Tag Archives: tidying up

Friday 21st August 2020 – IT’S 03:15…

… right now and I’m nowhere near ready to go to sleep quite yet.

But there’s a good reason for that – well – a reason anyway, and that is that I’ve spent most of the afternoon in bed.

This morning depite the alarms going off at the usual time, it was about 08:00 that I finally left the bed.

First task was to tidy up, and the second task was to have a shower and a general clean-up.

Round about 11:00 Liz and Terry turned up to see how I was. I gave Terry his brush cutter and I gave Liz my old acoustic guitar to pass on to one of her grandchildren.

We went down to La Rafale for a drink and a long chat, and then for a long walk around the walls which totally tired me out.

For lunch we had a rather impromptu salad with all bits and pieces that were hanging around here, with some of my home-made bread which went down really well – the general opinion being that it was delicious which pleased me greatly.

After Liz and Terry left I worked on a few photos but round about 14:30 I fell asleep on the chair. I woke up at about 15:30, feeling so dreadful that I crawled into bed and that was that.

Rosemary awoke me round about 18:00 by phoning up for a chat. We had a good natter and then I made some tea. Falafel and pasta in tomato sauce.

This evening I was in no fit state to go out for my evening walk so I stayed in. But nevertheless I can’t go to sleep and that’s no good because it’s shopping day tomorrow and there’s a lot to do.

There I was, thinking that I was getting over this illness but it doesn’t look much like it to me. I have a feeling that this is going to be a long, hard haul.

Thursday 20th August 2020 – IT’S BEEN …

… another slightly better day today, and while you admire a few photos of the evening sunset – because I managed to get out and about today – I’ll tell you all about it.

Mind you, it could just as easily not have been because for some reason or other I couldn’t go to sleep last night. It was 01:30 and I was still awake, working on the computer.

But sleep I eventually did because the alarms awoke me at 06:00. Mind you, that doesn’t mean that I was out of bed at that time.

08:15 is a much more reasonable time to be leaving the bed when I’m not feeling well. Plenty of time for me to go off on a noturnal voyage here and there

I was in Scandinavia last night and there was some friction at the border, to do with transporting young people across the national line from one to the other. You aren’t allowed to do it, rather like the old Mann Act in the USA. I can’t remember but I was going across and it was a question of a girl who came under this particular jurisdiction. Whether she had come with me I dunno but I ended up being chased by these people who wanted to arrest me. We had all kinds of James Bond things, Spiderman leaping from buildings, all this kind of thing, running at ridiculous lengths for ridiculous distances at ridiculous speeds, everything so that I could get clear of whoever was pursuing me about this and eventually find my way across the border.

Back at the border again I was walking past a kind of supermarket which had a huge tent as an entrance. 4 or 5 men went in there. I thought that these looked suspicious – they were rough, heavily-armed type of people so I waited outside the door. There was someone else waiting outside the door too who was clearly going to be helping them. They came out with these two girls and it was clear that they were intending to take them across the border so I intercepted and grabbed hold of these two girls and steered them off and these people came after me. They caught me in some kind of area but I had a machine gun and just let fly at a couple of people with it. I can’t remember whether I hit anyone or anything like that. With this machine gun I was well in control of the situation here about liberating these two girls .

Some time later I was back in a similar kind of situation, if not further along on the same voyage. Yet again, it was a border crossing thing.

This time though I was on a motorbike this time having to cross the border which was not so straightforward as I would have liked bearing in mind that the countries were in the EU. Again it was a question of what to do with the young girl who was there.

Unfortunately I don’t remember much about it because I awoke in the middle of it with the thing well under way and I missed the most exciting bits – the story of my life I suppose.

So now that I seem to be feeling a little better, what exactly have I done today to put my life back in order?

Apart from the usual bits of paperwork here and there that needed sticking away, I’ve actually been something of a busy boy, which took me completely by surprise.

Now that I’ve finally managed to organise the photographs of today you can see something of what I’ve been up to, if you are all up to it, that is.

First of all and most importantly, I’ve managed two meals today.

For tea this evening I had a ferret around in the freezer and ended up with a potato curry that I had made back in June with some rice. This was followed by an improvised dessert of pineapple chunks and ice cream.

For lunch though, there is no bread here so I had a couple of taco rolls with salad. It’s a good job that I have a packet or two of those in stock. And they were really nice too.

But two proper meals in a day is pretty much of an improvement.

No bread reminded me that I ought to be doing something about it. After all, I have all of the ingredients and I seem to have a little energy and enthusiasm today.

I emptied a sachet of yeast into about 250 ml of slightly warm water into which a table spoon of sugar had been dissolved, and left the yeast to ferment. While that was a-doing I took 500 grammes of flour, added some salt and a couple of handfuls of sunflower seeds and mixed it all together with my hands.

Then I added the liquid which by now had a nice frothy foam on top, and mixed it all together and gave it a really good kneading to mix it all togather. When the dough had all gone nice and smooth and elastic afer about 10 minutes, I put it on one side with a cover over the top to proof.

The bread usually takes about an hour or an hour and a half to proof – the dough should double in size – so there’s plenty of time to be getting on with things.

And things I did too. There was another little session on the photos from my little voyage too, and I managed to complete about 35 of them this afternoon.

That might not sound as if it’s very much but the fact that I’ve been able to concentrate to that extent is definitely something of an improvement over how I’ve been for the last few days.

Finding that I was still feeling somewhat better, I plucked up the courage to go for a walk around outside.

And I’m glad that I did, even if it was something of a very slow stagger around, because it really was a beautiful day out there this afternoon. Down on the beach just below the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord there were plenty of people enjoying it.

It was the kind of thing that might have tempted me to go and join them but I wasn’t sure how I’d climb back up the steps.

And so instead I pushed on along the pathway underneath the walls, fighting my way through the throngs of people out taking the air.

Down on the beach at the Plat Gousset there were plenty of people taking the sun too. The tide was well out, as you saw in the previous photo, so there was plenty of room to spread out for your social distancing.

That’s going to be pretty important too because one thing that I know about these viruses, having spent so much time reading about the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918, is that it’sll be back. And back in spades too.

One of the things that I wanted to do while I was out was to check on how the baby seagulls were doing.

Off I toddled around to the Square Maurice Marland where I could see over the roofs of the houses in the Rue des Juifs where they had made their nests earlier this year. And sure enough, there was a very fine example of a baby seagull just here.

Not such a baby now either. Probably as big as his mum, I reckon. But at least he’s one of the survivors. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the baby that we were following at first didn’t seem to make it.

But what’s going on here? This is something completely new that wasn’t here before.

Down on a couple of the trees at the far end of the Square someone has seen fit to knit some kind of woollen warmer for the tree trunks of a couple of the trees. This is extremely puzzling. I don’t understand the purpose of this. After all, the trees have managed quite well on their own for the last God knows how long.

The artists around here are a funny lot, that’s for sure.

Back in the apartment I had a look at the bread to see how it was doing.

It had risen somewhat, although nothing like what I was hoping for. That seems to be a problem with the bread that I make. But anyway, I gave it another good kneading, shaped it, and put it into the mould that I use and which I had greased all ready. It can have another go.

And while it was doing, I went and had a crash out on the chair in the bedroom. The walk had done me in for right now.

When I’d recovered my wits – not that that takes too long these days because I don’t have too many left – I switched on the oven and when it was hot, I bunged the bread inside.

70 minutes later, the timer switched off so I went to extract it. And by the looks of things it came out really well too. Not quite as overwhelming as the previous one, but still looking pretty good.

As for how it tastes, I’ll give you my verdict on that tomorrow lunchtime when I try it. Home-made bread is always good.

By now I’d recovered womwhat from my exertions of the afternoon walk so I decided to take my courage in my two hands and set out for an evening walk.

And how there’s been a change since I was here last because even though it’s only 21:00 the sun is sinking rapidly down behind the horizon. Crowds of people out there enjoying it too, which is not much good for the social distancing, but that’s going to be an eternal problem, I reckon.

Nevertheless I hung around and took a few shots of the sun sinking into the sea.

Ten seconds later the sun had gone completely.

You have no idea whatever of just how quicky the sun disappears. By my timing and that of the camera, it was still over 100% above the water just 3.5 minutes ago and that is really quite some going.

And once the sun had gone, the crowds on the headland here slowly dispersed, and me along with it. I had plenty of other things to be doing now that I’m out and about.

My walk continued on around to the other side of the headland.

As well as checking up on the baby seagulls I wanted to check up on the chantier navale too. That’s a regular port … “very good” – ed … on out travels. There are four boats in there this evening, and I don’t know if that’s more or less than last time because I can’t remember how many were in there the last time that I looked.

And even though it’s 21:15, there are people down there working on one of the boats. I suppose that when it’s your living, you don’t do an 8-hour day 9-5.

And the people in the chantier navale weren’t the only ones out there working this evening.

As I watched, one of the Joly France boats, one of the two that run the ferries across to the Ile de Chausey, came around the headland towards the port. She had quite a crowd of people on board too. They must have had a really good day out today.

She’ll go right over to her starboard (right-hand) side to come into the harbour. The running water out of the harbour drain has scoured away a chanel over on that side so there’s more depth for the boats to make use of.

From the viewpoint overlooking the chantier navale I walked down the Boulevard Vaufleury to the corner of the Boulevard des 2E et 202E de Ligne.

There’s a viewpoint there that overlooks the inner harbour and I was interested to see who might be in there. The answer to that was “no-one special”. Just a whole collection of assorted fishing boats, amongst which was the trawler Philcathane, all nicely lit up and reflecting in the water.

From here I walked on home. No chance of running because I’m not up to that.

In fact the walks took a great deal out of me. I was exhausted after the first walk and crashed out on the chair. Right now, after the second, I’m even more exhausted and I’ll be off to bed in a minute. I’ve also made a couple of trips down to fetch stuff from Caliburn but I forgot to mention those earlier. There will have to be a major washing-up session soon so that I can clean everything that I brought with me, once I feel up to it.

So progress is being made – slowly but surely. It’s just like when I was in the High Arctic last year and how I slowly recovered at Rachel’s after my exertions over the three preceding months.

I’m clearly not as well as I used to be.

Thursday 13th August 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day it was today.

It all started off during the night, seeing as it was something of a turbulent sleep and so it’s hardly surprising that there were tons of stuff on the dictaphone.

There was some kind of big incident going on, a murder or something like that and everyone was having to be questioned. Castor and Pollux were there and it became a case about their grandparents. It was so that their grandparents whatever they must do they must not go on the next leg of this trip because the stress would do them a lot of harm. I had to remind people of what had been said about this and they had a look. Yes, they were going on the next leg of this trip. I was wondering how I could catch up with Castor and rekindle our friendship. So I really don’t know.

Later on there were half a dozen or so of us, one of whom was another girl whom I particularly fancied. She ended up playing golf with another guy, getting right down to the end. Totally ignoring me and the rest of our little group. You’ve no idea just how hard or difficult it was to be there last night watching her there with this other guy. I was really, really down on my luck as far as that was concerned. Whether or not she had any kind of feeling for him, all she was interested in was playing golf and they seemed to be really having a good time enjoying themselves. I awoke absolutely full of grief, would you believe and drenched in sweat. All kinds of emotions about this. It was really strange. I just felt so bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

Later yet we continued our tramp through this countryside towards the sea, a group of four or five of us. We met the girl again. She was being taught how to walk on high heels by a couple of people. She was totally ignoring us so we just carried on walking in this dry countryside towards the sea and we suddenly seemed to take a different way. Whoever was leading the party branched off down this dirt track instead of along the main road. It brought us out somewhere at a T junction. I asked “how long is it going to be before we get there” but no-one replied, basically as if no-one really knew but didn’t actually want to say so which was a bit strange seeing as we were being guided by some kind of fitbit or GPS or something like that.

