Tag Archives: caliburn

Saturday 18th November 2017 – I WAS WELL …

… away last night.

Although it took a while for me to go off to sleep, once I’d gone I was well-and-truly gone and I remember nothing until the alarm went off.

That’s not quite true though. I’d been on my travels last night too. I started off in a businessand the local workhouse was parcelling off the orphan children into apprenticeships (I’ll have to stop reading these Old Bailey cases from the 1750s). I was allocated a young girl and I wasn’t sure of how I could best employ her to make the most of her apprenticeship.
From here I was with someone – who might even have been Nerina, and we were n an aeroplane. But the pilot, for some reason, lost control and the aeroplane crashed, right on the main road that rus from Brussels out to the Airport. Everyone survived the crash and managed to escape, but even though there was aviation fiel all over the place I had to go back into the aeroplane to rescue Strawberry Moose.

After the usual breakfast and a little relax, I went and had a good shower, a shave and a change of clothes too. And my little halogen heater works quite nicely in the bathroom too. And deciding to make the fullest opportunity of a nice clean me, I changed the bedding too and I’ll have a nice comfortable bed to sleep in tonight. And just as well too, because it’s Sunday and a lie-in.

Once I’d gathered my wits (which doesn’t take long these days) Caliburn and I went to the shops.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that just recently I’ve been walking up to LIDL and back, and so I decided to drive up the way that I came back on foot the other day. And much to my surprise, I was there in half the time without any queues and hold-ups at all. I’ll have to try this way again.

I didn’t spend anything special in there, but I made up for that later.

I called in at GIFI on the way out. It’s winter and with no pie huts at the football matches I’m freezing to death. And so I bought myself a thermos flask so that I could have some coffee to warm me up. And I bought a few other things too – but nothing exciting.

At the biocoop I bought some more vegan sausages and some sunflower seeds for the muesli, And next stop was NOZ. A few bits and pieces there too, including some sea salt. Not necessarily for the salt, but for the jars. They were those nice hexagonal ones that I like.

In the Auchan I didn’t spend anything special yet for some reason that I don’t understand my bill there came to almost €25:00 I’m not sure what I spent it on.

pisse dru beaujolais nouveau auchan granville manche normandy franceBut I did have a laugh as I was leaving. the Beaujolais Nouveau is now arriving in the supermarkets. The story behind the race to the market is that one year the crop was so awful that it didn’t last more than a couple of weeks so there was a rush to gt it to market and sell it before it spoiled on the shelves.

Here at Auchan my favourite beaujolais Nouveau was on offer and I consider its name to be extremely apt.

I couldn’t have called it anything better myself.

By the time I returned home it was 13:30, and by the time I’d unpacked, it was lunchtime.

After lunch I crashed out for a while – I’m clearly not doing very well these days, and then at 16:00 I hit the streets again – but on foot this time.

It took me ages to climb the hill up ast the railway station and I had to stop a couple of times to get my breath. Nevetheless, it was a mere 16:35 wwhenI arrived at the Stade Louis Dior.

stade louis dior us granville agneaux fc manche normandy franceGranville’s 2nd XI, in blac, were taking on Agneaux FC, two places above them in Regional Lzague 2.

This was one of the most exciting matches that I have seen for quite some considerable time.

Granville took the lead after just 3 minutes. A ball upfield, the keeper shouting “leave it” and he ran out of his goal to kick it … right into the back of one of his own players

The ball bounced clear, right onto the path of an attacking Granville forward and with the keeper stranded, the attacker had the simplest of chances.

And then the match went in pells. We would have 10 minutes of Granville pressure followed by 10 minutes of Agneaux pressure, and then it would swing round again. Three good (if lucky) saves by the Granville keeper, Granville thumped the Agneaux woodwork twice, but the score didn’t increase.

We did have a minor interruption when there was a major car acident in the street outside.

The two clubs have changed position in the table after this result and that’s good news.

cite des sports us granville co sourdeval manche normandy franceAt the final whistle, a brisk walk took me round the corner and down the street to the Sports Centre, where US Granville’s 3rd XI was taling on CO Sourdeval. Granville are third bottom and Co Sourdeval are second from top, so I wasn’t expecting much.

The final result was 3-2 to Sourdeval and the only mystery about this match was how Sourdeval scored only three. Because Granville were pretty poor, clueless and totally disorganised.

Granville’s two goals were a free kick that confused everyone at the back post and a solo run from the halfway line by the centre-forward. But apart from that, they didn’t offer bery much.

I walked back here via the fritkot for a bag of chips, and then went straight to bed. I think that today has taken an awful lot out of me. At least my new flask played dividends.

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Wednesday 1st November 2017 – I DON’T KNOW …

… who it was who decided to have a party underneath my bedroom windowsill at 04:20 this morning, but if ever I lay my hands on them, they’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the next few weeks.

What made it worse was that I was on an exciting nocturnal ramble and I remember saying to myself “I really MUST remember this!” – but I awoke with such a sudden start that it went comletely out of my head and I couldn’t remember a thing.

