Tag Archives: place d’armes

Thursday 18th October 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… last night I was on board a ship again and it might even have been The Good Ship Ve …… errr … Ocean Endeavour. And I don’t remember much now about the journey except that the terrain over which we were walking bore a remarkable resemblance to the Ile de Chausey, where I was the other day and of which one day I’ll finish off adding all of the photos. I was with some woman and her teenage daughter on this trip – and don’t ask me who they were. The daughter was hungry and kept on going to the fridge for some food. There were a couple of plates of beans and sausage on there and she kept on helping herself to one of them. I put it back though, not because I didn’t want her to eat it, but because I was going to cook something special and I wanted her to try it. But every time I put the plate back, she would sneak back and take it out again.

With all that going on, I was actually awake on time, and out of bed before the alarm at 06:20. And it’s been a good few weeks since that’s happened, hasn’t it?

After breakfast etc I had a few things to do, and then I leapt … “well, sort-of” – ed … into the shower for a good scrub and a change of clothes.

On my way out of the apartment I went past the harbour and there, moored up at its quay is the Marité.

Of course, she’s back home now that the weekend is over and all of the tourists have gone home and won’t now be back for a while.

But it always happens like this, doesn’t it?

But down in the town I came across an exciting sign. And next time that Alison comes here I’ll take her for a beer.

Although France might well be 100 years behind the times when it comes to allergies and dietary issues, you occasionally come across some little gems.

Just like this one, in fact. Gluten-free beer must be something exciting.

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything special really, although it might have been a good idea to have bought some tomatoes, because I don’t have any left over for anything exciting.

And on the way back, I was distracted yet again.

There’s a Catholic Primary School, the Ecole St Paul, that I pass on my way back. And I hadn’t noticed until today the statue of the saint up there, having been left holding the baby.

I thought that I would add a photo of the statue to my collection.

And just down the road from there, again in the rue Saint Paul is a house that I have noticed in passing but at which I have never taken a good look before. 4

It’s a beautiful house as you can see, but a close inspection of it indicates that the house seems to be abandoned and derelict.

This would be just my kind of house, and there might even be a sea view from the top floor of the building.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the demolition that took place in the rue St Genevieve over the winter when an old house was knocked down.

And then a sign appeared advising that planning permission had been granted for a new construction.

First time that I’ve been down here for a couple of months, and during that time we can see that construction of whatever is going to be here is well under way.

It doesn’t look particularly solid but then again this is a feature of modern construction.

Back here I had a drink and then did some tidying up (just by way of a change). And then attacked yesterfday’s photos. And to my surprise, I’d finished them off pretty quickly (there weren’t all that many actually) and put them on line.

Another important thing was accomplished too.

After the success the other day of my frozen sprouts, I had some carrots here which, I expected, would start to look doubtful in a few days time. So I peeled them, diced them, par-boiled them with some bayleaves and then stuck them in the freezer in a zip bag too.

Lunch was once again on the wall overlooking the harbour, looking at the fishing boats coming and going.

It was quite warm out there – a really sunny day – so I suppose that the fishermen were making the most of the good weather of this Indian Summer.

And I was practising with the light, bouncing it off the sea and onto the side of the boat.

Fishing boats weren’t the only things that were wandering around outside the harbour.

That sailing boat that we saw the other day – that was back again with another crowd of people, towing its zodiac behind.

One of these days I’ll have to go down and check up to remind myself of its name.

Back in the apartment I attacked the pile of photos from my trip to the Ile de Chausey on Saturday. They are all on line now with some brief explanatory notes.

There was even some time to attack the notes of the second day of my visit to the Arctic when I was in Yellowknife. The notes for the first day have been on line for quite some time as you know, and I need to press on.

I’d gone out at the usual time too and the weather had improved even more.

It wasn’t possible to see Jersey for some reason or other, but a couple of what might have been fishing boats were just about visible right out on the horizon, so I had a quick go with the big zoom-telephoto lens.

They are probably 30 kilometres out to sea where they are there.

While I had the big lens out, I had a good look aout along the coast to see what I could see.

That’s probably 30 or so kilometres away too, right out at Blainville-sur-Mer up the coast in the direction of Cherbourg.

I’ve not yet been for a walk on that beach, so I’ll have to put that right in due course.

On the other hand, this here is a beach that I’ve walked upon. And on several occasions too.

And not only that, I was watching Terry, Darren, Kate and Dylan sand-yachting on there earlier this year.

It is of course Agon-Countainville and it’s one of the nicest beaches around here, with one of the largest tidal ranges around here too.

Yesterday, we were walking around the Pointe du Roc and we saw a handful of what might have been fishing boats loitering at the foot of the cliffs.

Today I had another look over the clifftop where they were yesterday, and there was another one down ther today loitering around at the foot of the cliffs.

I’m still not sure what they are doing.

And talking of not knowing what they are doing, this is what the council workmen have been doing to the car park by the lighthouse at the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And having seen the results of their work, I’m still none the wiser.

And I’m not even better-informed either. But that’s because the workmen weren’t there to ask.

The weather was even better in the shelter of the wind down at the head of the bay.

So now that I have a decent zoom-telephoto lens I could take a photo of what I have glimpsed before at the head of the Baie de Mont St Michel, to see if this lens will pick it up any better.

And sure enough, this lens is so much better than the older one and we can see quite clearly not only the Cabanon Vauban which we have visited on several occasions, but the hotels round by the foot of the Mont St Michel.

Not the Mont itself though. That’s hidden behind the Pointe de Carolles.

Back here I carried on with the work that I had been doing, and then made tea. Stuffed peppers (now that I had bought some) and spicy rice, with my frozen carrots too. And that worked!

And then off for my walk around the walls.

There are tons of photos though.

During the afternoon, the weather was so good that I took plies of photos with the zoom-telephoto lens all along the coast from the Pointe de Carolles back up t0 Granville.

And then this evening, the clear moonlight made the night-time photos even better.

And so I’ll be adding these in due course so that you can see them in all their glory and admire the new lenses that I have bought.

fishing boat port de granville habour manche normandy france

Port Foulon The southern part of the town of Granville

The Cale de Hacqueville

The Beach at Carolles.

The large building just to the left of centre is another one in which there’s a ruin of an apartment that was offered to me.

The Beach at Carolles.

Jullouville

Kairon Plage

St Pair sur Mer

Chateau de la Crete

Granville – Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais

Marité

Fishing boat in the port de Granville awaiting the tide.

Crew working aboard fishing boat in the port de Granville awaiting the tide.

A rather over-exposed photo of the moon.

The Place d’Armes and the medieval town walls

Moonlight over the Baie de Granville

Another over-exposed moon shot with one of the planets

Pizza van, Place Cambernon

Wednesday 17th October 2018 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I had another good sleep last night.

Out like a light and asleep almost until the alarm went off. I probably beat it by about 10 seconds, I reckon.

And I’d been on my travels too – back on a ship somewhere but I’ve no idea where and I’ve no idea what I was doing either.

Even more surprisingly, I was out of bed quite rapidly too. Obviously the deep sleep had done me a power of good and I ought to do it more often.

After breakfast etc I had a few things to do and then I set about the photos from last night. There were more than I anticipated and it took a while to deal with them but they are now all on line and you can go to see them if you like.

I’ve been having a play with the ISO levels, with cropping and enlarging some of them and the results are … errr … interesting. In one photo, you can even see the street lights of St Helier – 54 kms away – taken through a 50mm lens and that is astonishing.

You can see them for yourself.

There were quite a few distractions too and I was surprised to see that I had arrived at 13:30 without having accomplished all that much.

Lunch was on the wall with butties and book, but no lizards. I imagine that they have by now gone into hibernation.

But we still have the fishing boats coming in and coming out of the harbour. I’d missed two that were leaving simultaneously but I managed to be in time to catch this one on its way in.

And he was coming in at quite a rate too, as you can tell by his wake.

Coming back to the apartment Gribouille was waiting for me so I gave him a big stroke. His mummy was there too and she invited me to her birthday party which will be held in a couple of weeks time.

Up in the apartment I restarted my assault on the photos from Saturday and the Ile de Chausey. That took longer than it ought to have done too, mainly due to a variety of distractions, including but not limited to a little … errr … relax.

Of course we had the usual afernoon walk, during which my attention was caught by some activity going on at the foot of the cliffs.

Several boats were congregating down there and I’ve no idea what they might be doing. It’s highly unlikely that they are fishing but I can’t think of anything else.

And you can see the Iles de Chausey in the background.

