Tag Archives: lie in

Monday 5th November 2018 – IT ALL WENT …

… rather haywire today.

The alarms at 06:00, 06:10 and 06:20 all went off. I know because I heard them and even switched them off. But it was more like 08:15 when I finally brought myself round well enough to crawl out of the stinking pit.

The fact that I had been on a voyage during the night is neither here nor there – and I won’t tell you about it because you are probably all eating your tea right now.

So a late start means a late breakfast of course. And a pile of things that I meant to do were rather shunted aside for now. The most important – a form that I must complete – I made a good start on it and it won’t take long to finish off.

Another thing that I carried on with is the project that involves a huge mound of photos going back to Time Immemorial. I’ve been gradually working my way through these here and there, and another huge pile have been classed as irrelevant and filed under CS

A session on the bass too. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good play around.

Lunchtime was indoors today. Autumn has definitely arrived and it’s no longer pleasant to sit outside. That’s how it’s going to be until the end of March, I reckon.

The High Arctic too. I’ve been pushing along with that too. And I’ve reworked two of the pages that I’ve been doing. The order runs better like this, but that’s not to say that it won’t be changed again in due course before it’s published.

What with one thing and another (and once you make a start you’ll ne surprised at how many other things there are) I was late going out for my afternoon walk today

But just in time to notice, away in the distance, a huge ship sailing … “dieseling” – ed … along out in the English Channel.

A little bit of crop, enlarge and enhance will be able to bring it out.

But in the meantime, there are a few things much closer to home that need attention.

Like the beach at the Pointe du Roc for example. I don’t recall having seen it properly from this angle before.

It looks very inviting but there’s no way down to it right now.

And out just off the coast is this little yacht.

I was going to say something about it sailing along in the breeze but if you notice carefully, there are no sails hoisted. So he’s dieseling along too.

It beats the purpose of having a yacht if you ask me – especially with all of this wind that we have around here.

Talking of the wind, we were having another windy day again today. It’s a mystery that our intrepid yachtsman isn’t taking advantage of it.

And the wind was pushing the tide well in. The tidal co-efficient isn’t very high today, but you would never have thought so with looking at this.

And it’s not high tide for another hour or so either.

The crowds down there on the Plat Gousset were certainly enjoying the weather this afternoon.

I cropped out a bit of the previous photograph and blew it up (which I can do these days despite modern anti-terrorist legislation) and you can see how powerful the winds are today.

Quite a few of those people will be having an unexpected shower if they aren’t careful.

Round the corner in the harbour we were having a couple of interesting shops to see.

I know the sailing ship that is there, but as usual these days I can’t remember her name. I’m going to have to prepare some kind of database of ships here so that I can bring them to my fingertips.

And I was admiring the paint job on the trawler too. We all know that the vital statistics of a mermaid are 36-24-£3:60 per kilo.

Bearing in mind the maritime traffic that I had seen earlier, I decided to change the habits of a lifetime.

And so I continued my walk by incorporating a promenade down to the end of the road and around the headland.

And found a suitable place to couple up the zoom/telephoto lens

I took several photos of the ship and cropped out the interesting bits.

Back here, I blew them up and enlarged them, because despite … “you said that just now” – ed.

And if you are wondering about the poor quality of the images just let me mention that the photos were taken of the ship as it sailed into the entrance road to the harbour at St Malo down the Brittany coast.

And that’s 38 kms – 22 miles – away, so you can’t really complain about the quality of the image at all

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Ship of the Day, so let’s all say hello to Pont Aven, the flagship of the Brittany Ferries fleet.

She’s on her way into St Malo with the afternoon ferry from Portsmouth. Mind you, last week she was seen in Cobh in Ireland and also Santander in Spain, so she gets about a bit

This view of Pont Aven is cropped out and enlarged 200%, and while you admire it, I’ll tell you a little about her.

Built by Meyers in Germany, she displaces about 41,000 tonnes, was launched in 2004 and is powered by FOUR Caterpillar 12-cylinder engines.

185 metres long and 32 metres wide, she has a capacity of 650 cars and 2,400 passengers.

While I had the zoom/telephoto lens on the camera I took another photo of the Plat Gousset from the headland at the Pointe du Roc.

The wind seems to have died down during the half-hour or so that it had taken me to walk all the way down here.

No waves splashing up over the promenade soaking the passers-by right now. In fact, there are considerably fewer passers-by out there now.

From this viewpoint there’s a really good view of the beach at Donville-les-Bains too, including that building where I saw that depressing apartment 18 months ago.

The houses on the clifftop just there look quite interesting too. I wouldn’t mind trying to rent a room in one of those, as long as it overlooks the sea.

Back here, I encountered a neighbour and we had a good chat for a while. And then I came in here and finished off the grapes from Saturday.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and rice – and beautiful it was too. And then a walk around the headland in the dark.

Now I’m going to try to have an early night. And maybe I’ll be up in time to do some work tomorrow.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… evening today.

And what first drew my attention to it was the sunlight reflecting off the windows at Agon-Coutainville, about 30 kilometres away across the bay.

And this photo was taken with the 18-105mm lens, and hand-held too. It’s not come out too badly either. And in case you are wondering, the Nikon D3000 camera.

Here’s a similar photo taken at lunchtime with the Nikon D3000 and the 70-300mm zoom\telephoto lens.

After its exertions last night when the storm whipped the set-up off the concrete bunker, I gave it a good going-over this morning to see what the damage might be.

And much to my surprise, not only is there no visible damage, everything seems to work just as it is supposed to. It must be more robust than I was expecting – and certainly more robust than the old Nikon D5000.

So while you admire a few more cropped and enlarged photos of the coast out past Agon-Coutainville (and if you think that they are blurred, they are cropped and enlarged segments out of a photo taken at a distance of 30kms), I can tell you a little about the morning.

Once again, the body clock works in spades as there I was, wide awake at 05:59 precisely (because I checked). One minute before the alarm was due to go off.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I’d decided to have an extended break (to reimburse myself for my early Sunday), turned over and went back to sleep.

10:25 is a much more respectable time to haul myself out of the stinking pit.

And a breakfast at 11:15 is a very bourgeois way of starting the day in a relaxed and leisurely fashion.

All of this sleep had given me plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble or two. And much to my surprise I could remember quite a lot of it, although I’m sure that there was so much more to be going on with.

