Tag Archives: caliburn

Thursday 24th May 2018 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

Yes it did too. Dead to the world for an hour and a half this afternoon, and still a little unsteady on my feet even now.

Something of a late-ish night last night. And dead to the world until the alarm went off. And then it was something of a struggle to leave my stinking pit.

But after the usual morning routine I had a shower and a clean-up and then phoned the garage. Caliburn is ready so I could go to pick him up.

It’s a long walk – almost 6kms to the garage and no point in hanging around, so off I set.

There was quite a bit going on in the town today. There’s a cycle race taking place at weekend so the local council was out putting up all of the bunting and other street decorations ready for the (af)fray.

And I’m glad that I went early because the sun didn’t start to heat up for a while. The first half of the journey was quite pleasant.

Not so the second half once the sun was full out, and I had to stop a few times to get my breath.

First stop was at the motorcycle shop just for a nosy around. There wasn’t anything of interest – not that I expected there might be, but worth a look all the same.

Second port of call was a new Bio shop that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s pretty much like the Amaranthe in Montlucon but with only a quarter of the stock. And as for the vegan selection, well, they needn’t have bothered. That was a waste of time too.

Third port of call was the cheap electric shop that had done the business for me before. And yet again, I didn’t leave empty-handed. Tomorrow, I’ll take a photo of what I bought and you can see it for yourselves. But I never expected to see one of these in a shop like this.

Ironically, last year when I was wandering around on foot with Caliburn’s service last year, I stumbled upon an oven. That’s rather a strange coincidence.

Biggest surprise was at the garage. Caliburn has his controle technique on Saturday morning so he needs a service and a check-over before he goes. And for all of that, the bill came to all of €110. That’s the cheapest service and pre-controle technique that Caliburn would ever have.

All they found wrong was a numberplate light bulb not working and nothing else. I asked them to check the steering and front suspension but they found nothing wrong there.

Seeing as I was up at that end of the town I did my mid-week shopping at Leclerc and then came home for a coffee and a chat on line with Liz. After that, it was outside for my butties.

There was a lot going on there too. Not much in the way of people but they had a guy on a sky jack pressure-washing the building behind me. And every so often the spray would drift over to where I was sitting.

He had to stop every time a car or a pedestrian went past so it took him longer than it might otherwise have done.

Butvery so often the spray would drift over to where I was sitting and it was actually quite pleasant and cooling in the sunshine.

There was also quite a lot of activity going on down below in the port.

The tide was on its way in and so were all the fishing boats. They were queueing up several deep at the wharf by the fish processing plant waiting to unload their catch, with a few more on their way in to the harbour as I watched.

Still, it keeps them out of mischief, I suppose.

Now that Caliburn is organised (or he will be on Saturday morning) I had some plans to make, and I spent a while up to no good and chatting to a couple of friends on line. And then that was that.

I missed my afternoon walk yet again, but I still managed to have the session on the guitar.

Tea was a burger in a bap with a potato and veg done in the microwave with some vegan margarine spread.

And I managed to make it outside for the evening walk, which was just as well because it really was a beautiful night.

Instead of going around the walls I went around the headland instead and there was a beautiful view across the bay towards Jullouville and Carolles although there was a sea mist that was obscuring the far coast itself.

Nevertheless, the colours came out really well in this photo. You would never imagine that it’s almost 21:00.

And so 108% of my daily total today, and it feels more like 1008%. I feel dreadful but I have to keep going. One thing for sure though – I won’t be doing much tomorrow.

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the long walk home at lunchtime. Five and a half kilometres back from where I left Caliburn having his service, in the sun and the heat.

I did it all in one go too, although I did stop for a baguette and also at the place that does iced sorbets – I deserved a treat, I reckon.

But when I returned here, I crashed right out. And for a good while too. A very late lunch therefore, and then I came back – and crashed out yet again. Ruined my day and all of my plans, but that’s just how it’s going to be for the future so I may as well get used to it.

I’d had an early start too – out of bed before the second alarm went off at 06:60, even though I didn’t feel much like it. And then after the usual morning performance I had a good shower and a clean-up. Have to look my best if I’m going out.

First stop was at the second-hand shop where they allowed me to try out the lens that I mentioned, for which I was grateful. I’ll have to examine closely the results and see if there is any difference between the images taken with their lens compared to mine. This will tell me once and for all whether it’s the lens or the camera.

As for the other camera with the useless lens, I’ll have to organise sending that off for examination sometime soon.

Next stop was the car wash where I gave Caliburn his annual bath. And with all of the dirt that fell off him, you wouldn’t think that I’ve only done a mere 1800 kms since last March. There were times, as we all know, when I could do 1800 kms in a weekend, never mind in 15 months or so.

So he’s now at the garage, I walked home and I’ve been pretty useless … "so what’s new?" – ed … for the rest of the day. Even missed my afternoon walk. But I’ve had to get myself into gear because I ended up having two simultaneous conversations on the internet, both of which might involve lengthy journeys on the road and for which a great deal of preparation will be required.

And not only that, I’ve seen a little trip that is tempting me. But for that I’ll have to start selling my body on Boots Corner. It’s a little expensive.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, and then I managed an evening walk. But I’ll have to go back out again in a minute because I forgot to look at the fitbit when I was out just now. And when I did remember, I was on 97% Being so close, I’ll have to push it over the 100%

And then bed. I’m absolutely whacked, and I have to do it again tomorrow but in reverse when I go to pick up Caliburn.

I’m clearly not as young as I was.

Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

… of these special spray-on cream tin things.

The one that tells you that it “contains the equivalent of 800 ml of fresh soya cream” – but doesn’t tell you that it only contains enougb propellant to eject about a quarter of it. That’s not very good and I’m not impressed.

In theory, I could puncture the can to liberate the contents but knowing my luck, there will be just enough propellant trapped inside to whitewash the whole apartment and everything in it.

Something else with which I’m not impressed is that the alarm went off at 06:20 as usual and again at 06:30 and I was out of bed something like. Only to read later on that morning that one of my friends is off on his annual Pentecost walk. Yes, it’s a flaming Bank Holiday here, isn’t it? Another day when I can lie in bed without feeling a pang of guilt. And I missed it.

And so I had a glass of Dandelion and Burdock instead. A bottle left over from Christmas 18 months ago. High time that I had a little treat.