Having a good view of the Ile de Chausey in the previous photo, I fitted the zoom telephoto lens to the camera to take a photo of it in the fine weather conditions.

And you can see the difference between the image produced by a lens with a focal length of 45mm in the first photograph and a lens with a focal length of 300mm in this photo – a 7 times magnification.

You can even identify the individual houses on the island, even though it’s about 17 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

And when you start to crop your original image and enlarge the selection, you can produce some even more dramatic results.

This is a crop from the main photo of the southern end of the island. You can see the lighthouse quite clearly as well as the houses that are scattered around that part of the island which we passed on our way in.

That’s not bad at all for 17 kilometres

And when you crop out an even smaller selection, enlarge it and digitally enhance it, you can produce shots that are even more dramatic.

This is a smaller selection cropped from the same photo, digitally enhanced to improve the contrast. And not only can you see the houses on the island, you can see the afternoon ferry pulling into the inner harbour of the island where we docked on Saturday.

You can see the sun reflecting off the white paint on the southern ends of the houses

This is a selection cropped from another photo, showing the northern tip of the island and the lighthouse situated there.

And I do have to say that I have no idea what that is in the sea in the foreground of the image.

But all of this goes to show just what a good purchase this new zoom-telephoto lens is and I can have hours of endless fun with this.

Back in the apartment yet again and carrying on with the photos (and dozing off again here and there). But I kept on going and now there are another pile on line and you can see those here.

Tea was another home-made burger with baked potatoes and vegetables. But I didn’t manage my evening walk because just as I was finishing off the washing up, Rosemary rang up.

It’s been a good while since we last spoke so we had a great deal to discuss. But even so, a ‘phone call of 1 hour 42 minutes and 57 seconds is something of a new world record – and by some distance too.

So now it’s late and everything else will have to wait. I’m off for an early night again and quite right too. I can’t say that I’m sorry.

I’ll need to gather my strength and gird up my loins as it’s my day to go off to LIDL on foot tomorrow.

north end ile de chausey semaphore granville manche normandy france

north end of ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

boats around marker light granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 16th October 2018 – THIS MORNING …

… didn’t turn out like it was supposed to. The alarms went off as usual and I switched them off as usual, but it was actually 07:34 when I awoke. That’s not going to do me much good, although it’s probably true to say that I needed the sleep.

And I took full advantage of it to go off on a decent nocturnal ramble too. Not into the High Arctic (just by way of a change) but to Eastern Austria and the ski slopes (and not the usual nocturnal ski slopes either). In company (which is not like me, as regual readers of this rubbish will recall) with two other people – a friend from Germany (who makes his debut in a nocturnal ramble) and a girl who, should we say, I would have been more than happy to have had as my companion 40 years ago, and why she should suddenly appear like this I really have no idea at all because we were extremely friendly during this voyage. In fact, the whole set-up last night bore some kind of resemblance to a voyage that I had once made round round about that period 40 years ago. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … we’d all been skiing in Austria, dining across the border in Hungary, all of that kind of thing, and now we were on our way back. We stopped off somewhere and there was a former friend of mine from Stoke on Trent and a girl who used to move about in his circle of friends and whom I didn’t really like all that much (it’s just like the Gathering Of The Clans, isn’t it?). I was telling them about my trip (with a few embellishments of course to make it sound even better) and they were complaining about things with them and how they wished that they had been lucky enough to have come along. I replied by saying that the opportunity was there – I had asked if anyone wanted to come and I’d found a couple of volunteers, and we’d all had an excellent time. And if they hadn’t wanted to come then that was their problem and I didn’t want to hear about it.

This does actually bear out some parallels with how things are in real life. I have managed to cram into my life quite a lot of excitement and adventure and people quite often come up to me and tell me how lucky I am and how they wish that they could do it.

And how all of that makes me sick.

I’ve never ever done anything else in my life that no-one else couldn’t have done had they wanted. I used at one time to invite people to come along if they liked but I have long-since abandoned that idea because no-one ever wanted to (except of course the much-maligned Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages half as often as she deserves). They would always find some good reason why not to do something. It might be money (yet they could find the money to go to the pub or buy a new toy or to eat out every weekend) or it might be health (yet I’m slowly dying but I’m still rolling along as best I can) but whatever it is, they’ll find an excuse not to go anywhere.

And then they complain about it.

It’s all down to this though. It’s all about what you consider your priorities in life to be, and what you are prepared to sacrifice in life to get to where you want to go. Some people have their priorities all wrong, and aren’t prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

So abandoning another really good rant for the moment I eventually tore myself away from my bed, had my medication and a little later had breakfast.

Once that had digested itself I started to attack last night’s photos. I found a few more that I seemed to have overlooked so while I was at it I dealt with those too.

Following that, I then worked my way backwards through the journal for the last week or so and updated them with the images that are now ready, including last nights photos on yesterday’s entry.

It’s not all complete though because dealing with the 80-odd from Saturday isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve rewritten the page for the Ile de Chausey and added a dozen or so photos, and I’ll add the rest tomorrow if I have an opportunity.

That took me nicely up to lunchtime but before I made my sandwiches I had a shower and a change of clothes to make myself look pretty – or, at least, as pretty as I can.

It wasn’t particularly sunny but I took my book and butties outside and sat on the wall to eat them – the butties not the book of course.

And I wasn’t alone either because while there might not have been any lizards about, there was one of the sailing boats that frequents the harbour.

And it shows you how long it is since I’ve been down in the harbour and how good my memory is, but I’ve forgotten its name. I shall have to go down there one day soon for a butcher’s

And that’s not all either.

There was quite a procession of fishing boats and other craft coming in and out of the harbour. And here’s one that I don’t recall seeing at all.

But it goes to show the benefits of having a really good zoom telephoto lens at last. And how I wish … “here we go again” – ed.

But returning to our moutons as they say around here, I didn’t stay out there all that long though. The weather looked as if it might turn round so I came back here instead.

There were a couple of jobs that needed doing this afternoon – involving the photos and so on. They are all backed up now onto the external drive.

And it caused me to have a little smile. When I first started to digitalise my photos 20-odd years ago I could get a whole year onto one CD, with plenty of space to spare. While I was in the Arctic just recently I had a grand total of 27.2GB of images – enough to fill over 40 CDs. How times have changed!

This afternoon I took my walk around the headland amongst a pile of schoolkids doing some kind of map-reading exercise. But apart from that there wasn’t all that much excitement.

But all of the excitement was back here afterwards when I had a little … err … relax for a while.

For tea, I had more steamed vegetables and one of the pasties that I made before I went off to the Arctic.

And how delicious were they? I shall have to make some more.

Outside this evening for my evening walk and I surprised a bunch of kids having a party in a secluded corner. We had an interesting discussion in Franglais yet again.

I also took a few more night-time photos that I’ll add to this entry in the morning. There aren’t quite as many as yesterday’s and the quality might be … errr … different because I was experimenting with the ISO settings and one or two other tricks too.

So I’ll try again for another early night. And this time, I hope that I’ll rise up from the Dead at some kind of reasonable time.

la granvillaise sailing ship port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

More fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The orange lights slightly to the right of centre are actually the street lights of St Helier in Jersey, some 54 kilometres away.

Yet more fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The barracks of the Place d’Armes and part of the city walls can be seen on the left margin.

Donville les Bains – about 6 kms away – with a high ISO setting.

Photo cropped and enlarged.

The roofs of Granville and the lights of St Pair sur Mer, Kairon-Plage and Jullouville away in the distance

rue le Carpentier looking down to the rue Cambernon and the museum.

Rue Notre Dame

The Boulevard Vaufleury, the Upper Car Park and the port;

Fishing boat leaving the harbour in the dark.

Boats in the outer harbour

The Place d’Armes

The rear of the Place d’Armes

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Montéé de St Jean

The rue St Jean and the Montee de St Jean

Monday 15th October 2018 – BACK INTO …

… the routine again. I don’t think!

Certainly the alarms went off – at 06:00, 06:10 and 06:20 as usual. But to say that I was eager to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit would be somewhat economical with the truth too.

I’d also been back in the High Arctic again. There were 50 of us leaving the voyage, trying to get into three zodiacs arriving one after the other, each one with a capacity of 12 persons. So that’s going to work, isn’t it? But it seemed that no-one was too eager to go in the first boat, and neither in the last one. So everyone was more interested in clambering into the middle boat. You can see immediately why this might cause a problem.

