Tag Archives: mary_w

Thursday 12th June 2019 – TODAY WAS ANOTHER …

… day where I didn’t do anything at all as much as I was hoping to.

Mind you, there was so much going on during the night that it took me quite an age to write out all of that, never mind catching up with the dictaphone notes.

Last night it was the turn of Aunt Mary to put in an appearance. I was with my brother and we were going on a trip to a posh hotel in East London. We had to meet Aunt Mary on the way but somehow we missed her and she ended up in the hotel on her own. She booked a room – of course we all had ours and we went to my brother’s room to get a few things organised for the evening. There were loads more people dur to come along and one task was to go down to the station to greet them. I wandered off at one point, met quite a few people whom I knew although I wasn’t sure if they were with our party or not. Anyway, I directed them to the hotel and went back and ended up at Aunt Mary’s. She talked to me about all of her plans etc but they didn’t correspond with anything that we had arranged. I went downstairs to find my brother and tell him about her plans, but ended up in the restaurant. A peculiar restaurant, a kind-of little self-service but some food, appetisers etc were already laid out. I was just picking away at a meal trying to work out what I was going to do about these people and Aunt Mary. I ended up having to find the bathroom and on the way back I picked up more food because I hadn’t had much for a starter and the desserts were there already so I had some more food, including a sausage (and don’t ask me why I was going to eat a sausage). But when I returned a whole crowd of people was sitting at my table and the food that I had left behind had been displaced. They were playing carpet bowls and a few other kinds of things. On the way back to the table I had bumped into another group of people who I was pretty certain were coming on this trip with us, but they didn’t. I was rather late talking to them. So I had to pick up my things and move to another table and there weren’t all that many empty at this time. I found one in a corner and just as I was about to sit down another group of people came up and tried to sit at it. They expressed surprise that I was still eating. I said that I would sit down at this end of the table and you and your friends can sit up at the other end. I was really tempted by this sausage and I had no idea why. At a certain point my brother had said something like how great the view is from London because round by Holborn somewhere is a huge, giant big wheel. He’d been out on a bus, seen this wheel and gone for a ride on it. He tried to drag us all there the next day. If you paid £10:00 you had £1:50 back yet for £12:00 you could do things that Aunt Mary wanted to do, like the opera, you had 6d, or was it 1/6d back?
Later on, I was off to Canada. I turned up at the airport but I’d sent my luggage on. I can’t remember who I was with now. I had to wait around for someone. There were people going past where I was standing, dropping coats and I kept on shouting at them to pick them up and they did, but someone then dropped their jumper but had gone before I could tell them. In the end I was swept by the crowd through one of the departure gates and ended up on a plane. But it wasn’t the one that I wanted to be on so I had to climb down through the various levels to get into the one underneath, climb down through there and then the next one etc, rather like a Russian doll. All kinds of things were going on – on one private level about 30 British Airways flight crew were having a party. I ended up in the cockpit of a plane, and someone asked “aren’t you the guy who is going to North America?”. I said yes, but they replied that they had already taken off and were headed for Dublin. I said “well that’s me f***ed then, isn’t it?”. The cabin crew were doing their best to calm me down. I had a valid passport for Dublin and I could get here and there, all of this kind of thing. On eof the flight crew tried to think where I could stay and I was thinking about getting an onward flight but wondered about my luggage – what was happening to that?
And that’s not all either. later still, I was out with the taxis again. I’d retired from the taxi business and couldn’t remember what I was doing, but it was something to do with an Office where I used to work. The boss had called me in and say “you just pay £5000 and we’ll call it quits and forget all about it”. I could afford to pay the £5,000 so I went to the bank to draw it out. But I wasn’t very happy and asked if I could speak to the bank manager when he was free. She replied “he’s free right now” so I got to see him on the spot. I talked to him about the problems, but he wasn’t particularly interested in what I had to say and kept going off on tangents all the time saying something like “you can tell people’s trade in some town (Luton, or Bedford, somewhere) by the colour that they had painted their houses etc. I told him about Newfoundland where you painted your house according to your ethnic origins. We talked about that, but for some reason we never got down to talking about exactly what my problem was.

There was much more to the night as well, so it was a good job that I’d had a relatively early night.

There was an early start too – out of bed and up and about before the third alarm went off at 06:20. With an early start like that I was looking forward to a really good crack at the outstanding work.

