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

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

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

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

It was simply my mistake in buying it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not particularly welcoming, unfortunately. So I moved on.

But not too far though.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday 18th October 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another important thing was accomplished too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m still not sure what they are doing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then off for my walk around the walls.

There are tons of photos though.

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

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

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

fishing boat port de granville habour manche normandy france

Port Foulon The southern part of the town of Granville

The Cale de Hacqueville

The Beach at Carolles.

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

The Beach at Carolles.

Jullouville

Kairon Plage

St Pair sur Mer

Chateau de la Crete

Granville – Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais

Marité

Fishing boat in the port de Granville awaiting the tide.

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

A rather over-exposed photo of the moon.

The Place d’Armes and the medieval town walls

Moonlight over the Baie de Granville

Another over-exposed moon shot with one of the planets

Pizza van, Place Cambernon

Wednesday 17th October 2018 – JUST BY WAY …

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see them for yourself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s not bad at all for 17 kilometres

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

north end ile de chausey semaphore granville manche normandy france

north end of ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

boats around marker light granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 16th October 2018 – THIS MORNING …

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

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

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

And how all of that makes me sick.

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

And then they complain about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that’s not all either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

la granvillaise sailing ship port de granville harbour manche normandy france

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo cropped and enlarged.

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

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

Rue Notre Dame

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

Fishing boat leaving the harbour in the dark.

Boats in the outer harbour

The Place d’Armes

The rear of the Place d’Armes

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Montéé de St Jean

The rue St Jean and the Montee de St Jean

Monday 15th October 2018 – BACK INTO …

… the routine again. I don’t think!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Moon

Bréville sur Mer and St Martin de Bréhal.

Place d’Armes

Plat Gousset

rue General Patton

Place Marechal Foch

Plat Gousset

Rue Georges Clemenceau

rue Paul Poirier

Place Maurice Marland

Port de Granville

Place Maurice Marland

rue du Colombier

rue Notre Dame

Place Cambernon

rue St Jean

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

… today,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

brittany ferries ouistreham caen portsmouth normandy france

josée plage de cabourg beach france

naval patrol vessel plage de cabourg beach france

trotting horses exercising plage de cabourg beach normandy france

Tuesday 9th October 2018 – OUCH! THAT WAS …

… a tough day today.

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

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

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

Add a little bit of text and here we are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need to be on form for tomorrow.

Wednesday 27th June 2018 – WHAT A DREADFUL …

… night that was!

It was stifling hot in that bedroom so I had opened all of the windows. And not long after going to be I was joined by a moth and a mosquito. That put paid to any hope that I might have had about a decent night’s sleep.

No breakfast at the hotel either, so I had another shower and then my laptop decided to crash. It was clearly not going to be my day.

Having sorted myself out I took my stuff downstairs and handed in the key, to find the proprietor and her friend tucking into a hearty meal. “Kein frühstuck” indeed.

All in all, what with one thing and another, I wasn’t very impressed. But you can’t win a coconut every time and I’ve had some pretty good deals in the past.

Outside, all of the streets were full of policemen. I’m not sure why, unless they had heard that I was in the vicinity.

Apparently it is something to do with the roadworks and they are directing the traffic.

But all of Switzerland’s roads seem to be undergoing repair right now. It’s like one huge building site and there’s no end to it.

The road to Zurich was fairly rapid for a change and it didn’t take long for me to arrive there. But driving around it took me much longer than it might have done. It’s changed considerably over the last 30 years and the last time that I was here it was dark.

Another thing that they have a habit of doing is putting the main destinations on the “motorway” road signs and only the small villages on the ordinary road signs. And when you only have a small-scale atlas, it doesn’t help.

No point in asking The Lady Who Lives In The Satnav. She doesn’t recognise Swiss Motorways as being toll roads and doesn’t understand the concept of “avoid all motorways”.

Winterthur was easy to negotiate, although people there don’t understand the idea of roundabouts, and I had not one, not two but three close encounters at various times.

At St Gallen, I gave up. No idea of the village on the Swiss side of the border and “Bregenz” was only advertised by the motorway, so I bit the bullet and went that way.

I dodged off at the exit before the border, and luckily there were no police patrols checking for motorway toll stickers, and crossed into Austria at Lustenau.

