Thursday 8th November 2018 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the second day of my mega-voyage to the High Arctic and it’s now on line.

All you need to do is to go to this page and follow the link to Day Two. There are five pages in total and they should give you hours of endless fun.

Even more exciting is the fact that I’ve made a start on adding some photos to Day Three of the blog. That might even be finished if I have a good day, and then I can start on the web page that goes with it.

Or pages, probably, if it’s anything like Day Two.

In case you are wondering, I’ve had a good day today and done quite a few things. That early night that I had must have done me a world of good.

There was even time for me to go off on a ramble during the night. I was heading towards a boat, travelling down a valley, and we were to collect a group of kids to take skiing with us. They came running down the sides of the valley down to the bottom, screaming and squealing like young kids do. And what was surprising about all of this was that there was plenty of snow on the sides of the valley so it was difficult to understand, even during a nocturnal ramble, why they would need to go off somewhere else to ski.

After breakfast, I finished off the form that I’d been completing, but at this moment the printer decided to pack up yet again. It always seems to do this at a crucial moment, and it’s getting on my nerves.

But then again, I did pick it up in the Spring of 2013 and it was second-hand so I can’t complain too much. But I’ll be buying another one on Saturday. I hope that I’ll have more luck with this, but it never seems to work out between me and printers.

A shower and setting the washing machine going, and then into town, with Yves and Lily whom I encountered at the foot of the stairs. We had a good chat until we went our separate ways in the town centre. Me to the magasin de presse for the photocopying and then to the Post Office to send it all off.

On the way up to LIDL there was a cherry-picker working on one of the lamp-posts by the station.

It looks as if they might be starting to put up the Christmas decorations. It’s getting closer to that time of year already. And of course, I’m not going to be here to celebrate it, am I?

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special – in fact, the cupboard was pretty bare. But I did remember to buy 2kgs of carrots for freezing.

On the way back to town, I went past the private car park of the local Tax Office, and saw a sight that made me laugh.

There’s a demonstration due to take place soon against inter alia the amount of tax being charged on fuel.

People are expected to show their solidarity by putting their reflective chasubles on top of their dashboards.

I found it extremely ironic that a couple of people who apparently work in the Tax Office are demonstrating against the amount of taxes being charged.

In the town centre there was a big crowd around the War Memorial.

The local schoolkids had been learning about the Armistice as part of the school curriculum and so they were holding a commemoration service there for them.

There was a considerable number of adults who were passing by and were swept up in the emotion.

There was an enormous number of kids there listening to the service.

And there was also a film cameraman recording the event, presumably for the local television channel.

He was quite interested in filming the kids listening to the service, and so I couldn’t resist the opportunity of filming him doing it.

I have quite a few photos of this kind of thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

On the way back here, I had a strange encounter in the rue des Juifs.

In one of the art galleries there was a really nice painting of a tramp steamer. It looked quite nice so I was interested in having a closer look at it.

Just as I was about to go inside, the owner came out
“I’m just closing up because I’m going to an exhibition” he said. “I’ll be back in a week”
And he locked up the shop right in front of me.

The next person who complains that there’s a recession going on will get a smack in the mouth. People throwing customers out of their shop like this.

Up the hill again where I fell in once more with Yves and Lily who were on the way back home.

Lunch was inside again – far too windy to go outside and sit on my wall. And then I finished off the web pages that I mentioned earlier.

A cookery session followed next. I peeled, sliced and blanched the carrots and then prepared them for freezing. And 2kgs is too much to freeze at one go. 1kg at a time will do in future. But I should really have bought a bigger freezer.

There was a pile of mushrooms left over too so I prepared a mushroom and potato curry with the left-over potatoes from the previous batch, and added a giant tin of macedoine vegetables and a dollop of soya cream.

And now there’s no room in the freezer for it so I don’t know what I’m going to do.

What with all of that, I was rather late going out for my afternoon walk around the Pointe du Roc.

And that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either, due to the high winds that were still blowing a gale around in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

But the winds were making quite an impression on the waves, as well as blowing the seabirds around somewhat.

they couldn’t have found it very easy to move around, and neither did the pedestrians down there either.

A little further around the bend we came to a position where we could see the wind full-on with the waves, pushing them forward towards the port de plaisance.

They were making some really pretty patterns too and it looked quite impressive.

You can see what kind of a beautiful day that we were having too. It was rather a shame that the wind was cooling everything down.

With the time that was left before tea I started on Day Three of the blog, and sometime during the proceedings I had a little repose.

At tea time I went to try a helping of the curry with boiled rice and veg. Not my best, I have to say, but then I only made it to use up some of the food that was left and in danger of going off.

It was at that moment that I remembered that I had left the washing in the machine.

The high winds didn’t prevent me from going for my evening walk around the walls.

Even though the tide was well on its way out, the high winds were still catching the waves and smashing them down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset.

What was even more impressive was that the new f1.8 lens was working well enough to pick up the motion, and the crop of the image was sharp enough to bring it out.

So I carried on with my walk around the walls and back into the old medieval town.

And here at the Place Cambernon there was a hive of activity. Dozens of people at the bar, and the pizza van that comes here on a Thursday evening was doing a roaring trade.

One day I’ll take some of my cheese down to the van and try out one of their pizzas

Back home in the hallway I met Brigitte who was back from her holidays. We had a good chat for over an hour down there.

It’s definitely my day for being sociable with the neighbours.

However, it’s made me later than I intended to be and I won’t have a night as early as I would like.

But I’ll do my best.

Children’s Armistice Day commemoration

Children’s Armistice Day Commemoration

Storm, high winds and waves, Plat Gousset

The Pizza Van in the Place Cambernon, Granville

Wednesday 7th November 2018 – WHILE I WAS …

… cooking my evening meal, I was suddenly taken by surprise by an album that appeared on the playlist on the hi-fi.

Another one of the huge pile of underrated groups of the early 70s I saw the O Band supporting Man sometime in the early 70s in Liverpool and they stuck in my mind. And when I came across their album The Knife in a second-hand shop in Stoke on Trent it was added to my collection. And subsequently it became one of the first LPs to be upgraded to CD.

The second half of the album – several track which, combined together make one long rock opera – is totally phenomenal. It brought back a very bizarre memory of my playing it on a continuous loop along the I95 near Bangor, Maine, USA while I was looking for a motel for the night, coming back in Strider from seeing Rhys in South Carolina last year.

Yes, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

With having had a reasonably early night last night, leaving the bed at the appropriate hour wasn’t too difficult. And the howling gale from last night was still blowing too. All very wild outside.

After breakfast I did a few bits and pieces of tidying up and then attacked the second day of the High Arctic trip, when I was in Yellowknife.

And by the time that it came round to lunchtime, I’d finished the pages and was working on the meta tags. It might even be on line by the end of the day tomorrow if I have a good afternoon at it.

Lunchtime was taken indoors today. It might have been nice and sunny outside but with the wicked wind outside it would have been impossible to sit down in comfort.

This afternoon I was hunting for documents to go with this form that I need to send off tomorrow. That took a while and I’m still one or two missing.

That took me up to walk-time and so I headed off into the wind, which by now had abated a little.

But that was merely a hint of things to come. Away in the distance out in the English Channel there was a major storm raging.

I hope that it isn’t heading my way because I don’t fancy the idea of being out in that when it arrives here.

My walk carried on around the back of the College Malraux, but I didn’t get very far.

Lying on the floor by the entrance to the sports hall is the gate and the gateposts. And it looks as if someone with a great big jemmy has been there trying to open it.

Whoever it was who did that did it with an incredible amount of force and I wouldn’t like to meet him down a dark alley late at night.

Even though the wind had died down somewhat compared to yesterday, there was still a considerable amount blowing around.

As I rounded the Pointe du Roc I got the lot of it and I could see it all crashing down against the harbour wall.

You can see that the tide isn’t right in either, but there was still enough force in the wind and the waves to make a imressive scene.

But what’s going on here?

There ars the Pompiers and the SAMU out there, and they have brought their inflatable dinghy with them too.

It looks as if there’s something going on out there on that yacht. All of the medical people seem to be out there having a good look inside the yacht’s cabin.

While I was being harassed by a dog that was not attached to a lead and while I was booting it up the rear end and telling its owner what I thought of him and his mutt, I took a photo of the scene with the zoom/telephoto lens.

