Tag Archives: place d’armes

Sunday 27th January 2019 – NOW THAT’S …

… more like it.

No alarm this morning. And when I finally did awaken it was a gorgeous, beautiful 10:15. And when I finally did rise up from my stinking pit, it was an even better 10:40. Now why can’t I do this every Sunday when I don’t have to catch a train?

There was plenty of time to go on my travels too. Last night I was once more upon the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. There was a musician playing the guitar and singing and at some point he had invited me to join in. But when we reached the point where I should have joined in, someone else from the back of the room took up the part. And that upset me somewhat. It was something similar to the scene in The Gendarme At St Tropez when, on his way to choir practice, Louis de Funès arrests a burglar. A little later I had to go to the restaurant and take with me a crate of stuff, including half a dozen bottles. But I was so weak that it was a struggle to carry it, and when I found that it wasn’t needed and had to take it back, I couldn’t move. I had to put it on the floor and drag it, but that was even more difficult.

With a very late breakfast, I didn’t bother with lunch. Just a few pieces of fruit and a slice of my Christmas cake. It’s even better as it matures, although there is a limit.

But with it being Sunday, I had a very lazy day and didn’t do too much at all. I downloaded a program from the internet and had a play around with it, but it doesn’t work as well as I would like.

I also resurrected an ancient program from about 10 years ago to give that another go, but there seems to be an issue with that. Mind you, it’s been transformed through several operating systems and several computers so it’s probably not compatible with new technology and there’s probably been an upgrade along the way.

I eschewed my afternoon walk today. The wind was howling around outside like nobody’s business. It didn’t look very good at all.

This evening though, when I went out for my evening walk after a delicious vegan pizza, the wind had died down somewhat.

It was now a mere hurricane strength, but because the tide was so far out, there were no impressive waves crashing down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset.

Had I been out this afternoon I might have had some kind of impressive view. But as Kenneth Williams once famously said, “I’m not getting wet for a load of bleeding birds”.

Minette the black cat was out there tonight on her windowledge. And believe it or not, that’s the only person to whom I’ve spoken today.

So tomorrow, back to work. there’s a lot to do and I keep on putting it off.

night sea plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 26th January 2019 – THAT FOOTBALL MATCH …

… was something of a damp squib.

In many more ways than one too. It’s difficult to play football in a quagmire in a torrential downpour. In front of a crowd that could easily have been 2500 people, the players battled away without the fire and passion that I was expecting. But as I said, any fire that might have been out there would have been rapidly extinguished in the cloudburst.

Bangor came out of the blocks by far the quickest but they didn’t really look that dangerous up front. They had only really one dramatic moment when they could have scored, although they did put one in the net from a glancing deflection during a corner.

But their players didn’t have any kind of impressive appearance. They looked like the kind of player that you would see on the public park on a Sunday morning. Caernarfon’s players however looked like athletes. Their first goal was a typical Jamie Breese bruising battling run through a couple of powder-puff defensive tackles. Although Bangor equalised as I mentioned just now, Caernarfon scored a second with a good header from one of their defenders.

That was probably the correct result.

Last night I was at a girls football match in the USA. One of the attackers on one side was a lanky Métisse with a big afro haircut. She was substituted at one point in the match and left the field. A little later her team was attacking the opposing goal and in a good position when there was a commotion on the touchlines. The girl who had been substituted was arguing with someone and had broken a drinking glass to use as a weapon. This horrified everyone on the field and the match stopped. The girl with the ball ran off the field towards the other girl, brandishing a knife. When the second girl saw the first girl running towards her brandishing the knife, she took to her heels and ran away out of the ground. And it transpired that the girl was actually holding a beaker with a silicone pastry spatula in it.

That took me up to about 05:40 – a sleep of about 4.5 hours, and although the alarm went off at 06:00, it was rather more like 07:30 when I left my stinking pit. Straight after breakfast I hit the streets to do the shopping early.

LIDL had nothing special, and neither did LeClerc (although I forgot my pains au chocolat) but at NOZ they finally came up with the right spare sheet, and also a book on Normandy in the 12th, 13th and 14 Centuries.

There was plenty of time for me to catch up with some work before lunch, but it’s taking it out of me right now so I made a coffee and had a rest for a while.

After lunch, I started to work and managed to put three days’ worth of blog posts on line.

And then I went out and braved the hurricane for a walk in the twilight.

It was actually quite a beautiful evening as far as photography goes. The coastline right down past the old walled town as far as Donville-les-Bains was quite clear.

It came out really well in this photograph.

That prompted me to go down to the end of the Pointe du Roc and see what I could do down there.

The sky was still fairly light over by Cancale and St Malo and the the street lights stood out really well along the dark coastline.

Cancale, to the left of the photo, is all of 30 kilometres away. And it’s all come out very clearly, especially as it was a hand-held shot.

There was time to finally unpack the shopping, and tea out of a tin before the football.

No alarm tomorrow, because it’s Sunday. Hopefully I can have a lie-in for a change. I missed my Sunday lie-in last week.

cancale granville manche normandy france

st malo cancale granville manche normandy france

Friday 25th January 2019 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… the early night that I was expecting.

I’m not quite sure what happened but it was certainly later than midnight when I went to bed. And even later when I went to sleep.

What was even more surprising was that I was up and about reasonably early too, not too long after the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too. Back on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I’m not now sure why. Although it has been in my thoughts just recently and on my live ship navigation feed, I noticed before going to bed that she’s currently in the Antarctic moored to an ice-floe about 300 yards offshore.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a change of clothes and a general clean-up. I need to look my best for I have things to do. These included tracking down Brigitte my neighbour. And I was extremely lucky in that I caught her just as she was on the point of going out.

Nevertheless she devoted 15 minutes to countersigning my passport application. It’s quite handy having a former Civil Servant in the building who can actually remember me from the past. As I have said before … “and you will say again” – ed … it’s a small world, and it’s getting smaller all the time.

