Tag Archives: place d’armes

Wednesday 20th December 2017 – IT HASN’T …

… become any easier or better today. In fact, I’ve probably hit rock-bottom today.

The nadir of it all was when I didn’t eveb have the strength to take the top off a bottle of pop. That’s enough to make anyone feel ill.

I had a nuit blanche last night, which is hardly a surprise seeing the amount of sleep that I had yesterday. I cancelled the alarms but even so, I was still awake at alarm-going-off time.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I left my bed. I took my quilt and pillow with me and moved to install myself on the sofa as soon as I had taken my medication.

I had a slight interruption though with a major attack of nausea. That was the worst one to date, and it floored me completely. I should have gone out later to pick up the medication that had been ordered yesterday, but there was no chance of that the way I was feeling.

Instead, I’ve spent all day on the sofa asleep. Although I did manage to force down a bowl of porridge during te course of the morning.

One thing that I have done which hasn’t helped matters at all is that I’ve coughed so much that I’ve pulled a muscle in my chest. And I’m in agony whenever I cough.

US Granville were playing their final match of the season tonight and I had every intention of being there. But no chance of that. I’m going to bed – to sleep for ever I hope.

I wish that I was dead.

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Tuesday 19th December 2017 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… just about the worst day of my illness so far.

I’d managed something of a reasonable sleep too, and even been on my travels again. I was back in an office where I had worked at one time and I suddenly realised that I was now over retirement age and still working – and no-one had said anything. I therefore decided to hand in my notice, to take effect in 6 weeks time at the end of May. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is something of a recurring theme in my nocturnal rambles.

The alarms went off at the usual time but it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of my stinking pit. I managed to take my medicaments but didn’t have breakfast. And if I’m off my food, you’ll know that things are serious.

Later in the morning I had a phone call. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago the Bank Manager had told me that there was a form that needed signing. And so he phoned me to arrange an appointment.

I need to go to the Bank about my missing cards, and I also need to go to the pharmacie for some more medication. So I struggled into the bathroom and plucked up the courage to have a shower. And I felt a little better after that. But only a little.

And so I braved the outdoors. At least it was a bright, sunny day even if it was cold and I made it to the bank. And to the boulangerie, and to the pharmacie. And I have to go out tomorrow too becausehe didn’t have all of my medication and needed to order some.

Back here, I had a hot blackcurrant and lemon drink, and then I was stark out on the sofa until … errr … 20:00.

However, I had awoken at some point, and even managed to eat one of the sandwiches left over from yetserday. And later, I had a packet of crisps and some peanuts.

So things might slowly be improving. Mind you, we mustn’t count our chickens and, to be honest, they couldn’t be much worse.

I’m off to bed, and I hope that I can sleep, and I hope that tomorrow will be better.

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Monday 18th December 2017 – TODAY …

… wasn’t much beter than yesterday, unfortunately.

It started off well enough though, with me being wide-awake at 04:35 which is no real surprise given the amount of sleep that I had had yesterday.

Nevertheless, I didn’t move out of my bed until the alarm went off at 06:00, and then after breakfast I managed to find some little enthusiasm from somewhere.

But you can tell that I’m not myself at all though. I couldn’t finish all my lunch and I’ve had no tea either. And if I’m off my food you know that things aren’t right.

By 16:00 I’d had enough though and I fetched the quilt cover and pillow. And there I lay on the sofa until about 20:15.

I’d been on my travels too. During the night I’d been to MoT Caliburn in Belgium. The control was in two parts, and he passed the first part. There was someone dispensing diesel out of a big jerry-can and I managed to negotiate 5 gallons. From there, I had to go into another room for the second part of the check, and it was another large room in this filthy, dirty warehouse type of place, full of old cars. Nothing moved for half an hour so I went for a wander down. I found that I had been waiting in the wrong room because everything else was proceeding quite normally in a different room.

But I’d been on my travels during the evening too. I was on one of my trips to the USA and I’d been for a meal. It was now late but still quite warm and light. My route home took me past the local girls’ college where the female baseball team pitchers were practising. The field was quite rough so the ball was bouncing haphazardly and that made it interesting. I was lying on the field watching, next to a young black girl, who suddenly realised that she had lost the loaf of bread she had bought. So we had a good look for it, but couldn’t find it. I went into the bar to buy a soft drink – which was delicious – and then took it outside to carry on watching in the evening sun. I heard the PA announcer having fun with her announcements for student messages, and the subject of accommodation for hire came up. This gave me an idea about how I could have some even better holidays so I made a mental note.

