Tag Archives: place d’armes

Wednesday 6th June 2018 – I’VE BEEN REUNITED …

… with my missing wallet. And it didn’t take too much effort.

The route planner that I use proposed a route from the station to the Police Station that took 38 minutes, and from the Police Station to the “Convention” metro station a route that took 22 minutes. However, while I followed the suggested route from the Police Station to the Metro, the route that I took from the station was slightly different (as in “more straightforward and easier to follow”).

And I was on the platform of the Metro station, having been to collect my wallet, long before even the 38 minutes. And most of that time was spent going through the Security check at the entrance to the Police Station.

But I needn’t have wasted my time because there was nothing left of any value in the wallet – not that that surprised me. And it was a pleasant walk through a part of Paris that I didn’t know at all.

I’d had a decent sleep for a change, although it was once more difficult to haul myself out of bed. I had a shower, a quick whizz around the apartment, took out the rubbish, made my butties and made sure that I had everything that I needed.

It was a brisk walk of 25 minutes to the station in the cold, clammy weather, so I was there half an hour before the train was due to depart.

We only had to wait around for about 15 minutes or so before the train pulled in to the station so there was plenty of time to find our seats..

Nominally I was reading DW Prowse’s excellent History of Newfoundland but I spent most of the train journey in a doze.

On one occasion though I had to rouse myself to go for the stroll down the corridor, and the man whom I met leaving the Gentlemen’s Rest Room could have bowled me over, rather like Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles during the fight near the end of the film.

When we arrived at Paris it was still muggy and clammy but it warmed up pretty quickly while I was tramping around the streets.

The Metro was quite straightforward -Line 12 from “Convention” back to “Montparnasse-Vaugirard” and then a brief walk around the corner, not the usual marathon trek, to Line 4. With the works going on at Gare du Nord, I had to alight at Gare de l’Est and take Line 5. And I’ve never seen a Metro as crowded as this one.

But I was in plenty of time to eat my butties before boarding the TGV. It was trainset 4343 and we’ve travelled on that one before.

However this time I didn’t have much luck on it.

Having been exhausted by the walk I wanted to sleep on the train but every time I dozed off, my neighbour wanted to go to the Gentlemen’s Rest Room.

And that was dismaying. I was well out of it by the time we arrived at Brussels.

As luck would have it, we arrived a little earlier, so the earlier train to Leuven was still in the station. So I leapt aboard and we were off.

It was a struggle to make it to here, and once I’d installed myself in my little room I was out like a light for a good 90 minutes.

But it took longer than usual to install myself as, on leaving the office with my keys, I was assailed by the hotel cat again who insisted on being picked up and given a stroke.

Unpacking my stuff, I find that I’ve forgotten my coffee and my ice tray, so down at the shops i had to buy coffee and a pack of these ice cube bag things. And it makes much more sense to travel with a couple of these than a tray.

Tea was baked potatoes (I remembered those) and a tin of Fajita beans followed by a caramel soya dessert and banana.

Now, I’m totally whacked. 151% of my daily effort so even though it’s only just 21:30 I’m off to bed. It’s hospital tomorrow.

Tuesday 5th June 2018 – TODAY HAS BEEN A DAY …

… of neighbourly interaction. That’s where all the time has gone.

Coming back from my lunch upon the wall overlooking the harbour, I noticed one of my neighbours out weeding the gravel in front of the building. It’s not right to be impolite … "it’s never bothered you before" – ed … so I went over to chat with her and was there for over half an hour.

A little later, coming back from town, I bumped into another neighbour on his way to run an errand, so we had another half-hour chat during which we put the world to rights.

But the French say, jamais deux sans trois and sure enough, on my way out for my afternoon walk, there was Gribouille the ginger cat. And he actually came running across the gravel to me so that I could pick him up and stroke him. About 10 minutes this time.

It was yet another effort to haul myself out of bed this morning, but at least I managed not to fall asleep after breakfast, which makes a change for just recently.

And today, it’s been a tidying-up day. Although first, I had to start to pack ready for my trip to Belgium tomorrow. And something is very wrong because I don’t seem to have very much that I’m taking.

Another thing that I need to do is to work out a route to the Prefecture de Police in the rue des Morillons. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the wallet that I lost in December has turned up at the Police Station and I have to go to pick it up.

It’s something of a hike and I can see me being very pushed for time. If the train is late I shall be snookered so I can’t afford to hang around looking for streets, especially with the perturbations on the Metro.

Tidying up, I said. That involved some (but not by any means all) of the papers that are hanging around here. There’s still plenty to do but if you don’t start, you won’t ever finish. So at least we’ve set off.

And then another task.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve spent about a year looking for some images on a missing hard drive, and that I finally found it the other day. Back in the winter I bought a huge new 4TB external hard drive with the aim of putting all of my images on them – all … errr … 2.5TB or so of them. I’ve been a busy little bee over the last 20-odd years.

And so I finally made a start on it. But have you any notion of how long it’s going to take? I started at about 11:30 this morning and 11 hours later I’ve moved 755GB. In other words, I’m going to be here for the Duration while this project organises itself.

As well as the usual walks this afternoon and this evening, I’ve been into town for a baguette for tomorrow’s lunch. I need to organise that too as I won’t have time tomorrow. And I had a little … errr … relax. But then 71% of my daily activity, I’m entitled to a brief 10 minutes.

Tea was the Bombay potatoes that I mentioned yesterday. And I’m getting good at these because they were delicious

I was going to finish off by having a really early night, but now Aqualung has just appeared on the playlist. That means that we are in for another Jethro Tull muisicfest and the last time that this occurred, I was still wide awake at 05:40.

But I hope not. Much as I love Jethro Tull I can do without it tonight. I have a lot to do tomorrow and it’s an early start.

Monday 4th June 2018 – I’M NOT SURPRISED …

… that there are people complaining that there’s a recession going on.

Here I am, with a pile of money burning a hole in my pocket (well, I’m not, but you’ll see where we are going with this) and no-one wants to take it off me.

At least, at Brico Cash this afternoon, they had done my quote for this kitchen. But it’s not all that cheaper than IKEA – not when you consider the difference in quality.

But I wasn’t going to leave it at that. Next stop was the LeClerc DIY place, that was having a promotion on kitchens. And despite all of this money (there isn’t going to be much change from €2000 to buy what I want, if the landlord agrees to pay it) that I’m planning to commit (on my landlord’s behalf) it took over 20 minutes for someone to come to see me.

And then we had the usual salesman’s performance.
“Which worktop do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
“And which handles do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
“And which tap do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
And so we went on and on. And then he showed me two sinks to chose from. One was €98:00 and the other one was €105.
“What’s up with the one at €57:00?” – “Ohh – do you want that?”

So you can see that when I finally receive the estimate in my mailbox I won’t be going there. Someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of “le moins cher”.