I was going to say that I had done badger all today, but that’s not quite true. I’ve done a little tidying up of the crockery and cooking stuff. I’ve been looking for some glass mixing bowls for ages and as luck would have it, I found some in NOZ at the weekend so I bought two. Cooker, dishwasher, microwave safe too,, and at €1:99 each.

However, I have nowhere to put them, so I needed to have a sot-out of stuff. Didn’t take me long but it’s definitely working and it’s definitely tidying up. I ought to award myself a medal.

A beautiful afternoon so a long sit on the wall with my butties and my book, watching the heaving multitudes go straggling past.

And not so “straggling” either on some occasions.

The tide was right for the day trippers (or afternoon trippers in this case) to take the Joly France out to the Ile de Chausey – or were they going just for a lap or two around the bay?

But anyway, there was more than enough of them. The boat was pretty full.

And it’s rather ironic really. There was an article in the local paper about “Are there too many tourists going over there?” And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, and that is that if the tourists stopped going over there would be another article in the local papers about the islanders complaining that their economy has collapsed because there aren’t enough tourists going over.

Like many places, the inhabitants would be quite happy for the tourists to stay at home and just post their money over to the island.

That wasn’t all of the excitement either.

There’s another boat – the La Granvillaise – that does tours around the bay too. And that was setting off on a jaunt too. She looks quite an elderly boat too but in fact was built in 1990, albeit as a replica of a fishing boat – the Rose Marie – of 1897 that was a typical fishing boat of the bay at that time – a bisquine.

She has 410 square metres of canvas sail – the largest amount of any boat of her class in France – and so that’s much more like my style of voyaging

And I was there for ages sitting on my wall, totally engrossed in the Hundred Years War.

We British people think of the Hundred Years War as just being Crécy and Agincourt and not much else in between. For the French though, it was almost 120 years of complete and utter terror. In the past I’d been hunting high and low for a book that gives a detailed French perspective on the war and I finally found one a couple of years ago.

It’s certainly a right riveting read and it’s easy now for me to understand why the French hated the English so much after reading the stories of the atrocities that were committed by the English and their allies. “l’Albion Perfide” indeed.

With the weather being so nice, I had my two walks too, even though the place is heaving with people. And for tea tonight I had vegetables with a burger and some delicious gravy. It was really nice too.

So tomorrow I must take Caliburn to the menders for his service. And it’s a loooooooonnnnnnnng walk home from there. I’m not too keen on that idea. I’ll probably be ill for a week afterwards.

Monday 14th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that when I bought my cheap Chinese smartphone back in January, I couldn’t remember the times that I had set the alarms to awaken me.

Well, I know now, don’t I? It was 06:00 and 06:15 and I’m sure that you can gather how I managed to find it out can’t you?

So heaving myself out of my stinking pit and going through the usual morning routine, and also chatting to Liz who appeared on line before she went to work.

After breakfast I had a little relax and then phoned up to book Caliburn in for his annual service. And it seems that the garage is closed on Mondays too. So I’ll have to phone them back tomorrow now, won’t I?

Once that was out of the way pro tem I had another task to perform. There is another huge pile of photos having accumulated over the last week or two, so I sat down and edited them.

Having done that, I started to work backwards in the blog and add photos that were missed off. I’ve done about a week’s worth so if you missed them, you need to check back and have a look.

Lunch was quite late what with one thing and another (and once you get started you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) and I didn’t eat much. Perhaps that’s a good thing, or else I’m sickening for something yet again.

But I did have a really bad afternoon. Wave after wave of fatigue overwhelmed me and it was all that I could do to tear myself out into the hurricane and go for a walk, not feeling much like it at all.

But I’m glad that I went out because we haven’t featured an old car in these pages for quite some time, and there parked on the car park down by the lighthouse is a old Land Rover.

It’s British of course, and the registration number tells me that it was registered in Lancashire some time during the second half of 1969 and the first half of 1970.

Leaf springs of course, not coil springs, and the headlights in the wings not the grille means that it’s probably a later Series IIA model, and also, of course, it’s a very desirable station wagon.

In my opinion, although I wouldn’t say this at any Land Rover gathering, I consider the IIA Land Rovers to be the best model that they ever produced, especially when fitted with a “two and a quarter” diesel.

Back here, I made a coffee but I never had the chance to drink it. 18:20 when I awoke and the coffee was cold. Hardly surprising – I must have been stark out for a couple of hours.

I’d fallen asleep reading the works of Henry de Bracton, one of the first of the modern judges from the 13th Century. And I carried on reading them during my voyage. And my voyage took me to the coast where the seas were stormy, just like they are now in fact, and most people were leaving the beach. But a couple of boys were doing some slalom stunts in a kayak through the waves, with a girl on the beach pleading with them to come in. “Even …. (she mentioned the name of someone who was clearly important in this sport) has come in now”. But my route took me along the headland and I came to a car park where several people were boarding a bus. Standing next to the bus was TOTGA, a very young TOTGA, dressing herself up in black leather and a crash helmet and sitting astride a silver scooter of the Vespa type. “Did you come on the bike or in a car?” I asked, being aware that she didn’t have the brats with her. “Yes” she replied helpfully. “Yes?” I enquired. “Yes” she answered. “I came here in the car and I’m now going home on the bike”. And even during a nocturnal ramble that sounded most illogical.

This evening I made myself a surprise tea. Someone on the internet was talking about Bombay aloo, and that had my mouth watering. And just as it happens, I had some tinned potatoes left over from my lentil doodah last week.

So I chopped up some onion and garlic, diced a carrot and put them in a casserole dish, added the potatoes, cumin and turmeric, covered it all in oil, stirred it up and put it in the microwave for three minutes.

While that was doing, I started to cook some rice and frozen peas.

Once the stuff in the microwave was finished, I added some water and gravy powder, stirred it all up, and then put it back in the microwave on medium heat for six minutes.

And absolutely beautiful it was too. I’ll have to make some more stuff like this, I really will.

I mentioned “hurricane” a little earlier didn’t I?

It was high tide again later this evening and sure enough, during my little evening walk around the walls, I stood and watched the waves crashing onto the sea wall and the spray going over the top onto the promenade.

The amount of power that there is in the sea during a storm like this is impressive. No wonder people want to harness the energy from it.br clear=”both”>

Another thing that I noticed was that there’s now a huge pile of gravel from the quarry near Avranches accumulated in one of the berths down in the harbour.