There was much more to it than this but as you are probably eating your lunch or something like that, I’ll spare you the gory details. What was interesting was that a couple of times, after awakening, I went straight back into a nocturnal voyage exactly where I had left it. And that’s happening more and more frequently these days.

But at least it was a very welcome return for Castor who put in an appearance, although it wasn’t under any sort of circumstances that I would have welcomed.

The upshot of all of this was that I was awake long before the alarm went off and so I had plenty of time to catch up with some paperwork before Hans surfaced.

After a coffee, we went out to breakfast at the cafe across the road and then we went to REWE so that he could do his shopping. And I was impressed by the amount of vegan products – even vegan cheese – available in there now.

Having packed Caliburn I headed off into the sunset – definitely going west.

And all the way this afternoon we had one hiccup after another. Roadworks, diversions – you name it we had it.

The road out of Stuttgart was gridlocked and it took hours to clear, only for us then to run into a serious accident in the Schwieberdingerstrasse Enzweihingen.

And I’ve really no idea what was going on here. We had a motorhome that had ground to a halt in the middle of the traffic lights and a lorry on the other side of the road parked blocking the traffic looking as if it’s had bits knocked off it.

There were crowds of peopel around watching the events and a couple of policemen taking details but no one, and I do mean no one at all, controlling the traffic and it was all total mayhem. We were sitting in this queue for ages trying to make some kind of headway.

As we approached the junction, inching bit by bit over a period of about an hour we could see that there was another actor in our drama.

If you look closely to the right, you’ll see that there’s a car in the hedge too and it’s difficult to see how it’s come to be there in that position.

Eventually, after a great deal of trouble fighting our way through the chaos we managed to reach the open road. And if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, round by Donauworth the heavens opened and we had one of the most astonishing rainstorms that I have ever seen. The temperature plummeted by 13°C in a matter of a couple of minutes and the rain continued for a good few hours.

What made my bad day worse was that I didn’t realise that there are two towns with the same name in Germany and of course I had booked a hotel there. Consequently, when I arrived in the town after a drive off my route of 60 kms, I couldn’t find the hotel. As a result I had to drive 80kms in the other direction past where I started to find the correct Malsch.

By now it was 20:30 and there was no restaurant open anywhere (it was too late to start up the slow cooker) so that was that.

The hotel is a little dated but then again so is the price so I’m not complaining. I’m hoping to have a decent night’s sleep as I want to have a good day on the road tomorrow.

Sunday 2nd August 2020 – TONIGHT, I’M IN …

… Munich in Germany.

It’s Sunday today but even so, I set an alarm. Only for 08:00 though as I need to be up and about, breakfasted and gone by 10:00 today.

And despite the later alarm time and the fact that it’s Sunday, I still awoke bolt upright at 06:03. No chance of gtting up at that stupid time. I turned over and went back to sleep until a more reasonable and respectable time.

All of this meant that there was plenty of time for me to go off on my travels again last night and I started off at Rosemary’s. We were discussing kitchen arrangements, cooking, that kind of thing. I ended up swapping slow cookers and letting her have mine in exchange for one of hers because one was a bigger size than the other and I can’t remember now which way round was which. But it suited me to have the one she had and it suited her to have the one that I had so I proposed a swap

Later on I was with Nerina and we were on our travels. We came to a freighter that was going to take us on to somewhere but we suddenly realised that we didn’t have any insurance and there was no security patrol or anything on board this ship so I had to set off leaving Nerina with the car in this queue to run down the road and came to some kind of insurance place. I went in and it really was a dive. The people there were dirty and certainly weren’t clerical types at all but I explained what i wanted. They went away and came back with a green form. I gave them a £20 note and they gave me £12-something back and a box of chocolates. I had to run back to the car because they would be loading by this time. I’d told them in the insurance what was happening about this and what I wanted. So I ran back and came to these steps and had to run all the way up these steps, stone narrow steps and i was counting them as I went up. I got to 60 but I was still running up these steps and still going and I came round the corner and a couple of kids were playing right by the edge of this cliff drop which I thought was a bit strange. There were still more steps and I had to keep on running up here to try to get back to where Nerina was with the car, carrying the change in my hand, this green card, this box of chocolates

Finally, I was a bit loaded up last night. I had all of my holiday gear with me including the camera. I ended up with a guitar and I had a long way to walk. I was hoping that I would find somewhere where I could leave the guitar and come back for it later. My first idea was the church so I went there but it was all locked up. I was wondering what to do and someone else told me that there was another church further on downtown. I walked down there and came across some kind of building and the church was built on the back of that. I went round the back there just as the policeman was locking up the door ready to go away. I thought “forget that” and continued walking. I suddenly had this thought “what have I done wiht my camera?” I had a search among the stuff that I was carrying and in the end found that the camerz was slung around my neck but for some unknown reason it was underneath my jumper. At least I had it. I had to carry on walking towards where I was going to go and that was where this voyage broke off.

After breakfast it didn’t take too long to pack and tidy everything up, and by 10:00 I was on the road heading northwards.

The weather had started off as a gloomy morning and that didn’t help my mood. And neither did all of the grockles driving around at about 20mph admiring the scenery. They might have had nothing better to do, but I did.

There were several roadworks and diversions too. Because of the winter weather there’s only a short timescale in which to do road-mending so of course it has to be in summer.

The closer I came to Munich the greyer the weather became and by the time I came out of a tunnel on the Munich ring road I was in the middle of a torrential downpour.

One thing that I have noticed is that this Satnav is not using the same program as the previous one. Despite setting the preferences to exactly the same as the previous one, it brought me into Eching in a completely different way and I drove past Hans’s apartment building before I had realised where I was.

It’s nice to see Hans again. We had a coffee and then despite the showery weather we climbed into Hans’s jeep and headed off to the nearest metro station to catch a train into Munich.

Hans knew of a little vegan restaurant so we headed there for a drink and some banana cakeand then wandered off in search of excitement.

Our first port of call was the Wittelsbacher Brunnen, or fountains.

The Wittelsbachs were the royal family of the Kingdom of Bavaria until the political upheaval at the end of World War I. Munich was their capital and the eplendour that survived the bombing of World War II gives some kind of indication of their wealth.

The fountain was designed by Adolf von Hildebrand, a famous German designer of fountains, and sculptor Erwin Kunz and was built between 1893 and 1895.

Its purpose, bizzarely enough, was to celebrate the arrival in the city of the new high-pressure water pipeline from the Mangfall, a river in Upper Bavaria that is a tributary of the river Inn.

A site was chosen at the junction of the Karlsplatz and Lenbachplatz where the old city walls had been, and it was unveiled on 12th June 1895. We are told that the design consists of all kinds of allegories connected to the power of water

The fountain suffered damage during the bombing raids but was restored by one of Hildebrand’s pupils and reopened on 3rd October 1952.

From there we pushed off down the road to continue our little exploration of the north-west corner of the inner city.

Our little stoll brought us to the Karolinenplatz. This is named for Princess Caroline of Baden who married Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Palatine-Zweibrucken and became Queen Caroline II of Bavaria when her husband became King in 1806.

When Napoleon set off for his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, he took 36,000 Bavarian troops with him, but only 6,000 returned home. The column, designed by Leo von Klenze, is a monument to those 30,000 Bavarian soldiers who disappeared.

The Square was designed by Karl von Fischer (who died in 1820) who based his design upon that of the Place de l’Etoile, where the Arc de Triomphe is, in Paris.

The big building to the left of the column is the Palace of Prince George and you might have expected it to have been easy for me to tell you all about Prince George, but instead I’ll merely mention that so far I’ve been able to trace about a dozen Prince Georges so you can take your pick.

Our next stop is going to be the the Konigsplatz so we walked down the Briennerstrasse, another part of von Fisher’s great design.

On the corner of the Arcisstrasse are two very large and heavy plinths that I didn’t photograph, because there are the bases of a couple of temples erected to the memory of thse supporters of Hitler who were killed in the Munich Putsch of 1923.

There was no summer festival in Munich this year because of the virus, which was a shame although it was quite understandable, but what we had instead were little festival sites scattered around the city, like the one here at the Konigsplatz.

This is another part of Karl von Fischer’s masterpiece. He had been charged with organising an orderly expansion of the city beyond the old city walls at this point.

The Propylaea Gate that we can see in this image though isn’t by him but by Leo von Klienze and dates from 1862. It was originally intended to be a commemoration of the accession of King Ludwig’s son Otto to the throne of Greece in 1832 but it took so long to build that in effect it became a monument to the overthrow of King Otto from his throne by the Greek people after 30 years of rule.

The whole area is bedecked with “Summerin the City” banners as people make the most of whatever entertainments there are in the area.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the fun, even if there wasn’t all that much of it. It’s a far cry from the traditional Munich summer festivals but we are living right now in extraordinary times.

Having wandered around loking at the sites and being unable to go to either of the two museums here, we went off for a wander around to look for a metro station because we were going to be heading from here into the town centre. We eventually found something in the Louisenstrasse and from there we ended up in the Marienplatz.

One thing that I like about the German language is the name that is given to the local town hall and civic administration offices in the towns – the Rathaus. I can’t think of anything more appropriate.

This is the Altes Rathaus, or Old Town Hall. The building was known to be in existence in 1310 and underwent a reconstruction, the first recorded of very many, between 1392 and 1394.

The spire beside it is actually the old Talburgtor gate in the eary city walls. As you can see, the gate is quite narrow and so in the 1870s they actually tunneled through the ground floor, with a second tunnel being put through in 1935. And in 1938 in the Great Hall Josef Goebbels made the speech that launched the Kristallnacht – the destruction of Jewish property in Germany in 1938.

It was badly damaged by bombing in World War II and not restored until the early 1970s. Somewhere in my ancient collection of photos I have a photo taken of it in 1988 when I was here with Nerina and when I get back to the farm, whenever that might be, I’ll dig it out.

This building here looks absolutely magnificent so it’s very easy t lose sight of the fact that this is a much more modern “Gothic Revival” building.

In the second half of the 19th Century it became apparent that the old town hall was becoming too small for modern needs so in 1867 construction of a new building, designed by Georg Hauberrisser, began.

The Town Council offices moved here in 1874 but as the building was still too small, further enlargements took place. The building was not finally finished until 1906. It has 400 rooms and covers an area of over 9,000m²

Somewhat surprisingly, it escaped severe destruction during the bombing attacks of World War II and was very quickly, if simply, restored

One thing that was nice to see here was a group of musiciens entertaining the crowd of people.

Although masks are not compulsory in the open air, it’s pretty much a waste of tie to just wear one over your mouth and not over your nose. And I would have loved to have seen the flautist play the flute wearing a mask. That would have been interesting.

Having finished our wandering around we ended up in the Munchener Freiheit at a little Indian café that I know, rather like the one in Montreal. A bowl of curry was delicious – it’s been a long time since I’ve had a decent one of those.

By now the heavens had really opened and we were being pasted in a torrential downpour. Walking from the metro to the car, we were drenched.

A couple of films and a good chat finished off the evening and then we all went our separate ways.

The sofa here is really comfortable so I’m settled down for the night. We’ll see what tomorrow will bring me.