First off, I’d been on my holidays again and we had had a delay, just like when we were off to the Arctic. There were 50 of us and we were being taken around to some temporary accommodation that had been found for us. And it ended up that we were being lodged in different log cabin or garden sheds, depending upon the class of accommodation that we had booked on the holiday. I trailed along behind everyone else who was given some higher-class cabins and ended up in a cheap garden shed. Seeing as it was in a warehouse it wasn’t too bad and I wasn’t too disappointed.
This bore quite a resemblance to a conversation that I had the other night with Alison, as well as another reminiscence about my legendary trip to the Far North.
Later on, I was doing my Sherlock Holmes impressions back in Victorian times, with my sidekick and a police inspector. We were trying to work out how someone had been shot and murdered in a house where the only other occupant of the house was visibly not involved with anything. It was a house in some kind of upmarket terrace with front gardens with brick walls and gateposts with ornamental pillars. It suddenly occurred to me how it happened and I went off to rig up a system to prove my point. A shotgun wired to the door with a time delay worked by a set of pulleys would blast anyone coming through the doorway a couple of seconds after opening the front door.
And sometime during the night Nerina put in an appearance. It’s a long time since she’s come to visit me, isn’t it?

And while you admire the photo of the beach at Donville-les-Bains and the miserable place where I looked at an apartment, then this morning (or what was left of it) I attacked a few more of the outstanding photographs.

This marathon session, which took me almost right up until tea-time (with a few interruptions) means that I’m now up to date as far back as a week ago.

You can see the efforts by going here and working forward.

With having had a late start this morning, I ended up having a rather late lunch.

And it was such a beautiful afternoon that I made my butties and went out to sit on my wall overlooking the harbour.

No lizards unfortunately – I think that they have gone into hibernation – but there were lots of other things about.

One of the Ile de Chausey ferries was leaving harbour and heading off out to sea.

Not to the island by the look of things, but probably a five-bob trip around the bay for sightseers – unless it’s a private charter because it didn’t seem to be going along any route that I recognised.

But this was when I tried out the zoom/telephoto lens to check that it was working. That’s miles out into the bay near Jullouville

I had a few more goes with the zoom/telephoto lens to make sure that it wasn’t just a one-off success.

Thats the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais with the climb up to the Roche Gauthier and the blocks of flats up on the skyline.

There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with this photograph

And to underline everything, round on the other side of the Pointe du Roc, the weather was even clearer.

Jersey stood out clearer than I have ever seen it and so I took a photo of the island with the zoom/telephone lens.

Hand-held again – no tripod. And I cropped out a couple of small sections of the photos and enlarged them to see what kind of results they would give.

And if you remember from the other day when I took a few photographs of St Helier and enlarged them, then if anything these today have come out even better than those previously.

St Helier has certainly come out more clearly and more distinctly than it ever has done before.

And in case you have forgotten, that’s about 54 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

Ingrid rang me up this afternoon and we had quite a lengthy chat. So much so that it was rather late when I went for my afternoon walk.

At lunchtime someone had asked me the directions to an exhibition on the Granville soldiers in World War I

I didn’t know where it was but I made a few unofficial enquiries and managed to track it down – in the public rooms at the back here.

And one of the things that impressed me – or should I say “depressed” me was the fact while there were those who were honoured as being tué à l’ennemie, those who died of illness or disease in the army were treated less honourably, and those who were taken prisoner were treated little better than deserters.

One prisoner who escaped and made his way back to his unit via the Netherlands and the UK was treated as a spy or collaborator.

By now, it was quite late, and as I went outside I noticed the crowds gazing out to sea in the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

We were having yet another beautiful sunset this evening. The good day was drawing to a perfect climax. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had such a nice evening.

Apart from that, there wasn’t much else going on and I completed my walk without any further interruption.

Tea was a vegan burger with vegetables, and then I went off for a walk around the headland.

And what a beautiful evening it was too. Not a cloud in the sky, but thousands of stars clearly visible. Just like back in the Auvergne.

So I’ll leave you with a few more photos. I’m off to bed.

One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey

Canoeing in the sea off the Pointe du Roc

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo showing Breville sur Mer

A bit more of a beautiful sunset

Thursday 1st November 2018 – I NEVER LIKED …

… the Nikon D3000 anyway.

And I bet that I’ll like it even less tomorrow when I have a close look at it.

It was a beautiful night tonight and I could see Jersey and St Malo quite clearly in the distance across the sea with a storm blowing away in the distance. Even the lights of the wind farm 70kms away beyond Barneville-Carteret could be seen in the distance.

I took quite a few photos of Jersey in the storm, none of which worked as well as I would like. Trying to take a photo on a tripod in the pitch black in a gale in the windiest part of France is not easy

The best of a pretty poor bunch was this one taken with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

As you might expect there was far too much vibration with the 70-300mm lens and even with the 18-105mm lens with a long exposure time of 3 seconds.

But the lights of St Helier, 54 kilometres away, and the reflection of the street lights of Jersey off the clouds in the sky have come out really well given the circumstances.

And I reckon that once I get the hang of working the tripod in the dark, I might be able to get the photos to come out even better.

It’s all trial and error at the moment – plenty of trial and even more error.

And then I moved on down the coast to the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And there I was, standing on top of one of the concrete bunkers taking a few photos of everywhere in the clear light of the night, when a sudden strong gust of wind, something like the one that blew down the Tay Bridge in 1879, blew the tripod off the top of the bunker and right down to the ground, with the camera and the new 70-300 mm zoom/telephoto lens attached.

At that moment I was in the process of taking a long exposure of St Malo too. I suppose that that will come out in a very interesting fashion.

With no alarm I did my best to have a nice long sleep but it didn’t quite work out like that. I was awake early enough but despite everything I wouldn’t haul myself out of my stinking pit at that kind of time. 09:00 was much more like it.

While I was asleep though I’d been out on my travels. Driving an artic somewhere which was actually parked up in a lay-by where there was another lorry blocking me off. As I clambered into my lorry the other driver reversed his lorry so that I could leave the lay-by. A short while later I was walking down a footpath towards a lorry park on the motorway and was accompanied by another lorry driver. I told him that I was happy to go on my own but he insisted on accompanying me. Apparently there had been an “incident” and several people had been injured. And there were some of the drivers who thought that I was at fault.

After a rather late breakfast I had a lounge around for a while and then made a start on the photos from Belgium. And there were quite a few too.

For lunch I had my usual butties but I ate them inside. It’s definitely autumn outside and going cold now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos and had a few other things to do too, including some tidying up. And I managed a day without crashing out too, which is a little bit better.

Two walks too. There was the evening walk around the headland – where I had my camera incident, and also the afternoon walk around the walls.

