Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 22nd April 2019 – WITH IT BEING …

… a Bank Holiday I have imitated the example of the the mathematician who shares my name and I have done three fifths of five eighths of … errr … nothing.

We started off with a turbulent night where I couldn’t manage to go off to sleep for very long. Long enough to go on several nocturnal rambles though, and to leave my bed to go to look for some new batteries for the dictaphone too.

I started off with a group of students back at school outside the old “Room 10” having a huge discussion about something but I can’t remember now. Then a band in the assembly hall struck up some kind of high-tempo dance number. Most people disappeared to go off to this dance. One of the girls just standing around was a very studious type, long brown hair in a pony tail and glasses 3 or so years below me, very prim and proper and the correct uniform. I took hold of her and started to dance with her. She pulled such a face so I asked what was the matter. She just grunted something at me which was a bit of a shame.
A little later I was in Crewe, Davenport Avenue, painting the living room. I can’t remember who I was with. It might have been Marianne or Liz. There were huge plasitc sheets everywhere masking everything off. It was thick white emulsion. I had been masking everything off while she was painting and when I’d finished that I was daubing the paint on with a kitchen towel. I asked if there was a paint brush, and I was given a big old paste brush which wasn’t so good and I was smearing it on with that. For some unknown reason I had to go outside, with Nerina by now and we were at Gainsborough Road to the road down the side. We saw a large black plastic pipe so we walked down the road to look at it. It was sticking up out of the road then a 90° bend down the street with a drop so as to allow passage into the back entry and then back on and down the street. On the way back we went past the entrace to my drive and in there on the drive was my brown Cortina TNY. I thought “what is this doing here? It should be in its lock-up garage. How come it was suddenly appearing here? What was the tenat of the property doing with it on his drive? How had he known where it was? How had he obtained the keys to the garage?” I’d had a vague recollection that one of my Cortina estates had been seen on there but I had dismissed that as unlikely gossip. But now I wasn’t so sure. There were probably 20 vehicles on this driveway, all from the 60s and 70s and in all kinds of states of repair. I wondered what was happening. This was so realistic that I sat bolt upright at this point. It’s a recurring thread, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, about me having Ford Cortinas in various lock-ups and parked up all over the town and not knowing where they were or worrying about them.
Later still I was in a supermarket last night buying something and TOTGA was the manageress there. I can’t remember whether there had been some kind of issue between the two of us. I was in the queue waitig to pay when the cashier was called away. I saw TOTGA walk past but she didn’t see me but as I was in the queue I couldn’t leave it to go up to her to go and tap her on the shoulder and say hello. She stopped at a display rack where there was bottled water and rearranged something. She turned towards me and I waved hoping to catch her eye but then my view was blocked by a couple of people walking past. After they had gone I waved again but now it was a different girl so I felt rather silly. Another cashier came back now and took my item. I said something about TOTGA being there. She replied “ohh you’ve decided to come back to the shop then have you?” as if I have been boycotting it, which I didn’t understand.
And even later, I was here in my apartment with Terry. I was toasting hot cross buns for both of us and took the first lot out of the toaster and put them on his plate. He took some margarine and spread it over and ate them. He made some remark – is this margarine apple-flavoured? I looked and it was something and pineapple. He replied “God what a horrible thing!” so I asked if he wanted something different. I went to put mine in the toaster but his second round was still in there so I took them out and put them on his plate – this was when he made the remark about the margarine, but he put his knife into the same butter and spread it on the others too and I didn’t understand that when he didn’t like the stuff and there were other things that he could have asked for.

By the time that I arose from my stinking pit it was after 09:00 so I had my medication and caught up with a few things, and then just as I was about to go for breakfast Rosemary rang me.

We were chatting for a good hour or so, so I ended up with a very late breakfast.

Later, I attacked the dictaphone. I transcribed the notes from the night and then attacked a pile from the backlog of stuff. That was interrupted by someone coming on line and wanting a chat.

As a consequence I was very late for lunch and so seeing as it was Easter Monday I ate my vegan Easter Egg instead.

This afternoon I was intending to carry on with some work but I was interrupted by a special one-off sale of 3D items that involved spending an hour or so surfing through the web site to see what might be of interest.

That was interrupted my Ingrid ringing me and we had a really long chat for well over an hour.

That meant that my afternoon walk was rather late.

But when I finally did make it outside I was immediately struck by the strange lighting conditions that we were experiencing.

There was some kind of light grey light reflecting off the sea and the Ile de Chausey was standing out silhouetted on the horizon. I’m not quite sure why this should be.

And it goes without saying that I wasn’t the only person out there this afternoon enjoying the weird light.

There was a painter out there too doing his thing. He had drawn quite a crowd of spectators eagerly admiring his work. And it wasn’t bad either. I wouldn’t have minded it hanging up on my wall.

He isn’t the first painter that we have seen in action either. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we encountered one in Québec in 2011.

Yesterday I mentioned that the path around the Pointe du Roc had been reopened. This afternoon I went that way to see what it was like.

You need to be quite athletic to enjoy the trip because there is a considerable number of steps down to the bottom. And what goes down must come back up, as we all know.

But it’s worth it because there’s a view of the coastguard station that I have never seen before.

But something else caught my eye while I was down here.

regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve spoken quite considerably in the past about the construction of the Atlantic Wall during the latter stages of World War II to defend the coast against invasion;

Here on the floor I found a fine example of 1943 graffiti drawn into the concrete, presumably drawn by one of the workmen when they were pouring the concrete.

Another view that I haven’t seen was the Cap Lihou from the rear.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen the sentry’s cabin on the headland before on several occasions but we haven’t seen it from this angle.

And I’m also interested in what looks as if it might be a cave just down there to the left. One of these days when there’s a very low tide I shall have to walk around there for a good look.

As for the walk itself, it’s very picturesque, but it’s also very difficult and very narrow.

What didn’t help either was that there were hundreds of other people out there enjoying it too so there wasn’t much room to move about.

Because of all of this, it’s not something that you would want to do in the dark either. It’s definitely going to have to be a daylight job.

Back here someone else wanted to chat so by then end of that I was hours late for tea. So I didn’t bother. I went for a walk around the walls in the twilight instead.

Now I’m back here and I’m going for an early night. I have a lot to do over the next few days and I need to be on form.

ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

zodiac baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

cabanon vauban pointe de carolles granville manche normandy france

atlantic wall pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

flags pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

fishing boats baie de mont st michel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Thursday 18th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes yet again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night I wasn’t feeling tired so I didn’t go to bed until late. Not that it would have mattered very much because I switched off the alarms on my telephone so I could have a lie-in – necessary when I’ve been on a trip back from Leuven.

The fact that I hardly slept at all during the night didn’t bother me too much either because I was going to have a nice long lie-in this morning.

And all went perfectly according to plan as well, right up until 06:00 when I was awoken bolt upright . Bane of Britain had apparently forgotten that before going to Leuven he had set up the back-up alarms just in case the main alarms failed to go off.

And so that was that.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 09:00 that I finally crawled out of bed. But it was rather a waste of three good hours.

After a rather late breakfast I had a shower and then later I set the washing machine off on a cycle. Dirty clothes have been building up all around here and they need to be sorted out.

And I’ve had another piece of devastatingly bad luck here. I took the memory card out of the Nikon 1 J5 and put it in the card reader – backwards. So now it’s shorted out the terminals and damaged the card.

Luckily I had copied some of them from my trip onto the portable laptop, but the ones from yesterday’s return trip and the previous evening’s walk have gone.

It always happens like this.

I couldn’t go off to the shops right then because I was expecting a delivery. And it finally turned up at 12:10.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I happened quite by chance to notice a second-hand Nikon I 18.5mm f1.8 lens that would be ideal for very-low-light conditions. I’d had a message to say that it would be delivered today.

What surprised me was that the price for which it was on sale was one of these unbelievable prices – less than a third of the new retail price. And so I didn’t really expect it to arrive at all. But here it is.

And I didn’t expect it to work either, but I gave it a quick try in here and it seems to do what it was supposed to. I’ll go and try it out in the dark outside later on tonight after dark and see what it can do.

