Tag Archives: eric hall

Thursday 7th February 2019 – WHAT A NICE …

… surprise!

Wandering through the streets on my way to the shops, my phone rang.

It was Terry. He was on his way into Granville and wanted to know if I fancied a coffee.

And so he picked me up and we went off for a drink at the café at LeClerc for half an hour and put the world to rights.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I don’t get out half as often as I should.

Talking of getting out, it was difficult to get out of bed this morning. The alarm may well have gone off at 06:00 but it was after 07:00 when I finally crawled out into the Land of the Living.

cement mixer vieille ville granville manche normandy franceAfter breakfast I had a shower and then wandered off into town.

I didn’t get very far though, because my attention was caught by this cement mixer.

The roads in the medieval town are so narrow and there are the city gates that are quite low and narrow which means that large heavy vehicles can’t go in.

They have to unload outside and tranship in

la grande ancre port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn my way down the steps to sea level, there was quite a racket coming from the harbour.

Close inspection revealed that it was La Grande Ancre setting off on another voyage somewhere now that the harbour gates were open.

No idea where she’s going of course. It could be anywhere within reason but more likely she’s taking freight to the Ile de Chausey. That’s her usual run.

roundabout moulin cours jonville granville manche normandy franceIn the town centre at the Cours Jonville, it’s far from carnaval time (that’s the first weekend in March this year) but there’s clearly something going on.

There are people here erecting a roundabout for the kids. So I don’t know whether this means that there will be other sideshows coming, or whether this is just going to be an isolated amusement for a short period.

Up the hill to the station to pick up my tickets for my trip next weekend to Belgium. And here of course I was waylaid by Terry.

Back at LIDL there was nothing special going on. But they did have some decent bath towels. I bought one to use as a guest towel for my visitors (always assuming that I have any) because ones that I have used won’t be fit for much.

new facade theatre place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceI had to stop off at the Estate Agent’s to give them my insurance certificate, but I was distracted on my way.

There’s a little theatre down on the Place Marechal Foch and there’s a pile of work going on there right now.

It looks as if they are erecting a new facade on the theatre. So I wonder what that’s going to look like in a couple of weeks time.

removing waste paper place d'armes granville manche normandy franceAnd that wasn’t everything either.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have already seen the waste lorries taking away the glass from the glass waste bins.

But today there was the waste paper lorry there emptying out the waste paper skip. My missing passport is probably somewhere in that lot.

What with going for a coffee, I was back quite late so I only had time for a coffee before it was lunchtime.

And after lunch, I went to sit down to carry on work, but I ended up in bed. And for a good hour or so too.

I went off on a little travel too. There was a party going on in an office where I was working and I was expected to be there, but for some reason or other I didn’t want to go. When I came back from outside, there was some woman dressing up with a party hat. I decided to go on down the corridor to another office in our building to pretend that I was looking for something, but then I realised that I would look rather silly going into that office in my outdoor coat.

fishing boats ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceLeaving the bed was rather difficult again. i was really flat-out. But I had to go off on my afternoon walk in the nice sunshine.

All of the fishing boats were heading back towards the port . It must mean that the tide is coming back in so that they can unload at the fish processing plant.

It’s quite a busy little fishing port here really.

lifeboat statue baie de mont st michel st pair sur mer granville manche normandy franceBut the weather was really good.

This particular view, of the lifeboat memorial on the Pointe du Roc, overlooking the Baie de Mont St Michel in the foreground and St Pair sur Mer in the background, came out really quite well.

But to give you some idea of the height of the tide, at high tide the pillar on which is positioned the red marker light for the harbour entrance is almost all submerged.

Having had a little sleep earlier, I was able to crack on with some work. And I managed to keep going until tea time too.

Burger on a bap with veg and potatoes, followed by fruit salad and soya coconut cream. I’m really looking after myself as far as food goes.

sea rue du nord granville manche normandy franceIt wasn’t all that windy outside this evening.

But there must have been a storm somewhere because there was quite a roaring sea. The tide was right in and it was making quite a noise as the waves crashed down onto the rocks.

It’s a shame that my camera won’t pick up the best of the image. It’s struggling on as best as it can, but I do have a cunning plan in the back of my mind.

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy franceAnd if you thought that the waves crashing down on the rocks was impressive, you ain’t seen nuffink yet.

The waves were roaring full-tilt into the bay and the sea wall on the Plat Gousset was taking a real bashing.

There were several young kids down there having a field day, running around being soaked by the impressive waves roaring over the walls.

trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy franceI carried on with my little walk, but was distracted by some moving lights heading into the harbour.

I wandered down to the wall to see what was happening, and I was treated to the rather spectacular sight of a trawler manoeuvring around in the inner basin about to tie up at the fish-processing plant.

I stood and watched it for quite a while.

This evening I had a very lengthy chat with June on the internet. Catherine has gone into hospital and June is a little concerned. Catherine is having a rough time right now so I hope that things improve for her.

And now I’m off to bed. I’ve had a long, difficult day and have done 118% of my daily activity. There’s no doubt that it’s taking a lot out of me right now but I have to keep on going.

fishing boats ile de chausey granville manche normandy france
fishing boats ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

brehal sur mer granville manche normandy france
brehal sur mer granville manche normandy france

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france
storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france
trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france
trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france
trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Wednesday 6th February 2019 – I’M WET

beach in the rain granville manche normandy franceAnd that comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me.

When I went out for my afternoon walk, it was teeming down with rain. You can see in this photo just how wet it was today.

Really dreadful and in the end I gave it up as a bad job and curtailed my little perambulation

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceIt didn’t stop me going around to the wall overlooking the harbour to see what was going on.

And down there this afternoon is Normandy Trader who has come in from Jersey for her usual freight run.

There wasn’t anyone around down there and there was no loading going on, but she looks pretty well loaded up to me.

unloading gravel port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd as we know, Neptune was in here yesterday and departed with a big load of gravel.

But it looks as if she’ll be back pretty soon because they are still bringing in the loads of gravel. And piling them up by the conveyor too rather than putting them in the gravel bins.

So it’s all systems go down there today despite the weather.

night fishing boat unloading port de granville harbour granville manche normandy franceThat’s not all either. Because this evening while I was out on my perambulations I stepped in a puddle – not quite up to my middle like Doctor Foster, but pretty well near enough.

But at least it didn’t stop me from my wanderings. Down at the harbour a trawler had just come in and all of the crew together with a few landlubbers were busy tidying it up.

Maybe it’s already been unloaded round by the fish processing plant.