But never mind – I managed to be out of bed before the second alarm went off, no matter how much I didn’t feel like it. And after breakfast I had a shower and cut my hair. I haven’t done that since before I went to Canada and it was looking quite unruly.

For the rest of the morning I had the usual nonsense to perform on the laptop. That took me up to lunchtime.

Now I do have to say that this bread from LIDL really does freeze well. And it defrosts even better. I shall have to do more of this and I’m wishing now that I had bought a bigger freezer.

After letting my lunch digest for an hour or so I went for another walk.

derelict international harvester tractor port de commerce granville manche normandy franceMy route took me down to the docks so that I could see whether Grima had brought anything exciting yesterday.

There were these tractos – two of them – or, rather, one and a half because the one furthest from the camera is only the gearbox, cab and rear axle.

They are International Harvesters and by the looks of things they have been standing outside in the weather for a considerable number of years. There’s nothing much of any interest on them, that’s for sure.

animal park old freight yard granville manche normandy franceI walked on through the town to the car park where I left Caliburn when I first came here

There’s a little park just there with a pond and a couple of fenced compounds with all kinds of different animals in there.

I hadn’t actually been for a walk around it before, and so I took the opportunity to go for a good prowl around, seeing as it was such a nice day.

granville manche normandy franceThere was a zig-zag path at the back of it so I climbed right up to the top of it. And there was a good view down to where the old goods railway line used to run down to the docks.

I ended up on the main road out to Donville-les-Bains and from there it was quite an easy walk down the hill to the Casino.

But not so easy going up the hill on the other side to the Old Town. I Had to take my time up there. I’m definitely getting old.

I didn’t know what to make for tea tonight so I prepared some vegetables in a big dish with olive oil, chick peas and peanuts and put it in the microwave. It didn’t come out how I was hoping as the potatoes and carrots weren’t cooked enough, and the frozen veg was overcooked.

But it’s no big deal. You have to pay to learn. I’ll have to do the spuds and carrots on their own first next time.

So I’ve been out for my walk and I’m off to bed in a short while. Tomorrow I’m planning on walking out to LIDL to buy some more bread. We know that the bread sells out quickly, so I’ll have to go out fairly early.

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Saturday 28th October 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

There I was, doing the rounds of LIDL with a bag full of shopping. Just about to put my shopping on the convenyor when I reached into my pocket for my wallet with my money and bank cards in it.

Yes, I’d had my raincoat on last night, hadn’t I?

I had to dump my bag behind one of the empty tills and nip home for my wallet.

It won’t happen again though. I’ve left €50 in Caliburn and another €50 in the secret pocket in my mobile phone case. But what a silly thing to do!

A strange thing happened this morning. It was 08:20 when I awoke this morning. No alarm. For some reason or other the telephone had stalled at 23:49. And so we didn’t have sucj a good start to the morning anyway.

After doing some stuff on the laptop I went off for my trip around the shops and my unexpected return here. But the old washing machine has now gone to the great laundry in the sky – the dechetterie was open this morning which makes a change. The fridge is there too, along with another pile of cardboard boxes that had accumulated

At the Auchan I did the rest of the shopping. Including some frozen sprouts, frozen mushrooms and frozen peppers. What with the mango sorbet and the loaf of bread the freezer is now full. It’s far too small for what I need and I’ve a good mind to take it back to swap it for a bigger one.

Mind you, I thought that the fridge was far too small too, but I’ve managed to rearrange things around in there and there’s plenty of room in there now. I imagine that once I start to attack the frozen food it will be the same in the freezer there too.

After lunch and a bit of tidying up, I crashed out for half an hour or so, and then I caught up with a few other things that needed doing too.

football us granvillaise es hebecrevon cite des sports granville manche normandy franceBut this evening US Granvillaise’s 3rd XI were playing ES Hébécrevon on the artificial pitch at the Sports Centre. And as it was a reasonable evening, I dressed up warmly and walked all the way there. It’s about 3.5 kilometres up and down hill, and I reckoned that it would do me no good.

Much to my surprise the Sports Centre was closed up, so there was no buvette. How is this possible? In the Auvergne they wouldn’t even consider having a public event without a buvette, and yet here we are, twice in two days, THis isn’t the France that we know and love, is it?

As for the match itself, Granville were bottom of the league without a win and Hébécrevon were 9th. So I was expecting another defeat. But much to my surprise I saw one of the best matches I’ve seen for quite a while.

Granville were much better than their league position suggested and played some beautiful football. Hébécrevon huffed and puffed but never looked likely to seriously trouble the Granville defence, and the home side scored three of the best goals that I’ve seen for a while.

All three of them breakaways, two of which were solo efforts and the third was a cross from the young lad playing left-wing (who had an excellent game) into the centre to the forward who hit it on the half-volley straight into the corner of the net.

I walked back home wfterwards, stopping for a bag of chips. And nice they were too.

