Wednesday 29th November 2017 – I THOUGHT …

… that we had seen the back of the Combattant today.

This afternoon, after a rather late lunch, I braved the games yet again. And this was probably the strongest of the strong winds that we have been experiencing just recently.

Just three or four of us out and about there were, and that’s no surprise either, even though there was a blue sky and a nice sun. But at least I got to see Combattant steaming … "dieseling" – ed … out of the harbour and off into the afternoon sun.

I missed the seconf alarm today. having had a good night’s sleep it was the first alarm that awoke me at 06:00, and I remember noting that at 06:06 and I ought to be getting up very soon. But instead, I must have dropped off again and I was still in bed when the second alarm went

For breakfast I tried a novel approach. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a coffee machine the other day, but it won’t keep warm. And I bought a thermos flask last week. So I made a pot full of coffee this morning and poured it into the flask to drink during the day.

It sort-of kept warm for much of the day but by 16:30 when I came back from my walk the heat had gone off. But at least it’s some kind of progress for now.

And as for the highlight of the day, I took some of the rubbish to the Container outside. Or was it making a fresh load of muesli? How about that?

Tea tonight was pepper stuffed with bulghour, tomato, olive, onion, garlic and peanuts on a bed of pasta, frozen peas and fresh carrots tossed in a tomato sauce. And delicious it was too.

Later on, I went for a solitary perambulation around the city walls in the hurricane. Clear skies, visible stars, and the lights at Jersey and those on the wind turbines at Barneville Carteret clearly visible again.

No cat, but Commandant was back working again – obviously gone to empty itself of a load of silt earlier.

Back here, no electricity. There’s something tripping the fuse that works the sockets where the coffee machine, the kettle and the cooking hob are plugged in. That’s about 4 or 5 times that that’s happened now.

Tuesday 28th November 2017 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I managed to get out and about this evening for my walk.

The weather deteriorated yet again this evening, but the rain stopped round about 20:45 so I set off for my stroll.

The clouds had gone too and despite the howling gale it was another one of these rally clear nights. So much so that not only could you see the lights on Jersey 30-odd miles away, but the red flashing lights on the wind turbines that we saw the other day way out at Barneville-Carteret.

While I was on my way round I saw my feline friend too but he paid little attention to me, being far more interested in stalking a small dog wandering down the street.

JUst by way of yet another change, I awoke early today. At about 04:10. And I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. But I must have been well away because the alarm awoke me at the normal time. And I managed to be out of bed by the time the second alarm went off.

After I take my medication, I usually have to wait about half an hour before I can eat breakfast, and I use that time to see what is happening in the world. Instead, I found two friends of min from the USA on line so we had a chat. And the next thing that I noticed was that it was now 09:45.

Too late for breakfast. I just had a coffee instead.

And in line with my new procedures, I had a shower too. I need to take far more care of myself than I’m doing. And a nice hot soak in a nice warm bathroom (that little halogen heater that I bought all those years ago is really paying dividends) did me the world of good.

After a rather late lunch, I went for my walk around the headland – about three of us there were out there in total. And that’s hardly a surprise given the wind and the overcast sky (it wasn’t yet raining at that point). And I followed up my walk with a coffee and a snooze as usual.

Tea was one of the vegan pies that we made the other Sunday – I need to make some space in the freezer. With mashed potatoes, frozen peas, frozen sprouts and fresh carrots cooked in the steamer, with gravy made from the liquid, it really was delicious, And that was followed by my evening perambulation.

And now it might even be an early night. You never know your luck.

Monday 27th November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… go out for a walk this evening either. And for the same reason too. The day was grey and miserable but this evening the weather deteriorated and we had another torrential downpour after tea.

I’d had a good night’s sleep too. And away on my travels as well. Living temporarily in various rooms here and there about the place just like I have been doing until quite recently. My path crossed another guy who was one of mu co-cottiers. He described some of the places in which he stayed, and it seemed that we had stayed in the same places. He told me how much he had paid, and I was desperately trying to work out if I had been charged more than he had.
Meanwhile, a young boy and girl were in a swimming pool splashing around – the swimming pool being lined with sausages. These kids started to kick the water about and that attracted a shark that attacked them. The police were called and they ended up staying in one of the places where I was staying.

