Tag Archives: place d’armes

Thursday 4th April 2019 – REMEMBER YESTERDAY …

… when I told you that winter had returned to Normandy?

Well, it’s here and with a vengeance too. The storm is blowing up right across the bay and churning up the sea something wicked.

This little trawler, with its lifeboat in tow, is making heavy weather of leaving port this morning and struggling out into the wind.

By the time the evening came round, the wind had dropped slightly.

Ever so slightly, and as it was high tide when I went out for my evening walk, the waves were crashing down over the top of the Plat Gousset in an impressive fury.

All in all, it’s been quite a spectacle today with the weather the way that it has been.

Despite a night that was rather later than I wanted, I had a decent sleep up until about 05:30 when I awoke. There was a little bit of awakening during the night but nothing much to worry about.

There had been plenty of time to go on a little voyage or two though. I was at a meal last night and sitting at the table were a couple of people whom I know – Zero being one of them. She at one time was a regular feature in my nocturnal rambles and who seems to be making something of a comeback just now). She was saying to the man who was with her – probably her father – that if only she had said something different to … (a former school-friend of mine) … he might be alive today. My ears pricked up at this news. “Is … (so-and-so) dead then?” “Ohh yes” said the reply. “Died last night”. There was another friend of ours working in the same place so I dashed down to tell him the news. He wasn’t there so I left a note on his desk. But on reflection I reckoned that the note wasn’t very clear and should have been written in a different way to clarify it.)

A little later I was caught in something of a no-man’s-land between here and the Auvergne. I had a piece of land down there and there was a wooden chalet-type thing there but it was just a shell, no inner lining and no inner dividing walls. I’d had it up for sale and people had been looking at it. A princess had liked one version of it and someone else liked another version of it, and all in all I was becoming confused about what I was going to do. The land down there was full of stuff including a Honda 500cc twin motorbike – a really nice parallel twin from the 1980s, a few cars and a couple of those were nice too, and an alsatian dog that stayed down there and guarded the place when I was away for months on end. I went back there with a former friend from Stoke on Trent. He was saying how he liked one particular style in which the chalet could be arranged. He started to pick up the wardrobes, even those full of clothes, and carry them about to put them in other places. I was wondering about all of the work that needed doing to organise everything so that I could sell it on but it’s not even worth thinking about. He had a drive around the field on this Honda and said how he thought that it was beautiful. He asked what I was going to do with it, and I replied that I was going to take it to Brussels. Getting it into the van won’t be a problem but getting it out at the other end might be because I’m on my own there. He’d let this dog loose. It was sniffing around everything. There was a Ford Anglia estate and the tailgate was open. We were having a look inside it and this dog came and jumped inside. I was saying “get the dog out. It has no business being in there”. I was worried that it was going to disgrace itself and ruin the interior.

And for a change, I was up quite early too and I’d quickly dealt with the morning procedures. I’d even managed a shower too.

It’s shopping day today but before I went out I transcribed a few notes from the dictaphone.

Terry turned up to say hello too. One of my neighbours wanted some DiY work doing and he’d been signed up to do it.

Once I had Terry settled in, I headed out to the shops, braving the howling wind. But again, I didn’t get very far at all.

I’ve mentioned before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … that large, heavy vehicles are not allowed into the interior of the city walls. They have to park up outside and the goods trans-shipped to a smaller vehicle.

We’ve seen that happen a few times already, and there was another occurrence this morning.

The fish dock by the Fish Processing plant was busy too.

They must have just opened the harbour gates because there are three trawlers down there unloading their catch, and a whole fleet of vans and lorries waiting to take away the produce.

It must have been a really impressive sight down there 40 or 50 years ago when the cod-fishing on the Grand Banks was at its height.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that every so often we are treated to the presence of a rather large crane on the quayside.

The last one was in April last year, and here sure enough almost exactly a year later, there’s another one here today.

From up here, I couldn’t see what it was doing down there, and in view of the weather I didn’t fancy the idea of going down there to make further enquiries. I’ll save that for a better day.

That’s not all of the excitement down in the harbour either.

We now have a huge load of gravel accumulating on the quayside, and a digger moving it around so that it’s by the conveyors.

That can only mean one thing, and that is that Neptune or one of her sisters will be here in early course. She’s actually in London right now, but Shetland Trader is at large in the English Channel a mere cockstride from here.

From here I strolled up through the town on the way to the railway station. There, I collected my tickets for my next trip to Leuven. I like to have them in my possession well in advance because the ticket machines aren’t always reliable and the ticket office is closed when I arrive for my train.

Next stop was at LIDL for the midweek shopping. Apart from the usual stuff and a packet of brazil nuts, I bought one of these shower hanger trays. I’m fed up of my soap and shampoo floating around all over the place and I’ve been looking for one of these.

Today, LIDL was having a bathroom equipment sale and these shower hanger trays were one of the articles on offer.

On my way back home I went down via the rue Saint Paul into the rue Sainte Genevieve to check up on the new house-building.

As I suspected the other day, they are now rendering it with crépi.

And it’s quite interesting to see how they do it. They have a mixing machine that makes it come out like a rather wet clay and the spray it onto the breeze blocks and then smooth it over with some large floats.

Back here, I made myself a nice hot chocolate and then set down to work.

All of the blog entries as far back as 12th July 2018 are now up-to-date. But I’ve run aground temporarily because I’m back to when I was prowling around the Somme front line.

The searchable text database is done back to there too and, as it happens, so are the dictaphone notes for that period.

So one of the projects on hand is to tie them all together and make up a couple of web pages about the whole voyage. But when I’ll do that I really don’t know right now.

Terry came round for lunch and a chat, and after he had left I had another session indexing the photos from my trip to the High Arctic. I’ve probably done another 100 or so and I shall be glad when they are all done and dusted, because then I can add them to the blog entries for those dates.

That’s a task that is long-overdue.

While all that was going on, there was a terrific rainstorm going on outside, but by the time that I was due to go for my walk it had stopped.

Once outside, I didn’t bother to loiter in the wind.

A brisk walk around the headland and a quick look at the chantier navale. They weren’t spraying today, which is hardly a surprise given the wind.

But I did notice that there seems to be a layer of colour in a stripe low down on the hull, so it looks as if they are getting close to putting on the final coat.

Back here, I whacked another pile of notes off the dictaphone list, in the middle of which I was roused by Terry telephoning me to say that he’d been banging on my door for 10 minutes. I must have … errr … had a litle relax.

We had a chat and after he had gone home (and I had forgotten to give him some stuff for Liz) I carried on with the dictaphone.

So engrossed was I with what I was doing that I was late for tea. So i did a quick plate of mixed veg and pasta tossed in powdered garlic and olice oil followed by pineapple and coconut soya cream.

After the washing-up, I headed out for my evening walk.

The wind had dropped slightly so I could actually walk, but there’s an incredible amount of force in the sea, as I have said before.

It’s all stored up in some incredible reserve of force and with a 3,000-odd mile uninterrupted journey across the Atlantic, the force can remain in the mass of the sea for quite a considerable time.

By the time that I made it round to the view overlooking the Plat Gousset, it was not far off high tide.

I could see that the waves were crashing over the sea wall with an incredible amount of violence. I stood there and watched it for quite a while.

It’s really quite a spectacle when it’s going full steam ahead, as you can ses.

After a while, I headed back home, giving a little kitten a stroke on the way

With being a little late this evening, it’s rather last now so i won’t be having my early night tonight. But I’ll do the best that I can.

But I’ve had two lots of news today. And both concern little projects that I’ve had on the go for a while. Things have no accelerated and one of them is now complete and the other one, I’m now locked into.

And so there’s no turning back now, and I have an awful lot of work to do before I’m very much older. I wish I had been more selective and brought more books back from the Auvergne.

I need a good sleep tonight.

crane port de granville harbour manche normandy france

“night high winds storm waves over plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 – CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

There’s been a strange object anchored out to sea all day, about 12 miles or so offshore, just outside French territorial waters.

