Tag Archives: stuffed peppers

Thursday 10th September 2020 – IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING …

… the things that I see when I’m out and about on my travels around the town.

And it’s not as if I have to go all that far from home to find it either. I hadn’t gone 20 yards otside my front door this morning before I was confronted by a set of traffic lights.

“Road works going on in the old Medieval walled city” I mused to myself. I shall have to go for a look round later on to see what is happening.

And sure enough, while I was on my travels later this evening, I did come across what was causing the issues.

The road has been dug up on the corner of the Place Cambernon and the Rue Notre Dame. And judging by the names written on the “no parking” signs, it seems to be the Water company whose turn it is right now to dig up the streets.

It’s Thursday night as well, and the Pizza van is there tonight. And with the tables of the bar La Rafale being out in the square and its reserve place prohibited by the road works, it’s had to perch itself precariously on the corner.

Talking of perching oneself precariously on the corner, when the third alarm went off this morning I was perched precariously on the corner of the bed with my feet on the floor.

Not exactly awake but it still counts as being up and out of bed.

What was surprising about this was I’d had such a bad night. At one stage I thought that I would never ever drop off to sleep. There isn’t really much point in going to bed early if you can’t sleep.

When I finally got off to sleep last night I met another strange girl. She was from Venn which wasn’t too far from Eching (which it isn’t, but let’s not go allowing facts to get in the way of a good nocturnal ramble). There was this weird girls’ school and they were teaching these children all this dance, everything like that and poetry recital, that kind of thing. They had a kind of dancing competition. I wanted to see them about something but it was “oh no we can’t interrupt these proceedings now. It’s far too important. You’ll have to come back later”. Off they all went and I went back. All of these girls were in school uniform, grey with grey hats, that kind of thing, a very posh private school, that type of place. They all had taken some strange kind of wooden furniture, shelf kind of thing with two sides like blackboards that you could write on them. They had all taken these with them but there was one left in the garden. I mentioned it to the headmistress. She said “you’ll have to take that. It looks like one of the girls has forgotten it”. “What do you mean ‘I have to take it’?”. She said “you have to take it”. I asked “what do I do with it?”. She replied “you have to learn the ritual and at the appointed time tonight you’ll have to perform the ritual”. I thought to myself “what the hell am I going to be involved in now?”. She insisted that it was terribly important that I did this, so I ended up taking it home with me and stuck it in a corner when I returned home. I had to be very careful about who came to my house. We were listing stuff to sell and I can’t remember who was helping me now, maybe my brother I dunno. We’d listed some stuff to sell and we’d sold it and now we were listing some free stuff. He was listing some stuff that I thought was much more important to sell – we could get a good price for this – but no, he insisted on it being free. There was one thing that he insisted that people make an appointment to come round to pick it up. I said “that’s crazy, tying me to the house and I don’t want to be tied to the house. I want to get rid of these things as and when!”. We had a dispute about that and in the end we agreed that people would just have to ring up and say when they were coming to pick it up, a kind of compromise. After we’d done that, I said “hang on – I have something else to show you”. There was a girl in my house at this time – it might have been Pollux but I’m not too sure about this. I went and brought down this furniture thing and assembled it. I asked this girl ” how’s your Latin?”. She said “I come from Venn, it’s Venn that I speak, that’s near Eching in Germany, like Germany and Austria”. I replied “you’ll get on really well with Hans”. “Yes” she said, “that’s right. From Eching”. I showed them this and explained about this ritual that I had to do. One thing that I had forgotten was that during this competition I had 16 dances to learn. There had been a musician playing all of the dances and for a minute I’d been round with him doing something, trying to work out what the music was for these dances. It was another hot and sweaty night when I awoke and it took me hours to go back off to sleep as well.
Somewhat later I was with a girl and my father was around somewhere. I’d had to go out in a car and there had been some kind of confusion over which one I was to drive. It was suggested that i would take my father’s Zephyr 6 – the MkIV, not the MkIII which was his famous one 3816 TD. I went to try to organise something about all of this and I ended up with a pocket of keys. I had to start swapping them over. Then I noticed – I had to get up from my table at this bar place – and on the way back I noticed this key on the floor. It was the one that I needed to start the car. I showed it to the girl I was with and said “phew! That’s lucky!”. She asked what it was so I told her that it was the key to the car. My father then went to move all of his cars away. he took his mkIII Zephyr and drive it home and came back with the MkIV. There was still a bit of confusion about how we were going to go somewhere. I had a pocket full of rubbish and wondered how I was going to fit this key in. Then I couldn’t find the key and it was hidden in all this rubbish in my pocket. There was the question again about what car I was going in and we agreed that it was my father’s. I asked “what’s going to be in it?”. They replied “just his coat and one or two other little things”. I wanted to ask my father a couple of questions about his cars. I remember the two Ford E83W vans that we had – KLG 93 and XVT 772 – and I’m sure that there was one before them that had become stuck in my head, a 1937 van, and I wanted to know what we had had before that, and what he would consider to be his typical car if someone had to connect him with one particular car, which one would it be? I thought that it was important that he would tell me because of course he wouldn’t last for ever and if I didn’t start asking these questions soon I would never know.

But I’m not too sure why it is that Pollux has suddenly started making a series of appearances in my nocturnal rambles. Where has Castor got to?

There was some stuff on the dicaphone from yesterday too, so I transcribed that and ADDED IT TO THE ENTRY FOR YESTERDAY.

As well as having a shower this morning, I also cut my hair. It’s been a while since I’ve cut it and it was becoming a little straggly.

And then I went out to the shops.

We’ve seen the traffic lights around the corner but that was far from being the only excitement. There’s a huge mobile crane down there in the Rue Lecampion lifting a load of something or other over the roofs of the houses into the rear behind the Rue des Corsaires.

That was well worth a photo of course, and when I’m down there I shall make further enquiries to see what they are up to.

And sure enough, when I was down there I could see that there’s quite a major operation going on.

It’s difficult to say what they are doing but there was this kind of glazed roof – at least, it would be glazed had there been any glass in it but I imagine there soon will be – that they are presumably going to lift up and over and onto whatever it is that they are doing.

My first stop today was the railway station.

My Old Fogey’s railcard expired a few weeks ago and with me planning to go to Belgium for my hospital appointment at Castle Anthrax, I need it updated.

That was dealt with without any particular problem and then I went off to LIDL. There was nothing much there that attracted my attention although with fruit being so cheap right now (especially grapes, of course) I ended up with a huge pile of fruit.

On the way back I went past the Square Potel.

There’s an archaeological dig going on around there right now and we’ve seen the digger in the grounds of the museum. Today though, they were digging a trench in the square and there was an archaeologist examining some artefacts.

Having watched them for a short while I came on home, where I … errr … crashed out on the chair until lunchtime. That’s enough to make me feel really miserable.

After lunch I spent a pleasant hour or so working on the photos from Brittany at the end of June when we went off on the Spirit of Conrad.

And the sailing – or, at least, nautical – theme continued while I was out on my afternoon walk.

There were crowds of people out there enjoying the pleasant weather and looking out to sea as something rather large was moving about heading towards us. These days I can recognise the silhouette at quite some distance without needing to crop and enlarge it.

And it is as I expected. Joly France is on her way back with the afternoon ferry from the Ile de Chausey. She seems to be quite busy right now despite the end of the holiday season.

There were plenty of other boats out there too, as you could see in the previous photo.

There are several boats too much closer to home. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we seem to be in the middle of the rod-and-line fishing season. We have another small boat out there today with their rods out trying for a bite.

Here’s hoping that they will have more luck than anyone else who I have seen out there. Three and a half years have I been here and not a single bite have I seen

Anyway i pushed on along the path and round the headland to the path on the south side.

One of the things that I regret not doing while I’ve been living here is to make the most of the opportunities that the local sailing school can offer. I would have thought that with the season being over their activities would have ceased but there seems to be another class out there today.

Not having gone down there to make enquiries is an opportunity that I have let slip and I hope that I’ll have another opportunity to put that right.

When we saw the photo of Joly France just now, we saw another boat coming along behind it.

And as I carried on with my walk along the path this rather large pleasure boat came around the headland towards the port de plaisance and I reckon that this is the “other” boat from the previous photo.

Having a good look at this, it’s clear that there is plenty of money around here, what with one thing and another. Not around me though. It seems to have passed me by a long time ago.

Back here I did some Welsh revision and then had my hour on the guitars.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with rice, followed by apple pie. And then I went out for my evening walk.

There was a beautiful sunset tonight, although maybe I should say that the sun has long-since set. It was very reminiscent of some of the very late nights that I have seen in the High Arctic and makes me all nostalgic.

Before much longer, I’m going to have to make another return out there, even if it’s just to sit on the shore of the North West Passage and admire the sky.

My route carried on with a run down along the footpath, a walk around the corner to gather my breath and then another run across the Square Maurice Marland.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a couple of years I had a regular encounter with an old black cat called Minette

Ever since the turn of the year I only recall meeting her once and the feeling seemed to be that she had gone off across the rainbow bridge. However, much to my delight, she was there again tonight sitting on her windowsill waiting for her stroke.

That cheered me up no end.

Nothing much else going on, apart from the roadworks that we have seen, so instead I came home to write up my notes.

Tomorrow I have a full day at home in which I can catch up with some arrears. I also need to book my voyage to Leuven for my visit to Castle Anthrax and so that will be a priority too.

But sleep is the first thing to do. And who will come with me on a travel tonight?

Tuesday 1st September 2020 – I’VE HAD A …

… much better day today, which will surprise many people. In fact, even more surprisingly, it was such a better day that I even managed to fit in three runs this evening.

Short they may have been (although two of them were longer than when I first started running again a year ago) but runs nevertheless.

And you wouldn’t have bet on that yesterday, would you?

What was even more surprising is that I actually managed to beat the third alarm this morning. And it’s been such a long time since that has happened too.

Plenty of voyages during the night too. I started off the night walking the streets of Paris last night and I was interviewing someone about some kind of incident that had happened at a parking meter. It was a guy on a motorbike and sidecar and I took a statement or whatever and asked the guy to produce his driving licence for me. I had no doubt that he was an official kind of person and looked quite presentable and respectable. Nevertheless I asked for his papers and he replied “you aren’t in uniform” and opened up the throttle of his motorbike. I grabbed hold of him by the lapel and ended up overturning the motorbike and sidecar and dragging him off into the street. Then I got on the radio and asked for assistance.
Before that there had been some kind of archaeology dig. A group of us was taking part in it. Normally we were finding comparatively modern things but we suddenly came across a complete skeleton of a girl aged about 11 that had been buried in a bank. We’d excavated it and it was pretty much complete. Zero was there too. She was in a red jumper grey skirt and red tights. She was lying on the bed and we were talking about this skeleton, saying how it might have been her even and so on. All the time we were talking about this skeleton. They asked what i was going to do with it. I said that I would put it back where it came from first, back in this little place and then we’ll have a think about it.
There was another dream about a great big black bull and I was having to fit bolts into it for some reason or other. It was a huge hairy type of bull like a rastaman. I was talking to it about it being a rastaman and explaining what I was doing – the bull saying “ohh yes I like that – that’s very good”. I was tightening up the bolts with a huge spanner, not too tight though. I turned to the final bolt on the left-hand flank and it just upped and wandered off. I had to chase all the way after it. every time I got close to it it moved on again. By this time it had turned into a cat so I was just following this cat around through this crowded room. Eventually it went to settle down right in the very far corner the furthest possible point away from where I was.

That’s not everything either. There was a little bit of truncated, incoherent stuff from some voyage or other that never quite made it onto the dictaphone, and also another round of stuff that you wouldn’t thank me for posting while you are eating a meal or something.

After breakfast I did some paperwork and also SHOCK! HORROR! some tidying up. Mind you, it doesn’t look much like it right now.