Today was one of those days when I didn’t do too much. I’ve been working on the internet and catching up with what I missed while my news reader was offline (it came back on line dramaically at about 10:00).

After lunch I went for a rather windswept walk around the headland. And I was effectively on my own. I didn’t count more than two or three people out there this afternoon.

Another crash out this afternoon – and for an hour or so. Well away I was too. This kind of thing is getting me down but I suppose that I have to make the best of it. It’s not going to get any better.

But tea tonight was good. Some peppers and a tin or mushrooms, and I made a curry. Having bought som coconut milk over the weekend I added some of that in there too. It was quite delicious and there are another four helpings to go into the freezer.

So with no walk this evening I’m going to have an early night. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better and the weather will improve.

Sunday 26th November 2017 – AFTER LAST NIGHT’S …

… early night, I was wide awake at … err … 04:50.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I stayed in bed and tried my best to go back to sleep. And it must have worked because I was off on my travels, as a black boy living in a white family, that might even have been my own. I know that I’m very different from the rest of my siblings, but this is being ridiculous.

09:42 when I crawled out of bed. That’s much more like it. And a 10:30 breakfast – that’s even better.

But here’s some bad news – Altavista, the company that provides me with my Usenet newsreader service, seems to have gone offline. I’m rather lost without that and I hope that it comes back on line pretty soon.

With a late breakfast, it was a late lunch too. And then I went out for a walk. I should have gone out to find a footy match but I wasn’t really in the mood.

We’re having more of these uusual, clear weather conditions again.

Something out on the skyline caught my eye, and the camera and zoom lens told me that it was the marker lights and buoys on the rocks just offshore from the Iles de Chausey. I’ve never seen them as clear as this before.They were quite impressive.

And it was a quiet walk – not very many people around and no-one wanted to chat.

Having had what is becoming my regular afternoon snooze, I made a pizza again. And I dp like this idea of putting pepper on the topping before the cheese. It gives it a lovely kick.

No chance of going for a walk this evening though. It’s absolutely pouring down. I’m going to stay in and have an early night. Make myself redya for the start of yet another week.

Saturday 25th November 2017 – YOU MISSED …

… all of the excitement this morning.

We arrived at LIDL to find this sight greeting us. No idea what had happened but someone has been hit in the rear and the car abandoned on the side of the LIDL car park. There’s a story here, right enough.

But something else I missed were the little hand-held whizzers with three attachments that they had on special offer. just before 10:00 when I arrived here, and they had all gone.

I was pretty disappointed by that.

It had been a good night last night too. I’d had a decent sleep yet again and even been on a mega-ramble too.

We started off last night in an airport in the UK (might even have been Manchester) ready to fly out to Canada. And whether we had actually flown, we found ouselves in a very neglected and overgrown field that was used by the kids as a rock concert venue. I had a caravan there. But instead of being there, we ended up in some kind of library or bookshop hiding out, because there were some weird goings-on reporte from there. And so after a few hours, three small kids appeared from out of the wall. We let them go about their business for a while and then took them up. They were telling us that there was a fourth sibling who was very ill but they didn’t have the right to fetch a local doctor. We insisted that their mother be sent for, and when she arrived she was a young girl with curly hair and glasses. One of the boys with us announced rather surprisingly that she was his wife and so he was the father of the kids, so he went off to find a doctor. We all adjourned back to my caravan where the field was even more overgrown with weeds and nettles up to head-high. And there were several (British) policemen milling around in there. Someone said that they would be wanting to speak to me later, and everyone disappeared out of what was a very overgrown entrance. I noticed that there was a wooden booth, rather like the old beichstuhl that I built years ago, that was blocking half the entrance. We’d moved it there a while ago and I was sure that the police would want us to move it back, but I knew that it wouldn’t survive another removal.

After breakfast and a shower I hit the streets and went to LIDL as aforementioned. And my little back street route seems to be fine – did the business yet again.

From LIDL I went off to NOZ. And here I spent some cash. For a start, they had some of the seat cushions that I like for the kitchen chairs. And at €2:50 each too. They didn’t have four the same colour but they did have four different shades of dark brown so I bought one of each shade.