Last night I had another decent night’s sleep. So much so that I had a really good nocturnal ramble. I was out in a coach last night, and not for work either but for my own purposes. And of course I had a flat tyre. I had to change it myself, which is no mean feat, and then I needed a replacement tyre. Someone told me of a place out on the Middlewich Road (I was in Sandbach at the time) but a tyre would cost me the best part of £1,000. That wasn’t the news that I was expecting to hear, but it was part of the price of using the coach like this.
And later I was with a group of people waiting to go home after a holiday. We were in a big draughty shed with a couple of benches around the edge. As the coach pulled in, people started to climb aboard but I, and someone else, decided that we would wait until the end. At this moment I started to wonder if I had everythig with me, and looking around, I saw something underneath one of the benches where I was sitting. So I crawled underneath the bench, getting myself all filthy in the process, to find that what I had seen was actually an old beer bottle. So covered in dust and dirt, I went back to the coach to wait to board.

Despite the alarm call I was in no hurry to leave my bed. More like 07:00 in fact. And after breakfast I made a start on adding the photos to some of the previous blog entries.

I’ve done as far back as Saturday, and I’ll be slowly uploading them back again as time goes on.

Another task was to keep on with my searchable text index. I’ve almost finished January and then I’ll just roll on backwards until it’s finished, whenever that might be.

After lunch I carried on, with a little interruption for my walk in the wet.

And I’ve also tried something else that’s new. I’ve been moaning and complaining about the time it takes me to buy a ticket for Leuven when I arrive in Brussels and how I nearly miss my train, so I researched online and found that I can make a booking and download the tickets (thanks to the printer). And it saves me €0:20 too.

Spend! Spend! Spend!

This afternoon though I couldn’t keep going. I’ve managed sort-of for the last couple of days but today I didn’t. I’d had a couple of dodgy moments and in the end I gave up and went to bed for an hour. I even managed to sleep for some of that time too.

There was some filling left over from last night’s tea so I diced and cooked a couple of potatoes to add to it and made a very quick ad-hoc curry. And it was delicious

I mentioned my little walk later on and then back here I have things to do. Another name from a very dim and distant past has come to the surface following my little exercise of the other day.

This is all getting very interesting.

night waves beach pointe du roc granville manche normandy france
night waves beach pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

night st helier jersey granville manche normandy france
night st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

night fishing boat unloading port de granville harbour manche normandy france
night fishing boat unloading port de granville harbour manche normandy france

night fishing boat unloading port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france
night fishing boat unloading port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 5th February 2019 – THE FIRST THING …

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france … that I did this morning, after it was light of course, was to go to the sea wall out here and look down into the harbour.

And sure enough, there was Neptune. Tied up to the quayside and judging by the noise coming from down there, they were busy loading it up.

It didn’t take them long either because she sailed out of the harbour on the afternoon tide. She’s now well on her way to Whitstable with 2000 tonnes of gravel.

Just for a change I had a decent night’s sleep. In bed before 23:30 and asleep practically right the way through. And I wasn’t in all that much of a rush to leave my bed.

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAfter breakfast I had a shower and a clean-up, and then went down to have a look at the harbour.

As well as Neptune down there, the fishing boats were coming in on the tide.

There was quite a lot of activity at the fish dock as the unloading was taking place. It’s quite a busy place, what with one thing and another, and that’s why I’m here.

vegan leek and tofu pie granville manche normandy franceBack here, I remembered something that I had forgotten from the weekend.

I’d cooked a vegan leek-and-tofu pie on Sunday, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall. But I’d left it in the oven.

So out it came, and it looked even better than it did the other day. I’ve cut it into quarters and now it’s in the freezer ready for another day or four.

This morning’s task was to bring up-to-date the photos. And by the time that lunchtime came round, they were all done and finished. Thousands of them, and that’s going to take some organising.

After lunch, I made a start on the organising. If I don’t start, I won’t ever finish and that’s for sure.

What I’m doing for now is preparing an indexed text file, sticking the photos in month by month with the *alt* tags displayed for indexing purposes.

It’s even more important because I’ve had yet another request for a photo. That’s three or four already this year and while I won’t ever become rich, the photos won’t go anywhere if I don’t put them on line.

people picking sea shells beach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy franceOutisde this afternoon, the tide was quite a way out.

There were several people out there today, including a couple of people hunting for shellfish in the rock pools, which made me think that the tide was going out.

Had the tide been out for a while, the seabirds would have had the shellfish. The roads and pavements are littered with fragments of shells where the seabirds have dropped them from a great height to break them open.

fishing boats baie de mont st michel st pair sur mer granville manche normandy franceGoing around the headland, the fishing boats were there, presumably waiting for the tide to come in.

One of them, the big blue and white one, was clearly fed up of waiting. it did a U-turn and started to roll out the net again. It might as well earn some money while it’s waiting. I stood and watched it for quite some time.

But you see the marker light just there. At high tide, the water is up almost to the top of the column.

Back here, I had a coffee and cake and a play on the guitar, and then attacked the photo collection again. I had a little 5 minutes … errr … relax as well.

For tea tonight, I made a stuffed pepper and spicy rice and it was delicious. It set me up nicely for my little lonely walk around the walls.

But here’s a thing.

I’ve been doing a little bit of research on something or other, and I’ve actually found someone who used to live next door (or thereabouts) to me when I was a toddler.

You’ve no idea just how small the world is these days.

Tonight, I’ll have another early night. There’s plenty of things that I need to do tomorrow.

But I’ve set a few things in motion that might bring me some surprising results. But once you take the lid of Pandora’s Box you can’t put it back on.

beach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy francebeach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy france


beach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy francebeach tide out donville les bains granville manche normandy france


silhouette people granville manche normandy francesilhouette people granville manche normandy france


fishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy francefishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france


old military buildings pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceold military buildings pointe du roc granville manche normandy france


atlantic wall world war 2 bunker granville manche normandy franceatlantic wall world war 2 bunker granville manche normandy france


fishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy francefishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france


Monday 4th February 2019 – HAVING GONE …

… to bed reasonably early last night, I slept right through until the alarm went off this morning, with just a little interruption here and there. Nothing serious.

And on the subject of “nothing serious”, I was off on my travels last night too. And it concerned my old black cat Tuppence. She had an accident to one of her front paws and pulled her claws right out. All rather gruesome.

I didn’t loiter long in bed, and so we had an early-ish start today.

But not for long.

Round about 09:15 I was overwhelmed with fatigue. Not a desperate tiredness but I just couldn’t concentrate. And so I went to bed for an hour. No point in fighting the fatigue because I wouldn’t get anything done anyway.

I did close my eyes for about 10 minutes or so, but that was about it. And by 10:20 I was back up and fighting fit. Well, sort-of anyway.

This morning I was attacking the photos again. I’d taken quite a pile yesterday and they all needed editing and generally sorting-out. And it took me longer than I expected. No idea why.

There was an interruption too. Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we were on the phone for over an hour putting the world to rights. It meant a rather late lunch but never mind. There’s nothing wrong whatever in spending time chatting to friends.

After lunch, the next project was to resurrect the database that I started to make a couple of years ago. But a good search around the computer and I can’t find it anywhere. It mustn’t have survived the transfer over.