I collected up all of the papers and headed off into town. I posted off the form to declare that I had lost my original, and then went into the Post Office to send off the application registered post, recorded delivery with receipt – all of that. I’ve no idea how long it might take to replace my passport but the way things are as they are, I imagine that this 6-week time limit is going to be considerably under pressure.

Picking up a baguette I headed for home, only to bump into Brigitte again. Every labour deserves its reward so I invited her for a coffee. This was at about 11:30. We had a chat too and much to my surprise it was 13:47 by the time we moved off. I’ll have to take my bed with me next time.

After a rather late lunch I started to catch up with the paperwork, with a brief interruption for a walk around the headland in the rain.

Back here I started to carry on but by 17:15 I was flat out on the bed and asleep. And I would probably still be there now had I not had another severe attack of cramp. But I wasn’t in the mood for any tea, but made a quick plate of pasta and veg.

The rain had gone this evening but the wind was blowing quite strongly.

With the tide being in, the waves were crashing up over the promenade again at the Plat Gousset. It was altogether quite an impressive sight.

And on the way back I nearly collided with a young girl walking the other way who loomed up out of the darkness around the corner.

Back round in the rue Notre Dame I met up with Minette the black cat who seems to have forgiven me for whatever I did to her because she let me stroke her.

Shopping tomorrow so I might have an early night. No football in the evening either except on the internet where the biggest match this century will take place. Bangor City and Caernarfon Town are separated by about 13 miles and so hate each other with a passion. Caernarfon have always been the underdogs but were promoted to the Welsh Premier League last season finally to meet Bangor, only to find that Bangor were expelled for financial irregularities. They meet up in the Welsh Cup tomorrow at Bangor and Caernarfon’s allocation of 1300 tickets was sold out ages ago.

This is going to be a corker.

night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Thursday 24th January 2019 – THAT WAS A …

… delicious tea tonight.

Potatoes, peas, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Some vegan sausages that I bought, all nicely covered in a thick, creamy cheese sauce with pepper and tarragon. It was one of the best meals that I’ve eaten for quite some considerable time.

And I deserved it too, because I’ve had a difficult day today.

I mentioned last night that I crashed out at about 18:30 or so. And despite my saying that I would be up and about fairly soon to carry on, that was that until about 01:00.

And by 01:30 I was so wide awake that I arose and started to sift through the files on the portable laptop I was awake enough to do that but not enough to catch up with the outstanding work. That took me up until about 05:00 when I retired for a second time.

Some time during one of my periods of sleep I had been on my travels. I was back in the Auvergne last night in my filthy, rat-infested hovel trying in vain to bring some kind of order out of chaos and not knowing where to start. I was distracted however by a couple of vehicles driving along the path outside my house so I looked out of a window (that I don’t have) to see a black people-carrier type of vehicle driving there. I went outside to find that my house wasn’t where it should be but somewhere up on the main road by Montcocu and at the side of my house was a small airfield. I ended up chatting to someone and the name of a former schoolfriend came out in the conversation. Apparently things weren’t going too well with him. But as we were chatting I noticed some concrete hardstanding at the side of the house to the rear, and I wondered why the thought of not putting a caravan on there hadn’t occurred to me in the past.

After all of my exertions yesterday, 09:30 was much more like a decent time to leave my bed. A very late breakfast automatically followed.

First task was to have another quick look around for my passport. I’d thought of one or more places that might be possible. But no luck, as I was expected. That led me up to the unpacking and the putting-away of the items from my new rucksack. And that worked quite well, and will be even better when all of the pockets and zips are broken in.

Lunch was late. There was still some hummus left and that went down nicely on my bread.

First thing to do in the afternoon was to print off the form to report my passport as lost or stolen. No sense in leaving it because there is going to be a time limit on this, what with one thing or another. Luckily, I had all the details to hand. Long and bitter experience has taught me to scan all of my important documents and keep them as image files. All of the details are there and there are even things that you can print if necessary.

When I went for my afternoon walk, it was raining outside. Not enough to soak me but enough to make me want to complete my circuit quickly. There wasn’t anything that I could see, with a heavy mist hanging over the sea.

Back here this afternoon I had to reapply for my new passport. The original application had timed out. And sure enough, the form needs to be countersigned by a professional person. Why they don’t tell you that before you print off the form I really don’t know, because had I known I could have done this and taken it to the hospital for countersigning. Now, I’ll have to find someone else.

Rosemary rang up later and we had another mega-chat. She’s doing well after her medical visit the other day and that’s good news. She was quite cheerful too and that’s always pleasant to hear. I told her about a few of my future plans because, you can be assured, that I always have plans running around in my head.

The weather had cleared up this evening and it was quite nice outside; But there was no-one about at all. I seem to be the only nocturnal rambler around here.

So I’ll try for an early night and a decent sleep tonight. I need to get myself into gear and push on with my projects.

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day I had today.

It finished by being all right on the night, but it not without a great deal of effort.

For a start, I had what they might call a nuit blanche. Despite a reasonably early night, I don’t remember going off to sleep at all.

I suppose that I must have at one point though, because I was off on my travels for a short while. And here’s a blast from the past. I was back playing in a rock group again and we had a booking lined up somewhere in West London. There was a girl from school whom I quite fancied (which I actually did all those years ago, funnily enough) and she was at University down there. She had suggested at one time that I should drop in and look her up. I’d suspected that this was just a little bit of flannel but nevertheless it was worth following up so as I was in the company of her brother (who coincidentally has sent me an e-mail just yesterday) I’d check up. His reply was that “she’s very popular with her fellow-students down there, you know”, which of course told me everything that I needed to know. Even I could read between those kind of lines.

I was definitely awake at 05:20 and when the alarm went at 06:00 I leapt out of bed (well, sort-of) immediately.

With most things already being packed, I just drank the rest of the contents of the drinks bottles and rinsed them out, gave the room a quick once-over, and was then out of the door well before 06:30.