However one thing that I did today was to finish as far as I can the radio project on which I’ve been working. The final track has been selected too and all that remains is to write out the closing speech, dictate and edit it and then combine it with what I’ve already done and with the final track.

In fact, I could have finished it today but Rosemary telephoned me for a chat and we were on the telephone for well over an hour.

This afternoon I went out for my usual walk in the sun (and wind).

And I hadn’t gone more than 10 yards out of the building before I was dive-bombed by a couple of bird-men of Alcatraz.

It’s another one of these tandem machines with two people in it. Ideal for doing some photography or even some bomb-aiming should the need ever arise.

It’s just as well that there was enough wind to get them off the ground.

For a change I went for my afternoon walk around the headland instead of around the walls, for reasons that I will explain in due course.

The view once more was tremendous and we could see for miles. Right in the centre of this photograph is the lighthouse at Cap Fréhel, that I could see quite clearly with the naked eye.

There’s a boat out to sea right on the right-hand edge of the photo and also a marker light off the coast clearly visible to the left. This might possibly be round about the Ile Agot or the Ebihens archipelago

There wasn’t very much out there in the way of marine traffic today.

Not many fishing boats at all out there, although there were several smaller boats out there. A couple of speedboats rather like this one here in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

It looks to me as if they might be stopping there to do some fishing or something like that. It’s that time of the year.

Indeed, it wasn’t just out at sea that there was fishing going on.

Here on the rocks there were several fishermen like these two casting their lines into the sea. I stood and watched them for quite a while but once more, I didn’t actually see anyone catch anything.

In fact in all the years that I’ve been watching fishermen on the rocks here in Granville, I have yet to see anyone catch any fish at all with a rod and line.

My walk carried on around the headland until I came to the viewpoint overlooking the chantier navale.

We still have the same seven boats in there that have been in there for the last few days. And because we are still in working hours, a few men are down there working on the various boats.

It’s keeping them very busy down there, whether it’s the employees of the shipbuilder, representatives of the owners or specialist tradesmen and it’s all good news for the town.

It wasn’t just out at sea and here on the rocks that there were plenty of people

While I was out there there was a lot going on in the air. We’ve seen the bird-men of Alcatraz a little earlier and right now while I was walking along the footpath I was buzzed by a light aeroplane flying overhead.

There seems to be plenty going on in the air right now, and a trip to the airport at Donville-les-Bains will have to be on the cards for me one of these days in the near future.

One thing about today is that the schools have started back.

You can tell that by the fact that we are back with the pathetic parking again – a car parked with two wheels on the pavement blocking it off for pedestrians when there is a perfectly good free car park just 50 yards away.

And look at the people congregating around the gate too. No sense of social distancing and not very many facemasks either.

It’s no wonder that the virus is currently running rampant around the country with all of this going on. I don’t know how people expect this virus to be over.

Back here I finished off my work and had tea. Another stuffed pepper with vegetables and rice, followed by rice pudding which was delicious

Then it was out for my evening walk tonight.

Feeling energetic I went around the walls and on the flat parts where there was no-one around, I broke into a run or two. It might not have been much but I went way beyond where I left off when I started running down there a year ago.

Round at the viewpoint over the Plat Gousset I had a look down at the Place Marechal Foch. There were quite a few people out for a walk round there, and it was nice to see the streetlights switched on too.

During the winter they had them switched off, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and it made photography something of a challenge. I hope that they keep them on this winter.

From there I had a second run along the
Square Maurice Marland and right up the ramp at the far end.

We’d seen the moon yesterday shining up above St Pair sur Mer but tonight as I watched, the moon slowly rose up above the cliffs and into view. It was really quite spectacular.

From there I had a wander home, breaking into another run for the last 50 yards or so.

back here I’ve written up my notes and now I’m off to bed, hoping to have another good night and hopefully another better day tomorrow – not that I have too much optimism about it.

But one thing that I know is that in approximately 5 hours time a year ago, my life changed dramatically thanks to one particular incident that happened at roughly that moment.

It was an incident that meant a great deal to me and which I won’t ever forget, regardless of anything else Even a year later, I still can’t get it all out of my mind.

Monday 24th August 2020 – IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE …

… that just 6 weeks or so ago I was running a couple of kilometres every night without all that much effort.

These days I can barely stagger round the circuit and end up collapsing in a heap on my chair for a couple of hours.

And it all started so well too.

The alarms went off as usual and to my surprise, as well as that of everyone else, I was actually up and out of bed by the time the third alarm went off. And it’s been a good while since I’ve done that

Some stuff on the dictaphone too.

I was with, of all people, a certain former girlfriend last night. I wondered what the heck she was doing featuring in my nocturnal rambles because I haven’t spent a moment thinking about her for 45 years or so. We started off just being acquaintances and she was having to stay somewhere but no-one had come up with a place. I said “not to worry because if the worst comes to the worst I have a caravan in a yard just off the A13 where you can stay in East London. She asked about it and I said “it’s not particularly noisy”. Anyway so we drifted on through this evening and in the end her offer of accommodation hadn’t turned up so she came to my caravan. She got into bed but there was nowhere really for me to sleep so I slept on the other edge of the bed. After a while she said that she wanted a cuddle so I got right over to her side and gave her a cuddle. Of course things started to go on from there. Her mother put in an appearance at this point and said something like “I know what you two are doing” which of course we weren’t particularly doing but nevertheless. What it had to do with her mother I realy don’t know because the girl was a young adult. So it went on like that, running around in bed. But I had to get up to go to work – it was 09:15 but I suddenly realised that she wasn’t going into work today so we started discussing her working arrrangements and she was telling me about her working time for next week. Her boss had cocked things up as she had to go to a certai factory – coal mine – on Friday and it was closed on that day. I asked her if she had a key to the timekeeper’s lodge. She said “yes” so I said that it doesn’t really matter then because she can time herself in and out again . I had to get up and went outside. It was rzasonably warm for the time of year so I told everyone, her, her mother, my friend who was hanging around that they didn’t need their jackets on today.

There was something else on the dictaphone too and this I don’t understand. I dictated that we had this beautiful view of three horses – between the legs of one we saw the second and in between the legs of that we saw the third, all very surreal. And what that was all about, I don’t have the slightest idea.

One thing about restarting work after a long holiday is that the concentration isn’t there and it takes an age to do the simplest of tasks. It took me until all of 15:50 to choose the 10 tracks of music for the next radio show and to combine them in pairs.

And then I forgot to add in the opening announcement to the first pair.

There was a break for lunch of course – more of my nice fresh loaf – but I don’t know where the rest of the time went.

At about 15:50 I knocked off and went for my afternoon walk – or stagger, more like.

And while I was walking along the rue du Nord I noticed behind me that Joly France was on her travels again. Taking the afternoon ferry to the Ile de Chausey.

And of course, while I was taking the photo, I was photo-bombed yet again by a seagull. Of course there are so many more of those around at the moment with the babies taking to the air.

My walk carried on along the walls underneath the rue du Nord to the viewpoint overlooking the Plat Gousset.

The tide seemed to be on its way out and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it goes quite far out. But they have cleaned out the tidal swimming pool and that is proving to be quite popular with the tourists.

You can see that they are all enjoying it down there, under the surveillance of a lifeguard in the flourescent jacket.

carrying on around into the Square Maurice Marland, I noticed that all of the baby seagulls have flown the nest; which is no surprise of course.

So I pushed on along on my walk to where there was a good view overlooking the harbour. My attention was drawn to the lorry over there that was busy unloading a pile of building material onto the quayside.

There’s a dozen or so gas bottles too, and so this all looks to me as if there’s going to be some serious work being undertaken over there in early course.

Back here I started to write out the notes for the radio programme. And I did about three or four lines too before I crashed out. And that’s how I stayed until about 18:50.

About three hours all told that I was out like a light, and you’ve no idea just how much that dismayed me.

Tea was stuffed pepper and rice, followed by apple crumble with ice cream and soya coconut stuff.

And then I went out for my evening walk.

It wasn’t quite dark outside and you can see the coast of Jersey out there in the background. What caught my attention though was the light. It looks as if it’s on the coast but it isn’t as far as I can tell. It’s off the coast and is probably a fishing boat.

What surprised me about it was that the light wasn’t there at first. I was admiring the Jersey coast when it was suddenly switched on, right in front of my eyes.

That wasn’t the ony light that was out there either.

There was quite a collection of lights out to sea tonight. The most interesting was the red light on this speedboat that was coming across the Channel from the Ile de Chausey.

There were several yachts moored off the entrance to the harbour too. They were all displaying masthead lights and in the twilight it was looking quite impressive.

My walk continued around the headland to the viewpoint overlooking the chantier Navale

It’s pretty full in there tonight. All five berths are occupied by a variety of fishing boats and that’s good news as far as I’m concerned.

So having noted all of that, I continued on my trek around and back home, walking rather slowly rather than going at a run as I might have done a couple of months ago.

Back here I wrote up my notes and now I’m off to bed. Not quite as early as I would like and it’s going to be another busy day as well.

It’s hard to get back into the swing of things when i’m not feeling too well, but I’ll just have to do my best.

Friday 24th July 2020 – I’M WHACKED PART II

It’s been another really difficult day today right enough.

Just for a change … “quite” – ed … I missed the three alarms. I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave the bed. 06:30 was when I finally saw the light.

Rosemary brought me a cup of tea again at 07:00 which was nice, and I listened to the dictaphone in luxury.

We were moving about exploring last night and some of our party – we were in the snows – decided that we would go for a look round. he said “I’d be away for a few months” so off he went and we stayed there in our tents during the winter amusing ourselves and keeping ourselves busy. This guy never ever came back. After a month or so we were thinking of having a search party for him.

There was something else to do with – I don’t know what it was about really. The only thing that i can remember from this dream was that there were some people discussing some kind of – I didn’t know what it was. They were discussing this object and I was talking about something that needed examining and checking over. The guy said “that’s all right. I’ve replaced them anyway with normal stuff”. When I had a look, what I was looking at was a dark blue Ford Escort and what he had been referring to was some optional extra wheels that he had now taken off and put on some standard ones.

when I finished the paperwork we had breakfast.

Having rung Ingrid we set off for St Eloy les Mines and the dechetterie and tipped the rubbish into the container. And that wasn’t easy, being surrounded by people who didn’t know how to drive.

Having finally been able to empty the rubbish out of the trailer, we pushed off to chez moi again.

One of the things that I wanted to do that I hadn’t done the other day was to fight my way into the barn. So donning the gloves and wielding the brushcutter off I went and fought my way through the brambles.

As usual, Rosemary and Ingrid (when she arrived) followed on behind with the clippers and trimmers to make the passage easier.

It took a while to accomplish it too. Ingrid and I aren’t well and the heat was oppressive as well so we worked to a rhythm of maybe 20 minutes working and then a 10-minute pause for water and a breather. And all of this seemed to work because we made it across to the barn in the end without any undue difficulty.

From somewhere, and I’m not sure where, I even found the strength to fight my way to the downhill lean-to and I can get in there now, although I’m not too sure that I actually want to. The state of the place filled me with dismay.

another task that needed doing, for which Rosemary volunteered, was to sweep the concrete hardstanding.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it was overwhelmed with debris but we took most of that down to the dechetterie the other day. But there was still a lot of dust and dirt, old leaves, weeds and the like that were all over the place looking untidy so Rosemary went berserk with the yard brush.

Ingrid and I joined in later when we had finished what we were doing and by the time that we were ready to go, the place was looking all quite nice and tidy. And if that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is.

By the time that we were finished we were totally exhausted. It was something like a stagger back home. Nothing important for the dechetterie so in the end we just bagged the rubbish and dropped it in the waste bin.

When we plucked up the courage (round about 16:00) we had lunch and then I crashed out for an hour or so. Well away with the fairies.