Back here, I cropped out a section and blew it up (which I can do these days, despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) to see if I could see any better.

It seems that they are manhandling a piece of equipment – a generator or a pump or something similar – either into or out of the cabin. So I’m still none-the-wiser.

Back home, I sorted out some more things for the form that I’ve been completing and then had to write a covering letter to go with it.

Tomorrow morning, if I can make the printer work, I’ll print out the paperwork and take it with me to posy off on my way to the shops.

Tea was a burger with rice, vegetables and mushroom gravy. And delicious it was too. But I’m running out of frozen carrots so I must remember tomorrow to buy some more for freezing. This lot that I blanched and froze came out rather well.

Later on, I braved the wind and went outside for my evening walk around the walls. And took a few photos of the waves in the dark.

The waves were making quite a noise as they crashed down on the cliffs at the foot of the medieval city walls. And much to my surprise, the 50mm lens actually managed to pick up the waves despite the poor lighting conditions.

I was very impressed with this. A similar photo with the 18-105mm lens didn’t pick up anything at all.

Further on around the walls, I came to the cliffs overlooking the Plat Gousset.

The tide iswell on its way out now and we’re a little sheltered in the bay, but it was still an impressive sight to see the sea storming in onto the beach.

I suppose that I should have been round here an hour or two earlier for the best effect.

While I had the 50mm lens on the camera, I decided that I would take advantage of it by taking a photograph of the old gateway that leads into the Place d’Armes.

This has come out rather well too, and you can see all the way down the rue du Roc to the bottom where the lighthouse is situated.

I do have to say that i’m very impressed with this new 50mm lens.

So after all of this, I’m really quite exhausted. An early night might do me the world of good.

Waves crashing down on Granville harbour sea wall in storm

SAMU and pompiers examining yacht in Granville harbour

Waves in the storm at the Plat Gousset, Granville

Tuesday 6th November 2018 – I’M NOT GOING …

… out for my evening walk tonight.

There’s a howling gale blowing outside right now – as strong as any that I’ve experienced since I’ve been living here. Had there been a high tide any time soon I would have gone to inspect the waves hopefully crashing down over the Plat Gousset. But it’s low tide right now so it’s not worth the effort for me to go out.

But never mind. I’ve already had a good couple of walks today.

And during the night too.

I was in the company of some nice young girl on a Saturday night. And taking the girl home she made some kind of remark about how she had to be at the railway station for 07:00 the following morning and how she didn’t know how she was going to do that bearing in mind that I usually refuse to leave my bed at any ungodly hour on a Sunday. I was just on the point of saying that she could stay with me for the night and then I could run her down there, when I realised that that kind of remark could easily be misconstrued. How I meant it was that I’d only have a 5-minute drive straight to the station instead of having to travel across town to pick her up and then back across town to the station, saving me half an hour that I could spend much better in bed. I certainly didn’t mean it in any other way (although I wouldn’t have found the idea unacceptable), but I had to think of a way to express it better so that she wouldn’t misunderstand.
A little later I was back in the Auvergne at Les Guis and I had to go down into St Eloy. The weather was fine up in the hills but down in the town it was snowing quite heavily. I ended up in some kind of meeting room on the first floor of a shop and amongst the people there was a girl who I knew really well. And it was either the Vanilla Queen or another certain girl of my acquaintance who bore a startling resemblance to the former – a startling coincidence of a resemblance about which I have commented to myself on many occasions. She was surprised to see me in view of the weather so I explained that up in the hills things were so much better. And we ended up having a good chat not about anything in particular but more in an effort for me to establish a certain position.

Just for a change just recently I managed to beat the third alarm out of bed and that made me feel a little better. Obviously going to bed at a more respectable (for me, anyway) time is a much better idea.

This morning I had a few things to do and once they were out of the way I had to sit down and fill in a form. I’ve collected most of the information that I need but I’ve no idea how I’m expected to fill in this form. I’ll just sign it, send it back with all of the assorted verifying paperwork to at least show a sign of goodwill and see what happens next.

When I was out at the shops on Saturday I forgot to buy a lettuce, so I nipped into town and the Super-U.

I had a little distraction – or two – down at the harbour.

Marité has now returned to her berth just there, with another smaller sailing ship alongside.

In front of Marité we note the reappearance of Normandy Trader who obviously cam in on the high tide earlier in the morning. There’s a pile of stuff on the quayside and it’s quite probable that will be loaded on board for her homeward journey.

That’s no all either. As I was looking at the ships, one of the lorries from the quarry turned up with a load of roadstone.

I waited for a while hoping that she would tip but the driver locked up the cab and walked away. It must be his lunchtime or something like that.

But it probably means that very shortly we’ll be having a visit from Neptune or Shetland Trader in early course.

At the Super-U they were rather sad, the lettuces in there I mean, not the people, but better than none. And I took advantage of the situation by buying a couple of packs of the mixed dried fruit that I add to the muesli.

While I was in town I picked up one of the baguette that I like.

It was not too warm today but not very windy either. And the sun was out so I took full advantage by going to eat my butties on the wall.

And this would be the kind of thing that I would find very funny, it it wasn’t so pathetic.

One of the themes that I feature quite often here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is the sad state of parking round here.

And as for this example of pathetic parking, here in the boulevard Vaufleury right by where I eat my butties, is about as bad as it gets.

I really don’t know what goes through the minds of some people that they can’t be bothered to even make an attempt at parking between the lines on the road.

I mean, it’s not even a BMW or a Volvo is it?

So having been dismayed by the parking, I didn’t stay out there for long. After all, it IS November.

This afternoon I attacked the High Arctic and I’ve made real progress on Day 2. It might even be finished by the weekend if I can keep it up. And then there’s only another 17 days to go. And these will be much more complicated than this one.

The afternoon’s walk was around the headland in the beautiful November sunshine.

But there were no ships to admire while I was out there. Only a pile of fishing boats coming in and out of the harbour on the afternoon tide.

Taking advantage of the ideal weather and sunlight conditions, I spent some time taking a pile of photos of the boats as they came in and went out.

There were quite a few boats tied up at the quayside unloading too.

The name of this particular one took me by surprise. Omerta, which might mean “manhood” in Italian slang, is more generally associated with the name given to the Vow of Silence that is rigorously imposed, with quite often fatal results, on members of the Mafia.

Not the name that you might expect to see on a fishing boat in Granville

This particular one, which seems as if it belongs to someone on the Ile de Chausey, was unloading piles of crustaceans and the like onto the trailer attached to the rear of the tractor.

She has quite a massive catch on board. Business must be booming somewhere.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering, which I’m sure that you are, a bouchot mussel is a mussel that has been grown from a string that is attached to a pole submerged in the water. By this method they are more grit-free and barnacle-free than one that has been grown on the sea bed.

All of the work going on in the harbour was overlooked by our old friend Georges-René Le Peley de Pléville, or Pleville le Pelley.

He was a privateer who sailed initially on a ship, the Françoise du Lac (on which in one engagement he lost a leg), out of Granville, and later rose through the ranks of the French Navy until he became the French Government’s Minister of the Navy

He was appointed a Senator in 1799 and died in 1805 aged 79

Back here, there was a brief moment of repose and then it was tea time. Falafel fried with onions and garlic with pasta and vegetables, with salad dressing and herbs. It was totally delicious too.

With not going out this evening, I can do my outstanding work and then have an early night. If I can keep it up I’ll be in a much better position to keep up with my work.

But I do need to start to take it easy. There’s only so much that I can do.

Fishing boats entering and leaving the harbour at the Port of Granville

Unloading bouchots de Chausey in the harbour at the Port of Granville

Monday 5th November 2018 – IT ALL WENT …

… rather haywire today.

The alarms at 06:00, 06:10 and 06:20 all went off. I know because I heard them and even switched them off. But it was more like 08:15 when I finally brought myself round well enough to crawl out of the stinking pit.

The fact that I had been on a voyage during the night is neither here nor there – and I won’t tell you about it because you are probably all eating your tea right now.

So a late start means a late breakfast of course. And a pile of things that I meant to do were rather shunted aside for now. The most important – a form that I must complete – I made a good start on it and it won’t take long to finish off.

Another thing that I carried on with is the project that involves a huge mound of photos going back to Time Immemorial. I’ve been gradually working my way through these here and there, and another huge pile have been classed as irrelevant and filed under CS

A session on the bass too. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good play around.