There was snow and ice all over the place and it was a difficult walk up town.

But I was on the station in time for the earlier train to Brussels. It was being pulled by one of the Siemens Serie 18 electric locomotives.

The SNCB owns 120 of these and, beleive it or not, despite their looks they are only about 8 years old. They get plenty of use.

My train from Leuven brought me early into Brussels.

This gave me a good opportunity to go for a look around outside the station at the heavy snow was falling. It looked quite impressive this morning, illuminated with the flash on the camera.

And then off to the supermarket, which was now open, for my raisin buns for breakfast.

The TGV was on time this morning.

It’s our old friend 4302, one of the PBKA (Paris-Brussels-Kôln-Amsterdam) series 43000 units of which there are 19 – built in the mid-90s when the service was launched

I was looking forward to having a good sleep to catch up with what I had missed during the night but it wasn’t to be.

Instead, because of all of the snow (it really was heavy) the train had to slow down because otherwise it might overrun signals. And so we crept along at a slow but steady 180kph instead of a flat-out 300kph.

We were warned that we would be at least 40 minutes late arriving in Paris. That meant that I had to go off and hunt down the train manager to have her sign my ticket. I have a feeling that I’m going to be horribly late in Paris and if I miss my connection, the next train is 3 hours later.

I don’t fancy spending three hours sitting on a freezing cold, draughty platform and I certainly don’t want to have to pay for the privilege if there’s a way of avoiding it.

First off the train and along the platform – a long time since I moved so fast. And just as I arrived on the Metro platform a train pulled in. So I leapt aboard and it rattled off.

Arriving at Montparnasse, I was first off the train and off on the long walk to my platform right at the far end of the station miles away. I even took all of the travelators and even though they were rolling, I walked along them to speed things up.

And I was lucky I did. It’s about a 2km walk from the metro to my train, and I couldn’t afford to hang around.

I turned up at my platform just as the guard was about to signal the departure. No sooner had I put my feet on board than he blew his whistle and the train pulled out.

I was so stressed out with all of this that it took me a while to regain my composure. Totally out of breath I was.

The snow eased off by the time we reached Surdon and we rattled along quite steadily. Somewhere round about Vire or so I fell asleep because I remember nothing whatever from then on until we arrived in Granville. Dead to the world.

It was another struggle back up to my apartment.

What with all of the effort I stopped to catch my breath half-way up the rue des Juifs and I could admire the harbour.

As well as Marité down there at her mooring too we have Thora tied up at the quayside. I can’t see what her load is today, and there didn’t look as if there was anyone down there

In the previous photo you might have noticed one of the gravel lorries driving onto the quayside.

They have obviously been very busy because there’s quite a pile of gravel accumulating on the quayside now, and that can only mean one thing.

Very soon we might be receiving a visit from Neptune who will come to take it all away back to the UK

It was cold and windy out there, although nothing like as cold as it had been in Belgium. But it was freezing in here and the first thing that I did was to switch on the heating.

There were a few things that I needed to do back here but round about 18:30 I’d had enough. I’d had a very bad night with almost no sleep, I’d been up early, dashed about all over the place and moved like I had never done for years. On top of that, I’d missed most of my siesta.

So that was that. I went to bed. When I awake, I’ll carry on.

Sunday 20th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN BUILDING …

… up for a while so it’s no surprise that I was going to have a bad day sooner or later. But to have one on the day that I’m travelling is not what I was expecting at all.

Possibly it was the late-ish night that didn’t help, or possibly it was the fact that I couldn’t drop off to sleep..Or maybe even the fact that I awoke at about 05:40. But whatever it was, it wasn’t very good.

Still, no point in holding off the inevitable. I crawled out of bed.

No medication, and no breakfast either. Instead, I had a shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes, and then unplugged all of the electrical appliances (although I realised later that I had still left a few plugged in).

Packing the food and making the butties was next. A quick bit of cleaning up and tidying was next and then I hit the streets.

It was a long, lonely, difficult crawl up to the railway station and I really didn’t feel at all like it.

When I arrived at the station the garrulous cleaner was there so we had a little chat about things.

Luckily the train was in so I quickly grabbed a coffee and clambered aboard to my seat. I could sit and eat my breakfast in comfort while I waited for things to happen.

The train set off bang on time and that’s always encouraging, but my optimism didn’t last all that long. We’d only travelled a few miles before there was a call over the PA ystem “could any doctor or nurse on board make themselves known to the ticket collector?”.

Is there a doctor in the house? I hadn’t realised that I looked so bad.

But as it happens, it wasn’t for me.

Our train made an unscheduled stop at Folligny and all of a sudden there were a lot of people running around outside. Eventually, an ambulance pulled up on the station forecourt and the emergency personnel started to run around.

Round about this time I dozed off to sleep but by the time that I awoke we had the SAMU here too. And after a good while they evacuated a person on a stretcher. Judging by the heavy covers over the stretcher and the lack of urgency of the emergency personnel, it can’t have been good news for whoever it was.

75 minutes late, we headed off on our route. I made sure that I had the ticket collector sign my ticket to say that the train was delayed. It’s going to be touch-and-go for me to catch my TGV in Paris.

At Villedieu-les-Poeles I was joined by a fellow-passenger – a charming lady. I was looking forward to some convivial company but she just buried her head in her book and that was that.

70 minutes late at Montparnasse-Vaugirard so I had to move fairly rapidly – the last thing that I felt like. I was interrupted too by some African woman who wanted me to tell her the directions to somewhere or other – but what do I know?

We had a long wait for a metro too. This wasn’t looking good. And it was crowded too but I managed to grab a folding seat and make a start on my butties.

Much to my surprise, when I arrived at Paris Gare du Nord our train was already at the platform. She is our old friend PBKA 4304. We’ve travelled on this one on several occasions

Even more surprisingly I found that I still had half an hour to wait before I could board the train. I hadn’t been delayed as long as I thought. There was even a free seat in the public area for me to sit and finish off my lunch and that was even more surprising.

