Wednesday 5th February 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I’ve had today. It’s been easily the worst day that I have had for quite some considerable time.

Most of the afternoon was spent curled up on the office chair with me valiantly resisting all temptation to go back to bed. I felt dreadful and it totally ruined my day with everything that I had to do.

Mind you, I’m not blaming anyone but myself for this. I was still up and about working at 02:30 and no matter how heroic I might feel, I’m not ever going to be at my best after just 3.5 hours sleep.

Yes, 3.5 hours because despite the late hour of going to bed, I still beat the third alarm call to get to my feet.

The only consolation that I can offer myself is that I really was working until that late hour so it’s not as if I actually failed to accomplish anything.

After the medication I began to cut up a couple of digital tracks. But that took me much longer than it ought too because the track running order on the digital track was completely different from the running order that I had in my notes and because I didn’t really recognise the album all that well, I couldn’t do it by recognition.

Another thing that I accomplished was that all of the odd “singles” tracks that I’ve accumulated, they are filed into a folder all of their own and out of the way

There’s also a spare hard drive in this big computer so I did a mammoth back-up of absolutely everything onto it from one or two of the external drives. My plan is to go through it, tidy it up and then use it as a copy base for the other laptops that are loitering around here.

There was a break for breakfast of course, and I found that I’d run out of muesli so I had to make some more. And supplies are pretty low – I’ll have to do something about that tomorrow.

Once those issues were resolved I selected some more music to finish off the choice (except the last track of course) for the final one of the three projects that I have on the go right now. And then to clean up because I’d made something of a mess on the floor that needed vacuuming, and I’ll wash the floor before I go to bed

All of this took me up almost to lunchtime so I had to head out to La Mie Caline for my bread.

There was no-one around in the boulevard des Terreneuviers so i went to see what they had been doing with the crane the other day. Apparently there’s an apartment here on a building in the rue du Port but access is by a footbridge from the boulevard here.

What they had been doing was taking the old footbridge away, and it looks as if they are going to be installing a new one.

In the meantime, how does the inhabitant reach his apartment?

Meanwhile, the tide was still out so I could walk round by the fish-processing plant and across the footpath across the top of the harbour gates.

Any my luck was in today because I arrived here at the same time that the fishing boats did. There were a few of them here unloading so I had a crafty look over the side to see what they had. This one here had dozens of boxes full of crabs

Obviously they must have had a very good day out at sea today.

As for the others, I didn’t recognise what was in the boxes. A seashell-type of creature … “crustaceans” – ed … that was a spiral of some sort.

As I know nothing about this kind of thing, I enquired of one of the fork-lift truck drivers. He told me that they were bulots, and I’ll have to take his word for that.

The only thing is that I hope that everyone shares their catch out with their friends. After all, you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we talked to the guy from the company working in the port who told me that they were installing a new pontoon.

As you can see, they are making rapid advances in this respect because some of the anchoring mounts have now been installed, and they certainly weren’t in position at this time yesterday but lying on the ground where the old railway track was.

This is turning into something quite exciting. I wonder what they will be doing tomorrow when I go past.

At La Mie Caline I picked up my dejeunette and headed back to the apartment.

It was now later than usual and the workmen were now back at it after their lunch break. Over on the other side of the port I’d been past another place where they had been digging another trench.

In my opinion it looks as if they are putting in more electric wiring so things are hotting up now in the port. The mayor’s “modernisation” project might actually be coming to fruition.

We saw them earlier having installed the mounting brackets for the pontoon that they will be installing.

If you look back up the page, you’ll see that I was wondering what it will look like tomorrow and I’m even more intrigued to find out now because there’s a huge crane that has miraculously appeared down there now and he won’t be there for nothing.

Back at the apartment it was lunchtime. And I’d forgotten to take some hummus out of the freezer. However, I do have some lovely vegan smoked cheese that needed eating so I used that instead.

The apple purée that I made the other day has almost run out (I told you that there was too much liquid in it) so I made another batch only this time instead of pears I used a couple of bananas.

With having used much less water, that’s come out really well and I can’t wait to try it tomorrow for breakfast.

After the purée I made a start on writing up the notes for the first project but had a break while I went for my afternoon walk.

The first thing that I noticed was that there were still a pile of fishing boats out to sea and heading back to the harbour. I suppose that the tide will be going out so they want to come in to port while there’s still time to get to the unloading quay.

So they will need to get a move on because the tide won’t be staying in for long.

The second thing that I noticed was that the large crane had lowered his jib. It looked as if he is ready to move away.

And so I’ll be definitely down there tomorrow to see what he was doing.

For a change I took my walk around the walls this afternoon. At times there was no-one around so I managed about one and a half of my runs today.

As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I have to press on with my fitness even though I don’t feel much like it.

And it was an extended walk too. I’m trying to push it up to 100% every day to keep the pressure on.

And then back at the apartment after my walk I had all of the issues that I mentioned at the start. Mind you, I did manage to pull myself together long enough to finish the notes that I’d started, although I’m not quite sure what gibberish they might be.

Tea was pasta and veg with the left-over stuffing and kidney beans, with the left-over mushrooms added in. And even though I say it myself, it was pretty delicious. One of the better meals that I’ve cooked, especially when followed down by rice pudding. I am eating well these days.

And while that was cooking I had a go at tidying up all of my plastic storage containers, of which I have more than enough

The walk was around the headland tonight. Nothing whatever going on anywhere, but I managed my run. So 2.5 runs today and i’m good with that.

This evening I was going to dictate my notes but instead, as I’m not feeling up to much I’m going to bed. I might have 7 hours sleep tonight and that will be a bonus the way I’ve been going just recently.

Tuesday 4th February 2020 – I DIDN’T QUITE …

… get that one right yesterday.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the mini-digger that was operating with a hydraulic concrete breaker yesterday and I speculated that it was excavating some more old railway lines.

In fact that wasn’t what it was doing at all. I went over there this morning on my way to La Mie Caline for my dejeunette to see what it had been doing, and it seems that it had been digging out a trench for some kind of cabling.

So now we know.

This morning, just for once, I was actually up and out of bed before the third alarm went off – despite the fact that I didn’t go to bed until about 01:30.

And after the medication I spent a very pleasant hour or so cutting up a couple of digital tracks into their component parts. You might think that this project is advancing nicely but the fact is that it isn’t. Having disposed of two digital tracks, I came across another three that I needed that somehow I had missed before.

So instead of getting shorter the list is getting longer.

Today’s task was to do a radio project, and by the time that I knocked off I was about half-way through one of them. But in fact I’d actually done two others – at least, selected the music (except the final track) and edited the tracks together in their running order.

What had happened was that while trying to choose the music for the first one, I kept on coming across some tracks that made really good opening tracks for the projects. And so not to lose them I had a play with those too.

Eventually the first one wad done but there was sufficient music for half of the second, so I finished that and I’m no into the third.

The final track is always the last to be done because with having just exactly one hour to play with, I need to know how long the other tracks are and how long the speech is, and then the final track takes up the time that is left, whether it’s one minute or eleven minutes.

There were several breaks in the working cycle today.

The first was, of course, to go down to pick up the bread for lunch. I went to see how they were getting on with the car park in the rue du Port that they are kitting out, and was surprised to see these objects that have appeared here over the last day or so.

They certainly weren’t here the last time that I looked, and it aroused my interest. I went off to make further enquiries.

But not before my reverie was interrupted by the arrival of an articulated lorry and trailer.

He had another pile of metal or aluminium objects on his trailer and as I watched, they attached some chains to them and began to lift them off with the digger.

It wasn’t long before a workman came walking my way (obviously uses the talcum powder) around the edge of the harbour so I fell in with him.

He told me that they are installing a pontoon down that side of the harbour for more boats to tie up to. And that explains what those guys were doing a while back taking test-drilling samples out of the bottom of the harbour. The question of “pontoons” was raised then, as I’m sure that regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

having picked up my bread, I went to see what was going on in the Place General de Gaulle.

It looks very much as if they are starting the serious preparations for Carnaval. I’ve no idea what that tractor and so on were doing yesterday, but now we have a lorry here unloading a kiddies’ roundabout thing.

From there I went for another long wander around on the way home in order to clock up the miles but there wasn’t really much of any interest, apart from the usual of course.

There was also the break for lunch, evidently, and also a break for our afternoon walk around the headland.

And I hadn’t gone far when I noticed the window in one of the classrooms in the College Malraux across the Place from here. Whether it’s the high winds that have caused that I really don’t know, but had that been something at my old school I would have put it down to Jack Clifford hurling a blackboard duster at me during a German class.

He was single-handedly responsible for giving me this mental block that I have about being able to absorb anything in the German language. I love languages but he destroyed any kind of enthusiasm that I had.

Despite the lovely sunshine that we were having today, there were more gale-force winds to contend with too.

You can see that in this photo and in the next one too. The tide is still a good way from its highest point but the waves are still coming crashing in with an incredible force.

Of course, there’s nothing between that sea wall there and the North American coast when the wind and tides are in the correct alignment and so a storm just about anywhere could be causing this.

As there was nothing happening right at that moment, I loitered for a couple of minutes and was rewarded when this huge roller came roaring in from out in the Atlantic somewhere.

It’s a long time since I’ve seen something as impressive as this.

And seeing as I wasn’t far off my fitness total I went for an extended walk and I’m glad I did because I had a little bit of luck, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

But I’ll tell you more about this in a few weeks time.

For a change, I manage to avoid crashing out (but only just) and Rosemary rang up for a good, lengthy chat too. We had a lot to talk about as well.

For tea I had the remains of the stuffing from yesterday and added a tin of kidney beans, and made taco rolls with spicy rice, followed by rice pudding.

There’s still some stuffing left, which now has kidney beans in it, bit I’ll add the rest of the mushrooms and make an everything curry for tea tomorrow night.

Despite the wind I managed to go out for a walk, and two runs as well, and now I’m up to 105% of my daily activity which is good news as far as I am concerned.

But there was a no-waiting sign in the Place Cambernon so I went to have a good look to see what was happening. And it’s more good news as far as I can see because it seems that they will be digging up the street to install the fibre-optic cable.

It might be a good idea tomorrow for me to call in at my internet suppliers and see what the plan is about connecting us up. It will be great if it all works.

By rights I should be going for an early night but there’s some good music on the playlist right now.

Nothing like music for soothing the savage beast, is there?

Monday 3rd February 2020 – SHE’S BACK!

Yes, there I was this afternoon out for my walk, looking across the harbour, and there she was.

Yes, the Bond heroine Plenty O’Toole, named for her father of course, has turned up again in Granville. It must be a couple of years since she was last here but here she is.

Who is going to be next to put in an appearance here in Granville? Foxxy Cleopatra? Or Godzilla?

Last night, I was on something of a roll. Somehow and for some reason (probably the very late lie-in that I had) I didn’t feel like going to bed. And so making the most of it, I carried on attacking the notes for the current radio project. By the time that I was overwhelmed there was only another 5 or 10 minutes left to finish so that was a good plan of work.

And even despite the late night, I was just on the point of putting my feet on the floor when the third alarm went off. So we’ll call that a draw today.

After the medication I checked the dictaphone but I had nothing on so instead I chopped up a digital sound file into the component tracks. That was interrupted by breakfast and by the fact that the sound file bore no resemblance to the details that I had and I had to hunt down a revised description.

A little later I had a shower and then headed off outside.