But the icing on the cake has to be at BUT. They too are having a kitchen promotion so I went there. I had to wait 15 minutes while the salesgirl was dealing with a customer (but that’s not a problem) and then we got down to business.

“We only do this by appointment”
“OK, so let’s make an appointment”
“I’m going on holiday for Friday night so it won’t be for three weeks”
“So isn’t there anyone else?”
“Yes, my colleague, but she’s on holiday this week. You need to call her and book an appointment for when she comes back”
“Can’t you do that now?”
“I don’t have her diary, but I know she’s booked up when she comes back”
“So why don’t I give you the dimensions and you can do it at your leisure, and I’ll pick it up at the beginning of next week?”
“We don’t work like that. We need the customer face-to-face”.

So that’s another company that won’t be having my business either. It’s what the French called Je m’enfoutisme – or “I can’t be bothered”. And then the companies don’t have clients, and then they close down complaining that no-one is spending any money. Well, people have the money, and they will spend it, but the companies can’t be bothered to engage competent staff – and enough of it either – to deal correctly with the customers.

And I mean that too. During both of these discussions today, the phones of the salespeople were ringing constantly, they were dealing with other enquiries too and on occasion getting up and going down the aisles to look for things.

It’s a total lack of politeness, a total lack of courtesy and a total lack of respect for the customer. One thing about IKEA is that when you get your hands on a salesman, he’s yours for the duration and there are no interruptions. Even in Belgium too, and regular readers of this rubbish from many of its previous incarnations will recall the exciting encounters that we’ve had with Belgian customer service!

And the guy in Brico Cash, at least he was honest about what he could do and when he could do it, and he kept his word too.

While we’re on the subject … "well, one of us is" – ed … you’ll recall that I sent two mails to two different camera companies about camera lenses. That was about a week ago, and how many replies do you think that I have received?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall mailshots that I have sent out in the past about solar panels, wind turbines, camper backs for pickups – a thousand other things too – and they all have in common that 99% of the recipients never bother to reply.

And that, dear reader, is why you have a recession. The companies can’t be bothered. A bunch of je m’enfoutistes.

So abandoning yet another good rant for a while, I had a real struggle to leave the stinking pit today. It’s not as if I was all that late going to bed but there you are.

And after breakfast, I actually crashed out for 20 minutes or so. What a way to start the day.

I was going to make a start on tidying Caliburn, but one look out of the window told me not to bother. It was raining. Instead, I attacked the blog and I’ve dealt with the entries going back to late April adding photos that I missed. If you’ve missed them too, you need to go back and look.

Not only that, I tidied up the shelf unit in the kitchen, rearranged things better and now there’s much more space on there, which is just as well because it was getting quite out of hand.

Lunch was indoors today – no sense in going out to eat my butties in the rain. But when I went outside to do the rounds of the kitchen shops the rain had stopped.

Back here I went for my afternoon walk. It was school chucking-out time again and once more we have another fine example of pathetic parking.

Never mind the two cars in the background blocking the pavement, how about this guy? Not only parked on the kerb, right by a road junction, he’s parked across a pedestrian crossing too. You wouldn’t believe it.

But I did note his registration number. It began with DK. Can you think of which two letters are missing from in between?

Back here, I had another crash out and then some more blog-editing. I’m not back at 23rd April and my trip to North Africa now.

Another session on the guitar later on, and then tea. There was some of my vegan stuffing mix left over from last week and a green pepper from the weekend so I had stuffed pepper with spicy rice. Delicious it was too.

But while I was editing the blog I came across the Bombay Potato that I made myself the other week and it got my mouth watering again. So tomorrow night, in the absence of anything else, I might go for that for tea.

We had the usual walk around the walls tonight and I noticed that there’s a new craft gallery opened in the Medieval town.

It’s called “L’Envolée” which, I suppose, is supposed to mean “flight”, and it’s presumably named to describe the actions of the potential customers when they notice the prices of the objects on sale, because I don’t think that I’ve ever seen anything so absurd in my life.

Small rocks painted to look like sheep, on sale for as much as €60:00. That kind of thing. One thing is for sure, and that is that you won’t catch me spending my money in there.

So now I’m going to have to gather my strength. I have a voyage ahead of me on Wednesday morning.

And remember me saying that Caliburn and I might be off on a voyage very soon? A discussion this afternoon may well mean that I’ll be going on a voyage a long time before then.

Sunday 3rd June 2018 – PART THREE …

… of this week’s footfest saw me head out to St Pair sur Mer.

There were two matches there this afternoon – the 3rd XI playing ES Trelly QC and the 2nd XI playing ET S Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron. But the matches were being played simultaneously which is a shame and seeing that the 2nd XI were playing in the Stade d’Honneur where there is a grandstand in which we can sit, I chose to sit down and eat my butties in comfort.

The final score was 2-2, which was a very fair reflection of the play. But three of the goals were scored due to mistakes by the defenders and the fourth was another one of these disputed penalties (and I was too far away to be able to give my opinion).

In fact the 1st half was quite error-strewn and I wondered where it was going to end. 2-1 wasn’t the half-time score that I was expecting.

St Pair equalised in the second half, which was a much better half than the first one, that’s for sure. The teams seemed to be concentrating more.

But we had another little … errr … dust-up between a couple of players late in the game. And the St Pair bench rounded on the ET S Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron trainer to express their opinion of his players. “Did I say any different?” was his measured reply. And that took the wind out of their sails.

So we left them examining the woodwork of the goalposts at the southern end of the ground, which had been clouted more times than enough by a few of the more-powerful shots of the attacking teams.

And I told you wrong about last weekend. It wasn’t the final weekend of US Granville’s 2nd XI. It was their final home match. They were away at Caen this afternoon and had I known last night, I would have stayed over somewhere for a weekend out.

So they still had to do better than FC St Lo Manche this afternoon, and the impressive 4-0 victory that they recorded gave everyone bags of home.

And then the news filtered through – FC St Lo Manche 1 – AS Tourlaville 1. A draw. And US Granville win the championship by two points and are promoted to Regional 1. Well done them!

So exciting days out next season to places that I don’t have a clue where they are.

I didn’t have a clue where I was this morning either. But at least it was 09:20 which is a very reasonable and respectable time to be waking up on a Sunday morning.

And with it being a Sunday I took it easy too and didn’t have breakfast until late. Later than intended too for I had run out of muesli and had to make some more. There was just enough stuff too, but I’ll have to add some more stuff to the shopping list for next time.

After breakfast I actually SHOCK! HORROR! did some tidying up. Clean clothes all over the place and the stuff from Thursday on the clothes airer was dry. So all of that went away. And that led to a rearrangement of the wardrobe.

Not only that, I uncovered my missing external hard drive – the one for which I have been searching for about a year with all of the missing images on it and which has been a regualr subject of discussion on here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But I was mistaken here too. It wasn’t an external drive at all. It was an old internal drive off an old desktop model that I had stuck in a caddy which I thought was empty. And that’s why I couldn’t find it.

