Tag Archives: neptune

Thursday 10th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN A LITTLE …

… better today.

And that’s really a surprise because it was a late night to start with, and then it took me ages to get off to sleep.

But once I did, I stepped back into last night’s voyage at exactly the place where I had left it. And so it’s another evening where you’ll have to do without knowing where I was. Some of you have some delicate sensibilities.

When the alarm went off, I loitered around in bed for a while and then rose up from my stinking pit. We had the usual morning performance and then I took a shower. it’s been a few days and even I was noticing it.

So one good clean up, shave and shampoo later, I hit the streets.

First stop was the Post Office to post the letter that I had written yesterday.

Second stop was at the Bank. It’s all very well having on-line banking but if you don’t download the statements then you are in trouble. So I needed some instruction as to how to operate an internet banking service. It didn’t take long either.

Third stop was at the railway station to pick up my tickets. It seems now that my TGV tickets are only available on print-out, not from the station. So I mustn’t forget to do that.

Final stop was at LIDL.

But before I could reach there I had to pick my way through the roadworks at the roundabout at the top of the avenue LeClerc by the avenue Aristide Briand.

They are pushing on with the fibre-optic cabling but, according to the workmen here, there’s no timetable as yet for the actual connection. No-one has any idea when it might finally go on-line.

At LIDL, considering that I wasn’t intending to spend anything, I didn’t half spend a lot. As well as a new multimeter, there was a box of electrical accessories, some PTFE tape for plumbing and a pair of working gloves. Not necessarily for working but they are thin and very well-insulated and I can even work the camera with them – and that’s the point of buying them.

I walked back home, stopping half way up the rue des Juifs to see what was happening at the port.

There’s a huge pile of gravel now piled up on the quayside where the gravel boats dock. That must mean that we should be expecting a visit from Neptune or one of her sisters very soon.

Back here I bumped into someone delivering leaflets and was complaining about the cold. And it was all of 5°C too. I told him that he was lucky he didn’t live in the Auvergne.

In the apartment I had a coffee and then attacked the bank’s website. And much to my dismay there are only 6 months-worth of statements still held. That’s not enough but it’s the best that I can do. I printed them out anyway and added them to my file.

After lunch I filed everything away, checked off things on my checklist and then set to work to download my telephone statements. The bad news here is that they only go back 12 months but I’ve been on paperless accounts since March 2015. So I have all of the earlier ones (much to my surprise) and I’ve downloaded all of the later ones, but I’m short of the period 04/15 – 12/07.

So on the telephone to Orange. And what with waiting time it took me 1 hour and 15 minutes and having to tell my story to 3 different people. But eventually someone answered me with the news that they will pas my message onto the Accounts department who will send them to me.

And I hope that they do.

My afternoon walk was thus an early-evening walk after all of that.

There was a wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off, and went for tea. Burger on a bun with potatoes and veg.

Back out around the Pointe du Roc for my evening walk. it was a cold, windy evening (but not that cold). Quite pleasant to be out.

And away on the horizon near St Malo in the centre of the photo to the left of the trawler, I noticed a couple of moving lights

Based on no evidence at all except pure speculation, the only thing that came into my mind was that it could well have been the huge ferry, Pont Aven, setting off for Portsmouth. There is occasionally a Brittany Ferries departure from St Malo round about 20:30 or so.

I’m glad that I was out there though because the sky was really quite clear and beautiful.

You could see for miles tonight and the street lights across the bay at Cancale were quite prominent. And in the background the clouds in the sky over there were glowing orange with the reflection of the street lights from St Malo.

I really am going to have to treat myself to a better camera with a much wider ISO range.

You’ll remember the trawler that we saw in a previous photograph just now.

I’d taken so long in sorting myself out with the other photos and the 70-300mm zoom lens that the trawler had beaten me into the harbour.

Here she was, just tying up at the quayside ready to unload today’s catch. There’a a van down there ready to take it all away.

So now I’ve printed out my tickets (and I’m glad that I bought a new printer) I might even try for an early night again. i’m out tomorrow afternoon. And I’m not the only one who is out and about. i’ve had a message to say that my new computer is on the road too, heading this way.

trawler night port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

… old times in here right now. I’m up to my knees, and probably even deeper, in papers and documents right now.

As part of my little project I have to find all kinds of paperwork going back 6 years. This last 18 months is pretty straightforward since I’ve been here but prior to that, especially during the period when I was ill my paperwork was all over the place.

However, when I was back down there in August I grabbed as much of it as I could and brought it back. So now, I have to go through about three sacks full of paper to find what I need.

I’m not having a great deal of luck from that point of view (at least, so far and there is still plenty to go at) but it really IS astonishing what you find when aren’t looking for it. After I took early retirement in 2004 I worked for a couple of years for an employment agency and for two American companies while I saved up to buy the roofing for my house in the Auvergne.

I’d practically written off anything to do with that period of employment, but today going through the European Paper Mountain I came across my registration certificate for the Belgian National Pensions Office. I’m not sure if I’m entitled to a pension from Belgium and even if I am, it won’t be anything at all to write home about, but at least I can write and make enquiries. You never know.

This morning I had something of a surprise.

When I awoke it was 06:45. What had happened to the alarm?

And then I remembered. Tuesday last week was New Year’s Day, and the previous Tuesday was Christmas Day. So I had switched off the alarms for Tuesday, hadn’t I?

And being nice and relaxed, I’d been on my travels. In a hotel trying to do a pile of paperwork in my room but not being able to concentrate, I went down to the reception area. There it was even worse, so I went back upstairs and tried again, but with no more luck than before. So in the end I packed my things and went outside to try to work out there, but the lorry driver who was taking me on saw me coming and pulled out of the lorry park, did a lap around the block and pulled up alongside me, blocking the road. And so I had to climb aboard, even though it meant that I wasn’t going to be able to do what I wanted to do before I reached home.

A slightly later breakfast (but not as late as some days just recently) and then a chat to Liz on the internet. She and Terry had an important meeting this morning so I wished them luck.

First thing that I needed to do was to obtain a couple of certificates from the British Government. Luckily, this can be done by internet but it’s time-consuming and took a lot of research – as well as being quite expensive.

When that was finally out of the way, I went down to Caliburn and brought up all of the paperwork. And despite stopping for lunch (more soup from Liz), my two walks and tea (a stuffed pepper) I was hard at it all day.

A good proportion of the paperwork has gone in the bin as “no longer necessary” but I found more vital paperwork that I expected to find – in fact I ended up being disappointed in that with a little more effort I might have had a lot more and I’m wondering where the rest might be.