Once I’d organised the camera lens, I headed out for a rather late visit to the shops.

However, I was delayed by some kind of activity in the harbour. They were out on their little pontoon again working away with their machinery.

It’s really intriguing, what is going on right now. I really ought to go down there one of these days and buttonhole the guys, in order to enquire as to what is going on.

Further on up the hill and into the avenue Aristide Briand just a short hop from LIDL, when my attention was drawn to this clever piece of urban engineering.

They were working on one of the parking spaces the other day, and now it seems that they have in fact been installing a couple of bicycle racks.

But I wonder about the purpose of the disabled parking sign just here. How are you going to manage to park a disabled person’s vehicle in there?

LIDL came up with nothing special except for a pack of jubilee clips. I don’t have any here and that’s not a very good situation in which to find myself.

But on my way home, my attention was diverted by the objects on display in an antique shop in the rue des Juifs.

This is a painting that is actually on display here for sale. It’s not been painted by a 4-year old, but by a mature adult painter, so we are informed, and if you want to buy it, it will cost you a grand total of $650, believe it or not.

The art critic Linda Merrill in her book ” target=”_blank”>Aesthetics On Trial recounts a delightful story where John Ruskin once criticised James McNeil Whistler’s painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket” by saying that he “never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”.

Well, I never expected to hear one ask six hundred and fifty Euros for it either.

Lunch was on the wall in the glorious sunshine. it really was nice today outside.

The Pecheur de Lys was down there in the harbour, nestling on the mud because the tide had gone out.

No sign of my lizards though. I would have expected to have seen them by now. I hope that they all managed to survive the winter in hibernation. It’s not as if it was a really hard winter again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking is a habitual feature on these pages.

This one takes some beating though. On a blind bend by a road jusntion, right by a “no waiting” sign and blocking off part of a zebra crossing, we have some stupid motorist stopped to talk to his friends.

I really don’t know what it is that goes through the heads of some of the people on this planet. I really don’t.

Back here, I crashed out for a while and then awoke to find that there was a football match on the internet this afternoon.

There’s an international Under-15 tournament taking place right now, and Wales had made it to the finals against Belgium. It was quite an exciting match, especially as Wales won 4-0 and you can see the goals here.

Mind you, it might have been a different matter had the Belgian keeper not conceded a penalty and been sent off for his pains.

Tea tonight was another helping of that shepherd’s pie with vegetables and gravy, followed by fruit salad and soya cream. Totally delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my eveing walk.

There were plenty of trawlers out and about out there tonight. And the two boats in the chantier navale have now been joined by two small trawlers undergoing repair.

There were also a fair few people out in the fine weather enjoying the evening air.

Later still, I went out for a walk again with the new lens to see what damage I can do with it.

And now I’ll be having another early night. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow so another lie-in, if I have remembered to switch off every alarm.

I’ll leave you to admire the rest of the photos. The ones in the dark were taken with the new lens.

pontoon port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

pecheur de lys port de granville harbour manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 rue du roc granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 donville les bains granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Monday 8th April 2019 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… yet more money today.

And something that I vowed a good while ago that I would never ever do as long as there was a breath left in my body – well, i’m going to be doing it.

Not without a great deal of regret, it has to be said, but there is no other way to complete a certain task if I want this certain task to be completed. And as it’s one of the things that’s on my bucket list and has been for a considerable number of years, then I shall just have to shut up and get on with it.

“And what is this disagreeable task?” I hear you ask. Well, one other person knows, and the rest of you will know in due course. But the die is cast now.

But at least it’s given me an opportunity to set up an on-line banking service with the Fortis Bank, thanks to a very helpful girl in Belgium. And once I’d done that, the world is my oyster.

All of my bank accounts now have on-line access, and once I can work my way through the labyrinth of portals, the rest is pretty easy.

Last night, with having had a coffee at the football, i was still going on at long past midnight this morning. And when I finally went to bed, I didn’t really need to. And it took me an age to go off to sleep.

There wasn’t much time to go on a voyage. But nevertheless last night I was on board ship again. There were about 100 or so kids being formed up into four lines on a stage by a teacher. And although this took place two years ago (don’t ask me why or how I know) it was so outrageously camp how they were doing it that it would never be tolerated today. They were pushing each other apart to be at arms length like raw recruits might do on one of their earliest parades. Everyone broke for lunch and lined up for the self-service food. There were two queues, each heading towards a central point and somehow I had managed to find myself in the position where these two queues met, so I couldn’t go either way to collect any food. Definitely “stuck in the middle”.

The alarms went off as usual but unfortunately I didn’t. 07:25 was when I finally hauled myself out of the stinking pit.

But once I’d gone through the usual morning procedures, I’ve had a very busy day. And that included some tidying up, filing and sorting out the wardrobe a bit better.

But as far as productive work goes, I had a really good attack at the dictaphone notes. That was the first task and it took me long enough. But I’m down to a mere 305 audio files. So some time within the next 25 years I might finish.

A brief pause to look for something – which ended up as a massive reorganisation of the wardrobe, and then I attacked yesterday’s blog to finish it off and to add the photos.

Once i’d done what needed doing, I carried on with the photos for July 2018. They are all finished now apart from the ones that I did around the Somme battlefield, and that’s my next task – to start on the web pages for that trip.

That shall keep me out of mischief for a good while.

After lunch I got on to the bank to organise a few things, as I mentioned, and then attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland’s on-line banking accounts. I’ve had some new cards from them, but the PINs need changing. Unfortunately I can’t do that with my on-line card reader, which was why I wanted the card reader in the first place.

Seeing as I had come to a natural stop, I went out formy afternoon walk.

And seeing that there was someone down there working on the large boat down there, I went for a chat.

Unfortunately he wasn’t the garrulous type at all. After grudgingly telling me that “she’s a boat from Brittany” he walked away and carried on painting it. I was hoping for rather more from him than that.

Instead, I went to have a look at the Cale sèche, or dry dock.

It has a name apparently – the Cale de Raboud. Built, like most things around here, out of blocks of granite from the Ile de Chausey, it dates from the 1880s at the time that the port was in its heyday.

But like the port, its use declined after World War II with the building of larger ships and the collapse of the deep-sea fisheries finished it off.

There is talk of restoring it, and maybe putting an old Terreneuvier in there as an exhibit, but that’s all a long way from happening, if it ever does.

The guy driving the fork-lift truck around the yard was slightly more garrulous.

He told me that the ancient fishing boat – the Pecheur de Lys – is destined to go back into the water. “But not today” he told me. Apparently, it’s going to take about a month to fit it out correctly so that it doesn’t sink.

On that note I came back and cracked on with the photos from the High Arctic. And I managed to classify another 150 or so of those today. Another week like that and this will be ready, so I can then start on adding them to the blog and doing some more web pages.

As you can see, there’s plenty of work around here that needs doing.

Tea tonight was shepherd’s pie and veg, followed by more strawberries and soya cream stuff. But no walk this evening. I wondered why it had suddenly gone cold again this afternoon. That’s because it’s teeming down outside.

That was just as well, because I seem to be submerged by paperwork yet again. I’ve had a shed-load of stuff sent to me this evening and it all needs attention.

A good night’s sleep is called for, if that’s possible.

Sunday 7th April 2019 – TODAY I HAVE BEEN …

… to the bunker.

And for those of you who don’t remember Lenny Henry, David Copperfield and Tracey Ullman, let me explain.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that just down the road from me a mere cockstride away is a huge set of defences that formed part of the Atlantic Wall. They tried to blow them up after the war but with all the dynamite that they used, they just shifted a few lumps of concrete a couple of feet, so they bricked them up and left them.

When I drove past this afternoon, there were a couple of cars and a few people hanging around outside the big one.

With having had a coffee at the football last night, I didn’t get off to sleep anything like as early as I would have liked. I was tossing and turning for what seems like hours.