Another thing that I did, to put me in the Christmas spirit, was to buy a chain of different coloured LED lights for Christmas. And a few other bits and pieces, bottles of drink and that kind of thing. And some caramel-flavoured soya milk which is delicious too and I wish that I had bought some more.

At LeClerc it was just the usual stuff with nothing particularly exciting, although I was dismayed to be stuck in a queue behind a woman and a cashier who preferred to spend all of the time talking to each other than dealing with the customers in the queue behind them.

After lunch I went for my usual walk around the headland. But I didn’t get very far because we were having some unusual weather.

I’ve never seen Jersey as clear as it was this afternoon. Almost everything was visible with the naked eye today,especially when just for a moment, the sun shone down through the clouds and illuminated the island.

Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough with the camera at that moment, but there will be other moments.

But as far as the weird weather went, I was quick enough to take a photograph of the rainstorm that was raging ovet there across the other side of the bay near Cancale.

Luckily, there was a northerly wind blowing and that was pushing the rainstorm south down the bay so it wouldn’t be coming across here and soking me.

But it really was impressive

As the rainstorm moved south, the sun came out over there for just a brief minute.

And just for a change I had the camera ready, complete with the zoom lens and so I could take a quick snap of the little bay upon which Cancale is situated.

It’s 18 miles across the Bay as the crow flies, but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s a darn sight farther than that when you go there by road. It took me well over an hour last April to drive there.

I followed the storm down the bay, and I snapped this photo of a village away in the distance down at the foot of the bay.

I’ve no idea which village it might be but it’s in the area of Hirel and St Benoit des Ondes.

And having done all that, I carried on with my walk and back to the flat for my afternoon coffee and, unfortunately, another little doze. I just can’t shake this off.

And later on this evening, I braved the cold and damp and went out. No football in the vicinity but there was a local derby under floodlights at Cerences where AS Cerencaise were taking on hated local rivals US Gavray.

I’d taken a flask with me and so as you might expect, there was a pie hut here and furthermore, it was open too.

3rd Division of District football, and that’s how it started off. And how the second half started too. But apart from that it was a very good exciting game. Cerences won 2-1 in a match that could have gone either way. I shall have to come here again.

Back here I took an age to warm up, but in the meantime I made myself some baked potatoes and beans. And still freezing cold, I went to bed. may as well have an early night.

Friday 24th November 2017 – THERE AREN’T HALF …

… some interesting people living around here.

We’re coming towards the end of November and there’s a guy standoing in the sea. I couldn’t see what he was doing but taking the photo and enlarging it, I could see that he was stringing a net across the rocks just down here underneath the headland.

Good luck to him, say I. You wouldn’t catch me out there in the water at this time of year.

Last night, although it took ages to go off to sleep, I was well away until the alarm went off. And after the usual rest, brzakfast and further rest, I did a load of washing in my new machine.

That led to my switching on of the heating. It’s been turned off for the last few days. I’ve put the washing on the airer, stood it on two chairs in the bay window in the dinign area, and switched on the heater underneath it. And even as I type, it’s all comparatively dry. The heater works a treat.

After lunch and a little 20-minute snooze, I went for a walk around the headland, when I encountered our fisherman. No schoolkids today, and nothing else of any importance.

After tea though, on my walk around the walls, I encountered another furry feline friend. Rather timid, this one (as her owner explained) and when I knelt down to stroke her, she cleared off.

Tea was a tin of something old, with bulghour and pasta. Quick and simple, and quite tasty.

I’ll see about an early night too. A good sleep will do me the world of good, I reckon.

Thursday 23rd November 2017 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I’ve done 101% of my daily activity today. It’s not very often I do that these days, is it?

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night. No-one interrupted me at all and I was stark out until the alarm went off. And I only just made it out of bed before the second alarm too.

After breakfast and a little repose I had a good shower and shave and a general clean-up. And then I hit the streets. It was extremely cloudy overhead but I set off on foot nevertheless, and it wasn’t long before the rain started. But I pressed on nevertheless.

As I expected, it was a long sad haul up the hill past the railway station to the roundabout. I’m even finding that difficult these days as you know, but I have to press on otherwise I won’t ever get anywhere.

