long.

While that was doing, I came back in here to carry on with the photos but shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out. With only 4 hours sleep, that’s probably not a surprise but it was still disappointing.

Nevertheless, there was football on the internet this afternoon – the Welsh Cup Final of 2013 between Bangor City and Prestatyn Town. This was Bangor City at their best against a very-mid-table side and everyone would have been expecting a Bangor City walkover – even though Prestatyn scored a surprisingly lucky goal after just a couple of minutes.

However we had on the field a most unlikely hero in the name of John Hill-Dunt. He was Prestatyn’s goalkeeper all the way through their rise up the Welsh pyramid and a most unlikely goalkeeper you will ever meet.

At first glance, he looks as if he’s several stone overweight and that’s probably not far off being correct, but we were treated to what could only be described as a goalkeeping master-class as he single-handedly kept Bangor City at bay.

His performance in this match would have graced any Cup Final, never mind this one. He was beaten once, but, would you believe, by one of his own players.

On the other hand, Prestatyn had an old experienced campaigner up front in Andy Parkinson who could teach any young defender a thing or two about professionalism, and a young livewire called Jason Price who didn’t know when to stop running.

You can SEE THE HIGHLIGHTS HERE but you aren’t going to see the half of the excitement in this match.

After that I went for my walk around the walls, considerably later than usual.

And it was not very pleasant at all out there this afternoon. We were in the middle of a howling, swirling gale and I didn’t enjoy it for a minute.

The tide was some way out but you would never have guessed, seeing how the wind was rolling the waves right up to the promenade at the Plat Gousset

There weren’t too many people about out there today, which is hardly any surprise in all of this.

My walk took me on round past the Square Maurice Marland to check on the seagulls and their chicks.

And to check on what else is going on too. And it looks as if we are going to be having a visit from Thora or Normandy Trader sometime very soon. There’s a whole load of building material and timber now neatly stacked on the quayside.

Mind you, I wouldn’t like to be out there in one of those flat-bottomed boats in this kind of weather right now. But then that’s what they are paid for.

As I stood there watching, I could hear the bell go off across the harbour there.

It’s that time of day. The harbour gates open at 105 minutes before High Tide and sure enough, bang on time, here they were opening up.

There have been a couple of occasions now where we have seen them open and, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, even one occasion when I was standing on top of them.

Not astride the opening, luckily.

And a couple of minutes after they opened borne in on a bouyant tide of silt, cane La Grande Ancre

No idea where she’s been, of course, but she’s not much of a shape to withstand a good old Nor’Easter either.

So having seen her safely into harbour, I headed on for home.

And for a change, I decided to try some tea tonight. A small potato, a handful of mixed veg and a breaded soya steak followed by a small slice of strawberry tart and coconut dessert.

Much to my surprise, it all managed to stay down although there were times when I wasn’t quite so sure about it.

And then I went out for my evening walk – and I DO mean walk because it was totally impossible to run in this wind. I felt really sorry for the itinerant who is back huddled up under his hedge but I don’t for the life of me understand why he hasn’t gone to ground in one of the old bunkers.

There’s the old watchman’s cabin and the old stone shellfish-drying building, which are out of the wind and have roofs where he’d be far more comfortable.

Apart from him and someone taking a video cam of the wind, I was the only other person out there.

There wasn’t anyone at all so I had a very lonely walk – although I did manage something of a run down along the clifftop above the chantier navale.

No change in there – still the two boats from yesterday – but I could see the waves thundering into the headland down underneath the Chateau de la Crête.

The sea was coming in there with an incredible amount of power so I stood and watched it for a while.

Not for long though because no-one could stay out there very long in that. I ended up coming home – walking and not running. No-one could run out there in that.

But now I’m home and I’m thoroughly exhausted. I’m still not as well as I ought to be but I’ve fetched some frozen pizza dough out of the freezer in case I want my usual pizza tomorrow evening.

There’s no bread in the house now either except what’s in the freezer so I reckon tomorrow when I wake up I’ll make a mix and see where that takes me through the day.

if the oven is going on for a pizza at some point in the evening it may as well go on for a loaf of bread a couple of hours earlier.

But not tonight. I’ve had a long day despite the little pause in early afternoon and I’m off to bed.

Sunday tomorrow, so no alarm. And I’m hoping that it’s not going to be another 04:45 start.

So I’ll leave you with the final pic from this evening and go to bed

See you tomorrow

Friday 5th June 2020 – I HAD A …

… better day today (not that it could have been much worse of course).

So while you admire the photos of Joly France fighting her way out of harbour into the howling gale and the seagull that photobombed me while I was doing it, I’ll tell you all about it.

First of all, it goes without saying that when I crashed out yesterday evening, I switched off the alarms with the intention of sleeping until I awoke.

And that was until all of about 00:30

The first task when I awoke was to deal with the notes and the photos from yesterday.

That took me up until about 03:00 because there was other stuff to deal with too, like the notes of a voyage or two that I’d travelled. And then I went back to bed.