Later I fixed a dismantled settee and then it was my turn to make tea. We had a stuffed pepper which Rosemary enjoyed very much.

A shower and a clothes wash finished my day – and finished me too. I’m now off to bed to catch up with my beauty sleep.

Monday 22nd June 2020 – THIS MORNING …

… was another morning to really forget about as far as the “getting up” stakes went.

And it beats me as to why, really, because whilst it wasn’t exactly an early night, I crashed out and went to bed before I’d finished the night’s tasks. Finish the journal and do the back-up.

And the back-up is becoming quite complicated these days.

There’s been an upgrade to the operating system that I use – a major upgrade – and some of the functions are missing.

In the past there was a “search” function where you could specify “today” or “yesterday” or “this month” or “this year”. I have a 128GB memory stick in one of the USB ports and I would would simply “search” for “today” on the computer’s hard drives (there are four in here) and it would come up with all of the files that I’ve created or modified today, then I would just drag copies onto the memory stick.

But that function seems to have gone and what i’m having to do in the meantime until I find a work-around is to go into each of the hard drives on the computer, list all of the files and drag over copies of those that were last saved today.

And that takes about 10 times as long.

So when I eventually did heave myself out of bed and have my medication, I had a listen to the dictaphone. Yesterday’s voyage was transcribed and I amended the journal entry to include it.

But as for the one from last night, I was for ever writing that one out.

Last night I was in Canada – at least, I assumed that it was in Canada. I was in my car off taking photographs and there was someone in a car. But we started – I had to go to the tax office and I had to fill in a load of forms. One of them was the Vanden Plas that I’d got and how I’d come by it, how I was given it, all that kind of thing. And I was being interviewed by these two people – first one and then the other. They were asking me loads of questions about all this kind of thing. The first one came back with a pile of forms. “Here’s a pile of forms and you’ll have to follow the instructions that you will be receiving scrupulously” I had a quick glance though these forms and I couldn’t see what there was in there of any particular importance. I thought “I’ll find out in due course”. To go out it was liek a kind of maze of one room inside another, all with wallpaper painted over them and a rotted chipboard door in one wall that had swollen up. As I was going out a woman was going out with a girl who had her hair in pink pigtails. She went and I got in my car and drove off. Just then I encountered another car that had been bogged down in the gravel and they were trying to push it to get it out. The rear left tyre was totally flat on it, all the tyres were worn, the paintwork was peeling, it was an absolute mess this car.Anyway they pushed it out got into it and drove away. I thought “God imagine a car like that on the road in the Uk these days. My tyre was flat now so I took out the spare and put the wheel on the same nuts as the one that was still on there that was flat so I had two wheels on that particular corner. Just then a girl came past and we started chatting. A little earlier I’d been looking at a map and there was a promontory a way out from here miles down some narrow roads which had a shop there called something like “when the lorry stops, the community stops” or something like that. I imagine that it was a lorry that would take all the supplies out there. She was actually talking about what was I doing here, looking at my car and saying how a train doesn’t do this and a train doesn’t do that and a train doesn’t need inflatable tyres and so on. We started walking off down this road round this lake. I had a dog with me, a black and white sheepdog called Shep. She said “we’ll go on, there are some places to photograph and then we can go back to my place”. I thought “what’s happening here?” So we wandered off with the dog and by this time we had another guy with us – the three of us. The dog decided to disappear so I shouted after him to come back and he knew which way we were going. She stopped at this old derelict house and she said that it was something to do with – she came out with a quote from a book which the other guy immediately recognised as one of these American authors of the 19th Century and saying “is that the house where one of his characters lived?” He named the character and I can’t remember it now. We were talking about this and the blasted dog still hadn’t come back. I thought that I’d better go and look for this dog but I thought “if I do that this guy is going to get his feet under the table with this girl isn’t he? But the dog is much more important, isn’t it?”

Yes, I’m back to having anxiety attacks in my dreams again, although seriously, I don’t think that I ever stopped them over the last few years.

Ohhhh! To have a couple of pleasant voyages like I used to have with convivial companions. It’s been ages since TOTGA, Castor and one or two others have come along to accompany me.

It took me much longer to deal with the dictaphone notes than it ought to have done, and there was the Welsh homework to attend to. All of that took me up to lunchtime which was taken on the wall overlooking the harbour.

All alone, with no lizards, no passers-by and nothing going on down in the harbour. But even so, there has to be something to be said for home-made hummus spread out on home-made bread.

This afternoon I had a radio project to deal with – a live concert to bring myself into synch with everything else. I ended up with 57:09 of music and so I dictated piles of introduction – only to find that I was 15 seconds short – something that seemed most unlikely to me but there we were.

Consequently I dictated some more – only to find that I was still 5 seconds short. But some spurious applause fed into the soundtrack soon dealt with that issue and it’s come out quite well.

There were the usual breaks during the day of course.

For a start, there was the afternoon walk outside. rather windy but apart from that it was absolutely beautiful weather. The tide was well out although there weren’t too many people down there enjoying the sunshine which was quite a surprise to me.

Not that I intended to go down there. I was off for my walk around the headland.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve spent a lot of time looking at fishermen just recently.

We have the peche à pied of course – the people who scavenge amongst the rocks for the shellfish, and those with rod and line percehed on the rocks. There’s also plenty of movement out at sea too – with the speedboat roaring past the guy paddling his own canoe.

Fishing rods bristling everywhere of course. They all mean business, but in their own fashion.

It’s not only humans who are out there fishing.

The local wildlife spends a lot of its time fishing too. We’ve seen whole socks of fleagulls loitering on the rocks waiting for the tide to go out so that they too can go scavenging in the rock pools.

This bunch here seems to he having some kind of feeding frenzy down there in that tidal rock pool. And no fighting means that there must be plenty of food to go round.

And that’s just as well. You mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish

On the way round to where the seagulls wee hanging out, I went past the memorial to the seafarers.

There has been a lifeboat station here for a considerable length of time and a couple of crews have lost their lives over the years while out on a rescue.

The memorial stands just here overlooking le Loup – the light that marks the submerged rock at the entrance to the harbour – the Baie de Mont St Michel and the coastal towns of St Pair sur Mer, Kairon-Plage and Jullouville.

There wasn’t a great deal else happening out there so I came on home to carry on with my radio project. But, once more, in something that is becoming only too regular an occurrence these days, I ended up in the arms of Morpheus for 20 minutes or so. And I’m thoroughly fed up of all of this.

There was the usual hour or so on the guitars during which I found that I had forgotten most of what I had learnt.

Although on the 6-string I’ve found that I’ve been changing from Bm to F without even thinking about it and without even looking. 6 months ago I couldn’t even play them and I was changing key whenever a bar chord cropped up in my playing.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper followed by apple crumble and soya dessert. And I really had to force myself to eat it because my appetite has well and truly gone now.

So later on I went out for my run, and I never felt less like it than I do right now.

All the way up to the top of the hill, around the corner and down to the clifftop without stopping, to see what was going on there. We saw a zodiac out there earlier with a pile of men going fishing, but I’m not sure if that’s the same one.

The tide is right in so that they don’t have to go too far out from the cliffs this evening.

It was a really beautiful evening and there were quite a few people out there enjoying the beautiful sunset.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw a pile of people picnicking in one of the old gun emplacements, and tonight there’s a different crowd in occupation

It seems to me that that’s the place to be if you are having a family picnic and there’s no doubt that the view from there out across the English Channel to the Ile de Chausey and down the Brittany coast is certainly spectacular.

My walk continued across the lawn and the car park and down onto the path at the extremity of the headland.

And as I arrived there, this beautiful little yacht went sailing past. It really did make me feel quite jealous and how I wished that I could be out there right now.

In fact I spoke to someone whom I know about going out sme time on a yacht but he never ever got back to me about it so I imagine that that particular plan is kicked in the head.

At this rate I can see me ending up buying a boat and had I been in better health I probably would. But then again, had I been in better health I wouldn’t be here, would I?

It’s surprising that during the course of the day we’ve seen almost everything out there fishing – except for anyone perched on the rocks.

We almost have to wait until the end of the evenign before we finally encounter someone. He’s climbed down the old collapsing stairs (they are fenced off these days) to where there’s a small tidal beach.

The tide is right in now of course, so he’s taking the usual step of perching himself on a rock and casting his line into the water from there.

Whether he’s actually catching anything is another question entirely.

From there I ran on down to the viewpoint on top of the cliffs and as there was nothing happening there either I ran on all the way down through the medieval town and round on the rue du Nord to the viewpoint.

There’s no beach here to picnic on when the tide is in, so I wasn’t expecting any picnickers. But that didn’t worry these people here. They simply perched themselves on a handy ledge on the rocks and soaked up the sun.

That’s a place that i’m going to remember for future reference. It seems to have everything.

And they were in luck because there was plenty of sun to soak up.

It was another night of beautiful sunset so I stayed there fora while to enjoy it and then ran on home to write up the notes.

Earlier on I’d said that I didn’t feel at all like going out. But somehow the runs seemed to be a little easier than they have been over the last couple of days.

It’s clearly a state of mind that affecting me right now and I think that i’m sinking into deep depression. And that’s all that I need right now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last summer when I was on my Transatlantic and Arctic escapade for several months without my four-weekly cancer treatment, I ended up deep in the depths of a depression.

On one or two occasions I expressed myself in a manner that made me unwelcome in one or two places and there are still three or four days at the end of August and the beginning of September where I haven’t published my notes because of what I wrote at the time and the manner in which I wrote it.

Back in February when my cancer treatment was dramatically stopped “for the duration” I remember writing something like “God knows what state I’m going to be in by the time they call me back” so it’s no surprise.

It’s just as well that there isn’t anyone around who gets on my nerves otherwise we might have another couple of “those” moments.

But anyway, you don’t want me to burden you with my troubles. You have enough of your own to be dealing with. I’ll go to bed instead before this Steve Harley concert that I’m listening to drags me deeper into the pit.

Who’s going to come along and disturb my sleep tonight?

Monday 15th June 2020 – I WAS HARD …

… at it all day today for a change) and by the time I knocked off at 18:15 I’d completed a whole radio project.

It was one of my live concerts which regular readers of this rubbish might think are usually easier than the usual ones – and usually they are. But not this one. Not at all.

Someone had very kindly send me a pile of music (which reminds me – if you are in a group and want your music featured on my shows, get in touch!) for a live concert, which was very nice of them and I never decry the effort, but it was all unusable.

It was a case of scouring the internet to see what I could find, re-manipulating and remixing the rest and then editing it and merging it all together. It’s ended up a bit of a dog’s breakfast, but there wasn’t all that much I could about it.

So in the end I wrote the intro, dictated it, uploaded it to the computer, edited it, and then merged it into the other part, and then had to edit everything to make it fit the on-hour time slot.

And if you think that’s a lot of work, it’s not all that I had to do either. And it didn’t help much that I missed the third alarm as well. Only by a few minutes but missed it all the same.

After the meds I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I had been during the night. I was actually working with someone for whom I don’t really care all that much in real life. We had a tyre depot or we had taken one over. It wasn’t particularly very busy but we were just doing odd jobs and things just to tide us over while we established ourselves. We’d taken it over from some other people, one of their depots and we noticed that we were getting into Novermber but we hadn’t had any calls to change tyres for winter or anything like that and I would have expected that to have been happening round about now. So I was wondering whether they were keeping all of the good jobs back from us and doing them themselves. I was talking to another friend on line and he was asking about how things were. I explained that I hadn’t had time to devote anything to any project that I particularly wanted to do because earning a living was the priority and as no-one wanted to employ me I’ve been having to create a business for myself and I was telling him about this tyre depot.

There were a few things that needed doing and then for the rest of the morning I dealt with my Welsh homework. And I found that I had forgotten most of what I had learnt last week so I had to revise it again.

There was the break for lunch of course, and also the brak for my afternoon walk.

