Tag Archives: vegan ice cream

Thursday 2nd April 2020 – I’VE JUST HAD …

… a very friendly, very interesting and very lengthy conversation with a very nice young girl. She stopped me for a chat while I was out for my evening runs tonight.

We were there for about 10 minutes or so chatting away about all kinds of things.

And do you know what?

I don’t have the first clue who she is.

Something else that I don’t have the first clue about is why I bothered to waste my time by going for an early night. Just for a change, I beat the third alarm out of bed and after the medication I had a look at the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night.

I’d started out by doing my best to obey the quarantine but I had to keep on nipping out of my apartment to the room in the attic for something or other. That meant going out into the street and in my the next door and up the stairs. This happened not once, not twice but three or four times and I was sure that someone would cotton on to what was happening. Sure enough, one time I did it, I heard another door bang in the room and heard someone going up the inside stairs, so I stood behind the door and waited. When whoever it was came in, I shouted “BOOH!”and scared them. It was a girl with whom I once worked and she’s someone I haven’t thought about for years. I had a laugh and a joke with her about the situation but I bet that she was being very curious about who was where, for reasons that I suspected were not entirely altruistic. The I was talking to someone else about this and they said “whatever happens, it’s not going to be right for ages and ages yet before the world is back to normal. All kinds of things have been cut off and we can basically forget all about”.
Later on, someone at work was selected for some kind of medical test so he started to prepare himself, saying “yes, I’ll call you when I get there and let you know how things are going on”. My boss recoiled in horror “no, no. Just give us a ring – it will be fine”. he was obviously extremely suspicious about this and I had the feeling that he would have been quite happy if this employee had picked up some kind of infection from one of these medical trials
Moi, je lui proposé que lui, il lui garde et envoyer un audio de son voyage et de contacter avec quelque chose d’intéressant mais il l’a réussi. Le patron lui a accordé raise parce que … Now why am I dictating this in French? I know that I sometimes dream in French (and in Flemish too before now) but this is the first ever time that I’ve dictated my notes in French … so they decided that the risks just weren’t worth the experience of broadcasting like that.
The next voyage was similar to the one just now about the being summoned and going for a walk and sending an audio report and that was rejected too as the story was pretty much the same
Later on we were discussing trains, HS2 and all of this and I’m still convinced that it’s just a white elephant and it’s not going to do anything particular. We had the usual arguments so I wrote a song about travelling from Amsterdam Schiphol airport to Brussels on the TGV. It came to the attention of Alquin and they weren’t sure – should I join Alquin or would they create a band for me and find me a couple of musicians or something like that. In the meantime I’d been collecting some stuff – I’m not quite sure what it was. Quarantine had ended and everyone was out on the streets. There was a big cinema complex and I was walking through it with stuff in my hat. And the thing that I remember was a really really familiar voice said “just leave it up here against the wall, Eric”. I looked round and it was a guitarist who I knew. I can’t think whether it was that Mike Averill or Sherman Downey – someone like that. He said it quite clearly in his voice that I could hear it in my sleep “just leave it here, Eric” and it was the surprise of the realism of the voice and how I heard it that awoke me
I was in a office last night working and the place was in a total tip as you might expect. There was a girl sitting next to me at my desk. She was going through all my papers and there was a load of stuff I didn’t want her to see because it was quite personal. I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she was looking for a file or a letter. I asked which one and she told me that it was in connection with an accident that I had had with a Woolworths van or lorry 18 months ago. She was going some kind of survey on it. She said “I thought that would be in the International file”. I said “no, for if it involved two people of the same nation it would be in the national, not the international one” so I had to go and fetch the file. There were papers everywhere in a big bundle and I thought that i would come back to sort these out. Then I got to thinking that I’m not going to be able to cope with all of this. I’ve probably had enough. I decided more-or-less on the spot that I was going to retire. It was only 2 days to the end of the month so I thought that at the end of the month I would retire and that would be that.

So after all of that, it’s pretty pointless going to bed early, isn’t it?

But as an aside, looking at where I’ve been during the last couple of nights, anyone would think that I had something of a preoccupation with this virus that’s going round. But that’s not the case at all.

It’s true to say that I’m being more careful than I otherwise would be, but I’m not taking this situation as intently or as keenly as some others, that’s for sure. Being engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the illness that I have, this virus thing is just another complication to add to an already-complicated tangle of affairs.

After breakfast I had a go at a couple of albums – tracking down the digital sound files and sorting them out.

And then, after a shower (the first for a few days) I headed out to town.

On my way out of the medieval walled city I stopped to have a look over the wall to see what was going on, as I had heard the crane in operation.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw Normandy Trader here in port the other day. And here she is, unloading another pile of what looks like shellfish and taking on board a load of timber as a return load to the Channel islands.

It was another quick turn-round too. When I went out in the evening, she was long-gone. She clearly doesn’t want to hang around with these current health issues going on.

My route into town took me down the Rampe du Monte A Regret

Over the past few months I’ve been seeing workmen there ripping out the vegetation that’s been growing in the cracks between the stones, but today I noticed that they’ve been repointing the joints.

This will look quite nice when it’s all done, but I wish that they would spend more of their time dealing with the bits of wall that are actually falling down.

We’ve seen plenty of those just recently.

As I was going past the laboratory, I called in to see where they had got to with my blood test results. They’d completed the examinations and had posted the results, but of course the post is somewhat sporadic these days.

They gave me a copy so I could review it at my leisure. My blood count is at 9.3, which is quite a surprise to most people because when I last had treatment – two months ago, it was 8.8.

We’ve seen in the past that the results from the hospital and the results from the laboratory differ considerably, and nothing seems to have changed right now. I know that the blood count can fluctuate, but surely not by this much.

There weren’t too many people in LIDL this morning so we didn’t have to queue outside. They didn’t seem to be short of very much at all (except pizza bases – I wonder why there’s a run on those right now) so I did what I needed, as well as buying a metre rule with spirit level and a few other accessories. A baguette too, seeing as my favourite boulanger is still closed.

Back here there was time to deal witha couple more albums before lunch, and also 20 or so photos from July 2019. Dynjandi and the Arnarfjördu were the places for which I was trying to remember the names yesterday.

After lunch I finished off the notes for the two radio projects on which i’m working, dictated them, and started on the editing.

To my chagrin I could have made much more progress than I did, but

I was in discussion for some of the time with Laurent about our Grande Marée Virtuelle – I have some lines to learn
I … errr … went off with the fairies for a good half-hour. And a proper one too – hardly surprising after my last couple of nights but disappointing all the same.

There was the usual hour on the guitars and then I stopped for tea. A slice of that tofu and lentil pie from February with jacket potates, veg and gravy.

While it was cooking in the oven, I sorted out all of the carrots that I had bought on Saturday, washed scrubbed, diced and then blanched them

By this time my tea was ready. And it was followed by a slice of apple pie with vegan ice cream and chocolate sauce. Thoroughly delicious.

Out on my walk this evening, I missed the sunset.

The sky was a beautiful red though, so I suppose that it’s better than nothing. And while I was admiring it was when I was accosted by the aforementioned young lady.