After breakfast, I did some tidying up so that this place looks more like a home, and then sat down and had a look at last night’s photos.

They have all been edited and reworked as appropriate and uploaded them to yesterday’s journal entry where they can be seen in all their glory.

That took most of the morning, which might come as a surprise to many people, but not when you consider that for some part of the morning I was … errr … away with the fairies.

It was my intention to go and sit on the wall and eat my butties but at that moment it was overcast so I ended up eating in here.

This afternoon I re-reviewed the photos from the Ile de Chausey on Saturday, chose a few as good samples and then started to rewrite the entry and add some photos. I didn’t get anything like as far into this as I was hoping, but you can see where I’m up to right now and this may well yet change.

But once again, I was somewhat overwhelmed. The effects of the last few days have caught up with me yet again.

There was a nice afternoon walk around the headland, and seeing that I’m in a photography mood right now, I took the camera with me.

I’m not sure it I’ve previously taken a photo of the blown-up bunker and so I took one this afternoon.

I’ve told you previously … “at great length” – ed … about the Atlantic Wall that the Germans built here in the early 1940s. And after the war the French set about trying to remove the casemates and bunkers.

But they were built much more substantially than anyone realised, and all that they succeeded in doing was moving half a dozen enormous lumps of concrete a couple of yards away from their original position.

And so they gave up any further attempt and left the rest of the bunkers here.

While I was there, I noticed some of the local council workmen carrying out a bit of work on the car park round the corner on the Pointe du Roc, so I went over to have a quick look to see what they were doing.

It seems that they are laying some paving stones as if there’s going to be some hard-standing for some purpose.

I’ll have to have a wander over there in a couple of days time to see how it’s evolving and what the purpose of it all will be.

Having taken my photo I carried on a-wandering around the headland to the little spot where I can overlook the harbour.

The tide is well on its way out of the tidal harbour right now and it was interesting to watch some of the larger ships settle down on the silt as the sea disappears.

The yellow one seems to have settled in the wrong direction so I hope that it won’t flood when the tide comes back in. It should really be careened over onto the landward side

But my reverie was interrupted by something of a racket coming from the shipyard.

It seems that they are carrying out some kind of major work on a fishing trawler that’s been hauled out of the water onto the top of the quay just there.

I’m not sure if they are in the process of dismantling it or whether they are renovating it. This is another thing to go back and check on in a couple of days’ time.

Tea tonight was steamed vegetables, sausages and vegan cheese sauce, and it was totally delicious too. I really enjoyed it and I shall make some more of that in due course. My frozen sprouts are working well.

Later on, I was back out in the evening for my walk around the walls. I took plenty of photos too with the new Nikon lens.

I went through them later and added them to the blog so that you can see them.

And I’m sure that you’ll be as dismayed as I am with the quality of the photos that I took in the Arctic when you see what this new low-light lens can produce under these kind of conditions.

In the previous photo you saw the lights of Donville les Bains in the background.

In this photo you can even see that the new lens was even able to pick up the fleet of ships out there to see – presumably a fleet of fishing boats.

The little Nikon J1 would never even have made the attempt, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

I can see that this time next year I shall have to go back to the High Arctic, won’t I?

On my way round, Minette was there waiting for her stroke – and a pick-up – as well. She’s clearly missed me.

So now I’m going to have a reasonably early night. I need to get myself back on track as I have plenty of things to do.

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Moon

Bréville sur Mer and St Martin de Bréhal.

Place d’Armes

Plat Gousset

rue General Patton

Place Marechal Foch

Plat Gousset

Rue Georges Clemenceau

rue Paul Poirier

Place Maurice Marland

Port de Granville

Place Maurice Marland

rue du Colombier

rue Notre Dame

Place Cambernon

rue St Jean

Sunday 14th October 2018 – ALONE AGAIN

Yes, it’s very nice to have company because it drags me out of my shell and gets me off and about doing things, but it’s also nice to be back on my own again in my own little routine.

Last night was another bad night; Asleep at about midnight, awake at 01:00, working on the laptop because I couldn’t sleep, asleep again at 04:00, alarm at 06:00 (because Bane of Britain forgot to switch it off) and finally up and about at 08:30.

We had a leisurely breakfast and then Josée had a shower and packed up her things.

A visit to Yves and Lily’s was next to hand back the tool that Yves had lent us, and we were there chatting for over an hour. And then I drove Josée to the station for her train.

Back here, I made myself a couple of sandwiches for lunch and then I did the obvious thing. I crashed out. I need to catch up on my beauty sleep somehow.

As far as work today has gone, I haven’t done any. It IS a Sunday, after all. Instead, I’ve loitered around for pretty much all of the afternoon.

Tea was a vegan pizza of course, and it was another really good one.

My evening walk was around the headland of course. Only this time I took with me the new Nikon 50mm lens so that I could try it out in the dark and see what it’s like, like this photo of the College Andre Malraux in the Place d’Armes.

But that’s tomorrow’s job. Now I’m going to make the most of the possibilities of an early night. I’ve clean, tidy bedding too in which I can relax.

That’s something not to be missed.

The rue du Roc

the rue St Jean and the gate into the Old Town

The Place d’Armes – my building

The roundabout at the end of the rue du Roc, and the Pointe du Roc

The old Port, ferry terminal and quays

Rue du Port and the old port

Place d’Armes

rue St Jean and the archway into the Old Town

Saturday 13th October 2018 – WE WENT …

… today to the Ile de Chausey, and if you want to see all of the photos that I took, you need to go to THIS LINK.

But we started off as we meant to go on, by, just for a change, drinking coffee on the terrace.

Not exactly a terrace, but the footpath that goes along the walls at the end of the car park at the side of the building just here at the Place d’Armes.

It’s certainly a novel way to start off the day and I’ll have to do this more often.

Meanwhile, while I was drinking my coffee I noticed some movement way out to sea in the English Channel.

With my new toy, more of which anon, I took a long-distance photo of it with the intention of cropping and enlarging it in due course.

And sure enough, once I’d done the necessary, I could see that there was a yacht out there next to the marker buoy

But to start with, we are running low on supplies and so our first port of call was the local market. Saturday morning is market day so we toddled off through the wind into town.

Josée bought me a book which was very nice of her. It’s all about making drinks from natural ingredients and I’m sure that once I have time to sit down and read it I’ll have endless hours of fun with it.

And then off to the covered market where we bought some lettuce, tomato, cucumber and the like. And on the way back we went past a place selling vegan biscuits. So a pack of those disappeared into the shopping bag too.

Back here, I had a very pleasant surprise.

Having been totally dismayed by the photos that I took in the High Arctic in Canada and Greenland just now, I’ve bitten the bullet and done what I should have done in the first place and ordered some new lenses for the big Nikon.

When we returned, two of the three had arrived.

There’s a 50mm f1.8 lens, auto-focus of course to replace the old manual focus lens that I had. That’s ideal for low-light work such as for indoor evenings, concerts and sporting events.

But also, in pride of place, a 70-300mm telephoto zoom lns, likewise auto-focus, to replace another elderly and creaking manual-focus telephoto zoom lens that’s been lying around here since the Dawn of Time.

So grabbing the telephoto zoom lens, that disappeared into the camera bag.

While we were making our butties, Liz and Terry turned up. They had decided to accompany us and so we all set out for the ferry terminal.

The sea was quite rough in view of all of the wind but I enjoyed the crossing and I was there playing about with the big new lens. And I do have to say that I’m very impressed, almost as much as with my galvanised steel dustbin.

It does everything that it’s supposed to do, and does it quite well too. Obviously it’s not in the same class as a lens that might cost 10 times the price of course, but it’s good enough for what I want. Have a look at this photo of Mont St Michel, about 15 miles away and judge for yourself.

First thing that we did was to go and find somewhere to go and have our lunch.

A nice quiet beach seemed to be an ideal place to have our picnic, so we sat down, filled our faces and had a chat.

Although it was quite cool and windy, it was nevertheless very pleasant sitting out there on the sand with a pile of sandwiches.

Once we’d eaten, digested and rested we headed off into the hills, such as they are around here because the highest point on the island is only 31 metres high, to explore the island.

There are two villages here – one round by the landing stage and the other one where we are right now. This is called Les Blainvillaises, and receives its name from the fact that the houses were originally built by people from Blainville on the mainland who came here to explore the local marine resources.

There are also several other isolated houses, all looking as if they are made of local stone.

The island is well-known for the quality of the local stone and it has been used in the construction of many important buildings on the mainland in the area, including many of the buildings on Mont-St-Michel.