Thursday 30th July 2020 – STRAWBERRY MOOSE …

… and I have arrived at his favourite holiday resort. And we had to stop so that Strawberry Moosecould have his usual photo opportunity

We’re staying for a couple of days while we get our respective heads together, and we need to do that too because of the dreadful night that I had last night. Never mind what time I went to bed – I was still wide-awake as late as 03:05 with no sign of ever going off to sleep.

But I must have done at some point because not only did the alarm awaken me at 06:00 (and I even beat the third alarm to my feet) there was something recorded on the dictaphone too.

A girl whom I know from Crewe put in a visit last night. She was going off home and I’d lent Caliburn to her to tow a caravan. I walked back through Shavington to Vine Tree Avenue where Caliburn was parked. We could see my brother and father in the distance – my father was getting ready to come home from work – it was 06:00 and he was getting in his vehicle. As we went past, down the street was a policeman who was interrogating a couple over a book which was something like a book by Kerouac or something. He saw the two of us and made some kind of remark to which I made some kind of remark back and mentioned the book that I was reading. He clouted me with a book so I clouted him back with a book. By this time I noticed that this girl was actually holding my hand as we were walking down the street. One thing that was going through my mind was that the tax on Caliburn had run out and I had vehicles without tax parked all over the place. I was wondering if ever it came to the push that they might be towed away where was I going to put them. I got to wondering what my father would have to say about me lending someone a vehicle that didn’t have any road tax. And more to the point what would a person say, where would she be parking it or leaving it and the closer I got to home the more I was thinking about this.

There was plenty of other stuff to do this morning and then I went to breakfast.

My room is over there in the annex so I had to cross the garden to reach the main part of the hotel. On the way over I passed the postman delivering the mail. What cought my eye was not the postman or the post that he was delivering but the machine on which he was delivering it.

50 or so years ago everyone laughed at the Ariel 3, and yet here we are today, which just goes to show what proper publicity and marketing could have done for the British motorcycle industry had they put their minds to it. But being stuck in a timewarp of the early 1950s, british industry totally failed to move with the times.

I had to decline the cheese and the ham but the rest of the breakfast (included in the price) was very acceptable and despite the cost of the night’s accommodation, it was all pretty good value for Switzerland.

Collecting all of my stuff together I headed off – as far as the local Co-op. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there had been an issue at the Hotel last night in that the Swiss plugs are different from the rest of Europe. The hotel had lent me an adapter but I had to hand that back this morning.

It’s not the first time that i’ve been caught out by the lack of a Swiss adapter so I reckoned that I may as well buy my own while I was here.

While I was here, I bought a baguette. In France it had cost me €0:45 but here in Switzerland where there is no Common Agricultural Policy it cost me €1:90. The silly Brits are going to be in for quite a surprise once the Transition Period is over.

Most of the day was spent driving all the way through Switzerland in the sweltering heat. Slightly north of east towards the Austrian border at Dornbirn.

Stuck behind slow-moving grockles for most of the day, and roadworks after roadworks after roadworks, it took ages to cross the country. It really got on my wick.

With the temperature at 35°C and feeling like every degree of double that, I was driving along the side of Lake Lucerne from Luzern north-east when I came upon a scenic viewpoint at the side of the road.

The views from here were tremendous. For example, down at the end of the lake I could see the town of Kussnacht where I turn off eastwards and head eventually for the Austrian frontier.

There wasn’t any shade at all here unfortunately, not even in the lee of Caliburn, but having been stuck behind all kinds of traffic in the streets of Luzern and Merlischachen, I was running much later than I wanted to and I had been ready for lunch for ages.

Chewing on my sandwich I had a good look around at my surroundings.

Across the lake from me is actually a “seaside” resort, the Strandbad Seeburg. That would have been a great place to go for lunch had I had the time. A nice relax on a sandy beach would have done me the world of good and I might even have gone for a paddle.

There are also bound to be several good hotels over there too, because the town is the birthplace of César Ritz, the founder of the “Ritz” hotel chains. He died there in the town in October 1918.

It’s a shame that we aren’t going that way.

That’s the spine of the Alps down there, on the border between Switzerland and Italy and it would seem to be the place to be right now because it wil be much cooler up there at those kinds of altitiudes. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that WE’VE BEEN IN THE SNOW UP THERE WTH CALIBURN in July.

If there hadn’t been as much haze around today, we might have been able to see snow. But as we’ll be pushing on into the Tyrol we might be lucky in finding some snow ourselves – or at least some cooler weather.

With that in mind, we pushed on into the town and then headed east.

In between Lake Lucerne and Lake Zurich we pass over a high range of mountains heading north-east, climbing out of one valley into another.

As we climbed up the pass, there was quite a distinctive mountain away to our right in the east that seemed to dog my viewpoint. I’ve no idea what mountain it might be but it piqued my interest. Eventually I cane to a place somewhere in between Steinerberg and Sattel where I could pull off the road and take a photograph it.

And it wasn’t just the mountain there either. There’s a modern concrete viaduct of either a road or a railway over there too, and there is some type of large bird, maybe an eagle, flying around over there too. And I didn’t notice that until I returned home.

The views were just as interesting to the south as well.

That’s the town of Steinen down there, I reckon, with Seewen in the distance, all of them in the valley of the Lauerzersee. We can see the spine of the Alps in the distance and just imagine how spectacular this view would be in cold weather when there would be no heat haze. But then again we wouldn’t have been able to climb up here in Caliburn as easily as this in the middle of winter.

Having taken our couple of photos, we headed off north-eastwards in the direction of St Gallen and the Austrian border.

A little further on we pick up the railway that has been following us through the mountains much more precariously that we have been travelling on the road.

As we drive through the Sattel Pass through Rothenthurm and out of the other side on the way to Biberbrugg the railway line makes another one of its regular level crossings across our path and I’m in luck at this one because as I approach it, the barriers come down and a couple of minutes later a train rattles past.

This is one of the 11 Sudostbahn, the South Eastern Railway FLIRT RABe526 trains made by Stadler, a model of train that works on the railway networks of many countries all over Europe and North Africa and even in North America, the city of Ottawa having purchased 7 for the upgrade of its “Trillium” Line and its new link to Ottawa Airport.

Eventually I reached the border and crossed into Austria.

Just outside Dornbirn I fuelled up with diesel. €1:06 a litre which is a relief after the prices that I saw in Switzerland and I subsequently saw it even cheaper too.

From Dornbirn there are two ways on into the interior of Austria. The first, and most common way, is along the main road, past Bludenz and either through the Arlberg Tunnel if you have plenty of cash or over the Arlberg Pass.

But there is another way – the Bregenzerwald Bundesstrasse Highway, the modern-day L 200, over the mountains. Despite it only being 63 kms long from Dornbirn to Warth, It took an unbelievable 75 years to build, construction having been started in 1879.

The final section, from Schrocken to Warth, despite being only about 10kms, took 25 years to build and was not finally completed until 1954.

It’s quite narrow, especially at the older Dornbirn end and not possible to take a coach over it which is why I’ve never been that way before. But Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and I managed it quite comfortably.

It’s a spectacular road and one of this days I’ll post the dashcam footage. You’ll find out why a 53-foot touring coach wouldn’t ever come this way

At Warth we turned off towards the Fern Pass and after a good hour in the mountains from Dornbirn, we ended up in Lech. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE and on several occasions too, including once with Nerina. It’s a place that Strawberry Moose, Caliburn and I really like.

Once we’d taken our photograph, we had to hunt down my hotel.

And it took some finding too. House numbers in Austria don’t follow any logical sequence and someone once told me that they are numbered in the order in whcih they are built.

Considering that it was one of the cheapest hotels in Lech, this is one of the best places where I have ever stayed and I’ll let you know tomorrow about the breakfast. If it’s anything like the rest of the hotel, it’ll be tremendous.

Having smuggled my slow cooker into the hotel I was able to make some tea.

While it’s cooking, I can tell you about my room It’s quite small but very comfortable and a nice view looking north-west. With it being the height of summer it’s staying light pretty late and we have a beautiful red sky at night- a sure sign that Zug is on fire, I reckon.

And having had my tea now, I’m going to bed. After that dreadful night and the fact that I haven’t crashed out at all today, I’m ready for it.

A few days here to recover my strength and then I’ll see where we go from there.

Monday 27th July 2020 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… horrible day today. At one point during mid-afternoon the temperature inside the cab of Caliburn was 42°C and I had to stop and get out of the cab.

Luckily I was able to find a nice place to do so. To my surprise I found a parking place in the street in the centre of Vichy down by the River Allier so I could park up and go for a walk to cool off a little.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

This morning I was awake and about of bed before the first alarm, something that is always a healthy ambition as far as I am concerned. Plenty of time to attack the notes on the dictaphone because by the sound of things I’d trvalled for miles during the night.

I’d been with Ingrid on board a ship obviously going somewhere and it’s quite clear that we are a couple. We were watching a few other things happening. A notice that we saw said something like “COVID 19 flights to Egyot suspended at the end of April”. As we were roaming about at the end of the stairwell which was cut into the rock evidently we came across another couple and we chatted to them. We ended up down in the basement of the ship trying to find out which were the doors to our particular deck but we were fooling around and quite clearly a couple, the two of us.

Later on we ended up back at my house but my house had been sold, although my possessions were still there. As we walked in through the door there were all these cats there. 3 small cats in waste paper bins and so on. I said “this is typical. Look at these cats. My cats are still in possession and they have sorted the other ones out”. We walked around the kitchen but heard a noise from the living room. I said “hello, anyone there?”. Eventually a Dutch guy came out, youngish, very tall. he came round and shook my hand, said “welcome back from your holidays” and had a really good chat to me, most of which wa in Dutch which I didn’t quite understand. I was with Rosemary and Lieneke. Of course Lieneke was very much in demand for this conversation too.

By now we were all on board THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR but it was a coach. it was time for us to get off so I walked down to the front of the coach saying goodbye to everyone. Castor and Pollux were there so I said goodbye to Pollux but Castor, I smiled at her, put my head very close to her and said “thanks for everything”. She looked extremely uncomfortable when I said that. That was when I walked down the coach and got off. This was somewhere about Scholar Green and we were looking at a map to work out our way across to Alsager, that way. It was a bit difficult to work out exactly where we were because there were two roads, both of which went across and we could have been stuck by either of them. We were certainly out beyond the confines of Stoke on Trent in that particular area. But it was the look on Castor’s face that got me – a look of real fear. That was what awoke me.

Rosemary had brought me a cup of tea at about 07:30 and by 08:30 we were having breakfast. Afterwards, I packed and loaded up Caliburn, even rescuing my pushbike from Rosemary’s barn where it had been hiding for the last 6 or 7 years or so.

Before I left I fixed Rosemary’s settee and also finished off connecting up her television to her livebox – a task that involved telephoning the helpline.

Off on the road I went, as far as Clermont Ferrand. First stop was the Auchan where I encountered a most unhelpful Secury Guard, bought some more supplies and then I fuelled up Caliburn ready for the long haul east.

Second stop was at IKEA where I bought the rest of the storage jars that I needed, as well as a few other bits and pieces. But I didn’t buy a temporary mattress for Caliburn due to the absurd price that they wanted for one – €79:00 for a folding foam-rubber chair that opens out.

Ad as for the food, that was a major disappointment. I ended up with just a plate of chips and a lump of bread. No salad or anything.

The heat was stifiling when I went outside and it was really uncomfortable and the drive wasn’t very comfortable. Leaving Clermont Ferrand, I went north-east through the countryside and arrived at Vichy

But here I had to stop. It was impossible to go any further in this weather. I was melting.