It was trying its best to rain when I went out there this afternoon, so i didn’t like to hang around too much.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen piles of weird buoys and maritime markers bobbing up and down in the water around the coast. There’s another one here just now, with a couple of boats – a zodiac and a speedboat loitering around it.

It’s difficult to see what they are doing – whether they are fishing with rod and line or whether they are doing something with the buoy.

No prizes what this guy is doing here.

With not very much (and even fewer people) around on the lawn I wandered off around the headland to see if there was anything happening there. Again, not an awful lot except this guy fishing from the rocks.

It’s quite a scramble to reach that particular point and I bet that it’s even more difficult scrambling back up the hill, especially with a full catch.

And I’m not convinced about his choice of attire either, and I have a feeling that he’ll be regretting it before much longer.

Just look over there at the Brittany coast. That’s a couple of wicked rainstorms and they are heading right this way. I’m not too bothered because I’ll be home in five minutes. It’ll take him at least that to put away his gear and scramble up the rocks.

There are plenty of boats out there too and they’ll know all about it when the rainstorm hits them in mid-ocean or whatever

That’s not the best of it either.

My walk took me further around the headland to the south side and this was the sight that greeted me there. A huge rain cloud has blown in from the bay and enveloped the Pointe de Carolles in its wet and clammy grasp.

It’s slowly heading up the coast and as I watched it advance, it slowly spread its shround all over Jullouville.

“This isn’t the time to be hanging about” I reckoned, and headed back for my apartment

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the weekend we saw the “no parking” notices on the part of the car park that is on the public part of the Place d’Armes.

Being intrigued to see what was happening there I went round for a good look. It’s not easy to see what they will be doing but we have a builder’s mobile office parked here now.

Not only that, there’s a generator just parked there waiting for just anyone to come along, pick it up and drive away. Imagine that in the UK!

On my way back I saw Gribouille sitting on his windowsill so I went to give him a stroke, only to find Nicole there struggling with her drawers, with her hand still in a plaster.

Gallant me, I went to give her a hand. I glued them back together for her and slid them back into the unit.

Back outside it was now teeming down. The rain had caught me up so I came inside quickly.

After my hour on the guitars I ended up with a stuffed pepper for tea. And the amount of fresh food that I’ve had to throw away due to not eating is appalling. I hate throwing food away.

Later on I went for my evening walk and run around the headland.

First stop though was to see what was going on where the builders’ office was. And we seem to have acquired a pile of tarmac and sand from somewhere. They must be digging up somewhere, but I’ve no idea where.

Having examined that, I ran off up the road – a little bit (just a little bit) easier than it was been. And having recovered my breath I ran on down to the clifftop.

My itinerant was there again. I reckon that he’s here for the duration.

He wasn’t the only one here either – although he might well have been seeing as how quiet the whole area was. There was just one other couple here – a young couple sitting in the sun quietly watching it sink down into the sea

It’s a really nice way to spend a summer evening.

And talking about nice ways to spend summer evenings, I’ve had an e-mail completely out of the blue from someone who played a large part in my life 45 years ago and who I’ve seen on a few occasions since, but not for about 10 years.

So what’s happening here?

No prizes for guessing what’s happening here.

A couple of fishing boats out there, almost stationary. So I imagine that they have their fishing equipment out and are dredging up the sea bed for the shellfish. I’m determined to get out there one day and see how they do it.

Despite it being overcast, there was another excellent view all the way down the Brittany coast towards Cap Fréhel. Not as good as the last time but still impressive enough.

As I walked across the lawn by the Resistance memorial, the sun suddenly came dramatically out of the clouds and lit up the Chateau de la Crête.

Ordinarily I would wait until I’m down on the other side of the headland where there’s an unrestricted view, but the weather is being rather capricious just now and you can’t rely on there still being the same effect in five minutes time.

But at least you get to see one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall. They don’t feature very often in my photos for one reason or another.

Nothing else of any importance happened at all. My run all the way in its several stages) down to the viewpoint at the rue du Nord was pretty uneventful.

There on the beach though I could see that a group of picnickers weas just installing itself down among the rocks. I didn’t think that it was warm enough for that, but they clearly do.

But when you ae young you are pretty much immune to that kind of thing. Yes, since I had that e-mail earlier, I’ve gone all nostalgic and broody.

Instead of musing on the past, I straightened myself up and admired the sunset.

It’s another one of these wonderful mid-evening lights again and I really like the effect that it gives.

But I couldn’t stay for long. I had a chat with a couple of people admiring the apartment that’s for sale, especially when the woman stood on one of the bollards in the street to have a better view and it sank into the ground under her weight.

Tomorrow I have my Welsh class so I need to revise and prepare for it.

That means an early night, in the hope that I can be out of bed early.

Some hope, hey?

Monday 1st June 2020 – WHAT STARTED OFF …

… as a really good day disintegrated pretty quickly into the usual chaotic mess and there’s now yet more stuff piled up in the queue of arrears to be dealt with.

So while you admire the photos of the young boys taking a giant step for mankind into the English Channel off the ramp at the Plat Gousset, I shall enlarge.

And I might even tell you about it too.

In fact, there was a hint if it all starting to go wrong last night when at about 23:15, halfway through writing up my notes, I was suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue.

That was the cue for me to call it a night and stagger off to bed. It wasn’t a worry because it’s happened before … “and it will happen again” – ed … and I’ll catch up with it soon enough.

However, in what will come as a totaly surprise to just about everyone, I reckon, including me, I awoke with the first alarm and didn’t go back to sleep as I normally do.

As a matter of fact, when the third alarm went off I was in the kitchen mixing my morning cordial with which to take my medication.

And that’s not something that happens every day either, especially just recently.

Nothing on the dictaphone either – I don’t seem to have gone anywhere during the night so it must have been a really solid sleep.

That meant that I could have a good half-hour or so on adding to my notes from yesterday before the medication worked and I could go to breakfast.

After breakfast I had tidying up to do because I was having visitors. It’s one good thing about having them, in that it does prompt me to clean up the place.

Sure enough, at 10:00, Laurent came round and we had a really good chat about all kinds of things and made a plan for a day out on Thursday. He knows of a few places that might interest me, like France’s answer to New Brunswick’s LePreau nuclear reactor, which is having a similar amount of success.

And if we take some potatoes with us, we can have fission chips for lunch.

After Laurent left there was a radio project to prepare.

Luckily I’d already done half a dozen live concerts in the past for another project when Liz and I ran “Radio Anglais” so I pinched one of those, wrote an introduction, dictated and edited it and merged it in to make an hour-long concert for this radio station.

Just like that!

That meant a very late lunch, unfortunately. And I was good and ready for it too by now.

It was a really beautiful afternoon, right enough, so I went outside and sat on my wall with my butties and my book. With the air being so clear these days we could wee right across to Cancale over there on the Brittany coast.

That’s about 18 miles away as the crow flies, yet you would never ever think so by looking at the photo.

The tide was coming in quite rapidly as I sat there. I could actually see it rising before my very eyes.

As a result one lot of fishing boats was heading out of the harbour to go to work while an earlier wave of boats was on its way back in to unload the morning’s catch.

There was the usual pile of pleasure boats too. Perhaps I ought to mention that it’s a Bank Holiday today and many people are off work.

Back here I made a start on the second week of my Accountancy course – but not for very long because it was time to go for my afternoon walk.

With it being such a beautiful day, there were the usual crowds out there.

This cabin cruiser was sitting in the sea quite a long way out and if I possessed a boat I would be out there too in this kind of weather.

There’s another one of those marker buoys there too, over there to the right of the boat. It’s hard to see because it’s black, and that’s not the best colour to have in the sea because it’s pretty difficult to see.

What’s wrong with yellow or orange?

It goes without saying that in this weather and a Bank Holiday too there are the usual crowds on the beach.

That means that in order to escape the madding crowds, people have to go further and further into the crooks and nannies in order to find some peace and quiet. And it doesn’t get much more isolated than the spot that they have chosen.

As an aside … “here we go!” – ed … I once told a friend that I had gone into the country to get a little piece and quiet.
“Don’t you mean ‘peace’?” he asked.
“No” I replied. “I mean ‘piece’, and I got one too, but she just wouldn’t keep quiet”

Standing on the clifftop overlooking the sea I fell in with a neighbour of mine who was busy admiring the scenery

We spent quite a long time admiring the scenery and putting the world to rights, like you do. And our discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Captain Matthew Webb. Not exactly “swimming along the old canal”
“That carried the bricks to Lawley” though.

He was probably “paying a call at Dawley Bank on the way to his destination” but somehow missed his turning along the route.

We mantioned earlier something about the crowds on the beach and the necessity to find a quiet corner.

But there aren’t any crowds on the beach right now, and for the simple reason is that there isn’t much of a beach for them to be crowding on.

The tide is still well in and in a few minutes even that little bit of beach will be awash with water. Not that it’s stopping all of those people from taking to the waters. It was the right kind of day for it.

Round at the lookout over the Place Marechal Foch I went to see how they were progressing with the re-roofing.

And the answer is “not as quickly as I was expecting”. They have done about two thirds of it and they have put some fancy galvanised covering over the dormer windows. But there is still plenty to do.

However it’s looking like a very neat job and it will be somethign to admire when it’s finished, sure enough.

This was interesting too. I wasn’t sure what was going on with this particular yacht but, sensing that there was a catastrophe in the making, I stood there with bated breath and the camera at the ready.

But I was to be confounded yet again because the crew on board the yacht managed to straighten out the boat after making their very tight turn and sailed off into the sunset.

Or, at least, they would have done had this event taken place a couple of hours later.

But I was impressed with how they managed to get their boat upright again.

There was plenty of other maritime activity out there this afternoon too.

There were the usual yachts of course, several of which we have seen already, but this boat that was slowly chugging past looked to be very interesting. I wasn’t sure whether it was a yacht with its mast down or a streamlined cabin cruiser, but it was making comfortable progress even if it was towing its dinghy behind it.

As for me, I had to make comfortable progress and came back to make myself a coffee.

There was also my Accountancy course to attack, but shame as it is to say it, I crashed out on the chair. Not just for five or ten minutes either but a really deep 45 minutes the like of which I used to have when this illness first took hold and which I thought that I had shaken off.

That’s a tragedy because I have so much to do and I’m just getting farther and farther behind.

When it came round to 18:00 I was still somewhere else in my head but I managed to get myself together and spend the usual hour on the guitars.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and rice, followed by apple pie and soya coconut cream.

And then it was time to go out for my evening runs.

With not feeling too goo, every step was agony but I made it all the way round on my normal route. But at the clifftop I had to stop and take a photo of the spectacular view.

And just why it’s spectacular is that over there is, I reckon, Cap Fréhel on the Brittany coast and that’s just a little over 70 kms away. It’s not every day that you can see that far down the coast from up here, and I had to perch up on top of one of the old Atlantic Wall bunkers to make the shot work.

Round by the ferry terminal was my next port of call.

Both of the Joly France boats are moored up at the ferry terminal this evening. I did hear that there had been excursions over to the Ile de Chausey today.

But Chausiais has at long last moved from her ad-hoc temporary mooring against the harbour wall. And not before time either, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve seen how quickly the tide rises and falls here and where she was, she risked being dashed against the wall, and that wouldn’t have done her much good.

So I ran on down the Boulevard Vaufleury, ignoring a ribald remark that was directed in my direction, and when I’d recovered my breath at my resting place, I went down to overlook the harbour to see what was going on.

As usual, nothing very much, but at least we know where Chausiais has got to. She’s back on her mooring spot in the inner harbour where she’s out of the way of other traffic and the rising tide.

So having recovered my breath I ran on back all the way up the hill to the viewpoint at the rue du Nord to see what was happening there.

And the answer to that is “not very much”.

But my picnickers are still out there having fun. And I’m sure that they must be multiplying because there are more and more of them.

