Tag Archives: place d’armes

Sunday 4th November – SO THERE I WAS …

… standing in the foyer of this really impressive hotel. Big and magnificent, with as many luxury floors below ground as above. And how I was looking forward to the guided tour that I had been promised. And just as the guide appeared to see me and head my way, the blasted alarm went off and awoke me.

I’d forgotten that last Sunday I’d had the alarm working. So serve me right.

Anyway, no chance of me leaving my stinking pit at 06:00. I turned over and went back to sleep. 09:15 is much more like it for waking up.

And 09:50 is even better for leaving the bed of course, and 10:30 is much more like a decent time for a Sunday breakfast.

The temperature outside was 8°C and in here it was 10°C. A signal to put on the central heating. Can’t leave it too long without heating and then freeze to death.

With being up-to-date with the important stuff (but still plenty of less-important stuff to do) I had a whack at the trip to the High Arctic and did another 2000 words.

But the funny thing is that I don’t appear to be much further forward either. I don’t know where it all goes, this stuff that I write.

And talking of writing, I find that I’ve overlooked a couple of e-mails that I received while I was away with the fairies. I replied to one of them, and have another two to do tomorrow. As well as replying to a letter that I have forgotten.

I had a late lunch and then went out. Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville were playing AS Gavray and as it was a beautiful afternoon, a spell at a football pitch right by the sea sounded ideal.

But when I got there, the cupboard was bare. No idea what had happened there.

But US St Pairaise were playing at home against EC Tessy Moyon Sports so I thrashed around the ring road to the Stade Croissant.

I was somewhat late arriving of course, about 7 minutes after kick-off. But according to some of the locals I hadn’t missed anything exciting.

So I settled down in the grandstand with a coffee out of the flask (because there’s no pie hut at Donville) and watched the game.

St Pair is the team in orange and black, and Tessy Moyon in the yellow and red.

US St Pairaise are second in the table and Tessy-Moyon are adrift at the foot, so I was expecting something of a comfortable passage for the home side.

But that wasn’t how it was turning out for the first thirty minutes. It’s true to say that St Pairaise were the better-disciplined and organised side, but Tessy-Moyon were in there slugging it out and defending quite well.

It looked as it St Pairaise was going to make hard work of it.

In fact, there was some very good and thoughtful football played out there.

It didn’t come off as often as the players would have liked, which isn’t really a surprise at this level of football, but it was impressive to see the players trying.

And it didn’t ‘arf look impressive when it worked out.

What changed things was a substitution that the St Pairaise trainer made after about 30 minutes.

He brought on a new attacker – the n°12 – and he immediately ignited the game.

And scored with probably his first real kick – a delightful scissor-kick volley from a corner, right into the top corner of the net.

I bet that he wouldn’t ever do that again in a million years.

And so we continued in the same vein for the second half.

An evenly-matched contest between the two teams with US St Pairaise having marginally the better of the game, but then the n°12 suddenly getting to grips with the game again.

And things then moved up a gear.

Sure enough, with about 10 minutes to go, US St Pairaise scored a second goal.

A good header from a cross – the keeper really had no chance with that.

And EC Tessy-Moyon can feel aggrieved with the result. They weren’t maybe as good as Us St Pairaise, but St Pairaise weren’t two goals better. It’s hard to see, on this performance, how it is that EC Tessy Moyon are adrift in the basement.

And interesting as it might seem, not a single yellow card today, never mind any red one. That’s something to celebrate.

On the way back, I had a real surprise in Granville. A 1960s Van Hool-bodied coach came driving round the town. Immaculate condition, clearly recently restored and very impressive.

When I finally returned to my apartment (which wasn’t easy seeing as I was stuck behind yet another grockle admiring the seagulls) I went off to see if I could find it.

No such luck though. It wasn’t on the coach park down the road, which was the obvious place to look.

But what I did see was a classic example of what can happen when you put some street furniture in the wrong place.

So “Bottoms Up” to the Town Council of Granville, hey?

On the way round, it did occur to me that I have never yet taken a photo of the sports ground just down the road here.

This is the Gymnase Jean Galfione, whoever he was when he was at home, if he ever had been … “he won the Olympic Gold in the pole vault for France in 1996” – ed.

There’s a running track there and a sports field, used by the school.

If the coach wasn’t on the coach park, it might well have been on the mobile home park, so I went for a look around there.

It wasn’t there either, but this interesting vehicle caught my eye.

With Polish plates it was bound to be different, and indeed it is. A “Laika” caravanette, named for the Russian dog that was the first living creature to orbit the earth in a spacecraft – 61 years ago to the day as it happens.

I’ve never seen one of these previously

So being totally unsuccessful, I headed back for home.

And the Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou looking so interesting, I took a photo of that too. I’ve not taken a photo of it from this angle before.

Back here, Lili brought me back my dish from yesterday evening, and then I did the photographs from today.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and very nice it was too. They are improving, although the oven still isn’t hot enough.

