Tag Archives: place d’armes

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 – SO CARRYING ON …

… from where I left off last night, I ended up taking out the waste paper to the recycling bin. Such is the exciting life that I lead around here these days.

But at least it brought my day’s efforts to 101% of my target so that I could go to bed quite happily – albeit rather later than I had planned.

And during the night, I was off on yet another mega-ramble. One that was well-worth remembering, but unfortunately I can’t remember anything about it now. But all is not lost, because I recorded it for posterity on the dictaphone.

However, it comes to my mind that I have forgotten to copy it onto the laptop and transcribe it, so you’ll have to wait for another time before you can read all about it.

To be honest, I don’t know what I do with my days. Anyone would think that I was really busy, but that’s not the case. I’m just old, tired and ill.

But not so old, tired and ill that I couldn’t deal with the masses of photos that have built up over the last while. Including the ones that I mentioned yesterday. This one and this one were taken with the current lens on the big Nikon.

On the other hand, keeping to exactly the same settings, this one and this one were taken with the lens that I borrowed from Happy Cash.

I wish now that I had brought the spare lens with me instead of leaving it back in Virlet. I shall have to bite the bullet and buy another. This one is the one that I would really like, but I’m already selling my body on Boots Corner for the next 20 years so it will have to wait for a while. Does that place you know have anything cheaper, Rhys?

Lunch was spent sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour where I could gaze upon the activity.

And Normandy Trader sneaked in during the morning at some time. Here she sits, not yet loaded. Presumably waiting for a delivery.

The lizard that loiters at the foot of tha wall now seems to have become quite tame. He knows that I’m going to eat a pear, and he knows that some of it will fall to the floor. He’s a big fan of pears and at first he’d hide in the long grass and dash out for a quick bite and dash back in.

Now though, he comes out and hangs around waiting, even climbing over my foot to reach the piece that falls.

This afternoon I crashed out again and then carried on with the photos and a session on the guitar.

I went for my walk too, and they must have been flaming quick with Normandy Trader because she had badgered off. Slung her hook, you might say.

But they aren’t being flaming quick with Caliburn. He’s still at the garage and there’s been no phone call. Still, he’s out of mischief there.

Tea was a delicious mixed vegetables steamed in the microwave, vegan sausages and a nice thick creamy vegan cheese sauce. The freezer and the grated vegan cheese from the Loving Hut in Leuven haven’t half improved my diet. But I’ve run out of strawberries now.

Another walk this evening and now I’m ready for bed. And I need it too. I must remember to download my dictaphone notes tomorrow.

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the long walk home at lunchtime. Five and a half kilometres back from where I left Caliburn having his service, in the sun and the heat.

I did it all in one go too, although I did stop for a baguette and also at the place that does iced sorbets – I deserved a treat, I reckon.

But when I returned here, I crashed right out. And for a good while too. A very late lunch therefore, and then I came back – and crashed out yet again. Ruined my day and all of my plans, but that’s just how it’s going to be for the future so I may as well get used to it.

I’d had an early start too – out of bed before the second alarm went off at 06:60, even though I didn’t feel much like it. And then after the usual morning performance I had a good shower and a clean-up. Have to look my best if I’m going out.

First stop was at the second-hand shop where they allowed me to try out the lens that I mentioned, for which I was grateful. I’ll have to examine closely the results and see if there is any difference between the images taken with their lens compared to mine. This will tell me once and for all whether it’s the lens or the camera.

As for the other camera with the useless lens, I’ll have to organise sending that off for examination sometime soon.

Next stop was the car wash where I gave Caliburn his annual bath. And with all of the dirt that fell off him, you wouldn’t think that I’ve only done a mere 1800 kms since last March. There were times, as we all know, when I could do 1800 kms in a weekend, never mind in 15 months or so.

So he’s now at the garage, I walked home and I’ve been pretty useless … "so what’s new?" – ed … for the rest of the day. Even missed my afternoon walk. But I’ve had to get myself into gear because I ended up having two simultaneous conversations on the internet, both of which might involve lengthy journeys on the road and for which a great deal of preparation will be required.

And not only that, I’ve seen a little trip that is tempting me. But for that I’ll have to start selling my body on Boots Corner. It’s a little expensive.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, and then I managed an evening walk. But I’ll have to go back out again in a minute because I forgot to look at the fitbit when I was out just now. And when I did remember, I was on 97% Being so close, I’ll have to push it over the 100%

And then bed. I’m absolutely whacked, and I have to do it again tomorrow but in reverse when I go to pick up Caliburn.

I’m clearly not as young as I was.

Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

… of these special spray-on cream tin things.

The one that tells you that it “contains the equivalent of 800 ml of fresh soya cream” – but doesn’t tell you that it only contains enougb propellant to eject about a quarter of it. That’s not very good and I’m not impressed.

In theory, I could puncture the can to liberate the contents but knowing my luck, there will be just enough propellant trapped inside to whitewash the whole apartment and everything in it.

Something else with which I’m not impressed is that the alarm went off at 06:20 as usual and again at 06:30 and I was out of bed something like. Only to read later on that morning that one of my friends is off on his annual Pentecost walk. Yes, it’s a flaming Bank Holiday here, isn’t it? Another day when I can lie in bed without feeling a pang of guilt. And I missed it.

And so I had a glass of Dandelion and Burdock instead. A bottle left over from Christmas 18 months ago. High time that I had a little treat.

I was going to say that I had done badger all today, but that’s not quite true. I’ve done a little tidying up of the crockery and cooking stuff. I’ve been looking for some glass mixing bowls for ages and as luck would have it, I found some in NOZ at the weekend so I bought two. Cooker, dishwasher, microwave safe too,, and at €1:99 each.

However, I have nowhere to put them, so I needed to have a sot-out of stuff. Didn’t take me long but it’s definitely working and it’s definitely tidying up. I ought to award myself a medal.

