Tag Archives: black cat

Tuesday 12th June 2018 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days where no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve gone one pace forward but two paces backwards. It’s frustrating.

It didn’t help matters by being wide awake yet again at 05:20 this morning. I’m not sure why either because there was no noise about and I hadn’t wet the bed either.

Nevertheless, it was a much more sensible and respectable 06:30 when I crawled out from under the covers and faced the world.

After the usual morning routine and a relax, I started on the clothes ordering. That’s n°1 task.

My choice of clothing is really easy – it’s all black and yellow and comes mostly from a place in St Helens, UK where they embroider my own little logo onto the clothes. Stuff there is reasonably cheap, reliable, reasonable quality and it saves me having to worry about what to wear.

It’s been nearly six years since I last had a clothing order and what I’m wearing now, the polo shirts particularly, are looking their age. A bit baggy and faded. So high time that I had some new stuff. The older stuff will make their way to Canada and stay in Strider

All of that took much more time than it should because there was a continual series of interruptions. I can’t even remember what they are now

Apart from that, having had an unbelievable success the other day in resurrecting an old hard drive I had a go at resurrecting a dead laptop and two old external drives. But unfortunately lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place and I have been singularly unsuccessful in that respect.

Lunch was taken inside today seeing as it was a miserable overcast morning. But by the time that I went out for my evening walk it had brightened up and was quite pleasant.

art exhibition place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceThere’s a street fair here in the old town at the weekend where loads of artists will be exhibiting their works of art.

This involves quite a bit of preparation and they seem to be prettying up the Place Maurice Marland already with huge photos, although whatever might be impressive about these has totally passed me by, I have to say.

And I wonder what the wooden framework is for. I suppose that I’ll find out in due course.

Minette was waiting for me on her windowsill and let me pick her up for a stroke again this evening. I seem to be quite popular these days.

This afternoon though, as well as tackling the guitar, I’d had another session on that blog entry that I’m trying to update. I thought that I wasn’t making much progress but when I realise that so far I’ve written a world-record 3878 words and there’s still a long way to go, and what I have written has involved a lot of research, then maybe I have made more progress than I realise.

For tea tonight there was a little bit of Bombay potato left over from before I went away. I added a small tin of mushrooms to it and made some rice with vegetables. That made a decent meal.

but it wasn’t until I found myself drifting off just now that I realised that I’d gone all day up to that point without falling asleep. And with such an early start too. But I’m not going to crow. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, as I have said before.

I’ll go to bed shortly anyway and have a good sleep. I need to do some serious thinking tomorrow and concoct a cunning plan because ill as I am, I’m not going to let the grass grow under my feet.

And incidentally – have I had those two quotes from BUT and LeClerc yet?

Monday 28th May 2018 – IT’S BANK HOLIDAY …

… in the UK today. And seeing as how I’d missed a Bank Holiday the other day I decided that I would take advantage of the day by having my Bank Holiday today.

So no alarm and a nice lie-in until all of … errr … 08:25. Nothing like the lie-in for which I was hoping but a lie-in all the same.

A late breakfast too, and then I did precisely nothing at all for the whole of the day except to mooch around and take it easy. At least, the morning passed like that anyway.

But there was an unexpected twist at lunchtime. I was joined by not one but two lizards waiting for the bits to drop off the pear. I’ll probably end up with a whole herd of lizards by the end of next week at this rate.

bad parking granville manche normandy franceThis afternoon I went for my little walk around the headland. It was school chucking-out time too and so I was able to observe the antics of the parents.

Pathetic parking is a regular feature of this blog as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. here’s yet another example. You cans ee the woman parked right by the bus stop with two wheels on the kerb to prevent passers-by from passing by on the pavement and yet right opposite her is an empty car parking space.

Not to mention the free car park lass than 100 yards down the road of course. I’m really surprised that the local police don’t come round and ticket them all.

was a really pleasant surprise. Ingrid came on line so we had a chat and then a telephone conversation that lasted one hour and forty-one minutes. I’m surprised that I could find that much to talk about. But then Ingrid has her own health issues too and so we jog each other along as best we can

Ingrid asked me what I was going to have fr tea, so I had to make one of these instant decisions. And I decided on another lot of mixed veg with vegan sausages and vegan cheese sauce. That all worked very nicely and was delicious.