Bad news when I had my shower this morning. I seemed to have gained 800 grams since the weekend and that’s no good at all. As a consequence I put in no fewer than four runs tonight. I have to get things under control

Another thing that I need to do is to have a good sleep. It won’t be as long as last night’s, unfortunately, but it will still do me good.

But I wonder where I’ll finish up tonight?

Friday 27th March 2020 – AND IF YOU THINK …

… that yesterday was a bad day, you should have seen today.

We started off this morning where we finished last night – in total chaos. It wasn’t as early a night as I was hoping because just as I was about to go to bed, onto the playlist came Al Stewart and his song “Modern Times” from THE ALBUM OF THE SAME NAME.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s Al Stewart was pretty much dismissed in the same terms that were reserved for Chris De Burgh several years – “the work of a queasy adolescent scratching his pimples” or some such quote.

And while his early output was considered by many to be mushy, maudlin, sentimental and egoistic, it was something that many of us, brought up in similar circumstances, cast adrift as teenagers in squalid and sordid bedsits, could readily identify.

His later work evolved as he himself evolved, but there was still this underlying nostalgia deep in there somewhere and in the song “Modern Times” he brought out every memory that I ever had of the painful pangs of growing up, coupled with, right at the end, two minutes or so of one of the most magnificent, underrated guitar solos that I have heard for quite some considerable time.

So on that note, rather later than usual having listened to it three or four times and shared it with some of my friends, I went off to bed feeling about as depressed as I could be.

When the alarms went off in the morning, I quite simply missed it. All three calls. it was 07:50 when I finally arose from the dead, feeling completely disappointed about the whole affair. I don’t know what’s getting to me right now.

After the medication, I had a listen to the dictaphone. And no wonder I was so tired. You would be had you gone off on the voyages that I had.

I’m not too sure about much of this first part because in the panic that I had when I couldn’t find my dictaphone and had to wake up and get out of bed to look for it, I forgot all of it. But it was to do with me being in a kitchen, a caravan-type of kitchen although it might not have been in a caravan and I had to get some things out of the cupboard that’s above the sink. So I opened it up but couldn’t find anything at all that I knew was in there. It suddenly occurred to me that what was happening was that for some unknown reason the stuff there in the cupboard was the wrong way round, as if you were trying to get in from the back rather than from the front. That’s why I couldn’t find anything that I knew was i there because it would now be at the back instead of at the front. There were things like little test tubes full of a kind of oily liquid of all different kinds of stuff in there and I was trying to work out what these were that I was pulling out – lots of different stuff like that!

Later on during the night I dreamt that I was arrested for a debt but because it was a debt that related to something weird to do with some kind of Act of 1742 I was arrested and sent to a debtors’ prison, the kind of place we had that still exists today. We were all herded into one great big cell, men women, children. We were all basically put in there and the key was locked upon us. Meals were cooked but there was no organisation or anything. We grabbed a seat where you could and lay down where you could, all of this kind of thing. The Salvation Army would come amongst the prisoners to talk to them, that kind of thing. Surprisingly, I counted quite a lot of solidarity between the prisoners, something that you wouldn’t really expect in those conditions. Certainly an interesting place to be. There was a book passed round with a list of all the prisoners in it. It had me in it, and showed my address and an extract of the roll of my premises and it said “car scrapping and recovery” and something else there that was all quite interesting too.

Finally I was on an aeroplane to Chicago but it was Canada and I’ve no idea why Chicago might be in Canada. It was only the previous day that I had made up my mind that I was going – I had a couple of weeks between hospital appointments so I thought that I would go. I got onto this plane and it was pretty crowded. I was sitting next to a young boy, a college student, something like that, and I had to explain to him that the UK was fighting a war and while there was a surfeit of Canadian students until 2021, that was going to disappear so I said that any Canadian student of which there is a surfeit to get them over to the Mother Country – tell them that the UK is fighting a war and needs their bodies. We were discussing things on board the ‘plane and talking about headphones. he asked “what happens when the staff plug in a headphone for you and you don’t use it – does that count?” I explained that you get a basic radio service that’s free, included in the price of the ticket and you only pay if you go for an enhanced service. There was a problem with my seat – it wouldn’t stay upright and kept on reclining backwards. I thought “God I hope that they don’t make me move prior to take-off because there didn’t seem to be anywhere to move to and I was settled where I was in a nice aisle seat.

Thinking about it later on, it was the whole kind of emotional environment last night going to bed where, had this been another time, I would have expected Castor or Zero to have put in an appearance. But as far as I’m aware, neither of them showed up, which was probably a good thing.

After a rather late breakfast I had a crack at the digital sound files. It wasn’t as good as it might have been because for one album, there was absolutely no trace whatsoever of anything relating to it.

Not that it surprises me because I must have the only copy in existence, so I’ll have to make a digital copy myself along with the others that I’m collecting for which there is no trace.

Two more, all that I could find are *.mkv files. And while I can convert them to *.mp3 just as easily as I can convert almost anything else, it’s disposing of them afterwards. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve identified a fault that makes them almost impossible to remove without a great deal of effort and if you have too many on your computer, they all try to open automatically at once and it slows your machine right down.

As a result I’m trying to hold off downloading *.mkv files until either Yours Truly or Microsoft can find a fix.

Having eventually finished the albums I went out to see if I could find my bread.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday I mentioned the Ile de Chausey, the folk who live there and the lack of facilities that they have, and I wondered how they would cope.

So when I saw a couple of boats heading out that way in the mist I took a rather speculative shot to see whether it might be either Joly France or Chausiais doing out with supplies.

But it actually appears to be two fishing boats going out that way, presumably for the purpose of fishing. So I’ve no idea what is going to happen over there if they can’t receive any help.

What’s even worse from my point of view is that all of the paths around the clifftops are closed off so I couldn’t take my usual long route around the Pointe du Roc.

Instead I had to walk around the edge of the park in the boulevard Vaufleury. There’s a good view down into the chantier navale and from there I could see that Charles Marie has found a friend.

The fishing boat Cap Lihou has come to join her, but keeping her social distance as she can see. There was someone there with a pressure washer hosing off her barnacles.

That reminds me of the time that I was talking to a ship about barnacles. I was saying that I didn’t like them very much.
The ship replied “neither did I at first, but after a while I found that they grew on me”.

The port and the harbour are out of bounds too with this new legislation so I walked on down the rue du Port.

There was one of the smaller fishing boats moored there, and there in the stern was a lobster pot (however do they train baby lobsters to go on one of those?) and, would you believe, some buoys with red flags like we’ve seen floating in the sea every now and again.

So that might well the answer.

As I expected, La Mie Caline was all closed up again with no sign of life. Luckily I had done my research yesterday as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and the boulangerie at the foot of the hill was open, so I picked up a baguette from there.

On the way back, I took a short diversion.

As I mentioned above, all of the walks around the clifftops are now out of bounds and that includes my running track across the Square Maurice Marland, as I discovered last night.

And so i went that way to have a look at the notice and to take a photograph of the situation so as to record it for posterity. We are living in unusual times and it’s important that we document as much as possible of what is going on so that history will have something to remember.

Somewhere on the internet in some social group or other I was reading that in some places the smaller fishing boats have been prevented from going out to sea.

We saw a couple from here earlier heading out towards the Ile de Chausey, and here’s another one heading into the English Channel towards Bréhal-Plage.