And so I started off another one. But for some reason or other I couldn’t make it work as I wanted. I seem to remember having exactly the same issue with the previous one and it took me ages to solve it. And I can’t remember how I did it now. This is going to take me much longer than I thought.

fishing boat storm ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceThe wind had dropped by the time that I went for my walk. Just blowing at gale-force.

There were a couple of little trawlers out there heading for port, and it was quite amusing fun watching them smashing their way through the waves on their way home.

Many people really don’t appreciate the efforts and the dangers that fishermen go through;

lorry unloading gravel port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut no sign of Neptune in the harbour though. She’s still offshore somewhere and her latest ETA is 00:00. I won’t be there to see her put in to port at that time of night.

But in the meantime, they are still bringing loads of gravel down from the quarry and dropping it off on the quayside ready for Neptune to take away

Tea was sausages in cheese sauce. Just as delicious as it always is. And followed by the rest of the rice pudding.

casino place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceThere was no-one else about for the evening walk. I was completely on my own. Mind you, the wind had dropped still more and it was now just “strong”.

The Casino at the Place Marechal Foch presented a very interesting photography subject this evening, down there all bathed in blue light. I don’t recall having seen it looking like this before.

So I’ll try to have another early night and a decent sleep tonight. I have things to do tomorrow.

But at least my birth certificate turned up today. It’s destroyed one of my pet theories about my origins, but presented me with several other mysteries.

We shall have to see.

fishing boat storm ile de chausey granville manche normandy france
fishing boat storm ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

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

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france
fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france
fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

vertical axis wind turbine plat gousset granville manche normandy france
vertical axis wind turbine plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Sunday 3rd February 2019 – WHAT A GORGEOUS …

port de granville harbour manche normandy france… afternoon it was today.

Beautiful and sunny, not too windy, not too cold. And hordes of people wandering around outside. Round about 15:00 I joined them and went for a good walk. I didn’t make it back until 17:30.

All around the headland, down into town, around the harbour, back into town and then back here. And had the ice-cream stall that sells vegan sorbets been open, I would have treated myself to the first ice-cream of the year.

Now, with having an early night last night, and nice fresh bedding too, that I would have had a deep, relaxing sleep. But unfortunately not. Round about 02:40 I had another massive attack of cramp and I was in total agony. I just couldn’t ease it off and ended by standing up and trying to stretch my leg.

All in all, it took about half an hour until the pain would ease up enough that I could go back to bed. But any chance of going back to sleep was long-gone. I was awake for hours until I finally slipped away.

But I must have gone to sleep at some time, because I was off on my travels.

I was in a some kind of weird pub last night – some pub not too dissimilar to the one next to the old Town Hall in Crewe. All dirty, run-down and very basic. And I was waiting for someone there. I’d actually booked a room in a hotel a couple of miles outside the town. But a couple came in to the pub and said that they had a room booked there, so the landlord showed them up. As this couple looked quite respectable, I wondered what the rooms were like so I asked the landlord to show me a room. He took me upstairs, and the room was dreadful. A really bad 1960s-type of room with about 10 beds crammed in any old how, with heavy plush bed coverings and really looking in the worst possible taste. I didn’t even hang around to see if it was clean and damp-free. I just made an excuse about it obviously being out of my price range and walked out.
Later on, I was on board the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again. We were going to have a meeting about our journey and to sum everything up, but it was postponed. A very short while later, I was reading a newspaper on board ship, and it gave an “account” of this meeting, clearly written in advance of the meeting in anticipation of it taking place. To my surprise, the person who had written it was an old comrade of mine at the Open University and he had written quite a lot about my role in the voyage, blowing it up to well beyond what it really was, and putting a link in to my blog where readers could read so much more about it. However, the editor had edited out the url of the blog which disappointed me greatly.

08.40 when I finally awoke, but that’s not the same as saying that I was up and about. Much more like 09:30, or even 10:00 when I put my sooty foot on the floor.

Breakfast was even later. Much later too.More like an early lunch. I wasn’t in any hurry. I had a nice relaxing morning doing the usual Sunday task of badger all.

Feeling a little peckish later, I made some cheese on toast. And that reminded me about my pie. I must do something about that later.

floats granville manche normandy franceWhen I went out for my walk, I had a good look around, and saw a couple of things that I hadn’t noticed before.

There were four or five of these floats bobbing up and down just offshore, and each float was different. I’ve no idea what they are doing out there, and I’m convinced that I have never seen them before.

f-brag Bolkow Bo-208C Junior granville manche normandy franceWhile I was photographing the floats, I was distracted by an aeroplane flying overhead.

This aeroplane is a Bolkow Bo-208C Junior apparently, a type that I haven’t noticed before. And it’s quite interesting because the Bolkow company was the successor to the legendary Messerschmitt aircraft company of Luftwaffe fame.

It’s amazing what is out there once you start to look for it.

st helier jersey granville manche normandy franceTalking of things being out there if only you look for them, the air was so clear that there was an excellent view of Jersey today.

So cropping out a selection of an image, blowing it up, which I can do despite modern anti-terrorist legislation, and enhancing the colours, you can see some of the houses and other buildings dotted along the coastline of the island.

It’s hard to believe that that’s almost 60 kms (35 miles) away. But then that’s all thanks to the big zoom lens that I bought in October.

cabanon vauban pointe de carolles mont st michel granville manche normandy franceIn the other direction, looking down the Baie de Mont St Michel, the view was just as good.

Going as far out as I could, I still couldn’t see the Mont itself and the buildings thereupon. But the big hotel complex just a few hundred yards away from the Mont is clearly visible.

To give you some idea of perspective, that’s about 30 kms (18 miles) away as the crow flies.

And so back from my walk, I started by making another rice pudding.

While that was cooking, I fried a couple of leeks and onions with a few mushrooms and a tin of flageolet beans. When it was all thoroughly cooked, I added the tofu mix from yesterday, thoroughly stirred it in and heated it all through.

While I was waiting for the mixture to cool down, I prepared a pizza and stuck that in the oven to cook;

While the pizza was cooking, I took out a roll of pastry from the oven. It had dried and cracked so I had to wet it slightly and roll it. Good job that I had bought my rolling pin a while ago.

After it had been rolled, I greased a pie dish and put the pastry in. Added the pie filling and then folded over the excess pastry.

The pizza came out of the oven and the pie went in. I also added the rice pudding so that it would cook further.

The pizza was delicious, although it could have benefited from a longer period in the oven, and so was the rice pudding. The pie looks really good and I can’t wait to try it.

beach at night plat gousset granville manche normandy franceThere was just me outside tonight for my evening walk. It wasn’t really cold and wasn’t really windy. It sounds very good after the beautiful day but I bet that there’s more winter to come.