The lighting conditions were perfect this afternoon and there was a good view of the coast.

Donville-les-Bains has come out really well, including the old hotel where I went to see that ruin of a apartment not long after I first came to Granville.

A bit too windy for the birdmen today though. There weren’t any of them out and about.

I cropped out a couple of sections of the photo of the beach and enlarged them.

As well as the old hotel at Donville-les-Bains and all of the beach cabins out there, you can see the spire of the church in the distance.

That might well be the church of Bréville-sur-Mer.

This section was cropped from the extreme left-hand edge of the photo and enlarged by about 25%.

There’s the camp site that we have seen before, and another church spire away in the distance.

That is very likely the church in Brehal and we’ve seen a much better photo of that in the past when we were experimenting with the older zoom/telephoto lens.

There weren’t any people out and about on the beach either.

You can see the waves crashing down onto the sand and the whitecaps will tell you that there was quite a wind blowing them ashore.

A few people on the promenade though braving the inclement weather.

Tea was a slice of pie that was left over from when Alison was here, with spuds and peas and carrots too.

So tomorrow I’ll check over the camera and see what the damage is. I might even switch the heating on too. I actually had the halogen heater on for an hour or so to warm up the office this afternoon.

It’s that kind of time.

Tuesday 30th October 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… the early night for which I was hoping last night.

Just as I was planning to go off to bed, onto the radio came one of the “Saint” radio programmes. Not the 1950s Vincent Price offerings, but the much-more-modern hour-long Paul Rhys offerings.

Apart from the fact that the scripts are much more exciting and much more realistic than the TV series and the Vincent Price programmes, the voice of Paul Rhys is quite hypnotic and he has a marvellous way of building up the tension. I can’t go to bed when he starts up. I have to stay until the end.

No idea if the body-clock worked last night. It might have done but I was in no mood to look at the time anywhere. I’d switched off the telephone and was intending to sleep until I awoke. I reckoned that I needed it.

It was about 08:50 when I awoke. And even then, I just stayed flat-out until about 11:00. There’s nothing like having a nice breakfast at something like 11:30 is there?

By now though it was raining and so I had a rather damp walk down to the bus station. And here I found that I have forgotten my bus tickets too so I had to buy another 10-trip ticket. I’ll have quite a collection of these before I finish.

I didn’t have to wait too long for the bus – in fact, a matter of seconds. It took me longer to remember where I had put the bus ticket that I had just purchased.

And here’s a sticker that signifies the end of the western world, at least as far as Belgium is concerned. From now on, you are no longer allowed to bring your fritjes on board Belgian buses.

It’s another nail in the coffin of the traditional Belgian lifestyle. No longer do fritjes overcome everything.

There are roadworks in Everberg so the bus went a different way than usual. As a consequence I missed my stop and had a rather wet walk through the Flemish countryside to the English Shop.

The bad news here is that they are no longer stocking the cheap Waitrose Christmas produces, like mince pies and Christmas pudding. All that they are carrying this year is the more expensive stuff with all kinds of stuff that I can’t eat. Even the “Free From” mince pies have egg in them. So that’s ruled all of that out then, hasn’t it?

They only had two tubs of gravy browning too and that’s not really helpful either. I’ll get through those in no time flat.

It was something of a wet, weary trudge to the bus stop with all of the roadworks. And although I was on time, the bus wasn’t and I had to wait 10 minutes in the pouring rain.

Back at Leuven I nipped into the supermarket at the back of the station for a baguette and a tomato to take back to my room for a rather late lunch. I had some salad left from yesterday and some vegan cheese from The Loving Hut, as well as some fruit left over from my travels.

And then, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out yet again on the bed.

Later on, I was back out again to meet Alison.

We went to the Greenway Thai Restaurant in Parijsstraat where we both had a very nice coconut curry, although apparently not as nice as the one that Alison had had last time that we were there.

There was no hurry this evening so we stayed around for quite some time and had a good chat about this and that.

We followed that with a coffee by the fire in the bar at the Kloosters Hotel around the corner and then she drove me home.

With having an early start tomorrow, I did a quick lap round the room and did some of the packing, and now I’m off to bed. There’s a long way to go tomorrow and I can’t afford to hang around.

So I’ll leave you with a few photos of the evening just to show that the Nikon 1 can do it when it really wants to. Unfortunately, it’s not usually when I want it to or when it needs to.

The Tiensestraat in Leuven

The Muntstraat in Leuven

The Tiensestraat in Leuven again

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Fourth Hotel in the background.

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Town Hall in the background

The Martelarenplein in Leuven

Friday 26th October 2018 – IT WAS HARD …

… this morning to get out of bed and I ended up with something of an unexpected lie-in.

And so it was something of a rather late breakfast this morning, what with one thing and another.

This led to a nice walk up town to collect my railway tickets. And it was a good job that I was somewhat later than planned because the ticket machine wasn’t working and I had to go to the booking office. It’s a good job that I hadn’t waited until Sunday to do this.

Round the corner and down the road to join the Madding Crowd at the Hotel des Impôts. And afer a rather long wait in the queue I was handed a form by a Civil Servant who smiled and wished me luck. I was rather taken aback by that.

On the way back I remembered the lettuce and I bought myself a baguette too so as to have a nice lunch. And for that, I went out onto the wall but I was only there for five minutes. It was bright and sunny, but there was a cold, biting wind and that drove me back to my apartment.

The day has been spent in editing the photos from yesterday, but also attacking a huge project that I started the other day on the other laptop. That’s taken me most of the day, and I’ve made a load of rapid progress there. I’m pleased with that.

I also spent some time on the Arctic pages too, but not as much as I would like.

The walk this afternoon around the walls was freezing. The wind has increased in volume and it was quite uncomfortable.

But at least the skies were clear and there was a really good view out to see and Jersey was quite clear.

And so I attacked the island with the new 70-300mm zoom/telephoto lens to see what I can see.

I blew up (because I can do this despite modern anti-terrorism legislation) the photo and cropped out and enlarged a few selections from the images

Very blurred and very shaky of course, but considering that we are looking at something 55 kms away and there’s a strong wind blowing, it’s not really come out too badly.

To do much better than this I’ll have to invest a lot more money than I can afford into my equipment.

But never mind the view out to sea. The view out along the coast past Donville-les-Bains all the way down to Agon-Coutainville was beautiful too.

This was taken using the 18-105mm lens with a focal length of 25mm so it’s something of a wide-angle shot.

It’s brought out the scenery and the colours, and you can tell the strength of the wind from the whitecaps on the waves breaking on the beach.