On my walk this afternoon, there were a few people around for a change. It’s been quiet just recently out there.

Another place that was busy was the Chantier Navale. There are quite a few ships hauled out of the water right now receiving some kind of attention there.

I don’t recall having seen it so busy in the past. It’s clearly a booming business and I would have loved to have seen it in its heyday prior to 1992 when all of the Newfie trawlers were sailing out of here.

But there are still a few ships sailing out of here.

We have the gravel boats like Neptune of course, and the ferries to the Ile de Chausey and Jersey, but we also have the little freighters like Normandy Trader and Thora running the freight shuttles to Jersey.

Here today we have Thora in port. We noticed her last night having presumably come in on the evening tide

But despite the crowds this afternoon, this evening the walk around the walls was totally deserted apart from me.

But there was plenty of interest to see because the wind had risen and it was blowing quite strongly outside. The tide was well in too and so the waves were crashing down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset with quite some considerable force.

There was no-one down there taking advantage of the free shower on offer, which is probably not a surprise to anyone.

And Thora was still in harbour too.

That’s quite a surprise because she doesn’t usually hang about here for as long as this. I hope that she’s not having any difficulties.

And no cats tonight. I came straight home, had a chat to Alison after I came back and that’s my lot. A decent night’s sleep and then I’ll attack the paperwork part II. At least, if I know what I don’t have, I can start from there.

And I didn’t crash out today. How about that?

storm waves night plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Thursday 20th December 2018 – TOMORROW …

… I’m off to Leuven. So I’ve spent today packing (of a sort) and tidying up (of another sort).

I was out of bed surprisingly early this morning – but that’s what comes of being wide awake at 05:40. And it’s been a while since I was awake that early, hasn’t it?

And after breakfast, I had a little relax before getting myself going.

This time I’m taking the medium-sized suitcase, with a basic foodstuff supply in it. After all, I’m going to be gone for about 6 days and that’s a lot of shopping that I need to organise. As well as that, it’s Christmas and so I’m taking some specialty stuff with me too.

Talking of Christmas, I erected the little mini-Christmas tree that I had bought the other week at Noz for €3:99 – the tree with its electric lights and baubles. It’s not too bad either. i’m pleasantly surprised.

Lunch was as normal, and I had two walks today. one was, as usual, around the Pointe du Roc.

And in the harbour I saw Neptune manoeuvring her way out of the harbour. She must have come in on the early morning tide and loaded up pretty quickly because I didn’t see her arrive during the evening.

I’ve not seen her turn round as quickly as this. She must be in quite a hurry today

But later on in the early evening when it was dark, I went into town.

To Super-U for some fruit seeing as I have run out, and to the boulangerie for one of the baguettes that I like, for my lunchtime butties.

While I was there, I took the opportunity to go around the Cours Jonville and photograph the Christmas decorations. They aren’t so good this year as I remember the and it’s rather disappointing.

Tea was a slice of my pie from the other week, with veg and mushroom gravy.

So now I’m going to have a shower and then go to bed. I’m having an early morning tomorrow, ready to hit the road. It’s a long way to go.

storm sea wall port de granville harbour granville manche normandy france

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

harbour pilot port de granville manche normandy france

christmas lights rue lecampion granville manche normandy france

christmas lights place general de gaulle granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

… have any blue screens today. Or any frozen keyboards or major crashes on the big desktop computer today. For the simple reason that I didn’t switch it on at all.

To preserve it for a while longer I left it switched off and used the laptop computer to examine the portable drive onto which I had downloaded all of the data.

First thing was to remove all of the duplicate (and triplicate and, in some cases, quadruplicate) files. 22,000 or thereabouts out of the 78,000 or so that I downloaded yesterday and it took quite some time to do all of that. But luckily there’s a little program that I have on the computer that does it all for me, otherwise I would still be here doing it this time next year.

And I’ve come across yet more stuff that I had forgotten, including a pile of photos, and the sad thing is that I can’t remember where many of them were taken. The sad part about it all is that I downloaded onto the desktop computer all of the files for one of the previous versions of the blog when the host closed down, but the dates of the entries don’t seem to be on the files. It must have been a javascript key running from the webhost at the time.

I’ll have to think much more deeply about this.

There’s also a pile of data that needs to be sorted, and so I’ve a feeling that this is going to be a very long job.

I was interrupted by a phone call at about 11:00. Could I come to the doctor’s at 12:00 instead of 16:00? So I had to have a shower and a good clean-up before setting out.

On the way down into town, I noticed that Neptune was still in port, tied up at her quayside next to Marité and Normandy Trader.

I’ll go for a nosy round there after the doctor’s to see what’s going on.

At the doctor’s, I discovered that the situation about the vaccines is that you need a prescription from the doctor, and then go to the chemist for the supplies, and finally make an appointment with a nurse to do the injection.

The doctor did that all for me so I have to be at the nurse’s office at 11:00 tomorrow for the injection.

The doctor prescribed me a helping of Vitamin D to reinforce the injection. And you’ll be pleased to know that all of this medication cost me a grand total of €13:48. Cheap at half the price.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and then went for a walk around the harbour.

Neptune was still there, and Normandy Trader had sneaked in on the morning tide.

I’d never had a close look round at Neptune before, so this seemed to be the correct moment to go for a suitable exploration

She’s a small bulk carrier of 2400 tonnes deadweight with a gross tonnage of about 1500 tonnes.

Built in 1992, she was formerly known as Islay Trader but changed her name quite recently, something presumably not unacquainted with the fact that she acquired something of a bad habit just recently of running aground and having to be towed off.

As you can see, she’s registered out of the port of Faversham, although I don’t imagine that she sails … “diesels” – ed … out of there these days seeing as how it’s silting up so rapidly.

These days we’ve seen her heading into Whitstable or, occasionally, Ridham whenever the tidal conditions are right.

That’s because Ridham is what is called a NABSA port – “Not Afloat But Safely Aground” – whenever the tide is low and no-one likes to have a heavily-loaded ship sitting on the bottom.

Victor Hugo was in port too.

She’s one of the ships that works the ferry service out to the Channel islands from the Normandy coast.

But it wasn’t her herself that caught my attention. What I was admiring was the notice where Hugo talks about the fact that there are four islands in the Channel Islands, which he mentions, but he can only find something to say about three.

As well as that, Aztec Lady had regrown her masts. There was a girl on deck working away so we had a chat for a while. They are off to the Far North of Norway soon, but not unfortunately to where I want to go.

As I arrived back here I was treated to a strange sight on the car park.

I’m all in favour of eating out wherever possible, but not in this kind of weather. So I admired the people who were taking their picnic lunch outside.