And it was my lucky day because for once there was plenty going on outside. Chausiais was on the move again, heading out with presumably another cargo for the ile de Chausey

That’s a couple of times now that I’ve seen her on the move. I’m intrigued to know what her plans are in the long term because it’s a lot of money tied up for just the occasional crossing to the ile de Chausey

That wasn’t everything either, because Joly France was on the move too.

At first I was wondering whether or not she was taking out a load of passengers to follow in the wake of Chausiais but I eventually came to the conclusion that where she was, she was preventing Chausiais from leaving her berth.

And that would account for her manoeuvres in port this morning, I reckon.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there’s this big project going on in the port right now.

They are ripping up the abandoned railway lines from when this place was a thriving deep-sea fishing port and “improving” the car park. Here today, their work has advanced out of the protected zone and there’s a mini-digger with a hydraulic drill attachment breaking up the surface where there ware more railway lines buried.

It makes me wonder just how long they are going to be at this project and what it’s going to be like when it’s finished. It was something of an eyesore so almost anything will be an improvement, but I hope that the plans include some greenery too.

And out in the Place Charles de Gaulle I’m not quite sure what’s happening here.

We have a tractor and trailer and another piece of heavy equipment parked up outside the old Tourist Information office. That’s now an ephemeral display room so it might be something to do with that, or else they are starting to kit out the Square ready for Carnaval, which will take ^lace in 3 weeks time.

We shall see what we shall wee.

Around the corner in the rue des Carrosses we are faced with a more mundane, even banal problem.

Something is clearly up with the guttering or the chimney of this building because they have brought in a cherry-picker and sent up a couple of men in the nacelle to deal with the issue.

As for me, I pushed on up the hill towards the Centre Agora for our weekly meeting

Regular readers will recall that I’ve mentioned in the past all of the time that is wasted in these meetings … “not ‘arf” – ed … but in the past there was nothing like as much wasted as today.

For a change I was second there and the others arrived after me. But they stayed outside having a smoke and a chat and didn’t come in until 10:30. And most of the meeting was spent discussing a subject that could have been dealt with in about 2 minutes.

Someone turned up from one of the Council’s committees and she was introduced to us. The guy in charge told her about what we did and while he was very careful to mention several programmes that we had done, he very carefully omitted anything that I had done from the list.

If they don’t like what I do and are ashamed of it, I wish that they would tell me and either stop me doing it or tell me how it can be improved. It’s quite true that the stuff from the last couple of weeks has been light years ahead of what I did at the beginning, but that’s because I’ve worked it out for myself.

If they have something to say, I wish that they would come out and say it.

The real business of the meeting didn’t come out until everyone was almost ready to leave – at about 12:30. These are hours of my life that I won’t ever get back.

On the way home I stopped at LIDL. I needed some olive oil and a few other things, but forgot the stuff to make my muesli and I’ve run out of that. If I can’t find all of the stuff it might be porridge for the next few days.

Back down in town again I picked up my dejeunette at la Mie Caline and came back home for a late lunch.

This afternoon I pushed on with the radio project and although I hadn’t quite finished it at knocking-off time, I hung on in and had it done regardless. And so a late tea.

But there had been a couple of interruptions to my day. Firstly, and unsurprisingly after my late night and early start, I crashed out on my chair for 20 minutes in a really deep sleep

Secondly, there was the afternoon walk as usual. Mustn’t miss out on that!

And this photo will tell you exactly how things unfolded during the course of the afternoon. There’s a huge, powerful rain cloud about 8 or 10 miles out to sea and judging by the wind right now, it’s heading this way.

This kind of thing is looking quite ominous for later on.

And although it’s not as windy as it might be and indeed has just recently, it’s blowing a terrific gale somewhere out to sea.

We’re a good hour or so away from high tide but even so, there’s enough power in the sea to send the waves crashing right over the harbour wall. No wonder I couldn’t see any fishing boats out there today.

It’s not the kind of day at all to be out there on the ocean waves in the kind of boats that hang around in this harbour.

Talking of fishing boats, there’s been another change of tenant at the Chantier navale.

One of the fishing boats has now left and presumably gone back into the water. There’s only the one left now and judging by all of the people on board working away at here, it doesn’t look as if she’s going to be there for much longer either.

So new tenants all round in the near future, I reckon. It will be interesting to see who comes in and who does what to it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen this boat before just recently.

Seeing as it’s in the national colours, I thought at first that it might be something to do with the Government but judging by the large bucket of seafood on her deck and the van there that has come to take the stuff away, it’s probably just a private fishing boat.

And that’s something of a disappointment. I was hoping for a lot more excitement around here now.

While you admire another photo of the raging sea, let me tell you about teatime.

With plenty of mushrooms lying about here and there I made myself a stuffed pepper with pasta. And I’m not sure quite why but it was one of the best that I’ve ever tasted even though I forgot the herbs.

It was followed up by rice pudding and that was delicious too. I may be eating quite simply but by ‘eck I am eating well these days.

By now the storm had arrived, the weather had broken, and how! There was the deep puddle outside the roor and the streets were like running rivers. I went for my walk regardless, even managing two runs.

Not on the north side of the walls though – that was about a foot deep in water. I had to find a place a little further on even though the ground underfoot isn’t as smooth. And of course, my run across the Square Maurice Marland.

So now I’ve finished, I’ve re-heard my radio project and it’s fine, so I’m going to listen to some music for half an hour before going to bed.

A little luxury is something that I deserve.

Sunday 2nd February 2020 – TODAY IS THE FIRST …

… time since I don’t know when that I haven’t done 100% of my daily target of exercise.

Mind you, there were a couple of good reasons why that was the case

There was so much rain today that at times it was impossible to go outside. At one point there was a deep puddle right outside the door that was enough to put anyone off setting foot outside
I didn’t wake up until … errr … 10:50 this morning and by the time that I’d finished having my breakfast at midday, it was rather pointless thinking about lunch

Yes, for once I’d managed to have something of a decent night’s sleep. It wasn’t all that early when I went to bed but still, a good sleep is a good sleep.

It wasn’t continuous though. I remember waking up and looking at my watch a couple of times but if anyone thinks that I’m going to be leaving the comfort and safety of my stinking pit at 05:35 and 07:40 on a Sunday morning they are sadly mistaken.

Still, the medication was taken and then I had a look at the dictaphone. With plenty of time to go on my travels during the night I was quite optimistic. And I wasn’t disappointed either.

I’d been walking through the streets of a city in Indonesia and I’d been with a coach party or tour party or something. I had my suitcase and something had happened that meant I had to stay behind. Si I sent my suitcase off with them and I had to go to attend to whatever business this was, and then I had to meet up with Rosemary. I headed off to the bus station to see if Rosemary was at the bus station as she said that she was at a café because she had sorted out her issue. So I went to what I thought was the cafe but it was a school. Loads and loads of kids hanging around. Of course there was no chance in finding Rosemary so my next thought was how am I going to get halfway across Indonesia. The first thing o my mind was the train. I knew where the railway station was so I set out on foot. There were crowds of people there and one of the things that I’d done was that I’d changed my clothing. I had Western clothing on but I had got rid of that end ended up in just a local pair of sweat pants and te shirt so that I would blend in more easily with the people and look like a tourist. So I walked with all these people and got close to the station and could hear the tannoy announcements for the trains, in Indonesian and just as I was getting very close to the station with all these people around me and that was when I awoke for a moment at some silly time or other.
Somewhat later we were doing an enquiry into children taking supplements – athletic children, swimmers, that kind of thing. We were interviewing a couple of kids about this and then we had to leave. We’d been staying in a hotel and we were leaving really early next morning so I was going to have an earlyish night but it wasn’t as early as I was hoping. I had to drive these couple of people back with me. I went for a walk, a walk up from where the hotel was where we were staying past the railway station where we arrived. We were driving back for some reason and did this walk to see what it was like, to se how I remembered it from when we arrived. The I realised that I had to pay my quarterly bill fr my flat. I had to go to a bar, a bar where I would usually go for a drink and I usually paid for my drinks with cash that kind of thing although these days something happened and I was paying it by bank card or bank draft or something. The old woman behind the counter she came over to deal with me and I gave her a credit card to take this payment for this three-monthly thing. She was surprised about that but did it and I went for my walk. So I walked up and just the other side of the railway station there was a Shell petrol station and the petrol there looked really cheap. I thought “God I should have come up here in the car and fuelled it up and we would have been really ready to go tomorrow morning early”. I thought that I had better get some money out as well from the bank but it was the bit where there had been a level crossing over the road by the railway station and they had put an overbridge so the shops were at ground level but the road went up this overbridge. At a certain point there was a set of steps that went down to the shops so I thought that I would go down these steps. There were crowds of people climbing up. They were sort-of temporary steps held up on scaffolding and it was really quite a scramble. I only had one hand free for some reason so I was making heavy weather of it. There were these people talking to me, talking to me in Dutch and I didn’t understand very much of what they were saying so I pressed on regardless. I eventually got down to the bottom and some woman at the bottom said something like “you should have listened to what those people were telling you. They were telling you how to get down, giving you all kinds of advice and you totally ignored them” She was quite bossy about this. She said it in Flemish as well which was a surprise for me that I understood it so I turned round to her and in my really bad Flemish i basically said that they could tell me what they like but if they say it in Flemish I’m not going to understand it because I’m a foreigner and don’t speak Flemish which took the wind right out of her sails and I said it in Flemish that I didn’t understand Flemish at all which must have confused her somewhat. That was when I awoke.

After breakfast I attacked the radio project n° 18. And by the time I knocked off for my evening meal at 19:00 I’d finished that and it’s now up and running and I’m well on my way to writing my notes for Project 19.

This week’s task is to finish Project 19 and to do Project 20. Then I’ll be 7 weeks ahead, and then a couple more weeks of doing two per week will see me two months or 9 projects ahead and that’s how I want to stay.

There were pauses in between all of this though. Round about 15:30 I was feeling peckish and there was a lump of bread left over from yesterday’s baguette from LeClerc so I demolished that with some hummus and salad.

The weather abated slightly too so I seized the opportunity to nip out for a walk.

There was that much fog that it was difficult to see anything at all, but I did manage to see down into the chantier navale to see what was happening in the way of new arrivals.

And the answer was “nothing much at all”. Still the same two boats but there was a big van down there so it looked as if someone was working on one of them at least.

Maybe we might have a new arrival or two during the week.

It was busy over there at the ferry terminal.

There, settling down gently into the mud over at the ferry terminal are Chausiais and Joly France. And so it looks as if something might be happening with them pretty soon too.

But we might be seeing more and more fishing boats in the harbour. Despite the Withdrawal Agreement setting down a status quo for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU until the end of the year, Guernsey has unilaterally taken action that effectively bans French fishing boats from its waters.

What I have to say about this is that I shall be very disappointed, very disappointed indeed if the French fishermen take this lying down. Knowing their history, I imagine and fully expect that they shall be back in Guernsey waters, in great numbers and properly “tooled up” to deal with the matter in their own inimitable way.

It’s been PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED THAT THE ROYAL ?AVY DOES NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT PATROL SHIPS TO PROTECT ITS WATERS and I’m sure that the French fishermen are well aware of this.

It won’t take much to blockade St Peter Port and St Sampson, and the island would grind to a halt in a couple of weeks.

I have often said that if the answer is violence, it must have been a very stupid question. And the question on that referendum paper was probably the most stupid that I have ever seen or heard.

By now I was thoroughly soaked to the skin so it didn’t make much difference as to whether I stayed out or went in.

So I continued my walk for a little while and went up to the top of the city walls to see what they had been doing round by the Place du Parvis Notre Dame.