We’ve seen buoys out there where the boat is – in fact, there was one the other day – but I haven’t seen who is out there placing them in the water. But if you look closely at this photo, you’ll see some kind of disturbance in the water between the boat and the photograph.

After lunch, I turned my attention to the purée because I had used the last of that this morning.

Firstly, I peeled, cored and diced 9 eating apples (I prefer them to cooking apples as they need no extra sweetening) and put them as I diced them into a large saucepan that has a small amount of water, lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon in there. there was also a large amount of desiccated coconut, for a reason that I will explain.

As I added the diced apple each time I had finished one, I stirred it round in the liquid so that it would remain white and not start to go brown. The desiccated coconut adhering to the bits of apple showed me that they had been treated.

Then I peeled, cored and diced three pears (and I would have added more had I had them) and added them to the mixture, stirring them round as above.

The saucepan then went on the heat and was brought to boil. Then I left it to simmer for an hour.

In the meantime, I made a start on the radio programme about the Grande Marée. There was an interview of almost 8 minutes that needed editing and that took me quite a while to deal with it too – but now it’s down to about 4:30 of quite interesting stuff.

Halfway through the proceedings I broke off to look at the fruit to see how it was doing.

It looked pretty good to me so I washed and cleaned the two jars and put them in the microwave with a small amount of water so as to heat and sterilise them.

The fruit was drained off and the liquid put in a bottle that was put in the fridge for juice in the morning. The actual fruit was put in the whizzer and given a really good whizz round to turn it into a nice purée.

Once it was whizzed up, I put it into the sterilised jars and put on the lids, that I had carefully cleaned. So that’s the apple and pear purée for the next 10 days or so, I reckon. And it’s pretty good stuff, I promise you.

Once it had cooled down, I put it in the fridge. And I carried on with my radio programme. And as I was beginning to assemble it, I found another one of the interviews that I hadn’t actually edited, so i had to turn my hand to that as well.

Unfortunately, I ran out of time. It was 18:00 and time for my hour with the guitars. I won’t get any better if I don’t practise, even if I won’t get any better if I do, but that’s hardly the point.

At 19:00 I broke off and made tea. There was the rest of the stuffing left over so I added the rest of the mushrooms, some more onion and some spinach and tomato sauce, and boiled up some pasta and vegetables.

Pudding was, of course, jam pie and vegan ice cream with chocolate sauce. Totally delicious. And it’s a shame that there’s just one more slice left, because for an ad-hoc improvised arrangement, this was a real success.

And so simple too. There will be many more of these in the future, that’s for sure. With all different kinds of jam. Blackcurrant might be nice.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night I went out to photograph the new moon with a camera that had a flat battery.

No such mistake tonight because I had it on charge overnight. So we can see the beautiful moon tonight, with a planet shining quite brightly close by.

Not being an astronomer, I’ve no idea what planet it might be but I understand that Venus is quite visible at the moment. I wouldn’t like to speculate, particularly after the last time when I said to a passer-by “I can see Uranus from here” and the dirty look that he gave me in response.

With all of my regular runnign spots and all of the clifftop paths closed off, I had a rather irregular walk tonight, although I still managed to fit in two runs of some description to the equation.

There was another nice view across the harbour and the town, so I took another evening photograph of the tranquil scene. We’ll be seeing many more shots like this as this lock-down takes hold.

And if it’s anything like any other plague or epidemic in history, it will flare up again for a couple of years until they can either find a vaccine, everyone becomes immune or everyone is wiped out.

So now I’ve finished my notes and I’m off to bed, as long as nothing in the way of nostalgic music appears on the playlist.

Saturday tomorrow, and shopping day. So we’ll see what that brings us. I’m expecting thigs to be much more busy than last week with people having been cooped up and thus short of supplies. I can see me eventually changing my time of visit to a less popular time as this affair carries on.

Thursday 26th March 2020 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… a very bad day today. And for a variety of reasons too

Having had a brief flurry of activity earlier in the week, I found my favourite boulangerie closed today and had to walk almost as far as the Proclaimers to find another one
I spent most of the afternoon crashed out on the chair and I’ve no idea why
It was a beautiful evening for photography with a beautiful clear sky and a thin sliver of crescent moon, so when I lined up the camera to take the first of what I hoped was many photographs, the battery went flat on me
My evening routine is now completely disrupted as the terrain on which I perform my evening runs has now been placed out of bounds

And probably many more reasons that I can’t think of right now but I bet that I will as soon as I press “PUBLISH”.

The day started off so well too. I was awake for the first two alarms and out of bed dressing myself when the third one went off. Not something that happens every day.

The last of the ginger and orange this morning for my medication, so I need to deal with that a little later.

And then the dictaphone. In the first part of our adventure last night Castor went missing. It was somewhere round about Ottawa in October. There was a message posted about everyone search their gardens and yards, all this kind of thing. Of course everyone did that and there was still no trace of her so they announced that they were going to search people’s cabin trunks. I remember saying that that’s one way to encourage people to get rid of their travelling trunks. So we (whoever “we” were) unpacked ours, checked it and repacked everything and closed it up again, got it ready. There was still no trace of her and she had disappeared on the 10th and the panic started on the 12th so it then got to the stage of asking people to check her movements before then and to look for human remains in their gardens, all of this kind of gruesome stuff upon which I won’t elaborate.
A little later there was a group of us all going somewhere and we should be setting out because we were – it was getting late. But someone was there listening to some music – Yes as it happened – and we were all urging this person to get a move on. He was saying “yes, I want to listen to the music. We have plenty of time yet”. I said “you might have but I haven’t, I have a lot to do and I need to be getting myself organised”. I had an electric welding kit and aluminium welding rods in the back of my car that I was going to do something with but I can’t remember what, and I needed to have a shower as well and there we were, trying to urge this person to get going but he was just taking his time, taking his time, taking his time.

After breakfast (and the last of the muesli too) I made a start on the digital sound files. Again, no complete file so I had to hunt down probably about 50 individual tracks.

But not to worry – over the next few days there will be some really good stuff coming up and I’m quite looking forward to that. All kinds of classic albums that I haven’t listened to for years.

Once they were out of the way I had a few things of my own to attend to, and then I went out to La Mie Caline for my dejeunette.

As usual, during the lockdown I took advantage of my permit in order to go the long way around, all the way around the headland of the Pointe du Roc.

Over at the ferry terminal were Chausiais and Joly France, the older one (the newer one has a step cut in the stern) and that got me thinking, which is a rare event these days, I know.

There are no facilities on the Ile de Chausey apart from a bar-hotel and a small grocery point, as far as I am aware. So I’m wondering just how they are managing at the moment – whether the ferries are still running and, more importantly, what happens if the virus hits the island when there are no medical facilities for them there

It’s probably something about which they aren’t going to think until it actually happens.

The tide was out so the harbour gates were closed so I could take the path over the top to the other side.

It’s no surprise that work on the pontoons has ceased for the duration, and the pillars that remain to be installed are still lying here waiting for something to happen.

But the off-cut is intriguing me. I’ve no idea what they intend to do with that but it wouldn’t be here if it isn’t going to be serving a useful purpose.