But I must have gone off at some point because I had a few really interesting voyage or two during the night. Last night I was staying again in the Auvergne in a hotel which was a hotel at the time. There were events and so on taking place in this hotel but the owners announced that they were closing it, so it closed down. I was looking at it and having a look around it wondering how I could make it pay, thinking about having events there but one problem about that was getting people to come there because they would have to travel, and that wouldn’t do that kind of thing in the Auvergne because they would have to go miles. I ended up taking a pile of bottles down and stacking them in some place – I don’t know if I was moving out or whatever so I had to take these bottles out. Some of them were full. I had four milk bottles and another bottle and I was taking them to the bottle bank. This wasn’t in the centre – it was a good walk out of town where I was. So I took these bottles and ended up seeing this farmer, outside his field on the verge on this corner which was covered really thickly in what looked liked cabbages. I walked right over and on them to get to this bottle bank. He came out of his field and he must have recognised me. “Where are you staying now? Marianne’s? Because I have some onions for you”. I replied that I was staying down there permanently now but I don’t know where I’ll be except for the period from the end of June for about three months or so. So he said that he would be in touch with me.
A little later on I was out walking along this track at the side of a road following the traces of a canal. I was taking photos with the Nikon 1. I came to a place where there was a huge waterfall which was actually the water coming down the canal overflow through a sluice. I went to take a photo of it but I didn’t have the camera with me. I thought “God, where have I left this?”. I started to walk back to the last place where I had used it. I came across an elderly woman with a couple of young boys. She had the same camera around her shoulder. So I asked her “you haven’t found my Nikon, have you?”. She said no, that this one was hers. I could see that because it had one or two attachments that mine didn’t have. I told her that I must have put mine down somewhere and left it. So I walked back and they made a couple of comments about me being English. I replied that I wasn’t English really. They followed me and when I reached this place where I had been before and saw this cascade I started to hunt around but couldn’t find it anywhere. They all helped me look. All of a sudden I had to touch my shoulder and I found the camera strap. I’d had it around my shoulder all the time and I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed it. It was probably just a little moment of panic that I had had while I was looking at this sluice

No alarm as I said, so a very pleasant awakening at … errr … 09:25, and it’s been a really long time since I’ve been so lucky as to have had a decent morning like that.

With a late start, it was a late breakfast and then, imitating my namesake the mathematician, I did three fifths of five eights of … errr … nothing.

In fact I was so busy doing nothing that I didn’t have time for lunch. I made my butties and a flask of coffee and headed out for St Pair.

At the Stade Croissant while I was eating my sandwiches and drinking my coffee, US St Pairaise were playing the Entente Sportive d’Haylande from La Haye-Pesnil.

Despite it being a District League Second Division match it was really exciting and just for a change at this level, we had a very even aerial contest with two teams who were both excellent in the air.

And Haylande had a guy playing right-back who looked almost as old as me, with a head of whitish greying hair, but he’d clearly been around the block several times and St Pair’s left winger had no change out of him at all.

The score ended 3-1 for ES Haylande, which was rather unfair on St Pair. But the big difference was that Haylande made the most of their chances and St Pair didn’t. They even had a penalty saved by the Haylande keeper.

But at long last – two teams who knew how to play in the air. Back to the 1970s certainly, but it was very interesting to watch. And the referees’ assessor, with whom I was sitting in the stand, enjoyed it as much as I did.

On my way back home from the football the people at the bunker were still there when I came back so I went to see what was going on.

As I have said before, if you want to know the answer to a question, you need to ask the question.

I’ve mentioned before that there is some talk of opening them up to make a museum and what they were doing today is some kind of inspection after a preliminary clean-up a few days ago.

Me being me, I managed to blag my way in for a visit.

We couldn’t go in by the steps (of which there were two separate entrances down) because they have long been walled up, but there is another way in through a reinforced steel armour-plated blast door.

And so once inside, our little private tour commences.

One of the things that caught my eye once inside was the door into the crew quarters.

As well as being a reinforced armour-plated blast door, it also appears to be a gas-tight door too. You can see the rubber seal around the door if you look closely.

And there were the remains of the rusty, corroded air treatment pipework in the room too.

But this was what I found to be quite interesting.

From the crew room there was a reinforced metal aperture overlooking the main corridor. The guy who was taking me around speculated that it was an aperture for a machine gun so that if the enemy managed to enter the bunker the defenders could seal themselves in and fight back.

That seems to be a logical idea, although the attackers once inside could simply roll hand grenades down the air tubes.

After my tour around the bunker, I walked back home. But on the way back I had an opportunity to look over the hedge at the athletics track.

This is now part of the Gymnase Jean Galfione, named for the local Olympic gold medal in the pole vault, but I reckon that it was all part of the barracks when the army was stationed here.

In principle they could put a football pitch in the centre, but the fierce winds that we have here would make any match here unplayable.

Back here, I make tea. One of the best pizzas that I have ever made, followed by strawberries (I bought a punnet yesterday) and coconut-flavoured soya cream.

Not much happening tonight around the headland when I went for a walk.

There were just a couple of few people standing around on the headland at the Pointe du Roc watching a trawler setting out to sea.

Nothing exciting at all so I came back to do my notes.

Now I’m ready to bed and I need a decent sleep because I have a lot to do tomorrow. Time is running out for some things that I need to do.

Monday 1st April 2019 – TONIGHT’S TEA …

… was something special.

Not because it was delicious, which it was as it happens, but that’s not the point. The fact that the main ingredients were prepared with my own fair hands.

We had a slice of the vegan pasty that I made the other day, with baked potatoes veg and gravy, followed by a slice of my home-made apple crumble with custard.

And I could go back and eat that all again. it was wonderful, even though I say it myself.

Last night, I was in bed early. And I slept the Sleep of the dead all the way through until the alarm, with a little awakening in the small hours.

Plenty of time to go on a voyage or two. And one or two rather surprising people, including one rather surprising debutante about whom I haven’t spent a moment’s thought since about 1979.

We were doing something involving sausages in a fast-food restaurant last night, trying to work out some sort of recipe. mash, beans and sausage for £1:00 was the aim, with each additional sausage £0:20. On our way back there was a big group of us, and the group was getting steadily bigger. It included Zero, she who used to accompany me quite regularly on my nocturnal voyages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and her father. As usual, she was at the back and I was at the front so I didn’t get to talk to her. I was with either Jackie or Alison, I can’t remember now. We came to this flight of steps and ran down it. But this was a very interesting experience because I actually took off and flew, hovering, soaring and flying down these steps. It was the most astonishing, liberating experience. I’d found these air currents and they were lifting me up with very little effort from myself and yet no-one really seemed to notice. That was what upset me more than anything else. Eventually I landed and walked with the others around the right-hand corner at the foot of the stairs. There was this polar bear there with a dog to keep it company. It growled at everyone who walked past. Bit it seemed to be more interested in me as if I was going to be its lunch and started to walk towards me. I turned round, made myself big and shouted “no” at it in a very firm voice. It stopped, so I started to walk away so it started to walk towards me, so I stopped, turned round etc etc. After about three or four goes at this, the bear finally stopped so I walked on back to my friends who had been at the front and we carried on walking.

A little later on I was doing a job that somehow involved doing things with chocolate and being a receptionist in an insurance company. I’d only been there a week and I met a young girl very similar to that Paulette who worked at Fine Fare in Winsford. We very quickly developed a relationship and began to live together. It was a very interesting, ephemeral relationship because she was a weird kind of girl just like she was, and yet she took a fancy to me. As you might expect, this flattered my ego very well. Our living together was all very cosy. I used to do little odd jobs for her around the house like I did for Cecile. One morning she got up early and I stayed in bed. I was trying to find the light switch because she’d installed a new light by the bed. She came to show me how to do it and we ended up on the bed for a while. She told me about a problem with the washing machine that needed fixing so I reckoned that I would go on and do that. I was wondering whether I should take this girl down to the Auvergne and let her meet my friends and show her where I was living but there was stuff all over the place and it wasn’t a very good advert. I’m not sure how it would all go down with her. I ended up at a garage that was selling cars at very cheap prices. There was a mini for sale at £250:00 and something else (might have been a Hillman Imp) for sale at £495 and a Triumph 1300. But there was a Morris 1000 that needed a lot of work doing to it – the roof had been cut off for a start – and a lot of the body was missing. But what caught my eye was that it was left-hand drive. That immediately appealed to me but some young girl got to it first and started to drive it. I told her that it was LHD to which she replied that it wasn’t a problem. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t been to work at my receptionist job for a week. Whatever was I thinking about? had I told them that I would be away? And if so, for how long? Was I supposed to be on leave? had I vacated my job? It all became extremely confusing.