And what was even better that with two burners now, I can fry my onions, garlic and sausages at the same time that I make the cheese sauce. As they say, it’s little things like that which make a great big difference.

But while the cooking was reaching a climax, Rosemary rang me up. I told her that I’d call her back in an hour or so after I’d had my tea. And so after the tea and the washing up, I went for my evening walk around the medieval walls.

tidal beach granville manche normandy franceAnd with the tide being well-in, I was interested in seeing what the little beach at the foot of the steps that I had seen the other evening looked like.

The answer to that is that I can forget any idea of going for a midnight stroll on the beach down there. What’s left of the beach at high tide is cut off from the part where the steps are.

No way down and no way up. So not a good idea

granville manche normandy franceA little further along, I was distracted by sounds of hilarity coming from offshore somewhere. Not being able to see anything clearly, this was a job for the telephoto zoom lens.

There’s a diving platform about 4 metres tall right out on the beach and which is well-submerged at high tide. It’s quite a way offshore too and the sea was quite lively, so the last thing that I expected to see were a couple of people out there fooling around.

I watched them for a while to make sure that they were not in distress, and then left them to it.

Having paid my respects to Minette the black cat, who allowed me to pick her up yet again, I went back home and phoned Rosemary back. And there we were on the telephone for an hour and a half.

She’ll be back in the Auvergne sooner that she imagined, and having spent the last 6 months stranded in the UK after her operation she has made a decision that she’s ready to abandon the country too and settle permanently in France. She wanted to know the steps to take.

And I’ll tell you this – anyone who knows anything about Rosemary will realise from this discussion just how deeply the UK has slid into the abyss just recently if she’s upping sticks and moving on.

And as you all know, I can’t say that I blame her one minute. The last time that I set foot in the UK was over 5 years ago – a quick day-trip aller-retour to pick up Terry’s slates from near Folkestone. I can’t remember the last time that I was there before that, and I don’t miss it for a moment. I have no intention whatever of ever going back, although something might be brewing in the background which will mean that a day trip will be necessary some time soon. And I’m not looking forward to that at all.

So it ended up being a later night that I was expecting. But I’m not complaining. I don’t speak to enough people these days anyway. Frederick the Great once made the remark “the more I see of people, the more I like my dog” and he has my sympathy because I know just how he feels.

However Maria McKee wrote “a good heart these days is hard to find” and that’s just as true. It’s a very valuable commodity. I don’t have many friends but it’s quality over quantity any time. My friends are the best in the world and I’ll happily sit up all night talking to them without any problems whatsoever.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Wednesday 16th May 2018 – I HAVE BEEN FEELING …

… a bit better today.

It was probably something to do with the (comparatively) early night that I had last night, coupled with the fact that I was in no hurry to leave the bed this morning after the alarm went off.

So with a slightly later start this morning, I had a slightly later breakfast and a little relax before getting round to attack today’s task.

I’m not going to say too much about that at the moment because it will be the subject of considerable correspondence elsewhere, but it involved the Board of Trade, the UK Government, Companies House and the High Court in Manchester, with considerable reference to the various Insolvency Acts. And the plums that I have been pulling out of all of this are certainly eye-opening.

Still, it keeps me out of mischief.

All of this took me up to a rather late lunch, which I spent eating my butties on the wall overlooking the harbour. And I seem now to have run out of bread. It’s a good job that it’s a shopping day tomorrow.

I’m not quite sure what I did this afternoon because the time seemed to pass so quickly; But one thing that I didn’t do was to crash out. I managed to keep going for all of the afternoon, and that’s certainly some kind of progress.

We did however have our afternoon walk in the wind and our session on the guitar.

But no tea again. No idea where my appetite has gone. But not to worry. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it seems to come and go. We’ve had this kind of thing before and it always ended up by coming back.

And so it will this time too. It’s not as if I don’t have some surplus kilos to shed, is it?

minette black cat tortoiseshell granville manche normandy franceAfter not having tea and not doing the washing up, I still went for my evening walk around the walls of the medieval city.