And another external drive – the one with all of the old photos from 20 years or so ago that I couldn’t get to work – I had a play with that and got that to work too, so before I went out I set it up to copy everything over to the hard drive wih the more modern stuff.

Making a butty or two and an icy flask, I went off to the football and nearly squidged several pairs of grockles who just aimlessly amble into the middle of the street without looking and then stop to admire the seagulls. I hate grockles absolutely.

Back here later, I made another pizza. And this one was cooked perfectly. How I managed that was that I had taken a handful of frozen mushrooms out of the freezer before I went otu, to leave them to defrost. When it was time to make the pizza they had defrosted perfectly, and you have no idea the amount of water that came out. That’s where all the heat of the oven has been going – evaporating all of this water.

After tea I went for my usual evening walk – around the headland tonight. Just in time to see the last passenger boat come back from the Ile de Chausey with some more unwelcome tourists.

Over Jersey, which was clearly visible – the best that I have ever seen it – it was clear. But more and more cloudy the further south you went Round over Mont St Michel it was stormy with lightning and rainstorms everywhere.

I didn’t hang around outside then. I wasn’t going to get caught in that.

There was srill some cold drink left in the flask so when I returned I went to drink it. And to my surprise, the ice cubes hadn’t completely melted. That’s about 8 hours and it was still freezing cold in there. A good move that – getting it to do cold drinks as well as hot ones.

So bedtime now. I have to go and pick up my kitchen estimates tomorrow afternoon . Tomorrow morning then I might just make a start on tidying Caliburn. We shall see.

Saturday 2nd June 2018 – I HAD A REALLY NICE …

… evening out this evening.

I’ve never been to a US Granville away game and in fact I’ve never been farther than Cérences or Gavray to watch a football match since I’ve been in Normandy. But it’s the last weekend of the season and there were no Saturday evening matches in the vicinity.

However, I noticed that US Granville’s 3rd XI was away at La Barre de Semilly in the suburbs of St Lô about 60 kms away from here, it was a lovely evening, and as Caliburn and I are off out on an adventure sometime soon maybe, a good run-out would do the both of us some good.

So fighting our way through the grockles driving along at 10 kph admiring the seagulls and having to make a stop for fuel (the first since February, would you believe?) we hit the open road and Caliburn had a really good run out all the way to the match.

And through a rainstorm too for about 10 minutes. That was a surprise.

As for the game itself, Granville – in black – lost 1-0 to a penalty that … errr … excited a considerable amount of animation. Beautiful ball through the defence, forward racing on to it, keeper ditto, forward beats the keeper to the ball by about half a millimetre and instead of saving the ball, the keeper saves the attacker.

Keeper upset about the penalty (although he shouldn’t have been, because it was a penalty) and the US Semilly-St André bench upset about the lack of card being brandished (but they shouldn’t have been because there was clearly no intent to commit a foul).

After that, the match became … errr … somewhat heated and wasn’t far off boiling point until the final whistle. At one point the Granville trainer hurled a load of what one newspaper reporter described 120 years ago as “language lower than Billingsgate” at an opposition player, much to the derision of the home supporters.

But having had a mug of coffee specially made for me, who am I to complain? US Semilly-St Andre are 5th in the table and US Granville are 8th. 1-0 would have been a fair reflection of the score under normal circumstances, and particularly this evening when the Granville attack was, I’m afraid to say, utterly clueless. I don’t recall the Semilly-St André keeper having a single shot to save whereas the Granville keeper was kept quite busy (although he too really only looked in difficulty on two or three occasions).

And I don’t recall seeing a team caught offside on so many occasions during a match as the Granville side was either.

Now just a word about the Man in the Middle.

Anyone who saw the team sheet that the Federation Francaise de Football published will have seen that the referee for this match should have been a certain Rene Lechevallier but quite clearly he didn’t turn up.

In his place we had Arthur Lowe, the legendary Captain “They Don’t Like It Up ‘Em Sir’ Mainwaring of “Dad’s Army” fame refereeing the match

So now you know what happened to him, don’t you?

So we had a really quick drive home after the match. It’s been a long time since Caliburn has had a good run out like that and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

That wasn’t the only football that I saw today either. A message appeared in my mailbox (probably a generic one I reckon – I mustn’t flatter myself unduly … "quite!" – ed …) that one of Granville’s female teams was playing against FC Rouen’s female teams in their division’s playoff finals. Rouen were said to be bringing a bus-load of supporters so could we all go along to cheer.

It was a beautiful afternoon to go out for a good walk so I made an icy flask and some butties and set off for an unexpected afternoon out.

There was a big crowd too – probably 120 people watching the game. And having not seen a female football game (except that one in the USA in 2015) and so I didn’t know what to expect. But it was certainly much better than I reckoned that it was going to be, although the number of foul throws was astonishing.

I was quite impressed with Rouen’s n°3 – a girl called Zoe apparently – and she was quite a good footballer too. I would have gladly massaged her clavicles to warm her up for the game had I been there any earlier.

But the best player on the field, and by a country mile too, was Rouen’s centre-forward called Afssia. Big, awkward, and quite a handful for any defence, and with a surprising amount of skill too, she made all of the difference. She hit the woodwork, had a goal disallowed, forced the Granville keeper into a brilliant one-handed save, and scored the only goal of the game. She was a league apart from the other players on the field.

At first I thought that Rouen would run away with the game because they looked menacing right from the kickoff and Granville looked a good couple of yards off the pace. But after 25 minutes the Granville trainer changed the team formation around and brought on a girl called Magdalena to play behind what was a very lightweight front two. That made a world of difference and Granville looked much more threatening from then on.

In fact, when Afssia ran out of steam near the end and was stuck in midfield (to be fair, she’d been on the receiving end of a very heavy challenge late in the game) the run of the game changed dramatically. Granville were surging forward in streams for the final five minutes and had they had someone who could have produced just a single moment of magic, they could have done something here.

1-0 was about the right score, I reckoned, but after watching the first five minutes I had been anticipating a cricket score by the final whistle. And after all said and done, I quite enjoyed the game. It was certainly different.

We saw the other day that the Council was out beautifying the town ready for the summer season which starts to get into swing this season.

They put up the bunting, but I’m not quite sure what is the purpose of all of these wind decorations that seem to be dotted all over the place.

They are certainly quite interesting, but I’m not sure that the Council’s thinking that this sort of thing will bring the millions of masses out of Paris to see them tells us more about the mentality of the Council or more about the mentality of the Parisiens

Apart from the girls’ football match and the pretty decorations, what else was different about today was the fact that I was actually out of bed before either of the alarms went off. I had been in bed fairly early (for me anyway) and for some reason I ended up being wide awake at 06:10. No sense in lying in bed.