The tide was still on its way out by the looks of things but nevertheless there was a good photo of the wves rolling up and down the beach at the Plat Gousset just by the Casino

So now I’ll try yet again for an early night. And hopefully a good sleep, without an attack of cramp. I need it.

And I’ve just found out that we are going to have a visitor tomorrow. Neptune has just turned into the bay up by Cherbourg and there’s only one place where she will be going.

floats granville manche normandy france
floats granville manche normandy france

floats granville manche normandy france
floats granville manche normandy france

floats granville manche normandy france
floats granville manche normandy france

st helier jersey granville manche normandy france
st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

st helier jersey granville manche normandy france
st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

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

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

old military buildings pointe du roc granville manche normandy france
old military buildings pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

old military buildings granville manche normandy france
old military buildings granville manche normandy france

atlantic wall world war 2 bunker granville manche normandy france
atlantic wall world war 2 bunker granville manche normandy france

trawler undergoing repair chantier navale granville manche normandy france
trawler undergoing repair chantier navale granville manche normandy france

boat lift chantier navale granville manche normandy france
boat lift chantier navale granville manche normandy france

port de granville harbour manche normandy france
port de granville harbour manche normandy france

port de granville harbour manche normandy france
port de granville harbour manche normandy france

port de plaisance granville harbour manche normandy france
port de plaisance granville harbour manche normandy france

chemin de la roche gauthier granville manche normandy france
chemin de la roche gauthier granville manche normandy france

st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france
st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

speedboat st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france
speedboat st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

jullouville granville manche normandy france
ullouville granville manche normandy france

speedboat st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france
speedboat st pair sur mer granville manche normandy france

rue st gaud granville manche normandy france
rue st gaud granville manche normandy france

old crane port de granville harbour manche normandy france
old crane port de granville harbour manche normandy france

art deco building rue du port granville manche normandy france
art deco building rue du port granville manche normandy france

marite port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france
marite port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france

Saturday 2nd February 2019 – WHAT AN APPALLING …

football us grnavillaise cms oissel stade louis dior granville manche normandy france… football match this evening.

US Granville excelled themselves in cluelessness against CMS Oissel, 5 places below them in the table, at the Stade Louis Dior.

Oissel were a lively, energetic team and could easily have scored three goals in the first five minutes as they tore relentlessly into the Granville side. Only some excellent goalkeeping kept them at bay.

Granville had no answer and never really looked remotely like troubling the Oissel goalkeeper. The only surprise was that the score was only 1-0 for Oissel at half time.

It went from bad to worse on the hour mark. A Granville player put in a rather heavy challenge on a Oissel player and received a yellow card. And, for absolutely no reason that I could see or hear, while the Oissel player was on the floor receiving treatment, the referee strode over to the Granville player and showed him a straight red card. There was nothing whatever, no off-the-ball incident, no foul language, no dissent or anything that I saw that could have possibly warranted the straight red card.

Surprisingly, being a man down, Granville played their best football after this and had the Oissel defence under pressure – only to be hit by a breakaway upfield and a second Oissel goal.

There should have been a third one, for with the Granville keeper stranded, an attacker completely unmarked had a shot at the goal … and hit the post!

And even more astonishingly, a Granville player picked up the loose ball, kicked it upfield catching the Oissel defence cold and a Granville player slotted a goal back, after much binding in the marsh in the penalty area.

Granville then pushed on upfield, only to concede yet another breakaway with the last kick of the match.

But all in all, it really was a dreadful, clueless, aimless performance that was going absolutely nowhere. If you have the strength or the courage, you can see the goals here

Last night, I was in bed early. Long before 23:00 in fact. Not that it did me much good because I was awake again at 02:45. Eventually I did go back to sleep, where I remained until the alarm went off.

But during the night I was in the East End of London last night and ended up with a girl – a girl who was clearly someone of ill-repute. We were walking along the streets arm-in-arm having a laugh at a politician who had likewise met a girl of ill-repute and was walking the streets with her but pretending that they weren’t together, even though it was quite obvious that they were. This girl and I ended up in a typical East-End dosshouse right in the heart of Ripperland London round by Fashion Street and Thrawl Street off the Whitechapel Road. The house was was far, far worse than anywhere where I have ever stayed in my life. I stayed there the night and in the morning the girl disappeared off to have a shower, so as I needed the bathroom I followed her, although I lost track of her even though I could hear the water running. I was appalled at the state of the house – the toilets were nothing more than a couple of holes cut into benches, the plaster was falling off the walls and my fellow-tenants did not inspire me with any confidence whatsoever. When the girl came back she made a remark about being glad that she hadn’t bought the other shampoo because there was conditioner in it. I asked her if she didn’t use conditioner, to which she replied that she liked to use a separate conditioner.

Just for a change, I was up fairly early too. Breakfast was early and then I had a shower, even doing a machine-load of washing.

Before going out, I shredded another load of paper from the European Paper Mountain and then it all went into the paper bin outside.

Today was one of the most minimal shopping days for quite a while. LIDL had nothing special, and neither did LeClerc. In fact, I spent a mere €16:00 in there. And that includes some tofu. I remembered the vegan pains au chocolat too.

At NOZ, they had a guitar lead, a couple of nice cereal bowls and a couple of CDs. Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation and Joe Satriani’s “Super Colossal”. And at €1:99 each too.

This afternoon, having had a brief doze for 10 minutes, I made the filling for the next pie.

I fried some onion and garlic in olive oil until it was caramelised and then added sage, rosemary, parsley and the tofu. All of that was fried on a low heat for about 20 minutes, and then I added a stock cube and some water.

While all of that was marinating, I went off for the football.

Back here was tea out of a tin and then I put the tofu in the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll fry up some leeks and green flageolet beans and then add the tofu mix. That will make a beautiful pie filling.

So no alarm tomorrow. It’s Sunday and a lie-in. And I can’t say that I’ll be sorry.

I’m looking forward to a decent night’s sleep, and I have clean bedding to enjoy. So I hope that I can make the most of it.

Friday 1st February 2019 – WHAT A WAY …

… to start the day.

The alarms certainly went off this morning, but what did I care? I turned over and went back to sleep.

07:40 when I awoke and that in itself was nothing like what time I finally left my bed. All I can say is that I must have needed it;

And so that was the morning messed up. A late start, an even later breakfast and that was that.

It’s been a quiet day today though. I’ve been working on a 3D animation project for most of it. Three or so years ago I made a couple of animations but despite their being made on a 3D program they were really only two-dimensional and besides, I’ve forgotten most of what I did back then.

And so I set to work with a will.

The problem is though that you become so absorbed in a project that you don’t realise just how quickly the time goes. It ended up being a late lunch and an even later tea, and I don’t feel as if I have accomplished anything.

In the heat of the action I forgot to make any hummus today and so it was cheese again for lunch. There’s some old stuff that needs eating.

thora port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThis afternoon there was a high wind and rain outside. The sea was pretty rough.

