Tag Archives: abandoned railway

Monday 3rd February 2020 – SHE’S BACK!

Yes, there I was this afternoon out for my walk, looking across the harbour, and there she was.

Yes, the Bond heroine Plenty O’Toole, named for her father of course, has turned up again in Granville. It must be a couple of years since she was last here but here she is.

Who is going to be next to put in an appearance here in Granville? Foxxy Cleopatra? Or Godzilla?

Last night, I was on something of a roll. Somehow and for some reason (probably the very late lie-in that I had) I didn’t feel like going to bed. And so making the most of it, I carried on attacking the notes for the current radio project. By the time that I was overwhelmed there was only another 5 or 10 minutes left to finish so that was a good plan of work.

And even despite the late night, I was just on the point of putting my feet on the floor when the third alarm went off. So we’ll call that a draw today.

After the medication I checked the dictaphone but I had nothing on so instead I chopped up a digital sound file into the component tracks. That was interrupted by breakfast and by the fact that the sound file bore no resemblance to the details that I had and I had to hunt down a revised description.

A little later I had a shower and then headed off outside.

And it was my lucky day because for once there was plenty going on outside. Chausiais was on the move again, heading out with presumably another cargo for the ile de Chausey

That’s a couple of times now that I’ve seen her on the move. I’m intrigued to know what her plans are in the long term because it’s a lot of money tied up for just the occasional crossing to the ile de Chausey

That wasn’t everything either, because Joly France was on the move too.

At first I was wondering whether or not she was taking out a load of passengers to follow in the wake of Chausiais but I eventually came to the conclusion that where she was, she was preventing Chausiais from leaving her berth.

And that would account for her manoeuvres in port this morning, I reckon.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there’s this big project going on in the port right now.

They are ripping up the abandoned railway lines from when this place was a thriving deep-sea fishing port and “improving” the car park. Here today, their work has advanced out of the protected zone and there’s a mini-digger with a hydraulic drill attachment breaking up the surface where there ware more railway lines buried.

It makes me wonder just how long they are going to be at this project and what it’s going to be like when it’s finished. It was something of an eyesore so almost anything will be an improvement, but I hope that the plans include some greenery too.

And out in the Place Charles de Gaulle I’m not quite sure what’s happening here.

We have a tractor and trailer and another piece of heavy equipment parked up outside the old Tourist Information office. That’s now an ephemeral display room so it might be something to do with that, or else they are starting to kit out the Square ready for Carnaval, which will take ^lace in 3 weeks time.

We shall see what we shall wee.

Around the corner in the rue des Carrosses we are faced with a more mundane, even banal problem.

Something is clearly up with the guttering or the chimney of this building because they have brought in a cherry-picker and sent up a couple of men in the nacelle to deal with the issue.

As for me, I pushed on up the hill towards the Centre Agora for our weekly meeting

Regular readers will recall that I’ve mentioned in the past all of the time that is wasted in these meetings … “not ‘arf” – ed … but in the past there was nothing like as much wasted as today.

For a change I was second there and the others arrived after me. But they stayed outside having a smoke and a chat and didn’t come in until 10:30. And most of the meeting was spent discussing a subject that could have been dealt with in about 2 minutes.

Someone turned up from one of the Council’s committees and she was introduced to us. The guy in charge told her about what we did and while he was very careful to mention several programmes that we had done, he very carefully omitted anything that I had done from the list.

If they don’t like what I do and are ashamed of it, I wish that they would tell me and either stop me doing it or tell me how it can be improved. It’s quite true that the stuff from the last couple of weeks has been light years ahead of what I did at the beginning, but that’s because I’ve worked it out for myself.

If they have something to say, I wish that they would come out and say it.

The real business of the meeting didn’t come out until everyone was almost ready to leave – at about 12:30. These are hours of my life that I won’t ever get back.

On the way home I stopped at LIDL. I needed some olive oil and a few other things, but forgot the stuff to make my muesli and I’ve run out of that. If I can’t find all of the stuff it might be porridge for the next few days.

Back down in town again I picked up my dejeunette at la Mie Caline and came back home for a late lunch.

This afternoon I pushed on with the radio project and although I hadn’t quite finished it at knocking-off time, I hung on in and had it done regardless. And so a late tea.

But there had been a couple of interruptions to my day. Firstly, and unsurprisingly after my late night and early start, I crashed out on my chair for 20 minutes in a really deep sleep

Secondly, there was the afternoon walk as usual. Mustn’t miss out on that!

And this photo will tell you exactly how things unfolded during the course of the afternoon. There’s a huge, powerful rain cloud about 8 or 10 miles out to sea and judging by the wind right now, it’s heading this way.

This kind of thing is looking quite ominous for later on.

And although it’s not as windy as it might be and indeed has just recently, it’s blowing a terrific gale somewhere out to sea.

We’re a good hour or so away from high tide but even so, there’s enough power in the sea to send the waves crashing right over the harbour wall. No wonder I couldn’t see any fishing boats out there today.

It’s not the kind of day at all to be out there on the ocean waves in the kind of boats that hang around in this harbour.

Talking of fishing boats, there’s been another change of tenant at the Chantier navale.

One of the fishing boats has now left and presumably gone back into the water. There’s only the one left now and judging by all of the people on board working away at here, it doesn’t look as if she’s going to be there for much longer either.

So new tenants all round in the near future, I reckon. It will be interesting to see who comes in and who does what to it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen this boat before just recently.

Seeing as it’s in the national colours, I thought at first that it might be something to do with the Government but judging by the large bucket of seafood on her deck and the van there that has come to take the stuff away, it’s probably just a private fishing boat.

And that’s something of a disappointment. I was hoping for a lot more excitement around here now.

While you admire another photo of the raging sea, let me tell you about teatime.

With plenty of mushrooms lying about here and there I made myself a stuffed pepper with pasta. And I’m not sure quite why but it was one of the best that I’ve ever tasted even though I forgot the herbs.

It was followed up by rice pudding and that was delicious too. I may be eating quite simply but by ‘eck I am eating well these days.

By now the storm had arrived, the weather had broken, and how! There was the deep puddle outside the roor and the streets were like running rivers. I went for my walk regardless, even managing two runs.

Not on the north side of the walls though – that was about a foot deep in water. I had to find a place a little further on even though the ground underfoot isn’t as smooth. And of course, my run across the Square Maurice Marland.

So now I’ve finished, I’ve re-heard my radio project and it’s fine, so I’m going to listen to some music for half an hour before going to bed.

A little luxury is something that I deserve.

Monday 13th January 2020 – I’M NOT SURE …

… exactly what I’ve done, but whatever it is, I’ve done it good and proper!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that US Granvillais, the local football team, have drawn Olympique de Marseille, one of the biggest clubs in French football, in the French Cup on Friday night.

There’s a Press Conference at the ground tomorrow at 12:15 and all of the giants of the Press will be there – TF1, Eurosport, all of these, and … errr … Yours Truly. Following my efforts on the bus to Versailles the other day, I’ve been issued with a Press Pass for the club and I’ve been invited along to cover the Press Conference on behalf of OUR LITTLE RADIO STATION

All that I hope for is that I can walk the walk as well as I can talk the talk.

And talking of talking the talk, my radio programme covering the coach trip and the supporters will be BROADCAST TOMORROW 17:00 CET, OR 16:00 UK TIME OR 11:00 TORONTO TIME. Don’t miss it!

Just for a change these days I was up and about prior to the third alarm going off. An attack on the medication and then a look at the dictaphone, which once again is bearing a remarkable resemblance to my bank account or Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

After breakfast I carried on with another whack at this translation and that’s another while done and out of the way. There’s still well over half left though but that will have to wait as it’s now time for a shower.

After the shower I went and headed off up town.

As usual, I had a butcher’s over the wall down into the harbour to see what was going on and, as usual, it was quite busy down there. We have Marité of course – she wont be going anywhere until the summer – but she’s been joined by La Grande Ancre and Normandy Trader.

The latter must have crept in on the morning tide and even as we speak they are busy unloading her.

Up at the roundabout at Place Semard the Christmas Tree has gone, but there are also these signs here talling us that the rue Paul Poirier is undergoing work.

That’s not a street that I used this morning to come this way so I don’t know why or what’s going on but I’ll have a look when I go back.

And I did, and they were taking down the Christmas lights

Now this is something extremely interesting and I don’t know why the photo hasn’t come out very well.

It’s actually a cement conveyor and the guy who was attending it was mixing cement in a cement mixer and tipping it into the conveyor, which was then taking it off and over the top of those steps there.

Obviously it’s cheaper than employing a labourer to carry it in buckets.

More good news from the avenue Aristide Briand.

This looks like loads and loads of black cable, and that can only be one kind of cable as far as I can see. Maybe now they are finally laying the fibre-optic cables.

And I like the cable roller too at the edge of the manhole. That’s a superb little thing.

So I made it to the radio meeting at the Centre Agora where they enthused over our VISIT TO DONVILLE-LES-BAINS. I’m glad that they liked it.

And it was here that I learned of my good fortune.

We discussed several other projects too and they may well be seeing the light of day in due course. We’ll have to see.

Another thing that I did was to hand over the present that I had picked up last week

From there I went off to LIDL to do some shopping.

And here’s a thing. Now if only anyone around here were to sell any electric coffee I would be set up for life. But I’m surprised that they are selling a “grinder for electric coffee” rather than an “electric grinder for coffee”. I suppose that it’s something to do with poor translation into Chinese.

Having remembered the present I found that I had forgotten my shopping bag. The paper one that they gave me didn’t last a second so I had to buy another one to add to the several that are lying around here.

Having picked up my dejeunette at La Mie Caline I came home. It was already lunchtime by now so I had lunch straight away.

This afternoon, what with this Press Conference tomorrow, I had plenty of things to do that kept me really busy. Nevertheless, I found some time to do some more on this translation and now I’m almost at half-way.

And it’s not going to be finished for a while either because there’s this football thing to do. It’s pretty “current” so I’ll have to get cracking with that pretty smartly.

We had the afternoon walk around the headland of course in the sunshine.

There were plenty of us out there today, including some very intrepid pecheurs à pied down there on the rocks at the Cap Lihou But they had better be careful. I’ve read somewhere that some of the shellfish is contaminated again right now.

But whatever they catch, I hope that they share them out with their friends. After all, one mustn’t be selfish with one’s shellfish.

And as I rounded the headland I found out why Chausiais and Joly France have gone back into the inner harbour.

There’s a digger on the extreme left of the image and a couple of huge dumper lorries down there. They are dredging out the bed of the harbour round at the ferry terminal – presumably to increase the operating times of the ferries

And there’s a guy in a high-visibility jacket down there further into the harbour. I wonder what he’s after.