It looks as if we might be having a visit some time soon, doesn’t it? And that’s probably just as well because it occurs to me that there’s been no gravel ship been here for quite some considerable time – since the new lock gates in fact

We could do with building up the maritime traffic in the port otherwise my utility as a ship reporting station here will be called into question.

So now it’s bed time. I hope that I’ll feel more like it tomorrow.

Sunday 6th May 2018 – THIS ISN’T GOING …

… to work out very well either.

Toddled off in the heat down to the station this evening to enquire about the trains, only to be told “you need to come back tomorrow evening. We’ll only know the night before”
“So why did your colleague tell me to come back this evening then?”
“I dunno”.
And so the discussion went on.

In the end, the guy at the ticket office at the station made me aware that there was a bus from Avranches to Lille every day at lunchtime. He gave me the details and cancelled my outward journey. So that’s at least something.

Sure enough, there’s a bus at 12:04 on Tuesday lunchtime, and to Lille it’s only €39:99. Takes all day of course, but it’s better than nothing.

Now to check up on the local buses. Ahh yes – a bus at 10:05 – gets to Avranches at 10:57. That sounds ideal to me. An hour to have a coffee and to compose myself (rather than Beethoven, who spent 60 years composing and 400 years decomposing).

but wait a minute. “Does not run on school holiday dates” – and Tuesday in France is a Bank Holiday isn’t it?

At the limit I could go to Avranches in Caliburn, but then he would be stranded down there until I could go to fetch him back, whenever that might be.

Yes, this is not turning out too well right now is it?

Last night, I was in bed at a fairly respectable time, where I stayed until about 09:00 this morning.

I’d been on my travels though, being my usual obnoxious annoying self, and so a car came to pick me up – something to do with Hearts Football Club I believe. The driver invited me to go for a drive with him and we ended up at the local prison. The chief warden met me there and gave me a conducted tour of the premises, showing me all of the dark recesses and crooks and nannies of the place. We arrived at the communal area where some women, inmates I reckon, were washing the floor. He showed me where the buckets were, showed me where the hot water was, the soap and a mop, and invited me to help clean the floor. I was concerned about walking over the area where the women had already cleaned, but they told me to clean the chute in the wall where the cats come in. It seems that a pile of cats come in at night to keep the inmates company. “At least there’s some good news” I thought. I had to move a bed to get to this chute – a three-tier bunk bed with cheap, thin horrible mattresses, and with a young woman dressed very poorly in a sweater and yellowy-brown slacks sitting on the top. And behind the bed was the most indescribable filth and less. Clearly these women were only cleaning what they could see, and no-one cared about the rest.

After breakfast I vegetated around for quite a while without doing too much (it IS Sunday after all) and then just for a change I had some lunch. Afterwards, I tidied up a huge pile of the backlog of e-mails and, would you believe, found an e-mail from Plenty’s dad asking for copies of the photographs of his lorries that we saw parked up here back in March.

We then had the Welsh Cup Final where Connah’s Quay Nomads saw off Aberystwyth Town without too much effort, although it could well have been a different story had the far-side linesman’s guide-dog been paying proper attention.

From there, I went for my walk to the station and then back here where I made another pizza. The pizza base that I bought yesterday was a dsiaster by the way. Stuck to the greaseproof paper and wouldn’t come off. And when it did it went just about everywhere except where it was supposed to.

And then another walk this evening. And the camera lens, about which I have moaned on a regular basis, has now completely given up the ghost. I’ll be sending it back when I return from Belgium.

Final word is that I seem to be being attacked by ants. There’s a pile of them that have somehow found their way in here. Now I need to find them a way out.

Sunday 29th April 2018 – HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Even as we speak, here I am curled up on the sofa underneath the quilt and wearing about 10 layers of clothing.

And I’m still freezing!

And in news which will cheer up almost everyone reading this rubbish, I have lost my voice too. I’m definitely sickening for something yet again!

It all started this morning, when I awoke, at the nice and gentle hour of 09:00, and found that instead of a throat I had two sheets of sandpaper there. And as well as that, I was rather unsteady on my feet. None of that was looking very good.

However, it hadn’t stopped me going on a midnight ramble. Last night I was out in North Africa, a very sandy, dusty city and I was part of an army that was on the attack. But the farther we advanced the more cut off we were becoming and there were fewer and fewer of us able to progress. Our situation bega to look quite desperate.
Just like the situation in a book that I was reading on the train the other day about the First Day on the Somme in 1916 in fact.
And later I’d been looking for somewhere to stay. I met up with some man who took me off to place that would be quite comfortable, and he would come to pick me up at 08:00 next morning to take me back to my car. But by the time 08:30 arrived he hadn’t turned up and there was so much to do, like loading my car (the mattress on which I had been sleeping needed to go right at the bottom for a start, so everything needed to be unpacked) before 10:00, the official check-out time. So to save time I set off to walk along the road along which he had brought me because there was a vantage point on a bend with a good view. I had my big red cantilever tool box with me as I walked through the countryside. And it was now 08:45, I was installed on the bend with a village down below but still no sign of this guy and I was wondering if I had done the right thing by moving, and worried that I would be locked out of my accommodation at 10:00 without all my possessions.

We had the usual morning routine of course and then I sat on the sofa and vegetated. On Sundays there is no alarm of course so I can stay in bed as long as I like. And as Matt Dillon so eloquently put it, “Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it”. We all deserve a day like that.

This afternoon I made some butties and a flask and headed out to the Stade Croissant. US St Pair’s 3rd XI were playing US Roncey-Cerisy in a bottom-of-the-table encounter in Division 3 of the regional league. It was cold and windy and at the kick-off the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour.

Luckily there’s a grandstand there and so at least there was some shelter but I was getting colder and colder as time wore on.

As for the football, there was a general lack of skill as you might expect but at least US St Pair played with a plan and some shape, and they were quite adventurous in what they tried. Had they had some individual skill, or a proper centre-forward (because their “attack” was very lightweight) they would have run away with this match.

They did score once, but penalty was well-saved by the US Roncey-Cerisy keeper who rode his luck quite well. But US Roncey-Cerisy had their moments too particularly in the second half when they strung a few nice balls together and even managed to score an equaliser when the US St Pair keeper slipped on the greasy turf.

Three players who impressed me, all on the US St Pair team, were the old, balding left-winger, the red-headed central midfielder, and the rather portly centre-half who dominated his defence and played some excellent balls upfield.