And there sitting on her windowsill waiting for me again was Minette the black cat – or, rather, tortoiseshell cat as you can see quite clearly in this photo.

So she had a good stroke for 10 minutes as you might expect. As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … it’s all very therapeutic and good for the stress to stroke a cat.

Later on I ended up chatting with Ingrid and Alison. I certainly seem to be popular right now. Do I owe anyone any money?

So another early night. Let’s hope that it’s a good one and I have a decent sleep.

But I’m walking up to LIDL tomorrow so I’ll probably be flat on my back again tomorrow afternoon.

Tuesday 1st May 2018 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… better today.

I was in bed at some really silly time last last, like 21:00 or something. But that’s not the same as saying that I went to sleep. I definitely heard the immersion heater switch on at 22:25.

But drop off to sleep I did, sooner or later. But with having been stark out on the sofa on several occasions, I was wide awake and up and about at … errr … 02:15.

No chance of me making that any kind of time to be up and about on a permanent basis, and I eventually went back to sleep. I’d turned off the alarms of course, with my health issues, and 08:20 was much more of a reasonable time to be out of bed.

No breakfast today – I somehow couldn’t face it. And I spent the morning stretched out on the sofa. Taking it easy, which is not a bad idea. Liz came on line to see how I was. She had heard that I was unwell.

I did manage a butty or two for lunch – another very late one – and then I crawled off out for a walk. I wasn’t feeling at all like it and it was probably a silly thing to do, but I have to push myself onwards otherwise I’m going to be stuck on the sofa for the duration.

Back here, I had a coffee and then watched a DVD – well, some of it anyway.

Just for a change, I did manage some tea tonight. Oven chips, beans and sausage. Followed by strawberries and some of the sorbet that I made the other day. And I have to say it – it does taste as good as it looks and my sorbet maker churned it up nicely.

After tea I did go for another walk and met Minette, the black cat. She was lying in wait for me, possibly because she hasn’t seen me in a while.

So it’s yet another early night. The sore throat has almost gone but I’m sneezing like mad with a streaming head cold.

I just can’t win.

Thursday 5th April 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… better day today. I felt much more like it and managed to accomplish a lot of the things that I should have done yesterday.

And for a change we had a different kind of night. Flat out almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and then wide awake at 04:10. It’s either one thing or the other right now, and it’s certainly not the other, I can tell you that.

But I did go back to sleep again at some point for it was a struggle to resurface when the alarm went off. And then we had the usual morning ritual followed by a shower and a change of clothes. After all, it is Thursday.

Before I left for the shops I attacked the backlog of work, and I’ve now booked my rail ticket to Leuven and my accommodation there. But not a return ticket though. Idly surfing the internet like you do … "like YOU do, you mean" – ed … I found a three-day mini-break in Oostende (I like Oostende as you know) for just €110 plus local taxes. I need a break, and so that will do nicely, thank you.

On the way to the shops I called at the Bank. My rent here is being increased by the cost of living index – all of €3:74 per month, so I need to amend the standing order. And at the station to pick up my rail ticket, I had to help an old man (like I’m really young, of course) wrestle with the ticket machine. It’s not easy if you don’t know what you are doing.

Nothing of much excitement at LIDL although I did forget the Agave Syrup. I even had my hand on it at one point but was distracted and that was that.

On the way back I had to call at the Estate Agent. With the rent being increased, there is €0:34 to pay for the period at the end of April. But they didn’t have a till or a cash box and I didn’t have the correct money, so I’ll have to go there another time with the right amount.

home made vegan kiwi sorbet granville manche normandy franceOnce I’d had my coffee, I set to work.

10 kiwis, one banana; half a cup of desiccated coconut, one carton of coconut cream and a couple of tablespoons of honey (in the absence of Agave Syrup) all chucked into the whizzer and it created half a litre of kiwi mixture.

It’s now busy freezing in the freezer and tomorrow I’ll pass it through the sorbet maker to aerate it. And then it should be done. But I hope that the honey works. Agave Syrup is used for this as it keeps the molecules separate and doesn’t freeze the food in a big solid block.

But then, that’s what the aerator does.

hydrogen powered car granville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I went for my afternoon walk, as it really was a beautiful afternoon.

