Tag Archives: high winds

Wednesday 3rd January 2018 – I WAS THINKING …

… about going to bed last night round about 01:20 when all of a sudden this ferocious wind suddenly sprung up.

I knew that it was coming of course – it’s been well-forecasted – but it hit with a violence that I haven’t encountered for quite a long time. Instead of going to bed, I stayed on the sofa and listened to it for quite a while.

Some time later I went off to bed and was off on my travels again. Playing football on a pitch down in front of the Mairie here in Granville, and the opposition was replacing thir players with young girls as the match advanced. It became a very uneven contest and I couldn’t understand what was going on.
A short while later, I was elsewhere in another football match on a very rough unkempt pitch where the grass hadn’t been mown for a year. I was up front, basically to make up the numbers (which sounds more like it), For some reason the opposing goalkeeper was caught out of position and the ball was played to me completely unmarked about 30 yards out. Of course I couldn’t run, and with half of the opposition bearing down on me I decided to trust my luck and kick it towards the goal and hope for the best, but with all of my best effort, I kicked it all of about 18 inches. And then I was caught up by the others.

Tha alarm went off at 07:30 but it was about 08:00 that I finally left the bed. And today I’ve managed three meals too – porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and a plate of mashed potato and peas for tea.

I’ve not set foot out of the apartment today. The wind this morning was enough to keep anyone in and it kept on going until about 14:00. But after that, I was busy doing other things, including reading a pile of stuff on Roman Architecture and doing some more stuff on my little 3D animation project which I have rather neglected of late.

And also crasging out for half an hour too. I’m not sure as to whether this is a sign of tiredness, ill-health or that I’m feeling better.

But the toothache has come back so I’ve had a paracetomol and now I’m off to bed. Let’s hope that I can sleep.

Tuesday 26th December 2017 – PHEW!

What a night!

It’s been a long time since anything like this has happened. Years, in fact. I was still sitting up wide-awake at 04:00 and I’ve no idea why.

But I was eventually in bed and started off at the leaving ceremony and prize-giving of my old school. And how we trashed it! Not in any serious, major way of course but we did rather run riot, altering the script into a series of double-entendres, puns, spoonerisms all kinds of things. Having fun changing round the prizes and all of that. Nothing too extreme but exactly as I had planned it back in 1972 and which was vetoed by everyone else as being rather over the top (well, it WAS a rather conservative school).
But from there I moved on into the rather exalted realms of royalty. And it really was one of those absurd dreams where we were all living in stables, tipping oats into cars to feed horses and the like yet wining and dining in luxury. Everyone was wearing coffee carafes around their necks and I actually overfilled the carafe of one of the princes, almost drowing him much to the amusement of his partner but not to him of course. And in the middle of all of this I was using the telephone to send some faxes, spread out all across a road and blocking some young girl in a car. While I was clearing a path she ended up talking to one of these royal people and was impressed that home decoration articles could be ordered in this way so she came over to make further enquiries. Once I’d finished, I found out that I had to go round to the NWF offices in Nantwich to pick up the copy of my faxes – but then the idea entered my head was that I needed to be there first before a representative from the Royal family arrived to take away all of the faxes, and even if I were there first, would I be allowed to search through the Royal Family faxes to find those that I had sent?

All of the foregoing took me up until, would you beieve, 11:45 in the morning. And when was the last time that I’d had a lie-in quite like that?

Of course, all of this makes me running late, but then again it’s not as if I have too many other things to bother me, do I? I ended up for a while having a nice relaxing afternoon on the sofa, not doing much at all.

This afternoon’s walk was exciting. The wind has sprung up and it was rather absurd out there. I had to keep well away from the cliff edge and there were times when I wasn’t sure if it was prefereable to turn back and seek shelter. But the promise of a hot chocolate at the end of the journey dove me along.

But a weird thing later.

The wind dropped somewhat so I went out for my evening walk, but at a certain moment I was overwhenlmed with fatigue. To such an extent that I really struggled to make it back home.

Straight to bed – without even my second hot chocolate – and I promptly crashed out.

Am I heading for a relapse?

Monday 25th December 2017 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

If you’ve made it this far then you are all doing very well and I’m impressed. I’m also grateful that you’ve kept on reading. It’s something to help your turkey slide down the digestive tract.

As for me, last night I almost fell asleep in the middle of watching a film. So I crawled myself off to bed. And aftr an hour or so I awoke and started to have another one of these nuit blanches. Strangely enough I didn’t feel at al bad about it – and that’s a change.