But it wasn’t to be.

First thing to do was to have a good shower and a scrub up to get myself ready for the shops. Its Thursday and LIDL today.

Mind you, I needn’t have bothered so much because there wasn’t anything there that I needed, except that the nice sports bread is back on sale. I treated myself to a lump of that for lunch.

On the way home I took a detour around through an alleyway that I’d noticed once or twice. I ended up on a Council estate so I had a quick look round, but there was nothing of interest around there either.

However, the walk did take it out of me (which I’m not surprised, seeing as it’s the first time for a month that I’ve walked there) and I had to sit on a bench for 10 minutes to catch my breath.

Lunch was taken, for the first time for ages, on the wall overlooking the harbour. Munching my bread, eating my fruit and reading my book. No lizards though. They have clearly forgotten all about me which is hardly a surprise seeing how few times I’ve been out there at lunchtime.

Today I’ve managed to do all the notes of my nocturnal voyages, as well as another six rather large dictaphone files. I’ll need to do at least 6 per day if I want to be up-to-date before I leave.

I was hoping to carry on with the photos for my Monday trip out but I ended up on the sofa flat out for well over an hour. I missed my afternoon walk as a consequence.

Mind you, I’d walked enough while I was on the sofa, for I was well away with the fairies. I had to go to the hospital for an appointment so despite it being a long way and I was short of time, I set off with my crutch; not waiting for a lift. It was a long straight road but with many roundabouts and I had to go straight on all the time – something like Stewart Street near the old Moathouse Drive. Someone had sent someone else – it may have been my brother – after me but I was determined to keep ahead. I came eventually to the basement of the hospital and dived in, hoping that I could remember the way as I had only been down there once. I dashed on as best as I could and then one or two doors started opening and I could tell that the reverse sides of some of them were blue – these were the access doors into the basement from within the building. I guessed at which one it might be and sure enough it was the correct one and brought me up on to the car access point right outside the front door where there was a red-headed woman rather like Jill. At some point however I realised that I had forgotten the time of the appointment and that I hadn’t brought with me any of the records. So what use the appointment would be I really didn’t have any idea.

Tea was pasta and tomato sauce with another burger that was hanging around in the fridge, followed by more of the coconut dessert with pineapple.

And then the walk around the Pointe du Roc to digest the meal.

Now it’s time for a early night, and I need it too. I want to have another good day working tomorrow, although I will have to nip out in the afternoon to collect my medical results.

I wonder what they will show me.

Thursday 21st March 2019 – AS REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall, today has been a difficult day.

It always is the day after I return from hospital, but today was rather different from the others.

Margaret Thatcher (and how we miss her, with this shower in charge) once said “anyone could do a good day’s work when they felt like it, but the key to success is to be able to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it”.

And that’s what happened today. I didn’t feel very much like it at all, but I did do a very good day’s work all things considering.

Admittedly, when the alarm went off at 06:00 (and 06:10 and 06:20) I didn’t take much notice. I turned over and went back to sleep. And that’s no surprise either. Despite being tired it took me ages to go to sleep last night and I thought that I would never drop off. But I did, and was awoken by the alarms. No chance of leaving the bed at that time though. I turned over and went back to sleep and that was how I stayed until 07:22

Last night I was in London with some other guy and we were looking for a place to stay on a long-term basis. There were student flats available and we were sent to see one near the Thames on the north bank somewhere Fulham way, in a modern block of flats. It was the tiniest room that you have ever seen, with two beds in it and there was already one person in it, so we didn’t know if this person was to leave or whether we would end up with three sharing this tiny room. I was fitted with some kind of arm bracelet, for a reason that I didn’t know at the time. There was a large ginger cat roaming around the area so I picked it up and stroked it, and took it outside with me, to the horror of everyone else who explained to me that the arm bracelet meant that I wasn’t allowed to hold a cat outside the building. Someone mentioned that my Aunt Mary lived in London so why don’t I telephone her. So I did. She told me that she now had a bike so I asked her why she didn’t cycle down the Embankment to meet me. So off she set and we – by now Cecile was with me – went down to meet her. She came out of the subway in the wrong direction as if she had been riding east, and then we lost sight of her. But there she was, a few levels down at street level so we waved and she came up. By now she had transformed into Marianne, and she came over to give me a great big hug and said how much she had missed me. But strangely she had another guy with her too.