We were allowed on board the train early and I ended up with another charming and personable companion. But she was busy on her telephone so I curled up and went to sleep – just waking up long enough to have my ticket inspected.

The train arrived in Brussels a few minutes early which was very nice. I actually had plenty of time to buy my ticket for my train to Leuven.

That was on time too so it wasn’t long before I was in Leuven. A nice comfortable ride in a nice comfortable train.

But winter is here in Leuven, that’s for sure. It’s minus 2°C and there’s plenty of frost lying about all over the place.

At my little lodgings there is no trace of my passport unfortunately, but at least my room is warm and comfortable. I unpacked everything and then, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out. And for two hours too. I was well away with the fairies.

I was awake later long enough to walk into town to pick up a pizza. After all, it is Sunday.

One thing that I noticed was that the Tiensestraat is closed off and they’ve dug up the road. Judging by the look of things it seems to be something to do with the drainage. But whatever it is, it will keep them out of mischief for a while.

My pizza was absolutely delicious and I really enjoyed it.

But I was soon back in bed. I just can’t last the pace these days, can I?

medical emergency gare du folligny manche normandy france

drainage work tiensestraat leuven belgie

Saturday 19th January 2019 – PART THREE …

… of “hunt the passport” continued today. And the result was exactly the same as Parts One and Two.

Even donning a pair of rubber gloves and sifting through two weeks of putrefying rubbish in the waste bin in the kitchen failed to produce a result.

The alarm went off as usual and in accordance with usual practice these days I was rather tardy in rising from the dead.

After breakfast I made a start on searching in the living room for the passport. That involved firstly going piece-by-piece through all of the cardboard and paper that had accumulated here over the last two weeks.

Once I’d done that, it all went into the back of Caliburn ready for the tip one of these days.

A little later I wandered off into town.

I’d noticed the other day that a strange sign had appeared by the archway into the medieval town, and I had overlooked to go and read what it was saying.

So I took the opportunity to go over there for a read, and it’s concerned with the roadworks for the fibre-optic cabling that is taking place all over Normandy.

First stop was the Bank. I know that they told me on the telephone that they didn’t have it, but it needed to be confirmed. And it was too, much to my dismay.

But over the road is the photo place, and I need a pile of photos for various things, so he rattled me off a quick pile of them.

On the way back I called into the market for a baguette and then wandered round to the Police Station to see if by any chance the passport had been found and handed in.

But as regular readers of rubbish might recall, it’s times like this that the Police Station is closed. Instead I went next door to the Carrefour and bought my rubber gloves.

On my way down into town I’d noticed that our old friend (and “old” being the operative word) the Bedford CF was parked up in it usual place in the rue des Terreneuviers

And so on the way back up the hill to home, I took a photograph of it. It’s been a while since we’ve featured an old vehicle on here

It’s probably at least 35 years old, but it keeps on rolling along regardless. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few months ago that they were taking out the engine at the side of the road on one occasion that it was here.

Back at the flat, Jackie contacted me. No luck at the Deutsche Bahn either but at least the loss is recorded and I have a file number. So I printed out the report, printed out a copy of the passport (I keep a scan of all of my important documents “just in case”), put it all in the expired passport from 2010 and put that in my pocket.

If I’m controlled on my journey, at least I’ll have something to show for it.

After lunch I went through the waste bin and that was horrible with all of the stuff that was in there. But it had to be done and at least I know that it’s not in there.

But I couldn’t see the rail tickets from my visit just before Christmas, so I don’t know where they are. And so I reckon that wherever they are, my passport is there too.

It’s certainly not anywhere else in the house. I’ve been right through it so I’m reasonably sure of that, so how did I manage to write the passport number on the form that I have?

Tea was out of a tin tonight, and then we had the football. The Welsh League Cup between Cardiff Metropolitan and Cambrian & Clydach, the team from Tonypandy.

Cambrian & CLydach are from the Second Level but they did really well and took some impressive scalps on their way to the final. They played quite well with a couple of really good players, but Cardiff Metro had much more experience. Cambrian should have had a penalty early in the game, but they should also have had two men sent off in the first 35 minutes – one for a stamping and the other for an elbow.

Cardiff Metro scored a goal in the first half, and a second with the final kick of the game following a breakaway from a Cambrian corner, with the Cambrian keeper stranded upfield.

The game hinged on a substitution from Cambrian after 60 minutes. They brought on a really quick and tricky forward, but took off the experienced centre-forward Richard French. He’s big and muscular and throws his weight around and while he might not have all that much skill, he was making his presence felt and unsettling the defence quite considerably.

Cambrian had a good spell for about 10 minutes after the substitution, and had they had French up front, they might have made their pressure count.

So now it’s bedtime. An alarm in the morning because I have a train to catch. And I’m not looking forward to it.

Friday 18th January 2019 – PART TWO …

… of “hunt the passport” continued today.

And without success.

The alarms went off this morning at the usual time. And much to my surprise, I went off very quickly afterwards. And that’s not like me these days, is it?

And so we started off with an early breakfast and then after the usual morning performance with the usual things to do, I started to attack the bedroom.

First off, I stripped out the bed. I practically dismantled it as well but there was no trace of it around there.

Next stop was to empty out all of the suitcases and rucksacks to see whether I’d left it in there at all.

Drawing a blank, I emptied out the huge cupboard in here. I even checked the pockets of the coats that were hanging up there as well as emptying out the boxes.

The chest of drawers was next. All of the clothes came out and everything there was examined. Following that, the desk and the filing cabinets were searched.

The European Paper Mountain was checked thoroughly for any sign of it. That took me an age.

So by the end of the day I can safely say that wherever it might be, it’s not in the bedroom. And that surprises me. For here on the form that I had to fill in the other day is the number of the passport. And how did I do that if I didn’t have the passport here?

It’s not at the Bank either, and it’s not at LIDL because I telephoned them to see.