A short while ago I posted a photo of some men on a cherry-picker drilling away into the wall of a house on the rue du Nord.

It’s far too windy for them to be working up there today so I could see what they were doing.

It looks as if they are going to replace the lintel over the window there, although I can’t think why.

Here’s something that I have never noticed before.

On the corner of the rue Paul Poirier and the rue Etoupefour is a building with “Residence des Granvillaises” cast thereupon. It’s not very easy to see this from street-level

Apparently it’s some kind of holiday accommodation, but it’s probably well out of my price range and out of the range of most people who might want to visit me.

Tea tonight was the rest of the crèpes with salad. Just as delicious as it was before.

And there was no walk this evening either for we had football. Llandudno v Cefn Druids in the Welsh Premier League.

Two clubs scrapping it out in the basement and the first half was pretty dismal. It livened up after the inteval and the last half-hour was quite good. The Druids were the better-organised team but Llandudno looked the more dangerous going forward.

But with both sides being totally incapable of hitting the nether regions of a ruminant animal with a stringed musical instrument, a 0-0 draw was no surprise.

There are four clubs slowly coming adrift at the foot of the table – Llanelli, Carmarthen, Cefn Druids and Llandudno and it’s clear to see why these two are down there at the bottom. There is no-one pulling the strings and there is no-one providing the service to the forwards. Rittenberg for the Druids looked quite dangerous when someone gave him the ball – which wasn’t all that often.

So no walk – the howling wind and now the rainstorm is enough to keep me in the house tonight. I’ll have an early night instead.

Tuesday 16th October 2018 – THIS MORNING …

… didn’t turn out like it was supposed to. The alarms went off as usual and I switched them off as usual, but it was actually 07:34 when I awoke. That’s not going to do me much good, although it’s probably true to say that I needed the sleep.

And I took full advantage of it to go off on a decent nocturnal ramble too. Not into the High Arctic (just by way of a change) but to Eastern Austria and the ski slopes (and not the usual nocturnal ski slopes either). In company (which is not like me, as regual readers of this rubbish will recall) with two other people – a friend from Germany (who makes his debut in a nocturnal ramble) and a girl who, should we say, I would have been more than happy to have had as my companion 40 years ago, and why she should suddenly appear like this I really have no idea at all because we were extremely friendly during this voyage. In fact, the whole set-up last night bore some kind of resemblance to a voyage that I had once made round round about that period 40 years ago. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … we’d all been skiing in Austria, dining across the border in Hungary, all of that kind of thing, and now we were on our way back. We stopped off somewhere and there was a former friend of mine from Stoke on Trent and a girl who used to move about in his circle of friends and whom I didn’t really like all that much (it’s just like the Gathering Of The Clans, isn’t it?). I was telling them about my trip (with a few embellishments of course to make it sound even better) and they were complaining about things with them and how they wished that they had been lucky enough to have come along. I replied by saying that the opportunity was there – I had asked if anyone wanted to come and I’d found a couple of volunteers, and we’d all had an excellent time. And if they hadn’t wanted to come then that was their problem and I didn’t want to hear about it.

This does actually bear out some parallels with how things are in real life. I have managed to cram into my life quite a lot of excitement and adventure and people quite often come up to me and tell me how lucky I am and how they wish that they could do it.

And how all of that makes me sick.

I’ve never ever done anything else in my life that no-one else couldn’t have done had they wanted. I used at one time to invite people to come along if they liked but I have long-since abandoned that idea because no-one ever wanted to (except of course the much-maligned Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages half as often as she deserves). They would always find some good reason why not to do something. It might be money (yet they could find the money to go to the pub or buy a new toy or to eat out every weekend) or it might be health (yet I’m slowly dying but I’m still rolling along as best I can) but whatever it is, they’ll find an excuse not to go anywhere.

And then they complain about it.

It’s all down to this though. It’s all about what you consider your priorities in life to be, and what you are prepared to sacrifice in life to get to where you want to go. Some people have their priorities all wrong, and aren’t prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

So abandoning another really good rant for the moment I eventually tore myself away from my bed, had my medication and a little later had breakfast.

Once that had digested itself I started to attack last night’s photos. I found a few more that I seemed to have overlooked so while I was at it I dealt with those too.

Following that, I then worked my way backwards through the journal for the last week or so and updated them with the images that are now ready, including last nights photos on yesterday’s entry.

It’s not all complete though because dealing with the 80-odd from Saturday isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’ve rewritten the page for the Ile de Chausey and added a dozen or so photos, and I’ll add the rest tomorrow if I have an opportunity.

That took me nicely up to lunchtime but before I made my sandwiches I had a shower and a change of clothes to make myself look pretty – or, at least, as pretty as I can.

It wasn’t particularly sunny but I took my book and butties outside and sat on the wall to eat them – the butties not the book of course.

And I wasn’t alone either because while there might not have been any lizards about, there was one of the sailing boats that frequents the harbour.

And it shows you how long it is since I’ve been down in the harbour and how good my memory is, but I’ve forgotten its name. I shall have to go down there one day soon for a butcher’s

And that’s not all either.

There was quite a procession of fishing boats and other craft coming in and out of the harbour. And here’s one that I don’t recall seeing at all.

But it goes to show the benefits of having a really good zoom telephoto lens at last. And how I wish … “here we go again” – ed.

But returning to our moutons as they say around here, I didn’t stay out there all that long though. The weather looked as if it might turn round so I came back here instead.

There were a couple of jobs that needed doing this afternoon – involving the photos and so on. They are all backed up now onto the external drive.

And it caused me to have a little smile. When I first started to digitalise my photos 20-odd years ago I could get a whole year onto one CD, with plenty of space to spare. While I was in the Arctic just recently I had a grand total of 27.2GB of images – enough to fill over 40 CDs. How times have changed!

This afternoon I took my walk around the headland amongst a pile of schoolkids doing some kind of map-reading exercise. But apart from that there wasn’t all that much excitement.

But all of the excitement was back here afterwards when I had a little … err … relax for a while.

For tea, I had more steamed vegetables and one of the pasties that I made before I went off to the Arctic.

And how delicious were they? I shall have to make some more.

Outside this evening for my evening walk and I surprised a bunch of kids having a party in a secluded corner. We had an interesting discussion in Franglais yet again.

I also took a few more night-time photos that I’ll add to this entry in the morning. There aren’t quite as many as yesterday’s and the quality might be … errr … different because I was experimenting with the ISO settings and one or two other tricks too.