ON the way back I had the heater on full-blast in Caliburn because I was now shivering. And back here I grabbed the quilt and dived underneath it on the sofa where I crashed out for an hour.

I did manage to make tea though – another excellent pizza.

So now, I’m not bothering with a walk in this weather. I’m going straight to bed and I’ll sleep for the duration.

Ask me if I care.

Thursday 26th April 2018 – AND SO …

… after all of my exertions yesterday and the enormous distance that I travelled, I was in bed last night quite early.

No alarm either, so I was expecting to be awake by 05:00 or some other stupid time like that.

But just for a change, and by complete surprise, I was stark out until about 09:00. A long time since I’ve had such a deep and complete sleep.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. A couple of friends and I were running a company of three taxis, although the husband of the couple wasn’t all that keen. And neither were the other taxi operators, one of whom took a great deal of pleasure in driving past us while we were having an animated discussion about something or other.

First job after the usual morning routine was to unpack. And much to my surprise everything arrived back safe and sound, although the opened vegan cheese needed a little care and attention. And there was plenty of the Sahara desert inside my suitcase too.

Second job was to stick all of the clothes and the bedding from before into the washing machine and have it all ready and cleaned. I need to keep up to date with things like this as you know.

Third job was to go to the shops. Caliburn struggled a little to fire into life (I’ll have to check to see how long I’ve had the battery) and then I was off to LIDL. I know that today is usually the day that I walk there but I need too much stuff for that and anyway I’m still feeling the aches and pains of the journey.

The road was exciting though. Some old geezer in a car nearly took Caliburn and me out as he cut off the corner of one of the bends and a little later on, where the road narrowed and we were all stuck at the temporary traffic lights (the cabling work is still going on) some other old geezer sat there convinced that I couldn’t get through, although anyone else could have driven a bus through the gap.

And having eschewed my travelling jacket for something more suitable for the Normandy climate, I found that I had forgotten my wallet with my bank cards in. But not to worry – there’s a €50:00 note tucked away in the pocket of my phone case so I wasn’t as embarrassed as I might otherwise have been.

After lunch I had a chat to Liz on the internet and then set about dealing with the … gulp … 439 photos that I had accumulated in North Africa. And that wasn’t a job of five minutes either.

And what didn’t help was a major interruption as some rather dreadful news filtered through the internet. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a soft spot for Bangor City FC in the Welsh Premier League, ever since my girlfriend at the time started to study there in 1975 and I used to go up there every weekend.

Two years ago they were taken over by a bunch of people who had trashed several other sports clubs, and I can confidently use the word “crooks” as one or two of them do have well-publicised criminal convictions. I predicted at the time that it would all end in tears.

And I’m right too, because this afternoon their application for a new licence to play in the Welsh Premier League was refused, and the club has been expelled. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows the story of the current owners, because it is the same story that can be told by sports fans from many other clubs.

The only good news is that the freehold of the football stadium is owned by a football trust which leases the ground to the club. So at least it will be available for anyone else who wants to use it for football and won’t be turned into housing development that would be ohhh! so lucrative for the owners.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, and we had both of our walks today.

This evening’s walk was quite exciting though.

In the Place Maurice Marland there was someone setting up a marquee. And so I went over to her to ask her what was going on.
“We’e celebrating the opening of the Place today” she replied. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it was closed for renovations during most of last year.
“But it’s been open for several months, now, hasn’t it?” said Our Hero
“Ues it has, but we had to have a formal opening” she replied.

Ahh well. Nothing like being up with the times, is there?

So now I’m going to have a rest because the alarm goes back on tomorrow. There’s plenty to do here.

Sunday 11th March 2018 -JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

… well, for just recently anyway, I managed to remember everything – including my mug out of Caliburn – when I went off to the football this afternoon.

The plan had been to go to Donville-les-Bains to watch the US Mouettes de Donville play the Jeunesse Cenillaise, but just as I was getting myself ready, something flashed up on the internet to wit that the cup match between US Granville’s 2nd XI and US Ducey, due to be played at Ducey-les-Chéris had been switched to the artificial surface at the Cité des Sports in Granville, where we were last night.

That suits me fine because instead of going in Caliburn, I can walk there. And if I take the long route home along the seashore I’ll have done almost all of my whole day’s fitness routine. So off I went, camera, thermos, mug and telephone, and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.

In what can only be describes as “changeable” weather, I arrived at the ground to see that game played by those men with odd-shaoed balls.

Not my cup of tea at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. We were a footballing school but one of the new masters tried to make us play with the oval ball but we soon saw him.

But the experience left a rather bitter taste in our mouths for years afterwards.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was a girls’ football match going on too and had I known, I would have been out there earlier to watch because it wasn’t too bad at all.

And I even gave some coaching from the touchline, which DOES NOT account for their 3-0 defeat. They were 3-0 before I arrived and I like to think that I helped them steady the ship a little.

But then, there were only 8 of them out there playing against 11 and so it’s not really much of a surprise that they were struggling. Perhaps they need some moral support.

And if so, that rules me out. Any support that I could give a bunch of girls would hardly be moral now, would it?

As for the main match, US Ducey are one division higher than Granville’s 2nd XI but the two teams were very evenly matched. In fact, of the two goalkeepers, the Ducey goalkeeper was by far the busier.

But the attacks of either side were pretty ineffectual and a 0-0 scoreline was hardly surprising.

We didn’t have any extra time, but went straight on to penalties. Hero was the Granville goalkeeper who made two good stops for his team to run out the winners.

Highlight of the match was the miserable old man from Ducey who “took issue” with a couple of Granville supporters who were hurling abuse at a Ducey player. “Don’t you go round hurling abuse at players” he cried. “You should be able to behave yourself without hurling insults about”.

Five minutes later, he addressed some rather unparliamentary language towards the referee who was booking one of his players. And a voice nearby piped up “Who was it who just said something about not hurling abuse about?”. I wonder who that was!

But it brought my section of the crowd rolling about with laughter, and that’s all to the good.

The walk back along the coast was windy with the occasional shower, but that didn’t stop me taking some photos.

A couple of weeks ago I took a photo of St Pair sur Mer from around here, but that was cluttered up my street furniture unfortunately. Today I found a new spec from over a hedge in a field.

The photo isn’t as cluttered which makes a nice change for around here. You can see how nice the area looks and how much better it will be in ths summer.

