… is no time to leave the bed on a Sunday
09:15 is however much more like it, so I’m glad that I turned over and went back to sleep when I awoke earlier.
It also gave me a chance to go back on my travels too. I’d started off living in a room in some woman’s house – some woman whom I know in real life but I can’t think now of who she is. And we were joined by a young girl who had fled her own home and was looking for refuge. This girl was, like most teenagers, not very reliable. She needed an early start every morning so this woman arranged to wake up quite early ready to have her breakfast ready. One particular morning I needed to see this girl so I made a special effort to be up and about early. However when I arrived downstairs in the kitchen, the woman there showed me a note to the effect that the girl was saying that she wasn’t in the house and furthermore, she wouldn’t be back. We both felt rather disappointed that she hadn’t said anything about leaving, especially after the effort that it required to be up and about early.
A little later I was out on my horse on the Plains of North America and came across this sad, tired homestead. In there on her own was some woman in a red dress. For some reason she attracted my attention despite being a very scrawny unkempt woman (but then, on the frontier of North America in those days there wasn’t exactly a very good choice of woman). However at that moment her husband came back, and I had to pretend to be the local doctor giving the woman a medical examination in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
Later still, there was some television comedy series thing being broadcast. Not that it was of any interest to me but the people with whom I was associated found it very interesting and amusing. The series was then transferred to the theatre where it was merged with some other comedy series. My friends were keen to see it so in the end I succumbed and off we went. But I had a look at the poster outside the theatre where the cast was listed, and it seemed that the stars of the two series weren’t in fact going to be appearing in the play. So that was rather a waste of time.
With it being Sunday, I took it easy this morning. Plodding along with my database of photos. And it really is doing my head in without any doubt at all. Even the simplest task is either beyond the capacity of the program or else it’s beyond my capacity to make it work.
Who could ever have imagined that it would have taken an hour to add in an extra column and make the column fit into the order in which I want it to appear – and that’s in addition to all of the problems that I encountered yesterday?
As I’ve probably said before – back in the early 1990s we had a lightweight Office program called “Works for Windows” and that was our introduction to integrated office suites – and we could make the parts of that program do anything that we wanted – in a matter of seconds – never mind all of this nonsense that I seem to be encountering.
The lunchtime soup was delicious with the added herbs and spices that I added yesterday. It warmed me up nicely. And then I hit the streets.
On my way to the Sports Centre I passed by the building that is the headquarters of the Granville Terre et Mer” Comcom – the Community of Communes.
With many of the French communes being quite small – there’s even one with just one inhabitant – several might group together in a “Comcom” to organise a common water supply or a common refuse collection service or engage a public gardener to be shared between them – all of that kind of thing.
And this beautiful building is the headquarters for the “Comcom” that covers the smaller communes around here.
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon at the Sports Centre, and it would really have been a nice afternoon to be out, except for the bitter, howling wind.
It was really agony to stand here this afternoon, and it didn’t help by the building being closed and so there was no coffee on offer.
I can’t understand the lack of buvette here. It seems to be open whenever I bring a flask, and closed whenever I don’t, as if it knows that I am coming.
US Granville’s second XI were in action again this afternoon, against FC ST Lo Manche, the league leaders in blue.
The team that is second in the table obliged US Granville by losing, in the only other match to be played in the whole of Normandy, last night. So if can avoid losing today, they will go into second place.
The wind made this match a complete lottery and neither side seemed to be able to play with it and it was rather a scrappy match.
But US Granville did take the lead after half an hour when a cross into the area was headed out indecisively by a defender, right to a US Granville midfielder on the edge of the area. He had all the time in the world to pick his spot and fire into the bottom corner.
At the start of the second half, we had the only time that one of the teams attempted to use the wind to its advantage, and that, I suspect, was more by accident that design.
A high corner taken into the wind that caused a panic-stricken scamble on the St Lo goal-line, and eventually the ball was forced home by a US Granville attacker.
So Granville ran out 2-0 winners, the first team to beat FC St Lo Manche this season and are now in second place in the table. But I still think that their attack is far too lightweight for this level of football.
Just for a change, I came home a different way, walking down to the coast road.
There’s a good view across to St Pair sur Mer from just here so I stopped to take a photograph, almost being run down by a local policeman in the process.
And then I walked back along the coast road into Granville. I’d never been this way on foot before and it made a nice change to see some different scenery.
7It’s carnaval here next weekend, and all of the fairground lorries are coming into town. There were quite a few streaming past the Sports Centre while I was watching the match.
I was convinced that I saw an artic go past pulling no fewer than THREE trailers, and I was right because I tracked it down in the car park opposite the port.
Generally speaking, a “showman’s goods” licence allows a vehicle to pull a trailer containing his act, another containing his living accommodation and maybe yet another pulling the power unit such as a generator. Nowadays with most sites having mains electricity you don’t ever see the generator, and I suspect that this driver may well have been interpreting the rules in an unduly generous fashion.
Unless, of course, the rules for “showman’s goods” in France are different from in the UK, which is always a possibility. But anyway, it certainly puts my North American roadtrains into perspective.
They are apparently also setting up a fairground on the harbour and as I climbed up the hill towards home I could see all of the lorries and caravans set out on the end of the harbour.
I’ve yet to experience a really good mainland European “Carnaval” and I’m told that the Granville carnaval is one of the best that you can find.
And so I’m quite looking forward to being here when it all happens. Especially when the day after it ends, I have to head for Belgium.
Tea was, of course, vegan pizza. And I didn’t go far for my walk as the wind was astonishing. But no matter – what with the rest of my exertions I’ve done 111% of my daily activities today.
I reckon that I deserve a good sleep.