The view from on top of the cliffs is pretty good.

From here I can see all the way down the rue du Port and have a good idea of how they are progressing with these improvements to the car parking which, unfortunately, means ripping up the railway lines

They are making good progress (which is a change) so I don’t imagine that they will be long in doing it.

But what you can’t see in that photo is Normandy Trader. In probably the quickest turn-round that I’ve seen, she’s cleared off home already. I’ve not seen anything that quick before.

Back here I went to carry on with stuff but I ended up … errr … having a relax, something that is annoying me intently.

With pushing on though, I had no tea tonight. I grabbed a few biscuits and worked on

There was still time to fit in my evening walk though, even if the wind outside was thoroughly wicked.

There was a trawler out there battling its way through the heavy seas and as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … my hat comes off to all of those out there in this kind of weather.

It was totally impossible to have my usual run as the headwind was pushing me backwards. However, not to be outdone, I had noticed that the north side of the walls was sheltered from the wind so I went round there.

Even though it was pitch-black and I couldn’t see where I was going, I managed a good few hundred metres down there just to keep up the pressure.

It’s now almost 01:30 and I’m just about to finish my notes. There’s still plenty of preparation to do for tomorrow but that will have to be done tomorrow too.

4:30 sleep tonight if I’m lucky. Just like old times, isn’t it?

Friday 10th January 2020 – HE WHO LAUGHS LAST …

… usually lasts longest and loudest too. And that’s certainly the case with me and my rail ticket.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my adventures at the railway station at Granville yesterday and how they wouldn’t exchange the return ticket because the return train was running – regardless of the fact that as the outward train was cancelled, I couldn’t get out to catch the one back.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … “hooray” – ed … I had an e-mail informing me that the return train has now been cancelled. So, off to the station tomorrow to have another go at sorting them out.

But talking of sorting out, I still haven’t sorted out this sleep thing. I heard the first two alarms go off and while I was trying to find the energy and courage to get out of bed, the third one rang too, so I missed that.

But anyway, that was the signal to leave the bed. I went and had my medication.

With a brief pause for breakfast I carried on with the radio project about the football. And by 09:45 it was all done and dusted. And even if I say it myself, it was pretty good and I’m pleased with it. It’s all been sent off now and it’s in the hands of the Admin who will decide whether or not to broadcast it.

And now to turn to important things. After their victory against FC Versailles 78, Granville have drawn none other than Olympique Marseille in the French Cup.

The Stade Louis Dior is deemed to be unsuitable so the match is to be played at Caen. And even so, I’m expecting a healthy demand for tickets. Terry wants to come too so I did some searching about on the internet, found the website of the stadium and Lo! And Behold! There are two tickets for the football now sitting on my desk.

No intention of missing this.

That was the cue for me to go off into town to La Mie Caline for my bread.

On the way down there I passed by the Chantier navale to look and see what was happening. Spirit of Conrad is still there of course – I think that she’s moved in for the duration – but there’s a new addition today. The trawler at the back.

She must have slipped in on the morning tide, I reckon.

We’ve mentioned just recently, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the ships that are disappearing one by one from the port.

Granville went a few days ago, followed by Victor Hugo. Today though, it’s the turn of Chausiais to put in a disappearing act. Joly France is over there at the ferry terminal but she isn’t.

So I wonder where all of these ships are going. It’s a mystery to me.

But here’s a thing.

Walking along the rue du Port after my little inspection of the Chantier navale my perambulations were interrupted by this car going past. a Citroen traction avant of course and a later model one at that. It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one of those on the road.

They are usually all black but I’ve seen the odd grey one and a white one, but I don’t recall seeing a blue one before. The one in my barn is black, by the way.

Pushing on (or pushing off, as the case may be) I eschewed the passage over the harbour gates and instead wandered on down to see what was going on at the old abandoned railway network.

We’d seen them yesterday digging up around the railway lines so I had promised myself a closer look. And sure enough, not only are they digging up around the lines, they seem to be pulling them up too.

It looks like the … errrr … end of the line for the railway network in the port

And so it is too.

There was a workman wandering around the site so I buttonholed him and enquired about the project. It seems that they are going to be working on the car park and making it more attractive to visitors. This means that the rails have to go and they won’t be coming back.

Time for me to have to go too. I went off for my bread.

Back at the apartment I started to address the mountain of correspondence that had built up during my work-in. Pile of stuff needed answering and that is going to be today’s task, I reckon.

Mind you it might take longer than today, that’s for sure. Especially as I had another crash-out. This one a really good one too, just like the old days. Not a brief eye-closing affair but a proper deep disappearance into the void, curled up on my chair with no intention whatever of moving.

After lunch, there were the carrots. I’d bought 2 kilos the other day and they were lying about on the worktop so I attacked them too. They are all now peeled, diced, parboiled, drained, dried and and the freezer on the way to being frozen.

And how I wish that I had a bigger freezer because there is now absolutely no room for anything more and I need a bag of peas tomorrow.

Out on my rounds this afternoon, there wasn’t a great deal of anything at all happening.

A few people out there taking the air of course, and the usual fishing boats heading towards the harbour. La Grande Ancre was out there looking as if she’s heading back from Chausey.

She had a tractor on her decks a few days ago and was loading the other day or two at the crane. So maybe she’s been doing deliveries.

Back at the apartment again I could finally get on with the correspondence and sent out about 6 long e-mails to wish people a Merry Christmas (I was that far behind!). Still tons to do and it will have to be done another time as I’m in a rush.

While I was putting away the stuff in the freezer I found a slice of vegan leek and tofu pie from 3rd February 2019. So in the oven went that and a couple of potatoes while I boiled up some veg and gravy on the stove.

And what a delicious tea that all made.

One thing that I would like to do is to make a couple more pies but there isn’t the room in the freezer to store them which is a pity.

Off on my walk around the walls tonight.

The waves were quite impressive but it was too dark to see them properly so I went off for my run. I made 6 paces up the ramp before I ground to a halt – I’m not doing very well with this, am I?

No-one about at all so I carried on alone and passed this little street – the Venelle St Michel. I hadn’t really seen it before but it’s a good example of the streets here in the Old Town.

Three or four main streets, a couple of squares and the rest are all little alleys like these

By the time that I returned, it was the football. TNS v Newtown, and I don’t ever think that I have seen such a one-sided match as this ever before.

Newton were lucky, very lucky indeed to get NIL abut how on earth TNS only managed to score 2 goals with all of the dominance and possession that they had, we’ll never know.

Newton’s “attack” consisted of desperate long aimless punts upfield to no-one in particular and their two forwards hardly had a touch of the ball. They were substituted after about 70 minutes which was totally unfair in my opinion. It doesn’t matter how good you might be, you can’t play football if no-one gives you the ball.

And the man of the match? The commentators chose Ryan Brobbel but for me, it was Adrian Cieslewicz all night long. He had an astounding game down the right flank tonight.

On that note I’m off to bed. I’m so tired it’s unbelievable. I wanted to finish this before I went to bed but I’m afraid that there’s no chance of …

ZZZZZZ

Thursday 9th January 2020 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that a good few months ago I spoke about some kind of plan or other involving the abandoned railway network that ran through the port at one time.

This morning on my travels up town to LIDL I happened to look over the wall down to the harbour, and here they are, digging out the infill from where they had covered it up in the past.

It goes without saying that I’m really intrigued with what’s going on down there and on my way for my dejeunette tomorrow I shall be making further enquiries.

With lots of activity going on in the harbour down there right now, you could be forgiven for thinking that that was that.

But not at all. In fact one thing that was conspicuous in one sense was that Victor Hugo was conspicuous by its absence. That means that both of the Channel Islands ferries are out somewhere because Granville, the newer one, is also absent and has been for a day or two now.

It must be all go at the Channel Islands right now

But it wasn’t all go here this morning. The night was reasonably early and I did hear all of the three alarms, but I couldn’t somehow find the intention to leave the stinking pit. It was gone 08:00 when I finally saw daylight this morning and that’s no good at all.

After the medication I attacked the dictaphone and I’m not sure exactly what I was doing in some kind of poor mountain village in poverty-stricken USA but it was doing some thing like a radio programme or whatever, I suppose. I had this young girl with me – she might even have been my daughter. The story goes that she was found kissing one of the boys in this village. They rounded up this girl and me and started to change our clothes and gave us nice clothes to wear. It suddenly struck me that this is marriage, isn’t it? This girl is going to be married off to this boy presumably but she was nowhere near old enough for this kind of thing. She was admiring the clothes that she was wearing and started to hum “here comes the bride” and suddenly had this appalling look of horror on her face as she too realised what was going to happen and started to snatch the clothes off her. These people were trying to grab hold of her to keep the clothes on and that was when I awoke.

After breakfast I was straight into the shower and as I seem to be struggling for clothes right now, I stuck a pile of dirty ones into the washing machine and let them have a run round.

And then the excitement began.

Wit my train being cancelled this morning I mentioned that I was changing my travelling arrangements. So off to the railway station in the pouring rain.

Hardly had I presented myself at the ticket window when the girl there beckoned someone else forward and let them have their say before me. Needless to say, there were words said about that.

She then couldn’t piece together my itinerary so I had to help her put the tickets in order (which had been in order until she had started messing around with them)

So eventually I was able to ask –
Our Hero – “as my train has been cancelled today, I’d like to change my travel and go again in two weeks time”
Girl at Window – “what date is that?”
OH – “two weeks from today”
GAW – “what date is that?”
OH – “whatever date two weeks from today is. The 23rd is it?”
GAW – “I don’t know”
OH doing some rough calculation – yes, 23rd
GAW – “the same trip?”
OH – “Didn’t I say that?”
GAW – “I don’t know”
so eventually after much prompting and grumbling she did it.
OH – “now what about the return?”
GAW – “what date?”
OH – “Just what I said earlier – the same trip but in two weeks time”.
GAW – “What date is that?”
OH – “whatever date is two weeks from the date on the ticket”
GAW – “but you haven’t told me what date”
OH by now rapidly losing his patience and his temper was surely bound to follow – “two weeks from the date on that ticket”
GAW – “but what’s the date?”
OH doing some more rough calculations – the 26th
GAW – “that will be €15:00”
OH – “what do you mean €15:00? I’m having to rearrange all of my trip because the outward train isn’t running. You’ve cancelled it”
GAW – “but the return train is running”
OH – “so how am I supposed to get the return train if I can’t travel out to get it?”
GAW – “I dunno”

The net result of all of this is that they will need to repaint the interior of the station booking office where the paint has blistered under the heat of my incendiary comments. I’ve not changed my return trip as yet but I shall be doing so in very early course once I’ve spoken to the SNCF head office.

