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Saturday 29th June 2019 – A RECESSION? YOU MUST BE JOKING!

We keep on being told that economies are in a bad state and that many businesses are in crisis. But at the rate that they are turning away good money, it must be just a false rumour.

Last night I went to the Food Court in the basement of the Gare du Midi at 20:50 for my evening meal, bearing in mind that it closes at 21:00. Most of the stalls were already closed, another one was tidying up and cleaning up, and the final one told me “we’re not cooking now – we’re just closing”.

Obviously, it’s too much like hard work for anyone to be bothered to earn good money when it’s 10 minutes short of going-home time.

Not like the Indian restaurant in Crewe all those years ago. One of my taxis was out at 04:00 and the driver radioed me to ask if there was anywhere where his passengers could find somewhere to eat.

I telephoned the Indian restaurant
“sorry, we’re closed”
“but I have a taxi with passengers who are hungry”
“A taxi? How many passengers?”
“Four passengers”
“Four passengers? WE’RE OPEN!!!!”

And people complain that they are taking over.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I had a really decent sleep, right the way through until the alarm went off. I’d been on a little voyage too but I can’t remember anything at all about it. Any recollection of it evaporated before I had time to grab hold of the dictaphone.

After the usual morning performance I had a shower and washed my clothes, and then went down for breakfast. I need to start the day as I mean to go on;

Back up here, I dealt with a few things that needed doing, and tidied up and packed my possessions ready to leave tomorrow.

When Alison texted me, I headed down to the station and took the metro, changing at Arts-Loi to travel to Kraainem where she was waiting.

We went to Brico and Carrefour and then headed out, via her house to drop off some stuff, to the Ardennes in the sweltering heat.

We stopped off at Tellin for a cool drink and then off to the other side of the autoroute to Redu, which is the Belgian equivalent of Hay-on-Wye, full of second-hand bookshops.

Nothing there caught my eye so we headed off for Sohier. “Sohier we are”, I mused to myself.

It’s said to be one of the prettiest villages in Belgium. Pretty it may well be, but I’ve seen plenty that are prettier, and in Belgium too.

Back up the road to Han-sur-Lesse (home of the legendary caves) for a late lunch and a walk by the river.

Finally to Rochefort and its famous church, where I discovered not only carvings of masonic symbols such as the arc and compass but also a Sol Invictus – the Conquering Sun, a pagan symbol adopted by the emperor Constantine after the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312AD.

We also stumbled, quite by accident, upon the old abandoned Rochefort railway station on the abandoned lne between Jemelle and Houyet, closed to passengers in 1959 and to freight in 1978. There was also a tacot – a rural tramway – that started here and went to Wellin

That was enough for today as we were sweltering by this time in 35°C. We headed back to Brussels.

Alison dropped me off at the Herman Debroux metro station where I fuelled up her car for her and then I took the metro back to the Gare du Midi and my adventures in the food court.

Tea ended up being a baguette and tomato, followed by a banana. At least the Delhaize supermarket in the basement was still open.

Back here I sat down and ate my tea, and then I had in mind the idea of writing up my notes. However, the next thing that I remember was that it was about 23:30 – I’d been asleep for 90 minutes “just like that”, so I gave up the idea and went back to sleep.

Friday 28th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

I had my blood test at the hospital, and there has been a dramatic change in the situation.

Last month (albeit almost 6 weeks ago) the blood count was about 9.1. I’ve had it checked at Granville twice just recently, and it was at 9.4. But today, it’s plummetted down to near-critical 8.4

And that’s a total surprise to me because that just doesn’t seem to be right at all. Something is wrong somewhere. And I do have to say that right now I’m feeling better than I have felt for a while, which is a good thing.

Last night was a rather depressing night. I wasn’t sure to leave the air-conditioning on and have a bad night’s sleep because of the noise, or else turn off the air-conditioning and have a bad night’s sleep due to the heat.

In the end, I chose the former. And despite turning off the film that I was watching because I was tired, and rocked and rolled throughout the night.

Nevertheless there was plenty of time to go for a series of nocturnal rambles.

We started off last night at the OUSA conference in somewhere overlooking the town square and all that was taking place.I had a poem to read later on that day that I had organsied the previous day with someone. It took me ages tofind my notes and I was panicking like I usually do when I can’t find something, until in the end I came across them. We were going through the start of the day’s procedure. We turned up with an old red Vauxhall VX4/90 (the Virctor shape from about 1962-64) pulling a caravan. It was the President, and she got out and told us that she had been away last night in her car and had had a problem with a tyre on the caravan. This had to be fixed but since she had the tyre fixed it’s been causing her more problems, going flat, air leaking out and so on, until in the end somewhere in Yorkshire they found a garage open and he found that the tyre had been fitted incorrectly so he fitted it correctly. But it seemed that there was a fault in the price for the fitting, so he rectified that, much to her dismay.She was telling us all problems about the car.I couldn’t help noticing that everytime she started up the car it was struggling to get goign, struggling to run, put your foot down on the accelerator and it immediately flooded and we had to wait for a minute for it to clear.I was convinced thatthe car wasrunning so rich that that was causing a lot of problems. I was going to tellher to have the mixture looked at but I never had the opportunity, so I was going toinclude it somewhere in my poem, and wondering how I was going to work that in.
Later I was with a large group of civilians and our town was being invaded. We were blanketed in shells and you could see one shell sticking out of the sand and it hadn’t gone off. Later I was invited to some kind of TV panel game, and there in the courtyard was another tank of the invaders buried right up to the neck. I thought that the invaders hadn’t had a very good time here, had they? I had togive a chat and write a short poem about the enemy being here. I said for those there, there’s any number of those – any number. but for the ordinary visitors, none whatsoever. At one point we were saying, look at that enemy tank, buried up to its neck in rocks and bricks, and on the other hand 5 minutes later we would be extremely scared in case a tank picked out our house as one of the ones tobe destroyed.
Later still I was with my brother last night and we were in London. We were on one side of the road and we had to cross to another, dodging in and out of the traffic. And I found that I could run. I wasso amazed that I could run, and I told him. The car we were dodging was a D reg white Cortina Mk I kitted out as a minicab. But instead of having the paper licence in the back window like they do in London it had the name and phone no written on broad white masking tape stuckin the rear door windows. The driver did a U-turn butit was strange because he was on the correct side of the road but did a U-turn “inside” rather than “outside” across the road, so he was facing the wrong way. Then he crossed the road on foot to knock on a door or did he have a key to open it? I can’t remember. It was completely strange. Anyway I went into this corner pub at the side entrance because I was trying to find a passenger for a taxi. It was a very posh Burtonwood pub but I couldn’t see anyone in there at all. I went out of the front door and there was a girl sitting on the pavement, wearing a kind of light-coloured kilt thing, a big burly girl. I asked if she was waiting for a cab, and she replied “yes” so I apologised for coming to the wrong door of the pub, and took her back through the pub and out to my car. At that point she lit a cigarette, and I was just about to tell her that smoking was not allowed in my cab, and I awoke.
Finally I’d been out with a group of people. We had some big ships, or there was a big ship. There was about 40,000 cups of tea served on this ship, something ridiculous. It had some connection with refugees and the ship would go out and fetch refugees. I was with someone who was very much in the background, and there were another two people, a man and a woman. he woman was born in 1952 so she told me and so was the guy. They were really in charge of this operation.They would keep on going off to bring back these refugees. Whoever it was thatI was with – it might have been Nerina, something like that, she went off and that left me alone in my house, so I spent all the timepicking up rubbish and rying to get the place look tidy as there was rubbish everywhere. No matter how much I picked up, it only made a slight difference so you couldn’t see just how dramatic the improvement was. We ended up back on the beach again. I was with this other girl and the guy came back. He’d been off to get some newspapers or something, and handed me three, the Daily Express, the daily mail and the Chorley Weekly Advertiser or whatever the Chorley local paper was because he came from that area. When I looked at the Daily Mail and the Daily Express I said “thank you very much but I’ve already been to the toilet this morning” which didn’t get the laugh that I was expecting. Justthen I looked further down the coast and this ship was setting out. I thought that that was the ferry going to one of the islands -we were in the South of France, that area, and it might have been the one going to Corsica or Sardinia or whatever. I gave the ship the name “Cote d’Azur”, I’ve no idea why.As I went to grab my camera, three really high-speed ferries shot from the south towards the north, towards the coast. I went to quickly grab a photo, but for some reason the shutter was on a very long aperture and shutter speed and I wasn’t able to get a photo because by the time I had adjusted the camera to take the one of the ship going out, the shutter was still open. So I ried to take a photo of this ship sailing out, which had now become three ships sailing out – there must have been another 2 creeping behind it while I’d been distracted by these three ships coming in.

It didn’t take me long to leave my stinking pit and after the medication and a coffee I had a shower and washed my clothes. I like to keep on top of my washing.