But now I’ve left it rather late for bed. I could have done with an early night for a change and I bet that I’ll regret this in the morning.

Saturday 3rd November 2018 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone to the football this evening. US Granville were playing the reserves of Paris St Germain at 18:00 and that was bound to be an occasion.

But instead I’d had a “communication” from one of the neighbours. Yves and Lili are moving out and a new tenant will be moving in shortly. They decided to have a farewell dinner, I was invited and the new tenant was there so I reckoned that I had better attend.

Not like me to be sociable but there are things that you have to do.

Last night I had a decent sleep and was up and about pretty smartly once the alarms had gone off.

And after breakfast I had a good shower and a clean-up. With the heater in the bathroom too. It’s definitely coming on to winter now.

On the way out to Caliburn I took the rubbish out to the skips, and then headed off to LIDL. As well as the usual stuff I bought another portable battery, seeing as they had some 3000mAh ones on offer at €12:99. The dashcam in Caliburn has a motion sensor that starts up the cam if Caliburn is knocked, but it needs a power supply to operate it when Caliburn’s ignition is turned off.

At NOZ they had some maps of France on special offer. Last year’s at just e4:99 so one of those is now in Caliburn for when I might go off on a voyage again. That replaces a map of 2002.

LeClerc came up with a crate of clementines. It must be getting close to Christmas. And a pile of coffee too seeing as I’m running out. The secret ingredient that I put in coffee makes all of the difference.

It took ages to return home, being stuck behind grockles and policemen holding up the traffic.

Lunch should have been on the wall in the sunshine but the wind blew me back in before I’d even sat down on the wall.

We had a cookery afternoon here, with me making some of my lentil, pepper and mushroom curries to take with me a-visiting.

It was a nice, quiet sociable evening but I came back here at 20:30 for the football. Bala Town v Cardiff Metro in the Welsh Premier League, and the home team ran out 3-0 victors in a rainstorm.

The big difference between the teams was Henry Jones. He’s several classes above the rest of the players in the Welsh Premier League – when he feels like it. Like much of the Welsh Premier League, there’s a big issue about consistency – they can do it now and again, but not all the time. Today though, he had one of the best games that I have ever seen him play.

In contrast, The Met’s principal playmaker, Eliot Evans, had something of an off-day and looked not even the shadow of the player he can be.

But now I have the halogen heater on in the bedroom. The outside temperature has dropped to 8°C right now and it’s only 11°C in here.

The central heating goes on tomorrow.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… evening today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey

Canoeing in the sea off the Pointe du Roc

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo

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

A bit more of a beautiful sunset

Thursday 1st November 2018 – I NEVER LIKED …

… the Nikon D3000 anyway.

And I bet that I’ll like it even less tomorrow when I have a close look at it.

It was a beautiful night tonight and I could see Jersey and St Malo quite clearly in the distance across the sea with a storm blowing away in the distance. Even the lights of the wind farm 70kms away beyond Barneville-Carteret could be seen in the distance.

I took quite a few photos of Jersey in the storm, none of which worked as well as I would like. Trying to take a photo on a tripod in the pitch black in a gale in the windiest part of France is not easy

The best of a pretty poor bunch was this one taken with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

As you might expect there was far too much vibration with the 70-300mm lens and even with the 18-105mm lens with a long exposure time of 3 seconds.

But the lights of St Helier, 54 kilometres away, and the reflection of the street lights of Jersey off the clouds in the sky have come out really well given the circumstances.

And I reckon that once I get the hang of working the tripod in the dark, I might be able to get the photos to come out even better.

It’s all trial and error at the moment – plenty of trial and even more error.

And then I moved on down the coast to the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And there I was, standing on top of one of the concrete bunkers taking a few photos of everywhere in the clear light of the night, when a sudden strong gust of wind, something like the one that blew down the Tay Bridge in 1879, blew the tripod off the top of the bunker and right down to the ground, with the camera and the new 70-300 mm zoom/telephoto lens attached.

At that moment I was in the process of taking a long exposure of St Malo too. I suppose that that will come out in a very interesting fashion.

With no alarm I did my best to have a nice long sleep but it didn’t quite work out like that. I was awake early enough but despite everything I wouldn’t haul myself out of my stinking pit at that kind of time. 09:00 was much more like it.

While I was asleep though I’d been out on my travels. Driving an artic somewhere which was actually parked up in a lay-by where there was another lorry blocking me off. As I clambered into my lorry the other driver reversed his lorry so that I could leave the lay-by. A short while later I was walking down a footpath towards a lorry park on the motorway and was accompanied by another lorry driver. I told him that I was happy to go on my own but he insisted on accompanying me. Apparently there had been an “incident” and several people had been injured. And there were some of the drivers who thought that I was at fault.

After a rather late breakfast I had a lounge around for a while and then made a start on the photos from Belgium. And there were quite a few too.