And the answer is “pretty terrible” – although on second thoughts, there’s nothing pretty at all about this. It’s easily the worst bit of repointing that I have ever seen

It’s just a total mess and there’s nothing whatever to be proud of about this. How is it possible that they can do such a good job on one side of the wall and such a dreadful job on the other?

As well as my vegan pizza, I made another rice pudding seeing as I had the oven on. And they were both really good. But I’m hoping that my rice pudding lasts a lot longer than the last one that didn’t make 4 days.

Despite the rain I went out again this evening and even managed two runs, although I had to improvise the first one on a different track because the one that I use on the north side of the wall was about a foot deep in water.

That walk was extended somewhat and I ended up today with 70% of my daily activity. Not enough but I can catch up tomorrow with my walk up to the Centre Agora for the weekly radio meeting.

And that reminds me – in January I walked 274.54 kilometres and ran for 1 hour 54 minutes. There were just 5 days when I did less than my daily target.

Here’s hoping that I can keep it up.

Saturday 1st February 2020 – I HAVE SEEN …

… US Granville play some rubbish in my time, but nothing quite like they played in the last 30 minutes or so of this evening’s match against Vannes Olympique Club.

And it all started so well too.

In fact it was looking like it was going to be a good match today. Both sides playing possession football and trying to open the other one up. And while it is true to say that Granville had the better of it, they were playing some kind of aimless football.

At least, Vannes OC had some kind of plan or tactic.

The second half was a different story. I don’t know what the trainer of Vannes OC had put in his team’s half-time cuppa but I could do with a mug of that myself.

They came out of the dressing room at a blistering pace and quickly had the Granville team pegged back in their own half. Granville were absorbing the pressure quite well and just as it looked as if the danger might have passed, Vannes OC got the ball into Granville’s net. And I do have to say that it had been coming for quite some time.

Strangely enough, the goal seemed to inspire Granville more and they started to play a lot better after that – but then 5 or so minutes later the wheels really did come off.

Whether the tackle that a Granville midfielder put in on a Vannes player merited a yellow card or not is a matter for debate, but what the midfielder said to the referee about the decision certainly merited the red card that came out of the referee’s pocket.

It’s stupid. Pathetic. Childish. Indisciplined. It cost Granville the game and it’s not the first time either, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. The Granville trainer needs to do something about the lack of discipline in his team and kick a few of the worst offenders down the road, or else get down the road himself.

We had a couple of weird substitutions too this evening. he took off both of his front two and put on two others. It’s quite true that they hadn’t done a great deal and didn’t look much like doing it either, but everyone in the ground except the trainer apparently could see that the reason why this was the case was that the midfield weren’t getting the ball forward quickly enough or often enough.

Changing the forwards isn’t going to solve that particular problem.

Granville went a second goal down near the end and then we had four minutes of injury time. By now the players had lost all interest in the game and it was a dreadful sight to watch as the fans streamed out of the ground in dismay.

With about 30 seconds left and 2-0 down, they had a goal kick. “get the ball upfield quick with a long ball and put the defence under pressure” – but no – a short kick out to a defender and they try to play the ball upfield with just seconds left. What a dreadful decision that was at that particular time.

So what happens is that the defender loses possession. With most of the team upfield waiting for the long ball that never came, there’s no-one back to defend and Vannes score an easy third goal.

I came home in disgust.

Last night was a bad night for me. Gone 02:30 when I finally went to bed last night and although I mdidn’t take too much notice of the alarms I was up by 06:35 which was good going.

After the medication I checked the dictaphone. A group of us had been out for the night celebrating the New Year and we were walking home. My German friend was there and he had banged his leg and they had had to stop and look at his leg all that kind of thing. Some people kept on walking on – I was one of those people who kept walking on. Then someone caught up with me and we asked about him. “Yes, that’s fine, they’ll be catching us up in a minute” so I asked what they were doing – had they stopped for chips or something like that and they got some money for you because one of the guys has given you a reduction. I couldn’t work out why I would get a reduction. I thought that it was because I’d brought all these people in or it might be something else that I’d bought before midnight or whatever. But it turned out that it was a fancy dress night and I was in fancy dress. I said to a former friend of mine who had miraculously appeared in my voyage (they are good like that) “find out if this guy meant to give me a reduction and if he did then give him the money for the deduction. I’m not quite like that”

After breakfast I cut up another digital track or two and then went for a shower. And then off into town.

Noz was first and I bought a few things there – but nothing of any significance. Next stop was Centrakor where I wanted some small pyrex bowls, some pastry cutters and a new small baking tray. But nothing whatever of any good to me which was a shame.

LeClerc didn’t have anything either, but I knew that anyway.

But here’s a thing! It looks as if at long last LeClerc is about to enter the 21st Century, a good 10 years behind the Auchan and a few years behind Carrefour.

LeClerc did have a small self-weigh section but it had about 10 products from which to choose. But here they are on a Saturday morning, and a busy Saturday morning at that, setting it up.

Why the couldn’t have done it on Friday night so that it would be ready for today’s customers I really don’t know. You can’t sell the stuff if you can’t get it into the shop.

It was like NOZ this morning. You couldn’t get round half of the shop due to the piles of unopened boxes just dumped in the aisles waiting for the staff to fill the shelves.

Totally disorganised, totally poorly managed, totally crazy.

But the vegan bread is back on the shelves again, and about time too.

Not that I buy stuff like this these days but it deserves to be encouraged so that they might expand their selection og Vegan products.

Things were such that I didn’t buy a lot today. I’m pretty well stocked right now and that’s good news. There’s enough food to eat for the week anyway.

On the way back I had the extreme misfortune to be stuck behind a parcels delivery van of which the driver would much rather park in the middle of the street than advance 20 yards into an empty parking space.

Lunch was the rest of the mushroom soup with bread, and then I made a start on editing the dictation for the radio programme. That’s done and I’ve started to assemble the soundtrack, and I could have done much more had the bad night not caught up with me at a certain point.

Tea after the football was out of a tin and now I’ve had a slow desultory evening.

NO alarm, no early awakening so I’m hoping for a decent lie-in. And then I need to crack on and get these things done.

Friday 31st January 2020 – THE NEXT THREE …

… images will tell yu a little story.

Basically they are rubbish but it’s not the quality that counts but the circumstances surrounding them. Take this photo for instance – this is not a handful of trawlers out in the English Channel but lights which I think might be the port at St Helier on the mainland of Jersey, 58 kms away.

And that’s pretty phenomenal.

And take this one here.

These over here are the street lights in St Malo, right across the Baie de Mont St Michel from here in Brittany. Not as far away as Jersey and the Channel Islands of course, but by my reckoning that’s about 35 or 40 kilometres away.

And that’s something that’s even more phenomenal too.

But we’ll leave the best until last.

All of those lights down there, that by my reckoning is St Cast le Guildo and Cap Fréhel and all of that is about 60 kms and more away from here.

No sea haze of course to obstruct the view like there is out to sea and that’s why the photo is clearer than the first. But all of that is pretty impressive.

Hand-held in quite a wind that was blowing – too windy for the tripod unfortunately and I’m a bit wary of that since the tripod blew down off a roof on one occasion with a camera still attached.

But all of this goes to show you what a beautiful, clear evening it was.

It was a lovely morning too and I should know, because for once I actually saw it. Feeling like death of course but I still managed to drag myself out of bed before the first alarm, for the first time since I can’t remember when.

After the medication I attacked the dictaphone notes. I’d been out in Eastern England somewhere, a town called Jura near Cambridge or somewhere like that with a huge lake, that was where I was and I remember this huge map hanging on the wall of that part of Eastern England and I used to study it and work out where towns were, all that kind of thing. One day some lady started to talk. She came to Jura and she tried to take my cup of coffee away thinking that i’d finished with it but I insisted on hanging on to it which got off to a bad start but she was going on to her firneds about how her son in law or grandson in law plays football for a Scottish team and how they were drawn against a big team in the Scottish Cup and how they were only part-timers, all this kind of thing. But she was getting everything wrong and I was thinking that i’d have to correct her somehow but of course that’s not the kind of person that you can correct at the top of your voice and anyway you couldn’t get in any words in edgeways with what she was saying

After breakfast I set about splitting up a few more digital recordings. That’s another one of these projects that I have to continue. It’s quite important because I’ll be pulling a load of stuff out of there for the radio projects.

Later on I carried on with the notes for the radio project on which I am working and by the time that I had to go out, I’d just about finished writing them.

The walk up to the Centre Agora was quite pleasant and I arrived bang on time for a coffee before our meeting.

There’s going to be a jobseekers’ meeting here in Granville on 6th March and we are planning to do another live broadcast. 80-odd employers are going to be present and if previous years are anything to go by, there will be over 1,000 jobseekers coming to meet them armed with CVs and the like.

We will be interviewing the jobseekers and the employees and hosting a kind-of round table discussion, to go out live on the air.
However, that day there’s a lot happening and we are rather short-handed so I’ve been roped in as an interviewer.

The purpose of our meeting this afternoon was to meet the person who is organising the event on behalf of the town council and to agree a strategy. Unfortunately it was another one of those meetings where if someone sets aside 2 hours, everyone there will make sure that it lasts two hours too.

As I have said before … “and on many occasins too” – ed … these kinds of meetings should be held standing up, outside, in the pouring rain. Just as much would be decided, and in five minutes or less too.

It reminds me of a story that I heard about the election of a Pope in the Middle Ages. The cardinals were taking forever about it so the local duke ordered his men to remove the roof from the building where they were meeting.

They reached a decision in minutes once it started to rain.

From there I had a slow walk home, retracing my steps to try to find the glove that I had lost – one of my tactile gloves too – only to find that it had fallen out of my pocket in the apartment.

Not very good, am I?

Anyway, for a couple of hours I recorded the notes that I had written and even managed to start to edit them before I stopped for tea.

Earlier on during the day I’d been through the freezer again and I’d found a pack of frozen mushrooms. Now if there is one thing worse than commercially-frozen carrots, it’s commercially-frozen mushrooms. They are awful.

So what I did was to get one of these half-cooked baguettes and slice id and insert garlic butter into the slices. Then clean a couple of potatoes, and finally take out of the fridge the left-over pastry from the other day and the left-over cooking apple, and make an apple turnover.

All of that went into the oven.

Meanwhile, I fried a couple of onions and added some garlic, and when they were thoroughly fried, added the defrosted mushrooms which I had drained (and you have no idea just how much water there is in frozen mushrooms) along with some herbs.

When the mushrooms were thoroughly cooked, the whole lot went into the whizzer and made a thick mushroom soup which I ate with the potatoes and garlic bread that I had made.

Pudding was the apple turnover with sorbet, and delicious it all was too. And there’s enough mushroom soup and another bread thing for tea tomorrow night too.

We’ve seen some of the photos from tonight’s walk, but there are a couple of others that I took too.

The tide is in and this is the cue for the trawlers to start coming home to port. There were already a few of them at the fish-processing plant unloading their cargo and there were several more on the way into the harbour from out at sea.

It’s a really busy place here, even if we don’t have the gravel boats in any more which is a shame.

And that reminded me – I hadn’t looked at the Chantier navale for quite some time, so I went over there.

There isn’t anything very much exciting going on in there right now. Just a couple of small fishing boats, no yacht of any size and no deep-sea trawler-type of vessel.

Still, there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there? We mustn’t abandon hope quite yet.