Many of the houses would be empty though at this time of year. There aren’t too many permanent residents, most of the houses here being holiday homes.

It’s a bit similar to the island of Agistri where I was in October 2013 in that there’s no source of water on the island and it all needs to be shipped in. So conservation of water resources here is quite important.

Naturally, I could solve the problem in a matter of days by installing a rainwater harvesting system there like I had back on my farm in the Auvergne, a system that served me well from the day I arrived until the day I left 9 years later.

Apart from the water issues, rubbish and litter are very tightly controlled.

There’s some kind of organisation called the Conservatoire de l’espace littoral et des rivages lacustres – “The Conservation of coastal and lakeside surroundings” – and its aim is to preserve and protect the coast and waterside of France.

It’s taken on the rôle of protecting the southern half of the island and its presence is everywhere, with rubbish bins and notices all over the place.

And quite right too because it’s an area well-worth protecting. There are thousands of tourists who come here every year and the place could quickly deteriorate into a rubbish dump if no-one took any interest in the island.

On the subject of people taking an interest in the island and holiday homes and the like, this building is extremely interesting.

It was originally a fort built round about 1559 to defend the island but subsequently allowed to fall into ruin.

Its potential was however realised by the industrialist Louis Renault, the founder of the Renault car company.

He began to restore the property in the 1920s and subsequently became became his summer residence. And this is how the property remains today, although of course Louis Renault has long-gone.

However his memory linger on on the island. Many people still regard him as one of the main benefactors of the island.

And so does his view, because this is the kind of view that would attract me to a property too. I could pass many a happy holiday here.

This construction on the edge of the beach right by the Chateau Renault caught my eye too.

I’m not sure what it is, but I reckon that it’s possibly a tidal swimming pool – one that would fill when the tide came in and would retain its water as the tide went out.

On the other hand it could be a tidal fish pool. These are well-known round here. The tide would fill the pond with water – and hopefully fish – at high tide, and then the owner of the pool could wade in after the tide went out to pull out all the fish.

And the drain at the bottom would lend support to that.

Although these islands here (because there are 365 here at low tide and 52 at high tide) are officially and geographically part of the Channel Islands, they are part of France.

We’re much closer to the Channel Islands than you might think – about 40 kms I reckon at a rough guess – and with the new telephoto zoom lens I could pick out quite easily the town of St Helier.

Although I wish that the weather would have been clearer so as to have given a better contrast.

But there is some kind of common history between all of the Channel Islands.

They were formerly the personal property of the Dukes of Normandy, hence when William the Conqueror invaded England and became king, he took his islands with him (if you know what I mean).

But his grandfather Richard II had in 1022 made a gift of the Ile de Chausey to the Abbey of Mont St Michel, hence the reason why these islands belong today to France.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a good while ago during a period of good light, I was able to photograph a church on the coast right across the bay in Brittany.

Today, with the new lens, I was able to take a photo of the same church from a viewpoint on the island, and was able to take a cross-bearing to verify the position.

And I can say that it is almost certainly the town of Cancale, where I stayed one night in April last year.

We continued with our tour of the island on foot (as if there was any other way to see the island except on foot), stopping to rest on several occasions to take photos or to admire the beautiful views.

And to enjoy the beautiful weather because considering that it’s the middle of October right now, the weather is really nice for the time of the year. Quite balmy.

And you’ll be surprised just how quickly 3.5 hours disappears when you are having fun and enjoying yourself.

We’ve seen the old 16th-Century fort that is now incorporated into the Chateau Renault. But there’s also a more modern fort here.

Tensions in Europe were rising and falling during the 19th Century and at one particular moment during the middle of the century, relations between the United Kingdom and France were somewhat tense.

As a result, in the late 1850s a new fort was constructed here at the back of the Plage du Port-Marie on the orders of the Emperor Napoleon III to defend the island and the Baie de Mont St Michel from any incursions by the British.

The fort was completed in 1866 but never saw action, although it was used as a Prisoner-of-War camp in the First World War and was occupied by a German garrison in World War II.

On the way back, the sea wasn’t quite as rough as on the way out but it was still pleasant all the same.

I took a pile of photos in the fading light and they came out quite well with the new lens. Despite the fact that it’s not as good in low light as a more expensive lens, the results are perfectly satisfactory for what I was expecting.

I really began to regret the fact that I hadn’t gone out and bought this lens before I left for the Arctic

Getting back into port was quite the thing though.

We were late returning and that 15 minutes makes all of the difference. The tide was going out rapidly.

The boat had to inch its way in over the sandbar and I was convinced that we were grounding out the bottom of the boat here and there as we tried to get in.

On the way back to the apartment I had a chat with Liz and Terry about something that had been preying on my mind for a few weeks. After explaining the situation to them, their understanding was exactly the same as mine, and exactly the same as Alison’s, with whom I had discussed this a couple of weeks ago.

No-one seems to think that I misunderstood the situation, so that’s comforting to a certain degree. But even so, it doesn’t change the situation one jot because what I (and other people) think about it has nothing to do with the situation at all.

Josée went for a walk around the town in the evening because there was a football match on the internet that I wanted to see.

That might sound terribly chavinistic to some readers of this rubbish, but the bare facts of the story are that I’d done about 130% of my daily activity today, I’d already had a couple of little “health issues” while I’d been out, and I couldn’t go another step. “Feet up on the sofa” was what was called for from my point of view.

So in the Irn Bru Cup we had Connah’s Quay Nomads of the Welsh Premier League v Coleraine of Northern Ireland. Coleraine were by far the more skilful side when it came to moving the ball around but they had no real answer to the uncompromising defence of the Nomads. It seemed to me that the match would be decided from a set piece and so it was – the Nomads centre-half rising highest to a very long throw-in from the right wing.

As Coleraine pushed forward to find an equaliser they were leaving gaps all over the defence and the Nomads were very quick to exploit the breakaway. Twice they burst through the defence with just the keeper to beat, twice they were hauled down from behind with no attempt to reach the ball, and twice the referee reached into his pocket for a red card.

Down to 9 men, Coleraine made three substitutions to freshen up the team but the new players had no more luck. By now though they were becoming rather desperate and some of the tackles and … errr … incidents which they instigated have no place at all on a football pitch.

And towards the end of the game the Nomads brought on their star player, Michael Bakare, who had been rested, and he made the difference – brushing off a couple of weak, tired challenges to set up one of his team-mates for a second goal.

This was a good win for the Nomads – a dour, workmanlike struggle against a superior side and if they can play like that more often they could do much better in European competition than they have done up to now.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s going to be an early start tomorrow as Josée will be back on her travels to wherever her next stop might be.

Friday 12th October 2018 – WHAT WITH ONE …

… thing and another (and until you get started you’ve no idea just how many other things there are) It wasn’t far short of 03:00 when I finally settled down to sleep.

That’s not leaving me too much time when there’s an alarm to go off at 06:00 is it?

Mind you, there was plenty of time to go off and disappear on another nocturnal ramble. This time it was to do with a load of girls who were saying goodbye to each other and going their separate ways. And I still haven’t worked out what that was all about either.

No-one was really hungry this morning so we didn’t have much in the way of breakfast. But I had a shower and then we put the washing machine on the go. I’ve no idea where all of this washing comes from – it’s certainly not me.

Once we’d gathered our wits, which in my case takes much longer than it ought, we went for a walk in the wind.

Granville was formerly the home of the well-known fasion designer Christian Dior.

His childhood home, situated on the cliffs on the way out of town, has been converted into a museum of his life and works, and it’s the kind of place that most women would like to visit.

and so this was our destination for this morning.

We went out along the walls of the old town and then down the steps onto the Plat Gousset.

Our attention was caught by a bicycle propped up against the wall with someone’s clothes draped over it.

So looking out to sea we saw someone perched up on the diving platform. And you can see how far in the tide is today by the fact that the platform is practically submerged.

And as we watched, our intrepid hero, clearly the grandson of Captain Matthew Webb, took to the windy water and started to swim back to the shore, cheered on by the onlookers.

As I remarked to one of the spectators, “he’s a braver man than I am” because I wouldn’t have liked to have been out there in those conditions.

It took him a while to make it back to shore though, although he never looked as if he was in any trouble.

However, we did have an interruption by some people who seemed to be rather concerned about what was going on.

Round the headland came the sea-rescue boat and it can’t have been a coincidence that they came on the scene just at that particular moment.

Of course, their services weren’t required at all but they were there nevertheless to keep an eye on the proceedings. Unless it REALLY was a coincidence.