And I was lucky enough to catch Thora setting out from the harbour heading back to Jersey. No idea what she was carrying though. I couldn’t see clearly.

I hadn’t noticed her come in though. She must have sneaked in on the high tide during the night.

thora ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceHaving watched her sail … “diesel” – ed … off into the sunset, I went round to the other side of the headland too watching her disappear into the sea-mist.

The weather wasn’t really so good out there and the photography was not up to much. But it brought out an eerie view of the Ile de Chausey in the background, hidden in the mist

Tea was a burger in a bap with vegetables and potatoes, followed by the rest of yesterday’s rice pudding. Just as delicious as yesterday’s.

The rain had stopped when I went out for my walk. And there was no-one around at all. Minette was there but being stand-offish again. She wandered off when I tried to stroke her.

Today, with a late start, I just wandered off for a brief 10 minutes. I suppose that that’s an improvement.

But I’m looking forward to a decent sleep tonight and I might even have a good day tomorrow. After all it is a shopping day.

waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france
waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france
waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france
waves pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

fishing boat baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
fishing boat baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

thora marite port de granville harbour manche normandy france
thora marite port de granville harbour manche normandy france

thora port de granville harbour manche normandy france
thora port de granville harbour manche normandy france

thora baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
thora baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

thora ile de chausey granville manche normandy france
thora ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Thursday 31st January 2019 – THE WEATHER …

… was something of a disappointment today.

During the night the skies had clouded over. The temperature had gone up slightly so there was just some surface frost here and there. No snow and no heavy icing.

For a change, I’d had a decent sleep – right out of it all until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I’d been in a submarine (which of course is extremely unlikely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) and it had been the subject of a depth-charge attack. And all of the loose deck furniture, barrels and cases and chairs and all kinds of things, break free and float to the surface. What surprised me more than anything is that the very thought of all of this makes me break out into a real sweat in real life, yet last night I was quite calm and relaxed about it.
A little later I was joining a crowd of people at the side of a swimming pool, everyone sitting on these white plastic chairs. One of the people sitting there was a girl with whom I would have been pleased to be associated. So I went to sit next to her. She said that she needed to be sitting on the end of the group so that she could go to dance, and were I to sit there I would be preventing her. So I suggested that we swap places but she found another excuse for that.
And so it went on.

The alarm went off as usual, and I was soon out of bed – but not as soon as I would have liked. And after breakfast I had a good shower and clean-up and then hit the streets.

It was cold out there and I found, rather unexpectedly, a patch of solid ice.

cable fibre optique rue des juifs granville manche normandy franceI’ve mentioned the fibre-optic cabling works before.

It seems that now they are digging up the pavement in the rue des Juifs ready to connect up the lower town with our bit up here.

But I had a chat with the guys there and there is still no date announced for when the fibre-optic cabling might become operational.

marite normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceDown in the harbour Normandy Trader was there next to Marité.

She was loading up ready to leave. A large lorry was down there and I imagine that it had come to deliver a load or two of stuff to take back to Jersey.

One of these days I’ll go down for a chat with them on board.

snow LIDL Avenue Aristide Briand granville manche normandy franceAt the Post Office I posted my letter from the other day and then went off to LIDL.

I’d already slipped on a patch of ice earlier, and here at LIDL there was a load of snow that presumably had fallen off a lorry or a car that had turned into the car park.

At LIDL there was nothing of any interest there so I came home and had a coffee.

And a chat on the internet with someone whom I had met on my little sea voyage in September. That was a pleasant surprise.

After lunch, I did a mega-back-up on the laptop that I’m back to using as a media centre and then started to tidy up in a big way a series of directories that had become all tangled up over the last ever so many years. That was a long and difficult job and it’s another one that will go on for a while.

As well as the session on the bass guitar, I also started the paper-shredding session. Piles of paper here in the European Paper Mountain that is of a sensitive nature, so I’ve promised myself to shred it. I’ll do a few each day until it’s all gone. At least it won’t overfill the paper bin outside.

collapsing sea wall place d'armes granville manche normandy franceIn between all of this, I went for a walk around the headland.

Another part of the path is now closed off due to being unsafe so it’s all becoming quite confused. I’m wondering if my apartment block, over there on the right, will slide into the sea sometime soon.

It wasn’t very pleasant out there though. The wind was howling and the rain was teeming down. it was cold too so when I was walking into the wind it was stinging my face and it was very uncomfortable.

Not having crashed out at all yesterday, I was disappointed to go off with the fairies today. Twice. But only for 10 minutes each time. I suppose that that’s an improvement. Especially following my walk up to LIDL.

Tea was a slice of pie that I found in the freezer, with vegetables and gravy, followed by a rice pudding.

place d'armes rue du nord granville manche normandy franceFor the evening walk, the rain and wind had died down so it wasn’t too bad.

There was a nice ethereal view of the Place d’Armes in the distance, with part of the rue du Nord illuminated by the street light on the corner. The night and the light brings out the best in places like this.

And just for a change, I wasn’t alone tonight. There were a couple of other people out there too.

So I’ll have an early night tonight. Catch up with my beauty sleep and a relaxing day tomorrow.

Wednesday 30th January 2019 – IT’S SNOWING!!!!

snow place d'armes granville manche normandy franceAlthough you’ve seen this heading before this winter, you’ve seen it in relation to Canada, the Auvergne and Belgium. But this afternoon, it’s been snowing here!

And I’m not talking about a light dusting for five minutes either. Round about 13:00 the heavens opened up and we had a right pasting for a couple of hours and it looked quite impressive.

I thought that it was going to stick too but it stopped, the weather warmed up a couple of degrees and all of the snow disappeared.

st helier jersey granville manche normandy franceThat’s a shame too. because tonight, there’s a clear sky, millions of stars and you could see for miles.

This photo, albeit rather blurred because it was hand-held on a very slow exposure in a wind, is of St Helier in Jersey.

The lights are, would you believe, about 60 kms – that’s 35 miles – away. And you won’t have this kind of light and this kind of photo in many weather conditions.

night montmartin breville granville manche normandy franceThis photo is a little closer to home.

That’s Montmartin-sur-Mer, Breville-sur-Mer and Bréhal-Plage. Montmartin, on the extreme left, is about 25 kms away.

So, in other words, it is probably going to be really cold tonight and had the snow hung around, it would have been a good base to really start the winter.

Despite my depressing posting of yesterday, I’ve had a better day today. A good sleep of at least 5 hours. There was a vague wave of tiredness round about 17:00 but I managed to fight it off.