So here I am and it’s almost 02:00 and I can’t sleep. If you read this, spare a thought for me and my friends. Thanks to 17.4 million xenophobes and racists We are now stateless people with no more rights than your average Somali or Syrian refugee and our continued residence here depends upon the goodwill of various Governments that have no interest whatever in us while across the Channel in The Land That Time Forgot, the Silly Brits are using their foreign residents as bargaining chips.

As the conversation went in Lord of the Rings -“Have you thought of an ending?”
“Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant.”

We could be on the verge of the greatest mass forced migration of citizens since the Eastern Germans during the period 1945-1948 if the UK doesn’t come to its senses pretty quickly.

Thursday 30th January 2020 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… one of those meetings where some kind of competition to see who can fit the least amount of thought into the most amount of words.

So exciting was it that I struggled to keep awake and in the end forgot to ask the question that I really wanted answering.

Mind you, it’s something of a surprise as to why I couldn’t keep awake because it’s not as if I’ve done all that much to feel tired about.

In fact I somehow managed to miss the third alarm and ended up awakening bolt-upright at just about 07:00. So another chunk of the morning was missed.

Yet again.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone. Last night I was in Stoke on Trent. There was a group of us and we were on holiday together. We’d be doing different things at different times out of this group like two people would be off dancing on one occasion and then a couple of hours later it would be a different two people. Or two people would be off swimming, and then a different two people, that kind of thing. Anyway, this is how this went. Then it was time for me to go home. I was walking through the streets and came to a place where I would cross over the road. An old car that was coughing and banging, an old I can’t remember what it was now pulled up alongside me. Inside, would you believe, there was Zero. So anyway I carried on walking and thought “oh I’d go round and see her father so I carried on walking and there were two girls who lived there running down the street. They saw me and came over for a chat. I picked them both up and had one of them sitting on each shoulder as I walked down to the house. I went in and put these two girls down. The guy and everyone were sitting there – they were cooking breakfast and getting ready to eat. He said something like “I’m sorry that we can’t ask you in but we’re going out”. I said “it’s not a problem. I just popped by to say hello and didn’t expect anything. So hello” and the dream shuddered to a halt round about there.

After breakfast I cut up another digital soundtrack or two, had a shower and then headed for the shops.

Mind you, once again I didn’t get far.

We’ve seen them repairing the old Medieval city wall at the side of the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne and watched them over the last week or two slowly tidy up the site and put away their tools.

Today, they are all gone, the site is properly tidy and accessible to vehicles who now have more room to park. And what a nice job they have made of the city walls here. Hats off to them!

A little further along I made even less progress.

Marité is there of course and so is a trawler-type of fishing boat but in between them is our old friend Normandy Trader who seems to have slipped in unnoticed on the early morning tide.

And look at all of the lorries over there bringing in the supplies. They are rapidly loading her up and it looks as if this might be a really quick turn-round.

My walk took me through the town and out along the rue Couraye and up the hill past the station.

Halfway up the hill though I noticed that the boulangerie in the rue Couraye is closed and that they are busy erecting a wooden wall around the front of it.

It looks as if the shop is undergoing modernisation with a new shop window as part of the project. That will be interesting to see what they will be doing there.

At LIDL I spent more money than I usually do and it’s very hard to see exactly where the money went. Mind you they had some of the special Christmas spice cake there on offer. Two types, both vegan and both with a reasonably long sell-by date. And so I bought one of each to see me through the period when I run out of cake.

On the way home I called at la Mie Caline for my dejeunette and then headed home up the hill.

And once more , I didn’t get very far before I ground to a halt. I’d heard a noisy, rhythmical put-putting coming from around the headland and I knew exactly what it was that was heading my way.

Sure enough, it was Thora who very shortly hove into view. We’re having a busy day in the harbour today by the looks of things.

Sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour, I awaited my moment for when she would be coming in through the harbour gates, and then took a photo of her.

That made me wonder where she would be tying up, seeing as the loading berth was occupied. But in fact it wasn’t. In what is probably one of the quickest turn-rounds that I have ever seen, Normandy Trader has been, gone and cleared off already.

So on that note, I headed for home and a welcome mug of coffee.

After lunch I finished off selecting the music (except the last track) for Project 18 and started to research the text. I want this project finished, and the next one too by the end of the weekend. Then I’ll be 6 weeks ahead.

From then on I’ll be doing two per week for the foreseeable future until I have a large store of programmes.

At 17:45 I headed off to the Centre Agora for our quarterly meeting of the Radio Association. We’re planning another live broadcast towards the end of February and that was one of the things that needed discussion. I had a cunning plan for this which was actually supported by two of the others so that might actually come to pass. Someone even volunteered their services to help me.

But it seems that we are rather short of technical assistance. I did offer to hold some kind of tuition course in the basics of the sound engineering program that I used but that was pretty much run up a blind alley.

There’s another live broadcast planned for March but the guy who thinks that he runs the show can’t make it for that day so much to my surprise I’ve been co-opted onto the team for this. We’re having a meeting tomorrow about it.

The walk back was enjoyable as I came a different way home and to date I’ve done 172% of my day’s activity which is good value in anyone’s money.

Tea was pasta with a kidney and aubergine whatsit and now having finished my notes I’m off to bed. Rather later than I hoped but so what?

There’s plenty of work tomorrow so I’ll need to get cracking.

Wednesday 29th January 2020 – THIS TOWN AND I …

… have a lot in common. We’re both falling apart at the seams.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that part of the public car park outside is cordoned off as a rather large crack has appeared in the wall. And on my walk around the walls this afternoon I noticed that a part more, in the Place du Marche Aux Chevaux is likewise cordoned off.

I had a quick browse and ACCORDING TO THE LOCAL RAG the wall there has developed a crack that, for the moment, renders it unsafe to the public.

Doubtless someone will come along and look into it pretty soon.

And that reminds me about the story of the ugly crack that appeared on the wall of Trump’s office in the White House. However, workmen came along and painted over it before Trump could find someone to read it to him.

As for falling apart, I certainly am. The alarms went off as usual but I ‘eck as like haul myself out of bed. 06:45 when I finally struggled out and put my feet on the floor and that’s no good whatsoever.

Not only that, I couldn’t seem to get started and it was long after breakfast before I was up to attacking the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night . I had a woman with me and I can’t remember who she was but she was the kind of woman whom I would have been extremely flattered to have been with. I knew who she was – a blonde. We went out to see my father about something. I had to do quite a lot of work and I can’t really remember now what the work was to be done but we finished and I asked father if he had one or two other things that needed doing. he said “no”. he was having to nip out straight away to see someone for 18:00 and it was 17:40 now. We had another thing to do which was to go to see someone in Stockport and we were in Stoke on Trent at the time. I remember opening the door for this girl in Caliburn thinking to myself “well she can get in and come with me and wouldn’t I feel proud to have her coming with me to Stockport”. I was trying to work out my route – should I go up round the M6 and across or should I go sraight up the A34 and A6 or wherever like that. It was while I was waiting for this girl to come back to the car and people were doing things on their mobile phones, making appointments and that was when I unfortunately awoke.

There was a lot more too but seeing as you are probably eating your evening meal at the moment you won’t be wanting to read it.

Having finally dealt with that, I started on the music project that I have on the go. It meant listening to the notes that I’d dictated and looking at the sound waves, cutting out any breathing, any clicks and bangs and any pauses. And, of course, any faults. I’m at the stage now where I just dictate one sound file from start to finish and if I make a mistake I simply re-dictate it and tag the section that needs cutting out.

That way, I can reduce a sound file from well over 10 minutes down to just a little over 6 minutes.

Mind you, it takes a while to do it, but it’s relatively straightforward with a good sound-editing program and a decent (at last) fast desktop computer.

That took me up to a rather late lunch and that meant heading down into town and La Mie Caline for mydejeunette.

And there’s a surprise in store for me here too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I moved here in April 2017 part of the pavement alongside the city walls in the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne was blocked off. And round about a year ago, the workmen moved in to start to repair the walls.

Today, there is a dramatic change in the situation.

A few weeks ago they took away part of the protective fencing and vehicles began to park there in the bit that was now open.

But today, all of the fencing has been taken down. Furthermore, all of the material has been tidied up and they look as if they are ready to move away.

The young guy to whom I spoke the other day told me that “it won’t be long” before they have gone and it’s looking as if he was right.

There was activity in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers too today.

That road was closed off a few days ago, although I couldn’t see why. It’s closed off today but at least I can see why. There’s a huge crane here and he was just lowering his jib as I walked past.

Apparently they are rebuilding a public stairway down between the houses and he’s been lowering down some equipment and material. Apparently they don’t do that by hand any more as we did in the old days.

The harbour gates were closed again so i could walk across to the other side of the harbour on the path across the top of the gates.

They were there working on Spirit of Conrad so I stopped for a chat. Some of the hull has been replaced and the plan now for the rest of the year is “to complete the repairs”.

No mention of a sailing plan which is annoying, but we’ll work it out I suppose.

By now the Post Office was open so I posted off my parcel, then picked up my bread and headed for home.

After lunch I started to join up all the different sections of the radio project and in the end I overran by twp and a half minutes. I had to do some hefty editing of the text that I had dictated before it would come down to one hour.

One hour is what they want and one hour is what they get. Not 59 minutes and 59 seconds or 60 minutes and one second, but 60 minutes exactly.

That took me up until about 18:00, with a break for my afternoon walk.

The rue du Nord is a private street with an automatic control for the residents, but more often than not the rising posts that protect the entrance aren’t working.

That’s been the case just recently but today there are some workmen with a laptop investigating the situation.

Having observed the collapsing wall, I pushed on and did my run along the north side of the walls seeing as there was no-one about. I have to push on at every available opportunity.

But I came to a stop at the end of my track as something out to sea by the Plat Gousset caught my eye.

Despite photographing it and blowing it up (the photo, not the object) back in my apartment later, I’ve no idea what it is. If it’s floating debris, it looks as if it’s been in the water for a considerable amount of time.

Anyway, I pushed on. But I wasn’t able to do my run along the square Maurice Marland because there were people about. My running is ungainly to the point of embarrassment and I’ve no intention of showing myself up.

Every now and then we take a look at the buildings that are undergoing renovation, and there have been quite a few of those up here in the old town just recently.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago they were delivering a pile of plasterboard to a house in the rue St Jean. The workmen are there today going at it full-tilt.

That’s yet another project going on up here and I can’t wait to see just how it all will unfold in the fullness of time

After I finished the radio project I cut up a few more digital music files into their component tracks and that’s looking a lot more respectable now.

All in all I’ve done about 20. That just leaves about … errr … 150 to do.

For tea tonight, I fancied a slice of vegan pie with veg and gravy so I took one out of the freezer. While I was there I found the left-over slice of apple pie from just before I went away and both of those went in the oven to heat up while I made some gravy.

They were absolutely delicious, but there’s only enough lemon sorbet now for half a portion tomorrow. Good job that it’s a shopping day and I can buy some more.

Later on, I went for my evening walk. I’d been around the walls this afternoon so it was around the headland this evening.

The sky was really clear and you could see for miles. There was plenty of activity out to sea and had there not been such a wind I would have gone back for the tripod and taken a few photographs.

Instead I had to make do with the trawlers in the port.

There were four or five of them unloading at the fish-processing plant but I imagine that those out to sea would be joining them pretty soon.

With no-one about I managed to do another run down the street – that’s important to do as much as I can to keep up my fitness levels and keep my weight down.

Being so close to my 100% target I went for an extended walk tonight and managed to push it up to 101% by the time that I came in. I’ll be intrigued to see this month’s figures on the fitbit.