Now I’m off to bed – another early night. I have to go into town tomorrow so I really do hope that I’m feeling better.

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Sunday 17th December 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… horrible day today.

Easily the worst that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

With it Sunday and being a lie-in, I was disappointed to be awake at 05:45. And so I tried my best to go back to sleep, despite a nip to the bathroom and a bad attack of cramp on the way.

Despite all of this, I must have been to sleep for I was on my travels. Wandering around the streets of New York City where, instead of parking meters, there were lockable storage boxes where you could leave your things while you were walking about.

But when I finally crawled out of bed at 09:00 I was feeling totally awful. It took me a while to eat my breakfast and then I had to have a sit-down.

I couldn’t stay seated for long – there’s a few things that I need for food and the supermarket in town is open on a Sunday morning so regardless of how I was feeling, I went shopping.

Down at the Coccinelle I bought what I needed and then, seeing as there was a brocante going on, I went through for a brows. But there was nothing at all worth my while.

It was a struggle back up the hill to here, and after a hot blackcurrant, I sat down on the sofa and crashed out.An hour later, I was awake, and still not feeling good, so I fetched a pillow and the quilt from the bedroom an sorted myself out on the sofa.

And there I stayed, flat-out until 20:00. I was feeling dreadful.

It’s 22:00 now and I’m slowly feeling a little better. I’m going to bed anyway now and seeing if I can have an early night. I’ll take a film with me anyway to make sure I go off to sleep.

And I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

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Saturday 16th December 2017 – AND AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said – “there’s one thing that I want to tell you, man, and that it’s goof to be back home”.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t make it, because I didn’t have a very good day.

Sherlock Holmes – or rather Arthur Wontner – did the trick last night. I managed about 2 minutes of the film before I was away with the fairies. All of my walking – 155% of my daily exercise – had seen to that.

Mind you – if I do lay my hands on the person who decided that it would be fun to slam all of the doors in the building at 04:18 this morning he would be someone else who will be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

None of that prevented me from going off on my travels though. I was in some kind of warehouse plece with a few other people chasing after a long-haired cat – a black mangy type of animal – with the intention of stroking it. But it disappeared from my view and I couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to be chasing and found myself chasing after a large wasp. Just imagine trying to give that a stroke!

This morning I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a bad attack of nausea that made me quite unsteady on my feet. But I managed to calm myself down intime to go searching for a bakkerei. I trawled the streets for 15 minutes before I found a supermarket, and only realised on the way back that had I turned right out of the alley instead of left, the first door in that direction would have sold me a baguette.

I made my butties for the journey but had run out of time so no shower – I can wait until I return home for that.

The train to Brussels was pretty uneventful but the bad news there was that to catch the earlier train would have cost me an extra €46:00. That’s not part of the plan at all so I sat down quietly in a very cold, draughty waiting area and read my book for a while.

The Thalys was one of the older generation of trains with everything manual and I couldn’t make the wi-fi work. But that’s not the end of the world at all really. I have plenty of other things to do.

Apart from visiting the bathroom I slept almost all of the way to Paris, and then I managed to cross Paris on the metro without any incident – and isn’t that a change for just recently?

The walk down the platform to Vaugirard was pretty uneventful, except that some woman was urging her mother on, in the most ungracious terms, to hurry for the train. Mummy was about 80 and so this situation brought back some memories from a previous existence.

They missed their train but there was another one in half an hour so they had to run all the way back to the ticket office to swap tickets and then run all the way back.

The look of despair on this old woman’s face was something that I shan’t ever forget.

But Vaugirard was packed out completely. I’ve never seen it so busy. Apparently it’s school holidays starting today. I grabbed a seat in the waiting room next to a nice girl who was going to Granville from Martinique for Christmas – the last seat available. We had quite a chat and I had to fight people out of her seat when she nipped to the bathroom.

The train was packed to the gunwhales with people and once again, I slept most of the way back. But on the station I bumped into my girl from the waiting room and I wished her a Merry .

