Tag Archives: eric hall

Saturday 6th July 2019 – HAVING SAID …

… last night that it was bound to rain before long, I can say that it didn’t at all today, which is always very nice.

And for a change, I was up and about early yet again. Straight after the second alarm went off. That gave me a good 45 minutes to bash away at what I wanted to do before breakfast, which is something that I like to do otherwise tend up falling behind.

After breakfast, we had to get ready as we were going off on a zodiac cruise to shore and a town called Rif. There’s a strange guy there who runs a theatre and hostel, and he was to entertain us for half an hour.

The ride in was good, not too rough so we weren’t soaked. And just for a change, we were first off out of the blocks. That doesn’t happen every time.

The guy there gave us a talk and a few songs, and I talked to one of the residents, a girl called Sonia.

But it was the wrong time of year to be visiting Rif as the centre of the village is well-known for its colony of nesting terns and right now, the eggs have only just hatched so the birds were quite aggressive. Several of us were dive-bombed and received little gifts from the heavens, but one or two of the people where physically attacked by the birds and injuries were suffered.

There was a church in the vicinity that I had wanted to see but the aggressive birds put quite a few areas out of bounds. For the same reason it wasn’t recommended to walk to the town of Hellisandur either.

A waterfall , the Svodufoss, 4kms away was a very good substitute so some of us went there instead. But I don’t know by what route they calculated the 4kms but my fitbit made the round trip 12.1 kms – a bit of a difference and I could certainly feel it.

And it’s as well that I hadn’t had much to drink. After all, you can’t go behind a bush in Iceland because there are no bushes to go behind.

Of course I was not alone out there .Strawberry Moose came with me and took full advantage of the situation, being photographed in several exciting places.

Back on the zodiac and it was lunchtime. I was good and ready for it too, having walked all of that way in just a morning.

After lunch I went and had a shower and washed my clothes. It’s been a couple of days and I bet that they could pick me up on the ship’s radar. And then we had a series of lectures on different subjects.

One of our lectures, on the geology of Iceland, was interrupted. A blue whale had been observed off the port bow so we abandoned the lecture – another “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” moment as in Carry On Cowboy. We were in luck too because there were two of them and they gave us quite a performance.

After tea we sailed past a series of very high cliffs at a place called Latrabjarg. And very impressive they were too. We weren’t the only ones to think so either because right at the point of land (it’s the extreme western edge of Iceland) there was a scenic viewpoint with quite a few cars and people admiring the view.

There was a rep from Nikon there too offering us a trial of various equipment. She had a very high quality 28-300mm lens amongst her hire equipment so I have borrowed that for a few days. I’m interested to see how that shapes up, so I’ll let you know in due course.

Now I have a few things to tidy off and then I might go to have an early night. The sunset might be a good one again but I really need to catch up with my sleep.

Friday 5th July 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the sunset last night. It really was beautiful. And still going at round about 23:30 too. We are approaching the Land Of The Midnight Sun and at the right time of the year too.

So having taken a few photos I toddled off to bed.

Much to my surprise I awoke bang upright with a jolt at 05:40. I’d been dead to the world, out like a light. And I’ve no idea what had awoken me because the engines were at “slow ahead” and we were crawling along, almost stationary. Mind you, 05:40 is actually 07:40 in real money due to the time difference so that might explain some of it.

Yesterday we had seen land in the form of a couple of islands. But this morning we really were in sight of the mainland.

So up and about, I took a couple of photos of the Icelandic coast, round by Keflavik to start with, and we hit a problem. The laptop hadn’t switched itself off last night and this morning the flattery was bat. So I had to find a power socket in which to plug it while I did some work. But that gave me an opportunity to gaze out of the window at the beautiful morning.

After breakfast, I went up aloft and watched as we slowly inched our way into the harbour at Reykjavik, picking up a pilot on the way. There was plenty of shipping in there, including an Icelandic gunboat, which I imagine will be seeing plenty of action pretty soon when the silly Brits realise just how stupid they have been.

I took a really good action photograph of one of the sailors throwing a line to the quayside.

We had lunch, which was a buffet, and then we headed off onshore. While the crew and the staff were sorting themselves out, they had arranged for the half dozen of us to have a guide and go for a walking tour for 90 minutes.

It was quite interesting, and I came to the conclusion that I could live quite happily live in Reykjavik, provided that I could afford it. Prices here are astronomical. A portion of fish and chips would cost something like €12:00.

We needed to find a bank, which was easier said than done, but eventually we came across a cash machine. So now I have 8,000 Icelandic Kronor, which is about €55:00. I might be able to buy a coffee or something with that if I’m lucky.

Back on board the ship we had a briefing and a lifeboat drill the latter of which took an age. We’ll be in trouble if we ever spring a leak. We were also issued with our expedition jackets, which took longer than it ought to have done too.

The portions of food at teatime seem to have diminished which is probably just as well because we were eating far too much.

Later on, I sorted out the photos and wrote up some of my notes, although not be any means all of them. Now I’m waiting for the sunset and if I’m lucky it will be another beautiful one. I’ll have to make the most of them because they won’t last for ever. It will be bound to rain before long.

Thursday 4th July 2019 – LAST NIGHT …

… I was in bed early and having watched a film, was soon off to sleep.

And to my surprise I managed to sleep for most of the night too – with a brief awakening round about 04:40.

Plenty of time to go off on a little travel too. I was in Shavington somewhere and we’d had friends staying – American friends. I awoke, and these people were awake too so I asked hem what time it was. They replied that there was 12 minutes to go until the alarm. So when the alarm went off these people got up and got ready. I directed them to go back to Crewe via Chestnut Avenue, that way, so they could see the houses and the town and see how people lived, councillors and so on. But whoever I was with said that councillors don’t live round here. They all live in the big houses on the new estates. We were out after that trying to find something and we wanted a newspaper. We had to work the controls to this machine in a certain way in order to work it, but I couldn’t get it right. The newsagent had some papers on display but it was things like the Daily Sexpress and the Daily Wail, Tory party garbage newspapers or whatever and I had no intention whatever of reading any of them. The rest of this dream has evaporated.
No it hasn’t because it suddenly came back. The woman was actually Rose Stephenson but a trimmer version of her. We were in a car somewhere and had been for a drive, but had parked up on the edge of the road at the entrance to a narrow secluded lane. every time that a car came up behind us I’d move the car further down the lane. She started to become annoyed about me driving her car, not very happy at all. But then she cottoned on to what I wanted to do, which was to be alone with her in a quiet dark secluded place, so we ended up in a quiet, dark secluded place further down this little lane as you might expect.
Later, we were back on board ship and she decided that she would go for a swim. She met up with Rosemary, who already had on her bathing costume and Rose was getting into hers. Rosemary was ready first and went to dive into the pool.

This morning though I didn’t manage to beat the first or second alarm, but I comfortably beat the third alarm to the bathroom which is always a good sign. Then I came up on deck to photograph the early morning sun.

Realising that I had forgotten my medication, I went back down again. And I might just as well have gone back to bed because I hadn’t realised – and no-one had said – that we’ve passed into a different time zone (we’re at 62°N 16°W) so we’ve gained an hour and instead of it being 06:30 it’s actually 05:30.

Eventually it was breakfast time and afterwards, I spent all of the morning attacking the rest of the photos for June 2019 and organising them correctly. And there were more than enough of them too. 301 to be precise.

We had a pleasant surprise at lunchtime. We have a Nepalese sous-chef on board and he prepared a delicious curry for us. Of course, it was nothing like as spicy as I would have liked but this is a North American company with mainly North American clients so it can’t be helped.

This afternoon I went up into the observation room and read a book on Iceland. But we are in the shipping lane now so there was a fair bit of marine traffic. And on one occasion, a container ship going past bounced its wi-fi signal off us so we even had an internet connection, so I was able to wish Amber a happy birthday.