And while I was on my travels we came across yet another example of bad parking.

In fact, it’s exactly the same bad parking as we had a few days ago. Someone in his Range Rover thinks that it’s amusing to park his vehicle across the entrance to the fire lane at the back of our building because he’s too lazy to walk another 20 yeards to the car park

Whatever goes through the minds of these people I really don’t know.

So while I’ve been writing up my notes I’ve been checking through the photos to make sure that they are all uploaded to the computer. The next immediate project is to start to go through those for my voyages to the High Arctic and for that I need to start mastering a decent graphics program.

Someone sent me a link to a high-powered program that was free and I’ll be trying that. If it won’t do what I want, I’ll have to bite the bullet and start paying some money.

But there’s another two radio projects that need finishing. That’s the job for tomorrow morning.

But before I go, let me just mention that on my Social Networking page the other day I mentioned that the results were not what I was hoping. And today, two people from the radio, who must have seen the entry, contacted me, one by telephone and the other by e-mail, to ask how I was.

That was rather nice of them.

Tuesday 28th January 2020 – IF YOU WANT …

… to know what the weather was like today, this photo here will tell you everything that you need to know.

Miserable, horrible, grey and overcast with huge and violent rainstorms and incredibly high winds stirring everything up. In fact, a typical day on the western Normandy coast for just recently.

And when is it going to end? It looks as if this weather is here for the duration and isn’t going to let up very easily.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I could hear the howling weather quite clearly and ashamed as I am to admit it, it drove me back underneath the covers where I stayed until just after 07:00. This wasn’t the kind of weather that would make anyone want to raise themselves from the dead, least of all me.

After the medication I had a look to see where I’d been during the night. I had been at a house with a group of people and we needed some things from a shopping parade down the street. There had been a really heavy snowfall and it was difficult to move around so I said that I would go. I had to go on foot because Caliburn was at the menders and I could pick him up and bring him back on the way back so that was what I decided to do. As I was leaving, one of the girls in this house shouted out “don’t forget it’s time to go and get your food and organise this and Eric’s going to get this and that”. I don’t know why she did that. Anyway I was off. I went to get a coupe of shopping bags. It was a really steep slope down the hill to this shopping parade and with the snow it was quite icy and slippy. There was a group of people coming up the hill. One of them was a girl dressed a kind of white smock kind of arrangement and she had a couple of other kids with her running up there. All of a sudden they slipped, came down the hill and collided with me. They knocked me over onto the ice, and there was me, this girl and a boy sliding down this hill and where the road went round a bend we went straight on over the edge and crashed into a snow bank. The girl was laughing about this and the boy said to her “you’re disgusting”. She said “yes, I know that I’m disgusting”. It all went rather downhill from there.

Those rubber spatulas proved their weight in gold today. Ordinarily I would have said that I had run out of apple purée for breakfast but with the rubber spatula I managed to scrape enough out of the jar for a small portion for breakfast.

After breakfast, I attacked the travel notes. In a change to previous voyages, I’m not taking all of my files with me on the laptop. I’m making a “travel noes” file where I can record everything, and then bring it back home and edit the entries into the various data files. It’s much less confusing that way.

But it seems that I’ve made a bit of an error with the radio projects. I’ve forgotten to leave a space for the live concert at the end of February. As a result, everything that I did that was labelled “Project 16” has now to be labelled “Project 19” to preserve the integrity of Projects 17 and 18 and the series of material from which I draw is now out of order and needs to be changed.

While I’d been in Leuven I’d found something that a friend of mine had asked me to see if I could find. I’d been successful so i’d wrapped it and I took it with me to post on my way to pick up my butties.

But as usual, I was side-tracked by the sound of a pneumatic drill coming from the other side of the harbour and seeing as the gates were closed, I could go over the footpath on the top to see what was happening.

And it’s not a pneumatic drill at all but a hydraulic concrete breaker on the jib of one of the diggers that have been dredging the harbour just now.

What they seem to be doing is chiselling out the rocks at the foot of the sea wall at the ferry terminal.

This will explain the pile of piles that regular readers of this rubbish will have seen with me the other day – removed so as to give access for the concrete breaker.

But does this mean that, with the dredging of the harbour to make it deeper and removing the rocks at the side to make it wider, are we going to be expecting the arrival of a new ferry boat that is larger than those that we have at present?

We are living in interesting times indeed.

This fishing boat, the Rocavi II is quite interesting.

There has been an article in the local newspaper about the Rocavi II just recently. It’s a brand-new fishing boat that has only recently been launched and on Saturday it was blessed by one of the local priests.

What with living in France, I suppose that breaking a bottle of champagne over the bows is pretty ordinary stuff and nothing whatever special at all.

A little further along the port, it looks as if Thora has been here while I’ve been away.

Much of her work involves taking building supplies out to Jersey and she doesn’t seem to have a regular load off the island. Instead, her owners collect scrap metal and as there are no scrapping facilities on the island they bring it here for processing. Regular readers of this rubbish will have seen quite a few loads of scrap on the quayside.

This lot of scrap metal looks as if it has been part of some structure that has been destroyed by fire.

With all of these distractions I missed the post. So I went to la Mie Caline and picked up my dejeunette and headed for home.

After lunch I made my own apple purée. Four apples peeled, cored and diced, a pear ditto and some cinnamon put into a saucepan with some water and boiled for about 45 minutes.

And it’s not a success. I’ve used far too much water – or else the fruit was too juicy – and it’s more like an apple drink than an apple purée. But I’ll use it over the next few days just to dispose of it and then I’ll make some more – with much less water this time.

But pears, bananas, rhubarb, apricots, all kinds of fruit can go into it and I’m hopeful of making some good stuff with this. I need to push on and do a lot more about being self-sufficient.

And then I started to write the notes for the first of the radio projects. But I wasn’t at it long because it was walk-time. What hadn’t helped was that for about 10 minutes or so I had … errr … had a little relax.

While I was out there earlier we had had a moment of sun. But not now. A howling gale and the rain that we had seen over the Brittany coast had caught me.

For that reason I didn’t hang around very long. Chausias was over there at the ferry terminal in a NAABSA (Not Always Afloat But Safely Aground) condition so presumably they are expecting her to be doing something in the near future.

The two passenger ferries were moored up in the inner harbour where they usually stay.

But no Channel Island ferries. Both Granville and Victor Hugo are currently moored up in Cherbourg and I have no idea why.

Spirit of Conrad has made good her escape from the Chantier navale so I was keen to see who had taken her place.

The answer is that there isn’t anything special in there right now. We have two of the inshore fishing boats that haul in the shellfish and one of the trawler-type of fishing boats that is over there where Spirit of Conrad used to be.

So at least there’s plenty of work for the shipyard to be doing and that should keep them out of mischief for a while.

Back here I finished off the writing and then dictated the notes. They are going to need some hefty editing too as I seem to have been somewhat extravagant.

Anyway, I had made a start by the time that I went to make tea. Vegan burger on a bap with baked potatoes and vegetables, followed by fruit salad and sorbet. And there’s still that left-over slice of apple pie in the freezer from before I went to Leuven. But that’s an oven job so it will probably be to go with the pizza on Sunday.

Howling gales and torrential rain tonight, and I was out in it. To make it worse, I had to go for a longer walk than usual as I was in touching distance of my 100% target so I may as well push on over.

The storm was raging and although the tide wasn’t all the way in, the waves were still crashing down on the Plat Gousset and soaking everything. It’s disappointing that they haven’t left the lights on along the promenade so that we can see the waves better.

And despite the miserable weather I managed to fit in my two runs this evening. My two little tracks were quite well sheltered.

But Iw as feeling the strain, I’ll tell you. It seems that the spell of good health I had in December is about as good as it is ever goign to be.

So having finished my notes, I’ll wait until “Yes In Concert” finishes ad then I’ll go to bed. The problem is that I have far too much good music here to which to listen to waste my time by going to bed and sleep.

Monday 27th January 2020 – IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed at 05:30 but I managed it – only just.

And by the time the third alarm went off at 05:45 I was already on my way down the road having rinsed my empty bottles, packed my rucksack and put the key to my room in the key disposal box.

When the first of the normal series of alarms went off at 06:00 I was sitting in a train at the station in Leuven.

It’s an elderly AM80 electric multiple-unit. Covered in graffiti and not very clean at all. But the fact is that it’s here, it’s leaving at 06:04 and it’s travelling non-stop into Brussels.

That’s good enough for me.

At the Gare du Midi I went into the Carrefour, bought myself some raisin bread for breakfast and then went to sit down to wait until my train is called.

With half an hour to go before departure, I took the initiative and went myself to look for the train on the off-chance that it might be ready.

And sure enough, here it is sitting on the platform ready to go. It’s one of the “Reseau 38000” PBA (Paris Bruxelles Amsterdam) trainsets built for the start of thatservice in 1996.

To my surprise the door was open and I was able to go in and find my seat – a good 25 minutes to go before departure.

A ticket inspector came by and I thought that he was going to heave me out but he simply checked my ticket and that was that.

As for the journey itself, I have no idea at all about it because I slept for most of the route. This early start caught me up good and proper.

We arrived about 10 minutes late but that didn’t inconvenience me at all. The Metro was quite rapid even though it was crowded and I had to stand all the way, and I arrived at Montparnasse a good hour before my train was due to leave.

With the new timetable, it now arrives and departs from a platform in the main station complex rather than the Vaugirard annexe. In some ways that’s a good thing because it saves me a 10-minute walk, but in other ways it’s not so good.

That’s because Montparnasse is a huge, windswept desolate, cold station whereas the Vaugirard annexe had a nice draught-free glass waiting room where it’s reasonably comfortable to sit.

But hunting around, like you do … “like YOU do” – ed … I found an ideal hidey-hole where I could even see an electronic departure board.

With 15 minutes to go, my train still hadn’t been posted so i went to look for it. And I found it sitting at one of the platforms. Meantime, the PA announcer was telling us that “the departure details are currently unavailable” – which was the craziest thing that I’ve ever heard seeing as at the time she was making the announcement I was actually looking at it.

Eventually we were called to the train – exactly where I said it was – and we could board it.

For part of the way, as far as L’Aigle, I had a very charming young female companion but after she left, I dozed off and there I stayed, fast asleep again, almost until we reached Granville.

Bang on time into the station we were, although it took me a few minutes to get my things together. And then I headed off into the rain.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of weeks ago a notice had appeared in the car park of the Parc de Val es Fleurs to the effect that a chapiteau – a marquee – was to be erected there.

Just for a change I came back home that way to see if there was anything exciting happening. And sure enough, we did have our chapiteau in all of its glory, surrounded by a load of caravans.

It’s a circus, apparently, and even as I watched a huge pile of schoolkids filed their way into the chapiteau. They were obviously going to be treated to a matinée performance all to themselves.

Now here’s a thing!

For the last I don’t know how many weeks we’ve seen Spirit of Conrad up on blocks in the chantier navale. But no longer, by the looks of things.

Here she is, in the inner harbour with Joly France on one side of her and Charles-Marie on the other side. But no Aztec Lady. It must have been her that we saw heading out into the English Channel in the wake of Normandy Trader the other day.

Barry Hay once famously told us “one thing that I gotta tell you man – that it’s good to be back home!” and he’s absolutely right. A year or two ago, for the first time ever in my life I felt the pangs of homesickness after I’d been away from here for a couple of months.