And I discovered a new little lane that I hadn’t seen before, with some of the best views that I have yet to see of the town.

You remember back in October when you saw a photo of a house perched up on a clifftop overlooking the beach? Well, it was the lane that led to that particular house.

And it was worth the effort to get there with this beautiful view of the Pointe de la Roc.

And over there to the right of centre is the building where I live – the Place d’Armes.

There are four big stone buildings here that were formerly the military barracks, and they fell into disuse in the 1970s I believe. Since then, one of them has become the local college and a second is the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – accommodation for young people from the countryside who come here to study or work.

The other two are being converted into small apartments. My building is finished and that’s why I’m here now, and the fourth one won’t be long.

Over there is the church – the Eglise St Paul.

I have told you about this church on a couple of occasions. It’s one of the first large buildings in modern times (the Romans built thousands) to be built of concrete.

Many of hthe Roman concrete buildings are still standing after almost 2000 years, but this building will be a pile of dust before then. It’s closed to the public due to its deplorable, decaying condition and if that’s not a testament to Roman engineering I don’t know what is.

There is a set of steps down to the road, and then another set of steps down to the promenade.

It’s not really the day for going for a walk along the beach, but the sea is good at any time of day and in any kind of weather – in fact the stormier the better.

After all, that is why I came to live here as you all know. Somewhere by the sea in one of the windiest corners in Europe. It’s just great.

And remember the other day when I pointed out those two “O’Toole” Irish lorries on the dockside? On my way back I was almost squidged by a “Nolan’s” lorry heading for the same place.

So what’s bringing all of them around here? What I shall have to do is that next time I’m in town, I’ll see if it’s still there and then go to buttonhole the driver.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you want to know the answer to a question, you have to ask the question first.

But this morning, wide awake at 07:15. And on a Sunday too!

I’m not having this at all and so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep but that didn’t seem to work and by 07:55 there was a very disappointed me up and about prowling the kitchen.

But I’d been on my travels during the night though. To Budapest in fact (and I’ve not been there since 1994) and trying to get to the station. Wandering around aimlessly in the railway station trying to find which train goes to the airport as I have a flight from there and a time limit to keep to. For some reason I have the idea that every train goes to the airport and I don’t know why. But when I hear that a train is actually called to stop at the airport I leap aboard. There are three stops prior to the airport, which seems strange to me as they are all in different towns, and a couple of the locals – and very vocal locals at that – convince me that it’s a different airport than the one that I need and I’ll be hours sorting myself out if I stay on this train. So I disembark just as it is about to pull out, and continue my aimless ramble around the station.
Later on, I am actually at an airport (not the same one) and in the queue to have my passport checked. The people in front of me are there for hours and ll kinds of forms are being completed for them, including a dark green form with white boxes in which the entries are made. I wonder to myself if this is the ESTAS form for the USA and whether I could have mine completed on the spot like this.

We had an early breakfast and then, seeing as it’s Sunday, a good laze around. Although I did have 5 minutes on the bass guitar trying to work out a Jethro Tull number.

After lunch I hit the streets and then back here it was coffee and cake time. But SHOCK! HORROR! Mother Nature has beaten me to the last of the cake. That’s twice now, for the Christmas Cake went the same way too. I shall just have to have another birthday, won’t I?

The pizza was good again tonight and in the walk in the wind around the headland I made it to 115 % of my day’s activity. And that’s always good.

And an early night. Another easy day tomorrow and then on Tuesday I need to go for the train tickets. Just you watch me forget.

Saturday 10th March 2018 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

Halfway down the stairs on my way out for this evening’s football when I suddenly realised that I had forgotten my camera. So I had to nip back to fetch it.

I was halfway down the steps into town when I realised that I had forgotten to go to Caliburn to pick up my mug to go with the coffee that I had made in the flask, and I had to work my evil wiles on the girl in the bakery where there is a coffee machine. She would only give me some plastic beakers, not the insulated ones. But then I suppose, I was lucky that I had remembered the thermos flask.

Halfway up the steep hill, stopping to divest myself of my jacket because it was quite a warm evening, I mused that the camera wasn’t all that important because I could use the camera on the telephone to take the photos that I wanted.

And it was at this point that I realised that I had forgotten the phone too.

To rub it in, there was a handball match taking place at the Sports Centre tonight and the cafeteria was open, so I didn’t need the flask (or the beakers) either.

But then it’s always like that with me, as regular readers of this rubbish will realise.

But it was a beautiful night for football – fairly warm, not much wind and for once, it wasn’t raining. And doesn’t that make a change from these last few days?

Tonight’s opponents were FC Trois Rivieres – not from Québec but from Canisy in the outskirts of St Lô.

And if ever there were two points thrown needlessly away by a team in need of a victory it was tonight, that’s for sure.

I reckon that Granville had about 75% of the possession and they were one goal up early on in the game. It took Trois Rivieères 31 minutes (I timed it) to get into the Granville penalty area.

And when they did, they scored a goal out of nothing. One of those shots that hits a defender’s boot and could go anywhere. This particular one looped up and over the keeper’s head and although he got both hands to the ball it spun out if his grasp and into the net.

It didn’t take long for Granville to restore their lead but then we had another calamity in the Granville defence. A back-pass under pressure to the keeper who decided to pass it out to another defender instead of clearing his lines upfield or out of play for a throw-in.

Of course, the inevitable happened and the ball out was intercepted by an attacker who slotted it into the empty net.

After that, Granville ran out of steam and couldn’t make their possession count for anything.

Highlight of the match had to the the Trois Rivières manager who, having loudly cried for a yellow card to be given to the Granville n°7 a short while earlier, becoming furiously upset when the Granville manager cried for a yellow card to be given to a Trois Rivières player. You can’t make up a story like that, can you?

We had yet another Sleep of the Dead last night, and I spent much of it in a cosy little menage à deux with TOTGA. She didn’t get away last night, not ‘arf she didn’t. Unfortunately it never reached the stage that made a celebrity out of the legendary inmate of a monastery in Bohemia (mind you, nothing can do that these days) but it was certainly a night with a difference.
And later on, I was in the Houses of Parliament interrogating the Chancellor of the Exchequer, leading him a nice merry dance down a mazy little path until he has committed himself unequivocally, and then announcing that there was a mistake in his figures, he was a billion Pounds short in his calculations, and what was he going to do now – to which, having committed himself unequivocally to his position, he had no answer.