Being confounded at La Mie Caline, I went to the boulangerie up the road. But that one is closed on Thursday. I ended up at the one in the rue Couraye where we have seen them install the new shop front.

No dejeunettes of course so I bought a baguette instead. And I was inpressed with their security precautions – a strip of clingfilm posed vertically along the top of the counter to act as a germ barrier. And the people working there were wearing gloves and masks.

And there I was – I’d decided not to go to LIDL this morning because I didn’t really need anything important, and I ended up on a marathon hike just the same.

On the way back I took something of a roundabout route and found myself in the rue Ernest Lefrant looking at this little alleyway that I hadn’t ever noticed before.

That’s one thing that can be said about all of this – that i’m going places that are off my usual beaten track and seeing things that I never would usually see.

And in case anyone is wondering why I was taking something of a roundabout route in the present circumstances, it was to spy out the boulangerie that is nearest to my home to check that it’s still open during the crisis and to see what are its opening hours.

Having bought my bread from there in the past, I seem to recall that its baguettes were quite acceptable and if La Mie Caline is closed for the duration I’ll be going here.

After lunch I sliced up a lump of ginger into very small pieces and put them into a little water to boil. While they were simmering away quite nicely with some cumin and coriander, I made another batch of muesli so that there’s some fresh stuff for tomorrow.

When the ginger was boiling nicely I took a pile of oranges. One or two weren’t looking so goo so of those, I cut off what I didn’t want to use.

Then I peeled all of the oranges, removed as much of the pith as I could, and then put the oranges in the whizzer. I gave them a gentle whizz around, just enough to separate the juice, which I strained off and put into a glass bottle which I had sterilised in the microwave with a little water which I had then emptied out. The orange juice then went into the fridge.

The pulp was put back into the whizzer and whizzed around until it was as fine as I could reasonably make it and it was then added to the ginger and water.

With plenty of other things to do, I came back in here and started on the radio programme for the Grande Marée and edited a couple of the recordings that we had taken.

After about 60 minutes I went to see how my stuff in the saucepan was going. All quite properly done to a turn, so I took it off the heat and added a couple of tablespoons of Manuka Honey, stirring it well in.

It all went into the whizzer again for a really good whizz around for a good few minutes to really break up everything, and then when it had cooled (I did the washing-up meantime) I added it to the orange juice and put it into the fridge. There’s my cordial for the next week or so.

Back here though, I couldn’t keep going. I crashed out I don’t know how many times and it really was a struggle. I did however manage to pull myself together and do some of the stuff though, but I was really disappointed with my lack of effort.

Rosemary rang me too, and I had a chat with Liz on the internet and as a result I missed 15 minutes of my guitar practice. But there were a couple of songs that I had digitalised just recently with which I wanted to have a play around, so I spent most of my time with those on both the bass and the six-string guitar.

For tea I added a small tin of kidney beans (good idea, those small tins) to the left-over stuffing and made myself taco rolls with rice and veg. Totally delicious. There’s some of that left too for tomorrow when I’ll be having an “everything curry” made with all of the leftovers.

Pudding was more jam pie with vegan ice cream and chocolate sauce and it really was a meal fit for a king. I’m eating so well these days and a lot of it is home-made.

And that got me thinking too – that if bread is going to be hard to obtain, then taco rolls and a supply thereof might be useful.

As for my evening outing, I mentioned it just now. I did manage to do two runs but not as I was hoping or where I was hoping, but we all have to make sacrifices too these days.

And no photos either. That’s depressing too.

But regardless of everything else, I’m so tired that I’m going to have an early night. Despite my reasonable sleep I’ve had a really bad day and I don’t want too many more like this. I have so much to do and so little time to do it.

Wednesday 25th March 2020 – ANOTHER DAY STUCK …

… here in quarantine, slowly getting on my own nerves. I’m not sure how people are coping with being quarantined together and not being able to get away from each other.

But for my part, I had a struggle to get away from my bed this morning. It wasn’t late when I went to bed, but later than I imagined. I slept right through (nothing on the dictaphone) until the morning, dozing through the first two alarms and sitting bolt-upright for some reason about 30 seconds before the third call.

Anyway, I was sitting with my feet on the floor and a tee-shirt in my hand when the alarm went off so I reckon that I had just about won that.

After the medication and with nothing on the dictaphone I made a start on the digitalising of my record collection. I wasn’t able to find any complete soundfiles so I had to work track by track and that took hours to do (with a break for breakfast of course).

Just for a change, there wasn’t anything of any great importance on anything that I recorded this morning. It’s just another 4 albums out of the way all done and finished. But I did have a sneak preview and in a couple of days there will be some really good stuff coming up.

One thing about having visitors is that it makes me get down to doing some tidying up. I know that Neitzsche said “out of chaos comes order” but Neitzche had never visited anywhere where I have ever lived.

It took me a good half hour to clean up, vacuum the floor and put stuff away. And now it sort-of looks as if someone lives here. It won’t last very long like that but at least when the nurse came round it was looking ok.

He took my blood sample – with much difficulty as regular readers of this rubbish will recall – and now I have little patches of white plaster all over the place.

He’ll send the blood to the laboratory for examination and they’ll send me a report. I know what figures to look out for and if there’s a problem I’ll contact my doctor.

Despite the quarantine regulations I still need my daily bread so I went off into town.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen on several occasions these mysterious buoys that keep on appearing and then disappearing offshore.

Despite all of my enquiries I’ve never yet managed to find out to what they relate. My best guess is that it’s do do with fishing nets or lobster pots but I really have no idea.

And it looks as if Charles Marie isn’t going to be around for much longer.

My route this morning went round the headland and down past the chantier navale. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen them tearing huge lumps out of her bulwarks but the last few days when I’ve not been out have seen them replace much of the wood that was removed.

With no distractions to worry them, they’ve been able to crack on with the work.

Other people have been cracking on with work too, taking advantage the enforced hibernation.

With the tide being out, the harbour gates were closed so I could walk across the path on top and over to the other side.

And a couple of people were busy working. The trawler Soupape had had all of its winching gear dismantled and it has all been repainted just recently.

And one of the crew had the wire rope out on the quay and was oiling it and giving it a good servicing. I suppose that they need to keep busy and fixing the fishing gear is one good way to go about it.

There were only a handful of people out and about in town today. It didn’t take long to pick up my dejeunette and I came straight back here. One of my neighbours stuck his head out of his window for a quick chat and one of the women went past and joined in – at a distance.

After lunch I pressed on.

Despite a good crash-out which disrupted my flow, I finished Project 034 and also Project 029 – the live concert for May. They aren’t as I would like them to be because the times are somewhat awkward. I ended up running short on both of them so I had to dictate some more, edit it and merge it in.

Then it was too long so I had to edit some more out, so it was then too short, so I had to add some more back. I’m sure that you get the picture. I could have been there even now but I ended up settling for what I had because it was by now 18:00 and when I’m knocking off these days.

All I need now to catch up is a live concert for June but there’s always something in the pipeline.

There was the customary half-hour on the 6-string and then half an hour on the bass – the acoustic 4-string. And I spent some of the time working out a bass line to Green Day’s “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams” – a song that has a certain significance for me and for someone who, for a certain short moment, was very special to me and who still would be, given half a chance.