Lunchtime was indoors today. Autumn has definitely arrived and it’s no longer pleasant to sit outside. That’s how it’s going to be until the end of March, I reckon.

The High Arctic too. I’ve been pushing along with that too. And I’ve reworked two of the pages that I’ve been doing. The order runs better like this, but that’s not to say that it won’t be changed again in due course before it’s published.

What with one thing and another (and once you make a start you’ll ne surprised at how many other things there are) I was late going out for my afternoon walk today

But just in time to notice, away in the distance, a huge ship sailing … “dieseling” – ed … along out in the English Channel.

A little bit of crop, enlarge and enhance will be able to bring it out.

But in the meantime, there are a few things much closer to home that need attention.

Like the beach at the Pointe du Roc for example. I don’t recall having seen it properly from this angle before.

It looks very inviting but there’s no way down to it right now.

And out just off the coast is this little yacht.

I was going to say something about it sailing along in the breeze but if you notice carefully, there are no sails hoisted. So he’s dieseling along too.

It beats the purpose of having a yacht if you ask me – especially with all of this wind that we have around here.

Talking of the wind, we were having another windy day again today. It’s a mystery that our intrepid yachtsman isn’t taking advantage of it.

And the wind was pushing the tide well in. The tidal co-efficient isn’t very high today, but you would never have thought so with looking at this.

And it’s not high tide for another hour or so either.

The crowds down there on the Plat Gousset were certainly enjoying the weather this afternoon.

I cropped out a bit of the previous photograph and blew it up (which I can do these days despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) and you can see how powerful the winds are today.

Quite a few of those people will be having an unexpected shower if they aren’t careful.

Round the corner in the harbour we were having a couple of interesting shops to see.

I know the sailing ship that is there, but as usual these days I can’t remember her name. I’m going to have to prepare some kind of database of ships here so that I can bring them to my fingertips.

And I was admiring the paint job on the trawler too. We all know that the vital statistics of a mermaid are 36-24-£3:60 per kilo.

Bearing in mind the maritime traffic that I had seen earlier, I decided to change the habits of a lifetime.

And so I continued my walk by incorporating a promenade down to the end of the road and around the headland.

And found a suitable place to couple up the zoom/telephoto lens

I took several photos of the ship and cropped out the interesting bits.

Back here, I blew them up and enlarged them, because despite … “you said that just now” – ed.

And if you are wondering about the poor quality of the images just let me mention that the photos were taken of the ship as it sailed into the entrance road to the harbour at St Malo down the Brittany coast.

And that’s 38 kms – 22 miles – away, so you can’t really complain about the quality of the image at all

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Ship of the Day, so let’s all say hello to Pont Aven, the flagship of the Brittany Ferries fleet.

She’s on her way into St Malo with the afternoon ferry from Portsmouth. Mind you, last week she was seen in Cobh in Ireland and also Santander in Spain, so she gets about a bit

This view of Pont Aven is cropped out and enlarged 200%, and while you admire it, I’ll tell you a little about her.

Built by Meyers in Germany, she displaces about 41,000 tonnes, was launched in 2004 and is powered by FOUR Caterpillar 12-cylinder engines.

185 metres long and 32 metres wide, she has a capacity of 650 cars and 2,400 passengers.

While I had the zoom/telephoto lens on the camera I took another photo of the Plat Gousset from the headland at the Pointe du Roc.

The wind seems to have died down during the half-hour or so that it had taken me to walk all the way down here.

No waves splashing up over the promenade soaking the passers-by right now. In fact, there are considerably fewer passers-by out there now.

From this viewpoint there’s a really good view of the beach at Donville-les-Bains too, including that building where I saw that depressing apartment 18 months ago.

The houses on the clifftop just there look quite interesting too. I wouldn’t mind trying to rent a room in one of those, as long as it overlooks the sea.

Back here, I encountered a neighbour and we had a good chat for a while. And then I came in here and finished off the grapes from Saturday.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and rice – and beautiful it was too. And then a walk around the headland in the dark.

Now I’m going to try to have an early night. And maybe I’ll be up in time to do some work tomorrow.

Sunday 4th November – SO THERE I WAS …

… standing in the foyer of this really impressive hotel. Big and magnificent, with as many luxury floors below ground as above. And how I was looking forward to the guided tour that I had been promised. And just as the guide appeared to see me and head my way, the blasted alarm went off and awoke me.

I’d forgotten that last Sunday I’d had the alarm working. So serve me right.

Anyway, no chance of me leaving my stinking pit at 06:00. I turned over and went back to sleep. 09:15 is much more like it for waking up.

And 09:50 is even better for leaving the bed of course, and 10:30 is much more like a decent time for a Sunday breakfast.

The temperature outside was 8°C and in here it was 10°C. A signal to put on the central heating. Can’t leave it too long without heating and then freeze to death.

With being up-to-date with the important stuff (but still plenty of less-important stuff to do) I had a whack at the trip to the High Arctic and did another 2000 words.

But the funny thing is that I don’t appear to be much further forward either. I don’t know where it all goes, this stuff that I write.

And talking of writing, I find that I’ve overlooked a couple of e-mails that I received while I was away with the fairies. I replied to one of them, and have another two to do tomorrow. As well as replying to a letter that I have forgotten.

I had a late lunch and then went out. Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville were playing AS Gavray and as it was a beautiful afternoon, a spell at a football pitch right by the sea sounded ideal.

But when I got there, the cupboard was bare. No idea what had happened there.

But US St Pairaise were playing at home against EC Tessy Moyon Sports so I thrashed around the ring road to the Stade Croissant.

I was somewhat late arriving of course, about 7 minutes after kick-off. But according to some of the locals I hadn’t missed anything exciting.

So I settled down in the grandstand with a coffee out of the flask (because there’s no pie hut at Donville) and watched the game.

St Pair is the team in orange and black, and Tessy Moyon in the yellow and red.

US St Pairaise are second in the table and Tessy-Moyon are adrift at the foot, so I was expecting something of a comfortable passage for the home side.

But that wasn’t how it was turning out for the first thirty minutes. It’s true to say that St Pairaise were the better-disciplined and organised side, but Tessy-Moyon were in there slugging it out and defending quite well.

It looked as it St Pairaise was going to make hard work of it.

In fact, there was some very good and thoughtful football played out there.

It didn’t come off as often as the players would have liked, which isn’t really a surprise at this level of football, but it was impressive to see the players trying.

And it didn’t ‘arf look impressive when it worked out.

What changed things was a substitution that the St Pairaise trainer made after about 30 minutes.

He brought on a new attacker – the n°12 – and he immediately ignited the game.

And scored with probably his first real kick – a delightful scissor-kick volley from a corner, right into the top corner of the net.

I bet that he wouldn’t ever do that again in a million years.

And so we continued in the same vein for the second half.

An evenly-matched contest between the two teams with US St Pairaise having marginally the better of the game, but then the n°12 suddenly getting to grips with the game again.

And things then moved up a gear.

Sure enough, with about 10 minutes to go, US St Pairaise scored a second goal.

A good header from a cross – the keeper really had no chance with that.

And EC Tessy-Moyon can feel aggrieved with the result. They weren’t maybe as good as Us St Pairaise, but St Pairaise weren’t two goals better. It’s hard to see, on this performance, how it is that EC Tessy Moyon are adrift in the basement.

And interesting as it might seem, not a single yellow card today, never mind any red one. That’s something to celebrate.

On the way back, I had a real surprise in Granville. A 1960s Van Hool-bodied coach came driving round the town. Immaculate condition, clearly recently restored and very impressive.

When I finally returned to my apartment (which wasn’t easy seeing as I was stuck behind yet another grockle admiring the seagulls) I went off to see if I could find it.

No such luck though. It wasn’t on the coach park down the road, which was the obvious place to look.

But what I did see was a classic example of what can happen when you put some street furniture in the wrong place.

So “Bottoms Up” to the Town Council of Granville, hey?

On the way round, it did occur to me that I have never yet taken a photo of the sports ground just down the road here.

This is the Gymnase Jean Galfione, whoever he was when he was at home, if he ever had been … “he won the Olympic Gold in the pole vault for France in 1996” – ed.

There’s a running track there and a sports field, used by the school.

