Tag Archives: dredger

Monday 19th February 2018 – NOW WASN’T THAT JUST SO NICE?

:To be back in my own really comfortable bed just like that, even though it was cold. And having left the alarm call on for 07:20, I could – and did – have the Sleep Of The Dead. And I deserved it too.

I’d been on my travels too during the night – investigating a situation where one of the Maths teachers at this school was up to some kind of subversion and we had to examine their teaching techniques to see if we could discover who it might be. And yet before we could begin we were caught up in an incident outside the school which was clearly related to what we were trying to do – one of the teachers concerned may well have been working on the public at large and so our investigations had to encompass this kind of behaviour too, which immediately enlarged the scope of our enquiries outside the original boundaries and for which we didn’t have enough staff.

After the usual leisurely start to the morning, I attacked the tidying up. Well, sort-of. I’d bought a pile of stuff back from Leuven and this all needed sorting out and stashing away. And then there were a few things that I needed to catch up with, as well as finding someone on-line with whom I needed to speak – and that took a while.

And then I made an unfortunate discovery.

I hadn’t only gone away and left the water heater switched on (it’s on a timer so it’s not too bad) I’d left the fridge door slightly open. And so that had been running non-stop and the freezer compartment was iced up to such an extent that it had pushed open the door. That meant of course that I had to attack that so that I could close the door and calm down the fridge.

Onion soup was for lunch – I’d completely forgotten about the tomato soup that I had stuck in the freezer before I went.

This afternoon I had to download all of the files off the travelling computer (the little lightweight notebook) and copy them onto the laptop that I use at home. I hadn’t finished doing that when it was time for walkies, so I put that to one side and out I went.

The weather was downright miserable though. We’d had a hanging cloud all day and it was one of those clingy wet kinds of cloud that makes you feel all miserable.

dredging port de granville harbour manche normandy franceNevertheless, there were a few people out there walking, or, rather, sloshing through the mud, and you couldn’t see all that much away into the distance.

Peering through the gloom though I could however see that this dredging operation in the tidal basin was still ongoing. It looks as if they are going to be in there for the duration.

And I do have to say that I wonder what is the point of it all.

Back here, I had a coffee and some chocolate with the intention of sitting down and cracking on with the file transfer. That was at 16:30. But the next thing that I remember was that it was 18:45. I’d crashed out for over two hours.

Personally, I blame all of the effort that I had undertaken in Belgium. I left here on Wednesday and returned on Sunday. And on ever day I was well over the 100% effort on my fitbit. I’m not as young as I used to be, and my health is deteriorating as you know. I can’t keep on going like I used to.

And so having missed out on my session on the guitar, it was pizza for tea – and a good one it was too. And then my usual walk, where I spent a good 10 minutes giving a stroke and a cuddle to my long-haired furry friend in the old town.

Now I’m heading for an early night. I have lots to do tomorrow.

And don’t worry about the missing couple of days on this blog. I’ll finish downloading the files off the travelling laptop and then I can complete the entries.

Always assuming that I don’t crash out again, of course.

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Thursday 16th November 2017 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

RED SKY granville manche normandy france…Shepherd’s delight
Redsky in the morning, Avranches is on fire.

We were treated to a most glorious sunrise this morning – one of the nicest that I’ve seen for quite a while. And so I snapped a photograph of it through the window. It was rather too cold to open it.

It’s the kind of thing that can cheer me up. We’ve said before about how Ancient Man worshipped the sun and it’s seeing things like this that helps you to understand why.

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had another bad, congested night. It took hours to go off to sleep and I was awake quite early on.

But I’d been on my travels too. Back to the back garden of Vine Tree Avenue where I was ill and the place was all overgrown. And who should come along to help me (in reality to do it for me) but Guus and Lieneke.
And later I was with Nerina and I was itching to show her the waterfall that I had discovered out in the wilderness. She agreed to come, and this meant descending into the bowels of an emigrant ship past all of the desperate people in there, and then going down through the holds and bilges. I could see that Nerina was unhappy about it and I was doing my best to encourage her and urge her on. I knew that it would be well worth the effort once she got to see it, but it was hard to motivate her.