One avenue that I haven’t explored is that the last time that I remembered having it, it was on the train back from Köln to Aachen just before Christmas. But as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I have the best friends in the world. And Jackie is going to get on the case tomorrow.

I was also the victim of one of these cold telephone callers today. I was called 7 times by the same company and so in the end I told them that if they telephoned me once more I’d call the Police.

Another thing that I’ve had issues with today is the wi-fi. This evening it seemed to disconnect itself definitively. In the end, I had to hard-wire it. Let’s see what this can do.

This afternoon I had several surprises. Firstly, there offshore was Neptune, on its way out to sea.

She wasn’t in harbour yesterday evening when I was out for my walk but it appears that she sailed … “dieseled” – ed … into port at 22:15 from Ramsgate.

That must have been a quick turnround for her to leave so quickly, and she’s now off to Ridham, near Sittingbourne in Kent with her load of asphalt stone.

Secondly, there was another ship sailing out into the English Channel past the Ile de Chausey.

Judging by her colour and shape, she’s a warship of some description. More than likely, a French naval vessel because I couldn’t imagine a warship of any other navy being in the Baie de Mont St Michel without there being some kind of fanfare about it

From what I can see, she seems to be bearing the number P724 and that might indicate that she’s an Athos class patrol boat launched in 1979.

Round the headland and down by the harbour there was a beautiful view of the moon there.

Not quite a full moon, but impressive nevertheless. And the photo was taken with the big 300mm zoom lens but held with the hand, not a tripod. So my hand was steadier than I might otherwise have thought.

But on that note, I returned to my apartment to carry on with whatever I was doing.

I couldn’t think of what to eat for tea so in the end it was a plate of pasta and veg in tomato sauce. But while I was waiting for it to cook I prepared another kilo of carrots for freezing.

Outside on my walk around the walls this evening I was completely on my own. Hardly surprising, because it was raining and windy too.

Part Three of “hunt the passport” is tomorrow. I’m not likely to find it either. But I do know when it will come to light – probably about three hours after I’ve sent off my demand for a replacement.

It’s one of those occasions, isn’t it?

neptune english channel granville manche normandy france

fishing boat port de granville harbour manche normandy france

neptune english channel granville manche normandy france

Thursday 17th January 2019 – WHAT DO I DO …

… now that I can’t find my passport anywhere?

This is really going to throw a spanner in the works, this is.

Last time that I physically remember having it, I had to produce it to a German ticket inspector on the train from Köln to Aachen to prove my entitlement to a reduced fare.

I must have had it here though because a form that I had to fill in last week, I had to enter my passport number on it.

It might have been at the bank when I was there on Thursday last week, but I phoned them to ask and they don’t have it.

It seems that these days I’m taking one step forward and two steps back.

The alarms went off as usual this morning, but I simply turned over and went back to sleep again. It was 08:10 when I finally crawled out of bed.

I’d been on my travels too although I don’t remember too much about them. There were two young girls, aged about 12 or so, in a café and one was carrying a very large baby doll. She went up to the counter, pretending that the doll that she was carrying was a real baby, and asked piteously if the café would buy her a cup of coffee because she was a single mother with no money. The waiter served her a coffee, and I was interested to see how she would share this out with her friend.

There was a quick morning routine followed by a quick shower and a whirl of the washing machine (I’m running low on clothes) and then off up town in the rain showers.

First port of call was the Post Office where I posted off the letter that I wrote yesterday. I wonder how long it will be before I receive a reply. And I hope that it’s positive news. As Ludicrus said in Up Pompeii , It’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

Second stop was LIDL. I didn’t buy all that much but it was still an expensive do. There were a couple of really decent notebooks that I need for a project. But there was also a clip-on LED lamp that works as a nice office light. Only 2.5 watts instead of the 60 watt bulb in the ceiling, but gives twice as much light. I was talking about getting something for quite a while.

Back home, I had a coffee, unpacked the shopping and installed the LED light. It works quite nicely and I’m quite pleased with it.

This afternoon after lunch I finished off the photos from December and then made a start on those from January.

But I was sidetracked. I received a Press Release from the French Government outlining the French plans for British nationals in the event of a Hard Brexit. It’s quite a comprehensive document with some useful information so I reckoned that it would be a good idea to print it out and keep it with my passport.

And now we started the circus.

Tea was a potato and lentil curry dating from January last year. And delicious it was too.

It was quite windy outside. There were a few people walking around the headland after lunch.

And the mystery of what they were doing with that area of paving on the car park by the lighthouse is revealed. They were erecting a tourist information sign there.

There has been some talk about opening up the old bunkers of the Atlantic Wall so that tourists might visit. But they went through a great deal of effort and expended an enormous amount of manpower in putting up that simple sign.

But once again, not a soul – not even a cat – out there this evening. But I did notice that they are digging up the roads in the Medieval town just down the road.

There are signs all over the old town saying that the Fibre-Optic cabling is “ongoing”, and it looks as if it might be here any day now.

But when we are actually hooked up, that’s anyone’s guess.

And as I expected, I lost the internet connection half a dozen times today. So I might end up having to connect it with a cable after all.

Wednesday 16th January 2019 – THIS HAS PROBABLY …

… been one of my more uneventful days.

The most exciting thing that happened was probably the little nocturnal ramble that took me off during the night.