And a little ramble or two too during the night. There were four of us, me, my father, the son of the woman whom he married in the 1970s and someone else. And the car was his red Mark III Cortina. We’d all been out for a drive somewhere and ended up in a small town somewhere. We were all hungry so decided to go for food. My father and his friend wanted to go somewhere special but I was just interested in something simple so Paul and I went to a chip shop for a portion of chips. The chip shop owner was a bad-tempered, miserable kind of guy, the chips were over-cooked and the portions were disgracefully small. We took them outside to eat them, and noticed that there were two young girls, one of them an Asian girl, chatting to my father and his friend in the car, and then they climbed in. So Paul and I made a few ribald comments about what was going to be going on. Shortly afterwards Paul and I were with a couple of people and the subject of these girls came up. I made some kind of suggestion about their professional activities, but the other people told my that my opinion was far from being the case and that they were really nice and friendly girls really and certainly not the kind of girls that I was suggesting.
Although I was awake at about 05:30, there was still enough time to go back to sleep before the alarm. And off on another voyage too. Ad I was with either Alison or Jackie – I can’t remember now just who it was. And she was clambering about up the side of a slope and on top of a hill and I was taking photographs. But when I looked at them, they hadn’t come out ptoperly but more like rather jerky poor-quality *.gif moving images. I was disappointed by that because it meant that either the camera was playing up or the computer was playing up. But either way, I was worried that I had lost all of the images.

After breakfast I had a very relaxing morning doing a mega-back-up of the new computer seeing as I hadn’t done one since I’d bought it. That took some time, what with one thing or another.

Another thing that I did was to sort out some more music for the bass guitar. And to print it out too. I need to organise myself so much better than I do.

Lunch was rather later than usual, and I spent the time watching the snowfall. Like I said, a shame that it all petered out.

This afternoon I did some more 3D stuff. I’ve had to go back and rework some objects that I created a while ago because I came across something the other day that made quite a useful add-on.

st helier jersey granville manche normandy franceThere were a few people out a-walking this afternoon. It was damp outside but not really cold and not really windy.

A good day for photography because there some strange effects on the sea as the storm was moving out across the bay.

St Helier and the rest of Jersey were fairly clear, even if they were swathed in storm.

ferry ile de chausey traversier granville manche normandy franceThere had been a ferry service out to the Ile de Chausey too. Or, at least, there was a ferry coming back from the island.

I would have been out there much more often on the ferry had the prices been more reasonable. But €27:50 for a round trip is a bit more than I’m willing to pay for a sail around the bay.

rock ship granville manche normandy franceThis photo was quite interesting too.

There’s a huge rock at the entrance to the bay at St Malo but there seemed to be something else out there too.

Cropping, enhancing and blowing up the photo (because I can do that despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) brought out something to the left of the rock that might possibly (although it’s difficult to tell) be a ship – possibly one of the Brittany Ferries fleet – sailing into St Malo.

Tea was a curry – a pepper, mushroom and coconut cream curry from November 2017. just as delicious as it was the day that I made it.

Later on, as I said, the storm has gone when I went around the walls, but it’s cold out there and I reckon that it’s going to become even colder tonight.

So I’ll be huddled up under the bedclothes gathering up my strength for my trip to the shops tomorrow. I’ll need to warm myself up.

ferry ile de chausey traversier granville manche normandy france
ferry ile de chausey traversier granville manche normandy france

st helier jersey granville manche normandy france
st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

st helier jersey granville manche normandy france
st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 29th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day.

There was so much that needed doing and so much that I wanted to do, but I spent the afternoon flat-out on the bed under the covers.

And I’m not just talking about a little 10-minute snooze, or even a really deep one-hour sleep. I was flat-out from about 14:30 to long after 17:00. I’d awoken at 16:50 but there was absolutely no chance whatever of me getting up.

Going back a couple of years, I can remember when I could go a whole day without dropping off. And gradually we started with the little 10-minute snoozes. And then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I started to complain about the hour-long sessions that were coming my way. And look where I have ended up now.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the beginning of the end.

It probably has something to do with the late night that I had had. Despite pushing on for all day yesterday, I still wasn’t tired at bedtime and I couldn’t go off to sleep.

Mind you, I must have done at one point because I was off on my travels. I was doing a huge load of tidying up at my old apartment in Brussels, and much to my surprise the person who was actually helping me with tidying away the paperwork was Nerina.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual although it was more like 07:00 when I actually arose from the dead. After the usual morning performance I had a shower and a good clean-up too. High time – and I do mean “high” too.

This morning I attacked some more photos and then there was a slight interruption. I have to make a file up of all of my official expenses and the like over the last … gulp … 5 years, but amongst the papers that I can’t find are two of my household charges bills – for 2013 and 2015.

I’d written to the Hotel des Impôts in Montaigut for copies and so I received copies for … 2016 and 2017. Clearly no good.

And so I had to telephone them to find out what was going on.

It turns out that they no longer keep hard-copy records. Just those for the last two complete years. Any further information for other years needs to be obtained from the Tresorerie in Riom.

And so I had to write a letter.

Another project that I had in mind was to start printing off my bass guitar lines. I have the rhythm tabs saved on the laptop but I want to print them off to take with me to places now that I have a decent printer. First off was “Bobby McGee” – the old Kris Kristofferson song.

And that took me longer than it might too, because the printing wouldn’t align with the paper, or vice versa

We had lunch of course and then I came back in here to carry on. “In here” refers of course to my bedroom, because the long wall in here has been transformed into a rather comfortable office.

But, as I said earlier, I didn’t last long. And I missed my afternoon walk, my guitar session, my afternoon coffee, my slice of Christmas cake, all of that too.

Tea tonight was a delicious stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then biting the bullet, I went for my evening walk.

When I had awoken this afternoon, there was a howling gale outside and a torrential rainstorm going on. This evening though we still had the hurricane but the rain had gone. At least, for half of my journey. For the second part of my walk I got the lot and was like a drowned rat by the time that I returned.

Another day when I haven’t spoken to anyone at all. And I’m not tired after my afternoon sleep. It’s all becoming some kind of circular performance and I can’t break out of it.

Monday 28th January 2019 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

… with having a really good lie-in is that when you eventually go to bed, it takes a positive age to go off to sleep.

And so it was last night. It was well-gone midnight before I went to bed, and then I was tossing and turning around for quite some considerable time.

Mind you, once the alarm went off I was pretty much wide awake, although it did take some considerable time for me to leave my stinking pit.

After breakfast, I sat down and set to work.

First job was to go through a mountain of photos. The other laptop that I had been using was struggling to cope because the quality of the screen and the graphics card was not up to much and I couldn’t see properly what I was doing. And it’s a whole wide world of difference with the graphics card in this computer and the new IPS screen.

Second thing, that took all of the morning and quite a bit of the afternoon was to download a huge load of *.zip and *.rar files for the accessories for the 3D program that I use.

Luckily, I’d bookmarked most of them so I could track them down fairly quickly. Although downloading them and unpacking them took all of the time. And it’s amazing how much I had forgotten that I had.

