Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 3rd June 2019 – I MIGHT POSSIBLY …

… be mistaken but by the end of the evening today I might have noticed a slight (and I DO mean “slight”) change in the way that my left leg is performing, and it might (and I DO mean “might”) be a change for the better.

But we shall have to see

The alarm went off of course as usual at 06:00 but when I finally surfaced it was more like 08:35. If I get up and move around too much too early I end up in agony.

We had breakfast of course and then much of the morning was spent copying the blog notes over to the web page for Canada 2017 – when I was feeling up to it. It’s not easy with the pain.

There has been some bad news too. Many years ago I bought a cheap cassette player from ALDI – they kind of machine that plugs into a USB port so that you can digitalise your audio cassettes.

I have hundreds around here and that was to be my next project. I went to make a start but for some reason the thing doesn’t want to work. I tried various combinations of batteries but it doesn’t want to fire up at all.

So it looks as if this project has gone back on ice for a while – either until I have a sudden revelation about what it is that I have forgotten to do or until I buy another machine.

Most of the afternoon has been spent in bed – for at least that way it eases things off a little and it doesn’t hurt so much. I can cope with the leg when I’m lying down like this and it’s not too painful.

It’s being upright that’s causing me most of the problems, and the transition between being lying down and being upright that it causing all of the rest – and they are the worst.

But as I said, this evening I noticed that things seem to be slightly different in the way that the leg is performing.

Once again, I didn’t feel like any tea. A couple of squares of chocolate and a handful of nuts. I’m still not in the mood for eating and seeing as I have a number of kilos that I wish to lose it’s no skin off my nose if I don’t eat. I’ll eat away at these excess kilos instead

So now I’m off to bed, nice and early. As in 21:05. But I don’t care. I need to make the most of this immobilisation and catch up on my beauty sleep so that I can feel so much better when the time comes for me to start to work again, which I hope will be soon.

Sunday 12th May 2019 – I REMEMBER …

… saying yesterday that I was hoping for a good night’s sleep for a change;

And so I’m more-than-satisfied with 10:25. That will suit me nicely, thank you.

Plenty of time for going off on a little voyage during the night. Something happened last night that a group of us was out looking for a lorry. We eventually came across it – an old late-1930s British Army 2-tonne lorry that was hidden up an alleyway. We quickly unloaded it and I took it off to hide it. Someone asked me where I’d put it and I replied that I’d put it in my workshop next to my Cortinas. This person wondered how I’d managed it because that was full of all kinds of stuff, but I explained that I’d tidied it up and moved things around (however unlikely that might seem). I was round then at some woman’s house getting my things ready and it had taken me a while and I was running late. I was sorry that I hadn’t had time to go to see a girl who lived in the neighbourhood and on whom I was keen and I didn’t have time. The woman suggested that I ring her and merely say “hello” and I could see how the land lies. She might even slip round for a moment.
But somewhere in all of this a girl had asked me if I fancied a new car. I replied that a Jaguar would suit me nicely so she explained that all I needed to do was to go to a flower shop and place an order for a certain type of flower. There was an extremely long and complicated script to the way in which I had to ask and she endeavoured to coach me, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. In the end I told her that we would both go in together and instead of teaching me the script she could simply say it to the shop owner and save the trouble.

As a result of all of this, any plans that I might (or might not) have had all went gang agley.

What was even worse was that the nearest football match was about 30 kms away and while I might have travelled that far to see a game when I lived in the Auvergne, things are somewhat different now that I live here;

But I’ve not been idle. Not by any means. I’ve spent all of the day working on the photos for the trip to Canada in 2015 and they are now completely up-to-date.

So that’s another project finished and I’m pleased about that.

The next plan is to look at the pages for 2016, and then for 2017. I’m pretty certain that for the earlier years all of them have been done.

Once they are done, I’m going to work on some kind of opus magnus about Montreal – something similar to what I did about Quebec.

However, that’s a long way off, I reckon.

There were the usual interruptions. Lunch, of course, and later on I had my afternoon walk.

There was quite a lot of action on the sea this afternoon.

There were all kinds of naval craft out there, including several yachts such as this one here.

And do you notice the marker buoys in the water just ahead of it? It makes me wonder whether all of these marker buoys that we see occasionally in the water aren’t something do do with the yachting school – marking out a route or a limit maybe.