Having made sure that there was nothing else happing I ran on home to write out my notes.

Having done that, I’m off to bed. I have more visitors tomorrow morning and there’s my Welsh class. And then one of these days I really do need to do somethign about all of these arrears.

This backlog is just getting out of hand. Its ridiculous.

Monday 25th May 2020 – A FEW MORE …

… things to add to the pile of things that haven’t been done today. I’m not having a good start to the week.

It all went wrong right at the very beginning when the third alarm found me somewhere in Wyoming, and a very dry, dusty Wyoming at that too. I’d been in my old Opel Senator and had an accident in which it was written off and I’d had to wait around for a taxi. Eventually the one that the insurance company sent fo me tuned up – an old blue Volvo 244. On the way back (and the name Irmo – which Rhys might know – was mentioned) I mentioned how I’d be happy to settle in a place like this and I asked what taxi-driving was like around here. The driver told me with alarm “ohh don’t go settling around here” but didn’t elaborate. He told me that he might have a buyer for my car so we were talking about buying old cars and dismantling them like I used to from the abandoned car auctions in Brussels but at that point the alarm went off.

After the medication (I was up and about by 06:30) I had a listen to the dictaphone. And there was something very enigmatic on there from round about 02:30. “Yes sometime during the night I dreamt that I was actually writing up my blog. Yes, it’s getting to me, isn’t it?” was what I heard when I played it back. But what it was all about I really didn’t have a clue.

Between breakfast and lunch there was a variety of things to do. First off was to send off the radio project for the forthcoming weekend. And seeing as it’s the end of the month we’re having a live concert again.

Then it was time to choose the music for the next radio project.

It’s a friend’s birthday so I had to prepare a special birthday card for her. That was quite important.

My Welsh homework needed doing too, and that involved some research and more than a little tidying up of my notes. And the questions had come in *.docx format which Open Office doesn’t read correctly – so I had to reformat that by copying the text and paginating it which took an age.

Then back to the radio project and by the time that I knocked off for lunch the tracks had been joined in pairs, I’d chosen a speech for my guest and I’d started to write the notes.

After lunch there was cookery to be done.

This morning I’d used the last of the purée so I made some more. It hadn’t kept as well as previously so I’ve decided to make smaller amounts more regularly. Today’s effort was apple and pear, and I remembered the cinnamon and nutmeg.

With the juice that was left over, I added some syrup to make a cordial, and we’ll see how that goes.

As well as that, there was the remaining kilo of carrots to be peeled, diced, blanched and frozen. They are in the freezer right now too.

There was a break while I went out for my afternoon walk in the glorious sun.

There were a few people staring down at the foot of the cliff so I went along to see what there was going on. I’m not sure what it was that they were seeing, but I saw this beautiful little yacht go scudding by right under my nose.

One of my neighbours was there too – Gribouille’s mum – with her arm in plaster. She’d had a fall in the market on Saturday and broken her wrist.

She started to tell me all about it but no thanks – I don’t want to know things like that.

The next couple of photos look as if the quality is quite dismal too.

In several respects that’s true, but it was necessary to enhance them to bring our exactly what it was that I wanted to see. These are two fishing boats – in this photo and the next one, but it is what is in the background that is more interesting.

In all the time that I’ve been living here I don’t think that we have ever had such perfect weather out that way

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, on a good day we can see the island of Jersey from here even though it’s at least 54 kilometres away.

Today, not only could we see the island quite clearly but we could even see the buildings and the radio masts on the island. I’ve seen them before, but only with the zoom lens at full-extent and with some severe cropping and enhancing. But today, it didn’t take much to bring them out.

In places you could even see them with the naked eye, and that was impressive.

Having chatted to another neighbour who was in the vicinity I went off for my afternoon walk.

There were crowds of people out there today – picnicking on the lawn, walking around the headland and even down on the beach. Some corners of the beach are not easy to get to but the seafood pickings must be really good. Here was someone having a go at the peche à pied by the looks of things

It would be really interesting to find out how much he actually was able to catch and, more importantly, how he was going to prepare it for eating.

Talking of good seafood pickings, regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few days ago that we saw a whole sock of fleagulls perched on the rocks, looking as if they were Waiting for Godot.

At the time I speculated that they were waiting for the tide to recede from the mudflats so that they could get stuck in to supper. The tide is out right now and here they are, having a feast.

There must have been several hundred here and it shows the capacity of the shellfish to regenerate themselves every day to be be able to produce enough food to satisfy this lot.

A little earlier I mentioned the beautiful weather.

Over towards the Brittany coast the weather was rather misty and hazy but down at the end of the baie de Mont St Michel we could see quite clearly.

The large white buildings are all of the hotels and the like that service Mont St Michel. Having seen the prices that they charge for even the most basic services down there, I shudder to think how much they would want for a night in a hotel down there.

Over to the left we have the Pointe de Carolles with the Cabanon Vauban – the customs lookout post – perched on the edge.

And notice how far out the tide is? You can clearly see the orange sand down at the head of the bay.

There was the usual pause to admire the scenery down below the cliff on the south side of the Pointe du Roc.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we always keep an eye on the chantier navale to see what goes on there. Just ecently we’ve seen them whittle themselves down from five to four to three to two. But today, they have gone back up to four with the arrival of two more.

Only small ones, but then I suppose that everything helps. Someone was sanding down one of them. I couldn’t see which one it was but I could certainly hear the sound.

Up on blocks in the chantier navale is not the only way that boats receive attention around here.

Careening is a regular feature when there’s a high tidal range, although I’ve yet to see that applied in any seriousness. Being strapped tightly to a knuckle on the harbour wall so that the boat grounds out safely when the tide goes out is on the other hand something that we’ve seen on a regular basis and there’s another one over there receiving similar treatment.

There was quite a crowd up on the wall by it too, so something exciting must have happened to it.

Over the last few days regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing the giant crane that appeared on the docks at the end of last week.

Whatever it’s come here to do, it’s doing it right now. Its width with its safety feet is such that it’s blocked off half of the road and there afe traffic light sontrolling the traffic.

It’s not possible at all to see what it’s doing from here. One of these days I’ll have to go for a walk down there and take a closer look. It has to be something worthwhile to have attracted machinery like that.

There was the usual hour on the guitars, somewhat later than usual, and then tea. Tonight was a stuffed pepper and the last of the apple crumble. I’ll have to make another pudding tomorrow and I have a cunning plan for that.

There was the usual run out tonight – an agonising crawl up the hill in the teeth of a gale. But I recovered my breath, ran down to the clifftop and then walked round the corner.

The other day, regular readers of this rubbish saw the marker light for the harbour entrance standing well clear of the water on its rock. By my estimation it’s still half an hour or so before high tide, and if you compare the two photos you’ll see how high the tide comes in.

And look how clear the air is this evening. You can see for miles down there.

As I ran on down on top of the cliff I noticed hordes of people standing on top of the harbour wall.

For quite a while I stood and watched them, thinking that they might be going to jump in. We’ve seen them do that before. But as long as I looked, no-one moved and I came to the conclusion that they were fishermen or something.

There were a couple of parties of girls as well loitering around where I was standing, presumably likewise waiting for things over there to happen.

As I stood there watching them, something came a put-putting around the headland.

At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but I suppose that it’s another one of these very small fishing boats. It’s a working boat, judging by the radio aerial.

And those things in the foreground. I wasn’t sure whether they were marker buoys or seagulls. And having had a closer look I have to say that i’m still none-the-wiser.

And that reminds me of a story I heard about a barrister, FE Smith, giving a lengthy explanation of something to a crowded courtroom.
“I’ve listened to you for half an hour” said the judge “and I’m still none-the-wiser”
“Maybe not, My Lord” replied Smith. “But you’re certainly better-informed”.

My run took me all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury and as there was a lot going on at the fish processing plant I went to see.

This equipment that they were using was quite interesting and it took me a minute or two to work out what it was. And I came to the conclusion that it’s a kind of vacuum-cleaner that was being used to suck the shellfish out of the hold of the trawler and into the fish processing plant.

And if that’s what it is (and that was what it sounded like) it’s a pretty ingenious device.

My run tok me round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord.

Nothing exciting going on there and still a while before sunset so I took a quick photo and ran on home to write up my notes..

Tomorrow is a busy day. I have my Welsh class so I need to prepare, I have my book-keeping class that has now started, I have my music course.

Then there are the photos from Sunday to deal with, the current radio project and another live concert for the end of next month too.

That’s before I even think about the ongoing projects like the websites and the July 2019 photos, and then all of the other stuff that’s built up from projects before that were never finished.

It’s a mystery to me how I’m ever going to find the time to do it all.

Thursday 14th May 2020 – THAT WAS A …

… better day today!

For a start, I actually made it out of bed before the third alarm. And after yesterday’s disaster, that was really some kind of progress.

And I was off on a voyage as well during the night. Not quite as graphic as the previous night’s, which is a good thing, I suppose. There were three of us wandering around central London last night, me and two girls. I know these two girls and I just can’t think who they are. It was the time of a vampire attack on the city and we’d been doing something, fighting off these vampires and a fourth member of our party, an elderly gentleman dressed in Victorian suit and top hat was helping but he was taken ill on one occasion. So I went over to see him although it wasn’t me – but it was me in the dream if you know what I mean – and I undid his shirt. I found that he had a bandage wrapped round his chest so I had to undo the bandage. He snarled and snapped at me and I realised that he was a vampire. Someone had pushed a stake through his heart at one time. I grabbed these two girls and I stuck a cross in his way or his hand or something and we ran off. Somehow we became separated and I ended up with one of these girls and she ended up going home. I escorted her home and we came back out. We were on this street, something like rue St Catherine Est (near the CHUM) in Montreal. Down at the bottom of a hill was a church and that was where I’d arranged to meat this other girl. We were late so I said to this girl who was with me “stay here” and I ran on down to see the other. There she was outside this building and she was curling up, settling down on the floor going to sleep to wait for us on the pavement. I grabbed hold of her “God, don’t do that!”. She asked “where’s the other girl?”. “I’ve left her on a street cornerto come and fetch you. Now we have to go and fetch her back”. We were loaded up with valuables (…like the camera…) but we couldn’t find anywhere to put them. There were all these boxes where you could leave stuff but there was no key. We had to scratch around for a key or a lock or something – we didn’t have one. Time was getting on and in the end I thought “God just put the stuff in there. If someone pinches it, too bad”. The door didn’t close, the camera strap was dangling out right by a fire, everything like that. We ran back up the hill and as we ran back up we were really afraid of what we would see – whether the vampire had hold of this girl again. Should I have left a cross in her hand or wrapped garlic around her neck or something? I started to have all of these weird ideas about what was going to happen and what I should have done.

After breakfast I assembled the radio project as far as I could and checked the timing. Knock off 30 seconds from what was left out of the hour, and that was the length of track for which I was looking.

A shower was next, and a shave and general clean-up. And of that 300 grammes of weight that I had lost at the last weigh-in, I’d put 400 grammes back.

It’s Thursday today, and so that means shopping of course. But once again, I didn’t go very far before I stopped.

One of the penalties of living in a medieval walled city is that quite often the old gates are too low for lorries and the like and regular readers of this rubbish will have seen plenty of examples of trans-shipment

There’s more work taking place within the walls, I imagine, and they can’t pass the lorry and the trailer here through the gateway. They are going to have to unload all of this, I imagine, and take it through as best as they can.

We’ve seen all of the ferries – the two for the Channel Islands and the two for the Ile de Chausey, parked up during the confinement.

But today it looks as if things have eased off. Joly France, one of the passenger ferries that goes out to the Ile de Chausey, was just heading off out of the harbour and by the looks of things, she has a good complement of passengers.

Here’s hoping that none of them are infected because the virus would spread like wildfire out on the island.