07:50 was when I left the bed. So it was rather a late breakfast this morning.

cement mixer rue st jean granville manche normandy franceNever mind though. Off into town.

I didn’t gte very far though. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there are some very low gates into the old medieval walled town and the streets are very narrow, so large vehicles are not permitted in there.

Everything has to be off-loaded and trans-shipped, including ready-mixed concrete.

supplies awaiting loading port de granville harbour manche normandy franceWe saw Normandy Trader in port yesterday afternoon, loading up with a cargo.

She’s now gone from the port, but there’s plenty of cargo left on the quayside. This means that we might well be expecting a visit from Thora.

On the other hand, it could be that Normandy Trader was actually unloading, and we are waiting for the cargo to be taken away.

First stop was at the Railway Station. My old fogey’s railcard is on the verge of expiring so I need a new one. And it’s a good job that I went early because the lady in front of me looked as if she wanted to be there for the Duration.

waste recycling collection avenue des matignon granville manche normandy franceSo armed with my new railcard, I headed off (on foot, not on the train) to LIDL.

We’ve talked in the past about recycling and waste here in Granville, and I was lucky enough to see one of the waste lorries emptying one of the town’s waste containers in the avenue des Matignon.

I hope that they will be emptying the paper bin near me so that I can dispose of some more of the European Paper Mountain.

Although I didn’t buy anything special in LIDL, I did treat myself to a bag of brazil nuts. Two people – one of whom is a doctor and the other one is a patient – have told me now that brazil nuts contain plenty of vital vitamins and minerals, one of which is selenium, a deficiency of which is said by some to be one of the possible causes of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Back here, I did a little (only a little) tidying up and then did the filing of all of the mail that had built up while I was away. And there was a lot of it too.

There were four letters that needed my attention and so after lunch I set down to work. One of the letters was unnecessary because over lunch I had received a mail to say that the issue was resolved, but I managed the other three without any problem.

And then, I … errr … crashed out on the chair for 20 minutes.

On recovering, I headed off back into town and the Post office and dispatched the three letters. That’s another task out of the way. We’ll have to see what comes of those.

lorry unloading supplies port de granville harbour manche normandy franceon the way back, I took a little sight-seeing diversion to push my daily fitness target up to 100%.

Round by the harbour now we have a lorry just pulling in. So is he going to be delivering more supplies for the next freighter, or is he going to be taking away the supplies that are already here?

Watch this space.

low tide port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAt the moment we are experiencing one of the lowest tides of the year, and for a town that already has the highest tidal range in Europe, a low tide is pretty exceptional.

With all of the fruits de mer around here, the peche à pied or fishing on foot by scavenging in the rock pools and the sand for oysters and mussels is very popular.

The situation basically (it’s much more complicated than this in fact, but this will give you a basic idea) is that the accessible fishing rights between the high tide and the low tide are leased out to people and companies and are thus private.

But the fishing rights for the beach beyond the low tide limits aren’t leased out because they aren’t usually accessible. They are public access fishing areas.

So when we have exceptionally low tides, about a dozen or so times a year, everyone floods out to the public access areas to try their luck.

la granvillaise charles marie ile de chausey ferry chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThey are still quite busy at the Chantier Navale.

It seems that Armor has cleared off, but Charles_Marie and la Granvillaise are still here.

We have a new boat too. I’m not sure if she’s one of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey, or whether in fact she’s something else.

I Shall have to go out and check at some point.

Back here I attacked the mountain of photos that have built up while I was away – fighting hard the temptation to go and lie down for half an hour. But I survived up until teatime. Pasta and a burger, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceThis evening it was dark when I went out for a walk, and spent much of the time out there watching a trawler coming out of the English Channel towards the harbour.

I took a pile of photos of it at different speeds, apertures and ISO settings and you can compare them all by looking at them here and also below.

But I’ve done 118% of my daily activity today, which is good news. I’ve been at or over 100% for almost every day since last Thursday. It’s hardly a surprise that I’m feeling the pressure just now.

So on that note, I’m going to bed. And it’s not even 21:45 yet. I’ve had a hard day.

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler tying up port de granville harbour manche normandy france
night trawler tying up port de granville harbour manche normandy france