LIDL next. And nothing of any excitement there, although I did forget to buy the peppers and mushrooms. I dunno what’s the matter with me right now.

Calling at La Mie Caline for my dejeunette, I then headed off for home.

Most of the day has been spent doing this football thing and by the time that I knocked off it was almost finished. There are 7, or possibly 8 main threads now with all of the isolated soundbites incorporated in to one of the threads as appropriate.

The linking texts have been dictated too but all of that needs editing and some background dubbed onto it, and then I can link it all together and dictate a closure to add in.

It’s about an hour’s work, I reckon, but knowing me, it will probably take most of the morning.

And then I have that stupid, pointless translation to do. It hasn’t escaped my attention that with the project owner not having had the time to edit it, I’m going to have to translate everything. I reckon that I keep about 15-20% of whatever I record on an interview and discard 80-85%, so this tells me that 80-85% of my work is going to end up filed under CS.

And that’s a thought that depresses me greatly as you can imagine. As Sheriff Buford T Justice put it so well in Smokey and the Bandit “we don’t have time for that crap!” I don’t know what people think I am … “and I don’t think that you want to either” – ed.

There were the usual interruptions today. Lunch was one of them of course and that hummus that I made the other day is tasting better and better as the herbs and garlic spread through it.

We had the afternoon walk of course, around the headland.

The sun was out and it was quite bright now. The rain had stopped. But there was a fierce wind blowing around and whipping up quite a wave down there. Some of the waves were crashing over the sea wall with an impressive force.

Not the kind of day to be out there at all.

Nevertheless, there were quite a few people doing their best. There was a line of about a dozen fishing boats heading into port.

If you have any doubt about what the phrase “making heavy weather of it” means, just one look at this boat will explain it to you better than anything I can say.

She was up and down and in and out of the waves all the way around the headland.

You probably noticed that I mentioned the line of fishing boats out there heading into port.

This is where they are heading and they’ll have to ride out at anchor because there isn’t any room at the inn. Apart from our old friend La Grande Ancre, I count another 8 of them just there.

The pink one that we saw heading this way is going to take the last empty berth and the rest of them out there will have to wait.

Not for long though.

The unloading takes place pretty quickly, as you can see. There’s quite a load on that boat there and they are using the cranes to stack it onto the trailer that is pulled by the tractor.

Where it goes after that I don’t know, but one of these days I’ll track it down.

Back to the apartment now to carry on working.

And the day that I might be able to work even faster might not be far away. That’s the company that’s installing the fibre-optic cable and they are doing something out in the street just outside the Place d’Armes.

Here’s hoping that it’s the cable being connected up.

Tea tonight was a burger – or, at least, it should have been a burger. But in the packet that i bought “on spec” from NOZ were some galette- thinks, like small thick crepes made with vegan components. Quite different from what I was expecting but tasty all the same and I’ll look out for more of these.

For the evening walk I was on my own at first.

Cold and windy but the sky was reasonably clear. Donville-les-Bains was looking quite nice in the dark but I didn’t stay around long to admire it. I went off and had my run.

However I have never ever felt less like it than I did. The strong headwind didn’t help but even so I was all for giving up after the first 100 yards. I kept on going though, and just about made it to the ramp.

There were crowds of people outside La Rafale, the bar in the Place Cambernon, and the pizza van that wa sparked there was doing a roaring trade.

My attention was distracted by a woman taking a rather small cat for a walk. She explained to me tearfully that it had been diagnosed with this cat disease that goes around. It’s survived a couple of attacks but it now had it again and its days are numbered.

And so i commiserated with her and gave her cat a stroke, poor thing.

Now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed. It’s later than I hoped but for some reason I can’t concentrate on anything today.

But at least I didn’t crash out. That’s always something to be grateful for, I suppose.

Friday 11th October 2019 – REMEMBER YESTERDAY …

… when I wrote about the evil (because there is no other word to describe it) humour in which I found myself?

Today I was rather hoping that I might have been over it, put it all behind me and moved on. But looking back over some of the stuff that I had written in an internet debate this morning, that’s clearly not the case because much of what I wrote, even though it reflected my true feelings, can best be described as “incendiary”.

It’s no surprise either because there was that much turmoil going on in my head that even at 01:30 the thought of going to bed hadn’t even occurred to me. I spent most of the night wide-awake.

There was some sleep of some kind though, because there are one or two items on the dictaphone. And when I get round to listening to them, it should be extremely interesting to say the least.

The alarms went off at the usual time but I didn’t. 07:15 again for me and this is getting monotonous. The school run too this morning and for a change I had Hannah’s Golf diesel.

So that’s now everything around here that I have driven at one time or another, and my favourite is still Rachel’s Golf estate, although the VWs are far too low for me and difficult to get out of.

Rushed off our feet again today. The place is closed for the weekend and on Monday so everyone wanted their supplies and work done today. I ended up shunting cars around, hauling bags of feed about and going to the bank.

And I’m right about tiredness too. Despite my dreadful night I kept on going all day with only a brief pause, not like yesterday when I was stark out. I was expecting to be much more exhausted today.

Excitement up on the railway line at the back of the depot. The old station was formerly a tractor-pulling venue but it’s up for sale. It seems that the fixtures and fittings have been sold and there were people up there dismantling the grandstand in order to move it to Grand Falls.

This evening there was just Darren and me. He had an omelette and I found some leftover vegan meatloaf in the fridge, followed by apple crumble.

later, I was reviewing some postings from my Arctic voyage. A few (well, one particular) memory came flooding back to me and so I decided to listen to some music to distract me and to soothe my fevered brow. It wasn’t a particularly good choice though. I played Colosseum Live, which will forever be associated in my brain with late, dark, cold nights on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour in the High Arctic, and that is exactly what I’m trying to put out of my mind.

Yes, events in the High Arctic have scarred me somewhat and I can’t chase them out of my mind. It’s all very well listening to Joachim du Bellay and that I should be “Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage”, I’m more inclined right now to the words of the Duke of Marlborough who, on his way to fight at (thinks) Malplaquet, said “God knows I go with a heavy heart, for I have no hope of doing anything considerable”. Or even John Major’s legendary “When your back’s against the wall it’s time to turn round and fight”.

On that note, I’ll go to bed, I reckon. I’ve had a hard couple of days now that demons whom I thought that I had laid have now come back to haunt me. I have to remember, I suppose, that today I really should have been in hospital having a blood transfusion – having already missed three. Bit I’m missing this one too.

Who knows what state I’ll be in when I finally return home?

Perhaps I need some more music
All of the sudden she disappears
just yesterday she was here
somebody tell me if I am sleeping
someone should be with me here
I wanna be the last thing you hear when you’re falling asleep….

Sunday 28th July 2019 – I WASN’T FEELING …

… all that much better this morning, even though I slept a lot better than I thought I might.

Consequently I rang up the motel manageress and asked to stay an extra night. Not a problem so when she checked in for work I strolled up to the reception and paid.

There’s no point in my hitting the road when I’m feeling as bad as I do. A few more hours sleeping it off and I’ll feel so much better in early course.

Not that I’m eating anything right now though. The secret to this illness is to purge my body of everything and then start again in a few days time. And if nature is doing that, then all well and good. I have some grape juice and some vitamin-enriched mineral water.

So I lounged around for a couple of hours, not doing very much at all except for dealing with a very slow laptop that doesn’t seem to be very interested in doing too much. But then that’s not a surprise, because neither do I.

Later on in the afternoon I went for a little walk along the river. The area around Grand Forks was formerly a huge railway interchange and there are quite a few relics to see, although today there’s just one line through the town.

But down on the water’s edge I fell in with a security guard who was supervising the turnstile for a fishing competition. He’d been in the Air Force and had been based in the UK so we had quite a chat about old UK television series.

The fishing competition was exciting though. It’s a weekend thing and the top five prizes are astonishing. A team of two can net almost $4,000 and that’s impressive in anyone’s language.

I carried on with my walk after that and had another look around. But I didn’t stay out too long – I wasn’t up to much and this latest bout of illness has taken it out of me. I went back to my room and had a lie down.

And that is where I’m staying until I feel better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And people complain that they are taking over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday 17th June 2019 – I’VE HAD A NICE …

… day out today.

Sitting in the sunshine on the edge of a flower pot outside a supermarket eating a baguette and tomato, it reminded me of the summer in 1977 that I spent hitch-hiking around Brittany.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, is it?

Last night I went to bed rather later than I hoped. And despite turning over in bed a couple of times I slept right through to the alarm.

And it is another occasion where whatever I had been doing during the night was simply wiped out of my memory the moment the alarm went off, before I even had chance to grab the dictaphone. I do however have some kind of vague memory of being depressed about the nominations for “Sports person of the year” for a Nabisco breakfast cereal competition, thinking that as far as I was concerned, never mind who might be likely to win, the best names were missing off the list.

With an early start, I had an early breakfast and then dealt with a mass of files off the dictaphone. We’re now down to 60 files – and once they are all done I’ll have to update the blog to include the entries that I missed.

After a shower (I need to look pretty) I headed off up the road for the station and the train.

I was interrupted on the way down the hill though because they were cracking on with repairing the city walls and I thought that I’d stop and have a little look to see where they have got to.

Every day they are going further and further along the wall ripping out the loose stuff and building up. But nevertheless they are still quite a way behind schedule, according to the statutory notice on the protective fencing.

And of course that isn’t all of the construction work that was going on either.

There was a diversion in the rue Couraye, sending all of the traffic off down the back streets so I went on to investigate what was going on. It appears that they are digging up the street for some reason or other.

The street is paved with small granite setts and they were digging them up round by where there was a grid. It’s right opposite the reopened Credit Agricole so I’m awaiting news some time in the near future of a bold bank robberry

Even though I was early, the train was earlier still and was at the platform.

It’s one of the Bombardier X-76500 series of trains – the backbone of the French rural rail network these days. New, comfortable and smooth. A far cry from the old rattling Pacers that run around as best they can on the UK’s ailing network.

The was quite crowded too. This route has only been open for a short while since the reinstated the curve near Folligny and it is clearly doing the business.

It was a very pleasant ride out to Coutances this lunchtime. It only took the train 25 minutes to reach there.

My appointment isn’t until 14:20 so that gives me plenty of time to go for a look round. I started off at the railway station because I’d never been here before. It’s quieter now that it used to be because in the past there was a direct line to Cherbourg via La Haye du Puits but that closed down back in the 1970s.

Nowadays trains follow the remaining line towards Caen and passengers for Cherbourg change trains at Lison

Outside the station and down the road a few hundred metres is a monument to the dead of the First World War of the town.