For tea, we had a pleasant surprise. All six of us were invited to sit at the captain’s table with the captain and a representative of the owners who is on board performing an audit. While we were there we had our first sight of land for a while too. Some offshore islands, including the one that suddenly appeared out of the ocean 50-odd years ago and the name of which I’ll tell you in early course (it’s called Surtsey).

But I didn’t stay too long because I was struggling to avoid bursting out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The Canadians were complaining about Muslims coming to their country and bringing all their clothing and their religion with them. So I had a close look at these Canadians to see if they were wearing buckskins, with feathers in their hair, warpaint on their faces, worshipping shamans and living in a tepee, speaking Huron or Iroquois.

Of course they aren’t.

They brought their European clothes, their European habits, their European religion and their European language with them. North Americans don’t “do” irony of course, but the hypocrisy of these people is totally staggering.

I had to walk away before I either burst out laughing or before I said something completely injudicious.

It’s quite late now but I’m staying up until late. It’s beautiful weather outside and I’m sure that we are going to have another magnificent sunset. It will be worth waiting for.

And I was right.

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 – SOMETHING HAPPENED …

… during the night that awoke me and I’m not sure what it was. But I wasn’t awake long. I turned over and went back to sleep. I did have enough time to go on one of my nocturnal rambles but seeing as you are probably eating a meal right now, I’ll spare you the grisly details.

Rudely awoken by the alarm, I didn’t leap out of bed but had a slow steady awakening and only just managed to fail to beat the alarm. We had the usual medication this morning of course and then I bounded up onto the deck all ready to take a few early morning sunrise photos only to find that I had totally wasted my time and could have had an extra hour in bed because we had a very thick North Atlantic fog and visibility wasn’t even 50 yards.

That was how it stayed for much of the day. Misty, foggy and overcast. There was the occasional break in the clouds and on one occasion the sun even tried to break through but it soon closed up again.

With nothing much going on, I spent the time in the upstairs observation lounge catching up with the backlog of photos, with the occasional break for food and coffee. And that was that.

But there was a sudden, if brief moment of excitement. My laptop suddenly announced that there was an internet connection – the “Cyber Café at Sea”. But no sooner did it come up then it went again.

All that I can think of is that somewhere out there in the fog one of these enormous cruise ships must have gone sailing past in the opposite direction and I had picked up their internet signal.

So that’s the sum total of my day. Nothing whatever to report really. And it’s not going to be any better because it’s now raining heavily. If ever there were a good time for an early night this would be it because I won’t be seeing the sunset tonight.

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 – TODAY WAS A DAY …

… of doing nothing at all. We’re actually on what is called a “positioning voyage” between a drop-off point for one group of passengers and a pick-up for the next. But as I know some of the people who lease the ship, and it’s actually travelling in the direction that I want to go, we’ve been allowed to leap on board.

But there’s no entertainment and nothing organised to help pass the time.So luckily I have plenty to do.

And talking of plenty to do, last night I settled down in my comfy cabin to watch a film, but I think that I lasted less than 5 minutes before I switched everything off and went to sleep.

Not for long though. At 04:15 exactly the ship hit a heavy rolling swell and the change in rhythm awoke me immediately. It was difficult for me to go back to sleep but I must have done because I was awoken by the alarms.

And if I went anywhere on a nocturnal ramble, I really have no idea at all.

By 06:15 I was up and about and 06:30 saw me, mug of coffee in hand, on the open deck at the rear. We sailed through a procession of oil rigs a windfarm or two and the odd ship here and there, but nothing of any great excitement. There was no land visible.

During breakfast, some land became visible on the port bow. It seemed that through the night and early morning we had been travelling across the mouth of the Moray Firth and now we had struck shore again somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Wick.

A couple of us stood on the wings of the bridge admiring the view and taking photos. Duncansby Head and John O’Groats were quite interesting, and one of my photos even picked up a couple of people watching us from the cliffs;

Past the lighthouse on the Pentland Skerries and into the Pentland Firth, threading our way through the Orkney Islands. Apart from the numerous lighthouses, we saw plenty of former military installations from when the British Royal Navy was stationed here, a couple of ferries out of Scrabster, a trawler or two and a big gas tanker.

There were plenty of inhabited places too but I’ll need to refer to a good map to identify those, so it will have to wait until I return home.

The weather had started off very misty and hazy and many of the long-distance shots were veiled in a kind of fog. But by now the weather had improved and some of the photos, even taken at full-reach with the big zoom lens.

But it wasn’t to last. We were enveloped in a sudden and dramatic squall that passed our way like a cyclone and disappeared just as rapidly.

We passed the Old Man of Hoy and into the open ocean of the North Atlantic. That was the cue for a heavy swell, and also the cue for lunch.

A couple of my fellow-passengers are cinephiles and they wanted to watch a film, so I repaired to the observation lounge on the top deck to attack a great pile of photos.

There wasn’t all that much to observe out here in the wilds, but I did notice a couple of islands away to port. I’ve no idea what islands they might have been because apart from Rockall, which neither of these islands resembled in the slightest, I’m not aware of any islands out here.

That’s something else that I shall have to check in due course.

Away in the distance was a ship. I couldn’t see it too clearly as it was so far away, but it seemed to have what looked like a crane on the back. if it was indeed a crane, it might well be a supply ship of some nature and might even have some connection with the islands that we had just passed.

At our evening meal I asked if anyone else had seen the islands but apparently not. I managed to track down an atlas but that wasn’t a great deal of help.

Later that evening our cinephiles wanted to watch another film so they pulled all of the curtains. I retreated once more to the quiet of the top deck lounge where I could at least see anything that might be going on and to carry on with the photos.

I did manage to see a ship – away in the distance – and so I’ve no idea what type of ship it might have been. Not even cropping and blowing it up (the copped photo, not the ship) could give me much of a clue.

Later still though, there was a huge ship away to port, and that was easier to identify once I enlarged the photo that I took. That was another cruise ship, but one of the big ones with 10 decks and about 3,000 passengers. I’m glad I’m not on that.

Just before going out of bed I stuck my head out of the door. And I’m glad that I did because I was treated to the most glorious sunset – one of the best that I have ever seen. And there was only me out there to enjoy it so I had it all to myself.

Back in my cabin I settled down to try to watch a film but after about 10 minutes or so I gave that up, turned everything off and went to sleep. And quite right too.It’s amazing just how tired you become when you have been doing nothing all day.

Monday 1st July 2019 – IT WAS SOMETHING …

… of a rather depressing night. I had a shower as soon as I got into my room and gave my clothes a quick wash and then, still dripping rather wet, I crawled into bed.

Bed is one thing. Sleep is something else completely. And so it was that I lay awake tossing and turning as the clock rolled on.

However I must have gone to sleep at some point because I was off on my travels at a certain moment. This was another thing where something went wrong. I was with Percy Penguin – at least, it was her but then again it wasn’t – and it was all about cars and so on. I’d arranged to meet Percy Penguin (who doesn’t feature in my notes half as often as she deserves) and I picked her up and we went for a meal. She was asleep on the sofa in this hotel. Everyone was gradually being served and in the end there was just me, another guy and Percy Penguin asleep on the sofa. A woman from the restaurant came out and said “I suppose that you three are all together”. I replied that we were all on our own, except that I might possible be with that girl there. Percy Penguin sat up so I sat next to her and we had the menus. We agreed on a starter and then we had to choose the wine for the wine list. I asked “what wine do you want?” as if she would know.She didn’t so I ordered a nice bottle of full-bodied red Burgundy. The waitress said “oh I don’t have a Burgundy”. I expressed my astonishment that a restaurant wouldn’t have a Burgundy. So I said “how about a Sancilly?”. I explained to Percy Penguin that that came from the area where I lived. The woman looked at me rather peculiarly so she went off to fetch it. Percy Penguin asked about the main course. We hadn’t ordered a main course.I said that maybe we do that a bit later after we’ve had the starter.She said that all the back of my head was oily. I said that I had been working on a car, lying underneath it. She wondered why I hadn’t had it washed. I said that it was almost time to come and pick her up. I hadn’t had time to wash.

