Tag Archives: place d’armes

Saturday 16th March 2019 – I’VE SPENT …

… the afternoon in Gestapo headquarters in Koln. And all that I can say is that these 17.4 million racist xenophobes who voted to kick out the foreigners from their country ought to go along and visit it too.

We’ve seen the Biffers and UKRAP and Nigel Garbage doing things like refusing to shop in places run by Muslems, boycotting shops selling halal food, defacing mosques and the like, and no-one bats an eyelid.

You only have to compare what’s going on in the Fascist Paradise that is the UK today and compare it with what happened in Germany 1933-1945 to see some alarming similarities.

Everyone stood by and watched back then, and we had stupid, naive politicians waving pieces of paper about. And look how it all ended up because of this inaction. It’s getting to the stage where the ordinary citizens need to rise up and take matters into their own hands otherwise we’ll all be back here again.

Who will ever forget Martin Niemoller’s famous words?

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Last night I had, for a change, a reasonably good sleep last night. From about 22:45 to the alarm at 06:00 with a brief awakening at 03:45.

I’d been on my travels too, with a couple of people making their debuts. What we were doing was cutting up an onion into very fine particles whilesomeone else was preparing hot dogs or hamburgers. We had to remove all of the skin and everything else from the onion and that wasn’t easy although mine seemed to disappear quite quickly. And then wait.And I noticed that my onion was starting to congeal so I pointed this out to one of the women who was there. The conversation moved on and some guy joined in the discussion. He was a guy with whom I’d played guitar a couple of times in the Auvergne but with blond hair and this chat developed into some kind of problematic discussion about how he was going to join the Good Ship Ve… errr … Ocean Endeavour somewhere out between the Faroe islands and Iceland given the really poor weather. he then started to talk about his period in the Swedish Army which might explain his blond hair and strange accent. Mantime someone came down the corridor between the office desks shouting for someone – someone I knew on the Wirral. A girl piped up that “he sits here next to me, but he’s not at his desk right now. You can tell that it’s his desk because of the stuff on it.”.

There was the usual medication and breakfast and then I headed off to the station. Alison was already there so we headed off together to our platform for the train.

It was the 08:28 to Eupen, but we were only going as far as Liège.

There at Liège Guillemins railway station we alighted and waited for the German Inter-City Express to come in from Brussels.

And we made a slight miscalculation in that the train was a lot shorted than the one from which we had alighted.

We had to run (and you’ve no idea how difficult it is for me to run these days, but at least I managed it) half-way down the platform to leap aboard it.

We were 10 minutes late arriving in Köln, so I imagine that there’s a few more railway employees sent off to the Ostfront. But it didn’t really matter because the train was just so comfortable – even compared to the best of the TGVs.

Alison and I went for a coffee and then walked round the cathedral to check on the Roman paving that I had seen last time that I was here. We then continued up to the Hohenzollernbrucke.

By now the rain had stopped so we stood on the bridge to admire the barges passing by underneath.

And then up-river on the eastern bank to see a few things that I had noticed last time.

Back across the river on the Deutzerbrucke, stopping to take a few more photos of a few more barges, then Alison went for a wander around a few shops while I disappeared into the bowels of the Heumarkt metro station to look at the church tower that I saw last time.

While I was down there I stumbled over the ruins of a Roman temple from round about 100BC. This was uncovered during the construction of the Metro here

Unfortunately they haven’t been able to discover to which god the temple was dedicated

A couple more shops and then back to the Hauptbahnhof to meet Jackie.

We ended up at Mama’s Trattoria, an Italian restaurant that I had found on the internet. It advertised vegan and gluten-free meals. And what an inspired choice it was because there was plenty of choice and my penne al arrabiata was totally delicious.

From there, round to the Gestapo museum, and what a frightful place that was. It’s hard to imagine a series of prison cells about 1.5 metres by 3 metres and 30 people at a time crammed in each one there for a couple of weeks on end.

The only time they would ever be allowed out would be for a good round of torture and, eventually, being hanged or beheaded in the courtyard.

As I said, the idea that 17.4 million people have voted for a return to those unspeakable times is something that fills me full of dread.

A nice walk, another coffee and a few more shops saw us back at the railway station in time for another drink and then our trains home.

We had to change trains at Liège Guillemins station again for our train back to Leuven.

There was a 10-minute wait for our train and so that gave me plenty of opportunity to have a look round and take a few photographs.

The station is certainly out-of-the-ordinary and looks even better at night when it’s all illiminated.

Back finally at leuven Alison caught the bus home and I grabbed a falafel durum to eat on the way home.

167% of my daily activity and it feels like it too. So I’m off to bed where I intend to sleep until I wake up.

Thursday 14th March 2019 – HERE I AM …

… back in a little room in my hostel place here in Leuven. All settled down nicely and ready for bed even though it’s only 20:30. I’ve had a very busy day today.

With having had a reasonable day yesterday and a reasonably early night, I was awake again at about 04:30. However I must have wandered off back to sleep at some point because the alarms awoke me at 06:00.

I’d managed to go off on a voyage during the night too. I was driving a coach taking the nurses to and from the nurses’ home to the various hospitals in the Crewe area (just like I used to do with the taxis). There was one particular nurse on a particular run that I was told
finished an hour earlier than the others so she needed picking up
separately. And so I started to make enquiries. I was examining the route and discovered quite by chance that had I not had my “thinking head” on, I would have missed out a section of the route and missed a couple of nurses. But I was still at school and still in my school uniform and this girl, someone out of my class, came over to me and asked about the nurses’ bus. It turned out that she was the nurse concerned. In fact she finished at 13:30 and at the old cottage hospital at the back of the school so I could pick her up in my lunch break. When she found out that I was to drive the coach, school uniform and all, she looked at me with total surprise. But nevertheless she agreed to wait in the main hospital building (the “house”) for me to pick her up.

Just for a change, I was out of bed quite smartly, long before the third alarm went off. First task was to make my butties, and then to do the washing up.

The rubbish went outside too and then I came back to finish off the packing and to tidy up.

I’d finished much earlier than anticipated too so I could have a look at events around the world before I set out. And there’s the usual chaos in the UK too as they flounder around helplessly in the mire of their own making, the laughing stock of the whole of the world.

Braving the wind and the rain I headed off to the station. And there was a long wait for the train because I was early. So I treated myself to a very rare coffee.

Plenty of time to read the notices too. And it looks as if there’s a project to electrify the railway line and put high-speed trains on the line, cutting up to 30 minutes off the journey time to Paris.

And as well as that, there’s talk of restarting the railway service to St Malo, and that will be exciting too.

We only had a six-carriage train this morning so we were all hemmed in like sardines. But at least the voyage was uneventful and we were just three minutes late arriving at Vaugirard.

All of the excitement was reserved for the metro at Montparnasse. There was an abandoned suitcase in the long passageway down to Metro line 4 so we couldn’t travel that way.