Down at the railway station I bought some raisin buns for lunch and hen we had all of the confusion about the trains. There was a signal failure at the Gare Centrale so the trains were all in confusion. I eventually found one to take me to Leuven.

We arrived at the station at 08:30 and by 09:25 I was in the hospital. Despite the heat and the distance, I had a good walk all the way there with my knee hardly hurting.

They didn’t have my medication due to me having changed the day, so they had to hunt around for some stuff. They eventually found me a pile of sample stuff so my mobile stand looked like a Christmas tree.

The nurse there wanted to practise her French with me so we did all of or stuff in French. She knew Granville very well, having spent several holidays there.

It took ages for a doctor to see me, and when she did she was disappointed about my results. She was even more disappointed when I said that I wasn’t going to be back until 9th October. She was impressed with Granville too and looked at some photos of the town.

Rosemary rang too and we had a little chat.

The doctor still hadn’t come back by the time that I was finished. I had to hunt her down. She gave me prescriptions for three months (which she wrote out wrong, asI was to find out) and a lecture from the Professor.

In the end, she agreed that I could have a three-month holiday from medical attention, but probably more because she could see I she was determined.

Another healthy stride out into town and a travel arrangement where I spent over an hour trying to sort out something or other, and then off to meet Alison, going via the ice cream place for a sorbet in the heatwave.

We had a chat, and then to Greenway for a burger and Kloosters for a drink. After another lengthy chat, she drove me back here.

Now I’m off to bed. I have an early start in the morning.

Wednesday 26th June 2019 – MY LAST DAY …

… here at home for a while. I’m off on my travels tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll be coming home.

As a result I’ve been working fairly hard (or as hard as maybe I can these days).

It wasn’t such an early night last night, and it was a nervous topsy-turvy kind of sleep. Plenty of time to go on my travels too.

I was working at a desk in part of a room and there were four of us to a table copying stuff off a screen to write some kind of thing about the sea. There was a seat empty next to me and some Japanese person came and plonked themselves down at it. They put a kind of cage around the screen and closed it so we were peering through this wire grill thing at the screen. I couldn’t see it properly as I was sitting out at the edge and I was getting more and more frustrated with this wire screen. In the end I had a bit of a tantrum about it. I had to move all of my things so that I could see the screen, and then move my chair, and then move my things again so I could see the screen. In the end a woman said “there’s another room and it’s a bit more quiet in there. Why don’t you go and sit in there?”. She had a look at what I was doing and said “you aren’t very far along, are you? You have 8 pages to do”. I said “I’m doing 8”. She took the double-page thing I was currently working on and took it off me. “No, you need to do some more”. I made a fuss about that but didn’t get this piece of paper back. Then I went into the other room which was much more quiet. I asked someone where there was an empty seat but no-one seemed to want to answer. I didn’t want to sit in someone else’s seat but no-one was answering. Someone piped up that seeing as there are no clerical assistant people in the room perhaps someone had better answer. But then one of the managers came in and said something like “I want to announce that so-and-so has now been appointed full-time” which made a young boy beam “and now we have som proper back-up clerical staff”. He was going on and no-one was answering my question. Some young guy from the other room then came in so I asked him “do you know which of these seats is free?”. He started to spout some kind of supercilious nonsense that was totally meaningless basically to say that he didn’t have the time. I was so close to running after him and hitting him, I really was. (And when was the last time that I have shown real anger during a noccturnal voyage?)
The paving slabs that cover this area are very easy to dig into, marked with dots and they were scattered all around this cemetery kind of place. There was no logical argument to dig in as to whether you were digging a foxhole rather than a trench defending system, so I didn’t want to go along and get my troop isolated like this up here (and I’ve no idea what this bit means or what it’s supposed to be connected to).
Later on, there was something going on with a woman, a party or a birthday party or wedding party or something. They were reading a eulogy to her. We were in another room listening. Someone in our party said “but there’s no sign of her being released from this hospital wherever it was she was supposed to have been released to and this eulogy was all about. As we went into the main room to enquire about it, the penny suddenly dropped wit them as well. Where’s this woman? The guy reading the eulogy said “I can’t go on until I’ve found out about the current whereabouts of this woman. Sh’s been missing for four years. Anyway they were handing out stars for a military parade somewhere that was to do with all of this. We received a star for our vehicle, a Citroen DS19 with a pickup army-type canvas tilt back, painted in army colours and looked rather like a shark or crocodile. We had to go to fetch that to present it to the organisers, so while we were at it, we though that we would go and hunt down this woman.
Finally, I had to go to look for Sir Brian, so off I went. I was in Gresty Lane and crossed over to Eastern Road. It was all flooded out there, and he came running past with his dog, with a pair of wellingtons, shorts and a sun-hat. At first I wasn’t sure if it was him, nut it was. I had to reverse after him as he had no intention of stopping. I finally caught him on Rope Lane bridge. I told him that some work had come in. He grabbed the notes out of the door pocket to have a look. I went to tell him about those and saw that they had gone. I had to say that a job had come in for next Wednesday, I had to take him off somewhere and that he needed to contact his office for further details. He’d made the odd genial remark here and there about the rain, that kind of thing

I wasn’t up as early as I would otherwise have liked, and after breakfast I started to pack. For some reason or other I have far too much stuff and so I’ve ended up leaving behind the Nikon 1 and a few other things too that I would otherwise have liked to have taken.

Not because of the weight – I’m well within my loading allowance – but for a simple question of space.

In between all of that I had a shower, and I’ve also cut my hair really short. I stuck the washing machine on too so that I will have some clean clothes for when I come back.

The tidying up has been progressing slowly, and there’s still plenty more to do. But I’ll do what I can tomorrow in the time that exists between getting up and leaving the house at 08:00.

As long as I can wash the floor before leaving, that will be fine;

And that’s not all either. I’ve made a lentil and bean pie to use up the rest of the leftovers, only to find that I forgot once more to use the mushrooms that remain.

Some pastry was left so I made an apple turnover.

All of that is now in the freezer. I’ve had to move the bread into the freezer compartment of the fridge. I hope that it stays frozen.

That’s really about everything, I reckon. Except that I had one of my walks this afternoon (and missed the evening walk, and yet still managed to end up with 42% of my daily activity) and took Caliburn for a lap around the block.

Now I’m off to bed. It’s going to be a hectic day tomorrow.

Saturday 8th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN SHOPPING …

.. today.

But the shopping expedition started before I went out, actually.

Liz turned up as planned, but she had stopped off at the chemist on the way here and bought some arnika tablets and some calendula oil.

The arnika is for easing the pain and bruising, and the calendula oil is a natural anti-inflammatory preparation for rubbing on the knee. and seeing as nothing else seems to be working right now, it’s worth a chance.

Last night was, for a change, an excellent sleep. I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off, and even though it’s not a Sunday, I lay in bed until about 08:25.

After a coffee Liz and I went to the shops, fighting our way through the grockles.

Nowhere came up with anything special, although we had a nice lunch in LeClerc. I also helped Liz check her tyres – there was a lack of pressure in the rear left-hand tyre.

Back here, I crashed out not once but twice, and then hung out the washing that I had done while we were at the shops and changed all of the bedding.

For a change I didn’t feel much like tea but there were a few baked beans left so I had them with a couple of small potatoes.

An early night now, I reckon. And Sunday is a lie-in. So I’ll bathe my leg in calendula oil and hope that it produces some good results.

Liz is impressed by how much easier I am moving compared to last week, and for that I thank the salt baths. Let’s hope that the calendula can add to that.

Tuesday 14th May 2019 – I HAD A …

much more productive day today;

Probably the decent sleep helped because I was out like a light and slept right the way through until about 05:20 when I awoke.

No chance of going back to sleep, so I was up well before the third alarm went off. And all things considered, it was an early start to the day.

And by the time I’d knocked off for tea, I’d almost finished the 2016 Canada notes. And by the time you read this I will probably have finished them too because I think that I might crack on tonight and early tomorrow morning and have it done.

And then I’ll have to start the 2017 notes.

As it’s Tuesday I had a shower, and just for a change just recently lunch was taken out on the wall overlooking the harbour.

Glorious sunshine but still rather windy for my liking.

But not for plenty of others though. I haven’t seen any lizards at all this year so far at my little spec, but there were crowds of people setting off on one of the ferries heading in the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

It makes me quite envious of them. But I’m hoping that it won’t be too long before I’m out there somewhere on the high seas on board a ship somewhere.

And while I was lunching, I was running a washing machine. With all of the windows open there was quite a current of air blowing through the apartment and with the washing on the airer on the window, it dried in a couple of hours.

A day or two ago I posted a photo of some work that a neighbour had been doing on the concrete pad at the side of the building.