So I’ll try again for another early night. And this time, I hope that I’ll rise up from the Dead at some kind of reasonable time.

la granvillaise sailing ship port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

More fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The orange lights slightly to the right of centre are actually the street lights of St Helier in Jersey, some 54 kilometres away.

Yet more fishing boats off the coast – with a high ISO setting.

The barracks of the Place d’Armes and part of the city walls can be seen on the left margin.

Donville les Bains – about 6 kms away – with a high ISO setting.

Photo cropped and enlarged.

The roofs of Granville and the lights of St Pair sur Mer, Kairon-Plage and Jullouville away in the distance

rue le Carpentier looking down to the rue Cambernon and the museum.

Rue Notre Dame

The Boulevard Vaufleury, the Upper Car Park and the port;

Fishing boat leaving the harbour in the dark.

Boats in the outer harbour

The Place d’Armes

The rear of the Place d’Armes

The Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs

The Montéé de St Jean

The rue St Jean and the Montee de St Jean

Monday 8th October 2018 – SO MUCH FOR …

… the alarm this morning!

My telephone decided to do an update during the night and as a result it was waiting for me to restart it this morning. At … errr … 08:15 or thereabouts.

And it also took me until 09:00 to leave the bed either. I was making the most of it.

Just by way of a change though I had ended up with an early night. Flat out at 22:30 and Gone With The Wind in an instant.

And, would you believe, just by way of another change, back in the High Arctic. One might say that it’s all left quite an impression on me, mightn’t one?

Now here’s an exciting thing though. It was the final night of our trip before we were all due to break up in the morning. And just for a change we weren’t on the Good Ship Ve… … errr … Ocean Endeavour but somewhere else completely. And I was sharing a room with someone else, something that regulär readers of this rubbish will recall is highly unlikely indeed. This guy was of the “gung ho, full steam ahead” characteristics and he had changed all of the beds and bedding around in our room. My bed was in a different position, all of this kind of thing, and he had done it all in something of rather a strange way. But anyway, to cut a long story short … "Thank God" – ed … like The Knights Of The Round Table we had all been our separate ways, and we all had to meet up to come back to make our final reports the next morning. We were all sitting down in the lounge relaxing and who should come over to me but The Vanilla Queen. And it WAS her too. Not only did it look like her but she talked exactly in the same way with exactly the same accent that she had. She spoke to me too, which is most unlikely, and I couldn’t quite understand what it was that she was saying. So I arose and went over to her (which I wouldn’t normally have done) and asked her to repeat it. She replied “I don’t think that John Shearing needs to know anything about too much, but I want YOU to do the final debriefing and to tell everyone where we had been and what we were doing and all this kind of thing so that they could bring their notes of their holiday all up to date. I want YOU to do it”.
And to be quite honest, I was so amazed by this discussion that I awoke bolt-upright – 23:58 it was – wide awake, totally astonished. I went and tracked down the dictaphone, even managed to change the batteries in it correctly, and dictated the details so that I wouldn’t forget them.

And that wasn’t all the excitement either.

I’ve no idea who is was with whom I was rambling later on last night but she was certainly female and attractive, and she was driving a small car of the Austin 7 variety. We were having to travel somewhere and in order to do so we had to pass through a mountain range. There were two ways to pass through this range and they bifurcated at a small village. So we stopped in this village to fuel up and she tipped into the tank the contents of a metal can. I thought to myself that there wasn’t enough fuel in the can to take us to our destination and the nearest petrol station was a really good walk away. But to my surprise, where we had parked actually had a fuel pump and some woman there put a couple more gallons into the car. We then set off down the left-hand road at this fork and I thought to myself that this is a far quicker way than trekking though the countryside and little paths that I usually took and I wondered why I didn’t know this road. And we eventually turned up at a mountain pass that we have visited on nocturnal rambles on numerous occasions – usually on skiing trips and the like in the middle of winter.

As an aside, I should perhaps remind my readers (both of you) that I have indeed been asked if I am troubled by my nocturnal voyages and some of the situations in which I find myself.
My response was “definitely not. I actually quite enjoy them.”

After breakfast I loitered around for a while, including a session on the bass (because I’m starting to pic it up again after my voyage) and then set down to do some work.

Tidying up in the living room in fact. I need to make this place look much more like a home and make it clean. After a while I do have to say that it looks a little more like it, although there’s always room for improvement.

Next thing was, having been totally dismayed by the rubbishy photos that came out of my voyage to the High Arctic, I bit the bullet and ordered a couple of new lenses for the big Nikon. How I wish that I had done that a month or so before I had set off, rather than three weeks after I had come home.

And after that, I had a little … errr … relax.

TOTGA was on line later and so we had a little chat and then I went off and made my butties. There I was, sitting on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard in the sunlight. It wasn’t warm but it was beautiful all the same.

Afterwards, I went off into town. With the possibility of a visitor arriving in early course, I need to know what activities are available. There’s a good Tourist Info place in town so my afternoon walk was down there to collect some leaflets.

Back here, I attacked some more photos but I couldn’t keep going and at about 17:20 I went ant lay down on the bed.

1:20 I was out for. 18:40 I finally came too and was able to carry on with what I had been doing. And that took me up to tea time.

While I had been going through the freezer I came across a pie that was left over from earlier in the year. So that disappeared into my stomach accompanied by some steamed veg cooked in the electric steamer and gravy.

Outside, i went for my evening walk around the headland, totally alone. Not another soul about anywhere although there were a couple of kids with scooters away on the car park.

Later I had another chat with TOTGA, with Liz and with Josée and then a little more work.

Now it’s bedtime and there will be an alarm tomorrow, I hope. Then it’s back to the grind again.

Saturday 6th October 2018 – I’M BEING SPOILT …

… with exciting and passionate football matches just now.

After the thrills of yesterday, today was US Granvillaise v FC Bastia-Borgo, another club from Corsica.

Kick-off was at 20:00 so I had a quick shower, a shave, a change of clothes and headed off in the driving rain – on foot too – to the Stade Louis Dior.

A tiny crowd, which is hardly surprising given the weather conditions, was treated to quite a spectacle.

The match roared from end to end. Granville had marginally the upper hand because although the midfield wasn’t quite as strong as that of Bastia, the play down the wings was once more excellent.

Driving down the wings, they had the ball in the net (disallowed for an offside) and hit the woodwork a couple of times, but they went into the lead after 20 minutes or so with a low ball driven into the penalty area from the right wing and sidefooted in by the n°8 from 12 yards.