At a quick glance (and I could maybe have done better with more time) the best way seemed to be Line 6 to Etoile and then Line 2 to La Chapelle, right past the Eiffel Tower.

There was far less walking at the Montparnasse end, but so much more at the other end. And with the longer journey time, it took me just about 55 minutes for the journey. Luckily there was plenty of time.

While I was waiting for my train to be called I ate my butties, and then joined the queue.

It’s one of the old Reseau 38000 PBA trainsets, number 4534, and we’ve travelled on this one before – and quite often too. It seems to be regularly rostered onto this journey.

The train was crowded too. I had the misfortune to have some kind of group of people in my carriage and they took ages to sort themselves out.

But that journey was pretty much uneventful and on time too – plenty of time to catch the 15:56 to Leuven.

I’m glad that I had purchased my rail ticket on line before I came because it’s much less stressful than rushing around trying to do it at the last minute.

Up the road to my little accommodation. There’s a nice room here for me, so I had a relax for a while and then went out to Delhaize for the shopping for breakfast tomorrow.

And much to my surprise I was feeling quite sprightly too – not like I have been feeling for a while

On the way back I sorted out some chips from the fritkot down the hill and then fight my way into the tin of beans because there’s no tin opener here.

Mango sorbet and pineapple for pudding, and now even though it’s only 20:30 I’m off to bed.

It’s all very well feeling sprightly, but it wears me out in the end.

Wednesday 13th March 2019 – TODAY I HAVE WRITTEN …

… the largest cheque that I have ever written in my life – and ever likely too as well.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my endless battles with the Royal Bank of Scotland – the worst bank in the world – and over the last couple of weeks I’ve finally had enough.

And with the impending disaster that is Brexit looming around the corner, I’ve liquidated all of my savings in the UK, consolidated it all into one account, and apart from a realistic working capital, I’ve shipped the rest elsewhere.

The next exciting moment will be when the Royal Bank of Scotland receives the cheque from the payee – what will they do then? This will be bound to be exciting. I don’t expect it to be straightforward at all and we might be in for a load of fun.

But I’m just appalled at the lengths to which I have to go in order to knock some sense into those people.

Having gone to bed at something like early last night, I was awake again at 04:35. and I was up and about at a reasonable time after the alarms had gone off.

we had the usual morning procedures of medicine and breakfast, and then I attacked the tidying-up.

All of the papers have no been filed, and because the bank statements folder was overflowing, I’ve rearranged all of that and filed elsewhere the statements for the later years.

And then I had to attack the bank.

I tried the on-line banking service and much to my surprise (and probably yours too) it went with only a minor hitch that was soon resolved. So I ended up wiht all of my dosh exactly where I wanted it.

And then I had to do another pile of on-line paperwork. That ended up with my having to write a letter. That meant nipping out to Caliburn to pick up the cheque book and to see the spectacle of the postwoman’s bike blown over in the gale and all of her letters disappearing off down the street.

All of this took me up to lunchtime, and the intention was that after lunch I would take the letter down to town. But I ended up … errr … curled up on my chair for 20 minutes.

That meant that I had missed to post collection, but I braved the tempest and went down to the Post Office nevertheless. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Down at the quayside though, I noticed a pile of goods lined up where Thora and Normandy Trader normally tie up.

This will probably mean that one or other of them will be coming into the harbour pretty soon to pick them up and take them over to Jersey.

Back here, I attacked the photo database for September in the High Arctic and did another 100 or so photos, with a break to have a shower and a clean-up.

Tea was next, and I made my shepherd’s pie. Tofu, onions, garlic, herbs and flageolet beans with a mashed potato topping. Plenty of it too, and there are five portions left that have gone into the freezer

out again later for my evening walk, despite the wind.

And here’s something that I haven’t noticed before.

At the side of the lighthouse is some kind of pylon, and tonight it’s showing two red lights. I’ve no idea why that might be, so I’ll have to ask someone next time I see anyone official loitering around in the vicinity.

Round the corner and out of the wind for a while, I could see the tidal harbour.

There were several trawlers in there unloading their catch. Three of them had finished and it looks as if they are lined up waiting for the gates to the inner harbour to open so that they can go in.

The pedestrian lights are showing green, and the sailing light is red, so the gates are clearly closed right now.

Further on round the corner I noticed that the Boulevard vaufleury is closed to traffic.

It seems that the wall on the corner of the next street down – the rue Mengnonette – is about to fall down and they don’t want anyone to be in the vicinity.

On that note, I came back here and did a little more tidying up.

But now, I’m off to bed. I’m hitting the road tomorrow so I need a decent sleep.

Tuesday 12th March 2019 – WHO’S BEEN A …

… busy boy then today?

But first, let me say that over the whole of the day I’ve put my feet outside the door for just about 10 metres today. There’s a howling gale going on outside with torrential rain to boot, and I’ve no intention whatever of suffering outt here unless I absolutely have to;

But back to events in here.

The alarms went off at usual and much to my surprise, I was up and about at 06:45.

Plenty of time to go on a little wander during the night too. I was wandering around somewhere that could easily have been Altrincham. There was some kind of walled yard with a creaky wooden gate, so I glanced in and I saw what I thought was an old twin-cylinder Honda motorbike. So I went in. It was in fact a small single-cylinder Honda with a large chain sprocket. I spoke to the owner and joked that I thought that it might have been an old CB450 “black bomber”. There were several old mtorbikes in this yard, so we had quite a chat about them, so he took me inside to the shed where there was a 200c Triumph single, a BSA250cc single and a couple of other old British motorbikes. And I was wondering which one of these I could fit into the back of Caliburn

The medication and breakfast were thus quite early, and then I settled down to work.

The first job was to attack the photos. I did an hour or so, and then carried on after tea. So that’s another couple of hundred dome for the month of September.

But in between, I attacked the European Paper Mountain and all of that is now done. The shredder didn’t make it right to the end though. It gave up with about a dozen papers to go and not even dismantling it to clean it seems to have worked. In the end I had to tear up the rest of the papers by hand.

Next step was to go through all of the loose papers that I had brought with me. I’ve sorted right the way through those, added a lot to the next load of shredding, sorted and filed those for 2016,17,18 and 19, and put the earlier years ready for filing in a spare binder in due course.

Finally, I went through all of the unopened post that had accumulated down on the farm when I wasn’t there. That’s all opened, sorted, some of it binned and the rest of it filed away.

And then we had a giant clean-up of the floor with a brush to sweep up all of the paper bits.

As well as all of that, I also had to make a telephone call to the Isle of man to sort something out, and that involve writing a couple of e-mails. All in all, about an hour was spent on that.

And I’ve rearranged things in the kitchen too, to make more space and to be better-organised. I shan’t know myself at this rate.

This all took me up to tea time, when I made myself a vegan burger with potatoes and veg, followed by chocolate cake and coconut-flavoured chocolate cake. And as I expected, it was delicious.

If that isn’t enough, after tea I fried some onios and garlic, added the remaining packet of tofu and herbs, fried it for a while and then bunged it all in the slow cooker. Even as we speak, it’s simmering away.