After breakfast and a shower, and a machine-load of washing, I set out for the shops. We did the usual round of LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc and I bought nothing of any excitement except in LeClerc.

Several of you will recall that I keep a bright yellow rain jacket with removable fleece lining in Caliburn. But when I went to live in Leuven it made a dramatic reappearance on the streets seeing as I hadn’t anticipated being there in the winter and so didn’t have a winer jacket.

But it’s old, dirty and as much as I might try, it won’t come up clean at all. It’s OK for being round and about doing things but not really for being anywhere important.

And in LeClerc they had a much more respectable bright yellow rain jacket. No fleece lining but there was a size XL so I can wear an ordinary fleece underneath. It was expensive for what it was, but it’ll be better for travelling about in the Spring and Summer.

Back here I had a little … errr … relax before lunch and then this afternoon with fiddling about with the new hi-fi that I bought the other week (and with which I’m even more impressed than with my galvanised steel dustbin) I could pick up the live football commentary on the BBC – although they seemed to be more interested in what was happening underneath the Directors’ Box at the Olympic Stadium than on the football pitch at St James’s Park.

In a change from the usual Saturday procedures, I had the bass guitar out too. I’ve had Liege And Lief – one of the best albums ever recorded, going round n an endless loop for the last few days, and suddenly the bass line to Crazy Man Michael, one of the best songs ever written, leapt into the front of my mind.

And so I sat down for half an hour and picked it out. And chapeau to Ashley Hutchings because it’s not easy.

Back home from the football through the deserted streets of Granville and 114% of my daily activity, I had the last of my tinned English curries. Tinned food for the next I don’t-Know-How-Long will have to be something different, like the champignons à la Grècque or the spicy beans that I can pick up in Belgium.

And here’s a thing.

A told you about how nice the weather had been today. Today is the first day in 2018 where I’ve not had the heat on in the apartment.

Saturday 3rd February 2018 – WELL, THAT WASN’T …

… very much of a walk this evening. And I didn’t go out at all this afternoon either.

Mind you, I can’t say that I blame myself at all. The respite that we had from the rain yesterday didn’t last and it’s pouring down outside. All football cancelled tonight, which is hardly a surprise. This has to be the wettest winter that I have ever encountered.

I ended up being late to bed last night, but I still found time to go on a perambulation during the night.

I was working … "he means “employed”" – ed … in a Government office such as the VAT office somewhere and it was announced that we were moving out to another town. The secretary of the local Workingmen’s Club had been sending us notes about entertainment that I had been using in the Staff bulletins so I decided to go to thank him and return all of his notes. I had them all copied into a mauve-coloured binder that I intended to return to him. In the club he was on the stage so I climbed up there to thank him and return his notes but at the very last minute remembered that there were all kinds of other notes from other people in there and it wouldn’t do any good whatever for them to fall into the wrong hands and enter the public domain.

Once more, it was a struggle to leave my bed and you’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to my Sunday lie-in tomorrow.

After the usul start to the day I had a shower and a general clean-up in my nice, clean bathroom, and then headed for the shops.

In the usual shops, LeClerc and LIDL, I just bought the usual stuff with nothing exciting at all. And I bought the hi-fi cable and connectors at Mr Bricolage.

But I discovered a new shop that has just opened – an office supplies shop called Bureau Vallée. And here I struck quite lucky.

Remember me saying that I wanted some 2GB memory sticks? Well as it happened, they had three on sale at a reasonable price too, so they have disappeared into my shopping bag. They had a decent 4-hole perforator at a reasonable price for which I have been searching for years and a few other bits and pieces too for good measure.

I shall be going back there too, because while their mainstream stuff is rather pricey, their budget products are really good value, which makes a change these days.

But I had to laugh at NOZ. That’s the kind of place that’s almost impossible to describe. It sells surplus, fire-damaged and bankruptcy clearance stocks, time-limited food goods a,d all of that kind of thing. They try their best to keep it tidy but it inevitably turns into something like a jumble sale within half an hour of opening.

Now my new smartphone is a cheap Chinese import that I reckon might have been for a mainstream manufacturer but now outdated. I’ve had it a week but with there being no case for it, the screen is already scratched more than I would like.

And there in NOZ was a huge heap of all different kinds of mobile phone shells, all mixed up and (for the most part) taken out of the boxes so that people could try them.

I spent a good 15 minutes rummaging around and in the end found one that is an exact fit for my phone, with even the switch buttons being uncovered, but the camera hole is slightly out of position (I can drill that out). Not in the box of course but after a good five minutes rummaging around I found an empty box and packaging, and put it in that to take to the checkout.

The fact that the price tag on the box said €2:99 – the cheapest that I could see – had nothing whatever to do with my choice of box.

Just for a change, I decided to spice up my lunchtime soup a little. It’s tomato and vermicelli for the next couple of days, so besides the usual pasta and bulghour, I added some basil, oregano and chili powder. And different it was too.

With no football and no possibility of going for a walk this afternoon I sorted out the music onto the 2gb data sticks. I now have three and I could do with a pile more. I shall have to go back to Bureau Vallée next weekend and hope that they have some more.

But as well as that, I sorted out a box of paperwork that I had collected ages ago from hanging around in Caliburn. That’s been weeded, sorted, filed and some of it binned. And I didn’t say that I found in NOZ some container that will do fine as a waste paper collector.

Having organised that, I set out to master this database that I want to build for my photos.

And if there is a worse database program in the world I have yet to find it.

In the old days, you could program them so that the numbers would automatically increment, fields would “fill down”, “fill up” or “fill series” like with spreadsheets, and columns could be programmed to auto-adjust for width of data. But if this can do all of that, I have yet to discover how to make it work.

I was hoping to have this running in a couple of hours but I have this uncomfortable feeling that unless I can find out how to make it do what I want, I’m going to be here for ever.

Like with most computer programming, there has to be a way to do things like this because they are the kind of requirement that everyone needs.

But I wish that I knew how to do it.

Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to be able to watch the football on the big screen?

Unfortunately the laptop with the broken screen didn’t work – it’s quite an old laptop of course and the software in it won’t run the video plug-in for the browser.

But the laptop that I’ve been using as a media centre up until recently did the business, that’s for sure, and I was able to watch the first half of Cefn Druids v Llandudno in perfect comfort.