After breakfast I loitered around for a while to give my tablets an opportunity to work and then I hit the streets.

combattant granville manche normandy franceFrom my vantage point by the drawbridge I can look down on the harbour and see what is going on.

And we can see what Combattant is doing down there right enough. There’s a lighter now moored up alongside and that has a digger on board. I’d heard about a project to dredge the harbour and it looks as if they are making a start.

As an aside, I did once hear a story about dredging in the Port of London where a dredger pulled up a car that had been in there for 30 years – and still had the occupants in it.

grima granville manche normandy franceGrima was still down there too. She had unloaded her cargo of scrap – it was one of these mini-Ford-Transits –
and was busy loading up a pile of stuff to take back to Jersey.

But what caught my eye was the pontoon tied up to the side of the boat. It made me wonder what was going on down there and so I resolved to go down for a look on my way back.

At the moment, I was off to LIDL.

It was a struggle for me to get up the hill. I clearly wasn’t feeling much like it at all, being ill as I am. But eventually I made it up there and picked up a loaf of bread and some pastry. I fancy having a go at another pie

combattant ar-mor granville manche normandy franceI had a slow walk back down to the harbour for a look at Combattant.

The lighter by her side is called Ar-Mor. That’s an old Celtic word for Brittany and means “Land of the Sea” or “Land by the Sea”. Until comparatively modern times Brittany was known as Armorica.

There was a crewman working on the Combattant and we had quite a chat. He confirmed that she was here to dredge and would be here a few days. That explains,
by the way, her erratic port movements.

pontoon grima granville manche normandy franceDown the dockside to the Grima and I soon found the reason for the pontoon. We have a frogman in the water having a good look at the underneath of the ship.

Talking to the skipper, it seems that there’s something blocking one of the water outlets – and while we were chatting, the frogman pulled a huge pile of seaweed out.

And here’s an interesting thing – to put a diver in the water in the port of St Helier costs a minimum of £1,000. Here in Granville, it’s simply an hourly charge. And that’s the reason why he was having it done here

We had quite an exciting chat too – putting the world to rights, and as he was doing that, a lady went aboard. Subsequent enquiries revealed that he has a licence to carry 12 passengers, and that there are some cheap hotels on the Quayside at St Helier. Now doesn’t that conjure up all kinds of interesting ideas for a weekend away?

But the most interesting part of our discussion was when I mentioned that I had a Ford Transit van. He occasionally needs the odd pallet of stuff collecting and no way of doing that, and so he eagerly wrote down my phone number.

After lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so and then did some tidying up on the shelves again to make even more space.

Tea was delicious tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so it was a tin of ratatouille with pasta. And doesn’t the ratatouille taste better with a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of chili powder?

I’ve been for a walk tonight and now I’m hoping for an early night and a better sleep.

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Wednesday 7th May 2014 – I MUST HAVE HAD A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP …

… despie the howling gale that was blowing in around the badly-fitted double glazing units.

During the night, I was back in the UK (well, it’s not all that far from here and you don’t need a ferry for your nocturnal perambulations anyway) with the long-suffering Nerina and I couldn’t take her somewhere on the following day (a Monday) as I’d promised Maria, a Greek girl with whom I was quite friendly when I worked at the EU, that I would do something for her at some place that she had told me and which I knew, but which has now gone out of my head once I woke up.

Nerina wanted to know what it was, and I thought that it was a motorway service area and so probably I had to pick her up off a coach or something. Anyway, our phone wasn’t working properly – when people called us, the phone didn’t ring – so one of us had to stay by the phone (nothing in your dreams is logical, is it?) and I had promised to take Zero to the adventure circus on the Sunday night, so poor Nerina drew the short straw, again.