At this point I sat up bolt-upright. 04:45. This isn’t any good at all. But nevertheless I was glad that I was awake because I wasn’t disturbed by the alarm on the Canadian phone that, not having adjusted itself to UK time, rang and awoke the Dead at 05:00

That was the cue for me to write up my blog notes for yesterday, which I hadn’t done, not having gone to bed until late.

Rosemary rang me at about 07:00 or so, so I went down to the hotel lobby to say hello. We had a chat and then she went off to breakfast and I went back upstairs to organise myself.

At about 08:45 we met up again, suitcases in hand, and headed off to the bus stop in the cold, cloudy, overcast weather. We just missed a 727 bus and had to wait 10 minutes for the one behind.When it turned up, I found out that my Pound coins were out of date so Rosemary had to help out with the fare.

We were dropped off at the bus station which is right opposite the docks. Finding the docks is one thing, but finding our berth was somewhere else. The first guy at the spoke to in the harbour was more interested in telling me off about crossing a forbidden line than helping us out.

He sent us to the ferry terminal where they were none-the-wiser. However they did suggest that we try elsewhere, being right back where we started by the bus station.

There was an intercom there so I tried to speak to someone but I couldn’t hear a word. Eventually I picked up the phrase “security lodge” and seeing a security lodge in the distance, we headed that way, apparently crossing yet another forbidden line.

This time we had been picked up on CCTV for a rather irate security guard in a pick-up came to tell us off. But when we explained what we were looking for he told us to follow him (not easy when you are dragging suitcases behind you and he’s in a pick-up).

Eventually we caught up with him and, much to my surprise, he knew where we had to go. But knowing is one thing, walking that distance was something else. After a very weary trudge we eventually found our berth.

Finding it is one thing – getting to it was quite another.Negotiating a security gate and moving a barrier, being stopped and searched by security, we were eventually allowed in and we were ushered on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour.

Much to my surprise, there were a few people whom I recognised from last year, such as Ashley and Yulya. And of course they asked the obvious question – “how’s Strawberry Moose?.

And they were delighted to hear that he’s once more managed to stow himself aboard. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … he’s far more popular with the ladies than I am ever likely to be.

I found my way to my own cabin – right next door to the one that I had last year. And I dumped my stuff and made my way back to the reception to meet my fellow passengers. On this leg of the journey we are a grand total of just SIX. “One deck each” I quipped.

A delicious lunch was served, and afterwards Rosemary and I headed off into town for a walk. We found a branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland where, at long last, I could activate my bank cards and change the PINS. And also to swap over my bad money for some good stuff.

We then went for a little wander around the Granite City for half an hour or so, and then headed back to the ship where I bumped into my room cleaner from last year.

Back on board, I had a shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes, doing a little washing along the way. I need to keep on top of my washing otherwise I’ll run out of clothes.

With plenty of time to kill before tea, we all had a chat about nothing much, and then came the safety briefing.
“One short blast on the ship’s siren means put on warm clothing”
“Two short blasts on the ship’s siren means come aloft”
“Three short blasts on the ship’s siren means put on lifebelts”
“Four short blasts on the ship’s siren means abandon ship”
“One long blast on the ship’s siren means that the ship’s siren is stuck”

Tea was even more delicious than lunch, and that was saying something. And then we sat around for ages watching all kinds of shipping leave the harbour – except us of course. This 22:00 departure time is turning out to be some kind of Spanish 22:00.

It was just after 23:00 when the tug pulled us away from the quayside, and then we pulled it forward out of the harbour. And as it attempted to disengage, something caught up somewhere and the rope snapped with an incredible force. Had we been a couple of decks lower, we would have been decapitated.

We watched Aberdeen disappear into the dusk and rain, and then called it a night. 128% of my daily effort, 9.4 kms walked. I’m ready for bed.

Sunday 30th June 2019 – SO HERE WE ALL ARE …

… not exactly sitting in a rainbow but sitting in the bedroom of a relatively comfortable hotel in, would you believe, Aberdeen.

And how unhappy am I?

Having made a special enquiry, and had it specially confirmed, that there was a hotel shuttle bus, necessary in view of the amount of luggage that I have and the state of my knee, I telephoned the hotel when I arrived at the airport only to be told “we don’t have a driver on tonight”.

So I had to hobble, dragging my load behind me, for about a mile up the steep hill to the hotel.

On arrival, in quite some distress with my breathing problems and the like, I was given a room on the second floor (despite having asked for a low floor) – and there’s no lift. So I had to drag my load up two flights of stairs.

As you can see, despite the fact that this nice modern hotel could be such good value for money (very rare in the UK)if it were to have staff and management wh actually cared about the customers, here’s one very unhappy bunny.

And the UK? I have said (on many occasions) that I would never ever set foot in this accursed country again, but needs must when the devil drives.

With it being Sunday morning I was hoping to have my usual Sunday lie-in but after last night’s quite dramatic crashing-out, I shouldn’t have been surprised at all by sitting bolt-upright at 06:44. Not what I intended at all.

Plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble.

I was doing a coach tour again last night, down in the South of France and I was picking up passengers all over the place. I couldn’t find the paperwork for the moment telling me who and where I was picking folk up. So I was doing as fast as I can, and ending up at the final stop I was one person short. So I wondered where on earth I’d got this one person short. While I was waiting I was chatting to people and some woman came up to me to ask me what I thought of the passengers – what I thought of this woman, what I thought of that man. Despite my being very non-committal which I always tried my best to be I was shaking my head and pulling a face at some of them. I certainly hadn’t intended to do that. Eventually I found the piece of paper and found that I had left three people behind at Dijon and that was over an hour back. I thought “how am I going to explain this?” because I’d have to ring up the company to say that I didn’t get them and if I had the paperwork I could have done that. But Dijon is this thing and I might have to go all the way back and upset all of the passengers before I’d even started. One woman pulled the voyage list that I had to read it and of course i had to pull it back before she could as passengers aren’t supposed to read the voyage list with everyone’s name and address on it.
Later on I’d been in Crewe last night with Margaret Armstrong’s old Ford Cortina and parked it up in Bedford Street. I’d walked through the alleyway round all the backs of the houses round the back of Chambers Street and Catherine Street and all of those places, walking for a while around there. There were all kinds of exciting things round there, round Gresty Road where My sister used to live it had all been transformed with some kind of building built onto the backs of the houses over the back yards, and a derelict house that I had once looked at, that was all derelict too and the roof and attic too of this “new build” extension. And some weird semi-detached houses, quite modern design all covered in ivy, and some older semi-detached houses derelict and bricked up. Unkempt gardens and all kinds of things like that. There was a girl there, walking in my direction back to the car, on the phone so I passed her once, she passed me and I passed her again. As I got to the car she came over to me “you’ve got the zodiacs, haven’t you?” I said that they are actually on board the ship and that’s off the coast of Scotland at the moment”. “Well I want to make the white cloth to throw over them” So I said that I would get the measurements the next time that I’m up there, which will be in a couple of weeks’ time..

Firstly though, I had to find my medication. But I’ve packed it so well that it remains well and truly packed and I probably shan’t find it until I return home, whenever that might be, because now that I have my French Carte de Sejour I’m not in any hurry to go home.

After breakfast I attacked yesterday’s blog and then went out to the station. Now 09:30 so Subway should be open to buy something for lunch, and to buy my rail ticket. But much to my surprise, Subway was closed. And none of my raisin buns in Carrefour either so instead I had to go back down into the bowels of the station to the Delhaize and that came up trumps with a vegan falafel salad, demi-baguette and a fruit mixture thing. The guy at the till even found me a plastic cutlery set to eat it with.

So on the way back out, Subway was just opening up. That’ll teach them!