I had taken a photograph of it earlier today, and as it was still there tonight I took another one of it.

Back here this evening, I cropped the photographs, digitally enhanced them and, because I can do this without any regard to modern anti-terrorist legislation, I blew them up.

And now that I have done all of that, I can see what it is.

And much to my surprise, it turns out to be, as far as I can see, some kind of small naval vessel like a fisheries patrol boat.

It’s been in the Press over the past few days about how the fishermen from here are dissatisfied about the post-Brexit fishing arrangements. And when French fishermen are “dissatisfied, we all know what that will mean.

So I’m wondering if it’s a British naval vessel keeping an eye on things from outside the territorial waters.

But whatever it is, it’s not emitting a positioning signal on my AIS receiver, so it can’t be anything civilian.

last night, for once I had a really good sleep. I only awoke once during the night, and then only for a minute or two.

So there was plenty of time to go off on a little ramble or two. I was on the ship going to Iceland. We were told that we could listen to the radio. There was a programme about an island off the coast of Iceland that had been devastated by plague and everyone had been wiped out, broadcast in 10 minutes time. Meanwhile a new island had been located near Iceland so everyone dashed to the window to have a look. We were on a plane and it came past the island and Iceland and another load of islands in a geographical east-west line. At the end it did a U-turn to come into land. By this time it was the ship and scraped along the frozen river thing that led to the sea. There was a news broadcast about our ship and how we were getting to it, how at the moment it was full of loads of schoolkids from Stoke on Trent who had booked it for a week and gone on a voyage (familiar, anyone?).
later on I was with my father. We were repairing a car and had the cylinder head off it. We put the head back on and had the car started and we could move it but it wasn’t right. So we had to take off the cylinder head again. We could undo four of the bolts but the fifth was very problematical. It needed a very thin spanner and we couldn’t find it. We sent a girl to the garage to look for the spanner but she came back with a pile of assorted bits, but no spanner. In the end I went in and I couldn’t find the correct spanner either. I had a feeling that I was looking in completely the wrong place in the workshop – I couldn’t see any spanners. In the end I did come across the tool box but couldn’t see the spanner in there so I came back out. I thought “hang on a minute”. I could unscrew part of the nut by hand and it came off but it left the stud in there. It looked to me as if the head would lift out over the stud as there was just a securing collar that held it in place. By this time my father had gone off so I didn’t know where we were going to go with this. We were in Stoke on Trent and where this car had ground to a halt was outside some minicab depot and a West Indian guy clearly associated with this group of Pakistanis came out and asked me to move because it was making a mess outside his office. I said “yes, just give me two minutes”. But some time earlier I’d been away and I’d come back to Expo with the car I had as a chauffeur in those days. I’d taken my suit off and there were all kinds of things in it – money, papers, folders, wallets, all kinds. Someone asked me for my phone number. They’d given me a piece of paper telling me all about their organisation and would I publish it, then he came over to ask me for my phone number. I couldn’t remember any of my phone numbers at all – the Belgium mobile, the French mobile and landline so I had to go finding ways to recall them. I had my mobile phone and I thought my number will be in there but I couldn’t remember how to access it. I went into my bedroom and found my other suit and that had my wallet in it with all of my papers and money. I thought “have I been away for a few days without my wallet?”. The bedroom window was wide open but it was warm in there even though it was winter. In a flash I suddenly remembered my French mobile number, but now I couldn’t find the guy.

It was another day where I managed to be up and out of bed just after the alarms went off. And even more surprisingly I managed to go all day without crashing out, although I did flag a little later in the morning.

It’s not been such a productive day today though. I started off by finishing the blogs for August. They are up-to-date now.

I followed that up by attacking the photo database for July. I’ve done about 100 or so of those, and while I was at it I amended a couple of entries for that month, seeing as I needed to look at the coding for those days.

There was a little diversion later on in the morning. I forgot to say yesterday that I found a computer program that allows me to edit certain 3D items by adding morphs to them. I had a play around with that yesterday and I had another go at it today.

It’s really quite interesting because it means that I can do things like make clothing from one character fit another by adding morphs and then adjusting them.

Lunch was in here again because it’s still cold and windy outside. And then I carried on with the photos for a while.

Later on, I went for my afternoon walk. Around the walls today.

My trek took me past the house that they are renovating on the corner of the rue du Nord.

The other day I noticed that they had removed the windows from the first floor and knocked out some of the wall underneath. Today, they seem to have fitted new full-length windows that might possible open.

My thought that we might be having a terrace out here could well be true.

The tide must be on its way in right now and the harbour gates must be open.

There’s an endless stream of fishing boats coming out of the harbour now and heading off into the open sea.

On their way to attack the fishing grounds, I shouldn’t wonder, surveyed without a doubt by the naval vessel standing to just outside the 12-mile limit.

They weren’t the only things heading out to do a bit of fishing either.

Down there among the rocks as the tide is sliding out is one of our old men doing a bit of the pêche à pied.

It’s quite usually a popular pastime at this time of the year but as far as I could tell, he was the only person down there today.

Meanwhile, we were having a really good day as far as visibility goes.

We could see way out on the horizon, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Jersey looking as clear as this.

Unfortunately, I must have missed the area of Jersey where St Helier is, because that’s not come out at all.

While the view was so good, I went right up to the highest point of the walls because I had seen something else out to sea.

I wanted to take a photo of it, digitally enhance it and blow it up so that I could see what it is.

It’s actually a trawler out there in the foreground, and in the background we have our old friend the lighthouse out at the mouth of the River Sienne near Agon-Coutainville.

Back at the flat, I attacked the dictaphone notes. And while I may not have done all that many today, some of them were quite hefty. I reckon that as far as minutes goes, I’ve done more today than any other.

Some of the stuff involved doing some basic research while I was at it, and that took some time.

Tea was a curry that I found in the freezer – potato and lentil, I think, with rice and veg. Followed by the last of the apple crumble.

And then I hit the streets for the evening walk.

A beautiful evening even if it was cold and windy. But the view was very interesting.

And there were still more trawlers heading out to sea and the surveillance of the naval vessel that was out there. There are clearly some strange things going on right now.

But the view tonight was even better than this afternoon.

Despite the dozens of photos that I have taken in the past of Cancale across the bay in Brittany, I can say that I have never ever seen it as clearly as I have done today.

You wouldn’t think that that’s 18 miles away, would you?

Finally around to the chantier navale to see what’s going on down there.

We have the large boat undergoing a respray, and I’m wondering when it’s going to be finished. To its right is another passenger vessel of some kind that’s come in for work.

But the other boat down there is some kind of elderly fishing boat. That’s been outside the workshop of the chantier navale for so long that I thought that it might have been a stationary exhibit.

So I’m wondering what their plan is now for it.

Back here, I’m going off to bed. Not quite as early as the last couple of evenings, but early enough all the same. Shopping tomorrow so I need to be on form.

st malo brittany coast granville manche normandy france

fishing boats granville manche normandy france

donville les bains granville manche normandy france

mussels beds airfield donville les bains granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 – WINTER IS …

… back again.

When I awoke this morning, it was raining. In fact it rained for most of the early part of the day and was still going at lunchtime. And so I ate my butties indoors.

This afternoon it stopped and the sun came out for a while. But this evening there is a dreadful gale howling around outside and it’s freezing cold. In fact, I only made a few hundred metres of my evening walk before I changed my mind and came back indoors.

This morning, much to my surprise, I was up and about by 06:20. And it’s been a long time since that’s happened too.