Then began the long trudge back here.

It was cold in here, which is no surprise, but I had the heating on full blast while I watched Bangor City beat Cefn Druids on the laptop. The little laptop because the big one decided that it would do an upgrade as soon as I switched it on, and that took hours.

Tea was once more out of a tin, and then I went for a walk – for no good reason other than the fact that I was at 89% of my daily activity. I might as well wind it up to 100% – as it has been for every day this week.

Now it’s an early night. i’ll watch a film too. That seems to be working well right now.

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Wednesday 13th December 2017 – “SMILE”, THEY SAID …

… “things could be worse”

And so i smiled. And sure enough, things WERE worse. In fact, they are just about as bad as they can be right now. It’s Friday 13th, for heaven’s sake, when things usually go wrong. But not for me. I’m a Wednesday’s child, and Wednesday’s child is full of woe. And there is no-one more woeful than me just at the moment.

At least I was out of bed early. That’s the good news. But from there, it went steadily downhill. The torrential downpour outside with me having to walk all the way to the station dragging my suitcase behind me really put the dampers on everything.

But I had a good breakfast, tidied the apartment a little, emptied the rubbish, and set off through the rain.

Up to now, this was a reasonable day. And the train journey to Paris was quite uneventful. We actually pulled into Montparnasse, right by the entry down into the Metro. Saved me a pile of time, that did.

Down in the bowels, I bought two Metro tickets. I’m usually pushed for time on the way back, so I buy my ticket in advance. And then down into a crowded metro and into an even more crowded train.

Alighting from the train and going up to the barrier, that was when disaster struck me. On Saturday it was my telephone that had disappeared. Today, it’s my wallet. With all of my money, my bank cards, my driving licence and everything else.

Somewhere in the Metro that had gone for a burton.

And so there I was, stranded in Paris with no money, no bank cards, no means of support – you don’t go far on €0:46. There’s a secret pile of cash at home – the ‘fighting fund’ for emergencies – but it’s no good there.

I filled out a report for the police and they gave me the Credit Agricole’s cardstop number. So I was able to do that.

And lucky I, having kicked my phone network provider around the head and having made the internet on it work, I was able to track down the Cardstop numbers for the Fortis Bank and the RBS and stop those too. Luckily I was quicker on the phone than the new possessor of my wallet is, because no payments had been made.

All of this made me late and I had to dash for the train, and luckily I just about made it.

On the TGV there’s internet so I tried to contact Alison. But my laptop chose that moment to do an upgrade (and while it was at it, it upgraded my web browser so I’ve now lost the =.ftp extension there too).

But having persevered last night with the mobile phone I had eventually made my Social network register itself (and it took hours too) so with the slowest connection I have ever seen (it’s quite an old ‘phone) I could finally contact the outside world.

But Alison had by now gone back to work and had switched off her phone.

So there I was with no cards and no money and no way of getting from Brussels to Leuven.

But I’m nothing if not resourceful. The train docks at 15:47 and there’s a branch of my bank down the road 5 minutes away that’s open until 16:00.

And so I was first off the train and down the ramp.

And I’d actually gone halfway out of the station before I realised that I hadleft my jacket on the train – with my camera and a few other things in the pocket.

And so I raced back, and just about caught the train before it pulled out to Amsterdam. And in a frightful panic, retrieved my raincoat.

The Bank closes at 16:00, and I had my foot in the door at 15:59. It’s a good job that I had made a declaration to the police because, armed with that and a passport, I could be issued with a temporary Bank card.

It’s only valid for a short while and there are limits with what you can do with it, but anything is better than nothing right now.

Back through the driving rain to the station, and armed with a ticket I could board the train. And then from the station at Leuven a walk through the driving rain to my flat-hotel at the back of the nick. Luckily I’d paid that in advance.

Later on in the evening I went out to do a little shopping. And the rain, if anything, was even worse. I might have felt better had I not had to buy my toiletries, seeing as how I seem to have forgotten to bring them.

But at least I can eat – and the microwaved potatoes with spicy beans were delicious.

But to add insult to injury, the battery on the camera is flat and I’ve forgotten the charger.

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s just not your day?