That’s for the shepherd’s pie that I will make tomorrow.

So even though it’s not yet 22:00, I’m going to go to bed. I’ve had a very busy day as you can see and I’m exhausted.

A good sleep will do me good, I reckon.

Monday 11th March 2019 – FOR THE FIRST …

… time since the football over two weeks ago, I had a mug of coffee – when I was at Liz and Terry’s. In fact I had two.

And that probably explains why I was still wide awake working on the computer this morning at 02:30, unable to sleep.

Eventually, I did manage to go to bed. And a short while later I did actually go to sleep.

When the alarms went off at 06:00,06:10 and 06:20 there was absolutely no danger of my leaving my little bed. 09:05 was mush more of a respectable time given the circumstances.

As a result, we can almost dismiss the morning as a write-off. by the time I settled down to do some work it was 12:20.

One thing that I had done was to get on the phone to my web hosts. My domain names need renewal and for some reason the direct debiting wasn’t working.

After several attempts I was connected to the French helpline where the formalities were completed. And I was struck by the accent of the girl to whom I was speaking. it turns out that not only was she a French speaker from Acadie in New Brunswick, she was actually there, and my call had been diverted to Canada.

a little later I nipped out to Caliburn. the memory card in the dashcam in Caliburn had filled up yesterday so I’d brought it in with me. This morning I uploaded all of the media onto the hard drive and then took the empty card back down to keep as a spare.

One of my neighbours was out there so we had a chat. But freezing in the howling wind, I came in quickly.

Lunch was as usual, and then I set to work with the shredder. Another huge mound of paper has gone to meet its maker and another day or two will see the rest of it on its way. And then there’s more to attack, to keep me out of mischief for the next 6 months.

This afternoon I braved the hurricane and went outside, bumping into another neighbour on the way.

Nothing much happening out there, except at the chantier navale where Armor, Charles-Marie and La Granvillaise were receiving attention.

But the funfair seems to have gone, and so does Neptune. She set off at 06:08 on her way to Whitstable.

Back here, I opened my birthday present from Liz and Terry. A gorgeous chocolate cake.

It won’t keep for too long and seeing as I’m off to Belgium on Thursday half of it went straight into the fridge.

But I also cut myself off a slice to taste. And it’s delicious, as you might expect. As I have now run out of apple pie, I’ll be having a slice here and there for pudding with my coconut-flavoured soya cream.

Rosemary rang me up later and we had quite a chat – 1:33 of it, to be precise. She’s back now in France and here she intends to stay.

Tea was the pizza that I should have had yesterday, followed by the last slice of apple pie.

And then the walk around the walls.

There was only a thin sliver of moon but with the clear sky there was a beautiful reflection on the sea.

The wind had dropped and it was cold, but there was no-one around at all, apart from a new black cat that came for a stroke.

So now I’m going to bed. Nice and early. I want to have an early start tomorrow as I have a lot to do.

But before I go, spare a thought for my niece’s eldest daughter. Her boyfriend was seriously ill and his chances of survival were slight. He had proposed marriage to her and they tied the knot on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately their time together was short. He passed away on Saturday morning.

Poor Zoe.

Sunday 10th March 2019 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me again!

This afternoon I was invited out for a birthday treat by Liz and Terry, so I went hot-foot out to Roncey.

We had a really good chat about this and that, Terry showed me the bathroom that he’s been building (and it really is nice too) and then we had the pièce de resistance – which is not, as you might be forgiven for thinking, a French virgin.

Liz had cooked a giant cornish pasty full of a vegetable stuffing based on chick peas, lentils, onions, garlic and mustard. Together with roast vegetables, green mange-tout peas and a tomato sauce, it was absolutely delicious and I’ll have to try this at home.

Pudding was a kind-of raspberry mousse on a speculoos base, and that was just as nice.

And then Liz gave me a birthday present, and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what it is.

Last night, as you will know, I went to bed fairly early. But there’s no point in going to bed early if you end up wide awake at 04:11, is there?

The water heater switched off at 06:25 as usual (off-peak electricity ends at 06:30) – I heard that – but I must have gone to sleep at some point afterwards because I remember waking up at 08:25.

08:45 was when I hauled myself out of bed.

We had the usual morning routine, and then I spent most of the morning making a start on classifying the photos of September 2018.

Only 1730 of them from when I was in the High Arctic and I reckon that I’ve done about 90 of them. It’s not just a case of classifying them but I need to work out where I was at the time and to make brief notes of some of them where necessary.

As you can see this is going to be a very long job. Especially as I’m stuck because I can’t remember the name of the derelict US Air Force base where we inspected the military installations and saw the Greenland ice cap.

Even half an hour’s searching on the internet couldn’t come up with the name because it’s formerly a restricted site so it would never have been published back in the old days.

After lunch I carried on for a while and then headed off to Roncey.

And on the way, I ground to a halt because something caught my eye. It’s a case of “get thee behind me, Satan” because there’s a nice field with a long tree-lined drive that leads to a stately home, and this field has been divided into building plots that are up for sale.

A nice little two-bedroomed bungalow on one of these would be beautiful, but really given my state of health and my life expectancy, it would be a total folly.

I shall have to put that idea out of my head. And pretty quickly too!

Saturday 9th March 2019 – NEPTUNE IS BACK!

On my way out to the shops this morning, I noticed that Neptune had come in on the tide earlier this morning.

I stopped at the side of the road to take a photo of her. She’s busy pumping out the bilges – probably come over here in a ballast of water to keep her on an even keel in the stormy seas that we have been having just recently.

So she won’t be loading quite yet.

Last night was another decent night’s sleep. I was awake just before the alarm went off but I was in no hurry to leave the bed.

But last night was a rather interesting night. I was in a house where there were two separate gangs of organised criminals, and the aim was to keep these two groups separate so that they did not cross each other’s path. At a certain moment, we had to leave to go somewhere so I had to pack. And fo some reason I was packing all kinds of clothes that I had already worn and needed washing – with the argument that I could wash them in the hotel sink (although how I was going to iron the shirts was something else completely). I needed to pack the laptop and a few other things, but I only had a very short space of time to do it.
Later, I was somewhere round about the junction of Gresty Road and South Street talking to a couple that might have been the French mother and son whom I had met on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. I asked the mother if she had lived round here long, to which she replied in the affirmative. And so I enquired about a house at the back of the Royal Hotel in Pedley Street that was used as an artist’s studio, with a great big picture window facing south (which is bizarre because windows in artists’ studios face north, so that the light is even). She said that she knew nothing about it, but nevertheless she told me a surprising amount. So off I went round there to the area where I was on Wednesday morning and the Aldi supermarket and where, on reflections, I’ve been before, and found the house. In there were a couple of photographers and a couple of models doing some kind of greenscreen photography.

After the usual morning ritual of medication and breakfast, I had a shower and then set the washing machine going. There’s a huge pile of washing built up and I’m not sure how.