Diesel was only €1:21 at Lustenau so I fuelled up Caliburn. I also fuelled up myself – Austrian bread is nothing like as good as German bread but a couple of bread rolls with my salad and that was me organised.

Through Feldkirch and onto the S16 eastwards, and I took a little diversion.

The Arlberg Pass has always been my preferred destination over the Alps but there’s another pass over the mountains between Partenen and Tschafein that I had never taken. So boldly going where the hand of man had never set foot, Caliburn and I set off.

But somewhere stuck up a blind allet is the little village of Silbertal.

Somewhere else that I had never visited before today, and it’s one of those villages that in a country that had 99 out of the 100 prettiest villages in the world, Silbertal is well in the Top 10.

Unfortunately parking was an issue here, as was time, so I didn’t have the opportunity for a good look around.

At Schruns, where I was trying to find a place to stop to take a couple of photographs, I nearly squidged a pedestrian who couldn’t make up her mind whether to cross the street or not.

Having both dillied and dallied, we decided to advance at exactly the same moment.

But eventually I found a parking space and could whip out the Nikon and show you some of the beautiful South Tyrolean scenery.

I’d parked up on the car park of the local football club, FC Schruns, and seeing as the ground was open, I went for a wander inside to see what was happening.

Certainly an improvement on many French football grounds that I had visited, although when I saw the prices for a season ticket for the forthcoming season’s matches, I’m surprised that they weren’t playing at Wembley Stadium.

“Somewhat elevated” would have been an understatement.

Over there, that’s not Schruns but those houses on the side of the hill are in the town of Tschagguns.

I’m not sure how the name of the town should be pronounced, and so I’ll leave you to pronounce that as you see fit.

All I can say is the name sounds very appropriate if you have to carry your heavy shopping up there. You can rule me out of that, no matter how idyllic the view might be.

Tschagguns has a very good claim to fame in the realm of Winter Sports, in that it’s a ski-jumping centre.

Not that you would, of course, expect me to be up there. For me, I’m all in favour of terra firma when it comes to skiing. The more firma, the less terra.

And even so, they can’t be much good up there because even Eddie the Eagle once beat an Austrian ski-jumper.

And now I realise why I’ve never come this way before.

Just up there shortly before the head of the Pass is a toll booth. And they expect me to pay €21:50 to pass the next 40 kilometres to Landeck.

Even having negotiated the price down to €15:00 that was still €15:00 more than I was ever intending to pay, so I turned round and retraced my steps.

Maybe it might cost me more in fuel, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Now, this is much more like it. I’ve made my way all the way round and this is St Anton at the foot of the Arlberg Pass.

When you see the road up there, that’s been improved considerably since the late 1970s when we used to struggle up there with 47 passengers in lightweight Ford R1114 coaches in the good old days of Salopia.

Caliburn leaps up there of course, as you might expect and one of these days I’ll post a video of the climb.

Only one town in the whole wide world where Strawberry Moose and I would be right at home, and that’s the town of Lech.

The name is quite appropriate.

Nerina and I first came here on our honeymoon in 1988 in a beat-up old, rusting Ford Cortina estate OCC 883S (which, by the way, was younger than Caliburn is now, although you wouldn’t ever think so).

And we so liked the place that we vowed that one day we would come back.This is the second time that I’ve been here since then.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I came here in June 2014 in the snow, although this year, the snow is way up the mountain.

I do wonder sometimes if Nerina ever made it back. Knowing how things pan out, I’ll probably bump into her walking through the streets here tomorrow morning.

And in case you are thinking that I’m joking, it did once happen in Brussels like that in 1991. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

I went to the little guest house where I stayed before but that was closed up and deserted.

Several other places were fully booked but one hotel, although totally deserted like the Marie Celeste, had left its doors open and the internet switched on.

Consequently an on-line booking agency quickly found me a room that was well within my price range only 390 metres from where I was standing, and the Lady WHo Lives In The Satnav did the rest.

So here I am. A nice comfy single room run by an Australian landlady (yes, Australian, not Austrian) but the plugs won’t fit my slow cooker so it’s a scratch tea tonight.

Apart from that, no complaints whatsoever and I’m going to be very comfy here.

I hope.

Wednesday 20th June 2018 – THE WORLD’S WORST BANK …

… strikes again!

Remember that letter that I had to fax them yesterday? It seems that I had forgotten something off it.

And yes, I freely admit that it was my error. No argument there.