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Tuesday 12th December 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

I’ve walked into town three times today. No wonder that I’m exhausted.

Mind you, the up side to this is that I managed my 100% daily exercise total without any difficulty at all and as I sit here on the sofa I’m at 110% – and that’s without going for a walk this evening either.

Last night was an early night and I slept right through to the alarm which was very nice. And I didn’t beat the second alarm out of bed either which was rather depressing.

And just for a change I remembered to eat breakfast. And I followed that by a shower and also SHOCK! HORROR! a lap of the washing machine with the pile of clothes that has built up over the last couple of weeks.

Once that was organised I hit the streets and headed for the office of my mobile phone supplier. And there, I was asked if I had my passport with me.

So, back to the apartment and the passport. You would have thought that after all of this time living here in France (2006 on a permanent basis and a considerable number of years previously as a temporary resident) I would have remembered that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without “vos papiers“.

Back at the mobile phone supplier, and a long wait to be served. But eventually I was issued with a new SIM card that I could fit into th old phone that I bought in 2014.

Following on that, I went to the POlice Station. I’d remembered to find the identity papers of the telephone that was “lost” and now that I have my phone back up and working, I could give them a contact number.

As I returned back here, the fire brigade were working on the building across the car park. I told you yetserday that the hurricane had loosened all of the zinc guttering and shuttering on the roof. They were busy making it all safe.

After lunch I hung up the washing over the radiator in the other end of the room and started to assemble a few things that I need to take with me tomorrow. I had to configure the phone too but the down side of this phone is that there’s not enough memory to run the Apps that I need to run. No idea how I can work around this. If only I could download them to un off tSD card that is in there.

But I did notice that the telephone wasn’t connecting to the network. It was recognising everyhing as was working from the WIFI modem, but not making a connection.

And so back into town again.

The girl had a fiddle around and despite her saying that it must be my phone, my SIM card didn’t work on her phone either and she did something on the computer there. Maybe they forgot to reconnect the line or something.

Picling up a baguette from the posh bakers to make my butties for the journey tomorrow, I returned home. I’ve done enough for today. A relax, and tea was out of a tin.

Instead of going for a walk I did a little tidying and cleaning. And now I’m having an early night. I have a train to catch tomorrow of course.

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Monday 11th December – WE’RE HAVING …

… a disaster here right now.

On the point of going off to bed last night, I looked for the mobile phone to put under the pillow to awaken me in the morning.

But no trace.

I rang the number but I couldn’t hear the ringing, so I went downstairs to tip out Caliburn to see if it was there. But no trace either. And so I ended up by sorting out the old phone that I used before I got into smartphones, and that fired up okay. At least I had an alarm.

All of this at 01:00 too.

Last night was really a bad night too. I was still awake at 04:30 so it was something of a struggle to rouse myself when the alarm went off. Down in Caliburn at 06:15 to see if I could hear the second alarm, but no such luck.

And so I turned out the apartment making more of a mess that it was before, and although I found my missing notebook (which is always good news) no trace of the phone.

The last time that I remember havong it was at the football match, so at 09:30 I set off to retrace my steps from Saturday. No luck on the roadside, no luck at the Mairie, which deals with the fottball ground issues, and so I went to the police and reported it missing.

My route took me past the railway station where I picked up my tickets on Saturday night, and no luck at the football ground, although I did meat Johann Gallon, the coach of the football club, and we had a chat.

What didn’t help matters was that not only did we have a driving rainstorm, we had a howling gale too and it was really uncomfortable. But I did get to meet a helpful chemist who not only pointed me in the direction of a good doctor, told me that he was authorised to dispense Belgian prescriptions.

I’ve invented a new drink too. Fed up far the moment with coffee, I bought some blackcurrant syrup and I’ve been drinking this with hot water and a dash of lemon juice. And it’s very more-ish. And so I’ve had no coffee all day (and no breakfast either)

This afternoon I had a good sleep to catch up with what I missed, and then went for a walk. But I missed the high tide so I’ll have to try again tomorrow. But all of the zinc guttering and facing on the roof of the building opposite is now flapping about in the wind.

Another sleep and then I spent the rest of the afternoon (such as it was) obliterating duplicate radio programmes from my laptop.