A beautiful afternoon so a long sit on the wall with my butties and my book, watching the heaving multitudes go straggling past.

And not so “straggling” either on some occasions.

The tide was right for the day trippers (or afternoon trippers in this case) to take the Joly France out to the Ile de Chausey – or were they going just for a lap or two around the bay?

But anyway, there was more than enough of them. The boat was pretty full.

And it’s rather ironic really. There was an article in the local paper about “Are there too many tourists going over there?” And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, and that is that if the tourists stopped going over there would be another article in the local papers about the islanders complaining that their economy has collapsed because there aren’t enough tourists going over.

Like many places, the inhabitants would be quite happy for the tourists to stay at home and just post their money over to the island.

That wasn’t all of the excitement either.

There’s another boat – the La Granvillaise – that does tours around the bay too. And that was setting off on a jaunt too. She looks quite an elderly boat too but in fact was built in 1990, albeit as a replica of a fishing boat – the Rose Marie – of 1897 that was a typical fishing boat of the bay at that time – a bisquine.

She has 410 square metres of canvas sail – the largest amount of any boat of her class in France – and so that’s much more like my style of voyaging

And I was there for ages sitting on my wall, totally engrossed in the Hundred Years War.

We British people think of the Hundred Years War as just being Crécy and Agincourt and not much else in between. For the French though, it was almost 120 years of complete and utter terror. In the past I’d been hunting high and low for a book that gives a detailed French perspective on the war and I finally found one a couple of years ago.

It’s certainly a right riveting read and it’s easy now for me to understand why the French hated the English so much after reading the stories of the atrocities that were committed by the English and their allies. “l’Albion Perfide” indeed.

With the weather being so nice, I had my two walks too, even though the place is heaving with people. And for tea tonight I had vegetables with a burger and some delicious gravy. It was really nice too.

So tomorrow I must take Caliburn to the menders for his service. And it’s a loooooooonnnnnnnng walk home from there. I’m not too keen on that idea. I’ll probably be ill for a week afterwards.

Sunday 20th May 2018 – WHAT A NICE SURPRISE!

Yes, I had a video call from Alison this evening. Only the second that I think that I’ve ever had. So as well as a very long chat, she also had a conducted tour of the apartment.

Mind you, it would have been more interesting had I tidied up the place first because it hasn’t been tidied since before I went to Belgium. I really must try to organise myself better.

But it’s not likely to happen today. It’s Sunday and so on Sunday we don’t do any work at all – just sit around and vegetate. There’s not even an alarm to awaken us, so being awake and up and about at 08:20 is rather disappointing.

But tha hadn’t stopped me from being off on my travels during the night. I was wandering around the ring road in Leuven looking for a bus to take me to my hospital appointment in Brussels (exactly!) but I was carrying a big orange fuel container (in fact, one that I have back on the farm) full of petrol – about 20 litres of it in fact – and it was flaming heavy. And so then I thought to myself “what don’t I take it to the place where I have left my red Cortina estate XCL 465 X (actually, the parking spot that I have for Caliburn), fuel her up with it, and then run for the bus? An hour and a half is plenty of time”. And so I decided to do that. But even in the middle of a nocturnal ramble I was able to assure myself that I was going to look pretty foolish when I arrived there because the Cortina was elsewhere – as in the Auvergne. So what would I be doing with 20 litres of petrol for it in Leuven?
A little later I was having coffee with an Arab at some kind of harbourside café. We were watching hordes of people swarm aboard a ferry boat of some description and he was telling me that he had to board it shortly. I told him that I thought that he should be on it already because it was looking very full to me and he might not find a place. He replied that admission to the ferry was by ticket only, he already had his and that it had been stamped as valid and accepted for the voyage. So whatever happened, he could just walk down onto the boat and take his place. It all sounded rather nebulous to me.

And in keeping with my new mode of eating, I didn’t have breakfast this morning. I’m only going to eat when I’m hungry, not when the clock strikes. So I had a brunch – at 12:21 to be precise.

This afternoon was the most important game in the Welsh Premier League’s calendar. The European play-off final. The less-successful teams in the league have been competing in a knock-out tournament with the winner taking the final place in European competition with its guaranteed minimum prize of £220,000 and which could rise to as much as £3,000,000 depending upon success in the Europa League.

Cefn Druids from Cefn Mawr in the outskirts of Wrexham lined up against Cardiff Metro – 5th v 6th in the League. And the match was rather less than exciting unfortunately. But that’s hardly surprising considering what was at stake. It was decided by just one goal from the Druids during a scramble in the goalmouth.

But it could have been a totally different story had the Mets attacker sidefooted the ball into the net right on half-time instead of blazing over an open goal from 5 yards out. Hang his head in shame – that must be one of the most expensive misses in history.

We’ve had the usual walks, the usual vegan pizza and the chat with Alison.

And now we’re going to have an early night. It’s Monday tomorrow so I suppose that I’d better show some willing and start to tidy up the place a little.

Saturday 20th May 2018 – LAST MATCH …

… of the season this evening at the Stade Louis Dior for the US Granville’s 1st XI.

And it was free admission too – what you might call an “Open Dior” evening, I suppose. And not only that, I was given an invitation to sit in the stand which was very nice. Even nicer was the fact that it was a beautiful evening.

Tonight’s opponents were Sologne Olympic Romorantin, a name that is bound to cause confusion. The club was formerly known as Stade Olympic Romorantin and the name change caught many people off-balance. The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we visited Graycliff, one of his houses) asked everyone he knew for confirmation of the name change, to which the famous singer Paul Simon answered “Sologne, Frank Lloyd Wright” … "are you sure about this?" – ed.

As for the match itself, it was a pulsating, thrilling encounter that finished 2-2. But this was two points thrown away by Granville, not one point gained.

Granville had half a dozen other really good chances to score that many other teams would have buried in the back of the net, including a free header from three yards out that somehow went over the bar.