For lunch I had my usual butties but I ate them inside. It’s definitely autumn outside and going cold now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos and had a few other things to do too, including some tidying up. And I managed a day without crashing out too, which is a little bit better.

Two walks too. There was the evening walk around the headland – where I had my camera incident, and also the afternoon walk around the walls.

The lighting conditions were perfect this afternoon and there was a good view of the coast.

Donville-les-Bains has come out really well, including the old hotel where I went to see that ruin of a apartment not long after I first came to Granville.

A bit too windy for the birdmen today though. There weren’t any of them out and about.

I cropped out a couple of sections of the photo of the beach and enlarged them.

As well as the old hotel at Donville-les-Bains and all of the beach cabins out there, you can see the spire of the church in the distance.

That might well be the church of Bréville-sur-Mer.

This section was cropped from the extreme left-hand edge of the photo and enlarged by about 25%.

There’s the camp site that we have seen before, and another church spire away in the distance.

That is very likely the church in Brehal and we’ve seen a much better photo of that in the past when we were experimenting with the older zoom/telephoto lens.

There weren’t any people out and about on the beach either.

You can see the waves crashing down onto the sand and the whitecaps will tell you that there was quite a wind blowing them ashore.

A few people on the promenade though braving the inclement weather.

Tea was a slice of pie that was left over from when Alison was here, with spuds and peas and carrots too.

So tomorrow I’ll check over the camera and see what the damage is. I might even switch the heating on too. I actually had the halogen heater on for an hour or so to warm up the office this afternoon.

It’s that kind of time.

Wednesday 31st October 2018 – THE BODY CLOCK …

… is working well again to day.

Never mind the awakening at 01:30 – that’s the kind of thing that happens quite regularly these days, but the being wide-awake at 05:20 can only be good news, especially as I needed an early start.

The downside of all of this is despite being off on yet another nocturnal voyage during the night, all that I can remember is that I was shepherding around another group of young ladies. But as for why, I don’t have a clue now and isn’t that disappointing when I’ve spend the evening with a bunch of bouncing beauties?

06:10 I was out of bed and it took me just 2 minutes to pack the rest of my stuff.

But not all of it.

I’ve lost the top off one of my little water bottles – one of the ones that I use to bring soya milk and fruit juice with me when I come on a Sunday.

Well, when I say “lost it” what I mean is that I seem to have brought with me the top off one of the bottles that I didn’t need and so threw away. And I must have thrown away the good top with the bad bottle, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, by 06:30 I was on my way to the railway station and it’s a long time since I’ve been out and about this early.

And doesn’t the station look beautiful in the artificial lighting?

At the railway station, instead of catching the 07:09, the 06:36 was rather late so I hopped on that without having to wait around at all.

As a result I was early in Brussels, but the Carrefour in the station was open so that I could pick up some raisin buns and some fruit for breakfast.

I didn’t have to wait long – just long enough to eat my breakfast in fact, before we were ushered up onto the platform for our train.

And on there in the windswept weather the train soon put in its appearance and we could clamber aboard. And just for a change, I was first on board.

And then we had to wait.

dDe to the late arrival of the portion of the train that arrives from Amsterdam, the TGV was 12 minutes late leaving the station.

It was one of the same rather elderly TGVs but it was much cleaner and tidier inside than usual, although there was no water in the washrooms.

And the journey was so uneventful that I can’t remember a single thing about my seating companion

15 minutes late arriving in Paris Gare-du-Nord but the Metro was quite rapid and, for a change, half-empty.

And we were on the platform at Montparnasse-Vaugirard with 20 minutes to spare.

There wasn’t even enough time to have a look around. I’d only been there a couple of minutes before they called us up to the train. And I ended up sitting next to a nice young girl, but unfortunately she wasn’t interested in having a chat.

We set off on time too and for the first 30 minutes or so I caught up with my beauty sleep.

Once I’d woken up, I carried on with my “Voyages Of The Norsemen“.

Bearing in mind that the book was published 104 years ago, it’s a totally fascinating read.

For example, Hovgaard quote a beautiful story that “There is a tradition among the Eskimos in Labrador about a fierce race of men of gigantic size and strength, who delighted to kill people. But these men themselves could not be killed by either darts or arrows, which rebounded from their breast as from a rock”..

Can you think of a better description by isolated people of small stature when they talk about Europeans of the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries dressed in breastplates? It’s now accepted unequivocally that Martin Frobisher did in fact reach and explore Baffin Island in the 1570s and breastplates would have been in his wardrobe, but it’s interesting to speculate about who might have been there before and dressed in breastplates too.

It’s a similar kind of situation that I mentioned years ago about the old Mi’kmaq legend of Glooscap building a giant canoe and planting trees in it, which can, from the isolated mind, be no better description of the building of a European ship by European people on the coast of Nova Scotia long before the arrival of John Cabot.