It’s hardly surprising that after all of that I turned over and went back to sleep again. It wasn’t until … errr … much later that I awoke.

After the usual morning processes (including muesli for breakfast instead of porridge) I sat down and started to work.

First job was to bring up-to-date the blog and to add the photos for the last couple of days. And that wasn’t as quick a job as it ought to have been.

But while I was on a roll I spent the rest of the morning adding photos to some of the older blog entries. Now I’m back as far as 9th August 2018. So only about another 9 years to go. Will I have enough time left to do it, I wonder.

Lunch was spent out on the wall. No lizards still, just my book, my butties and my fruit.

No photos either. There was quite a thick sea mist and the sun, strong as it was, couldn’t burn it all away.

Back here, I had some good news. A letter that I had sent off 12 days ago had prompted a reply. And while my letter might have been “speculative” to some degree, the reply was, whilst not actually resolving the issues, was at least giving ground for optimism.

That led to a telephone call, and that was even more enlightening. Who knows? Something might even happen about this. And won’t that be interesting?

This led to me dealing with another outstanding matter, and so I had a couple of chats with a couple of people on the internet. This led to the submission of another couple of forms.

And the events of yesterday might not have been so false I was suspecting. I’ve had to send a confirmatory e-mail to check it, but it might be kosher after all.

ON that note, I went out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

The mist had cleared somewhat so photography conditions were so much better. I was able to take a really good photograph of one of our fishing boats making its way into harbour.

With the tide having turned, the fishing boats could now come into harbour.

This wasn’t the first of the fishing boats to come into harbour.

Round on the quay by the fish-processing plant there were about a dozen other fishing boats either lined up by the plant, leaving it, or else arriving.

These seem to be busy times down there right now. Everyone doing what they can prior to the inevitable conflict that will ensue with the British fishermen after Brexit.

Meanwhile, at the chantier navale, the yard is almost totally empty.

All that remains right now is the long-term trawler-rebuilding project, and the larger boat that is being resprayed.

There was someone on his skyjack down there adding another coat of paint to the job. It’s going to be a really good job when it’s finished and I’m looking forward to seeing it.

After all of that I came back here and spent the rest of the afternoon slogging away with the dictaphone notes. There were a couple from the last few days and then a week’s work from the past.

That’s not going as quickly as I would like either because some of them are quite length. And those that I’m going to do so are even longer.

This evening after tea I went for a walk, in the light, around the walls.

First stop was to see how they are getting on with the house renovations on the rue du Nord.

The one on the corner, they have now jacked up the floor of the first floor with a whole army of acrows.

Furthermore, they seem to have elongated the windows to the first floor. They might even be putting a balcony out there, and that would be very nice to see when it’s done too.

At the other end of the rue du Nord, there doesn’t seem to be too much progress taking place on the house there.

The other day I mentioned that the guy building it seems to be only working there when he has nothing else to do.

One of these days it will be finished, but I’m not holding my breath about that.

But look how quickly the light has gone.

This photo of the Plat Gousset was taken just a mere 10 minutes after the previous one of the house rebuilding. All of the street lights are on already.

There are still a few people wandering about though. I suppose that the lighter evenings will keep them out for a while longer.

So now, although it’s not as early as I wanted, I’m off to bed. All things considered, I’ve had a productive two days and I’m looking for plenty more like it.

fishing boat doing a u-turn granville manche normandy france

fishing boat entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france

house renovation rue du nord granville manche normandy france

Saturday 30th March 2019 – MOVE OVER IMELDA MARCOS

I’ve been shopping for shoes today.

Last weekend after the football there was someone outside the ground handing out vouchers for 25% off the winter sports goods at Intersport.

For a while now I’ve been looking for a new pair of hiking boots and also a new pair of trainers and not found anything that I really liked. So I thought that this morning I may as well go there and see what they have.

As a result, I walked out with a decent pair of walking trainers and a decent pair of hiking boots, and also a pair of photography gloves. And 25% off them all too, and that’s off the mark-down price on the last day of the sale too.

They both have 5 stars for everything, except for impermeability, for which they scored three stars. But this afternoon I gave them a really good drenching in waterproofing solution and when that’s properly dry in the middle of the week, they’ll receive a second coat too.

It worked, and worked in spades too, for the trainers that I wear right now and which have all of the tread worn off due to constant use, so it may well work for them too.

Last night I went to bed and slept right through all the way until the alarm went off. I only have a vague recollection of going on a voyage, concerning a man whose dog had died and he wanted to bury him, but he was lamenting the fact that the only thing that he had was his mother’s old silver casket and how he was going to miss it.

Despite waking up with the alarm, as is usual these days I turned over and went back to sleep again. 07:25 when I arose from the dead, and by the time that I had finished the usual performance and the weekend shower, it was 09:10 before I hit the streets.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special, so having bought the basics, I headed for NOZ.

But it took me a while to get there due to an enormous queue in the avenue des Matignon. It turns out that there had been a road accident involving a car and a motor bike.

If you look carefully, you can see the debris all over the road.

Eventually, I made it to NOZ and here once again, we are confronted with another pile of pathetic parking. It’s the kind of thing that really gets on my wick.

But in Noz, I made one or two interesting purchases. At long last I’ve found a proper pie tin and that cheered me up no end. And a couple of small ramekin dishes for the oven

Furthermore, there was an Inspector Maigret full-length DVD that will go quite nicely with my collection.

The shoes were next, and then back to LeClerc.

And isn’t it embarrassing and shameful when you see your country pilloried liks this even in the French local press. How could 17.4 million xenophobic racists, backed by a small group of opportunistic extremist politicians, drag the country through the mire like this.

But back to the plot, I didn’t buy anything special here either.

On the way home, I called at the second-hand shop to see what they had on offer. But there was nothing really that caught my eye at all.

Enormous queues again around the town with everyone taking the summer air. I’d even taken off my jacket. And the rue des Juifs is closed because of the works to the wall, and I had to go all around the houses to get back home.

Having half-unpacked my shopping, I had lunch.

It was such a beautiful day that I took my book and the special baguette that I had bought and went out to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour to see what was going on in the sunshine.

And it was quite a busy lunchtime out there too.

We had La Granvillaise out there doing her stuff after her major refit, and in the company of several other yachts.

And as well as that, we had one of the catamarans owned by one of the fishermen coming into port, presumably to unload this morning’s catch.

No lizards for my pear droppings though. they are probably still hibernating somewhere in a gap in the stone wall.

And then, back in the apartment I unpacked the other half of the shopping, having to stop for a little … errr … relax halfway through. And no surprise there.

US Granville’s 2nd XI were playing tonight. USAN Mondeville were the visitors.

I think that I’ve only seen them once this season and I don’t remember much about it. But it was such a nice evening that I went out for a good walk.

And I’m rather disappointed that I did go, because it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

While you all admire the official photographer and his equipment, I can tell you something about the match.

Although the two teams were pretty much even on the field, Granville had no answer to the power and pace of the corners that the Mondeville winger was banging in.

And they had even less answer to the power and the pace of the defenders who were running in unmarked.

Panic and chaos ensued at every one and Mondeville scored from three of them. Thei fourth goal was from a good clearance by a Granville defender that had the misfortune to find a Mondeville attacker totally unmarked with all of the time in the world 15 metres out.

And, as usual, Granville didn’t have anyone out there who had the striker’s instinct.

On the way back, Rosemary called me, so we arranged that she would call me back later.

But in the meantime, I was distracted by this vehicle on the car park of the Foyer Des jeunes Travailleurs. Excuse the very blurry photo but I only had the time to shoot off a quick image

It’s a cut-down Ford Fiasco being used as a trailer, and that’s exciting in itself.