As for the two goals conceded, one was a defensive mix-up where the keeper and two defenders waited around for one of the three to clear the ball, and the second was the Granville keeper coming miles off his line for a ball that he was never ever going to reach. In fact, the Granville keeper didn’t look his usual confident self throughout the match.

With having another reasonably early night, the alarm didn’t come as much of a shock that it normally did too. Although it did snap me out of one of my nocturnal rambles. Unfortunately the batteries in the dictaphone went flat so I don’t remember much of it. But somewhere along the line I was walking along a main road carrying a brown grip-kind of luggage thing almost identical to one that I was given for a birthday in 1977. I was supposed to be heading home but it was a long way and I was hoping that someone would stop to pick me up, although I wasn’t actively hitch-hiking. It was taking place on the edge of a town just where the houses start to give way to countryside and where the footpath ends. And it must have been on the mainland of Europe as I was on the right-hand side of the road. I wasn’t alone either, because here and there were a few other individuals loitering in the vicinity. Suddenly someone shouted that there was to be a train leaving the station so people started to flood off up a side street. I asked if that wa the way to the station and someone replied that it was so I followed the stream of people, even though my pride wanted me to stay on the road and walk home. At the station there was a railway official directing the people to the train. I seemed to recall that I’d been here before under similar circumstances and that the official had given us all temporary railway tickets, but this time he was just waving us to the train with no tickets being issued. So I was wondering exactly what was the scam that he was working over the passenger tickets and fares.

We had the usual morning routine, including a shower and a setting off of the washing machine (there was a backlog of laundry again) and then the shops.

The usual round of LIDL, NOZ and Leclerc. The former and the latter didn’t come up with anything special but at NOZ there were all kinds of bits and pieces. Nothing exciting though, except a cheap air mattress. It comes to my mind that I might be going off on my travels in a few weeks and of course, I don’t have my travelling mattress for Caliburn, do I?

It shouldn’t make any difference really because I’m not well enough these days to sleep in Caliburn as I used to, but it’s one of those things that you might always need it if you don’t have it.

But I called in at the Second Hand shop on the way back – the one from whence the new hi-fi came. They did indeed have a Nikon lens that will fit on the big Nikon. So when I go past there on Tuesday I’ll take the camera there and try it out. See whether it’s the lens or the camera itself that is faulty.

Back here, I crashed out yet again for half an hour, and then took myself off for a very late lunch on my little wall with my book. Beautiful weather it was too.

There wasn’t much of the afternoon left by the time I returned, so I didn’t do much before going off across town for the football.

Back here though later in the evening, there was a guided tour of the old medieval town here, with flaming torches (and perishing lamps and blasted lights too).

I went out and tagged myself on to one of the groups of wanderers to listen to what the guide had to say. It always helps to know about where you are living.

And it was quite interesting. He pointed out many things that I hadn’t noticed on my travels around on my own and gave us all quite an interesting tour.

But my heart isn’t in it, I’m afraid.

It’s not like the olden days when I could wander around like this for hours. By the time that we were heading back to the Église Notre-Dame du Cap Lihou I was tired and exhausted.

There was a whole raft of entertainment organised for for us all through the night, but it wasn’t to be for me. I came home and went to bed instead.

All of this is rather depressing, isn’t it?

Friday 18th May 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about me paying today for my exertions of yesterday. This afternoon, on coming back from lunch, I was gome completely for a good 45 minutes.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a late night either – well, not for me anyway. In bed not long after midnight and that was that until the alarm went off. And I wasn’t in a hurry to leave my bed.

This, morning with having a “me” day, I didn’t do too much. I was playing around with the 3D program that I used and, purely by accident, I discovered a trick I didn’t know before and which doesn’t seem to be published anywhere as far as I can tell. So now, having had a good morning’s work with this, I can make the hair, some props and some clothing interchange neatly between all of the characters regardless of the base character for which they were designed.

The only issue is exchanging clothes of more modern base characters to the earlier ones. The more modern ones have more separate body zones than the earlier ones, so when you try to fit some modern clothing over a zone that is missing on an earlier character, the settings that would cover the part of the clothing in the missing zone default to “zero” and so the shape of the whole outfit all goes haywire.

To explain what I mean, the torso on an earlier character is divided into two horizontal zones. On a more modern character it’s divided into three. And so a tee-shirt designed for a modern character will have these three zones. But putting it on a character with two zones means that the settings for the missing zone on the tee-shirt default to zero, so your tee-shirt then looks like an hour glass.

Lunch was outside on the wall again in the sunshine, where I was joined by a lizard that ate greedily the piece of pear that I dropped. First lizard that I had seen this year had been on Monday, but this was the first that had actually appeared in the open.

So then we crashed out and it really knocked me for six – quite a struggle to rouse myself to go for my afternoon walk and I felt dreadful. But I’m glad that I did because Gribouille the ginger cat was by the door. He let me pick him up again for a stroke ad that’s always good for the stress.

Lunch wasn’t all that much today so I could manage some tea. A baked potato with a vegan burger in a bap and some vegetables followed by more strawberries and spray-on vegan cream.

Delicious.

Shopping tomorrow and then the football. Last match of the season for Granville’s 1st XI. I need to be on form for all of that but this fatigue issue is killing me.

Thursday 17th May 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… seeing how things have been going just recently, I had tea tonight.

And not before time either because one of the two peppers that were left from the last weekend has gone off and ended up in the bin. The other one was just about edible so I made a pile of my patent vegan stuffing and had stuffed pepper with spicy rice and vegetables for tea.

But that wasn’t the main reason why. Being at LIDL this morning, they had yet more of the cheap strawberries. And, of course, seeing as I was in Belgium last week and went shopping at the Loving Hut, I have some vegan spray-on cream, don’t I? And I’m not going to let nature beat me to them like it did last time.

Despite a reasonably early (for me) night last night, I didn’t fel much like it this morning and it took me a while to haul myself out of bed. After the usual performance and breakfast I had a shower too. Must make myself pretty for the shops.