Not much danger of me joining them, I have to say. I’m going to eat my lunch indoors.

While I’m eating my lunch, I can tell you about the early part of the morning. With having had a really early night I’d had a really good sleep and was awake at 05:46.

I’d been on my travels too. Firstly, I had encountered someone from the Open University – an old guy whom I happened to quite like. A very quiet, timid type but last night he was busily killing off everyone who had offended or upset him. That was actually the plot of something that I had been watching on a DVD a couple of nights ago.
A little later I’d been at a football match, something like at Pionsat. But it was Bangor City who was playing and at a certain moment a long clearance out of the opposition defence had gone straight up towards the Bangor goalkeeper, who ran out to clear it. However he pulled a muscle and fell down, grabbing hold of the football as he did so in order to stop any attacker getting to the ball and scoring a goal. Clearly a free kick of course, but in view of the circumstances was it a yellow card offence for deliberate handball, or was it a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity? The debate raged for quite a while about that one. Unfortunately, I awoke before the referee reached the scene and made a decision.

This afternoon I typed a couple of letters. Time to get a few things moving to secure the future. They’ll be posted tomorrow and then things will be off. And I forgot to go for a walk this afternoon, being so engrossed. Not that it matters quite so much as I’d had a good stroll out this morning.

Tea was an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by pineapple and coconut-flavoured soya dessert. I’ll do this again because it’s lovely.

And on my walk around, I was all on my own except for a jogger. Minette was there and I gave her a stroke but she must have a sore spot somewhere because she suddenly leapt up, spat at me and cleared off.

Not quite an early night tonight, but I’m off shopping tomorrow and I’ll call at the nurse’s on the way back. Another thing crossed off the list.

normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

samsung digger neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide port de granville harbour pilot light manche normandy france

4th December 2018 – FIVE SCREENS OF DEATH …

… and that’s my lot today. The desktop computer seems to have been working so much better today. Especially as all 5 of these screens of death occurred in the last half-hour as I tried to use the Duplicate File Finder program to eliminate the duplicate files.

Because there were thousands of those. You have no idea of how many hidden directories and partitions I have found. Loads of files for which I have been searching for years and many of which I have even forgotten all about.

Most of them have now made it onto the portable hard drive and when the desktop computer has cooled down tomorrow I’ll have another run through it and see what else I have missed.

But there won’t be much time tomorrow though, because I’m going out in the afternoon. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a considerable amount of health issues over Christmas last year and I don’t want to have the same this year. And so I have made an appointment to have a ‘flu injection.

It’s free here (at least, I am reimbursed 100% for it) so as much as I hate the idea of injections, I’m going to have it. And I hope it works.

But back to the computer again.

I had it running again last night and it was doing so well that I let it go. And it was at about 02:30 when I finally decided to switch it off and go to bed.

So even though the alarm went off this morning at the usual time, I took little notice. It was more like 07:45 when I came round far enough to haul myself out of bed. And as a result it was a rather late breakfast.

Once all of the nonsense was out of the way I have spent all day with the big computer extracting the files. I’m doing it while the doing is good because I’m not sure how long it will keep going.

We had lunch of course, indoors these days, and then a little later, it was time for my afternoon walk.

Neptune was still in the harbour but Thora must have crept in on the morning tide because she was on the point of leaving the port at 16:00.

For a while I stood around watching her manoeuvre and I took several photos of her passing out.

By the time I got back home I could see Thora rounding the headland of the Pointe du Roc and heading out to sea past the Ile de Chausey

Opportunity for a good photo was looming so I loitered around for half an hour and took several photos of her disappearing into the sunset.

And given the lighting and weather conditions out there, some of them came out quite well.

On the way back, I bumped into Gribouille. He came for his stroke but could smell Minette on me from last night so he wasn’t too impressed.

The laptop was playing some of the old-time radio shows in the background while I was working.

And you have to admire Leslie Charteris. We had another episode of The Saint with my favourite Simon Templar, Paul Rhys in the title rôle.

And we had the immortal exchange of conversation
” ‘Orace, old chap. Things have been a bit dull for a while. Do you feel like a spot of action?”
“I’ll just load the revolver, sir”
You can’t beat the good old days.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger on a bap with the last of the potatoes. And talking of potatoes, when I went to open the pineapple slices for pudding, I found that I had opened the tin of new potatoes instead. It’s not my day, is it?

But that soya dessert stuff that I had bought – it went down really well with the pineapple slices when I eventually opened the correct tin.

Just me again on my evening walk tonight.

Neptune was still at her quay with her hydraulic hatches wide open.

I’m not sure of where they are up to with loading her but things must be progressing and she’ll probably be on her way tomorrow if they get a move on. I’ve never known her loiter in port for this long.

But there’s something else going on round by the place Maurice Marland just right now.

There has been talk of some kind of repairs to the city walls but tonight I tripped over some kind of crane or machine that was just dumped here without any warning.

And it’s pretty dark down here at night, you know. I could have done myself a mischief.

But the Christmas decorations around the town are advancing.

In the rue Paul Poirier, where I lived when I first came here, they have been out stringing up the fairy lights.

And it all looks quite pretty down there right now with the overhead lights in the foreground and the artificial palm trees in the background.

Round the corner in the rue Notre Dame Minette was sitting on the roof of a van. In order to come down to my level, she sat on her rear end and slid down the windscreen. I haven’t seen anything as funny as that for quite some considerable time.

With no desktop computer right now (it’s cooling down) I’m going to have an early night. After my exertions last night I reckon that I deserve it.

breville sur mer brehal granville manche normandy france

holiday camp donville les bains granville manche normandy france

trawler cancale baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

neptune thora port de granville harbour manche normandy france

thora port de granville harbour manche normandy france

thora granville manche normandy france

thora ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

north end ile de chausey semaphore lighthouse granville manche normandy france

thora ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

thora fishing boat ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

crane place maurice marland granville manche normandy france

night neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Monday 3rd December 2018 – FIVE SCREENS OF DEATH

four mouses frozen
three keyboard crashes
two total failures
and a partridge in a pear tree.

You can tell that not only am I in the festive spirit for a change, but I’ve been working on the old desktop computer.

While I was poking around in there this morning after breakfast, I found yet another wad of interesting files in another partition. There must be tons of stuff on here that I have forgotten.

Certainly, there are all kinds of programs and utilities that I can’t remember what they do, and the only reason that I know that they are there is because there is a relentless stream of error messages telling me that they have failed to load.