If the coach wasn’t on the coach park, it might well have been on the mobile home park, so I went for a look around there.

It wasn’t there either, but this interesting vehicle caught my eye.

With Polish plates it was bound to be different, and indeed it is. A “Laika” caravanette, named for the Russian dog that was the first living creature to orbit the earth in a spacecraft – 61 years ago to the day as it happens.

I’ve never seen one of these previously

So being totally unsuccessful, I headed back for home.

And the Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou looking so interesting, I took a photo of that too. I’ve not taken a photo of it from this angle before.

Back here, Lili brought me back my dish from yesterday evening, and then I did the photographs from today.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and very nice it was too. They are improving, although the oven still isn’t hot enough.

But now I’ve left it rather late for bed. I could have done with an early night for a change and I bet that I’ll regret this in the morning.

Saturday 3rd November 2018 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone to the football this evening. US Granville were playing the reserves of Paris St Germain at 18:00 and that was bound to be an occasion.

But instead I’d had a “communication” from one of the neighbours. Yves and Lili are moving out and a new tenant will be moving in shortly. They decided to have a farewell dinner, I was invited and the new tenant was there so I reckoned that I had better attend.

Not like me to be sociable but there are things that you have to do.

Last night I had a decent sleep and was up and about pretty smartly once the alarms had gone off.

And after breakfast I had a good shower and a clean-up. With the heater in the bathroom too. It’s definitely coming on to winter now.

On the way out to Caliburn I took the rubbish out to the skips, and then headed off to LIDL. As well as the usual stuff I bought another portable battery, seeing as they had some 3000mAh ones on offer at €12:99. The dashcam in Caliburn has a motion sensor that starts up the cam if Caliburn is knocked, but it needs a power supply to operate it when Caliburn’s ignition is turned off.

At NOZ they had some maps of France on special offer. Last year’s at just e4:99 so one of those is now in Caliburn for when I might go off on a voyage again. That replaces a map of 2002.

LeClerc came up with a crate of clementines. It must be getting close to Christmas. And a pile of coffee too seeing as I’m running out. The secret ingredient that I put in coffee makes all of the difference.

It took ages to return home, being stuck behind grockles and policemen holding up the traffic.

Lunch should have been on the wall in the sunshine but the wind blew me back in before I’d even sat down on the wall.

We had a cookery afternoon here, with me making some of my lentil, pepper and mushroom curries to take with me a-visiting.

It was a nice, quiet sociable evening but I came back here at 20:30 for the football. Bala Town v Cardiff Metro in the Welsh Premier League, and the home team ran out 3-0 victors in a rainstorm.

The big difference between the teams was Henry Jones. He’s several classes above the rest of the players in the Welsh Premier League – when he feels like it. Like much of the Welsh Premier League, there’s a big issue about consistency – they can do it now and again, but not all the time. Today though, he had one of the best games that I have ever seen him play.

In contrast, The Met’s principal playmaker, Eliot Evans, had something of an off-day and looked not even the shadow of the player he can be.

But now I have the halogen heater on in the bedroom. The outside temperature has dropped to 8°C right now and it’s only 11°C in here.

The central heating goes on tomorrow.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… evening today.

And what first drew my attention to it was the sunlight reflecting off the windows at Agon-Coutainville, about 30 kilometres away across the bay.

And this photo was taken with the 18-105mm lens, and hand-held too. It’s not come out too badly either. And in case you are wondering, the Nikon D3000 camera.

Here’s a similar photo taken at lunchtime with the Nikon D3000 and the 70-300mm zoom\telephoto lens.

After its exertions last night when the storm whipped the set-up off the concrete bunker, I gave it a good going-over this morning to see what the damage might be.

And much to my surprise, not only is there no visible damage, everything seems to work just as it is supposed to. It must be more robust than I was expecting – and certainly more robust than the old Nikon D5000.

So while you admire a few more cropped and enlarged photos of the coast out past Agon-Coutainville (and if you think that they are blurred, they are cropped and enlarged segments out of a photo taken at a distance of 30kms), I can tell you a little about the morning.

Once again, the body clock works in spades as there I was, wide awake at 05:59 precisely (because I checked). One minute before the alarm was due to go off.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I’d decided to have an extended break (to reimburse myself for my early Sunday), turned over and went back to sleep.

10:25 is a much more respectable time to haul myself out of the stinking pit.

And a breakfast at 11:15 is a very bourgeois way of starting the day in a relaxed and leisurely fashion.

All of this sleep had given me plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble or two. And much to my surprise I could remember quite a lot of it, although I’m sure that there was so much more to be going on with.

First off, I’d been on my holidays again and we had had a delay, just like when we were off to the Arctic. There were 50 of us and we were being taken around to some temporary accommodation that had been found for us. And it ended up that we were being lodged in different log cabin or garden sheds, depending upon the class of accommodation that we had booked on the holiday. I trailed along behind everyone else who was given some higher-class cabins and ended up in a cheap garden shed. Seeing as it was in a warehouse it wasn’t too bad and I wasn’t too disappointed.
This bore quite a resemblance to a conversation that I had the other night with Alison, as well as another reminiscence about my legendary trip to the Far North.
Later on, I was doing my Sherlock Holmes impressions back in Victorian times, with my sidekick and a police inspector. We were trying to work out how someone had been shot and murdered in a house where the only other occupant of the house was visibly not involved with anything. It was a house in some kind of upmarket terrace with front gardens with brick walls and gateposts with ornamental pillars. It suddenly occurred to me how it happened and I went off to rig up a system to prove my point. A shotgun wired to the door with a time delay worked by a set of pulleys would blast anyone coming through the doorway a couple of seconds after opening the front door.
And sometime during the night Nerina put in an appearance. It’s a long time since she’s come to visit me, isn’t it?

And while you admire the photo of the beach at Donville-les-Bains and the miserable place where I looked at an apartment, then this morning (or what was left of it) I attacked a few more of the outstanding photographs.

This marathon session, which took me almost right up until tea-time (with a few interruptions) means that I’m now up to date as far back as a week ago.

You can see the efforts by going here and working forward.

With having had a late start this morning, I ended up having a rather late lunch.

And it was such a beautiful afternoon that I made my butties and went out to sit on my wall overlooking the harbour.

No lizards unfortunately – I think that they have gone into hibernation – but there were lots of other things about.

One of the Ile de Chausey ferries was leaving harbour and heading off out to sea.

Not to the island by the look of things, but probably a five-bob trip around the bay for sightseers – unless it’s a private charter because it didn’t seem to be going along any route that I recognised.

But this was when I tried out the zoom/telephoto lens to check that it was working. That’s miles out into the bay near Jullouville

I had a few more goes with the zoom/telephoto lens to make sure that it wasn’t just a one-off success.

Thats the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais with the climb up to the Roche Gauthier and the blocks of flats up on the skyline.

There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with this photograph

And to underline everything, round on the other side of the Pointe du Roc, the weather was even clearer.

Jersey stood out clearer than I have ever seen it and so I took a photo of the island with the zoom/telephone lens.

Hand-held again – no tripod. And I cropped out a couple of small sections of the photos and enlarged them to see what kind of results they would give.

And if you remember from the other day when I took a few photographs of St Helier and enlarged them, then if anything these today have come out even better than those previously.

St Helier has certainly come out more clearly and more distinctly than it ever has done before.

And in case you have forgotten, that’s about 54 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

Ingrid rang me up this afternoon and we had quite a lengthy chat. So much so that it was rather late when I went for my afternoon walk.

At lunchtime someone had asked me the directions to an exhibition on the Granville soldiers in World War I

I didn’t know where it was but I made a few unofficial enquiries and managed to track it down – in the public rooms at the back here.

And one of the things that impressed me – or should I say “depressed” me was the fact while there were those who were honoured as being tué à l’ennemie, those who died of illness or disease in the army were treated less honourably, and those who were taken prisoner were treated little better than deserters.

One prisoner who escaped and made his way back to his unit via the Netherlands and the UK was treated as a spy or collaborator.

By now, it was quite late, and as I went outside I noticed the crowds gazing out to sea in the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

We were having yet another beautiful sunset this evening. The good day was drawing to a perfect climax. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had such a nice evening.

Apart from that, there wasn’t much else going on and I completed my walk without any further interruption.