Cheese and salad butties for lunch. I’ve finished off the hummus and there’s some cheese opened from when I was in Belgium last week. One of these days I’ll make some more, and have a mega-cook-in too because I have some puff pastry that needs using. I fancy an leek and potato pie, and I might even put some tofu in it too – except that I don’t have any.

storm port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThere was a terrific wind blowing this afternoon. Not as much as yesterday morning though but impressive all the same.

We had a really impressive array of waves smashing onto the harbour wall.

The power of the sea is really astonishing and if only people would put more effort into harnessing it, the world’s energy problem would be solved without any difficulties.

agon coutainville hauteville sur mer granville manche normandy franceIt was a beautiful day for photography too.

The air was quite clear and you could see for miles down the coast. Montmartin-sur-Mer and the Sienne estuary stood out really clearly today so I took a few photos.

I cropped and enlarged a few selections and you can see them below.

Tea tonight was vegan sausages and vegetables, all covered in vegan cheese sauce. It was delicious. Especially when followed by pineapple and coconut-flavoured soya cream.

st helier jersey granville manche normandy franceThis evening’s walk around the walls was really nice.

The wind had dropped, it was warmer than it ought to be this time of the year and the sky on the horizon was quite clear. The lights of Jersey stood out quite clearly.

The way things are going, I’m going to have to buy a better camera with a more responsive ISO as well as a decent attachment for the tripod.

trees night place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceBut even so, the Nikon D5000 can still bring out some really good photographs in the right lighting conditions.

Now that they have installed some illumination in the Place Maurice Marland it’s producing some really nice effects.

I shall have to do some more of this when I have the time.

cable fibre optic granville manche normandy franceThe fibre-optic cable works are continuing.

We saw them the other day digging a hole on the corner of the rue Notre Dame and the rue de l’Auditoire. Now, they have put an inspection hatch in there, ready for the cabling.

While I was out there I nearly flattened another pedestrian, and I also met a new cat, a youngish short-haired black one that I had never seen before. And talking to the cat made me realise that I haven’t spoken to a single person today.

And in other news, there are reports coming in that British travellers arriving at Dusseldorf Airport from the UK were pushed into the “non-EU” lane.

Things are beginning to bite, and we aren’t even at B-Day yet.

agon coutainville granville manche normandy france
agon coutainville granville manche normandy france

hauteville sur mer granville manche normandy france
hauteville sur mer granville manche normandy france

st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france
st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

storm port de granville harbour manche normandy france
storm port de granville harbour manche normandy france

storm port de granville harbour manche normandy france
storm port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawlers fishing night granville manche normandy france
trawlers fishing night granville manche normandy france

medieval city walls granville manche normandy france
medieval city walls granville manche normandy france

trees night place maurice marland granville manche normandy france
trees night place maurice marland granville manche normandy france

Sunday 27th January 2019 – NOW THAT’S …

… more like it.

No alarm this morning. And when I finally did awaken it was a gorgeous, beautiful 10:15. And when I finally did rise up from my stinking pit, it was an even better 10:40. Now why can’t I do this every Sunday when I don’t have to catch a train?

There was plenty of time to go on my travels too. Last night I was once more upon the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. There was a musician playing the guitar and singing and at some point he had invited me to join in. But when we reached the point where I should have joined in, someone else from the back of the room took up the part. And that upset me somewhat. It was something similar to the scene in The Gendarme At St Tropez when, on his way to choir practice, Louis de Funès arrests a burglar. A little later I had to go to the restaurant and take with me a crate of stuff, including half a dozen bottles. But I was so weak that it was a struggle to carry it, and when I found that it wasn’t needed and had to take it back, I couldn’t move. I had to put it on the floor and drag it, but that was even more difficult.

With a very late breakfast, I didn’t bother with lunch. Just a few pieces of fruit and a slice of my Christmas cake. It’s even better as it matures, although there is a limit.

But with it being Sunday, I had a very lazy day and didn’t do too much at all. I downloaded a program from the internet and had a play around with it, but it doesn’t work as well as I would like.

I also resurrected an ancient program from about 10 years ago to give that another go, but there seems to be an issue with that. Mind you, it’s been transformed through several operating systems and several computers so it’s probably not compatible with new technology and there’s probably been an upgrade along the way.

I eschewed my afternoon walk today. The wind was howling around outside like nobody’s business. It didn’t look very good at all.

night sea plat gousset granville manche normandy franceThis evening though, when I went out for my evening walk after a delicious vegan pizza, the wind had died down somewhat.

It was now a mere hurricane strength, but because the tide was so far out, there were no impressive waves crashing down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset.

Had I been out this afternoon I might have had some kind of impressive view. But as Kenneth Williams once famously said, “I’m not getting wet for a load of bleeding birds”.

Minette the black cat was out there tonight on her windowledge. And believe it or not, that’s the only person to whom I’ve spoken today.

So tomorrow, back to work. there’s a lot to do and I keep on putting it off.

night sea plat gousset granville manche normandy france
night sea plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 26th January 2019 – THAT FOOTBALL MATCH …

… was something of a damp squib.

In many more ways than one too. It’s difficult to play football in a quagmire in a torrential downpour. In front of a crowd that could easily have been 2500 people, the players battled away without the fire and passion that I was expecting. But as I said, any fire that might have been out there would have been rapidly extinguished in the cloudburst.

Bangor came out of the blocks by far the quickest but they didn’t really look that dangerous up front. They had only really one dramatic moment when they could have scored, although they did put one in the net from a glancing deflection during a corner.

But their players didn’t have any kind of impressive appearance. They looked like the kind of player that you would see on the public park on a Sunday morning. Caernarfon’s players however looked like athletes. Their first goal was a typical Jamie Breese bruising battling run through a couple of powder-puff defensive tackles. Although Bangor equalised as I mentioned just now, Caernarfon scored a second with a good header from one of their defenders.

That was probably the correct result.

Last night I was at a girls football match in the USA. One of the attackers on one side was a lanky Métisse with a big afro haircut. She was substituted at one point in the match and left the field. A little later her team was attacking the opposing goal and in a good position when there was a commotion on the touchlines. The girl who had been substituted was arguing with someone and had broken a drinking glass to use as a weapon. This horrified everyone on the field and the match stopped. The girl with the ball ran off the field towards the other girl, brandishing a knife. When the second girl saw the first girl running towards her brandishing the knife, she took to her heels and ran away out of the ground. And it transpired that the girl was actually holding a beaker with a silicone pastry spatula in it.

That took me up to about 05:40 – a sleep of about 4.5 hours, and although the alarm went off at 06:00, it was rather more like 07:30 when I left my stinking pit. Straight after breakfast I hit the streets to do the shopping early.

LIDL had nothing special, and neither did LeClerc (although I forgot my pains au chocolat) but at NOZ they finally came up with the right spare sheet, and also a book on Normandy in the 12th, 13th and 14 Centuries.