And technology seems to be catching up with me right now. Parked on the car park of the college this afternoon was a car powered by hydrogen – a mere 20 years after my Open University thesis on the use of hydrogen for motor fuel.

But we saw that when I lived on the farm – what I was doing back in the 90s becoming mainstream 10 or 15 years later.

fibre optic cable rue du port granville manche normandy franceIt’s not the only thing that is catching up either.

We saw the works for the fibre-optic cable and saw them building the new compound for the next phase. And here they are, now attacking the rue du Port as predicted.

Queues a mile long, seeing as it was school chucking-out time, but not that that’s ever going to bother them, is it?

work on place d'armes granville manche normandy franceI mentioned that there are four buildings here that formed part of the barracks. One is now the College, the second is the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs and contains the public rooms, and the other two are being converted into apartments (I live in one of them).

The last one is already part-occupied, and I see that they have now started on work on the final section of it.

I tried to buy an apartment in there, but no-one ever returned my phone calls. And people complain about a recession, don’t they?

bidet place d'armes granville manche normandy franceBut being of a small mind, I had to laugh at the name of the company that is currently working in there.

Mind you, anyone who knows anything about the “Carry On” films, and in particular Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head will understand exactly what is humorous about the name.

But I digress. I came back in for a coffee.

I’m not sure what happened to the afternoon after that. Next thing that I knew, it was 18:45. I must have been stark out for a good 90 minutes or so. This is really getting to me, isn’t it, this ill-health? I shall have to pull myself together somehow.

But I still managed to find the energy to make my aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. And the helping that I had tonight (there are four others for the freezer) was delicious. I really enjoyed that.

place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceIt was a beautiful evening when I went for my walk, and I bumped into an old lady out for a perambulation being followed around by a dog and several cats, one of which is my long-haired black cat.

It turns out that the cat is indeed hers, and she is called Minette (the cat, not the woman). We had quite a lengthy chat but Minette kept her distance. I suppose that the smell of Gribouille, who once more let me pick him up for a stroke, had made her rather jealous.

But it was weird to see this little procession down and around the streets of the Medieval town

So I’ll have a drink and a little relax and then I’ll go to bed. I have my carrot soup to make tomorrow, I reckon.

Tuesday 3rd April 2018 – I HAVE BEEN …

… out to visit an apartment today.

Not that I have all that much intention of buying anything, but when you see a one-bedroom duplex apartment with sea view and private parking for just €70,000, you have to go to look (at least, one of us does) otherwise I shall always be wondering about it.

It was on the edge of St Pair sur Mer so I met Liz in the town and we met up with the estate agent who took us on a scenic tour of the town until we found it.

And much to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a ruin as some that I had seen at much more of a price. But it was small and inconvenient and there was no way that the accommodation could be rearranged to make a decent kitchen and fit the washing machine in. And so I politely declined.

Back at the Estate Agent’s office, we found that the Estate Agent had locked himself out so we left him to it and went for a coffee at the bar on the corner where we encountered France’s entry in the “World’s Worst Waiter” competition.

st pair sur mer manche normandy france The coffee was followed by a walk along the beach in and amongst the groups of schoolkids having their “classes découvertes”.

And there’s a lot more to St Pair-sur-Mer as I discovered as we walked along the beach. Although I’ve been here on many occasions this is the first time that I’ve walked along the beach, and I never knew that there was a river here.

Yes, I may be none-the-wiser but I’m certainly learning a lot.

And having made a conscious decision earlier today to take all of the old cardboard boxes to the dechetterie on the way back, I promptly forgot, and had to turn around halfway home to go back.

This morning it was a struggle to leave my bed at 06:30 and I failed to beat the second alarm. So a slow steady morning during which I caught up with some of the weekend’s undone work and assembled my new chair (which doesn’t seem to be as comfortable as it was in the shop). But then again what do you expect for €36:00?

Tea was stuffed peppers (with too much hot spice in the stuffing) and spicy rice, followed by my walk during which I was waylaid by the long-haired black cat.

So I need to organise myself so much better tomorrow. I have a lot to do and it won’t ever be done at the rate at which I seem to be working right now.

Wednesday 28th March 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… go into town today either.

One look out of the window was enough to tell me all that I needed to know. It wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday but it was near enough.