An the apartment, Rosemary called me back while I was watching TNS v Barry Town in the Welsh Cup.

Rosemary and I had a very lengthy chat while TNS did the predictable. Barry just couldn’t seem to get going tonight.

So now it’s late, I’ve had no tea but I didn’t care. I’m going to bed and I intend to sleep for a week.

la granvillaise port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 29th March 2019 – TODAY WAS ANOTHER …

… day when my back was well and truly stuck to the bed. However, it was rather earlier when I finally crawled out – a mere 07:25. I really don’t know what’s the matter with me these days.

As a consequence it was another late start to the day. But at least I finished the searchable text database for the photos for August 2018. Another job crossed off my list.

Once that was done I started to upload the photos to the blog for that month – although I haven’t done the Canada ones because they will be receiving special treatment.

Working backwards through the month, I’ve made it as far back as 21st August 2018.

But I can see why I didn’t do the photos. This was the period when I was having camera issues and quite a few of them are rather depressing. I can see that there’s going to be a period of about three or four months where I shall have to rework all of the photos.

This took me nicely round to my afternoon walk.

Around the headland with the crowds, to see what was going on at the chantier navale. It’s almost empty now, except for the long-term trawler project and the boat that’s being resprayed.

There’s someone down there on his skyjack working on it right now.

At one of the district meetings which I attended, someone was complaining about the kids playing on the roof of their house.

You can see what they were talking about, with those over there looking as if they are going to be there for the Duration.

That would certainly get on my wick and no mistake

While I was out there photographing the brats, my reverie was disturbed by an almighty racket coming from offshore.

It seems that we have the powerboats back again churning up the water offshore.

I thought that this photo would make a nice contrast – the powerboat roaring away in the background and the yacht sliding serenely into the harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that one of the subjects that features frequently on these pages is the collapse of the cod fishery in 1992.

A while ago I mentioned that Granville was back in those days a thriving deep-sea fishing port and that there were plenty of remains that siginify its importance.

Over there behind Victor Hugo is the former cold store for the cod fisheries. You can see the writing on the wall – in the literal as well as the figurative sense.

Back here I attacked the dictaphone notes until tea time, and disposed of another pile of them.

Tea was a potato, mushroom lentil and sweetcorn curry from August 2018, with a leek and baked potatoes, followed by apple crumble.

That set me up nicely for my walk around the walls. No-one about at all, although I made the acquaintance of three cats out there.

But I’ve been having another think about my summer project. A casual enquiry has thrown another shark into the swimming pool and this could really be surprising. I just wish that I hadn’t left so many of my books back in the Auvergne because I could really do with them right now.

On that note, I’m off to bed. It’s shopping day tomorrow and I have a lot to do.

Thursday 28th March 2019 – IT WAS A …

… very busy day in the harbour today.

When I walked down to the town this morning, there in the harbour was Normandy Trader tied up to her berth.

She wasn’t in there last night, so she must have sneaked in on the early morning tide without my noticing her. and she looks pretty well loaded up too, so they must have been quick.

And the reason why they were so quick became evident when I returned from LIDL.

Normandy Trader had cleared off into the sunset and in her place we had Thora tied up there in her place.

And she had only just arrived, that’s for sure, because there were a couple of civilian-types busily scrambling up the ladder onto the quayside. And one of them was a lady of the female sex too.

Last night I wasn’t as early in bed as I was expecting and despite that, I was wide-awake yet again at 03:45.

It took ages for me to go back to sleep, but when I did, I certainly did. Although I heard the alarms go off, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I actually came into the land of the living.

Plenty of time therefore to go off on a little voyage or two. last night I was driving a bus from Chester to Crewe. One of the people on board this bus was George Scane – and what on earth is he doing in my nocturnal rambles? I was dropping off people at places all around Crewe – dropping them off in all kinds of strange directions and strange places in some kind of strange order. Going past the end of McCorquodale’s Printers in Catherine Street in Crewe and everyone was coming out of work – hordes of them. I was surprised that it was 12:00 Saturday lunchtime knocking-off time already, for I had a doctor’s appointment at 12:00 and I had a few other things to pick up from there too. We had to hurry. I was talking to this guy about women, saying that the only women I seem to find these days are women in their 90s and there was no interest in sex. He replied that I should make the most of it while I can and while it’s still offered, allthis kind of thing. He said that he was 103 – or else it was someone else he know who was 103 but he was quite old as well. This was all quite strange. Eventually we reached the doctor’s and I had to go in to ask about what I needed.
Apart from that, I had a very difficult voyage involving my father, and I’ll spare you all the details as you are probably eating your tea right now.
And I was also involved in some football match – Wales were playing Spain and I was out there on the field. Right from the very first touch of the ball at the kick-off one of the Spanish players had to leave the field. We thought that he had broken his ankle and the bench made themselves ready with a bucket of cold water, but in fact it was his boot that had broken. This ended with our team playing the Italians. They had just three people on the field – two men and a blonde-haired boy of about three. And somehow we didn’t have the will or the courage to press home our game decisively like we should have done.

As a result of all of that I was rather late organising myself and I didn’t do anything at all. After breakfast I had a shower, put a load of clothes in the washing machine, and then headed out for LIDL.

The other day I mentioned that they were working on the city walls just around the corner from here.

They had a mini-digger with a breaker attached and it was breaking up all of the rock at the foot of the walls. Why, I’m not quite sure but if it was that well-fixed that they needed a breaker, there seemed no point in moving it.

But he was having a load of fun doing it.

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything at all special today. There was tons of stuff and had I been back on the farm I would have had loads of stuff. But not here though.

On the way back home, I was round by the port again.

It was a beautifully warm, sunny morning – really nice to be out. And I wasn’t the only one enjoying being out. A couple of trawlers were just setting out for the fishing grounds

It made actually a nice photograph

With the Normandy trader having left the harbour I went back up to the apartment and sorted out the big Nikon D5000 and the telephoto lens to see what I could see.

There was some movement out on the horizon, hidden in the mist so I took a speculative photo of it to see what it might be.

It’s actually a couple of trawlers though.

Some more movement a little closer to the shore had me taking a photo to see what it might be.

But this time I was in luck. It is indeed Normandy Trader, heading off out into the English Channel in the direction of Jersey.

It didn’t take her too long to come in, turn round and go out again. I reckon that I must have missed dozens of visits by the ships.

That wasn’t all either.

There were a few more ships out there doing something or other. One of them was La Grande Ancre and judging by the buoys out there around her, she looks as if she might have some kind of fishing net out there.

I’m not quite sure what she’ll be catching just there, but I’ve seen a couple of boats round about that spot. Perhaps it’s some sunken treasure.

Gribouille and his mum were out there too so we had a bit of a chat.

Back here, I made a start on the photos for the last few days. But I wasn’t there for long because it was pretty soon lunchtime.

After lunch I finished off the photos and now the last couple of days have their photos appended.

And then it was walk-time around the headland.

Thora has already gone back out, and that was really quick. And in the chantier navale we have a coat of heavy primer now added to the large boat that they have been preparing this last few days.

It should look really good when it’s finished.

A little further on we have a group of school children around the edge of the old, abandoned dry dock.

It’s round about the time that they have the classes découvertes where groups of children come to town and stay in the Youth Hostel, and then go round looking at the fishing industry – or, rather, what’s left of it after the collapse of the cod industry in 1992.

You can see the remains of the deep-sea fishing industry all over the place around here

And although Thora has now sailed away, we have yet another visitor in the harbour.

Not exactly a visitor but more of a permanent resident, because it’s Victor Hugo, the older of the two boats that do the Channel Islands ferry to Jersey.

Ironically, they bought a new boat to replace her, but she’s nothing like as reliable as Victor Hugo.

Back here, I spent some time with the dictaphone notes, and then attacked tea.

Main course was really easy.

There’s some of the leek and tofu pie left over from the other day so I fetched a slice out of the freezer. I bunged that in the oven along with a couple of potatoes.

Real potatoes baked in the oven, with pie, veg and gravy.