As Kris Kristofferson once wrote, “I’d give all my tomorrows for a single yesterday” and that’s a song that appeared on my playlist out of nowhere one evening back then and has remained there ever since.

Still, I mustn’t start to become all broody. What will be will be. I went and had tea instead.

Burger on a bap tonight with jacket potatoes and veg. Plenty of mustard on the bap and that gave it a certain je ne sais quoi. A slice of jam pie with vegan caramel ice cream and chocolate sauce for pudding and that was totally delicious too.

This photo might not look like much but it’s extremely interesting nevertheless.

20:30 when I went out for my evening walk and away down the English Channel there was still a touch of light in the sky. The nights are getting shorter which is good news. Summer will soon be here.

But the question that needs to be asked is “will we?”.

There were my usual two runs this evening. along the north side of the city walls and then the second one across the square Maurice Marland and half a dozen steps up the second ramp

But here’s a thing.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall Minette, the old long-haired black cat that sometimes waits for me to let me stroke her.

That’s the windowsill where she normally waits, but she’s not there tonight (which isn’t unusual) but the candle that’s burning there in her place doesn’t look very ppromising. I hope that she’s ok and that nothing has happened to her.

So I’ve had a slow evening listening to music and having to reconfigure my web server so that I could upload my images tonight. I seem to wasting time on such unimportant trivialities right now.

So tomorrow and Friday I’ll deal with the peche à pied radio programme that we recorded and which needs editing because on Friday evening I’m expecting a few audio diaries from various people and that’s my weekend task. They have to be edited and ready for Monday morning because our programme is going out on Tuesday late afternoon.

So I reckon that I’ll have another early night and get myself fighting fit. Fighting for breath and fit to drop, I reckon.

Saturday 14th March 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… day this has been for me. Easily one of the worst that I have ever had in recent times.

It started so well too.

Once more I managed (just about) to beat the third alarm call and that’s always good news.

After the medication (more of my delicious orange and ginger syrup) I had a look at the dictaphone to see where i’d been during the night. And hadn’t I gone some distance?

We were in a wagon train or something like that heading to the far west of the USA or somewhere. At a certain moment we came across some kind of supermarket or café, place like that, or shop that was empty. We were having a good look round and there were all kinds of things, cauliflower seeds, that kind of thing, packets all over the floor and ripped open. But there was a lot of food left on the shelves so we started to have a look through the food on the shelves and in the cold store and fridge to see what we could take with us. Someone talked about “yes, we could go to the pub and have chips and a pint there”. I said “oh no. I haven’t been to the pub 5 times in the last 10 years I reckon. I’m going to see what I can make out of all of this”. I was busy wandering around trying to see what there was there in this shop place that I could take with me. My brother and one of my sisters were there too but I’m nor sure what was going on with them. But it was round about there that I woke up. There was beer and all kinds of things in this place.
Having gone back to sleep, a little later I found myself back in the same dream again. The sister was there and she had her handbag but it had holes in it, as if it had a pattern punched through the leather. Of course it might look pretty but I thought “what use is that in a rainstorm?”. I was making a pizza and I had my brother there and I was showing him how to make it. I had to make some room on the worktop in order to have room to make a pizza, just like in my house. You have to unwrap the pastry and tease it out with your fingers to the correct shape, all that kind of thing before you can use it and how carefully you have to put it in the pizza tray.
And so later again, this dream continued. There were four of us by now – me, someone else, a young girl who might have been Percy Penguin and my brother. We were arrested for something or other and marched off. I had my guitar and a pile of other stuff as well. Percy Penguin picked up my guitar and my stuff and walked off with it. We were all ushered away somewhere and for some unknown reason I came back – there might only have been three of us and the fourth person had been taken away previously. She came back and saw me and was trying to find out what was happening. I was trying my best to explain it to her without giving away too much of the game. These people came back to start the interrogation of me. They hadn’t really got very far because I wasn’t sure what they wanted and I don’t think that they were sure what they were wanting. It came to tidying up the room, like in a hotel where you tidy away the breakfast. You cover everything up, put labels on it, stuff goes of the fridge into the main room down to the fridge at the back which is better. One of the guys said something like “can you deal with all of this and all of that” which meant throwing away the orange peel and orange pith and so on. There were some maraschino cherries lying around. I asked “what do you want to do with those?”. One of the guards said “you don’t need to do anything with those because there’s someone whom we took down earlier who’s dealing with all of those”. he meant Percy Penguin who was sitting there eating a lot of them. Anyway I awoke again at that point.
There was also something about Percy Penguin doing a modelling job. We finally caught up with her but I can’t remember what happened then but I had a really bad attack of cramp, awoke yet again and that was my lot.

There was even more to it than this but as you are probably eating your tea right now I’ll spare you all the gory details.

After breakfast I made a start on splitting a couple of digital tracks. The first two were straightforward and it wasn’t long before I was having my shower and preparing for the road.

The streets were empty today, except for by the drive-in collection point for LeClerc. The queue was right down the street as people chose to suffocate themselves in motor vehicle pollution rather than to risk the shops.

As a result, NOZ was empty. There were just three customers in there and that’s nothing for a Saturday morning. I bought a small baking tray, some small pie moulds a few other bits and pieces of no great importance, some more of that cranberry-and-rosemary alcohol-free beer and another pot of that Alpro salted caramel vegan ice-cream that is now back in stock.

They had some of the expensive soya burgers too with a short sell-by date at about two-thirds price so I bought a couple of packets. I can always use those.

Although there were fewer cars on the car park at LeClerc, the place wasn’t noticeably more quiet. Still the usual crowds.

My shopping there today came to very little because I don’t need much. In fact, a large proportion of the bill went on a large pot of thyme. I’ve been wondering for ages what has been the missing ingredient in my cooking and it clicked with me the other day.

For some reason, when I came back, I couldn’t find the energy to put anything away. It was an effort to put away the ice-cream before it melted.

But I didn’t get to rest for long. Rosemary rang up for a chat and we were on the line chatting until almost lunchtime.

After lunch I attacked another couple of digital sound files and then, a terrible thing happened. I crashed out completely, absolutely and definitively. It was just like a couple of years ago when I was totally devastated.

Eventually I awoke and it took me a good 15 minutes to find my bearings. I felt really dreadful too – worse than I have felt for quite a while.

Nevertheless, you can’t keep a good man down. Nor me either. I staggered out for my afternoon walk.

My route this afternoon took me the long way round the headland and down the old path into town past the Chantier navale where there were hordes of people clambering all over Charles-Marie doing all kinds of things to it.

For my part, the tide was out so I headed down to the harbour and crossed over to the other side via the path on top of the harbour gates.

And here’s a boat that we haven’t seen for a while.

Built in 1914 and considerably overhauled in the 1990s, Lys Noir has been up for sale for quite a considerable time and at an asking price of €120,000, I’m hardly surprised.

But word on the streets is that she now has a new owner, and it looks as if they are having a little celebration aboard the vessel.

So we should be seeing her out and about this summer.

A merry and mazy way through the town eventually brought me to the Parc de Val es Fleurs. There wasn’t an awful lot going on there either.