Another reasonable sleep though – out like a light and slept right through to the alarms and then the usual morning performance.

Once the medication had done its job I started to attack the pile of photographs here. And I don’t want to tell you how many went into the bin because you probably wouldn’t believe that I even had that many. But I’m whittling this down – not necessarily into manageable proportions but at least disposing of unnecessary duplicates … "and triplicates and quadruplicates etc etc" – ed.

And it’s just as well that things are advancing because delivery 2 came today. A 4TB hard drive. The old 250GB one that has run for ever is now overflowing, the 750GB one I’m going to use just for backing up data and so the 2TB one is going to have its work cut out.

And to give you some kind of idea as to how things are shaping, I paid more for the 250GB one that I paid for the new 4TB one, and I do remember that thanks to its mammoth size I won’t ever need anything bigger than 250GB. But then, that was back in the days when a high-quality digital image was 25KB, never mind 25MB.

storm over sea wall port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAfter lunch and the session on the guitar I went out to brave the howling gale, seeing as the rain had stopped.

And “howling gale” were definitely the correct words to use as, once gain, it was blowing a good ‘un. It is starting to depress me just a little this weather. It’s been a miserable, wet clingy winter that seems to have gone on for ever

Ready for a change, aren’t I?

roofing boulevard des terreneuviers granville manche normandy franceThe high winds and bad weather weren’t clearly upsetting too many other people though.

They have suddenly put quite a spurt on with this house that they are building, and have now started to put on the roof.

Not much of a pitch on that though. It’s a good job that they don’t have snow like in the Auvergne. We’ve seen roofs collapse under the weight of the snow that we can have down there.

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceIt didn’t stop Normandy Trader from making her way into harbour either.

No idea what she brought in today, and when I took this photo she was fully-loaded and ready to depart.

And depart she did because when I was out and about this evening, she had left her berth and gone back to Jersey. She and Grima do seem to be keeping quite busy just now.

Back here, I had a coffee and really good chinwag with Rosemary on the ‘phone about this and that. She’s feeling a little miserable after her operation and needed cheering up.

And then tea. Tidying up the other day I had found a leftover pepper and so it was a case of “stuff that for a lark” – and I duly did. Delicious too, as were the strawberries and vegan cream for pudding.

granville manche normandy franceWhen I went out for my walk is was still comparatively light, so I took a nice photo of some of the houses in the the Medieval town through the gateway at the back here.

20:46 in the evening, that was too. The nights are definitely getting shorter now. It was only a couple of months since it was pitch-black at 17:00.

This year is going just so quickly that I can’t keep up with it? Whatever happened to that six-weeks summer holiday that we had that used to last for ever?

casino place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceJUst 15 minutes later though it was a totally different story.

By the time that I had gone round to the fortifications on the north-east edge looking over the Place Marechal Foch and the Casino it was pretty dark.

I had the 50mm lens with me too, but that has an issue with it, so it seems. The aperture ring isn’t locking, according to the camera, although I can tell that it is. I was going to take some photos with that tonight, but instead, tomorrow I’ll be looking at that to see what’s wrong.

And my mate the black cat was there again tonight. But he wasn’t in very much of a sociable mood, and neither really was I.

And just in case you were wondering, I’ve reached “Marillion” on the playlist. Can’t you tell?

Wednesday 21st March 2018 – SPRING IS SPRUNG

The grass is riz
I wonder where de boidies is
De boid is on de wing
But dat’s absoid
I taut de wing was on de boid!

In fact it was such a nice morning this morning that I went for a walk.

Mind you, I had had something of a walk during the night. I was in one of my 3D worlds as a character and it was all totally weird and surreal. So much so that I was rather disappointed when the alarm went off.

Dawn was breaking as I stuck my head over the parapet – the nights are getting shorter. We’ll be putting the clocks forward soon if I remember correctly.

And after the usual morning performance and with it looking so nice, I put the bread that should have been today’s back in the freezer and went out for a baguette.

And instead of going straight down the hill into town I went the very long way round, out past the headland and down the footpath.

napoleon fortifications pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceWe’ve seen lots of evidence of World War II fortifications around here but the area was heavily fortified in the days of Napoleon and there are plenty of remains of 19th Century defences.