First task after breakfast was to copy all of the dashcam videos onto the laptop and free up the SD cards. And after that, I connected up one of the external drives now that I can access it, and did a mega-back-up of all of the images on the laptop. While that was going on, I had a shower and a clean-up.

Then it was off to the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special but I did buy some loose sugar and some flour. After all, I have a cunning plan. NOZ was next, and again, it was just the usual stuff, but also a pile of DvDs because they were having another mammoth sale of surplus stock. That’s piles of DvDs that I have acquired just recently. One day I might sit down and watch some of them.

The Foirfouille was practically cleaned out. Anything really exciting had long-gone. But I did finally find something in which to keep my oil and vinegar and I’m pleased about that. And they had a set of front seat covers to fit a van too, with the one single and one double seat. Seeing as they were reduced to just 30% of the normal price and that it was Caliburn’s birthday, I treated him to a set.

At Leclerc there was nothing exciting either, alhough I did buy some pizza flour. I have a cunning plan for that too.

Back here, I crashed out for a while before heading off to the football. And for some reason which I don’t understand because I have been feeling a little more like my old self just recently, it was a long hard slog up the hill this afternoon.

So now I’m back and I’m off to bed for my Saturday night lie-in. A Day of Rest tomorrow

Friday 1st June 2018 – IT REALLY WAS …

… nice this evening while I was out for my walk.

The air was clear, the tide was high, there were scores of people wandering round on the promenade way below the medieval walls of the old town – exactly the right conditions to take a few really good photographs.

And so I would have done too, had Bane of Britain remembered to put his memory card in his camera before setting out.

It’s the kind of thing that only I can do, isn’t it?

We had another late night last night, and another disturbed sleep. there’s clearly something going on right now, or else it’s my guilty conscience telling me things that I don’t really want to know.

And so it was with an enormous effort that I crawled out of the stinking pit this morning, rather later than I had intended.

After breakfast there were a few photos that needed attention (hence the removal of the memory card from the camera) and then Caliburn and I hit the streets.

First stop was a shop out on the edge of town. For reasons known only to a certain courier firm, they have chosen this inaccessible location for their parcel drop-off point for the town. And seeing as I had an eBay purchase (nothing at all exciting) to pick up, off I had to go.

Second port of call was Brico Cash in St Pair. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I hate this kitchen in here and I want to upgrade it. I went to IKEA in Zaventem the other week for an estimate, but I know for a fact that the landlord won’t pay their prices. But a flyer through the door on Monday told me that Brico Cash was having a kitchen sale.

I showed the IKEA estimate to the guy there and he burst out laughing. Yes, he can certainly beat their prices. It won’t be as good as IKEA’s of course, and won’t last as long. But then again, neither will I so it doesn’t make any difference. I have to go back on Monday to pick up the estimate.

And I’m glad that I went there too. I have computer stuff scattered about all over the place here with nowhere to put it. I bitterly regret not buying a nice little trolley that I saw in IKEA last year, but here today they had an even nice trolley complete with little drawer for just €27:95. So that’s now assembled and nicely stacked out with stuff.

There’s a big Casino supermarket down the road from there, so I went in for my carrots and a (very disreputable) baguette. So I remembered the carrots, but forgot just about everything else that I intended to buy while I was there.

Lunch on the wall in the cool weather eating this miserable baguette and then back here to sort out a few things and make an urgent phone call. However, I fell victim to a little urge to … errr … relax, and missed my time slot. That’s upset me considerably.

Hordes of people swarming around outside this afternoon including a couple of school parties so it was rather difficult to move around. But I managed a coffee later, a chat on the internet with someone and the usual session on the guitar. And it seems that half an hour a day is no longer sufficient and I’m not reaching the end of the stuff that I need to practise. But that’s a good sign isn’t it?

Having bought some carrots, I could make a decent tea tonight. Stuffed pepper with spicy rice followed by strawberries. Totally delicious.

The we had the walk, and I foolishly directed some grockles to the wrong address. I bet that they will love me for that.

So shopping tomorrow, and I shall be going to an additional shop too (if I remember) – la Foirfouille, one of these cheap shops that are all over the place. It’s closing down soon and they are having a sale so I shall go for a prowl.

Will make a pleasant change, won’t it?

Thursday 31st May 2018 – I HATE PEOPLE …

… who have no sense of humour.

What can possibly be wrong with, when you have a piece of paper that needs a signature, going up to a counter clerk in the Post Office and saying “hey, put your cross on this”? No reason for anyone to pull a face or get upset is there?

At least the guys who were digging the trench for the new fibre-optic cable (yes, they are moving on quite rapidly now) can still have a laugh and a smile.

Especially when Yours Truly goes up to them and says “don’t fill in that trench until I’ve brought the wife down, will you?”

Not of course that I have a wife around here these days, and even if she were around here, she would know better than to let me lead her anywhere near an open trench where there were people on the point of filling it in.

But that’s not the point, is it?

It was another bizarre night last night. In bed comparatively early but for some reason I awoke slap bang in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep again for ages. Mind you, when I did, I had a real struggle to leave the stinking pit.

After breakfast we had a shower and a shave and then I set the washing machine going. Even washed the bedding so that I can have a nice clean bed tonight (and I’ve just remembered that I’ve forgotten to fit the clean bedding) for a change.

And then it was off up town, calling at the railway station on the way for my tickets for next week.

talking of roadworks … "well, one of us was" – ed … the roadworks in the Avenue des Vendéens near LIDL are continuing apace.

They are now working on both sides of the road – digging a trench on the northern side (and I don’t know what they are putting in it that they couldn’t have put in the trench on the southern side when they were digging that a couple of months ago) as well as reorganising the kerbstones on the southern side.

They look as if they are going to be there for ever.

That wasn’t all of the excitement in the town either.

Here we have one of Renault’s answer to the CA Bedford and the Ford Thames – Renault Estafette. 20 or 30 years ago you wouldn’t have been able to move around France without stumbling over one of these. The police used them by the thousands back in the 70s.

Over half a million were built between 1960 and 1980, but I bet that you won’t find half a dozen on the roads in everyday use today.

I didn’t buy anything exciting in LIDL today except a magnetic tray for holding screws and bolts. I don’t have one of these here and I was bewailing the fact the other day that I don’t have a magnet to sift through the rubbish in Caliburn to find this missing spring clip.

Another thing that I didn’t buy today was some carrots. I have run out and that’s bad news.

And I was rather upset to say the least when I returned here. Nikon has finally sent me the prepaid return envelope for me to send off my lens for the little camera. As regular readers of this rubbish might recall, it slowly slid into oblivion and when I complained to them, they advised me that it was a well-known fault and they would repair it for free.

But had then sent the label earlier, I could have dropped it off while I was on my way to LIDL.

After lunch I packed the lens (I still had the original box) and wrapped it carefully, and then went back into town to the Post Office, where I had my “interaction” that I mentioned earlier.

And badger me if I didn’t forget the carrots AGAIN!