Destination was LIDL of course. Another loaf of bread, cut into three and two parts frozen for later on in the week, some menthol sweets to help me keep my nose clear, a lettuce and, on special offer, a guitar stand. That means that I can unleash the Gibbon.

On the way out, I noticed that COmbattant had gone, but the lighter and digger were still there. And so I reckoned that it had gone off to dump a load of silt.

I was quite right about that because on the way back, there she was, moored up to the lighter and back at work again.

They seem to be doing a thorough job of the dredging anyway. Maybe we might see more ships coming into the port. Some old guy with whom I chatted fairly recently did tell me that maritime traffic had declined over the past few years.

After lunch, despite my efforts up town this morning, I went for a walk. It had stopped raining and the wind had dropped slightly so it was reasonably pleasant, especially for this time of year.

And while I was out, I was chatted up by a bunch of schoolgirls from Avranches and their teacher. That was a very pleasant couple of minutes.

Despite feeling a little better today and hoping that I could go all day without crashing out, I did succumb for about 20 minutes round about 17:00. That was disappointing.

Tea was some of that frozen mushroom and lentil curry in soya cream that I made a few weeks ago. And it defrosted very well in the microwave. I’m not mad keen on microwaves as you know but they certainly do what they are supposed to do.

It was raining this evening but nevertheless I went out for my evening walk.

Around the walls again in a clockwise direction. And I seemed to be the only person out and about which was hardly a surprise.

The wind had got up again and with the tide being right in the waves were crashing on the sea wall down by the Casino. It was all very exciting and very relaxing too. I love the sound of the sea.

My mate wasn’t sitting on his window sill, which is not really a surprise, but here’s a surprise – something that I hadn’t noticed before.

It seems that we have a pizza wagon here in the old town on Thursday nights. I was tempted to go to investigate but he was rather busy. And so I’ll have to go back again; next week maybe.

Back here I had a relax for a while, and then maybe I’ll go for another early night. I hope that there will be a little more improvement in my health tomorrow.

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… beat the second alarm out of bed this morning. But there’s a good reason for that – and that is that if ever I lay my hands on whoever it was who telephoned me at 04:00 in the mornng I’ll be beating them and they’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the next couple of months.

I’d been on my travels too. On a railway station somewhere trying to unload some luggage from a carriage but wasn’t able to do it in the time allowed. But I remember thinking to my self “it doesn’t matter – it’s only a dream and it’ll be all right in real life”. From there, I went off taxiing in XCL, my red Cortina estate. I’d picked up one of my friends, a guy I knew from school, in Oak Street, Crewe, to take to Heathrow Airport to pick up another guy whom I knew at school. And I was thinking that won’t he be surprised when the other friend tells him who is the driver of the taxi.

So it was 06:45 when I arose from my stinking pit – a nice little lie-in for me just for a change. And after breakfast I had another go at sorting out another pile of photos that have been accumulating around. And it’s sad because I’ve forgotten a lot about some of the photos that I took years ago, and I’ve no idea where I’m going to find the text.

And so as a result I’ve joined a couple of groups on my social media account and am posting them on there little by little so see if any fans can help identify them. But I do wish that I knew where I saved the old “Yahoo” blog when “Yahoo” took them all offline in 2009. I shall have to organise myself better.

After lunch I carried on with the photos and spent some time sorting out the freezer, trying to make more room in there. It’s getting rather full. As a result, for tea I had oven chips with one of the vegan burgers we made the other day and the bread rool that was in there, and some frozen peas with fresh carrots. With cheese and mustard in the burger bap it was delicious.

And although I crashed out, it was only for about 20 minutes.

There was a howling wind outside and it’s been on the go all day. So this afternoon I was nearly blown off the cliff as I walked around the headland.

After tea I braved the howling gale yet again and went for a walk around the walls of the old town.

Tonight though I remembered to take the new Nikon with me so I could take some photos in the dark and see how they turned out.

This is of course the square by the casino with the beach to the left.

A little further round I could take a photo of the street that leads up to the town centre.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I first came to live here in Granville I stayed in a tiny apartment that was situated just down there at the crossroads right in the centre of the photograph.