But I nearly didn’t make it to the shops this morning. I sat down on the settee after my shower and promptly fell asleep. And it was a rather panic-stricken me that staggered awake at 09:35.

It was a nice day too as I headed through town and out the other side. And Normandy Trader was in the harbour loading up. So I reckoned on passing back that way on the way back to take a couple of pics.

Dodging my way through the roadworks which have now restarted but on the other side of the street so we still have the previous amount of chaos, I made it to LIDL.

As well as the strawberries and the bread that I needed, they had some of the packet spices so I bought a packet of cumin and of ginger. I don’t need them quite yet but they never seem to have them in stock when I need them.

They also had some insulated gourds on offer. They were quite cheap too so I bought one – the idea being that when I’m out and about on a hot day (if we ever have one) I can make a cold drink and put some ice cubes in it, and hopefully it will keep cold for a while.

But all the fun at LIDL seems to be taking place outside on the car park these days. Poor parking is a regular feature of this blog, and here’s yet another example.

They had closed off part of the car park with all of the trolleys as there will very shortly be a marquee on here, but this hasn’t stopped someone deciding to find a way to park right where they will be working.

It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

On the way back I went to the harbour to see Normandy Trader. But as you might expect, she had p155ed off already. That p155ed me off, I’ll tell you.

Back here I had a coffee and then I had things to do until lunchtime.

It was even nicer later on although the wind was a nuisance. But I still took my butties and my book and went to sit on my wall for an hour, thinking to myself that this would have been a good opportunity to try out the gourd.

This afternoon I had more things to do, a guitar session and a walk too. And I didn’t crash out at all, which is certainly good news. But what with my evening walk I’m at 114% of my daily activity so I’ll probably pay for all of this tomorrow.

And a nice tea too. Things are looking up.

NO plans for anything tomorrow so it looks like a “me” day instead. You just watch someone come along and spoil it.

Wednesday 16th May 2018 – I HAVE BEEN FEELING …

… a bit better today.

It was probably something to do with the (comparatively) early night that I had last night, coupled with the fact that I was in no hurry to leave the bed this morning after the alarm went off.

So with a slightly later start this morning, I had a slightly later breakfast and a little relax before getting round to attack today’s task.

I’m not going to say too much about that at the moment because it will be the subject of considerable correspondence elsewhere, but it involved the Board of Trade, the UK Government, Companies House and the High Court in Manchester, with considerable reference to the various Insolvency Acts. And the plums that I have been pulling out of all of this are certainly eye-opening.

Still, it keeps me out of mischief.

All of this took me up to a rather late lunch, which I spent eating my butties on the wall overlooking the harbour. And I seem now to have run out of bread. It’s a good job that it’s a shopping day tomorrow.

I’m not quite sure what I did this afternoon because the time seemed to pass so quickly; But one thing that I didn’t do was to crash out. I managed to keep going for all of the afternoon, and that’s certainly some kind of progress.

We did however have our afternoon walk in the wind and our session on the guitar.

But no tea again. No idea where my appetite has gone. But not to worry. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it seems to come and go. We’ve had this kind of thing before and it always ended up by coming back.

And so it will this time too. It’s not as if I don’t have some surplus kilos to shed, is it?

After not having tea and not doing the washing up, I still went for my evening walk around the walls of the medieval city.

And there sitting on her windowsill waiting for me again was Minette the black cat – or, rather, tortoiseshell cat as you can see quite clearly in this photo.

So she had a good stroke for 10 minutes as you might expect. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … it’s all very therapeutic and good for the stress to stroke a cat.

Later on I ended up chatting with Ingrid and Alison. I certainly seem to be popular right now. Do I owe anyone any money?

So another early night. Let’s hope that it’s a good one and I have a decent sleep.

But I’m walking up to LIDL tomorrow so I’ll probably be flat on my back again tomorrow afternoon.

Tuesday 15th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that on Saturday, while looking for something completely different, I found the mobile phone that I had lost back in December.

Today in the post was a letter to the effect of “could I contact the Prefecture of Police in the Arondissement 15 of Paris, quoting reference …” – and for those of you who don’t know it, Arondissement 15 is just round the corner (well, sort-of) from the Montparnasse-Vaugirard railway station, the terminus of my train from Granville.

So, what have I been up to now? I contacted them to find out.

“You reported a wallet lost or stolen on December … last year. A wallet containing documentation with your details thereupon has come into the possession of the Police. Would you like to come and pick it up?”

Well, badger me? That was most unexpected, wasn’t it?

I tell you what though. At this rate, by the end of the week I’ll have found Lord Lucan, Martin Bormann, the Lost Tribes of Israel and the Loch Ness Monster.

But I wish that I could find my appetite. I’ve had no tea tonight because I couldn’t stomach it. Mind you, I can’t say that I need it. I need to shed a few kilos these days as you know so a few days without tea will do me good. But it’s depressing all the same.

Mind you, it all stems from the rotten night that I had last night. The perils of crashing out good and proper during the afternoon are that by the time that it’s bedtime, you’re still wide awake. 02:25 whe I finally went to bed and as a precaution, I switched off the alarms. I didn’t want to make myself any worse.

And so it was 09:05 when I crawled out of bed. A late morning, and with a late breakfast that followed it too. I’d missed the best part of the day. But there was a stack of e-mails that needed attention and so this morning I sorted out all of those.

And there was one from Nikon’s Customer Service people about my lens. “We are sorry that you have had trouble with your lens. Other people have reported the same error so please return your lens for our attention ….. The repair time will be between two and four weeks”.

It goes without saying that this has dismayed me more than most other things just recently.

Another thing that has dismayed me is (yet again) my useless load of bankers. I received a text message the other day “your account has gone into deficit. Please regularise the situation …”

Deficit? How is this possible?

So I went into town to look. And sure enough, my account is in deficit by all of €12:57. It seems that when the bank transferred my money from Pionsat to here, they transferred it into the wrong account.