It was a beautiful day for photography though. The colours really were superb and the excellent light brought them out perfectly.

I must have taken dozens of photos down there and it’s very hard to choose which one was the best of the bunch.

So I’ll just post one photo here and you can imagine all of the rest.

To reach the museum you have to climb up a couple of flights of steep stairs at the end of the promenade, but it’s well worth it, particularly on a day like this as the views from the top are stunning.

I was taking a few photos of the Ile de Chausey when I noticed a strange shape at the back of one of the islands of the archipelago.

So I photographed it with the view of cropping it and enlarging it back at home to see what it was.

But there was no need to do that really because I could see that it was a moving object. And just a minute or two later it burst out into the open sea.

Yes, we have another cruise ship cruising around the Chennel Islands. Not a particularly big one by the look of things, but interesting nevertheless.

I’ve not been able to find out which one it was either which is a shame.

That wasn’t the only maritime activity either.

As we were walking along the Plat Gousset we had heard a hooter telling us that a ship was leaving port. And 20 minutes later our old friend Normandy Trader hove into view.

She mad a really good photograph as she steamed … “dieseled” – ed … off to Jersey with the Ile de Chausey in the background.

The grounds of the museum are really beautiful and you can see why the Diors chose this place to be their home with views like this all over the place.

When they moved here in 1905 or whenever it was, there was nothing but bare rock but Mrs Dior arranged for tons of soil to be brought to the premises and this was transformed into what we see today.

The young Christian Dior has aspirations to be an architect, and it is said that some of the features of the garden and some of the furniture were made to his own designs.

But beautiful as the place might be, it came into the hands of the Granville town council who are now responsible for the upkeep, and the place seems to be suffering under the budget cuts while public funds are stashed away to satisfy what many people consider to be Madame la Maire‘s somewhat “over-ambitious” plans to abandon the town’s heritage and transform it into a playground for the rich.

So abandoning our fears about whether the railway line will be torn up and the only way to arrive at the town will be by luxury yacht with crew of 25, we carried on our tour of the garden.

Granville has been dubbed by many people (especially Madame la Maire as “The Monaco of the North” and it’s true that mediterranean trees, palm trees, and even banana trees will grow here.

As I reassured Josée though, they aren’t native to the area but if they are planted and well-maintained, they will survive.

The interior of the building was quite beautiful too and Josée spent quite a while admiring the dresses and the perfumes.

My attention was caught by the collection of miniature dresses on show because you didn’t just buy a Dior dress for yourself and your daughter, you could even buy one for your daughter’s dolly and hat surely is the height of decadence.

On the way out of the building Josée stopped to sample some perfumes and another woman went to spray me with stuff thinking that I was her husband.

With not having had much breakfast, by now we were quite hungry where we made our way into town and the fritkot for lunch. And he was open too, not like Saturday night.

Josée had a plate of meat and salad while I had some chips and a veggie wrap. And it was all quite delicious too.

Back here, I had a little … errr … relax, and then we set off again.

At the Christian Dior museum they had told us that our tickets give us the right to a reduction in the admission fee to the Anacréon Museum of Modern Art down the road from me.

Modern Art isn’t my thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but Josée is quite into it and I have to keep my visitors happy. There wasn’t much in there that I would have liked to grace the walls of my apartment.

But Josée explained to me that I was understanding art incorrectly. If I simply want something to hang on a wall to look pretty then art isn’t for me. The purpose of art appreciation is to study and admire the artist’s technique.

So perhaps then art isn’t for me after all.

We stopped off for a drink on the way back and then went round for a long chat with Yves and Lily. They had a lot to say for themselves which is quite nice, but they also advised Josée against going musseling on the beach. Apparently there’s a virus going round and it’s not doing the shellfish any good at all.

Tea was some buckwheat crèpes with all kinds of stuff on (I had vegan cheese, onions, tomato, mushroom and garlic on mine) and to finish the day we saw the end of Seducing Doctor Lewis.

And after all of that, I’m exhausted.

casino plat gousset granville manche normandy france

casino plat gousset walled town granville manche normandy france

rocks headland plat gousset granville manche normandy france

bathing huts plat gousset granville manche normandy france

lighthouse rocks ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

waves breaking on rocks ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

lighthouse rocks ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

normandy trader ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

cemetery donville les bains granville manche normandy france

garden shed muséé christian dior museum granville manche normandy france

musee christian dior museum granville manche normandy france

rue de la falaise granville manche normandy france

Thursday 11th October 2018 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… today,

Josée fancied a drive out to sit on a beach and was attracted by the sound of Cabourg, the summer home of Marcel Proust at the turn of the 20th Century.

So boldly going where I don’t ever recall having been before but I bet you any money that I have, because at one time or another either with Shearings or with Nerina I’ve worked my way along the whole coast of Northern France, for as Proust himself once famously said, “remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were”.

Thus Caliburn, Josée and I set off for the seaside.

Much to my amazement, I had a reasonably comfortable sleep last night and if I did go anywhere on my travels I really don’t remember. But whztever, I was up early, medicated and attacking the web pages for my voyage on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour long before Josée had even shown a leg.

As a reslt of my new-found energy I now have two amended pages – one web page with lots of stuff on it and another oage which is day two of my blog which although had been published a while back, now has some photos on it..

After breakfast Josée had the idea of going to sample the local products such as cheese, sausage and the like. Of course, she won’t find any of that around here in my apartment so we duly set sail into the town.

A rather large carrier bag and a coffee later, we found ourselves back in the apartment making butties for the route.

It’s about a two-hour drive to Cabourg (and more if you go through the centre of Caen, if you stop to do a little shopping and also if you stop for a bathroom)

And at one of the places where we stopped for a comfort break, we found that our biblical friend Noah was also there making a comfort break too.

I couldn’t resist taking a photograph to prove that he had been there.

As a result of all of this it was about 15:30 that we arrived in Cabourg.

As the sky clouded over we ate our rather late lunch on the beach watching the horses and carriages exercising.

There’s a race track not too far from here and it seems as if trotting is quite the thing there judging by how they were exercising the horses today.

Wet sand is pretty good for exercise because it builds up the muscles of the horses and when they run on dry sand they have much more physical strength at their disposal.

After lunch Josée decided to go for a paddle in the sea.

Of course it’s probably far warmer than where I last put my feet in the sea – at Etah in Greenland about 1300 kms from the North Pole, but nevertheless I stayed on dry land and watched her enjoy herself.

She told me that it was quite warm in there (comparatively speaking but of course she is from Québec) but I’ll take her word for that.

I was far more interested in the activities down the coast.

We aren’t all that far from Ouistreham which is the ferry port for Caen and there are some big ships that sail out of there on their way to the UK.

There was one in the port when we arrived but at 16:30 flat it took off and set sail. I took a good photo of it, and also a good photograph of a seagull who decided to come and join in the fun.

THere was still time to take one or two more photos of the area.

The towns down along the coast looked as if they might be likely subjects and while Le Havre, although well visible, was too fr away to come out well, the seaside resort of Houlgate didn’t have the same issues.

That has come out quite well despite the weather conditions because by now it was starting to rain.

It rained almost as far as Caen but then we were stuck in a traffic queue. That took a while to clear so we were later than anticipated. And we had the usual issue at the toll on the autoroute where they wanted to charge me for Class 2 instead of Class 1.

Back here it had been a beautiful day with blue sky so Josée went fpr a walk in the evening twilight while I attacked a few more things to do. And then we had tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in 2012 I had been to a place in Québec called Harrington Harbour and I had spoken about a film that had been made there.

Josée actually knew the film so we found it on the internet and we sat down and watched most of it until she retired. And I quite enjoyed it, as well as recognising many places that I remembered.

But there was one thing that struck me about the film.

The “Doctor Lewis” is from Montreal and when he is installed in what is easily the best house on the island, he is heard to complain to his girlfriend about how primitive and shabby it is.

What this is implying is that the 90% of all Canadian citizens, those who live withing 50 miles of the US border, don’t have the least idea about the quality of life out on the Bas Cote-Nord – the “Forgotten Coast” – never mind places like Resolute, Grise fiord and Pond Inlet.

And if that’s the case, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves

brittany ferries ouistreham caen portsmouth normandy france

josée plage de cabourg beach france

naval patrol vessel plage de cabourg beach france

trotting horses exercising plage de cabourg beach normandy france

Wednesday 10th October 2018 – WE ARE NOT ALONE!