Underneath there are some storage units that had been converted from the underground water tanks but I’ve never seen anyone doing anything down there – until the other day.

For some reason or other they had been put out of use, but the other day there was someone pressure-washing the area. So I waited until today when there was no-one about, to take a photo of the work.

This afternoon I had my walk around the Pointe du Roc – but I had to tear myself out of my chair first, where I’d been away with the fairies for 20 minutes. Beautiful, glorious weather but only about a dozen people out there. The rest of the population doesn’t know what it’s been missing.

But there was plenty of activity out at sea today. We had all kinds of boats out there. The sea was positively heaving with craft.

Here in the channel between the Pointe du Roc and the Ile de Chausey we have a speedboat, a large trawler and a small trawler, as well as a couple of other craft.

A few days ago I mentioned that there seems to be much more activity in the area involving fishing boats. And if anything, it’s increasing.

Here on the edge of the harbour I was treated to a delightful nautical danse macabre involving two of the larger trawlers that use the harbour and also a smaller trawler from the port.

The green and white one is heading out to sea and the black and white one and small pink and white one are coming in to unload

This is one of the nicest photos that I’ve taken for quite some time.

The sailing school at Granville is out in force today and all of their yachts are swirling around offshore in the bay just off the Pointe Gautier with a procession of speedboats navigating their way around them. We have the Chateau de la Crete, and what wouldn’t I give to have an apartment in there overlooking the sea?

But I do like the colours. They have come out really well in this photo

One thing that surprised me was one of the Ile de Chausey ferries tied up at the quay right by the fish-processing plant. I’ve not seen one moored there before.

The reason for that, though, became evident. It seems to be changing over its gas bottles and that’s the most convenient place for a heavy vehicle and the ship to exchange loads.

It can’t do that at the Marine Terminal because the ramp is fairly inaccessible to lorries and is too steep. And in the harbour, it’ll need a crane to drop the bottles down to the ship.

There was another little break too. Now that I’ve properly configured the program that I use for recording CDs, I’ve done another four out of the backlog.

The sad thing though is that the automatic track detector doesn’t work for some reason so I have to add the track names manually and that takes some time.

It might well be that the albums are known by a slightly different name in France so the detector can’t pick them up. I shall have to play around with the country settings to se if that makes a difference.

And tea didn’t quite work out tonight. it should have been a stuffed pepper but the pepper had gone off – and from Saturday too. And so having prepared the stuffing already I went for the tacos, but they weren’t much better. In the end i had to invent something quick.

No apple pie, so it was pineapple slices and vegan coconut ice cream for dessert.

After the washing up I went for my evening walk around the walls.

First stop was at the house renovation at the rue du Nord to see what was going on. And I was right about the floor in the garage because they have concreted it over today. But then it didn’t take much of a guess to work out what they were going to do with it.

It’s really going to be something when it’s finished, and I wonder what their plans might be. I wonder if there will be any apartments to let.

I was totally alone out there again this evening except for some young guy.

He was sitting on a bench by the communal garden at the foot of the wall above the beachin the evening sun, playing the guitar and singing Sunny Afternoon. He was having a really good time out there and his enthusiasm was quite infectious.

So much so that when I returned home I piicked up the bass and worked out the bass lie to the song.

Liz was on line later so we had a little chat, and then rosemary appeared and we were chatting – not about anything in particular – for 75 minutes.

And do it’s a late night tonight, and I didn’t even finish what I was intending to do either.

But such is life. There is always tomorrow.

trawler ile de chausey granville manche normandy france eric hall

speedboat granville manche normandy france eric hall

trawler yacht pleasure boat baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hall

trawlers fishing baie de mont st michel brittany coast granville manche normandy france eric hall

ile de chausey ferry port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hall

classe decouverte port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hall

cherry picker beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hall

Thursday 25th April 2019 – THAT WAS A …

… really difficult today today.

What went wrong was the fact that having had a long sleep during the afternoon, I wasn’t all that tired when I went to bed.

Nevertheless I went to sleep pretty quickly and even managed to go on something of a nocturnal ramble. But I’ll spare you the details because you are probably eating your tea right now.

However, I awoke at about 01:30 and that was that. I lay awake tossing and turning until the alarm went off at 06:00.

Just for a change I was up early this morning and after the usual performance and a shower, I set the washing machine off doing a load of washing.

Once that was on its way I went into town. But I didn’t get very far before I had to stop.

A few weeks ago I photographed them digging up the pavement in the rue des Juifs for the fibre-optic cable. But they had filled in the trenches and sealed it all over a good while ago.

But today, the fibre-optic people were there digging it all up again. I asked why but the guy to whom I spoke just shrugged his shoulders

Down at the quayside in the harbour Normandy Trader was there unloading.

I imagine that she had come in on the morning tide,and having missed to opportunity to photograph Thora yesterday, I took a quick photo of here while I was going into town.

After all, the speed in which these ships are turning round these days, she may well not be here by the time that I return.

And so I continued on my way to the Mairie for the Certificate that I needed. But there was no-one there to sign it so I had to go back later.

Next stop was the bank to change the standing order for my rent. The rental goes up at the beginning of next month so I had to do that.

Third stop was the railway station to pick up my tickets for my next trip to Leuven in May. I’m spinning my appointments out now to every 5 weeks so as to fit into a new revised plan.

Just then Rosemary telephoned me. So instead of going to LIDL (I don’t really need anything) I headed for home.

And I was almost right about Normandy Trader.

She had by now left her berth, and I just managed to catch her stern disappearing out of the harbour. Another quick turnround.

And I need to make the most of my sightings of her and of Thora and quite possibly the gravel boats too.

There’s no Customs Post here in Granville so when Brexit inevitably happens, these ships will need to go to a port that has a customs post – like St Malo. No wonder everyone here is so upset.

Rosemary and I had a really good chat for quite a considerable time as usual, and we put the world to rights while we were on the line. Ingrid came onto the internet too and we we had a chat too;

That took me nicely up to lunchtime, which was taken inside because by now the weather had broken and we were having a storm.

Once the weather eased off I went back into town, only to find that the Mairie here doesn’t issue the Certificates. They seem to think that it’s something that only applies to small communes where the mayor knows personally all of his inhabitants.

Anyway, I left them fighting with the prefecture over the issue and came home, being caught in yet another rainstorm;

I had a few things to do, but by 17:30 I was off with the fairies. Back in bed for a good 100 minutes fast asleep.

Tea was a stuffed pepper followed by rice pudding, and then my walk around the headland. Away on the horizon I noticed something moving so the horizon out in the English Channel so I photographed it.

I was right about one thing – that it was indeed a huge ship.

No idea which one though because it was too far out, but I thought that it might be Pont Aven, the Brittany Ferries flagship heading to St Malo.

However, when I looked on live ships database later on in the evening, the recorded position at the time I took the photo seemed to correspond with the known position of Bretagne.

She’s one of the oldest ferries working the Channel, having been launched in 1989, and has a gross tonnage of about 24500 tonnes.

She’s actually living on borrowed time, having been taken out of service in 2016, but the contract for her replacement was cancelled and so she’s back on duty for now.

My perambulations took me round the Pointe du Roc and along the path at the top looking over the chantier navale.

There have been a few changes there today. The old trawler that’s been undergoing major reconstruction down at the bottom of the yard has now been brought up to the top end and put on chocs here. It’s weather protection has been removed too.

It’s been joined by another trawler too, the big pink and blue one on the left. No idea what they are doing with that one.

But I couldn’t go back into my building without taking a photo of probably the most beautiful sunset that I have ever seen.

It’s not very often that I produce a remarkable photograph but this one actually worked in spades. The sun was just peeking through the heavy clouds and was illuminating the buildings on the Ile de Chausey just like the spotlights might do on a stage set.

It’s really come out well and I’m very proud of this very dramatic photo.

So I’ll try for an early night tonight. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow, but I still have plenty of things that need doing. it’s going to be a long day.

Thursday 18th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes yet again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night I wasn’t feeling tired so I didn’t go to bed until late. Not that it would have mattered very much because I switched off the alarms on my telephone so I could have a lie-in – necessary when I’ve been on a trip back from Leuven.

The fact that I hardly slept at all during the night didn’t bother me too much either because I was going to have a nice long lie-in this morning.

And all went perfectly according to plan as well, right up until 06:00 when I was awoken bolt upright . Bane of Britain had apparently forgotten that before going to Leuven he had set up the back-up alarms just in case the main alarms failed to go off.

And so that was that.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 09:00 that I finally crawled out of bed. But it was rather a waste of three good hours.

After a rather late breakfast I had a shower and then later I set the washing machine off on a cycle. Dirty clothes have been building up all around here and they need to be sorted out.

And I’ve had another piece of devastatingly bad luck here. I took the memory card out of the Nikon 1 J5 and put it in the card reader – backwards. So now it’s shorted out the terminals and damaged the card.