I’m not quite sure what this might have been but it’s certainly something to do with it all.

And the footpath that we are on is presumably the old road before the new one just above was built. I need to find out so much more about local history.

joly france granville manche normandy franceThat wasn’t the only excitement either.

The passenger ferry to the Iles de Chausey still runs in the winter for the inhabitants, and as I went round the bend there she was, the Joly France, just setting off.

I can’t understand why it goes out to the islands in the morning and comes back in the evening. For the benefit of the islanders it ought to be the other way round.

And if you want to know the definition of bone-idleness and couldn’t care less (or je m’en foutisme as they say around here) I went as I said I would round to the Marité to see what was the programme for the season.

“It’s all on the website. Look there” said the guy in charge. No wonder there’s a recession on when people come armed with a pile of folding stuff and they are told effectively to clear off.

So armed with a baguette from the boulangerie I came back from my walk and made myself a coffee I had earned it.

After lunch, with the home-made mayonnaise that seems now to have emulsified, I did a few things such as worked on a few photos and a session on the guitar where I seem finally to have mastered the Paul Rudolph/Adrian Shaw composite bass line to “Damnation Alley” from the album Quark, Strangeness and Charm.

medieval walled city granville donville les bains manche normandy franceBack out this afternoon for my usual walk. I have to keep up the pressure and anyway, as I said, it was a glorious day.

There was a nice view along the cliff past the walled town out to Donville les Bains and another one of the many miserable ruins that I visited while looking for a place to live.

Sunlight was just a little bright though – bright enough to bring out the hordes of walkers who don’t have anything better to do than get in my way.

digger working on lock gates port de granville harbour manche normandy franceRound at the quayside the big crane that we saw yesterday has now gone. And I couldn’t see what it had done.

But the digger was back digging away at the foot of the wall at the harbour entrance where the new gate is going to be. It’s supposed to be installed by now but they aren’t half taking their time about it.

They need to hurry up and get some ships in

Tea was more vegetables, vegan cheese sauce and vegan sausages, followed by rice pudding. And delicious it all was too. It’s certainly working well. And then we had the evening walk where my mate the black cat was waiting for his evening stroke.

But here’s a thing. My evening route takes about 27% of my day’s activity, so leaving here at 77% I expected it to be at 104% when I returned. But no it wasn’t – it was on 96%. So I don’t know what is happening here. I had to go for another lap around the block.

But next time that I’m out with someone so equipped, we’ll synchronise our fitbits and see what’s happening.

Monday 19th March 2018 – ONE SWIFT GLANCE …

… out of the window told me all that I needed to know this morning – and another glance at the thermometer confirmed it.

It was snowing slightly outside and the temperature was 0.5°C. Another swift glance in the fridge told me that I wasn’t going to starve to death and so I put my planned shopping trip … errr … on ice.

And quite right too because I wasn’t feeling much like it either. I’d had a bad night again – although not as bad as the previous – and wasn’t in the mood for a Great Trek today. And I didn’t fancy a shower in the Arctic conditions.

As a result I did some more 3D stuff – for yet another site that I have found – and then attacked the mountain of photographs that has been building up. I’ve been revising these pages working backwards and added some of the missing photographs, and I’ll be going farther and farther back as time, energy and inclination permits.

Lunch was the last of the lettuce and I’ve run out of salad dressing too. But somewhere about it a recipe for vegan mayonnaise and I know that I have everything to make it, so tomorrow morning might be a kitchen day. High time that I did some of this haute cuisine.

The walk this afternoon was absolutely taters. Never mind the First Day of Spring just around the corner, it’s like Christina Rosetti and “In The Bleak Midwinter” outside. And surprisingly, there were several other people suffering in silence as we trudged round.

The bass guitar came out this afternoon but I couldn’t remember the numbers that I’d been rehearsing. How sad is that? It reminds me of that Irish folk group whom I saw a while ago – “we only know two numbers. One of them is ‘Dirty Old Town’ and the other one isn’t”.

Tea was mixed vegetables in the new steamer and vegan sausage, with cheese sauce. And delicious it was too, although there was no pudding. I had to make do with biscuits.

casino place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceI was the only one out for a walk this evening, although I wasn’t alone as I took the old Nikon with me.