Somewhere during the night I did drop off, and went off on one of my rambles. And we had a couple of strange people either making their acting debuts or first appearances for a considerable length of time.

I was back running my taxis again. And on Saturday mornings when I was having a lie-in the telephone was manned by Wendy (wherever did she spring from?) and Simon came in for a couple of hours to deal with breakdowns and do a little mechanical work. I’d been assembling a kind of breakdown kit and even cobbled together an old Jeep Patriot kitted out with emergency stuff for him. BUt when I came downstairs he hadn’t come in to work. So I rang him to ask where he was, and he gave me a list of things that he’d been doing instead. Clearly he had no intention of coming in to work again. So I explained that he was free to go if he liked, but I would have appreciated a little notice so that I could have made other arrangement.
I was also in Canada during the night. I’d booked a room in a motel and they knew that I didn’t intend to arive until the small hours. And so I turned up at about 03:00, was given the key to the room looking forward to crashing out in it straight away – and it was filthy; Hadn’t been cleaned for a month and someone had even tried to light a fire in it, leaving cinders and charred wood all over the place. Even worse than that Motel 6 in North Virginia.

Although I woke up on several occasions during the night, it was at about 09:30 when I arose from my bed. And after my medication I sent out a whole stream of cheery greetings to people on the internet.

One or two of the sites on my social networking were running a couple of quizzes so I passed a very entertaining morning, punctuated only by a pause for breakfast.

The paté that I had bought for Christmas lunch – it wasn’t mushroom paté at all. I’d made a mistake. I remembered that they had none, so I had bought garlic and fine herb paté instead. Nevertheless, it was equally delicious on hot buttered toast, and I ate rather a large amount of it.

I’m glad that I had bought that toaster when I first moved in here.

Apart from that, I’ve nibbled some biscuits, some clementines, some swets and a bar of chocolate-covered marzipan.

Pride of place goes, though, without saying, to the Christmas cake.

I don’t have many friends, but those that I have are the best in the wld – quality before quantity of course – and Liz has done me proud once again this year.

Her Christmas cake is absolutely delicious. Each year it gets better and better. So good health to you, Liz.

I’ve braved the hurricanes and been out for my two walks this afternoon – and merited my two mugs of home-made hot chocolate. More than you will ever know in fact because at one point in the proceedings I was actually running down the street chasing after my hat that had Gone With The Wind. That was totally unexpected – I haven’t really run for anything for over two years and didn’t know that I still could.

Mind you, the way that I’m out of breath, I’m not sure that I can.

Final word tonight must go on the perfidy of the internet.

You’ll remember that my web browser did a real mega-upgrade at the start of the month and dumped a pile of developers and their add-ons, including my much-loved *.ftp add-on.

And how I was left high and dry without a *.ftp program for a whole three and a half weeks.

And how I spent all afternoon in a relentless (and untimately successful) attempt to program my web server?

So today, a group of developers has launched an ultra-slimmed-down web browser using the Open Source code of the browser that dropped them, and many of the dropped code modules seamed straight in. I gave it a try and my *.ftp module was picked up immediately.

It’s called Waterfox and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the fastest browser that I’ve ever seen. No bells, no whistles, just what I want.

There will probably be a few problems to overcome but as long as it handles my file uploads seamlessly like it seems to be doing, it will be fine by me.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

Friday 1st December 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… go out for my walk this evening.

And it’s hardly surprising either.

I went out for my afternoon walk as usual but i never made it to the headland. The wind was totally wicked and I was blown more backwards than forwards. It was horrific.

And it’s even worse right now with the wind howling away like nobody’s business.

That was quite a shame, because I was having such a good day. I’d crawled off to bed really early last night and I’d been on my travels too, visiting a girl of my acquaintance, gone away and was on my way back, in my old Opel Omega. The access to this girl’s house was down a muddy track and at a certain place I lost traction. On getting out to see what I could do about it I was attacked by a small lioness and a small dog – an alsation-type. They weren’t vicious but it was still quite something and I had a great deal of difficulty getting back into my car. Once I was in though, and managed to close the door, i reversed out and took the damp patch at a run and got over it. I’d apparently had my mobile phone on during this adventure and so when I arrived in this girl’s kitchen she thanked me for the running commeentary.

And I sat up bolt upright at 04:50 too, and yet I managed to go back to sleep again until the alarm went off.

After breakfast I had a good crack on with these photos that are on this hard drive that I resurrected yetserday. About 735 gb of them in fact and considering that they are about 10-15 years old and a lot smaller than modern digital images, there are masses and masses of them. Many of which I don’t actually remember, and yet there still aren’t the ones that I’m looking for and which I certanly know should be somewhere.

