… of the year again and the paragliders are out in force. So while you admire them in full flight I’ll tell you about my day.

As for this morning I won’t tell you anything because regular readers of this rubbish will recall what has happened. The same on many far-too-similar mornings just recently.

And after the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been and, more interestingly, who had been with me.

Last night started me off on the The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour pulling into a fjord in Iceland. This was going to be the end of our journey. There was all snow and ice everywhere and the sea was frozen and the boat was crashing its way through. I was busy doing something, like washing my clothes whatever when I learnt that we were going to finish the tour here. I thought “all my clothes are going to be wet. This is no good”. Then we had a kind of meeting, a group meeting. I was going through my clothes. Some wee dry and some were still wet. I thought that I would have to take them back and hang them up. I noticed that everyone else was streaming off the ship. I asked what was happening. They replied that we all had to get off and stretch our legs. I thought “I’ve far too much to do. I can’t possibly go off and stretch my legs” but we all had the appearance of being ushered off the ship. I couldn’t find Marianne. I was with her but couldn’t find her. I thought that maybe she had left the ship already or maybe she’s somewhere still on board. I had to go and fetch my camera and all my washing needs to be sorted out and everything and I’m never going to get anything done at this rate messing around like this.

As an aside, it was 7 years ago yesterday that I stood by Marianne’s side and watched her die.

Later on I was back on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again and we were all getting ready to get off. Our trip had come to an end. I’d been co-opted into this committee to go to do something about the ship finishing its trip so I’d missed all of the socialising that had taken place. As we were all sent back to our posts I walked back onto the ship and there in the queue, the first passenger ready to leave was one of the passenger with whom I’d spent a great deal of time back in 2018. I was so pleased to see her because I really liked her and I wanted to see her before we went and I was sorry that our trip was over. She was equally delighted to see me so I suggested that we went for a drink because there was so much that I wanted to tell her. We worked out that while there was five minutes before people started to get ready to go so arm in arm we went off down into the hold to look for the bar while everyone else was streaming up the steps with their suitcases. Just as I went to sit down and the waiter came with the drinks and as I started to tell her all about my problems I awoke. And this was another one of these senses of disappointment.
Even later, we were all on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and we were just coming into port. Our cruise was coming to an end. I’d been co-oped onto this committee to do something so i’d been off on a meeting. When it came to getting back on board again who should be standing at the first position ready to get off the ship was the aforementioned woman. I wanted to see her and was really sorry that I was going to miss her. I said “let’s go for a coffee, a drink” so while everyone was staggering up the steps with their suitcases we were going down and ended up in this cafe. Just as I was about to tell her what it was that I wanted to say, I awoke. But yes that was one thing where I wanted to see Inspector Japp because I don’t know what was planned already, and that was so puzzling.

It goes without saying that you’ve noticed a great deal of similarity between all of these voyages. and the final two are more-or-less identical (except for Inspector Japp of course – I was watching a Hercule Poirot adventure while I was eating my tea).

Strangely though, according to the timestamps on the dictaphone, there was about two hours between voyage one and two, and one hour or so between voyages two and three so it’s unlikely (although not impossible) that it’s the same voyage that i’ve dictated three times.

And, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there have been several occasions now where I’ve had repeat voyages on the same day and even on different days. All I can say is that I hope that MCI isn’t going to charge me for these trips that I am making on their ship during the night.

After breakfast I had a shower and set the washing machine off on its travels, and I went to the shops.

The town was heaving and the market was in full swing. You would never guess that there was a global pandemic. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything like it.

NOZ was open and I bought a few things here and there, including a six-pack of that cranberry and rosemary alcohol-free beer that I like (and even as I write, I’m polishing one off).

LeClerc was total mayhem with the whole world and his wife in there. Flour is back on the shelves and tomatoes are a reasonable price again. But no yeast at all still.

What they did have which was interesting was some new pure coconut dessert stuff. It was expensive but a two pack was a special offer with a considerable reduction so I bought a pack. We’ll see what it tastes like in a day or two.

One thing that didn’t impress me though was the surly cashier. They are usually cheerful and happy in LeClerc but this one wasn’t.

And we are on the verge of a tragedy. I went into la Vie Claire, the Health Food shop and there isn’t a gramme of vegan cheese or Manuka honey in the whole town.

This afternoon I’ve been a very busy boy.

This new template seems to work so I set about a few of the pages from that web site and brought them up to the new specifications. And then had to go back and do some more work on them because, for one reason or other that I haven’t quite understood, I didn’t put an index on the pages.

There was also this plan to rewrite a web pager per day for my main site. And the one that I chose took some rewriting too because since I wrote it over 20 years ago, the area has changed out of all recognition.