There was a parking place at the side of the road near Parc Kennedy so this was where I stopped. It was a pleasant if not sweltering walk down to the banks of the river but once I was in the shade it was very nice indeed. I was quite envious of the people who were out there on their little home-made rafts going up and down the river.

Being a Pisces I would quite happily have been out there with them.

There’s a beach there too, the Plage des Celestins, and that was quite a popular place, as you can see in the photograph here.

There’s an ice cream stall, a place to hire deckchairs and also a place where you can hire little boats and so on. And then the row of yellow buoys out there mark the limits to which people can swim in the river. You can see that the boats going out into the river from the slipway at the far end of the swimming area.

A really nice walk along the river in the shade for half an hour cooled me down and I resisted the temptation to see if they had any vegan ice cream on sale. I didn’t fancy standing in the queue.

At the end of the Parc Kennedy there’s a bridge across the River Allier.

It’s know, locally as the Pont de Bellerive because it connects Vichy to the town of Bellerive sur Allier on the other side of the river, but as the legendary French politician Aristide Briand had died just a couple of months before its official opening, it was named the Pont Aristide Briand in his honour.

Until the eary 1960s it was the only bridge across the Allier at Vichy but it’s by no means the first bridge. There was even a bridge across the river here recorded by Julius Caesar in 54BC although it might have been built by his soldiers on their way to the Battle of Gergovie.

There have been several subsequent bridges here and this one dates from 1932.

having cooled down a little I headed off eastwards through the mountains towards the Rhone valley, but I didn’t get very far. Tonight I’m in a modern unit hotel in Paray-le-Monial. Because of the heat I had the air conditioning on full blast for an hour and then a shower and a clothes wash.

Tomorrow I’m not going far but I’m still having an early night. I’ve already crashed out once this evening and I’ll be gone again if I don’t get a move on.

Thursday 23rd July 2020 – I’M WHACKED!

Yes, it’s been a very hard day today.

Having crashed out so definitively yesterday evening, I slept right through and even missed the third alarm. Only by a few minutes but nevertheless …

First task was to write up my journal from last night, in the middle of which Rosemary brought me a cup of tea. Even so, I managed somehow to crash out again.

Afrer breakfast we organised a few things and then set off.

First port of call was near St Priest les Champs to drop off the door. And as it happens, Rosemary knows the lady of the house so we had a chat for a while.

Second was Ingrid’s at Biollet where she made us a drink. We had a really good chat and then went round to pick up her trailer – a big single-beast trailer much bigger than I was expecting. But the bigger the better. I can fit more stuff in it.

Rosemary and I said goodbye to Ingrid and set off to my place.

Tons of stuff lying around there that was of no use to man nor beast and that was something that I was always going to do “tomorrow”. But it was depressing me seeing it all lying there like that so we heaved it all into the trailer regardless.

But as an aside, I need to work on my reversing. I’m somewhat out of practice and I made something of a dog’s breakfast getting the trailer down the track to my house.

One thing that I wanted to do while I was there was to check on the pointing of the wall that I had built in 2012.

No cows in the field and no farmer about so we went in to check.

It’s all holding up remarkably well, all things considered, and I’m proud of the job that I did on that considering that it was my first proper effort at building a stone wall. But the joint between the lean-to and the main house wall is separating and if I do ever make it back I’ll need to refill that.

The dechetterie at St Eloy les Mines would be closed for lunch by now so we made our way back home for something to eat. Rosemary indicated some more rubbish that needed heaving into the trailer while she made the food.

This afternoon Rosemary had a bank appointment so I went off to the dechetterie where the old woman in charge directed me to the correct bay to unload it.

Back now to my house where I loaded up the trailer yet again. The concrete parking space is now clear of nonsense, some of the rubbish hanging around outside has gone too, and I’ve even thrown away some stuff in the verandah too. Plenty more to go at too, stuff that’s been hanging around for centuries and which probably will never be used..

While I was there, I went to check on the bedroom.

It seems to be unaffected by the rodent infestation so I spent some time in there sorting out some stuff in the wardrobes. There were a few bits and pieces that I wanted to collect that I’d stored in there for safe-keeping and so I rescued them.

The rest of the stuff that’s in there can remain for another day or until I move back down whenever

But I do have to say that it was totally depressing to see the bedroom looking like this.

It took me four long years (not continuously, of course) to convert it from A RUBBLE-STREWN WRECK into wnat you see today, complete with fitted wardrobes and everything, and I was so proud of what i’d managed to build with my own fair hands.

And all in all, I reckon that I had no more than about three months’ use out of it before I was taken ill and rushed to hospital. That was the saddest part of all about this.

As for the attic, that’s had it, I reckon. And so has everything in there, I reckon. There’s little hope of salvaging anything from there although I did bring out a set of plastic drawers.

On the ground floor I did some tidying up – just a little. And there’s plenty more to go at in there too.

All in all, I could spend the rest of my life tidying up in there and still not see the end of it all. No matter what I did, I could never make that place look tidy

The dechetterie would be closed by now so I came on back to Rosemary’s, totally exhausted, with a full trailer behind Caliburn.

We had tea and a good chat, following which I had a shower and washed my clothes. And all of that was just as well too.

Plenty more work to do tomorrow- this little visit is far from over – not by any means. A good night’s sleep is called for so that I can be fighting fit. But there’s little hope of that.

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 – BACK HOME

Yes, I’ve been back home today.

And before anyone suggests that it’s rather a long way for me to drive in my current circumstances, that isn’t actually what I mean.

For a change I was awake quite early, and so there was time to listen to the dictaphone

It was a confusing voyage last night. There were quite a few of us and I’m not quite sure of what we were doing and where we were going but we were all young teenagers, that kind of thing or a few maybe even younger and that’s basically all that I can remember.

While I was typing out all of that I even had a cup of coffee brought to me in bed. And how any years is it since that ever happened?

Having dealt with all of the paperwork I went down to breakfast and then decided (just for a change) to organise myself.

I emptied everything out of the back of Caliburn, tidied him a little, found a pile of rubbish that needed throwing away, and then threw a few gardening tools in the back.

Having made two phone calls, we set off.

First port of call was in St Eloy where I bought some petrol in a container. Second, also in St Eloy, was for some rubber gloves and a pile of rat and mouse poison.

We then disappeared off into the countryside and ended up back at home – my old place in Les Guis.

Time hasn’t been kind to it at all. In the couple of years since I’ve been there nature has totally overwhelmed it and it was something like an Amazon rainforest.

But by now Ingrid had arrived and the three of us set to with a will. I went ahead with Terry’s brush-cutter and cut a swathe through the vegetation, with Rosemary and Ingrid following on behind with the clippers.

And it was really hard work too there. The heat didn’t help very much.

What also didn’t help much was all of the objects hidden in the undergrowth. The brushcutter and its blade looked as if it had fought a war (which it probably had) as I hacked my way through the undergrowth.

All of this in just a couple of years since Terry and I were here last picking up the mini-tractor. It’s hardly a surprise that lost cities are still being discovered in the Amazon rainforest with vegetation growing like this.

By the time that 14:00 arrived, we had reached the house and could go in all of the doors there.

And how sad everything was, with reams and reams of cobwebs, dust and everything all over the place. And we were exhausted too by this point and so called it a day.

As we weresitting around chatting, a neighbour came round to see us and to see how things were and we had a little discussion. But Ingrid went off for her appointment and Rosemary and I came home for a rather late lunch.

Later on, I went back to my house. Those two phone calls that I’d made earlier – one had been to Ingrid and the other had been to someone else.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been slowly replacing the windows in the house and that I bought a matching front door. That needs a new doorframe building but because it has to be in hardwood and not softwood, it’s beyond the capacity of the tools that I have here.

Previously, I’d made “local enquiries” and someone had come up the name of a reliable joiner. It had always been my intention to have a joiner make a doorframe, so I had phoned him up.

Much to my surprise (and yours too) I asked him when he would be free. He replied “I can come at 18:00”.

You can’t put obstacles in the path of willing workmen so I arranged to meet him at the Intermarché in Pionsat. We drove up to the house and he did all the measurements. While I was at it, I mentioned the third window that is yet to be installed. “I’ll do that as well if you like”.

And why not?

So the arrangement is that I’ll drop off the door on him tomorrow and leave him to it. There’s no time schedule – he can do it whenever he’s free. Which won’t be before September because all of the sawmills will be closed for summer holiday.

Having bid my farewell, I drove back to Rosemary’s where she had made tea.

A shower to clean myself up and to wash my clothes was next and then, shame as it is to say it, I crashed right out.

The exercise had clearly affected me and I felt that I had done quite enough for today. I’ll write up my notes in the morning.

Tuesday 21st July 2020 – JUST IN CASE …

… you’re all wondering where I am –

The answer is quite simple. I am in the bosom of friends (yes, I do have friends). And it’s one of the, if not the main, reason why I’m on the road right now.

Having crashed out definitively last night at about 21:30, I vaguely remember waking at about 01:30, finding that I was still lying there on top of the bed, saying “sod it” to myself and going back to sleep again right there.

The next time that I awoke, it was at 05:53 and I was still there on top of the bed.

This time I was awake for good, so I decided that that would be a good time for me to arise (before even the 1st alarm!) and attack the notes, of which there were plenty, from last night.

This was when we’d seen that body on the rocks and we were telling everyone but it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference. In the end someone believed us so we had to negotiate our way back to this clifftop. I was worried now having told someone that either it had gone or I’d imagined it or something, but when we got there sure enough there it was sprawled on the rocks. We got this guy to call for the police and an ambulance but for some unknown reason he had very great difficulty getting through.

Later on i was in LeClerc. It was more like 23:00 but I was shopping for stuff for breakfast. I had to work out where everything is and what I wanted and how to get the best available qualities. In the fresh vegetable stall I bumped into Liz. I was picking loads of carrots with their heads on and putting three in my basket. I was talking to Liz about how I used to plant the heads for fun when I’d cut them off the carrots and even a few of them would grow again. Liz said that she still did that and they always seemed to grow for her. By now we were standing in a garden somewhere and it was beautiful. The wind was blowing and I was watching my wind turbine going round faster and faster and faster but I thought that this was still slow for what it was supposed to be doing. it should be doing much better than this. Then Caliburn turned up driving down the lane to my house

There was still plenty of time after this to go for another walkabout. I found myself in Iceland but it was the strangest kind of Iceland I’ve ever been to. We were in a hotel and had an hour or two to wait before we needed to go to the airport or wherever it was from where we were leaving so they took us into town. I had my backpack my guitar and something else with me. They dropped us off for a walk round and we’d all meet back at the railway station. I walked around, or tried to walk around but I had so much stuff to carry with me and I didn’t even have my suitcase at this time. It was really inconvenient. I was struggling to get around. We ended up having to get back to the station (in Iceland, that has never ever had a public rail network!) to pick up the bus to go back to the hotel. In the end I ended up back there but everyone else was back there already. I thought that this time had gone really quickly and I hadn’t done half of what I needed to do. We all went to get back onto the bus as the bus was ready one of the boys upstairs came down to talk to the travel host who was Matthew Swann. It turned out that a girl had been ill and we were waiting for the ambulance. It turned up and first of all this other girl came down. She was a bit shaky. Then they went upstairs and came down carrying a girl. She was in quite a state and the first girl was saying to the ill one “you’ve got to eat, you’ve got to drink at least every 5 days especially when you’ve been sick” all this kind of thing. They just dumped her in the corner of an ambulance and the ambulace guy said in perfect English “yes she’ll have to be wrapped in another blanket – she can’t be wrapped in that one”. They started to get her out and put her in the ambulance.