And then Neptune and the shops, calling at the paper container to dump another load of shreddings. It’s full now so I’ll have to wait for a while until it’s emptied.

LIDL had nothing special, although I did pick up another set each of AA and AAA batteries. I’ll have a big change-round of batteries here in the important stuff like the dictaphone and so on.

At NOZ, we encountered yet again another example of pathetic parking.

Judging by the registration number, that car is at least 10 years old, by the way.

Even though I spent a reasonable sum of money, it was on incidental stuff – nothing of any importance, except maybe a plastic werving spoon with holes in and, at long last, a nylon hand-whisk.

I have a metal whisk, which is great for using in a glass bowl, but no good in a metal saucepan. So €0:99 was money well spent.

Caliburn is getting low on fuel so I put some more in at LeClerc – the first since October, and then I didn’t fill it. I’m not going anywhere these days.

And in the shop, I didn’t buy anything special. There’s no point seeing as I’m going on Thursday.

Back here I actually managed to unpack and put everything away, and then I hung up the washing on the clothes drier in the windowsill.

After lunch I finished the blog entries for October so that’s up-to-date now.

But I couldn’t keep going. by about 14:30 I was under the covers in bed asleep, and there I stayed until 15:45.

However, I did managed to haul myself out of bed and go off for my afternoon walk.

This took me round by the rue du Nord and here on the corner they had started the renovation of a small block of flats here.

I shall keep my eyes on this work too over time, to see what they are doing.

Further on down the rue du nord, I had another look at the building works going on there.

That’s been going on all through the winter, in some kind of desultory fashion because he doesn’t seem to be making any rapid progress.

I’ve no idea when he might be finishing the job, but I’m not holding my breath.

Despite the fact that it was cold (I have the heating on again) there were quite a few people out with me walking around the walls today.

And down there on the Plat Gousset there were even more crowds of people milling around enjoying the early March weather.

It won’t be long before the tourists are back.

We even had a few people running around up and down the beach.

It’s not really a day for being on the beach, but at least they were enjoying it, so good luck to them.

But looking at the figure at the foot of the diving platform, and seeing how far out the sea is, when we have a high tide, the water is up above the level of the platform so you can see the tidal range around here.

The fairground out at the Parking Hérel is still going on, even though Carnaval finished on Tuesday.

For an experiment, I tried a long exposure to see if I could pick up the movement effect of the fairground attraction, but it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

I can see that I shall have to work on my technique.

Further on around the walls, I ended up in the Place Maurice Marland.

And having talked yesterday about Spring, here today we have the daffodils blooming quite impressively.

We’re definitely expecting the sun right now then, aren’t we? Spring can’t be too far away at all.

Back on the walls, I had a look down into the harbour.

We have Marité of course, and also a trawler by the name of Le Styx, and also Neptune, who seems to have stopped pumping out the ballast water.

And unless I’m very much mistaken, she seems to have acquired a new digger. The old one was white – I’m pretty certain of that. But this one is yellow.

Back here, I made a start on the images for September. Only a world-record 1730 of them so it’ll take me an age to do all of them.

And then, finally, I can restart the web pages for my trip to the High Arctic.

We had a break for the football. A top-of-the-table clash between Connah’s Quay and TNS. Connah’s Quay lost the match, and the lead in the table, by a score of 2-0.

And the difference was that Connah’s Quay played with a very ineffective attack, whereas TNS were excellent up front.

The Nomads can say goodbye to the Championship after this, and we’re back in the usual position of TNS out in front.

Tea was out of a tin – ravioli with lentils and veg followed by apple pie and soya.

And then out for my walk around the headland in the rain.

Nothing much happening, except that the funfair seemed still to be working. Nothing else apart from that so I came home and made myself a mug of cocoa to warm me up.

Now I’m off to bed, and a good lie-in tomorrow I hope.

I certainly need it.

Friday 8th March 2019 – SPRING IS SPRUNG!

the grass is riz
I wonder where de boidies is;

But never mind the birdies for the moment. We have the first sighting of buds on the plants today and I can’t believe that this has grown overnight, so I don’t know when they first appeared.

But nevertheless, it’s a welcome sign and always cheers me up when the buds appear. The sun can’t be far behind.

Last night was another good sleep, right the way through until the alarm went off. I’d been on a little voyage too. I was planning to travel to Canada one evening, and so sometime during the precious small hours I decided to go for a walk, despite the fact that I hadn’t even started packing. I was going along Nantwich Road in Crewe and on the corner of Ruskin Road where Chatwins was, there was an open-air bar with people sitting outside on long tables and benches. At that moment this really beautiful petite girl turned up and I was overwhelmed by her, but just as I was about to go over to talk to her, she took out a cigarette and lit it up. And nothing is more guaranteed to turn me off is someone starting to smoke. I ended up back somewhere where there was an array of television screens hanging from the walls, with a row of comfortable spacecraft-type seats in front of them. There were two people sitting on them – an older man and a young girl aged about 12 or so. I sat down on one of the chairs and pressed a button to select a film, which was something like a Star Wars film or similar.

07:00 when I finally arose from my stinking pit and I do have to admit that I could have forced myself out a long time before that too.

But having had the medication and then the breakfast (I’m enjoying my porridge) I set to work.

My trip around my blog and the searchable text database had brought me back to 14th October, and I could see why I had stopped there, because the previous day was our trip to the Ile de Chausey, with about 80 photographs.

And so I revised the blog entry for 13th October to make it much more readable, and to remove most of the photos from there.

Instead I created another web page specifically to show the photos and while I was at it, I noticed a little problem.

It seems that I have put an extra closed division in the coding of the web page that had forced some of the coding out of its container. I must have done that when I changed the web counter over.

So I had to go through and identify where it was, and remove it. And from all of the pages for the Carnaval too. And there were one or two other coding issues that needed correcting.

All of that took me up to lunchtime – a good morning’s work that was.

After lunch, talking of the carnaval, the first task was to vacuum the apartment. I think that I’ve shaken all of the confetti out of my clothes and the apartment was looking as if it had dandruff. So all of that was dealt with.

I seem to recall that last year I was still vacuuming up the confetti 6 months later, and it’ll probably be the same this year.

Next task was to shred another load of paper. The European Paper Mountain is looking much more manageable now and it won’t be long before it’s all gone.

The rest of the afternoon, such as it was, was doing a few more blog entries and, unfortunately, a little repose for 10 minutes on my chair.

Of course we had the usual walk around the headland this afternoon, and I stopped to see what was going on in the chantier navale

As well as Armor and La Granvillaise, we seem to have acquired another boat down there. She’s the Charles-Marie, another one of the tourist boats that hangs around the harbour.

I’ll have to go for another wander around down there to see what they are doing to her.

Tea tonight was a potato and lentil curry from 5th December … errr … 2017 and it really was delicious too.

And then I went for my walk around the walls. There was a strong wind and rain but the sea had died down so we didn’t have anything whatever compared to last night.