The bank sent me an e-mail and asked me to rectify the omission. No problem there either.

BUT

I had to reply by fax yet again. I couldn’t do it by phone, and I couldn’t reply to their e-mail either. Even though they had referred to my request in the e-mail that they had sent me, that it would be clear that any reply that I sent would have been in reply to their mail, and that the information was information that they had requested.

So that was yet more wasted time.

Like I say, I’m not denying my responsibility. I’m just moaning about the bank’s procedures. Had I still have been in the UK they would have been kicked into touch a good while ago. But then, had I still been in the UK, I would never have had the issues that I’m having now.

Last night, I didn’t get to see my film. I ended up going to bed fairly early instead. I was hoping to have an early night, but waking up at 03:45 was no part of my intentions whatsoever.

So much so that after breakfast I sat down and ended up being … errr … away with the fairies for a good half an hour.

But I pulled myself through, did some more tidying up and even vacuumed the living room, as well as measuring up a few things here and there, because I’m having a day out tomorrow.

Or, at least, I’m hoping to, if I can find the road.

On my trip into town this afternoon we were lucky to see the harbour. We’ve been swathed in a hanging cloud all day and it hasn’t lifted for a minute. It’s even worse right now.

If it keeps on like this, I won’t even be able to find my way out of the building, never mind out of town.

Having dealt with the housekeeping issues for today (Friday is to deal with the kitchen and Saturday is to wash the floor to let it dry while I’m out at the shops) I went back to the blog again.

The current whereabouts of my amendments is the day that I left Leuven to travel to Oostende. That page is not quite finished (although it might be by the time you read this) but it’s all now done from there onwards.

I’m determined to bring it all up to date before I’m much older, having left it somewhat … errr … incomplete during my all-too-frequent bouts of illness.

No point in going out for lunch today in the hanging cloud. I stayed in and read my book in the peace and quiet.

And then I had to fiddle about with the printer in order to make it work. It’s an ancient Hewlett-Packard that I inherited from Marianne all those years ago. It had an enormous amount of use while she had it, and it’s done some work here over the five years that I’ve had it. So it’s quite temperamental.

And so off into town.

We’ve seen the hanging cloud, but I don’t think that you have seen the workmen down in the bottom-right corner who have now started on another house down on the rue du Port.

It’s difficult to tell whether they are knocking holes in the walls to fit new windows, or whether they are trying to knock the walls down completely. I suppose that time will tell.

Having seen my friendly newspaper shop owner and sent off the fax, I came back up the hill.

And over in the port, another gravel lorry had arrived and had tipped its load. And behind it there was a digger driver busily heaping it all up into a tidy pile on the edge of the quayside.

Not in the gravel bins, you’ll notice. So that can really only mean that another gravel boat will shortly be paying us a visit. And I hope that I’m here to see it.

But I learnt some bad news in the newsagents. Madame la Maire has finally published her proposals for the port. She wants to build another casino and another pile of restaurants down there.

That means, quite simply, that all of the empty shops in the town will immediately be transformed into the kind of expensive boutiques that you see in every other seaside town – vastly overpriced for two months of the year and closed, gathering dust for the other 10.

And the port, instead of being a working, industrial zone, will become a haven for luxury yachts for 2 months of the year and deserted for the remainder.

It will totally destroy the character of the town, but such is the price that one has to pay for a bit of egoism.

And it did not go unnoticed that the proposals weren’t published until after the series of meetings with the residents (one of which we attended last week).

So that was my afternoon walk, and I crashed out yet again for a while. A coffee soon revived me though, and I had a good 50-minute session on the bass guitar. I’m cracking on.

After tea, which was a frozen mushroom and pepper curry in coconut milk, I went for my walk. And managed 120 paces at a run (well, a sort-of run). And if there was anyone else out there, I wouldn’t have an idea in this weather.

So now I’ll do a few bits and pieces and then have another early night.

And I hope that it’s more successful than the last one.

Tuesday 19th June 2018 – THE ONE THING THAT I LIKE …

… about my blog, and one of the (many) reasons why I keep it, is so that when I have an altercation with someone, I have it chapter and verse about when and where it took place, and what was said.

So that way, whenever I’m having an argument with a semi-official body, I have the notes to prove my point.

But let’s not get ahead of ouselves.