There was plenty of time for me to catch up with some work before lunch, but it’s taking it out of me right now so I made a coffee and had a rest for a while.

After lunch, I started to work and managed to put three days’ worth of blog posts on line.

donville les bains granville manche normandy franceAnd then I went out and braved the hurricane for a walk in the twilight.

It was actually quite a beautiful evening as far as photography goes. The coastline right down past the old walled town as far as Donville-les-Bains was quite clear.

It came out really well in this photograph.

st malo cancale granville manche normandy franceThat prompted me to go down to the end of the Pointe du Roc and see what I could do down there.

The sky was still fairly light over by Cancale and St Malo and the the street lights stood out really well along the dark coastline.

Cancale, to the left of the photo, is all of 30 kilometres away. And it’s all come out very clearly, especially as it was a hand-held shot.

There was time to finally unpack the shopping, and tea out of a tin before the football.

No alarm tomorrow, because it’s Sunday. Hopefully I can have a lie-in for a change. I missed my Sunday lie-in last week.

cancale granville manche normandy france
cancale granville manche normandy france

st malo cancale granville manche normandy france
st malo cancale granville manche normandy france

Friday 25th January 2019 – IT WASN’T QUITE …

… the early night that I was expecting.

I’m not quite sure what happened but it was certainly later than midnight when I went to bed. And even later when I went to sleep.

What was even more surprising was that I was up and about reasonably early too, not too long after the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too. Back on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I’m not now sure why. Although it has been in my thoughts just recently and on my live ship navigation feed, I noticed before going to bed that she’s currently in the Antarctic moored to an ice-floe about 300 yards offshore.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a change of clothes and a general clean-up. I need to look my best for I have things to do. These included tracking down Brigitte my neighbour. And I was extremely lucky in that I caught her just as she was on the point of going out.

Nevertheless she devoted 15 minutes to countersigning my passport application. It’s quite handy having a former Civil Servant in the building who can actually remember me from the past. As I have said before … “and you will say again” – ed … it’s a small world, and it’s getting smaller all the time.

I collected up all of the papers and headed off into town. I posted off the form to declare that I had lost my original, and then went into the Post Office to send off the application registered post, recorded delivery with receipt – all of that. I’ve no idea how long it might take to replace my passport but the way things are as they are, I imagine that this 6-week time limit is going to be considerably under pressure.

Picking up a baguette I headed for home, only to bump into Brigitte again. Every labour deserves its reward so I invited her for a coffee. This was at about 11:30. We had a chat too and much to my surprise it was 13:47 by the time we moved off. I’ll have to take my bed with me next time.

After a rather late lunch I started to catch up with the paperwork, with a brief interruption for a walk around the headland in the rain.

Back here I started to carry on but by 17:15 I was flat out on the bed and asleep. And I would probably still be there now had I not had another severe attack of cramp. But I wasn’t in the mood for any tea, but made a quick plate of pasta and veg.

night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy franceThe rain had gone this evening but the wind was blowing quite strongly.

With the tide being in, the waves were crashing up over the promenade again at the Plat Gousset. It was altogether quite an impressive sight.

And on the way back I nearly collided with a young girl walking the other way who loomed up out of the darkness around the corner.

Back round in the rue Notre Dame I met up with Minette the black cat who seems to have forgiven me for whatever I did to her because she let me stroke her.

Shopping tomorrow so I might have an early night. No football in the evening either except on the internet where the biggest match this century will take place. Bangor City and Caernarfon Town are separated by about 13 miles and so hate each other with a passion. Caernarfon have always been the underdogs but were promoted to the Welsh Premier League last season finally to meet Bangor, only to find that Bangor were expelled for financial irregularities. They meet up in the Welsh Cup tomorrow at Bangor and Caernarfon’s allocation of 1300 tickets was sold out ages ago.

This is going to be a corker.

night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france
night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france

night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france
night storm plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Thursday 24th January 2019 – THAT WAS A …

… delicious tea tonight.

Potatoes, peas, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Some vegan sausages that I bought, all nicely covered in a thick, creamy cheese sauce with pepper and tarragon. It was one of the best meals that I’ve eaten for quite some considerable time.

And I deserved it too, because I’ve had a difficult day today.

I mentioned last night that I crashed out at about 18:30 or so. And despite my saying that I would be up and about fairly soon to carry on, that was that until about 01:00.

And by 01:30 I was so wide awake that I arose and started to sift through the files on the portable laptop I was awake enough to do that but not enough to catch up with the outstanding work. That took me up until about 05:00 when I retired for a second time.

Some time during one of my periods of sleep I had been on my travels. I was back in the Auvergne last night in my filthy, rat-infested hovel trying in vain to bring some kind of order out of chaos and not knowing where to start. I was distracted however by a couple of vehicles driving along the path outside my house so I looked out of a window (that I don’t have) to see a black people-carrier type of vehicle driving there. I went outside to find that my house wasn’t where it should be but somewhere up on the main road by Montcocu and at the side of my house was a small airfield. I ended up chatting to someone and the name of a former schoolfriend came out in the conversation. Apparently things weren’t going too well with him. But as we were chatting I noticed some concrete hardstanding at the side of the house to the rear, and I wondered why the thought of not putting a caravan on there hadn’t occurred to me in the past.

After all of my exertions yesterday, 09:30 was much more like a decent time to leave my bed. A very late breakfast automatically followed.

First task was to have another quick look around for my passport. I’d thought of one or more places that might be possible. But no luck, as I was expected. That led me up to the unpacking and the putting-away of the items from my new rucksack. And that worked quite well, and will be even better when all of the pockets and zips are broken in.

Lunch was late. There was still some hummus left and that went down nicely on my bread.

First thing to do in the afternoon was to print off the form to report my passport as lost or stolen. No sense in leaving it because there is going to be a time limit on this, what with one thing or another. Luckily, I had all the details to hand. Long and bitter experience has taught me to scan all of my important documents and keep them as image files. All of the details are there and there are even things that you can print if necessary.

When I went for my afternoon walk, it was raining outside. Not enough to soak me but enough to make me want to complete my circuit quickly. There wasn’t anything that I could see, with a heavy mist hanging over the sea.

Back here this afternoon I had to reapply for my new passport. The original application had timed out. And sure enough, the form needs to be countersigned by a professional person. Why they don’t tell you that before you print off the form I really don’t know, because had I known I could have done this and taken it to the hospital for countersigning. Now, I’ll have to find someone else.

Rosemary rang up later and we had another mega-chat. She’s doing well after her medical visit the other day and that’s good news. She was quite cheerful too and that’s always pleasant to hear. I told her about a few of my future plans because, you can be assured, that I always have plans running around in my head.

The weather had cleared up this evening and it was quite nice outside; But there was no-one about at all. I seem to be the only nocturnal rambler around here.

So I’ll try for an early night and a decent sleep tonight. I need to get myself into gear and push on with my projects.