Luckily I had copied some of them from my trip onto the portable laptop, but the ones from yesterday’s return trip and the previous evening’s walk have gone.

It always happens like this.

I couldn’t go off to the shops right then because I was expecting a delivery. And it finally turned up at 12:10.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I happened quite by chance to notice a second-hand Nikon I 18.5mm f1.8 lens that would be ideal for very-low-light conditions. I’d had a message to say that it would be delivered today.

What surprised me was that the price for which it was on sale was one of these unbelievable prices – less than a third of the new retail price. And so I didn’t really expect it to arrive at all. But here it is.

And I didn’t expect it to work either, but I gave it a quick try in here and it seems to do what it was supposed to. I’ll go and try it out in the dark outside later on tonight after dark and see what it can do.

Once I’d organised the camera lens, I headed out for a rather late visit to the shops.

However, I was delayed by some kind of activity in the harbour. They were out on their little pontoon again working away with their machinery.

It’s really intriguing, what is going on right now. I really ought to go down there one of these days and buttonhole the guys, in order to enquire as to what is going on.

Further on up the hill and into the avenue Aristide Briand just a short hop from LIDL, when my attention was drawn to this clever piece of urban engineering.

They were working on one of the parking spaces the other day, and now it seems that they have in fact been installing a couple of bicycle racks.

But I wonder about the purpose of the disabled parking sign just here. How are you going to manage to park a disabled person’s vehicle in there?

LIDL came up with nothing special except for a pack of jubilee clips. I don’t have any here and that’s not a very good situation in which to find myself.

But on my way home, my attention was diverted by the objects on display in an antique shop in the rue des Juifs.

This is a painting that is actually on display here for sale. It’s not been painted by a 4-year old, but by a mature adult painter, so we are informed, and if you want to buy it, it will cost you a grand total of $650, believe it or not.

The art critic Linda Merrill in her book ” target=”_blank”>Aesthetics On Trial recounts a delightful story where John Ruskin once criticised James McNeil Whistler’s painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket” by saying that he “never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”.

Well, I never expected to hear one ask six hundred and fifty Euros for it either.

Lunch was on the wall in the glorious sunshine. it really was nice today outside.

The Pecheur de Lys was down there in the harbour, nestling on the mud because the tide had gone out.

No sign of my lizards though. I would have expected to have seen them by now. I hope that they all managed to survive the winter in hibernation. It’s not as if it was a really hard winter again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking is a habitual feature on these pages.

This one takes some beating though. On a blind bend by a road jusntion, right by a “no waiting” sign and blocking off part of a zebra crossing, we have some stupid motorist stopped to talk to his friends.

I really don’t know what it is that goes through the heads of some of the people on this planet. I really don’t.

Back here, I crashed out for a while and then awoke to find that there was a football match on the internet this afternoon.

There’s an international Under-15 tournament taking place right now, and Wales had made it to the finals against Belgium. It was quite an exciting match, especially as Wales won 4-0 and you can see the goals here.

Mind you, it might have been a different matter had the Belgian keeper not conceded a penalty and been sent off for his pains.

Tea tonight was another helping of that shepherd’s pie with vegetables and gravy, followed by fruit salad and soya cream. Totally delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my eveing walk.

There were plenty of trawlers out and about out there tonight. And the two boats in the chantier navale have now been joined by two small trawlers undergoing repair.

There were also a fair few people out in the fine weather enjoying the evening air.

Later still, I went out for a walk again with the new lens to see what damage I can do with it.

And now I’ll be having another early night. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow so another lie-in, if I have remembered to switch off every alarm.

I’ll leave you to admire the rest of the photos. The ones in the dark were taken with the new lens.

pontoon port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

pecheur de lys port de granville harbour manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 rue du roc granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 donville les bains granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Monday 15th April 2018 – THE BAD NEWS …

…is that my blood count has gone down, and rather dramatically too. 9.7 last month, and this month it’s 9.3.

That’s rather depressing as far as I am concerned, especially as this last couple of days I’ve been feeling rather more sprightly and a little (just a little) of the old me has come back.

The worse news is that this medication that they are giving me – it’s not available in North America. That means that any plans that I had for an extended voyage into the unknown will now have to be shelved and that’s a dreadful disappointment.

Now I shall have to think of a Plan B now. I’m sure that I can rustle up something from somewhere.

Last night was a rather bad night. I didn’t end up going to bed until late, and then I couldn’t settle. What made things worse was that I awoke at 04:15 and couldn’t go back to sleep. In fact I was up and about working before the alarm went off and that’s something quite rare for these days, isn’t it?

It was an early day at the hospital so after the medication, the breakfast, a shower and a clothes-wash I hit the streets.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m frequently stumbling across camera teams taking photos of people, places and objects in the streets, and I delight in taking photos of them taking photos of other people.

Today, though, I’m really in luck.

It’s not a camera crew in the traditional manner of things, but it’s actually a film crew. I’m not sure what it was they were doing though, or why they were doing it.

It was an extremely pleasant walk through the early morning sunshine too up to the hospital.

Walking down the Brusselsestraat I noticed that the sun was shining brightly on the statue of Father Damiaan at the back of the Sint Jakobs Kapelle.

Father Damiaan is something of a religious icon in Belgium. He was a Belgian priest who devoted his life to treating leprosy sufferers in Hawaii ane eventually died of the disease.

And do you remember the block of flats in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan that we saw them stripping out a couple of months ago?

As I was somewhat in advance, I stopped to take a photo of it today.

They are cracking on with the stripping, and it looks ro me as if they are going to be refitting it. I’ll have to look more closely at it in a couple of months to see where they are at.

At the hospital it didn’t take them long to couple me up to the pipes, tubes and bottles but it took longer than expected all told because for some reasons the nurses wouldn’t come when I summoned them to increase the dose, and also when I summoned them to disconnect me when it had finished later on in the afternoon.

They obviously know about me right now.

A couple of people have mentioned to me the possibility of a selenium deficiency. I had it checked last month and they gave me the results. It should be in a range between 5.0 and 15.0 and I was registering 5.7. Pretty low, but not low enough for them to worry about.

Most of the afternoon in my comfortable chair was spent in a semi-conscious doze as the effects of the last couple of days caught up with me.

After they threw me out I headed for home, passing by the Hospital Sint Pieters.

While they might be planning to knock down the main building (the one on the left), they have been renovating one or two of the older ones on the site and in the past we’ve seen a few pics of the work.

It’s definitely all taking shape right now and I don’t suppose that it will be long before the protective fence is taken away.

While I was out on my travels I called by the Delhaize for a pile of shopping for the next couple of days.

Back here I couldn’t summon up the force to do anything. I crashed out on the sofa for a while. Struggling up the hill with a bag of heavy shopping takes it out of me, that’s for sure.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with potatoes and vegetables, followed by a banana and soya ice cream. That was extremely delicious. And then I had a good walk around outside for a while.

It’s still quite early but nevertheless I’m off to bed. I’ll watch a film I suppose, which means that I’ll drop off to sleep in the middle of it as usual. It works every time.

And then tomorrow I’ll have to think of a Plan B.

Thursday 11th April 2019 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I haven’t been all that productive.

It didn’t help by not being out of bed until 07:30. I really need to get a grip these days before I miss a train or something.

Plenty of time during the night to go on a little voyage though. I was with Alvin last night and we were going through a pile of LPs that he had left. He wanted some of them copied, which meant playing and recording on blank records. I had a look through some of the stuff but there wasn’t anything there of any interest or importance as far as I was concerned, but he insisted on having it done. He told me that when it had been done the original records had to be taken to a certain place where I would get some money for it but the duplicates would be retained here. I shouldn’t take those as they would hand them back and cut down on his money. I said fair enough but it was a strange way to go about it. I couldn’t get the thing organised properly and made loads of mistakes trying to copy these albums but I carried on. While this was doing he was doing some calculations so I went to see what he was doing – “working 11 hours at $8:10 per hour”. I asked what it was and he replied that he was trying to work out if he could afford to be a policeman in Los Angeles. I said “not at $8:10 per hour! No-one could work for that”. He told me about all of the advantages he would receive and there was a fund to help out people who moved from a high-paid job to a low-paid job to make sure that their mortgages were paid. It all sounded quite precarious to me. But somewhere along the line, up in Neston I had an old house, on the roadside with newer houses build behind it. I was trying to find out how old it was but I wasn’t being very serious with my enquiries but I don’t remember very much about this.

After breakfast I had a shower and prettied myself up, and then set the washing machine off on a cycle. One of the things that I did was to put new bedding on the bed and wash the previous bedding. The stuff that was on it was on the verge of walking into the washing machine all on its own.

And then I headed off into town for the shopping.

And I was surprised to see, amongst the boats that were waiting to leave the harbour when the gates open, this particular boat.