Back here, trying my best not to succumb to a wave of fatigue I sorted out the paperwork that I needed to change the address for my insurance. That took about half an hour – 5 minutes to scan a copy of my bank account details, and the remaining 25 minutes to try to find where my scanner had put it on the laptop.

Next step was to contact my clothing suppliers to see if they still have my logo on their records. I need to order some new clothing as the stuff that I have here is looking rather tired.

Finally, I had a search of a couple of web sites to see about a lens for the Nikon D5000. But these web sites are just a mess. I want to find a Nikon AF-S lens – that’s the type that my big camera uses, but neither of the sites that I tried seems to be able to isolate that lens.

In the end I sent them mails to ask what I should be doing.

Having reached 103%of my daily effort I didn’t go for a walk, which was just as well as it started to rain. Instead I had a play on the guitar.

With no carrots, I ended up with baked potatoes, baked beans and the last of the sausages for tea. And strawberries for pudding too. LIDL had some more of the cheap ones in stock today.

The evening wasn’t as nice as it was yesterday which was a shame.

But the tide was high and so there was a lot of activity at the fishing wharf. And there were a couple of strange-shaped trawlers in there unloading.

Here’s one of them setting off back to sea. A long time since I’ve seen a trawler looking like that. Not much room for storage aboard it, so I wonder what they might be catching. And I bet they don’t go far to catch it either.

And not only that, La Grande Ancre was over there in the commercial docks.

She was in and out of here on a very regular basis earlier in the year but I’ve not seen her about for a while. Now she’s back, and she has a tractor strapped to her decks.

Another delivery to the Ile de Chausey I reckon. That was what she was doing here before anyway – running a shuttle to and from the island.

So back here and back into another argument on line. The Football Association of Wales announced a change to the rules in a press release dated 13th November 2017 and invited interested parties to submit their opinions.

In March this year, a definitive arrangement was announced.

And now many people are up in arms about it, saying that they knew nothing about it and objecting. I spent about an hour posting all of the stuff that I have, but no-one seemed to take the slightest notice of it.

I’ve long-since come to the conclusion that British people these days just don’t want to actually do anything – they just want to sit there and complain. THat’s an attitude that really annoys me and is one of the reasons why I emigrated. Many British people have problems. I don’t have problems – I have solutions.

And a big hats-off to Alison whose Belgian nationality papers came through today. So she’s been saved from the stuoidity of Brexit. Well done, Alison.

Wednesday 30th May 2018 – WHAT A NICE …

… tea that was!

One of those evenings where I couldn’t think of anything much so some spicy rice with peas and carrots, and a vegan millet and mushroom burger fried with onions and garlic. Add some nice thick gravy and it was absolutely delicious. I really enjoyed it.

In fact it was a relatively delicious day, although you might not have thought so with the weather that we were having this morning. When I left the stinking pit (at 06:30) it was raining buckets outside.

There were a few things that I needed to do though. Not the least of which being that the World’s Worst Bankers have struck again. I received all of the paperwork for the renewal of my insurances at the end of June – sent to the wrong address and featuring the wrong (closed) bank account.

What is worse is that it’s the Bank’s own insurance agency that handles it. Clearly joined-up thinking is not the strong point of the Credit Agricole, is it? Anyway, I had to telephone them to sort it all out.

Plenty of photos needed to be edited as well, with the result that I missed out on a few things that I needed to do. But no worries, they can keep.

What wouldn’t keep though is the bread issue. Buying a new loaf was one of the things that I needed, but instead in view of the time I just nipped down to town to the boulangerie that I like for a baguette.

At least that gave me an opportunity to take a photograph of the Marité now that she’s come back here for the summer season.

One day I’ll check to see if there’s an exciting sea voyage, but as you know I’ve had issues with the lazy people who manage her and they aren’t my favourite people.

You need to be very careful about your sailing companions when you set off on a long voyage on a ship like this. They don’t seem to be interested in the ship or their potential clients at all, and that doesn’t bode very well.

But at least the weather had brightened up by now, and it was heading to be a nice day. Although the wind was pretty strong and I didn’t enjoy sitting on my wall. And my lizard didn’t put in an appearance.

This afternoon I revised a few blog entries by adding some additional photos, had the usual session on the guitar and chatted to Ingrid again. And, on a couple of occasions, teetering on the edge of falling asleep. Even my mid-afternoon walk – around the walls this afternoon – couldn’t clear my head.

By the time that I’d finished tea it hard turned into a beautiful evening and I really enjoyed my little walk which, for a change, took me around the headland.

The late-evening sun was throwing up some beautiful colours and the lighthouse looked quite stunning. It was well-worth taking a photograph of it this evening. I do’t actually have too many of the lighthouse here, do I?

And there weren’t too many people around either. What you might call “Phare from the Madding Crowd”.

With the beautiful evening and clear skies, I took photograph in the general direction of Mont St Michel to see where or not you could actually see it from here.

It’s about 30 kilometres away from here as the crow flies, so the big zoom lens should pick it up if it’s in a line-of-sight, but it doesn’t look like it unfortunately. But I’m intrigued to know what those white buildings are down there. I shall have to go for a nosy some time.

But what’s the building on the Pointe Carolles, on the extreme left? It’s called the Cabane Vauban apparently and was a lookout point dating from the 18th Century. I shall have to go for an investigation, won’t I?

But it’s amazing the things that you can pick out of a long-distance photo with a really impressive telephoto lens and a good image-editing program.

So I’m off to bed now. It’s my “walk to LIDL” day and I need to pick up my rail tickets for next week. I booked them today, so I hope that we aren’t going to have another strike.

Tuesday 29th May 2018 – IT WAS A BIT …

… of a shame about last night.

What with all of my efforts of recent days I made a point of going to bed at a relatively early hour last night so as to have a head start for today. But instead, I had one of the worst nights’ sleeps that I have had for a long time. One every unhappy bunny here again.

But anyway I was up at a reasonable-ish early time nevertheless but I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast quite then. I ended up for a while talking to someone on the internet about nothing in particular.

But after breakfast there were things to do, like another batch of photos to edit and a blog to update seeing that I didn’t do it before going to bed last night.

Once all of that was out of the way I occupied myself with a knotty problem on the 3D program that I use. And while I’m none-the-wiser, I’m certainly better-informed. And it’s hard to believe that with having done nothing but that this morning, I ended up going for a late lunch.

After that, it all went wrong.

There’s lots to do here but firstly there was a crowd of neighbours hanging around outside the building so I went to join them. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not the most sociable of people at the best of times, but when one is living ina close-knit community like this, one has to show willing.

And even that was interrupted by the arrival of Gribouille the ginger cat who allowed me to pick him up and stroke him for a while, much to the surprise of everyone else.

Once all that was out of the way there was only time for a coffee before it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk. But at the moment where I was just about to put my sooty foot outside the door the heavens opened and we had another drenching. I dunno who it is up there, but just let him know that he missed me.