After a late lunch I went outside and this was when I encountered the howling wind.

Instead, I went out down the other side of the headland and down the steps. The aim of this little ramble was to see what was going on with this road closure.

The road is now open, but we seem to have acquired a huge crane. The concrete slabs that I had seen and which I thought might heve been a new fencing system are in fact the weights that hold down the crane.

There was also a concrete hod there too.

There wasn’t however anyone around there to ask about what was going on, but I did notice that there seems to have been some work done on the rer of one of the houses down below.

It might well be that they are going to be building an extension or something being added on to the rear of the property, hence the crane and the concrete hod.

Back here dodging the rain, I carried on with the photos (something that’s going to take me about 6 months I reckon) and went through until about 17:30 before having a 10-minute snooze.

I didn’t have any tea tonight either. I seem to have been carried away by what I was doing and forgot. And so with no walk either, it’s been a disappointing afternoon.

Shopping tomorrow so it’s going to be a busy day.

Thursday 30th November 2017 – MY FITBIT …

.. will tell you everything that you need to know about last night. Hours sleeping – 3:36, of which restless sleep – 0:20.

That’s not very good, is it? No wonder I was feeling rather miserable this morning. But even so, I still beat the second alarm.

The fresh muesli was nice, and so was the coffee that followed it. And the nice hot shower was even nicer. I was ready for anything after that. Well, almost.

It was pouring down with rain outside and it looked as if that was that for my trip to LIDL. But at about 09:30 the rain stopped and we had some small amount of blue sky, so I dashed out to LIDL – well, dashed as well as I can these days.

The bread was nice, and so were one or two other things, but there were no special offers that tempted me. It seems to be toy week thee, and that will account for the massed crowds of people in there.

But on the way, I observed that we are having roadworks down the hill on the little side street. And when I can find out why my *.ftp add-on has disappeared from my web browser, I’ll post you a photo.

It seems that they are replacing the side wall at the back of the houses there. There was even someone with a strimmer cutting down the weeds just there.

I’ll have to go back tomorrow and have a proper butcher’s.

The rain held off too on the way back, which was good. I didn’t fancy being soaked to death. And it also meant that I could take a photo of the cherry-picker that was blocking the street while they were doing something to the eaces of one of the houses.

With the high winds that we’ve been having just recently (it’s blowing a gale outside right now) it’s hardly surprising that slates and the like are bing dislodged from roofs.

And Combattant was back at work today too, with the digger on the lighter at the side of it going flat-out digging up the silt.

They seem to be making a really good go of this dredging the harbour. I do hope that this will be the key (or should it be “quay”?) to more shipping coming into the port. I could do with some more excitement.

Back here, I had some coffee from the flask and then crashed out for half an hour, which is hardly a surprise. No sleep, a long walk and my general ill-health.

This afternoon I attacked another hard drive of photos. This is going to be a major piece of work as there are tons of the things on this drive. Everything that I want, except of course the ones that I’m looking for.

The story of my life.

Tea was oven chips, frozen peas, fresh carrots and a home-made burger on a bap with mustard and vegan cheese. Delicious it was too, but I’ve noticed that I’m almost out of oven chips.

Braving the hurricane, I went out this evening. It was raining on and off throughout the afternoon but now the rain has stopped, we have clear sky and an almost-full moon. And I would have taken some photos of the Christmas lights except that the battery in the camera decided to go flat at the crucial moment.

So off to bed in a moment, and I hope that I can have a decent night’s sleep.

Wednesday 29th November 2017 – I THOUGHT …

… that we had seen the back of the Combattant today.

This afternoon, after a rather late lunch, I braved the games yet again. And this was probably the strongest of the strong winds that we have been experiencing just recently.

Just three or four of us out and about there were, and that’s no surprise either, even though there was a blue sky and a nice sun. But at least I got to see Combattant steaming … "dieseling" – ed … out of the harbour and off into the afternoon sun.

I missed the seconf alarm today. having had a good night’s sleep it was the first alarm that awoke me at 06:00, and I remember noting that at 06:06 and I ought to be getting up very soon. But instead, I must have dropped off again and I was still in bed when the second alarm went

For breakfast I tried a novel approach. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a coffee machine the other day, but it won’t keep warm. And I bought a thermos flask last week. So I made a pot full of coffee this morning and poured it into the flask to drink during the day.

It sort-of kept warm for much of the day but by 16:30 when I came back from my walk the heat had gone off. But at least it’s some kind of progress for now.

And as for the highlight of the day, I took some of the rubbish to the Container outside. Or was it making a fresh load of muesli? How about that?