I’m almost certain that it’s the boat that was up on blocks in the chantier navale for a couple of weeks being resprayed and painted. She looks as if she’s off on her travels now.

And despite having all of this massive array of scaffolding erected on the wall higher up, they are still working away at the base of the walls moving away all of the loose rock.

The machine that they are using is quite impressive. It’s a little mini-digger with a hydraulic breaker on the jib of it.

It’s breaking off all of the loose rock which is then being shovelled up into a skip which you can see in the foreground.

It’s quite busy down in the harbour this morning too.

We have La Granvillaise moored up at the quay where Marité usually hangs out, and Thora is still there too, but she’s moved berth over to where the gravel boats tie up.

That’s because Normandy Trader has come into port, presumably on the early morning tide. They are already loading her up too, so clearly they don’t intend to hang about.

On the way up the hill in the rue Couraye I noticed a really old man with a very interesting machine.

In there is a grinding wheel worked by a foot treadle rather like an old-fashioned sewing machine in the pre-electric days, and he seems to be sharpening knives with it.

It’s really nice to see a good old-fashioned artisan peddling … “groan” – ed … his craft on the streets even today. There ought to be more of it, I reckon.

LIDL didn’t come up with much so I headed off for home, picking up a baguette on the way.

The gates of the harbour were now open and boats were leaving the port, including this fishing boat. Quite a few had already left, including Thora and Normandy Trader.

While Thora was in and out in 24 hours, the latter had an even quicker turn-round. I was right about her not intending to hang about in the harbour. They must be really busy just now.

It makes me wonder when I was saying last year that I hadn’t seen them for quite a while. I just reckon that their turn-round must have been so quick that I must have missed it.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the harbour, the men were out there again on their pontoon.

It’s quite a mystery to me what they are doing out there. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about 18 months ago they drained the harbour completely and dredged it out. So there can’t be much in there that needs checking.

I shall have to make enquiries at the port office next time I’m down there. Maybe they will tell me.

Back here I had a drink and a sit down, and then hung out the washing to dry. Once that was done I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but had to knock off for lunch.

Even though it was rather windy out there, it was such a beautiful warm afternoon. And so i took my butties outside and sat on my wall overlooking the harbour.

And I was in luck this afternoon too. One of the ferry boats that does the run to the Ile de Chausey was coming into harbour. She’d obviously been on a little outing earlier this morning as there was quite a crowd of people.

She pulled up at her mooring at the ferry terminal and then unloaded all of her passengers.

And then much to my surprise, she collected up another load of passengers, and then headed off out again into the Baie de Mont St Michel.

And with her having her back turned towards me, I could see that she’s the Joly France. Her sister is tied up in the harbour.

Of course, it shouldn’t really be any surprise that she’s busy. It’s school holidays in Granville of course and all of the kids are at a loose end and will be for next week too.

And so we can can expect to see much more of the Ile de Chausey ferries out and about then while the kids are off school.

The Ile de Chausey ferries aren’t the only things out there right now.

There’s an old sailing ship or, rather, a large yacht out there too. From what I could see of her, I think that she’s the Lys Noir.

We haven’t seen all that much of her just recently, so it’s nice to see her back. In fact, I’m wondering whether she might have been the sailing boat out there the other day that I thought was the Charles-Marie

Butties having been eaten, I came back and had another marathon session on the dictaphone notes.

Now I’m back into my notes for my trip around Labrador in 2017 which is good news. That’s good news because when that’s finished I can tie up the photos to the text and make a start on those web pages too.

Later on, I went out for my afternoon walk as usual. Today, it was around the Pointe-du Roc.

It was such a beautiful day and the haze was farther out than it has been just recently, so i could tke a really good photograph of the Baie de Mont St Michel and St Pair sur Mer just across on the other side.

And I was really impressed today with the colour of the sea today. Fr the last few weeks it’s been a murky grey colour, but today we have a nice proper blue sea.

And with it being rather windy out there today, I could see the flag that they were putting up yesterday.

It’s actually the flag of Granville and that’s new to me because I didn’t realise that Granville actually had its own flag.

The red one with the two golden lions on it is the flag of the Duchy of Normandy, and I’m sure that you don’t need me to explain the other two.

On that note, I came back for a hot chocolate and, shame as it is to say it, a little … errr … relax on the office chair.

There was still enough time to do something else before tea, so seeing as I wasn’t in a particularly enthusiastic mood, I made a start on the searchable text database for the photos for June 2018.

For tea, I founf a lentil and mushroom curry in the freezer. It was one that I had made on 7th November … errr … 2017 and it tasted just as delicious as it did back then.

It seems that I’m getting right down to the bottom of the pile of curries now. I’m not sure how many ancient ones there might be still in there, but there can’t be many.

In a short while I’ll have to make a start on making some more.

later on I went for my evening walk around the city walls.

There were still a few people out there enjoying the evening sunshine, and also a dozen or so fishing boats loitering around just outside the harbour.

It must be that the tide isn’t in enough for them to reach the Fish Processing Plant and tie up to unload. But I don’t imagine that they will have long to wait.

And so I carried on and came home.

Tonight I’m hoping for another early night and a good sleep. Tomorrow I’m planning on having something of a tidy-up in the kitchen and living room.

Things are getting a little untidy in there so I need to apply myself. After all, I’m off on my travels again early on Sunday.

scaffolding medieval wall granville manche normandy france

“boats ready to leave port de granville harbour manche normandy france

joly france ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

lys noir baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

Thursday 28th March 2019 – IT WAS A …

… very busy day in the harbour today.

When I walked down to the town this morning, there in the harbour was Normandy Trader tied up to her berth.

She wasn’t in there last night, so she must have sneaked in on the early morning tide without my noticing her. and she looks pretty well loaded up too, so they must have been quick.

And the reason why they were so quick became evident when I returned from LIDL.

Normandy Trader had cleared off into the sunset and in her place we had Thora tied up there in her place.

And she had only just arrived, that’s for sure, because there were a couple of civilian-types busily scrambling up the ladder onto the quayside. And one of them was a lady of the female sex too.

Last night I wasn’t as early in bed as I was expecting and despite that, I was wide-awake yet again at 03:45.

It took ages for me to go back to sleep, but when I did, I certainly did. Although I heard the alarms go off, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I actually came into the land of the living.

Plenty of time therefore to go off on a little voyage or two. last night I was driving a bus from Chester to Crewe. One of the people on board this bus was George Scane – and what on earth is he doing in my nocturnal rambles? I was dropping off people at places all around Crewe – dropping them off in all kinds of strange directions and strange places in some kind of strange order. Going past the end of McCorquodale’s Printers in Catherine Street in Crewe and everyone was coming out of work – hordes of them. I was surprised that it was 12:00 Saturday lunchtime knocking-off time already, for I had a doctor’s appointment at 12:00 and I had a few other things to pick up from there too. We had to hurry. I was talking to this guy about women, saying that the only women I seem to find these days are women in their 90s and there was no interest in sex. He replied that I should make the most of it while I can and while it’s still offered, allthis kind of thing. He said that he was 103 – or else it was someone else he know who was 103 but he was quite old as well. This was all quite strange. Eventually we reached the doctor’s and I had to go in to ask about what I needed.
Apart from that, I had a very difficult voyage involving my father, and I’ll spare you all the details as you are probably eating your tea right now.
And I was also involved in some football match – Wales were playing Spain and I was out there on the field. Right from the very first touch of the ball at the kick-off one of the Spanish players had to leave the field. We thought that he had broken his ankle and the bench made themselves ready with a bucket of cold water, but in fact it was his boot that had broken. This ended with our team playing the Italians. They had just three people on the field – two men and a blonde-haired boy of about three. And somehow we didn’t have the will or the courage to press home our game decisively like we should have done.

As a result of all of that I was rather late organising myself and I didn’t do anything at all. After breakfast I had a shower, put a load of clothes in the washing machine, and then headed out for LIDL.

The other day I mentioned that they were working on the city walls just around the corner from here.

They had a mini-digger with a breaker attached and it was breaking up all of the rock at the foot of the walls. Why, I’m not quite sure but if it was that well-fixed that they needed a breaker, there seemed no point in moving it.

But he was having a load of fun doing it.

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything at all special today. There was tons of stuff and had I been back on the farm I would have had loads of stuff. But not here though.

On the way back home, I was round by the port again.

It was a beautifully warm, sunny morning – really nice to be out. And I wasn’t the only one enjoying being out. A couple of trawlers were just setting out for the fishing grounds

It made actually a nice photograph

With the Normandy trader having left the harbour I went back up to the apartment and sorted out the big Nikon D5000 and the telephoto lens to see what I could see.

There was some movement out on the horizon, hidden in the mist so I took a speculative photo of it to see what it might be.