However, I did find a new footpath that I hadn’t noticed before. This one brought me out round the back of the Ecole Primaire Docteurs Lanos – the Doctors Lanos Primary School, whoever the Doctors Lanos were when they were at home, if they ever were.

So I had a little look around, but there was nothing of any importance going on. Just a father and son playing football and the boy hit the post with three consecutive shots, much to the amusement of his father and Yours Truly.

The footpath is called the Allee des Cygnes – the Avenue of the Swans – and it’s a continuation of the Chemin des Moulins.

Why it’s so called is that apparently there’s a river flowing through here that has now been culverted over. It’s supposed to discharge into the sea somewhere, so I wonder if that’s what we saw the other day that I thought was a drain outlet.

But anyway, the path brought me round the back of the town centre and out by the Casino. And so I decided to come on home. It had been a long walk.

Back here, I tidied up the music. It’s somewhat all over the place and it’s very confusing when I’m trying to arrange some radio programmes. By the looks of things, the last time that I sorted it properly was back in 2006.

But now it’s divided into 5 groups of 55 groups or solo musicians each, and that’s about 750 albums that have been digitalised to date. There are probably that many again that remain to be done.

While I was at it, I updated THE PLAYLIST FOR THE RADIO PROGRAMMES. At least, even if I don’t feel like it, I ought to be doing something or other.

Later on, I sorted through the burgers that I have in stock. There were some that were a couple of months past their sell-by date so I attacked one of those with some pasta and vegetables. I’ll gradually work my way through those as I go along.

For pudding, I had the last slice of that delicious apple pie with some soya coconut dessert stuff that I bought. Tomorrow, it’s pizza of course so with the oven on, I’ll make a rice pudding in that new casserole dish that I bought a couple of weeks ago.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a rice pudding and I do happen to like them

And so for my evening walk, even though I didn’t feel much like it.

The NIKON 1 J5 and the f1.8 18.5mm lens came with me, and I managed a rather iffy shot of the College Malraux with the lighthouse beam hovering over it.

Nothing would stop me attempting my two runs and not only did I manage them, I even pushed on beyond my boundaries, making the top of the first ramp on my second track across the Square Maurice Marland. I can’t be as ill as I was thinking.

So now I intend to have an early night, and sleep until I wake up. I’m off to Leuven, trains and Government legislation permitting, on Wednesday and I really have to pull myself together if I’m to sort all of this out.

Wednesday 11th March 2020 – IT’S THE GRAND MAREE TODAY!

The day when we have one of the greatest tidal differences of the year.

There’s what they call the “tidal coefficient” – the difference between high tide and low tide. It varies quite considerably but once it starts getting into the 80s and 90s you know that it’s going to be a good one.

And today, the tidal coefficient was .. errr … 117. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Why this is important is because at very low tide, the public areas of the shellfish beds are accessible. Shellfish of all descriptions is something very important here and there’s a great deal of commercial exploitation with clearly defined areas that the commercial operators lease.

But beyond those areas, it’s a free-for-all and just about anyone has the right to hunt for shellfish there, with certain restrictions. Of course, these areas are usually under water so they aren’t accessible. But on the days when there is a great tidal coefficient, the public can reach there quite easily.

And so they do – in droves as you can see.

They were not alone, because a couple of intrepid reporters from the local internet radio station were out there as well, interviewing the people and finding out what was going on.

And we (because, dear reader, I was one of them) picked up loads of hints, learned a few good recipes, and met a couple of guys who were having a picnic on the rocks, with fresh oysters.

And it’s not true, what they say about oysters. They aren’t aphrodisiacs at all. I had a dozen on my wedding night and only nine of them worked.

Talking of working, I haven’t really done much in the way of working today. I had a really busy night, as I discovered when I looked at the dictaphone after my medication.

There was something happening about school last night with a lot of people. I was there with a former classmate and one or two other people. We were in trenches, bogged down and were being fired at. A voice from the other side saying “everyone who is still alive, stand up and let’s see you”. Of course I had no intention whatever of standing up and being seen for I knew exactly what would happen, so we didn’t. They were still shouting, all this kind of thing, from over there. I had some peaches or pineapple chunks or something and was eating them. I spilled some syrup all over the place while I was doing this so I had to scout around for something. I came across a towel from one of the girls – it might have been another one of my former classmates so I said to my friend something like “she will have to come and share yours tonight” meaning to share his bed. But yes, well … as a kind of joke. He said “but most of the girls are going home tonight because there’s something going on at home and there will be very few people left here tonight”. Of course I was staying and I thought that that would give me an opportunity to get my hands on Percy Penguin and get her to spend the night with me
A little later it was back to a dream that I’d had earlier, something to do with the Germans again. I was being shadowed into this underground station. I could see that there were two of them, a man and a woman rather like Colonel Gruber and his female associate in ‘Allo ‘Allo. They were surveying me so I ended up tearing down to the platform, making sure that they were on there and step onto the train as it pulled in, then stepping off the train just as the doors were about to close so that they were stuck on it and it disappeared off into the tunnel. I had to think whether there was anyone else that I had noticed who might have been with them. But there wasn’t so I thought that I would head back outside again. At that moment another German came down with a squad of soldiers and started to say something, which inevitably was about the people on the train. “Get the people off the train”. He was told that the train had departed, which was quite evident but he was not having any of this. I was thinking to myself “well, I’d got rid of those two people but I really need to get away before they come back and find me”. But anyway … So I was somewhere and there was a girl in here with me as well but I didn’t really know exactly where, anyway. There was something to do with bass guitar in this part – Graham Simpson of Roxy Music with his EB3 like mine. He was one of the musicians who was involved with this somewhere. but I’m not quite sure where
And later still I finally got my hands on TOTGA. There were special offers on the ferries to Europe so I rang her up to tell her about it but she’d booked a ferry to Ireland and she was telling me all about Ireland. I asked if she was going from Stranraer to Larne and she said “yes” that very evening, so I thought that she would have to get a move on because it’s a 5-hour drive to Stranraer. I was walking on an island somewhere. I can’t remember who was with me but we were following the two ships – a passenger ferry was leaving and there was a freighter that was leaving behind it. I was telling TOTGA this but I was getting all the names of ships mixed up all the time and she was having to correct me, even though she didn’t know the place and didn’t know the ships, anything like that. It was really quite funny. But anyway she was going to ireland and not coming to France

It’s hardly surprising that i was too worn out to do too much today, after all that.

After breakfast I sat down to deal with some of the splitting of the soundfiles that I’d downloaded. And that wasn’t straightforward because not one of them was correct.

Two of them had extra tracks that weren’t marked on the track lists so I had to hunt down which ones they were. For a third one, the timing just didn’t correspond at all with what I knew, and it turned out that I’d somehow managed to acquire a special studio original master before it had been edited down. That might be an exciting curio but it was a pain to work with.

As for the fourth, in the end I gave up trying to deal with it and managed to track down a different copy that, I hope, might be more accurate.

Once I’d done that, I spent an hour or so doing some tidying up. I know that Neitzsche famously said “out of chaos comes order” but Neitzsche never visited my apartment. But anyway, it now looks as if someone lives here.

That was the cue to nip into town and La Mie Caline for my dejeunette for lunch, stopping to chat to a neighbour on the way – the same neighbour whom I had met yesterday.