No-one around at all again so I was on my own. So I didn’t hang around.

Tonight will be an early night. I’m hoping for an early start tomorrow because it’s shopping day.

I don’t need much of course because I’m leaving on Thursday

Thursday 7th March 2019 – WE’RE IN THE …

… grip of another major storm here.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the weather station by the lighthouse here recorded one of the strongest blasts of wind ever registered in France.

And while it’s not anything like that windy (it’s quite easy to move about) there must be a really strong wind blowing somewhere out to sea

Standing on the old medieval walls overlooking the Plat Gousset, it was a really impressive sight watching the waves go smashing over the sea wall and crashing down on the promenade over there.

The power and force that there must be in the sea could power the whole of the world many times over if it were properly harnessed, that’s for sure.

Just for a change I managed to sleep right the way through until the alarms went off. Although I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to leave the bed.

I’d been on a travel too during the night. Something to do with some kind of outrageous posting made to a group of which I am a member in a French Social network. It unravelled itself into a scenario where I hd various packets of flour and so on and some olives and I was having to put them into different jars, and becoming confused to such an extent that I ended up with the olives in the flour and wondering how I could separate them.

After the medication and breakfast I had a good shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes, and then headed off to town.

I didn’t actually get too far though.

Right outside the door the recycling lorry had just finished emptying one of the containers.

I loitered for a while to see if if was going to empty another container, but in the end I had to clear off.

On the city walls in the rue des Juifs, I had a look down into the harbour.

I thought that I detected some lights down there last night but I wasn’t sure, but sure enough, it looks as if Thora came in on the evening tide yesterday.

It was pretty quiet down there though today. They didn’t seem to be doing much working.

Through the town and up the rue Couraye, I headed for the station to pick up my tickets for Leuven next week.

ON the square outside the station though there’s another small fairground. I remembered this from last year as soon as I saw it.

A shame though that I hadn’t remembered it on Tuesday evening when I was around the town at night taking photographs.

At LIDL I spent €16:00, about half of which was spent on batteries. They are having another sale of AA and AAA batteries and I’m running low on them. Most of the ones here date from about 12 years ago when I had the old Pentax K100D and they are not performing as they should.

Seeing as I put coriander in my apple pie the other day, I looked around and found some cinnamon (and also some ground nutmeg) and so I’ve added them to the shopping basket ready for the next round of cooking. I fancy an apple crumble next.

On the way home, I went down the rue Sainte Genevieve.

There’s another house-building project going on down there and I’ve been keeping my eye on that over the last few months.

They aren’t far off finishing it now. A coat of rendering will make it look so much better.

Back here, I unpacked the shopping and put it away. Not very often that I feel like doing that straight away.

There were a few things that needed doing today. Firstly, to change the hit counter over on the web pages that I did yesterday. I’d put the wrong one on there.

And then there was the question of working back over the blog entries for the last few days and adding some of the photos.

In between all of this, there was lunch to arrange. And as I had forgotten to defrost the hummus in the freezer I ended up eating more cheese from the supplies. I’ll have to buy some more in Leuven.

Outside this afternoon, the wind had increased in velocity from this morning.

Not unpleasantly so, but there was an impressive sea building up with loads of whitecaps.

“Building up quite nicely for this evening” I mused. And I was right too, as you have seen.

Anyway, I carried on with my walk around the headland, and paused for a moment to see what was going on down in the chantier navale

Armor is still there, with her hull still in aluminium but the deck superstructure looks as if it’s been painted white now.

And La Granvillaise is stil there too, with a couple of the volunteers working on her. That’s going to be a big job, preparing her for the coming tourist season.

Further on round the headland, and over there down in the port Thora is still at her station alongside the quay.

She seems to have been loaded with some stuff since I saw her earlier this morning so I’ll be expecting her to move out at high tide later on this evening when the harbour gates open.

Back here I had a couple of mugs of hot chocolate to warm me up and then did a whole pile of shredding.

One huge load has gone out to the container and there’s a half-a-load now waiting, but the shredder seems not to be coping with the volume of work that I’m expecting it to do.

I’ve had to dismantle … “disPERSONtle” – ed …it a couple of times to clean out a paper jam.

But by about 17:00 I’d have enough and I was in bed asleep for a good 90 minutes, which was a complete surprise following the amount of sleep that i’d had.

Tea was a slice of the leek and tofu pie from a few weeks ago. And it really was delicious, with potatoes, vegetables and gravy. Followed by apple pie and the coconut-flavoured soya dessert stuff.

This evening, I was alone again on my walk around the walls. No-one else seems to be keen to go for a post-prandial somnambulation.

I stayed of a good 15 minutes watching the storm break on the Plat Gousset and took a pile of photos.

And then I came back and edited all of them.

On the way back though, I had a look over into the harbour.

There was a trawler up by the fish processing plant, busily unloading its catch.

And Thora was still in port too. It looks as if she’s going to be in here for a while then. There must be something going on.

So now, I’m off to bed, always assuming that I can go to sleep after my little repose earlier.

Tomorrow, now that I’m up-to-date, I can start back into my programme of revision of October’s blog entries and see where that takes me.

lifeboat memorial storm baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night storm waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 6th March 2019 – I’VE ONLY BEEN …

… out once today, and that was this evening.

I did intend to go out mid-afternoon as usual, but I only made half-way down the stairs before I saw the rainstorm raging outside. Not the kind of weather to put a dog out – never mind me.

I tuned round and went back.

We had the usual alarms this morning, and the usual lie-in until 07:25 before I crawled out from under the covers.

Plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble. Last night I was in my house – which could have been anywhere, and a group of us was discussing the floor in the place. We ended up coming to the conclusion that what was needed was a layer of self-levelling cement. This involved moving absolutely everything off the floor so that we could lay the cement, but while everyone was in agreement with the decision, no-one wanted to do the work and it was a very dispirited crew that set to work in there.
Some time later I was in Crewe, wanting to go to the Aldi supermarket. And this was somewhere over at the back of Mill Street in the old terraced houses that had been demolished in the late 1960s. There was a big ruined brick building overgrown with branches and trees. Someone was throwing into the tree a kind of boomerang with a knife blade edge in order to try to cut off a few branches for firewood, but the resounding thud was shaking him up and he was retreating, in a style reminiscent of someone with St Vitus’s Dance. Behind there, amongst all of the weeds and rubble and wild trees was the Aldi Supermarket, all swathed in ivy. It all looked pretty desolate until you were very close to it. Outside was a kind of wire display basket with bananas in there. And what a price they were too. Brexit is beginning to bite.

Most of the day I’ve spent working on three web pages for Carnaval and Mardi Gras for this year. One page for each day.

Some of the photos have come out really well and I’m pleased with them, although others aren’t quite as good as I was hoping.

Whenever I fancied a break, I shredded a few papers and now there’s a huge mound of the aforementioned waiting for me to take them to the container.

If I keep on at this rate, they should be all gone in a few days and that will be a weight off my mind.