There was plenty of time to go on my travels too. Last night I was in New York with a group of people and we came across a taxi driver – a little middle-aged type of typical Brooklyner. We were talking about him and his business and his car. I crawled underneath his car to have a look. It was in reasonable condition with oil splattered around all underneath but the paint was coming off the underneath and the surface was rusty. I got him to come down and have a look underneath it, and I explained to him that if he were to to the underneath of this and touch up the bodywork there was no reason why this car couldn’t go on for ever. I was showing off a little I have to admit. He was looking at a kind of dirt guard that went underneath the car. One of the nuts had come off the studs so that’s why the car was making a noise from underneath, he said, with the dirt guard loose in once corner. We were chatting about another taxi driver friend of mine who worked from 18:00 Friday to 03:00 Saturday, from 12:00 Saturday to 03:00 Sunday and from 12:00 Sunday to 03:00 Monday. He made enough out of that to live off for the whole of the rest of the week. This guy was going “wow”. I then had to sit down and do his accounts but I had no idea what to do. I’d found an explanatory booklet so I’d sit down with this guy and work out some accounts. There was a girl there – it might even have been Nerina – who said that she needed her accounts doing too. I replied that once I had done this guy I would have more of an idea of how to do them. I could then sit down and do hers properly. But I seem to recall having been in this taxi with this guy going uphill and the car was coughing and spluttering a little. But going downhill again it picked up. He said that it was the spider that was always doing this when he goes uphill. What he was meaning were the plug leads, as I eventually worked out. Of course it would be a V8 under the bonnet

After breakfast I attacked the outstanding pile of work.

First problem was to untangle the mess in which my blog had ended up last night. I must have clicked inadvertantly on an “update now” link that must have popped up while I was working. My blog hung up for 20 minutes and when it finally reloaded, it had gone back to how it was when it uploaded to the previous version.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the fun and games that I had trying to configure it back then, and I was in no state to do it last night.

Last time, it took me a good few weeks to sort it out and it’s still not how I like it. This time I had to do it straight away and it took a good couple of hours before it was back to how it should be.

That was depressing.

I did a couple of test runs with a few blog entries, and it needed a further tweak or two.

Once I’d done that, I then had other work to do. A large amount of correspondence had built up so I spent much of the rest of the morning and the early part of the afternoon after lunch scanning a few documents, printing them out, and writing a few letters.

And then, of course, filing away the papers. I’m getting good at this now.

Once I’d done all of the letters and attachments, i went down into town.

In the harbour this afternoon was a boat that I didn’t recognise, and so fighting my way through a pack of schoolkids on a classe découverte, I went to see what it was.

It turns out that it’s Les Bouchots de Chausey, and we’ve seen her before in the harbour.

While I was there, I went to have a look at the big yacht that has been there for a few days in the berth usually occupied by Marité.

She is in fact displaying a nameboard to say that she’s La Granvillaise, and if that’s really the case, then all I can say is that they have done a really good job on her because I didn’t recognise her at all.

There were a few people loitering around her, and ordinarily I would have gone over to chat to them, but they seemed to be very busy working.

Leaving the port, I wandered over to the Post Office. A couple of my letters went straight into the letter box thanks to La Poste’s system of stamped envelopes. As for the rest, they needed to be weighed and stamped. Everything in there is now automatic, just as Alvin Tofler predicted in The Third Wave.

On the way back, I went to the Boulevard des 2eme et 202eme de ligne to inspect the chantier where they are repairing the wall that was closed off.

They are doing a good job with that and I’m reasonably impressed. But it brings back many happy memories when I spent a whole summer in 2012 doing that down on the farm.

So having admired the workings, I came back for a drink of hot chocolate.

i spent the next few hours doing a pile of dictaphone notes. That’s another lot gone into the great filing cabinet in the sky. I’ve reached the notes for my trip around the Somme battlefield now.

Tea was some taco wraps with stuffing, followed by apple crumble.

We had the half-walk this evening, but that’s enough. I came back in and did some more work. And now it’s time for an early night. I’ve had a long day and, much to my surprise, I managed not to crash out at all.

les bouchots de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Monday 1st April 2019 – TONIGHT’S TEA …

… was something special.

Not because it was delicious, which it was as it happens, but that’s not the point. The fact that the main ingredients were prepared with my own fair hands.

We had a slice of the vegan pasty that I made the other day, with baked potatoes veg and gravy, followed by a slice of my home-made apple crumble with custard.

And I could go back and eat that all again. it was wonderful, even though I say it myself.

Last night, I was in bed early. And I slept the Sleep of the dead all the way through until the alarm, with a little awakening in the small hours.

Plenty of time to go on a voyage or two. And one or two rather surprising people, including one rather surprising debutante about whom I haven’t spent a moment’s thought since about 1979.

We were doing something involving sausages in a fast-food restaurant last night, trying to work out some sort of recipe. mash, beans and sausage for £1:00 was the aim, with each additional sausage £0:20. On our way back there was a big group of us, and the group was getting steadily bigger. It included Zero, she who used to accompany me quite regularly on my nocturnal voyages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and her father. As usual, she was at the back and I was at the front so I didn’t get to talk to her. I was with either Jackie or Alison, I can’t remember now. We came to this flight of steps and ran down it. But this was a very interesting experience because I actually took off and flew, hovering, soaring and flying down these steps. It was the most astonishing, liberating experience. I’d found these air currents and they were lifting me up with very little effort from myself and yet no-one really seemed to notice. That was what upset me more than anything else. Eventually I landed and walked with the others around the right-hand corner at the foot of the stairs. There was this polar bear there with a dog to keep it company. It growled at everyone who walked past. Bit it seemed to be more interested in me as if I was going to be its lunch and started to walk towards me. I turned round, made myself big and shouted “no” at it in a very firm voice. It stopped, so I started to walk away so it started to walk towards me, so I stopped, turned round etc etc. After about three or four goes at this, the bear finally stopped so I walked on back to my friends who had been at the front and we carried on walking.

A little later on I was doing a job that somehow involved doing things with chocolate and being a receptionist in an insurance company. I’d only been there a week and I met a young girl very similar to that Paulette who worked at Fine Fare in Winsford. We very quickly developed a relationship and began to live together. It was a very interesting, ephemeral relationship because she was a weird kind of girl just like she was, and yet she took a fancy to me. As you might expect, this flattered my ego very well. Our living together was all very cosy. I used to do little odd jobs for her around the house like I did for Cecile. One morning she got up early and I stayed in bed. I was trying to find the light switch because she’d installed a new light by the bed. She came to show me how to do it and we ended up on the bed for a while. She told me about a problem with the washing machine that needed fixing so I reckoned that I would go on and do that. I was wondering whether I should take this girl down to the Auvergne and let her meet my friends and show her where I was living but there was stuff all over the place and it wasn’t a very good advert. I’m not sure how it would all go down with her. I ended up at a garage that was selling cars at very cheap prices. There was a mini for sale at £250:00 and something else (might have been a Hillman Imp) for sale at £495 and a Triumph 1300. But there was a Morris 1000 that needed a lot of work doing to it – the roof had been cut off for a start – and a lot of the body was missing. But what caught my eye was that it was left-hand drive. That immediately appealed to me but some young girl got to it first and started to drive it. I told her that it was LHD to which she replied that it wasn’t a problem. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t been to work at my receptionist job for a week. Whatever was I thinking about? had I told them that I would be away? And if so, for how long? Was I supposed to be on leave? had I vacated my job? It all became extremely confusing.

It’s hardly surprising that after all of that I turned over and went back to sleep again. It wasn’t until … errr … much later that I awoke.

After the usual morning processes (including muesli for breakfast instead of porridge) I sat down and started to work.

First job was to bring up-to-date the blog and to add the photos for the last couple of days. And that wasn’t as quick a job as it ought to have been.

But while I was on a roll I spent the rest of the morning adding photos to some of the older blog entries. Now I’m back as far as 9th August 2018. So only about another 9 years to go. Will I have enough time left to do it, I wonder.

Lunch was spent out on the wall. No lizards still, just my book, my butties and my fruit.

No photos either. There was quite a thick sea mist and the sun, strong as it was, couldn’t burn it all away.

Back here, I had some good news. A letter that I had sent off 12 days ago had prompted a reply. And while my letter might have been “speculative” to some degree, the reply was, whilst not actually resolving the issues, was at least giving ground for optimism.