And it looks as if my assumption of two rows of four pillars isn’t correct. There they were this morning installing a fifth pillar in the same row as the preceding four.

So this is going to have to be another thing for me to observe over the next few days or so to see what they are actually going to be doing.

But whatever they were doing with the scaffolding down on Marité’s berth, they must have done it.

They seem to have folded up their tents and disappeared quietly into the night, or some such, because the scaffolding has now disappeared and Marité is now back where she ought to be.

As for me, I pushed on down to La Mie Caline, picked up my bread and came home to my apartment.

After lunch, I still had half an hour so I cracked on with my radio project and almost managed to finish it.

But my oppo came bang on time and, gathering up my material, we set off for the rocks. And I made an important discovery too. I have a headphone-splitter, which means that I can plug two headphones into one headphone socket.

And it also works with microphones too so we could use two microphones with the Zoom H1 and that’s really what I call progress.

We spent about an hour and a half down there talking to people and I ended up with about 30 minutes of speech, which will need to be edited down. Laurent is going to interview the Police to have a statement about what is and what isn’t permitted during the peche à pied and once we have that, I’ll prepare another radio programme.

On the way back, we stuck our noses into the chantier navale because we had heard some sounds coming from there that didn’t seem to be very healthy to us.

It turns out that in the chantier navale they are down to just three boats, and if they carry on much longer like this on Charles-Marie they’ll be down to two because there’s a guy there going berserk with a crowbar and ripping off huge chunks of wood.

There’s this feeling going through my mind that this is going to be very interesting.

After all of this excitement we went for a coffee and watched the pile-driver pounding away at the fifth column in the harbour.

Laurent then went home and I came back here to finish off my radio project. That’s now done, 1 hour exactly and even though I say it myself, it’s going to be a pretty good one. At least I hope so.

For tea tonight, I fancied something a little different so I found a slice of pie in the freezer. That went into the oven with some potatoes and I cooked some veg (I forgot the leek) and gravy.

The gravy is new stuff that I found in NOZ. It’s ok when you add herbs to it, but it doesn’t thicken. I had to make a quick cornflour paste for that. And the result was quite acceptable.

Pudding was yet more pie – of the apple variety, with the last of the coconut dessert stuff and some of that vegan ice cream – and I forgot the chocolate sauce.

But as I have said before … “many times” – ed … I really am eating well these days.

That was the cue to go for my evening walk. No-one around so I managed both my runs, although I have been managing them better just recently.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the past year or so we’ve been watching them do some work on an old house in the Place Cambernon. For the last while it’s been without a front.

But today, I notice that it has acquired one. And this is good news. Things are progressing around here on the accommodation front. And not before time too, as I found out when I moved here and so did my neighbour, so she said.

So hours later than intended, i’m off to bed. I must stop listening to all this music. It’s doing me no good whatsoever and just keeping me awake at night.

Saturday 29th February 2020 – THERE HAS BEEN …

… a change in my kitchen.

Only a small one but a very significant one at that.

On the floor underneath the shelves are two large plastic storage boxes. One has all of the spare food like packets of spices, packets of rice, all that kind of thing. The other has all of the cookery stuff.

Because of the way that things are arranged, one box has to go at the back and the other one at the front and it’s been the cookery one at the back.

But today I swapped them over. The cookery one is now at the front and easier to access, and the spare food is now in the more difficult position at the back. It’s quite clear that these days I’m using the cooker stuff much more than I’m needing to access the spare food, and that’s Progress with a capital P.

Not much progress this morning though. I couldn’t heave myself out of bed with the alarms and it was more like 06:30 when I finally made it to my feet. That’s disappointing.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone. And we started off at the football too. Yes, a mid-table 12th finish in the Football League I ended up with last night. I’d swapped my managerial job at Oldham Athletic with a manager from somewhere else whose team had been right down near the bottom and over the remainder of the season I’d slowly managed to drag this other team up and into 12th position. But there was a lot more to it, much more to it but I can’t remember anything now. As soon as I awoke it all completely disappeared from out of my mind. I do remember that involved me having to do something that was a disagreeable task yet I managed to do it. I just can’t remember now what it was.
A little later, it was the Carnival procession all the way out past the rue Couraye, down the rue Paul Poirier and out to the harbour. As things were drying up it was a rival across the musicians so I managed to force my way into the airwaves and I broadcast them instead. It was rather difficult broadcasting the musicians because they were of course more interested in the music than any other surroundings but it was a broadcast that had to be made. But again there was a lot more to it than this but I just can’t remember now.

After breakfast I set about cutting up a couple of digital sound files into their component tasks and, for once, that was fairly straightforward. And doesn’t that make a change?

A shower was next, and then I was ready to hit the streets.

These days, now that I’m walking to LIDL twice a week (although that will change starting from next week), I start my little Saturday shopping adventure at NOZ.

And NOZ is always good for a laugh, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall because the parking here is totally ridiculous. Here I am, 5 minutes before the shop is due to open, just one car on the front car park (where there are eight spaces) and just four cars on the rear car park, where there are as many spaces as you would like to have.

But despite the signs all over the place warning people of the penalties for parking in the street, and the empty car park right in front of the shop, Madame (and it was a madame) in the black car on the extreme left of the image decides to park in the street with two wheels on the pavement.

You wouldn’t believe it unless you were to see it for yourself.

Today was a rather expensive day for shopping. For a start, at NOZ they had a big round pyrex casserole bowl with lid, twice the size of the one that I have.

I have to make my rice puddings in a meat tin and cover them over with aluminium foil so I’ve been on the look-out for one of these large casserole dishes for some time.

And then there were loads of other things, including the last container of that delicious Alpro vegan nut ice-cream that I bought, as well as some coconut milk.

At LeClerc, there was €50:00 spent on diesel for Caliburn and then another hefty load in the shop. But a good of that went on coffee. There’s a brand of ground coffee that I like that is sold in three-packs for €8:95 and so I usually buy something cheaper, but today they had on offer some 6-packs for just e11:95. That’s much more like my price.

They also had some big 3-kg bags of juice oranges on special offer. As my orange and ginger syrup worked quite well, I’ll make some more of that and so the juice oranges will come in handy.

Some cooking apples and a pile of pastry rolls too. An apple pie is on the agenda, and there’s also some tofu left over so I recon I ought to have a go at a bean-and-tofu pie. Monday sounds like a good baking day to me because I’m out tomorrow.

Back at the apartment I organised myself a coffee while I dealt with a few more digital sound files and did some general tidying up on the computer.

But one track that I worked on today brought back all kinds of memories – nights on board ships in the frozen North, mornings on desolate windswept airports in the High Arctic. I thought that I’d put all of that behind me but clearly I haven’t.

After lunch I set to work. I’m right down on apple purée and I really should have bought some more apples today (I did buy cooking apples but they are for the apple pie). Only four eaters that I could spare so I peeled them, diced them and boiled them up with some cinnamon. When they were starting to go mushy, I drained off the liquid (and drank it – it was delicious), stuck it in the whizzer, added two bananas and whizzed it all up.

It’s made about half a jar so that’s about four days, I reckon, and it’s now in the fridge cooling off. The first batch of banana-flavoured purée didn’t work too well but I have better hopes for this one.