Back at the hotel I collected up everything, organised myself, grabbed my stuff and went off to pay for my two breakfasts. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve paid the booking agency in advance for a couple of breakfasts in a couple of places, only for the hotel to have “no trace” of the breakfast payment. So now I pay on-site if I’m breakfasting.

Down to Brussels-Midi station in time to leap aboard a Nederlandse Spoorwegen train to Amsterdam via the airport. It threw me out here. And here I am, in the departure lounge of Brussels Zaventam Airport, waiting for an aeroplane. And I hope that the Big Old Jet Airliner will carry me far away.

I eventually found the flight desk, which was not yet open and so I had a lengthy wait, spent talking to a couple from Australia and a young guy who looked like a Pacific islander from Baltimore.

Check-in was quite straightforward and Security even more straightforward. If only it would be as simple as this in other airports. Now I’m sitting quietly waiting to find out which terminal my flight will dock at, and I’m clearly in Travelling Mode because I’m listening to Colosseum Liveand I’ll probably follow it up by listening to On The Road by Traffic. My two favourite travelling albums.

We we were eventually called to our aeroplane. It was now moored at gate A60 at the far end of the terminal from where I was so I had something of a hike, which will probably do me good anyway.

I didn’t have long to wait and much to my surprise we were very quick in boarding the ‘plane. There were only a handful of empty seats but it was only a small ‘plane. I asked the stewardess if it was a Fokker and she replied “no, it’s quite well-behaved”. But I made a note of its registration – PH-EXT. That tells me that It’s an Embraer 190.

The name of the stewardess was Suske so I asked her what she had done with Schanulleke. But as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once said, and as I have repeated on many occasions, “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”.

Once the ‘plane took off I switched on the laptop, put it onto flight mode, and started to listen to “Lost Angeles” once more. But it was quite pointless because no sooner had it all fired up than I had to switch off because we had gone into the arrivals path. In fact, I think that we spent more time manoeuvring on the ground than we spent in the air.

It’s not all that far to Schiphol from Zaventem and I could have gone by TGV from Bruxelles-Midi but believe it or not, it would have worked out more expensive. And that’s something that I don’t understand.

And I’m pretty annoyed because I have to wait 5 hours or so for a connection. There was a flight that went my way that took off 5 minutes before we landed but, would you believe, it was delayed and I could in theory have gone on that had I realised and run for it.

So now I have to wait. I sat and ate my delicious falafel salad and bread.

To reach my flight I had to pass through passport control and for some reason I was grabbed for a security check. I always have bad experiences at Schiphol, as I remember from last time.

I was given the “works” and was preparing myself for the cavity search when they suddenly found what had drawn their attention to me. “No, those aren’t bullets in a magazine. They are AAA batteries in a battery holder”.

It was weird at the terminal. People were actually locked into their departure lounge and if you weren’t on that particular flight you were locked outside. I had to wait for ages until the departure lounge cleared and they tidied it up before I was allowed in.

In the meantime they had changed departure lounges without saying anything and I almost found myself going to Glasgow. I had to hurry along down the corridor.

The place to Aberdeen was packed, and it was a big plane too. PH-BGK, a Boeing 737 called Noordse Stormvogel . They asked for volunteers to send their hand luggage into the hold and I volunteered. Less to have to carry around.

And it seemed that everyone knew each other. Probably Shell oil workers flying back to the platforms after a weekend off.

We had to wait for 20 minutes too. There was a connection that arrived late and some of our passengers were on it. And then when they arrived, we had to wait again for a free slot. However, we arrived in Aberdeen only a few minutes late.

Immigration was relatively painless and our bags were already out when we arrived in the hall.

And then I had my issues with the hotel.

Once installed in my room I had a nice, welcome shower and washed my rather sweaty undies, and now I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough of today. And this might be the last you’ll hear from me for a while, so don’t be disappointed. Check back regularly until normal service will be resumed.

Saturday 29th June 2019 – A RECESSION? YOU MUST BE JOKING!

We keep on being told that economies are in a bad state and that many businesses are in crisis. But at the rate that they are turning away good money, it must be just a false rumour.

Last night I went to the Food Court in the basement of the Gare du Midi at 20:50 for my evening meal, bearing in mind that it closes at 21:00. Most of the stalls were already closed, another one was tidying up and cleaning up, and the final one told me “we’re not cooking now – we’re just closing”.

Obviously, it’s too much like hard work for anyone to be bothered to earn good money when it’s 10 minutes short of going-home time.

Not like the Indian restaurant in Crewe all those years ago. One of my taxis was out at 04:00 and the driver radioed me to ask if there was anywhere where his passengers could find somewhere to eat.

I telephoned the Indian restaurant
“sorry, we’re closed”
“but I have a taxi with passengers who are hungry”
“A taxi? How many passengers?”
“Four passengers”
“Four passengers? WE’RE OPEN!!!!”

And people complain that they are taking over.

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I had a really decent sleep, right the way through until the alarm went off. I’d been on a little voyage too but I can’t remember anything at all about it. Any recollection of it evaporated before I had time to grab hold of the dictaphone.

After the usual morning performance I had a shower and washed my clothes, and then went down for breakfast. I need to start the day as I mean to go on;

Back up here, I dealt with a few things that needed doing, and tidied up and packed my possessions ready to leave tomorrow.

When Alison texted me, I headed down to the station and took the metro, changing at Arts-Loi to travel to Kraainem where she was waiting.

We went to Brico and Carrefour and then headed out, via her house to drop off some stuff, to the Ardennes in the sweltering heat.

We stopped off at Tellin for a cool drink and then off to the other side of the autoroute to Redu, which is the Belgian equivalent of Hay-on-Wye, full of second-hand bookshops.

Nothing there caught my eye so we headed off for Sohier. “Sohier we are”, I mused to myself.

It’s said to be one of the prettiest villages in Belgium. Pretty it may well be, but I’ve seen plenty that are prettier, and in Belgium too.

Back up the road to Han-sur-Lesse (home of the legendary caves) for a late lunch and a walk by the river.

Finally to Rochefort and its famous church, where I discovered not only carvings of masonic symbols such as the arc and compass but also a Sol Invictus – the Conquering Sun, a pagan symbol adopted by the emperor Constantine after the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312AD.

We also stumbled, quite by accident, upon the old abandoned Rochefort railway station on the abandoned lne between Jemelle and Houyet, closed to passengers in 1959 and to freight in 1978. There was also a tacot – a rural tramway – that started here and went to Wellin

That was enough for today as we were sweltering by this time in 35°C. We headed back to Brussels.

Alison dropped me off at the Herman Debroux metro station where I fuelled up her car for her and then I took the metro back to the Gare du Midi and my adventures in the food court.

Tea ended up being a baguette and tomato, followed by a banana. At least the Delhaize supermarket in the basement was still open.

Back here I sat down and ate my tea, and then I had in mind the idea of writing up my notes. However, the next thing that I remember was that it was about 23:30 – I’d been asleep for 90 minutes “just like that”, so I gave up the idea and went back to sleep.

Friday 28th June 2019 – NOW HERE’S A THING

I had my blood test at the hospital, and there has been a dramatic change in the situation.

Last month (albeit almost 6 weeks ago) the blood count was about 9.1. I’ve had it checked at Granville twice just recently, and it was at 9.4. But today, it’s plummetted down to near-critical 8.4

And that’s a total surprise to me because that just doesn’t seem to be right at all. Something is wrong somewhere. And I do have to say that right now I’m feeling better than I have felt for a while, which is a good thing.

Last night was a rather depressing night. I wasn’t sure to leave the air-conditioning on and have a bad night’s sleep because of the noise, or else turn off the air-conditioning and have a bad night’s sleep due to the heat.

In the end, I chose the former. And despite turning off the film that I was watching because I was tired, and rocked and rolled throughout the night.

Nevertheless there was plenty of time to go for a series of nocturnal rambles.

