… 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
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”.
. I’ll have to do that next week.