As well as the yachts out there, we had speedboats and cabin cruisers too, such as these here offshore from St Martin de Bréhal in this photo, which I cropped out of a long-distance shot and enlarged.

I’m not sure what the two boats nearest the camera are doing, but if you look closely you can see a horde of seagulls flapping around in between them. So there’s clearly something interesting going on there.

But look at the colours of the sea today. It was beautiful this afternoon.

And all of the people were enjoying themselves too.

There were hordes of people down there on the Place Maréchal Foch and heading off to enjoy the sunshine along the Plat Gousset.

Not too many on the beach today though. It might have been a nice day but the wind wasn’t making it so warm as it might have been. We might have to wait a few weeks for that, if it’s going to happen at all, for this year is turning out to be something of a disappointment.

I said though, didn’t I, that there were crowds of people out there today.

On my travels over the last couple of days I’d seen strange signs appearing all over town advertising “routes” and I’d been wondering what was going on. But my curiosity was satisfied this afternoon when I saw hordes of people wandering around in organised groups following the signs.

The days when I could tag along behind and follow them are long gone. I don’t move about as quickly as I used to do, and I’ve had it when it comes to stairs of course

So that’s the land and sea from this afternoon dealt with. We haven’t said anothing about the air yet.

And that was quite busy today too. We didn’t see our autogyro today but there was this little microlight flying around above us, presumably from the airstrip over beyond Donville-les-Bains.

But taking this photo involved something of an athletic feat because this is one occasion where the monopod gets in the way. Taking photos at anything more than about 20° means that I have to bend down underneath the camera. At about 60° I end up like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The evening though was probably the most magnificent that I have experienced since I’ve been living here.

The wind had dropped and the haze had gone, which meant that I could see for miles. I was seeing things with the naked eye that I struggled to see with the telephoto lens. It was a perfect evening for photography, as this long-distance shot of Jersey will confirm.

As I have said before … “and you will say again” – ed … it’s very hard to imagine that this shot is of objects that are at least 54 kilometres (31 miles) away. And it’s picked up the buoy in mid-channel really well.

But 54 kilometres are nothing at all compared to what I was seeing and what the camera was picking up this evening.

A rather speculative shot in the distance following a compass heading has picked out the hills at the back of the Brittany coast out between St Brieuc and Paimpol, and they are at least 80 kilometres away.

I spent quite a considerable time out there and too plenty of photos. They are appended to this blog entry and I’ve made a couple of notes of where they might be.

It really was beautiful and it’s a shame that there were so few people out there enjoying it.

On my way back to the apartment, my attention was distracted yet again.

I’ve no idea what drew my attention to it, but at the foot of a tree in the boulevard Vaufleury I saw this broken egg. It’s clearly not a hens-egg shell discarded by a tourist because it’s a completely different shape and size.

A couple of people have mentioned to me that they had seen chicks about this year earlier than usual, and it looks as if they might be right.

Where there are broken egg-shells, there would have to be a nest in the immediate vicinity.

And the tree at the base of which the egg was found would seem to be a good place to look. Sure enough, carefully entangled into the branches of this tree is a very discreet nest.

It’s so well camouflaged that it was impossible to take any sort of photograph of it. And so I’ve no idea whose it is or even how many people might be in it.

And I see that I’ve forgotten to mention tea. Vegan pizza of course followed by apple pie and coconut sorbet. Delicious. The sad thing is that tomorrow will see the last slice of pie.

And shame as it is to say it, I was away with the fairies for 20 minutes too, despite my good sleep. I ought to be ashamed of myself.

So now it’s bedtime. Not as early as I would have wanted, but early enough.

Ready for a bit more hard work next week.

east jersey coast granville manche normandy france

close up jersey coast granville manche normandy france

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close up brittany coast cap frehel france

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close up brittany coast st malo france

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river mouth marker lighthouse windfarm manche normandy france

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close up normandy coast barneville carteret manche normandy france

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baie de mont st michel pointe de carolles cabanon vauban granville manche normandy france

baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

close up baie de mont st michel pointe de carolles cabanon vauban granville manche normandy france

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close up terrelabouet near cancale brittany coast france

“st pair sur mer baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

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close up brittany coast mont st michel france

Tuesday 7th May 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… start to the day today.

Last night I told you that it might be rather late before I went to bed. But 01:00 was rather ridiculous.

As a result I totally ignored the alarms that went off, and it was almost 09:00 when I finally arose from the Dead.