Tea was a vegan burger with vegetables, and then I went off for a walk around the headland.

And what a beautiful evening it was too. Not a cloud in the sky, but thousands of stars clearly visible. Just like back in the Auvergne.

So I’ll leave you with a few more photos. I’m off to bed.

One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey

Canoeing in the sea off the Pointe du Roc

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo showing Breville sur Mer

A bit more of a beautiful sunset

Thursday 1st November 2018 – I NEVER LIKED …

… the Nikon D3000 anyway.

And I bet that I’ll like it even less tomorrow when I have a close look at it.

It was a beautiful night tonight and I could see Jersey and St Malo quite clearly in the distance across the sea with a storm blowing away in the distance. Even the lights of the wind farm 70kms away beyond Barneville-Carteret could be seen in the distance.

I took quite a few photos of Jersey in the storm, none of which worked as well as I would like. Trying to take a photo on a tripod in the pitch black in a gale in the windiest part of France is not easy

The best of a pretty poor bunch was this one taken with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

As you might expect there was far too much vibration with the 70-300mm lens and even with the 18-105mm lens with a long exposure time of 3 seconds.

But the lights of St Helier, 54 kilometres away, and the reflection of the street lights of Jersey off the clouds in the sky have come out really well given the circumstances.

And I reckon that once I get the hang of working the tripod in the dark, I might be able to get the photos to come out even better.

It’s all trial and error at the moment – plenty of trial and even more error.

And then I moved on down the coast to the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And there I was, standing on top of one of the concrete bunkers taking a few photos of everywhere in the clear light of the night, when a sudden strong gust of wind, something like the one that blew down the Tay Bridge in 1879, blew the tripod off the top of the bunker and right down to the ground, with the camera and the new 70-300 mm zoom/telephoto lens attached.

At that moment I was in the process of taking a long exposure of St Malo too. I suppose that that will come out in a very interesting fashion.

With no alarm I did my best to have a nice long sleep but it didn’t quite work out like that. I was awake early enough but despite everything I wouldn’t haul myself out of my stinking pit at that kind of time. 09:00 was much more like it.

While I was asleep though I’d been out on my travels. Driving an artic somewhere which was actually parked up in a lay-by where there was another lorry blocking me off. As I clambered into my lorry the other driver reversed his lorry so that I could leave the lay-by. A short while later I was walking down a footpath towards a lorry park on the motorway and was accompanied by another lorry driver. I told him that I was happy to go on my own but he insisted on accompanying me. Apparently there had been an “incident” and several people had been injured. And there were some of the drivers who thought that I was at fault.

After a rather late breakfast I had a lounge around for a while and then made a start on the photos from Belgium. And there were quite a few too.

For lunch I had my usual butties but I ate them inside. It’s definitely autumn outside and going cold now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos and had a few other things to do too, including some tidying up. And I managed a day without crashing out too, which is a little bit better.

Two walks too. There was the evening walk around the headland – where I had my camera incident, and also the afternoon walk around the walls.

The lighting conditions were perfect this afternoon and there was a good view of the coast.

Donville-les-Bains has come out really well, including the old hotel where I went to see that ruin of a apartment not long after I first came to Granville.

A bit too windy for the birdmen today though. There weren’t any of them out and about.

I cropped out a couple of sections of the photo of the beach and enlarged them.

As well as the old hotel at Donville-les-Bains and all of the beach cabins out there, you can see the spire of the church in the distance.

That might well be the church of Bréville-sur-Mer.

This section was cropped from the extreme left-hand edge of the photo and enlarged by about 25%.

There’s the camp site that we have seen before, and another church spire away in the distance.

That is very likely the church in Brehal and we’ve seen a much better photo of that in the past when we were experimenting with the older zoom/telephoto lens.

There weren’t any people out and about on the beach either.

You can see the waves crashing down onto the sand and the whitecaps will tell you that there was quite a wind blowing them ashore.

A few people on the promenade though braving the inclement weather.

Tea was a slice of pie that was left over from when Alison was here, with spuds and peas and carrots too.

So tomorrow I’ll check over the camera and see what the damage is. I might even switch the heating on too. I actually had the halogen heater on for an hour or so to warm up the office this afternoon.

It’s that kind of time.

Wednesday 31st October 2018 – THE BODY CLOCK …

… is working well again to day.

Never mind the awakening at 01:30 – that’s the kind of thing that happens quite regularly these days, but the being wide-awake at 05:20 can only be good news, especially as I needed an early start.

The downside of all of this is despite being off on yet another nocturnal voyage during the night, all that I can remember is that I was shepherding around another group of young ladies. But as for why, I don’t have a clue now and isn’t that disappointing when I’ve spend the evening with a bunch of bouncing beauties?

06:10 I was out of bed and it took me just 2 minutes to pack the rest of my stuff.

But not all of it.

I’ve lost the top off one of my little water bottles – one of the ones that I use to bring soya milk and fruit juice with me when I come on a Sunday.

Well, when I say “lost it” what I mean is that I seem to have brought with me the top off one of the bottles that I didn’t need and so threw away. And I must have thrown away the good top with the bad bottle, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, by 06:30 I was on my way to the railway station and it’s a long time since I’ve been out and about this early.

And doesn’t the station look beautiful in the artificial lighting?

At the railway station, instead of catching the 07:09, the 06:36 was rather late so I hopped on that without having to wait around at all.

As a result I was early in Brussels, but the Carrefour in the station was open so that I could pick up some raisin buns and some fruit for breakfast.

I didn’t have to wait long – just long enough to eat my breakfast in fact, before we were ushered up onto the platform for our train.

And on there in the windswept weather the train soon put in its appearance and we could clamber aboard. And just for a change, I was first on board.

And then we had to wait.

dDe to the late arrival of the portion of the train that arrives from Amsterdam, the TGV was 12 minutes late leaving the station.

It was one of the same rather elderly TGVs but it was much cleaner and tidier inside than usual, although there was no water in the washrooms.

And the journey was so uneventful that I can’t remember a single thing about my seating companion

15 minutes late arriving in Paris Gare-du-Nord but the Metro was quite rapid and, for a change, half-empty.

And we were on the platform at Montparnasse-Vaugirard with 20 minutes to spare.

There wasn’t even enough time to have a look around. I’d only been there a couple of minutes before they called us up to the train. And I ended up sitting next to a nice young girl, but unfortunately she wasn’t interested in having a chat.

We set off on time too and for the first 30 minutes or so I caught up with my beauty sleep.

Once I’d woken up, I carried on with my “Voyages Of The Norsemen“.

Bearing in mind that the book was published 104 years ago, it’s a totally fascinating read.

For example, Hovgaard quote a beautiful story that “There is a tradition among the Eskimos in Labrador about a fierce race of men of gigantic size and strength, who delighted to kill people. But these men themselves could not be killed by either darts or arrows, which rebounded from their breast as from a rock”..

Can you think of a better description by isolated people of small stature when they talk about Europeans of the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries dressed in breastplates? It’s now accepted unequivocally that Martin Frobisher did in fact reach and explore Baffin Island in the 1570s and breastplates would have been in his wardrobe, but it’s interesting to speculate about who might have been there before and dressed in breastplates too.

It’s a similar kind of situation that I mentioned years ago about the old Mi’kmaq legend of Glooscap building a giant canoe and planting trees in it, which can, from the isolated mind, be no better description of the building of a European ship by European people on the coast of Nova Scotia long before the arrival of John Cabot.

The train pulled in on time at Granville station, which is always good news.

Here on the platform we were met by a couple of giant pumpkins. It’s nice to see the SNCF employees enter into the spirit of Halloween.

And that wasn’t all either. All the way down into town I was assailed by all kinds of demons and ghoulies. Someone whom I knew was chased into a pit by the demons, but was dragged out by the ghoulies.

On the way past the boulangerie I stopped to pick up a baguette for lunch. It’s been a long day and I’m hungry.

On the way up the hill, I looked over the wall into the harbour.

There was Victor Hugo moored up, all dressed in some kind of corporate advertising as if she had been hired to go off on a private excursion

I heard somewhere that one of the Channel Islands ferries had been broken down for a month during the holiday season and had cost the operators a great deal of money.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the summer I did mention that I hadn’t seen her sister for quite some considerable time.