But earlier I’d been on another bus as well. I don’t know where I was and I had to work out how I was going to get to Crewe. It was a long complicated journey and I was waiting for the bus to do the first stage and around the corner came the K43 with “Crewe” on it. I got on and the conductor came round to ask for my fare and I couldn’t remember the name of the bus stop. I tried to describe it to him “it’s the one after …” bit I couldn’t think of the name of the one before it either. In the end I asked “is the fare to Crewe all the same? Just give me a ticket to Crewe”.

When I had finished it was breakfast time so I went downstairs to see what was on offer. I had the fresh bread and jam with coffee and juice.

We had been told to wear masks in the dining room, so I remember saying that it would be fun trying to eat, but the lady reassured me, saying that it was only when we were moving around. Sitting down with our food, we didn’t need masks.

It was a pretty quick meal – I wasn’t down there for long and qfter breakfast I came back here and packed everything. By 09:00 I was back on the road.

Not very far though. First call was at LeClerc the other side of the motorway where I stocked up with groceries and the like, and then I made a phone call as I watched an artic lorry to perform a series of complicated manoeuvres.

Second port of call was the LeClerc fuel station where I fuelled up with diesel.

Off on my travels, and the route as far as Evaux-les-Bains was quite as I remembered it. And then a merry, mazy winding way through the hills and the side roads until I ended up at Rosemary’s.

If you think that where I live is quite beautiful, it’s not a patch on where Rosemary lives. Her house is perched on the clifftop overlooking the Gorge de la Sioule, the gash that cleaves the Combrailles in two and which as the River Sioule running through it, along the bottom.

And this is where I’m staying for the next few nights as there are things that I need to be doing before we go back into lockdown.

Lunch was prepared already when I arrived and then afterwards I made another phone call – this time to Ingrid to tell her that I was here. And we made certain arrangements.

A good search of Caliburn to find a very important item finally came good and then we had some organising to do.

All of that took up a good part of the afternoon followed by which we just chatted for a while about nothing in p
particular.

After we’d had our evening meal, Rosemary took me out for a walk around her neighbourhood

While I know the area pretty well to drive through it, just like anywhere else in rural France there are loads of little pathways and trackways that you only know if you are a local. And so disturbing the ponies in a neighbouring field, we disappeared off into the depths of darkest Combrailles

Rural France has never been troubled particularly by an invader who has disrupted the society in quite the same way that The Romans, the Saxons, the Vikings and the Normans did in England and so many of the paths down which we were walking have their roots going back into antiquity and even prehistory.

Very rarely was this this area carved up into great estates and parkland that overwhelmed the traditional “parcelles” of the local peasantry and the patchwork of fields and tracks is all just as it might have been when this area was reclaimed from the climax forest that covered it.

It was actually quite late when we set out for our walk.

It’s July of course at the moment and it stays light usually until quite late. Right now the sun is just disappearing over the brow of the hill. So we didn’t hang around particularly – a nice lap around the paths and tracks and then back down the lane to home.

So now it’s bedtime. Not exactly an exciting or busy day, but I was exhausted after my trip. I wanted to rest because It’s all going to kick off from here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing in a few weeks time as the story unfolds.

As I said a while back, we are heading for a second lock-down, I’m convinced of that, and there is no time like the present to do certain things. It’s now or never.

Saturday 18th July 2020 – I’M NOT HERE

This morning, although I heard the three alarms, I didn’t get up until about 06:30. Tons of stuff on the dictaphone, as I discovered, so it must have been a very restless night.

We were in a classroom last night having a talk on climate change, this kind of thing. A question that came up interested me, about New Zealand. The lecturer was saying that all of the difficulties about New Zealand – in Iceland the volcanos and glaciers were pushing out the centre of New Zealand – rather, pushing it up, the centre of South Island and changing all of the weather. There were storms and this thing. I asked if this was going to be a permanent thing or a temporary arrangement. One guy in this classroom was making notes, doing it with a kind of hammer-press thing and it was making a racket even louder than a typewriter. I wanted to ask him to shut up if anyone was able to talk to me about my question, to which I never actually had the answer. There were a couple of girls in this class and I was quite keen on one of these. For some reason the question of cycles and motorcycles came up. These two girls rode motorcycles so I was thinking “should I buy a motorcycle too so that I can keep up with them?” and that way I can keep up with them and be close to them I suppose and so on. But it was a case of how long was this going to continue? Is it just a flash-in-the-pan kind of course and we’ll all go our separate ways in a week or is this going to be some kind of long-term situation. As usual, I was full of indeciaion yet again.

Later on I was back in my house in Winsford of all places. There was a lot going on there as if it was in Central London and actually a car. I was sitting there watching all these events going on behind me – a little old woman tottering back to her home and someone I was with running out and shouting after her. But this little old lady didn’t seem to hear. There was another older person with us. The three of us came back and the reason why I hadn’t heard anyone reply was that the 2 old women were talking really slowly. It seemed that they were taking this old lady to show her this Old People’s Home, whether there was a vacancy in it, something like that. Off they went and they were climbing up the steps just as an ambulance pulled up and dropped off a load of elderly ladies all on crutches. I was back in my house and a couple of rooms were really cold and a couple really warm. I had the central heating all confused. This was the first time that I’d been in this house for God knows how long. I got back in there and there was a small cupboard on the wall. That was where the food was. I thought “God I’d left my steps in Belgium”. I don’t know why I said Belgium. I had to open it and everything was all crammed into these shelves and I thought “where am I going to put my freezer now?” There’s no room to put that in the kitchen. I had a pack of drink and for some reason this drink needed to be put in another bottle so I cleaned another bottle with bleach and had to rinse it out. Of course there was all the calcium in the water and it took ages to try to run clean before I could start to use it.

Another thing that came was that I was on a bike cycling home and for some unknown reason I fell asleep when I was cycling and woke up to find that there were some girl cycling alongside me. As I awoke she sped off. I then had to go and retrace my steps. it was through this hilly area and I remember a few things of the route and got on a bit of route that I didn’t recognise at all. It was steep and windy. I thought “God, did i cycle through this in my sleep? I was doing really well!”. Then I came into a town and by the bus station were loads of people with skis and it turned out that this was a … march. This was a big ski resort and you flew into the airport and a bus from the airport brought you into the town. Right at the bus stop was the start of the chair lifts so it was the easiest place to go to if you wanted to ski after work. All these crowds there and I fought my way through. This woman said something about this but I can’t remember what the something was so I replied to her in French and said “it’s not a problem”. She said “I was referring to you” I replied that I have to get home so I have to fight my way through everyone to get home. Everyone laughed at that and that was when I ended up back at my house in Winsford.

Having gone back to sleep at some point I stepped right back into that dream again, right back into Winsford and right back into my house. The house had been built for 2 years but I’d only just moved into it. I’d had it that long that I hadn’t lived there. it was in the middle of some kind of shopping centre where all of these shops were half-built or quarter-built where the money in Winsford ran out. The didn’t have the money to finish off all of the shops to let. a very decaying place indeed it was. I was walking through there and there was another couple in front of me. the guy was telling the girl about how the election in May 2015 2 years ago had changed absolutely everything and the new party decided to stop work on the shops.

Later still we were in a water mill that produced electricity with the water wheel. This mill hadn’t been used for years due to some kind of faults and complications about a diesel fuel blower and all of this and had set the place alight. There wa s no way of getting any modifications for it and they needed to get some kind of money coming from the mill so they decided that they would open it as a water-powered mill and let nature take its course. I was there but everyone else was off looking for things but I was screwing up the sluice gates so that the water instead would pass through the main centre of the mill. I started to open the main mill doors and the water started to rush in there. it suddenly started to go at a hell of a rate, this, as if a huge flood had built up outside for hundreds of years. It was necessary for me to slow down the flow of water otherwise it was going to sweep away the mill.

After all of that I was surprised that I wanted to go away. That sounds like it was more than enough travelling to be going on with.

But the first task was to finish off the packing and start to load up Caliburn. Basically, I just threw the stuff in because the back of the van has a huge pile of old cardboard boxes in it.

When everything was packed and loaded I tidied up and took the rubbish down to the waste disposal, vacuumed the living room and kitchen and then washed the floor with bleach and disinfectant. While the floor was drying I had a shower and a weigh-in. And I’m keeping this weight down, although what I will be like by the time I return will be anyone’s guess.

Cleaning and disinfecting the waste bin was next and then bleaching and disinfecting the WC and sinks.

Once all of that was done We set off.

First stop was the dechetterie where all of the cardboard, the old Caliburn battery and the old electric kettle bit the dust.

Next stop was Noz. But there wasn’t all that much in there, apart from a few small tims of potatoes.

After that wes LeClerc for a full tank of diesel, a couple of memory cards and a few basic items of foodstuffs – nothing much at all.

Off to Roncey to Liz and Terry’s. Terry loaned me a brushcutter which went into the back of Caliburn – while I was there I tidied it up a little too but I’ll be doing some more tidying up in there as well as I go round

Liz made lunch and we all had a very good chat for a couple of hours.

Round about 15:00 I hit the road. 260kms to travel on the first stage of the journey. Via Caen, Liseux and Evreux. Eventually I ended up in St Marcel, on the outskirts of Vernon in between Rouen and Paris on the banks of the Seine.

Here there’s a hotel, the Hotel du Haut Marais, and this is where I’m staying tonight.

On the way down towards the banks of the River Seine we had a little interruption that delayed me somewhat.

As I drove through Duranville in the département of the Eure I came across a garage that had seven or eight old cars out on display, and that kind of thing is enough for me to stop and have a better look to see what is going on,

And I seem to have found myself at the garage of a dealer of vintage and historical vehicles and almost everything in this yard is available for sale if you have enough money, which I don’t.

The first car that I saw and which tempted Strawberry Moose out of Caliburn to come for a ride.

The car itself is a Panhard-Levassor of 1913 although what model it might be I really have no idea. Being a 2-door 2-seater it’s not going to be one of the Model 20s that Président Poincaré adored but that’s all that I can say.

The company was a big fan of sleeve-valved engines – ports in the engine casting to vent the gases, protected by a kind of rotating sleeve between the piston and the bore. Very quiet running but very heavy on oil consumption and a technique that faded away when conventional valve seating technique improved.

Some Panhards had sleeve valves and some were conventional, but I don’t know about this one.

This car is much more like what you would expect to see in a place lke this.

One of the most opulent and ostentatious mass-market vehicles ever to hit the road anywhere, the Cadilac convertibles of the 1950s were the acme of bad taste in the 1950s. Big, powerful V8 engines and wallowing suspension were great on the open roads of the south-west where WE HAD LOADS ON FUN IN THE MUSTANG all those years ago, but in the crowded streets of the major cities they were a nightmare.

Nevertheless it was the kind of vehicle to which everyone aspired back in those days, and everyone had to be seen in one, just like Strawberry Moose and his new friend.

This is a vehicle that will probably appeal more to the traditionalists and the practically-minded amongst us.

It’s a Ford “steppy” – a step-sided Ford V8 pickup of the design that when I first started going to North America 20-odd years ago, were still reasonably common on the roads over there but now you will be very lucky to see one moving about under its own steam on a day-to-day basis.

Possibly from the late 1940s or early 1950s was my first thought. In fact the unofficial Québec number plate that it has on the front (Québec doesn’t require legal plates on the front of its vehicles) suggests that it’s a 1952 model. If so, it’ll have the 239 V8 sidevalve engine in it.