Would you believe that that was 8 months ago now? Doesn’t time fly?

Last night when I was out I went round to the Place Maurice Marland and took a photo of it. But with the camera on the phone it didn’t come out very well.

And so on my perambulations this evening with the decent camera I took another photo of it, and it’s come out rather better.

On the way back I bumped into my new feline friend and he had a good stroke for 10 minutes. It’s very relaxing, stroking a cat. Good to combat stress.

So we’ll try for another early night, and hope that no-one interrupts me this evening.

Tuesday 21st November 2017 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… such a good day today. And after last night, I’m hardly surprised.

After I had posted yesterday’s entry, I switched the light on over the kitchen area and the bulb promptly blew out. One of the old incadescent ones that were in here when I moved in so it’s no big loss.

And although it wasn’t as early a night as I would have liked, I was asleep pretty quickly, and away on my travels. I’m not sure what I had done but I had been sentenced to death by beheading. The Queen came to see my execution so I asked her if I could have a last request. She told me not to be silly, to stop wasting time and to get on with it so I laid my head on the block hoping that it wasn’t going to be too painful.

I’ve done a little cleaning up today too. I’ve been too ill to do it this last couple of weeks but the place was in such a mess that I fetched out the vacuum cleaner and gave the place a quick once-over. And not before time either. When I can summon up more energy I’ll do some more.

Tea was mashed potatoes, vegetables and a vegan burger with onion gravy. And delicious it was too. But for some reason the steamer tripped out the main fuse and I’ve no idea why.

And for a change, I rotated my walks today. This afternoon I took my walk around the headland in the fresh air. And very pleasant it was. But it wore me out again and I was crashed out for a couple of hours when I came back. Definitely in a bad way. I felt absolutely dreadful when I awoke.

This evening I took the route around the walls in the dark. That was avery pleasant stroll too, especially in the new garden that they have created – the Place Maurice Marland.

He was someone in the French Resistance who lost his life at the hands of the Gestapo, and there’s a memorial in the gardens with the names of the other civilians of the area who similarly lost their lives.

And on the way back I encountered a new friend – an old long-haired black cat. He and I had a very long chat and social interaction.

I’ll try now to have an early night and a good sleep. I really ought to start to feel better soon because in a couple of weeks I have to go back to Belgium and I can’t go feeling like this.

Monday 20th November 2017 – I HAD A …

… better day today.

Although it wasn’t as early a night as I was hoping for, it didn’t take me long to go off to sleep. And now that my head cold is abating slightly, I slept right the way through to the alarm. And if I’d been on my travels during the night I don’t remember a thing.

Afer brzakfast; I didn’t do all that much. I’m still not full of beans. Instead I was searching for things on the internet. And I found a lot of things that, although not what I was hoping to find, were interesting all the same.

And I found the time to cut my fingernails too. They had grown like talons.

Lunch was very interesting too. For a reason that I don’t quite understand, I’ve been cutting my bread horizontally instead of vertically. Today I cut it vertically and it seemed to be much more filling than it otherwise have been.

You can see that I don’t have too much on my mind at the moment that things like this can be quite absorbing.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and so it was rather late that I went for my afternoon perambulation. I must have been feeling better if I could summon up the energy to tear myself off outside.

Tea tonight was aubergine and kidney bean whatsit in tomato sauce. Going through the freezer the other day I discovered that I didn’t have any of that stored up. And so I bought the stuff to make one. And much to my surprise I remembered to put everything in it, peanuts and olives included.

It was quick to cook but took ages to eat (just one portion, there are four to be frozen for another day) that I didn’t go out for my walk until later than usual.

i’ll see if I can have an early night tonight now. I hope that I’ll feel even better tomorrow.

Sunday 19th November 2017 – I KNEW …

… that I would suffer for my exertions yesterday, and today was one of the worst days that I’ve had just recently.

And I had a lie-in too. 7:15 when I awoke but badger that for a game of soldiers. More like 08:30 whe I crawld out of bed. I’d been on my travels too, but don’t ask me where because it disappeared right out of my head.