I had a very late lunch and then for the rest of the day I vegetated. I had a visit from the neighbours who invited me for a drink on Saturday, and I managed a walk around the headland later.

But it’s cold. 11°C in here and this would ordinarily be the signal to switch on the heating. Winter has arrived at last and it’s only going to get colder.

But I’m not. I’m going to be and I’m going to stay there. It’s a Bank Holiday so there’s no alarm tomorrow. I intend to have The Sleep Of The Dead, so just you watch someone come along and spoil it.

Tuesday 30th October 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… the early night for which I was hoping last night.

Just as I was planning to go off to bed, onto the radio came one of the “Saint” radio programmes. Not the 1950s Vincent Price offerings, but the much-more-modern hour-long Paul Rhys offerings.

Apart from the fact that the scripts are much more exciting and much more realistic than the TV series and the Vincent Price programmes, the voice of Paul Rhys is quite hypnotic and he has a marvellous way of building up the tension. I can’t go to bed when he starts up. I have to stay until the end.

No idea if the body-clock worked last night. It might have done but I was in no mood to look at the time anywhere. I’d switched off the telephone and was intending to sleep until I awoke. I reckoned that I needed it.

It was about 08:50 when I awoke. And even then, I just stayed flat-out until about 11:00. There’s nothing like having a nice breakfast at something like 11:30 is there?

By now though it was raining and so I had a rather damp walk down to the bus station. And here I found that I have forgotten my bus tickets too so I had to buy another 10-trip ticket. I’ll have quite a collection of these before I finish.

I didn’t have to wait too long for the bus – in fact, a matter of seconds. It took me longer to remember where I had put the bus ticket that I had just purchased.

And here’s a sticker that signifies the end of the western world, at least as far as Belgium is concerned. From now on, you are no longer allowed to bring your fritjes on board Belgian buses.

It’s another nail in the coffin of the traditional Belgian lifestyle. No longer do fritjes overcome everything.

There are roadworks in Everberg so the bus went a different way than usual. As a consequence I missed my stop and had a rather wet walk through the Flemish countryside to the English Shop.

The bad news here is that they are no longer stocking the cheap Waitrose Christmas produces, like mince pies and Christmas pudding. All that they are carrying this year is the more expensive stuff with all kinds of stuff that I can’t eat. Even the “Free From” mince pies have egg in them. So that’s ruled all of that out then, hasn’t it?

They only had two tubs of gravy browning too and that’s not really helpful either. I’ll get through those in no time flat.

It was something of a wet, weary trudge to the bus stop with all of the roadworks. And although I was on time, the bus wasn’t and I had to wait 10 minutes in the pouring rain.

Back at Leuven I nipped into the supermarket at the back of the station for a baguette and a tomato to take back to my room for a rather late lunch. I had some salad left from yesterday and some vegan cheese from The Loving Hut, as well as some fruit left over from my travels.

And then, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out yet again on the bed.

Later on, I was back out again to meet Alison.

We went to the Greenway Thai Restaurant in Parijsstraat where we both had a very nice coconut curry, although apparently not as nice as the one that Alison had had last time that we were there.

There was no hurry this evening so we stayed around for quite some time and had a good chat about this and that.

We followed that with a coffee by the fire in the bar at the Kloosters Hotel around the corner and then she drove me home.

With having an early start tomorrow, I did a quick lap round the room and did some of the packing, and now I’m off to bed. There’s a long way to go tomorrow and I can’t afford to hang around.

So I’ll leave you with a few photos of the evening just to show that the Nikon 1 can do it when it really wants to. Unfortunately, it’s not usually when I want it to or when it needs to.

The Tiensestraat in Leuven

The Muntstraat in Leuven

The Tiensestraat in Leuven again

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Fourth Hotel in the background.

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Town Hall in the background

The Martelarenplein in Leuven

Monday 29th October 2018 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

… too good right now.

The blood count and the protein loss are stable – and while that might sound like good news, it isn’t. It should be ameliorating rapidly. And even worse, they are continuing on this the Multigam treatment, even though it’s not doing what they were hoping that it would do. It seems that they haven’t come up with an alternative yet and I suppose that I shall be having it from now on, every few weeks until my inevitable demise.

That’s what I call depressing news.

And talking of every few weeks, it’s back again on 26th November and yet again on … errrr … 24th December. So it looks very much as if it’s Christmas here in Leuven. Another Christmas away from home, but at least it’s better than last year when I spent it in hospital.

And if you think that that’s bad, the very worst news is that I had a “special interview” too, with the result of which Kaatje the Social Worker was summoned to see me. Apparently people here think that I might now start to benefit from some help around the home and wheels will be put in motion.

Apparently my apartment needs to be continually in a state of pristine cleanliness to avoid me picking up a disease or a virus. Remember that they took out my spleen 30 months ago so I have no immune system. I’m thought to be in such a state that the slightest disease or infection will polish me off.

I’m not quite liking the sound of this.

But at least my body clock is functioning correctly.

Wide awake at 05:13 and that’s good news. I hope that it keeps on going. That will be useful. But I do have an early start on Wednesday so I bet that the body clock will fail to respond on that morning.

It goes without saying that I didn’t leave the bed quite then. No point in rushing and anticipating the alarm when I have plenty of time.

Plenty of time to reflect on my little nocturnal voyage last nignt, because I was off on my travels again. I was the father of a young girl and I’d sent her to a finishing school in Switzerland (although she was far too young for that). After a few months I’d travelled to Switzerland to see how she was doing, to find that she was out on the ski slopes skiing. I waited for her, and she eventually came down to join me. We ended up sitting on a terrace thinking about ordering a meal, when she decided to go into the bar for “the usual reasons”. On her way in she started to talk to a boy by the door, and had a brief conversation with him.
When she came back we went off to the restaurant and while we were waiting to order I asked her what the conversation was all about. She replied that she had mentioned where she was going for lunch in the hope that he would come over to chat. Obviously he wasn’t all that interested, and she told me that while she was up on the ski slopes she had chatted to a few other boys and told them about her lunch arrangements, hoping that one of them would come down to accompany her. But not one of them turned up and I felt really sorry for her because she seemed to be so disappointed.

We had the medication of course, and then the breakfast. Following which I attacked some work that had built up.

With having had a shower last night, I didn’t bother with one today but instead, had a good shave and a clean-up before heading for the hills.

The weather was rather cloudy, misty and overcast and showed no real sign of brightening up. And quite cold too. It made me reflect that when I was last here for a night in Leuven, for my July visit, I was sweltering in the heat. Last night, I had the heating on full-blast.

In the Tiensestraat the shops change hands regularly and it’s always interesting to see the comings and goings.

This is the latest arrival, the Bia Mara fish and chip shop, although he’s not quite arrived yet.

But I think that he might be on a hiding to nothing. Perhaps he hasn’t heard about Brexit and the abolition of Free Movement for UK citizens.

He would be better off offering mosselen en fritjes.

Here at Castle Anthrax I was early. But I still had to wait rather longer that I should to be plugged in and wired up. I was weighed too, and much to my surprise I’ve put on the weight that I had lost. I couldn’t believe that all of the food that I ate on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I lost weight, yet back home where I’ve been more restrained I’veput on weight.

But once it was organised, that was that. I lay in a state of semi-consciousness for most of the day drifting in between wakefulness and sleepiness. Not that there was much else to do.

Once I was liberated from my chains, I left and then had to go back again to pick up my wallet that had fallen out of my pocket behind the chair where I was sitting.

On the way back, I called in Delhaize for food for tea and then in the Loving Hut for some more vegan supplies.

Back here, at 128% of my daily activity, I crashed out on the bed for an hour. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?

Tea was baked potatoes and chili beans, and that’s my lot. I’ve done enough for today and I’m going to have a lie in tomorrow to recover my strength and then go for a bus ride.

Sunday 28th October 2018 – AND HERE I AM AGAIN!

Safely shored up in my home from home from home in the Dekenstraat in Leuven. All ready … “I don’t think” – ed … for my visit to Castle Anthrax tomorrow, where I hope that Doctors Piglet and Winston will be practising their arts (although, knowing me, I’ll end up with a retired Bulgarian discus-thrower).

Last night was another night that was later than intended too. But there’s nothing whatever wrong with my body clock because at 05:17 (which is 06:17 in real money) I awoke bolt-upright.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave my stinking pit at that time though. I did at least wait for the alarms to go off before showing a leg, and then out to the medication as usual.