First stop was the Post Office to post of Rosemary’s Christmas present. I know that it’s May but she was away from home until the day of the lockdown and as she came home, the Post Office closed.

We had to queue outside and were allowed in three by three.

At the Bank, where I went to pay in a cheque and to change a standing order, it was even worse. Facemasks compulsory (luckily I had taken with me the one that I was given by a neighbour the other week), oOnly one person in at a time and so the queue was down the street.

The counter clerk was very scrupulous about cleaning off the perspex window and all of that, and then handled all of my paperwork and bank card, which made the scrupulous cleaning of the perspex screen rather superfluous.

At LIDL I spent more than intended, but a large part of that was spent on a folding rucksack. It’s a reasonable size but folds up into a large pocket and it’s just the job for when I go on excursions.

The apple pie is on its last slice too but they had on special offer some frozen red fruits – €1:79 for a 750 gramme bag. So I bought a bag and I’ll make a pie with that tomorrow.

On the way back I bought a dejeunette from La Mie Caline for lunch, but was once more interrupted walking up the Rue des Juifs.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen them floating the new pontoons across the harbour by pushing them with a motor boat, but this one is actually being pushed out of the inner harbour.

We’ve also seen the mounting brackets that they installed at the ferry terminal. It looks as if, now that Joly France has gone off on her travels, that they are going to install the new pontoons.

Back here I wrote the text for the final track, uploaded it to the computer, edited it and assembled the final track. I was over time by 5 seconds but a quick edit of some speech soon dealt with that.

After lunch, while I listened to my handiwork, I had a look at the template issue for one of my websites – the issue that I mentioned the other day.

And it should be no surprise to anyone that I resolved the issue in less than 10 seconds. In fact, I’d been thinking about this problem here and there and I had a very good idea of what I had done. And I was right.

It will also be no surprise to anyone that I also had a little doze for a few minutes here and there.

Once I’d recovered my composure I set about installing the new hi-fi. And I rather think that I’ve over-egged the pudding somewhat.

It was necessary to drill a couple of holes in the furniture and then perform a complicated rewiring job which meant practically dismantling the computer and a few other things too.

It led to something of a tidy-up too (and putting away a pile of papers) and then I connected everything up. And as I said, I’ve over-egged the pudding somewhat because this system is somewhat overwhelming.

But the quality is phenomenal nevertheless and I’m as impressed with this as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

Somewhat later that anticipated, I went out for my afternoon walk.

On the way out with the hi-fi box I bumped into a woman from the Mairie who was handing out the free washable face masks that the commune had ordered for their inhabitants. I asked her for an innuendo so she gave me one.

“Corona virus?” I enquired.
“No” she replied. “The school next door starts back up next week. We don’t want you frightening the kids”.

The hurricane was still blowing and it was a struggle to walk around the walls. But I wasn’t struggling half as much as some people. The trawler out there in the English Channel near the Ile de Chausey was really making heavy weather of the journey home.

You can tell by the whitecaps on the tops of the waves that far out (that’s probably about 10 kilometres out) just how wild the wind is right now.

And the trawler wasn’t the only one out there in the wind.

Never mind the story about the beaches being closed and so on, we have a windsurfer out there enjoying the storm. And I suppose that he parachuted in from the air too.

But there must be a good handful of people out there on that beach between Donville les Bains and Bréhal Plage and I have no idea why they are there and what they are doing.

There was still half an hour left to enjoy the music before the hour on the guitar, which was spent mainly playing around with two Dire Straits tracks – “Sultans of Swing” and “Tunnel of Love”. Despite all of the time that I’ve spent working out “Telegraph Road”, i reckon that right now it’s beyond what I’m really capable of doing.

Tea was a nice stuffed pepper followed by the last of that delicious apple pie that I made, so tomorrow is going to be a baking day, I reckon.

Back outside in the teeth of the gale and my run up the hill which was agonising tonight.

And at the caravanette park in the rue du Roc we have yet more grockles who haven’t quite grasped what all of this virus thing is about. I’ve seen the local police on their patrols and I reckon that they ought to be doing something about this.

But anyway having recovered my breath I ran on down to the clifftop to see what I could see out to sea.

And the answer to that was “nothing at all”.

Around the corner to the south side of the headland and I noticed something glistening on the beach over across the bay at St Pair Sur Mer.

Being of a curious bent … “errr … quite” – ed … I took a photo of it to crop and blow up back here. And what I can see is that it seems to be the sun’s reflection on the window there reflecting into a tidal pool on the beach.

It’s quite amazing what you can pick up with a good zoom lens.

Earlier on today we noticed that they were pushing a floating pontoon out of the harbour.

At the time I speculated that they might be finally going to fit them to the mounting brackets that they fitted to the harbour wall over at the ferry terminal.

And sure enough, there they are in position. But I’m intrigued to see what is going to happen when the tide goes out because it dries out over there. And what happens to the pontoons then will be interesting.

Despite the howling gale I struggled on with my run down the Boulevard Vaufleury and I was pretty done in when I finally reached my marker.

Back down to the viewpoint over the harbour to see what they had been up to down there. And it looks as if some of the floating pontoons down there (we’d seen three rows yesterday) have gone.

The missing ones are probably those that they installed at the ferry terminal.

My next run took me round to the viewpoint in the rue du Nord but there was nothing going on over there so I turned round and ran back home as best as I could in the wind.

So now I’ve finished this, I’m ready for bed. This was a better day today and I felt a bit more like myself. Here’s hoping for an even better day tomorrow.

Saturday 9th May 2020 – IT WASN’T …

… a very good start to the day today either.

The alarms went off as usual and I heard them, but by the time that I arose from the dead it was 06:45. I’d missed the third alarm again!

And another thing that I need to do is to apologise for having doubted the word of Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves. She complained once about my snoring in my sleep and having on a couple of occasions heard the dictaphone still working when I’ve been asleep, and not heard a thing, I had the temerity to doubt her word.

However, we had another occasion during the night where I went back to sleep in the middle of dictating something and … errr … well … quite.

Sorry, Percy Penguin.

Interestingly though, when I came back into the land of the undead, I resumed the dictating at exactly the same point as where I fell asleep.

There have been many occasions where I’ve awoken during the night and gone back to sleep and stepped right back into a dream at the point where I left it, but this is, as far as I’m aware, the first time that I’ve ever done the reverse.

It was another hot and sweaty night and I don’t know where we are but Crosby Stills and Nash are here and they played a concert and then disappeared offstage. I went to have a look at the equipment, all of these boxes. There was a box of accessories for each musician but there was also (…fell asleep right here in the middle …) some boxes on the stage with the names of the people. Each musician had his box and the supplementary musicians had theirs but their names were a bit vague. There was one that said something like Dino with a question mark stating that he was a native American who died in 1975 and nobody – they didn’t even know his name and didn’t even know where he came from but he played guitar with Crosby Stills and Nash and he had died away and they had practically forgotten about him – not forgotten about him of course because obviously he had his box but they didn’t find out anything about him while he was playing there, not even his real name.

After breakfast I had a look at a couple of files on the web server that shouldn’t be there at all and upgraded one that should and then went and had a shower.

And a shave. And a weigh-in and I’ve lost a couple of hundred grammes since last time. Still not enough though – it’s a slow process.

In town today it was difficult to tell that we are still in lockdown here until Monday. It was just like any other Saturday in normal times with the vehicles and the crowds and the local Council have recognised this, I reckon, because the traffic lights are now working properly instead of flashing amber like they have been.

There was a queue to enter LeClerc and even so, the place was packed with people, just like any normal Saturday. My own shopping bill wasn’t all that much and could well have been even less, except that the coffee that I bought on a super-special offer for 6 packs the other week was back on an even more special offer – 6 packs for €11:74.

At that price I had to buy a packet because it really is quite nice, that coffee.

Back here, I had a busy afternoon.

First thing was to go through the web server and identify the files that shouldn’t be there – of which there were plenty. They were brought home to the hard drive here and deleted from the server.

Then I had a look through the hard drive to identify
i) files that aren’t meant to be on the web server anyway
11) files that aren’t ready to be uploaded
give them all a meaningless suffix simply to identify them so that they aren’t uploaded again in error

And then updated the ones that needed updating, and then loaded them back to the web server.

They are all done now, but many of them will have to be done again because there was a slight change to the format halfway through.

But I think that what I’m going to do now that this project is temporarily finished, along with the digitalising of the record collection that has ground to a halt near the end, is to pick on one web page per day and rewrite it with suitable editing.

However, I’m not forgetting the second web page. I shall have to attend to that in due course and update that. However, there are only about 200 or so of those, half the amount that I’ve just done.

There was still half an hour left before knocking-off time so I attacked a few more photos from July 2019. I’m now inside the harbour at Vestmannaeyjar, on the island of Heimaey just off the coast of Iceland but I’m still not moored.

Just for a change, the hour on the guitar was much more enthusiastic. I’m not sure what happened there but anyway, I enjoyed it immensely.

For tea, I had one of the best stuffed peppers that I’ve ever made, followed by a slice of that apple pie from the other day. And that was excellent too. If I’m not careful, I’ll really be pushing the boat out – although evidently not as far as the quayside in Vestmannaeyjar.

After the washing up I went out for my evening runs. But I didn’t get far before I was brought to a dead halt.

A short while ago I wrote about people not respecting this detention à domicile, and I don’t know what to say about this. There are at least two cars like this Mercedes S500 Maybach here, and what is interesting is that they both appear to have number plates from Luxembourg on them.

So how did they get here? And what are they doing? Don’t they realise that there’s a lockdown here?

Apart from that Jersey-registered caravenette that was here just asfter the ferries stopped sailing – presumably having missed the last ferry, these are the first foreign-registered vehicles I’ve seen in the town.

Talking of ferries to the Channel Islands … “well, one of us is” – ed … look who’s back.

When I was out last night in the dark I thought that I recognised the change in silhouette in the harbour but it was too dark to see what it was. But sure enough, Victor Hugo is back from her winter sojourn in Cherbourg.

No idea why, though. We’ve been told that the ferries to the Channel islands won’t be starting up any time soon so there doesn’t really seem to be too much point in her coming down here right now.

We’d had rain earlier so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of a sunset with all of the clouds about.

It wasn’t anything like as good as some of the ones that we’d been having just recently but that can’t be helped. You can’t win a coconut every time.

And as for my run up the hill, yesterday must have been an exception because it was a struggle once more up the hill. I’ll try it again with no food late in the night and see if it’s that which makes the difference.

On my way past the chantier navale this morning I’d had a quick look at the boats there and came to the conclusion that the one that appeared late last night was not the one that had been there before.

This evening I took my time to have a closer look and indeed it isn’t. It’s a slightly different shade of blue and it has a name – Joker – which the other one didn’t have.

But it’s good to see the chantier navale looking so busy. That’s a bonus for the town.

Having inspected the chantier navale I ran on down the Boulevard vaufleury all the way down to my resting point and then walked back to look at the harbour and Victor Hugo

And having done that I ran on round to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord overlooking the Ile de Chausey to see the sunset.

And quite unexpectedly I was in luck. It wasn’t an impressive one but just as I arrived the sun peeked through a gap in the clouds and i was able to photograph it.

a day or two ago, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had seen some people fishing from the steps that go down to the beach.

They were there again today casting into the water, but I couldn’t see whether they had caught anything. So I ran on back home.

On the doorstep I met one of my neighbours so we had a good chat for half an hour and then I came in to write my notes.

Now that they are finished I’m going to go off to bed. No alarm (it’s Sunday) and a Day of Rest – the first one for quite a while too so I intend to make the most of it

Friday 1st May 2020 – A STRANGE THING …

… happened to me during the night.