Having had an early night and a good lie-in, you might have thought that I was fit for anything. But that was far from the truth. It was all that I could muster to get off the sofa and go to eat breakfast. And then I sat around all morning doing very little. I couldn’t even manage the tidying up that I had promised myself that I would do.

Lunch was a struggle and thn in the afternoon I crashed out completely. And when I awoke, I couldn’t even go out for my afternoon walk.

It was a late tea . Another excellent pizza – putting pepper on it doesn’t half improve the flavour. And I managed to crawl out for a walk afterwards. I have to force myself to make an effort.

So now it’s an early night again and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. At leasr my head cold seems to be quieting down.

Saturday 18th November 2017 – I WAS WELL …

… away last night.

Although it took a while for me to go off to sleep, once I’d gone I was well-and-truly gone and I remember nothing until the alarm went off.

That’s not quite true though. I’d been on my travels last night too. I started off in a businessand the local workhouse was parcelling off the orphan children into apprenticeships (I’ll have to stop reading these Old Bailey cases from the 1750s). I was allocated a young girl and I wasn’t sure of how I could best employ her to make the most of her apprenticeship.
From here I was with someone – who might even have been Nerina, and we were n an aeroplane. But the pilot, for some reason, lost control and the aeroplane crashed, right on the main road that rus from Brussels out to the Airport. Everyone survived the crash and managed to escape, but even though there was aviation fiel all over the place I had to go back into the aeroplane to rescue Strawberry Moose.

After the usual breakfast and a little relax, I went and had a good shower, a shave and a change of clothes too. And my little halogen heater works quite nicely in the bathroom too. And deciding to make the fullest opportunity of a nice clean me, I changed the bedding too and I’ll have a nice comfortable bed to sleep in tonight. And just as well too, because it’s Sunday and a lie-in.

Once I’d gathered my wits (which doesn’t take long these days) Caliburn and I went to the shops.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that just recently I’ve been walking up to LIDL and back, and so I decided to drive up the way that I came back on foot the other day. And much to my surprise, I was there in half the time without any queues and hold-ups at all. I’ll have to try this way again.

I didn’t spend anything special in there, but I made up for that later.

I called in at GIFI on the way out. It’s winter and with no pie huts at the football matches I’m freezing to death. And so I bought myself a thermos flask so that I could have some coffee to warm me up. And I bought a few other things too – but nothing exciting.

At the biocoop I bought some more vegan sausages and some sunflower seeds for the muesli, And next stop was NOZ. A few bits and pieces there too, including some sea salt. Not necessarily for the salt, but for the jars. They were those nice hexagonal ones that I like.

In the Auchan I didn’t spend anything special yet for some reason that I don’t understand my bill there came to almost €25:00 I’m not sure what I spent it on.

But I did have a laugh as I was leaving. the Beaujolais Nouveau is now arriving in the supermarkets. The story behind the race to the market is that one year the crop was so awful that it didn’t last more than a couple of weeks so there was a rush to gt it to market and sell it before it spoiled on the shelves.

Here at Auchan my favourite beaujolais Nouveau was on offer and I consider its name to be extremely apt.

I couldn’t have called it anything better myself.

By the time I returned home it was 13:30, and by the time I’d unpacked, it was lunchtime.

After lunch I crashed out for a while – I’m clearly not doing very well these days, and then at 16:00 I hit the streets again – but on foot this time.

It took me ages to climb the hill up ast the railway station and I had to stop a couple of times to get my breath. Nevetheless, it was a mere 16:35 wwhenI arrived at the Stade Louis Dior.

Granville’s 2nd XI, in blac, were taking on Agneaux FC, two places above them in Regional Lzague 2.

This was one of the most exciting matches that I have seen for quite some considerable time.

Granville took the lead after just 3 minutes. A ball upfield, the keeper shouting “leave it” and he ran out of his goal to kick it … right into the back of one of his own players

The ball bounced clear, right onto the path of an attacking Granville forward and with the keeper stranded, the attacker had the simplest of chances.

And then the match went in pells. We would have 10 minutes of Granville pressure followed by 10 minutes of Agneaux pressure, and then it would swing round again. Three good (if lucky) saves by the Granville keeper, Granville thumped the Agneaux woodwork twice, but the score didn’t increase.