While I was waiting for the medication to work I made my butties for the road. It’s a long day of course with plenty of waiting about, usually in places where there isn’t any food or drink. And even if there is, I usually can’t eat it anyway.

After breakfast I did some tidying up – not much, and it’s the first time that I’ve ever gone away from home and left it in a tip. Due mainly to not having had the energy to clean it up this last week or so.

As I have said before, I can see myself going slowly downhill and one of the (many) reasons for keeping this blog is to keep a check on my health, my moods and my state of mind and to be able to compare it with entries from a while ago in order to plot the deterioration.

I definitely think that it was my efforts in the High Arctic that finished me off, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As Neil Young once famously said, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
My my! Hey hey?

Having taken the rubbish to the bins and having backed up the laptop, I trudged off my weary way to the station.

And it was weary too. Everything is in the big rucksack (which now has a broken clip due to an accident in the bedroom just now) and while that has worked in the past, it was a struggle today. But then again, dragging a small suitcase behind me would have been even more of a struggle. I’m just glad that I didn’t have the giant one to bring. I would never have managed with that today.

Much to my surprise, the train was on time at Granville. I grabbed a coffee from the machine and leapt aboard. I should have had a seating partner – a nice young girl – but the train wasn’t all that full so she toddled off to an empty seat nearby.

The silence and the emptiness didn’t last long because at Vire we were invaded by a trainload of boy and girl scouts. But they cleared off after a while to another part of the train.

Never mind the “by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong” – I reckon that we were that many aboard the rain by the time we pulled into Montparnasse. And I’ve no idea why because the school holidays aren’t over yet.

Last time that I was here on a Sunday the whole place was heaving in total chaos. And it was just the same today. I’ve never seen so many people about on the station.

And the queues for the tickets for the Metro were enormous. It’s a good job that I still had one left over so I could proceed to the platform directly.

The Metro was heaving too but luckily I could grab a seat by the door and there I stayed. But I had noticed that carrying my rucksack seemed to be a lot easier than it had been earlier in the day even though there was the same amount of stuff in it.

The queues for the Metro tickets at the Gare du Nord were much smaller- only 6 people in front of me and two cashiers – so I took advantage by buying another carnet of 10, seeing as I had the time.

A single journey is €1:70 but a carnet of 10 is €14:90 so it’s a decent saving, and it also means that you don’t have to hand around in these enormous queues all the time.

Up in the Gare du Nord it took me ages to find a place to sit and eat my butties. I’d tried outside but it was freezing and there was a bitter wind blowing down the alley between the station and the offices next door.

On the TGV to Brussels and I slept most of the way. I may as well make the most of the opportunities that come my way.

We were bang on time in Brussels- 15:47.

And the 15:52 to Leuven was bang on time too which meant that I had only just enough time to grab my ticket. I had a very bizarre and garrulous seating companion who told me loads of stuff that I didn’t really want to know, and then he promptly fell asleep.

I’ve never heard anyone snore as much as he did, but he soon awoke when he realised that he was about to miss his stop at Brussels-Nord. I’ve never seen anyone so big move so quickly. Evidently his bow tie could double up as a propeller if necessary.

A good stride out from the station brought me to my lodgings where I was immediately recognised by the proprietor. Unfortunately my room is not one of the quieter rooms but it’s still good.

And unpacking, I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring an ice cube bag with me.

For tea I went into town to pick up a peng … errr … pizza. Which reminds me – mustn’t forget to buy some more vegan cheese tomorrow.

Back here and a shower and then an early night with a Bulldog Drummond film. And true to form, I fell asleep after 5 minutes.

Final word though goes to my friend Clare in the Auvergne. She told me that today they had had the first snow in the Auvergne, and she sent me a photo.

Last time that they had had snow that early (winter 2012-13) it had snowed until 25th May 2013 – a record.

Looks as if it’s going to be a long winter.

Saturday 27th October 2018 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON!

Absolutely, so it was rather later than maybe it ought to have been before I crawled out of bed this morning.

But it’s Saturday, and Saturday is shopping day, so I had my medication, had breakfast, and then had a shower.

Not that there was much breakfast to have because unfortunately we seem to have had an accident. During the night the muesli that I had made the other day somehow managed to fall off the shelf and scatter all over the floor. That was a waste.

on the way up to the shops I observed what might possibly be described as “an incident”. A crowd, including several ambulanciers together with their ambulance loitering on the edge of the quayside looking down towards the water.

I would have gone over to ask them what was happening, except for the fact that there was nowhere to park.

At LIDL there wasn’t much of any interest to tempt me – and even less than usual seeing as I’m not going to be here for a few days. But they did have a couple of things in the €1:00 bin – a wipe-off notice board, a set of A4 binders and a notepad with pen that will be much more use for taking notes around the house instead of on scraps of paper.

BUT was next on the agenda. About this broken shelf. But apparently shelves aren’t included in the guarantee, as, I suppose, so is nothing else that might break down.

But I’m rather disappointed that they had some really decent fridges and freezers on special offer at 30% off that would have been ideal for here. Much bigger and better value, but it’s too late now.

NOZ had the usual rubbish too. Wine at €1:79 a bottle so I bought a few. Not for me, but I never seem to have anything to hand when I’m invited round to people’s houses or I have people round, so it’s gone into store in the bathroom.

They also had a new delivery of maps too, including a new map of all of Europe. Much better quality, much larger scale, much more modern and much more handy to use than the one in Caliburn that dates from … errr … 1992.

I remember the issues that I had going around the Czech Republic in 2015 when I ended up navigating by the stars. High time that I updated everything.

LeClerc came up with the usual stuff, but no sprouts. Even the price tag has been taken off the freezer now. It looks as if the next time I have space in the freezer I’ll have to freeze a pile more.

But they did have frozen peas, and also frozen mushrooms, seeing as I somehow managed to leave the frozen mushrooms that I had bought the other day out on top of the freezer so they had all defrosted.

With no-one keen to commit suicide on the car park today, I made it home without incident, made my butties and then went out to sit on the wall.

But not for long. Even though it was a nice day, the savage wind was really too much for me. I came in and ate them in comfort.

This afternoon US Granville were playing at Avranches down the road in the Coupe de France. I had every intention of going, seeing as the kick-off was at 16:00, but at 15:00 when I should have set out for Avranches I was flat out on the bed, crashed out.

When I awoke, I cleared up the muesli and vacuumed the kitchen area. But that was all that I could manage today.

later on it was the birthday party of Nicole, the “mother” of Gribouille. I’d been invited and I’d bought a box of chocolates for her so I went round. It was raining outside by now. The weather had changed.

We all had a good chat and something to eat, even though there wasn’t much for me.

As is usual, I didn’t stay long. I can’t keep going like I used to do, so that was that. I managed a quick plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil.

And that was that. Off to bed and an early start in the morning. Despite it being Sunday, I have the alarm set. I’m off to Leuven tomorrow on the train.

Friday 26th October 2018 – IT WAS HARD …

… this morning to get out of bed and I ended up with something of an unexpected lie-in.

And so it was something of a rather late breakfast this morning, what with one thing and another.

This led to a nice walk up town to collect my railway tickets. And it was a good job that I was somewhat later than planned because the ticket machine wasn’t working and I had to go to the booking office. It’s a good job that I hadn’t waited until Sunday to do this.

Round the corner and down the road to join the Madding Crowd at the Hotel des Impôts. And afer a rather long wait in the queue I was handed a form by a Civil Servant who smiled and wished me luck. I was rather taken aback by that.

On the way back I remembered the lettuce and I bought myself a baguette too so as to have a nice lunch. And for that, I went out onto the wall but I was only there for five minutes. It was bright and sunny, but there was a cold, biting wind and that drove me back to my apartment.

The day has been spent in editing the photos from yesterday, but also attacking a huge project that I started the other day on the other laptop. That’s taken me most of the day, and I’ve made a load of rapid progress there. I’m pleased with that.

I also spent some time on the Arctic pages too, but not as much as I would like.

The walk this afternoon around the walls was freezing. The wind has increased in volume and it was quite uncomfortable.

But at least the skies were clear and there was a really good view out to see and Jersey was quite clear.

And so I attacked the island with the new 70-300mm zoom/telephoto lens to see what I can see.