Eventually it eased off and so I could go for my walk. And at least it kept the grockles out of my way which is also nice. I started off in my raincoat but by the time that I was back here it was boiling hot, clammy and close, and I was sweating.

That reminded me that I had forgotten my shower this morning so I hopped underneath for a general clean-up. And I cut my hair as well seeing as it was getting all a bit long.

While all of this was going on, Liz came on line with a computer problem that needed resolving, and Sandra wanted to chat about my plans for summer. Trying to fit my guitar practice in was all rather complicated.

Tea was a frozen kidney bean and aubergine whatsit from out of the freezer and then I had a nice walk around the walls.

There wasn’t a great deal going on on the seaward side of the walls, but round on the harbour side, I noticed that Normandy Trader was back in port.

She’s been in and out of here quite a lot just recently and so she must be getting a lot of work. And that reminds me that I haven’t seen anything of Grima for a while. I shall have to make further enquiries

And despite the huge piles of gravel building up on the quayside, we haven’t seen a gravel ship for a while either.

One ship that is back in port though, ready for the summer season, is the Marité. But she was moored in a position where I couldn’t take a decent photo.

And why I was prowling around trying to find a good spec, it suddenly came into my mind that I had never taken a decent photograph of the turret house built into the walls by the Eglise de Notre Dame du Cap Lihou.

So this seemed like as good an opportunity as ever to deal with that little issue. After all, it’s a beautiful house and I could quite happily live in one of those turrets, especially with the superb view that it has over the harbour.

And now, I really AM going to have an early night.

I hope that it’s a good ‘un.

Monday 28th May 2018 – IT’S BANK HOLIDAY …

… in the UK today. And seeing as how I’d missed a Bank Holiday the other day I decided that I would take advantage of the day by having my Bank Holiday today.

So no alarm and a nice lie-in until all of … errr … 08:25. Nothing like the lie-in for which I was hoping but a lie-in all the same.

A late breakfast too, and then I did precisely nothing at all for the whole of the day except to mooch around and take it easy. At least, the morning passed like that anyway.

But there was an unexpected twist at lunchtime. I was joined by not one but two lizards waiting for the bits to drop off the pear. I’ll probably end up with a whole herd of lizards by the end of next week at this rate.

This afternoon I went for my little walk around the headland. It was school chucking-out time too and so I was able to observe the antics of the parents.

Pathetic parking is a regular feature of this blog as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. here’s yet another example. You cans ee the woman parked right by the bus stop with two wheels on the kerb to prevent passers-by from passing by on the pavement and yet right opposite her is an empty car parking space.

Not to mention the free car park lass than 100 yards down the road of course. I’m really surprised that the local police don’t come round and ticket them all.

was a really pleasant surprise. Ingrid came on line so we had a chat and then a telephone conversation that lasted one hour and forty-one minutes. I’m surprised that I could find that much to talk about. But then Ingrid has her own health issues too and so we jog each other along as best we can

Ingrid asked me what I was going to have fr tea, so I had to make one of these instant decisions. And I decided on another lot of mixed veg with vegan sausages and vegan cheese sauce. That all worked very nicely and was delicious.

And what was even better that with two burners now, I can fry my onions, garlic and sausages at the same time that I make the cheese sauce. As they say, it’s little things like that which make a great big difference.

But while the cooking was reaching a climax, Rosemary rang me up. I told her that I’d call her back in an hour or so after I’d had my tea. And so after the tea and the washing up, I went for my evening walk around the medieval walls.

And with the tide being well-in, I was interested in seeing what the little beach at the foot of the steps that I had seen the other evening looked like.

The answer to that is that I can forget any idea of going for a midnight stroll on the beach down there. What’s left of the beach at high tide is cut off from the part where the steps are.

No way down and no way up. So not a good idea

A little further along, I was distracted by sounds of hilarity coming from offshore somewhere. Not being able to see anything clearly, this was a job for the telephoto zoom lens.

There’s a diving platform about 4 metres tall right out on the beach and which is well-submerged at high tide. It’s quite a way offshore too and the sea was quite lively, so the last thing that I expected to see were a couple of people out there fooling around.

I watched them for a while to make sure that they were not in distress, and then left them to it.

Having paid my respects to Minette the black cat, who allowed me to pick her up yet again, I went back home and phoned Rosemary back. And there we were on the telephone for an hour and a half.

She’ll be back in the Auvergne sooner that she imagined, and having spent the last 6 months stranded in the UK after her operation she has made a decision that she’s ready to abandon the country too and settle permanently in France. She wanted to know the steps to take.

And I’ll tell you this – anyone who knows anything about Rosemary will realise from this discussion just how deeply the UK has slid into the abyss just recently if she’s upping sticks and moving on.

And as you all know, I can’t say that I blame her one minute. The last time that I set foot in the UK was over 5 years ago – a quick day-trip aller-retour to pick up Terry’s slates from near Folkestone. I can’t remember the last time that I was there before that, and I don’t miss it for a moment. I have no intention whatever of ever going back, although something might be brewing in the background which will mean that a day trip will be necessary some time soon. And I’m not looking forward to that at all.

So it ended up being a later night that I was expecting. But I’m not complaining. I don’t speak to enough people these days anyway. Frederick the Great once made the remark “the more I see of people, the more I like my dog” and he has my sympathy because I know just how he feels.

However Maria McKee wrote “a good heart these days is hard to find” and that’s just as true. It’s a very valuable commodity. I don’t have many friends but it’s quality over quantity any time. My friends are the best in the world and I’ll happily sit up all night talking to them without any problems whatsoever.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Sunday 27th May 2018 – MYSTERY SOLVED

Remember yesterday when I said that I reckoned that my fitbit was playing up? I happened to glance at my fitbit this evening when I expected that the 100% of my day’s activity would be up. And it was showing 92% of my day’s activity.

But that’s not the exciting bit of it. A closer inspection revealed that it was indeed 7.7 kms – and that was 100% of my day’s activity when I first programmed it. It seems that somewhere along the line it has reprogrammed itself and a day’s activity is now 8.4 kms. So that’s going to wear me out even more.

But that’s a long time away from where we started. Although not as long as you might think because 09:10 is a really nice time to awaken on a Sunday morning. And 09:40 is an even nicer time to rise up from your stinking pit too.

This led to quite a late breakfast – a brunch in fact – and the fig roll is quite a good idea too. I have to treat myself on a Sunday after all. High time that I did that.

The rest of the morning, such as it was, was quite leisurely. And I ended up spending almost an hour and a half talking to Rosemary. She’s had her plaster taken off her foot and is now in ordinary footwear. But it’s a long, hard road to recovery for Rosemary, and she still has a long way to go.

With having a late start this morning I went without lunch. I grabbed some biscuits and made a flask of cold drink with ice cubes. And then I set off for the football.

An important match this one, for if US GRanville’s 2nd XI do better than FC ST Lo Manche they will be promoted.