That led to a telephone call, and that was even more enlightening. Who knows? Something might even happen about this. And won’t that be interesting?

This led to me dealing with another outstanding matter, and so I had a couple of chats with a couple of people on the internet. This led to the submission of another couple of forms.

And the events of yesterday might not have been so false I was suspecting. I’ve had to send a confirmatory e-mail to check it, but it might be kosher after all.

ON that note, I went out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

The mist had cleared somewhat so photography conditions were so much better. I was able to take a really good photograph of one of our fishing boats making its way into harbour.

With the tide having turned, the fishing boats could now come into harbour.

This wasn’t the first of the fishing boats to come into harbour.

Round on the quay by the fish-processing plant there were about a dozen other fishing boats either lined up by the plant, leaving it, or else arriving.

These seem to be busy times down there right now. Everyone doing what they can prior to the inevitable conflict that will ensue with the British fishermen after Brexit.

Meanwhile, at the chantier navale, the yard is almost totally empty.

All that remains right now is the long-term trawler-rebuilding project, and the larger boat that is being resprayed.

There was someone on his skyjack down there adding another coat of paint to the job. It’s going to be a really good job when it’s finished and I’m looking forward to seeing it.

After all of that I came back here and spent the rest of the afternoon slogging away with the dictaphone notes. There were a couple from the last few days and then a week’s work from the past.

That’s not going as quickly as I would like either because some of them are quite length. And those that I’m going to do so are even longer.

This evening after tea I went for a walk, in the light, around the walls.

First stop was to see how they are getting on with the house renovations on the rue du Nord.

The one on the corner, they have now jacked up the floor of the first floor with a whole army of acrows.

Furthermore, they seem to have elongated the windows to the first floor. They might even be putting a balcony out there, and that would be very nice to see when it’s done too.

At the other end of the rue du Nord, there doesn’t seem to be too much progress taking place on the house there.

The other day I mentioned that the guy building it seems to be only working there when he has nothing else to do.

One of these days it will be finished, but I’m not holding my breath about that.

But look how quickly the light has gone.

This photo of the Plat Gousset was taken just a mere 10 minutes after the previous one of the house rebuilding. All of the street lights are on already.

There are still a few people wandering about though. I suppose that the lighter evenings will keep them out for a while longer.

So now, although it’s not as early as I wanted, I’m off to bed. All things considered, I’ve had a productive two days and I’m looking for plenty more like it.

fishing boat doing a u-turn granville manche normandy france

fishing boat entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france

house renovation rue du nord granville manche normandy france

Sunday 31st March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night I had last night.

It seems as if I hadn’t slept for a single moment although on reflection I must have been because at one point I was off on a voyage somewhere and when I find my dictaphone I can tell you all about it.

However, tossing and turning all night, I was eventually up and about at 07:20, to find that it is of course 08:20 because the clocks went forward this morning and we are now on summer time.

And that’s rather appropriate right now what with me stripping off yesterday and it looking quite good this morning too.

And much to my surprise, and probably the surprise of regular readers of this rubbish, who recall that I don’t usually work on a Sunday, I had a very productive morning.

First task was to find a pile of information that someone had asked for. That involved downloading a pile of stuff from the internet and reviewing it. And then organising a couple of links.

Once I’d done that, it reminded me that I had a form to fill in and send off. This is going to commit me to something quite significant but it’s one of those things that if I don’t do it right now, I probably won’t ever to do it again, and not for the obvious reason either.

So that’s now out of the way, but I’m expecting some “further correspondence” about it all. It’s quite inevitable.

Thirdly, I realised that I hadn’t booked any of my travel and accommodation needs for my next trip to Castle Anthrax. And so that’s now done and at the same time I booked my train from Brussels to Leuven. Since I’ve been buying those tickets in advance, I’ve never had them checked at all. You can bet your life that the only time I’ll be asked for them will be the time that I forget to buy them.

Another thing that I needed to do was to obtain the complementary information for my new passport. So I did all of that, only to find that I was actually on the wrong site and ended up wasting $29:00 which I won’t ever get back. A moment’s inattention has cost me dear.

And finally, I needed to contact a friend in Toronto about some issue that I might be having. But for once, she’s not on line. And so I’ll need to think again about that or find another work-around.

All of that took me up to a rather late lunch, so forsaking my usul habits, I had lunch sitting on the sofa watching the football. Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Cup semi-final against Cardiff Metro.

The Nomads won 3-0, which might make you thing that it was a pretty one-sided match, but that was far from the case.

The Met hit the woodwork three times, and had Will Fuller in the met goal not been recovering from a serious injury that has kept him out for a year, he would have been off his line to intercept a long ball out of the Nomads’ defence that led directly to their third goal.

And so the final will be, rather predictably, between TNS and the Nomads and with TNS having beaten the Nomads on every occasion this year, the result should be a foregone conclusion.

It was walk-time after that. Around the walls with the crowds of people out enjoying the afternoon sun. And who can blame them too because it really was nice.

There were even a few people out there swimming, but I thought that that was rather extreme.

I’m not really convinced that I would have been happy to have been on the beach just now. Not in my cozzy anyway.

There were crowds of yachts out there yesterday making the most of the weather.

And today, there were even more of them out there too. It was a shame though that there was so much haze on the horizon. You wouldn’t get to see very much out there.

One of these days I’m going to have to find a way to go out there for a sail around. I need to cultivate a couple of maritime mates.

There were things to do here when I returned but I ended up talking to a couple of people on the internet instead. I really need to stop being so distracted.

Later on, I made a huge cornish pasty.

While I was searching through the freezer the other day I came across a pile of curry that I had made for some project or other that had been left over. And so yesterday I had bought some rolled pastry only a square one this time, and this evening I put the stuff in it and folded it over.

While that was going on, I made my pizza and it was delicious. Even though I say it myself, it was the best that I have ever

On my evening walk around the headland I was totally alone. There wasn’t a soul about, even though it was still comparatively light.

But by the time that I came back I was so tired that I did only half of what I was intending, and then crawled into bed.

I’d had enough.

speedboat buoy granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 30th March 2019 – MOVE OVER IMELDA MARCOS

I’ve been shopping for shoes today.

Last weekend after the football there was someone outside the ground handing out vouchers for 25% off the winter sports goods at Intersport.

For a while now I’ve been looking for a new pair of hiking boots and also a new pair of trainers and not found anything that I really liked. So I thought that this morning I may as well go there and see what they have.

As a result, I walked out with a decent pair of walking trainers and a decent pair of hiking boots, and also a pair of photography gloves. And 25% off them all too, and that’s off the mark-down price on the last day of the sale too.

They both have 5 stars for everything, except for impermeability, for which they scored three stars. But this afternoon I gave them a really good drenching in waterproofing solution and when that’s properly dry in the middle of the week, they’ll receive a second coat too.

It worked, and worked in spades too, for the trainers that I wear right now and which have all of the tread worn off due to constant use, so it may well work for them too.

Last night I went to bed and slept right through all the way until the alarm went off. I only have a vague recollection of going on a voyage, concerning a man whose dog had died and he wanted to bury him, but he was lamenting the fact that the only thing that he had was his mother’s old silver casket and how he was going to miss it.

Despite waking up with the alarm, as is usual these days I turned over and went back to sleep again. 07:25 when I arose from the dead, and by the time that I had finished the usual performance and the weekend shower, it was 09:10 before I hit the streets.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special, so having bought the basics, I headed for NOZ.

But it took me a while to get there due to an enormous queue in the avenue des Matignon. It turns out that there had been a road accident involving a car and a motor bike.

If you look carefully, you can see the debris all over the road.

Eventually, I made it to NOZ and here once again, we are confronted with another pile of pathetic parking. It’s the kind of thing that really gets on my wick.

But in Noz, I made one or two interesting purchases. At long last I’ve found a proper pie tin and that cheered me up no end. And a couple of small ramekin dishes for the oven

Furthermore, there was an Inspector Maigret full-length DVD that will go quite nicely with my collection.