Unfortunately it wasn’t such a perfectly comfortable night? I was awake in the middle of the night and took a while to go back to sleep again. But I was dead to the world when the alarm went off and it was a struggle to leave the bed. How I’m looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow!

After breakfast I had a shower, a good clean-up and change of clothes, and then off to the shops, where I spent another pile of money.

LIDL had some hand towels of the type that I bought the other day so a pack of three disappeared into Caliburn, as did a battery charger. All of mine are back at the farm and in any case are over 30 years old. A little hi-tech modern one will do much better when I might need it.

At Mr Bricolage I bought a knob for my saucepan lid – the one on which I broke the handle the other day, and NOZ came up with the usual stuff.

Centrakor provided a new washing-up bolw of the correct size (so my wok and my pizza platter will fit into it), a few other bits and pieces and a box with a tight-fitting lid – just the thing in which to keep my socks and undies.

At LeClerc I went to look at the HDMI cables because the one-metre cable that I have isn’t really long enough for what I need. And with -metre ones on offer at just €9:99, that’s long enough for just about everything.

LeClerc was also having a sale on suitcases. And a small cabin-sized one on wheels at just €15:99 – just the thing for my trips to Leuven – also ended up in the back of Caliburn.

And I’m glad that I had bought that TV last weel, because there wasn’t a cheap one anywhere to be seen in the shop.

After fuelling up, I came back home, made myself some soup and then … errr … had a little rest for half an hour. And then cracked on with organising the shopping and sorting out another pile of papers. There’s actually some room in the drawers here now, and isn’t that astonishing?

At the end of the football I had to leave.

Caliburn and I went off to Cérences where we were the other week.

It’s the nearest Saturday night match and the home side were playing the Mouettes of Donville.

The first half was all one-way traffic towards the Donville goal. But the Donville keeper put in a performance that neither he nor I will ever forget, including a magnificent “Banks” reverse save. It was the performance of a lifetime and I don’t think that I’ve seen better.

At the start of the second half Donville made two substitutions and the two players that came on, playing down the left, changed the balance of the game and we had a much more even contest.

However it didn’t last. The new left winger had clearly unsettled the defenders and after about 25 minutes he was on the receiving end of a bad challenge and limped off the field. We then went back to the one-sided match that we had in the first half.

The Donville keeper was finally beaten with just 10 minutes to go – a long-range shot that dipped and curled out of his reach and in underneath the angle of the post and crossbar – but he still made a couple more top-class saves to make the result look a lot closer than it deserved.

But there was a lot of naughty stuff going on in this game about which the referee didn’t seem at all concerned. One Cérences player made two tackles in as many minutes, either of which merited a red card in my opinion but nothing was given. And so a minute or two later a Donville player exacted his own retribution by giving him a kick that would have felled an ox. No card for that either.

And that’s just a couple of examples. There were many more.

So, frozen to the marrow, I drove back here and now I’m going to bed.

A nice lie-in, I hope. I deserve it.

Saturday 6th January 2018 – I’VE BEEN CHANGING …

… the habits of a lifetime today.

And how!

We started off with another bad night last night. Despite going to bed at something like a reasonable hour I was tossing and turning for ages and spent most of the night watching the clock wind down.

And never mind the alarm going off at 07:30 – at that time of the morning I was up, medicated and thinking about breakfast. And my porridge did go down nicely too.

At about 09:15 I hit the road for the shops and I’ll tell you more about them in due course. But my shopping trip was interrupted by Rosemary phoning for a chat, and we passed a very pleasant half hour or so, with me parked up at the side of the road.

Back here, a late lunch (because I’d been out for ages) was followed by a snooze as you might expect, and then I had plenty of things to do – such as making start on tidying up the paperwork seeing that I bought a binder today.

This was followed by watching Cardiff Met play Aberystwyth in the Welsh Premier League, and then off out I went.

Up to the 3rd floor and Odile’s apartment. She was having a little fête to celebrate Epiphany and I’d been invited, which was very nice of her. Brigitte was there, and Roberte, David, Nicolas and Patrice. We all had a good chat for ages, and I wasn’t the first to leave either.

Not like me to be sociable is it? But then, I was never really invited anywhere before. My reputation hasn’t reached here yet, obviously!

But the shops!

I have resolved to make my life easier and more comfortable, and that includes buying things of a better quality than maybe I might usually do, and also to have one one or two luxuries around the place to bolster my morale.

And didn’t that work in Spades today?

Not that it means abandoning my trips to NOZ of course. IN fact I was there today and another €15 of near-expired food and a few other irrelevancies ended up in Caliburn. And the braderie at LeClerc was hit as well, with a waste bin for the living room and a bucket-waste bin for the bedroom.

But that’s only part of it – and a small part of that.

I seem to only have two towels here and both of them seem to have long-since seen better days. So with LIDL having a sale on and luxury towels reduced to a reasonable price, they had one blue shower towel and one blue hand towel (the bathroom is blue) left, as well as a matching blue bathrobe (my old one is falling to bits).

So they ended up in Caliburn too.

Next stop was NOZ, and then Centrakor for a new wallet to replace the one that was lost.

After that it was to “Happy Cash”, the second-hand shop.

Regular readers of this rubbish will be surprised to hear that I’m looking for a cheap television. I have a DVD player here – the one that I bought in Belgium years ago, complete with hard drive, and I only used it for about 6 months before I moved to France.

It’s been in a cardboard box ever since, and here I am watching DVDs on an old laptop. So I want a cheap TV and the second-hand shop seemed to be the place to go.

No such luck unfortunately, but I did strike gold in a quite unexpected direction.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I moved here I went looking for a stereo hi-fi. It needed to meet several criteria, like AM/FM radio, CD, auxiliary input, USB port (for a memory stick or a USB turntable). And how I had been singularly unsuccessful.

And there sitting on the shelf was an old battered LG stereo hi-fi with absolutely everything that I wanted, and as an added bonus, a cassette player/recorder. All powered by a remote control.

A lengthy chat with the manager saw it disappearing into Caliburn for the grand sum of … errr … €49:00.

One very happy little bunny here. I spent part of the afternoon wiring it up and the rest of the afternoon having a nostalgia trip listening to a pile of cassettes from the 1970s. Ohh Happy Day!

And later, having bought a memory stick, I copied a pile of music onto it and it’s running even now in the hi-fi. It recognises 999 tracks, which is quite acceptable

But that’s not all. Ohh no it isn’t!