In the second half the match was more even and Bastia had a couple of really excellent chances to score, hitting the woodwork and a lob over the keeper headed off the line. But Granville scored a second – a goal quite similar to the first one.

In the final 5 or so minutes Bastia pushed well forward and looked menacing. But they couldn’t convert the chances that they created. On the other hand they laft huge gaps in the defence and on two occasions, the goalkeeper did really well to deny a Granville attacker in some one-on-one situations.

When the final whistle went we all breathed a sigh of relief. But it as a good win for the team and three hard-earned points.

Last night I had the Sleep Of The Dead and stayed asleep until 11:10 without a single interruption. I’d been on my travels too but as soon as I awoke any memory of where I had been disappeared completely.

After breakfast, in a novel departure (and showing signs that I must be feeling a little better) I attacked the tidying-up and I made a good deal of progress. It now looks almost as if someone lives here rather than a bomb site. Another good day should see it looking just like home.

I had a lengthy chat with Ingrid on the telephone too. We discussed all kinds of things before I had to dash off to watch the match.

On the way home I was soaked to the skin, except where my rain jacket had been. The yellow one that I had bought a few weeks before I went away. That was a good purchase too and I wish that I had worn the overtrousers that I had bought in Montreal.

The fritkot was closed, which was a disappointment. So I came home and to my surprise, I was striding out up the hill just like in the good old days. I must be feeling a little more like it.

With no chips for tea I rustled up a plate of pasta and veg in olive oil. This time, including sprouts because although they had no frozen ones in the supermarket the other day, they did have some fresh ones.

Now I’m off to bed, with no alarm and a good lie in, seeing as it’s Sunday. But there will be an alarm on Monday. I need to get back into the routine.

Monday 24th September 2018 – WINTER IS ACUMEN IN …

… Lhude sing Rudolph.

I woke up this morning … "der der der der DER" – ed … to a heavy frost and a temperature of -2°C. Yes, we are going to be in for a belting winter and no mistake this year.

Frosts and freezing already. I’m not looking forward to it.

And due to some kind of confusion yesterday in the Great Satan, the phone seems to have gone on to New England time so it was an hour later when it went off, and by this time everyone had already left.

So I turned over and went back to sleep for a while, and had pleasant dreams of the High Arctic yet again.

But once I was awake again, I started work.

But not for long.

Darren and George came back. They had to go to Fredericton to pick up an engine, a big-bore Chevy 505 racing engine for a pulling truck. This meant uncoupling the big trailer so seeing as they were struggling I dressed and went to lend a hand.

Once we’d done that, I took the opportunity to leap aboard and we set off south-east, grabbing a coffee on the way past.

And as we were early, we stopped off for a meal. It was a good job that we were early too because it took half an hour for them to prepare our meal. “Something had gone wrong” with the order and I can guess what it was.

We were visiting a guy called George who is apparently the leading North American expert on gas-flowing cylinder heads and I would die to have a garage like his. He’d rebuilt this engine and we had come to pick it up to deliver it.

And if you think that I could talk, you aint heard nuffink yet. We were there for two hours – half an hour to load up and the remaining 90 minutes while he told us “a little story”.

We drove back via the yard where George (our George) picked up his truck, and then we came back here to find that in view of the weather we had run out of heating oil. What a fine time for that to happen.

And it took an age to locate a supplier who actually had a tanker on standby that had fuel in it ready for delivery.

Another thing that I did was to book my bus back to Montreal on Friday night, and a hotel for Saturday night.

And Brain of Britain has done it again, hasn’t he?

Sitting there wondering why hotels were so expensive and in the end booking a cat house even worse than the usual. And then suddenly realising, far too late of course, that the prices quoted are in Canadian Dollars not Euros and hence the difference!

Tea was potatoes, beans and vegan sausage for me and then I called it aday.

It comes to something when something even as simple is this is laying me out on my back.

Tuesday 31st July 2018 – MISSION CONTROL …

… is finally up and running.

This morning I brought up the wooden shelves and the fittings from Caliburn and then had an exciting couple of hours screwing them in place.

Once all of that was organised I then moved everything around to where I wanted it, having to make something on an adjustment to the storage of the LPs because they were too heavy for the shelf supports.

But then, that’s only a temporary thing because I’ll be copying them all onto *.mp3 in due course and then they can be moved on.

But it’s all very impressive, even better than when I had my office at Expo.

When the alarm went off this morning I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave my bed. It was round about 07:30 when I finally sorted myself this morning.

After breakfast I had another session on the European Photo Mountain for a couple of hours and that’s being reduced down to manageable proportions. Still a long way to go though, and I’ll probably be there doing that for several years.

While I was working on the bedroom I had a visitor. My neighbour brought back my pyrex dish from Sunday evening. She had a bit of a look around and gave it all the seal of approval. She loved the wood in the living room, and so do I. That’s why I bought it.

For lunch, I went and sat on the wall with my butties and book, and was joined by one of my lizards.

And that wasn’t all of my companions either. Marité has returned from wherever she went to, and we have the return of Neptune, which I predicted the other day.

They were loading up Neptune with the roadstone and so I went for a walk down there for a closer look.

I had another session on the photos and then went for my afternoon walk.

The tide was right out as you can see. We’ve talked about the diving platform before and you’ve seen it almost submerged at high tide.

But here at low tide, you can see how far out the tide goes. Granville must have one of the highest tidal ranges in Western Europe.

Back here though, I had another disappointment.

There I was, working on the European Photo Mountain and a sudden wave of tiredness came over me. So I went for a lie down on the bed and the next thing that I remember, it was 19:45. I must have been flat out for over three hours.

As a result, I had a hurried tea of pasta and vegetables and then went out for my evening walk.

Gribouille was out there waiting for a stroke, but even more interesting was to see Neptune out there on her travels.

Here she is, silhouetted in the sunset against the Ile de Chausey as she steams … “diesels” – ed … off towards Ridham, a small port near Sittingbourne in Kent.

That’s a new destination for her. Makes a change from Whitstable or Littlehampton.

So I’ll now have an hour or so’s work before I think about going to bed. But whether I’ll sleep of not is another thing. Having had that big sleep this afternoon was really the last thing that I wanted.

But then, it can’t be helped, I suppose. It’s a sign of the times.

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Sunday 29th July 2018 – I DIDN’T PUT …

… my sooty foot out of the building at all today.

And that’s not surprising, and for many reasons too.