The shoes were next, and then back to LeClerc.

And isn’t it embarrassing and shameful when you see your country pilloried liks this even in the French local press. How could 17.4 million xenophobic racists, backed by a small group of opportunistic extremist politicians, drag the country through the mire like this.

But back to the plot, I didn’t buy anything special here either.

On the way home, I called at the second-hand shop to see what they had on offer. But there was nothing really that caught my eye at all.

Enormous queues again around the town with everyone taking the summer air. I’d even taken off my jacket. And the rue des Juifs is closed because of the works to the wall, and I had to go all around the houses to get back home.

Having half-unpacked my shopping, I had lunch.

It was such a beautiful day that I took my book and the special baguette that I had bought and went out to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour to see what was going on in the sunshine.

And it was quite a busy lunchtime out there too.

We had La Granvillaise out there doing her stuff after her major refit, and in the company of several other yachts.

And as well as that, we had one of the catamarans owned by one of the fishermen coming into port, presumably to unload this morning’s catch.

No lizards for my pear droppings though. they are probably still hibernating somewhere in a gap in the stone wall.

And then, back in the apartment I unpacked the other half of the shopping, having to stop for a little … errr … relax halfway through. And no surprise there.

US Granville’s 2nd XI were playing tonight. USAN Mondeville were the visitors.

I think that I’ve only seen them once this season and I don’t remember much about it. But it was such a nice evening that I went out for a good walk.

And I’m rather disappointed that I did go, because it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

While you all admire the official photographer and his equipment, I can tell you something about the match.

Although the two teams were pretty much even on the field, Granville had no answer to the power and pace of the corners that the Mondeville winger was banging in.

And they had even less answer to the power and the pace of the defenders who were running in unmarked.

Panic and chaos ensued at every one and Mondeville scored from three of them. Thei fourth goal was from a good clearance by a Granville defender that had the misfortune to find a Mondeville attacker totally unmarked with all of the time in the world 15 metres out.

And, as usual, Granville didn’t have anyone out there who had the striker’s instinct.

On the way back, Rosemary called me, so we arranged that she would call me back later.

But in the meantime, I was distracted by this vehicle on the car park of the Foyer Des jeunes Travailleurs. Excuse the very blurry photo but I only had the time to shoot off a quick image

It’s a cut-down Ford Fiasco being used as a trailer, and that’s exciting in itself.

An the apartment, Rosemary called me back while I was watching TNS v Barry Town in the Welsh Cup.

Rosemary and I had a very lengthy chat while TNS did the predictable. Barry just couldn’t seem to get going tonight.

So now it’s late, I’ve had no tea but I didn’t care. I’m going to bed and I intend to sleep for a week.

la granvillaise port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 29th March 2019 – TODAY WAS ANOTHER …

… day when my back was well and truly stuck to the bed. However, it was rather earlier when I finally crawled out – a mere 07:25. I really don’t know what’s the matter with me these days.

As a consequence it was another late start to the day. But at least I finished the searchable text database for the photos for August 2018. Another job crossed off my list.

Once that was done I started to upload the photos to the blog for that month – although I haven’t done the Canada ones because they will be receiving special treatment.

Working backwards through the month, I’ve made it as far back as 21st August 2018.

But I can see why I didn’t do the photos. This was the period when I was having camera issues and quite a few of them are rather depressing. I can see that there’s going to be a period of about three or four months where I shall have to rework all of the photos.

This took me nicely round to my afternoon walk.

Around the headland with the crowds, to see what was going on at the chantier navale. It’s almost empty now, except for the long-term trawler project and the boat that’s being resprayed.

There’s someone down there on his skyjack working on it right now.

At one of the district meetings which I attended, someone was complaining about the kids playing on the roof of their house.

You can see what they were talking about, with those over there looking as if they are going to be there for the Duration.

That would certainly get on my wick and no mistake

While I was out there photographing the brats, my reverie was disturbed by an almighty racket coming from offshore.

It seems that we have the powerboats back again churning up the water offshore.

I thought that this photo would make a nice contrast – the powerboat roaring away in the background and the yacht sliding serenely into the harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that one of the subjects that features frequently on these pages is the collapse of the cod fishery in 1992.

A while ago I mentioned that Granville was back in those days a thriving deep-sea fishing port and that there were plenty of remains that siginify its importance.

Over there behind Victor Hugo is the former cold store for the cod fisheries. You can see the writing on the wall – in the literal as well as the figurative sense.

Back here I attacked the dictaphone notes until tea time, and disposed of another pile of them.

Tea was a potato, mushroom lentil and sweetcorn curry from August 2018, with a leek and baked potatoes, followed by apple crumble.

That set me up nicely for my walk around the walls. No-one about at all, although I made the acquaintance of three cats out there.

But I’ve been having another think about my summer project. A casual enquiry has thrown another shark into the swimming pool and this could really be surprising. I just wish that I hadn’t left so many of my books back in the Auvergne because I could really do with them right now.

On that note, I’m off to bed. It’s shopping day tomorrow and I have a lot to do.

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.

Wednesday 27th March 2019 – I’M ON THE VERGE …

… of writing out another large cheque. Not quite as massive as the one that I wrote out the other day (and which, much to my surprise actually cleared the Bank) but a significant sum nevertheless.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall some of the things that I’ve accomplished since I’ve been ill. I have a little bucket list of things that I want to do before I go off to stoke the fires of eternity.

One of those things is pretty high up on my list and having been in fearless negotiations with a group of people, I’ve found that it is going to be a possibility. A rather convoluted and complicated possibility, but its complications are countered by the fact that I can fit in several other things off my list too while I’m doing it.

We could be on to something here!

Last night was a much better night. I managed to have something like a decent sleep, even though I was off on a little voyage.

I was in North-East France last night waiting for a new secretary. She was coming over from the UK and when she arrived she was explaining to me about how at a certain moment she was picking up French mobile phone signals as she was approaching Dover. I explained to her the phenomenon of transverse radio waves and how at St Margaret’s Bay the cliffs shield the town from English radio waves but the French ones bounce back off the cliffs so they can be picked up. So we set off to where we were going and ended up in a scrapyard. In a fenced-off compound was a huge red car with a beige vinyl roof, the type of which I had never seen in my life. It was a two-door model too. Surrounding it were bits of a red/orange mark III Cortina that had been used for racing and subsequently cut up. I was intrigued by this car so I went for a closer look. It had been knocked about quite a bit but there was someone round the front prising out the cylinders from a transverse 4-cylinder engine block with a length of scaffolding pipe. I expressed my surprise that it was only a 4-cylinder car, to which he replied that it was powered by a tandem-engine, two 4-cylinder engines run together and one block had already gone. I was surprised that it had gone to scrap so he replied that Mercedes (why they would be involved in it) wanted rid of it. So I asked why, and he pointed to the side of the car, with a huge t-bone dent in it.

And much to my surprise I was up quite early too. And managed to make a decent start on the day.

Most of the day was spent starting the searchable text database for the photos for August 2018. There are tons to go at for that month, and I’m about halfway through them.

As well as that, I’ve attacked another half-dozen or so of the dictaphone notes. That has hardly made a dent in it but one has to keep on going.

There were a couple of phone calls too – from canada too, as it happens. It’s all go here.

And finally I’ve done some more of the photos for September 2018 and the High Arctic. Another 100 or so of those out of the way, and I really am going to go through and re-edit them properly when I find the time.

There were the usual two walks today.

This afternoon my route was to take me around the walls but as usual I didn’t get very far. Out at the back of the building there are some workmen there.

It looks as if they are doing something to the fascia of the building. That looks like zinc guttering there.

Carrying on around the walls I stopped to inspect the house rebuildings that we have seen in the rue du Nord.

Here on the corner, in a building that they are turning into flats and apartments, they seem to be advancing quickly.

Throwing out all of the rubbish from the upstairs rooms by the looks of things. They have some very interesting kit there.

