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Tuesday 20th November 2018 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… where I visited during the night but wherever it was, I was still there when the alarm went off. Dead to the world, in fact.

It took me a while to haul myself out of bed and organise myself properly. And after breakfast I had a couple of things that needed doing.

A shower followed, and then I dressed for the streets.

As the tide was out, I took my new route, down the steps, across the fish dock and the path over the top of the tidal gates onto the commercial dock.

I remember seeing Thora in the port yesterday and I thought that I had seen her still here last night. And she’s still here this morning, looking as if she’s taking on a load for Jersey.

But there was no-one about to talk to – she was doing a good impression of the Marie Celeste.

My destination was the Post Office, where I posted off my letter to Canada. And while I was there I bought a pack of 10 pre-stamped envelopes for use in France. i’m down to my last one here.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes for lunch.

Over the last week or so I’ve taken piles of photos but I’ve been too busy to deal with them. So having made myself a coffee, I sat down and started to review them, edit them and upload them.

And believe it or not, I did manage to get a shot of one of the dolphins yesterday. I’ll post it tomorrow so you can all see it.

Lunch was in here again. it didn’t rise much above 5°C today so I wasn’t going to sit on the wall.

Just by way of a change I’ve done some tidying up too. There was a huge pile of cables and lead that I had brought with me from the Auvergne so I sorted them out and tidied them up. And SHOCK! HORROR! I threw away a pile of stuff away too.

That’s not like me at all, is it?

Later on, I went for my usual afternoon walk around the Pointe de la Roc.

And there I was greeted by the sight of Thora sailing … “dieseling” – ed … off into the sunset on her way back to Jersey.

Enhancing the colours a little has brought out a really nice effect on this image.

She put on a slight turn to port after that so I took another photo of her.

Back here I cropped her out and blew up the image. I can do that these days, despite modern anti-terrorism legislation.

Considering that this has been cropped out and enlarged at full focal length, it’s not come out too badly given the distances that I was having to cover.

Round the corner and looking out over the Baie de Mont St Michel, I could see that the sailing school had been out this afternoon.

I have half a mind … “yes, quite!” – ed … to go out and learn to sail one of these days, but I’m not quite sure how I can fit it in given my state of health and medical requirements.

A theoretical course on sailing and navigation would be right up my street (or down my river) though.

There wa even more excitement down at the ship repairer’s.

It’s not every day that I’m lucky enough to see them lifting a boat out of the water but I was in luck today. It looks as if they have another job to do on a fishing trawler and they were lifting her out with the hoist.

I’ll have to check tomorrow to see if she has been put up on blocks ready for work.

The highlight of the walk though had to be this delightful nautical danse macabre.

A trawler had unloaded at the fish dock and was heading off into the inner harbour, just as Aztec Lady was on her way out.

They waltzed and weaved around each other as they sorted themselves out into their respective routes.

Back here, I had a little … errr … repose for a while and then there was another job that needed doing. I’ve had a temporary curtain hanging in here ever since I moved in and it’s been on my mind to have it taken up to the correct size.

But that’s not happened so I took it off and pinned it to the right size.

And then I finished off all of my photos and uploaded them to the internet.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper and then I went out for my walk. Freezing cold outside, it was, and so that probably explains why there wasn’t a single person (or even a married one) out on the streets tonight.

Beautiful it was though – clear and crisp night with some lovely moonlight.

Now I’m keen to see if I can have another good night. And while I’m dozing off I’ll leave you with a few more photos.

Thora going back to Jersey

Sailing school baie de mont st michel granville

Trawler Port de Granville harbour

Trawler being lifted out of the water and moved across the shipyard on the hoist.

The beach at the Plat Gousset

The Port de Plaisance at Granville harbour

Monday 19th November 2018 – IT WAS RATHER …

… a late night last night.

Another 01:30 finish as I was pushing on with doing things, and this was reflected in the struggle that I had to leave my stinking pit this morning.

During the night I was off on my travels again and although I can remember almost nothing of what I was doing. But there was one thing that struck me, as it has on many other occasions during the night. And that is the impeccable timing that goes on. There I was and I heard, in my voyage, the ping telling me that the telephone was just about to ring, so I reached out my hand and right on cue, the alarm went off. Absolutely perfect timing, and it’s not the first time that I’ve noticed this.

As soon as I awoke I went to look at the thermometer. 3°C right now, and that’s the lowest that it has been so far this autumn. We’re definitely in Autumn.

Breakfast was quite early too and that left me plenty of time to push onwards with work.

And sure enough, by lunchtime I’d finished all SIX of the web pages for the third day of my voyage to the High Arctic. You can go to this page and then work your way forward, if you have a couple of hours to spare, and admire the photographs.

Dozens and dozens of them.

That took me up to lunchtime so I had my butties in the apartment. It’s definitely out of the question now, this idea of sitting on the wall outside.

This afternoon I had a letter to write. Someone whom I met on my travels had written to me and now that I have a functioning printer I can reply. I’ll have to take it down into town tomorrow morning and post it off.

It was really windy out this afternoon but there was a crowd of people gesticulating wildly out on the peak.

There had been a couple of dolphins playing around just offshore and they had been giving a really good performance.

At first, I thought that I had missed it all, but on enlarging one of the photos that I took, I found that I had indeed captured one of them on film.

It’s rather blurred because it was way out in the bay and I had to crop and enlarge it, but it’s a dolphin all the same.

While I had the camera handy, I wandered round to the harbour.

We have Marité in her usual berth, but also, alongside, at the commercial dock is Thora. She must have sailed in from Jersey on the morning tide.

One of these days I’ll go down there and have a closer look at her.

Back here, I found myself away with the fairies for a while, which is hardly surprising after the night that I had. But once I came back round again, I had a good go at the blog entry for Day Four of my Arctic trip.

It’s been rewritten slightly and I’ve added a couple of dozen photos as a taster, just to keep things going until I can do the web page, which I’ll start tomorrow some time. In the meantime, you can see the blog entry here, with all of the photos.

There was an interruption during the early evening though. Someone telephoned me about my digger. He’s interested in buying it. But I don’t think that he’ll be buying it though. He was talking about “a couple of thousand Euros”, which isn’t even in the same library, never mind on the same page.

He mentioned that he would chat with his partner, but if he couldn’t rustle up the cash that I want he would borrow a digger off his friend. So he can do that then. I might be keen to move on a lot of the stuff that I don’t need these days, but we aren’t having a fire sale.

Tea was steamed veg and vegan sausages with cheese sauce. And using three times as much cornflour as I would normally use, I did get the sauce to thicken.

Freezing cold outside again. 4.5°C outside and getting colder by the minute. I wound up the heating when I came back in.

But I’ve hit a problem right now.

About 6 months ago, Firefox went all commercial and hacked off a lot of add-on utility programs. Presumably the utility developers wouldn’t buy a development licence. One of the utilities that went was the *.ftp program that I used.

There is however a lightweight browser – Waterfox – than runs on the Mozilla platform and the *.ftp utility ran on that. It’s been nagging at me to upgrade it for a while, which I haven’t done. But I’ve had to download it onto this laptpp, and the latest version to boot. And it’s running the new Mozilla platform and all of the utilities have gone.

Now I’m having to upload via my webhost’s control panel, and that is just so painful. Fire.ftp was just like a Windows Explorer platform and so simple to use. In fact it’s the only reason why I ever used Waterfox.

So that’s a waste of time then.

And on this note I’ll go to bed.

dolphin baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

fishing trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

After lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

Folligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

Saturday 10th November 2018 – THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with going to bed early is that there is quite often a tendency to awake early too. Early is one thing, but 04:48 is a bit ridiculous.

And even worse, I didn’t go back to sleep either I just lay there and vegetated until the alarm went off.