We started off last night at the OUSA conference in somewhere overlooking the town square and all that was taking place.I had a poem to read later on that day that I had organsied the previous day with someone. It took me ages tofind my notes and I was panicking like I usually do when I can’t find something, until in the end I came across them. We were going through the start of the day’s procedure. We turned up with an old red Vauxhall VX4/90 (the Virctor shape from about 1962-64) pulling a caravan. It was the President, and she got out and told us that she had been away last night in her car and had had a problem with a tyre on the caravan. This had to be fixed but since she had the tyre fixed it’s been causing her more problems, going flat, air leaking out and so on, until in the end somewhere in Yorkshire they found a garage open and he found that the tyre had been fitted incorrectly so he fitted it correctly. But it seemed that there was a fault in the price for the fitting, so he rectified that, much to her dismay.She was telling us all problems about the car.I couldn’t help noticing that everytime she started up the car it was struggling to get goign, struggling to run, put your foot down on the accelerator and it immediately flooded and we had to wait for a minute for it to clear.I was convinced thatthe car wasrunning so rich that that was causing a lot of problems. I was going to tellher to have the mixture looked at but I never had the opportunity, so I was going toinclude it somewhere in my poem, and wondering how I was going to work that in.
Later I was with a large group of civilians and our town was being invaded. We were blanketed in shells and you could see one shell sticking out of the sand and it hadn’t gone off. Later I was invited to some kind of TV panel game, and there in the courtyard was another tank of the invaders buried right up to the neck. I thought that the invaders hadn’t had a very good time here, had they? I had togive a chat and write a short poem about the enemy being here. I said for those there, there’s any number of those – any number. but for the ordinary visitors, none whatsoever. At one point we were saying, look at that enemy tank, buried up to its neck in rocks and bricks, and on the other hand 5 minutes later we would be extremely scared in case a tank picked out our house as one of the ones tobe destroyed.
Later still I was with my brother last night and we were in London. We were on one side of the road and we had to cross to another, dodging in and out of the traffic. And I found that I could run. I wasso amazed that I could run, and I told him. The car we were dodging was a D reg white Cortina Mk I kitted out as a minicab. But instead of having the paper licence in the back window like they do in London it had the name and phone no written on broad white masking tape stuckin the rear door windows. The driver did a U-turn butit was strange because he was on the correct side of the road but did a U-turn “inside” rather than “outside” across the road, so he was facing the wrong way. Then he crossed the road on foot to knock on a door or did he have a key to open it? I can’t remember. It was completely strange. Anyway I went into this corner pub at the side entrance because I was trying to find a passenger for a taxi. It was a very posh Burtonwood pub but I couldn’t see anyone in there at all. I went out of the front door and there was a girl sitting on the pavement, wearing a kind of light-coloured kilt thing, a big burly girl. I asked if she was waiting for a cab, and she replied “yes” so I apologised for coming to the wrong door of the pub, and took her back through the pub and out to my car. At that point she lit a cigarette, and I was just about to tell her that smoking was not allowed in my cab, and I awoke.
Finally I’d been out with a group of people. We had some big ships, or there was a big ship. There was about 40,000 cups of tea served on this ship, something ridiculous. It had some connection with refugees and the ship would go out and fetch refugees. I was with someone who was very much in the background, and there were another two people, a man and a woman. he woman was born in 1952 so she told me and so was the guy. They were really in charge of this operation.They would keep on going off to bring back these refugees. Whoever it was thatI was with – it might have been Nerina, something like that, she went off and that left me alone in my house, so I spent all the timepicking up rubbish and rying to get the place look tidy as there was rubbish everywhere. No matter how much I picked up, it only made a slight difference so you couldn’t see just how dramatic the improvement was. We ended up back on the beach again. I was with this other girl and the guy came back. He’d been off to get some newspapers or something, and handed me three, the Daily Express, the daily mail and the Chorley Weekly Advertiser or whatever the Chorley local paper was because he came from that area. When I looked at the Daily Mail and the Daily Express I said “thank you very much but I’ve already been to the toilet this morning” which didn’t get the laugh that I was expecting. Justthen I looked further down the coast and this ship was setting out. I thought that that was the ferry going to one of the islands -we were in the South of France, that area, and it might have been the one going to Corsica or Sardinia or whatever. I gave the ship the name “Cote d’Azur”, I’ve no idea why.As I went to grab my camera, three really high-speed ferries shot from the south towards the north, towards the coast. I went to quickly grab a photo, but for some reason the shutter was on a very long aperture and shutter speed and I wasn’t able to get a photo because by the time I had adjusted the camera to take the one of the ship going out, the shutter was still open. So I ried to take a photo of this ship sailing out, which had now become three ships sailing out – there must have been another 2 creeping behind it while I’d been distracted by these three ships coming in.

It didn’t take me long to leave my stinking pit and after the medication and a coffee I had a shower and washed my clothes. I like to keep on top of my washing.

Down at the railway station I bought some raisin buns for lunch and hen we had all of the confusion about the trains. There was a signal failure at the Gare Centrale so the trains were all in confusion. I eventually found one to take me to Leuven.

We arrived at the station at 08:30 and by 09:25 I was in the hospital. Despite the heat and the distance, I had a good walk all the way there with my knee hardly hurting.

They didn’t have my medication due to me having changed the day, so they had to hunt around for some stuff. They eventually found me a pile of sample stuff so my mobile stand looked like a Christmas tree.

The nurse there wanted to practise her French with me so we did all of or stuff in French. She knew Granville very well, having spent several holidays there.

It took ages for a doctor to see me, and when she did she was disappointed about my results. She was even more disappointed when I said that I wasn’t going to be back until 9th October. She was impressed with Granville too and looked at some photos of the town.

Rosemary rang too and we had a little chat.

The doctor still hadn’t come back by the time that I was finished. I had to hunt her down. She gave me prescriptions for three months (which she wrote out wrong, asI was to find out) and a lecture from the Professor.

In the end, she agreed that I could have a three-month holiday from medical attention, but probably more because she could see I she was determined.

Another healthy stride out into town and a travel arrangement where I spent over an hour trying to sort out something or other, and then off to meet Alison, going via the ice cream place for a sorbet in the heatwave.

We had a chat, and then to Greenway for a burger and Kloosters for a drink. After another lengthy chat, she drove me back here.

Now I’m off to bed. I have an early start in the morning.

Thursday 27th June 2019 – HERE I AM …

… in sweltering Brussels, sitting in my bedroom which is fitted with one of the noisiest air conditioning units in the world. So at least I’m reasonably cool and comfortable, even if I probably won’t have much sleep tonight.

Last night was another lively night where I drifted in and out of sleep, on several nocturnal rambles the details of which I’ll upload in due course when I have a moment.

Surprisingly, I was out of bed quite soon after the alarm, repacked everything, found some room for the Nikon 1, made my sandwiches, tidied up, took out the rubbish, washed up, vacuumed up the apartment, cleaned all of the sinks and washed the floors.

That took me up to just abut 08:05 when I left the apartment with my rucksack, dragging my great big suitcase behind me.

When I went out with the rubbish at about 06:30 it was cool and windy. Back out at 08:05, it was scorching.By the time I made it to the station (and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either with everything that I have to take with me) the perspiration was running off me in rivers.

The train was in so I put the case on the luggage rack and sat down to eat my breakfast. Some crackers, some bananas and the rest of the orange juice that I had brought with me from the apartment.

On the journey into Paris I alternated between sleep and reading a book on the internet.

We pulled into a sweltering Paris bang on time and I struggled down to the Metro. It wasn’t quite as difficult as I was expecting, but still much more difficult than I liked.

Luck was on my side too. There was a seat free right by the door so I could sit down in comfort as we hurtled through the bowels of the city.

At the Gare du Nord I found a seat where I could eat my butties, and where I was entertained by the antics of a little 16-month old girl.