For tea I had potatoes with the beans and vegan sausages left over from the other night, and then went out for a walk. But I was blown back inside.

So I hope that I’ll have a better night tonight and I’ll be able to organise my telephone tomorrow. I can’t be doing with this Monday closing.

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Sunday 10th December 2017 – NOW THAT WAS …

… an exciting football match.

A quick review of the Manche District football website this morning revealed that USM Donville, bottom of the District League Division 3 without a single point, were at home this afternoon against ELS Carpiquet, next-to-bottom with just one point.

The match was to be played on Donville’s seaside pitch in a howling gale (yes, the wind is back), and so that sounded like something too good to miss.

So grabbing my thermos flask (because there’s no pie-hut there) I set off.

They were right about the howling gale, although no-one had mentioned the squally showers (luckily there’s a good raincoat in Caliburn).

And as for the game, it was better than I had expected it to be, even though thewind spoiled the action somewhat. Carpiquet were in fact the better side – more organised and more skilful on the ball, and I bet that, just like me, they were surprisd to find themselves 2-0 down at half-time.

One goal was from a breakaway upfield, and the second was a rather unfortunate wind-assisted goal. A high ball forward, the keeper came out with plenty of time to clear it, but the ball hung up in the wind and dropped shrt. With the keeper miles off hi line in no-man’s land (or “no person’s land” for those of you who remember the legendary Turdi de Hatred) an advancing Donville player was lucky enough to reach the ball first.

Carpiquet pulled one back later in the game, which was no susprise, but they couldn’t push on to find an equaliser. So Donville earned their first points this afternoon.

I’d had a good night last night. Off on my travels down some muddy track on an old industrial estate, where there were several ERF B10 lorries in various states of dismantlement. Not an unusual sight for someone brought up in South Cheshire, you might think. But this was in Canada. And later on, some girl was showing me her red Cortina 2000E – the inner sills, outer sills and floor shuts were rotted away and she wanted to repair them. Having repaired dozens of these (and dismantled hundreds) I started to explain it to her, but she seemed completely disinterested. That surprised me, because to do it properly is a rather complicated process.

No chance of my leaving the bed at 06:45 or whatever stupid time it was when I awoke. 0p:00 was much more like it. A late breakfast and a good relax – what more does anyone want on a Sunday?

After lunch I went off to the football, and when I arrived back here my little furry friend Gribuoille, the long-haired ginger cat, waw waiting on his windowsill. He had a good stroke.

Tea was a vegan pizza as usual, and then a walk in the dark around the headland, just for a change.

Tomorrow I have to do some shopping – I forgot the tomatoes at the weekend.

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Saturday 9th December 2017 – YOU MISSED …

… even more excitement this evening.

Walking past the roundabout at the top of the hill this evening and I heard a crash. A scooter went one way, its rider went another and his artificial leg (for he was a unijambiste) did a Tony B Liar and went a third way.

It seemed that some woman had failed to stop at the entry to the roundabout and consequently despatched the aforementioned into the bushes.

I helped him to his feet, someone else screwed his leg back on and we all got him and his bike to the side of the road. He was more shaken than stirred but once I was assured that he was OK, I left him to get on with things and I went on for the football.

I’d had a reasonable night’s sleep for a change ad I’d been on my travels too.

We started off in some kind of theatre where there was some entertainment going on, provided by a group of kids. However the star of the show, a little blonde-haired girl, was missing and this started a frantic hunt. This led us into a kind of pre-school nursery school, the type that was intended for the sons of noblemen rather than the likes of us, and if ever I commercialise the little game that the kids were playing that helped them learn the names of the Greek philosophers, I shall clean up.

After breakfast I had to wait for my medication to work and it took so long this morning that I forewent my shower. I’d miss the bread in LIDL if I hang around too long.

And this would have been the cheapest shop yet had it not been for one or two special purchases. I’m going away on Wednesday morning as you know so I don’t need much. Just a couple of things in LIDL and a couple more in LeClerc.

NOZ had a couple of little bits and pieces but nowhere had a container to keep my Christmas cake. Not a large cake tin, and not a large plastic container either. I forget how many shops I went into (and some of them twice too) without success. In the end, I bought a plastic storage bin and sealed the cake in with clingfilm. I’m hoping that Leuven might come up with something suitable next week.