I’d been on my travels as well. It was wartime and we were in Paris. Our task was to free Paris from the Germans. We’d formed these underground cells and one or two of these were confining these Germans to some kind of castle on a pinnacle separated from a rocky spur by a huge chasm. A red and white electricity pylon had been blown up and had fallen across the gap, and it was expected that the rest of the resistance would charge across it. I was summoned up for my troop and they were going to come and join me and said that all of the resistance would be ready for this attack. But when my troop turned up they were playing football – there was a football match going on. They started to pass the ball to me and I thought that we were supposed to be fighting, not playing football.
And that wasn’t everything either, but the rest of the story is not fit for human consumption, especially if you are eating your tea.

As you might expect, it was a very slow morning and it took me almost until lunchtime to attend to last night’s dictaphone entries and to organise yesterday’s photos. And there weren’t all that many of them either.

But later on, I managed to up the pace somewhat and by the time that I’d finished for tea the outstanding dictaphone notes have been reduced to a mere 65.

This was of course the period when I was falling seriously ill so it’s hardly surprising that although I had actually transcribed the notes for my 2015 trip, they were never connected up with the images. So as one task draws on to a conclusion, another one rears its ugly head.

There had been several pauses and interruptions too.

I tidied up all of the empty bottles and cartons and took them down to the rubbish bins, where I was detained for a chat by one of my neighbours for a while. She had a lot to say for herself.

Lunch of course, taken indoors yet again. And the hummus that I made the other day is delicious.

There was of course the usual afternoon walk.

And not too many people around either because the weather looks as if it’s on the turn. That must be keeping people indoors.

I certainly didn’t want to be out there on the beach on a day like this. It wasn’t very peasant.

But there are people who clearly don’t think like me, or else they are made of sterner stuff.

There was a couple sitting down there on the bench at Cap Lihou by the old medieval sentry-box. They were quite clearly enjoying the cold wind, the spray and the smell of the ozone.

And good luck to them too. They deserve it, and probably need it too.

As I have said on several occasions recently, we seem to be having more and more trawlers out here in the bay.

Despite the miserable weather this afternoon, this photo came out quite well, all things considered. It’s a trawler working away out there just off the north of the Ile de Chausey.

We’ve seen a few trawlers working out there just recently. I wonder if this means that the fishing shoals have changed their swimming pattern

There’s another change of inhabitants at the Chantier Navale today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the yellow pontoon that appeared in the harbour a couple of weeks ago after the core driller left.

It seems that they have now pulled it out of the water and it’s up here having things done to it.

I’ll go dow tomorrow and have a close look at it and see what it’s supposed to be and what’s going on

Back here I carried on with the dictaphone notes, and had another lengthy chat with Rosemary. And by the time that I’d finished ready for tea, I realised that I had forgotten my shower today.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and rice followed by the apple pie and some of that coconut sorbet, which was delicious.

And then off for my evening walk around the walls.

For a little experiment I took the new monopod with me and gave it a try. There was plenty of activity still out there in the English Channel so I gave it a try with the camera.

It’s not as steady as I was hoping for, but it has to be an improvement on hand-held long exposures in the half-light.

aAnd round the other side, I was distracted by a noise coming from the harbour.

It seems that Victor Hugo has been out on a run to the Channel Islands and had just come back, judging by the crowds at the ferry terminal.

She had unloaded her passengers and has now come into the inner harbour to tie up. She’ll stay moored here until she goes out again.

And still no sign of the new ship Granville that is to replace her. She was here the early part of last summer but had a breakdown and I haven’t seen her since, although according to her AIS signals she was in here a few times late last year.

So now I’m looking forward to an early night. I really ought to have one and a good sleep too. Last night’s fiasco I’ll put down to taking tomorrow’s bank Holiday one day in advance.

So an early start tomorrow.

trawler ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel brittany coast granville manche normandy france

working on monument de la resistance pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

yachts trawlers english channel granville manche normandy france

Friday 3rd May 2019 – I’VE DONE …

… a massive 15% – almost 20% – of the outstanding files on the dictaphone list this morning.

211 was the figure at which I started this morning. By late morning it was a mere 172. And the only reason that I stopped was because I reckoned that I ought to be doing other things as well.

Actually, I cheated. I finally found out where I’d copied the notes previously. I’d actually typed them directly into the blog entries without putting them in the notes file.

Ad so I simply copied and pasted them into the dictaphone notes file, and that was that.