For a change I was one of the first on the TGV so I stuck my suitcase in the rack and took my seat. Although the train was quite full, there was no-one sitting next to me so I could doze in peace, except when the ticket collector awoke me.

In Brussels it was even hotter. I Went to the Pensions Office in the Tur du Midi and dropped off a letter, and then to the bank with my cards to unblock the Cirrus network facility.

And then to the hotel. The Midi-Zuid Hotel again where I always stay when I’m here. It’s convenient – only 5 minutes away from the Gare du Midi – clean, modern and cheap for where it’s situated.

A little later I popped out for some water, and later still for a meal – lentil and chips with bread.

There was football on the internet later. Barry Town v Cliftonville in the Europa League. Cliftonville were streets better than Barry but despite that, rarely threatened the Barry goal. On the other hand, Barry looked rather clueless and played without a plan at all. I don’t recall the Cliftonville keeper actually making a save.

Barry willhave todo far better than this in the away leg, and they desperately need a striker up front.

Now it’s bed-time. I’m going to watch a film while I slip gracefully into sleep. It’s hospital tomorrow.

Wednesday 26th June 2019 – MY LAST DAY …

… here at home for a while. I’m off on my travels tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll be coming home.

As a result I’ve been working fairly hard (or as hard as maybe I can these days).

It wasn’t such an early night last night, and it was a nervous topsy-turvy kind of sleep. Plenty of time to go on my travels too.

I was working at a desk in part of a room and there were four of us to a table copying stuff off a screen to write some kind of thing about the sea. There was a seat empty next to me and some Japanese person came and plonked themselves down at it. They put a kind of cage around the screen and closed it so we were peering through this wire grill thing at the screen. I couldn’t see it properly as I was sitting out at the edge and I was getting more and more frustrated with this wire screen. In the end I had a bit of a tantrum about it. I had to move all of my things so that I could see the screen, and then move my chair, and then move my things again so I could see the screen. In the end a woman said “there’s another room and it’s a bit more quiet in there. Why don’t you go and sit in there?”. She had a look at what I was doing and said “you aren’t very far along, are you? You have 8 pages to do”. I said “I’m doing 8”. She took the double-page thing I was currently working on and took it off me. “No, you need to do some more”. I made a fuss about that but didn’t get this piece of paper back. Then I went into the other room which was much more quiet. I asked someone where there was an empty seat but no-one seemed to want to answer. I didn’t want to sit in someone else’s seat but no-one was answering. Someone piped up that seeing as there are no clerical assistant people in the room perhaps someone had better answer. But then one of the managers came in and said something like “I want to announce that so-and-so has now been appointed full-time” which made a young boy beam “and now we have som proper back-up clerical staff”. He was going on and no-one was answering my question. Some young guy from the other room then came in so I asked him “do you know which of these seats is free?”. He started to spout some kind of supercilious nonsense that was totally meaningless basically to say that he didn’t have the time. I was so close to running after him and hitting him, I really was. (And when was the last time that I have shown real anger during a noccturnal voyage?)
The paving slabs that cover this area are very easy to dig into, marked with dots and they were scattered all around this cemetery kind of place. There was no logical argument to dig in as to whether you were digging a foxhole rather than a trench defending system, so I didn’t want to go along and get my troop isolated like this up here (and I’ve no idea what this bit means or what it’s supposed to be connected to).
Later on, there was something going on with a woman, a party or a birthday party or wedding party or something. They were reading a eulogy to her. We were in another room listening. Someone in our party said “but there’s no sign of her being released from this hospital wherever it was she was supposed to have been released to and this eulogy was all about. As we went into the main room to enquire about it, the penny suddenly dropped wit them as well. Where’s this woman? The guy reading the eulogy said “I can’t go on until I’ve found out about the current whereabouts of this woman. Sh’s been missing for four years. Anyway they were handing out stars for a military parade somewhere that was to do with all of this. We received a star for our vehicle, a Citroen DS19 with a pickup army-type canvas tilt back, painted in army colours and looked rather like a shark or crocodile. We had to go to fetch that to present it to the organisers, so while we were at it, we though that we would go and hunt down this woman.
Finally, I had to go to look for Sir Brian, so off I went. I was in Gresty Lane and crossed over to Eastern Road. It was all flooded out there, and he came running past with his dog, with a pair of wellingtons, shorts and a sun-hat. At first I wasn’t sure if it was him, nut it was. I had to reverse after him as he had no intention of stopping. I finally caught him on Rope Lane bridge. I told him that some work had come in. He grabbed the notes out of the door pocket to have a look. I went to tell him about those and saw that they had gone. I had to say that a job had come in for next Wednesday, I had to take him off somewhere and that he needed to contact his office for further details. He’d made the odd genial remark here and there about the rain, that kind of thing

I wasn’t up as early as I would otherwise have liked, and after breakfast I started to pack. For some reason or other I have far too much stuff and so I’ve ended up leaving behind the Nikon 1 and a few other things too that I would otherwise have liked to have taken.

Not because of the weight – I’m well within my loading allowance – but for a simple question of space.

In between all of that I had a shower, and I’ve also cut my hair really short. I stuck the washing machine on too so that I will have some clean clothes for when I come back.

The tidying up has been progressing slowly, and there’s still plenty more to do. But I’ll do what I can tomorrow in the time that exists between getting up and leaving the house at 08:00.

As long as I can wash the floor before leaving, that will be fine;

And that’s not all either. I’ve made a lentil and bean pie to use up the rest of the leftovers, only to find that I forgot once more to use the mushrooms that remain.

Some pastry was left so I made an apple turnover.

All of that is now in the freezer. I’ve had to move the bread into the freezer compartment of the fridge. I hope that it stays frozen.

That’s really about everything, I reckon. Except that I had one of my walks this afternoon (and missed the evening walk, and yet still managed to end up with 42% of my daily activity) and took Caliburn for a lap around the block.

Now I’m off to bed. It’s going to be a hectic day tomorrow.

Tuesday 25th June 2019 – WOO HOOOO!

Today I’ve had a really profitable day out and I’ve really hit the jackpot.

Although it’s far too soon to say that all of my worries are over, a huge weight has been lifted off my mind and I feel so much better for it.

With having to make an early start in the morning, I couldn’t get off to sleep. I was still wide awake at 03:00, but I must have gone to sleep at one point because I awoke with a start at 05:30.

Despite only two and a half hours sleep, there was plenty of time to go off on a little voyage.

I have absolutely no idea who I was with, but it was female and definitely my partner. We’d been on holiday to an island. I’d taken a coach there a week or so earlier and I’d come back with this girl for a break. We were sitting at a table somewhere at an outside restaurant where we made the acquaintance of a guy. He was very domineering about his girlfriend, certainly in charge and she didn’t get much say in the matter. We were sitting at this table wiht them and it came to pay. The bill came so I took out my wallet and took out a bank card. But he snatched another bank card out of my wallet and snarled “what kind of stunt are you trying to pull?” I looked at him with an air of shock “what do you mean? What are you talking about?” “You know very well” he replied. “No I don’t”. After much discussion it ended up that the card I wanted to use was marked with an X which meant that there was a daily limit of uses which meant that I can only use it half a dozen times and the other one didn’t. In the end I paid with the other card to keep him happy. I said to him that I didn’t want to cause any upset and I don’t mean this in any bad way but he must have been hurt really badly at one time in his life. He looked at me open-mouthed and somehow it made him warm up a bit and he became much more friendly after that. The discussion drifted on and he asked “do you have a gun? Give me your gun”. I had a revolver in my pocket, don’t ask me why, and I passed it under the table to him. He said “someone in a two-tone Ford van is watching us” I took out my gun and held it under the table. Suddenly this van, an old Ford Anglia van two-tone yellow, squealed out of the car park and shot off. I’d seen someone with a high-powered rifle and it hadn’t really rung a bell with me before and so I said “there’s someone on this car park with a high-powered rifle” He said “it doesn’t surprise me”. We had another lengthy chat and in the end he said “could I drop you anywhere?” I said to this girl basically “your place or mine?”. She wanted to go to her place so I asked if he could drop us down at the south end of the island if it’s not too much trouble. He got us into his car and set off down to the south end of the island. It was then that his girlfriend opened her mouth and said something for the very first time. “Here’s a bit of a rhyme that I always find great and I always remember this occasion by thinking of this rhyme”. But is was really doggerel, a piece of nonsense and meant nothing at all to me. We were driving down this road where I had been with a coach the week before. I remembered driving over the verge on the windy bends on a few occasions and flattening the grass, but there was no trace of that. I was trying to point out the road that we had taken to the western end of it, but I kept on pointing out the wrong road even though I knew which one it ought to be. But it was obvious, all these tiny little lanes that the coach could never possibly have gone down even though there was a signpost indicating the village down at the end.