Now I’m off to bed and it’s a lie-in tomorrow with an extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back tomorrow – 1 hour if you live in the real world, 50 years if you live in the UK, 120 years if you voted for Brexit and 250 years if you voted Conservative.

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Tuesday 24th October 2017 – SITTING IN CALIBURN …

… right at this moment are a washing machine, a fridge and a freezer. And in here is a coffee machine.

Yes, I’ve been out and about this afternon.

Just for a change just recently, I was awake before the alarm went off this morning – although that’s not the same as saying that I was out of bed before the alarm this morning. But we’re getting there bit by bit.

And I had been on my travels too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall Krys who used to read and comment on this blog many years ago. She and I were doing up an old house, putting in some dry-lined walls which were, interestingly, made of steel, not plasterboard. And I remember admiting how well we were fitting the sheets so that the joints were scarcely visible.

After breakfast I sat down to search the internet for the stuff that I wanted. There’s a wholesale site called C Discount and the prices on there looked reasonable. But strnge as it is to say it, the price of the product on the adverts is not the same price as the product once it goes into your basket.

There was about €20:00 difference and when I queried this with the company, they replied that there was a fault on their site.

And that was that.

No offer to deal with the matter or to resolve the issue.

In the end, their prices were no more different than at the BUT, with no delivery charges and no waiting either.

So at 14:00 I went off to the BUT and ordered my product. The fridge and the freezer are th cheapest available – on the grounds that it’s debatable if I’ll outlive them anyway given my health. And the washing machine would have been too, but when I asked for a discount in view of how much I was spending, they wouldn’t do that but they marked down an Indesit to match the rpice of the cheapest machine and you can’t argue with that.

The fridge is your typical standard-size fridge that will go under the draining board. The freezer is identical – a front-opener – that will go in the bathroom. That’s been made possible because I’ve bought a top-loading washing machine. Only a small one but then there’s only me, and with it being a top-loader it can go right in the corner. Hence there’s the place for the freezer next to it.

As for the coffee machine, I didn’t intend to buy one but there they were, marked down to €9:99. You can’t argue with that either!

It wasn’t until 16:00 that I returned, so it was a very late lunch. That meant that I wasn’t hungry at tea-time. instead, I chatted to a friend on the internet for quite a while.

The weather wasn’t so bad either today, so I could go for a little walk this evening. I hope that I can return quickly to my usual habits and settle down.

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Monday 16th October 2017 – I MEAN, YOU HAVE TO LAUGH.

There has been the most astonishing weather here today. In fact, pretty much the same as in the rest of Western Europe. Devastating high winds, pitch-black at 14:00, the sun a mere orangey thing somewhere behind a dark black cloud.

Loads of people have passed comment on it today, but it was all killed off by one poster who said “Everyone banging on about weird light and a strange orange glow in the sky clearly didn’t spend the 1970s in Teesside”.

It’s this Storm Ophelia that is doing it, a storm named after Ophelia, the daughter of that Labour politician Ed Balls, and I’ll bet that it will take you a minute or two to think about that.

He was famous for writing a speech for Gordon Clown, the-then Prime Minister, which prompted William Hague, leader of the Tory Party in Opposition, to rise from his seat and say “that sppech – typical Labour, it’s all Balls”.

The storm isn’t though. Half of BUT was closed off while they were dealing with something big and heavy that had come crashing down through the roof into the shop during the night.

During my night though, I went on my travels again. But I don’t remember where and it wasn’t for long because it was almost 02:00 before I ended up in bed. Jet-lag strikes again, I reckon.

The alarm went off at 06:00 but I was … errr … somewhat tardy in leaving my stinking pit.

LIDL was the first port of call for me today. And here I did the usual shopping, but plenty of it seeing as I’d let the stocks run down somewhat. It was the same story in Auchan.

In bewteen the two, I went to BUT, negotiating the debris in the store. The stuff in there was better quality and better price than in the Auchan and I was almost ready to sign on the dotted line.

Almost.

I asked if they had a delivery service and installation service and if they took away the old appliances, which they did. But it’s not free.

“It’s €30:00” siad the guy in the shop.
“Per delivery?”
“No, per appliance”. And they are bringing in three and taking out two.

So “sodomisez ça pour un jeu de soldats” as they say around here. We need a Plan B.

But Plan B won’t be the Auchan as their stuff is rubbish.

And here’s a thing.

After months of hassling, the Bio-Coop is now starting to sell Vegan cheese. It’s not the best by any means, but it’s a start and it goes to show you the power of persuasion. You’ll remember that I did the same at Amaranthe in Montlucon.

So I bought some, and some sausages. And that also meant pizza for tea seeing as how I’d missed out on Sunday.

I half-unloaded Caliburn and then I had to go for a sit-down for … errr … a while. That meant a very late lunch. And a bit of desultory tidying up – not very much of that.

Right now I’m feeling the strain so it may well be an early night for me. I’ll be like this for a week or so until I find my rhythm.