The football wasn’t the only thing that was going on either.

There was a bicycle race – the Tour de Normandie – taking place this weekend and today’s stage finished here in Granville.

And so there were hordes of people and hordes of cyclists swarming through the town this afternoon as I was passing through.

All the way up the hill I was being passed by bunches of cyclists. And they were struggling up the hill as much as I was too.

And there were fleets of cars with the spare bikes on the roofs following the cyclists, and following the cars were the fleets of ambulances.

But I was diappointed that there weren’t the fleets of advertisers like there were in Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres. Anyone who grew up with French cycle races in the late 1960s will know exactly what I mean

There’s a lot of money in cycle racing in France these days, and you can tell that by all of the equipment that is on show being used by the bigger teams.

So it was something of a surprise to find an old Peugeot 504 – probably getting on for 45 years old I reckon – doing service as a bicycle team support car.

Probably the most famous French car of the early modern era, the French equivalent of the British Ford Cortina III and IV, and seeing as we haven’t had an old car for quite a while, it gives me pleasure to feature it here.

So the most crucial match of the season here at the Stade Louis Dior. US Granville’s 2nd XI against AS Tourlaville. Everything riding on this match. No matter what FC ST Lo Manche do in their match, Granville must do better.

And by God they made hard work of it. For once the back four were incredibly nervous and were making a couple of silly careless errors. And it could have been so much worse as two suicidal backpasses from the usually-reliable central defenders put a Tourlaville attacker through for a one-on-one with the US Granville keeper.

Had the attackers been any better, US Granville could have been 2-0 down but one shot from one backpass went wide and the other one hit the post and bounced away to safety. And with only the keeper to beat.

And as for the keeper, he was nervous too. He dropped three simple crosses (luckily a defender got to the loose ball first each time) and was generally shaky throughout the match.

Eventually though Granville took the lead – a beautiful run down the wing, a good pinpoint cross into the centre and a forward sliding into the goalmouth steered it in.

And in the second half, a beautiful free kick put Granville 2-0 up. And that set the match aflame as Granville continued to pour forward, with Tourlaville resorting to some desperate (and quite often illegal) measures to keep them out, much to the frustration of the Granville players. Yesterday’s rainstorm to cool down the players would have helped here.

And then of course, another defensive loss of concentration right at the death allowed a Tourlaville attacker to finally find the back of the net.

So a 2-1 victory for Granville. And it was all in vain as FC ST Lo Manche had won by five goals to one.

So that was that. We’ll have to wait until next year now.

I had a nice walk back home in the warm early evening sunshine, just in time to see a saling boat come a-dieseling into the harbour. A bit disappointed that it didn’t come a-sailing in but you can’t have everything.

And it’s usually around here that I clock up my 100% of daily effort when I’ve been to the Stade Louis Dior. So I checked and you know the rest.

Tea was the usual vegan pizza and then I went out for a walk to clock up the missing metres. Not far of course, but far enough to reach the 100%. It’s a good thing, this fitbit. It pushes me along

So now it’s bed time and I can’t say that I’m sorry. I could do with an early night.

Saturday 26th May 2018 – I HAVE JUST SEEN …

… something that I have never ever seen before.

One of US Granville’s attacker bursts into the EC Tessy Moyon Sports box, and goes down under a challenge from a defender. The referee blows hiw whistle and points to the penalty spot.

The match is being played at the Stade Louis Dior despite it being the 3rd XI. I’m in the grandstand, absolutely level with the incident and quite high up, so I have a perfect view. And in mt opinion that was one of the best challenges that I have seen at this level of football.

The Tessy Moyon players are furious, their coach is livid, The US Granville player comes to the touchline and shouts something to his captain. The captain takes the kick – and kicks it to the corner flag.

Apparently the referee was the only person in the whole stadium who thought that that was a penalty. But I’ve never seen a team kick away a penalty before. The Age of Chivalry isn’t dead after all.

It was another struggle to leave the stinking pit this morning, We Went through the usual morning procedure followed by a shower, and then Caliburn and I hit the streets

We went the long way out to the garage, out to near Bréhal and down the by-pass. The idea is to get the engine stinking hot so that it burns more efficiently and shows a better reading on the air meter. The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley, as Robert Burns would have us believe. I ended up being stuck behind a load of grockles crawling along the road.

However, none of this caused a problem and at the Controle Technique, not only were we early but we were in and out and finished even before the time of the appointment. Caliburn passed with no problems and there is nothing to worry about as far as his bodywork goes. He’ll be 11 on Tuesday by the way

Sopping today was just Noz and LeClerc. I didn’t feel like going all the way round to LIDL. And it didn’t take me long to buy what I needed (and to buy nothing else) and I was home by 11:30. Maybe I ought to go out this early again.

Having put everything away and having had a coffee, it was lunchtime. Beautiful weather for it too, sitting on the wall watching the shipping, eating my butties, reading my book and chatting to the lizard. He was enjoying the weather too.

Back here, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out yet again for a good hour too. Perhaps this early start wasn’t such a good idea after all. But I was up and about and ready for my trek up town.

Some of the trek involved following a couple of beautiful young maidens. They stopped somewhere along the route and gave a kiss to some boy who was clearly a friend.
“Could I have a kiss too?” I enquired. But the trouble today is that no-one has a sense of humour.

It was a beautiful evening for football and we were lucky enough to be at the Stade Louis Dior for this. It’s not very often that the 3rd XI get to play here.

No-one on the gate at all of course so we could just walk in and go anywhere, so I blagged a seat in the stands where the view is quite good.

US Granville were 8th going into the match and EC Tessy Moyon Sports were 7th, and eo we expected a hard-fought tight match and that’s exactly what we got.

Granville had most of the play but couldn’t convert the chances that they were making. And it seemed that fortune might have been on their side when Tessy Mosson were obliged to replace their goalkeeper with an outfield player after a collision.

But the new keeper was actually quite good – he’d clearly played in goal before and at a reasonable standard too. He was coming out for crosses – and catching them too – and his handling and distribution was quite good too.

But he was eventually beaten by a ball over the top and a Granville player running on for a one-on-one. No-one could complain about the keeper there.

But the real highlight of the evening was the weather.

There had been some rumbling and grumbling in the distance, and then a huge dark cloud started to blow over the ground.

And you can see, if you look closely, the torrential rain that is falling, away over there in the distance. We were going to be in for it.

The rain waited until we were leaving the stadium before it let go. And then we got the lot.

Luckily there was a strong wind blowing so I kept in the lee of the buildings at the side of the road. Had I been in the open, I would have been a drowned rat before I’d gone 50 yards.

But it was quickly over. And we had one of those unusual phenomena of a sharp weather front, where you could see the end of the rainstorm like a curtain as it drew away from me up the street. It’s been a while since I’ve seen something like that.