Still in search of a television, I went, more out of curiosity to LeClerc. They had some televisions advertised at €99:00 and that could have been a possibility. But a 57cm screen won’t go far and besides, no SCART socket – just a HDMI cable, so my DVD player wouldn’t work. And after all of the money that I paid for it (because it was a top-of-the range machine) I didn’t want to throw it away lightly.

But there in the corner in the sale were three or four cheap Chinese TVs – 80cms – much more like it. With SCART and HDMI cable plugs and a USB port. €149:00.

So >copulatum expensium , as we Pompeiians say.

That’s now in the back of Caliburn too and it will be up in here tomorrow.

And if that’s not enough, I lost my carte de fidelité the other week and with this kind of thing it’s important because if there’s a complaint they can track your article.

The girl at the cash desk sent me to the accueil and I had to queue behind another guy. He asked for two tickets for tomorrow’s Cup Match against Bordeaux. I thought they would be sold out but “we only have six left”. So he bought two and that left four.

So badger that for a game of soldiers. I bought two too. And Terry is going to come with me to watch the game.

But shopping did wear me out – the first time for three weeks that I’ve hit the shops. I’ll be hitting the sack in a minute to gather my forces for tomorrow.

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

Monday 11th December – WE’RE HAVING …

… a disaster here right now.

On the point of going off to bed last night, I looked for the mobile phone to put under the pillow to awaken me in the morning.

But no trace.

I rang the number but I couldn’t hear the ringing, so I went downstairs to tip out Caliburn to see if it was there. But no trace either. And so I ended up by sorting out the old phone that I used before I got into smartphones, and that fired up okay. At least I had an alarm.

All of this at 01:00 too.

Last night was really a bad night too. I was still awake at 04:30 so it was something of a struggle to rouse myself when the alarm went off. Down in Caliburn at 06:15 to see if I could hear the second alarm, but no such luck.

And so I turned out the apartment making more of a mess that it was before, and although I found my missing notebook (which is always good news) no trace of the phone.

The last time that I remember havong it was at the football match, so at 09:30 I set off to retrace my steps from Saturday. No luck on the roadside, no luck at the Mairie, which deals with the fottball ground issues, and so I went to the police and reported it missing.

My route took me past the railway station where I picked up my tickets on Saturday night, and no luck at the football ground, although I did meat Johann Gallon, the coach of the football club, and we had a chat.

What didn’t help matters was that not only did we have a driving rainstorm, we had a howling gale too and it was really uncomfortable. But I did get to meet a helpful chemist who not only pointed me in the direction of a good doctor, told me that he was authorised to dispense Belgian prescriptions.

I’ve invented a new drink too. Fed up far the moment with coffee, I bought some blackcurrant syrup and I’ve been drinking this with hot water and a dash of lemon juice. And it’s very more-ish. And so I’ve had no coffee all day (and no breakfast either)

This afternoon I had a good sleep to catch up with what I missed, and then went for a walk. But I missed the high tide so I’ll have to try again tomorrow. But all of the zinc guttering and facing on the roof of the building opposite is now flapping about in the wind.

Another sleep and then I spent the rest of the afternoon (such as it was) obliterating duplicate radio programmes from my laptop.

For tea I had potatoes with the beans and vegan sausages left over from the other night, and then went out for a walk. But I was blown back inside.

So I hope that I’ll have a better night tonight and I’ll be able to organise my telephone tomorrow. I can’t be doing with this Monday closing.

Tuesday 5th December 2017 – I HAD A …

… phone call this morning. Would I like to go for a coffee this afternoon?

Clearly, something is up.

I’d had a miserable night last night – awake at 04:20 with a dreadful itch that I couldn’t scratch and it was so annoying. But I’d been on my travels too and it was rather depressing. A friend of mine – a woman – had died and someone else hand hanged her in the bathroom. And there she had hung for a couple of weeks, slowly decaying. I knew that I had to dispose of the body via an undertaker but the longer I left it, the more complicated it became of course. There was no doubt that she had died of natural causes but this prevarication is yet another story of my life, isn’t it? I’d painted myself into a corner for no good reason.

After breakfast I had things to do – liek work on this enormous pile of photos and finding that many of them are duplicates – not that that’s much of a surprise. But I’ll plug away at them until they are all properly filed.

After lunch, I had a shower and then set off down to the docks, and the Grima in fact. Her master wanted to see me.

I helped the crew (of two) load the ship, had a good chat and was given a conducted tour of the ship.

The engine room is beautiful – two old Kelvin diesels, long stroke, slow revving, with plenty of roo to move aroud them; everything eccessible, and even a well underneath so you can drop out the conrods and pistons without dismanting the engine too much.

It’s a marine engineer’s dream and a far cry from this modern hi-tech stuff. You could dismantle this engine and repair it in mid-ocean without any problem at all.

But downstairs in the hold, around a coffee,, we got down to business. The guy who does the running around, fetching and carrying for the Grima, is getting more work than he used to, and so he’s not willing to drive around picking up parcels and the odd pallet, unless he charges the standard 25-tonne lorry rate. Even for an envelope.

That van that I was telling you about the other week that came on the Grima, they have dropped that here to go fetching and carrying the small packets but it’s not suitable for large stuff and they don’t often have time. Accordingly, they need someone with a large van – Transit-size in fact.

And so we had a lengthy chat about this and that, and there might be some developments on this score in the future. Who knows?

For tea this evening, I made a potato and lentil curry. And seeing that it fell short (like last week’s) I lengthened it with a tin of runner beans. A couple of weeks ago, NOZ had a vegetable steamer for a microwave oven. Nothing like as solid as a Tupperware one, but it was only €3:50 so I bought it. And it cooked my potatoes really well. I could be onto a winner with this.

I’ve had my walk too, and so I’ll try for an early night. And we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: caliburn

Thursday 24th May 2018 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

Monday 14th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

Sunday 6th May 2018 – THIS ISN’T GOING …

Sunday 29th April 2018 – HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Thursday 26th April 2018 – AND SO …

Sunday 11th March 2018 -JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

Saturday 10th March 2018 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

Saturday 3rd February 2018 – WELL, THAT WASN’T …

Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

Saturday 6th January 2018 – I’VE BEEN CHANGING …

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

Monday 11th December – WE’RE HAVING …

Tuesday 5th December 2017 – I HAD A …

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