Yes, there I was at the station here in Granville at 13:55 when the Paris train pulled in and disgorged a pile of passengers, amongst them my friend Josée from Montréal.

She’s on holiday in France for a few weeks and is calling by to inspect my premises and see how things are.

I must admit that I’m very popular these days. When I lived back on the farm for 9.5 years I didn’t even have a handful of visitors. I’ve had more than that in just the last months since I’ve been properly installed here. Either I’ve become much more popular in my old age or else the sea has an attraction all of its own.

It was early (for me, anyway) when I went off to bed last night. And I was stark out pretty quickly too. But it didn’t last and by 23:35 I was awake again.

From here on I didn’t think that I had gone back to sleep again but I suppose that I must have done because the alarms awoke me at the usual time.

It took me a while to heave myself out into the Land Of The Living and even longer to drag myself into the kitchen. But at 08:35 I was standing under the shower having a good hose down. Have to look … “and smell” – ed … my best, don’t I?

The washing machine had a good run out too with the clothes and the bedding. I have special new sheets and quilt cover etc for visitors – after all, no-one would like to sleep in any bed covering that I have slept in, no matter how many times it has been washed.

Tidying up was next – the place now looks as if someone normal lives here – and I even found time to vacuum the floors, clean the sink in the bathroom and to clean th toilet.

By now the washing was finished so seeing as it was a really windy day, I hung everything up to dry in the window in the bedroom, having opened the window first of course. After all, it was a nice sunny day outside as well.

Shopping was next on the agenda so Caliburn and I hit the road in the direction of LIDL and Leclerc. Nothing of any importance (except a magnetic strip for the knives for whenever I install the third stage of the kitchen) but it was still a substantial bill. My living standards are improving, as well as having to buy enough food for two people for a few days.

While I was at Leclerc I’d nipped across the road to the Sports shop to look at the rucksacks, but I was sidetracked by a car on sale at the executive car sales place.

It’s a Mark 10 Jaguar from the early 1960s and I’ve seen much worse examples of these than this one.

In fact, when I had my taxis I had one of these that was a total wreck. We had a Daimler 420G that was intended to be used for weddings, and had the same running gear and other parts that were fitted on the Mark 10s.

So when we were at McGuinness’s scrapyard in Longport once and someone was bringing in a Mark 10 for scrap, we did a quick bit of negotiation and it ended up on my trailer heading for my little yard in Crewe.

The intention was of course to break it for spares but I ended up being overtaken by events.

But as for this Mark 10 here, these are huge cars as you can see, they take a lot of maintenance and have a tendency to evaporate overnight into a pile of iron oxide.

Someone has had a good go at stopping this one – but for how long? It would be well beyond my capacity these days to keep it on the road.

When Josée arrived, we went the pretty way back to the apartment and she immediately fell in love with it. We made a big salad with all kind of stuff going in it and it was delicious. We did well there.

After that we went for a walk around the headland and a little rest at the halfway point where I took a few photos of her (on her ‘phone) looking out to sea in a thoughtful pose.

A little later we went to the bookshop in the rue des Juifs. Josée always likes to buy a book from each place that she visits.

On the way back we stopped at the bar in the old town for a drink and she had something to eat. I think that she needs to brace herself for a vegan diet over the next few days.

The eveing’s plan was to watch a film and so I chose Louis de Funès and Les Folies Des Grandeurs – one of my most favourite de Funès films. But Josée is still in jet-lag so she went off to bed after 20 minutes.

I won’t be long either. I may as well take advantage of the possibility of an early night too, but not before I’ve finished listening to Colosseum Live.

I’m back here again, aren’t I?

Tuesday 9th October 2018 – OUCH! THAT WAS …

… a tough day today.

Just before going to bed I received a message from my internet supplier saying that my site had now been upgraded as requested. And so I set to and uploaded all of the Arctic photos while I was at it.

And while I was also at it, I had a little bit of fun with one of the photos of Strawberry Moose that we had taken.

One of the people on board The Good Ship Ve … … errr … Ocean Endeavour was an Olympic gymnastics judge and she had taken quite a shine to His Nibs. And so we had done a little posing session with the two of them.

Add a little bit of text and here we are.

The result of all of this was that it was about 02:00 when Yours Truly toddled off to bed. Not the ideal way to end the day when you have to leave your stinking pit at 06:00.

But it made no difference because at 05:05 this morning I was wide-awake and awaiting the alarms. I have a feeling that I’ll be paying for this later.

I’d also been off on a nocturnal ramble again.

Just by way of a change, not to the High Arctic. But where, I have no idea. But we returned to this very impressive stone building that turned out to be a boys’ school. We were all starving and having to queue up near the door, and I had the Cunning Plan to loiter around near the air hostesses because I imagined that with them being “staff”, they would be let into the dining hall first. But when we were let in, we were allowed to take one liquid food off the trays that were being handed around, and then another thing from somewhere else and so on. And eventually someone stuck a cold sausage in my mouth. I made my way back to my room, which was at the end in an alcove off the dining hall. And I was given a large plate of food to take with me. A little later I went back into the dining hall but it was now deserted. Someone had left their mobile phone in “broadcast” mode on one of the tables so I started to look around to see where it was broadcasting to (and to salvage some more food) but the few boys who were left were making such a noise that they interrupted my search.

Anyway despite the alarm going off at 06:00 it was much closer to 07:00 when I finally arose. And with plenty of things to do this morning it was about 09:00 when I had my breakfast. That was followed by a little tidying up and a half-hour session on the bass guitar now that I’ve restarted playing.

And then I had a little snooze. The first of three or four that I had during the course of the day.

Most of the day has been spent on the voyage to the Arctic. I’ve added the photos to one of the earlier pages of the voyage and expanded the text accordingly.

Having completed that (because it took much longer than it ought to have done) I’ve updated the front page for the travel section of the website, prepared an index for the voyage, completed an individual page of photographs for each day and made a start on writing the text for the first page.

None of those is on line yet because there’s going to be so much to do, but as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if I don’t start, I won’t finish. So I need to push on.

It didn’t help with the odd bit of dozing off here and there during the course of the day. That 3-hour sleep didn’t do me much good at all.

Lunch was on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard. And I dropped my banana by accident.

But it was a beautiful day, really sunny and warm with a lovely blue sky. I took full advantage of the conditions by taking a nice panoramic photo of the harbour and the surroundings, all the way round to St Pair sur Mer.

Later on in the afternoon, I went for a walk around the headland. Plenty of people out there today enjoying the sunshine. And I ended up by taking off my jumper and catching a little sun on my arms.

We had a visitor in the harbour too. Thora had sailed into port today and was moored up at the crane.

I didn’t realise that she had a visor bow. I cant have been paying much attention. But there it is, raised up and out of the way of the loading operation.

One of these days I’ll get to go for a guided tour around her to see how she is and to find out how come Grima was retired from operation.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit with pasta, more to make some room in the freezer than for any other reason. I’ll be off shopping in early course and we need the space.

And then I had my evening walk around the walls in the pleasant evening.

Fallen asleep again, but I’m going to do this and them I’m off to bed regardless of how early it is.

I need to be on form for tomorrow.

Monday 8th October 2018 – SO MUCH FOR …

… the alarm this morning!

My telephone decided to do an update during the night and as a result it was waiting for me to restart it this morning. At … errr … 08:15 or thereabouts.

And it also took me until 09:00 to leave the bed either. I was making the most of it.

Just by way of a change though I had ended up with an early night. Flat out at 22:30 and Gone With The Wind in an instant.

And, would you believe, just by way of another change, back in the High Arctic. One might say that it’s all left quite an impression on me, mightn’t one?

Now here’s an exciting thing though. It was the final night of our trip before we were all due to break up in the morning. And just for a change we weren’t on the Good Ship Ve… … errr … Ocean Endeavour but somewhere else completely. And I was sharing a room with someone else, something that regulär readers of this rubbish will recall is highly unlikely indeed. This guy was of the “gung ho, full steam ahead” characteristics and he had changed all of the beds and bedding around in our room. My bed was in a different position, all of this kind of thing, and he had done it all in something of rather a strange way. But anyway, to cut a long story short … "Thank God" – ed … like The Knights Of The Round Table we had all been our separate ways, and we all had to meet up to come back to make our final reports the next morning. We were all sitting down in the lounge relaxing and who should come over to me but The Vanilla Queen. And it WAS her too. Not only did it look like her but she talked exactly in the same way with exactly the same accent that she had. She spoke to me too, which is most unlikely, and I couldn’t quite understand what it was that she was saying. So I arose and went over to her (which I wouldn’t normally have done) and asked her to repeat it. She replied “I don’t think that John Shearing needs to know anything about too much, but I want YOU to do the final debriefing and to tell everyone where we had been and what we were doing and all this kind of thing so that they could bring their notes of their holiday all up to date. I want YOU to do it”.
And to be quite honest, I was so amazed by this discussion that I awoke bolt-upright – 23:58 it was – wide awake, totally astonished. I went and tracked down the dictaphone, even managed to change the batteries in it correctly, and dictated the details so that I wouldn’t forget them.