The train pulled in on time at Granville station, which is always good news.

Here on the platform we were met by a couple of giant pumpkins. It’s nice to see the SNCF employees enter into the spirit of Halloween.

And that wasn’t all either. All the way down into town I was assailed by all kinds of demons and ghoulies. Someone whom I knew was chased into a pit by the demons, but was dragged out by the ghoulies.

On the way past the boulangerie I stopped to pick up a baguette for lunch. It’s been a long day and I’m hungry.

On the way up the hill, I looked over the wall into the harbour.

There was Victor Hugo moored up, all dressed in some kind of corporate advertising as if she had been hired to go off on a private excursion

I heard somewhere that one of the Channel Islands ferries had been broken down for a month during the holiday season and had cost the operators a great deal of money.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the summer I did mention that I hadn’t seen her sister for quite some considerable time.

I had a very late lunch and then for the rest of the day I vegetated. I had a visit from the neighbours who invited me for a drink on Saturday, and I managed a walk around the headland later.

But it’s cold. 11°C in here and this would ordinarily be the signal to switch on the heating. Winter has arrived at last and it’s only going to get colder.

But I’m not. I’m going to be and I’m going to stay there. It’s a Bank Holiday so there’s no alarm tomorrow. I intend to have The Sleep Of The Dead, so just you watch someone come along and spoil it.

Sunday 28th October 2018 – AND HERE I AM AGAIN!

Safely shored up in my home from home from home in the Dekenstraat in Leuven. All ready … “I don’t think” – ed … for my visit to Castle Anthrax tomorrow, where I hope that Doctors Piglet and Winston will be practising their arts (although, knowing me, I’ll end up with a retired Bulgarian discus-thrower).

Last night was another night that was later than intended too. But there’s nothing whatever wrong with my body clock because at 05:17 (which is 06:17 in real money) I awoke bolt-upright.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave my stinking pit at that time though. I did at least wait for the alarms to go off before showing a leg, and then out to the medication as usual.

While I was waiting for the medication to work I made my butties for the road. It’s a long day of course with plenty of waiting about, usually in places where there isn’t any food or drink. And even if there is, I usually can’t eat it anyway.

After breakfast I did some tidying up – not much, and it’s the first time that I’ve ever gone away from home and left it in a tip. Due mainly to not having had the energy to clean it up this last week or so.

As I have said before, I can see myself going slowly downhill and one of the (many) reasons for keeping this blog is to keep a check on my health, my moods and my state of mind and to be able to compare it with entries from a while ago in order to plot the deterioration.

I definitely think that it was my efforts in the High Arctic that finished me off, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As Neil Young once famously said, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
My my! Hey hey?

Having taken the rubbish to the bins and having backed up the laptop, I trudged off my weary way to the station.

And it was weary too. Everything is in the big rucksack (which now has a broken clip due to an accident in the bedroom just now) and while that has worked in the past, it was a struggle today. But then again, dragging a small suitcase behind me would have been even more of a struggle. I’m just glad that I didn’t have the giant one to bring. I would never have managed with that today.

Much to my surprise, the train was on time at Granville. I grabbed a coffee from the machine and leapt aboard. I should have had a seating partner – a nice young girl – but the train wasn’t all that full so she toddled off to an empty seat nearby.

The silence and the emptiness didn’t last long because at Vire we were invaded by a trainload of boy and girl scouts. But they cleared off after a while to another part of the train.

Never mind the “by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong” – I reckon that we were that many aboard the rain by the time we pulled into Montparnasse. And I’ve no idea why because the school holidays aren’t over yet.

Last time that I was here on a Sunday the whole place was heaving in total chaos. And it was just the same today. I’ve never seen so many people about on the station.

And the queues for the tickets for the Metro were enormous. It’s a good job that I still had one left over so I could proceed to the platform directly.

The Metro was heaving too but luckily I could grab a seat by the door and there I stayed. But I had noticed that carrying my rucksack seemed to be a lot easier than it had been earlier in the day even though there was the same amount of stuff in it.

The queues for the Metro tickets at the Gare du Nord were much smaller- only 6 people in front of me and two cashiers – so I took advantage by buying another carnet of 10, seeing as I had the time.

A single journey is €1:70 but a carnet of 10 is €14:90 so it’s a decent saving, and it also means that you don’t have to hand around in these enormous queues all the time.

Up in the Gare du Nord it took me ages to find a place to sit and eat my butties. I’d tried outside but it was freezing and there was a bitter wind blowing down the alley between the station and the offices next door.

On the TGV to Brussels and I slept most of the way. I may as well make the most of the opportunities that come my way.

We were bang on time in Brussels- 15:47.

And the 15:52 to Leuven was bang on time too which meant that I had only just enough time to grab my ticket. I had a very bizarre and garrulous seating companion who told me loads of stuff that I didn’t really want to know, and then he promptly fell asleep.