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Sunday 15th October – OUR STORY YESTERDAY …

… ended with me creeping off to bed at 20:00 or thereabouts for a lie down.

It restarted at about … errr … 00:30 when I suddenly sat bolt upright again. Wide awake, of course, and that was that.

Interestingly, I’d been on my travels too. Out to sea in a small ship again but I’ve no idea where to.

I wasn’t wide awake enough to do all that much though. I had a mess around on the laptop but couldn’t keep the concentration, and I read a book for a while. By 04:00 or thereabouts I was ready to go off to sleep again.

And go on my travels again. This time we were camping – at one of these steam engine rallies or something like that. We were one of the first to arrive, and we had two tents so we could have had the choice of places. But somehow we had managed to cram ourselves into a tiny corner where there wasn’t much room to move about. It was then that I realised that I had left my sleeping bag and spare clothes behind, and I’d also forgotten to bring the spare tent pegs. The plastic ones that we had were not up to doing the job in this soil.
And then I moved on to being in a restaurant – some kind of posh house-type of place. But I just can’t remember now what was going on there.

09:27 when I awoke (it’s Sunday so there’s no alarm of course) but it was … errr … nothing like that when I finally crawled out of bed. I missed my bed while I was away … "you’ll have to improve your aim" – ed … and so I made the most of it.

Making muesli was the highlight of the morning, seeing as I had run out, but this fridge is finished. There’s an issue with the thermostat which means that it switches off, the fridge warms up, the ice melts everywhere, and the thermostat doesn’t switch back in until it’s too late. Everything inside the fridge is drenched.

After breakfast I went down into town to see if any of the shops were open. But we are now on winter hours of course so the little supermarket down below was closed. But never mind – it was a nice walk and did me good.

Just by way of a change, I had a visitor. My neighbour who looks after my keys came to see how I was doing, which was nice. But not so nice seeing as I had everything out and the place was a total tip. Doesn’t it always happen like this? Still, I gave him and his wife a little present for being so kind.

And that, dear reader, is your lot. I managed to rustle up some food (pasta, veg and tomato sauce) for tea but apart from that I’ve hardly moved. I should be going for a walk but I’ll postpone that for today. I had a little walk at lunchtime as you know.

So tomorrow we’re back in the routine. There’s an alarm set, and I need to visit the shops for just about everything. I tested Caliburn and he started up, which was useful. It’s been nearly 9 weeks since he’s had a run out. A little drive will do him good.

And I’m going to look for some new stuff too. A fridge, a freezer and a washing machine. High time I organised myself.

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Monday 24th July 2017 – I HAVE JUST MADE …

… one of the best curries that I’ve ever made.

It’s a chick pea and mushroom curry, and I’ve no idea why it should taste so different (or so nice) but it certainly was. And there’s enough for three more days too.

And I’ve been out this morning too. Apparently there was home-made vegan ginger cake being prepared at Roncey so of course Terry needed a hand with the plasterboard in his living room, didn’t he?

So after breakfast I bunged a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine and Caliburn and I hit the streets for Roncey.

I went out there via Intersport. Liz had seen my fitbit on Saturday and was having a play around with it. She asked me if, next time that I was passing, I could pick one up for her.

And it was a good job that I was outside the shop already when it opened its doors, because they only had one left! They don’t have any now!

Terry had fitted the plasterboard but having pulled a tendon in his shoulder, couldn’t reach up to infill the joints. And so I spent a pleasant morning with a pile of pollyfilla (I thought that I had left all of that kind of work far behind me).

There’s plenty of vegan ginger cake left, so I reckoned that the pollyfilla would need a good 20 hours to dry, and I could go back tomorrow morning and sand it down.

Back here, I crashed out for a good hour. Clearly even doing that amount of work was too much for me, but you will be amazed at the lengths to which I will go in order to get my teeth stuck into a slice of Liz’s home-made cake.

So curry for tea tonight, and now a walk. And then a shower (for my nice, clean bedding) and an early night. I need to build up my strength in order to justice to another slice of Liz’s cake.

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Saturday 15th July 2017 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And I’m not talking about cutting my finger open with the sharp vegetable knife when I picked up the cutlery out of the drainer either. It was much more painful than that!

So last night was another restless night. Especially so seeing as how I was off on my travels again.

There was a war on, and of course the UK was very susceptible to a blockade. However there was no rationing and people were going about as it it all was of no consequence, something that struck me as being a great matter of concern.
And then I was with my mother (but whoever it was wasn’t my mother, thank heavens) and it involved something to do with Mark III Cortinas. She drove away and I was left holding a bonnet from the aforementioned – a light blue one. I was trying the blots with my fingers to make sure that they were loose enough without disturbing the settings. A couple of women in a cafe made some ribald remark about me being with a “much older” woman so I went over to say “hello”. Their tune soon changed when they saw me come over because they recognised me, and they realised that the “much older” woman had been my mother.
While I was in the queue here a whole group of people came to the counter and it was all people whom I recognised from from a difficult period of my life. They were all pleased and enthusiastic to see me but I wasn’t at all pleased to see them. They crowded around me and asked me how I was and I was really uncomfortable in all of this. We discussed work and they found out that I had given over a good job to go driving taxis – but at leat “it was my own taxi, and not someone else’s”.