Last night after having done almost everything that there was to do, I sat down and watched a DVD, something that i haven’t done for quite some time. Last night’s entertainment (if that’s the correct word) was Batman (the Movie). A totally absurd, incredibly camp film that is so bad that it’s good.

And what is probably the funniest part of the film is Adam West trying so hard not to laugh at some of the lines. Brings back many happy memories of the 1960s.

Despite the early night it was a struggle to come up for air this morning and I was a little later than usual leaving the stinking pit. But a breakfast and a hot shower brought me sort-of into the Land of the Living.

First thing was to put the bathroom back together and then to attack the living room. Do it while I’m in the mood. So that’s something like, stuff is sorted out, more stuff has been found (including my missing 32GB memory stick) and more stuff thrown away. And it was quite profitable too, because I found €1:03 too.

Spend, spend, spend!

And I’m glad that I did it too then and there because I didn’t have time after that.

Looking through the e-mails that had come in through the night, there were two that were very important and needed to be dealt with on the spot. And that involved a phone call to my bankers in the UK.

I’d tried a few weeks ago to set up an on-line banking service, but it had spectacularly failed, so I put it out of my mind. That was the first thing.

And despite what they told me, they had indeed been notified of my new telephone number. It’s there in black-and-white in my letter of 19th January, and when I had an argument with the bank’s customer service, they telephoned me back on that number on 6th February.

And since then, they’ve been sending me security codes when I’ve been using my UK credit card.

The second thing though is that I need to make a substantial payment to North America, and make it quickly. And I can’t do it by telephone despite whatever pleading I can use. It needs to be done in writing, although a fax machine is acceptable.

I threw away my old fax machine in 2011 so this meant a good hunting down of a fax machine in Granville.

First thing was to type out a letter, and while I was at it to deal with some more post that needed answering. That took me all the way up to 13:45. And then into town to search for a fax machine.

No go at the library. The Tourist Information Office was closed, the Mairie didn’t have one, and neither did the Post Office. But the Post office sent me across the road to the newspaper offices. They had a fax machine, but it was private.

But the newspaper shop next door advertised photocopies and photo-scanning, so I went in there. And sure enough, a very friendly newspaper shop owner had a public fax machine, so that was that.

I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and came back.

Lunch was exceptionally late and I was joined by no one but two lizards who spent more time fighting over a lump of pear than they did actually eating it. And that was surprising because there was more than enough for two.

Having had a lengthy walk just now, I abandoned the idea of going out this afternoon.

And so I was in my apartment to notice one of the school buses take the wrong turning up to the High School and get stuck in the gateway to the Place d’Armes.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a couple of buses do that earlier this year, but at least there was much less drama associated with this one. With a couple of bits of shunting he managed to get round quite comfortably.

Instead of my walk I sat down on the sofa with a cold drink, and the efforts of earlier were clearly far too much for me because I was out like a light for a good half-hour. This isn’t doing me any good at all.

But I managed to fit in my guitar practice, and then made tea. A burger in a bap with baked potato. And remind me next time that when I go to defrost the burger in the microwave, to take it out of the plastic bag first.

It was an absolutely beautiful evening, and the view across to Jersey was one of the clearest that I have ever had.

If you notice the radio mast over there, it’s really hard to believe that that is 34 miles away from here. But it is.

There was no-one about so i had another run. 110 paces tonight. But I was disappointed that the last two runs haven’t shown up on my fitbit. It’s disappointing to say the least. I’m clearly not going fast enough, but you can’t run before you’ve learnt to walk, can you?

Round the other side of the headland I could see that we’ve had a whole pile of deliveries to the gravel bins.

There’s gravel all over the place again, and even a couple of hundred tonnes of sand.

Does this mean that we’re going to have another gravel boat some time soon? I shall have to pay much more attention that I’m doing, otherwise I’ll miss it.

Tonight I think that I’ll watch another film. I’m becoming quite bourgeois in my sentiments these days. I’m going to have to snap out of that.

But one thing that I did during the odd period here and there of lucidity was to finally finish the blog entry for one day of my trip to the desert. And never mind finishing it, it almost finished me.

It still needs to be poof-read, have the tpying examined and have a spelchek, but it’s all of 5645 words, a new record and by an enormous margin too. You can read it at your leisure.

I deserve a medal.