On the other hand, 30 or so years earlier, just about everyone in the USA would have been seen in one of these.

“Every colour you like, as long as it’s black” said Henry Ford of his Model T “Tin Lizzy”, or “Flivver” as Paul Getty called his, so I’ve absolutely no idea at all what he would have had to say about this one in a bright lime green.

Te one advantage of cars of this era with separate chassis and body is that they could be cut about as much as anyone likes, and so you could buy them in all kinds of shapes and body styles. And if that didn’t suit you, you could customise your own.

This little pick-up is a beautiful example.

It’s not the only Model T here at Duranville either. We have this one here to whet our appetite.

Or, rather, should I say “wet our appetite” because this is the former fire engine of the town of St Laurent in Québec. That’s a town that now no longer exists, having been conjoined to Montréal in 2002. But it’s an area of Montréal that regular readers of this rubbish will know very well because it wasOUR OLD STAMPING GROUND AROUND THE METRO DUCOLLEGE beFore I was taken ill.

As for the vehicle itself, it was new in 1924 and is said to be the first motorised fire engine of the city, serving between 1924 and 1944, and just imagine going out to fight a fire in that in the middle of a Québec winter.

She underwent a complete restoration in 2006/2007.

Yes, as well as the cars outside, there was quite a number inside the building too as you can see and they let me have a wander around inside with the camera.

Right by the door was this Dodge Convertible. It looks beautiful from this distance but that’s because it’s had a full restoration by the looks of things. It wouldn’t have looked like this maybe 20 years ago, I bet.

Unfortunately there’s no indication of what model it might be but it has the styling of a Dodge of the mid-late 1930s

It’s carrying a set of French numberplates issued within the last 3 years or so but there’s no other indication about where it comes from.

It’s not the kind of North American vehicle that I would have expected to have seen being sold in Europe at that particular time – after all, there was a quite a big volume-car marked in Europe at this time churning out all kinds of stuff that was as good as this at probably half the price.

There wouldn’t have been an “exotica” market back in those days, so I suspect that this is a comparatively recent import, like much of the stuff seems to be.

This of course isn’t a recent import, but it’s certainly a lot more recent than it looks.

Had this been a genuine Bugatti “30 plus” you wouldn’t find it in a place like this looking as if someone has dragged it out backwards from a haystack. It would have genuine alloy wheels on it for a start and be locked up in a vault somewhere because it would be worth a fortune.

My guess is that this is a replica, of which there are several examples available and on the road. It has a few quite modern features that you wouldn’t have found on the originals 90-odd years ago.

We saw a Ford stp-side pickup just now parked outside, but here tucked away in a corner is a Dodge pick-up of an earlier vintage, I reckon.

There was a series of lightweight Dodge trucks, the WD series (or DD series if made in Brampton, Ontario) between 1939 and 1947 of various carrying capacities between half a ton and one ton and if I had to guess, I would say that it’s one of these.

The position of the sidelights on the A-pillars suggests that it’s later rather than earlier but the absence of window vents suggests that it’s not one of the final ones made.

This is a bit of an eclectic assortment of vehicles stuck away in a corner.

The MGB is of no interest to us of course but the big Buick 8 in the foreground is of course. Again, it’s difficult to say much about it except that because of where the spare wheel it is, it might actually be a Buick 8 Special of the late 1930s

The Renault at the back is a Renault Prairie of 1952 and if you want to see a close-up of one of these I’ll have to dig out my photos from 2007 because regular readers of this rubbish in a previous guise will recall that we found one in a scrapyard in France back in those dats.

Talking to the owners later, it appears that they have an agent in Québec who sources this kind of thing and has it shipped over from there. So much for yet another business opportunity then, unfortunately.

But right now I have other things to think about, like finding a hotel.

There are several along the river but I need to be careful because one of th bridges is closed for repair. I have to track my way through all kinds of countryside before I arrive at Vernon.

And this is my hotel for this evening, the Hotel du Haut Marais at St Marcel. It looks as if at one stage it’s been one of the Accor group’s places but really these unit hotels all look so alike that there’s no way of telling.

Anyway, it’s a reasonable price without going too far and it’s comfortable. And I’m off to have an early night. It’s been a long day and there is plenty to do. A good night’s sleep will do me the world of good.

Friday 17th July 2020 – I DID SOMETHING …

… this morning that I said I wouldn’t ever do willingly.

So while you admire Thora coming into port this afternoon, let me tell you about it. In fact, what it was was that when I heard the alarms go off, I consciously and willingly settled back down under the nice clean bedding and stayed there.

Until all of 07:45 too. I wasn’t in any hurry. But there’s a lot to do and I thought that a decent rest would give me a head start.

There was nothing on the dictaphone either, as I discovered when I went to check after the medication. It must have been a really deep sleep, that’s all that I can say.

Most of the morning was spent tidying up in here, putting some stuff away, doing some sorting out and tidying up. Yes, I have one or two cunning plans going around in my head right now.

And all of that took much longer than I was expecting. I have no idea where the time went. I haven’t done half as much as I intended to do, that’s for sure.

All of that took me up to lunchtime when I finished off the last of Sunday’s bread.

That was a shame because it really was good and I was well-impressed with that loaf.

This afternoon I finished off the first week of my web development course. At this stage I know most of it but we spent a lot of time working on forms and that’s something of which I haven’t really done much so I’m already making some headway

Next week we’ll be doing some *.css. I have a rudimentary knowledge of that so I’m keen to see what I don’t know about it.

There was the afternoon walk of course – I do that every day.

It looks as if the shoal of mackerel is still there. In the first photo of Thora above you saw half of the town with their rods out on the harbour wall, and all of the boats that we saw yesterday are out there again tonight.

Here’s just a few of them. In total I counted at least 20 altogether having a good go at the fish. And I still haven’t seen anyone catch anything.

The air was pretty busy today too.

It wasn’t that particularly windy today, but windy enough for the hordes of hang-gliders to be hanging around in the field next to the cemetery at Donville-les Bains.

This one here is quite interesting. It’s a tandem one, that carries a passenger. And before anyone says anything, no I am NOT going to be having a go at it. Any flighted craft that takes off from a field with a cemetery at the end of the runway is not for me at all.

And here’s something else that I’m not going to be doing either.

Jumping off a diving platform into the sea seems to be such a popular activity right now that they have fixed the one at Donville-les-Bains that was derelict for quite a while. But here at the Plat Gousset in Granville, the crowds were gathering.

One or two people seemed to be more adventurous than the ones yesterday and it didn’t take too long for them to start leaping into the drink.

So that’s all of the people in the air and out at sea. What about those on terra firma?

Everywhere was thoroughly crowded today. The beaches, the footpaths, everywhere. As you can see, down on the beach with the tide well in, the crowds really were congregating.

Those on the beach might just have the correct amount of social distancing between each family group but I wouldn’t like to bet on it.

Numbers of the infected here in France are rising quickly and we’ll be having a second wave of confinement before long. I don’t want to jump the gun and get myself infected by going down there amongst that lot.

My baby seagull seems to have gone definitively. Both parents were on the roof today with no sign of the little one.

On the other hand, the others seem to be coming along nicely and growing very rapidly. But I thought that this was a lovely touch. One of the residents has placed a ladder at the side of his house and put a bowl of water up there for the babies.

They were making the most of it too, enjoying every drop. And they needed it too in this weather because it was starting to become really warm by now.

You saw the photos of Thora coming in to the harbour and tying up at the quayside underneath the unloading crane.

The big ferries to and from the Channel Islands are still not running, so it seems, so there is only one way to bring your car over to France.

This is the kind of procedure that takes me back many, many years to long before the days of ro-ro ferries. Cars had to be lifted on and off boats by cranes and despite the advances in modern techniques and modern equipment, there are no real facilities for that here at Granville.

So what worked in the 40s and 50s and early 60s is still working today. Particularly when there is no other alternative.

Thora wasn’t the only boat out there this afternoon.

One of the Joly France boats was out there too with a load of passengers. And it wasn’t easy to say where they were going. It was rather late though to be taking so many people out to the Ile de Chausey.

The boat is actually the newer one of the two. You can tell that because the windows are deeper and there’s also a smaller area of superstructure on the top deck.

She has a step cut in the stern too, but you can’t see that from here.

My walk continued around the walls until I reached the highest point where I can see down into the yard of the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs.

It looks as if the film crew is packing up for the weekend now. All of the vans and lorries are here, most of the stuff is outside and some of it has even been loaded up.

We’re told that they will be back on Monday to finish off. That should be interesting. And as I noticed later on when I went for my evening walk, the mobile canteen is still here. So they do mean it.

Back here I finished off the first week of the interactive web page studies and then spent the final hour trying desperately to speak to someone at the bank about my bank card that won’t work.

Eventually after holding for 45 minutes I spoke to someone who had no more idea that I have about why it isn’t working and they agreed in the end to send me a new card.

No idea what’s happening here.

After the guitars, it was tea time. Rice and lentil burger with veg and gravy, followed by more of my delicious apple crumble

Off I went later on, struggling up the hill on my evening run, falling short yet again of the top.

Walking up to the top and recovering my breath I ran on down to the clifftop to see what was going on, but there was nothig happening out at sea. All of the seagulls were there though, hundreds of them. Evidently the shoal of mackerel is still there and they are all fishing for supper.

“Are they having more luck than the fishermen?” I asked myself. I’ve not seen any of them catch anything as yet either.

All the way back down the other side I ran.

Thora has gone now, back out to sea. That was a very quick turnround. Marité is there though, although I understand that she has plens to be on her way soon. And in the gloom and doom the Big Wheel looks impressive. It will be even better when it’s darker and the lights will stand out more.

My run down to the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord was uneventful, and I missed the sunset too which was a shame.

No-one picnicking on the beach tonight either although there were a few people hanging around here and there. I didn’t wait but ran on home.

Now there’s some tidying up to do and then I’m off to bed. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow and I can’t afford to hang about.

Tuesday 14th July 2020 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… a good day again for anything as far as today goes. And while you admire the kids leaping off the diving platform into the sea I can tell you all about it.

So starting as we mean to go on, I missed the three alarms this morning. Or, rather, I did actually hear them but somehow I just couldn’t manage to drag myself out of bed right them.

It was actually about 07:30 when I finally plucked up the courage to leave my stinking pit and that kind of thing is no good to anyone. It’s very disheartening.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

As it happens, I was on the Spirit of Conrad last night all on my own and it was all about sailing across the Atlantic. I’d collected loads of supplies but I didn’t think that there was anything like enough because I didn’t think that it would take such short a time as a week to cross. But anyway I collected these supplies and put them on board. Then they slipped the mooring and I had to walk the boat out of the harbour then get on board and start to sail her away. I made it out to the Isle of Man and moored in the Isle of Man for the night. Next morning I found myself out on the coast of Ireland setting off for a single-handed sail across the Atlantic and I can’t even sail a yacht.

Somewhat later during the night, having gone back to sleep I found that I had stepped back into that dream again.

It was a house run by some kind of old woman. I was in a room there and she was discussing the fact that all of the tenants they really needed to clean the bath when they had used it because there were so many people needing the bath. She looked at me and said “you’ve not had a shower for a long time Eric”. “Of course I have” I replied. “I had one when I got on the Spirit of Conrad” which was 2 nights ago. She thought that it was yesterday when I had set sail. She said “well I didn’t see you there but if it was yesterday then that’s OK”.