But seriously, who remembers the Myspace Instant Messenger? Or Pigdin? Or the Crystal Media Player? Stacks of programs, all of which have long-since gone to that great Windows Exploder in the Cloud.

It seems that I built this computer in the winter of 2001 and I worked with it, screens of death and all, for five long years until I went to live in the Auvergne. And every time that I came back to Belgium for something too, until I finally sold Expo.

So far, I’ve extracted about 40GB of files from it today, and there are still plenty more to go at. I’ve no idea how many because it’s quite clear that my filing system back in those days was lamentable. However did I cope?

If you ever hear me complain about any new laptop or something, please have the courtesy to whisper “Windows 98 SE” in my lughole, just to remind me how lucky I am these days.

After the awful voyage of Saturday night, last night’s little voyage was much more pleasant. And I’d tell you all about it too except that by the time I came to type it out, it had gone completely. I must finish the unpacking from Canada and rescue the dictaphone again.

Having completed breakfast, next task was to book my rail journey to Brussels for Christmas. And as you might expect, there are no cheap fares or discounts for the days on which I would like to travel and I am having to pay full price. I don’t much like that idea at all.

And then to work. I attacked the big computer and we were doing just fine until the external drive was full. I’d tried another one beforehand but the computer didn’t recognise it, and I was wondering whether to use the huge dashcam drive or even to use one of the big external IDE drives. And I should have done that first, because it was in changing over the drives that I started to have problems.

There was an interruption from the church – they wanted to invite me to a carol service and they wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, even when I told them that I wouldn’t be here.

I don’t do too well with churches. The first time that I went to church someone stuck my head in a bucket of water. The second time, someone gave me this strange woman to share my house. So I’ve finished with churches. If anyone wants to drag me to a church in future it will be over my dead body.

We also had a little … errr … repose.

What with one thing and another I forgot to defrost some hummus. I had to attack the jar of red pepper spread instead. But that’s no problem. I like these jars. They make handy spice jars when they are washed and cleaned.

Later on I had my afternoon walk, out in the hurricane that was blowing.

And Neptune is back in town too.

I said the other day, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, that it looked as if we were going to have a gravel boat in very soon, and here she is.

There was a pile of mushrooms left over from the weekend, so I decided to make a curry. I had some dodgy potatoes, some peppers, a leek or two, a tin of lentils so I went into the kitchen and fried it all up. It wasn’t until I finished eating it that I remembered that I hadn’t added the mushrooms.

It’s not my day, is it?

Out again this evening for my usual evening walk around the walls.

By now the wind had dropped dramatically. Neptune was still at the quayside, still loading, and Minette was sitting on her windowsill waiting for her evening stroke. She was the only living creature that I saw.

So now that the big computer is up and running again (for now) from its latesT crash, I’ll carry on downloading the data. I’m not sure how long it will take but it’s not going to be finished this week.

However did I manage with that computer for all that time?

storm baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 6th November 2018 – I’M NOT GOING …

… out for my evening walk tonight.

There’s a howling gale blowing outside right now – as strong as any that I’ve experienced since I’ve been living here. Had there been a high tide any time soon I would have gone to inspect the waves hopefully crashing down over the Plat Gousset. But it’s low tide right now so it’s not worth the effort for me to go out.

But never mind. I’ve already had a good couple of walks today.

And during the night too.

I was in the company of some nice young girl on a Saturday night. And taking the girl home she made some kind of remark about how she had to be at the railway station for 07:00 the following morning and how she didn’t know how she was going to do that bearing in mind that I usually refuse to leave my bed at any ungodly hour on a Sunday. I was just on the point of saying that she could stay with me for the night and then I could run her down there, when I realised that that kind of remark could easily be misconstrued. How I meant it was that I’d only have a 5-minute drive straight to the station instead of having to travel across town to pick her up and then back across town to the station, saving me half an hour that I could spend much better in bed. I certainly didn’t mean it in any other way (although I wouldn’t have found the idea unacceptable), but I had to think of a way to express it better so that she wouldn’t misunderstand.
A little later I was back in the Auvergne at Les Guis and I had to go down into St Eloy. The weather was fine up in the hills but down in the town it was snowing quite heavily. I ended up in some kind of meeting room on the first floor of a shop and amongst the people there was a girl who I knew really well. And it was either the Vanilla Queen or another certain girl of my acquaintance who bore a startling resemblance to the former – a startling coincidence of a resemblance about which I have commented to myself on many occasions. She was surprised to see me in view of the weather so I explained that up in the hills things were so much better. And we ended up having a good chat not about anything in particular but more in an effort for me to establish a certain position.

Just for a change just recently I managed to beat the third alarm out of bed and that made me feel a little better. Obviously going to bed at a more respectable (for me, anyway) time is a much better idea.

This morning I had a few things to do and once they were out of the way I had to sit down and fill in a form. I’ve collected most of the information that I need but I’ve no idea how I’m expected to fill in this form. I’ll just sign it, send it back with all of the assorted verifying paperwork to at least show a sign of goodwill and see what happens next.

When I was out at the shops on Saturday I forgot to buy a lettuce, so I nipped into town and the Super-U.

I had a little distraction – or two – down at the harbour.

Marité has now returned to her berth just there, with another smaller sailing ship alongside.

In front of Marité we note the reappearance of Normandy Trader who obviously cam in on the high tide earlier in the morning. There’s a pile of stuff on the quayside and it’s quite probable that will be loaded on board for her homeward journey.

That’s no all either. As I was looking at the ships, one of the lorries from the quarry turned up with a load of roadstone.

I waited for a while hoping that she would tip but the driver locked up the cab and walked away. It must be his lunchtime or something like that.

But it probably means that very shortly we’ll be having a visit from Neptune or Shetland Trader in early course.

At the Super-U they were rather sad, the lettuces in there I mean, not the people, but better than none. And I took advantage of the situation by buying a couple of packs of the mixed dried fruit that I add to the muesli.

While I was in town I picked up one of the baguette that I like.

It was not too warm today but not very windy either. And the sun was out so I took full advantage by going to eat my butties on the wall.

And this would be the kind of thing that I would find very funny, it it wasn’t so pathetic.

One of the themes that I feature quite often here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is the sad state of parking round here.

And as for this example of pathetic parking, here in the boulevard Vaufleury right by where I eat my butties, is about as bad as it gets.

I really don’t know what goes through the minds of some people that they can’t be bothered to even make an attempt at parking between the lines on the road.

I mean, it’s not even a BMW or a Volvo is it?

So having been dismayed by the parking, I didn’t stay out there for long. After all, it IS November.