An early breakfast meant that I had plenty of time left. So I finished off the entry for the third day of my High Arctic voyage and put it on line where you can see it in all of its glory, with a couple of dozen of the … gulp … 127 photos that I took that day.

Once that was done I had a shower and then headed off for the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing at all special, and NOZ wasn’t much better. Leclerc didn’t come up with much either. All in all, it was a very light shopping bill today. And that includes the gram flour from the Biocoop.

But I nearly spent a lot more than that.

Having a look around in the Second-Hand Shop they had a beautiful Ibanez 5-string bass guitar and I had a good play around on it for about 15 minutes. Then I had to tear myself away before I spent a lot of money.

But the printer!

According to the Leclerc website, they have an Epson printer on special offer – €15:00 cheaper than the equivalent on Amazon.

I like Epsons, for the simple reasons that firstly the ink is cheap and secondly the colour cartridges are separate so you don’t need to replace the whole lot when just one colour runs out.

The advert said that the printers were available on order from the shop so off I went. And the usual inept Je m’enfoutiste who couldn’t be bothered to look for it on the on-line catalogue went off to chat to a colleague, and came back to tell me that “they’ve all gone”.

Back here, I had a look on-line, and there were plenty left. So I ordered one on-line instead and it will be in the drive-in in a couple of days.

But I’m getting sick and tired of this modern trend of je m’enfoutisme where shopkeepers and shop assistants are kicking people out of their shops because it’s too much like hard work to try to sell them something.

And anyone who has read Alvin Tofler’s The Third Wave will recall that he foretold all of this nearly 40 years ago.

People argue long and hard in favour of “shop local” instead of shopping on-line, but at least the computer and the warehouse robots are keen and eager to fulfil your demand.

While I was finishing off my lunch this afternoon there was a ring on the doorbell. Liz and Terry turned up to say hello, have a coffee and to give me some shopping that they had brought back from the UK for me. Stuff for Christmas such as mince pies, mincemeat and Christmas pudding, seeing as the English Shop in Everburg let me down.

We had a good walk around the headland and the walls in the wind and rain, followed by a coffee in the cafe in the old town.

Later on, I started to work on the web pages for Day Three but ended up by falling asleep on my comfortable chair.

On awakening, I noticed that US Granville’s 2nd XI was playing against LC Bretteville Sur Odon, and kick-off was in 40 minutes time.

Not wishing to hang around, I sailed off at a rapid rate of knots and was actually there 10 minutes before kick-off. I didn’t know that I could move so fast these days.

US Granville took the lead after just one and a half minutes. From their first attack they won a corner. The LC Bretteville Sur Odon keeper punched it out and a Granville player picked up the loose ball and drove it back into the crowded penalty area where it shot through a ruck of players straight into the net without touching anyone.

They had the ball in the net after 13 minutes too, but it was ruled out for a push on a defender.

LC Bretteville Sur Odon woke up after about 35 minutes and began to get on top. They almost equalised but a shot was kicked off the line by a defender.

The second half carried on with LC Bretteville Sur Odon clearly on top but a few unsavoury incidents which ended up with an LC Bretteville Sur Odon in the dressing room disrupted the game.

Three substitutes all at the same time refreshed the Granville team and, against the run of play, scored a dramatic second goal. A breakaway through the centre saw the ball blocked on the line not once but twice, but the third attempt on goal found the back of the net.

So a rather fortunate 2-0 win for Granville.

By now the rain had stopped so I had a good walk back home.

I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me and so I decided that I would have some fun with it in the dark.

As you know, I’ve not been able to get it to work as well as I would have liked in poor lighting, and the drawbridge into the old walled town here gave me ideas.

I took several photos of the pont lévis, using different shutter, aperture and ISO settings, to correspond and compare with the earlier one which was taken on fully automatic settings.

Most of them were filed under CS, but this one turned out quite well.

1/13 shutter speed, f3.75 and ISO6400, and darkened slightly.

Back home, while I was working on the photos, I noticed a couple of people nicely framed in the archway of the drawbridge.

I cropped out that part of the image and blew it up a little to see what it would give me, and it’s produced a nice effect.

However, it’s ended up being rather pixelated and that’s a disappointment. I don’t seem to be able to produce the quality for which I am looking.

Back home, I made myself a plate of mushrooms in tomato sauce with pasta for tea.

I’m ready now for an early night, especially having done 147% of my daily total, and I hope that I’ll be able finally to have a good sleep.

I need it.

Friday 9th November 2018 – I HAD A SURPRISE …

… lie-in this morning.

Apparently my phone decided to do an upgrade in the middle of the night and it was waiting for me to switch it back on.

It’s twice now that this has happened so I’ll have to think about having some kind of back-up in case it ever becomes a crucial issue, because I can see this one day ending in tears.

So with a late start this morning and a late breakfast I was getting a little behind in my work. And seeing as I’m now getting to some kind of crucial point in my journey in the High Arctic then I’m going to be doing an awful lot of research just now.

And as a result I had only done half of what I intended to do with Day Three of my blog by lunchtime. That’s not going to be back on-line anything like as quickly as I might have hoped.

Lunch was taken indoors today. It looks as if the outdoors eating is over now, especially given the wind.

This afternoon I did some tidying up – not as much as I would have liked of course but I’m finding it difficult right now to keep up with things.

That took me nicely up to my afternoon walk, when I braved the hurricane and set off around the headland.

And despite the wind, I wasn’t the only person out there.

We had some more pool-dippers down on the beach looking for crustaceans and the like in the tidal rock-pools. And whatever they find, they share with their friends because, as I have told you … “and on many occasions too” – ed … you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I showed you a photo of the workmen digging away at the side of the car park at the Pointe du Roc?

It’s quite clear now what they have done, but even though I’m now better-informed, I’m still none-the-wiser because I can’t understand why they have done it.

I suppose that all will be revealed in due course.

With the wind pushing me one step forward and two steps back, I eventually made it back here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch …
Cold telephone canvasser – “I would like to introduce you to Madame Klara, astrologist …”
Our Hero – “Well she’s not much good, is she?”
CTC – “How do you mean?”
OH – “Well, if she had been any good at foretelling the future, she would have known that I would tell you to !*à# off!”

Once I’d dealt with that, then back on with updating the blog entry.

Not very far though because Rosemary rang up. And we had a good chat for all of, would you believe, one hour and forty minutes. We had a lot to talk about.

Tea was a delicious steamed vegetable mix with vegan sausages and cheese sauce. That really was nice too.

The evening walk was round the walls, but even though it wasn’t too far off high tide, the sea round by the Plat Gousset was in the lee of the old town so that the sea wasn’t all that rough. No waves crashing up over onto the promenade.

But once round by the Place Maurice Marland I got the whole lot again, with rain and plagues of locusts too. If anything, the hurricane is blowing even stronger.

Gribouille had been rather stand-offish this afternoon but this evening Minette was sitting on her windowsill and being quite friendly.

There’s a little bit of a problem too. The dashcam was full so While I was out for a walk I set it to download all of the films onto the storage device. But for some reason or other the dashcam has reset its date so all of the films are out of order.

Not much that I can do about that, but at least I can reset the date. And this proves that the stand-by battery that will power the dashcam when the ignition is switched off works perfectly.

So now I’ll go for an early night again.

And hope that I get up at the right time tomorrow morning.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… evening today.

And what first drew my attention to it was the sunlight reflecting off the windows at Agon-Coutainville, about 30 kilometres away across the bay.

And this photo was taken with the 18-105mm lens, and hand-held too. It’s not come out too badly either. And in case you are wondering, the Nikon D3000 camera.

Here’s a similar photo taken at lunchtime with the Nikon D3000 and the 70-300mm zoom\telephoto lens.

After its exertions last night when the storm whipped the set-up off the concrete bunker, I gave it a good going-over this morning to see what the damage might be.

And much to my surprise, not only is there no visible damage, everything seems to work just as it is supposed to. It must be more robust than I was expecting – and certainly more robust than the old Nikon D5000.