There was something going on at the side of the road – a party or something of that kind with a lot of vehicles parked up on the side of the road. There was something of a queue of traffic as vehicles tried to negotiate the obstructions so we had plenty of time to see what was going on. The queue cleared but I was still interested in what was goign on and the girl driving the car behind was too. But suddenly I looked in the mirror and saw a huge line of vehicles coming up the hill behind us. I shouted at this girl that if we didn’t get a move on, we’d be stuck in thie queue of traffic for ever. So we set off but came almost to an immediate stop. Some girl was directing traffic up a side road and I had almost missed her. The lane was very winding and narrow and I reckoned that anything big like a bus or a lorry would never find its way up there. But we ended up in a cafe waiting for the politicians to do something. And we’d been there for 20 hours so I said to this girl that if things didn’t happen soon I’d be going. I explained that I was quite able to sit around for days as I have done in the past and it wasn’t an issue, but I just didn’t think that they were ever going to come up with a solution. I’d said this very quietly, but a guy sitting on an adjacent table (who bore a surprising resemblance to Garrick) leant over and asked if I really thought that nothing was going to happen about this. I was quite astonished, and pretty well embarrassed too that someone had overheard me under these circumstances.

The alarms went off as usual but it took me a little while to raise myself from the bed. There was the usual morning performance, and after that I applied myself to the photos. And that is where I’ve spent the greater part of the day.

There was an interruption while I wrote a letter to the Belgian Post Office. While I was searching through my papers the other day I made a startling discovery that can only be to my advantage.

But it’s nice to have a working printer where I can just press “print” and it spews out a document on demand. A simple thing like this has moved me on up to another level.

We had lunch of course, and the usual two walks.

For a change, I went the other way round and took the afternoon walk around the walls of the medieval town. The tide was quite high so there was no-one about on the beach at the Plat Gousset.

And you can see how miserable the day was by looking at the damp mist away over Donville-les-Bains

There was also a break of a couple of hours between 17:00 and 19:00 when I took to my bed. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I’m becoming very disappointed with all of this.

Tea was more oven chips and the rest of yesterday’s baked beans, with a curry-and-pavot burger. It was quite nice too and made a pleasant change.

When I went out for my evening walk later, the rain had arrived. And consequently, to add insult to injury, I was rather wet … “no surprise here” – ed…. by the time that I returned.

And on both my perambulations I was totally alone too out there too. I’ve not seen anyone and not spoken to anyone today.

And that’s basically it. That’s not the kind of day that I like.

But another kind of thing that I don’t like is that a few weeks ago 117 Tory MPs voted against Mrs Mayhem.
Last night, 118 of them voted against Mrs Mayhem’s plans.
This evening, they all thought that she was doing a good job.
When they put their own jobs and their own pockets ahead of their own consciences and what is best for the country, you know that these people are not fit to be in charge of the country.

Nothing but a bunch of unprincipled rogues.

Tuesday 15th January 2019 – CHAOS, TURMOIL AND MAYHEM!

Yes, the promises of Liam Fox and his “easiest deal in History” came thoroughly unstuck today as Mrs Mayhem suffered the worst ever defeat of any Government in the whole history of Parliament.

The whole set of wheels has come off and the UK has been plunged into total chaos. The ship is drifting helplessly with no-one at the helm and in a couple of months time it will drop off the edge of the World and into the abyss and who knows what will happen.

I don’t know how many tens of millions of lives will be affected by the failure of the UK Government to ask 65 million people a proper question and receive a proper answer. But it’s the illiterate uneducated Etonites who are responsible for all of this. All they ever learnt at Public School was sodomy, and they must have spent a lot of time at it judging by the way that they have completely buggered up the UK.

With having had an early night I had a little fit of tossing and turning during the night but managed to stay asleep until the alarm went off. And I managed to haul myself out of bed at something that resembled a reasonably early time.

First job though was to make some muesli. I’d run out yesterday and forgot to do some. And fresh muesli really is delicious.

After breakfast I started to download another pile of programs for the new computer.

But not straight away.

The computer decided that it wanted to do an upgrade of the operating system and that took a while. But since then the computer hasn’t dropped the internet connection.

Of course, I’m preparing for the worst, especially as I have tempted fate, but we shall see.

It’s nice though, nevertheless, to be able to connect up all of my external drives, a couple of portable drives, a couple of memory sticks and a memory card reader all at once and swap files around.

By the end of the morning all of the programs that I think that I need are loaded on, including the printer files and the Nikon software, so I could go to lunch in a happy state.

Lunch was butties of course, with some home-made hummus out of the freezer. And delicious it was too.

Talking of memory cards, I realised (too late) that the new computer doesn’t have an SD card slot and that was expected to cramp my style somewhat seeing as the big Nikon takes full-size cards.

But then I remembered – the card in there is a micro-SD card in an adaptor, and I do have a micro-SD card reader. So now, I’ve finally managed to load up all of the photos – almost 400 of them – that have been building up since the other laptop died. And I made a start on editing them too.

I might even be finished before the end of the month. However, I was interrupted by a brief 20 minutes asleep on my chair.

But then I was able to go off and wander around the headland for a walk in the wind.

But just offshore at the Pointe du Roc there’s something weird bobbing up and down.

I’ve not noticed this before so I was wondering what it might be. it could be a ball of some kind that’s been washed off a beach, or a cable buoy that has come adrift from its mooring in the tidal port, or even a fishing float.

Talking of fishing, there was some kind of movement out to sea near the Ile de Chausey.

Coupling up the 70-300mm zoom lens I could see that it’s the yellow and blue trawler from Granville on its way back to the harbour with today’s catch from the English Channel.

Frying tonight, obviously. But I wonder what kind of fish it has in the hold.

And talking of the harbour, we have one of our regular visitors in here this afternoon. Thora has come in from St Helier on one of her regular freight runs.

One of these days I’ll have to go down there and have a look round her. A while back I was given a guided tour of her elder sister Grima, so I’m intrigued to see what Thora is like.

It should be quite interesting, and if this stupid Brexit gets out of hand, I might find myself having to sign on as a ship’s cook so I’ll need to know my way around.

Back here with a coffee and some cake, I looked at the post. And I now have not only my duplicate telephone bills but also … wait for it … my certificate from the Tax Office. Still a few things that I need but we’re well on the way.

The new spare ink for the printer arrived today as well, and it’s just as well because I’ve started to print out the documents that I need. This is going to be a long – and expensive – job.