For a change, I was up and about doing things long before the first alarm went off. and at 06:15 I hit the streets.

My train was already in the station but not yet ready to go out, so I grabbed a coffee and had a chat with my cleaner friend.

We set off bang on time and we arrived at St-Lô just before 08:00. I had a little walk around part of the walls and arrived at the Prefecture at about 08:15.

Four people in front of me, and by the time the door opened at about 08:30, we were about 20 strong. I had to take a ticket and then I waited.

For some reason they seemed to be dealing with all of the “demands for papers” and “driving licences” first regardless of the order in which we arrived. It wasn’t until 09:30 that another window opened for people like me.

The two people whose numbers were before mine in this series had cleared off by then, fed up of waiting, and so I was the first to be called. It didn’t take long at all and by 09:35 I was outside, clutching to my chest my Permanent Carte de Séjour, giving me (almost) unlimited leave to remain in France regardless of the Brexit issues.

And it’s a card for “all professional activities” too, not “inactive”, so in theory I could go out and find a job if I ever feel the need.

And so as far as I am concerned, the UK and everyone in it can now go to Hell in a handcart. I’m alright, Jacques.

It’s not that I feel that I’m abandoning the UK, it’s that by denying me the right to vote on my own future and everyone else voting to destroy my life, the UK has abandoned me.

My train back wasn’t until 12:59 (only 4 trains a day and none of them at a convenient time) so I had a good walk around the the walls, around the town and in the church, where I had a chat with the sacristan.

Back at Granville, I bought a bottle of wine at Carrefour and took it to the Mairie. They contacted the Préfecture a couple of times on my behalf which was very kind of them, and it deserved its reward.

Back here I scanned my carte de sejour (I always scan my important documents like this), chased up a form that I’d been awaiting, found it and printed it out, pushed on with doing a mega-backup and then scanning a year’s worth of medical receipts all the way up to the end of May 2019, with a phone call from Rosemary in between.

No lunch, and only a packet of nuts and raisins for tea followed by one of my desserts.

A walk around the walls this evening took me up to 11.0 kms – 148% of my daily target. And my knee, although a little sore, is much better than it has been.

Tomorrow I’m off to the shops and then the afternoon will be spend tidying up ready to go away.

And do you know what? I’ve no idea at all when I shall be back. And ask me if I care.

Monday 24th June 2019 – AT LONG LAST …

… I have accomplished two long-term goals today.

Firstly, I have completed the blog entry for last Monday with all of the photos that I took while I was at Coutances.

Secondly, after much binding in the marsh, I have finally finished all of the dictaphone notes.

Mind you , It wasn’t without its interruptions and difficulties.

Last night I’d had a reasonable sleep and been off on a voyage, but it was another one of those nights where as soon as I woke up, all memory of it evaporated even before I had time to grab the dictaphone.

For a change, I was awake before the alarm at 05:45, and up and about before the second alarm at 06:05 went off. How about that?

After breakfast I had a shower and then cracked on to complete the blog entry as I mentioned earlier.

At 08:30 I hit the streets in the rainstorm and headed off to the doctor’s. I was seen pretty quickly and was soon out of the building. The doctor is pleased to see me moving about and has decided that I don’t need an operation. Keep on with the alcohol treatment, take it easy and don’t do too much.

He was totally amazed that I had walked 10 kilometres the other day.

To Carrefour for some lettuce, seeing as the other had died, and to the pharmacie for some more of these gauze patches for my leg.

On the way back home I met a couple of neighbours and had a chat, and then came back here.

Back here, I bumped into the electrician. We’re having all of these new remote electricity meters so I had to show him where they were.

He came up when he was ready to switch off my current to change the meter. I stopped work and had a relax on the sofa to rest my leg, and there I dozed off.

I went off on a travel then and there. To a racing track where a car had broken down in the middle of a race, and had to walk across the track dodging the cars to reach the pits. One driver, parked in the pits, saw him crossing and accelerated out heading straight for him, making the driver run and dodge the traffic. There was some kind of Marshall in the centre of the ring with a glove on his hand with a lED display screen on the back of it. He held it up to show that the driver in the car had been given a 9-second penalty for his actions.

With just a brief 30 minutes for lunch, I cracked on with the blog and had almost finished it when Ingrid rang. We had a really good chat for well over an hour.

Back at the desk, I attempted to finish the blog and as soon as I put finger to keyboard Rosemary telephoned me. So that was another lengthy chat that took me almost up to teatime.

So finishing the blog I had a rather late tea of stuffed pepper and spicy rice.

After that, I booked my rail ticket to St-Lô tomorrow and then applied an on-line form for another project that I have in mind.

My walk around the Pointe du Roc in the damp, humid and misty weather was all alone. No-one else was out there at all, which was no surprise given the weather conditions.

So now an early night. I have an early start tomorrow.

Sunday 23rd June 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

… much more productive day today, even though it might not seem like it.

For a change I’ve been hard at at for most of the day, what with one thing or another. The pile of outstanding dictaphone notes has now gone down to a mere 11, after I’ve spent most of the day bashing away.

And that’s not all of it. I had a reasonably early night and stayed in bed until 09:30 and I must have spent all of that time on the road. There was a ton of stuff that had accumulated on the dictaphone overnight that needed transcribing.