I despair.

But it wasn’t a totally wasted trip into town.

I was able to see where they had reached with the fibre-optic cable laying that they were going. It’s not at the roundabout on the edge of the port so they seem to be making some good progress which is always useful.

And while I was down there I bought a baguette in the town because I like the bread from that boulanger on the corner, and came back here to make my butties

And having done that, I went to sit on the wall in the wind for lunch.

Back here, I was gone again. For a good hour or so too. I’m really fed up of this right now and I wish that I could do something about it. it was a real ache to haul myself off outside for my afternoon walk in the wind.

I managed some kind of session on the guitar but I’m not up to that too much either. I couldn’t stand up for more than about 15 minutes. I had to sit down.

No tea of course as I said, but I did crawl off outside yet again for my evening walk.

The wind was strong at lunchtime but this evening it seems to be worse. And with it being high tide at walkies time, we were treated to the glorious spectacle of some mega-waves and tons of spray crashing over the sea wall onto the promenade.

And as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … this is why I’m here

And that wasn’t all of the excitement either.

We’ve been having some beautiful sunsets just recently and while the one tonight wasn’t quite up there with the best, it was still quite impressive nevertheless.

And I was surprised about how quickly the sun goes down. I almost missed it tonight and that will never do.

Back here now and I’m going to have to think of a plan to get to Paris to pick up my wallet. How am I going to manage that?

Monday 14th May 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that when I bought my cheap Chinese smartphone back in January, I couldn’t remember the times that I had set the alarms to awaken me.

Well, I know now, don’t I? It was 06:00 and 06:15 and I’m sure that you can gather how I managed to find it out can’t you?

So heaving myself out of my stinking pit and going through the usual morning routine, and also chatting to Liz who appeared on line before she went to work.

After breakfast I had a little relax and then phoned up to book Caliburn in for his annual service. And it seems that the garage is closed on Mondays too. So I’ll have to phone them back tomorrow now, won’t I?

Once that was out of the way pro tem I had another task to perform. There is another huge pile of photos having accumulated over the last week or two, so I sat down and edited them.

Having done that, I started to work backwards in the blog and add photos that were missed off. I’ve done about a week’s worth so if you missed them, you need to check back and have a look.

Lunch was quite late what with one thing and another (and once you get started you’d be surprised at how many other things there are) and I didn’t eat much. Perhaps that’s a good thing, or else I’m sickening for something yet again.

But I did have a really bad afternoon. Wave after wave of fatigue overwhelmed me and it was all that I could do to tear myself out into the hurricane and go for a walk, not feeling much like it at all.

But I’m glad that I went out because we haven’t featured an old car in these pages for quite some time, and there parked on the car park down by the lighthouse is a old Land Rover.

It’s British of course, and the registration number tells me that it was registered in Lancashire some time during the second half of 1969 and the first half of 1970.

Leaf springs of course, not coil springs, and the headlights in the wings not the grille means that it’s probably a later Series IIA model, and also, of course, it’s a very desirable station wagon.

In my opinion, although I wouldn’t say this at any Land Rover gathering, I consider the IIA Land Rovers to be the best model that they ever produced, especially when fitted with a “two and a quarter” diesel.

Back here, I made a coffee but I never had the chance to drink it. 18:20 when I awoke and the coffee was cold. Hardly surprising – I must have been stark out for a couple of hours.

I’d fallen asleep reading the works of Henry de Bracton, one of the first of the modern judges from the 13th Century. And I carried on reading them during my voyage. And my voyage took me to the coast where the seas were stormy, just like they are now in fact, and most people were leaving the beach. But a couple of boys were doing some slalom stunts in a kayak through the waves, with a girl on the beach pleading with them to come in. “Even …. (she mentioned the name of someone who was clearly important in this sport) has come in now”. But my route took me along the headland and I came to a car park where several people were boarding a bus. Standing next to the bus was TOTGA, a very young TOTGA, dressing herself up in black leather and a crash helmet and sitting astride a silver scooter of the Vespa type. “Did you come on the bike or in a car?” I asked, being aware that she didn’t have the brats with her. “Yes” she replied helpfully. “Yes?” I enquired. “Yes” she answered. “I came here in the car and I’m now going home on the bike”. And even during a nocturnal ramble that sounded most illogical.

This evening I made myself a surprise tea. Someone on the internet was talking about Bombay aloo, and that had my mouth watering. And just as it happens, I had some tinned potatoes left over from my lentil doodah last week.

So I chopped up some onion and garlic, diced a carrot and put them in a casserole dish, added the potatoes, cumin and turmeric, covered it all in oil, stirred it up and put it in the microwave for three minutes.

While that was doing, I started to cook some rice and frozen peas.

Once the stuff in the microwave was finished, I added some water and gravy powder, stirred it all up, and then put it back in the microwave on medium heat for six minutes.

And absolutely beautiful it was too. I’ll have to make some more stuff like this, I really will.

I mentioned “hurricane” a little earlier didn’t I?

It was high tide again later this evening and sure enough, during my little evening walk around the walls, I stood and watched the waves crashing onto the sea wall and the spray going over the top onto the promenade.

The amount of power that there is in the sea during a storm like this is impressive. No wonder people want to harness the energy from it.br clear=”both”>

Another thing that I noticed was that there’s now a huge pile of gravel from the quarry near Avranches accumulated in one of the berths down in the harbour.

It looks as if we might be having a visit some time soon, doesn’t it? And that’s probably just as well because it occurs to me that there’s been no gravel ship been here for quite some considerable time – since the new lock gates in fact

We could do with building up the maritime traffic in the port otherwise my utility as a ship reporting station here will be called into question.

So now it’s bed time. I hope that I’ll feel more like it tomorrow.

Sunday 13th May 2018 – THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

Although the night wasn’t as early as I would have liked it, staying in bed until 09:20 is definitely the correct way to proceed on a Sunday morning.