And the quality isn’t very good in the dark, and so I’m suspecting a lens issue. I had a look on the internet to see if I could find a cheap lens to practise with but there’s nothing suitable at a price that I can reasonably afford.

The only thing that’s within my budget is the same lens that I have back on the farm, and it’s pretty pointless to buy another one of those.

And I was even less alone than that too, for my mate the long-haired black cat was there and let me give him a good stroke or two for about 10 minutes. And I would probably still be there now had that dog not come down the street, because he disappeared to safety as soon as he smelt it – which was a long time before I could see it.

So what will tonight be like? Better, I hope. I could do with a really good sleep in my own comfy bed.

Thursday 13th December 2012 – I wish I could remember …

… who it was who rang me at 17:00 today. I would give them a big round of applause. For at 17:00 I should have been at Marianne’s helping her move a bed, but instead I was totally flat out – crashed out on the sofa. I do remember having the most vague and incomprehensible discussion with someone while I was trying my very best to wake up. I wonder what the other party must have made of it.

This morning I had the usual couple of hours on the radio programme that I’m trying to write, and then I went out to empty Caliburn seeing as I had this bed to move. But tidying up isn’t my strongpoint as you know and it didn’t quite work out how it should have done. I ended up leaving the false floor in the van and putting a pile of stuff underneath it.

Pascal, Marianne’s son, and I dropped off a few things around Pionsat and then went to the Chateau to pick up this bed. We were also treated to some exciting news – while the Water Board was digging in the chateau yard to lay a new water pipe, part of the yard collapsed and some of their equipment fell into a long-lost subterranean crypt of some description. Of course, Marianne is in her element, or she would be if she were feeling better, because she’s been ill too.

While I was there, I told her the news about Bill, and seeing as how she knows her way around French administration and isn’t easily cowed, I set her a task to prove that she is worthy – namely, to make the necessary enquiries.

A brief stop at the Intermarché came next. While I was emptying Caliburn, the black cat came around again. Once more, it let me stroke it and pick it up. Clearly starving, the poor thing, and so I bought a box of Munchies and next time I see it I shall give it a handful. That’s me well and truly hooked, isn’t it?

We had our little social night this evening too, and having made a lucky find in a Charity Shop in Stockton Heath when I was in the UK, I taught a group of French citizens how to play Snakes and Ladders.

Yes  French people playing Snakes and Ladders. There’s nothing like a bit of globalisation, is there? Whatever next? Cricket, maybe.

Sunday 9th December 2012 – I am glad …

… that I bought the new wood stove last year.

Not only have I been nice and warm for most of the day, I had another lovely tea tonight. Pizza of course, but in the absence of any bread (what with the boulangère forgetting me yesterday) I had baked potatoes with garlic butter, all cooked in the little oven thingy.

Not only that, I boiled a couple of kettles on the top, and made a big pot of coffee, half of which I drank and the other half I put in a thermos flask. I’ll be intrigued to see what that will be like in the morning. I could be on to something here.

Strange as it may seem, I was up and about at 08:30 this morning, so an early breakfast and a film followed by a couple of hours work on the radio script. But coming downstairs at mid-morning I encountered the black feral cat that roams around here. Normally it totally ignores me but today it maiowed at me, came to me when I called it, let me stroke it and even let me pick it up. All that I can think of is that there’s no wild food around in this weather. Being a vegan, I’m not able to help it out and it turned its nose up at the soya milk. If this weather keeps up, I’ll have to splash out on a box of munchies. In the meantime, I’ll leave the door open to the verandah and the lean-to. There’s a mouse running around somewhere in there and a hungry cat is a useful ally.

I also found a footy match this afternoon – Terjat’s 2nd Xi against the 3rd XI of Quinssaines. Terjat had about 70% of the play but somehow managed to lose 4-1. Twice they were hit on the break, a third time a lucky deflection in the penalty area found an unmarked attacker, and the fourth time a tired defence was caught stationary. But it was an astonishing match all the same. We all froze to death and there was, tragically, no coffee.

So tomorrow I really must get cracking. I’m in danger of falling behind.