But I did find a new suitcase. You may recall that in Oostende a while ago my small wheeled suitcase gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a temporary one. That was a cheap and nasty thing, and not suitable for long-term use, so I’ve bought a small solid wheeled one for my trips to Leuven.

I’d planned to stop off on the way back to phptograph the storm breaking on the sea wall at high tide in the daylight, and so as you might expect, the wind has dropped today and everything has calmed down.

After lunch I crashed out for an hour or so, and then walked off up town to the football, stopping for the scooter incident on the way.

US Granville were playing St Pryve St Hilaire FC this evening, in front of a small crowd of just 515 people.

Although Granville were a little more focused this week, they still didn’t look all that impressive. They had more of the play but St Pryve St Hilaire FC looked more dangerous on the break. In fact, the Granville centre-forward ploughed a very lonely furrow up front without very much help from his colleagues.

St Pryve St Hilaire FC scored from a breakaway, shrugging off a couple of lightweight, ineffective challenges, and the equaliser from Granville was a ball over the top of the defence with a midfielder running on.

Mind you, we could have had several more goals but both goalkeepers were in inspired form this evening making several excellent saves, including the Grancille keeper making a marvellous double-save at point-blank range.

As the rain started to fall, in the last 15 minutes; Granville came to life again just like last match, but couldn’t find the killer thrust to win the game.

On the way back, I called in at the railway station to pick up my tickets for Wednesday, and then went for a wander to take the photos of the Christmas lights in the town. And I would have been out much longer had the weather been kinder.

Tea was potatoes, beans and vegan sausages done in the microwave, Delcious it was too. Now I’m going to have an early night and a nice lie-in tomorrow.

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Friday 8th December 2017 – PHEW!

This weather is getting worse and worse.

Tonight, going out for my evening walk around the walls, I was the only one out. And that’s no surprise because I nearly wasn’t. There’s a little sally-port out onto the cliffs onto a footpath that I follow, and I had extreme difficulty in forcing myself through the aperture with the wind blowing full in my face.

It’s a long time since I’ve seen a wind quite like this.

Mind you it’s a shame that the tide wasn’t in. Watching the waves crashing onto the sea wall would have been impressive.

It took a while to go off to sleep last night but once I’d gone I’d really gone until the alarm went off. And I know that I was out and about during the night, but as soon as I awoke it all disappeared in a puff.

I’d switched the heat off in here before going to bed last night so it was cold this morning. And it took a while for the place to heat up>. And while it was doing it I was cracking on with my photos. I’ve searched through about half of them and deleted a huge pile of duplicates, some triplicates and even, shame as it is to say it, some quadruplicates.

Another thing that I’ve done is to make a huge back-up. Having freed off plenty of space on this external drive, I have the space to move things about. And a back-up is important. I haven’t done this for a while and I ned to keep it up to date.

This means that the photos that I took recently ae now saved onto the external drive, and as I have an old laptop with an *.ftp program on it, I can now upload them to the web. But having had a good search around on the internet, I am not the only one by any means who is dismayed by my web browser’s decision to discontinue the *.ftp extension.

Despite the weather I went out for my afternoon walk. Just three other people out there being tossed around in the gale. But it was so clear out there that Jersey was the clearest that I have ever seen it.

And there was a famous storm raging out in the bay, and with the sun streaming through some small gaps in the clouds it was all looking quite beautiful.

There had been a change of shipping too. Normandy Trader had gone but Grima was back.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, with vegetables and rice. And good it was too.

And here’s some disappointing news. As a reward for beating Vitré in the Cup the other day, US Granville have drawn Bordeaux – one of the best teams in the whole of France. And it’s at home too, but being played on a weekend when I’m not here.

how desperate is that?

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Thursday 7th December 2017 – WE HAVE …

… a new visitor in the harbour today.

Thrashing her way into harbour today came Normandy Trader. She’s not a sister ship to Shetland Trader and Islay Trader but she is in fact a converted landing craft of the type that we have seen on several occasions in different places around the world.

She’s not by any means new to Granville – in fact she works a shuttle to here from Jersey on a regular basis just like Grima, and so I’m surprised that I’ve never seen here here before.