This afternoon I attacked the High Arctic and I’ve made real progress on Day 2. It might even be finished by the weekend if I can keep it up. And then there’s only another 17 days to go. And these will be much more complicated than this one.

The afternoon’s walk was around the headland in the beautiful November sunshine.

But there were no ships to admire while I was out there. Only a pile of fishing boats coming in and out of the harbour on the afternoon tide.

Taking advantage of the ideal weather and sunlight conditions, I spent some time taking a pile of photos of the boats as they came in and went out.

There were quite a few boats tied up at the quayside unloading too.

The name of this particular one took me by surprise. Omerta, which might mean “manhood” in Italian slang, is more generally associated with the name given to the Vow of Silence that is rigorously imposed, with quite often fatal results, on members of the Mafia.

Not the name that you might expect to see on a fishing boat in Granville

This particular one, which seems as if it belongs to someone on the Ile de Chausey, was unloading piles of crustaceans and the like onto the trailer attached to the rear of the tractor.

She has quite a massive catch on board. Business must be booming somewhere.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering, which I’m sure that you are, a bouchot mussel is a mussel that has been grown from a string that is attached to a pole submerged in the water. By this method they are more grit-free and barnacle-free than one that has been grown on the sea bed.

All of the work going on in the harbour was overlooked by our old friend Georges-René Le Peley de Pléville, or Pleville le Pelley.

He was a privateer who sailed initially on a ship, the Françoise du Lac (on which in one engagement he lost a leg), out of Granville, and later rose through the ranks of the French Navy until he became the French Government’s Minister of the Navy

He was appointed a Senator in 1799 and died in 1805 aged 79

Back here, there was a brief moment of repose and then it was tea time. Falafel fried with onions and garlic with pasta and vegetables, with salad dressing and herbs. It was totally delicious too.

With not going out this evening, I can do my outstanding work and then have an early night. If I can keep it up I’ll be in a much better position to keep up with my work.

But I do need to start to take it easy. There’s only so much that I can do.

Fishing boats entering and leaving the harbour at the Port of Granville

Unloading bouchots de Chausey in the harbour at the Port of Granville

Tuesday 31st July 2018 – MISSION CONTROL …

… is finally up and running.

This morning I brought up the wooden shelves and the fittings from Caliburn and then had an exciting couple of hours screwing them in place.

Once all of that was organised I then moved everything around to where I wanted it, having to make something on an adjustment to the storage of the LPs because they were too heavy for the shelf supports.

But then, that’s only a temporary thing because I’ll be copying them all onto *.mp3 in due course and then they can be moved on.

But it’s all very impressive, even better than when I had my office at Expo.

When the alarm went off this morning I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave my bed. It was round about 07:30 when I finally sorted myself this morning.

After breakfast I had another session on the European Photo Mountain for a couple of hours and that’s being reduced down to manageable proportions. Still a long way to go though, and I’ll probably be there doing that for several years.

While I was working on the bedroom I had a visitor. My neighbour brought back my pyrex dish from Sunday evening. She had a bit of a look around and gave it all the seal of approval. She loved the wood in the living room, and so do I. That’s why I bought it.

For lunch, I went and sat on the wall with my butties and book, and was joined by one of my lizards.

And that wasn’t all of my companions either. Marité has returned from wherever she went to, and we have the return of Neptune, which I predicted the other day.

They were loading up Neptune with the roadstone and so I went for a walk down there for a closer look.

I had another session on the photos and then went for my afternoon walk.

The tide was right out as you can see. We’ve talked about the diving platform before and you’ve seen it almost submerged at high tide.

But here at low tide, you can see how far out the tide goes. Granville must have one of the highest tidal ranges in Western Europe.

Back here though, I had another disappointment.

There I was, working on the European Photo Mountain and a sudden wave of tiredness came over me. So I went for a lie down on the bed and the next thing that I remember, it was 19:45. I must have been flat out for over three hours.

As a result, I had a hurried tea of pasta and vegetables and then went out for my evening walk.

Gribouille was out there waiting for a stroke, but even more interesting was to see Neptune out there on her travels.

Here she is, silhouetted in the sunset against the Ile de Chausey as she steams … “diesels” – ed … off towards Ridham, a small port near Sittingbourne in Kent.

That’s a new destination for her. Makes a change from Whitstable or Littlehampton.

So I’ll now have an hour or so’s work before I think about going to bed. But whether I’ll sleep of not is another thing. Having had that big sleep this afternoon was really the last thing that I wanted.

But then, it can’t be helped, I suppose. It’s a sign of the times.

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 25th July 2018 – I HAVEN’T DONE …

… very much in the way of catching up with the outstanding work here today.

And for a couple of good reasons too.

Firstly, I was in bed at about 22:30 last night, thoroughly exhausted despite my good sleep yesterday afternoon. But the result of that was that I was wide awake at 04:40 and out of bed working before 06:00, which will come as a surprise to anyone.

However, the downside of that is that after the usual morning routine and breakfast, I crashed out on the chair at the desk, and was out until about 08:50.

And again for half an hour later on in the afternoon.

The second reason was that this file transfer is dragging on and dragging on. I’m at about 30% of the transfer despite it being working non-stop for 36 hours.

It would have been a better idea to have done this with the laptop that has the broken screen and keyboard rather than blocking up this laptop for so long.

However, I haven’t been idle at all.

I’ve totally rearranged the living area – put all of the shelves with the CDs and DVDs alongside the glass unit and the posh bookshelves at the end of the room.

Next step was to drill out a hole in the back of the posh bookshelves And now the television, DVD and VHS players and the new hifi are all arranged properly in there.

Finally, I turned the sofa, carpet and coffee table around 90% so that they are all facing the TV, with the window now away to my left.

Everything works fine, much to my surprise, and it’s all now looking as if someone lives here. I could even be quite comfortable in here, which would be a surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish.

As a result of all of this, lunch was rather late. And as well as my book and my butties, I was joined by two of my lizards, with a third lurking away in the undergrowth nearby.

There seemed to be a lot of activity in the harbour too.

We haven’t seen Grima for quite some considerable time, but Normandy Trader was in there down at the bottom end loading up. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen her too.

La Grande Ancre was down there loading up too. I’m not sure where she goes but her turn-round time indicates that her destination is probably the Ile de Chausey.

Back here, in between having a little doze, I attacked the bedroom and that’s looking much more tidy too. And the things that I found that I had forgotten makes tidying up all worthwhile.

Later on, I went for my afternoon walk around the medieval walls.

The tide was on its way out and so there was a little bit of beach down at the foot of the cliff just here.

With crowds of people enjoying themselves on the sand and splashing themselves in the sea, even though the waves were just a little bit wild this afternoon.