Monday 18th June 2018 – I’M WONDERING …

… if I’m mistaken when I say that there hasn’t been a gravel boat in the harbour for quite some considerable time.

The reason why I’m making this observation is that when I went out at lunchtime, Neptune was conspicuous by her absence.

And when I reviewed her port call list, I found that she had set out for Whitstable with her load of gravel at 05:59 this morning. In other words, she had loaded up during the night at ow tide, and as soo as the tide was high enough, she cleared off.

It was only by chance that I spotted her last night, being late for my evening walk and going round the headland rather than round the walls. So if she’s bee, coming and going like that, I could easily have missed her, and on several occasions too.

Something else conspicuous by its absence was the lizard. That’s two days in a row that he hasn’t been for his pear leavings. Mind you, when I went out for my lunch on the wall, it hadn’t long stopped raining so everywhere was still quite wet.

Just for a change last night, I had a good sleep. And I was awake at 06:00 quite spontaneously. There wasn’t anything that awoke me. So after breakfast and a relax I carried on with my blog entry for the first day in the desert.

And we are going to have a problem with that because the reason why it’s taking so long to finish is that it’s already at 5400 words – a new record by far – and there’s still tons to go at yet. It’s the kind of blog entry that could reasonably turn out to be embarrassing with that amount of stuff in it.

After lunch I started to tidy up and clean up in here. I’ve decided to do it bit by bit and it was the turn of the bathroom and toilet today.

So far (and it’s not finished quite yet) it’s taken me 4 hours to do it. Not because it’s so dirty but because I can’t keep going at it. I can only do 10 minutes or so and then I have to come to sit down to recover my strength.

What a state to get in, hey? What am I going to be like in another couple of years? Assuming that I’m still here, of course.

There was the usual session on the bass, made much easier with the practice amp and the chord diagrams of course. Can’t think why I didn’t do that before.

And my two walks. Mustn’t forget them.

The afternoon walk around the headland was quite interesting though.

I’m not sure what was happening but we were experiencing some kind of phenomenon with the lighting in the sea.

I’ve no real idea what might be causing these patches of different-coloured sea. Thee aren’t any rocks underneath there and they weren’t floating patches of seaweed either. And I’d be surprised in different levels of salinity would make that much difference, even if it were the case.

but there is certainly a finely-defined band of separation there; Something strange is going on.

On the way back, outside the building, I bumped into one of my neighbours and we had a chat.

Firstly, she told me that the party aboard the Charles-Marie was to celebrate its 50th Anniversary, and she was actually on board it joining in the celebrations. But then she told me a funny story that really appealed to my sense of humour.

There was a wedding reception in the public rooms on Saturday and several vehicles gatecrashed our private parking area. She had a few words with one of them, who replied to her in language that would have been out-of-place in the fo’c’sle of an Australian Antarctic whaler.

So she said nothing, came in, changed into her best clothes, and went out again to gatecrash the wedding reception where she had her evening meal at their expense.

And good for her too. That’s the kind of thing that really cheers me up.

It’s still quite early right now, but I reckon that I’m going to watch another film and go to bed. I’ve managed to go without crashing out today which is good news, and my evening walk included another 100-metre run. I’ll loosen myself up eventually, and we aren’t talking about syrup of figs either.

An early night will do me good in the circumstances. I have plans to make.

Friday 15th June 2018 – I TOLD YOU WRONG …

… yesterday about those photos.

They were not in fact by Emma Barthère at all. These are the ones that are by her – people sitting on rooftops (something that was the subject of some not inconsiderable discussion at that meeting the other night) all over Granville.

The ones that I showed you were by a photographer called Thomas Jouanneau and are part of his “Ile de Chausey” project.

So now you know.

What you’ll also know in a moment is that just by way of a change I haven’t crashed out yet today. And that’s despite being wide awake at 05:30. And it wasn’t as if I’d had a particularly early night either.

So I imagine that I’ll be paying for this in very early course.

After the usual morning performance and a little relax, I sat down to get on with some work. But it wasn’t long before I had a little distraction and ended up chatting to a friend of mine in Germany, about music and a few other things too.

And the result of this chat was that I ended up having a good hunt around on the internet. 30 years of storage haven’t been too kind to the bass guitar and it needs a few bits and pieces to restore it to its former glory.