I started off the night going through the Arctic on a ship that might have been the Ocean Endeavour and were having to break our way through some of the ice there. There was a question of which port we were going to dock into. We had a choice of 3 and supplies were being moved to 3 different ports to await us. I had to go to these ports to check them out and make sure that all of the stuff was appearing in the right kind of position. I was amazed at some of the stuff that was being sent on shipment. There we were, been struggling in the ice and supplies were getting low I suppose etc, and they thought strange things like pairs of tights were among the most important supplies that we needed.
Later on, we were into motor racing and preparing a car, a Mark II Cortina for racing. We had to modify the exhaust so I was busy making the modifications out of bits of pipe and tin can. Of course it didn’t have to be very solid, for one race then rebuilt for another. Someone was helping me and they had assembled it all up and came to fit the rear part. They said that it went on the inside of the front pipe but I replied “no, the outside”. They couldn’t see why they would dispute with me but then they tried it and it actually DID go on the outside. They could push it all the way up until the front pipe ground out on the baffles inside. But the thing was that this back box was made of glass. We had to fit it and seal it by by getting it hot and moulding the glass, a glass-blower technique or something. They were going “this is great. We can make 50 of these and sell them on” but I was thinking “hang on! We haven’t got this one to work yet”. Someone asked me when I thought that it might be working. I replied that it might even be working tomorrow night because there’s only this exhaust to fit now. It needs some tempering and reshaping, joints and gaskets but I’m sure that that won’t take me all day. There was some certain music going off in the background, martial music with marching movements
From then on we had a new girl come to work in our office although she was an entertainer. We were the administration staff and it was our job to organise people like this and I came in – we were on flexible hours and 10:00 was the latest start. It was 09:29 when I arrived and someone, one of the girls, said something about “ohh Eric you’re early this morning”. I said that I’m not that early, but they said “earlier than normal”. The girl who was manning my post until I arrived asked “are you ready to take over now Eric?” I said “just give me a minute to get myself organised”. I took my coat off and hung it on my chair and went to open my briefcase for my paperwork. I found that the lock had jammed. There was much more than this but I can’t remember it now. This woman had fallen apparently and someone from the section had picked her up and sat her down
later still I was in an office and my work was hopelessly in arrears and I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. I had tons of stuff. I was supposed to tell switchboard that I was in but I had forgotten. People were ringing me up ordering battleships and brochures and I didn’t know where to get the brochures from. It was quite a mess. I went to look for some brochures in the storeroom but found myself outside. So I walked up into town out of the mud and who should I bump into but Margaret Stockton who was coming out of our other office. She was limping, just been involved in an accident. We had a chat and she told me about the accident, how it had happened. I found myself in the indoor market in Crewe looking at the cheese stalls. I thought that I would buy something and go back – cheer myself up. But while I was rummaging around in my pocket I found some bits of old cheese fallen out of a sandwich that I had had in there. They were all musty, covered in fluff but I ate them nevertheless. I noticed that at the side of the wall there were loads of off-cuts of cheese, the bad bits going mouldy had been trimmed off and dumped in this corner by all the stalls, ready to be moved by someone or other.
Finally, I was packing last night ready to leave, folding up a long-sleeved dress shirt (and I’ve no idea why), but I couldn’t find my light-tan shoes. I had my comfortable boots of course but not the others. And I was panicking around looking for them and whoever I was with was making a few suggestions. But then I realised that I did have my deck shoes so it wouldn’t be so bad. However I still was keen on finding them. Nevertheless, I ended up being ready and was about to set off when I suddenly glanced across to the bed and discovered that not only had I left the Sat-nav behind but also Strawberry Moose, and wouldn’t that have been a catastrophe?

It’s hardly a surprise that I awoke in yet another feverish sweat.

After a rather late breakfast, I cracked on with the dictaphone notes, with a brief pause for lunch. And by the time my eyes went all blurry and I could no longer see straight, it was about 17:00.

That was the cue to go off on my rather late afternoon walk.

There wasn’t anything like as much shipping out there in the English Channel or the Baie de Mont St Michel as there was yesterday.

Nothing in the way of trawlers or yachts, just a couple of small boats and rafts with people either fishing or diving from them

But that’s not really quite all.

Right out in the English Channel off the coast near St Malo was some kind of large vessel. I couldn’t quite make it out so I took a long-distance photograph in the hope that I could crop and enlarge it at a later date.

And although I managed to create something out of it, I’m still none the wiser. Judging by the way that it’s rigged though, it could be Lys NoirLa Granvillaisn but that is pure conjecture.

while I was admiring the view, I was overflown by a light aircraft. And with the new Nikon D500 I was able to grab a shot of it for further examination at home.

It turns out that she’s F-GBAI, a Robin DR-400-140B Major presumably on its way to Donville les Bains.

She set out from St Nazaire on the afternoon of 21st June and wasn’t recorded as landing anywhere else in between. But then again , the smaller airfields don’t have data loggers as yet

They were back working at the bunker on the Atlantic Wall today.

And they had a visitor too. An ex-Army 6×4 heavy lorry of the type that ran the “Red Ball Express” from the Normandy landings to the front-line troops.

I meant to go round for a closer look but as it happens I forgot. I’m clearly not feeling myself these days

Back here I made some more of that dessert stuff. A Coffee-flavoured one this time with pineapple rings. And it goes without saying that that too was quite delicious when I tried it for tea.

First though, I did some more of last Monday’s blog, which I will finish one of these days and then I made myself a vegan pizza. And it wasn’t half delicious too.

Back outside again for my evening walk, and the sky had now clouded over.

There was another Tora Tora Tora evening as well, with the rays of the sun breaking through small gaps in the clouds.

We’ve seen quite a few evenings like this over the last couple of years since I’ve been living here. I don’t recall seeing anything like as many as this when I lived elsewhere.

And just for a change, I wasn’t alone out there enjoying the scenery and the sunset;

There were quite a few people out there on the beach enjoying the evening sun.

And that’s hardly surprising because it really was warm despite the late hour. I’d even taken off my jumper and was walking around in my shirt-sleeves. It’s not very often this year that I’ve been able to do that.

Now it’s time for an early night. I need to be up and about early because I have the Doctor’s tomorrow at 08:45.

Then I’ll find out exactly where I stand.

square maurice marland granville manche normandy france

men in zodiac ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

men on raft donville les bains granville manche normandy france

Saturday 22nd June 2019 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… this year as far as I am able to tell, it actually felt like summer today.

And it’s been a long time coming, especially now that the solstice has been and gone.

Last night I didn’t get much sleep at all but whatever I had was certainly a deep sleep. I slept right through without moving until the alarm went off, and I lay abed until about 06:45

There were definitely some nocturnal voyages at some point, but they disappeared out of my head before I even had time to grab hold of the dictaphone.

After the medication and breakfast I did a little (only a little) tidying up and took the rubbish out to the bins. This idea of having a much smaller bin in the kitchen seems to work because it was full after only a week and I was obliged to take it out. With the bigger one, there was a tendency for the rubbish in there to hang around so long that it walked out of the apartment on its own.

Liz and Terry came round and while Terry went off to finish a job at brigitte’s, Liz and I went to the bar for a coffee. Terry joined us later and we had a lengthy chat about nothing in particular.

Later we went to LeClerc where I did a little shopping, and then we went for lunch. I had chips with a side-salad.

back here, Liz and Terry dropped me off and I came in to crack on with the dictaphone notes.

By the time that tea-time came round, I’d reduced the outstanding number to 25. I’m hoping for a good day free from interruptions and if so, I’ll be in a position to finish this before I go away on Thursday morning, which will be nice.

Tea tonight was out of a tin. I had a fancy for some spicy beans so I had a tinful with some rice and vegetables followed by the leftover pineapple rings and cocnut soya cream.

When I’d gone out with Liz and Terry earlier in the morning, I’d seen lots of boats out in the Baie de Mont St Michel and the English Channel.

So when I went out this evening I took the camera, hoping to see another pile of naval craft out there on the water.

And I wasn’t going to be disappointed at all.

There were dozens of water craft out there this evening, ranging from jetskis out to full-blown three-master yachts.

Due to the distance and range I couldn’t see which yacht the two-master might be. I’m wondering if it might be La Granvillaise having an evening out, but I couldn’t really be sure.

But there’s a zodiac-type of craft in the foreground just there, and doesn’t that bring back many happy memories of last September up in the High Arctic?

But here’s a boat that we all recognise, even if we haven’t seen her since a fleeting glimpse last summer.

By definition, she’s actually a yawl and was built in 1914 in Arcachon down in South-West France for a German owner but was seized as war reparations.

She fell on hard times and was laid up in the 1980s, before being saved in 1990 and subsequently underwent a complete refit.

Talking of complete refits, I went for a look around in the chantier navale to see what was going on.

The long-term trawler has now disappeared. Maybe they have finished it and it’s gone back into the water.

Instead, alongside the Belle de Carentan we seem to have acquired one of the lightweight fishing boats of the type that goes out for the more-inshore varieties of aquatic life.

One day, I’ll have to actually go and find out what it is that boats like these bring in.<

Last night, I was certain that I saw a silhouette of three tall masts in the harbour.

And I wasn’t wrong. Marité has turned up back in port. Apparently she came in yesterday afternoon from Cherbourg just after 15:30, but I don’t recall seeing her as I came back from my afternoon out.

One of these days I shall have to go for a sail out in her, even though I don’t think all that much of the people who represent the organisation.

Tomorrow is Sunday and this is going to be my very last lie-in for quite some considerable time. I hope that I make the most of it.

EPIC HALL

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