This place really is my home and I was glad to be back here, even if it was absolutely freezing cold with no heating having been on. And to my delight a parcel for which I had been waiting since the end of November has finally arrived, at long last.

Nevertheless I sat down in my nce comfy chair and did nothing until tea time. I’m entitled to a relax after my efforts of today.

For tea, in the absence of any special willpower just now, I grabbed a frozen curry out of the freezer – the left-over leftovers from a few weeks ago. With rice and veg, including sprouts and spinach, it was delicious. And followed down by fruit salad and lemon sorbet.

The rain held off tonight for about 5 minutes after I set out for my evening walk – and then I caught the lot. All of it!

The tide was well-in and there were several trawlers out there heading in to harbour with their catches so I took a pick of one.

The lights of St Malo were looking quite good tonight too but the wind was far too strong for me to take a steady shot with the camera. The tripod wouldn’t have fared any better either – the wind would have had that over in a matter of seconds.

But round by the chantier navale I could take a photo of the inmates there.

No Spirit of Conrad of course – just a couple of fishing boats and another one right at the back. But the photo is no good because of the wind and rain. I wasn’t going to stay out long.

Getting back into the rhythm, I managed my little run just to keep up with my progress. Whatever else I do, I have to concentrate on getting fit no matter how much it hurts me. I do actually feel much better with having less weight to carry around these days.

So having written up my notes for the day, I’m going off to bed. Tomorrow I’ll be getting back into the routine. There are two and a half radio programmes that need finishing and that’s the priority task for this week.

So I need to be on form.

Sunday 26th January 2020 – WHAT A NICE …

… day out that was today!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen a photo similar to this a while ago. It’s the town square in Monschau in Germany, just across the border from Belgium and about half an hour’s drive south from Aachen.

And that’s where I’ve been today.

We’ve been celebrating – if that’s the correct word – the last day that we can do an outing like this free of any control whatsoever, thanks to 17.4 xenophobes and racists in the UK who have voted to stop me living where I like, working where I like, travelling where I like, receiving medical treatment where I like, and receiving the full amount of retirement pension to which I am entitled after all of my years of paying into the system.

What’s worse is that these racists and xenophobes loudly trumpet the “democratic will of the people”, but they refused to allow me the right to vote on an issue that affects me more than any of them.

What’s “democratic” about that?

So this morning the alarm went off at 06:00 and I was up pretty quickly after that. I had the medication and then looked at the dictaphone.

And hello to Esi, who I don’t think has joined me in a nocturnal ramble before. I’d met her somewhere and we were heading for a train. We were talking about the trains and she was going to one place and I was going to another and we were walking around the outside of this car park. We suddenly came to an area which was fenced off and they were doing some brick rebuilding. I suddenly realised that I’d walked this way before and I couldn’t get out this way so we had to retrace our steps and go across this car park rather than around it. We ended up somewhere, she went and I ended up in a rom somewhere with my things. I was thinking “should I take my big camera? Should I take my small camera?”. In the end I decided on the big camera. My train was at a quarter past the hour. For some unknown reason I had in my mind all things like when I used to walk all the way across London to go to my hospital appointment which of course I don’t do, and all memories about other nocturnal voyages on which I have travelled before like that petrol station out in the countryside in London (… the BP one to the north-west …) that kind of thing. I was reminiscing on all of this and suddenly I looked at my watch and I had 15 minutes to get to the station. I thought “God I’d better get a run for my train won’t hang about long’. It took me a minute or two to get all of my things together and I wasn’t sure that I had everything. I had to climb out of this train because I realised that I was in a train. I had to climb out of this train and there were lots of people in my way dropping things off and someone had lost their suitcase locks and there were a couple about where I was and they picked up their locks. I was already to go and these guys were talking to me about all kinds of different things and I was getting ready to run back across this car park to the station but the train started to move but had to stop to give way to something. It was in my way and wouldn’t move and I couldn’t go behind it and I couldn’t go in front of it or behind it or underneath it and time as ticking away while I was waiting there to get on my way to move and it was all very very strange. It was like heading towards one of these panic attacks again
later I was back in the Brusselsestraat looking at that mannequin that I like, being used as a model for various childrens’ clothes, adjusting and cutting them. And if that makes any sense to anyone, please let me know.

Breakfast next and then time to head for the hills

Around the ring road towards the station, and wasn’t it looking magnificent in the dark, all illuminated with the war memorial in the Martelarplein standing out so well?

It’s all fenced off now as they are constructing an underground bicycle park just there. Yes, bicycles are big business here in Leuven. The way the road system is and the issues about parking, it’s pretty pointless owning a car in the city.

My train was at 08:2 and I was in plenty of time for it

It pulled in bang on time too, but I couldn’t see which engine was propelling it because it was another one of the “pushme-pullyou” sets and it was running engine-last, something that always surprises me on a high-speed train.

These trains start out at Oostende and you would have expected there to be a run-round facility at an important station like that so that the locomotive could take its proper place at the head of the train.

“Never mind” I thought. I can photograph it when I alight at Liege Guillemins station. I have 12 minutes to wait for my express there. I don’t even have to move because the Frankfurt train comes in at the same platform as the Eupen train goes out.

But for once the Tour de Finances building in Liege is pretty much unobstructed and looking quite nice so while I was awaiting the Eupen train moving out, I went over and took a photo of the Tour de Finances.

So if you live in Liege and want to know where all of your money went, then there it is. I admit that it looks fantastic but it’s not exactly the best way of spending public money on an extravagant building like that.

While I was waiting for the Eupen train to move, there was an announcement on the tannoy “passengers for the Deutsche Bahn ICE train to Frankfurt am Main, please note that your train will be departing from …” a different platform.

So we all had to scramble up the steps, across the walkway and down another set of steps and I never did get to take a photo of my train from Leuven as it was still in the station – somewhat delayed – as we pulled out.

So I’ve no idea what was the matter with that but whatever it was, I’m glad that it happened after I had alighted from it. It can do what it likes then. We were on our way.

Alison was waiting for me at the station but Jackie’s train wasn’t due to arrive for another half hour so we went for a coffee and a chat to catch up on the latest news.

When Jackie turned up we went into the city centre to look for a coffee.

There’s a beautiful church there, the city church of St Nikolaus and just for a rare change today, it actually was open so we stuck our heads inside.

It’s nothing like how it was supposed to be in the interior, but subsequent investigation revealed that it had been the victim of a fire and a considerable amount of damage had been caused.

So that might explain everything then.

We eventually found a cafe that would serve us just a coffee – Sunday morning is a pretty sacred “brunch” day in Germany.

We had a good view over the square where there was something clearly going to be happening. People dressed in historical costume, sword fights, people walking around with falcons on their arms.

But as the crowds started to gather we decided that we would move on. It looked as if it was going to be a really lovely day so we planned to move on the Monschau in the hills.

We made it to Monschau but the good weather didn’t. It was overcast, misty and foggy here and that was a disappointment.

We found a place to park the car and then walked down the hill into town. Considering that it was mid-winter there were crowds of people about and roadworks that blocked the main street.

It wasn’t easy to navigate ourselves around and see what was going on down there today.

There’s a handbag shop in the town with a name that will delight almost any one with a warped sense of humour.

We went inside for a look around and Jackie struck lucky. The prices had been slashed to a figure that even I thought was a good deal and she found a handbag of a decent size that exactly matched a jacket that she owned. So that found its way out of the shop.

What caught my eye was a really nice leather-look backpack, small with plenty of pockets that would have been ideal for a lightweight camera bag, and at 9:99 too. And had it had a shoulder strap as well as the backpack straps I would have brought that home with me too.

Just what I needed.

By now it was pretty well past lunchtime so we retraced our steps back through town to a place that we had seen earlier.

They had these flammenkucke pancake things on offer so the girls had one of those each. As for me, there was a beautiful fresh vegetable soup with bread and that was delicious. The vegetables were actually in proper chunks and it was really well done.

There was fresh hot ginger tea on offer too and a mug of that went down really well in the cold weather that we were having.

But my eye was diverted to what was outside the restaurant.

It’s a long time since we’ve seen a Trabant – one of the East German fibreboard cars that came flooding into the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which vanished without trace almost as quickly as they appeared.

The ones that I see these days are mostly used for publicity purposes and this one here is no exception. It’s so full of knick-knacks that you couldn’t drive it anywhere even if you wanted to.

We dropped Jackie off back at the railway station in Aachen, and after another coffee, Alison and I headed home. We had another one of our really long chats on the way back and made some further plans.

But what will happen about them I really don’t know. It depends on the hospital visits and the radio commitments before I can actually decide on anything.

For tea I used up the rest of the food that was lying about and having written up my notes, I’m off to bed.

Tomorrow starts at 05:30, something to which I am not looking forward, so I need to be at my best.

Here’s hoping that all of the trains are running.

Saturday 25th January 2020 – THEY WERE RIGHT …

… about this “fatigue” thing as a side effect of this new medical treatment.

Last night I crashed out long before I’d finished the notes for the day and having anticipated some kind of reaction and thus having switched off the alarm, it was 08:37 when I fist saw the light of day.

And that’s not to say that I left my bed either at that time.

But when I did, I had my medication and then came back up here and finished off yesterday’s notes. And it took me an age too because I wasn’t quite “with it”.

After breakfast I attacked the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

I started off with someone and we had been in a Traction Avant – a white one – and it was the road that left Shavington past the High School. It was very steep and got steeper and there was loose gravel and stones. We went roaring up there at a ridiculous speed making tons of clouds of dust, everything at the risk of punctures on the sharp stones. We got right to the top and we were talking about this and I can’t remember now. Then it came down to having to go back. I ended up with these two girls in the car with me. I must admit that was quite keen on these girls and so I asked them “do you want to go the way back or do you want to go a different way?” There was in fact a different way that was much more quieter and much more intimate. I thought “yes, we’ll go back a different way”. But instead they took me back yet another way, not the way that I was thinking. We were in a Morris 1100 by this time. We got back down the hill and the road was all flooded. We turned left and it was flooded there so I told the girl who was driving – one of these girls was driving – “keep it out of the wet. Keep it well over this side of the road and go really slow”. Just as we got there some guys were standing about and sending a huge splash on everyone so you couldn’t see and the cars were having accidents. Some people were getting out of their cars chasing these boys. I was telling these two girls that I just can’t get used to this kind of behaviour. It’s nothing like what it is in Europe and I just don’t understand it. They said something like “yes you get the complaints about the kids being on the streets all the time and out of the control of their parents and here they all are”. And at that point I must have awoken because the voyage seemed to have stopped there.
Later though we had the Pears soap commercial kind of thing. Clare had posted something about Wright’s Coal tar Soap in her Social Network page. We were playing football and some of the tackles were really desperate and dangerous and these kids were doing fine. There was a “share” button where you could share this video out with different people so I pressed “share” so that my friends could see the kind of foul tactics that this team was using against a team of kids. I don’t remember much about this but I seem to remember that I lost my wheelchair somewhere. And what all of this and the flashback to the Granville – Olympique de Marseille have to do with Clare and her soap I really have no idea.
Later still I was with Terry and Liz at Darren and Kate’s. We ended up in the cellar and their cellar was enormous. It was really really nice. I was being shown around it. There were four or five little rooms, one a boiler room with a boiler in it. They had cupboards hanging from the ceiling where the drawers pulled downwards into the room. I thought “how strange is that? it’s stupid”. But they pulled the drawers down and showed me that they were all arranged like shelves inside with all screws and all that kind of thing in it and it was really well done. The boiler was nice and hot and there was a big table by there and Darren and kate were working out some kind of design on the big table. One of the kids shouted that all the cats were out. A big grey and white one came in to the cellar and “no, we haven’t seen that. Are you sure that that one is ours? There are only 3 or 4 like that in the whole world. I gave it a big stroke and a tickle under the chin. It turned out that it belonged to a famous actress. She had had it as a kitten and one of the kids had lost their cat so she gave it to the kid.