I’ve never heard anyone snore as much as he did, but he soon awoke when he realised that he was about to miss his stop at Brussels-Nord. I’ve never seen anyone so big move so quickly. Evidently his bow tie could double up as a propeller if necessary.

A good stride out from the station brought me to my lodgings where I was immediately recognised by the proprietor. Unfortunately my room is not one of the quieter rooms but it’s still good.

And unpacking, I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring an ice cube bag with me.

For tea I went into town to pick up a peng … errr … pizza. Which reminds me – mustn’t forget to buy some more vegan cheese tomorrow.

Back here and a shower and then an early night with a Bulldog Drummond film. And true to form, I fell asleep after 5 minutes.

Final word though goes to my friend Clare in the Auvergne. She told me that today they had had the first snow in the Auvergne, and she sent me a photo.

Last time that they had had snow that early (winter 2012-13) it had snowed until 25th May 2013 – a record.

Looks as if it’s going to be a long winter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday 26th October 2018 – IT WAS HARD …

… this morning to get out of bed and I ended up with something of an unexpected lie-in.

And so it was something of a rather late breakfast this morning, what with one thing and another.

This led to a nice walk up town to collect my railway tickets. And it was a good job that I was somewhat later than planned because the ticket machine wasn’t working and I had to go to the booking office. It’s a good job that I hadn’t waited until Sunday to do this.

Round the corner and down the road to join the Madding Crowd at the Hotel des Impôts. And afer a rather long wait in the queue I was handed a form by a Civil Servant who smiled and wished me luck. I was rather taken aback by that.

On the way back I remembered the lettuce and I bought myself a baguette too so as to have a nice lunch. And for that, I went out onto the wall but I was only there for five minutes. It was bright and sunny, but there was a cold, biting wind and that drove me back to my apartment.

The day has been spent in editing the photos from yesterday, but also attacking a huge project that I started the other day on the other laptop. That’s taken me most of the day, and I’ve made a load of rapid progress there. I’m pleased with that.

I also spent some time on the Arctic pages too, but not as much as I would like.

The walk this afternoon around the walls was freezing. The wind has increased in volume and it was quite uncomfortable.

But at least the skies were clear and there was a really good view out to see and Jersey was quite clear.

And so I attacked the island with the new 70-300mm zoom/telephoto lens to see what I can see.

I blew up (because I can do this despite modern anti-terrorism legislation) the photo and cropped out and enlarged a few selections from the images

Very blurred and very shaky of course, but considering that we are looking at something 55 kms away and there’s a strong wind blowing, it’s not really come out too badly.

To do much better than this I’ll have to invest a lot more money than I can afford into my equipment.

But never mind the view out to sea. The view out along the coast past Donville-les-Bains all the way down to Agon-Coutainville was beautiful too.

This was taken using the 18-105mm lens with a focal length of 25mm so it’s something of a wide-angle shot.

It’s brought out the scenery and the colours, and you can tell the strength of the wind from the whitecaps on the waves breaking on the beach.

A short while ago I posted a photo of some men on a cherry-picker drilling away into the wall of a house on the rue du Nord.

It’s far too windy for them to be working up there today so I could see what they were doing.

It looks as if they are going to replace the lintel over the window there, although I can’t think why.

Here’s something that I have never noticed before.

On the corner of the rue Paul Poirier and the rue Etoupefour is a building with “Residence des Granvillaises” cast thereupon. It’s not very easy to see this from street-level

Apparently it’s some kind of holiday accommodation, but it’s probably well out of my price range and out of the range of most people who might want to visit me.

Tea tonight was the rest of the crèpes with salad. Just as delicious as it was before.

And there was no walk this evening either for we had football. Llandudno v Cefn Druids in the Welsh Premier League.

Two clubs scrapping it out in the basement and the first half was pretty dismal. It livened up after the inteval and the last half-hour was quite good. The Druids were the better-organised team but Llandudno looked the more dangerous going forward.

But with both sides being totally incapable of hitting the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument, a 0-0 draw was no surprise.

There are four clubs slowly coming adrift at the foot of the table – Llanelli, Carmarthen, Cefn Druids and Llandudno and it’s clear to see why these two are down there at the bottom. There is no-one pulling the strings and there is no-one providing the service to the forwards. Rittenberg for the Druids looked quite dangerous when someone gave him the ball – which wasn’t all that often.

So no walk – the howling wind and now the rainstorm is enough to keep me in the house tonight. I’ll have an early night instead.

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

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

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

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

And then I headed off to the shops.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

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

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

That’s not a surprise though is it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

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

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

And that wasn’t all either.

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

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

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

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

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

… a little better day today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I’ve often wondered what it might be.

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

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

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

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

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

But a few others ended up in the recycle bin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her lights stand out really well in the dark.

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 – THE BAD NEWS IS …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it’s not too bad, I suppose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to be on form.

Hang gliders Granville

Plat Gousset, Granville.