So while you admire a few more cropped and enlarged photos of the coast out past Agon-Coutainville (and if you think that they are blurred, they are cropped and enlarged segments out of a photo taken at a distance of 30kms), I can tell you a little about the morning.

Once again, the body clock works in spades as there I was, wide awake at 05:59 precisely (because I checked). One minute before the alarm was due to go off.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I’d decided to have an extended break (to reimburse myself for my early Sunday), turned over and went back to sleep.

10:25 is a much more respectable time to haul myself out of the stinking pit.

And a breakfast at 11:15 is a very bourgeois way of starting the day in a relaxed and leisurely fashion.

All of this sleep had given me plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble or two. And much to my surprise I could remember quite a lot of it, although I’m sure that there was so much more to be going on with.

First off, I’d been on my holidays again and we had had a delay, just like when we were off to the Arctic. There were 50 of us and we were being taken around to some temporary accommodation that had been found for us. And it ended up that we were being lodged in different log cabin or garden sheds, depending upon the class of accommodation that we had booked on the holiday. I trailed along behind everyone else who was given some higher-class cabins and ended up in a cheap garden shed. Seeing as it was in a warehouse it wasn’t too bad and I wasn’t too disappointed.
This bore quite a resemblance to a conversation that I had the other night with Alison, as well as another reminiscence about my legendary trip to the Far North.
Later on, I was doing my Sherlock Holmes impressions back in Victorian times, with my sidekick and a police inspector. We were trying to work out how someone had been shot and murdered in a house where the only other occupant of the house was visibly not involved with anything. It was a house in some kind of upmarket terrace with front gardens with brick walls and gateposts with ornamental pillars. It suddenly occurred to me how it happened and I went off to rig up a system to prove my point. A shotgun wired to the door with a time delay worked by a set of pulleys would blast anyone coming through the doorway a couple of seconds after opening the front door.
And sometime during the night Nerina put in an appearance. It’s a long time since she’s come to visit me, isn’t it?

And while you admire the photo of the beach at Donville-les-Bains and the miserable place where I looked at an apartment, then this morning (or what was left of it) I attacked a few more of the outstanding photographs.

This marathon session, which took me almost right up until tea-time (with a few interruptions) means that I’m now up to date as far back as a week ago.

You can see the efforts by going here and working forward.

With having had a late start this morning, I ended up having a rather late lunch.

And it was such a beautiful afternoon that I made my butties and went out to sit on my wall overlooking the harbour.

No lizards unfortunately – I think that they have gone into hibernation – but there were lots of other things about.

One of the Ile de Chausey ferries was leaving harbour and heading off out to sea.

Not to the island by the look of things, but probably a five-bob trip around the bay for sightseers – unless it’s a private charter because it didn’t seem to be going along any route that I recognised.

But this was when I tried out the zoom/telephoto lens to check that it was working. That’s miles out into the bay near Jullouville

I had a few more goes with the zoom/telephoto lens to make sure that it wasn’t just a one-off success.

Thats the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais with the climb up to the Roche Gauthier and the blocks of flats up on the skyline.

There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with this photograph

And to underline everything, round on the other side of the Pointe du Roc, the weather was even clearer.

Jersey stood out clearer than I have ever seen it and so I took a photo of the island with the zoom/telephone lens.

Hand-held again – no tripod. And I cropped out a couple of small sections of the photos and enlarged them to see what kind of results they would give.

And if you remember from the other day when I took a few photographs of St Helier and enlarged them, then if anything these today have come out even better than those previously.

St Helier has certainly come out more clearly and more distinctly than it ever has done before.

And in case you have forgotten, that’s about 54 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

Ingrid rang me up this afternoon and we had quite a lengthy chat. So much so that it was rather late when I went for my afternoon walk.

At lunchtime someone had asked me the directions to an exhibition on the Granville soldiers in World War I

I didn’t know where it was but I made a few unofficial enquiries and managed to track it down – in the public rooms at the back here.

And one of the things that impressed me – or should I say “depressed” me was the fact while there were those who were honoured as being tué à l’ennemie, those who died of illness or disease in the army were treated less honourably, and those who were taken prisoner were treated little better than deserters.

One prisoner who escaped and made his way back to his unit via the Netherlands and the UK was treated as a spy or collaborator.

By now, it was quite late, and as I went outside I noticed the crowds gazing out to sea in the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

We were having yet another beautiful sunset this evening. The good day was drawing to a perfect climax. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had such a nice evening.

Apart from that, there wasn’t much else going on and I completed my walk without any further interruption.

Tea was a vegan burger with vegetables, and then I went off for a walk around the headland.

And what a beautiful evening it was too. Not a cloud in the sky, but thousands of stars clearly visible. Just like back in the Auvergne.

So I’ll leave you with a few more photos. I’m off to bed.

One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey

Canoeing in the sea off the Pointe du Roc

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo showing Breville sur Mer

A bit more of a beautiful sunset

Saturday 27th October 2018 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON!

Absolutely, so it was rather later than maybe it ought to have been before I crawled out of bed this morning.

But it’s Saturday, and Saturday is shopping day, so I had my medication, had breakfast, and then had a shower.

Not that there was much breakfast to have because unfortunately we seem to have had an accident. During the night the muesli that I had made the other day somehow managed to fall off the shelf and scatter all over the floor. That was a waste.

on the way up to the shops I observed what might possibly be described as “an incident”. A crowd, including several ambulanciers together with their ambulance loitering on the edge of the quayside looking down towards the water.

I would have gone over to ask them what was happening, except for the fact that there was nowhere to park.

At LIDL there wasn’t much of any interest to tempt me – and even less than usual seeing as I’m not going to be here for a few days. But they did have a couple of things in the €1:00 bin – a wipe-off notice board, a set of A4 binders and a notepad with pen that will be much more use for taking notes around the house instead of on scraps of paper.

BUT was next on the agenda. About this broken shelf. But apparently shelves aren’t included in the guarantee, as, I suppose, so is nothing else that might break down.

But I’m rather disappointed that they had some really decent fridges and freezers on special offer at 30% off that would have been ideal for here. Much bigger and better value, but it’s too late now.

NOZ had the usual rubbish too. Wine at €1:79 a bottle so I bought a few. Not for me, but I never seem to have anything to hand when I’m invited round to people’s houses or I have people round, so it’s gone into store in the bathroom.

They also had a new delivery of maps too, including a new map of all of Europe. Much better quality, much larger scale, much more modern and much more handy to use than the one in Caliburn that dates from … errr … 1992.

I remember the issues that I had going around the Czech Republic in 2015 when I ended up navigating by the stars. High time that I updated everything.

LeClerc came up with the usual stuff, but no sprouts. Even the price tag has been taken off the freezer now. It looks as if the next time I have space in the freezer I’ll have to freeze a pile more.

But they did have frozen peas, and also frozen mushrooms, seeing as I somehow managed to leave the frozen mushrooms that I had bought the other day out on top of the freezer so they had all defrosted.

With no-one keen to commit suicide on the car park today, I made it home without incident, made my butties and then went out to sit on the wall.

But not for long. Even though it was a nice day, the savage wind was really too much for me. I came in and ate them in comfort.

This afternoon US Granville were playing at Avranches down the road in the Coupe de France. I had every intention of going, seeing as the kick-off was at 16:00, but at 15:00 when I should have set out for Avranches I was flat out on the bed, crashed out.

When I awoke, I cleared up the muesli and vacuumed the kitchen area. But that was all that I could manage today.

later on it was the birthday party of Nicole, the “mother” of Gribouille. I’d been invited and I’d bought a box of chocolates for her so I went round. It was raining outside by now. The weather had changed.

We all had a good chat and something to eat, even though there wasn’t much for me.