And, unfortunately, round about 13:00 I dozed off on my chair for half an hour.

With having made progress on the tracks that I’ve been playing on the bass (I can even play on the bass the guitar riff from Tom Petty’s track “Makin’ Some Noise” off Into The Great Wideopen – probably the best album Tom Petty ever made), I downloaded a few more tracks to work on.

These are going to be much more complicated to work out but I need to push onwards.

Tea tonight was a lentilburger with pasta and tomato sauce followed by more apple pie and coconut-flavoured soya cream. Delicious it was too.

The rain had stopped this evening so I went out. Windy it was though, so I was all alone except for a jogger with a LED headlight thing.

The sky was quite clear and there was a nice view across the tidal harbour over to the quay where the ferries to the Ile de Chausey and Jersey tie up.

In the background are the lights of the southern part of the town.

So tonight I’ll have an early night and try to have a decent sleep. Thursday tomorrow so I’m going to try to go for a walk to LIOL and do my shopping.

There’s a few things that I need.

Tuesday 5th March 2019 – IT’S MARDI GRAS …

… and there’s been the afternoon parade of floats around the town.

But the day started off with me ignoring the alarms and staying in bed until about 07:20.

Plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble or two.

We were having some kind of meeting at school with a few of the kids and I was on the interview panel. The first kid to be interviewed was my own daughter (which of course I don’t have, as far as I am aware) but was in fact Zero. I had to give her something of a lecture about one or two things that she hadn’t done, or had done incorrectly. And in the end I asked her if she was going to wait for me and we would go home together. That was what she wanted to do so I told her to wait “over there”. The next girl was a little think rake of a girl who had, apparently, failed her dancing exam. She’d put in a lot of effort and it was a shame that it hadn’t been rewarded. We needed to encourage her and bring her forward, and so we’d set up a little rehearsal lesson for her and one or two others. But this was going on far longer than it should have done and I ended up being worried about being late.

Later on, there was a crowd of us with my father in his old black Zephyr 6 3816TD. We were bowling along down the motorway and hit a traffic queue that slowed everyone down. The third lane was open so we swerved into there and passed the obstruction but ended up crawling along behind some motorist going really slowly. Eventually we pushed him (metaphorically of course) out of the way and even in fourth gear, tried to pull away from almost a crawl. I was interested to see if the car would do it. I mentioned that if my father wanted to fit a diesel engine into the Zephyr I had a Peugeot 2.3 diesel lying around out of a Sierra (I actually do, believe it or not) and that would go in quite nicely, especially as now all of my plans had changed and I was not going to use it. My father came up with a few objections about how all of the gearing would be wrong and much too over-geared, but I remarked that it seems to be coping quite well with the 2.5 litre petrol engine that’s in there right now.

We had the usual morning medication ritual, and later on a breakfast. Following which, I caught up with the outstanding photos from Sunday.

One task that I’ve been trying to do on a kind-of ad-hoc casual basis is to go through a few of the older web pages and update them with stuff that I’ve discovered subsequently, or with photos from subsequent visits.

I’d noticed that on one page from 2005 I’d missed a couple of photo shots that I had taken when I was there in September 2017, so this morning I attacked that web page and it’s now up-to-date until the next revision.

But here’s the exciting bit.

I was looking for yet another paper, and this led to a major tidy-up in here and filing of papers. That took a good couple of hours and things are looking much more optimistic in here now.

But surprisingly, while I was looking for something else, I came across the missing taxe d’habitation certificate for 2013. So that folder is now up to date and that’s good news.

A whole pile of stuff ended up in the shredder too and that went down to the paper container outside, and another half-bag has been shredded in here too, for finishing off tomorrow.

After lunch, I carried on tidying up in the bedroom and a lot of stuff has been put away. It’s certainly made a difference.

Later on, I went down to the harbour to see the floats arriving from their lap around the town. I took plenty of photos and videos and I’ll sort those out tomorrow.

The tide had turned while I was down there at the defilé.

As I was climbing back up the rue des Juifs I noticed that all of the fishing boats were starting to come in on the tide.

It was quite impressive watching them all come in in line-astern like this.

And you can tell that the tide had only just started to come in.

The channel is deepest nearest the left-hand side of the harbour entrance, and you can see that the fishing boats are keeping well over to that side of the entrance

And you’ll notice at the bottom of the image the seagulls are forming a queue for the leavings

With it being Mardi Gras, I had some taco rolls with stuffing and pasta, followed by apple pie and coconut-flavoured soya cream. That pie is getting better and better.

Following that I went back into town.

Despite the high winds, all of the big attractions at the fairground were in full flight, so I went down to photograph and film them.

I was down there for a good hour or so with the big Nikon taking photos and the Nikon 1 J5 taking the films.

ambulance attending emergency rue des juifs granville manche normandy france On the way back, I encountered something of a medical emergency in the rue des Juifs.

There was an ambulance parked blocking the street, with the personnel attending to someone in the driving seat of a car parked by the pavement.

I’ve no idea what was going on ther, and it didn’t seem to be the bet moment to enquire

Only a vague wave of fatigue today – no crashing out. So I’m off to bed now and hopefully I’ll have a good sleep ready for tomorrow and yet more work.

Meanwhile, If you want to see all of the photos from today, you need to go to THIS LINK

Monday 4th March 2019 – MY APPLE PIE …

… is delicious. Especially now that it’s cooled.

And what would have been even nicer would have been to put cinnamon in it instead of coriander. Sometimes I wonder what goes through my head at times.

Today though, has been in football parlance a day of two halves.

Having gone to bed early and having managed a decent sleep, with just one or two little awakenings, it was the alarm that awoke me at 06:00. And again at 06:10. And again at 06:20.

Sometime during the night, I’d been off on my travels. Reliving in some respects –
1) a discussion I’d had a few days ago with Amber
2) another nocturnal voyage of a good while ago
3) a trip that I had made to the UK in the old Ford Escort van in 2006.
It all took place in Ham Street in Kent, where an great aunt of mine used to live and where we used to go on holiday in the early 60s. There was a group of people going off skiing so I tagged along too. I had my skis with me of course, but no ski boots, and I was in a black suit and tie – not a ski outfit at all. The group leader was taking us off, so I explained about the shortfall in my equipment but her response was not to worry about it – and led us off regardless. Somewhere in there too was me in what at the time passed for Canada with a lot of people whom I knew from there, but was pretty much somewhere just like Ham Street, which would be the strangest part of Canada that I ever knew.

There was a lot to do today, so it needed to be done and done quickly. Rather like in MacBeth and “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”.

First thing to do was to download a form that had been sent to me, and then print it off. All 21 pages or so of it. And then of course, it needed to be filled in.

That wasn’t as easy as it might have been either and there were several questions that I couldn’t answer. So I filled in what I could and put it on one side for a moment.

In the meantime, I booked my trip to Leuven and my accommodation there. I’m spending a good few days there as I have a couple of things that need doing.