Despite my saying that I’d be having an early night last night, it didn’t quite work out like that. Just as I was planning on going to bed, I had a phone call.

And that put paid to my early night, and in spades too because by the time that I’d finished the phone call, my desire to sleep had gone and it was long after midnight when I finally hit the sack.

And I was off on a voyage too. I was in the EU last night and a princess probably the princess of Monaco came walking through. I had my camera with me so I took a few photos of them. She asked to see them and was quite impressed. She said that she would be at a meeting at the Parliament there at 09:15 next day and would I like to photograph her there. So about 09:05 I picked up all of my stuff, cameras and the like but because I didn’t have a flash I carried a copper frying pan with me that would reflect the light. As I set off I had to walk through my office. everyone was sitting there like at school and I just walked through with my camera and my stuff and straight out of the back door, leaving them open-mouthed at what was going on. I had to fight my way through the huge crowds at the Commission (?!) And found myself at the back of this big meeting where a huge discussion was taking place. There were thousands of people there but I couldn’t see this princess. We were discussing documents and all this kind of thing. Suddenly a document came up talking about storage and I realised that it was a document that I had prepared. They were passing copies about through the meeting to people who hadn’t had them and an extra copy of this document which was in two parts appeared at my desk. I hung onto it as no-one else behind me seemed to want it. A woman came in late and had all of her documents given to her late. She started to ask “who’s this EH who had prepared this document?” I said that it was me – tey asked me who it was; She said that she didn’t have a copy so I passed mine over or the spare one that i had. She was not very impressed because she was expecting a much bigger document. I couldn’t see this princess and her children (because she had some children with her) anywhere in this meeting, but they were all looking at me and my stuff wondering what I was doing. I think that that Nicole was there at one time.

It goes without saying that I didn’t leap joyously out of bed with the lark this morning. Just after 07:00 it was when I finally saw the light of day.

After the usual morning performance, rather later than it has been just recently, I did the photos for yesterday and then attacked the dictaphone notes.

What with a stream of interruptions and the like, and searching for the notes files, it took me until probably 11:30 or something like that to demolish a good pile of them.

Next task was to do some of the outstanding blog entries – to update the photos. I’m now back to 12th July 2018. I’ve left out the trip to the High Arctic because I have plans for that.

There were no photos for 11th July, and 10th July puts me back to the last day of my voyage around Europe. We’re at the Somme battlefield and I spent much of the remainder of the day allocating the text and alt tags to the photos from that period.

When they are done, I’ll update the blog entries as appropriate, and then think about doing the web pages.

here was lunch in between all of that, and it was taken indoors again. The high winds are putting the wind up me as far as sitting on the wall goes.

I called a halt to the photos when it was time to go for my afternoon perambulation.

And I immediately came under aerial attack. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in August when we were at the Cabanon Vauban we saw an autogyro fly right past where we were standing.

This afternoon, just as I walked out of the apartment, the aforementioned machine flew right over my head. And so I took a photo of it.

That wasn’t the only aerial operation going on this afternoon.

About 30 seconds later, one of the hang-gliders flew past my head. There were a few of them out there this afternoon enjoying the windy weather.

I must admit to having a little musing to myself about how exciting it might have been had the hang-glider and the autogyro had a meeting of the minds and bodies right over where I was standing.

And that was far from being all of the excitement out there too.

Round on the Pointe du Roc not too far from where the bunkers are situated, there were some people measuring up, setting pegs and tapes on the ground and marking something out.

Further enquiries (because I believe that if you want to know the answer to the question, you have to ask the question) revealed that they are going to erect a monument to the Heroes of the Resistance on this spot

We can’t have a trip around the Pointe du Roc without going to see what is going on in the chantier navale

We have the two usual boats that have been there for a while, and on the right is the old trawler that has been on blocks over on the far side of the yard for as long as I can remember.

But on the left we have what looks like a different trawler that has come in for some kind of repair or renovation.

In between dodging the aerial attacks earlier, I’d been looking out to sea to see if there were any boats on their way in.

I’d noticed something in the distance and snapped it once or twice, but sure enough, it eventually chugged round the Pointe du Roc and into the Baie de Mont St michel.

And then I was finally able to work out what it was. We have a fishing boat and it seems to be towing a smaller boat behind it.

Back here, I had another outstanding task that needed dealing with.