It took me up to 18:15 to finish it and so I missed out on editing any photos.

There were a couple of breakes in between though.

No crashing-out today, but lunch was one and my afternoon walk was another. And outside was a seething mass of humanity. We’ve had the paragliders and we had pedestrians too, but there was an awful lot of nautical activity too and we even had a couple of canoeists.

And you know that you must never light a fire in a canoe, don’t you? After all, you can’t have your kayak and heat it.

It wasn’t all canoeists and kayakers either.

Right out over there offshore at Bréhal-Plage they had the yachts out. I’m not sure whether it’s a yachting school or similar, but the boats seem to be of an identical type. And then there’s the speedboat roaring past.

Crowds on the beaches over there at Bréhal-Plage too, all enjoying the beautiful weather because even with a wind it was quite nice out there this afternoon.

Crowds on the beaches down here on the Plat Gousset too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday and the day before I queried the situation with regard to access to the beach during the post-quarantine.

The local newspaper came up with the answer this morning, which was that, with certain restrictions applying to the dunes and to the use of the beaches for picnics and sunbathing, the ban was lifted on Thursday afternoon.

So now we know.

We saw a seagull settling down comfortably on the roof of one of the houses in the rue des Juifs the other day.

The council has been cutting down the weeds around here just recently and you can see that this seagull here has collected some of the freshly-cut weeds in order to make a nest. The weeds are still green, and I suppose that the heat given off during the decomposition will help incubate the eggs.

Not that I’m a birdwatcher of course (well, not this kind of bird anyway) but it’s fascinating to see how their lives evolve over the year.

My route took me round and through the Square Maurice Marland.

And although I can’t be certain it looks as if the harbour gates have just opened – you can see the algae at the high water mark – and this boat has just come sailing … “dieseling” – ed … through.

At first I wasn’t sure what kind of boat it might be but as it turned towards the quayside along the rue du Port I could see that it’s one of the very small inshore fishery boats. It must have been interesting out there in that boat in those winds and waves earlier in the week.

On the way back, I encountered Minette, the old black cat that I hadn’ts een for ages and whose disappearance perplexed me. Anyway, she’s back and wherever she went, she had a very good grooming. She’s a long-hair and she certainly needed it.

Tea was a huge disappointment. I’d seen the remains of a bag of oven chips in the freezer yesterday and that had fired up my appetite. And so I prepared everything that I needed

And then I found that in the bag were just half a dozen chips, so that was pretty much a waste of time. I ended up with a baked potato with my beans and burger.

The apple turnover that I prepared yesterday with the leftover pastry, I baked that as well and that was pudding.

On my evening walk tonight there were even more caravanettes on the camp site, so I’ve given up moaning about it as it’s clearly doing no good. However I did check the numberplates and while there were one or two “50” plates (that’s a number for round here) most of them were not.

However, apart from the grockles, there weren’t all that many people around. My run up the hill and then down to the clifftop was a solo effort, although two girls sitting on the old gun emplacement wished me a good evening.

Yesterday, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had some sunlight reflecting off a window in St Pair sur Mer across the bay and into a tidal pool on the beach. Tonight we have a very similar phenomenon although even more so

Disturbing a bunch of boys eating a take-away meal, I ran on down to my resting place on the clifftop for a breather and then wandered over to the Boulevard Vaufleury.

Despite the headwind I made it all the way down to my marker and then after a breather, carried on down to my next resting place at the viewpoint in the rue du Nord.

There were several people there already, and I arrived just in time to see the sun sink slowly down behind a cloud. Timed to the second, it was.

For a good few minutes I stood there soaking up the atmosphere because out of the wind it really was a pleasant night – the idea night to be out and about admiring the scenery.

And as I said, I wasn’t alone here. There were far more people than I was expecting to see.

The rules for the use of the beaches might be relaxed, but not as relaxed as these people here are suggesting. It’s not what I would call social distancing and they seem to be having a forbidden picnic.

It looks as if they have constructed an inukshuk too, in good old Greenland or Canadian Arctic Inuit tradition. They are going to have to wait for quite a while if they are planning on slaughtering a seal for supper.

So the sun and I said goodbye and I ran on back to the apartment.

An early night tonight, I hope, and then a decent sleep with no alarm.

where shall I go tonight? And, more importantly, who shall be coming with me? And even more importantly after last night’s antics, how many times will I be going there?

And I have to be on form tomorrow too, because I’m having visitors late in the morning. I told them to ring me before they set out because we’ve seen some silly times of leaving the bed when there’s been no alarm.

And some when we have had an alarm too. We can do without any of that