We did have a minor interruption when there was a major car acident in the street outside.

The two clubs have changed position in the table after this result and that’s good news.

At the final whistle, a brisk walk took me round the corner and down the street to the Sports Centre, where US Granville’s 3rd XI was taling on CO Sourdeval. Granville are third bottom and Co Sourdeval are second from top, so I wasn’t expecting much.

The final result was 3-2 to Sourdeval and the only mystery about this match was how Sourdeval scored only three. Because Granville were pretty poor, clueless and totally disorganised.

Granville’s two goals were a free kick that confused everyone at the back post and a solo run from the halfway line by the centre-forward. But apart from that, they didn’t offer bery much.

I walked back here via the fritkot for a bag of chips, and then went straight to bed. I think that today has taken an awful lot out of me. At least my new flask played dividends.

Friday 17th November 2017 – I’M NOT FEELING …

… myself today.

And quite right too – disgusting behaviour.

That’s actually something of a surprise, I suppose, because last night i actually had what passes for a reasonable night’s sleep. In bed comparatively early and although it took ages to drop off, I slept right through to the alarm (and almost right through to the second alarm too).

I’d been on my travels too but don’t ask me where. As soon as I awoke it all disappeared out of my head.

During the morning I didn’t do too much except to fetch some bread out of the freezer because I had forgotten to do so yesterday evening. It needed defrosting in the microwave for lunch and it came out really well.

This afternoon was pretty bad. I crashed out completely a couple of times. Firstly for 20 minutes and then for a considerable time. But I did manage to force myself out of the apartment to go for a walk later on. I wasn’t feeling at all like it – in fact, I was feeling like death warmed up. I would quite happily have lain down and not got up again.

This evening I had some of the potato and chick pea curry that I had made a while ago. I wanted to see how it had come out and how it would taste after being frozen and then defrosted. And it tasted quite good. The water separated out of the mixtue though so I added some gravy granules and that restored it. I’ll have to buy a tube of tomato paste to use wiht the tomato dishes.

I’ve been out for a walk tonight although I didn’t feel like it, and I’ll soon be going to bed. I hope that I can shift this heavy head cold soon.

But as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, once I catch a head cold it stays for the winter. And in my state of health I can’t afford that.

Thursday 16th November 2017 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

…Shepherd’s delight
Redsky in the morning, Avranches is on fire.

We were treated to a most glorious sunrise this morning – one of the nicest that I’ve seen for quite a while. And so I snapped a photograph of it through the window. It was rather too cold to open it.

It’s the kind of thing that can cheer me up. We’ve said before about how Ancient Man worshipped the sun and it’s seeing things like this that helps you to understand why.

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had another bad, congested night. It took hours to go off to sleep and I was awake quite early on.

But I’d been on my travels too. Back to the back garden of Vine Tree Avenue where I was ill and the place was all overgrown. And who should come along to help me (in reality to do it for me) but Guus and Lieneke.
And later I was with Nerina and I was itching to show her the waterfall that I had discovered out in the wilderness. She agreed to come, and this meant descending into the bowels of an emigrant ship past all of the desperate people in there, and then going down through the holds and bilges. I could see that Nerina was unhappy about it and I was doing my best to encourage her and urge her on. I knew that it would be well worth the effort once she got to see it, but it was hard to motivate her.

After breakfast I loitered around for a while to give my tablets an opportunity to work and then I hit the streets.

From my vantage point by the drawbridge I can look down on the harbour and see what is going on.

And we can see what Combattant is doing down there right enough. There’s a lighter now moored up alongside and that has a digger on board. I’d heard about a project to dredge the harbour and it looks as if they are making a start.

As an aside, I did once hear a story about dredging in the Port of London where a dredger pulled up a car that had been in there for 30 years – and still had the occupants in it.

Grima was still down there too. She had unloaded her cargo of scrap – it was one of these mini-Ford-Transits –
and was busy loading up a pile of stuff to take back to Jersey.

But what caught my eye was the pontoon tied up to the side of the boat. It made me wonder what was going on down there and so I resolved to go down for a look on my way back.

At the moment, I was off to LIDL.