Back here, I hadn’t completed my 100% daily activity which is a surprise. There’s definitely something wrong with the fitbit.

And so I went for a lap around the block until the 100% came up, and this enabled me to watch the sun sink slowly into the sea, surrounded by flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder something like The Return Of The Demon King.

But I was too tired to do much back here. I even fell asleep talking to someone on the laptop. So in the end I went to bed.

Sunday tomorrow. A day of rest. And I need it too.

Friday 25th May 2018 – AND SO HERE’S …

… the new toy that I bought yesterday. It’s a vitro-ceramic twin-hob cooker, all plugged in and working.

Strictly speaking, you aren’t supposed to plug these in. They should be wired in to a dedicated cooking point, but as you can see, it has possibilities of being either a free-standing unit as well as a fitted unit in a worktop, and seeing as the max power output is 2960 watts, that’s well short of the 16 amps that they use in domestic circuits here.

So its utility as a free-standing plug-in unit is not to be sneezed at.

And I’m glad that I bought it because I’m fed up of only having one burner, which means that I have to shuffle things around when I’m cooking. An added advantage is that you can use any kind of flat-bottomed saucepan on it. So the ones that I stuck in a cupoboard that didn’t work on the induction hob, I can fetch them out again.

I spent an exciting afternoon stripping down, cleaning and reorganising the table that I use for cooking and eating. That’s all clean and tidy … "for the moment" – ed … and it actually looks as if someone is working on it now.

I’m amazed at just how dirty it was, especially when I’d done my best to keep it clean. It’s amazing when you discover when you take the oilcloth off to turn it around.

Just by way of a change, I didn’t crash out this afternoon. But as the Duke of Wellington said about the Battle of Waterloo, it was “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.”

You can either attribute that to the fact that I was keeping quite busy this afternoon and didn’t have time to sit down and relax, or else you can attribute it to the fact that when the alarms went off this morning, I was in no hurry to leave my bed.

In fact, all in all, it was a rather leisurely morning while I sorted out a few things that needed doing. I wasn’t in any rush.

It was quiet at lunchtime. No-one really loitering around on the streets. But a workman had pinched my spec on the wall so I had to sit further down to eat my butties and read my book. And my friend the lizard eventually tracked me down for the pear leavings.

I mentioned the tidying up of the cooking area. And I was hoping to make a start on emptying out Caliburn. After all, there is tons of stuff in there that I no longer need or use, as well as hoping to find the missing spring clip. But I didn’t have time. Looks as if that might be next week’s task.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then I went for a walk.

The evening walk is usually the one where I go around the footpath at the foot of the walls of the medieval town and it’s a very nice walk.

But not all of the walls are medieval. There have been some later additions to the fortifications and this covered passageway down there that leads out to the part that overlooks the Place Marechal Foch certainly looks much more recent.

The stairway and footbridge over the walls is of course even more recent.

As I walked further on around the walls I noticed something away across the Baie de Mont St Michel in the distance over near Cancale that might have been another ship lurking in the doom and gloom, like the one we saw a few weeks ago.

The benefits of having some good equipment and a decent graphics program is that you can photograph it and manipulate it so that you can have a better view of what there is to see. Hard to believe that that’s about 18 miles away, isn’t it?

And it seems as if I have photographed a fishing boat, an island and part of another island with a church thereupon. And not a ship at all, which is something of a disappointment.

I shall have to go back with a compass and take a bearing so that I can work out exactly where it all might be situated.

An early night tonight too. Caliburn has his controle technique tomorrow morning so both of us need to be on form.

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Thursday 24th May 2018 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

Yes it did too. Dead to the world for an hour and a half this afternoon, and still a little unsteady on my feet even now.

Something of a late-ish night last night. And dead to the world until the alarm went off. And then it was something of a struggle to leave my stinking pit.

But after the usual morning routine I had a shower and a clean-up and then phoned the garage. Caliburn is ready so I could go to pick him up.

It’s a long walk – almost 6kms to the garage and no point in hanging around, so off I set.

There was quite a bit going on in the town today. There’s a cycle race taking place at weekend so the local council was out putting up all of the bunting and other street decorations ready for the (af)fray.

And I’m glad that I went early because the sun didn’t start to heat up for a while. The first half of the journey was quite pleasant.

Not so the second half once the sun was full out, and I had to stop a few times to get my breath.

First stop was at the motorcycle shop just for a nosy around. There wasn’t anything of interest – not that I expected there might be, but worth a look all the same.

Second port of call was a new Bio shop that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s pretty much like the Amaranthe in Montlucon but with only a quarter of the stock. And as for the vegan selection, well, they needn’t have bothered. That was a waste of time too.

Third port of call was the cheap electric shop that had done the business for me before. And yet again, I didn’t leave empty-handed. Tomorrow, I’ll take a photo of what I bought and you can see it for yourselves. But I never expected to see one of these in a shop like this.

Ironically, last year when I was wandering around on foot with Caliburn’s service last year, I stumbled upon an oven. That’s rather a strange coincidence.

Biggest surprise was at the garage. Caliburn has his controle technique on Saturday morning so he needs a service and a check-over before he goes. And for all of that, the bill came to all of €110. That’s the cheapest service and pre-controle technique that Caliburn would ever have.

All they found wrong was a numberplate light bulb not working and nothing else. I asked them to check the steering and front suspension but they found nothing wrong there.

Seeing as I was up at that end of the town I did my mid-week shopping at Leclerc and then came home for a coffee and a chat on line with Liz. After that, it was outside for my butties.

There was a lot going on there too. Not much in the way of people but they had a guy on a sky jack pressure-washing the building behind me. And every so often the spray would drift over to where I was sitting.

He had to stop every time a car or a pedestrian went past so it took him longer than it might otherwise have done.

Butvery so often the spray would drift over to where I was sitting and it was actually quite pleasant and cooling in the sunshine.

There was also quite a lot of activity going on down below in the port.

The tide was on its way in and so were all the fishing boats. They were queueing up several deep at the wharf by the fish processing plant waiting to unload their catch, with a few more on their way in to the harbour as I watched.

Still, it keeps them out of mischief, I suppose.

Now that Caliburn is organised (or he will be on Saturday morning) I had some plans to make, and I spent a while up to no good and chatting to a couple of friends on line. And then that was that.

I missed my afternoon walk yet again, but I still managed to have the session on the guitar.

Tea was a burger in a bap with a potato and veg done in the microwave with some vegan margarine spread.

And I managed to make it outside for the evening walk, which was just as well because it really was a beautiful night.

Instead of going around the walls I went around the headland instead and there was a beautiful view across the bay towards Jullouville and Carolles although there was a sea mist that was obscuring the far coast itself.

Nevertheless, the colours came out really well in this photo. You would never imagine that it’s almost 21:00.

And so 108% of my daily total today, and it feels more like 1008%. I feel dreadful but I have to keep going. One thing for sure though – I won’t be doing much tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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