I took Zero to the circus and right at the end they opened the mudbath for the children. After a couple of minutes of vacillation, one girl leapt in fully clothed, up to her knees, and once she was in, all the others followed suit.

I was then interrupted by another friend, someone from waaayyyyyy back, asking me why I hadn’t done the shopping, to which I replied that I was booked up until Tuesday morning, and what did he need that we didn’t have? He replied “well, wine, of course” – something that brought a smile to my face.

Meanwhile I had lost sight of my charge and had to chase around looking for her and eventually I found her all cold wet and muddy, wrapped in a big fluffy white towel. I had to wash her and shower her off to get her nice, warm and clean again.

So despite all of the excitement of the night, I was once more awake before the alarm went off so I managed to have a good hour or so on the computer before breakfast. Downstairs at breakfast though, I was joined by a coach-load of British tourists and I had forgotten how much I hate the “little England” provincial attitude of the aforementioned, even if it was my bread-and-butter for 13 years in the late 70s, 80s and 90s. I’m glad I don’t have to mix with them today.

Still, never mind. The Hotel New Astoria didn’t let me down. The bed and breakfast that I had for €45 plus local taxes has to be the best deal that I have had on my travels these last few years, despite the company.

dredger pinta oostende belgiumHaving dealt with the issues of breakfast etc I went for a wander around. I’d seen some kind of ship working just offshore last night in the doom and gloom and lo! and behold – here she was again. Quite an old ship by the looks of things and probably a dredger too, she’s called the Pinta.

Presumably named after one of the three ships – the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria and not after an old Milk Marketing Board advert. And anyway, she looked as if she was old enough to have accompanied Columbus on his travels


free ferry oostende harbour belgiumOn my way back to the station area I found, much to my surprise, a free ferry that crosses the harbour to the other side. I’ve not noticed that before and I wonder why not because I’ve been to Oostende dozens, if not hundreds of times.

As you know with ferries because I’ve told you before, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross, especially if it’s free, and so here I am sailing, or rather, dieseling, across the harbour. No sense in missing out, is there?


lighthouse old barque oostende harbour belgium
The other side of the harbour is also somewhere else that I’ve never visited and, once more, I can’t think for the life of me whyever not.

It’s quite historic over here and all kinds of things are happening, or are on display, or are simply “there”. Like this old barque called, incidentally, the Oostende moored here at the foot of the lighthouse. There has to be a story about this kind of ship and I wonder what it might be.

And, more to the point, why it isn’t moored up with the Mercator, another historic survivor fro the days of sail.

old german blockhouse bunker world war II atlantic wall oostende harbour belgiumYou don’t need me to tell you the story about all of this, do you?

Oostende was one of the more important ports along the coast facing the UK and the Germans had something of a fragile hold here. The ports along the coast, Oostende and Zeebrugge, had been raided in force in World War I and the unsuccessful landing at Dieppe in 1942 showed that the Allies had not forgotten the importance of these ports in World War II.

The Germans thus fortified them as part of the Atlantic Wall defences that I showed you a couple of years ago, and the fortifications still remain.

larkspur derelict ferry oostende harbour belgiumFrom this side of the harbour I managed a closer look at Larkspur.

There was no-one around who really knew what was going on with her – I asked a couple of people and they each gave totally different answers – but there was a couple of people in industrial safety clothing on the deck and I noticed a few rubbish skips present at the scene.

From my untutored eye it looked like they were gutting the ship of anything that was of high value in preparation for sending what remains of her to Turkey or India where she will doubtless be turned into a couple of thousand baked bean tins.

What a sad end.

After a marathon hike around the docks (because it is) I made it to the station for the 14:45 train and that had me back in Brussels by 16:00. I picked up Caliburn, did a few bits of shopping, had an excellent falafel supper at that place near Marianne’s and now I’ll be settling down for the night.

I hope.

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