I’ve no idea where all of these people have come from – people whom I met in the early 80s in a couple of unpleasant encounters and whom I wish never to see again. I can’t think whatever it might have been to trigger all of that off.

After breakfast and a shower, shave and clean clothes, Caliburn got his motor running and headed off down the highway in the general direction of the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special and neither did NOZ, the rubbish shop. But at least they had a few more of these hexagonal herb and spice jars. I get through tons of turmeric here so I stocked up with two containers of that together with a couple more of different types.

At Centrakor I went a little berserk. They were selling cigarette lighter socket twin-USB adaptors for just €1:99. I need one of those for Strider over in Canada so I picked one up.

But they also had some of those portable battery packs for powering your mobile phone or other hand-held appliance – a 2600 mAh set-up and just €3.99. That’s half what I have seen them elsewhere at their cheapest, and that’s without postage and packing too of course!

LeClerc was just the usual banal stuff, but I REALLY went mad in Intersport.

The trainers that I bought at Sports Direct in Leuven last October have fallen apart. So I only paid €20 for them, I know, but they’ve been letting in water for quite a while and now the soles are falling off.

Intersport was having a sale so went to have a look around, and came away with a pair of Salomon Goretex trainer-style hiking boots. They should have been … gulp … €119 but they were reduced by 30% in the sale and they were so comfortable.

I hope that they last a darn sight longer than these ones that I’ve just chucked in the bin.

And that’s not all either.

My rain jacket is falling to pieces. It has a couple of holes in it (never good for a rainjacket – holes in it) and it’s looking well the worse for wear. I have another one but that is one of those bright yellow rubberised ones that is uncomfortable, bulky and sweaty.

Today though, reduced to just €24:95 was a proper McKinley breathable Aquamax. And in my size too, which was unusual.

And last, but by no means least – I’ve been talking for a while about buying a Fitbit – one of these that tells you your heartbeat, how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burnt and all of that stuff. But when I’ve seen the price, it’s put me off.

But a new model has been launched and Intersport was clearing out the remains of the previous one. Nothing wrong with them at all – there’s just a new design – and they were reduced to just €50:00.

Yes, I’m making ready for my holidays, aren’t I?

All I need now is a new suitcase and a new camera.

But this Fitbit – “always ready when you are” it proudly announces on the packet. So I went to wear it … and the battery was flat! What kind of misleading publicity is that?

Back home, the whole town was heaving with grockles as predicted. Even coming home the back way I was stuck for ages. And it’s a good job that we have our own private parking here because the public car park was jam-packed, with grockles dragging off suitcases all over the old town.

Early for my baguette tomorrow, I reckon.

Fighting off the waves of sommeil this afternoon, I was on the blog again. Not reducing the “unclassifieds” but untangling a few bits and pieces from when I returned from the Ile d’Yeu until going back to Brussels.

I’ve put that bit off for a while, but a close look at it revealed that it was fairly straighforward to untangle so here I am. Well on my way to finalising that little lot.

Tea tonight was more mashed potato, frozen veg and burger. And I fried a little onion and garlic with my burger too and it was delicious.

I really do appreciate living here in my little apartment.

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Friday 7th July 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… tea!

Mashed potatoes, frozen peas and carrots done in the vegetable steamer, and a vegan burger and gravy done in the wok.

At least, it would have been nice, but 7 minutes in the steamer isn’t anything like long enough. The spuds take 15 minutes or so and when I cook frozen veg next time, I’ll cook them right from the beginning of the cycle.

Still, you live and learn.

Pudding was pear halves and blackcurrant sorbet and that all went down nicely too.

Last night’s sleep was better than the previous, but still not as good as the one from the night before. I was rather hoping that The One That Got Away would come back to continue where we left off last night, but no such luck. You can’t win a coconut every time, unfortunately, not even in the astral sphere.

After breakfast and a shower and shave (I need to look my best) Caliburn and I hit the streets. It’s Friday – shopping today. No point in doing it tomorrow – first day of the school holidays so we’ll be hemmed in with grockles.

I spent a fair bit of money today too – not an extravagent amount, but far more than usual. And I can’t think what cost all of the money. Highlight was in LDL – a set of electronic digital scales for the kitchen at €7:99. That’s not going to rock the boat.

But nothing special in NOZ and nothing special in LeClerc, and nothing at all in BUT. I can see that my plans for a mini-hifi for here are all going to come to nought, which is a shame.

Lunch again was on the wall overlooking the harbour, until the heat drove me in. And then I had an afternoon where … err … my concentration was not at its peak.

But I’ve cracked along with the blog entries, and a couple of those today were quite lengthy and involved. This one of La Roche d’Agoux was one of three that took ages to straighten out. I can see why I abandoned July and August 2012 when I was doing it last time. It wasn’t easy.