There are quite a few names on the memorial, giving you some idea of how much the French suffered during that war. In total, 1,357,800 French soldiers lost their lives out of a total population of 41,415,000 in 1911. That’s one-thirtieth of the population. To put it even more into perspective, in 1911 the population of France was 41,415,000. in 1921, the population was 39,108,000 – a decrease of 2,307,000

There were a few casualties listed for the Second World War. That wasn’t as disastrous in casualty terms because once the British front in the North-East of France collapsed and the Germans got in behind the French armies, the end was pretty quick.

If you were to look at a map of Coutances, you would see that the hospital is just outside the railway station.

But that doesn’t take into account the topography. The town is built on the top of a steep hill and the railway station is perched on the side. The hospital is actually 100 feet or so lower down the hill.

And in any case, I’m not going there.

Instead, I headed off down the hill towards the rheumatology clinic.

Down at the junction of the rue de Regneville and the rue Geoffroy de Montbray is this really beautiful cross. You see pleny of crosses and calvaries at road junctions in France, but I’ve seen few that have been as impressive as this.

And that reminds me of a story I once heard about a competition for the design of a calvary. And due to a misunderstanding on the telephone, one sculptor sent in the plans for John Wayne on his horse.

It’s been a whike since these pages have featured an old car. But that’s about to change;

Down near the bottom of the hill parked in a little yard was this beautiful little Renault Estafette.

Not the first one we’ve seen – we saw one around Granville a year or so ago. And had this been 30 years ago we would have seen them everywhere because they were the archetypical French medium-size vans used by inter alia the Police.

There’s a Carrefour supermarket at the bottom of the hill and although I could see it quite clearly, finding the entrance was quite something else. But eventually I was inside and furnished myself with a baguette, some tomatoes, some bananas and a bottle of water.

Outside, perched on the edge of a large flower pot in the sunshine, I ate my lunch as I mentioned above.

When we were in Coutances 18 months ago we got to see something of the Cathedral.

From close to, it was impossible to have a reall good view of the entire building but from down here in St Pierre de Coutances the view is absolutely excellent. You can really have a good idea of the size of the building.

The cathedral dates from the 11th Century although it has been redesigned and rebuilt on a regular basis. It was built on the site of a church dating from the 5th Century that was destroyed in a Viking raid, and it’s quite possible that there was a religious establishment on the site before then

On the way to the clinic, walking along the Granville road through St Pierre de Coutances, I passed a building that resembled very closely a railway building.

It had all of the style, architecture and patterns of other small railway buildings that I have already seen while I’ve been out and about on my travels.

I doubt very much that it was a railway station though because there are no “running in” notices on the side of the building, like you would expect to see in similar circumstances so I shall have to reserve judgement.

And as I was musing about all of this, I walked past a track that had every possible indication that you could wish that it might have at one time have been a railway.

It’s signposted as a walk out to the Pont de la Roque, the ruined bridge that’s a memorial to the Liberation of France out near the coast.

I’ve not as yet been able to trace any record of a railway line going out to there, but it certainly looks very “railway” to me.

Furthermore, I made another little discovery in this respect some time later.

On the way back, in the immediate vicinity but just around the corner in the Pont de Soulles, I discovered a street called rue du Tram.

And so I can see that I will have to be doing some more research into this, although I would have liked to see the tram that could have climbed up that bank without very much of a run-in.

It’s not only the bank that the tram would have had to negotiate, there’s a considerable disparity in altitude.

The road from which I took the photo of the rue du Tram passes underneath this enormous viaduct, over which passes the railway line on which I’ve just travelled from Granville to Coutances. If we assume that the terminus of the tram was near the railway station, then I imagine that the route must have been something like a roller-coaster ride, down from the station and then back up here.

However, returning to our story, at the clinic I didn’t have to wait too long. I was seen pretty quickly, given an ecograph, and the specialist diagnosed that I had a hygroma. He wanted to draw some fluid off the knee (which I will have to take to the laboratory for examination) so stuck a hypodermic in my knee – right in the most tender part of it.

I have never ever in my life been in so much agony.

On the way back I called at a pharmacie. I found one in the rue du Pont de Soulles but I was distracted once more.

Almost next door to the pharmacy, there in an alcove in a wall is an old hand pump for pumping up water, presumably from a well or a spring. It’s certainly an interesting place to find one

Meanwhile, in the pharmacy, I asked them to deal with the prescription that the specialist had given me. I have to make up a mix of 50% water 50% clinical alcohol and apply it to a patch that I have to place on my knee. For no longer than 20 minutes (because it will burn otherwise) three times per day.

From the pharmacy there was a stiff climb up some very narrow streets towards the railway station.

The rue des Teintures is pedestrianised from halfway up, which is just as well because it’s very narrow and twisty. But there’s a beautiful view of parts of the old city that I have never seen before, such as the old chapel of the Augustine monastery.

The old bell-tower is classed as a Historic monument by the French authorities, and quite rightly so in my opinion. However I can’t find out very much about it.

There was a three-hour wait for the train back – this new line only has four trains each way per day. So it was a good job that I had taken a book with me and that I had bought a bottle of water.

So while I was waiting for the train I was reading my book, drinking my water and … errr … having a little relax.

A train from St-Lô pulled in but to my surprise it terminated here and then set off back. It’s not like there’s a lot of traffic on the line so I would have thought that they might have run on to at least Granville.

Eventually my train came in – bang on time too which is always good news. There weren’t too many empty seats, which surprised me, but I managed to find a place of my own to sit and relax.

And for the first time for I don’t know how long, there was a ticket collector on the train who was actually checking the tickets. I’d bought mine on line before setting off, so I was quite okay.

I was soon back in Granville. I’d missed the laboratory, but I was just in time to see all of the shops close up. 19:00 already. Where did the day go?

There was a lot going on down in the town that I saw as I was climbing up the hill.

It goes without saying that with the tide in and the gates open, there was a line of trawlers unloading at the fish-processing plant. I just wish that I could remember what it was like back before 1992 when the Grand Banks were open and the port was heaving with deep-sea trawlers.

And even earlier too, when the railway line was operating and all of the catch was taken away by rail. I shall have to go to the library and do some research into the dockside railway.

There were a couple of people gazing over the wall at something going on down below, so I joined them.

There was a bride down there having her photograph taken amidst the plastic rowing boats. And I’m not sure why because it wouldn’t have been the place where I would have wanted my wedding photographs to be taken.

And that wasn’t everything either. On the way up the hill I’d seen a big black-and-white cat dash across the road, run up a tree, knock a pigeon out, dive out of the tree and drag the stunned bird off in triumph.

Well done him.

Rosemary had rung up while I was out. She rang me back later and we had a really good chat for ages.

For a change I didn’t feel like a big tea, so I just had a nibble here and there. Now I’m off to bed to relax my knee and have a good sleep.

And I need it too. I’ve done 125% of my daily target today – 9.8 kms. And much to my surprise, I don’t feel any worse than I did before I set out.

But I shall probably sleep tonight. I had a little doze here and there in the station but I’ll need more than that.

gare de coutances railway station manche normandy france

old cars renault estafette coutances manche normandy france

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire Rue des Teintures, coutances manche normandy france

fire drill firemen st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

motorcycle training school st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Coutances manche normandy france

voie de la victoire Pont de Soulles st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

rue des teintures Centre Hospitalier de Coutances manche normandy france

Clocher de l’ancienne chapelle des frères Augustins rue des teintures coutances manche normandy france

bollards with metal inserts rue des teintures coutances manche normandy france

Clocher de l’ancienne chapelle des frères Augustins rue des teintures Centre Hospitalier de Coutances manche normandy france

Sunday 18th November 2018 – AS KENNETH WILLIAMS …

… and Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”.

There I was, down at the brocante this afternoon admiring the head of a wild boar affixed to the side of a van. So I went up to the stallholder and asked him “don’t you find it rather inconvenient when you are loading up your van?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Having the body of that wild boar going crossways across the van. Doesn’t it interfere with the loading?”
So he looked at me with a rather bewildered look in his eye.

As for other matters however, waking up at 03:45 didn’t help me very much last night.

And neither did 04:40. Or 05:40. Or 06:45. but 07:45 I’d had enough though and couldn’t go back to sleep, so at 08:20 I was up and about.

I’d been away during the night though – to see a former friend of mine in Stoke on Trent (and it’s a long time since he’s appeared in one of my voyages, isn’t it?). I was walking down a street that bore more than just a passing resemblance to Coleridge Way in Crewe. I arrived at his house and had to walk in the street as the pavement was blocked by two huge Jaguar Mark X cars of the like that we saw the other day. One of these two was silver and the other one was red like the Daimler that I owned. Up his drive I walked and couldn’t quite get into his garage because there was a third Mark X Jag blocking the entrance. He was inside the garage, sweeping the floor and fixing something. I noticed that his inspection pit had been filled in and the floor of the garage had been painted red. He told me that I shouldn’t have come down to the garage without letting him know I was coming, but I go the impression that he was implying that I shouldn’t come down to his house at all.
A little later, I was thinking about buying a new coach. I needed to think about what I wanted and to see a few examples, so I asked a (female) friend who lived near a coach sales place to see what they had for sale. She was thinking that she would have to buy it for me but I explained that all that she needed to do was to look at it, see if the body had any rust on it or something like that.

With a rather late, leisurely breakfast, I didn’t do all that much this morning. However, that didn’t prevent me from changing the habits of a lifetime and actually doing some tidying up in the bedroom. Putting away a pile of papers that have been loitering around here for a while.

Another thing that I have done too was to change the plug over on the record deck. There was a British plug on it but if I’m going to use it here, which I shall do in early course, it needs a French plug on it. And looking for something else yesterday, I came across a couple doing nothing very much.

Once that was working, I had a play around with Audacity – the audio program that I used to use to edit my live tracks for the radio program. I’ll be using this to record all of my LPs and I need to make sure that I can remember what to do.

After lunch (and wasn’t my home-made hummus delicious?), I went for a walk down into town. No football today. It’s Cup week and all of the local clubs have been eliminated.

I retraced my steps from yesterday and went down the steps to the Rue du Port. And then across the road and onto the docks again right by the fish-processing plant.

However the tide was in so the harbour gates were open. I couldn’t come across to the other side but instead it gave me an opportunity to photograph then.

You’ll remember that I took a photograph of them while they were closed yesterday.

While I was down there in the beautiful sunny afternoon I took the opportunity to have a good mooch around the fish docks for a while and take a few photos

The pile of gravel down at the edge of the quayside is now growing rather quickly. It looks as if we will be having a visit of the gravel boat quite soon.