Not the least of which being that after the exertions of yesterday I was feeling the strain. And so when I awoke (at 06:00, and on a Sunday too!) I turned over and went back to sleep – something that I would have done anyway even if I hadn’t heard the rain hammering down in the howling gale outside.

08:30 is a much more reasonable time to be up and about on a Sunday. And with a very late breakfast (and I almost forgot my fig bread again) I was ready for almost anything.

And almost anything turned out to be nothing at all. I had a very profitable day dealing with the European Photo Mountain instead.

Lunch was taken inside today, which is no surprise, and then I set to and made a lentil and mushroom whatsit. Odile is having an “at home” tonight and I’ve been invited, so I had to take something with me.

Not like me to be all civilised, is it?

We met at 18:30 and seeing as I don’t “do” socialising, I usually stay for just a couple of hours at the most. And so no-one was more surprised than me to find me still there at 22:30. THat’s not like me either.

And so I eventually came back and went to bed instead. Not a foot set outside the building.

Not many days like that, are there?

Monday 23rd JUly 2018 – TODAY I HAD NOT ONE …

… not two, not three but as many as FOUR lizards fighting over the pear droppings.

Not even I can drop enough bits of pear to feed four hungry lizards so they spent more time fighting over the bits than eating them.

Talking of fighting, I was fighting to wake myself up this morning. Last night wasn’t particularly late, but it was a struggle when the alarms went off, and I somehow managed to turn over and go back to sleep. 07:35 when I finally aroused myself today.

A nice empty dining table was awaiting me too so I could eat my breakfast in comfort. And then a nice little relax on an empty sofa in the uncluttered living area.

That was followed by a trip to the new workspace in the bedroom where I attacked the European Photograph Mountain.

I took some time out to do some tidying up as well. Some files and paperwork came out of the bookshelves in the living area and onto the shelves in the bookcases in the bedroom, and I tidied up in the bedroom too.

And while doing that, I found the missing computer mouse, the missing hospital paperwork and the missing medication. Tidying up certainly pays dividends.

Another thing that I did involved the scented candles that I buy from IKEA. I’ve put one in each of the clothes drawers in the chest that I assembled the other day. They should make my clothes smell quite nice.

It was a late lunch in the beautiful sunny summer afternoon sitting on my wall with my book and the herd of lizards.

There was quite a bit of movement in the port too. One of the Channel Islands ferries was coming into port from Jersey just as one of the ferries to the Ile de Chausey was setting out.

What with the piles of yachts and pleasure boats around the harbour entrance it was all quite exciting.

After lunch I carried on with my work in my new comfortable surroundings, with a pause taken for an afternoon walk around the Medieval walls to see what’s going on.

There were crowds of people hemmed in on the little sliver of beach that was defying the tide.

Looking at all of those people down there, that kind of thing would really put me off. I couldn’t relax or enjoy myself sitting down there amongst all of those people.

That wasn’t all that was going on down there either.

There were crowds of people out there in the sea, swimming around at the diving platform just offshore.

It really was a beautiful day, but not that beautiful. Not beautiful enough to entice me into the water anyway. Especially these days. I’m getting rather nesh in my old age

After spending my time admiring the crowds on the beach and in the sea I carried on with my trip around the walls.

There was a beautiful afternoon sun shining down onto the harbour making the water glow with some kind of opaque turquoise blue light.

I’ve not often seen the water in there looking quite as beautiful as this. We really were having a good day today.

Later on, I had some tea. Pasta and a kidney-bean and aubergine whatsit out of the freezer. It seems that my appetite has come back.

And then a walk around the headland in the evening sun. With a beautiful view right down towards the bottom of the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Still not sure that I can see the Mont from here though with the headland in the way, which is a shame.

I shall have to go for a drive down that way in due course. And while I’m at it, I’ll stop for a visit to the old excise lookout post out there on the headland.

And now to carry on with work. I’m enjoying my new working conditions and make the most of them.

But not until some silly time in the morning either.

Saturday 21st July 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… in several weeks I actually managed three meals today. I’m not sure why, but this evening I could have eaten a scabby horse, and then gone back for the rider.

But overall, the day wasn’t quite so impressive. As I said yesterday, I was going back to my desk in the evening to carry on working. And I did too, and I certainly didn’t expect to be still hard at it at 03:35 either It is getting just like old times again, isn’t it?

The alarms went off at 06:20 and 06:30, and I did here them too. But it was round about 07:35 when something in the street really woke me up. And that was enough for me to crawl out of bed.

A friend of mine has had some devastating news this last week and is receiving no help – in fact quite the reverse – from her husband. We’ve been chatting on and off for the last few days and she was on-line again. But at least she’s cheered herself up a bit now and things don’t look quite so gloomy.

And then another friend was on-line too and decided to tell me all about her bowel disorder just as I was sitting down to breakfast. Thanks very much!

I had a shower and a general clean-up and then headed off to the shops, negotiating the new barrier to the car park now that they seem to have that working.

LIDL came up with nothing special, but then it was off to the dechetterie to unload the European Cardboard Box Mountain. Caliburn moves around quite quicker now.

NOZ came up with, apart from the usual stuff, a new rucksack. Mine is really good quality but it’s too small and awkwardly packed. There were some big 60-litre rucksacks in there today, waterproof too, at just €19:95. It doesn’t have the useful pockets that the other one has, but it’s the size that counts and how the stuff is prportioned. The rest I can invent.

LeClerc didn’t have too much special either, although I did buy a new decent set of nail scissors. The ones that I have are about 30 years old and slowly giving up the ghost. These new ones are great.

But the media centre there came up with the goods. They were selling 32gb micro-SD cards for just €11:99 so I bought another three. And a good computer mouse too so that the really good one can go into the office and I can use the new one in the laptop on the sofa.

I was so enthralled by the micro-SD cards that I totally forgot that I’d gone in there to buy a new SD card for the big Nikon. I’ll have to do that next week.

Back here I made mu butties and then went to sit on my wall in the sun, with my book and not one, not two but three lizards now for company. I’ll have my own herd by the end of the summer won’t I?

There was a load of excitement too in the port.

The company that runs the ferries to the Ile de Chausey has two ships, one of which sometimes goes off on tours of the bay.

And with it being summer, we have one going out on a voyage while the other one is on its way itno port.

And then some tidying up. And the place does look different too now after that. I shall have to press on next week and make even more improvements.

I started some work too but, shame as it is to admit it, it wasn’t long before I was laid out on the bed fast asleep. For a good couple of hours too, and I would probably still be there now had I not had two really wicked attacks of cramp.

But when I awoke I was starving, hence the meal. Stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And it’s nice to have some proper hot food for a change.