It beats me why Spirit of Conrad is featuring so much just recently on my nocturnal rambles. In my normal awakened state (such as it is) I haven’t really thought about it at all.

So being up and about I did some kind of desultory tidying up ready for my Welsh class.

It’s the last part of this course and then we go on two months’ break. When the course restarts we have to pay to go onto the next level but it’s not expensive by any means.

So when we finished we all said our goodbyes to each other and “see you in the autumn”. But how many of us will is anyone’s guess. We started with 12 and we ended up with 6 after 10 weeks but those who are left were keen enough.

After lunch I attacked the radio project. It was my plan to have it done this afternoon so that I could start on other things.

And indeed by the time 18:00 came round I had finished it off. I could – indeed should – have finished it earlier but Brain of Britain here miscalculated and it ended up being one minute too long.

The only other suitable track by the same artist was only 40 seconds shorter so then I had to go through everything and edit out 20 seconds of speech from the recording so that I ended up with exactly one hour.

I’m not allowed to overrun.

There was the usual interruption for my walk around the walls in the afternoon.

Not that I had gone very far before I came to a halt. Here at the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord is a food van – a mobile canteen.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning that there’s a film being made here. While I’ve not yet been able to catch the cameramen in action, I’ve found where the staff and the actors go when they knock off for lunch

My plan is to nip out round about lunchtime and see if I can spot anyone famous having a butty.

While I was there at the viewpoint I noticed a ship in the distance.

From here I couldn’t identify the silhouette. I thought at first that it might be Chausiais off on another run out to the Ile de Chausey, but when I enlarged and cropped the photo when I returned home I noticed that it was actually one of the larger fishing boats.

And it seems that I know the one too – the black and white one that was in the chantier navale once. However I can’t think of its name right now and I’m sure that you don’t expect me to be able o see it from here.

The crowds were thronging around in their hordes this afternoon.

The pathways were clogged with people strolling around on this Bank Holiday day. And not just terrestrial crowds either because we had quite a few people up in the air too.

You can also see the crowds on the beach too. The day wasn’t that warm – I actually had a sweater on – but it didn’t deter them very much at all, even though the tide was well in and there wasn’t much beach to be on right now.

There were plenty of people in the water too this afternoon even if it wasn’t that warm.

These kids were enjoying themselves as you can see, climbing up onto the diving platform and then leaping off into the void.

Strangely enough – or maybe it isn’t – the girls were the more adventurous here. They were leaping off without a second thought whereas it took the boys a good few minutes to pluck up the courage to leap off into the cold water.

That showed the boys a thing or two.

My route took me round to the Square Maurice Marland to check up on my baby seagull. He wasn’t there but his mummy was, so unfortunately I have sore misgivings about him.

The other baby seagulls were resting so I had a look at the yachts out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel. The sailing school was in full flight with plenty of yachts out there right now.

It makes me feel that I have missed a trick here. I should have been out there with them learning to handle a boat. What I need to do is to go down and talk to them and see what’s going on and what I need to do.

And, more importantly, when I need to be doing it.

On the way home again, I felt the cold hand of death hover over me.

One of the hang gliders from the field by the cemetery has made it this far. And when I say “one of” – I really mean “two of” because if you look closely, it’s a tandem. And the passenger has his phone on a selfie stick taking a video of the flight.

But when the shadow passes overhead, I can understand how the Hobbits felt when the Nazgul passed by overhead.

Back here I finished off the radio programme and had the usual hour on the guitars. And then tea time.

Burger and pasta in tomato sauce followed by apple crumble and my soya coconut stuff. And even though I say it myself, this apple crumble and the bread from Sunday are total perfection. I couldn’t hope for anything better than this.

My plan was, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is to go out for my evening walk. But just as I was preparing myself the phone rang. Rosemary wanted a chat and we had a lot to say to each other, so by the tile that we finished it was … errr … 23:15.

Too late to go for a walk, which is a shame so I stayed here and finished off my journal.

Lots of things to do tomorrow, but only routine stuff and my two courses. But I also need to do some preparation because I have a cunning plan, more of which anon

Friday 3rd July 2020 – OUR SKIPPER …

… was right about the calm sea. Once the tide went out and we were left in our little lagoon I had the best sleep that I have had for quite a while.

Right up until 03:45 when the sea rolled in over the rocks. As the boat rose we were hit by the waves and the wind and any hope of sleeping promptly disappeared.

Nevertheless it was 08:00 when I arose from my little cubby hole and even then I was the first up and about. Breakfast was thus … errr … somewhat later and then we relaxed in the sun for an hour or so. I went back to sleep again having carefully placed my cap over my eyes to ward off the sun but at some point it must have slipped off because now my face has taken yet another beating.

When the tide receded we leapt into a zodiac and went ashore for a sit in the sun and a walk along the beach. There were the shellfish farmers there with their tractors and one of our shipmates doing some sketching but apart from that it was like being on a desert island. We had a good rest and after our walk the zodiac came to fetch us back.

Lunch was taken on board ship outside in the sun. Our last meal too. The food here has been plain and basic but good quality and more than enough for everyone. I provided my own main course and snacks of course but there was rice, pasta and potatoes to go with it all.

We then sailed back to Granville and with a good wind, we arrived about 10 minutes before the harbour gates opened, so we had to hang around for a while.

Once moored we did the packing and the tidying up and then relaxed and chatted for a while. Eventually it was time to say goodbye and I came on home.

Too tired to do much, I made myself a plate of veg and pasta tossed in olive oil, garlic and pepper and then crashed out – too tired to go for my evening run.

It was about 01:30 when I finally crawled into my own bed and how good it was to be in here too. It was great being away but it is really nice to be back.

******* PHOTOS AND MORE CONTENT WILL BE ADDED IN DUE COURSE *******

Saturday 27th June 2020 – MY APPLE PIE …

… passed a very important test today.

And while you admire the photos of a bunch of baby seagulls – the first one being the seagull chick that we’ve been following – I shall tell you all about it.

But we’ll start off by mentioning the fact that this morning I beat the third alarm, just for a change, and was actually half-dressed when it went off. I could do with a few more like that too.

There was a downside to waking up completely at the sound of the first alarm though.

After the medication I went to listen to the dictaphone but it didn’t help much. Last night I can’t remember at all anything about what I was doing but it was an enormous mega-ramble that I was on, something to do with the seaside and the moment that I awoke when the alarm went off, it wiped everything out of my head completely.

And how disappointing was that? As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a far more exciting time when I’m on my travels during the night than ever I do when I’m awake.

First thing to do this morning was to tidy up the place a little – and that included steam-cleaning the kitchen.

That’s the one thing about having people coming round to the apartment visiting – it motivates me to get the place looking as if someone actually lives here.

Following that, I could go and have a good shower and a general clean up. And a weigh-in too. And that weight that I put on at the last weigh-in now seems to gone off again.

Either that or my bathroom scales are about as reliable as the blood testing machine at Castle Anthrax.

Following that I made a flying visit to the shops.

First port of call was NOZ where I spent the grand total of €3:19. Two cartons of coconut milk for drinking, another packet of these breaded soya steaks and I can’t remember what the fourth thing was now. But it can’t have been that important.

LeClerc wasn’t that much better either. If I hadn’t bought a net of juice oranges and another batch of falafel (I was looking in the wrong place last week) the expenditure there would have been the same as well.

After the visit to the shops I called in at Happy Cash – the second-hand shop on the edge of town.

That wasn’t a very profitable visit because they didn’t have in stock what I wanted so instead I fought my way back home through the traffic.

A final bit of tidying up and then my visitors arrived – bang on time. One of my colleagues from the radio and his wife were in town and they came round for a chat and a cup of tea.

While they were here I gave them a slice of my apple pie and it definitely met with great approval, which pleased me no end, I have to say.

After they left, I sat down to make a start on the photos from July 2019 but shame as it is to say it, I crashed out on the chair.

Crashed out good and proper too for probably about an hour or so. It was 13:40 when I finally pulled myself together – and that was a waste of a morning yet again.

Surprisingly, when I listened to the dictaphone the following morning, there was a recording on it timed at about 12:30 today. I must have gone off on a voyage while I was asleep.

I was on holiday and in a hotel in one of the rooms looking out of the window over the street. There were people in the street and I was listening to Runrig on the radio. At the end of the concert I went to switch it off with the remote control but it wouldn’t actually switch off. I had to physically walk over to the radio and switch it off. That reminded me that something else had happened about this before and I’d been in the same position. It was getting close to meal time and at meal time I was going to go down with my friend. I’m not sure who my friend was – it might have been Rosemary. Then I realised that half of my party were leaving and they would be boarding a plane later on in the evening. I wanted to go to see them off because someone very well-known to regular readers of this rubbish was going back home with this group of the party and I wanted to say goodbye to her. However we weren’t particularly speaking at that particular moment but even so I couldn’t bear the thought of her going away without me saying goodbye to her. So then I realised that not everyone would be going to the airport – only a few people – those who were leaving would be going. I wondered if I could think of an excuse to go down with them but then I didn’t know any of the others well enough to be able to tag along with them to say goodbye. The thing I wanted most in the world was for her to turn round and wave at me and say goodbye even if she didn’t want to speak to me.

And doesn’t that sound familiar to the regular readers of this rubbish? A certain series of events are still playing on my mind after all this time and it doesn’t look as if I’ll ever shake them off.

It had been pouring down with rain during part of the morning and it still looked wet and miserable outside so I had lunch indoors today.

Afterwards I had a good look at the hard drives on this computer. Believe it or not, I’m running out of space already and that’s not very good at all. There is going to have to be some serious shuffling around of stuff to make more room, and I’ve made a start on that already.

But interestingly, I came a cross a directory that had been misfiled probably back in 2007 or something like that and there was a whole raft of photos in there – a couple of thousand in fact, that I knew I had somewhere.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a good couple of years ago I spent a whole week trying to hunt down a particular photo and I could never find it.

Well, after this afternoon’s exertions I now know where it is – and where a whole load of others are too, and I delighted a few friends on my social networking account by posting a couple of them on there too.

After all of that, that was the cue to go for a walk. It was pretty windy outside and cloudy too but at least the rain had stopped.

For a change, I decided to go for a walk around the walls this afternoon.

But I didn’t go far before I came to a halt again. “No Waiting” signs in the car park at the head of the rue du Nord so I went to look at the statutory notice to see what was going to be happening.

It looks like our little corner of the town is going to become famous because they say that they are going to be making a film here in a week or so’s time. That should be interesting.

A few minutes agi I said that the rain had stopped, but that it was still windy and cloudy.

It wasn’t the weather that I would have chosen to have gone into the water, but these people seem to be having a load of fun splashing about in the sea this afternoon.

And they weren’t alone either. I counted probably about a dozen other people havign a good swim around out there this afternoon. made of hardy stuff, these Normans. But then they are all mostly descended from Vikings so anything is possible.

And that may well be true for some, but not for others.

All the money that the commune has (quite rightly, in my opinion) spent in revitalising the tidal swimming pool and here we are, the last weekend in June already, and there’s only one person looking as if he’s anything like in it.

It’s so quiet down there on the beach that the three lifeguards are having a Union meeting and paying no attention whatever to whatever is going on behind the.

Missing out on the roofing job in the Place Marechal Foch, I walked on round to the Square Maurice Marland to check on my seagull.

The baby that we have been following doesn’t seem to be very lively, but I spent a good 20 minutes watching the antics of these triplets wandering around on the roof flexing their wings. They seem to be getting ready to take to the air pretty soon.