So another early night beckons. I doubt very much that The One That Got Away shall put in an appearance tonight – even though we were chatting on the internet for about an hour or so earlier this evening.

But it’s a sad state of affairs and a sad sign of the times that what goes on while I’m on a nocturnal voyage into the unknown is more exciting than what I’m up to in daylight hours anyway.

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Monday 19th June 2017 – PHWOARRR!!!

record temperature granville manche normandy franceWhat a scorcher!

Never mind the time (which is wrong of course) just look at the temperature at 14:30 this afternoon! It was bad enough outside, but look at what it was doing in Caliburn!

This morning was bad enough. 25°C outside and 23°C in here at 07:55 (that’s 06:55 for those of you living in The Land That Time Forgot) and it just got hotter and hotter. After breakfast, and going for my baguette it became far too hot to concentrate and I didn’t accomplish very much.

vegan lentil and tofu pie granville manche normandy franceBut you can see my vegan lentil and tofu pie though. It had cooled off (well, sort-of) during the night so I pulled it out of the oven. With some cling-film over the top, it’s now gone into the fridge as I made some space in there

It doesn’t look very successful, so I hope that it tastes better than it looks. With some mashed spuds, peas and carrots, it might be okay. You never know. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But I have to learn sometime and the easiest way to learn is by experience.

sailing boats granville manche normandy franceDown on my wall at lunchtime, I was able to admire the marine traffic entering and leaving the port while I was there eating my butty and reading my book. This kind of thing caught my eye, because it looks as if it might have sailed right out of a late 19th-Century painting.

Sailing boats are classed according to their masts and rigging, so you have schooners, barques, barquentines, yawls, all of these kinds of things. And I have no idea of which is which and I can’t tell the difference anyway, but there you go.

But the heat was intense. I couldn’t stay out there for very long and so I was obliged to retreat. And this was when I saw the temperature.

As a consequence I braved the oppressive heat of Caliburn and went out of town as far as the LeClerc. I’d seen that they had fans on offer and at €19:99 I bought the biggest one that they had. That cooled me down somewhat and I feel much more like it. It still didn’t stop me having a little repose though.

So now the curry is finished, it’s pie for tea tomorrow. If I don’t blog tomorrow night, you’ll know that it didn’t do me any good.

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Thursday 1st June 2017 – WELCOME TO THE 1ST OF JUNE …

… and let’s all hope that June will see the end of May.

And on that profound note, I’m sure that you are all wondering how the New Dynamic Me is today.

The answer to that is that the New Dynamic Me was flat-out in his stinking pit until he was taken by surprise by the alarm call. Been a while since that has happened, hasn’t it? And after breakfast, Yours Truly attacked the blog again.

Not quite as easy today, because it seems that in the days when I only blogged when I had an internet connection, I’d compressed five days’ worth of entries into just one. All of that needed to be picked apart and new pages made, photos shuffled around (and tracked down in certain circumstances) and all that kind of thing. I reckon that that was where I ran aground last time I was doing it.

But these days I’m made of sterner stuff and so I spent the morning picking it all apart. And it took most of the morning too. But at least it’s done. And there are several other entries like that too, and for these I’ll need to sit down with a piece of paper, a diary, Caliburn’s petrol log and a few other things besides so that I can work out exactly where I was and, more appropriately and importantly, when.

But it’s quite interesting sitting down and reading what I was doing and what I was thinking all those years ago. For example, there I was in late July 2011 on my way back from Brussels having sold my apartment there, and thinking to myself “well, that’s the last I’ll see of Brussels. I won’t ever be coming back here again”. Ahhh, the wild-eyes innocence of youth and the best-laid plans of mice and men and all of that. If only I knew then …

I went out early for the baguette and missed the crowds. And it was such a lovely afternoon that I went outside with my butties to sit in the sunlight and read my book. And I would probably still be there now except that I started to doze off in the heat. Instead I came in and had a coffee.

Once I’d gathered my wits about me I started to change over some plugs. I’d bought a pile of electrical stuff, such as a slow cooker, a steamer and so on in the UK over the ages, and they came with British plugs. When I was out and about at Brico Cash the other week I’d bought a handful of Continental plugs and so I sat down and whanged some of the stuff over. I would have done more too, except that I didn’t have a wire cutter handy.

Tea tonight was a lentil curry. I put green string beans in it too – not because I wanted to but because I opened a tin of green string beans by mistake. But the advantage of curry is that you can chuck all kinds of stuff in it and it’s all good.

So tomorrow I’m going to go shopping. I’ve decided, as I told you the other day, that hitting the roads at weekend in the tourist season is a pointless exercise. Tomorrow is as good a day as any.

I’ll bet that I’ll forget most of the stuff though. I usually do.

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Tuesday 30th May 2017 – THAT WAS A NICE SURPRISE!