She’s not been here for a while.

On my way down into the town centre I had a good look at the old railway track embedded on the quayside.

In an early photograph that I had seen, there had been something that looked as if it might have been a broad-gauge rail-mounted crane.

And on closer inspection, what this looks like to me is not, as I had originally thought, a double-track line, but a single-track railway in the centre. The two outer rails are raised slightly higher than the two rails in the centre, so I reckon that they might well be rails for a crane.

I’ll have to find an imperial tape measure and go down to measure the gauge. That will tell me what I need to know.

The stupid, ignorant racists from Britain First are launching a campaign to boycott the Subway chain of sandwich restaurants because they are offering halal food in certain outlets.

It’s all quite reminiscent of the Nazi boycott of Jewish shops in the 1930s – and they say that they aren’t racists!

But here, our local Subway is offering a promotion involving that famous cartoon character Shaun the Sheep.

I wonder if it is he who is rotating on the skewer. And whether he has been killed humanely.

It does rather remind me of the story of Larry the Lamb and when the BBC abandoned the series.

When they came to sell off the assets of the programme, someone asked how much they had received for Larry the Lamb.
“Three and six a pound” was the reply.

Something similar happened when they stopped “Children’s Playtime” on the BBC.
Someone asked “what did they get for Muffin the Mule?”
“Eighteen months” was the reply.

Back here later, I organised a few photos on the internet and then did some more work on Day Three of the High Arctic. As well as a little … errr … repose.

Tea was a vegan pizza of course, and it all worked out rather well. One of the better ones that I’ve done.

Back out tonight for my walk around the headland and I was the only one there. Hardly surprising because it’s freezing outside. Well, 6°C actually, but that’s still the coldest that it’s been so far this half of the year.

Winter has definitely arrived.

The sailing ship Marité in the harbour in the Port of Granville

The harbour and port and the walled town of Granville

Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou in the walled town of Granville.

The sailing ships Marité and the little La Granvillaise mooored here in the harbour of the port of Granville.

Wednesday 13th June 2018 – WHAT A MISERABLE …

… day this was.

Mind you, I think that I laid the foundations for it by not going to bed until 01:25 and that’s no good. I was so engrossed in the page that I was working on that I hardly noticed the time. But at least it’s all on line now, all [gulp] 4651 words of it, a new world record and by a country mile too, and you can read it at your leisure.

And at 4651 words, you’ll need a lot of leisure.

So it’s no surprise that leaving my bed this morning was rather difficult and it was a long hard crawl into the living room. And crawl too. I’d had a bad attack of cramp during the night and I could still feel it – in fact I felt it for all of the day.

Once I’d breakfasted and organised myself, I went out to attack Caliburn – or more correctly, the untidy mess that is within him. He’s been emptied out, given a good brushing out, vacuuming and a wash of his dashboard.

Not only that, he now has his new seat covers fitted, although they are too small and I’m not sure how that can be, seeing as they are described as “Universal”.

And I found the missing spring clip. It had sprung into the tool box. So now the window winder winds properly.

You have no idea of the amount of stuff that went into the bin. And all of the stuff that was in Caliburn that really needs bringing in here.

By the time that I had finished, no-one was more surprised that me to see that it was 13:30. I’d spent a short while chatting to a neighbour and another short while giving Gribouille a stroke, but not that much. So I came in, made my butties and then went to sit on the wall in the sun because it was beautiful.

The lizard was there waiting for me and he even climbed up my leg to try to reach the pear before I had finished it. He’s getting to be very friendly now.

Back here I made myself a coffee and sat down for a moment. Next thing that I knew, it was 16:30. I’d been totally out of it for over two hours and hardly felt a thing. That filled me with dismay.

It took me ages to come round too. I’ve been noticing that not only am I crashing out for longer and longer, it’s becoming more and more difficult to shake myself out of it.

As a result of my indisposition my walk this afternoon was very late.

But I’m glad that I made it outside because the weather was really delicious. Even nicer than it had been at lunchtime. The sun was penetratingly warm, truly the First Day of Summer.

The crowds were out sunbathing on the beach for the first time this year after the long, wet and windy winter that we have had and I can’t say that I blamed them either

There were crowds of people splashing around in the water too. But sooner them than me. It wasn”t that warm – or, at least, warm enough to tempt me.

But you’ll notice the diving platform here. You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of a couple of people swimming around in the sea by the diving platform and it was almost submerged by the tide.

This gives you some idea of just how much of a tide we have here in Granville. And it goes out much further than this too.

Once I’d returned for my walk I had to phone up the UK to pay for my clothing order. It’ll be here within a week they reckon, ceteris paribus. But as for the order from BUT and LeClerc, not a sign anywhere. And I noticed that prices are starting to rise slowly but surely over there.

There was a meeting of the inhabitants of the old town this evening, chaired by the mayor of Granville so I went along to see what was happening.

I learnt a few things about the future projects but most of the time was spent listening to certain people airing their petty grievances which was a waste of time. And not the kind of stuff that needs to be discussed in a public meeting anyway.

But one exciting scheme was a project concerning the refection old railway lines down on the quayside. Could it be that they are going to actually do something about reopening the lines?

It would be exciting if they did, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer and now I really AM going to have an early night. I can’t last the pace these days.

But at least Caliburn is sorted and ready for the road.

Tuesday 24th April 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

… and also wrong about my sunburnt legs.

Although I managed to go to sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, it didn’t last long and by midnight or so I was back wide awake again and in agony.

03:20 came round – I saw that while I was tossing and turning hoping to find a comfortable position where I could sleep with less pain, and I must have done at some point because the next thing that I remember was that it was 06:37 and light outside.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. With two friends going down to the farm, or – at least – what passed for the farm last night. We met another couple along the way and they followed us all the way down to the house of my friends. When we arrived, I invited this couple in for a coffee (although of course it wasn’t up to me) but for some reason the husband wasn’t interested so there was just me and this woman. But my friend’s wife had cleared off somewhere and my friend was being extremely distant and offhand – I couldn’t work out what was the matter with him. So instead we went to look for my friend’s wife and ended up at the top of Underwood Lane in Crewe. It was rush hour – Rolls-Royce chucking out time and the streets were crowded with people on bicycles and there was a collision between a couple of bicycles right in front of us and that needed to be sorted out. We went into a bakery there and my friend’s wife was there. She made me take a loaf from the drawer at the bottom of the display unit. It was nice and warm as I put it in a paper bag and I went off to pay for it. I’d already bought a couple of buns from here and so I didn’t want to take them up to the cash desk with me but she was rather persuasive. As I came towards the queue there were maybe three different people heading towards it from about three different directions so she told me to use a handy shopping trolley as a barricade to block off the queue from any direction other than the one in which I was heading. So I blocked one man off so that he would have to come to get behind me in the queue.

Leaving my stinking pit was awful with the pain in my legs. But a close examination of them has realised – as I feared – that it’s not just the sunburn that’s causing me problems. My legs have swollen too. The heat can’t have been good for the water retention issues which is a tragedy as far as I am concerned. I thought that I had passed beyond that, but apparently not.

I was a little late going down to breakfast, and I almost missed the people I had been hoping to see. But that can’t be helped either. But it was such beautiful morning that rather than stay in and do any work I dressed up properly, making sure that everything was covered up, and went outside.

Outside in the car park we discovered that if the tourists don’t want to go to the souk, then the souk will come to the tourists.

It’s the usual cheap touristy nonsense sold at about 10 times its value (something that should come as no surprise to anyone of course) and there was nothing on sale that was of any interest to me whatsoever anyway.

but it clearly works for some people. Almost every child in the resort was wandering around later clutching a stuffed camel. Any why not after all? It’s a kids holiday.

Talking of kids (well, at least one of us is) the hotels here are very child-friendly.

There are five swimming pools here and they all cater for kids from all ages. These water chutes would keep many a child out of mischief for a considerable period of time.

And according to a woman whom I met on the bus that took us to the desert, there are others that are even more child-friendly than here.

A nice cold orange juice on the patio by the sea was a good place to start and then making sure that the parasol was positioned correctly I installed myself on a recliner with my book. And there I stayed for several hours – longer than is appropriate but at least I was covered up from the sun.

Back in my room I had a good relax for a while before going down to lunch. The usual salad and bread, and then I was off on adventure.

Just about half a mile from the hotel is a tram stop. There’s a coastal tram that runs between Sousse, the airport, Monastir and a few points south and I was determined to have a go on it. So running the gauntlet of the taxi drivers loitering outside, I headed for the highway and the tram.

No ticket machine on the station so I enquired of a fellow passenger as to the arrangements for paying. “A man comes round on the train” so she told me. So its still the good old-fashioned conductor them. Can’t say fairer than that.

Bang on time (which I suppose is something of a novelty out here) the tram pulled up at the stop.

You can see that it’s a nice modern tram – or, I suppose – train, really. All-electric and probably metre-gauge.

Comfort was, well, basic, but you don’t expect too much. especially when you consider the price. It must be five or six miles to Sousse at least, and the fare was 800 mills – that’s about £0:25. Who can complain at that?

And there was provision for disabled passengers too, and it seemed to be respected by the passengers.

One of the reasons for going to Sousse was that coming back the other evening I had noticed a couple of large ships in the harbour, and the harbour seemed to be easily-accessible.

And I wasn’t disappointed either.

Over there we have the Bekir Hacibekiroglu, a Turkish-flagged general cargo ship with a deadweight of 3500 tonnes. Built in 1985, she sailed … "dieseled" – ed … into the harbour here in Sousse on 15th April 2015 and from what I can find out, hasn’t moved since. And so I wonder what her story is.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the usual place for ships to go to be laid up is the Gulf of Piraeus and seeing as that is much closer to Turkey than here is – and also closer to the ship-breaker’s too – I was surprised to see her parked here for so long. Just think about the berthing fees

No such issues with the Sahra 2 though. By the time that I had returned to my hotel and looked on the ship-tracking website that I use, she was halfway down the Mediterranean. And when I came to type up this article she was in the Black Sea off the coast of Romania.

She’s an agricultural commodities carrier built in 1989 and flies the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – an unusual choice for any ship if you ask me. But then there is an “offshore banking community” there, of which it has been said that “its secrecy causes some concern”.

So maybe that’s the answer.

Our third ship is the big one in the background behind the police and customs patrol boats. I couldn’t get any closer than this because that side of the port was a wall and a warehouse, not an open railing like this one.

She’s the Milou – which, by the way, is also the name of Tintin’s dog – a Panamanian bulk carrier with e deadweight of almost 17,000 tonnes. She arrived here this morning from Thessaloniki in Greece from where she had departed on the 11th, so she’s been getting about a bit too.