The memory stick that I take with me when I travel is a mass of confusion because I’ve been very lax in bringing the files up to date.

So what I did was uploaded them all to this computer and wiped the memory stick clean for future use. Then, with all of the files now on the computer, I eliminated all of the duplicates.

Next wtep was to allocate files to folders where I could.

Finally, I had a mass of files, some with two, three or even four copies which are all different. My next task is to do a compare and merge so that there is only one file for each, but with everything on it.

Tea was another slice of shepherd’s pie with gravy and veg, followed by fruit salad and soya cream.

Time then for my evening walk of course.

My trip took me by the house on the corner of the rue du Nord – the one that is currently under major renovation. They’ve now laid some grillage on top of the insulation that they put down yesterday, so it looks as if the concrete won’t be far behind.

I’ll be intrigued to see how it all comes out.

It was a thoroughly beautiful evening out there tonight, and the colours in the evening sunshine were marvellous.

Just the type of evening that is ideal for photography so I spent some time out there taking a pile of pics of the scenery.

This one of the cliffs above the Plat Gousset, with the Museum Christian Dior on the top, has come out particularly well.

talking of things coming out particularly well, on my way back home via the rue Notre Dame, I was greeted by Minette, the old black cat.

She came over for a good stroke, and she expressed a considerable amount of interest in the camera.

Clearly she was looking for her little moment of fame, and what could I do apart from obliging her? She really is a nice cat, although she would benefit from a good grooming.

So back here now, and I really am going to try for an early night. I was disappointed about yesterday so I want to catch up, and of course I have shopping tomorrow.

I need a pile of stuff too so I need to be on form.

fishing boat towing small boat english channel granville manche normandy france

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Friday 26th April 2019 – I’VE HAD …

… another miserable day today.

Not because I’ve been tired – in fact I’ve managed to go the whole day without even the slightest hint of crashing out – but more to the fact that I couldn’t summon up the energy to do anything productive whatever.

I’d had another bad night too, tossing and turning for most of it. And yet I’d managed to go on a few mazy, amazing voyages.

We had been on a ship, a big one, in the South China Sea somewhere and it sank. Three of us were washed overboard and we swam in this sea for quite some time – days, it seemed, – until we were washed ashore on this populated island. We had to climb over a fence and found ourselves in someone’s back garden. The woman had a big sprawly house that had started off as a small cabin and had been enlarged with additional rooms haphazardly as time had gone on. She fed us and said we could stay the night. Next morning I went for a walk around. The guy had this beautiful large yacht and it was clear that he spent a lot of time looking after it. he was talking about going around the Arctic on it and I agreed that this would be the right kind of craft to go up there and he wasn’t the ordinary run-of-the-mill Indonesian or Filipino fisherman, he cares about his boat and done his research etc. We ended up walking through a typical suburban English housing estate but a huge weird animal like a rhinoceros but with a weird head with all kinds of appendages stuck on it. I grabbed my camera and took a photo but the flash didn’t work so it didn’t come out and the animal disappeared before I could try another shot. I went back to the house to ask about staying another night but she said “no, it’s full”. So I asked if there was anywhere else I could stay. She replied that there was bound to be somewhere else in the town. She then cooked me a meal and they asked me questions “do you eat ‘x’, do you eat ‘y’? How long is it since you’ve eaten ‘z’? Did you eat it when you were a kid?” all this kind of thing. But now it was becoming dark and I needed to find a place to stay and, more importantly, a way to get off this island and back to wherever it is that I’m supposed to be
A little later I was with a woman and I can’t remember what it was that I was doing but we’d been detained by someone, a young smallish guy with black hair and a black beard. He said that he had been working for the CIA and should have been an agent but they said that with his perfect memory he ought to be a salesman. He showed a photo of this woman coming out of a department store. This immediately filled her with horror. She looked around and there was this young lad behind her smiling away. He said “do you remember this story?” and produced a newspaper article showing that she had been arrested in it for something or other. By now she was in tears, making some kind of totally incoherent statement. he then produced some kind of small light-blue patterned cushion and said “you always leave your calling card behind in places like this, don’t you?”, waving the cushion around and that put her into even more tears.