As per last time, I’ve booked my train from Brussels to Leuven on line as well. It saves time and stress at Brussels, and saves me 20 cents. Which is just as well, because I couldn’t get a cheap fare to Brussels this time.

By now it was 10:30 and I reckoned that people in the UK would be at work. So I telephoned them and had a discussion about the form that needed signing.

That took about 20 minutes all told, and then I had to scan all 21 pages of the form, assemble it, and send it off by e-mail. It’s not valid until the hard copy is received, but at least it will give them something to work with.

It was now too late to go to the Post Office so I had a nice half an hour shredding paper for the waste bin outside. I need to crack on with this project too and tidy things up here.

After lunch, I went down to the Post Office and sent off the form. That wasn’t cheap either (I’ve paid for a tracking service on it) but I need to know that it’s arrived because it’s important.

Final task was to liquidate my storage locker in the UK. There’s nothing in it of any use and as I have no intention whatever of going back to the UK under any circumstances, it’s pointless keeping it going.

All of this had totally exhausted me. I’m not well and not getting much better and I can’t keep on going. By 15:30 I was on the bed down under the bedclothes and there I stayed until about 17:50.

Totally out of it, I was. And it felt like it too. I’ve had the heating on in the apartment too – the first time for over a week. But I’ll have to be better than this – I’m back on the road in 10 days time.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper followed by the apple pie with coconut-flavoured soya cream. And as I said – delicious.

And then the walk around the headland in the storm. I have in mind the idea to go down to the town and see the lights of the fairground, but with this wind there was nothing much happening.

So I’ll go to bed now. See if I can have a good sleep. I need it too if I’m to improve.

But one thing that I will say – and that is that regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a while ago I bought in a cheap €1:00 sale in LIDL a small whiteboard and erasable felt-tip pen.

This is proving its weight in gold for making notes when I’m working. Much better than scraps of paper or trying to remember things that I need to do.

And then just wipe them off afterwards. It’s really one of the best things I’ve ever bought.

Sunday 3rd March 2019 – IT’S CARNAVAL PART II …

… and I nearly didn’t go.

And I wish that I hadn’t either. Standing around for four and a half hours in the cold and wet waiting for things to happen. Being poked and pushed and prodded, having my camera knocked out of my hands, having my foot stamped upon full force by a demented dancer …

I don’t do crowds at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best at all.

Having gone to bed early last night, i was away with the fairies until sometime while it was still dark, but I simply turned over and went back to sleep.

09:30 when I finally awoke, and 10:45 when I finally crawled out of bed.

That’s what I call a Sunday.

There was time to go a-rambling too. Off with a friend of mine who sold me a scam about a kidnap ransom fee and obtained £130,000 from me. And even though I knew what was happening, I couldn’t do anything about it.

And so a breakfast so late that I didn’t even bother with lunch. In fact, there wasn’t time to do all that much at all.

Instead, I put on the heater in the bathroom and while that was warming up I went out to check the times of the procession.

Not 14:30 as I had thought, but 13:30. So I dashed back here for a quick shower and then dashed back out.

Fighting my way through the throngs, I picked a good spot and waited for the procession.

Never mind 13:30 – it was more like 14:45 when the first one went past. And then the others (there were 47 in all) appeared. One after the other, with huge gaps in between. Probably 10 minutes on some occasions.

In the end, I was so cold that I headed for home regardless, and that was where I finally found the final 5. 17:40 and they still hadn’t set out yet.

Beaten, battered and bruised, I ended up back home where I crashed out on the chair, totally fed up and exhausted.

Before tea, I finally made my apple pie. And delicious it might be – but it’s far too wet. Too much liquid in it, and I knew that the moment that I added it.

But it was nice with some of that coconut soya dessert stuff, after my excellent vegan pizza.

So even though it’s not even 22:00, I’m off to bed. I’m still not feeling very good.

But before I do, I’ll just mention that I’ve solved the problem of the exposure on the big Nikon camera. I have one of the function buttons set up to work the exposure correction override. And what seems to have happened is that the button has been pushed too far in and wedged under the lip of the hole, so it’s permanently switched on.

So now I’ve noticed, and freed it off, it all works fine again.

That’s one less thing to worry about.

And if you want to see all of the photos for today, you need to go to THIS LINK

Saturday 2nd March 2019 – IT’S “CARNAVAL”!!!

And I was actually out there for part of the time joining in the festivities, even though I didn’t feel all that much like it.

It all started to go wrong even while I was still in bed.

It wasn’t as early as I would have liked – more like midnight in fact. And when the alarm went off at 06:00 (and 06:10, and 06:20) I didn’t actually haul myself out straight away.

Plenty of time though to go on a voyage, and It was certainly a weird one last night. Something like a sketch from “The Men From The Ministry” where someone (and it might even have been me but I doubt it) was trying to shave, but here seemed to be no soap so I’ve no idea what was being used and the blade was so blunt that it was merely smearing it around on the face. It wasn’t until much later that the realisation dawned that, sitting there half-shaven and in a mess, it might have been better to have simply used a new razor with a decent blade. And this ended up somehow with two people, the poor shaver and his sidekick, sitting in a car in the driveway of a country house doing everything wrong, and I’ve no idea why.

07:00 when I finally crawled out of bed and attacked the medication. And later on, we had breakfast of course.

There was an hour or so while I had a bash at the photo database, and then there was work to do.

I’d forgotten that I’d filled up a 32GB memory card on the Nikon 1 while I was away in Canada in September. I hadn’t saved the files and the card that’s in there now id filling up.

When I say “saved” the files, everything is saved onto the laptop and then on an external hard drive. But before I reformat the memory cards, I copy the images onto DVDs as an extra back-up.

These hadn’t been backed up as yet onto DVD so I spent a couple of hours copying them all onto a pile of DVDs, labelling and saving them. And then, of course, formatting the memory card.

I’m running out of space too in the hard-storage bit so I had to shuffle all of the disks around to make enough space in a storage container.

I had a quick lunch, and the went outside to head into town.

On foot of course because we are hemmed in right now. Just look at all of these caravanettes parked up on the public car park just outside our apartment building.

You can’t move for the blasted things and the blasted grockles that drive the blasted things.

And they are everywhere. Every last square inch of space has a caravanette parked on it.

Even our old friend the ancient CF Bedford isn’t safe. A couple of caravanettes have crammed themselves in around it.

And if you look across the port, you’ll see a few dozens more scattered around all over the place.

Anyway, I struggled up the road nevertheless to see what was going on

Including the unedifying spectacle of watching some unkempt middle-aged man struggling to keep control of three large dogs that were jumping up and down on a girl of about 7, and getting all upset when I told him that he ought to keep his blasted dogs under flaming control.

We almost had an “incident” there.

So I took up my place half-way up the rue Couraye and whatched the children’s parade come down.

It seemed to be strangely quiet this year – not even half the floats and parades that I remember from last year.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are the big days of the carnaval of course but even so …

After the parade, I went for a walk down town into the place Charles de Gaulle to see what was happening there.