As is usual, I didn’t stay long. I can’t keep going like I used to do, so that was that. I managed a quick plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil.

And that was that. Off to bed and an early start in the morning. Despite it being Sunday, I have the alarm set. I’m off to Leuven tomorrow on the train.

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

However I shall spare you the details. You are probably eating your tea or something like that right now.

But I was so far away on my travels that I didn’t leave the bed until after the 06:20 alarm which was rather disappointing. But then, I didn’t go to bed until late so I suppose it was only to be expected.

After the medication and so on (I missed breakfast due to one reason or another) I had a shower – and a haircut too. This new hair trimmer works a treat and my hair (such as I have left) looks quite good now.

And then I headed off to the shops.

Just by way of a change I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me so that I would be ready if I were to see anything worth photographing.

And Iw as in luck down at the docks because one of the giant cranes had come back.

I’m not sure why because there were no lock gates to be replaced. It might be replacing the mast in one of the boats but I couldn’t really tell.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few months ago a photo of a house down in the rue du Port where they had demolished some of the walls.

Today, I had noticed that they were cracking on with building up the back walls.

They had made quite a good bit of progress while I was away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I hadn’t been on my way for more than 15 minutes when I realised that I had forgotten the details for my rail tickets. So I’ll have to do that again.

At LIDL grapes were €1:99 per kilo so I grabbed a load of them. Together with, finally, a pastry brush and a few other bits and pieces.

On the way back home I had to go to the Hotel des Impôts to pick up a form. But it’s only open 4 days a week. Can you guess which day of the week it’s closed?

At least, it brought me home via a new route that I don’t use all that often and with different views than the usual.

It was pretty cloudy and miserable as you can see. But none of this stopped the sailing club from taking out some of their pupils today.

Not what I would call plain sailing in this kind of weather, is it?

There’s a really good view over the harbour from this spot too. I’ve not noticed this before.

There’s the Pointe du Roc out there just to the left of centre and the Eglise Notre Dame du Cap Lihou on the skyline just to the right of centre.

Where I live is one of the large buildings just to the left of the church spire.

Walking a little further along the promenade at the bottom of the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillaises, there’s a nice little beach here.

But it’s not a beach for sunbathing or anything like that because bathing isn’t permitted here due to its proximity to the harbour entrance.

To the right are the installations of the Port de Hérel where all of the maritime activities take place and where there is the Youth Hostel.

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

Down at the end of the promenade is a nice-looking block of flats – the Résidence Port Granville – that’s maybe 30 years old or something, with the Roche Gauthier in the background.

That’s the kind of place where I would like to have a little apartment, but I saw how much it costs to rent something even smaller than where I live, and it’s well out of my budget.

That’s not a surprise though is it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the house in the rue St Gaud that was demolished a year or so ago.

The other day we noticed the rear of the plot that was being rebuilt. From down here on the promenade we can see the front of the plot and how far they have advanced with the rebuilding.

Mind you, at this rate it’ll be another year or so before they’ll finish it, I reckon.

I carried on my little stroll along the Port de Herel and I was interrupted yet again.

Earlier today, we saw a large mobile crane working on one of the boats down in the harbour. But here now we have the mobile crane having finished its work and setting off to go back from whence it came.

It’s quite a bit of serious kit, isn’t it? I can think of a thousand uses for one of those back on my farm.

By now, I’d left the port and was climbing my way up the Rampe du Monte Regret and from there, there’s a good view across to the inner harbour.

We noticed in the photo of the cranes earlier today that the Channel Islands boats were moored up in the inner harbour.

Both of them too. Victor Hugo is there of course, but the new one, whose name escapes me for the moment, is also there.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen her back here for quite some considerable time.

I’ve often wondered where she has been for all of the summer. Probably working her passage out of Barneville-Carteret I imagine.

One of these days I’ll have to get myself aboard one or the other and go for a good run around.

Back here I unpacked everything and then made a coffee, seeing as I hadn’t had one yet today. And duly refreshed, I attacked yesterday’s photos.

Lunch was taken indoors in view of the cold, windy, overcast weather. And short commons too because I forgot the lettuce.

The afternoon was spent doing the rest of the photos and working on the pages for the Arctic. It’s really slow progress and I’m not sure why because it’s not as if it’s complicated or anything. I just don’t know what the issue might be.

But then, it didn’t help with having a little half-hour curled up on the office chair.

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

Despite the cold weather, it had brightened up considerably and the sun was out making the day quite pleasant.

And the sun wasn’t the only thing that was out either. The tide was out, and so were the people.

And that wasn’t all either.

The fishermen (at least I imagine that they are fishermen) were also out there working away.

No idea what it is that they are hoping to catch, but it can’t be very much given the size of the boats. But they are out there quite often so it must be something worthwhile.

Further down along the beach, the sun and the low tide had brought out even more members of the public.

They were all there having a good look in the rock pools, presumably for crabs and other crustaceans and the like. Although I have heard that there’s a ban on harvesting from the rocks around here due to pollution issues.

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

And the other day we talked about the old stone construction on the beach that I reckoned was a tidal fish pond.

Now that the tide is going out, we can see it much more clearly this afternoon.

I would have expected to have seen more water in there given the fact that the tide hasn’t long gone out. But there are several people having a ferret about in there to see what they can see.

Round on the town side of the walls, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the rue Paul Poirier for quite some time.

It’s all covered in bunting right now and I’ve no idea why. But it still looks quite interesting from up here.

It’s not as crowded as it usually is either. On a Saturday it’s absolutely heaving, but then that’s market day so that might account for it.

There’s not much going on today so I came back here to carry on work, with another coffee to keep me going.
.

For tea, I had a frozen potato and chick-pea curry from last year. And it was just as delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my night-time walk.

I took the 50mm lens and the tripod with me and took a hotograph in the dark of the rue do Nord inside the walls and the Plat Gousset.

On the left-hand edge of the image is the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

But the purpose of going out so armed was to have some more fun with long exposure photos

The scenery didn’t come up too well, but the moving car lights were a great improvement on what I managed yesterday.

I was out there for a good half-hour amusing myself with the lights, the exposure and learning quite a lot too.

Back here, I sorted myself out and then prepared myself for yet another early night again – I hope.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Hotel des Impôts and then, if I remember, I can pick up the rail tickets.

I’ll leave you to look at a few more of my long-exposure night photographs.

Night-time photography with long exposure times, Rue du Port, Granville, France

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

… a little better day today.

Despite a somewhat late night, I was still up and about before the 06:20 alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels during the night too – setting out from Portsmouth on a ship only for there to be a problem and we all having to disembark on the Isle of Wight. And there being so many of us that the island became dramatically overcrowded.

And that’s rather like the combined plots of a couple of Navy Lark radio programmes to which I was listening during the day yesterday. It’s all getting to me these days, isn’t it?

After breakfast I had a pile of work to do on the other laptop and that took me some considerable time. And there’s still a considerable amount to do too and it’s going to take me for ever to tidy things up.

On this laptop though I attacked the images from yesterday and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either. But they are all on line now anyway.

And for the rest of the morning I carried on with the photos from the High Arctic.

Lunch on the wall again, with my book and my butties and the warm sun. Beautiful it was, and you would never think that it’s almost the end of October right now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos but not for long because I ended up sprawled out on the bed again, flat out. And not just for 5 minutes either but for a good hour or so.

As a result it was 16:40 when I went out for my afternoon walk.

It was still quite a nice afternoon and the sun was still shining. As a result there was quite a crowd of people out there on the beach. Either playing about in the sand or hunting in the rockpools for lobsters and mussels and the like.

Which they immediately share with their friends, because everyone knows that you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

A little bit further on, part of the rue du Nord was fenced off.

There was a cherry-picker parked in the street with some people there working on a house.

I thought at first that they might be preparing it for repointing but on closer inspection it turned out that they were taking out a stone or two above the lintel.