By contrast, the housebuilding at the other end of the rue du Nord seems to be progressing … errr … rather less quickly.

Overhearing the builder on his mobile phone, I have the feeling that he is only working on the property when he doesn’t have any other paid work.

So this is one site that will probably drag on and on.

In the Place Cambernon however, work is progressing much more rapidly.

It looks as if they have been ripping out all of the woodwork ready to cart it off. And that’s a shame, because I’m a big fan of woodwork, especially old period wood like floorboarding and the like.

It will be a shame if they modernise it into something that rubs out all of its historical features.

Here’s something that I haven’t noticed particularly before.

The medieval town here dates from probably the mid-15th Century and while there are very few if any houses from that period, there are still quite a few interesting ones such as this one, with some very interesting carvings in the stonework.

The letters IHS have a religious symbolism, in that they are the first three letters of “Jesus” in the Eastern Orthodox (Greek) language.

It did however become fashionable for the Jesuits to usurp the signal and insist that it stands for Iesus Humilis Societas – the “Humble Society of Jesus” or Iesus Hominem Salvator – “Jesus, Saviour of Men”.

While I was out there I went to have a look to see what was happening in the port.

Nothing of any commercial nature going on right now except for the usual trawlers, but Charles-Marie is over there – the blue-and white yacht over there against the far wall.

And the yacht that is double-parked on the outside of the two might well be Spirit of Conrad

For tea I had a burger in a bap with baked potatoes and veg, followed by the last of the rice pudding.

This evening I went again and spent some time watching all of the fishing boats come in.

There was a whole line of them extending out almost to the Channel Islands tonight so I had a little fun experimenting with different light and aperture settings to see what I could pull out.

But it wasn’t actually all that much of a success unfortunately.

It was much more interesting with the trawlers as they lined up to look for a berth at the fish-processing plant.

I had quite a good deal of fun out there for 20 minutes or so playing around with different settings to see what I could produce.

You cans ee the results further down below.

But now I’ll have an early night tonight because it’s shopping tomorrow – and then I’m going to make an apple crumble.

And I managed to go all day without crashing out too.

night trawlers granville manche normandy france

trawlers port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 26th March 2019 – I WAS WONDERING …

… why I was planning on having pasta for a change with my stuffed pepper. And so while I was preparing the pepper I decided on rice instead.

It wasn’t until I sat down to the pudding that I realised why. Rice as a main course followed by rice pudding was not really a good idea.

Last night, I was in bed by 22:00. And it was a rather restless night too, with me waking up on several occasions. I’d been on a few travels as well, some of which were quite interesting.

There was a whole pile of us and we’d been walking or something like that and we’d ended up in a really big shop. Eventually I found myself at the front of the queue and I ordered a pound of minced beef (and I’ve no idea why I would order that). The conversation then moved around to a discussion of Belgian trains. Someone shouted something at me and I couldn’t hear them properly and understand what they were saying, but it came out that they wanted to know the price of a train fare from somewhere. I replied that I could remember a certain station where we used to get on at one time – a station right out in the sticks and it cost us €18:00 to go to there. The most that I had ever paid to go anywhere on Belgian Railways was €22:00. This conversation then ended up as a length discussion about Belgian trains
Everyone has the right in post-Brexit Britain to be on the right-hand side of the road in queues and this is just one occasion where people were suddenly being confronted with all of everything that they had bought or collected and it needed to be sorted out and cars needed to be moved over to the other side of the road to be parked. It was all extremely complicated, and all for nothing. I remembered being in the south of Germany and falling over the back of a settee on the border and ending up in Austria on the other side of the settee – the seat bit (and what that voyage was all about, I have no idea at all).
A little later I was in the High Arctic again with Natalie and I was trying to get on board the ship, but I was totally unprepared. I had a couple of lockers and a bed inside a wooden hut. I was trying to pack my rucksack with things that I needed to take on board ship. With natalie being there I couldn’t get at the secret box of supplies because I didn’t want her to see it. Everyone was hurrying about and I was getting p155ed off and Natalie went off, so I started to stuff more things into my rucksack. She then came back and told me that someone had said not to forget about the ghetto blaster so I had to hunt that down and stuff that into the rucksack too. It was all quite chaotic and I was panicking. Everyone was assembling ready to go on board the ship and I was nowhere near being ready.
Finally I was out again somewhere sitting on a table talking to someone who had been on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour (but he hadn’t of course). He was an Inuit (although he wasn’t). We were talkig about the High Arctic and he was telling me that Nunavut had now become chair of the Arctic Council and how pleased he was about it all. We were talking about all kinds of things so I asked him if he was planning to go back on the Adventure Canada runs this year. he said that he wasn’t, so I then tried to get in touch with the Company to try to get myself on board the ship this year, but he didn’t seem to pick up on what I was saying, and I was really disappointed at that. I was trying to make him interested in what I was doing but he was more interested in telling me that they now had street lights out there in Nunavut so it was much safer to move around at night – you could see if there were any polar bears around. We ended up wandering off and I was talking about all of this to him but it wasn’t him at all but two other people. I said something about the fact that the people in there – indicating the building from where I had just come – weren’t al that interested, so that had them scratching their heads wondering what I was talking about. I came across a phone box by the Square in Crewe in the ice so I was trying to ring them but it was the wrong time of day, no-one was answering their phones. In the meantime I was planning to do some kind of radio programme on one of these internet radio stations where I could have a couple of people talking in Inuktitut while I played rock music.

Just for a change I left the bed quite early this morning and I was all set for a good day’s work.

I started off with a shower and a general clean-up. And a haircut too. It didn’t need it, but I want to keep it under much better control than I have been doing.

Following that, there were the dictaphone notes and I’m back now into mid-August. But there are plenty for the period from early Spring to then, including a whole voyage around central Europe, so this is going to be a rather long job. 358 files to be transcribed in fact, so it’s not the work of five minutes.

The next thing to do was to bring the blog up-to-date – at least, in recent times. I did all of the photos back until when I set out to Leuven.

All of that took me up to lunchtime.

This afternoon I started on the searchable photo database for September 2018 when I was in the High Arctic. Another hundred or so photos were indexed, but this took far longer than I intended because not only has it involved some research, I also had another closer look at some of them.

Basically, the editing that I did on board ship isn’t very satisfactory and now that I have a much better computer and a better graphics program, I can do far better than I did on board the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I’m planning to go back and do them all again.

Furthermore, with the better screen and higher resolution, I’ve been picking out bits of the photographs with interesting items that I missed. So I’ve been cropping those out and blowing them up – which I can do these days despite modern anti-terrorism legislation.

So there are a few more photos to merge back into the run of things now, and by the time that I finish there will probably be a few more too.

My walk around the headland this afternoon was a reasonably solitary one.

But not as solitary as it might have been because we were being observed from above.

It’s that kind pf the year when all of the hang-gliders come out. And there they are soaring up over the old barracks building. On eof these days I might have one dropping in for tea.

But there have been changes in the chantier navale.

The big yacht, that might have been Spirit of Conrad has gone, as have a few of the other ones too, including Charles-Marie.

They’ve obviously finished what they were doing to them, but not to worry – it’ll be full again soon, I imagine.

But one of our old favourites has come back.

The ancient Bedford CF caravanette that appears here every now and again on a regular basis is back in its little hidey-hole.

One of these days I’ll go down there for a chat to the owner.

And I’ve solved the question about the strange annex to the house down there in the rue du Port. It seems that the plans include installation of a lift. So the space above will be for the machinery.

Tea was as I mentioned. And it was extremely delicious. And there’s enough stuffing left over for another one too.

The wind had risen for the evening walk. I was pretty much alone there too and I didn’t hang around all that long either.

So I’ve had my cocoa for supper and now I’m off to bed. I had an enormous wave of fatigue later in the afternoon and ended up curled up asleep on the chair for 20 minutes.

I really need to have a decent sleep one of these days, and I do hope that it’ll be soon.

Monday 25th March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it’s been today.