And had I not wanted to go for a ride on the porcelain horse, I might even still be in bed now.

It didn’t prevent me from going off on a nocturnal ramble either. But I’ll spare you the details of this voyage. I mean – you might be eating your tea or something. But I will say that it was a continuation of one of my voyages from a day or two ago.

I had a nice, late breakfast that included a fig roll with strawberry jam and which was delicious as you might expect. And then a lazy Sunday where I did next to nothing. But as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … everyone needs a day when they can sit around and do nothing without feeling the least pang of guilt.

This afternoon in the glorious sunshine I wandered off to the Stade Croissant in St Pair sur Mer where US St Pairaise’s 2nd XI was taking on US St Quentin Le Homme’s 2nd XI.

St Quentin, in green, were fifth in the table and St Pair were third-bottom, and the final score was 7-0 … for St Pair. Something that totally astonished me.

St Pair were easily the better team, and that was a surprise in itself. But the result did rather flatter them. Their second goal was a piledriver from 25 yards out that was screwed hopelessly wide of the goal and which fell quite by chance right at the feet of an unmarked attacker who would otherwise have been totally out of the play. And their third was a backpass to the keeper who went to trap the ball with his foot but it hit a bobble, bounced up, hit him on the shins and rolled out to an attacker 5 yards away.

Apart from that, the St Quentin central defence was just too slow. In fact, the whole St Quentin team was just 6 inches too slow all over the field, and it was that which made all of the difference. Had they been just that little quicker to the ball, none of this would have happened.

But it was certainly a surprising result.

At half-time, I had another look through Caliburn to try to find the missing spring clip. But instead I found two one-cent pieces. So “spend, spend, spend!”, hey?

Tea was another excellent vegan pizza (the ground black pepper makes all the difference) but this latest batch of grated vegan cheese doesn’t melt like the previous batch and you could see the join.

SO off to bed in a minute, and then back to work tomorrow. High time that I did something.

Saturday 12th May 2018 – IT’S A WELL-KNOWN PHENOMENON …

… that when you lose something that you desperately need, you can’t find it anywhere even though you know almost exactly where it ought to be.

And it’s an even more well-known phenomenon that while you are looking for the aforementioned, you find something that you lost a while ago and were totally unable to find and you had since given up all hope of ever finding it again. And – you usually find it in a place where you are certain that you have already looked – and on several occasions too.

So for this reason I unreservedly and unequivocally withdraw all of the intemperate remarks that I made at the time and have made since then a propos the mobile phone which disappeared from my possession just before Christmas.

The next question of course is – “what will I have lost and be looking for when I find the spring retaining clip off Caliburn’s window winder?”

Now here’s something rather strange. I was sitting here last night feeling somewhat (but not all that much) tired but I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to do all that much. So in the end I gave it all up as a bad job and went off to bed in default. That’s not at all like me, is it?

And it didn’t take me long (like a matter of a couple of minutes) to go off to sleep too.

The first part of the night was quite restless though and I was tossing and turning somewhat. But eventually I settled down and was well away with the fairies.

We had another one of those nights where I was wandering around aimlessly, my clothes in my hands, from one big public building to another trying to find where the public showers were.
But later I was with a couple of people, one of whom was a young girl of about 10 or 11, on bicycles waiting at a roundabout for the traffic to clear. It was early one morning and still dark and the girl had no lights on. Suddenly she darted off between the traffic and took the wrong road. I had to chase after her, which wasn’t easy seeing as I couldn’t see her, but caught her up eventually on the Coleridge Way estate in Crewe. She’s come to a dead end and couldn’t work out where to go next. I knew where we were although I couldn’t understand how we had arrived there, and to return to our route we had to go down a footpath that would lead us back to the road. But there were these anti-bicycle gates on the footpath so I had to lift her bike over them, and in doing so I scratched the paintwork. You could see through the deep pink down to the original purple colour. She was most upset about that.

It was another struggle to leave the bed this morning. I’m clearly suffering the after-effects of my journey the other day. But having made a nice new muesli mix yesterday I could enjoy a nice fresh breakfast – even if I did forget the orange juice.

A shower and a shave and a general clean-up and then I hit the streets. My trip out took me to LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc where I bought nothing special but nevertheless spent a lot of money because the stocks here are right down.

But I couldn’t help thinking to myself that they must have some strange men doing their shopping at NOZ. Here on the “men’s” shopping rack we have a nice selection of dresses and an even better selection of handbags.

It takes all sorts, I suppose. I wonder if Lee Pottymouth does his shopping here. But then, I didn’t see any fairy boots on offer.

I also visited the Controle Technique station to book Caliburn’s next appointment and also the garage where he goes to be serviced, but they are taking advantage of this week of two Bank Holidays by being closed until Monday.

With the controle technique being due, I reckoned that it might be a good idea to find out why the driver’s door on Caliburn no longer opens from the outside. It was a good morning – not too hot, dry, no wind, so I could work in comfort.

And it didn’t take too long to discover the problem. There’s a rod that operates the door latch and it’s adjustable with a nut on the end. Only there was no nut on the end. It’s fallen off. So I rummaged around, found a nut of the correct size, and reassembled it. It’s not quite adjusted correctly, but it works and that’s good news.

Then, the reassembly bit. The window winder is held on by a spring clip, not a screw, and it’s flaming awkward to fit. The first time that it sprung off I actually caught it as it flew across Caliburn’s cab – much to my own surprise – but the second time it disappeared off in the general direction of under the driver’s seat.

So I bent down to look for it – and the rest is history.

The phone was under there looking as if it had been placed there. It’s impossible for it to have fallen out of my pocket into the position where I found it. And in any case, I’m certain that I’ve looked there before. So I dunno. It’s mystifying me.

The weather was nice enough to work on Caliburn but not nice enough to eat my sandwiches outside. And then, much to my dismay, I was gone with the wind for a good hour or more. Clearly not up with it, am I?