As I have wandered along the old walls, I’ve often seen this feature here which resembles some kind of stone wall built into the sea.

And I’ve often wondered what it might be.

But a visit to that exhibition just before I left for the Arctic came up with the answer.

It’s apparently one of the many tidal fishpools that were found at one time all along the coast here. The tide fills the pools and when it recedes it leaves plenty of water and, hopefully, plenty of fish behind.

Tea tonight was some of the crèpes that I bought the other day with some kind of stuffing and kidney beans tucked in.

Tonight’s walk was with the tripod again but for some reason I couldn’t reproduce the photos from the other night. That must have been beginner’s luck.

This photo of the Baie de Mont St Michel, taken from the car park by the lighthouse didn’t turn out too bad.

But a few others ended up in the recycle bin.

On the other hand, this photo of the full moon, taken from the same place on the Pointe du Roc with the zoom/telephoto lens turned out rather well.

It was with the full 300mm focal length in ISO400, at a speed of 1/800 with an aperture of f5.6.

And then I went to shave the palms of my hands.

Seeing as I had the telephoto/zoom lens on the camera right now after the moon, I took a photo across the bay to St Pair sur Mer.

230mm focal length at f5.6 with ISO800 at a speed of 1.6 seconds and it managed to produce something without too much camera shake.

In the foreground is the roof of one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc

Round at the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour I set myself up with the tripod and the 18-105mm lens and a friendly local looking on.

And we were in luck because here in the outer harbour (the tide was in) there was a fishing trawler performing some kind of nautical danse macarbre as it left the quayside by the fish-processing plant in the moonlight.

IT passed through the harbour gates, which were open seeing as we weren’t all that far after high tide

I’m not quite sure what the trawler was trying to do but once she was in the inner harbour she cruised around for a while as if trying to find a berth in which to bed down.

Her lights stand out really well in the dark.

Talking of lights in the night, you can see a streak of red light in the centre at the bottom of the image.

I’d waited for quite a while in the hope that a car would go past so that I could have the effect of moving red lights, but nothing went past.

Eventually a young kid went past on a moped so that will have to do for now.

Back here now and working, and a raging thirst again. That’s a sign that I’m sickening for something again. And that’s no surprise. I haven’t been right for years now, and getting worse every day.

I’ll try to have an early night if I can and get myself ready for tomorrow. I’m off shopping on foot and I really don’t feel like it.

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 – THE BAD NEWS IS …

… that when I went to put on my boots to go out this afternoon, I noticed that the right boot had split all the way down the seam.

That’s really disappointing because although I’ve had them for about 18 months I’ve only worn them for the last three or four months and they cost me a lot of money too. It seems that the whole idea about “quality” has right gone down the tubes just recently.

Despite something of a late-ish night I was up and about before the third alarm went off, and that is certainly progress. I’d been on my travels too, but as soon as I awoke it all disappeared right out of my head and I don’t have a clue where I was … “nothing new there” – ed.

After the medication and breakfast, I had a few errands to do before I can start work. And there were such a few that it was about 10:30 when I finally settled down in front of the laptop.

First task was to deal with the photos from yesterday. There were more than I thought too and now they are all on-line. And well-worth a look too because a couple are really good.

After that, I had a little fun with the old Nikon D5000 that died a death about three years ago. I fitted a new battery in it and eventually it powered up. And I could see the problem – in that the LED screen display is so weak that in the natural daylight outside it looks as if it’s not lit – and hence the camera appears not to work.

So I fitted a lens and an SD card into it and sallied forth for lunch on the wall with butties, book and the aforementioned. I started to take a few photos with the camera but after the first photo, there wasn’t enough in the battery to power up the auto-focus.

I put the battery back in the newer Nikon and it worked perfectly. Back in the old one and there we were again with not enough power.

It looks as if the PCB is corroding and stopping the current from passing through. But then again I’ve had it over 8 years and it’s done some heavy work in that time. And it was second-hand when I bought it too, having been manufactured in 2008 apparently.

So it’s not too bad, I suppose.

At least the camera in the mobile phone was working, which was just as well.

At a meeting that I had attended a few months ago there were complaints from householders about kids descending the cliffs and clambering over the roofs of the houses.

And while I was eating my butties there was a group of kids doing just that.

This afternoon I carried on with my High Arctic pages for a while.

But later I went out for my afternoon walk around the walls.

With it being he school holidays there were quite a few people about, walking on the beach in the sun.

Not as many as you might expect, but there was a wind that was quite strong that would be enough to keep most people away

But there were some people out there who were taking full advantage of the wind.

In the past, we’ve seen plenty of photos of the birdmen soaring up over the cliffs and the Pointe du Roc on the gusts of wind.

And there they were this afternoon too. And I had the zoom/telephoto lens at the ready

There were quite a few who seemed to be performing a bizarre kind of aerobatics as their appliances struggled up the cliffs.

I’ve said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … that one day it’s all going to end in tears, and at least, if it happens to this guy here, he won’t have far to go afterwards.

Erma Brombeck once famously said of skiing “I’ve no intention of participating in any sport that has ambulances waiting at the bottom of the hill”, and in the same vein, I wouldn’t want to participate in any sport which involves being up in the air in an unpowered machine performing aerobatics right over a cemetery.

Round on the other side of the walls there were a couple of people working on the steep slope.

They had this most impressive drill that was making short work of drilling into the rocky slope and I wouldn’t mind taking this back to the Auvergne with me.

Full of curiosity as to what they were doing, I made the appropriate enquiries. Apparently there had been some rock falls along the slope so they were in the process of erecting a safety net across the face to retain any falling rock.

Back here, I had a little … errr … relax and was the distracted by opening the door of the fridge to find that one of the door shelves had broken, and everything on it came crashing to the floor.

Tea was a burger and bap with baked potatoes and vegetables. Delicious it was too.

But there are no photos this evening. It was reasonably clear outside in the evening but there was a vicious wind going on and it was difficult to keep my feet around the headland, never mind the tripod too.

So it’s another early night. And then I have an important thing to do tomorrow with a serious time limit.

I need to be on form.

Hang gliders Granville

Plat Gousset, Granville.

And where have the bathing cabins gone?

Hang gliders over the cemetery in Granville.

Monday 22nd October 2018 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… and about with the camera and equipment this evening. And for quite a long time too.

In case you’ve been wondering … “which I’m sure you haven’t” – ed … I have been somewhat inspired by my trip to the High Arctic as well as being totally dismayed by the photos that I was able to produce with what is really substandard equipment.

That’s not really to complain too much about the Nikon 1. As I said at the time, it’s okay for photos under normal conditions but in the kind of conditions in which I was working and with the kind of photos that I was trying to take, it just wasn’t up to the job.

It was simply my mistake in buying it.

So now that I’ve done what I should have done in the first place and bought some decent lenses, I was out tonight having some fun.

And I’ve encountered another slight problem – although it was one that I was suspecting.

I was using the new zoom/telephoto lens with a very long exposure – 10 secs in fact – with the camera mounted on the tripod (which I have rediscovered in the back of Caliburn after all of these years).

But the zoom/telephoto lens is quite heavy, and with the attachment for the tripod being on the camera, it’s all out of balance and has a tendency to topple forward.

And in a high wind like last night, even with the tripod tightened up to the max, the wind was still blowing the lens round.

As a result, with the 10-seconds exposure, the photos have come out quite blurred.

You can see exactly what I mean by comparing one of the photos above with the photo just here.

This photo has come out as well as anyone could possibly expect. It was taken with exactly the same settings for speed and exposure as the previous ones and on the tripod.

The difference is though that it was taken with the new standard lens, not the heavy zoom/telephoto lens.

When a very fast shutter speed is used, there is barely a trace of camera shake using the zoom/telephoto lens on the tripod, as you can see in the photo of the almost-full moon that I took last night.

But there’s no problem that can’t be surmounted.

