… bad day today, and I’m still not feeling myself.

Which is just as well because it’s a disgusting habit anyway.

The day didn’t start off too badly either. I was awake at about 09:30 and out of bed by 09:45. I had to make some muesli for breakfast (I seem to have run out of cornflakes) as well.

Nothing on the dictaphone from the night so I could spend the rest of the morning tidying up the tip that is my apartment.

Liz and Terry came round and brought me a nice home-made vegan walnut and date cake that really is delicious. In exchange, I gave them a slice of my red fruit pie which impressed them quite considerably. Liz gave me a few useful tips about making pastry too.

.It was a really beautiful day so we went for a nice walk.

All the way around the walls of the town by the rue du Nord and then down the steps to the Plat Gousset. Hordes of people around too, enjoying the weather. we walked onto the beach to take advantage of the mayor’s relaxation of the restrictions.

And it felt really good to be down there too. The ozone that hit us as we went down the ramp was an odour that I had missed.

One of the things that I had wanted to do was to go to have a look at the tidal swimming pool.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen them over the last week or so with a digger and a couple of lorries digging out the sand that has accumulated over the last few years to encourage the water.

That’s going to be difficult with the breach in the wall like we see here to the right

There weren’t too many people out here today. Obviously didn’t want to puss the mayor too far, I suppose.

But while we’re on the subject of the mayor’s relaxations, the thing about the camp-site is the the mayor has relaxed the regulations there too and vehicles from a radius of 100kms from here are authorised to use it.

It seems to me to be a pretty strange decision, bearing in mind the fact that we have managed to keep this town effectively virus-free during the pandemic. There’s bound to be a second wave and with all of this gratuitous movement of people they’ll just spread it about even wider.

We went off to find a little corner to sit. Not to “install” ourselves on the beach (which is not allowed) but simply to catch our breath.

And having caught our breath for a while we headed on back to my apartment.

Living here as I do, I can actually invite people to lunch. So we had taco rolls with salad with fruit to follow. Having people to lunch is a luxury that I could never do back in the Auvergne of course.

And while he was here, Terry checked the wiring and he reckons that the system will run a 30-amp fuse for any oven that I might want to install here.

That’s good news because with all of this cooking that I’m doing these days, I ought to have a decent oven. This table-top oven is doing its best but I’ve gone beyond what it is capable of doing.

After they had left I started to tidy up, but that was when I had my relapse. I crashed out on the chair for ages and when I awoke I felt dreadful. It’s been a while since I felt as bad as this.

However, I made my pizza dough and following Liz’s best instructions about leaving the yeast longer to ferment, to leave the dough longer to rise and to let it rise in a warm place when I had shaped it for a good half-hour, I had the best pizza base that I have ever made.

And it rose too – all nice and spongy. And followed by my fruit tart with some of that new coconut stuff which was very delicious.

No evening run tonight. I’ve not been feeling up to it. I’m going to finish this and then go straight to bed.

Here’s hoping that I feel better in the morning.