Nevertheless I went for my walk this afternoon and then settled down to watch the football. Cardiff Metro v Barry Town in the Europa League playoffs. Barry unbeaten in the last 10 matches and the Met having been on a woeful run of form although they came good in the last two matches.

And everyone in a packed ground at Cyncoed and those watching on the internet were treated to a thriller for the first 25 minutes. Barry had most of the possession but Cardiff Met played some good, neat football. And then the Met took the lead with a goal out of nowhere. And then a second ditto. A third followed shortly thereafter – an own goal from a defender who headed a free kick into his own net. And that was that.

The second half was pretty much the same although the killer instinct had gone from Cardiff Met. They scored a fourth but Barry pulled one back to make the score a little more respectable. Cardiff Met were the better team to be sure, but not three goals better. If they play like they did in the first half against Cefn Druids next week and win, they’ll tear up Europe next season.

I had my little walk this evening after a tinned tea, and now I’m vegetating. No alarm tomorrow as it’s Sunday so I’m going to sleep until I awake. I reckon that I need it.

Friday 11th May 2018 – AND WHAT WITH …

… no tea last night, a very very tired (despite having slept for much of the way home) me crawled off to bed at about 22:30 and promptly passed stark out.

The alarms went off at 06:20 and 06:30 as normal, and I do remember leaning out of bed to switch them off but it was more like 07:20 when I finally crawled out of the stinking pit. Aching all over too. Obviously not feeling myself this morning (which is just as well for it’s a disgusting habit anyway).

Despite all of that though, I’d been on my travels during the night. To some local council somewhere where there was an enormous waiting list for the more “upmarket” council houses – the brick-built 1920s semis with gardens – instead of the usual poor-quality council flats. And how there was uproar when it seemed that someone had been “parachuted in” from elsewhere. But council house exchanges were quite a well-known phenomenon back in the old days. People would want to move house and area for all kinds of reasons and would often advertise for someone willing to swap in the area to which they wanted to move. As long as either council saw no good and valid reason to refuse the exchange (which they very rarely did) then the exchange would go ahead regardless of waiting lists and priorities. It’s quite a normal, logical procedure when you consider the necessity of having a mobile labour force. But you try to explain that to people who have been on a waiting list for 20 years.
A little later, I was involved in some kind of defensive operation to fortify a residential area against an invasion. But it was a very desultory, half-hearted affair and I don’t remember too much about it now.

We had the usual morning performance and then I actually managed to unpack some stuff and put it in the fridge. Only the food that I had bought though. The rest can wait until tomorrow when I’m feeling more like it.

A little later I went on down into town. I needed a couple of things for lunch and for breakfast tomorrow. The Coccinelle supermarket has been taken over by Super U so I had a little look around and it’s not any different than it was.

And it’s come back!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a while ago that we had a visit from a rather elderly and somewhat disreputable Bedford CF box van that had been converted into a mobile home.

And here it is again, parked up just where it was the last time. And it’s not looking any better either, poor thing. But it does have to be said that it deserves a medal for still being here.

For lunch I went to sit on my wall but the weather had changed dramatically. Earlier when I was out it was windy but nice and sunny. By the time that I was sitting on my wall the wind had increased and the sun had gone.

And it wasn’t long before I had gone too – I wasn’t going to stay out too long in that.

But I did stay ut just long enough to catch the boat lift lowering a boat into the water from the ship repair yard.

It’s been one of my ambitions to catch the thing at work as you know, and today I was in luck. In fact, there were quite a few people enjoying the spectacle.

Later on in the afternoon the weather had deteriorated even more and round about 18:00 it was raining.

Welcome home, hey?

But in between lunch and my walk I crashed out rather dramatically and was well away. I’m always like this after my journey back. Out for about an hour or so. And it was only the telephone that awoke me. Some medium thinking that he could tell my future. But I know my future much better than he does, don’t I?

Tea was a burger and baked potato, with some rather over-cooked vegetables that I had left too long in the microwave. That’ll teach me.

And then with the rain having subsided, I went for another walk

And then with the rain having subsided, I went for another walk this evening.

But now we were having to contend with a rolling sea fog that made life difficult. Especially for me as, peering through the gloom I noticed some shapes that didn’t correspond with anything that I recognised.

This is where a good long-range telephoto lens comes in handy. I can snap the image, bring it home and crop it to size and then digitally enhance it.

That’s when I find out that it wasn’t a collection of ships at all but a couple of offshore islands that I hadn’t noticed before.

But the time that I spent sorting out the above image meant that I was just that little too late to catch the sun descending over the horizon.

In fact, I was amazed at the speed at which it did go down. Took me quite by surprise. I only just managed to catch the final segment.

Impressive nevertheless.

Another early night is called for. I have shopping to do tomorrow and I need quite a bit of stuff. I’ve been letting supplies run down again, haven’t I?

Thursday 10th May 2018 – I’M BACK HOME

Yes, with Alison being busy I haven’t hung around in Leuven this time. I came straight back on the train today.

But let’s start at the very beginning – a very good place to start, as Julie Andrews tells us.

As for last night’s sleep, that was one of the best yet.

With having had a hard day yesterday I was struggling to keep awake even while I was writing last night’s blog and once I’d finished and had lain down on the bed, that really was that, even though it wasn’t quite 22:00.

And for that reason, when someone knocked on my neighbour’s door at 05:00 to awaken him for work, I didn’t mind at all. For that was the first noise that I had heard all night.

First real noise, that is, because there had been plenty of others during my nocturnal voyages. We started off doing something that involved someone – an accountant from Vancouver – from where I used to work. What was interesting about this was not the voyage itself, but the fact that I awoke from it (although I didn’t) and thought that I had better write it down. And so I did – in a kind of spidery hand that when I looked at it after I had read it, I couldn’t make out a word. But of course I didn’t write it down at all. It’s quite amazing where these nocturnal voyages can take me.
A little later I was with Nerina again. She was in bed and she protested that I had hit her. I explained that there was some animal chasing a squirrel- a squirrel that was covered in fleas and maggots and the like – and the squirrel was trying to take refuge in the bed with her, and so I was preventing it from doing so. But of course you would never convince her of that.

