This evening I’ve been out in the half-light playing around with the zoom-telephoto lens to see what I could conjure up.

The tide is on the turn and so the trawlers are starting to come in to the fish-processing plant.

There were dozens of them out there in the English Channel heading in to the harbour this evening. It’s going to be busy.

And talking of being busy, so was I today, although I didn’t accomplish anything monumental.

The alarms went off as programmed and, much to my surprise, I was out of bed quite early too.

There was the medication and then breakfast of course, and afterwords for several hours I had some personal stuff that I attended to, including reprogramming the fitbit. And that took me longer than I anticipated too.

Once that was out of the way I had a shower and then made a start on tackling the web page for the First Day On The Somme.

Or, more to the point web PAGES because there are going to be more than one. Many more than one in fact.

With a break for lunch, it took me all the way up to my time for the afternoon walk to go through all of the dictaphone notes, extract the notes for each photo and put them in the correct place.

It also involved a considerable amount of research too, especially trying to track down the fate of two early RAF flyers buried in Carnoy military cemetery.

But I did manage to go out for my walk around the walls this afternoon.

And in keeping with my nautical theme of today, I noticed a movement or two out to sea so I coupled up the big telephoto zoom lens to the big Nikon so I could see what was going on.

The first image is actually a trawler out there in the English Channel.

The second movement was much more exciting.

There’s a zodiac or other type of inflatable boat steaming along flat-out across the bay. It’s difficult to see where it has come from and where it’s going to. There was nothing obvious at all out there.

But as long as they are enjoying themselves it doesn’t really matter.

But around the other side of the walls I was treated to a considerable amount of excitement, not the least of which was the sudden rainstorm that had erupted.

For some reason or other a couple of seagulls decided to have a fight, and they were going at it hammer and tongs, egged (if that’s the correct word to use for a bird) on by a couple of spectators.

Had I not had the telephoto lens on the camera already, i would have missed all of this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day we saw a red and white trawler doing a nautical danse macabre in the inner harbour.

It’s here again today, tied up at the quayside by the fish-processing plant. On reflection, it probably is a local trawler – one that maybe I haven’t noticed very much over the last couple of years.

I suppose that I really ought to be paying more attention to what is going on out there in the harbour.

Back here I had a hot chocolate and my brazil nuts, and then attacked the dictaphone notes. It’s amazing, the stuff that I had dictated and then completely forgotten all about.

In fact, I’m quite looking forward to getting into the notes from three and four years ago. I wonder what gems I’ll unearth then.

Tea was a burger with baked potatoes and veg followed by strawberries and that coconut-flavoured soya cream.

And then I went out for a walk. Luckily the rain of this afternoon had stopped so it was a reasonably fair night. And as I said earlier, the trawlers were now coming into harbour.

So I quickly took a photo of this one before I coupled up the big lens.

And I’m glad that there was still some light left and that I had the big lens on the camera, because I noticed something moving across the bay near the Brittany coast.

I couldn’t quite make out what it was so I took a photo of it. And when I was back here I enlarged and enhanced it. And as luck would have it, turned out to be some kind of galleon-type schooner thing.

I was really impressed with how this turned out considering the lack of light and the distance it was from me.

That wasn’t the only sailing craft out there this evening.

out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel is another one. and although I can’t be sure as to which boat it might be, it could well be our old friend Charles-marie going out for a sail into the evening sun.

And one of these days I’ll be out there with them. I’m determined to get out to sea one of these days.

As I said earlier, there could have been anything up to a dozen fishing boats heading in to harbour this evening.

It really is busy in there. Ther emust have been at least a dozen already tied up in there and some were having to be parked two abreast.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me wish that I was here 40 years ago when the fishing was in its heyday. it must have been a magnificent sight with all of the deep-sea trawlers going in and out of here.

So now I’m back, and looking foward to a good night’s sleep. Although I did a lot today, there was nothing of any substance. Tomorrow will be different as I have a lot of important stuff backing up.

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

la grande ancre trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

seagulls fighting granville manche normandy france

charles marie baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france