And where have the bathing cabins gone?

Hang gliders over the cemetery in Granville.

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

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

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

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

It was simply my mistake in buying it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not particularly welcoming, unfortunately. So I moved on.

But not too far though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 21st October 2018 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. But to be successful you have to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it”.

And that’s how I’ve been today. Not feeling like doing a good day’s work at all.

Going to bed at 02:00 is one thing. But waking up at 07:15 was not what I was expecting. And by 08:30 I was fed up of going back to sleep so I got up instead. So much for my lie-in.

After the medication I had to make some muesli because I’d run out. And to my surprise I found that I had bought some sugar puffs instead of corn flakes. Ahh well. I must have been having a bad day yesterday.

But that led on to some tidying in the kitchen and now it’s starting to look a little more like a home. Even though it’s not my usual thing, to be working on a Sunday. But I was feeling a little better so I reckoned that I’d do it while I could.

Breakfast was rather late as a result, and that didn’t leave me with very much time. I had a few things to do, like to spread out all of the walnuts from yesterday onto a couple of trays and put them in the sun to dry. That’s very important, to ensure that they dry properly and thoroughly so that they don’t rot with the damp.

Once they are thoroughly dried, I can crack them open, extract the nuts, bake them in a frying pan and then grind them up.

This afternoon there was an exciting football match in prospect. La Brehalaise was playing FC Sienne – two clubs anchored at the foot of the table in Manche District Division 3.

I headed out there at 14:30 – straight into masses of traffic loitering around outside looking for a car park. And someone crawling along at 5mph looking for a place held me up for 10 minutes – he got a blast of Caliburn’s horn once I could finally get past him.

And then a Belgian pulled straight out off the kerb into the road right in front of Caliburn and it’s a good job that I’d had his brakes fixed. He had a “Hail Columbia” too.

As a result of all of the grockles admiring the seagulls I arrived late at Bréhal and missed the kick-off.

Nevertheless I did arrive just in time to see a rather late sliding tackle by the Bréhalaise n°11 on the FC Sienne goalkeeper, in vain pursuit of a loose ball.

This led to a yellow card for the n°11 and an ambulance for the goalkeeper.

It took a good while for the ambulance to arrive and for the paramedics to investigate the injury.

By my reckoning it looked not unlike a broken leg and the medics seemed quite concerned. After a considerable amount of treatment, they loaded him onto a chair and then carried him to a waiting ambulance.

All in all, the game was held up for a good half-hour while they attended to the keeper.

When the match restarted we were treated to an exciting game of football.

Despite it being a bottom-of-the-table clash, there was a considerable amount of skilful play out there that wouldn’t have been out-of-place a couple of divisions higher up the pyramid.

It was also pretty clear that despite being at the foot of the table, FC Sienne was the more skilful and more purposeful side. They were certainly much-more organised.

And it was therefore no surprise to anyone that they took the lead. And no surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish how they did it either.

If I had a Quid for every time I have shouted and complained at goalkeepers for being stupid, I would be lying on a deckchair in the Bahamas dictating this to a bevy of beautiful bikini babes.

But here we go again.

A backpass to the keeper, the keeper being stupid and taunting the opposition attackers, waiting until the last minute to kick it upfield, but instead slicing his clearance straight into the stomach of the attacker.

The keeper scrambled away the rebound off the goal line just in time – he then saved a volley at point-blank range to keep out the follow -up (and I suspect that he didn’t know anything whatever about his save) but he couldn’t do anything about the follow-up from that.

And as the Sienne team pushed on, Bréhal scored an unlikely equaliser from a breakaway, catching the stand-in keeper on the wrong foot.

Bréhal then missed a sitter – a cross palmed out by the Sienne stand-in keeper straight to a Bréhal forward 5 yards out in the centre of an open goal. All he had to do was to tap in, but instead he blasted it about 25 feet over the bar.

But as the game went on, Bréhal scored and even more unlikely two goals and so ran out 3-1 winners ina match that they never ever looked likely to win at all.

On the way back I went for diesel and then came back here. Some more tidying up and a bit of work, and then a delightful vegan pizza.

There was a beautiful moonlight tonight.

My perambulations this evening took me around the headland instead of the old town, so I could gaze across the Baie de Mont St Michel and see the reflection of the light upon the sea.

This was taken, by the way, with the new 18-105mm standard lens and I shan’t say anything else about the High Arctic.

Carrying on around on my walk, and seeing as I still had the new 18-105mm standard lens on the camera, I took a photo of the outer harbour and the gates to the inner harbour.

What had enticed me to take the pic was the view of the lights shimmering on the surface of the water.

The red “traffic light” to tell us that the tidal gates are closed certainly produced an impressive effect

And now it’s bedtime. And I need to start work again seriously tomorrow. I’ve been letting things slide rather too much just recently.