Although I was out of bed round about 06:45, by 09:50 I was back in bed again. And I’d already fallen asleep twice on the chair in the meantime.

So in bed I was and in bed I stayed until about 11:30. That was a horrible start to the day.

What was even worse about all of this was that I had had an early night last night, and a decent sleep until the alarm went off, even though I did wake up twice during the night.

But there was enough time for me to go on a nocturnal ramble during the night. I’d been sent to prison and it was something like Alcatraz – a big grim grey stone horrible, stinking place. There were all kinds of horrible people and things in there, but what stood out were 4 elderly Confederate soldiers still in their uniforms – Confederate blue-grey but with a big Union Jack on the front as if they were British volunteers who had been caught by the North. Although they were imprisoned there, they were trying to negotiate some kind of good deal to have their conditions eased. But the Commandant was something of a swine who might well take advantage of their willingness to negotiate by doing good things, while he remained intransigent. I was ushered in to this meeting and I could see myself there. There was someone else there who said that he was a brewer, and the Commandant’s eyes lit up at this news. I was thinking along the lines of “those who work get paid” so I told the Commandant that it might be possible for the inmates to have an easier life if they could all do things like this for the good of the community (ie him) and he seemed to be quite open to the idea. He started to offer a little bit of a concession, although I knew deep down that there was no reason to become excited by this as he was probably being hypocritical. He would probably end up by taking advantage of everyone anyway, but there was no harm in trying to ease our conditions anyway.

I awoke at about 03:50, but it wasn’t long before I was back to sleep again. And I stepped right back into almost the same place that I had left earlier.

Back to the plot of our prison encounter. We were all having lunch and only the starter arrived. No main course, and we were all sitting there waiting. In the end, I was fed up so I stood up and leaving the table and mindless of any reprisals, I walked all the way up Edleston Road to near the top where I thought the food came from. It turned out that the food didn’t come from there but from next door – an old chapel that had been a car sales pitch. But that was closed down and the windows were all whitewashed over with rude messages written into the whitewash by a finger. There was no-one around at all and it looked as if the whole place had closed down and we weren’t going to receive our food.

After the medication and breakfast I made another start on catching up on some of the dictaphone notes, but I wasn’t at it for long. As I said, I went back to bed.

Once I’d awoken and was out of bed and back in the land of the living, I carried on and did a few more dictaphone notes. That took me almost up until lunchtime.

This afternoon I attacked the previous blog entries and added the photos back until last Wednesday.

On my walk this afternoon there were a few people around enjoying the nice weather.

However, I seemed to have interrupted some kind of photo session going on on on the public car park. There were a couple of girls there, a photographer and an assistant.

Why, I don’t really know, although there was some kind of fireman’s helmet involved in the proceedings.

Back here, fighting off another wave of sleep, I worked on editing the database for the photos of the High Arctic. That involved some research too and it’s amazing what you come across once you start to look.

Carrying on around the headland, I passed by the chantier navale.

There seems to have been a big change-around there right now. La Granvillaise seems to have left there, and so does Charles-Marie.

The large boat is still there, but we now have another yacht that might be the Spirit of Conrad together with a couple of other assorted smaller boats.

I’ll have to go for a wander around down there one of these days.

Back home to carry on work, but at 18:00 I came to a dead stop. I peeled the kilo of carrots that I had bought the other day and then par-boiled them. Rinsed, drained and par-boiled again, they were rinsed again and then left to drain right through for an hour while I had tea.

More shepherd’s pie out of the freezer, with plenty of frozen veg and gravy followed by rice pudding, which didn’t quite work as it boiled over in the microwave when my attention was elsewhere.

There was still some light in the sky when I went out for my evening walk around the walls.

Mind you, it was quite early. I’m eating my evening meal earlier these days, in an attempt to aid the digestion before I go to sleep.

I spent quite some time out there on the walls enjoying the sunset and photographing a trawler coming into the harbour.

Its lights stood out nicely as the boat was silhouetted against the sunset with the Ile de Chausey there in the background.

But now, I’m off to bed even though it’s early. Today was a dreadful day so I’m hoping for something better tomorrow. I’m sick of all of this.

sunset trawler ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

trawler entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Sunday 24th March 2019 – THIS AFTERNOON’S …

… football match was much more interesting.

US St Pairaise were playing US St Quentin le Homme and as it was such a nice afternoon – rather clod and windy but sunny nevertheless, I decided to go out.

The match was quite even in some respects. Although St Pair was technically the better side, the players of St Quentin were more physical and direct in their approach.

The score finished 3-1 to US St Pairaise and St Quentin can count themselves very unlucky. But for two moments of magic for St Pair and a perfectly good (to me, anyway) goal for St Quentin disallowed for offside, and the match could have given us a totally different story.

Last night was a relatively early night (for me, anyway) and although I awoke a few times during the night, I managed to stay relatively comatose until about 08:15. It was something like 09:05 when I finally left the bed.

This morning, I was resurrecting the dictaphone, seeing that I hadn’t used it since my trip to the Arctic. I found a folder in there that I hadn’t accessed for quite some time, and there were about 30 or 40 files in there from earlier in 2018 about which I had completely forgotten.

And so I’ve copied those onto the computer and I’ve started to transcribe them. It’s amazing what I have forgotten and all of this has reminded me. But it’s just one more task to add to the long list that’s building up.

We had the football of course this afternoon, and then back here I made a pizza for tea as well as a rice pudding. That’s for the next couple of days because tonight there was the last of the slices of chocolate cake.

And tonight I was the only one out there walking around the headland in the wind.

Tonight I’m having an early night. There’s a lot to do as of tomorrow and I need to be on form.

Saturday 23rd March 2019 – I HAVE JUST SEEN …

… the most one-sided football match that I have ever seen in my life.

US Granville were totally clueless today. They had just two shots on goal, one of which was collected easily by the keeper and the second went over the bar.

What didn’t help matters was that US Granville had a player sent off after 30 minutes. And it was probably the most ridiculous sending-off I have ever seen. A foul in front of me on the left winger by the Granville right-back, who is booked. The Granville left-winger shouted something from right across the field at the referee, who went over and booked him. So, immediately, the left-winger said something else that was probably equally uncomplimentary.

The remainder of the match was spent camped in the US Granville half with the FC Lorient goalkeeper playing centre-half. And he could easily have played centre-forward too and it wouldn’t have made any difference.

And so we had relentless attacking pressure on the US Granville defence, all of which led to nothing whatever because FC Lorient’s attackers couldn’t hit the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument.

The Granville keeper made two or three excellent saves, but for the rest of the match he was a virtual spectator.

But he could have been the saviour of the hour too, if only he had thought quicker. On two occasions late in the game he made good clean catches in his own area. But with the opposition keeper standing in the centre-circle, I would have gone for a good Route One clearance right down the centre of the pitch over the keeper’s head and who knows? One of them might have found the back of the FC Lorient net.

Instead, the match petered out surprisingly to a 0-0 draw and I reckon that the teams could still be playing there for a whole week and the score would still be the same.

Last night was an interesting night. I was tossing and turning all night and hardly recall having any sleep at all. But there was plenty of time to go on a few voyages, and did I voyage!