Apart from a seized potentiometer, the machine heads and tuning pegs need replacing. And I’m not putting cheap rubbish on them but proper original Gibson equipment. And they took some tracking down too, but I might have found some in the USA.

They are going to be quite a price, and the person to whom I spoke is working out a price to include delivery to over here.

But before you all faint away at the price, just let me mention that the guy in the USA pointed me in the direction of a couple of basses the same vintage as mine that are currently on sale, and the cheapest one is at $5200 so you can see why I’m not fitting cheap and nasty rubbish to it.

Another thing too is that since I bought the tuning foot-pedal the other week, I have hit an unexpected snag. The foot-pedal goes on the floor of course, with the guitar plugged into it. And I don’t use an amplifier but a Vox Micro amPlug and headphones.

And now the amplug, instead of plugging into the guitar round about waist-height, plugs into the foot-pedal on the floor. And with the headphones only having a cable of 1.5 metres and I’m 1.73 metres, you can immediately see a problem.

You can’t buy headphones with longer cables, so eventually I was able to track down a 15m extension cable. And a proper pair of bass studio headphones while I was at it instead of the hifi headphones that I use. Might as well organise myself properly.

While I’m on the subject, another thing that I’ve been doing is to track down the guitar tabs for some of the tracks that I’ve been working on, and transforming them into images to save. I don’t read music quickly enough to play it with a score, so I play by ear. And I’m finding that these days it’s “ear today, gone tomorrow” and I’m spending more time trying to remember what I worked out the previous day than actually learning new stuff.

At least, having some kind of music enables me to work out at a glance where I’m starting and finishing, and where to keep in rhythm.

All of this took me up to something of a late lunch, so I made my butties (the salad oil mix that I made yesterday is delicious), grabbed my book and headed off for my wall where I was joined by my friend the lizard. He really enjoyed the pear leavings once again.

This afternoon I cracked on with the web page that I’m still miles from finishing, as well as having my walk. And spending 45 minutes trying to figure out the bass line to one of the tracks whose guitar tabs I worked on this morning.

And it’s times like this that made me wish that I’d paid more attention to Miss Ricketts’ music classes at school. That really WAS a wasted opportunity, that was. I don’t know what I must have been thinking when I chose my ‘O’ Level subjects and excluded Music.

My response from Nikon came back this afternoon too. Basically “ignore our earlier e-mail. You’ll have your lens next week some time”.

I had a mental block for tea tonight. I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to eat. After much binding in the marsh, I ended up with a vegan burger and veg with thick gravy.

Out for my walk this evening, there wasn’t much wind but there was quite a sea boiling up.

You wouldn’t have thought that there would have been enough energy in the sea to send the waves crashing up over the sea wall, but there we are.

And the photo hasn’t done too well, has it? I dunno what’s happening to my equipment these days. I think that the nut at the rear end of the camera must have a screw loose.

Just round the corner, I could hear some noise coming from the direction of the town.

Further enquiry revealed that there’s some kind of event in the town tonight, as this photo of the rue Paul Poirier will reveal. I was half-tempted to go down and see what was happening, but these days, I have to consider that it’s a hell of a way back up the hill late at night after a full day’s work.

I’m not as young as I was, am I?

And I was buttonholed by four young teenagers, probably about 13 or so, sitting on the wall with a smuggled bottle of cider. Could I take their photo with one of their phones? And so I duly obliged.

So having written out tonight’s entry twice (having pressed the wrong key and wiped off the previous version by mistake) I’m going to bed. I’ve had a heavy day what with one thing and another and I need my sleep.

Shopping tomorrow, of course.

Wednesday 13th June 2018 – WHAT A MISERABLE …

… day this was.

Mind you, I think that I laid the foundations for it by not going to bed until 01:25 and that’s no good. I was so engrossed in the page that I was working on that I hardly noticed the time. But at least it’s all on line now, all [gulp] 4651 words of it, a new world record and by a country mile too, and you can read it at your leisure.

And at 4651 words, you’ll need a lot of leisure.

So it’s no surprise that leaving my bed this morning was rather difficult and it was a long hard crawl into the living room. And crawl too. I’d had a bad attack of cramp during the night and I could still feel it – in fact I felt it for all of the day.

Once I’d breakfasted and organised myself, I went out to attack Caliburn – or more correctly, the untidy mess that is within him. He’s been emptied out, given a good brushing out, vacuuming and a wash of his dashboard.