Another thing that I managed to accomplish was to have a shower and a haircut. My hair was getting a little out of control so a good trim with my sheep-shearer was appropriate.

For tea, I had home-made pie with baked beans and some oven chips that I found in the bottom of the freezer that had been there since last winter.

And followed that by a walk around the walls.

They are progressing with the Fibre-Optic cable work. They’ve now dug a hole on the corner where one of the little alleys joins the rue Notre Dame – presumably to drop an inspection chamber or junction box in there.

And the new little kitten was waiting for me again. he or she had another little stroke.

So now while the politicians are busy hitting the fan, I’m going to bed. I wonder what kind of news tomorrow will bring.

Monday 14th January 2019 – NEW KITS ON THE BLOCK

On my evening walk around the old medieval town this evening I was accosted by a little tabby kitten sitting on a windowledge.

I don’t recall having seen this one before. But it’s small, young and very playful and even let me pick it up for a while.

And that’s not the only thing that’s new on the block either.

There was a phone call at about 10:00. “Which is your door?”
“Never mind – I’ll come down”

So down I went just in time to see a big van pull up outside in the street. And two minutes later I was staggering up the stairs with a huge box.

That’s right – the new computer has arrived.

It took quite a considerable amount of unpacking too – with protective devices everywhere inside it, all of which had to be removed.

The machine is quite attractive, but I’m not going very much by aesthetics. I want it to work and work well. Laptops are all well and good for what they are but there is nothing like a big powerful desktop machine.

It was just as well that he phoned up at about 10:00, because had he done so very much earlier there might have been a problem.

Despite having gone to bed at a reasonable time, I was wide-awake at 03:50, and just couldn’t go back to sleep.

Not for ages anyway. I was tossing and turning around for quite some considerable time before I could finally drop off. And then the alarm went off, I just couldn’t haul myself out of bed, and went back to sleep. It was more like 08:45 when I finally took my courage in my hands and surfaced.

I’d been on my travels too. Some old guy had been a professional diver and had been involved in a great many professional treasure hunts. He was now long-retired and was actually 102 and reckoned himself to be close to death. He wanted to do just one very last dive before he went the way of the west so went down to a place where he had been treasure-hunting on many occasions but with no success. So down he went, and at the very last moment he actually managed to find a heavy chain hidden in the silt that led to where the treasure was hidden.

This morning I finished off the uploading of data onto the external drive and then we had the interruption for the delivery of the computer.

After lunch, I started to configure the new computer. And I’ve already found one problem. The antenna on the wi-fi isn’t strong enough to pick up the fluctuating signal. It fades in and out too much. I’m either going to have to move the transmitter or else go for a cable hook-up.

But apart from that, it works about 10 times faster than the laptop did. And the image is so much clearer too.

There was the usual afternoon walk too.

My route was, as usual, around the Pointe du Roc. And there parked outside one of the old gun emplacements of the Atlantic Wall, were a couple of World War II jeeps.

I’ve heard a story that they might be reopening a couple of bunkers to make some kind of tourist attraction here, and so I’m wondering if these jeeps and the people with them have anything to do with that.

Tea tonight was a burger on a bap with potatoes and veg.

Later this evening, the evening walk around the walls was done in total solitude. Not a soul about in the streets except for my kitten of course.

But the air and the sky were quite clear and you could see for miles tonight.

Jersey stood out quite clearly and you could see the lights of St Helier quite easily on the horizon.

There were also the floodlights of three or four trawlers working out to sea.

I don’t recall if I have taken a photo of the rue Clemenceau just recently.

With it being such a clear, calm night I stopped and took a photo of it to add to my database of images.

And on that note, I turned tail and headed for home – stopping to give my kitten a little stroke on the way.

So while the new computer is busy uploading a huge pile of files, I’m going to bed. I’ll have to try to do better tomorrow.

night st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

Sunday 13th January 2019 – THIS WASN’T HOW …

… it was supposed to work, was it?

The big trouble with going to bed early is that I have a tendency to awaken early. And 05:35 is absurdly early, especially on a Sunday.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I just lay in bed and vegetated until I had to go and walk the parapet round about 08:05.

Mind you, I had been on a little voyage during the night. Not only was I with Nerina but we had gone into Birmingham to look for something. And coming off the M6 at one of the raised levels we ended up at af all places a Workingman’s Club. There must still be one or two left somewhere, I imagine. We parked up and walked around an old road layout which had been abandoned due to a realignment. In there we found a quiet lounge where we ended up talking to some woman who had something to do with the running of the place. But she wasn’t much help for what we needed so we left and went back to our car. By now I was back driving a Shearings coach – an overnighter with people wearing red and yellow woollen hats fast asleep curled up against each other. I started to feel like going to sleep too which wouldn’t have done many people much good but just then a car came round the corner, crossed the white line onto the wrong side of the road and hit the front of the coach a glancing blow. That was that for the coach and we were all rescued, and I had to spend the night sharing the room of another driver. We were looking out of the window of this hotel at the snow and ice and thinking about all of the fun that was going on down there in the snow.

After breakfast, I had a lot to do and it took me quite a lot of the day to do it.

I’ve liberated all of the files from the old desktop computer but there was a whole series of algorithms that I had created back as long ago as 2008 when I could remember what I was doing, and all of these needed unravelling.

That took me until early afternoon and then I had a back-up to perform on the laptop to extract all of the files from there.

There was an interruption for lunch of course, and there might have been an interruption for going to watch the football at St Pair, but instead Rosemary phoned me. We ended up having another two-hour chat that took up most of the afternoon. As I have said before, it’s nice to talk to friends.

Tea was a pizza of course, and I forgot to put the garlic on it. But it still tasted very nice.

Later on, I finally managed to get outside for my walk. There was no-one about at all which was hardly a surprise. there was a hellish wind out there.

One thing that surprised me was that despite the fact that I’d had a depressing start to my day, I didn’t crash out at all. There was the odd wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off.