But anyway, I was up with the alarm at 06:20 and went through the usual morning ritual, followed by a nice hot shower. Need to be fresh for my journey back home.

Having nipped out for a baguette, I made my butties for the trip and then made ready to leave. And then having to go back for the hat that I had forgotten.

While I was in the office and seeing as I know my plans (or, rather, Alison’s plans) for the next month, I booked my room. Appointment is on the Thursday so I’ll be arriving on the Wednesday, staying Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night (I’m determined to get to see the railway museum in Schaerbeek) and then back home on the Saturday.

At the station I bought my ticket for Brussels and stepped out of the ticket office to find a Brussels train already at the platform. And so I leapt aboard. And wasn’t that a mistake?

It’s a Bank Holiday in Belgium today and so many people are bridging the gap over to the weekend and having four days by the seaside on the Costa Stella. And the train that I had leapt aboard was the express to Blankenberge. So standing room only, I’m afraid.

But at least I was in Brussels with plenty of time (like two hours) to spare before my train; And the time would have dragged had I not found an abandoned Sudoku book with a couple of games still uncompleted.

Up on the platform I took my … errr … station where the noticeboard indicated that my carriage would stop, but the blasted thing shot past me without stopping and I had to run halfway down one of the longest platforms in Belgium.

It seems that instead of a 16-car unit, it was only an 8-car unit today – the bit that comes down from Amsterdam and Antwerp.

And packed too. It took ages to find my seat and then there was a regular change of companion until we finally settled on a young Dutch girl with a 7-month old baby. That kind of thing does my self-esteem a pile of good, I’ll tell you.

Across Paris with little or no effort at all, and then joining the crowds of people waiting at the Gare Montparnasse, where I ate my butties.

The train to Granville was heaving too and I had a fit of confusion, taking four attempts to find my seat, disturbing a couple of piles of people in the process.

But eventually I found the correct seat and settled down for the uneventful journey home. So uneventful in fact that I slept for much of the journey home, despite having the headphones on and listening to stuff on the laptop.

All of this travel is clearly getting to me

The walk back up here was likewise uneventful which suited me fine and it didn’t take too long to be back. And I seem to have brought a streaming headcold with me yet again.

And remind me not to travel on a Bank Holiday ever again.

Monday 7th May 2018 – EVEN AS WE SPEAK …

… there’s a pot of lentils, carrots and peas simmering away in the slow cooker. That’s for tea tomorrow night with some onions, garlic and tinned potatoes because, believe me, tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

And just for a change, there’s some good news. And regular readers of this rubbish will know that it’s a long time since I’ve had any. I was checking the route of the 712 bus – like you do … "like one of you does" – ed … to find that its final stopping point is … errr … Brussels North Station.

So why get out at Lille, struggle up the road to Lille Europe TGV station, buy a ticket, wait for a train etc when I can be half-way there in what I hope will be a comfortable seat? So first thing this morning I had another attack at the website and now I’m booked all the way through.

The bus arrives in Brussels at 21:00 (in principle) and I’ve still 20 or so miles to go. So heaven alone knows what time I’ll be arriving. But at least I’ll be sitting down all the way and not having to struggle across Paris with my suitcase.

Even better, talking to Liz and discussing my trip and bewailing the bus issue to Avreanches from here, and she has volunteered to drive me. Isn’t it nice to have some really good friends? As I have said … "on many occasions" – ed … I don’t have many friends, but it’s quality that counts not quantity, and I have the best friends in the world.

Getting out of bed was difficult this morning at 06:30 but I did manage it. And after a leisurely start to the day I had a little relax and then set to work.

I’m having some kind of fridge issues right now. It seems that somewhere on my travels I had left the freezer compartment door open and it had frosted up so I couldn’t open it. No more ice cubes. So it’s high time that I defrosted it.

And here’s my patent method for defrosting the fridge –

Unplug the fridge
empty the aforementioned
put aforementioned in bath
make a coffee

For a change I walked down into town at lunchtime to buy one of the baguettes that I like. And having made my butties I went back outside to sit on the wall. It’s been a good while since I’ve done that, but it really was a beautiful day today, although the sea mist meant that vision was somewhat restricted.

This afternoon I had a little … errr … relax followed by a session on the guitar and a good chat with Ingrid. She’s feeling a little better at the moment and that is certainly good news.

Tea was a stuffed pepper seeing as I had a pepper left, and then my walk around the walls.

Just at the right time too, because I was able to watch yet another glorious sunset. So glorious in fact that I have set up this photo as my desktop wallpaper for the next while or so

We’ve been having quite a few of these just recently as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Makes a change from the miserable, gloomy winter and spring that we’ve had to date.br clear=”both”>

Not being in a very great hurry, I stayed out there for quite a while and was rewarded for my patience by catching the final glimmer of the sun as it slowly sank into the sea.

And this turned out nicely too, didn’t it?

There’s no doubt whatever that I’ve picked an absolutely beautiful spot to come for my retirement, here on this rock overlooking the sea.

But sounds of raucous laughter away in the distance told me that I wasn’t the only one out enjoying the sunset.

There was some movement on one of the small beaches away in the distance and as I still had the big zoom lens fitted, I could take a photo and see what was going on.

A huge, heavy telephoto lens that’s difficult to hold steady and in the low light of the evening on a long exposure means that it’s slightly blurred, but even so, you can still see the crowds of people down there.

I was half-expecting a blast of “Hurry On Sundown” to come filtering up to me.

I’m back in the apartment now, and once my lentils are cooked (and they take a while) I’ll be making my tea for tomorrow night and then going to bed.

As I said, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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