While I was in bed I was off on a couple of mega-voyages, and I dunno why I always seem to have the most interesting trips when I’m not feeling too well.

And some of the stuff I can’t recount because I bet that you are having your tea right now and you certainly wouldn’t thank me for spoiling it for you.

We were at the radio last night working and I was asking about something or other to be done. They said that they had this new reporter in, which annoyed me rather. We were talking about a live concert that he had done of some singer, which I had dismissed as being nothing. But it turned out that it had had over a million listeners to the podcast and even I was impressed with that. It gave the whole place a new impetus. Everyone seemed to be much more excited and much more energetic. They had started working with a couple of new programs and we had been given some accounts so that we could use these new programs even if we didn’t know what they were all about. I started to think to myself “why the hell did I want to leave when I’m having such a good time with it now?” Even though we were swamped with work it was all going really well. I’d had this habit of getting stuff that I didn’t want to deal with, just putting it away and not even thinking about it. It was the pressure of that that had been getting to me. But I was actually working on a file and a couple of old pieces of post from January fell out. I looked at them and thought “why the hell did I file these anyway? What needs to be done is just so simple” so I sat down and made a start on dealing with these pieces which was only going to take me 5 minutes anyway.

There was also the question of the MoT servicing book – a big book, narrow and quite long and we wrote in all the details of the cars, what was being done on them and so on. I’d just finished one batch and I wondered if there was another book so I had to go outside to find the guy who was responsible. He told me “there’s plenty of room in there – you just aren’t looking properly”. I had a good look through and found that there was another batch of stuff in there, another batch of forms that I’d managed to miss

I must have awoken to dictate the notes of the above, and when I went back to sleep I went straight back into the dream in more or less the same place, walking to Nantwich past the Cedars and down Millstone (actually Birchin) Lane and ended up back at the place again. It seemed that I’d gone off last night and left all the drawers empty and all the spares open and I couldn’t find half the stuff. I realised that I had left them out lying everywhere. By this time we were very busy with people coming in and someone else was demonstrating a technique that he had used. He’d been looking for something in some other stores and they were going through a pile of this stuff and he’d actually found a modern-day use for a pile of stuff like on one occasion he’d made a stand for the vacuum cleaner using bits that were lying around and he showed us how he’d done it but he couldn’t undo it though because no-one had the correct screwdriver. It was strange just stepping back into that dream where I’d left off
One thing though was that I was smoking at some particular time and I don’t know why I’d started smoking. I’d burnt myself with a cigarette that I was holding so I went to stub it out thinking that this is a crazy thing to be doing anyway.
Later still We were on board a ship and there had been some kind of incident going on between a woman and a man and the man being given a big bill for his services. As a result the girl who ran the accounting office was not very pleased about it and she came to talk to me about it. Just after she finished there was a knock on my door and it was from one of my cabin friends from a nearby cabin wanting to know if I was ready to come down for breakfast. I had to search for my keys as usual then we set off out. He said what about the third guy who usually came with us that i didn’t particularly like. But there was a ribbon pinned to his door which said “lie in”. Obviously he was wanting a lie-in so we went downstairs. We were on about the 8th floor and the breakfast was on the 2nd or something. We got down to the 6th and there was a small breakfast being set out there and the woman seemed to think that we were from the party that was having the breakfast there. She told us to help ourselves. One of the girls with us went over and grabbed a glass of orange juice. I thought “I could always drink orange juice” so I went over to grab one but it turned out to be apple juice and there was only a mouthful in the beaker and there wasn’t any more in any of the jugs.

After all of that, what surprised me was the fact that with not having gone to bed until 03:00 and done all of that, I was wide awake again at 07:30. That was rather astonishing.

Mind you, that isn’t to say that I was out of bed by then. 08:30 was a much more realistic time to be out of bed.

It took a good while to type out all of my notes, as you can imagine. And I wasn’t feeling in the best of form either so it took even longer than it might have done.

No breakfast either – I still wasn’t feeling like eating anything.

For lunch though, I did try some food. While I had been searching around in the freezer the other day I had come across a pot of carrot and coconut soup. Today I defrosted that, warmed it up and ate it with the last of my home-made bread.

And to my surprise, it stayed down too.

What I’ve been doing for most of the day has been to finish off the radio project that i started. I’d dictated the text a couple of days ago but hadn’t edited it so that was the first job.

When that was finished, and the speech for my invited guest was included, I then had to edit into sections, find the pairs of tracks that I had coupled together, join everything up by using the sections of text to make a bridge between the different pairs.

That left some time over, so knock 30 seconds off that for the outro speech and then find a track of the right length that sounds like an outro track.

That track needs to be remixed to match the volume level of the rest of the programme, the speech needs to be written, recorded and edited, and then everything joined together.

It overran the hour by 5 seconds so I had to edit out 5 seconds from somewhere and then it could be saved.

There was a break of course, while I went out for my afternoon walk. Just because I’m feeling ill doesn’t mean that things have to stop.