Not all that much either compared to last year. I seem to recall that it was heaving in there back then.

But at least it gave me an opportunity to study some of the costumes of the paraders, and I was suitably impressed with some of them.

So while you admire a few more photos of the people and paraders, I climbed back up the hill for home.

And for some strange reason it was a long, weary climb back up here.

I could tell that I was not feeling myself right now yet again, and that’s no good.

Back here, I spent most of the time fending off waves of fatigue until near tea-time.

Two taco rolls with the last of the stuffing, with pasta and vegetables. Followed by one of these soya almond desserts.

The plan was then to go out and inspect the night-time carnaval activities, but a couple of things delayed me.

Firstly, I wasn’t feeling as well as I ought to have been. A kind of general fatigue and tiredness I suppose – the after-effects of my illness.

Secondly, I suddenly went freezing cold.The temperature in here is reasonably warm, but it was just how I was feeling I reckon.

Thirdly, a football match appeared on the internet. Barry Town v Cambrian and Clydach from Tonypandy, in the Welsh Cup.

I didn’t have the strength to plug in the laptop to the big TV in the living room.

Instead, I curled up on the chair and watched it on the big computer.

For a while anyway. I was just getting colder and colder so I ended up in bed under the covers watching it from there.

And then Rosemary rang me up, so I was chatting to her down the bed while watching the football.

Who says men can’t multitask?

We were chatting for almost all of the second half of the game and then my bad throat gave out so I had to hang up.

As for the football, Barry Town were clearly the better side (which is no surprise seeing as they are one division up) and they soon went into the lead.

But then they missed half a dozen easy tap-ins. One after the other was miskicked or sailed over the bar from three feet out.

And I remember thinking that they’ll pay for these misses.

Which they did, because all of a sudden they found themselves 2-1 down – two goals out of nothing had caught them cold.

But class will out and in the end they scored two goals later in the game to make the score look better than it ought to have done at one time.

Fitness and perseverence told in the end, for Cambrian and Clydach were puffing and blowing at the end.

So having missed the fair, I’m off to bed. Fatigue, headache and all.

I’m definitely not so good right now, but a good lie-in tonight and tomorrow might make me feel better.

At least I hope so. It’s the big parade tomorrow.

And if you want to see the rest of the photos of the carnaval for today, you need to go to THIS LINK

Friday 1st March 2019 – DYDD GWYL DDEWI HAPUS …

… to everyone.

And haven’t I had a big surprise today.

Remember when I went into the Mairie the other day to have a discussion with the Maire and ended up with the secretary?

Well, the secretary phoned me back today. Apparently the Maire has taken on board my remarks, made a few enquiries and come back to me.

I wasn’t expecting that, that’s for sure.

It’s not advanced things very much, as I didn’t expect that it would, but having someone like the Maire on your side is a comfort in these difficult times.

And difficult times they are.

Being completely wound up last night as I was, I was still up working at 02:00, totally unable to sleep. More like 02:30 when I went to bed,. And as for sleep, well, there wasn’t very much of that. I was tossing and turning all night.

There was enough time to go off on a travel. I was in Greece in some kind of primitive café helping with moral support (although what support I could ever give anyone would be considered as being moral) some girl who was trying to run it despite all of the opposition and difficulties that her family – the nominal owners – were putting in her path. The strange thing was that when the alarms went off, I totally ignored them and stayed in bed. And although I was by now awake, the journey carried on. And carried on for miles too from exactly the same place where I awoke. Not something that happens every day.

By 09:25 I was ready to awaken, and straight into controversy yet again where a couple of self-important auto-sycophants were bragging about how they had “briefed” a politician and “won a famous victory for UK citizens in Europe” by getting him to look at at. Completely oblivious of the fact that the EU had thrown out this idea weeks ago.

And so this totally shameless display of self-serving egocentricity caused me to explode yet again. And even deeper into the abyss.

I went for a very late breakfast after that. and then came back to start on the blog and the text database.

But not for long, because the Mairie interrupted me.

And then, almost immediately, another phone call from someone else who is on my list of things to do.

This started me off on a wave of work. From somewhere, I summoned up a piece of energy so went on a tidy-up in the bedroom.

Bank statements are fairly tidy now and I found a couple of other papers. And so I then sat down, made a few more phone calls, sent out some e-mails and wrote a letter too.

It may sound not much, but it certainly made an impression on the stuff in here.

My lunch was a light one, and that made me feel a little better.

I did manage to do some work on the photos and the database. Not a lot, but I’m back as far as 18th October 2018. It’s going a little quicker than I was expecting.

Later on in the afternoon I went for my afternoon walk.

I went around the headland at the Pointe du Roc through the crowds and hordes of tourists up there

And there was a beautiful view across the harbour right over to the coast on the far side by the Cale de Hacqueville.

There were quite a few people at the Chantier Navale, loitering around that big wooden boat that I mentioned last time, so I went over for a chat.

The boat that is on there is in fact La Granvillaise – a yacht that we have seen on many occasions around the harbour.

She’s been taken out of the water for a complete refit and overhaul by the volunteers, and she’s going to be there for a while.

While I was down there at the Chantier Navale, I went over to have a look at Armor – the ship from the diving place down the Brittany coast.

They’ve stripped off most of the old paint, and are currently giving it a good go over in white primer, ready presumably for its top coat.

They have put a lot of work into it. It will look good when it’s finished.

My route into town took me past the place Charles de Gaulle.

Here I could admire the stage that they had erected the other day. Events will be getting under way tonight, although I won’t be down there.

Instead, I went to the Post Office and sent off the letter that I had written. It won’t go until Monday afternoon but it needs to be on its way.

Back up the hill, I stopped to watch one of the ferries from the Ile de Chausey coming into port.

And there was a weird commotion going on behind me.

Some woman pulled up in her car, shouted to a passer-by “watch my vehicle” and ran off down the road shouting “Chantal” or something.

Everyone was standing around there shaking their heads.

Back here, I had a pleasant surprise. A friend of mine in the UK has sent me a little present for my birthday to help me along my way. That was just so very thoughtful of him and I’m overwhelmed.

Tea was a small stuffed pepper with a little rice followed by a pot of soya dessert and a banana.

And then football. The Welsh Cup, Caernarfon Town v Connah’s Quay Nomads.

Connah’s Quay were strangely subdued, michael Wilde was at walking pace and Callum Saunders was somewhere else in his mind, I think.

But Caernarfon seem to have gone off the boil too – a shadow of the impressive hard-working side of earlier in the season.

The Nomads won 2-1, but it was a very long game.

So it’s bedtime now.

I’m feeling a little better, and maybe a decent sleep might cheer me up again.

It’s Carnaval tomorrow.

And I seem to have lost one of the camera gloves that my friend Liz bought me for my birthday of 2008. I’m dismayed.

coastline granville manche normandy france

chateau de la crete granville manche normandy france

harbour light st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franc

EPIC HALL

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