But why I had the oven on is because I’ve been baking again.

This week’s effort is an apple crumble and although it’s not turned out as well as I hoped, it’s still delicious

Apple, grated coconut, raisins, brown sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon. Topped with a mixture of flour, oats and vegan margarine.

On my evening walk there was no-one around so I wasn’t out for long.

Back here I had a good chat with Alison, then Sue and almost immediately after, another chat to Rosemary. I seem to be in demand right now.

So as a result, it’s later than I wanted it to be. But it’s always good to talk to friends.

Friday 22nd March 2019 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch on the alarm this morning?

Yes, Bane of Britain strikes again, didn’t he? At least I had an unexpected and welcome lie-in.

I’d been on my travels too. Dealing with issues of about two inches of water on the kitchen table and worktops (and how it was staying on there without running off I really don’t know) with tons of bits of bread all soaked in it. And I was using some kind of net to fish it out so that it didn’t wash down the drain and block it up.

As a result I had a very late start to my day, which I have spent mainly catching up with the photos (which are now up-to-date). On Monday some time I’ll have to start adding them to the blog entries.

But about 15 minutes of the day was also spent curled up on my chair asleep. Despite the lie-in and the brazil nuts, I can’t escape from this fatigue.

There was lunch of course, and for tea I found a curry in the freezer. Only three months old too. But the freezer is pretty crowded at the moment and I’m running out of carrots. I’ll have to buy some more tomorrow and hope that in the meantime the freezer will empty itself a little.

The walks were something of a disappointment in the sense that for the whole day we had a sea mist that obscured the view.

But with there being the lowest tides of the year right now, the pecheurs à pied – those who go scavenging in the rock pools along the coast – were out there in force right now.

One of my neighbours was down there too somewhere and he showed me his collection of fruits de mer later in the day.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned a while ago that there was some talk of opening up some of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to make some kind of museum.

I noticed today that one of them has been opened up, there’s some kind of grille or grating placed across the opening and they seem to have started work inside it.

So perhaps we’ll have our museum after all.

And this evening I was once more alone on my travels around the walls.

As I said earlier, there was a sea mist out there and it was making the surroundings look all rather surreal.

The buildings of the Place d’Armes looked quite Gothic in this sort of lighting.

And so I took a couple of photographs of them this evening, using different camera settings.

You can see the results in these two photos here.

I’ve managed to see both my cats today. Gribouille came for a good stroke, and so did Minette later – that is, until she smelt Gribouille.

So shopping tomorrow. I’m a little low on stuff at the moment so I need to stock up. A nice early night is called for.

peche a pied granville manche normandy france

world war 2 bunker atlantic wall granville manche normandy france

aeroplane granville manche normandy france

la granvillais charles marie chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Sunday 10th March 2019 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

… to me again!

This afternoon I was invited out for a birthday treat by Liz and Terry, so I went hot-foot out to Roncey.

We had a really good chat about this and that, Terry showed me the bathroom that he’s been building (and it really is nice too) and then we had the pièce de resistance – which is not, as you might be forgiven for thinking, a French virgin.

Liz had cooked a giant cornish pasty full of a vegetable stuffing based on chick peas, lentils, onions, garlic and mustard. Together with roast vegetables, green mange-tout peas and a tomato sauce, it was absolutely delicious and I’ll have to try this at home.

Pudding was a kind-of raspberry mousse on a speculoos base, and that was just as nice.

And then Liz gave me a birthday present, and you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see what it is.

Last night, as you will know, I went to bed fairly early. But there’s no point in going to bed early if you end up wide awake at 04:11, is there?

The water heater switched off at 06:25 as usual (off-peak electricity ends at 06:30) – I heard that – but I must have gone to sleep at some point afterwards because I remember waking up at 08:25.

08:45 was when I hauled myself out of bed.

We had the usual morning routine, and then I spent most of the morning making a start on classifying the photos of September 2018.

Only 1730 of them from when I was in the High Arctic and I reckon that I’ve done about 90 of them. It’s not just a case of classifying them but I need to work out where I was at the time and to make brief notes of some of them where necessary.

As you can see this is going to be a very long job. Especially as I’m stuck because I can’t remember the name of the derelict US Air Force base where we inspected the military installations and saw the Greenland ice cap.

Even half an hour’s searching on the internet couldn’t come up with the name because it’s formerly a restricted site so it would never have been published back in the old days.

After lunch I carried on for a while and then headed off to Roncey.

And on the way, I ground to a halt because something caught my eye. It’s a case of “get thee behind me, Satan” because there’s a nice field with a long tree-lined drive that leads to a stately home, and this field has been divided into building plots that are up for sale.

A nice little two-bedroomed bungalow on one of these would be beautiful, but really given my state of health and my life expectancy, it would be a total folly.

I shall have to put that idea out of my head. And pretty quickly too!

Wednesday 6th March 2019 – I’VE ONLY BEEN …

… out once today, and that was this evening.

I did intend to go out mid-afternoon as usual, but I only made half-way down the stairs before I saw the rainstorm raging outside. Not the kind of weather to put a dog out – never mind me.

I tuned round and went back.

We had the usual alarms this morning, and the usual lie-in until 07:25 before I crawled out from under the covers.

Plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble. Last night I was in my house – which could have been anywhere, and a group of us was discussing the floor in the place. We ended up coming to the conclusion that what was needed was a layer of self-levelling cement. This involved moving absolutely everything off the floor so that we could lay the cement, but while everyone was in agreement with the decision, no-one wanted to do the work and it was a very dispirited crew that set to work in there.
Some time later I was in Crewe, wanting to go to the Aldi supermarket. And this was somewhere over at the back of Mill Street in the old terraced houses that had been demolished in the late 1960s. There was a big ruined brick building overgrown with branches and trees. Someone was throwing into the tree a kind of boomerang with a knife blade edge in order to try to cut off a few branches for firewood, but the resounding thud was shaking him up and he was retreating, in a style reminiscent of someone with St Vitus’s Dance. Behind there, amongst all of the weeds and rubble and wild trees was the Aldi Supermarket, all swathed in ivy. It all looked pretty desolate until you were very close to it. Outside was a kind of wire display basket with bananas in there. And what a price they were too. Brexit is beginning to bite.

Most of the day I’ve spent working on three web pages for Carnaval and Mardi Gras for this year. One page for each day.

Some of the photos have come out really well and I’m pleased with them, although others aren’t quite as good as I was hoping.

Whenever I fancied a break, I shredded a few papers and now there’s a huge mound of the aforementioned waiting for me to take them to the container.

If I keep on at this rate, they should be all gone in a few days and that will be a weight off my mind.

And, unfortunately, round about 13:00 I dozed off on my chair for half an hour.

With having made progress on the tracks that I’ve been playing on the bass (I can even play on the bass the guitar riff from Tom Petty’s track “Makin’ Some Noise” off Into The Great Wideopen – probably the best album Tom Petty ever made), I downloaded a few more tracks to work on.

These are going to be much more complicated to work out but I need to push onwards.

Tea tonight was a lentilburger with pasta and tomato sauce followed by more apple pie and coconut-flavoured soya cream. Delicious it was too.

The rain had stopped this evening so I went out. Windy it was though, so I was all alone except for a jogger with a LED headlight thing.

The sky was quite clear and there was a nice view across the tidal harbour over to the quay where the ferries to the Ile de Chausey and Jersey tie up.

In the background are the lights of the southern part of the town.

So tonight I’ll have an early night and try to have a decent sleep. Thursday tomorrow so I’m going to try to go for a walk to LIOL and do my shopping.

There’s a few things that I need.

Friday 1st March 2019 – DYDD GWYL DDEWI HAPUS …

… to everyone.

And haven’t I had a big surprise today.

Remember when I went into the Mairie the other day to have a discussion with the Maire and ended up with the secretary?

Well, the secretary phoned me back today. Apparently the Maire has taken on board my remarks, made a few enquiries and come back to me.

I wasn’t expecting that, that’s for sure.

It’s not advanced things very much, as I didn’t expect that it would, but having someone like the Maire on your side is a comfort in these difficult times.

