… last night when I predicted the arrival of either Thora or Normandy Trader here in the harbour today.

On my way out to the shops I had a glance over the wall down to the harbour, and there was Normandy Trader down in the harbour.

Another thing that I was right about was the quick turn-round time these days too. She must have crept in on the overnight tide and is leaving right now – right at the moment that the harbour gates are opening.

And the harbour gates are indeed just opening right at this very minutes, and you can tell that just by looking at the colour of the water coming in on the tide.

You can see that it’s a brown colour – heavily loaded with silt, and that contrasts with the blue of the water that’s inside the harbour.

Whether that’s because the silt that might have been in the water has settled out while the gates were closed, or whether there’s a fresh-water sources from somewhere feeding into the harbour is anyone’s guess.

And I wasn’t just right – I was right in spades too!

Because as I came back from the shops Normandy Trader had long since departed and in her place Thora was now there loading up. That was quick.

Another quick turnround too because when I went out this evening to take the air she had already long-since departed. So when I say at timed that I haven’t seen them for a while, that doesn’t mean to say that they haven’t been here.

The least said about this morning, the better. Not one of my more successful starts to the day, I’m afraid.

But I did make it to my feet and after the meds had a listen to the dictaphone. I was working for the French Government last night on an employment reinsertion project and one of my clients was some young guy I know in back in Pionsat. I had to give him advice and tips about getting back into work, all this kind of thing. Of course it’s pretty evident that he doesn’t need any tips with the amount of work he does on the side but it’s the kind of thing that had to be done. There were all kinds of questions about me, a foreigner advising people on French law. It went on like that for quite some time. At one point I was actually travelling somewhere and I’d come to a strange town that I knew. I tried to buy some fuel but one or two of the petrol stations were closed and there were queues at the other stations so I had a walk around the town for something to eat but I couldn’t find anything to eat. Everywhere was closed as well in this town
And during the night I was getting my carrots ready for freezing, chopping them up and dicing them. At one point I had to measure them but it was a bit late by them because I’d already chopped them up and you couldn’t really assemble them back together again to measure them so that was something as well.

After breakfast I had a go at some music-file digitalising. The first one that I attempted was a nightmare and I had to search everywhere. But I still ended up one track short no matter where I went.

And I was right about one of my assumptions because it was there in black and white in the artist’s catalogue – “this artist is known to be one whose work was lost in the Universal Studios fire” and because he’s a pretty obscure artist, that would appear to be that.

What I’ll have to do is to digitalise the album myself instead of hunting down master tapes, and then upload my versions.

As an aside, I should mention, so that there’s no mistake or misunderstanding, that I’m only digitalising albums that I already own.

Because of all of this, I was late having my shower and late going out to the shops.

And even later than I would have been too. There was so much going on out there this morning and of course it’s been a wek since I’ve seen any of it.

For a start, what is this? Some kind of heavy machinery, that’s for sure, and I imagine that the artic at the side has just delivered it.

But whatever it is, it’s an interesting replacement for the large crane that was parked on there for a couple of days after thay had taken it off the floating pontoon.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few days ago I was mulling over how they were going to get down to the new floating pontoons.

It’s all very well having the pontoons but it’s no use if you cant get up or down from or to them.

But I found out the answer to this conundrum this morning. We can see the new gangway over there that goes down to the pontoon. I imagine that it’s secured at the quayside but unsecured at the bottom so that it can slide about as the pontoon rises and falls with the tide.

And if we can avert our eyes from Normandy Trader for a while we can see yet more goings-on just here.

Our big mobile crane is back again, and here she is just about to wrestle with a gangway for the floating pontoons here. I imagine that the gangway will be dropped into position during the course of the morning.

And on the other side of the harbour you can see the big floating pontoon that was being used as a workstation. It’s now been dismantled and is ready to be taken away in early course.

A couple of days ago, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they set up the flags on the Resistance War Kemorial at the Pointe du Roc.

Here this morning down in the Place Godal the local Council had the cherry-picker out playing with the flags here too.

But what they were actually doing was taking down the British flag. I’m not sure why and I wasn’t quick enough to ask them, but it was probably a symbolic post-Brexit gesture or something like that.

We’ll have to see next week whether it goes back up.

So I pushed on … “pushed off” – ed … to LIDL for my shopping, through the madding crowds.

On the first day of detention à domicile I remember wandering the streets looking for bread and there wasn’t a soul about at all. Today, apart from the few people wearing masks you would never have thought that these were lockdown times, with the crowds that were out and about.

But it seems to be working. Only 758 new cases today, which contrasts with the sad state off affairs in the UK where there were 6032. At a 15% death-rate 15 days hence, which seems to be the norm, France will soon be reaching Germany’s low totals whereas the UK will be out of control. Even more so when an order of “vital supplies” of ventilators ordered in an emergency turn out to be totally useless

There was a security guy on the door at LIDL too controlling ingress and egress. Older, bigger and more out-of-condition than me, he was too. He wouldn’t have been any use running after shoplifters. But then, he’s not there for that.