Not only that, he now has his new seat covers fitted, although they are too small and I’m not sure how that can be, seeing as they are described as “Universal”.

And I found the missing spring clip. It had sprung into the tool box. So now the window winder winds properly.

You have no idea of the amount of stuff that went into the bin. And all of the stuff that was in Caliburn that really needs bringing in here.

By the time that I had finished, no-one was more surprised that me to see that it was 13:30. I’d spent a short while chatting to a neighbour and another short while giving Gribouille a stroke, but not that much. So I came in, made my butties and then went to sit on the wall in the sun because it was beautiful.

The lizard was there waiting for me and he even climbed up my leg to try to reach the pear before I had finished it. He’s getting to be very friendly now.

Back here I made myself a coffee and sat down for a moment. Next thing that I knew, it was 16:30. I’d been totally out of it for over two hours and hardly felt a thing. That filled me with dismay.

It took me ages to come round too. I’ve been noticing that not only am I crashing out for longer and longer, it’s becoming more and more difficult to shake myself out of it.

As a result of my indisposition my walk this afternoon was very late.

But I’m glad that I made it outside because the weather was really delicious. Even nicer than it had been at lunchtime. The sun was penetratingly warm, truly the First Day of Summer.

The crowds were out sunbathing on the beach for the first time this year after the long, wet and windy winter that we have had and I can’t say that I blamed them either

There were crowds of people splashing around in the water too. But sooner them than me. It wasn”t that warm – or, at least, warm enough to tempt me.

But you’ll notice the diving platform here. You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of a couple of people swimming around in the sea by the diving platform and it was almost submerged by the tide.

This gives you some idea of just how much of a tide we have here in Granville. And it goes out much further than this too.

Once I’d returned for my walk I had to phone up the UK to pay for my clothing order. It’ll be here within a week they reckon, ceteris paribus. But as for the order from BUT and LeClerc, not a sign anywhere. And I noticed that prices are starting to rise slowly but surely over there.

There was a meeting of the inhabitants of the old town this evening, chaired by the mayor of Granville so I went along to see what was happening.

I learnt a few things about the future projects but most of the time was spent listening to certain people airing their petty grievances which was a waste of time. And not the kind of stuff that needs to be discussed in a public meeting anyway.

But one exciting scheme was a project concerning the refection old railway lines down on the quayside. Could it be that they are going to actually do something about reopening the lines?

It would be exciting if they did, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer and now I really AM going to have an early night. I can’t last the pace these days.

But at least Caliburn is sorted and ready for the road.

Tuesday 12th June 2018 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days where no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve gone one pace forward but two paces backwards. It’s frustrating.

It didn’t help matters by being wide awake yet again at 05:20 this morning. I’m not sure why either because there was no noise about and I hadn’t wet the bed either.

Nevertheless, it was a much more sensible and respectable 06:30 when I crawled out from under the covers and faced the world.

After the usual morning routine and a relax, I started on the clothes ordering. That’s n°1 task.

My choice of clothing is really easy – it’s all black and yellow and comes mostly from a place in St Helens, UK where they embroider my own little logo onto the clothes. Stuff there is reasonably cheap, reliable, reasonable quality and it saves me having to worry about what to wear.

It’s been nearly six years since I last had a clothing order and what I’m wearing now, the polo shirts particularly, are looking their age. A bit baggy and faded. So high time that I had some new stuff. The older stuff will make their way to Canada and stay in Strider

All of that took much more time than it should because there was a continual series of interruptions. I can’t even remember what they are now

Apart from that, having had an unbelievable success the other day in resurrecting an old hard drive I had a go at resurrecting a dead laptop and two old external drives. But unfortunately lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place and I have been singularly unsuccessful in that respect.

Lunch was taken inside today seeing as it was a miserable overcast morning. But by the time that I went out for my evening walk it had brightened up and was quite pleasant.

There’s a street fair here in the old town at the weekend where loads of artists will be exhibiting their works of art.

This involves quite a bit of preparation and they seem to be prettying up the Place Maurice Marland already with huge photos, although whatever might be impressive about these has totally passed me by, I have to say.

And I wonder what the wooden framework is for. I suppose that I’ll find out in due course.

Minette was waiting for me on her windowsill and let me pick her up for a stroke again this evening. I seem to be quite popular these days.