It was a horrible day out there today. It had been raining quite heavily by the looks of things and there was a howling gale blowing too. This poor little fishing boat pulling its dinghy behind it was really struggling to fight its way back through the waves into port.

As I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … my hat goes off to all of them out there in weather like this

My walk took me down to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord.

Nothing happening on the beach s you might expect. The wind had driven almost everyone back inside. And there was some kind of miserable grey sky down the coast that was causing a peculiar kind of light down at Donville-les-Bains.

And it hasn’t escaped my notice that they have put out all of the beach cabins down at Donville-les-Bains. They are really getting ready for summer down there.

My attention had been drawn in the previous photo to a series of yellow buoys strectched out across the end of the beach so i went for a closer look.

No clear evidence what they are there for though. The only thing that I can think of is that they are a mark to indicate to people the limit beyond which they are not allowed to swim.

Mind you, I think that it will take more than that to stop anyone swimming further out. Barbed wire and machine guns would probably be more effective.

My walk carried me on around the walls to the viewpoint that overlooks the Place Marechal Foch.

The roofing job down there has been going on for a while so I had another look to see where they were. And they seem to have finished what they were doing and the scaffolding has come down.

But there are still a few piles of slates and it looks as if the scaffolding is going up around the back of the building. So there’s more roofing to come, I reckon.

My walk continued around the walls and into the Square Maurice Marland.

There was a young family there leaning on the walls admiring my favourite mummy seagull and I was talking about the babies when mummy suddenly stood up and went for a walk.

We could then see quite clearly that she seems to have one chick and there’s one egg there that has yet to hatch. So whether it will or not, that remains to be seen.

However my particular mummy seems to be a little behind with her offspring.

On the next roof we had a mummy perched there watching her babies already stagger around taking their first steps.

She had two babies, but one of them had disappeared behind the chimney breast before I could prepare the camera. But the other one put on a little dance for me before flopping down exhausted on the nest, with a very proud mummy looking on.

Having watched the seagulls for long enough I wandered off an continued my little walk along the walls.

Down in the harbour I’d noticed a little funnel sticking up from the loading bay in the bocks and it didn’t look like Chausiais so I went to see who it was. And sure enough, Thora has braved the storms and gales to come into port.

And she didn’t hang about long either. Another quick turnround for when I went out later, she had gone off back to Jersey.

A little earlier we’d seen a little fishing boat fighing its way through the waves as it pulled its dinghy in towards the port.

By the time that I had completed my circuit I was treated to some kind of exhibition of I’m not really sure what it was. I reckon that that’s the boat down there the front one, that we saw struggling through the storm and it seems to have two dinghies behind it.

But as to what the other boat is doing down there with it, I really don’t know.

Back here at the apartment I carried on with my work. It took until 20:00 to complete it, with no pause for the guitars and no food either. I wasn’t hungry and in any case I wanted to finish this exercise before the weekend and I’m glad that I did.

My evening walk and runs was something of a disaster this evening.

One look at this photo will tell you why. There was a howling headwind blowing all the way down the Rue du Roc and it was difficult enough to walk, never mind run up there. And down on the clifftop I could see that Jersey, the ile de Chausey and the Brittany coast were taking a right pasting.

The storm was heading my way, and pretty quickly too. I didn’t think that this was the moment to be hanging about.

Finally, I managed to break out into a run, the one along the top of the cliffs past the chantier navale.

And there’s been a change of occupant in there yet again. This time, one of the long-term resident trawler-type of fishing boats has gone back into the water, and its place taken by a little pleasure cruiser.

That’s a nice piece of kit, that boat, and I could see myself cruising around in a white cap in one of those. But I haven’t a clue where I could rustle up the dosh for it.

It reminds me of the guy in Crewe who sent his wife to Boots Corner in Crewe to earn some money for a new car. At the end of the first night she came back with £50 and 50p
“Who gave you the 50p?”he asked
“Why, all of them” she replied.
Yes, Crewe was a right dismal place to live and I’ve no idea how I stuck it for all that time.

My run down the Boulevard Vaufleury was interesting as a dog decided to try to have a little bit of fun.

After he limped off with a pain in his rear left leg, I turned on the owner and told him precisely what I thought of him. In good old colloquial French too, and left him in no two minds of what I thought. I didn’t spend 12 years working with a bunch of French-speaking drivers for nothing.

Having stopped for breath at my usual stop, I walked down to the viewpoint over the harbour to see what was happening.

Nothing very much except that the new pontoon is being put to very good use by the fishing boats that are congregating all around it.

From there I ran on back to the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord.

There was nothing happening out at sea this evening, apart from the storm, and as the tide was right in there were no picnickers. So I ran back home instead.

Later than I hoped, I’m off to bed. I’ll set an alarm, hope I’ll beat it, and then go to the shops. Not that I need much because I haven’t eaten anything for a few days.

At least, with keeping a note of how I feel, I know that I seem to be on the upward slope again and in a few days I’ll be back to normal – as if I ever was normal.

Last time this happened, in the USA in July, I lost 10kgs in weight. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could lose another 10kgs?

EPIC HALL

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