The answer to this is to find a tripod mount that attaches to the lens at the mid-point of balance to that the equipment won’t sway about so much in the wind.

And I’ve been able to track one down on the internet. It’s expensive, but it needs to be correct.

While we’re on the subject of photos, I spent today working on the photos that I took on Saturday and Sunday and adding them as appropriate. I’ve still not done Friday’s yet but I shall get around to that in due course.

With my late night last night, it was a struggle to leave the bed this morning.

Especially as I had been on my travels during the night. On an island somewhere doing some painting and I don’t mean painting some woodwork but actually doing some kind of artistic stuff and that’s not like me at all is it? I was in some kind of higher group where there was some kind of price of £300,000 mentioned. Even during a nocturnal ramble I’m well-aware of my own shortcomings in the artistic world and I couldn’t understand what I was doing in a group that was far beyond my own capabilities.

After breakfast I had some work to do and that kept me out of mischief for a while, and then I spent a while with the 3D program that I use. I had a sudden idea about that that I needed to develop.

As well as that, I had to make my travel arrangements for the weekend. I’m hitting the road on Sunday afternoon for Leuven and Castle Anthrax and I need to sort out somewhere to stay.

And the return railway trip on Wednesday is shockingly expensive. It’s the day before a Bank Holiday so prices are through the roof. I’m having to travel on the 08:13 TGV, which means that I will need to be at Leuven station for about 07:00 and I’m not looking forward to that one little bit.

All of that took me up to lunchtime (I just don’t know where the time goes these days) and I took my sandwiches in here, seeing as it was windy and overcast outside.

This afternoon I started on the photographs, with the usual interruption to go for my afternoon walk.

And I chose the route around the walls because I wanted to go round the headland tonight.

Plenty of people around out there too. It’s school half-term so people were taking the air.

It might be coming towards the end of October and the start of winter but the weather was still warm enough for people to head out onto the beach.

By the afternoon the weather was showing signs of brightening up.

The sun was peeking through the clouds by now and illuminating parts of the beaches round by Donville-les-Bains and Bréville-sur-Mer and making the afternoon look quite tempting.

Had it not been for the fierce wind it would have been a really beautiful afternoon.

While you admire a section of the previous photo cropped out to show the ruin where I saw a derelict apartment 18 months ago, I can tell you about my little visit.

There’s a photo club here in Granville and they were having an exhibition in one of the public rooms. So I went along to look.

There was nothing on display that particularly excited me and although I wanted to chat to an official, they all seemed to be huddled around in a group chatting about last night’s television programmes.

Not particularly welcoming, unfortunately. So I moved on.

But not too far though.

There have been several changes in the town while I was away in the Frozen North and I’m slowly catching up with them. Like this demolition site in the rue du Nord overlooking the medieval walls and the sea.

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

And round by the port I noticed that we aren’t alone today.

Thora has sailed … “dieseled” – ed … into the harbour from Jersey without me noticing.

She must have come in on the morning’s high tide. That was round about 06:30 this morning so that sounds about right to me.

There’s no evidence on the quayside to show what, if anything, she brought over from Jersey.

But she’s already taken on a considerable load of supplies for taking out. And a close inspection of the load from this kind of range seems to indicate that it’s stones or rocks of some description.

So I’ve no idea why they would be wanting to export them to Jersey

While you admire yet another photo of Thora, I went back to my apartment, had a coffee and sat down to continue with what I was doing.

That was the plan anyway. Instead I ended up on the bed flat out until well after 18:00. Not even a coffee can keep me going these days.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with spicy rice and it was delicious as usual. And then off around the headland in the moonlight with camera, lenses and tripod.

Now I’m back, much later than usual, I’m off to bed. I’ll have a go at carrying on tomorrow and we’ll see where I can get up to.

Thursday 18th October 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… last night I was on board a ship again and it might even have been The Good Ship Ve …… errr … Ocean Endeavour. And I don’t remember much now about the journey except that the terrain over which we were walking bore a remarkable resemblance to the Ile de Chausey, where I was the other day and of which one day I’ll finish off adding all of the photos. I was with some woman and her teenage daughter on this trip – and don’t ask me who they were. The daughter was hungry and kept on going to the fridge for some food. There were a couple of plates of beans and sausage on there and she kept on helping herself to one of them. I put it back though, not because I didn’t want her to eat it, but because I was going to cook something special and I wanted her to try it. But every time I put the plate back, she would sneak back and take it out again.

With all that going on, I was actually awake on time, and out of bed before the alarm at 06:20. And it’s been a good few weeks since that’s happened, hasn’t it?

After breakfast etc I had a few things to do, and then I leapt … “well, sort-of” – ed … into the shower for a good scrub and a change of clothes.

On my way out of the apartment I went past the harbour and there, moored up at its quay is the Marité.

Of course, she’s back home now that the weekend is over and all of the tourists have gone home and won’t now be back for a while.

But it always happens like this, doesn’t it?

But down in the town I came across an exciting sign. And next time that Alison comes here I’ll take her for a beer.

Although France might well be 100 years behind the times when it comes to allergies and dietary issues, you occasionally come across some little gems.

Just like this one, in fact. Gluten-free beer must be something exciting.

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything special really, although it might have been a good idea to have bought some tomatoes, because I don’t have any left over for anything exciting.

And on the way back, I was distracted yet again.

There’s a Catholic Primary School, the Ecole St Paul, that I pass on my way back. And I hadn’t noticed until today the statue of the saint up there, having been left holding the baby.

I thought that I would add a photo of the statue to my collection.

And just down the road from there, again in the rue Saint Paul is a house that I have noticed in passing but at which I have never taken a good look before. 4

It’s a beautiful house as you can see, but a close inspection of it indicates that the house seems to be abandoned and derelict.

This would be just my kind of house, and there might even be a sea view from the top floor of the building.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the demolition that took place in the rue St Genevieve over the winter when an old house was knocked down.

And then a sign appeared advising that planning permission had been granted for a new construction.

First time that I’ve been down here for a couple of months, and during that time we can see that construction of whatever is going to be here is well under way.

It doesn’t look particularly solid but then again this is a feature of modern construction.

Back here I had a drink and then did some tidying up (just by way of a change). And then attacked yesterfday’s photos. And to my surprise, I’d finished them off pretty quickly (there weren’t all that many actually) and put them on line.

Another important thing was accomplished too.

After the success the other day of my frozen sprouts, I had some carrots here which, I expected, would start to look doubtful in a few days time. So I peeled them, diced them, par-boiled them with some bayleaves and then stuck them in the freezer in a zip bag too.

Lunch was once again on the wall overlooking the harbour, looking at the fishing boats coming and going.

It was quite warm out there – a really sunny day – so I suppose that the fishermen were making the most of the good weather of this Indian Summer.

And I was practising with the light, bouncing it off the sea and onto the side of the boat.

Fishing boats weren’t the only things that were wandering around outside the harbour.

That sailing boat that we saw the other day – that was back again with another crowd of people, towing its zodiac behind.

One of these days I’ll have to go down and check up to remind myself of its name.

Back in the apartment I attacked the pile of photos from my trip to the Ile de Chausey on Saturday. They are all on line now with some brief explanatory notes.

There was even some time to attack the notes of the second day of my visit to the Arctic when I was in Yellowknife. The notes for the first day have been on line for quite some time as you know, and I need to press on.

I’d gone out at the usual time too and the weather had improved even more.

It wasn’t possible to see Jersey for some reason or other, but a couple of what might have been fishing boats were just about visible right out on the horizon, so I had a quick go with the big zoom-telephoto lens.

They are probably 30 kilometres out to sea where they are there.

While I had the big lens out, I had a good look aout along the coast to see what I could see.

That’s probably 30 or so kilometres away too, right out at Blainville-sur-Mer up the coast in the direction of Cherbourg.