There was a group of us living in a house in Crewe and I had to get up and go to work to start a new job. But I was lying in bed and it suddenly occurred to me to get up and get dressed because the bus would be going in a few minutes time. I had to get dressed, and my fitbit came off somehow in all of this. I couldn’t find the tie that I had put aside. I was hunting high and low for this tie. In the end I went to the cupboard, opened it and chose another one. There were about 200 ties in there and everyone was looking at these ties and I said “yes I need to get rid of a few clothes, don’t I?” Someone said “oh yes. I haven plenty of stuff”. I actualy awoke at this point and found myself sitting upright on the point of getting out of bed to go to work.

There have been some really realistic voyages during the night here and there over the years, but this was certainly one of the best.

It had been one of those nights last night where I’d been running really late and I ended up going to bed instead of finishing off my notes.

And so in a break with usual tradition I set an alarm call for a Bank Holiday (it’s Labour Day here so everyone celebrates it by … errr … not doing any labouring) and in a break with even more usual traditions I actually beat the third alarm to my feet.

And this time it was for real too. I felt like that guy about whom Tommy Cooper used to talk –
“I knew a guy who dreamt that he was awake. And when he woke up, he was!”
But it wasn’t half a weird thing that in the middle of the night.

So after the medication I attacked the notes to finish them off. And that took much longer than I was expecting too. I’d resolved not to go for breakfast until they were finished and by the time that I was ready my stomach was thinking that my throat had been cut.

After breakfast it was the turn of the dictaphone to receive attention. I’ve already mentioned something of it but a little later I had someone staying with me overnight. It was another one of these panics to get up in the morning. I cooked a breakfast, toasted cheese, stuff like that and I was getting everything ready while whoever it was (and I’ve really no idea who it was either) was getting ready to leave. I made breakfast in my tiny room which was just like the cabin of The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour which was so small that I had to sit outside – there was only room for one at the table. However as a gesture of solidarity we both ended up sitting outside in the corridor. But my place quite clearly aroused some appreciation. “Yes, I wouldn’t mind retiring to a place like this at all either” so i was explaining the benefits of these homes and how there were people round but they only came if you needed them and apart from that they only came once a week to clean your room, emergency bell pulls, all this sort of thing. And there was general agreement on this.

There was something else on there too but you’re all probably eating your tea right now so I’ll spare you the gory details. But it concerned another voyage on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, which certainly seems to be receiving an awful lot of my notional custom right now. It’s a good job that I don’t have to pay for these trips for real.

Having done that, I attacked the digitalising of my record collection – the last two albums as well. Whatever is left will have to be done by hand by me. One of those two albums almost ended up in that pile too, seeing that the only copy of one of the tracks was an *.mkv, which is something that I’m trying to keep off my computer, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

However, the light went on in my head, like it does on the odd occasion here and there, and I came up with a very ingenious solution to the problem. And to my surprise it actually worked!

So bearing in mind that one or two albums were shelved because all that I could find was *.mkv stuff, I might go back again and have another run through and see what I can do.

It’s a long process but probably quicker than digitalising them manually.

All of that took me up to lunchtime, would you believe, and there was time to do 30 or so photos. I’m now sitting in a zodiac in a lagoon at the foot of the Vatnajokull Glacier in South-East Iceland.

The hummus that I made yesterday was really nice and worth the effort that I put into it. And so was the apple and pear purée for breakfast by the way.

This afternoon has been somewhat … errr … leisurely. I’ve tidied up a little of the hard drive in here (only a little) and dealt with some outstanding correspondence. I’m not sure if I mentioned it but someone wrote to me about my University thesis for my “Historical Technology” module of my degree.

When it was finished I PUT IT ON LINE (I think that all research should be put on line for future scholars) and someone well-known in that area has written to me to give me some further information and to express his admiration (really!) for what I had written, which was certainly very nice of him.

As well as that, there’s some more radio stuff simmering away in the background, including something that might involve HIS NIBS, and so that required a little thought.

There was the hour or so on the guitars too during which I almost fell asleep, and then tea, which was a stuffed pepper followed by the final slice (not really the final slice because half of it went into the freezer) of the delicious blackberry pie.

And here’s something surprising (or maybe in isn’t). I’d sat down after the washing-up to digest my meal before I went out running and suddenly the football came on the internet. I’d completely forgotten that it was Friday.

A historical match – Port Talbot Town against Bala Town in a Welsh Premier League European playoff from 2013.

And how the standard of football in the Welsh Premier League has improved since then too. This was a “top 5” game yet you would never have thought so.

It ended 1-0 for Bala which was about right. Port Talbot were denied what looked from my viewpoint like two stonewall penalties, but Bala were denied on several occasions by some heroic stuff from my namesake in the Port Talbot goal and had already had a goal ruled out for a foul that was much more innocuous than the one committed on Cortez Belle in the 87th minute at the other end for which the referee waved “play on”.

But it was a very poignant match in one respect. The Spuds couldn’t maintain the momentum following this defeat and slowly slid down the table.

And then down the pyramid. Now they are in the third tier and the glory days of European football in the season 2010-11 when they went to Finland in the Europa League are nothing but a distant memory.

But here’s another thing. Bane of Britain has struck again!

Because of the football I was late – like 22:30 – going out for my runs. It was dark so I decided to swap over the lenses – put the f1.8 50mm lens onto the big NIKON D500 and the 70-300mm LENS onto the old NIKON D3000 and take the big Nikon with me.

So Bane of Britain swapped the lenses over well enough – but then took the wrong camera, as he discovered when he went to take a photo.

So no photos tonight, but at least I managed all of my runs which was good news.

It’s late now, so it’s bedtime. And shopping tomorrow – not that I need all that much but never mind. I wonder of the supermarket will be packed.

Tuesday21st April 2020 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I haven’t really been able to make a start.

And there have been far too many of these just recently – although the point has been made that I’m now three months without any medical treatment and I remember how I was on the last couple of days of my transatlantic voyage in the High Arctic when I was just running on adrenaline – they body, the mind and the spirit having given up a good while before then.

Yes, scanning back through my journal, I see that I still haven’t put on line the notes of the last three or four days of that voyage. The things that were going on on that voyage about which I had … well, not complained, but … errr … mentioned forcefully to the organisers were expressed in my notes in a fashion that won’t bear repeating in any family entertainment.

It’s not my habit to go back and edit what I write either. And there is a very good reason for that. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m slowly dying and on my way downhill it’s rather like a sawblade with peaks and troughs, and it’s important that I am able to look back on what I write about how I feel so that I can measure my decline – to compare whether I’m in a temporary trough or a permanent downhill slope with previous occurrences.

And that goes for my state of mind as well as my state of health too.

But anyway, I digress. And not for the first time either.

Just for a change, this morning I beat the third alarm. Not by much, it has to be said, but beat it all the same. And then once the medication was dealt with, there was the dictaphone.

It had been a hot, sweaty night (i have to keep a note of my night sweats, apparently – it’s a symptom of this illness) and I was on a train I think, one of these American overnight trains and we were discussing serving food. We thought about sausages and bread, lots of things, but we decided that if there was too much of one kind of thing people would just help themselves to that, so maybe we should just have the sausages or just the bread and have an attendant on board to serve it all. The conversation went round there for a while. A little bit earlier I’d been to Chester and had a coach with me. I had to get and park it up. I’d parked service buses up but a coach is a different proposition and had to drag it all the way through the town centre, stopping off for some chips, something like that. I wasn’t sure actually where to park it and I was hoping that I’d meet a policeman on the way who would tell me where to stick it, if you aprdon the expression. This was when I met these people who were talking about these sandwiches and how we used to do it previously when we were on a train
I don’t remember much about this next one but we were on the beach in Granville and we were going through some kind of famous album, no Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell”, something like that. There were a couple of acoustic numbers on it, and the reason why was that the musician wanted the record company to sit up and take note of his music so he thought that he’d do an acoustic number or two. This was going on, this discussion about this album and something to do with blood while we were rooting around in beach rock pools for something but I can’t remember what it was now.
There was something going on about musicians changing their nationality to Italian so a lot of people did so. Liz had got to Australia somehow but because of the quarantine she had to go back home with her children. She simply registered the children with Alitalia and they were flown home at the cost of the Italian government.
Somewhere in all of this there was also something about hanging some kind of vertical pocket-type of storage things inside a fridge but I’ve no idea what that was about now.

With all of that going on, it really was a surprise that I’d beaten the alarm, that’s for sure.

After breakfast I had a go at the digitalising of two “various artists” albums. That was a very long, very slow process that required a great deal of searching.

They were big albums too, more than 40 tracks in all and much of it involving a great deal of detective work. And we’re back at the “false attribution” thing as well in a few cases. For example, one track attributed to “Eddie Graham” just didn’t correspond with anything that he did in his solo career towards the end and eventually I tracked it down as an old “Eire Apparent” track. There were a few like that.

The thing that surprised me the most was that there was only one track that I couldn’t find. The album with most tracks on it, a double-album with 23 tracks on it, I found all of those and that was astonishing.

It took longer than I intended too, because I … errr … had a rest for half an hour during the morning. But even so, I managed to edit well over 40 photos from July 2019, including my famous “leaping whale” image for which I won a mention.

After lunch I had a rather desultory go at writing out the rest of the notes to the radio projects that I have on the go. That took longer than I was expecting too, even though I spent some of that time chatting to Liz. I’d barely finished by 18:00 – knocking-off time.

But I had to ring up the doctor’s. I need an appointment for a check-up and to order some mdication as I’m running out. That’s now fixed and the appointment is for 10:00 on Thursday.

My hour on the guitar was spent having another go at “Telegraph Road” and it’s not as straightforward as you might think. And on the bass it’s even more complicated, except that at the end I managed to identify a pattern. And I think that it took me so long because one of the chords might be wrong.

Tomorrow I’ll have another go at it. Another track that I want to have a play with is Fleetwood Mac’s “Behind The Mask”. In the late 70s with Jim Farrar and that lot in Manchester we played a lot of Fleetwood Mac but it was all stuff of the eponymous album and off Rumours and I want to do something different.

Tea was a wicked stuffed pepper with rice followed by apple crumble and soya coconut stuff.

And then it was off for my walks and my runs.

When I set my foot out of the building I’d seen this really beautiful red sunset in the distance so I struggled on up the hill to my point of rest at the end of the hedge. And then when I’d gathered my strength and recovered my breath I ran down to the clifftop to have a good look at it.

The sun hadn’t gone completely down and wouldn’t do so for another 15 minutes I reckoned, but I didn’t really want to spend the time waiting for it.

There was other fish that needed frying too, or other cats that need whipping, as they say around here.

Out in the distance way off shore I’d noticed a speck of movement so I was intrigued to see what it might be – whether it’s either maybe Thora or Normandy Trader heading into port.

But when I returned home and had a closer look, I was rather disappointed. Well, not really, because a boat is a boat is a boat. What I’d actually been seeing was one of the big trawler-type of fishing boats out to sea.

So taking my leave of the crowds out here tonight (I reckoned that all in all I’d seen about 20 people in total tonight) I headed off to the other side of the headland to see what I could see.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that quite recently we’ve seen fishing boats deep in the Baie de Mont St Michel. And while there were none out there last night, there was one working out there this evening.

All on her own she was too, but working she was all the same.

With nothing else to see round here tonight, I pushed on for my run along the clifftop.

The chantier navale still had the same four boats in there but there was a change across on the other side of the harbour by the ferry terminal. Xhausiais is no over there all on her tod, with no sign of Joly France who has been keeping her company for the last while.

So where has Joly France gone to? She won’t be over at the Ile de Chausey at this time of night.

That puzzle was quickly solved.

Running along the clifftop I’d seen a strange profile or two in the inner harbour and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. But it turns out as it happens to be Joly France and her sister tied up alongside the quay at the rue du Port – not their usual mooring point.

And work hasn’t restarted on the surfacing of the new car park yet. Still a lump of sad-looking asphalt when they could have done so much with it.