It’s actually a couple of trawlers though.

Some more movement a little closer to the shore had me taking a photo to see what it might be.

But this time I was in luck. It is indeed Normandy Trader, heading off out into the English Channel in the direction of Jersey.

It didn’t take her too long to come in, turn round and go out again. I reckon that I must have missed dozens of visits by the ships.

That wasn’t all either.

There were a few more ships out there doing something or other. One of them was La Grande Ancre and judging by the buoys out there around her, she looks as if she might have some kind of fishing net out there.

I’m not quite sure what she’ll be catching just there, but I’ve seen a couple of boats round about that spot. Perhaps it’s some sunken treasure.

Gribouille and his mum were out there too so we had a bit of a chat.

Back here, I made a start on the photos for the last few days. But I wasn’t there for long because it was pretty soon lunchtime.

After lunch I finished off the photos and now the last couple of days have their photos appended.

And then it was walk-time around the headland.

Thora has already gone back out, and that was really quick. And in the chantier navale we have a coat of heavy primer now added to the large boat that they have been preparing this last few days.

It should look really good when it’s finished.

A little further on we have a group of school children around the edge of the old, abandoned dry dock.

It’s round about the time that they have the classes découvertes where groups of children come to town and stay in the Youth Hostel, and then go round looking at the fishing industry – or, rather, what’s left of it after the collapse of the cod industry in 1992.

You can see the remains of the deep-sea fishing industry all over the place around here

And although Thora has now sailed away, we have yet another visitor in the harbour.

Not exactly a visitor but more of a permanent resident, because it’s Victor Hugo, the older of the two boats that do the Channel Islands ferry to Jersey.

Ironically, they bought a new boat to replace her, but she’s nothing like as reliable as Victor Hugo.

Back here, I spent some time with the dictaphone notes, and then attacked tea.

Main course was really easy.

There’s some of the leek and tofu pie left over from the other day so I fetched a slice out of the freezer. I bunged that in the oven along with a couple of potatoes.

Real potatoes baked in the oven, with pie, veg and gravy.

But why I had the oven on is because I’ve been baking again.

This week’s effort is an apple crumble and although it’s not turned out as well as I hoped, it’s still delicious

Apple, grated coconut, raisins, brown sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon. Topped with a mixture of flour, oats and vegan margarine.

On my evening walk there was no-one around so I wasn’t out for long.

Back here I had a good chat with Alison, then Sue and almost immediately after, another chat to Rosemary. I seem to be in demand right now.

So as a result, it’s later than I wanted it to be. But it’s always good to talk to friends.

Monday 18th March 2019 – IT’S HOSPITAL …

… day today. And so I need to be on form.

Consequently I had something of an early night last night. Plenty of time to go on a little voyage too, even if I did awaken at sometime round about 03:45. It’s not very often that my old friend Liz (who died 10 years ago) appears with me in a nocturnal ramble. But there she was last night. I’d been living abroad for a couple of years and I was on my way back to Crewe with her in Caliburn. We arrived back at my house (which was actually our old home in Shavington) to find my old black cat Tuppence outside the door – despite my instructions that the cats weren’t to go out. And she was very thin too – as if she hadn’t eaten anything for weeks. Inside, the other three cats were scratching away at some dried biscuits, despite my instructions that they were only to have tinned food, not dried. I was pretty annoyed about this and wanted to speak to the girl who was looking after the cats. But while I was thinking of this I heard a noise from out of the bedroom. She was actually in there making use of the double bed and a boyfriend. Not the kind of thing to arouse my sympathy.

Despite the alarms going off as usual, there wasn’t a great deal of rush. My appointment with doom isn’t until 10:30 so I had a little lie-in until about 07:00. A shower and a clothes wash and a general clean-up and I was ready for the road.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were here before, they were digging up the Tiensestraat and laying pipes.

They seem to have finished that now, and have moved all of the equipment to the Burgemeestersstraat where they are presumably continuing the work.

I wonder how long they’ll be working on replacing the drains around the city?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a year or so I lived in the Brusselsestraat quite close to the St Jakobs Kapelle.

However I never ever managed to go in for a look around because it was all closed up.

Apparently it’s in need of some considerable amount of renovation

But when I went past it today the door was open (although I couldn’t go in because there was a fence around it) and there was a pile of scaffolding up all around it.

It looks as if the renovations have finally started. That’s good news, if they can get it to stay up, but I wonder just how thorough these renovations are likely to be.

I hope that they are going to make a really decent spectacle out of it

For some reason, for which I’m not sure, it was something of a struggle to get to the hospital today. I had to make several stops on my way up the hill to the hospital.

The heat didn’t help much and I had to stop and divest myself of my outer clothing. It had been cold when I had set out, but it didn’t half warm up quickly.

The nurse today was the only one who speaks just Flemish so we had my insertion interview in that language. I’m getting quite good at this these days.

But the interesting thing is that the weight that I had lost when I was ill – it stayed off too. And I’m happy about that. And so should you lot too, because it means that in about 18 months at this rate, I’ll be gone completely.

The doctor came to see me too. And if she’s going to be on my case for the foreseeable future, I’ll be back next week, never mind next month, even though she forgot to sign my prescription and I had to argue at the chemists later.

As for the blood count, it’s down to 9.7. Something of a disappointment but only to be expected after my illness. At least the drop wasn’t as dramatic as the time 15 months ago when it fell through the floor.

Another thing that I did was to ask them to check my selenium levels. Robert, a former schoolmate who is a regular reader of this rubbish and is a retired doctor, came up with a couple of suggestions. A Selenium shortage is one, so seeing as they are testing the blood anyway, they can test for that too. But I can’t have these results for a day or two.

But I grabbed a copy of the rest of the results and when I’m back home, I’ll scan it so that Robert can see it. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the previous month’s figures to compare.

There seems to be an issue about my potassium levels too, so I need to cut back on the Coversyl that I take.

Rosemary phoned me too and we had a lengthy chat, and I had a little snooze too while I was there.

On the way home I stopped for the medication and also at Delhaize for some food for tea. Alison wasn’t up to going for a meal tonight so I’m eating in.

And Ingrid telephoned me too. She’s struggling a little with her health issues but her illness has now been properly diagnosed. While it’s not good news either, at least she knows what is the matter with her and she’s been taken in charge by her health assurance people and will receive the proper treatment.

And that’s my lot. Not much good news but it could be far worse than it is. I’m having a lie-in tomorrow as a Day of rest, but I have things to do in Brussels.

And so on that note, I’m off for an early night.

Friday 15th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

Even though I went to bed early, I was almost immediately stricken by a bad attack of cramp.And this went on for several hours and I was in total agony. What was even worse was that some of the attacks occurred spontaneously without even moving. I have never hurt so much in all my life.

At some point during the night I did manage to go off to sleep. And to go on a voyage too. To some kind of touristy island in the Mediterranean where there was a typical British family trying to run a bar. They were making a lot of money at it too catering for all of the Brits who went there, but there was clearly something else going on because although one side of the cashing-up briefcase was full of cash, the other side was empty and there was a very neat slit in the bottom of the case that someone had made to get into the case and take the money. In the end, they decided to move to an island just offshore where there was a vacant bar. There was some kind of festival that had taken place on there, where four people charged a bull, and then the five of them turned round and charged the rest of the people sitting at the table. They decided to revive the festival, but the first day there it was pouring down with rain and they were so dispirited that they didn’t want to open. In the end, I volunteered to go because even though there wouldn’t be any custom,the place still needed to be open. So I went upstairs to the cafe but two policemen followed me up and they fixed two white triangles in the window to indicate that the place was closed by the authorities. Apparently the new owners hadn’t applied for a licenceand they were fed up of Brits coming over and flouting all of the regulations just because they didn’t suit. All of this ended by the youngest son going off to an island off the coast of Madagascar to open something but he had been to the authorities to sort out all of the licensing issues first.

We had the usual medication and breakfast – and my porridge took longer than at home – probably due to the lesser power of the microwave here. and then I spent most of the morning catching up with some work.

At lunchtime I went off down the Tiensestraat to the Delhaize in the centre of town.

My route took me round by the Herbert Hooverplein and despite all of the time that I lived here in Leuven I didn’t know about the existence of this market.

It stretches right round into the Ladeuzeplein too. It was closing down now that it’s lunch time so I’ll have to come here earlier the next time.

FNAC came up with nothing either which was a shame, so I headed off down the Bondgenotenlaan.

On the other side of the road there seemed to be a gilets jaunes demonstration, but closer examination revealed that it was in fact nothing more than a group of nursery school on their way for an afternoon out.

So I left them there and went on to the Loving Hut.

And the Loving Hut was a wash-out yet again. But at Delhaize I found stuff for lunch as well as some vegan burgers, tinned vegetables and pasta sauce for tea for the next few days.