I’ve not yet been for a walk on that beach, so I’ll have to put that right in due course.

On the other hand, this here is a beach that I’ve walked upon. And on several occasions too.

And not only that, I was watching Terry, Darren, Kate and Dylan sand-yachting on there earlier this year.

It is of course Agon-Countainville and it’s one of the nicest beaches around here, with one of the largest tidal ranges around here too.

Yesterday, we were walking around the Pointe du Roc and we saw a handful of what might have been fishing boats loitering at the foot of the cliffs.

Today I had another look over the clifftop where they were yesterday, and there was another one down ther today loitering around at the foot of the cliffs.

I’m still not sure what they are doing.

And talking of not knowing what they are doing, this is what the council workmen have been doing to the car park by the lighthouse at the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And having seen the results of their work, I’m still none the wiser.

And I’m not even better-informed either. But that’s because the workmen weren’t there to ask.

The weather was even better in the shelter of the wind down at the head of the bay.

So now that I have a decent zoom-telephoto lens I could take a photo of what I have glimpsed before at the head of the Baie de Mont St Michel, to see if this lens will pick it up any better.

And sure enough, this lens is so much better than the older one and we can see quite clearly not only the Cabanon Vauban which we have visited on several occasions, but the hotels round by the foot of the Mont St Michel.

Not the Mont itself though. That’s hidden behind the Pointe de Carolles.

Back here I carried on with the work that I had been doing, and then made tea. Stuffed peppers (now that I had bought some) and spicy rice, with my frozen carrots too. And that worked!

And then off for my walk around the walls.

There are tons of photos though.

During the afternoon, the weather was so good that I took plies of photos with the zoom-telephoto lens all along the coast from the Pointe de Carolles back up t0 Granville.

And then this evening, the clear moonlight made the night-time photos even better.

And so I’ll be adding these in due course so that you can see them in all their glory and admire the new lenses that I have bought.

fishing boat port de granville habour manche normandy france

Port Foulon The southern part of the town of Granville

The Cale de Hacqueville

The Beach at Carolles.

The large building just to the left of centre is another one in which there’s a ruin of an apartment that was offered to me.

The Beach at Carolles.

Jullouville

Kairon Plage

St Pair sur Mer

Chateau de la Crete

Granville – Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais

Marité

Fishing boat in the port de Granville awaiting the tide.

Crew working aboard fishing boat in the port de Granville awaiting the tide.

A rather over-exposed photo of the moon.

The Place d’Armes and the medieval town walls

Moonlight over the Baie de Granville

Another over-exposed moon shot with one of the planets

Pizza van, Place Cambernon

Wednesday 17th October 2018 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I had another good sleep last night.

Out like a light and asleep almost until the alarm went off. I probably beat it by about 10 seconds, I reckon.

And I’d been on my travels too – back on a ship somewhere but I’ve no idea where and I’ve no idea what I was doing either.

Even more surprisingly, I was out of bed quite rapidly too. Obviously the deep sleep had done me a power of good and I ought to do it more often.

After breakfast etc I had a few things to do and then I set about the photos from last night. There were more than I anticipated and it took a while to deal with them but they are now all on line and you can go to see them if you like.

I’ve been having a play with the ISO levels, with cropping and enlarging some of them and the results are … errr … interesting. In one photo, you can even see the street lights of St Helier – 54 kms away – taken through a 50mm lens and that is astonishing.

You can see them for yourself.

There were quite a few distractions too and I was surprised to see that I had arrived at 13:30 without having accomplished all that much.

Lunch was on the wall with butties and book, but no lizards. I imagine that they have by now gone into hibernation.

But we still have the fishing boats coming in and coming out of the harbour. I’d missed two that were leaving simultaneously but I managed to be in time to catch this one on its way in.

And he was coming in at quite a rate too, as you can tell by his wake.

Coming back to the apartment Gribouille was waiting for me so I gave him a big stroke. His mummy was there too and she invited me to her birthday party which will be held in a couple of weeks time.

Up in the apartment I restarted my assault on the photos from Saturday and the Ile de Chausey. That took longer than it ought to have done too, mainly due to a variety of distractions, including but not limited to a little … errr … relax.

Of course we had the usual afernoon walk, during which my attention was caught by some activity going on at the foot of the cliffs.

Several boats were congregating down there and I’ve no idea what they might be doing. It’s highly unlikely that they are fishing but I can’t think of anything else.

And you can see the Iles de Chausey in the background.

Having a good view of the Ile de Chausey in the previous photo, I fitted the zoom telephoto lens to the camera to take a photo of it in the fine weather conditions.

And you can see the difference between the image produced by a lens with a focal length of 45mm in the first photograph and a lens with a focal length of 300mm in this photo – a 7 times magnification.

You can even identify the individual houses on the island, even though it’s about 17 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

And when you start to crop your original image and enlarge the selection, you can produce some even more dramatic results.

This is a crop from the main photo of the southern end of the island. You can see the lighthouse quite clearly as well as the houses that are scattered around that part of the island which we passed on our way in.

That’s not bad at all for 17 kilometres

And when you crop out an even smaller selection, enlarge it and digitally enhance it, you can produce shots that are even more dramatic.

This is a smaller selection cropped from the same photo, digitally enhanced to improve the contrast. And not only can you see the houses on the island, you can see the afternoon ferry pulling into the inner harbour of the island where we docked on Saturday.

You can see the sun reflecting off the white paint on the southern ends of the houses

This is a selection cropped from another photo, showing the northern tip of the island and the lighthouse situated there.

And I do have to say that I have no idea what that is in the sea in the foreground of the image.

But all of this goes to show just what a good purchase this new zoom-telephoto lens is and I can have hours of endless fun with this.

Back in the apartment yet again and carrying on with the photos (and dozing off again here and there). But I kept on going and now there are another pile on line and you can see those here.

Tea was another home-made burger with baked potatoes and vegetables. But I didn’t manage my evening walk because just as I was finishing off the washing up, Rosemary rang up.

It’s been a good while since we last spoke so we had a great deal to discuss. But even so, a ‘phone call of 1 hour 42 minutes and 57 seconds is something of a new world record – and by some distance too.

So now it’s late and everything else will have to wait. I’m off for an early night again and quite right too. I can’t say that I’m sorry.

I’ll need to gather my strength and gird up my loins as it’s my day to go off to LIDL on foot tomorrow.

north end ile de chausey semaphore granville manche normandy france

north end of ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

boats around marker light granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 16th October 2018 – THIS MORNING …

… didn’t turn out like it was supposed to. The alarms went off as usual and I switched them off as usual, but it was actually 07:34 when I awoke. That’s not going to do me much good, although it’s probably true to say that I needed the sleep.

And I took full advantage of it to go off on a decent nocturnal ramble too. Not into the High Arctic (just by way of a change) but to Eastern Austria and the ski slopes (and not the usual nocturnal ski slopes either). In company (which is not like me, as regual readers of this rubbish will recall) with two other people – a friend from Germany (who makes his debut in a nocturnal ramble) and a girl who, should we say, I would have been more than happy to have had as my companion 40 years ago, and why she should suddenly appear like this I really have no idea at all because we were extremely friendly during this voyage. In fact, the whole set-up last night bore some kind of resemblance to a voyage that I had once made round round about that period 40 years ago. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … we’d all been skiing in Austria, dining across the border in Hungary, all of that kind of thing, and now we were on our way back. We stopped off somewhere and there was a former friend of mine from Stoke on Trent and a girl who used to move about in his circle of friends and whom I didn’t really like all that much (it’s just like the Gathering Of The Clans, isn’t it?). I was telling them about my trip (with a few embellishments of course to make it sound even better) and they were complaining about things with them and how they wished that they had been lucky enough to have come along. I replied by saying that the opportunity was there – I had asked if anyone wanted to come and I’d found a couple of volunteers, and we’d all had an excellent time. And if they hadn’t wanted to come then that was their problem and I didn’t want to hear about it.