They aren’t the only ships in the harbour either.

Sousse was one of the centres of the Barbary pirates of the early modern era and there are several ships such as this one, all imitation pirate ships, that will take you for a run about the harbour for an hour or so.

It’s long been my ambition to got for a voyage on a sailing ship but in the heat on a sea as calm as a mill-pond isn’t quite what I have in mind. And besides, I don’t really have a couple of hours to spare.

Instead, I was going to explore the city for a couple of hours.

And the first port – if you’ll pardon the expression – is the beach. This is where all of the locals come to relax but there weren’t all that many people out there right now. They were all under the shade of nearby awnings or cafes, and where I should really be if I had any sense although that’s not likely now, is it?

It really was warm and I was glad that I had brought a bottle of water here.

Those people who were about were heading for that rather large rock over there. I’m not sure if it’s natural or man-made (the rocks around it, I mean – the concrete is certainly man-made) but it won’t be a diving platform. While it’s incorrect to say that the Mediterranean is tideless, whatever tides there are here are comparatively insignificant.

For that reason alone, you won’t find too many people diving into the sea off that. And I can’t say that I blame theM.

One of the (many) must-see places in Sousse is the Parc Charles Nicolle at the north end of the city centre. And I bet that you are all wondering who he was when he was at home, if he ever was.

He was born in Rouen in 1866 into a distinguished medical family, and followed in their footsteps into the medical profession. However he developed a deafness that inhibited his active role and instead he took to the laboratory.

In 1903 he was appointed chief of the Pasteur Institute in Tunis and remained there for the rest of his active life. At was during this period that the first serious studies of African (as opposed to world-wide) diseases and illnesses began, and he was in the van.

He will however always be noted for his fleas.

What I mean by this is that he was one of the first to investigate the spread of typhus and to work out that it was due to the flea. Disinfecting the clothing, taking a steam bath, and improving general hygiene and cleanliness, all measures that he applied to the patients in the hospitals, brought about a rapid decline in the spread of the disease.

His work in this field was to bring him a Nobel Prize in 1928.

As I wandered around the park I came across yet another photography shoot. I seem to be finding dozens of these right now, don’t I?

In this one we had a woman on a swing with a man pushing her, while a woman was taking the photographs.

No idza what they were advertising or what was the purpose of the shoot, but it seemed to be something quite complicated and serious by the looks of things.

I’ve mentioned previously that the Revolution in January 2011 affected tourism quite badly, and there were a couple of indiscriminate shootings in 2015, one of them just up the rod from here in Port-el-Kantaoui, that made matters worse.

We’ve seen a couple of hotels that have been abandoned as a result and here in the centre of Sousse there’s another one. I suppose that the issue with this one is that they can’t put a wall around it to keep the tourists in and the street pedlars and other unwanted people out

But it does go to show just how much tourism has been affected here in Tunisia by the events of the last few years.

Walking back towards the town I was accosted firstly by a taxi driver who was desperately searching for custom. I don’t know why these people think that Europeans don’t have legs but there you go.

But when I told him that I was walking, he told me all about the Medina (most of which I knew anyway) and pointed to where it was, which I also knew.

A couple of minutes later, I fell in with one of the waiters from my hotel. Or, rather, he fell in with me. He told me that it was the last day of the sale in the souk, and now was the chance to pick up a real bargain. And he knew just the person.

Without wishing to be impolite, I turned down the opportunity but he was most insistent, so seeing that I can waste far more of anyone’s time than they can ever waste of mine and that it was a chance to have a conducted tour of the souk, I tagged along.

One thing about the souk here in Sousse is that it’s said to be the most complete, orignal and authentic in the whole of North Africa. And who am I to argue with that?

Fighting off the hands that were trying to pull me into their boutique, we eventually arrived at some dingy shack down some dark alley somewhere.

And here I was shown some leather jackets.

The proprietor did the “fire test” to prove that the jackets were real leather, but of course he used his own lighter filled with his own gas rather than anyone else’s lighter filled with gas that he didn’t know, and we’ve all seen that behaviour before.

And then the bargaining commenced. It was a beautiful jacket, so he told me, “made of the finest leather and the quality is superb. It’s made by the same people who make all of the leading jackets for the Government and for export”.

It was on sale at 1350 Dinar (that’s about £425) but as a special favour to me I could have it at half-price – a bargain at just 675 Dinar.

The usual response when a price is mentioned in a place like this is to burst out into fits of uncontrollable laughter and so he tried again.

After about an hour, with my “guide”, clearly on a percentage, perspiring in a corner, we were down to 300 dinar but then I told him that I didn’t have any room in my suitcase to take it home anyway.

A while later he started to try to sell me a belt and when after another half hour, and a dramatic drop from 80 to 20 dinar, I walked away and left them cursing in their little booth.

I was more interested in the watch tower.

It’s called the Ribat of Sousse and construction began in the 8th Century when the Arabs took control of the area. It was slowly expanded and reached its present form in the 10th Century. It’s claimed to be one of the most complete and original of the surviving towers, and even has a toilet and a rainwater storage tank.

Unfortunately it also has a mosque, which means that seeing as it was prayer time I couldn’t go inside to climb to the top. But there may be another time for that.

The Medina of Sousse dates from roughly the same period (the city that was here when the Arabs arrived was totally destroyed) and is considered to be one of the finest, most complete of the “first generation” Arab medinas of North Africa. And as a “seafront” Medina it’s practically unique.

So much so that it was registered on the list of UNESCO’s places of importance in 1988, and quite rightly so.

As well as the metro station, Sousse has two main-line railway stations. And the one in the centre of town has a train that goes to Tozeur on the edge of the Sahara, and this train was going to be my fall-back method of getting to the desert in the absence of a better offer.

I wandered along there to have a look at the trains, but my attention was sidetracked by this pick-up.

We’ve seen several types of vehicle that here never offered for sale in Western Europe, and here’s another one. It’s a Mahindra Scorpio Getaway and here in Tunisia are the first that I have ever seen.

Although there is a set-up ready to import them into France and Spain (where it will be called the “Goa”) and maybe even the USA before too long

Back on the streets again and my route takes me past the statue of Habib Bourguiba – just in time for the rush hour.

And just in case you are wondering, which I must admit that I was too, Habib Bourguiba was one of the leaders of the movement opposing the French colonialism here in Tunisia.

He became the first President of an independent Tunisia and is considered by many to be the founder of the modern state.

But I’m more interested in the railway lines. It seems that at one time there was a line that connected the metro line and the main line with branches off to the docks. That would have been exciting to see.

Back at the railway station I found that there was a train all ready to depart. There was also a ticket window so I went to buy a ticket in advance of boarding.

And here we had a most delightful conversation –
Our Hero “do you have to tell the driver where to stop, or does he stop automatically at every stop?”
Girl in ticket booth (after consultation with colleague) – “yes”.
So there you are.

But never mind the Metro for the moment, I’m far more interested in the locomotive that is parked alongside it.

It’s a locomotive from our old friends the Montreal Locomotive Works and is one of the 145 examples of the MX620 C-C diesels of 2000 horsepower built during the period 1973-1980. The SNCFT bought 22 examples which, we are proudly informed, date from 1971. And I’m still trying to work that one out.

But it’s certainly not the kind of machine that you would expect to see on a tramway or a metro, or whatever they might call the line here.

Hemmed in like sardines we were on our train, which by the way was built by Hyundai in 2011. And we rattled our way back to the hotel tram stop. Another 80 mills – or £0:25.

I didn’t have to apply the test about whether I had to ask the driver to stop or whether he stopped automatically because there was a crowd of people waiting at the station to board the train and they stopped it for me.

I alighted and walked back to my hotel, dodging the traffic on the ring road.

Back here, I had a little rest and then came down for tea. And arranged an alarm call. My bus calls for me in the morning at … gulp … 02:40, so I need to be up and about by 02:00 at the latest.

I don’t like that idea at all.

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

I’ll say!

I gave up at about 22:00 last night and fell straight asleep. And that was that until the alarm went off at 06:00 (or 06:30 in fact as Newfoundland is 30 minutes in advance). I remember nothing at all.

It’s not as if I had been doing anything either – there’s nothing that I can think of that had particularly worn me out.

Mind you, when I say that I remember nothing, that’s not entirely true. I do remember a couple of young girls who needed taking somewhere so I hd to organise them onto their bikes and make sure that they followed me closely. And anyone who knows anything about young girls will know that that is a pretty difficult task.
And later there I was on the top deck of a bus with a friend going up Middlewich Road past “the Rising Sun” and seeing an end-of-terrace house that I’d been hoping to buy but hadn’t, and thinking that it would make an ideal place from which to operate a taxi business. There were two other people on board the bus and we ended up talking about taxis. And as the bus took us down Coppice Road the guy I was with was explaining that there aren’t many taxis in the centre of town but each suburb and little village seemed to have its own little taxi business. One of the guys came over to us and in an intimate fashion started to speak to us about his friend who was rather simple and needed a great deal of guidance.

So having missed a good bit of the morning already, I started the porridge and had a shower. Put things in their proper order.

And when I came out of the shower the internet was down so that made me rather miserable.

Not only that, the place was deserted. No-one about, no-one in the car park, no-one in the restaurant etc. Just like the Marie Celeste in fact.

So I breakfasted off my own stocks of porridge (which as usual took ages to cook) and some coffee that I “liberated” from the public area (they had only given me one serving).

And pushed on with the blog entry anyway – that’ll teach me to have an early night.

By 10:30, all done and dusted, I hit the trail west.

First stop was on the Trans-Canada Highway on a stretch of road overlooking Clarenville.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we stayed there in 2010 where I arrived in the dark and then had a flat tyre to deal with, so we didn’t take much in the way of photos.

But you can see just how beautiful the place is, and there’s even a ship in port, although my fleet database insists that the port is empty.

I’ve been down this road before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and even wrote two pages about it – this one and this one – so I shan’t bore you with too many photos.

But there’s one here where I turned off the Trans-Canada Highway.

That’s Gander Lake down there and it is for the lake that the town of Gander is so named.

This was where I planned to have my lunch stop (it was that time already) but before I could stop and eat, I had important things to do.

You’ll notice up there on the crest the flags of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the USA and the fourth one, representing the town of Gander.

Up there is the site of the worst ever air disaster to take place on Canadian soil, and dates from 12th December 1985.

A DC8 flying from Cairo to Kentucky stalled just after takeoff from the airport at Gander just across the main road and crashed to earth, killing all 256 people on board.