I awoke several times during all of this going on, and eventually went back to sleep to step right back into, not the one where I was with that woman, but right back to being on the island again, in exactly where I had stepped out a while before. I don’t recall ever doing quite that before. But anyway I did end up stopping the night at that place on the island and I remember undressing to go to bed. I had my wet-weather overtrousers on so took them off, got into bed and went to sleep. Next morning I was up early and started to dress. Everyone else was getting up and this young girl came in to say hello, and a few other people. The house was busy pretty quickly. I ended up sitting ona bed with a huge collection of cats sitting on me, first a black one and a ginger one, then a white one and all different ones taking it in turns to sit on my knee for a stroke. I heard the buzzer on my phone so I looked and saw a message “your breakfast ready at 09:15”. I thought that I’d better finish dressing. These two women came in and went to a cupboard fetching out little phials of stuff. They game one to me and said “this will do for you”. I worked out that it was shampoo and it hit me that they were “suggesting” that I take a shower. I wanted to finish dressing but I couldn’t find my trousers. the plastic overtrousers were there but not the normal ones.

The alarms went off at 06:00 and so on but I couldn’t care less. 08:25 was when I awoke. But that’s not at all the same as saying that that was the time that I left my stinking pit. Not at all.

So a rather late start to the day, and once I’d composed myself, I attacked a few of the dictaphone notes from just recently that had built up on the dictaphone. And that took me most of the morning too and I don’t know why.

Lunch was inside again, with the start of the last batch of home-made hummus out of the freezer. It’s just as delicious as it was the day that I made it too.

After lunch I made a start on the outstanding mountain of photos that need to be dealt with. And the more I deal with, the more there seems to be to deal with.

There was a brief stop of my walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. On the car park were a couple of people on those weird foot-first bicycles.

One of them was towing a trailer on which were two 110-watt solar panels, so I went to have a chat with the rider. It’s an electrically-assisted bike and the panels charge up the batteries while he’s cycling.

On a good day they can give about one and a half charges to the bank of batteries so that’s probably a range of about 30 miles.

But I don’t get the trailer idea though, unless it’s for the luggage. I would have been tempted to go for a roof over the bike and put the panels on that.

The Quebec flag on the front bike is of no significance. The people on board came from La Rochelle.

Back here I continued with the photos in a very desultory fashion until tea time. That was a really delicious steamed veg and falafel in a really tasty cheese sauce. One of the best that I’ve ever made.

My evening walk was interrupted by a collision with a neighbour. We had a lengthy chat about this and that.

And as I continued on my way I was interrupted yet again. Parked in the rue Notre Dame was one of the commercial lorry-type of Land Rovers but what caught my eye about it was this beautiful 12-volt winch.

I have a 12-volt electric winch that I was going to fit onto the Kubota tractor to winch logs and things like that around the farm, but I never actually managed to get round to fitting it.

In fact, there were a lot of things down there that I never got around to doing.

As a result of all these delays I almost missed the start of tonight’s football.

It’s the final round of matches in the Welsh Premier League tonight and Bala Town were playing Caernarfon Town live on the internet. Caernarfon played for the first 15 minutes as if they were asleep, and during that time Bala had scored a goal and missed two or three total sitters.

It took 33 minutes for Caernarfon to threaten the Bala goal, and then the match livened up.

The second half was a wonderful advert for Welsh Premier football, and for the final 15 minutes Caernarfon were camped in the Bala Town half and although they didn’t manage to equalise, they hit the woodwork and and a couple of other good chances too.

Down south in the manth between Barry and Newtown, Newtown didn’t do enough to overhaul Caernarfon so that gives Caernarfon home advantage in the playoffs for the vacant place in the Europa League next season. That’s not bad for a team that was only promoted to the Welsh Premier League this season, and it’s all down to the fact that while they might not be the most skilful players in the league they have a magnificent team spirit.

It’ll also be interesting to see how Noah Edwards plays next season. I didn’t think of him as anything extra-ordinary at the start of the season, but as the season has gone on, the better he’s become. If he continues this progression next season he might become another Henry Jones or Callum Morris or kayne McLaggon.

It’s shopping tomorrow so I’m off to bed right now. It won’t be an early night so I’ll probably crash out in the afternoon but that’s par for the course these days.

sea on rocks baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

waves sea wall baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france

yacht baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

mussel beds donville les bains manche normandy france

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!

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 3rd June 2019 – I MIGHT POSSIBLY …

Sunday 12th May 2019 – I REMEMBER …

Tuesday 7th May 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Friday 3rd May 2019 – I’VE DONE …

Friday 26th April 2019 – I’VE HAD …

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 …