This does actually bear out some parallels with how things are in real life. I have managed to cram into my life quite a lot of excitement and adventure and people quite often come up to me and tell me how lucky I am and how they wish that they could do it.

And how all of that makes me sick.

I’ve never ever done anything else in my life that no-one else couldn’t have done had they wanted. I used at one time to invite people to come along if they liked but I have long-since abandoned that idea because no-one ever wanted to (except of course the much-maligned Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages half as often as she deserves). They would always find some good reason why not to do something. It might be money (yet they could find the money to go to the pub or buy a new toy or to eat out every weekend) or it might be health (yet I’m slowly dying but I’m still rolling along as best I can) but whatever it is, they’ll find an excuse not to go anywhere.

And then they complain about it.

It’s all down to this though. It’s all about what you consider your priorities in life to be, and what you are prepared to sacrifice in life to get to where you want to go. Some people have their priorities all wrong, and aren’t prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

So abandoning another really good rant for the moment I eventually tore myself away from my bed, had my medication and a little later had breakfast.

Once that had digested itself I started to attack last night’s photos. I found a few more that I seemed to have overlooked so while I was at it I dealt with those too.

Following that, I then worked my way backwards through the journal for the last week or so and updated them with the images that are now ready, including last nights photos on yesterday’s entry.

It’s not all complete though because dealing with the 80-odd from Saturday isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve rewritten the page for the Ile de Chausey and added a dozen or so photos, and I’ll add the rest tomorrow if I have an opportunity.

That took me nicely up to lunchtime but before I made my sandwiches I had a shower and a change of clothes to make myself look pretty – or, at least, as pretty as I can.

It wasn’t particularly sunny but I took my book and butties outside and sat on the wall to eat them – the butties not the book of course.

And I wasn’t alone either because while there might not have been any lizards about, there was one of the sailing boats that frequents the harbour.

And it shows you how long it is since I’ve been down in the harbour and how good my memory is, but I’ve forgotten its name. I shall have to go down there one day soon for a butcher’s

And that’s not all either.

There was quite a procession of fishing boats and other craft coming in and out of the harbour. And here’s one that I don’t recall seeing at all.

But it goes to show the benefits of having a really good zoom telephoto lens at last. And how I wish … “here we go again” – ed.

But returning to our moutons as they say around here, I didn’t stay out there all that long though. The weather looked as if it might turn round so I came back here instead.

There were a couple of jobs that needed doing this afternoon – involving the photos and so on. They are all backed up now onto the external drive.

And it caused me to have a little smile. When I first started to digitalise my photos 20-odd years ago I could get a whole year onto one CD, with plenty of space to spare. While I was in the Arctic just recently I had a grand total of 27.2GB of images – enough to fill over 40 CDs. How times have changed!

This afternoon I took my walk around the headland amongst a pile of schoolkids doing some kind of map-reading exercise. But apart from that there wasn’t all that much excitement.

But all of the excitement was back here afterwards when I had a little … err … relax for a while.

For tea, I had more steamed vegetables and one of the pasties that I made before I went off to the Arctic.

And how delicious were they? I shall have to make some more.

Outside this evening for my evening walk and I surprised a bunch of kids having a party in a secluded corner. We had an interesting discussion in Franglais yet again.

I also took a few more night-time photos that I’ll add to this entry in the morning. There aren’t quite as many as yesterday’s and the quality might be … errr … different because I was experimenting with the ISO settings and one or two other tricks too.

So I’ll try again for another early night. And this time, I hope that I’ll rise up from the Dead at some kind of reasonable time.

la granvillaise sailing ship port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

More fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The orange lights slightly to the right of centre are actually the street lights of St Helier in Jersey, some 54 kilometres away.

Yet more fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The barracks of the Place d’Armes and part of the city walls can be seen on the left margin.

Donville les Bains – about 6 kms away – with a high ISO setting.

Photo cropped and enlarged.

The roofs of Granville and the lights of St Pair sur Mer, Kairon-Plage and Jullouville away in the distance

rue le Carpentier looking down to the rue Cambernon and the museum.

Rue Notre Dame

The Boulevard Vaufleury, the Upper Car Park and the port;

Fishing boat leaving the harbour in the dark.

Boats in the outer harbour

The Place d’Armes

The rear of the Place d’Armes

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Montéé de St Jean

The rue St Jean and the Montee de St Jean

Monday 15th October 2018 – BACK INTO …

… the routine again. I don’t think!

Certainly the alarms went off – at 06:00, 06:10 and 06:20 as usual. But to say that I was eager to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit would be somewhat economical with the truth too.

I’d also been back in the High Arctic again. There were 50 of us leaving the voyage, trying to get into three zodiacs arriving one after the other, each one with a capacity of 12 persons. So that’s going to work, isn’t it? But it seemed that no-one was too eager to go in the first boat, and neither in the last one. So everyone was more interested in clambering into the middle boat. You can see immediately why this might cause a problem.

After breakfast, I did some tidying up so that this place looks more like a home, and then sat down and had a look at last night’s photos.

They have all been edited and reworked as appropriate and uploaded them to yesterday’s journal entry where they can be seen in all their glory.

That took most of the morning, which might come as a surprise to many people, but not when you consider that for some part of the morning I was … errr … away with the fairies.

It was my intention to go and sit on the wall and eat my butties but at that moment it was overcast so I ended up eating in here.

This afternoon I re-reviewed the photos from the Ile de Chausey on Saturday, chose a few as good samples and then started to rewrite the entry and add some photos. I didn’t get anything like as far into this as I was hoping, but you can see where I’m up to right now and this may well yet change.

But once again, I was somewhat overwhelmed. The effects of the last few days have caught up with me yet again.

There was a nice afternoon walk around the headland, and seeing that I’m in a photography mood right now, I took the camera with me.

I’m not sure it I’ve previously taken a photo of the blown-up bunker and so I took one this afternoon.

I’ve told you previously … “at great length” – ed … about the Atlantic Wall that the Germans built here in the early 1940s. And after the war the French set about trying to remove the casemates and bunkers.

But they were built much more substantially than anyone realised, and all that they succeeded in doing was moving half a dozen enormous lumps of concrete a couple of yards away from their original position.

And so they gave up any further attempt and left the rest of the bunkers here.

While I was there, I noticed some of the local council workmen carrying out a bit of work on the car park round the corner on the Pointe du Roc, so I went over to have a quick look to see what they were doing.

It seems that they are laying some paving stones as if there’s going to be some hard-standing for some purpose.

I’ll have to have a wander over there in a couple of days time to see how it’s evolving and what the purpose of it all will be.

Having taken my photo I carried on a-wandering around the headland to the little spot where I can overlook the harbour.

The tide is well on its way out of the tidal harbour right now and it was interesting to watch some of the larger ships settle down on the silt as the sea disappears.

The yellow one seems to have settled in the wrong direction so I hope that it won’t flood when the tide comes back in. It should really be careened over onto the landward side

But my reverie was interrupted by something of a racket coming from the shipyard.

It seems that they are carrying out some kind of major work on a fishing trawler that’s been hauled out of the water onto the top of the quay just there.

I’m not sure if they are in the process of dismantling it or whether they are renovating it. This is another thing to go back and check on in a couple of days’ time.

Tea tonight was steamed vegetables, sausages and vegan cheese sauce, and it was totally delicious too. I really enjoyed it and I shall make some more of that in due course. My frozen sprouts are working well.

Later on, I was back out in the evening for my walk around the walls. I took plenty of photos too with the new Nikon lens.

I went through them later and added them to the blog so that you can see them.

And I’m sure that you’ll be as dismayed as I am with the quality of the photos that I took in the Arctic when you see what this new low-light lens can produce under these kind of conditions.

In the previous photo you saw the lights of Donville les Bains in the background.