But here you can see her smashing her way through the storm into the harbour. It really is wicked outside and the spray is flying everywhere as the waves crash into the concrete sea walls.

The wind has turned round and is now blowing from the north-west, and that’s right into the harbour mouth. No wonder that Normandy Trader is making heavy weather of it. Landing craft aren’t designed for conditions like this, especially with a gross tonnage of just 73 tonnes. She was being tossed around like a cork out there.

Last night was a reasonable night for me. Although it took me a while to go off to sleep, I was well away. I somehow missed the first alarm, although I must have responded as the phone was in my hand when I awoke, not under the pillow where it usually is.

But anyway, the second alarm of Billy Cotton and his “Wakey waaaaaaa ….KEYYYYYY” took me completely by surprise.

After breakfast and a little rest, I had a shower and then braved the wind and rain up to LIDL.

Had I still been living on the farm, I would have bought quite a bit of stuff from their special offers this week. But with having changed my lifestyle considerably, there’s nothing that I really need.

But had I been Rhys, I would have been spending my money there. He’s trying to organise some interior lighting for his bus, and they had the rows of 12-volt LED striplights that I like so much. 212 lumens, which is the equivalent of about 18 watts of incandescent power, but drawing 0.1 watt. And you can link them together to give you a running strip light.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a pile back down on the farm and use them as work lights over the work benches. And they are great.

I walked back here in the rain and was almost trampled to death in the rush of a pile of little kids descending from a school bus. And back here, I had a coffee and a … errr … relax.

After lunch I braved the wind and gales and went for a walk around the headland. And I was the only person out there. And that’s no surprise given the weather.

Tonight I went out for my other walk around the walls – and I’ve done 105% of my day’s target according to the fitbit.

The wind has changed further round now and so I stood for hours on the headland watching the waves down below crash over the sea wall and onto the promenade. It’s an amazing spectacle, the power of nature out there.

Rosemary rang up and we put the world to rights for an hour, and I booked my trip to Leuven for next week too. I’ll be staying at the flathotel at the back of the prison.

Tea was steaeed vegetables and vegan sausages in vegan cheese sauce – and delicious it was too.

So seeing that I have no plans for tomorrow, I’m going to have a nice quiet day of relaxing and organising myself for Leuven

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Wednesday 6th December 2017 – HE WAS RIGHT …

… the skipper of the Grima.

He was rushing to get away last night because he reckoned that the weather was going to turn today. And when I went out for my walk this afternoon, turned it certainly had. It wasn’t quite the violent wind that blew me back into the apartment the other day, but it wasn’t far off.

And furthermore, instead of blowing from the north, it was blowing from the south-west, so it didn’t hit me until I’d rounded the headland by the lighthouse. It was so violent that it was no surprise that there were no more than four of five of us out for a stroll. I even had to find a new way back to the apartment to avoid the searing blast of wind up the alleyway.

This evening, if anything, the wind was worse. It was okay walking around underneath the north wall of the Medieval town, but once I rounded the walls to the south side, the blast was phenomenal. If it keeps up like this we’ll all know about it. It’s no surprise that there was only me and one other person out there tonight. Not even a cat to stroke.

But apart from that, I had a better night last night. I was away on my travels during the night – trying to find some second-hand tyres for my Ford Cortina. A Charity Shop came up with the goods. They had two at £10:00 each so I paid up happily – but was disappointed when I saw them because there wasn’t much tread on them. And by the time that I had paid for the fitting and balancing and the like, I wasn’t getting a good deal at all.
A little later I was walking along a mothballed railway line which was maintained in good condition with the buildings in good repair. The thing that struck me though was that every mile or so there was a platelayer’s telephone in an old red BT telephone box.

After breakfast I had a quiet day with these photos – slowly whittling them down into manageable numbers and deleting the duplicates, of which there are plenty. And going for walkies of course.

Tea was the remains of Sunday’s vegan meat loaf, with potatoes carrots peas and broccoli done in the microwave vegetable steamer. And that worked well enough, especially with the gravy made from the water.

So thnight I’ll have an early night. I need to be on form tomorrow as I have to make my travel arrangements for next week.

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Tuesday 5th December 2017 – I HAD A …

… phone call this morning. Would I like to go for a coffee this afternoon?

