Remember yesterday when I said that I had a day with no interruptions booked, and that I bet some basket comes along and spoils it.
Well, 10:30am. That’s when I had my first phone call, about a job that needed doing more-or-less immediately and with someone hanging on the phone while I made a start I could,’t put it off until a time more convenient to me.
That was followed at various times during the day of about half a dozen e-mails all of which needed some kind of immediate attention. At one point I was so engrossed that I almost missed the Post Office.
But let’s just say that after all of that, I didn’t manage to accomplish anything really of what I had set out to do, and that includes continuing the updating of the web pages, a task that I had missed off the list yesterday.
Last night wasn’t as early as I would have liked. I’d started a task – editing the photos – and I was intent on at least doing some of it. Again, not as many as I would have liked but at least a few of the enormous backlog.
For a change, I beat the third alarm quite comfortably and after the medication I attacked the dictaphone notes – with a little pause for breakfast.
It seems that I’d been on something of a travel last night too. I was recording programmes again for the radio (and when I say “again”, you’ll find eventually that I’d been dreaming about this a couple of times just recently). There was one that should be done every month and we were having to record four or five of them. We were doing them from different venues and there was some guy who was extremely interested in it and was hanging around watching and listening and making notes of what was going on. And there was another one that should have been done every month and that was a cricket broadcast and for some unknown reason they had done three broadcasts consecutively one after the other in the USA, about cricket matches in the USA and broadcast to the USA. Whether they were trying to get the USA to take up cricket, something like that I really don’t know. The chat with this guy who wanted to know what was going on was extremely interesting and I wish that I could remember more of what I was doing during the night.
Once the dictaphone notes were finished I began the photos. I thought that there were probably 100 or so. I never expected them to be as many as 146.
And with the continued spate of interruptions throughout the day it took me up to about 16:00 just to edit them. I haven’t written up the tabs yet
Despite everything that was going on today, I did manage to get out and about for my three walks today.
But wait a minute – what’s this? Here’s Spirit of Conrad right enough, and I know that Omerta has gone, and went a few days ago too, but where’s Aztec Lady?
She was here yesterday but she’s not there now. The ground’s all flat etc etc.
Actually, I do know what happened to Aztec Lady because I saw her go when I went out for my dejeunette at lunchtime.
Here she is, in the portable sling being carried down off her perch to the dry dock which, presumably with the tide being in, is now a wet dock.
And you’ll notice the steps there on the left. They are the stairs of the Escalier des Noires Vaches, my route down to the rue du Port that I take on my morning perambulation.
Having been put back into the water after (presumably) the repairs have been completed, she’s off to find her berth again in the wet harbour, presumably somewhere over there between Victor Hugo and Charles Marie.
What I’ll have to do now is to go and hunt down her web site and see what trips are planned for the forthcoming season. I want to get back out to sea.
Maybe I should turn my attention elsewhere in that case.
Under cover of darkness it seems that Normandy Trader has sneaked into harbour. She’s now tied up in the usual place underneath the lifting crane which they use for unloading her and Thora.
Anyway, I was late. I was doing something – one of these urgent jobs – on the computer when I suddenly noticed the time. 11:40 – and there was a parcel to pick up from the Post Office and they close at 12:00.
Having picked up my parcel just in time, and picked up my dejeunette for lunch, I went down to the harbour to talk to the guys on Normandy Trader. I’d seen just now that they were about.
But badger me! Just as I got round to the quayside it was a case of “cast off for’rard, Sub Lieutenant Phillips” and they let go of the lines and set out for sea.
They must have heard me coming. That’s all I can say.
It’s really not my day, is it?
Lugging my heavy parcel I headed off back up the hill in the rue des Juifs and stood at the top, watching Normandy Trader heading off out of the harbour into the open sea with the Pointe de Carolles in the background.
Still, there will always be another day, I suppose. I went back to the apartment and carried on with the photos.
At about 15:50 I downed tools and took myself outside for my walk around the headland.
The wind had died down but there was some kind of weird sunlight effect yet again. The Ile de Chausey seemed to be bathed in some kind of bizarre blue light and everything seemed to be so clear. You could even see the colours of the houses quite clearly.
I’ve never seen it look like this before so I took a photo of it for the record.
While I was musing about the island, I was buzzed by a light aeroplane passing by overhead.
Because of the angle at which it’s flying, I couldn’t make out its registration number so I can’t tell you what it is. Anything that I might likely say would be pure guesswork and your guess is as good as mine.
And so I walked on, past the chantier navale and took the photo of Spirit of Conrad that I showed you earlier.
From up on the top of the cliffs I could see blue flashing lights in the distance so I took a long-distance photo to see what was going on.
It’s the day of the General Strike today and everyone seems to be demonstrating in the streets.
And that’s what gets on my wick. This strike is supposed to be against the Government yet the strikers are out there not interfering with the Government but interfering with the ordinary citizens.
Why should the ordinary citizens suffer because of all of this? It’s nothing to do with them at all.
Something else on my list of jobs to do was to start another project in order to keep myself well in advance. And so Project 007 is now under way. The music has been selected and tomorrow I’ll dictate the notes.
And then on Thursday I can make up the file. Three days per project – if I can keep that up it will be fine I reckon.
That took me up to tea time and I made the pizza that I had promised myself. It took ages too because I made a rice pudding too and that seemed to absorb all of the heat because although that was cooked to perfection, the pizza wasn’t. I’m really going to have to get a decent oven, I reckon.
Walk time afterwards and I was totally alone in the cold and darkness.
Except for the fishing boats. A whole line of them were in the English Channel on their way into port to unload their catch.
So having watched them for a while I carried on with my walk and did my run quite comfortably, although I was whacked at the end of it.
So tonight I really am going to have an early night. I’ve been ready for this for a while and I think that I ought to make an effort to catch up with my beauty sleep.
God knows I need it!