Believe it or not, all of that took ;e up until midday, at which point I went out for some bread.

Deciding to go for an extended walk and see what was in the shops, my perambulations took me via the FNAC (where there was nothing of interest) into the Bondgenotenlaan where I could qdmire the work that;s being done to the old “Wibra” shop.

We had some good things from there in the past and it’s a shame that they moved into smaller premises where they only carry a fraction of the stock.

They have completely gutted the building until there is just the facade left.

We saw then a while ago having dug out the cellar and now they seem to be fitting in the concrete flooring for the first floor, the ground floor having already been done.

It’s taken them an age to get this far and I can’t see them finishing it off any time soon. But it will be interesting to see what will be going on here in the end.

Kruidvat had nothing of interest and neither did Zeeman, Hema, Sports Direct, Blokker and Flying Tiger. But the Wibra did. I’d bought a flexible rubber spatula for cookery purposes a while ago and I’ve found it useful for so many things. But I don’t want to taint it with tomato sauce and stuff like that so I need another. And there in Wibra they had small ones for just 79 cents.

Couldn’t find any small pyrex bowls, and neither could I find a set of pastry-cutting rings. I shall have to keep on trying my Systme D method.

having been to the Delhaize for my bread, my attention was distracrd yet again, in the Brusselsestraat this time.

This mobile food stall in the outdoor market here is one that I haven’t noticed before. And I surely would have done because it’s advertising quite a range of vegan food.

Not that I was too interested at that moment, having organised my butties for lunch, but I made a mental note of its existence for it might one day come in useful.

Coming back up the Tiensestraat I noticed that they had been digging a hole in the pavement so I went to have a look down inside.

Not that I was sure what I was going to see of interest, if anything at all, but these brick foundations look interesting. The building here is a comparatively modern one so these presumably relate to a previous building here on the site.

And I bet that they would have an interesting story to tell us if only they could speak. It’s the kind of thing that is full of history.

Back home to the back of the Condo gardens in the Windmolenveldstraat.

We’d seen yesterday that there was some work going on on the fence here, but there’s more work going on at one of the houses in the Tiensevest that backs onto the Windmolenveldstraat. The rear of the house has been demolished and it looks as if an extension might be being built here.

That’s something else for me to keep my eye on in the course of time, I suppose.

By the time that I returned it was long after lunchtime so I made my butties and a coffee. The aim was to carry on with more work but instead, this fatigue thing caught up with me and I crashed out again.

A proper, deep, full-blooded intense crashing out too. I was properly gone with the wind and for some while too.

When I finally rejoined the Land of the Living I had a shower and washed my clothes and then carried on with some more radio stuff.

The music for Project 17 is now chosen as far as I can, and I’m about half-way though the music for Project 18. With a live concert to fit in somewhere in between, I’m now well into March and that is exactly where I want to be. I need to be at least 2 months ahead of myself just in case I do actually make it back to the High Arctic again.

Tea was pasta and vegetables with lentils in tomato sauce followed by peach halves and sorbet. Thoroughly delicious it was too

later on, I went for a really good walk. My route took me around the Tiensevest, up the Parkstraat and into the Naamsestraat.

It’s a route that I hadn’t taken before so I was hoping to see lots of new things the existence of which I was previously unaware. And I wasn’t disappointed either because I came across the Sint Michielskerk in the Naamsestraat.

Built between 1650 and 1671 by the Jesuits, it’s said to be one of the most important baroque churches in the whole of Europe. And it certainly looked impressive to me from where I was standing.

No mention seems to be made of any damage during the Sack of Leuven in 1914 so it may well have escaped that, only to have been hit during a bombing raid in 1944.

You can’t win ’em all.

Just up the road a little at number 37 is this beautiful building.

Leuven was, and still is, a very rich city and there’s evidence of that all over the place. Magnificent houses are everywhere and this one is a typical example.

These days it seems to be a solicitors’ office but it would be interesting to look into its history and see who lived here in the past. Whoever it was can’t have been short of a bob or two and I for one am quite jealous.

We’ve been to the Hogeschoolplein before, but not down at this end.

Here is the statue of Andre Dumont. He’s more usually associated with Liege but his claim to fame is that he was responsible for the geological maps of Belgium published between 132 and 1849, having travelled all over the country – on foot. He deserves a statue for that alone.

As for the square itself, it was created between 1807 and 1812 and there are several colleges from the University scattered around here – hence the name.

But it also has another claim to fame too.

We’ve seen Pizzamats and Potatomats and breadomats in the past, but the Hogeschoolplein is the only place in the whole wide world where i have ever encountered a Dessertomat.

And if you think that I’m joking, I’m not. Put your three or four euros in and dial the appropriate number and you’ll have your Black Forest Gateau or Tiramisu without any more ado than that.

It’s probably the most interesting thing that I’ve seen in Belgium.

Back here I wrote up my journal and now I’m off to bed. Later than intended. And despite it being Sunday, there’s an alarm set for tomorrow because I’m having a day out in Germany. And I’m looking forward to that.

An early start so I need to be on form. But with only 5 hours sleep I’m not sure how that’s going to work at all.

Friday 24th January 2020 – THAT ISN’T …

… the news that I was hoping to hear. Not at all.

My blood count is down to 8.8 – something that will not surprise any regular readers of this rubbish because they will recall that I’ve been mentioning over the last couple of weeks the fact that I’ve not been feeling myself … “just as well” – ed.

Worse though is the fact that my kidneys are now playing up again. They want me to see a kidney specialist the next time that I come.

It looks as if I’m starting to break up. But that was something that was always on the cards. People start to die of this illness after 5 years, and although I was diagnosed with it only 4.25 years ago, there’s no telling how long I had been suffering before I was taken to hospital.

Last night, despite the comfortable bed, I had a very mixed sleep. Tossing and turning around, waking up, all of that. There had been time to go on a voyage or two though.

We started off on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again and we were all having to get off to go for a coach drive. There were crowds of people in this square waiting for the buses and there was a lot going on. Some people who we were with decided that they weren’t going to do as they had other things that they really wanted to do. Anyway it was to see the statue of Sir John Slessor . They asked me if I knew anything about Sir John Slessor. I said “yes, he was an Anglo-Irish guy who was associated with Polar Exploration at one time”. I told a bit about a story but I can’t remember the bit now. There were crowds of people milling around and someone came up to me and asked me if we were going on a train. I said “no, we’re going on a bus”. Someone else asked the same question. There were loads and loads of Arab kids around and every time that I got up to go somewhere they would sit at my seat and I would have to go and grab my seat back again from him. We were sitting there waiting for these buses to come. I had some rare church relics with me – a box of something and a china – porcelain cross, white with blue edgings and I was afraid that one of these days I was going to break these, the way that I’m picking them up and putting them down. I can’t remember who I was with now but I was with some woman or other on this trip.
Later on, I was at the radio and I’d interviewed a rock band. It was an interview that I had done by chance with no plan in mind and I’d had a call or something for one of these programmes so I sent them that.

The alarm went off as usual and I was out of bed before the third alarm which is good news. And after the medication and breakfast, seeing as my appointment isn’t until 13:30, I attacked some radio stuff.

Not one project, but in fact two. The music for the first one is chosen (except the last track of course) and I’ve chosen half for the second one. I may as well use my free time here profitably.

There was a break while I went to the Spar shop for some bread.

At the back of the Condo Gardens here in the Windmolenveldstraat it doesn’t look good at all – or at least, it didn’t. But it seems that they are making a concerted effort to tidy it up so that it looks pretty.

The new fence looks really nice – and what a pity some low-life character has decided to leave his mark on it. That’s the kind of thing that makes me quite fed up.

A little further on down the Tiensestraat there are some exciting signs of activity.

They are using a stone-cutter to slice huge chunks out of the pavement and they are installing tactile pavement right by where the kerb drops are for the pedestrian crossings.

As an aside, I once had a female friend who worked for the Royal National Institute for the Blind and she reckoned that she had some of the responsibility for introducing tactile pavement into the UK.

Back here, I made myself a butty or two and round about 12:00 I headed off up town.

Straight away, back in the Tiensestraat, I was interrupted by an old car.

We haven’t seen an old car in a while so I reckoned that I had better photograph it. According to the badge, it’s a Lotus 7, and according to its front number plate, it was registered in 1965.

But these are things that you can’t take for granted. Many Lotus 7s were sold in home-assembly kits and there were several other clones doing the rounds too. So you accept with care the “evidence” of the badge.

There’s the little open-air fruit and veg market today in the Herbert Hooverplein.

That was my immediate destination as I wanted an apple and a pear to take to the hospital with me. But having waited for about a week while the assistants served a couple of the slowest customers that I’ve ever seen, I rather lost patience.

Yes, I gave it up as a bad job and abandoned my prospective purchases and carried on the the hospital.

Regular readers of the rubbish will recall what I’m going to be discussing next because we’ve been keeping an eye on these.

We’ve looked at the Hospital Sint Pieter here in the Brusselsestraat. It was built for the French community here in Leuven apparently but they left to go to Louvain-le-Neuve.

This became a huge white elephant and was never ever used to its potential. The respite care was here and so were the guest rooms, where I stayed for a while when I first came to Leuven.

Now it’s empty and they have made a start in demolishing it.

We’ve also seen the big hole in the car park in the Sint Jacobsplein.

As to what they were doing with this hole, I really have no idea. And I don’t suppose that I shall ever find out either because by the looks of things they are now filling it back in again.

Had I come by here two weeks ago when I should have been at the hospital, I might have noticed. Anyway, it will probably be fully restored the next time that I come.

This is something that we haven’t seen before.

The road by the traffic lights in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan is closed off and they have been digging up the road right here. It looks as if they are doing something to the drains and sewers but I’ve no idea what.

It does make me wonder if it is connected in some way to the hole that they dug in the St Jacobsplein car park. That would make a lot of sense I suppose.

The final thing of note is also in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that sometime last year they completely gutted this block of flats – stripped it right back to the bare concrete. They now seem to be well-advanced with the renovation, and there was a lorry delivering a load of insulation.

The ground floor has been done out into shops so I’ll be interested to see who moves into them when they are ready.

At the hospital they are giving me yet another new treatment. Something called IQYMUNE which, according to Helena, is the bee’s knees. So we shall see.

And it had better be too if it’s to arrest this sudden decline.

Most of the time that I spent here, I was asleep. And it took the doctor an age to awaken me when he needed to talk to me about my kidneys.

My butties had unfortunately disintegrated inside my bag so I ate what I reasonably could, and then spent 15 minutes in the toilet on the way out cleaning bits of tomato, lettuce and hummus from the inside of my rucksack. What a mess!

On the way home I didn’t loiter. Just picked up my fruit and a tin of lentils from the Delhaize and came straight back. One of the side effects of this new medical stuff is “fatigue” and if I don’t have enough problems with that already!

Tea was the second burger with pasta, tomato sauce and vegetables. Followed by peach halves and mango sorbet. Totally delicious, it was too.

And then the football. Rhydaman v Caernarfon Town.