But that was just a small sample of the people who were out there enjoying themselves in the sea.

Out there in the sea off the Casino Beach there were crowds of people swimming around.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a few weeks ago that the diving platform was almost submerged by the high tide. And even though the tide is far from being fully out, you can tell just how tall the platform is and how high is the tidal range.

And you might also remember the tiny sliver of beach that we saw on our walk the other day as the tide was almost fully in.

Today, with the tide on its way out, there’s much more beach for people to spread themselves around right now.

There still isn’t enough beach for me though. I’d much rather have the whole of the beach to myself of course but that’s not really possible around here in July and August.

But I do have a cunning plan.

I carried on with my walk around the walls and ended up overlooking the harbour.

The Normandy Trader was still there being loaded up, but there was also a great pile of activity as they assembled yet another huge mound of roadstone on the quayside.

It looks as if we might very shortly be expecting another visit from Neptune or one of her sister ships.

Back here, I rather ran aground with the tidying up and loitered around for a while. But then that’s no surprise. Any previous visitor who would come here now would see a totally different place from the one that they would remember.

Tea was a vegan burger with potatoes, vegetables and onion gravy. Delicious it was too.

Later on I went for a walk around the headland.

Nothing much exciting was happening and there weren’t too many people about, but in the harbour was a yacht that I don’t recall having seen before.

It looks as if it’s quite an old yacht, with its beautiful wooden superstructure. Unfortunately its name wasn’t visible so I can’t tell you anything about it.

I shall have to go for a walk down there tomorrow if she is still about.

And hopefully an early night with a good sleep. I’m off out tomorrow so I need to be on form. And this file transfer can manage itself.

Tuesday 17th July 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day this has been. And I’m having far too many of these just recently.

Not going to bed until 03:30 probably has something to do with it, especially when I did manage to struggle from my stinking pit at 06:30 when the alarms went off.

But the wisdom of that decision was called into question because after having the usual medication routine, I sat down on the sofa to rest awhile, and the next thing that I knew was that it was 11:00. I’ve not had a complete crash-out like this for quite a while, have I?

So a very late breakfast indeed today.

What was even worse was that I wasn’t in much of a mood to do very much. But a whole pile of reading matter has come my way in connection with my little project that I mentioned yesterday, so I downloaded it all and set about reading it, and making a few notes. And I’m already seeing quite a lot of logistics difficulties that need to be overcome.

But then, many people just have problems. However I have solutions. And I’ll solve these problems or else die in the attempt. And as time has gone on during the day, I’m much more clear about what I want to do and how I intend to do it.

Lunch was taken at about 16:30, and that wasn’t without its difficulties either. I’d forgotten to fetch some bread from the freezer, but no matter. I went for a walk into town and picked up one of my favourite baguettes.

Remember yesterday when we saw Neptune sailing out of the harbour with another load of roadstone for Whitstable?

It didn’t take them long to start topping up the gravel bins again, did it?

We might be expecting the Neptune to make a quick aller-retour with all of the roadstone being accumulated like this.

Another thing of which we had seen plenty is the renovation of many of the houses in the rue du Port.

We’ve noticed two so far and it seems no that they are starting on a third one.

We don’t have a crane installed yet, but I imagine that this will be arriving any day now. They don’t seem to be able to do anything in the building line without a crane.

Having made my butties, I sat on the wall with my book and had a good look over the harbour.

The tide was almost out and all of the boats down there had settled down onto the silt.

My two lizards were there for company too, waiting for the bits of pear to fall onto the ground. And with the pear being well-overripe, there were plenty of bits to go round without them having to fight.

On the way back, I met another neighbour on the car park and we had a good chat for quite a while. And then I came back up here where, shame as it is to admit it, the next thing that I knew was that it was 20:00. I’d gone off again!

Still time to do a few bits of work though, and I cracked on and at least managed to salvage something from the wreckage of today. My little project is slowly starting to come together, although a couple of my plans are changing and it’s going to stretch my budget more than I anticipated. But this is no time for the faint-hearted.

And of course, I’ve still not resolved this application issue, have I?

So leaving that alone for a while, I went for my evening walk. It’s cooled down over the last couple of days so it was quite pleasant, but there was nothing going on of note.

However I had remembered something else that I needed to do, but that can only be done during office hours. But nevertheless I did some research when I came back, and it seems that it can be resolved quite easily.

But then again, this time it really does involve a phone call to Belgium, so I’m not holding my breath.

So here we are, 22:30 and here I am, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Not feeling in the least like going to sleep.

We’ll probably end up tomorrow with another day like today, I reckon.

Monday 16th July 2018 – IT’S TAKEN UNTIL …

… 20:55 tonight before I could set foot outside the building.

And it all started off so well too. The alarms went off at 06:20 and again at 06:30 and I was up at a reasonable time. We had the usual morning performance and then it all went wrong.

What happened was that I sat down on the sofa “for five minutes” and the next thing that I knew, it was 08:45. It wasn’t as if I’d done anything either.

So after a rather late breakfast, I sat down and did some work.

First thing was to make up a diary. There are some people coming to visit me, hopefully, and I need to know when that might be. And then I have my own appointments too, and a few other things that need attention, so it’s never too late to start.

Having done that, I had a few trips and accommodation to book. And this is where it all started to go pear-shaped.

Plenty of money in my bank account here, so it’s logical to pay with that. But to do this, you need to have the bank confirm your security code by sending you some text messages with a reply code. So I went to authorise the payments … and nothing happened.

I finally received the codes at 20:00 this evening, far too late to be of any good. But in the meantime, I had to pay by another means which was quite inconvenient for me. But it can’t be helped.

Next step was to wade through about 350 mails that had arrived while I was away. Only 10 were of any use, but they all needed attention nevertheless.

And after this, we really hit the wall.

There’s a little project going on in the back of my mind right now and for this, I need a certificate.

Last time that I did this, I applied on line with a simple e-mail and had my certificate within 10 minutes. But on the web-site there’s a “new procedure coming into force for certificates on or after 28th July 2018”.

Mine will be after this date, so I need the new procedure. And I duly read the web page which told me almost everything that I needed to know, including in very great detail how to fill in the form.

One slight problem though – there wasn’t a link on the page to where the form might be found, and no identification number for me to search in the forms bucket.

So I rang then up on the number provided, and had a very helpful automated message – “we don’t deal with applications on this number. All of the information is on our web site”. Which of course is isn’t.