Last night I was in a Tax Office somewhere where there was a young guy examining some tax returns while I was looking through a drawer full of weeded-out files held in green envelopes. This guy asked if he should e completing a tax return, which I thought was rather strange seeing as where he was working, but then I noticed a huge file for the Duke of Somewhere, with a note that “no returns to be issued to this person”, and I was wondering whether this young guy had inherited the title. But even so, he should be making tax returns so I decided to send him a few and if it was inappropriate, he could always put them in the waste bin.
At some other point I’d been living in an apartment with several other people, mainly girls. I decided that I had to get up and get ready for work, even though it was only about 00:30 and most people hadn’t even gone to bed. Going to get washed was quite an adventure because it meant a walk of several miles down some old cobbled street rather like the Via Appia Antiqua in Rome. On the way down there I met Terry who was on his way to work on some church that was down there. He asked me if I would like to help him, which interested me not because of the work but the chance to get to see inside the church that was normally kept closed.
I was living in a house near to the sea and the tide was quite high and there had been floods. And at the next high tide I went out to see what was happening. It was clear that the waves were coming over the top of the sea wall – not very many at first but we still had a few inches of flood water. Nerina was there insisting that I come inside otherwise I would end up in a tragedy.
Finally, and last but not least, I was in school, going around with a girl who was much younger than me. But we couldn’t have some time together alone because people kept on interrupting us, riding bicyles around us, talking loudly, misbehaving, all of that, so in the end we walked back to school and I dropped her off at ther class. I walked on up several flights of stairs and the higher up I went, the more out-of-breath and ill I became. so that by the time I was almost at the top, all of my friends kept on rising out of their seats asking me if I was OK and did I need any help. I arrived at the top eventually and to go down for a drink, which I badly needed, it was quite a jump – three and a half storeys I reckoned, and I told the boy who was with me that I didn’t fancy the idea of jumping down there at all.

At 06:30 I was out of bed, and I had an early breakfast too. A shower and a shave and a good clean-up saw me hit the streets and the shops.

There was the usual round – LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc – and I bought nothing at all of any interest and forgot my pears to boot. There was another dark-blue sheet in NOz on special offer, so I added that to the collection.

Back here, I didn’t have the strength to unpack. Instead I sat on the chair and crashed out for a while. I’m still not getting better. I had to wait until after lunch before I could manage it. And after that, I didn’t do anything – just gathered my strength ready for the walk up to the football.

Tea when I came back was out of a tin. And now I’m heading off for an early night. Sunday is a lie-in and I reckon that I need it.

Friday 22nd March 2019 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch on the alarm this morning?

Yes, Bane of Britain strikes again, didn’t he? At least I had an unexpected and welcome lie-in.

I’d been on my travels too. Dealing with issues of about two inches of water on the kitchen table and worktops (and how it was staying on there without running off I really don’t know) with tons of bits of bread all soaked in it. And I was using some kind of net to fish it out so that it didn’t wash down the drain and block it up.

As a result I had a very late start to my day, which I have spent mainly catching up with the photos (which are now up-to-date). On Monday some time I’ll have to start adding them to the blog entries.

But about 15 minutes of the day was also spent curled up on my chair asleep. Despite the lie-in and the brazil nuts, I can’t escape from this fatigue.

There was lunch of course, and for tea I found a curry in the freezer. Only three months old too. But the freezer is pretty crowded at the moment and I’m running out of carrots. I’ll have to buy some more tomorrow and hope that in the meantime the freezer will empty itself a little.

The walks were something of a disappointment in the sense that for the whole day we had a sea mist that obscured the view.

But with there being the lowest tides of the year right now, the pecheurs à pied – those who go scavenging in the rock pools along the coast – were out there in force right now.

One of my neighbours was down there too somewhere and he showed me his collection of fruits de mer later in the day.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned a while ago that there was some talk of opening up some of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to make some kind of museum.

I noticed today that one of them has been opened up, there’s some kind of grille or grating placed across the opening and they seem to have started work inside it.

So perhaps we’ll have our museum after all.

And this evening I was once more alone on my travels around the walls.

As I said earlier, there was a sea mist out there and it was making the surroundings look all rather surreal.

The buildings of the Place d’Armes looked quite Gothic in this sort of lighting.

And so I took a couple of photographs of them this evening, using different camera settings.

You can see the results in these two photos here.

I’ve managed to see both my cats today. Gribouille came for a good stroke, and so did Minette later – that is, until she smelt Gribouille.

So shopping tomorrow. I’m a little low on stuff at the moment so I need to stock up. A nice early night is called for.

peche a pied granville manche normandy france

world war 2 bunker atlantic wall granville manche normandy france

aeroplane granville manche normandy france

la granvillais charles marie chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Wednesday 20th March 2019 – AND HERE I AM …

… back in the comfort and safety and privacy and warmth of my own home.

And how much I like being here too. i’m glad to be back.

However, as seems to be usual these days I had yet another bad night. I always seem to whenever I’m travelling. Going to bed early doesn’t help, especially when you have found the radio alarm clock and set it to work, so that you can watch it tick on past 03:35.

But at some point I must have gone off to sleep because I was awoken by the alarm. and I’d even been on something of a voyage too – doing something with the Wales football team from last night.

Once I was awake, I didn’t hang about. I was up (almost) immediately and with everything already packed, I was on the road even before the alarm at 06:20 went off.

And to such an extent that never mind the 06:42 train – I was on the 06:32 to Oostende.

You can see it pulling in, 2 minutes late, being pulled by one of the Class 18 electric locomotives from 2011

As a result, I was in Bruxelles-Midi station even earlier than normal. I had plenty of time to go to Carrefour for my raisin buns for breakfast.

Surprisingly I didn’t have too long to wait at Bruxelles-Midi even though I was in early.

We were called up to the platform somewhat earlier than usual, and when we arrived on the platform we found that our TGV was already in.

It’s another one of the Reseau 38000 “PBA” (Paris Brussels Amsterdam) transets, number 4538

My neighbour was a nice young lady but she was extremely taciturn. She just sat gazing out of the window all the way to Paris Gare du Nord and I had a little relax.

At Paris, I dashed down into the Metro and leapt aboard the train, only for it to be held up at almost every station. In fact, the journey that usually takes me about 45 minutes took just about 65 minutes. It’s a good job that the TGV arrived on time.

My train to Granville was on time too. My neighbour was an elderly lady who needed quite a lot of attention which meant that I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to do.

But in my reading of “Wineland the Good” by Arthur Reeves, I came across something quite interesting. Reeves refers to some documents relating to the discovery and voyages to Vinland – the ‘Breve Chronicon Norvegiae’ – that were discovered in the files of the Earl of Dalhousie and which dated to the mid 15th Century.

Dalhousie is of course not too far away from Roslin and the presence of these documents up the road may well provide some kind of link that led to the voyages of Henry Sinclair and their relation to the strange carvings at Roslin Chapel.

Despite almost everything, our train pulled in at Granville bang on time.

Here it is in the station, parked up next to the train to Rennes – one of the Bombardier X76500 series of multiple-units.

As an aside, I’ve discovered that I can actually catch a train from Granville to St Malo if I change at Dol de Bretagne. And there’s talk about laying on a direct train some time in the future.

This time I managed to walk all the way back home, admiring Normandy Trader being loaded up at the quayside as I did so.

There seems to be an enormous amount of goods down there waiting to be loaded up on board. That should keep them out of mischief for quite a while with all of that.

Seeing as there were some men around there today, I should really have gone down to talk to them.

Further up the hill, I noticed that they were working on the city walls.

Part of the pavement has been closed off for as long as I have been there due to some loose stones that have been falling out of the wall, and I had heard some story that they might be doing some work on it.

So it looks as if they have already started. Probably hammering the loose stones back in and repointing the walls.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I spent a couple of summers doing that on my house and it’s a long, heavy, difficult job.

Back here I had a really good relax for a couple of hours before attempting the unpacking. Definitely feeling the strain.

Tea was easy too. One of the portions of shepherd’s pie out of the freezer with veg and gravy. However, the slice of chocolate cake that i’d left out of the freezer had turned. But those in an airtight container in the fridge were fine and there was some soya dessert left.

later on, I went for my walk around the headland. It was quite pleasant out there but yet again I was the only one out there.

There was still a touch of light left – enough to take a few photographs of the coastline, like this one of St Martin de Brehal.

It’s come out really well, all told and I’m quite pleased with it.

So now I’ll go to bed. There’s not much food in here so it’s a shopping day tomorrow. A nice walk up to LIDL I reckon.

I’ll see how I feel.

night donville les bains rue du nord granville manche normandy france

night st malo brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night cancale brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night baie de mont st michel jullouville granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

EPIC HALL

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