And difficult times they are.

Being completely wound up last night as I was, I was still up working at 02:00, totally unable to sleep. More like 02:30 when I went to bed,. And as for sleep, well, there wasn’t very much of that. I was tossing and turning all night.

There was enough time to go off on a travel. I was in Greece in some kind of primitive café helping with moral support (although what support I could ever give anyone would be considered as being moral) some girl who was trying to run it despite all of the opposition and difficulties that her family – the nominal owners – were putting in her path. The strange thing was that when the alarms went off, I totally ignored them and stayed in bed. And although I was by now awake, the journey carried on. And carried on for miles too from exactly the same place where I awoke. Not something that happens every day.

By 09:25 I was ready to awaken, and straight into controversy yet again where a couple of self-important auto-sycophants were bragging about how they had “briefed” a politician and “won a famous victory for UK citizens in Europe” by getting him to look at at. Completely oblivious of the fact that the EU had thrown out this idea weeks ago.

And so this totally shameless display of self-serving egocentricity caused me to explode yet again. And even deeper into the abyss.

I went for a very late breakfast after that. and then came back to start on the blog and the text database.

But not for long, because the Mairie interrupted me.

And then, almost immediately, another phone call from someone else who is on my list of things to do.

This started me off on a wave of work. From somewhere, I summoned up a piece of energy so went on a tidy-up in the bedroom.

Bank statements are fairly tidy now and I found a couple of other papers. And so I then sat down, made a few more phone calls, sent out some e-mails and wrote a letter too.

It may sound not much, but it certainly made an impression on the stuff in here.

My lunch was a light one, and that made me feel a little better.

I did manage to do some work on the photos and the database. Not a lot, but I’m back as far as 18th October 2018. It’s going a little quicker than I was expecting.

Later on in the afternoon I went for my afternoon walk.

I went around the headland at the Pointe du Roc through the crowds and hordes of tourists up there

And there was a beautiful view across the harbour right over to the coast on the far side by the Cale de Hacqueville.

There were quite a few people at the Chantier Navale, loitering around that big wooden boat that I mentioned last time, so I went over for a chat.

The boat that is on there is in fact La Granvillaise – a yacht that we have seen on many occasions around the harbour.

She’s been taken out of the water for a complete refit and overhaul by the volunteers, and she’s going to be there for a while.

While I was down there at the Chantier Navale, I went over to have a look at Armor – the ship from the diving place down the Brittany coast.

They’ve stripped off most of the old paint, and are currently giving it a good go over in white primer, ready presumably for its top coat.

They have put a lot of work into it. It will look good when it’s finished.

My route into town took me past the place Charles de Gaulle.

Here I could admire the stage that they had erected the other day. Events will be getting under way tonight, although I won’t be down there.

Instead, I went to the Post Office and sent off the letter that I had written. It won’t go until Monday afternoon but it needs to be on its way.

Back up the hill, I stopped to watch one of the ferries from the Ile de Chausey coming into port.

And there was a weird commotion going on behind me.

Some woman pulled up in her car, shouted to a passer-by “watch my vehicle” and ran off down the road shouting “Chantal” or something.

Everyone was standing around there shaking their heads.

Back here, I had a pleasant surprise. A friend of mine in the UK has sent me a little present for my birthday to help me along my way. That was just so very thoughtful of him and I’m overwhelmed.

Tea was a small stuffed pepper with a little rice followed by a pot of soya dessert and a banana.

And then football. The Welsh Cup, Caernarfon Town v Connah’s Quay Nomads.

Connah’s Quay were strangely subdued, michael Wilde was at walking pace and Callum Saunders was somewhere else in his mind, I think.

But Caernarfon seem to have gone off the boil too – a shadow of the impressive hard-working side of earlier in the season.

The Nomads won 2-1, but it was a very long game.

So it’s bedtime now.

I’m feeling a little better, and maybe a decent sleep might cheer me up again.

It’s Carnaval tomorrow.

And I seem to have lost one of the camera gloves that my friend Liz bought me for my birthday of 2008. I’m dismayed.

coastline granville manche normandy france

chateau de la crete granville manche normandy france

harbour light st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franc

Tuesday 26th February 2019 – I REMEMBER HEARING …

… the water heater switch itself off this morning at 06:25 but if anyone thinks that there was a possibility of me leaping sprightly out of bed at that time of the morning, they are totally mistaken.

Instead, I turned over and went back to sleep. 08:25 is much more like it for someone recovering from a viral bronchitis.

Plenty of time though, to go off on a few little voyages.

We started off on a big ship last night and sailing down some channel, and a few fires breaking out here and there, including a large one that, in order to put this one out, I had to sail the ship into the lee of the shore. I was tempted to laugh off these attempts and dismiss them, pretend that they hadn’t happened, but somehow there were too many witnesses and there were too many signs of damage.
A little later on, I was wandering over some kind of park supervising the cleaning. There were papers littering the place, torn ones of the kind that would have been the track of a 1920s paperchase in a Public School. One of the young gardeners had made very little effort to clean them up, and I wondered why. He exlained to me that his blower wasn’t working properly so that there wasn’t very much that he could do. I asked him whether he had reported the matter or taken the machine to be prepared, to which he didn’t respond. So I gave him a little lecture.
Later still, I was in a room in my house. This was somewhere round by the east end of Crewe by where Nerina’s family lived. I had to go off to the south of the town so I wheeled out the old Honda Melody that I had when I first moved to Brussels. I wasn’t sure how much fuel was in it, and whether I ought to go down Earle Street on it to the cheap petrol station or down Macon Way to the petrol station on the roundabout by the station. The latter was a shorter route by a couple of hundred metres but the fuel was dearer, and bearing in mind the fuel consumption of the Melody, how much difference would it make? And then I had the big motor-scooter – a four-stroke foot-first thing that ought to have a run out too. There was also a bike lying on its side on the floor of what I imagined was my bedroom. The wheel was wedged up against the wall so when I moved it, the wheel spun round and the dynamo front light illuminated. And I couldn’t understand why there was sand all over the floor.
Finally … “thank God” – ed … I was at the seaside. We were sitting in a coach that was being used as a waiting room. A discussion broke out amongst a few people about some kind of pink pottery on board a ship and that corresponded with some kind of nocturnal voyage on which I’d departed years ago. I tried to insert it into the conversation but no-one paid any attention. So I ignored the conversation and tried to read the newspaper. But reading a newspaper on a coach even when it was stationary was rather difficult. Eventually I looked up to see that the people to whom I’d been talking had all moved on. Instead, there were other people, talking about Mr Soandso whose car had just been badly damaged by some kids whose sled had gone out of control and collided with the car.

I eventually crawled out of my bed and went off to sort out my medication and some time later, I went back for a pile of porridge for breakfast.

And having done that, I had some errands to run.

Not that I managed to go very far.

There has been some work going on at the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs for a few days now so I was interested to see what was happening.

It looks as if they are replacing the window seals around the dormer windows in the roof by working on one of the mobile platforms that they had out here over the early part of the winter.

On the way down the hill I met the “electrician” from the other day. Busy erecting wooden shuttering around an empty shop front.

Just as I thought. Some electrician.

First stop was at the estate agent’s. I’d had a reminder about a bill that I’d missed and I needed to find out what.

Seems like I have the dustbin tax to pay.

Second stop was at the Mairie. I’ve decided to take the Bull by the Horns and tackle Madame la Maire about my little project.

It’s not easy because she’s busy, but it you don’t try, you don’t get.

I made it past the downstairs and as far as her secretary, and the latter took a pile of notes. We shall see where we go with this, but at least I’ve put my feet on the road.

Final stop was at the bank – firstly to pay the dustbin tax of course, and secondly, to find out why my telephone provider had sent me a reminder for a bill.

It seems that it’s not from the telephone provider at all but, as I suspected, one of these scams that is going around.

I checked at the Telephone company, and they confirmed it.

Back down the hill in town I noticed that they are pushing along with the preparations for Carnaval.

The roundabout that was there the other day has gone, and in its place is a stage. I seem to remember there being some music on there last year, as well as the MC of the whole proceedings.