In LIDL I spent a lot of money, but I needed quite a lot of stuff as stocks were well down. And so much stuff did I buy that it was a struggle to carry it home. But it’ll keep me fit, I suppose.

But fit for what, I really have no idea.

On the way back I stopped off at La Mie Caline for my dejeunette for lunch and then back here I had a coffee.

Having almost run out of hummus I made another batch. And it’s really easy to do.
Drain a tin of chick peas.
Add to the chick peas half the weight of sesame seed paste (400 grammes of chick peas means 200 grammes of paste).
Add some of the chick pea juice, some olive oil, sea salt, ground black pepper and garlic – usually in total about half of the weight of chick peas again
Chuck the lot in your whizzer and give it a really good whizz around – adding a little more oil or chick pea juice until you have the consistency you like.
In the meantime, dice up your flavouring. I’ve used roast peppers, all kinds of things in the past but today it was sun-dried tomatoes and olives with tarragon.
Add them into the mix in the whizzer and just blip the whizzer so that the flavouring is dispersed throughout the mix – you don’t want to purée it, which is what will happen if you whizz it too long.
Put it in small pots, freeze some of it and put a pot in the fridge for immediate use.

And it was totally wicked on my dejeunette with tomato, cucumber lettuce and vegan mayonnaise.

After lunch I had a look at a second album to digitalise. And this was a loooooooong one too and it took an age. And the disappointment was that for some reason or other, two of the tracks on the master tape where, had this been an LP there would have been a change of side, the one seems to have lost its end and the other its beginning.

So that’s a task for tomorrow – to see if I can track them down.

But one track on the album was one that I used to play in a rock group in the 1970s so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have an extra go on the bass. That brought back some very happy memories.

And I ended up having to dismantle the computer at one point. The mouse has been playing up just recently but this afternoon it handed in its hat so I had to find another one and untangle a mass of cables to do that.

And it wasn’t easy either.

After another session on the guitars I knocked off and went to make my apple and pear purée, now that I had some apples and pears to make it with.

10 apples peeled, cored and diced, added to a small amount of water with a lot of lemon juice (to stop the apples browning) with desiccated coconut, cinnamon and nutmeg.

3 pears followed suit into the water which was them all put on a low heat, given a really good stir and left to its own devices for about an hour.

In the meantime seeing as I’d had the oven on to sterilise the bottles I stick a couple of potatoes in to bake along with some baked beans and vegan cheese.

A simple tea of course but it was delicious, as was my blackberry pie and almond soya dessert.

By now the fruit was ready so I drained off the liquid and bottled it to use as a cordial for breakfast.

The fruit went into the whizzer and was whizzed round into a purée and then put into the other two jars that i’d sterilised in the oven.

They were left to cool, and you can see the finished results right here. It looks really good and, having tried a sample off the end of the spatula, I can say that it tastes good too.

So at this point, about an hour or so later than usual, I went for my evening walk.

And I was glad that I’d done something during the day too because by the looks of things, it wasn’t going to be the right kind of evening to be out there.

There was a famous storm raging out there in the English Channel somewhere round by Jersey and I wished now that i’d put on my rain jacket – or maybe gone out a little earlier.

Despite the howling headwind, which wasn’t quite as strong as yesterday but nevertheless … I managed to run up to my marker point at the top of the hill.

It was something like a struggle – well, a lot like a struggle actually, but I was given the impetus to move on quickly when I saw the storm heading my way from the Ile de Chausey.

As I watched, I could see it getting closer and closer and I didn’t like the look of it at all, so I cleared off.

And even despite the raging weather, there was another fishing boat out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

This kind of weather, rough though it is, won’t stop them at all. But as I have said before … “on numerous occasions” – ed … they seem to be fishing in areas that I hadn’t noticed before.

No change in the chantier navale this evening which was just as well because I didn’t feel like stopping. Still the same four boats from yesterday. They are keeping quite busy in there despite the restrictions.

But while I’d stopped for my breath, I had a look at the flagpoles here in the car park in the boulevard Vaufleury.

They’ve been busy with the cherry-picker because they have put these flags up too. We have the EU, then France, then the province of Normandy and then the flag of the town of Granville.

But on that note the rain started to fall. The storm had caught me up. So I ran off down the street and back home, missing off my two final runs due to the inclement weather.

But I was over 100% on the fitbit so I wasn’t too disappointed.

It’s horribly late now and I’m nowhere near finished. Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here and that’s usually the signal for a lie-in bit I’m going to defy convention, get up early (if I can, of course) and finish off the outstanding stuff before breakfast.

See you in the morning.