It was a struggle for me to get up the hill. I clearly wasn’t feeling much like it at all, being ill as I am. But eventually I made it up there and picked up a loaf of bread and some pastry. I fancy having a go at another pie

I had a slow walk back down to the harbour for a look at Combattant.

The lighter by her side is called Ar-Mor. That’s an old Celtic word for Brittany and means “Land of the Sea” or “Land by the Sea”. Until comparatively modern times Brittany was known as Armorica.

There was a crewman working on the Combattant and we had quite a chat. He confirmed that she was here to dredge and would be here a few days. That explains,
by the way, her erratic port movements.

Down the dockside to the Grima and I soon found the reason for the pontoon. We have a frogman in the water having a good look at the underneath of the ship.

Talking to the skipper, it seems that there’s something blocking one of the water outlets – and while we were chatting, the frogman pulled a huge pile of seaweed out.

And here’s an interesting thing – to put a diver in the water in the port of St Helier costs a minimum of £1,000. Here in Granville, it’s simply an hourly charge. And that’s the reason why he was having it done here

We had quite an exciting chat too – putting the world to rights, and as he was doing that, a lady went aboard. Subsequent enquiries revealed that he has a licence to carry 12 passengers, and that there are some cheap hotels on the Quayside at St Helier. Now doesn’t that conjure up all kinds of interesting ideas for a weekend away?

But the most interesting part of our discussion was when I mentioned that I had a Ford Transit van. He occasionally needs the odd pallet of stuff collecting and no way of doing that, and so he eagerly wrote down my phone number.

After lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so and then did some tidying up on the shelves again to make even more space.

Tea was delicious tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so it was a tin of ratatouille with pasta. And doesn’t the ratatouille taste better with a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of chili powder?

I’ve been for a walk tonight and now I’m hoping for an early night and a better sleep.

Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

… down in the harbour today.

I was out for a walk around the cliffs today and there in the distance I noticed the arrival of our old friend the Grima. And so I quickly scuttled on round to the other side of the promontory to watch her come into port.

There wasn’t anything piled up on her dock so I hadn’t been expecting her to arrive today.

I’d never actually seen her come into harbour … "yes you have" – ed … and so I was keen to see her come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into port.

She was carrying the usual load of scrap, including a white van something like a VW Caddy. And so I’ll have to go down to the port tomorrow to see what she’s fetched over from Jersey.

And, more to the point, what she’s actually going to be taking back because I’m sure that she wouldn’t find a one-way trip all that profitable. She’s need a return load.

And my luck was certainly in this afternoon.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph that there was another ship on the horizon looking as if it was about to come into port.

And you wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption because chugging into port behind Grima came Combattant. And she’s vertainly new to us here in Granville. I’ve not seen her here before.

She seems to spend all of her working life out along the north-east coast of the Cotentin peninsula working her way around places like Cherbourg and Dieppe, and has come here from Le Havre.

I thought that she might have been another gravel boat, but she is actually much smaller than they are – at just 55 metres.

But nevertheless, watching her negotiate the chicane into the port was quite interesting and quite a feat of seamanship.

As we admire her passing through the harbour gates, I couldn’t see what she was carrying. Or what she was taking away either because she didn’t tie up at the gravel dock but at one of the fishing quays

But whatever it was she’s come here to fetch, it won’t be much because she’s only rated at 668 tonnes and you won’t go far with that.

And much to my surprise, she’s quite an elderly ship – dating from 1977. And she looks it too

I’d had another bad night, despite going to bed early. Head cold again prevented me from going to sleep and it woke me up at about 05:15 too, so all in all it was a disappointment. No wonder I’ve spent most pf the day crashed out on the sofa feeling ill.

But I’ve done some more tidying up on the shelves in the kitchen and it’s looking quite good on there now. Plenty of space for everything now.

And then we had our afternoon walk.

Tea was oven chips, burger (one of those we made the other day) in a bap with peas and carrots. And delicious it was too. And then I went out for my evening walk.

Jersey was even clearer tonight than it was last night and we had something of a light show. With the clouds higher in the sky over there (it was cloudless here) the glow in the sky was beautiful.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. And I hope thzt I can have a better night’s sleep. I’m definitely not feeling up to anything right now.

EPIC HALL

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