With having had a really bad night I spent most of the afternoon drifting off into a state of semi-consciousness broken only by a shower and a clothes washing session.

And then tea – and I overcooked my burger which was a shame but the rest of it was nice, especially the sorbet and pineapple.

Later on, I went for a walk around the Tiensesteenweg.

The fritkot there, where I used to go for my chips when I first started living at this end of the town had closed down a while ago. Tonight, I noticed that they were in the process of flattening it.

I wonder what they are going to put here in its place.

While I was here, I peered in at the window of the motorbike shop – but I couldn’t see much in here.

But now it’s an early night. I’ve an early start tomorrow and off to Koln. And the weather forecast is exactly as I expected. Pouring down with rain.

street market monseigneur ladeuzeplein leuven belgium

roadworks paving grote markt leuven belgium

railway bridge leuven belgium

Saturday 9th March 2019 – NEPTUNE IS BACK!

On my way out to the shops this morning, I noticed that Neptune had come in on the tide earlier this morning.

I stopped at the side of the road to take a photo of her. She’s busy pumping out the bilges – probably come over here in a ballast of water to keep her on an even keel in the stormy seas that we have been having just recently.

So she won’t be loading quite yet.

Last night was another decent night’s sleep. I was awake just before the alarm went off but I was in no hurry to leave the bed.

But last night was a rather interesting night. I was in a house where there were two separate gangs of organised criminals, and the aim was to keep these two groups separate so that they did not cross each other’s path. At a certain moment, we had to leave to go somewhere so I had to pack. And fo some reason I was packing all kinds of clothes that I had already worn and needed washing – with the argument that I could wash them in the hotel sink (although how I was going to iron the shirts was something else completely). I needed to pack the laptop and a few other things, but I only had a very short space of time to do it.
Later, I was somewhere round about the junction of Gresty Road and South Street talking to a couple that might have been the French mother and son whom I had met on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. I asked the mother if she had lived round here long, to which she replied in the affirmative. And so I enquired about a house at the back of the Royal Hotel in Pedley Street that was used as an artist’s studio, with a great big picture window facing south (which is bizarre because windows in artists’ studios face north, so that the light is even). She said that she knew nothing about it, but nevertheless she told me a surprising amount. So off I went round there to the area where I was on Wednesday morning and the Aldi supermarket and where, on reflections, I’ve been before, and found the house. In there were a couple of photographers and a couple of models doing some kind of greenscreen photography.

After the usual morning ritual of medication and breakfast, I had a shower and then set the washing machine going. There’s a huge pile of washing built up and I’m not sure how.

And then Neptune and the shops, calling at the paper container to dump another load of shreddings. It’s full now so I’ll have to wait for a while until it’s emptied.

LIDL had nothing special, although I did pick up another set each of AA and AAA batteries. I’ll have a big change-round of batteries here in the important stuff like the dictaphone and so on.

At NOZ, we encountered yet again another example of pathetic parking.

Judging by the registration number, that car is at least 10 years old, by the way.

Even though I spent a reasonable sum of money, it was on incidental stuff – nothing of any importance, except maybe a plastic werving spoon with holes in and, at long last, a nylon hand-whisk.

I have a metal whisk, which is great for using in a glass bowl, but no good in a metal saucepan. So €0:99 was money well spent.

Caliburn is getting low on fuel so I put some more in at LeClerc – the first since October, and then I didn’t fill it. I’m not going anywhere these days.

And in the shop, I didn’t buy anything special. There’s no point seeing as I’m going on Thursday.

Back here I actually managed to unpack and put everything away, and then I hung up the washing on the clothes drier in the windowsill.

After lunch I finished the blog entries for October so that’s up-to-date now.

But I couldn’t keep going. by about 14:30 I was under the covers in bed asleep, and there I stayed until 15:45.

However, I did managed to haul myself out of bed and go off for my afternoon walk.

This took me round by the rue du Nord and here on the corner they had started the renovation of a small block of flats here.

I shall keep my eyes on this work too over time, to see what they are doing.

Further on down the rue du nord, I had another look at the building works going on there.

That’s been going on all through the winter, in some kind of desultory fashion because he doesn’t seem to be making any rapid progress.

I’ve no idea when he might be finishing the job, but I’m not holding my breath.

Despite the fact that it was cold (I have the heating on again) there were quite a few people out with me walking around the walls today.

And down there on the Plat Gousset there were even more crowds of people milling around enjoying the early March weather.

It won’t be long before the tourists are back.

We even had a few people running around up and down the beach.

It’s not really a day for being on the beach, but at least they were enjoying it, so good luck to them.

But looking at the figure at the foot of the diving platform, and seeing how far out the sea is, when we have a high tide, the water is up above the level of the platform so you can see the tidal range around here.

The fairground out at the Parking Hérel is still going on, even though Carnaval finished on Tuesday.

For an experiment, I tried a long exposure to see if I could pick up the movement effect of the fairground attraction, but it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

I can see that I shall have to work on my technique.

Further on around the walls, I ended up in the Place Maurice Marland.

And having talked yesterday about Spring, here today we have the daffodils blooming quite impressively.

We’re definitely expecting the sun right now then, aren’t we? Spring can’t be too far away at all.

Back on the walls, I had a look down into the harbour.

We have Marité of course, and also a trawler by the name of Le Styx, and also Neptune, who seems to have stopped pumping out the ballast water.

And unless I’m very much mistaken, she seems to have acquired a new digger. The old one was white – I’m pretty certain of that. But this one is yellow.

Back here, I made a start on the images for September. Only a world-record 1730 of them so it’ll take me an age to do all of them.

And then, finally, I can restart the web pages for my trip to the High Arctic.

We had a break for the football. A top-of-the-table clash between Connah’s Quay and TNS. Connah’s Quay lost the match, and the lead in the table, by a score of 2-0.

And the difference was that Connah’s Quay played with a very ineffective attack, whereas TNS were excellent up front.

The Nomads can say goodbye to the Championship after this, and we’re back in the usual position of TNS out in front.

Tea was out of a tin – ravioli with lentils and veg followed by apple pie and soya.

And then out for my walk around the headland in the rain.

Nothing much happening, except that the funfair seemed still to be working. Nothing else apart from that so I came home and made myself a mug of cocoa to warm me up.

Now I’m off to bed, and a good lie-in tomorrow I hope.

I certainly need it.

Monday 18th February 2019 – AS IS USUALLY …

… the case, going to bed for an early night means that I just awaken even earlier. And to wake up at 01:33 is just ridiculous.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I definitely remember 04:30 coming round. But go to sleep I must have done because I had the usual rather rude awakening at 06:00.

I’d been on my travels during the night though. Last night I was out with someone and their little daughter and as it was close to breakfast time and we needed bread, so I took her off to the bakers to buy a loaf. Walking through the country lanes, we saw a car coming – an old Fiat Panda, so we hid behind a hedge to leap out and scare them. It turned out that in the car was Zero and her father. Zero of course at one time or another accompanied me quite regularly on these nocturnal rambles. They offered to drive us back but as the little car would be quie crowded, I said that I would walk back. Nevertheless, they insisted and budged up to squeeze us in, and we drove back, with me realising that I wouldn’t be having any breakfast because I wouldn’t be buying any bread. Back at his house, I had a look at the plumbing that he was installing. I noticed that he was using a couple of my ideas about vertical pipework that he had ridiculed a few years earlier.

In fact, that was the story of my life in real life. I’d have many ideas which were roundly ridiculed by many people but which came to be adopted in the mainstream. I remember the ridicule to which my idea about low-voltage microwave ovens was put when I first suggested it, and now you find them in almost every long-distance lorry. That was just one of many such.

To everyone’s surprise, especially mine, I was out of bed quickly too. No idea why I can’t do this at home these days, except that my bed at home is far more comfortable than what I have here.

After breakfast, I had a shower and washed my clothes from the weekend, and then headed off to the hospital. Miles early, but I may as wait around there as here.

And talking of here, here’s a brilliant bit of parking I don’t think.

For reasons that only this lorry driver knows, he’s decided to park his lorry in the middle of the street blocking the traffic while he unloads.

I know that I harp on about bad parking in these pages on a regular basis, but this really is the limit. I just do not know what goes through the heads of some of these people. I really don’t

This warm weather is continuing. Halfway up the hill to the hospital and I was melting. I had to stop and take off my coat and stuff it in my rucksack.

I had to stop earlier than that though, in the Monseigneur van Waeyenberghlaan.

Here’s a modern building that looks very 1970s or 1980s to me, and they seem to be stripping it out ready for demolition. No idea why because there is no evidence of any fire damage.

I’ll have to keep my eye on this and see what is going on.

At the hospital I was an hour early. But it didn’t do me any good whatsoever because they were 10 minutes late seeing me.