Tea tonight was pepper stuffed with bulghour, tomato, olive, onion, garlic and peanuts on a bed of pasta, frozen peas and fresh carrots tossed in a tomato sauce. And delicious it was too.

Later on, I went for a solitary perambulation around the city walls in the hurricane. Clear skies, visible stars, and the lights at Jersey and those on the wind turbines at Barneville Carteret clearly visible again.

No cat, but Commandant was back working again – obviously gone to empty itself of a load of silt earlier.

Back here, no electricity. There’s something tripping the fuse that works the sockets where the coffee machine, the kettle and the cooking hob are plugged in. That’s about 4 or 5 times that that’s happened now.

Tuesday 28th November 2017 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I managed to get out and about this evening for my walk.

The weather deteriorated yet again this evening, but the rain stopped round about 20:45 so I set off for my stroll.

The clouds had gone too and despite the howling gale it was another one of these rally clear nights. So much so that not only could you see the lights on Jersey 30-odd miles away, but the red flashing lights on the wind turbines that we saw the other day way out at Barneville-Carteret.

While I was on my way round I saw my feline friend too but he paid little attention to me, being far more interested in stalking a small dog wandering down the street.

JUst by way of yet another change, I awoke early today. At about 04:10. And I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. But I must have been well away because the alarm awoke me at the normal time. And I managed to be out of bed by the time the second alarm went off.

After I take my medication, I usually have to wait about half an hour before I can eat breakfast, and I use that time to see what is happening in the world. Instead, I found two friends of min from the USA on line so we had a chat. And the next thing that I noticed was that it was now 09:45.

Too late for breakfast. I just had a coffee instead.

And in line with my new procedures, I had a shower too. I need to take far more care of myself than I’m doing. And a nice hot soak in a nice warm bathroom (that little halogen heater that I bought all those years ago is really paying dividends) did me the world of good.

After a rather late lunch, I went for my walk around the headland – about three of us there were out there in total. And that’s hardly a surprise given the wind and the overcast sky (it wasn’t yet raining at that point). And I followed up my walk with a coffee and a snooze as usual.

Tea was one of the vegan pies that we made the other Sunday – I need to make some space in the freezer. With mashed potatoes, frozen peas, frozen sprouts and fresh carrots cooked in the steamer, with gravy made from the liquid, it really was delicious, And that was followed by my evening perambulation.

And now it might even be an early night. You never know your luck.

Monday 27th November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… go out for a walk this evening either. And for the same reason too. The day was grey and miserable but this evening the weather deteriorated and we had another torrential downpour after tea.

I’d had a good night’s sleep too. And away on my travels as well. Living temporarily in various rooms here and there about the place just like I have been doing until quite recently. My path crossed another guy who was one of mu co-cottiers. He described some of the places in which he stayed, and it seemed that we had stayed in the same places. He told me how much he had paid, and I was desperately trying to work out if I had been charged more than he had.
Meanwhile, a young boy and girl were in a swimming pool splashing around – the swimming pool being lined with sausages. These kids started to kick the water about and that attracted a shark that attacked them. The police were called and they ended up staying in one of the places where I was staying.

Today was one of those days when I didn’t do too much. I’ve been working on the internet and catching up with what I missed while my news reader was offline (it came back on line dramaically at about 10:00).

After lunch I went for a rather windswept walk around the headland. And I was effectively on my own. I didn’t count more than two or three people out there this afternoon.

Another crash out this afternoon – and for an hour or so. Well away I was too. This kind of thing is getting me down but I suppose that I have to make the best of it. It’s not going to get any better.

But tea tonight was good. Some peppers and a tin or mushrooms, and I made a curry. Having bought som coconut milk over the weekend I added some of that in there too. It was quite delicious and there are another four helpings to go into the freezer.

So with no walk this evening I’m going to have an early night. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel better and the weather will improve.

Thursday 23rd November 2017 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I’ve done 101% of my daily activity today. It’s not very often I do that these days, is it?

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night. No-one interrupted me at all and I was stark out until the alarm went off. And I only just made it out of bed before the second alarm too.

After breakfast and a little repose I had a good shower and shave and a general clean-up. And then I hit the streets. It was extremely cloudy overhead but I set off on foot nevertheless, and it wasn’t long before the rain started. But I pressed on nevertheless.

As I expected, it was a long sad haul up the hill past the railway station to the roundabout. I’m even finding that difficult these days as you know, but I have to press on otherwise I won’t ever get anywhere.