Yes, there I was down in town doing the rounds and I had a ‘phone call (well, I had a few, but there was one in particular). “We’re just off to the beach. Would you like to come along?”

Well, there I was – not had a shower for a few days, not changed my clothes since ditto and not shaved likewise, and even I was noticing it. But as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that’s never stopped me in the past so I dashed back home to pick up Caliburn.

Last night wasn’t (quite) as late as the previous and once more I’d had difficulty sleeping. I was awake before the alarm went off too. But it was something else to haul myself out of my stinking pit with a bound and a leap. But I eventually crawled out of bed and had breakfast.

Having organised a few things here and there, I headed off to the Bank. I’d needed some cash as I’d run out, and I needed them to put their stamp on the form that I need to send off about my pension payments. Having done that, I headed off to the Post Office and their new self-service machine which is about three times more complicated than queueing at the counter.

And it was here that I had my phone call.

Seeing as I had already bought my baguette I quickly made my butties, and Caliburn and I shot off to La Pointe d’Agon.

liz terry messenger la pointe d'agon manche normandy franceBy the time that I arrived, Liz, Terry, Darren, Kate, Dylan and Robyn had beaten me to it and had already put on the nosebags. With my butties, I sat down with them and joined in the affray.

You’ll probably notice that the weather wasn’t so good. It was cold, overcast and windy but that kind of weather is never going to put kids off visiting the beach, building sandcastles and hunting for impressive seashells.

They weren’t so keen on swimming however and I can’t say that I might blame them.

We had eaten our butties at the side of the car park for two reasons.

  1. You don’t want to get sand in your sandwiches
  2. The tide was in and the beach was submerged

strawberry moose la pointe d'agon manche normandy franceBut by the time that we had finished eating and chatting – which was quite a while because a lot has happened since the last time that I have seen Kate and Darren, the tide had gone out.

It goes out quickly here and quite far too so we set off. Strawberry Moose was with us too, and it’s a long way for him to walk, and so he hitched a ride out across the sand dunes to the water’s edge

strawberry moose pointe d'agon manche normandy franceAnd His Nibs isn’t as light as he might be either, and a 6-year old can soon find him to be something of a burden on a long walk. In the end, Yours Truly ended up carrying him out.

And while we were relaxing, or walking in the water or collecting seas shells, the sun came out and it was a very pleasant afternoon. So much so that round about 16:30 we decided to head off into Agon-Countainville for ice-cream and, in my case, a nice hot coffee.

I came back home later, having called at the Casino for the tomatoes and the pots of fruit purée that I had forgotten on Saturday. Tea was the last helping of the kidney bean and tomato stuff with pasta.

And if I’m not careful, I’ll be having an early night. And tomorrow, I’m sure that I shall find something to do.

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Sunday 28th May 2017 – IT’S GOING TO BE A LONG …

… hard winter with this new oven.

As the cynic in me expected, the timing and the temperature is all wrong. You can basically add 50% on to the cooking time and 30° onto the cooking temperature and eventually you’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of where you want to be. I’ve had better-cooked pizzas than this, but at least it was my own so I can’t complain.

It was 02:00 when I went to bed last night what with one thing and another, and my delightfully long lie-in took me up until all of 08:05. After breakfast I headed off in search of a baguette but I didn’t get very far, and for two reasons too.

  1. the newsagents was open and he had some bread in today
  2. for some reason that I don’t understand, all the joints in my legs are aching as if I’ve been on a marathon hike and that’s certainly not the case

It’s Sunday today and that’s a Day of Rest. And that’s precisely what I have done today. I’ve not even been outside apart from the baguette because the weather has changed and we’ve had a rainstorm.

That’s not quite true – because I’ve taken the box that the oven came in down to Caliburn along with another pile of paper and cardboard rubbish. Next time that I’m passing the dechetterie I’ll heave it out. And I came back in with a couple of pairs of pliers to … errr … adjust the pizza tray so that it would fit in the oven. But that exhausted me so much that I crashed out for an hour or so.

Monday is when I’m intending to start work. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I’ve let lapse and it’s high time that I exerted myself.

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Friday 26th May 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we featured a proper “Ship of the Day” on these pages?

When I was in Montreal or somewhere down the St Lawrence we could take our pick of dozens each day, but it’s usually pretty thin pickings whenever we are elsewhere.

victress port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut not today though, because today our ship really has come in.

It’s another really high tide this week and it’s brought in the Victress, who has sailed in from Southampton to pick up a load of gravel. Built in 1992, she flies the flag of Barbados and displaces about 1500 tonnes.

Not the biggest ship we’ve seen, but the biggest that we’ve seen in recent times and the biggest that we are likely to see here in Granville. She’s not there now, though – the ground’s all flat. And she’s somewhere out in the Channel so it seems. And I’ve not been able to find out where she’s heading.