I blew up (because I can do this despite modern anti-terrorism legislation) the photo and cropped out and enlarged a few selections from the images

Very blurred and very shaky of course, but considering that we are looking at something 55 kms away and there’s a strong wind blowing, it’s not really come out too badly.

To do much better than this I’ll have to invest a lot more money than I can afford into my equipment.

But never mind the view out to sea. The view out along the coast past Donville-les-Bains all the way down to Agon-Coutainville was beautiful too.

This was taken using the 18-105mm lens with a focal length of 25mm so it’s something of a wide-angle shot.

It’s brought out the scenery and the colours, and you can tell the strength of the wind from the whitecaps on the waves breaking on the beach.

A short while ago I posted a photo of some men on a cherry-picker drilling away into the wall of a house on the rue du Nord.

It’s far too windy for them to be working up there today so I could see what they were doing.

It looks as if they are going to replace the lintel over the window there, although I can’t think why.

Here’s something that I have never noticed before.

On the corner of the rue Paul Poirier and the rue Etoupefour is a building with “Residence des Granvillaises” cast thereupon. It’s not very easy to see this from street-level

Apparently it’s some kind of holiday accommodation, but it’s probably well out of my price range and out of the range of most people who might want to visit me.

Tea tonight was the rest of the crèpes with salad. Just as delicious as it was before.

And there was no walk this evening either for we had football. Llandudno v Cefn Druids in the Welsh Premier League.

Two clubs scrapping it out in the basement and the first half was pretty dismal. It livened up after the inteval and the last half-hour was quite good. The Druids were the better-organised team but Llandudno looked the more dangerous going forward.

But with both sides being totally incapable of hitting the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument, a 0-0 draw was no surprise.

There are four clubs slowly coming adrift at the foot of the table – Llanelli, Carmarthen, Cefn Druids and Llandudno and it’s clear to see why these two are down there at the bottom. There is no-one pulling the strings and there is no-one providing the service to the forwards. Rittenberg for the Druids looked quite dangerous when someone gave him the ball – which wasn’t all that often.

So no walk – the howling wind and now the rainstorm is enough to keep me in the house tonight. I’ll have an early night instead.

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

However I shall spare you the details. You are probably eating your tea or something like that right now.

But I was so far away on my travels that I didn’t leave the bed until after the 06:20 alarm which was rather disappointing. But then, I didn’t go to bed until late so I suppose it was only to be expected.

After the medication and so on (I missed breakfast due to one reason or another) I had a shower – and a haircut too. This new hair trimmer works a treat and my hair (such as I have left) looks quite good now.

And then I headed off to the shops.

Just by way of a change I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me so that I would be ready if I were to see anything worth photographing.

And Iw as in luck down at the docks because one of the giant cranes had come back.

I’m not sure why because there were no lock gates to be replaced. It might be replacing the mast in one of the boats but I couldn’t really tell.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few months ago a photo of a house down in the rue du Port where they had demolished some of the walls.

Today, I had noticed that they were cracking on with building up the back walls.

They had made quite a good bit of progress while I was away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I hadn’t been on my way for more than 15 minutes when I realised that I had forgotten the details for my rail tickets. So I’ll have to do that again.

At LIDL grapes were €1:99 per kilo so I grabbed a load of them. Together with, finally, a pastry brush and a few other bits and pieces.

On the way back home I had to go to the Hotel des Impôts to pick up a form. But it’s only open 4 days a week. Can you guess which day of the week it’s closed?

At least, it brought me home via a new route that I don’t use all that often and with different views than the usual.

It was pretty cloudy and miserable as you can see. But none of this stopped the sailing club from taking out some of their pupils today.

Not what I would call plain sailing in this kind of weather, is it?

There’s a really good view over the harbour from this spot too. I’ve not noticed this before.

There’s the Pointe du Roc out there just to the left of centre and the Eglise Notre Dame du Cap Lihou on the skyline just to the right of centre.

Where I live is one of the large buildings just to the left of the church spire.

Walking a little further along the promenade at the bottom of the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillaises, there’s a nice little beach here.

But it’s not a beach for sunbathing or anything like that because bathing isn’t permitted here due to its proximity to the harbour entrance.

To the right are the installations of the Port de Hérel where all of the maritime activities take place and where there is the Youth Hostel.

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

Down at the end of the promenade is a nice-looking block of flats – the Résidence Port Granville – that’s maybe 30 years old or something, with the Roche Gauthier in the background.

That’s the kind of place where I would like to have a little apartment, but I saw how much it costs to rent something even smaller than where I live, and it’s well out of my budget.

That’s not a surprise though is it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the house in the rue St Gaud that was demolished a year or so ago.

The other day we noticed the rear of the plot that was being rebuilt. From down here on the promenade we can see the front of the plot and how far they have advanced with the rebuilding.

Mind you, at this rate it’ll be another year or so before they’ll finish it, I reckon.

I carried on my little stroll along the Port de Herel and I was interrupted yet again.

Earlier today, we saw a large mobile crane working on one of the boats down in the harbour. But here now we have the mobile crane having finished its work and setting off to go back from whence it came.

It’s quite a bit of serious kit, isn’t it? I can think of a thousand uses for one of those back on my farm.

By now, I’d left the port and was climbing my way up the Rampe du Monte Regret and from there, there’s a good view across to the inner harbour.

We noticed in the photo of the cranes earlier today that the Channel Islands boats were moored up in the inner harbour.

Both of them too. Victor Hugo is there of course, but the new one, whose name escapes me for the moment, is also there.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen her back here for quite some considerable time.

I’ve often wondered where she has been for all of the summer. Probably working her passage out of Barneville-Carteret I imagine.

One of these days I’ll have to get myself aboard one or the other and go for a good run around.

Back here I unpacked everything and then made a coffee, seeing as I hadn’t had one yet today. And duly refreshed, I attacked yesterday’s photos.

Lunch was taken indoors in view of the cold, windy, overcast weather. And short commons too because I forgot the lettuce.

The afternoon was spent doing the rest of the photos and working on the pages for the Arctic. It’s really slow progress and I’m not sure why because it’s not as if it’s complicated or anything. I just don’t know what the issue might be.

But then, it didn’t help with having a little half-hour curled up on the office chair.

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

Despite the cold weather, it had brightened up considerably and the sun was out making the day quite pleasant.

And the sun wasn’t the only thing that was out either. The tide was out, and so were the people.

And that wasn’t all either.

The fishermen (at least I imagine that they are fishermen) were also out there working away.

No idea what it is that they are hoping to catch, but it can’t be very much given the size of the boats. But they are out there quite often so it must be something worthwhile.

Further down along the beach, the sun and the low tide had brought out even more members of the public.

They were all there having a good look in the rock pools, presumably for crabs and other crustaceans and the like. Although I have heard that there’s a ban on harvesting from the rocks around here due to pollution issues.

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

And the other day we talked about the old stone construction on the beach that I reckoned was a tidal fish pond.

Now that the tide is going out, we can see it much more clearly this afternoon.

I would have expected to have seen more water in there given the fact that the tide hasn’t long gone out. But there are several people having a ferret about in there to see what they can see.

Round on the town side of the walls, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the rue Paul Poirier for quite some time.

It’s all covered in bunting right now and I’ve no idea why. But it still looks quite interesting from up here.

It’s not as crowded as it usually is either. On a Saturday it’s absolutely heaving, but then that’s market day so that might account for it.

There’s not much going on today so I came back here to carry on work, with another coffee to keep me going.
.

For tea, I had a frozen potato and chick-pea curry from last year. And it was just as delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my night-time walk.

I took the 50mm lens and the tripod with me and took a hotograph in the dark of the rue do Nord inside the walls and the Plat Gousset.

On the left-hand edge of the image is the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

But the purpose of going out so armed was to have some more fun with long exposure photos

The scenery didn’t come up too well, but the moving car lights were a great improvement on what I managed yesterday.

I was out there for a good half-hour amusing myself with the lights, the exposure and learning quite a lot too.

Back here, I sorted myself out and then prepared myself for yet another early night again – I hope.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Hotel des Impôts and then, if I remember, I can pick up the rail tickets.

I’ll leave you to look at a few more of my long-exposure night photographs.

Night-time photography with long exposure times, Rue du Port, Granville, France

EPIC HALL

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