In the end, after much more searching, I found one of these webchat links. So I asked them.
“It’s all on the website” they told me
“No it isn’t” I said. “I’ve been looking for a couple of hours”.
“Here’s the link to the website” he said, sending me the page I was looking at.
“So where’s the link to the form?” I asked.
“We don’t deal with this”
“What do you mean? You’re the help desk. I’m asking for help”
“It’s a ne procedure. We know nothing about it yet”
“What kind of nonsense is this? You’re the help desk and you know nothing about it?”
“Maybe you should speak to our office. Here’s the number”
“I just rang it – it’s an automatic reply that doesn’t take calls”.
And so we went on … “and on, and on” – ed … and got nowhere.

In the end, I’m going to wait until the new procedure comes into force and try again. Hopefully they will have all of the information on line by then.

And, just in case you were wondering, it wasn’t Belgium either.

Four hours altogether I wasted with them. And missed my lunch. And just as I was thinking about making some sandwiches, Rosemary rang.

We were chatting for over an hour. She had some very good news to tell me, that her foot seems to be recovering quite well and she might even be allowed back home in a week or two. I was really pleased for her too.

In the end, my lunch was taken at 17:30. Only Rosemary had cheered up what had otherwise been a lousy day.

Later on, I went for a walk, albeit quite late, and met Gribouille and his mum. She was telling me that the little cat that I had seen was her grand-daughter’s cat who was staying there for a week or two. Gribouille wasn’t impressed at first, but he’s settled down now.

Round the headland I went on my walk, and reached the other side just in time to see the queue of boats waiting for the inner harbour gates to open.

And even as I watched, the gates opened up, and half a dozen trawlers shot in to he inner harbour to find their berths.

That was really impressive timing. I’d not actually witnessed the gates opening like this before.

And Neptune was in the harbour too. It’s been a while since we’ve seen her.

And as I watched, she slipped her moorings, and I was treated to the marvellous spectacle of her doing a nautical danse macabre around the incoming trawlers as she turned round in the harbour and prepared to leave.

She’s a lot bigger than she looks and it was quite a display of seamanship.

She then headed out of the harbour on her way to the open sea, with the incoming boats pulling over to one side to let her out.

So that’s another load of roadstone gravel – about 2500 tonnes or 100 lorry-loads – on its way to the asphalt plant at Whitstable.

She’s timed to arrive there after a voyage of about 19 hours

And as we watch her sailing out into the open sea, we can reflect on yet another effect that Brexit will have on the United Kingdom.

What chance does the United Kingdom have when it doesn’t even have any roadstone of its own to build its roads and so needs to import it from here?

Anyone who thinks that the United Kingdom can hold its own on the world market after Brexit and make a success of it is totally deluded.

So now I’m back, with a nice cold drink. And I might even have an early night. Who knows?

And then there’s more things to do tomorrow, isn’t there?

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Monday 18th June 2018 – I’M WONDERING …

… if I’m mistaken when I say that there hasn’t been a gravel boat in the harbour for quite some considerable time.

The reason why I’m making this observation is that when I went out at lunchtime, Neptune was conspicuous by her absence.

And when I reviewed her port call list, I found that she had set out for Whitstable with her load of gravel at 05:59 this morning. In other words, she had loaded up during the night at ow tide, and as soo as the tide was high enough, she cleared off.

It was only by chance that I spotted her last night, being late for my evening walk and going round the headland rather than round the walls. So if she’s bee, coming and going like that, I could easily have missed her, and on several occasions too.

Something else conspicuous by its absence was the lizard. That’s two days in a row that he hasn’t been for his pear leavings. Mind you, when I went out for my lunch on the wall, it hadn’t long stopped raining so everywhere was still quite wet.

Just for a change last night, I had a good sleep. And I was awake at 06:00 quite spontaneously. There wasn’t anything that awoke me. So after breakfast and a relax I carried on with my blog entry for the first day in the desert.

And we are going to have a problem with that because the reason why it’s taking so long to finish is that it’s already at 5400 words – a new record by far – and there’s still tons to go at yet. It’s the kind of blog entry that could reasonably turn out to be embarrassing with that amount of stuff in it.

After lunch I started to tidy up and clean up in here. I’ve decided to do it bit by bit and it was the turn of the bathroom and toilet today.

So far (and it’s not finished quite yet) it’s taken me 4 hours to do it. Not because it’s so dirty but because I can’t keep going at it. I can only do 10 minutes or so and then I have to come to sit down to recover my strength.

What a state to get in, hey? What am I going to be like in another couple of years? Assuming that I’m still here, of course.

There was the usual session on the bass, made much easier with the practice amp and the chord diagrams of course. Can’t think why I didn’t do that before.

And my two walks. Mustn’t forget them.

The afternoon walk around the headland was quite interesting though.

I’m not sure what was happening but we were experiencing some kind of phenomenon with the lighting in the sea.

I’ve no real idea what might be causing these patches of different-coloured sea. Thee aren’t any rocks underneath there and they weren’t floating patches of seaweed either. And I’d be surprised in different levels of salinity would make that much difference, even if it were the case.

but there is certainly a finely-defined band of separation there; Something strange is going on.

On the way back, outside the building, I bumped into one of my neighbours and we had a chat.

Firstly, she told me that the party aboard the Charles-Marie was to celebrate its 50th Anniversary, and she was actually on board it joining in the celebrations. But then she told me a funny story that really appealed to my sense of humour.

There was a wedding reception in the public rooms on Saturday and several vehicles gatecrashed our private parking area. She had a few words with one of them, who replied to her in language that would have been out-of-place in the fo’c’sle of an Australian Antarctic whaler.

So she said nothing, came in, changed into her best clothes, and went out again to gatecrash the wedding reception where she had her evening meal at their expense.

And good for her too. That’s the kind of thing that really cheers me up.

It’s still quite early right now, but I reckon that I’m going to watch another film and go to bed. I’ve managed to go without crashing out today which is good news, and my evening walk included another 100-metre run. I’ll loosen myself up eventually, and we aren’t talking about syrup of figs either.

An early night will do me good in the circumstances. I have plans to make.

Sunday 17th June 2017 – JUST WHEN I WAS THINKING …

… that we haven’t had a gravel boat here in Granville since before they replaced the harbour gates, here into the harbour Neptune comes sailing … "dieseling" – ed … in.

And for those of you who are thinking, as indeed I was, that she looks rather familiar, she is in fact our old friend Islay Trader but with a new name.

She’s arrived in port having come from Ramsgate in Kent, where she left yesterday morning at 10:15.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned a good few weeks ago that the heaps of gravel were building up.

But I never expected that it would have taken this long for someone to come along and take it all away.