Interesting though it was, things really started to liven up when mummy flew back to the roof. The three youngsters seemed to know instinctively what was going to happen next as they all swarmed around her squawking.

And sure enough, mummy duly obliged.

She promptly vomited up a huge pile of half-digested seafood and the three little ones tucked in eagerly and greedily to their afternoon snack.

Mummy then took to the air and flew back down to the shore – presumably to go and find dessert to bring back for them. I must admit that I’m no bird-watcher (well, not THAT kind of bird anyway) but I’m fascinated by these seagulls and how their instincts drive them on to know what to do

Where this family of seagulls is situated is not very far at all from the steps in the Rue Lecampion where they have been doing all of the work. That was obviously going to be the next place to visit seeing as I was in the vicinity.

And they seem to be making quite good progress right now and I imagine that it will be finished pretty soon. Most of the trench has been backfilled and the cobbles in the lower part have now been tamped firmly home.

Another week or so and they may well be packed up and gone.

Well, theoretically speaking, that is.

They won’t be able to move the digger for a while because someone else has taken possession. Sitting there on one of the tracks acting as if he owned the digger, which he probably did by now.

He was quite a friendly little cat and I spent a good five minutes giving him a good stroke. Stroking a cat is very good for the stress, so they say. When Nerina and I were together we had four cats so Heaven alone knows what I would have been like without any at all.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they have spent the last couple of weeks repointing and cleaning up the wall that they repaired in a hurry last year.

We saw a photo of them working on it during the week, but now they seem to have cleared off. Their van is gone too so that must mean that they have now finished.

And it’s quite a reasonable job that they have made of it too. What I’m hoping for now is that they will show the same zeal and vigour around the rest of the walls that seem to be crumbling away faster than they can repair them.

There has been a lot of talk in the British media about the litter louts in the UK who have been leaving mounds of rubbish all over all kinds of various tourist areas just recently.

In France too, we have our own problems with litter louts leaving their garbage all over the place. But you have to admit that our litter louts are ina completely different league than the UK.

Where else in the world would you find discarded champagne bottles lying around?

My hour on the guitar was spent playing the acoustic guitar. I need to become accustomed to playing that again although i’m not very happy about it. It’s a cheap thing with three steel and three nylon strings and the action is far too high on it

Tea tonight was, as usual, one of my breaded soya steaks with a potato and vegetables, followed by a slice of pie and the last of the delicious banana sorbet.

With it being damp and windy I waited a while before going out for my run, and just as I had made up my mind to go, Rosemary rang me up. We ended up chatting for a good 90 minutes as usual.

While all of this was going on I was engaged in a dispute with someone at the radio. My programme wasn’t broadcast again tonight so we “had words”.

The guy who acts as the main technician for the radio told me that he has a life and that he is only paid to work on Monday morning and all day Tuesday for the radio so we should think ourselves lucky that he’s there.

For my part, I reminded him that we volunteers also have lives and that we aren’t paid at all for our work – in fact, the money and all of our equipment and travelling expenses comes out of our own pockets so he should think himself lucky that we are here. And I mentioned how disappointed I was to read his comments.

In fact he had spent 25 minutes sending me all kinds of screenshots to prove that the programmes were set up correctly, whereas all he needed to do was to click on the link to the broadcast (5 seconds?) and he could hear for himself that it wasn’t going out.

It makes me shudder to think about the attitudes of some people – it really does.

By the time that I went for my evening run it was almost 23:00 – but I went all the same. There was nothing to photograph, for the rather prosaic reason that I couldn’t see very much.

The itinerant was there though, buried deeply in his hedge. Fast asleep, I imagined.

One thing though – and that was that my run tonight was so much easier. I wonder if it’s anything to do with the digestion process that’s using up too much energy shortly after a meal.

But I’m off to bed. And a lie-in tomorrow. There’s a lot to do so I can’ta fford to hang about.

Friday 26th June 2020 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was up before the third alarm went off this morning.

Not by much, it has to be said, but before is before and it’s all good.

Mind you I don’t know why because outside was a really miserable day. I didn’t know if it was raining because I couldn’t see. Wr had a huge sea mist rolling in and it was freezing cold – a far cry from the last few days.

After the medication it was the dictaphone. I had an appointment at the hospital last night and I went to go to the reception. I walked into the office and had to get a ticket to queue up. But the woman called me over as I waslked in. I shouted “in a minute” and went to get my ticket anyway, but I don’t know why. When I got to the desk and said that I had an appointment she asked “who with?”. I said that I didn’t know – it was on the card. She looked on the card and all it had was “Doctor C”. She said “what you’ll have to do is to ring up Doctor Carpentier and se if it’s him. If it’s not him, here are all the other doctors whose names begin with C. You’ll have to ring round all of them until you find the one who is supposed to be seeing you.

Today, with nothing really outstanding that needed doing, I exerted myself by sorting out the washing that had been hanging up on the clothes airer for the last 10 days or so.

Nice and dry of course, and because of the washing softener it actually smelled nice too. Far better than it did the last time that I washed it and forgot about it in the washing machine for a couple of days.

After that, I had some things of my awn to attend to and then I settled down to carry on with a few of the projects that I started a while ago.

Firstly, this involves completely rewriting one of my websites. And that’s not as easy as it might sound either because it seems to have been amended in several stages in the past and some of the early stuff seems to have stuck in a previous format and missed the subsequent amendments.

What I’ve had to do is to prepare a template for each version, work out which version of the site each page is and then amend it accordingly.

So far I did about 4 or 5 pages this morning once I’d sorted out the templates. But it’s not just that – I’m finding lots of stuff that shouldn’t be there as well as a few files that i’d lost here and there along the way.

This afternoon I carried on with editing a web page from another site. What I wrote 20 years ago is not the same as I would have written today, and it’s not easy either to change a style of writing but keeping the same emotion that I had when I first wrote it.

As well as that, it’s been about 12 years since I’ve done any serious third-party web design work so I’m quite rusty in that respect but looking at my site with different eyes, I’ve solved almost instinctively a couple of problems that stumped me whan I was in full flight. I’m not sure how I managed that at all.

As well as that, I had a good go at the photos from July 2019 in Iceland and now I’m back in Heimaey on the way out to Greenland.

Another thing that i’ve done is to make a few tentative enquiries about going off on my travels sometime whenever. I have a couple of plans but they are not for right away or even in the near future. Nevertheless there is no time like the present to get things under way.

At the usual time this afternoon I went out for my walk.

Although, once again, I couldn’t see why. In fact i couldn’t see very much at all this afternoon because that sea mist was still hanging around out there.

it was cold too, as I said earlier. I had a sweater on, which is pretty much unthinkable for the latter days of June. Even Gribouille the big ginger cat wasn’t coming out in this weather. He stayed stuck on his windowsill indoors.

With nothing much to see I trudged on around my little circuit, mixing with the people who were out there. There were actually quite a few – more than I was expecting.

With not being able to see very much in the fog, there wasn’t an awful lot to photograph. But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen a few photos of the seafarers’ memorial just recently in the bright sunlight, so I thought that I would reproduce the view in the fog.

If you look carefully you can juts about make out the coast on the other side of the bay near St Pair sur Mer and Jullouville

With nothing else going on I walked on down along the top of the cliff and then round towards home.

Not an awful lot going on in the harbour either. No Jersey freighter today, but La Grande Ancre is there in port tied up. She has no intention of going out in this, that’s for sure.

From there I headed off back home to carry on working. There was plenty to do. And I might have accomplished so much more had I not gone off with the fairies again for half an hour or so.

When I came round, I was feeling pretty miserable. I reckon that I’m sickening for something else right now and I don’t like that idea very much at all.

But I plodded on with my work and then had the usual hour on the guitar.

Tea tonight was exciting. There was a pepper left over so I sliced it up. A potato was diced and put in the microwave with a little water and some spices (turmeric, coriander and cumin) for a couple of minutes.

While that was doing I sliced up a couple of onions and fried them with spices and also some fennel and fenugreek. A pile of garlic went in next, and then the pepper.

The potatoes followed, with a tin of exotic vegetables that I had picked up from NOZ a while back. And then a handful of spinach.

More spices to taste, and then the pièce de résistance – not a French virgin but a little carton of soya cream (regular readers of this rubbish will recall that they had some on special offer at LeClerc a couple of weeks ago).

So there we are – an Instant Korma, and vegan to boot. With some rice and mixed veg it was delicious and, even better, there are four more helpings for the freezer.

Apple pie and ice cream for pudding with chocolate sauce.

My run was going to be late tonight because I wanted to hear the start of my radio programme. But badger me if the baskets have forgotten YET AGAIN to broadcast it.

Having been missed off the list of “presents” at the meeting last week, I am not very impressed at all by this. If they don’t want my programmes they should have the courage to tell me so that I don’t waste my time.

Eventually I made it outside for my evening run.

And I ran straight into the sunset again. Unfortunately, although the weather is 100 times better than it was earlier and you could actually see things, there was too much cloud about for it to be as spectacular as the last couple of nights.

Anyway, I made it all the way down to the clifftop past the itinerant, even though I didn’t feel much like it tonight.

Not a great deal of activity out there tonight.

There was a small yacht way out in the distance over by the Ile de Chausey but there were also some fishermen in their boat just off the cliffs fishing for something or other.

One of these days I’ll have to accost a fisherman and find out what the catch is in the waters off here. The waters aren’t all that deep so it’s not going to be anything super-exotic.

It was another evening with no-one picnicking in the old gun emplacement so I carried on walking across the lawn.

There were a few people about as well, getting in my way, but round by the Pointe du Roc all of the action seemed to be down at the viewpoint by the old watchman’s cabin.

W’ve seen quite a few groups of people congregating down there just recently and there was another bunch of people hanging out in the evening sun down there. It’s a lovely spot to hang out.

There was no fisherman down there this evening though. The rocks around there were looking pretty bare.

It seemed to me as if they had all given up for the duration but, having a look around, I found one of them standing on a rock elsewhere in the vicinity casting his line into the void.

With nothing else exciting going on, I carried on with my run. Past the chantier navale where there were still the five fishing boats.

At the end of the path i stopped for a breather, and from there i had a look around to see if there was anything exciting.

The two Joly France boats were down there near the ferry terminal but what caught my eye was the older boat of the two. She was moored in rather a dangerous position right by the harbour gate and I was sure that she shouldn’t be staying there.

But closer inspection revealed that her crane was extended and as I ran on down the road, she lifted something out of the forr’ard hold, dumped it on the quayside, and then cleared off elsewhere.

All the way down the Boulevard vaufleury I ran, round into the medieval city and round through the alleys to the viewpoint at the rue du Nord – a little easier tonight, I reckon.

There were a few people down on the beach this evening. Not picnicking but simply soaking up the sun. Not as many people as we have seen in the recent past.

But I was admiring a couple of people down there. They were drying themselves with towels and sorting out some clothes, so it looked to me as if they had actually been in the water for a swim.

Braver men than I am, Gungha Din.

As I said earlier, the sunset tonight wasn’t all that spectacular.

Back at the apartment I showed it to Liz and she described it as a storm in a sunset sandwich, which I thought was very lyrical of her.

For a change it’s a little earlier than usual so I’ll probably go for an early night. I’m expecting a couple of visitors tomorrow so I might even do a little tidying up early tomorrow morning if I feel up to it.

Shopping tomorrow of course, but I don’t need much at all. But I want to go to the second-hand shop because I have a project in mind.

More of this anon

EPIC HALL

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