Treating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne

Ambulance La Brehalaise v FC Sienne

Treating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne

Moonlight, Baie de Mont St Michel, Granville

Saturday 20th October 2018 – HAVE YOU EVER …

… had one of those days when you can’t even summon up the energy to put away the shopping?

That’s the kind of day that I’ve been having today.

It’s not down to tiredness – at least, not THAT kind of tiredness because what with my early night, I was wide awake at 05:28 and raring to go … “of course” – ed.

And after breakfast and a shower I started to attack last night’s photos. But eventually I set off for the shops.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special today (apart from grapes at just €1:69 per kilo – I DO like this time of year).

Next stop was at NOZ and I had a little more luck there.

But out on the car park we had another case of pathetic parking. It’s getting to be quite a regular thing these days.

It’s a sure sign that Society is getting out of control, and that usually happens when a civilisation starts to grind to a halt.

So abandoning yet another good rant for the moment, I went inside the shop. They had some really good atlases of central Europe and also of the Benelux countries.

I still use paper atlases, especially when I’m on the road and I regretted not having any up-to-date atlases with me when I was on the road earlier in the year. So now, for less than €10:00 I’m all set up for if I ever again go beyond the eastern borders of France.

And if I ever go on the road in France, I have the atlas that I bought several weeks ago before I went off to all points North.

LeClerc didn’t come up with anything special but I spent a lot of money in there. I’d run almost completely out of muesli product and so I needed to stock up the supplies.

But there was much better – and surprising – luck in the electrical shop there. Apart from the new hair-trimmer that I bought, they also had some SD cards of – would you believe – 2GB capacity.

The hi-fi in Caliburn and the one back at the farm are still “old technology” stock and can’t read any more than 2GB at a go. So I’ve been struggling when it comes to recording more music to play in Caliburn and on the farm as the supply of 2GB cards has dried up.

They had 3 of these cards for sale and after I left, there weren’t any at all.

Having had a look on the internet, it seems that many of these on-line shopping sites are now offering them. Obviously, retailers and manufacturers have been misled by the amount of old-technology equipment still in circulation and still being used, and they are now having to re-manufacture them in greater numbers.

On the car park we had an exciting moment where some old codger walked in front of Caliburn as I was driving out. He growled at me for not stopping so I had a few words with him about his behaviour.

Well, two words actually. And one of them was “off”.

Back here I made my butties and went outside on the wall in the beautiful sunshine with my new book, as I have finished the Hundred Years War.

The current book is De La Defaite Au Désastre written by Jacques Benoist-Méchin, a member of the French Vichy Government and a rampant Nazi apologist who was sentenced to death in 1947 because of his collaboration with the Nazi authorities during the war and and for calling on Frenchmen to fight on the side of the Nazis.

His book sets out his opinion of the events from the Fall of France until the occupation of Vichy France by the Nazis on 10th November 1942.

And I hadn’t read half a dozen pages before I came across (le pays) a échafaudé le myth de la libération pour se dispenser de réfléchir aux moyens d’être libre. Chaque fois qu’on lui a demandé d’avoir le sursaut d’énergie nécessaire à son redressement, la nation s’est dérobée. Elle a préféré la facilité, l’illusion, le délire n’importe quoi plutôt due de travailler à son propre salut..

Crudely translatd by Yours Truly (because, after all, if you want any crudity anywhere, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man”) “(the country) developed the myth of liberation in order to abandon the necessity of having to think about the manner in which it was going to be free. Each time that it was asked to have the leap of energy necessary to set itself upright, the country became undone. It preferred the easy path, the illusion, delirium, anything at all, rather than work hard at its own salvation”.

Does this ring any bells with the current situation somewhere in the vicinity?

Back here, I wanted to start to tidy up but shame as it is to say it, I crashed out. And crashed out good and proper too, for an hour and a half or so.

Once I’d gathered up my wits, which takes much longer than it ought to do these days considering the amount of wits that I have left, I headed off to Roncey and chez Liz and Terry.

Terry proudly showed me his new toy.

Due to certain circumstances he had been obliged to crawl underneath his van the other day and what he had seen had given him a great deal of food for thought, what with the controle technique coming up imminently.

And what with the imminent arrival of Brexit and the potential difficulties of dealing with right-hand-drive vehicles, he had sallied forth and treated himself to a new van. One of the mid-sized Cevel van of the Fiat type.

These are really good vans of course – properly built and last for ever in the right hands and Terry should have plenty of use out of it. And with what he can save in fuel he can buy himself a little trailer for moving wood and plasterboard and the like. That’ll be much more convenient that going everywhere in the big van for no good purpose.

Liz cooked a nice tea of stuffed aubergines, followed by an apple cake with ground walnuts and quince purée. And seeing as her nut trees were still producing at a rapid rate of knots, she sent me out with a plastic bag. And now I have enough walnuts to sink a ship too.