I had however taken the opportunity to close my eyes and have a little relax. But eventually they coupled me up and sent me to sit on a chair. No comfy seat free either – I had to make do with a standard one.

It’s not just in the hotel that people are recognising me. People are beginning to notice me and to recognise me here, and that’s always bad news. The woman who serves out the soup at lunchtime went to give me a certain drink, and her assistant called out, before I had time to say anything, “ohh no – he always prefers a Sprite!”

The doctor came to see me and we had a chat. I told him that I was breaking up slowly but he didn’t seem to be all that concerned. Mind you, he did admit that my prescription was wrong and amended it, and gave me an extra medication to deal with this irritable skin.

And to my surprise, my blood count has gone up. Only one notch – to 9.8 from 9.7 – and it doesn’t feel like it either. And still a far cry from the heady days of 18 months ago when they managed to drag it up to 13.0. I don’t imagine that I will ever see those heady days again.

Round about 16:00 they told me that I could clear off. And so I did. Just as far as the chemists where I had my prescriptions made up. Except for one, where they didn’t have any stock.

I walked down the hill to the chemists in the Brusselsestraat where I didn’t have much better luck. But at least they could make up my cream and let me have it the following morning. That’s better than nothing.

On my way back home I called in at Delhaize for a few bits and pieces here and there. I’m not going back until Wednesday so I need food for lunch and for tea tomorrow. Baked beans and chips sounds good for tea if you ask me.

On my way back up the hill, I passed through the rector de somerplein.

I had noticed a lorry with a digger and a pile of equipment as I went down the hill this morning, and wondered what they were planning.

But here we are this evening, digging out a big hole in the pavement. No idea what is going on in the hole, so I’ll have to keep an eye on this as well for next time that I am here to see what they have done.

Alison texted me at about 18:30. She had arrived in Leuven and was parking her car, so I had to leg it quickly into town. It’s been a considerable time since we’ve seen each other and we had a lot of news to catch up with.

A few weeks ago I had noticed a restaurant called Mykene that was advertising gluten-free and vegan food, and looked quite nice inside. I’d mentioned it to Alison previously and had invited her there so off we toddled. They served me up a most impressive cauliflower steak with sweet potato fries and I’ll go back again for more of that.

We went on from there to pick up a kebab for Brian and then called at the Kloosters Bar for a quiet drink by the fireside and made plans for the future. She also gave me a birthday present and a little surprise from Jenny. Jenny had bought me a little gift for Christmas and of course no-one had been able to give it to me.

On her way back home, Alison dropped me off at my little room and I came in. It’s been a long day, I’ve walked miles and I’m tired. It’s a good job that I’m going to be having a day of rest.

Saturday 16th February 2019 – THAT WAS AN …

… exciting football match.

The semi-finals of the Irn-Bru Cup, where various Scottish clubs compete against selected invited sides from Wales, The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Tonight, Edinburgh City were playing against Connahs Quay Nomads of the Welsh Premier League for a place in the finals. It was something of a scrappy match – with Edinburgh City having more skill but the Nomads having more possession and more directness.

The Nomads went behind after just one minute, but after that, Edinburgh didn’t really threaten the Nomads’ goal very much, except from corners.

After that, the Nomads equalised from another long-throw, and hit the woodwork a couple of times.

We ended up with extra time and penalties, and Jon Danby in the Nomads goal did really well to save two penalties to push the Nomads through into the finals. This competition is certainly putting the Welsh premier League on the map, and not before time either.

Last night was quite a reasonable night.

I had a decent sleep for once, and was off on my travels. I was meeting a guitarist somewhere in Granville. he lived in the flats on the left halfway up the rue Couraye but when I pulled into the courtyard, he wasn’t there. His wife came down for a chat and as we were talking, her husband turned up. The asked me if it was me that they had seen last night coming back down from the football stadium. I replied that it was, to which they added that I needed to be careful if I were going there that evening because there would be crowds and there was some violence threatened.
This led on to two people being chased around a park by a polar bear. They climbed up a ladder to escape but to everyone’s surprise, the polar bear climbed up after them. They climbed down another ladder and ran off, leaving me looking at the polar bear. So it came over towards me. For some reason, I didn’t run either and as the bear approached me, it suddenly transformed itself into a tall, thin youth with a bushy black beard.

Despite the alarms, it was more like 07:00 when I arose. and after going through the usual ritual I had a shower and then set a washing machine on the go. It was a nice sunny day outside so I wanted to put the washing in the window to dry.

Once I’d organised the washing in the window, I headed off into town.

Our old friend – and I do mean “old” – the CF Bedford transformed into a mobile home was back there in its usual spot overlooking the harbour.

One day i’ll get to speak to the owners and find out more about it. It’s a pretty anonymous vehicle in the sense that it doesn’t even display its département number on the number plate.

While I was down there I had a look over the wall at the new building that that they have been constructing.

The back wall is finished now and I imagine that they will soon be putting in the windows.

But my attention was drawn to the rear of the house, and in particular the annex extension. I was wondering what it is supposed to be and what they are intending to do with it.

From there I walked down the stairs and across the rue du Nord and onto the harbour by the fish processing plant.

Dodging the seagulls dropping the crustaceans onto the concrete to break them open, I crossed over via the harbour gates that were closed.

The tide is well out and all of the boats in the harbour are aground.

We’ve seen a few times the layout of the fish dock underneath the fish processing plant, but we’ve never had a close look at it.

One of these days I’ll go for a walk around underneath and see what it’s really like, but this is the best view that we can have of it for now. We’ve not seen it from this angle before.

You can see the tidal gates to the port here on the right, and you can see from the stains the height of the tide when it’s in.

On the southern side of the harbour there were a couple of guys messing around with tools and measuring tape and all of that kind of thing.

And on the principle that if you want to know the answer to a question, you need to ask the question, and so I did.

It seems that they are erecting bollards along the edge of the quayside, presumably to stop motorists driving off the edge into the harbour.

Our old friend Le Grande Ancre is in port today, moored up at the other side of Marité

There’s some kind of interesting tractor with double rear wheels, parked on the deck of the boat. I wonder what that’s for and where it might be going.

There was also a boat there too – presumably the lifeboat for the ship if ever she were to sink. As we know, she’s actually been involved in one rescue a few years ago, as a rescuer, not a rescuee.

In the town centre the gilets jaunes were out there in force, disrupting the traffic.

Regardless of whether or not their protest is a valid one, they should be protesting against the politicians and the tax officials and the like.

That’s far too difficult, however. They aren’t brave enough for that. Their level is just about coming to a peaceful market and harassing the passers-by and the motorists. It really does get on my wick and I wish that they would all clear off.

Anyway, I made it to the market today for my special baguette.

And as you might expect, the boulangerie is on holiday this week so I had to do without. I picked up some pears though, and also some cooking apples. I’m going to make an apple tart when I come back from Belgium.

I went to another boulangerie for a baguette and then went home.

After lunch, I pushed on with updating the blog and I’ve made it back to 15th December 2018. Still plenty to go at.

I would have done even more, except that round about 14:30 I had to go to bed. No idea why because I’d had a good sleep during the night. I was out for 90 minutes yet again.

Still plenty of time to go out and join the madding crowds milling around on the Pointe du Roc.

Hordes of people out there, even more than yesterday. And that was no surprise because it really was a beautiful day today.

Out in the bay there were the yachts out again having a bit of a sail around in the Baie de Mont St Michel. It made me want to be out there with them too, and one of these days I will.

There was quite a racket coming from the chantier navale while I was out there, so I went for a look around.

Armor, the ship from the diving people, was still in there and receiving attention. It looks as if they are taking off all of the paint for it, presumably ready for giving it a bare-metal respray.

When I come back from Leuven I’ll have to go over there for a look and see what they’ve done to her, if she’s still in there.

Tea tonight was out of a tin and then we had the football. Now I’m off to bed because I really need a decent sleep as I do have to be up early.

There’s a lot to do.

tide out boats aground port de granville harbour manche normandy france

market rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france

steps rue saint saveur granville manche normandy france

lifeboat memorial baie de mont st michel st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: washing

Saturday 29th June 2019 – A RECESSION? YOU MUST BE JOKING!

Friday 28th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Wednesday 26th June 2019 – MY LAST DAY …

Saturday 8th June 2019 – I’VE BEEN SHOPPING …

Tuesday 14th May 2019 – I HAD A …

Thursday 25th April 2019 – THAT WAS A …

Thursday 18th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

Monday 15th April 2018 – THE BAD NEWS …

Thursday 11th April 2019 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Thursday 28th March 2019 – IT WAS A …

Monday 18th March 2019 – IT’S HOSPITAL …

Friday 15th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Saturday 9th March 2019 – NEPTUNE IS BACK!

Monday 18th February 2019 – AS IS USUALLY …

Saturday 16th February 2019 – THAT WAS AN …