Clearly, something is up.

I’d had a miserable night last night – awake at 04:20 with a dreadful itch that I couldn’t scratch and it was so annoying. But I’d been on my travels too and it was rather depressing. A friend of mine – a woman – had died and someone else hand hanged her in the bathroom. And there she had hung for a couple of weeks, slowly decaying. I knew that I had to dispose of the body via an undertaker but the longer I left it, the more complicated it became of course. There was no doubt that she had died of natural causes but this prevarication is yet another story of my life, isn’t it? I’d painted myself into a corner for no good reason.

After breakfast I had things to do – liek work on this enormous pile of photos and finding that many of them are duplicates – not that that’s much of a surprise. But I’ll plug away at them until they are all properly filed.

After lunch, I had a shower and then set off down to the docks, and the Grima in fact. Her master wanted to see me.

I helped the crew (of two) load the ship, had a good chat and was given a conducted tour of the ship.

The engine room is beautiful – two old Kelvin diesels, long stroke, slow revving, with plenty of roo to move aroud them; everything eccessible, and even a well underneath so you can drop out the conrods and pistons without dismanting the engine too much.

It’s a marine engineer’s dream and a far cry from this modern hi-tech stuff. You could dismantle this engine and repair it in mid-ocean without any problem at all.

But downstairs in the hold, around a coffee,, we got down to business. The guy who does the running around, fetching and carrying for the Grima, is getting more work than he used to, and so he’s not willing to drive around picking up parcels and the odd pallet, unless he charges the standard 25-tonne lorry rate. Even for an envelope.

That van that I was telling you about the other week that came on the Grima, they have dropped that here to go fetching and carrying the small packets but it’s not suitable for large stuff and they don’t often have time. Accordingly, they need someone with a large van – Transit-size in fact.

And so we had a lengthy chat about this and that, and there might be some developments on this score in the future. Who knows?

For tea this evening, I made a potato and lentil curry. And seeing that it fell short (like last week’s) I lengthened it with a tin of runner beans. A couple of weeks ago, NOZ had a vegetable steamer for a microwave oven. Nothing like as solid as a Tupperware one, but it was only €3:50 so I bought it. And it cooked my potatoes really well. I could be onto a winner with this.

I’ve had my walk too, and so I’ll try for an early night. And we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

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Monday 4th December 2017 – AFTER LAST NIGHT …

… ‘s early night, I managed to eat the second alarm out of bed.

I’d been on a real mega-ramble too, but it disappeared out of my head the moment that I awoke.

Despite the early start, it was a late breakfast. I’ve been making some room on a portable hard drive so that I could extract the (hundreds of thousands of) photos that I had found the other day. I made a start on copying them but the old hard drive is pretty flaky and kept on cutting out so I ended up having to do it manually in batches.

And so it was a 10:00 breakfast.

After that, I started to review the images and found some real gems from years ago, but of course not the ones for which I’m searching. There must be another hard drive somewhere, although I’ve no idea where.

The late breakfast meant that I wasn’t feeling like any lunch. A bag of crisps kept me going. No point in stuffing myself unnecessarily. But you can tell that I’m not too well when I’m off my food.

Nevertheless I still went for my walk around the headland. And I’m glad that I did too because we had another visitor in the harbour.

Ship of the Day today is the Islay Trader, sister ship to the Shetland Trader that was in here the other week. She’s come in here from Rye in Sussex, but I didn’t notice any piles of gravel about.

She’s something of an unlucky ship too, having a history or running aground here and there.

After a little snooze this evening I made myself a pizza, which wasn’t as nice as the previous ones because I’m trying a different tomato sauce which isn’t as good, I reckon.

And then I went for my walk.

You may remember that the other day I talked about the street lights and illuminations. Tonight, I remembered the camera so that I could photograph them.

But I still can’t upload them right now, although I do know why. While my laptopn was doing an upgrade, I switched on the old one – and that immediately performed an upgrade of my web browser. And the *.ftp program disappeared from there too. So I tracked down the program, and tried to upload it. But it informed me that “this is not compatible with this version of …” … my web browser.

So I’ll have to track down another one.

And Islay Trader had cleared off too. She’s heading for Whitstable, which is a surprise.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. I need it.

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