Destination was LIDL of course. Another loaf of bread, cut into three and two parts frozen for later on in the week, some menthol sweets to help me keep my nose clear, a lettuce and, on special offer, a guitar stand. That means that I can unleash the Gibbon.

On the way out, I noticed that COmbattant had gone, but the lighter and digger were still there. And so I reckoned that it had gone off to dump a load of silt.

I was quite right about that because on the way back, there she was, moored up to the lighter and back at work again.

They seem to be doing a thorough job of the dredging anyway. Maybe we might see more ships coming into the port. Some old guy with whom I chatted fairly recently did tell me that maritime traffic had declined over the past few years.

After lunch, despite my efforts up town this morning, I went for a walk. It had stopped raining and the wind had dropped slightly so it was reasonably pleasant, especially for this time of year.

And while I was out, I was chatted up by a bunch of schoolgirls from Avranches and their teacher. That was a very pleasant couple of minutes.

Despite feeling a little better today and hoping that I could go all day without crashing out, I did succumb for about 20 minutes round about 17:00. That was disappointing.

Tea was some of that frozen mushroom and lentil curry in soya cream that I made a few weeks ago. And it defrosted very well in the microwave. I’m not mad keen on microwaves as you know but they certainly do what they are supposed to do.

It was raining this evening but nevertheless I went out for my evening walk.

Around the walls again in a clockwise direction. And I seemed to be the only person out and about which was hardly a surprise.

The wind had got up again and with the tide being right in the waves were crashing on the sea wall down by the Casino. It was all very exciting and very relaxing too. I love the sound of the sea.

My mate wasn’t sitting on his window sill, which is not really a surprise, but here’s a surprise – something that I hadn’t noticed before.

It seems that we have a pizza wagon here in the old town on Thursday nights. I was tempted to go to investigate but he was rather busy. And so I’ll have to go back again; next week maybe.

Back here I had a relax for a while, and then maybe I’ll go for another early night. I hope that there will be a little more improvement in my health tomorrow.

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… beat the second alarm out of bed this morning. But there’s a good reason for that – and that is that if ever I lay my hands on whoever it was who telephoned me at 04:00 in the mornng I’ll be beating them and they’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the next couple of months.

I’d been on my travels too. On a railway station somewhere trying to unload some luggage from a carriage but wasn’t able to do it in the time allowed. But I remember thinking to my self “it doesn’t matter – it’s only a dream and it’ll be all right in real life”. From there, I went off taxiing in XCL, my red Cortina estate. I’d picked up one of my friends, a guy I knew from school, in Oak Street, Crewe, to take to Heathrow Airport to pick up another guy whom I knew at school. And I was thinking that won’t he be surprised when the other friend tells him who is the driver of the taxi.

So it was 06:45 when I arose from my stinking pit – a nice little lie-in for me just for a change. And after breakfast I had another go at sorting out another pile of photos that have been accumulating around. And it’s sad because I’ve forgotten a lot about some of the photos that I took years ago, and I’ve no idea where I’m going to find the text.

And so as a result I’ve joined a couple of groups on my social media account and am posting them on there little by little so see if any fans can help identify them. But I do wish that I knew where I saved the old “Yahoo” blog when “Yahoo” took them all offline in 2009. I shall have to organise myself better.

After lunch I carried on with the photos and spent some time sorting out the freezer, trying to make more room in there. It’s getting rather full. As a result, for tea I had oven chips with one of the vegan burgers we made the other day and the bread rool that was in there, and some frozen peas with fresh carrots. With cheese and mustard in the burger bap it was delicious.

And although I crashed out, it was only for about 20 minutes.

There was a howling wind outside and it’s been on the go all day. So this afternoon I was nearly blown off the cliff as I walked around the headland.

After tea I braved the howling gale yet again and went for a walk around the walls of the old town.

Tonight though I remembered to take the new Nikon with me so I could take some photos in the dark and see how they turned out.

This is of course the square by the casino with the beach to the left.

A little further round I could take a photo of the street that leads up to the town centre.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I first came to live here in Granville I stayed in a tiny apartment that was situated just down there at the crossroads right in the centre of the photograph.

Would you believe that that was 8 months ago now? Doesn’t time fly?

Last night when I was out I went round to the Place Maurice Marland and took a photo of it. But with the camera on the phone it didn’t come out very well.

And so on my perambulations this evening with the decent camera I took another photo of it, and it’s come out rather better.

On the way back I bumped into my new feline friend and he had a good stroke for 10 minutes. It’s very relaxing, stroking a cat. Good to combat stress.

So we’ll try for another early night, and hope that no-one interrupts me this evening.

EPIC HALL

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