I hope that it’s going to be a little more lively this year than last.

Round the corner and up the hill, and a temporary road closure.

The rue des Juifs is where they park some of the floats for the carnaval, and so they are clearing the streets of some of the street furniture to give them more room to manoeuvre.

Outside one of the cafés here is an old rowing boat that is used by customers to sit in and admire the evening. They are in the middle of winching it off to I’ve no idea where.

Back up here I carried on with updating the blog but it was soon lunchtime.

And it was such a beautiful afternoon that I made some butties and went to sit outside on the wall.

While I was there I took a few photos with the different lenses of the camera and edited them.

You can see the results down below and these shouls give you some kind of idea of what the camera is – or isn’t – doing.

After lunch, I attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland yet again.

A mere 87 minutes on the telephone and not much further forward either and this is going to be a very long job to persuade them to do what I want to do, and take me a great deal of effort.

I just don’t know why I’m stuck with the useless pile of bankers that I seem to have acquired. I am really totally and absolutely full of dismay about all of this.

Totally fed up, I went off for a walk around the walls. And took another pile of photos on different settings.

Strangely, it seems to work like it should on automatic exposure, and about three stops up on manual exposure – in other words, it needs twice as much light than it says that it’s receiving.

I’ve had a look on the internet to see if there’s any firmware update, but not at all. So I’ve no idea now.

No tea tonight. I had a few biscuits and one of Jenny’s chocolates, followed by a chocolate soya drink. Not that I couldn’t have eaten anything but I’m trying to keep some weigh off now that I’ve got it off.

I don’t suppose that I’ll be able to keep it up but that’s no reason for not trying.

Instead, I went for a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the pleasant evening, and to play with the camera again – this time with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

Of course it’s very difficult to tell what’s happening with that lens because I only every use it in the dark and set it by eye anyway, frame by frame.

But they don’t look like they used to, that’s for sure, especially after all of the work that I’ve been putting in.

Round to the entrance to the harbour to watch the trawlers come in with their catch.

This would have been a beautiful photo in the right conditions with reliable equipment, and I was expecting to have done something much better than this after all of the practice that I’ve been doing.

I’m going to have to upgrade the camera some time soon, which is a shame.

So, dismayed, I’m off to bed. An early night. I’ve decided to start with the alarms tomorrow and see how I’m going to get on.

——— RANGE ONE ——-

beach quay herel granville manche normandy france

——- RANGE TWO ——–

donville les bains city walls granville manche normandy france

crowds beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

trawler coming in to port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawlers coming in to port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Sunday 24th February 2019 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

I’m officially (I think) an old-age pensioner, having reached the ripe (and getting riper as I get older) old age of 65.

And you can tell, too. This morning I switched on the hi-fi and then waited for ten minutes wondering why the computer hadn’t switched on.

Last night wasn’t all that late, but I was expecting something better than being awake at 05:30. I heard the water switch off at 06:25 but then I must have gone back to sleep somehow because it was 08:30 when I awoke a second time, and 09:00 when I crawled out of bed.

Piles of goodwill messages already, which is always very nice. I’ll have to reply to them at some time. But now I’m going to have breakfast. To dive into a big bowl of porridge, and maybe some grapefruit juice as well.

Back here, total chaos yet again as that evil dictator in nominal charge of this mad, insane flight over the cliff into disaster goes off on another pointless walkabout with no purpose other than to prolong the delay in suffering another humiliation.

We’re experiencing a coup d’état from the top, just word-for-word and action-for-action as Jacques Benoit-Mechin predicted in De La Defaite Au Desastre.

Rosemary rang me for a chat too but I couldn’t stay talking for long. My throat gave out after a while and I had to hang up. I need to look aout after myself.

Instead, I went for a walk in the glorious sunny weather.

Around the headland amongst the crowds and then down the steps to the harbour.

I had a walk underneath the fish-processing plant to see what I could see, which included a horde of gulls picking over the broken shells that had cascaded down through the floor into the mud.

Over the gates to the other side of the harbour and out to the other side of the town.

On the Parking Hérel the lorries were arriving; bringing the fairground in. Carnaval starts tomorrow so they’ll be setting up tonight ready for things to get swinging underway.

Back into town, I went for a sorbet – the first of the year. And I sat in the sun on the square to eat it too. It really was a beautiful day today and I was enjoying every minute of it.

The way back home was via a diversion in a street that I had never visited before.

I’d seen some construction work going on at the Place des Corsaires and I had wondered what it was. They are in fact demolishing – or half-demolishing – a house and building it up with breeze blocks like they are doing with that house on the rue du Nord that we visit from time to time.

Back here, I opened my birthday presents. Jenny sent me some chocolates and Alison a money belt and a useful tool for eating out. I have some lovely friends.

Tea was a vegan pizza – not as nice as usual because there wasn’t much to go on it. And then a lovely walk around the walls in the dark and the solitude.

I’ll go to bed now. Not too early but not too late. No alarm tomorrow either. I’m going to take it easy which I try to get back my strength.

crowds sunshine pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france

sanding down respraying armor port de granville harbour manche normandy france

lobster pots port de granville harbour manche normandy france
“How do you train a lobster to go on one of these?”

underneath the fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france

rue etoupefour granville manche normandy france

Thursday 21st February 2019 – HAVING GONE …

… to bed at all of 14:30 yesterday, that was that until some time round about 08:40. And by now, the viral infection that I had had last winter and which I knew was on its way (one of the many reasons that I keep this blog is that I can keep track of my health and my symptoms) was fully installed.

Just like last time I was coughing so much that my ribs were hurting, my nose was streaming and I just felt like death.

But I had to haul myself out of bed because I was expecting a visitor this afternoon and the place was in no state to receive any.

First off, the vacuum cleaner wouldn’t work properly. But that was soon remedied when I emptied the container and unblocked the pipe. I could then move the furniture around and wash some of the floor.

That killed me off completely so I went back to bed.

When the doorbell rang, I leapt out of bed and let in the electrician. regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have been having electricity issues with the apartment and I’d been to see the estate agent about it.

He simply disconnected the socket, looked inside and saw that there was no wire adrift, said “it looks all right to me” and reassembled it. And that was that. No test meter, no oscilloscope, no nothing whatever. He did nothing that I hadn’t done, and even less than Terry had done.

He was a musician too, and he was far more interested in the Gibson bass. We had a lengthy chat about guitars and music that took up far more time than the electricity bit. And for that reason I refrained from casting any nasturtiums on his performance (or lack thereof) on the electrical stage.

Once he’d cleared off, I went back to bed. And that’s how the rest of the day unfolded.

Round about 19:30 I struggled out of bed, with the idea that I might try something to eat. It’s been 54 hours since I last ate.

A packet of vegetable soup with water and this vermicelli pasta all stirred up, and I managed – ever so slowly – to have half a litre with some bread from the freezer.

And then back to bed where I immediately broke out into a fever. The food was right, but the timing was wrong.

The coughing and the uncontrollable nose increased in vigour and I had a really incomfortable night. I couldn’t find the Vick and my olbas oil is pretty ancient now and lost most of its efficacity. So I suffered. And suffered.

A few minutes sleep here and there was all that I managed throughout the night.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 22nd April 2019 – WITH IT BEING …

Thursday 18th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

Monday 8th April 2019 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

Sunday 7th April 2019 – TODAY I HAVE BEEN …

Monday 1st April 2019 – TONIGHT’S TEA …

Saturday 30th March 2019 – MOVE OVER IMELDA MARCOS

Friday 29th March 2019 – TODAY WAS ANOTHER …

Thursday 28th March 2019 – IT WAS A …

Friday 22nd March 2019 – GUESS WHO …

Sunday 10th March 2019 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY …

Wednesday 6th March 2019 – I’VE ONLY BEEN …

Friday 1st March 2019 – DYDD GWYL DDEWI HAPUS …

Tuesday 26th February 2019 – I REMEMBER HEARING …

Sunday 24th February 2019 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!

Thursday 21st February 2019 – HAVING GONE …

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