And that wasn’t all the excitement either.

I’ve no idea who is was with whom I was rambling later on last night but she was certainly female and attractive, and she was driving a small car of the Austin 7 variety. We were having to travel somewhere and in order to do so we had to pass through a mountain range. There were two ways to pass through this range and they bifurcated at a small village. So we stopped in this village to fuel up and she tipped into the tank the contents of a metal can. I thought to myself that there wasn’t enough fuel in the can to take us to our destination and the nearest petrol station was a really good walk away. But to my surprise, where we had parked actually had a fuel pump and some woman there put a couple more gallons into the car. We then set off down the left-hand road at this fork and I thought to myself that this is a far quicker way than trekking though the countryside and little paths that I usually took and I wondered why I didn’t know this road. And we eventually turned up at a mountain pass that we have visited on nocturnal rambles on numerous occasions – usually on skiing trips and the like in the middle of winter.

As an aside, I should perhaps remind my readers (both of you) that I have indeed been asked if I am troubled by my nocturnal voyages and some of the situations in which I find myself.
My response was “definitely not. I actually quite enjoy them.”

After breakfast I loitered around for a while, including a session on the bass (because I’m starting to pic it up again after my voyage) and then set down to do some work.

Tidying up in the living room in fact. I need to make this place look much more like a home and make it clean. After a while I do have to say that it looks a little more like it, although there’s always room for improvement.

Next thing was, having been totally dismayed by the rubbishy photos that came out of my voyage to the High Arctic, I bit the bullet and ordered a couple of new lenses for the big Nikon. How I wish that I had done that a month or so before I had set off, rather than three weeks after I had come home.

And after that, I had a little … errr … relax.

TOTGA was on line later and so we had a little chat and then I went off and made my butties. There I was, sitting on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard in the sunlight. It wasn’t warm but it was beautiful all the same.

Afterwards, I went off into town. With the possibility of a visitor arriving in early course, I need to know what activities are available. There’s a good Tourist Info place in town so my afternoon walk was down there to collect some leaflets.

Back here, I attacked some more photos but I couldn’t keep going and at about 17:20 I went ant lay down on the bed.

1:20 I was out for. 18:40 I finally came too and was able to carry on with what I had been doing. And that took me up to tea time.

While I had been going through the freezer I came across a pie that was left over from earlier in the year. So that disappeared into my stomach accompanied by some steamed veg cooked in the electric steamer and gravy.

Outside, i went for my evening walk around the headland, totally alone. Not another soul about anywhere although there were a couple of kids with scooters away on the car park.

Later I had another chat with TOTGA, with Liz and with Josée and then a little more work.

Now it’s bedtime and there will be an alarm tomorrow, I hope. Then it’s back to the grind again.

Sunday 7th October 2018 – I’VE BEEN LUCKY …

… again today with the football.

This afternoon I went to the Stade Croissant at St Pair to watch US St Pairiase play ET.S. Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron in the Manche District League division 2. Cold and windy, but at least it was dry. But there’s a covered stand at the Croissant just in case and it’s as well to be insured.

Despite the poor conditions, this was yet another exciting match. A bit short on skill but plenty of effort and the game rolled from end to end.

The attacks and midfields were about even, but while Terregate’s defence was far better, the St Pairiaise goalkeeper was in inspired form and on one occasion made a superb triple-save from the Terregate attack.

But despite the really good Terregate defending, there was just one occasion when the St Pairaise attack got through and they made it count.

Later on in the final 30 minute the temperature of the match escalated and we had some thumping challenges and a few heated arguments. One St Päiraise defender was dismissed for a late challenge, a decision that I considered to be rather harsh but they still managed to hang on to their lead.

All in all, I’ve had a really exciting weekend at the football.

And on the subject of exciting times, last night wasn’t as good as the previous night or two, which was rather a disappointment. In bed quite late, but awake at 08:00. We aren’t having that – at least on a Sunday, so I turned over and went back to sleep. 09:00 wasn’t much better but that was about me finished for the night so at about 09:45 I arose from the dead.

Despite the brevity of the night’s repose, I’d been on my travels. Back to the High Arctic yet again (this really IS preying on my mind, isn’t it?) and the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We were all on there, saying our goodbyes to each other and slowly dispersing, until in the end I was hovering over the stern of the ship about 50 feet up in the air looking at the last person remaining there. I couldn’t see whether it was or not she who has become famous as The Vanilla Queen, because she kept her head bowed. But the interesting thing about this is not the fact that it might have been The Vanilla Queen, but the fact that even though I was well away in the Arms of Morpheus, the fact that it might have been her was of interest to me.
So tell me why, nocturnal Vanilla Queen
You haunt me, even in my dreams
I’m clearly feeling the strain, aren’t I?
And later, I was away again. In a big Ford SUV type of vehicle, all black except for gold doors, exactly the type of vehicle and the colour scheme that several police forces in North America use. However, although it was me driving it, I wasn’t in it (if that makes sense), my spiritual sense was in another vehicle with my brother (don’t ask me why because I don’t know either) and Darren, Rachel’s husband. They were driving through this North American city that bore more than just a passing resemblance to the Rue de la Loi in Brussels outside the Justus Lipsius building, and I was driving aroud there in the police vehicle. They had tried … well, not to escape, but to plan their route so that it didn’t cross mine, but I managed to intercept them and when they finally saw me from their side window, they did pull up to find out what was going on. I pulled up on the other side of a crossroads, to walk back I suppose, but I didn’t even manage to leave the car before I was wide awake and it had all disappeared.

Having a few things to do today, it was rather late when I sat down to breakfast. And afterwards I had a couple of hours on the laptop sorting out a pile of e-mails from many years ago, looking for e phone number that I was sure that I had been given at one time. It took a while but eventually I came across it.

And then I sorted through a pile of photos that had been accumulating over the past couple of years. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have started this project on several occasions and run aground each time. But I have to press on.

It’s Sunday, so tea was a vegan pizza.

And then I went for a walk around the headland. It’s good to get back into my old habits. Including, I’m sorry to say, a little departure away with the fairies after the football.

There wasn’t anyone else around this evening so I was all on my own.

And so I spent a lot of time overlooking the harbour to see what was going on.

The answer is “not very much”. The tide isn’t in far enough for the fishing boats.

There’s one of the Ile de Chausey ferries over there on the right, tied up to the illuminated landing stage.

That’s really all there was of note, so after taking a couple of photos I turned round and headed off back home.

It’s Monday tomorrow so back at work and back with an alarm again. So I’m going to have an early night.

Tomorrow I’ll be tidying up because I have heard that on Tuesday I might be having visitors.

Saturday 6th October 2018 – I’M BEING SPOILT …

… with exciting and passionate football matches just now.

After the thrills of yesterday, today was US Granvillaise v FC Bastia-Borgo, another club from Corsica.

Kick-off was at 20:00 so I had a quick shower, a shave, a change of clothes and headed off in the driving rain – on foot too – to the Stade Louis Dior.

A tiny crowd, which is hardly surprising given the weather conditions, was treated to quite a spectacle.

The match roared from end to end. Granville had marginally the upper hand because although the midfield wasn’t quite as strong as that of Bastia, the play down the wings was once more excellent.

Driving down the wings, they had the ball in the net (disallowed for an offside) and hit the woodwork a couple of times, but they went into the lead after 20 minutes or so with a low ball driven into the penalty area from the right wing and sidefooted in by the n°8 from 12 yards.

In the second half the match was more even and Bastia had a couple of really excellent chances to score, hitting the woodwork and a lob over the keeper headed off the line. But Granville scored a second – a goal quite similar to the first one.

In the final 5 or so minutes Bastia pushed well forward and looked menacing. But they couldn’t convert the chances that they created. On the other hand they laft huge gaps in the defence and on two occasions, the goalkeeper did really well to deny a Granville attacker in some one-on-one situations.