Later in the evening there was a Welsh Premier League match on the internet. TNS, the perennial leaders, were having an inconsistent season by their standards, and Connah’s Quay Nomads are currently leading the table. Tonight, it was the Clash of the Titans with all to play for.

And it all went wrong after 15 minutes or so when TNS took the lead with a goal from nowhere.

By this time, I was overwhelmed again so after recovering my strength I headed for home. Back here just in time for the final whistle, with the score 3-0 to TNS. As I have said before … “on many occasions” – ed … the big trouble with the clubs in the Welsh Premier League is their lack of consistency. They can play really well at times, but then it all goes wrong as they lose concentration. And this is what’s happening now as a whole variety of clubs pin together a good run of results and then suddenly it all goes haywire.

It’s Sunday tomorrow and a lie-in. So I had a lounge about on the sofa for a while – and then fell asleep. It was 02:00 when I finally crawled off to bed.

I hope that I do get my lie-in tomorrow.

Friday 19th October 2018 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… been back at Mont St Michel today doing my tourist guide bit, but Josée contacted me yesterday to say that there had been a change of plan and she was off elsewhere.

And that was just as well because I wasn’t feeling all that much like it this morning.

Last night had been quite a late night – I was absorbed in a pile of work – so leaving my bed at 06:00 or thereabouts (and I did too – I was taking my medication in the kitchen when the alarm went off at 06:20) was something of a struggle.

After breakfast, I had a few things to do and then finished off the photos from yesterday’s walks. And now they are all on-line. All 40 or so of them so you can tell that it took me quite a while.

Another thing that I did today was to catch up with some tidying up and to do the washing-up that I hadn’t finished yesterday. I’m starting to let things slide in here as far as tidiness and cleanliness goes and I need to get myself back on track while I’m still able to do so. I won’t always be fit enough to tackle things when they need tackling.

There are also a couple of other projects on the go here and I’ve been dealing with a few of them too this morning.

Lunch was taken indoors today. It was overcast, cold and windy outside so I reckoned that I could do with the comfort of a chair in the dining area.

This afternoon, I did a few other bits and pieces and then sat down to tackle the photos from the Arctic. I’m still in Yellowknife on the Pilot’s Monument, and this afternoon I rewrote the things that I wrote about it earlier in the week.

Well, not exactly “rewritten”.

What I do is to write down things as they occur to me, put them into paragraphs and then cut and paste the paragraphs to make a continuous text, adding in a few conjunctions to make the text stream together.

It also involves research. And it’s amazing what you find when you start to look. Instead of worrying about finding enough text, I now have quite a considerable excess.

We had the usual afternoon walk around the headland this afternoon in the sunshine.

And there, sailing about out in the bay off the coast of Bréville-sur-Mer was the sailing ship that we have seen over the past few days.

I had the standard lens on the camera so I took a quick photo of it at long range.

But we haven’t bought a new zoom/telephoto lens for nothing, have we?

Seeing as the ship was sailing slowly, I stuck on the new lens and took a zoom photo.

I’ve still not been able to track down the name so I cropped the photo and blew it up (I can do these things, despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) but it seems that the name of the boat isn’t painted on the bows … “she’s La Granvillaise” – ed.

While I had the big new lens on the camera, I took a photo of the caravan site out at Bréville sur Mer near the horse racing course.

That was another place where I had enquired about accommodation when I arrived here.

Liz and Terry have a little caravan and one idea going through my head was to park it on there for the summer, and then try for a good deal in a long-term holiday let through the winter.

When I arrived back here after my walk I found that I had an important e-mail message.

The third lens that I had ordered – a refurbished 18x105mm lens – hadn’t been delivered as promised. And the tracking showed that they had tried twice, even though I had been here on both occasions.

Having instigated a search, I was told that it was now awaiting collection at the Post Office. So I went down there to pick it up.

And down there I found the reason why it hadn’t been delivered, and why I was puzzled as to how come no-one from the delivery company had rung the bell.

It turns out that the address for delivery was incorrect. An error on the part of the dispatchers.

But I’m not complaining, because when I wrote to them to tell them of the delay and the inconvenience, they refunded my postage. I’m quite content with that.

After all of that, I had to sit down for a while and have a little … errr … relax for half an hour.

Tea was a curry from the freezer and it was just as delicious as the day that I cooked it.

Later on I went out for the evening walk around the walls with the camera and the new lens.

Part of the plan was to retake many of the photos that I had taken the other day with the 50mm lens so that I could compare them and see the difference.

Just like this one of the sea front at Bréhal sur Mer

And this one of the rue du Nord with the Place d’Armes in the background to the right.

It won’t be as good as the 50mm low-light lens because it needs more light to work it, but its advantage is that the new lens is a zoom lens rather than a fixed lens.

That means that it’s more useful as a general-purpose lens (which is why I bought it) but I still need to see how it performs.

The other day I took an almost-identical photo to this one and the difference is quite apparent. The earlier one has come out much better