Mind you, they have been working on the new pontoons in the inner harbour today even though I didn’t hear the piledriver (and I had the bedroom window open too).

Not only is the thrid pillar in place correctly at the correct height, it has its little white cap on, the cap that keeps out the rain, so whatever they have been doing to it is clearly finished.

It remains to be seen when they will start attaching the floating pontoons to it. That will be progress.

And on that note, I ran on home.

And here’s a thing! Yesterday I was wishing that my new memory sticks would hurry up and arrive. When I looked in my post box on my way back in, there was a packet …

It’s come from China of course so it’s gone into quarantine in a sealed plastic bag where it will stay for a couple of weeks, and then I can open it and deal with it as appropriate.

Tomorrow morning I need to do some tidying as there’s a blood test man coming round tomorrow. The apartment could do with a good clean and tidy.

So a good night’s sleep, I hope, and then I’ll be fighting fit for tomorrow. I don’t think.

Monday 13th April 2020 – IT WAS HARD …

… this evening going for my runs.

It’s a lot colder than it has been of late and a pair of gloves and a hat would have made a great deal of positive difference to my comfort this evening.

But really what was to blame for it all was the howling gale. A couple of my runs, including the longest one, was right into the teeth of the gale and while I managed to accomplish them all, including the little additional extra metres that I’ve been doing. But I certainly knew all about it by the time that I returned home and I don’t want to have to do it again in a hurry.

A Bank Holiday today, of course. Easter Monday. And so I celebrated by having a lie-in. And in a change from just recently, it was actually only about 07:45 when I awoke.

Even more interestingly, it was 08:15 when I left my bed too. Not the best lie-ins that I’ve had, but some of them just recently have been somewhat excessive, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Nothing on the dictaphone either, as I found when I went to check it after the medication. So it must have been a decent night’s sleep too.

After breakfast (and my last hot cross bun) I made a start on the digital sound files. I’m on the cassettes now of course and by the time that I’d finished, I’d dealt with another 4 albums.

Three of them went quite quickly and I didn’t have time to deal with many of the Iceland photos. But of course there’s always one that is a struggle and it took me an age to sort it out, to find the files that I needed, to get them to download and then to convert them to *.mp3.

But having done that, I could start (better late than never) on the next two radio projects.

Despite having a stop for lunch, by the time I came to knocking off at 18:00, I’d chosen all of the music for both projects, joined them up into pairs as I would usually do, and even made a start on writing the text. I don’t know where this sudden energy has come from.

For my hour on the guitars, I’ve made a start on writing another song. I’ve been a bit quiet on that front since November. I was warming up, just running through a few chords, and a certain chord pattern caught my attention. I had a little work on it and while I was doing so, a lyric pattern that fitted it came into my head too.

So half an hour on the 6-string and half an hour on the bass working around it to see where I finished. There will be a lot more to it of course, and then I have to work out the drumming to it now that I have my electronic drum kit.

Tea was a stuffed pepper followed by some of the apple pie that I baked yesterday, with soya coconut whatsit. And it was all really delicious too.

That was the cue for me to go outside for my evening’s exercise.

It was still quite light while I was out there and the sun was a good 20 minutes or so from setting. But there was a fishing boat out there, presumably having left the port and heading off to the fishing grounds somewhere out by the Channel Islands.

Here’s a nice photo of her, disappearing off into the sunset. And into the haze too.

Yes, nothing like as clear as it was yesterday which is a shame.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night there were the three (or four) lights of fishing boats down in the Baie de Mont St Michel where I wouldn’t really expect to see them. But there they are again tonight.

In the light and with the NIKON D500 and the 70-300mm LENS I could see them clearly. There are seagulls around them too so they are certainly out there working.

There were another few fishing boats out there too, but I suspect that these two are hovering around the harbour entrance maybe waiting for the tide.

Mind you, their working lights are on too and they are also surrounded by seagulls. So even if they aren’t actually working right now, they must have full loads and they are sorting the cargo.

Struggling against the headwind as I did, I finally made it back to my apartment, totally wasted. And Rosemarie rang me up so we had a lengthy chat about nothing in particular. But then that’s what friends are all about.

And that’s why I’m late doing this – not that I’m objecting of course.

So tomorrow, back at a full day’s work, alarms and everything. And who knows? I might even make progress. Stranger things have happened.

Monday 6th April 2020 – OHHH NOT ANOTHER …

… bad day today!

And I was so careful too about going to bed at a reasonable time too.

But as for sleep, I was awake for most of the night with a really bad attack of cramp that persisted for hours. At one stage I was hopping around the bedroom trying to find some way of easing it off.

It goes without saying that I missed the alarms this morning. 07:40 when I awoke. And nothing on the dictaphone either. It can’t have been much of a night.

After the meds then I made a start on chopping up digital audio files. One or two of those were straightforward but the others certainly weren’t and took quite a bit of effort.

There were a few interruptions too. Breakfast was one of them of course, and then we had an impromptu telephone conference call for the radio, about our Grande Marée Virtuelle

And if you want to know what that is all about, you need to listen to THE RADIO at 17:00 European Time, 16:00 UK Time and 11:00 Toronto time on Wednesday this week.

Anyway, it took an age, all told, to finish off this batch of files. And all the time, the pile is diminishing. And even more interestingly, this pile isn’t as big as it might look because there are several albums there that I won’t be recording. In fact I’m not quite sure how come I have them – there are albums here that I never ever remember buying and some that I wouldn’t ever have bought at all.

With no time to go for bread, I used a couple more taco rolls with salad, and this seems to be working quite well. So much so that if things worsen here and the lockdown continues, I might thing of this as a long-term temporary solution.

This afternoon, I decided on a new tack. Rather than mess about with different lots of dictation all over the place, I chose the music for another couple of radio broadcasts.

One of the is all joined up and edited and I’ll do the other tomorrow morning, and then write out all of the text, for those two as well as the missing bits for the previous two. I’ll do all of the dictation then at one go.

That took me all the way up to guitar-practising time and having been listening to “Carry On” by Crosby Stills and Nash, I had a play around with that. And it’s easy to play it simply, but a darned sight more difficult to play it properly.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with more rice pudding for dessert. And it really is one of the best that I’ve made and I wish I knew what it was that I’ve done differently.

Just for a change I was late going out for my evening walk. But I had a good run in a couple of stages all the way up to the end of the Pointe du Roc.

The sun had long-since disappeared but there was a glorious reddish tinge in the sky over on the horizon somewhere in the general direction of the Brittany coast.

It was far too good to miss out on a photograph of course, although the guy in the Coastguard station gave me a weird look.

And the flock of birds that fle across the camera as I was taking the photo was interesting too

Last night I’d taken a photo of the Pointe de Carolles in the dusk, so tonight I reckoned that I would move the camera around a little.

So tonight we have the new road that goes into town with, to the left of the harboure entrance light, the town of Jullouville and then to the left of that, the town of St Pair Sur Mer with, if we believe what we are told, all of the Parisians who have fled the city to the coast and have brought the virus with them.

And from here I had another run along the top of the wall overlooking the harbour and the chantier navale

And we have more excitement in there tonight.

We’ve seen for the last week or so the two large trawler-type fishing vessels that have been up on blocks down there. It seems that today, they have acquired a new neighbour. We’re seeing a third one in there now to keep them company.

Social distancing, of course, as you can see.

Two more lengths of run (making 5 in total) saw me back at the apartment and writing up my notes for the day. I’ll go to bed in a minute

Monday 30th March 2020 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why but I’ve had a much better day today that I’ve had for a while.

It didn’t start off very well though. I missed the alarms and was about 10 minutes late leaving my bed, and that was disappointing.

And after the medication I had a look at the dictaphone. That was disappointing too. We were having some kind of football training session last night but I don’t remember very very much about them whatsoever.

Something of a wasted effort.

And so I started on the file splitting. It might have been straightforward, evan though a couple of tracks didn’t work out and I had to hunt around for some other versions which might (or might not) be the correct ones seeing as the times don’t really correspond so well.

But for some reason that only they will know, it took AAAAAGGGGEEEEESSSSS to download them and I would have been really fed up, except that while I was doing it I attacked the July 2019 photos.

And it was just as well because I managed about 50 of them, and I’m now just about skirting the tip of north-west Iceland with a hell of a long way to go still. I’m glad that I started the numbering by using four digits for I feel that I’m going to need them all.

There was a pause for breakfast of course, and once the digitalising was finished for today, I had my audio diary to do.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve mentioned this before. We are living in times the like of which the world hasn’t seen since the Black Death epidemic of the 1340s and in 100 or 200 years people (if there are any still alive) will be looking at this period with the same kind of intensity that we look at the Black Death.

In the Black Death, everyone had his or her own little stories and while one or two are remembered, from authors of the day or from anecdotes that were passed around, but the ordinary common people were in the main unable to read and write, and their stories were lost for ever.

For that reason, we at the radio have decided to keep an audio diary and we’ll be preparing various radio programmes as we go along to broadcast our stories.

One or two other people from various places have agreed to participate, and if you would like to take part in this project, send me a brief note using the contact button, bottom-right.

With still some time left, I started on Project 035 but broke off for lunch after a short while.

After lunch, I finished off the choice of music, except for the last track of course (which regular readers of this rubbish will recall is always the very last thing to do) and then turned my attention to more exciting things.

Laurent and I had been talking on and off during the day about our Grande Marée programme, and he came up with a couple of really good ideas. That meant that I had to go off on another path to hunt down various items and he sent me something that will be absolutely brilliant with a little editing.

In the end I managed to do something of a test run and he’ll get back to me tomorrow with what he thinks.

By now it was 18:00 and I broke off for a play on the guitar. I had a good go too although I’m beginning to realise that half an hour on the 6-string and half an hour on the bass just isn’t enough. Not sure how I’m going to fit in any more time though.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with rice followed by a slice of my delicious apple pie. It really is nice too and I’m very pleased with that one.

Tonight’s walk was something of an improvised choice seeing as there aren’t all that many places to go. I managed two runs and each one I pushed on an extra 20-25 metres. “Not a lot” I hear you say, but the fact is that the last extra bits were uphill, and up quite a steep hill too, so I’m impressed with that.

Where I ended up was on the grass by the car park in the boulevard Vaufleury. I’d been reading reports from somewhere that smaller boats weren’t being allowed out to fish, but there’s one down there that’s unloading at the fish-processing plant even as we speak.

So I don’t know where this news has come from

But there’s excitement at the chantier navale tonight.

Over the past few weeks, regular readers of this rubbish will recall looking at the progress being made on the overhaul of Charles Marie in the chantier navale. But she’s not there now. The ground’s all flat. She must have gone back into the water.

But it’s still busy in there. We’ve acquired another trawler so there are now two of them in there receiving attention.

Keeping their social distance, I hope.

Anyway, now it’s bedtime. To my amazement, and probably to yours too, I haven’t crashed out at all today. In fact, I’ve been feeling quite lively.

No idea what I did but I wish I could remember because I need to do it again. And more often too!

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: stuffed peppers

Thursday 10th September 2020 – IT’S ALWAYS INTERESTING …

Tuesday 1st September 2020 – I’VE HAD A …

Monday 24th August 2020 – IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE …

Friday 24th July 2020 – I’M WHACKED PART II

Monday 22nd June 2020 – THIS MORNING …

Monday 15th June 2020 – I WAS HARD …

Monday 1st June 2020 – WHAT STARTED OFF …

Monday 25th May 2020 – A FEW MORE …

Thursday 14th May 2020 – THAT WAS A …

Saturday 9th May 2020 – IT WASN’T …

Friday 1st May 2020 – A STRANGE THING …

Tuesday21st April 2020 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

Monday 13th April 2020 – IT WAS HARD …

Monday 6th April 2020 – OHHH NOT ANOTHER …

Monday 30th March 2020 – I DON’T KNOW …

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