When the final whistle went we all breathed a sigh of relief. But it as a good win for the team and three hard-earned points.

Last night I had the Sleep Of The Dead and stayed asleep until 11:10 without a single interruption. I’d been on my travels too but as soon as I awoke any memory of where I had been disappeared completely.

After breakfast, in a novel departure (and showing signs that I must be feeling a little better) I attacked the tidying-up and I made a good deal of progress. It now looks almost as if someone lives here rather than a bomb site. Another good day should see it looking just like home.

I had a lengthy chat with Ingrid on the telephone too. We discussed all kinds of things before I had to dash off to watch the match.

On the way home I was soaked to the skin, except where my rain jacket had been. The yellow one that I had bought a few weeks before I went away. That was a good purchase too and I wish that I had worn the overtrousers that I had bought in Montreal.

The fritkot was closed, which was a disappointment. So I came home and to my surprise, I was striding out up the hill just like in the good old days. I must be feeling a little more like it.

With no chips for tea I rustled up a plate of pasta and veg in olive oil. This time, including sprouts because although they had no frozen ones in the supermarket the other day, they did have some fresh ones.

Now I’m off to bed, with no alarm and a good lie in, seeing as it’s Sunday. But there will be an alarm on Monday. I need to get back into the routine.

Friday 5th October 2018 – NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE …

… it!

Although you might not think so, from the way that things carried on from yesterday.

It was something like 02:00 when I finally went to bed this morning. But I wasn’t in it for long. About an hour and a half, something like that, before I realised that it would be pretty impossible to go to sleep.

So not wishing to waste the opportunity, I got up and carried on working on my photos from my trip. The first run-through is complete, and a mere 1715 photos have survived the initial cut. Now they need to be reviewed again and re-edited.

But I’ve now found a problem that I didn’t anticipate – and that is that I seem to have run out of space on my on-line file server. I managed to upload the first 220 and then it all ground out. I’m now trying to negotiate some extra space from my web-host.

Eventually it was time for bed though. 06:20 I reckoned – something like that. And I went off to sleep almost straight away.

And on my travels too. A friend and I had a couple of girlfriends who went to a select girls school and they were having a dance there. We were keen to go and, having failed to talk our way in, and to wear down the opposition with lengthy speeches that would grind them into the floor before they ground us in, we hit on the cunning plan of dressing up in girls-school uniform and pretending to be girls, hoping to pass unnoticed in the sombre lighting. We discussed our plans with a couple of our friends (you can see that this can’t be real. Whenever did I have any friends to discuss anything with?) and we were overheard by the school doctor. After listening for a while he announced that he was homosexual and he was impressed with what we were attempting, and said that there was no real need to go too far into this because once we’d rescued our girlfriends we could all come and socialise in his rooms and he would keep everyone else out.
A little later, I was back on board ship. And we were once more saying goodbye as we parted. We were presented with a map and it showed our route – the strangest route that I had ever seen because it bore some comparison with the route that we have recently taken, and yet a mirror-image. And we reached the Panama Canal from the western side down one of the bays that we had travelled. All in all, it was a rather strange and bizarre setting.

I was awake at 11:20, but not quick enough to find out who phoned me at 11:25. And then I had internet issues as the laptop refused to connect with the modem. Twice now, two consecutive days, that it has dome that. But I eventually managed to make it work and then went off for breakfast.

Having done that, I made a start on work that I needed to do.

First problem to be resolved was to make to work the USB stick that I was given on board the Ocean Endeavour. It wasn’t easy but I eventually made the laptop read it, and then I had to look for a key to open the files because at first glance they seemed to be corrupt.

But that’s the problem with people who use Apple stuff. Quite often the files that they save onto USB don’t transfer over to any other operating system without some work, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were having these kinds of problem when we used to do the radio work. In the end, I had to format a USB drive specially to do the job back then.

Believe it or not, I did some tidying up too. Unpacking my suitcase and putting some stuff away. Not much, I hasten to add. It’s going to take more energy than I have right now to deal with all of that.

I put the washing away too – I had done a machine just before I left and had all of the stuff hung out to dry. And some more of the food too, although that involved clearing some space in the freezer and that wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

Next on the agenda was to look at all of the photos to date and to make some thumbnails of them of a reasonable size. That involves the use of three separate programs in order to get them just how I like them.

Having done that, I promised various people that I would put the photos on line in an accessible way (once I can find some additional room on my server to upload them of course). So I’ve made a start on making some web pages in the standard format that I’ve used since 2007. It’ll take quite a wile to do that but if I don’t start, I won’t ever finish.

Tea was exciting too. I’d bought a huge pile of mushrooms and some peppers the other day so I made a huge wok-full of mushroom and pepper curry in soya cream. It made a beautiful tea with rice, and there’s some in the fridge right now for a cunning plan, and there’s more happily freezing away in the freezer.

There was football on the internet this evening. Caernarfon Town v Bala Town in the Welsh Premier League. There are always good crowds at The Oval and this was no exception and the atmosphere was terrific.

The football was even better. Bala had by far the more skilful players but Caernarfon’s great strength is the camaraderie amongst the players – the Cofis really do play as a unit.

The final result of this pulsating, exciting match was 2-2 and that was about right. I do have to say that football in the Welsh Premier League doesn’t get much better than this.

Later in the evening TOTGA was on line. We haven’t spoken for quite some considerable time so we had a very lengthy chat. One day we might have a telephone chat or even a face-to-face chat if I am lucky.

So now, considerably later than anticipated, I can think about going back to bed. Even though it was a reasonably late start, I’ve gone all day without crashing out and even managing to do a pile of work.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer of course, but it’s an improvement. How will I be feeling tomorrow?

And I’ve just realised – it’s now 01:45 and not only have I not set foot outside, I’m still in my dressing gown from this morning.

Thursday 4th October 2018 – I CAN TELL …

… that things are going downhill as far as my health is concerned. I’ve had a very bad day today.

So having crashed out last night definitively at about 22:00 (and no surprise there) I was wide-awake again at 02:15 on the dot and up working at 02:40. Which meant that I wasn’t disturbed in the least by the internet connection dropping and restarting at 02:30 onwards, and pinging the telephone each time that it did so.

There was time to go on my travels too – up to the High Arctic once again where I was disguised or pretending to be an Inuit, saying goodbye to everyone. And it was one of those protracted, long emotional goodbyes that somehow managed to take several days as I visited many of the places where I had recently been (and several other places that I didn’t recognise either).

By the time 06:00 came around I was ready for my medication. And this was followed by breakfast. Muesli, apple puree grape juice and coffee. Back to our usual habits. and then back to work.

But I couldn’t keep going, which was hardly surprising. I curled up on the bed and that was that until 13:00. Out like a light.

When I awoke the coffee that remained in the percolator had burnt. That wasn’t much good. I had a bit of a stagger around to regain my composure, and at about 14:30 I decided to go out.

LIDL and LeClerc were the destinations today. Caliburn started perfectly after 5 weeks of pause and that was good news.

We didn’t buy anything special apart from a twin-USB plug for Caliburn but the bill still came to about €50:00. Supplies were pretty low with having had a clear-out before I came away.

But I saw my first “F” plate while I was out. That was hardly a surprise. I reckoned that they were due to come out at the beginning of September.

Back here I had a struggle to fit the frozen food into the fridge. I’d forgotten that I’d made a ton of frozen meals before going away. And having bought a pile of fresh mushrooms (they were on special offer) I’ll be making some more too.

By the time that I had done that and made my sandwiches it was 17:00 so I went to sit on the wall in the late-afternoon sun. One of the lizards came to visit me too which was quite nice. Clearly haven’t forgotten the pear droppings.

But back here, I couldn’t keep going and by 18:00 I was back in bed.

21:00 I awoke and found to coffee gone cold on the chest of drawers by the bed. There’s no doubt that I’m going downhill.

And the raging thirst is back. And as I have said before, that’s always a very bad sign. It usually heralds the start of a bout of ill-health and after all that I’ve been through just recently, that’s hardly a surprise.

But I shall keep on going. Still some life left in the old dog yet and I intend to make the most of it. But as TS McPhee once famously wrote
I’m like a ship on the ocean that’s rolling from side to side
But I’m not drunk I’m just dissatisfied
It’s not my body but my mind I can’t control
I have everything I need but still…..I want more

I’ve done everything that I’ve ever set out to do
I become so well known that they’ve put me in who’s who
But I’ve reached the limit and I don’t know what to do
If I can’t go no further I’ll have to go back…..to being poor

EPIC HALL

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