This afternoon though, as well as tackling the guitar, I’d had another session on that blog entry that I’m trying to update. I thought that I wasn’t making much progress but when I realise that so far I’ve written a world-record 3878 words and there’s still a long way to go, and what I have written has involved a lot of research, then maybe I have made more progress than I realise.

For tea tonight there was a little bit of Bombay potato left over from before I went away. I added a small tin of mushrooms to it and made some rice with vegetables. That made a decent meal.

but it wasn’t until I found myself drifting off just now that I realised that I’d gone all day up to that point without falling asleep. And with such an early start too. But I’m not going to crow. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, as I have said before.

I’ll go to bed shortly anyway and have a good sleep. I need to do some serious thinking tomorrow and concoct a cunning plan because ill as I am, I’m not going to let the grass grow under my feet.

And incidentally – have I had those two quotes from BUT and LeClerc yet?

Monday 11th June 2018 – I REALLY DON’T KNOW …

… why it’s so difficult to give my money away.

As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … there’s supposed to be a recession on, and yet shops seem to be totally unwilling to take your money off you.

I had to go to LeClerc this morning to pick up the kitchen estimate that I had asked for last Tuesday. “Ohh yes – I haven’t finished it yet”. Since Tuesday! But at least he gave me a print-out of the price of the components.

And he can forget that. €2400 and that’s BEFORE we start to talk about any electrical appliances.

And he couldn’t do what I asked him about the cabinets. “It won’t work out” he says. And that’s nonsense too, because I can make it work without a moment’s effort. I want two cabinets, one of 90cms and one of 120cms, one on top of another, but with the bottom one turned at 90% so it opens to the front door of the apartment so I have somewhere to put my shoes and keys.

Just HOW difficult is that?

“Anyway, you’ll have your plan tonight”. So he’s clearly going to be working some very late hours because it’s almost 21:30 and it’s not arrived yet.

Prior to that, I’d been to BUT, and I made sure that I was there when it opened at 10:00 too. I finally found the girl who is doing the kitchens this week “but I’m booked up”.
“Total nonsense” I retorted. and told her what I thought of the arrangement, especially as I’d been fobbed off last week too and that was still rankling with me.

In the end, she agreed to see me at 14:00 hours, which just goes to show what you can do when you set your mind to it.

There was also the delivery point to visit as there was another parcel awaiting me. But no rizes for guessing that it was closed this morning. Monday is never a good day to try to do anything in France.

In the end, I went to the LeClerc supermarket and did some shopping. I need to eat anyway.

I need to sleep too, because I’m not getting any right now. I was in bed early enough after my exertions yesterday but it was very hard to drop off. And being wide awake at 06:00 was definitely not part of the plan.

There was plenty of time after breakfast and before I needed to hit the streets so I made a start on one of the pages of my trip to the desert back in April (was in THAT long ago?). And this page is going to rumble on and on because I’m far from finished, what with all of the interruptions.

Back out at 13:45 and stuck behind the grockles admiring the seagulls again and people who are totally unable to drive. But I was there in plenty of time nevertheless.

And now I understand why this girl only wants two appointments each day. Because despite it being a “point and click” 3D program that she uses to calculate the kitchens with an automatic counter and pricer, 90 minutes later we were still at it and we were far from finshed.

And she was another one who couldn’t understand what I was meaning about the two pieces of furniture one on top of another. And when I finally got it through to her, she replied that the computer wouldn’t do that.

So I took the computer mouse, highlighted the piece of furniture, pressed the “rotate” function and selected “90% anti-clockwise”. Took me 5 seconds.

“Ohh, I didn’t know it could do that!”

So she’s another one who is going to be working very late because it’s now 21:45 and despite her promise to do it today, it’s not here yet.

Mind you, she needn’t bother. I obtained a printout of the “price to date” and we were already at €2200 before we talk about the appliances. This IKEA price is looking a bargain.

After that I visited a few more shops, like GIFI and Centrakor (coming out of which I was drenched in a sudden, unexpected rainstorm) to see what they had going, and I went to pick up my parcel too.

Back here I had a coffee and a play on the guitar, and by then it was tea time. Vegan burger in onion gravy with rice and vegetables. Delicious.

And I’ve had my evening walk too.

So an early night and I need it too. I have quite a lot to do tomorrow.

And aren’t i getting crabby in my old age?

EPIC HALL

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