She was formerly known as Uranus but this was changed due to ribald remarks from captains of other ships – something along the line of “with my binoculars I can see Uranus from here”

After breakfast this morning I had a quick shower and shave and change of clothes and hit the streets in search of the bus stop. Of course I have a choice of two, and of course it was “the other one” but just €1:00 and pretty painlessly (and I’ll do this again) I was decanted at the top of town to rescue Caliburn. He’s had his service, and the strange noise seems to have gone, and he’s had his controle technique. That gives me two years motoring without any major worries, which is always a bonus.

And on the way back, I picked up my oven. That’s now installed and working – and I had to change round my kitchen a little to fit it on the shelves and things don’t fit as well as they did before, which is a shame. But tomorrow I’ll be tracking down a pizza tray, some bread-making stuff and some oven chips. THis is going to start to become interesting.

For lunch I headed off to my usual spot – the clifftop overlooking the port – and this was where I made the acquaintance of Victress. But not for too long because once more I was burnt out of my position and head to retreat to here where I promptly crashed out for an hour.

granville manche normandy franceAnd while we’re on the subject of photographs … "well, one of you is" – ed … it occurs to me that you have yet to see the view out of my living room windows.

It’s not very inspiring unfortunately (although I’ve seen much worse) but if I look over to the right-hand side I can in fact see the sea.

It’s not exactly the sea view that I was hoping to have, and I don’t have a terrace which would have been perfect, but here in Granville I can’t do much better than this. Especially as if I just step outside the front door of the building the view is stupendous as you know

Later on, I went out to Roncey. Liz’s grandchildren (whom you have seen many times on these pages) are coming to stay tomorrow and it’s important that Strawberry Moose is there to greet them. So now he’s playing hide-and-seek down the bed.

Back here, I had another dollop of the kidney bean stuff that I made yesterday and it was just as delicious too.

So tomorrow it’s a mega-shop again. So just you watch me forget something important.

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Tuesday 23rd May 2017 – AS I PREDICTED …

… last night, I am completely and thoroughly exhausted. To such an extent that I had one of these very deep and total crash-outs this afternoon for about an hour or so where a bomb could have gone off in here and it wouldn’t have awakened me.

It was a late night last night after all, and something of a struggle to rise up and leave my stinking pit. But nevertheless, there I was eventually, having breakfast.

After the usual relax, Caliburn and I hit the streets and headed off for the garage. It’s right out on the edge of town, near the by-pass about 1km further on from LeClerc and round the back of the industrial estate. And that’s where Caliburn might be found right now (hopefully) – having his annual health check ready for the controle technique on Friday.

I’ve no idea how far away it might be from here, but as you know from yesterday I resolved to walk back if I could. And so I set out.

And that was something of a mistake because I ended up going past the BUT – a household furnishing shop something like a small downmarket IKEA. They have a good electrical section however and that’s where I went for a mooch around. And there they had one of these table-top ovens – one that works on a 13-amp plug. It’s quite big, and has all of the controls such as a thermostat, timer, and (more importantly) a diffusion fan for spreading the heat around. It’s an ex-display model and reduced for a quick sale to just … errr … €59.

Of course, I couldn’t resist it at that price, especially as it means that I can get back to baking and making pizzas properly, and so there we are. I don’t have it yet because I was on foot. But it’s all paid for now and I can pick it up when I go to recover Caliburn.

You’re probably wondering why I’m buying all of this really cheap electrical rubbish instead of some decent stuff. There are in fact a couple of good reasons for this

  1. Most importantly, I need a lot of stuff (more than I anticipated in fact) so the idea is to buy it as quickly as possible. If it doesn’t last long and breaks down, it’s no big deal and I can replace it with decent stuff. But bit by bit of course, which will spread the expense out better. It won’t all break down at once (remember that I said that).
  2. You’re probably thinking that this cheap stuff won’t last all that long. But the truth is, neither will I. You know my medical prognosis, so there’s no point in me buying expensive stuff that will last 20 years, because the probability is that I won’t

So having spent yet more money, I set off slowly home. And despite my comments yesterday about there being plenty of cafés along the route, I only stopped twice – once to check the train times and the railway station and the second time to buy a baguette. And it was a very weary me that finally crawled up the stairs to crash down on the sofa.

It took me just under 2 hours to make it back (including my time in the BUT) and I knew that I had done it too. IT was a good half-hour before I could summon up the effort to make a coffee.

At lunchtime I went out with my butties to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour in the beautiful sunshine. I had a book and the idea was that I would sit out there for a couple of hours. But it wasn’t to be because I could feel myself dropping off (to sleep, not the wall, although that would naturally have followed). And so I came back here to crash out.

Tonight’s tea was excellent. Not baked of course, but microwaved spuds, microwaved peas and carrots (out of a tin) and a microwaved vegan millet-and-bulghour burger smothered in vegan margarine. That was fit for a King.

Now it’s an early night and I’mm go and watch an episode or two of the Saint in memory of Roger Moore who died today.

And tomorrow? It’s going to be a difficult day. I’ll seize up overnight and that’ll set me back for a couple of days. But at least I now have an over, which is a big sign of progress.

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