Now, I’ll go back to working again. But not until 03:35. At least – I hope not.

Saturday 14th July 2018 – EVERYONE KNOWS …

… that today is a Bank Holiday – or jour ferié in France.

It’s also the day 200 – odd years ago that the French stormed the Bastille – the fortified prison in the centre of Paris. The reason why they did this is probably because with it being a jour ferié all of the shops were closed and they had nothing else to do … “are you sure about this?” – ed.

I celebrated the jour ferié by switching off the alarm last night and having a lie-in. But 07:45 was far too early to leave my stinking pit so I turned over for five minutes. And then it was 08:55.

With the usual morning performance, and then I had a very late breakfast. And having reorganised things a little better in here just recently, I set up the coffee machine – only to find that I’ve almost run out of ground coffee.

That’s right – ground coffee. So if people tell me that my coffee tastes like mud I can tell them that it was ground only half an hour ago.

But with it being a jour ferié, I had a little treat – another fig roll. So I pulled that out – and then forgot to eat it. So I’ll have two tomorrow because although it might not be a jour ferié, it’s a Sunday.

First task today was the photos. 271 from my little adventure and I’d dealt with about half. So all through the rest of the morning and the early afternoon I edited them all and then uploaded them to the internet.

A very late lunch, so I made my butties and went to sit on the wall in the glorious sunshine where I was joined by not one but two lizards. This pear treat is becoming quite the thing, isn’t it? I’ll probably end up with a couple of dinosaurs.

On the way back to here i Went via Caliburn to bring another load of stuff up to the apartment, and was accosted by a weird neighbour who wanted to have a good chat – and not about all that much either but it’s amazing just how some people can spin it out.

When I eventually returned to here, I transferred all of the files from the portable laptop to the one that I use here and made sure that they were all deleted to save space.

It was then I noticed that the portable “Storex” drive that I take on my travels, despite being practically empty according to the File manager, had over 5gb of material on it.

Of course, finding “hidden” files on an “empty” hard drive is only the work of half an hour or so – good old T223, hey? – and they were all revealed. More stuff that I knew that I had and had subsequently lost. So they’ll be reignited and moved in due course too.

With the neighbour outside, I’d missed my afternoon walk, but I carried on with another task. when I was in IKEA in Caen before I went away, I’d bought three little units to store the CDs and DVDs but it wasn’t enough. However it was all that they had.

However at the IKEA in Munich they had two more so I bought those (cheaper than at Caen too!) and assembled them this evening. Yes – working at 20:30, and on a Bank Holiday too!

But I didn’t miss my evening walk though.

It was a beautiful evening and there were crowds and crowds of people about, with a group of people having a party sitting on one of the old World War II gun mounts from the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc.

And had I not had all of this work to do, I would have joined them too, so nice was the weather.

You’ll remember the other day just how far out the tide had gone, with all of the people collecting shellfish offshore.

But this evening the tide was right in and you can see from the harbour marker light how far in the tide comes in and how high it reaches when it’s really high.

The tidal ranger here is one of the highest in Europe apparently.

While I was out on my walk I bumped into a friendly neighbourhood policewoman.

She told me that there would be a firework display this evening at about 23:00 or thereabouts down in the docks, so round about 22:30 I went back out again.

There was a huge crowd down on the quayside but not all that many up here.

And so I had a grandstand view of the proceedings, sitting on my wall.

We had to wait until about 23:30 before things got under way, and then the spectacle began.

It’s not usually my kind of thing, but I have to be sociable and take part in the local proceedings. And it was actually quite good – much better than I was thinking that it might be.

The crowds weren’t just on land either.

Just before the event started, a few boats pulled up outside the harbour and dropped anchor so that the people on board could watch the fireworks from offshore.

Nevertheless, I still reckon that I had the best view of the proceedings from up here.

The whole show went on for about half an hour, and the finale was certainly impressive.

It certainly lit up the harbour and probably the bay for miles around. And once it had finished all of the crowds and the boats drifted away.

I drifted off back home to my apartment for a relax, and then I’ll go to bed. And hopefully I’ll have another good sleep.

But when will my appetite come back?

baie de mont st michel ferry ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

firework display port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 13th July 2018 – I THINK THAT I WAS …

… right last night about the tides. When I went out for my butties, the tide was as far out as I have ever seen it.

There were quite a few people out there too, presumably having a root around in the sand for the shellfish.

Which, they would presumably share with their friends because, as I have said before … "on many occasions" – ed … you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Going to bed last night was at something of a much-more respectable hour, and I managed to sleep almost until the alarm went off, with a little hiccup at about 04:00 or something like that. I tried my best to ignore the alarm but I couldn’t go back off to sleep and it was about 07:00 when I left the bed.

We had the usual morning performance, but breakfast ended up being quite late. And I forgot my coffee too.

First task was to assemble the two small trolleys that I had bought from IKEA the other day. And now I have a vegetable trolley and a cooking utensil trolley and they are both very handy. And then I had a little tidy-up, much to my own surprise.

Lunch was quite late after all of that, and on the way back in I started to unload Caliburn. I’ve brought quite a bit of stuff up here now, but there’s still plenty to go. I reckon that tomorrow I’ll have to start to unpack things and do some washing.

Another thing that I did was to crack on with my 3D program that I have neglected of late. Especially as a few things that I wanted were in a “50% off” sale today only.

There was also a visit into town. The mixed dried fruit sold in the supermarkets that I frequent is pretty much rubbish but the Super U has some good stuff. I need it for my muesli so I went for a walk down there in the heat, and treated myself to a sorbet on the way back.

On the way back up the hill I observed all of the boats outside the harbour.

The tide was on its way in by now and the smaller craft could make their way to the quayside to unload their catch. The larger boats would have to wait for the tide to come further in before they could come in and unload.

But you can see the effect that dredging out that strip by the quay in the winter has had. Smaller ships can come in earlier to unload and this increases the available capacity at the fish processing plant.

No tea tonight either. My appetite seems to have disappeared. Not quite like it did over Christmas but nevertheless. But it’s not really a worry, because I have quite a bit of weight that I could do with losing, what with this water retention issue.

But it was a pleasant walk around the headland this evening anyway.

So back here and listening to Marillion again. I have a couple of tracks – The Web and Garden Party – going round on a continual loop for some reason. I can’t shift them out of my head.

Marillion is a magnificent band but they always send me into a deep depression and I’ve no idea why. Still, I’ve plenty of time to cheer myself up, haven’t I?

EPIC HALL

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