And it’s going to annoy more than a few mobile-home dwellers who have moved in to occupy the loading bay, seeing as the mobile home park down the road here is full to overflowing. If they don’t move, and move pretty quickly, they’ll find a few hundred tonnes of gravel dropping onto their heads

So what was I doing down on the harbour then so that I noticed all of the itinerant holidaymakers?

The answer was that I noticed that the sailing boat that we saw yesterday was still at anchor down there, and seeing as I was out and about? I went for a look.

She’s called the Charles-Marie and she’s available for private hires and parties, either moored or at sea. And there was one such party taking place on board as I was down there, complete with musicians.

She advertises a few tours too, including one up near Greenland and that has got me thinking. I shall have to make further enquiries about that.

But here’s a thing.

While I was walking back from the quayside, I heard a “SPLATTTT” behind me so I turned round.

And there was a seagull, with some kind of shellfish which it had clearly carried in its beak and then dropped from a great height onto the asphalt and concrete roadbed.

And with the crustacean’s shell having been well-and-truly shattered by the hard landing, the gull was now quite happily picking away at the exposed flesh.

I was totally fascinated by this, but dismayed that it never offered any to me. After all, you shouldn’t be selfish with your shellfish..

Last night was a reasonably-comfortable sleep, although being awake at 06:25 was not what I was wanting. But being awake and being out of bed are two different things, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

09:25 is a much-more respectable time on a Sunday. A late breakfast, most of the time of which was spent clearing up the glass of orange juice that I had thrown all over the table and floor.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall me sayig that I had made a significant purchase at GIFI yesterday.

So abandoning all traditions, I did some work this morning and here you can see my toilet shelf unit all assembled and in its glory.

Storage in this place is non-existent and one has to be inventive. So when I saw this I thought to myself that all of the stuff that is lying about on the floor and in the way will now have a place to go.

Unfortunately there’s a design fault in it, in that it’s just two inches too low to clear the toilet seat. But I can invent something for that in due course.

But it’s not like me to be working on a Sunday, is it?

Lunch was on my wall as usual, with my book but not my lizard friend. I wonder where he got to. And on the way back I met Gribouille and his mum.

That was the cue to go for a stroll.

A quick lap around the walls of the Medieval Town to see what was going on, and down on the beach I noticed these two swimmers leaving the water.

I had to admire their resilience. You wouldn’t have got me into the briny in this kind of weather, that’s for sure. Or in any kind of weather at all these days.

There’s a craft fair and artists’ open-air exhibition in the old town today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I missed the one last year due to having to go to Leuven for a hospital appointment, I was keen to go this year.

It would be nice to find an original seascape to hang on my wall here to decorate the place a little. Maybe not “The Fighting Temeraire” but something similar that would appeal to me.

But there will be nothing whatever going on my wall from this exhibition.

I mean – would you put something like any of these … errr … paintings on YOUR wall? I wouldn’t even embarrass myself by exhibiting stuff like this.

And if anyone fears that I am singling out this stallholder, then they may rest easy because all of the offerings on show where of this kind of quality, to a greater or lesser extent.

And all of the stuff was outrageously expensive too. I was reminded of Ruskin’s comment on Whistler’s painting ‘Nocturne in Black and Gold – “(I) never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”.

There was a house clearance sale going on at the same time, so I stuck my head in for a look. A woman inside asked me “would you like to go upstairs?” to which I replied that that was the best offer that I have had for quite some considerable time.

On my way back from the harbour, I noticed that there was a brocante in the town centre, so I headed in that direction.

And it was another one of these brocantes where the stuff was nothing but overpriced nonsense. There were some paintings on offer that were marginally better than those up in the medieval walled city, but at €3,000 apiece, they weren’t that nice.

But I found a guy selling CDs at €2:00 each and I ended up with a copy of Spyrogyra’a Alternating Currents and a copy of Gargantua by Gentle Giant, a live recording from Germany in 1971.

And what is exciting about the latter album is that although recognised as an official Gentle Giant album, it’s a album that was copied from a tape and only ever released in Italy.

And it’s so obscure that even the Gentle Giant website has the musicians listed incorrectly. According to them, the drummer is Malcolm Mortimore but the date of the recording suggests that Martin Smith was still the drummer at that point.

On the way back up the hill I noticed that our old friend the CF Bedford is back again.

And isn’t this much more like a CF Bedford? And engine crane and two guys busily lifting the engine out by the roadside?

I’m not sure what it was that they were doing, but by the time that I went out for my evening walk, they seemed to have finished it.

We’ve seen this machine before too.

This was one of the floats for the carnival back in February, and I’ve no idea why they have resurrected it and brought it up here this afternoon.

It’s certainly “art”, that’s for sure, but not the kind of art that you would expect to see at an event like this. But nevertheless, it’s much better than anything that I sa there.

Round the other side of the vehicle I noticed that there were several people, including the owners I imagine, tucking into lunch.

A rather late lunch, but then again I suppose that they have been preoccupied. It seemed to be such a social thing to do, out on the street on an afternoon like this.

They should have been selling a few tickets and inviting passers-by for a butty or two.

But I came back here instead and went to Caliburn and took out my battery-powered bass amp to clean it up.

And much to my surprise, there was still some life left in the batteries. And so by way of a change, I had half an hour on the bass with it running through the amp instead of the Amplug. And that made a pleasant change. It wasn’t too loud either.

And using the diagrams that I have been making, I’ve been running through a few numbers and it’s amazing how much it seems to all come back.

Another thing that I did this afternoon, shame as it is to admit it, is to have crashed out. And not once but twice. How sad is that?

Tea was a pizza of course, and then my walk where I met Neptune. And not just walk either. For reasons that I shall explain in due course, I forced myself to run. And I found that I could manage about 100 metres before I gave up, totally exhausted. But the first time in almost three years.

So bed in a second, rather later than usual, because today’s entry as well as containing dozens of photos contains 1460 words and it’s taken ages to write out.

It’s hardly surprising that I’m so exhausted these days.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: neptune

Thursday 10th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN A LITTLE …

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

Thursday 20th December 2018 – TOMORROW …

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

4th December 2018 – FIVE SCREENS OF DEATH …

Monday 3rd December 2018 – FIVE SCREENS OF DEATH

Tuesday 6th November 2018 – I’M NOT GOING …

Tuesday 31st July 2018 – MISSION CONTROL …

Wednesday 25th July 2018 – I HAVEN’T DONE …

Tuesday 17th July 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Monday 16th July 2018 – IT’S TAKEN UNTIL …

Monday 18th June 2018 – I’M WONDERING …

Sunday 17th June 2017 – JUST WHEN I WAS THINKING …

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