The 248 passengers were almost all members of the American 101st Airborne Division and were returning to base after having undergone a six-month tour of duty as part of the multi-national peacekeepers in Sinai.

They had stopped for fuel in Cologne and again in Gander, but despite the miserable weather and the time of year, the aeroplane was not de-iced on take-off.

Furthermore, its reported laden weight had been considerably under-declared.

Even today, the scar where the aeroplane came down is clearly visible and the intense heat of the fire (the plane was carrying a full load of fuel) means that little will grow in the area today.

And although the generally-accepted cause of the accident is the icing and overloading issue, there are as many controversial conspiracy theories as you like about the accident.

As for me, I left the site of the accident and went down to the lake in the gorgeous sunshine to read my book and eat my butties.

And to fight off a dog that had taken a fancy to my food – there was quite a crowd of people down here today.

But then again, why not? It really was pleasant and I found it difficult to heave myself out of my seat and hit the road.

And here’s a thing!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I came by here 2010 I had a fierce argument with the people here about their Lockheed Hudson.

Their labelling stated quite clearly that Donald Bennett flew it from Gander to Aldergrove in Northern ireland – the first aeroplane to complete the “Atlantic Ferry”.

In his autobiography Pathfinder Bennett makes it perfectly clear that he didn’t fly the aeroplane but was in fact the navigator.

And also that his aeroplane wasn’t the first to arrive either.

And while the Museum is still vacillating over the “first” bit – they have in fact amended the plaque to show that he “captained” the plane.

So some progress is being made.

But as for the Karrier Bantam that was here, that has, unfortunately, bitten the dust. “Too bad to keep”, so I was told.

And they had even been offered another one – in even worse condition apparently – and turned that down!

I despair.

Having seen what has been “preserved” in Canada, and just how they preserve it, the Bantam should have been child’s play.

Next stop was Lewisporte up on the coast, and I came to yet another shuddering halt as I arrived on the edge of town.

The Lewisporte branch of the Newfoundland Railway was probably the most profitable, with the town being on of the island’s most major ports, and here is a collection of artefacts too remind us of its history.

At least locomotive 902 – one of the GM NF110 locomotives, is in marginally better condition here

I mentioned that Lewisporte was one of the busiest coastal ports on the island. In the old days, almost every ship destined for Labrador sailed from here.

That slowed down as the road network improved and came to a shuddering halt when the Sir Robert Bond was laid up once the road over the Mealy Mountains was opened in 2010

Today, only the Astron, a small freighter, leaves Lewisporte for the north, calling at Black Tickle and ports north of the Hamilton Inlet, and she won’t take passengers.

But in something of a forlorn hope I presented myself at the port offices to enquire about anything that might be going out, but as I suspected, I was disappointed.

But I was asked if I wanted to buy a car ferry of my own.

She was the Capt Earl W Winsor, built in 1972 and sailed for over 20 years as Prince Edward from Pictou to Prince Edward Island until the Confederation Bridge was built.

Then she came here, acquired her current name from a local politician, and sailed for nearly 20 years on the service to Fogo Island.

And when you think that she cost a mere $300,000 when the Newfoundland and Labrador Government had budgeted $12,000,000, that has to be the deal of the Century.

We discussed Apollo too. Everyone agrees that she is well past her sell-by date, but they reckoned that the Government has no money to replace her.

“There’s plenty of money when it comes to St John’s or Muskrat Falls” I interjected, to which they all concurred wholeheartedly.

On my way out of the port, I was distracted by these.

It’s 30 years or so since the railway on Newfoundland was abandoned but here on the docks you can still see rails embedded in the surface of the tarmac.

You can tell that it’s a narrow-gauge line too – just 3″6″. And that was one of the reasons for the downfall of the railway.

While it’s cheaper to construct and better in tight curves that you find on the mountain sections, it means that everything has to be trans-shipped at North Sydney or Channel-Port-aux-Basques, and that was just too much.

So now I’m off to my motel for tonight, the Westwood Inn at Grand falls. And it took some finding too.

“Come off at Exit 17 and it’s there” they said. And so I did. And after driving around for about 20 minutes and getting back onto the Trans-Canada Highway, I saw it way across the other side and had to do a naughty “U” turn to arrive.

It’s the most expensive place where I’ve stayed, although you wouldn’t think so. Holes in the bath carpet, internet that only works when it feels like it and a kettle that took three hours and still hadn’t boiled

And if I ever have a child I shall call it “Happy” after the receptionist, because I have never yet met anyone who couldn’t care less about her job, her establishment and her customers.

If I had been in charge, she would have been long down the road because her bad attitude is the kind that discourages anyone from coming to stay here again once they’ve had the pleasure of her company.

Monday 4th September 2017 – I’M NOT QUITE SURE …

… what happened during the night but for some reason or other I was tossing and turning quite considerably.

In fact, I was so wide-awake at 01:00 that I was giving serious thought to actually getting up and doing some work. But I abandoned that idea and went back to sleep and off on my travels.

I was back chauffering again in the main office – my first day back for years and I wasn’t sure of how everything workec – the post needed to be sorted for distribution and I wasn’t sure of how to do that and where it was supposed to go. But then there were all kinds of changes taking place on the very day, and our office was one of the ones that had been selected for revision so no sooner ha I settled down when all of the workmen suddenly appeared. I ended up outside wanting to go downstairs but there were issues with the lifts and we had to wait hours – and when a lift did arrive it was going in the wrong direction. Some girl missed her lift and ran round to the back of it (I’ve no idea why) to see if she could catch it there.

I was still up and about by 05:30 though and that gave me a good opportunity to attack some work on the laptop. And I made a major mistake too – the slow cooker certainly lives up to its name and if I want to have porridge for breakfast at anything like a reasonable hour I need to start it off as soon as I awake.

It wasn’t until about 10:30 that I was ready to hit the road. And I remembered to stop and take a photograph of the motel this time too.

And the verdict about last night’s motel?

I refuse to be drawn into an argument about “Value for Money” because motel prices in Canada this last couple of years have for some reason or other gone through the roof.

A few years ago I was recoiling in horror at the thought of paying $75 per night for accommodation. Today, getting away with double figures is something of a miracle.

First stop wasdown into the town of Carbonear itself.

It’s another former port and fishing station that at one time was one of the busiest along the coast but became a victim of the incessant growth in size of merchant shipping.

120 years ago you couldn’t move in the bay for schooners but now no commercial traffic comes in because the ships are too big for the depth of the bay.

But the town has undergone some kind of growth spurt in modern times, and that is due to the concentration of services here.

One of the big things that the town has going for it today is the regional hospital and residential care for the elderly, of which there are more than enough left behind in Newfoundland and Labrador as the younger generations dash off to Alberta to seek their fortunes in the oilfields.

But then, they aren’t likely to be making their fortunes with what remains here.

Take the railways for example.

he building of Newfoundland’s railway network at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century brought a new wave of prosperity to many places, including Carbonear.

But the entire system was brutally axed overnight in the 1980s in favour of road transport, and the roads here are disgraceful. They must have been appalling 30 years ago. Many places just fell back into the slumber from which they had been awoken

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my opinion about what passes for “preservation” in North America. And it’s shameful to admit that Canada is as bad at this as their cousins across the border.

This is one of the surviving diesel-electric locomotives from the Newfoundland Railway – A GM EMD G8. Built in 1958, she’s just dumped here outside the station and is slowly rotting away without even a pretence of preservation.

But then this is not time for me to go off on one of my rants. I have things to do.

Instead of leaving Carbonear by going up the hill and along the new road, I followed the coast for a while.

You’ve seen a few beautiful views of Newfoundand to date but all around here can certainly equal whatever the rest of Newfoundland has to offer.

I was told on several occasions that this is the most beautiful part of the island.

And they are certainly not wrong, are they?

There are a few beaches around here but they are mainly shingle. You can’t build a sand castle on there.

And I wouldn’t like to go swimming off there either. Beautiful though the water may be, the cold Labrador current comes right in and I bet that it’s freezing in there

And all of the tiny villages and communities out here too that are really picturesque.

Many of them were cleared away in the controversial resettlement programmes of the 1950s and 1960s but a few still cling on, and here just by Freshwater Cove is one of the most beautiful examples that I have seen.

It’srather a shame that I’m in something of a hurry otherwise I could prowl around here for weeks.

When I arrive at Victoria, I turn off onto Highway 74 that takes me across to the western side of the peninsula.

It’s quite a climb up but when you arrive at the tip it’s well-worth it because the views from up here are stunning and it’s a shame that the camera can’t do them justice.

But with a good bit of peering you can make out the sea just beyond that range of hills in the distance.

I try to make these tours something of an educational trip as you know, and so this is another reason why we have come across here to the small town of Heart’s Content.

This is notable for being the landing site of the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable from Ireland and although it only lasted a few weeks until it ruptured, it proved that cable transmission between Europe and North America was perfectly possible and the world was brought into a new technological era.

Once the American Civil War had ended, they had another go at laying a cable from Valentia in Ireland.

They were much-better prepared and much better-equipped this time round and using the massive “Great Eastern”, which had by then been transformed into a cable-laying ship, they could bring a tougher cable ashore.

And right where we are standing is the spot where the cable was pulled ashore, and started 100 years of cable communication between North American and Europe, lasting until radio transmission took over completely.

The cable was so successful that several other cables were laid across the Atlantic.

We’ve already visited a few sites in North America which were transatlantic cable stations, but several more followed in the wake of the 1866 cable and came ashore right here.

The redbuilding over there opposite where Strider is parked was formerly the cable company receiving station but today it’s a museum.

I was tempted to go in for a look around but it’s one of these places where they ambush you with the admission charges and I’m going to have to watch my spending very carefully given how prices have gone through the roof over here.

There are loads of “Heart’s” along here. Heart’s Content and Heart’s Desire, but here weare in Heart’s Delight having a look over the Marina and across the bay around which I have just driven.

Landing fees aren’t so expensive here I noticed – $10 for a night and $115 for the season if you turn up in a small boat.

And so the way that prices are going in Canada right now, next time that Icome, I’ll be coming by sea. It makes much more sense to me.

We run out of “Heart’s” shortly afterwards and end up in the community of Islington.

There was formerly a railway branch line that ran along this side of the peninsula. Built as late as 1915, it only lasted until 1940 when it was all torn up.

Very little, if anything, remains these days of the railway but having a look at that embankment across the bay there, and I’d seen plenty of others in similar situations, then if anything had “railway” written on it, then that does.

But I doubt if I’ll be able to find anything to confirm it.

Meanwhile, my attention was diveted a little further out into the bay by that geological formation just there.

I’m not certain whether you would call it a rock or an island, but the fact that it has grass growing on it woould seem to indicate that it may well be more appropriate to call it the latter.