Rhydaman had comfortably disposed of Carmarthen away in the previous round and while Caernarfon are a different proposition to Carmarthen, the home advantage should normally count for something. Especially when I saw just how packed the ground was.

But Carmarthen were undone by four magic moments of Trundlemania and when we saw that Lee Trundle wasn’t playing tonight, then any advantage evaporated.

The game was littered with errors from start to finish and Caernarfon will have to improve dramatically and work on these silly mistakes if they want to push on into Europe. But even so, they had more in the tank than Rhydaman did.

They were 2-0 up by half-time and later in the game when Rhydaman tired, Caernarforn went on the rampage and scored 2 more, exactly as I had predicted to Johan Gallon in my interview with him a few days ago. Not even the introduction of the veteran Andy Robinson by Rhydaman could turn the game around.

Anyway, as this medication is responsible for fatigue and tiredness, I’d better hurry up and finish this before I …

ZZZZZZZ.

Thursday 23rd January 2020 – HERE I ALL AM …

… not sitting in a rainbow but sitting in a posh living room in a duplex apartment here in Leuven.

The one thing about being a very regular customer of these apart-hotels is that if there’s a higher-grade accommodation vacant, they give me a free upgrade and I’ve struck lucky this visit.

A lovely big double bed, nice and comfortable. All I need is a nice and sweet young lady to share it with me and I’ll be well away. Ohhh yes – even at my age I can still chase after the women. I just can’t remember why!

The only down side is that I have noisy neighbours who seem to be partying. But I can’t hear a thing because I remembered to bring my really good headphones with me and with Colosseum Live going full-tilt into my ears I can’t hear a thing.

But that album has its downside, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Although it’s one of the top five live albums ever recorded, it was the one that was going round and round on an endless loop while I was on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour in 2018 and 2019.

Of course it immediately brings back all kinds of memories, mostly good but some quite bad and there are people like The Vanilla Queen and Castor and Pollux going through my mind as I listen to it.

Somewhere I read something along the lines of “anyone who spends any time in the High Arctic will come back a different person” and that’s certainly true.

Just for a change, this morning I was up quite smartly and it didn’t take me long to get everything ready for leaving. I’d had a shower last night before going to bed so I didn’t even need to deal with that.

Plenty of time to go a-voyaging too. The first little trip had something to do with the website and about how I’d changed round the radio programmes or something like that so that there was a whole new series of numbers starting on 1st January 2020 on the first January of the year with all kinds of different – there were two different strands of numbering now one of which was the radio concerts and one of which was something else but I can’t remember any more about it now unfortunately
Later on, there was a huge dispute between us over something or other and it led to someone coming storming round to our house going to throw a cup of cold tea over everyone. I had a cup of cold tea ready and he came storming in. I told him to sit down but he said “I’m going to throw this cold tea over you. What are you going to do?” I replied “I’m at my house. I’ll throw a cup of tea over you and you’re the one who is going to have to suffer”. He looked at me for a minute and then said “I can see that you aren’t going to flinch. You are brave enough”. I asked “so how are we going to sort this out?” He said “we need foue elastic bands like this size” and he showed us one of them. Of course I didn’t have any that size so I had to go across the road and ask one of the neighbours. We were in Vine Tree Avenue at the time during all of this.

Back in the Land Of The Living, I finished getting ready. The rubbish went out of course and then I followed it up to town.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking plays a prominent role on these pages.

Hardly a day goes by without me seeing some new depths to which the general public has sunk and here’s another prime example. We’re at the roundabout at the end of the rue Lecampion and this motorist has decided to park his car right across the entry to the new block of flats.

The motorist in the big SUV can’t get his car out of his own car park because of it, and I would have loved to have had the time to hang around and see how this story would unfold.

Instead I headed off to the station and there I was treated to the delight of the train being already at the platform.

No coffee though. Once again the coffee machine is out of order and this is really annoying. How am I expected to go on a journey like this without being armed?

The ticket-stamping machine was having issues too and it took several goes before it would accept my ticket and stamp it.

Bang on time we set off and I fell asleep. A right deep sleep too and it took the ticket collector a good minute or so to awaken me from the dead to check my ticket.

We were 15 minutes late arriving in Paris but it didn’t quite matter so much because, as predicted, out train now arrives in the main station rather than in the vaugirard annex and that saves me a considerable amount of time.

The metro was running too and was quite rapid, so I had a good half-hour to spare before my train to Lille.

That half-hour was spent in a queue at the SNCF office. I’d had an e-mail yesterday telling me that my seat had been changed and I would have to make further enquiries.

Eventually I managed to make someone deal with me quickly and, armed with a new seat number, I could take my seat on the train.

It’s one of the older “Reseau” TGV trainsets, number 226 which puts it in the first wave that were delivered between 1995 and 199.

Nice and comfortable they are, and I could sit and eat my butties and fruit in comfort, which is always nice. And have another little doze too. I’m not in any great rush to do anything.

Due to “affluence on the line” our train was 20 minutes late arriving in Lille- Flanders.

With only 15 minutes (and having to cross town to Lille-Europe) between trains, you might think that I would be panicking by now.

But not a bit of it because if there was “affluence on the line” for us, there would be “affluence on the line” for the Marseille – Brussels train that would be folllowing behind us too and that was the one that I was catching.

Sure enough, that one was half an hour late so I had plenty of time to ring up the hospital and check my appointment time. 13:30 it is tomorrow.

The trainset that came for us is a model that we have seen before on a regular basis because it’s this type that does the Paris-Brussels service, The Thalys PBA trainsets, albeit in a different livery.

My place here was quite comfortable too and I even managed to doze off for half an hour or so yet again.

In Brussels I only just missed the 15:58 – I had my hand on the door when it pulled away.

But there was another one right behind – the 16:13 to Genk. It’s one of the push me – pull you train sets and coming into the station in reverse so I didn’t get to see the identity of the locomotive pushing it.

So by 16:50 I was in Leuven after a relatively painless, straightforward voyage for once and wasn’t I a happy bunny?.

Having organised my room I went shopping at Delhaize. Tons of stuff for the next few days to keep me out of mischief and I shall have to add “herbs and spices” to the list of things that I bring with me from home. I’ll make up a sachet of oregano, basil, tarragon, garlic, chili powder etc and put it with the coffee.

So tea tonight was a vegan burger with mixed vegetables, spinach and pasta, all tossed in a tomato sauce and it was delicious. Pudding was peach halves with mango sorbet.

The party next door seems to have finished so I can go to bed. Nothing much to do tomorrow morning so I’ll have a lazy day before I head off to the hospital round about 12:30, something like that.

I wonder what they will tell me.

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again!

Went down to ma Mie Caline for my dejeunette this morning, didn’t I? Normandy Trader had sneaked in on the early morning tide and there were a few other things that I needed to observe so I made sure that I had the big Nikon D500 with me.

It was when I was reviewing a photo that I had taken that I discovered that I had forgotten to put the memory card back in it last night.

And badger me if I went out this afternoon still having forgotten to put it in. But at least there, I cold go back for it which was more than I could do when I was down on the docks.

Last night, just for a change, I was in bed before midnight. Only just, by a couple of seconds or so but nevertheless …

And I slept right through until the alarm went off without moving, and not going anywhere, either virtually or for real The alarms went off as usual and while I didn’t beat the start of the third alarm, I was sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet on the floor when it stopped. So I suppose that I kind-of beat it.

The early part of the morning was spent cutting up digital music tracks as usual. That’s another pile organised but there are still plenty – dozens if not hundreds – to go at over the next while.

Another thing was that while I was looking for a track that had somehow been missed, a few things by Louis de Funes popped up. Anyone who has listened to my “A La Pointe Du Rock” programmes on OUR LITTLE RADIO STATION will know that Louis de Funès is my regular studio guest and having as many examples of his speech as possible is always useful so I downloaded a pile more of that.

With the Zoom I’m entitled to a free download of Cubase and also Wavelab. Not that I intend to use them – I’m quite happy for now with Audacity – but I can see possibilities so I downloaded Cubase.

That was the cue to go for my bread, take my camera and forget the memory card.

There was no indication of anything that would indicate what work was going on in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers so I pushed on down to the docks where there was no water vessel beached today.

Across the top of the harbour gates and over to the other side of the harbour where I fell in with someone wrestling with a huge, really long wire rope that was about 10mm in diameter. He was opening it up with a file head and threading a nylon rope through it. “Something for the fishermen” he told me, after I’d asked him about four times.

Normandy Trader was bearing more of a resemblance to the Marie Celeste. Fully loaded up but not a soul about anywhere. One day I’ll get to meet the skipper and his crew I suppose.

Back home I attacked the radio project and that took me all the way up to about 18:00 to finish off. There was all of the text to finish writing, and then it needed to be recorded, spliced into its individual sections and then merged in with all of the music files. It’s just like a little military operation.

Some of it needed to be redone because it overran by about 10 minutes. Hefty editing was called for, including the dropping off of a song that I was hoping to play but then that’s what editing is all about.

There were the usual interruptions of course. Lunch was one of them and my afternoon walk was another.

Normandy Trader was already leaving port and heading off into the wild blue yonder so I went to take a photo of her. That’s when I remembered the memory card.

But a dash back to the apartment and load it up again. Then back outside just in time to see her disappear into the afternoon fog that’s been swathing us for a couple of days now despite the wind.

And the yacht that’s out there with her – that might well be Aztec Lady. There’s certainly a resemblance.

And there wasn’t just Normandy Trader out there either.

Here’s Chausiais heading back into harbour having clearly been somewhere. And not too far either so it’s quite possible that she’s been doing a delivery to the Ile de Chausey.

If I remember correctly, this is the first time that I’ve seen her out in the open sea (although I have seen her sailing around the harbour) so I’m glad that I went back for the memory card.

This afternoon’s walk took me, for a change, around the city walls, just by way of being different.

Out there in the bay just off the holiday camp there were a couple of windsurfers enjoying the sunshine and the wind out at Donville les Bains near the Hermitage holiday camp. Like I said, there was a lot of maritime traffic today.

As for me, I had my run along the north side of the walls, and again along the Square Maurice Marland, although not all the way for the latter because there were some people loitering around.

But nevertheless I actually made it to the top of the first ramp so that’s something.

Desperate to reach the 100% figure, I carried on further than I otherwise would have done, basically to see what was the purpose of the bollards in the Boulevard Vaufleury last night.

Talking of bollards, how about pollards? They are pollarding the trees along the boulevard. Something that they do every spring before the growth starts so as to make the place look pretty.

The machine upon which they are standing is extremely interesting and I could find a hundred uses for something like that.

Back round to the rue du Roc to clock up the miles and here’s an interesting notice that I saw.

“No parking from 08:00 on 23rd January while they connect up the fibre-optic cables”. This can only be good news. They’ve been playing about with the installation almost since the day that I arrived here, so it’s about time that they finished it off.

Here’s hoping that I’ll be connected soon!

back at the apartment I … errr … closed my eyes for a few minutes before finishing off the programme. And then I did nothign whatsoever until teatime.

Tea tonight was an everything curry with all of the leftovers going in the pot. And as there wasn’t quite enough, I lengthened it with a handful of peanuts.

Apple pie and sorbet for afters and the remaining piece of pie went in the freezer for when I come back.

The evening walk was around the headland. Freezing cold it was and I didn’t hang around. I just went out and came back. No photos, although I did get yet another run into the programme, but fell short of my target point.

Not that I’m worried too much, because it was the third run of the day.

So in a minute I’ll be having an early night. I’m off on my travels tomorrow so I need to be on form.

EPIC HALL

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