So what will tomorrow bring? My new computer, I hope. And then I’ll have a few days of setting it all up. That will keep me out of mischief.

Saturday 12th January 2019 – I’VE DONE SOMETHING …

… today that I haven’t done for more than 25 years.

And that is …. to buy some batteries.

I don’t mean rechargeable batteries. I buy quite a few of those here and there and of course I buy batteries for Caliburn and for solar energy systems. But I wouldn’t ever buy a throwaway battery – until today.

There are two pieces of equipment round here – the pre-amp in the Ibanez acoustic guitar and the tuner foot-pedal – which take PP3-size batteries and both are flat. I have some rechargeable ones, but I left them in the Auvergne and I didn’t bring the PP3 recharger with me either. So when I saw a couple on sale in NOZ at €0:99, I set my scruples aside for the moment.

After the problems of yesterday, I ended up not being able to sleep, and doesn’t that always happen? But I did go off to sleep at one point and even managed to go off on my travels. My phone had been cut off and I had to telephone the supplier. We ended up having quite an argument and my French started to break up. The person on the other end made a remark so I asked him what he expected when I had just awoken at 06:00. I asked for an appointment so he replied that he would fix one for me – one and that was all and I had better be there. I replied that it wasn’t much good ringing about it and telling me the time and expecting me to be there if the phone had been disconnected so I wouldn’t receive the call. he told me that that was my problem – I’d get one, and one only.

At this point the alarm went off and I awoke.

It was a struggle to leave the bed and having a good shower didn’t make me feel much better. Nevertheless, I headed off to the shops regardless.

No-one produced anything special, although the bill at LeClerc was more than it might have been due to the necessity of buying a load of coffee. And I forgot which coffee it was that I am currently drinking that is really nice. I bet I have the wrong one.

Just for a change I also called in at the Biocoop because I forgot to buy some vegan sausages at the Loving Hut in Leuven and I fancy some for tea some time.

Back here, I didn’t have the strength to put away the shopping. I just had a coffee and sat down.

After lunch, I tried to sit down and do some work but in the end I gave up and went to bed. And there I stayed for a good two hours too.

Nevertheless, I struggled up to the Stade Louis Dior (and it was a struggle too) to watch US Granville play FC Nantes.

And if you think that the score 5-2 to FC Nantes reflects a one-sided game, you might be right. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have been criticising Granville’s defence on a regular basis for its somewhat casual approach to defending. Today they were up against a really clinical team that made them pay for it.

2 goals flattered Granville. Unless there was something that I missed, the player who scored Granville’s second goal looked about a mile offside to me.

Back here, there was more football. Y Bala v Caernarfon in the Welsh Premier League. I have never seen so many misses from so close to the goal in one match as I have in this game. And Alex Ramsey, who didn’t impress me all that much when he played for Rhyl a few years ago, had a blinder in the Caernarfon goal and rightly won the man-of-the-match.

Bala, and in particular Henry Jones, ran all over Caernarfon in the first half and could have had half a dozen. And they will look long and hard at that period too and wonder how they went in for their cuppa at 1-1.

But in the last 15 minutes a couple of inspired Caernarfon substitutions transformed the game. They clamped right down on Henry Jones and scored two late goals to win 3-1.

Tea was out of a tin at half-time, so now I’m ready for bed. But whether I go to sleep is another matter.

Friday 11th January 2019 – I HAD A NICE …

… afternoon out today.

Terry had rung me up. He had a brushcutter that was misbehaving and wanted me to look at it.
“You’ll have to say the magic words” I answered.
“Liz will be baking”.

Despite something of a latish night, I was awake with the alarm and although I wasn’t up with the lark, it was a reasonably early start.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. Somewhere in Eastern Europe and might even have been Poland, building blocks of flats for the undesirables. Cheap breeze blocks and no windows or anything. And in this case, the undesirables weren’t the Jewish population of Eastern Europe but the black population. And that makes sense too, doesn’t it?

After breakfast, I had a look in my mail box, and it was full of disappointment. There’s a message from the British Government telling me (and everyone else who had one) that we will no longer be able to work in the EU, no longer able for our kids to work, no longer any automatic right of residence – all kinds of things. Read it for yourself.

Basically, 17.4 million stupid xenophobic racists had totally mucked up my life and my future and that of several million others too. And I wasn’t even allowed to vote on my own future either. We are going to witness what could potentially be the biggest mass forced displacement of people since the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945-48.

Having digested the unpalatable news, I spent the rest of the morning downloading all (well, all but three or four) of the files off the big desktop computer. They are now on an external hard drive ready for uploading onto my new computer which, according to the delivery company, will be here on Monday.

After lunch, still in a foul mood, I headed out to Roncey.

We dismantled the carburettor on Terry’s brushcutter to clean it out because it seemed that the accelerator jet was blocked. It would tick over fine but opening the throttle caused it to cut out. The draught of air was weakening the mixture dramatically as there wasn’t enough fuel getting through.

But the jets are sealed in and we can’t remove them. Blasting air through the carb in the reverse direction made a slight improvement but not enough to have it running correctly. So that was that. We also had a look at the wiring on Terry’s new van. The towbar wiring wasn’t connected so we had to hunt down the wiring channel to thread some cable through. I managed to see it and pass a drawing wire through so we could pull the new cable back up the channel from the outside.

In exchange, Terry gave me a battery that he had had for his old van. Now that that’s gone off to be turned into baked bean cans it’s surplus to requirements and Caliburn has been a little sluggish these cold winter mornings.

Liz had cooked some vegan beanburgers which were delicious with chips and peas, followed by home-made apple upside-down cake. And there was even a doggy-bag to take home.

But I couldn’t stay too long because from about 17:30 onwards I was fighting off an attack of sleep and in the end I was close to conceding. So I decided that I would be ebtter off coming home before I fell asleeo definitively.

So back here now and I’ll try for an early night if I can. It’s Saturday tomorrow – shopping day.

EPIC HALL

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