At least the seabirds call it “home” and it’s probably their droppings that have fertilised it to enable the grass to grow.

A few miles down the road Strawberry Moose persuades me to come to a sudden halt.

He has seen sign on the side of the road that has caught his interest.

I have to explain to him that it’s referring to a kind of seabird similar to a cormorant or some such – hence the “rock” – and so we leave the area with something of an air of diappointment.

But not so this town in Newfoundland.

This place is well-known throughout the whole world as being the favourite holiday destination of the female inhabitants of the Isle of Lesbos in Greece – it’s certainly all Greek to me, that’s for sure.

Who says that 16th Century explorers didn’t have a sense of humour?

And what do people buy when they come to Dildo?

Here’s a notice at the side of the road advertising certain items for sale. and for a town with a name like “Dildo”, then somehow they seemed to be quite appropriate.

It all adds to the flavour of the place, I suppose.

Leaving childish schoolboy humour behind for a moment, we have to go down and investigate the town.

And it’s a small Newfoundland coastal town like any other with nothing to distinguish itself apart from its name.

But have you noticed a change in the weather? We are now all grey and overcast and a terrific wind has sprung up. Look at the sea!

another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will remember is the situation that many Labradorians feel about the exploitation of their region by St John’s.

We have the Muskrat Falls hydro project that might bring some money to the community over there, but where is the power all going?

Not on the Coasts of Labrador, that’s for certain. A company called Valard is building the high-tension lines out of Muskrat falls, and there they are, building a high-tension line not to far from St John’s.

Work it out.

Feeling a desperate urge for a pit-stop I find myself back at the Tourist Information site o the Trans-Canada Highway where I started when I arrived on Newfoundland.

It was also quite late too and I was hungry, so I took this as being the appropriate place for a lunch stop. And shame as it is to admit it, I went away with the fairies for a while too.

After a while I awoke and, searching in the toursit guide, came across a motel that had a room at a price that wasn’t quite out in the realms of fantasy.

I’d planned a little trip around rhe Belle Vue Beach area because that was another place that was quite beautiful, but it just wasn’t my lucky day.

An hour or two ago, I had said that the weather was changing – and I was right. By now we were in the middle of something of quite a rainstorm.

Leaving the comfort and safety of Strider to admire the view was not going to be all that muchof a good idea.

But nevertheless, abandoning my drive around the bay due to the miserable weather, there’s a good view across the bay from the climb back up to the Trans Canada Highway.

It’s a shame that the weather has turned like this. The view looks so good in these conditions, so imagine what it must be like in glorious sunshine.

It’s quite disappointing.

One final place to visit on this journey, and that’s the little town of Come By Chance.

It’s here that an early explorer by the name of John Guy found a portage across the island and encountered a group of friendly Beothuk natives with whome he engaged in trade.

The site of their meeting is quite famous in Newfoundland lore but if anyone thinks that I’m stepping out of Strider in this, they are mistaken. It’s absolutely dreadful out there.

And so I make my way through the driving rain as far as the Trailside Motel.

It’s not as cheap as I was expecting it to be, and it’s crowded with a bar and café where bikers and people like that hang out. Not exactly my ideal but then again it’s the cheapest place on offer right now.

The room is reasonable and I rustle myself up a meal of pasta, mushrooms, bulghour and tomato sauce. Having learnt my lesson from the other day I set it up as soon as I arrive – this slow cooker lives up to its name.

The internet is pretty lousy too – it won’t hold a connection for more than five minutes. I try to talk to a few people but give it up after half an hour of constant interruption.

Searching the internet (when it lets me) I find a thesis from 1965 about the displacement of settlements in Labrador so I download it (on one of the slowest connections I have ever seen) to read at my leisure.

But for some reason I can’t keep going and I end up calling it a day.

At 22:00 too! I really am slipping!

Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

… to go to sleep last night – to such an extent that I was away on my travels.

I was in Winsford having to go to Northwich and there was a choice of two routes to take. And they were the same distance too so I couldn’t decide which one to take, especially seeing as I was going on foot. But eventually I arrived there and came out of a building that might have been the railway station (but which isn’t). On the left was some kind of 1960s tower block which the town council was using as its headquarters and to the right was an old Victorian building rather like a school which was owned by the Council and which had been their previous HQ but was now derelict, and there was some scandal about the deal which had led to the Council vacating the building and leasing the more modern one for a fee which many people considered to be excessive. I was in a crowd across the square watching this old building, in the company of none other than Liz Ayers – and how many years is it since she’s been on a nocturnal ramble with me? I saw a movement over the roof of this building and couldn’t explain what it was – something like a shadow but I called it a light, which it most certainly wasn’t. But as I said it, six red lights appeared in the sky quite low down just underneath the fullish moon. “Space Laboratory” immediately came into my mind. I tried to explain this to everyone but as they all turned to look, some old woman on a broomstick – a witch – came flying out of the moon.

It was a very restless night last night with me tossing and turning so much, but I was asleep yet again when the alarm clock went off. Sleep is one thing – crawling out of bed is quite something else.

But I had a quick breakfast, made my sandwiches and went with Rachel into the office.

Making myself useful, I cleaned out the bathroom from top to bottom and threw away tons of stuff that had accumulated in there. Now it’s quite clean and shiny, but it did take ages and I had to sit down for a while afterwards.

Having gathered my strength I went round with Rachel to Bob’s house and finished off the vacuuming now that I had located the bags. And we did some general tidying up too.

I hope that I’m still in this kind of mood when I return home.

We had a knotty accounting problem to deal with this afternoon. Ellen is still running the accounts on the basis of Canadian 19th Century accounting, poor Rachel is struggling to understand it and explain it to me, and I’m trying to do it with British 21st Century accounting principles based on Ellen’s templates and Rachel’s explanations. And so between the two of us we ended up in a hopeless tangle.

But we sorted it out eventually once it suddenly clicked with Rachel and she could explain it to me.

In the meantime I’d crashed out, woken up, and gone for a walk around the old railway station site for some fresh air.

Amber and her boyfriend brought me back here where I promptly crashed out again. But a shower brought me round and a nice tea of the rest of the salad and soup from Saturday made me feel even better.

Now I’m having an early night and I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning. Because my legs have swollen up again and that has depressed me mightily.

Wednesday 26th April 2017 – THAT’S TWO MORE …

… ruins crossed off the list this morning.

Two new constructions of which I would have been the first inhabitant.

The first one was a nice apartment but the finishing was terrible. They had installed the kitchen unit and then painted the walls with the result that half of the paint was on the unit. And they hadn’t painted behind the unit either, which gave me a good chance to look at the plasterboard. It wasn’t “hydro” plasterboard but cheap 10mm stuff that wouldn’t last five minutes once it became wet (which is an odds-on certainty behind a kitchen unit). It wouldn’t have been so bad had they tiled it, or even painted it, but that was a load of rubbish and I’m not becoming involved with those kinds of issues.

The second one was a studio, nice and big, but with the black damp already rising out of the floor – and in a new untenanted studio too.

So no danger of me moving into anywhere here.

But I was disappointed about these apartments anyway, because there is someone living just across the road from here that has a similar kind of sense of humour as me, and that’s something quite rare in France, isn’t it?

This isn’t all that was on display either. The whole garden front, sides and back, was covered in garden ornaments. And I have to be honest and say that the idea of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a pile of sprouting mushrooms and half a dozen tuinkabouwters living in the immediate vicinity is one that would appeal to me.

That’s not the only exciting thing here in the vicinity either. This building is actually just across the car park from the building that I was visiting, and regular readers of this rubbish will recognise this for what it is.

It is of course a railway station.

Brehal did once have a railway service, on the line between Granville and Conde sur Vire. Opened in 1909, it was another one of these ephemeral local lines – a tacot with a narrow gauge of one metre.

Ephemeral it certainly was. Not quite matching the 8 years of railway line between Pionsat and Gouttieres, it struggled on for a grand total of 32 years, closing officially in 1941 due to “wartime conditions” and never reopening.

However, I have seen in someone’s memoirs a story that it closed in the mid-1930s and that the rails were removed some time round about 1937-38

I’d had a bad night again – not comfortable in my new bed. And far too much noise for my liking. Despite switching off the film early last night, I couldn’t go to sleep and that’s the thing that always puts me in a bad mood.

After breakfast I hit the streets to Brehal to see these ruins, and then wandered off to the bank for some money. And found myself passing a launderette. I was having a free morning, and I had a pile of dirty clothes in Caliburn and having found the washing soap when I had Caliburn stripped out the other day, I spend a pleasant hour in the launderette with a good book while my washing was going round.

Having picked up a baguette, I headed for the beach. Far too windy and hailstormy to sit outside but I did profit by pulling about 6 months worth of rubbish out of Caliburn and dumping it in a waste bin.

And having a good look at the oyster beds out here too. With the tide being quite low right now, you can actually see them.

While I was eating my butty I had an interesting exchange of text messages –
“Why didn’t you say hello to me?”
“What?”
“When you walked past me just now”
“Did I just walk past you?”
“Yes you did!”
“Where was that?”
“On the car park”
“Which one?”
“The one right outside the sous-prefecture“.
“But I wasn’t there”
“Where are you?”
“Sitting by the seaside in Brehal in Normandy”
“Ohh dear – I’ve texted the wrong number! Sorry”.

Back here, I sat outside in the verandah with a good book and a coffee for a while. And then I made my tea in the kitchen in the garage.

But I’m really fed up with this. Not only do I have the landlady sitting watching me while I eat my breakfast, she came to watch over me while I cooked and ate my tea. And I’m not comfortable in my new quarters either.

I can’t be doing with this. It’s the cheapest place in the whole of Normandy and it’s easy to see why. I’m moving on on Sunday morning – and I don’t care where to – and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever come back here.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: abandoned railway

Monday 3rd February 2020 – SHE’S BACK!

Monday 13th January 2020 – I’M NOT SURE …

Friday 10th January 2020 – HE WHO LAUGHS LAST …

Thursday 9th January 2020 – REGULAR READERS …

Friday 11th October 2019 – REMEMBER YESTERDAY …

Sunday 28th July 2019 – I WASN’T FEELING …

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

Monday 17th June 2019 – I’VE HAD A NICE …

Sunday 18th November 2018 – AS KENNETH WILLIAMS …

Wednesday 13th June 2018 – WHAT A MISERABLE …

Tuesday 24th April 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

Monday 4th September 2017 – I’M NOT QUITE SURE …

Monday 21st August 2017 – I DID MANAGE …

Wednesday 26th April 2017 – THAT’S TWO MORE …

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