The afternoon’s walk was a really long one seeing that I didn’t have any plans to go anywhere special this evening.

All the way around the headland and down the old path into town. It gave me an opportunity to have a good look at Joly France sitting on her bottom in a NAABSA position at the ferry terminal.

There are two boats called Joly France – the original which is here and a newer one, Joly France I. To tell them apart, the newer one has larger windows and a cut-out at the back, which this one doesn’t have.

Onwards and upwards, across the harbour gates and around the port.

And then across to the funfair – the fete foraine to see what was going on. There weren’t too many people around and there wasn’t all that much going on. But at least the little kiddies were having a really good time.

As for me, I walked down the rue St Sauveur, round the back of the Mairie, across the car park and through the maze of narrow streets to make my way back to my apartment

By now, the weather had eased somewhat and the sun was now out.

The view across town over to the Chateau Gautier and the Pointe Gautier was really pleasant with the town of St Pair sur Mer in the background.

And how I would have liked an apartment in the new block down there to the left. But I’ve never seen one at all available, whether to let or to buy.

And I’m not surprised either.

Back here, I edited another pile of photos from July 2019 s well as, rather unfortunately, crashing out for some time. That wasn’t part of the plan and it was rather dismaying.

With not going anywhere tonight, I had a proper tea. One of the pile of vegan burgers that I bought the other day, in a bap with potatoes and veg. Followed by pineapple chunks with the Alpro vegan ice cream and chocolate sauce.

There is absolutely no doubt, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … that while I might eat simply, I don’t half eat well. My diet is healthy, quite varied and it’s absolutely delicious.

later on I went for my evening walk. And run!

There were quite a few people about and my first running track was flooded out so I had to run on one of my reserve tracks.

The second part of my run was dry but that was something of a struggle – not as easy as it has been – because I was running into the teeth of a gale and that’s no good for me.

But as I was heading back, I was nearly squidged by an emergency ambulance, blue lights flashing, roaring through the narrow streets.

97% on the fitbit now so I extended my walk and even managed part of another one of my running tracks. This time though, it was more exposed to the wind and I had to abandon after only half of the track as I couldn’t catch my breath.

Back here now just finishing my notes with some good music playing in the background. No alarm tomorrow so, for a change, I’m in no rush to go to bed. And a lie-in will do me good.

Saturday 15th February 2020 – OH GOD NO!

Yes, I’m off again. You didn’t think that it would be long before we returned to the subject of pathetic parking, did you?

The little street outside NOZ is notorious for it. And there are posters all over the place advising people that parking in this street carries a more severe penalty, for Parking Très Genant, not merely Parking Genant. And notices to say that there is a big free car park right behind the shop.

So today we don’t just have people parking half-on, half-off the pavement on one side of the street, we have them on both sides. Just how ridiculous is this going to become before we start seeing the Police towing cars away?

How can people be so bone-idle?

Talking of being bone-idle, I missed the alarms today. Not bu much but it was still disappointing. I’d been to bed early too, having crashed out while writing up the notes for yesterday.

There was the usual procedure, namely firstly the medication and then to check the dictaphone. Last night apparently, I had been with a group of people and we were discussing religion seeing as something had cropped up about that just recently. We were discussing these religious sects where they would send a preacher off somewhere to convert the people and get them to worship his way and then gradually expand a bit outward. It’s all divided into halves like “could you use another half a person to help you with your area of your ministry” so they would send out someone young and keen to help you out and gradually take over part of it. It would keep on expanding like that. Then one day of course it would all go “POP” as someone worked out what was happening and made the announcement to everyone so they all quit the church. It was just at that point that two people actually had discovered the truth behind this particular religious sect. He’d left and gone to mull over the situation and that was when the alarm went off.
Somewhere along the line I was doing something with the people from the radio too but I can’t remember now.

After breakfast I went for shower ready to hit the shops. I weighed myself too and the weight that went back on over the last couple of weeks while I’ve not been too well has mostly gone. I’m now just 900 grams from my target weight.

Hopefully I can press on and lose that too. I was actually beyond it once just before my last bout of ill-health and I’m hoping to be there again.

Back here ready to leave and I noticed an e-mail telling me that our meeting at 12:00 today has been brought forward to 11:00. Not enough time to go to the shops before hand so I stayed behind and finished off the notes.

When that had been done I cut up a few digital tracks and at the same time was involved in a discussion with a couple of people who are extremely touchy about any hint of criticism about HS2. That touchy in fact that it makes me wonder what they are afraid of.

Anyway, off I went to the huge Council hangar at the back of town where I met up with a couple of colleagues from the radio and where I discovered that I had forgotten my microphone.

The purpose of today’s visit was to interview the owners of the chars – the Carnival floats that will be parading in the streets next weekend. We’re broadcasting Carnaval live and what we intend to do is that as each char passes our commentary point, we’ll have a soundbite that we recorded today that we can broadcast, with the owners telling people about their char rather than us.

Unfortunately I’m not going to tell you lot anything about it because we have been sworn to secrecy, as you might expect. No-one wants any details to leak out until their chars appear in the streets.

One thing that I did learn is that Carnaval isn’t just a town wide, or déprtement-wide, or even nationwide event. It’s actually listed on the UNESCO World Heritage sitelist so it’s of International interest, which is good news.

When we’d finished I went off to the shops.

At NOZ I spent a bit of money but it was all on good stuff, including some stainless steel pastry-cutting rings. I don’t have any and it’s pretty inconvenient cutting round saucepan lids and the like.

Another white board too because the one that I bought last week has since then become a permanent wipe-off calendar and to-do list, so I can keep track of what I’m doing and when I ought to be doing it.

Pride of place though has to go to the half-litre tub of Alpro vegan icecream, almond and smoked caramel flavour. There’s no room in the freezer but nevertheless I wasn’t going to pass that one up.

LeClerc was next and that was a very cheap shop. That came to almost nothign at all and would have been even less had i remembered to buy the mushrooms and peppers at LIDL on Thursday.

Another thing was that I bought a couple of vegan pastry rolls. I’m going to make a tofu bean and lentil pie and an apple pie tomorrow while the oven is on – and while I have some ice-cream to eat with the pie.

Back here I had lunch and then started to edit the sound files that i’d recorded.

a couple of interruptions though.

Firstly of course there was my afternoon walk and in view of the fact that I hadn’t walked much today I went on a super-long walk around the walls, part of which included my run, down into town, around the block and then back up the hill.

Nothing whatever of any interest at all happening there, although I did go for a little diversion for a look around inside the library.

But not for long because almost as soon as I had put my sooty foot inside they announced that it was closing time.

The second interruption was, unfortunately, a little crash-out for five minutes. Only five minutes but five minutes I could well have done without.

Tea was out of a tin tonight as it’s Saturday and it was delicious. And pudding, of banana and raspberry sorbet, was even nicer because NOZ was selling some chocolate sauce for ice cream so I bought a couple of bottles.

That’s one thing that I like about NOZ – every so often it comes up with things that I don’t normally buy and it varies my diet.

And they would do more if they were to price everything. Much of the stuff, like the Sodastream syrups in there that interested me for example just didn’t have a price at all.

later on I went for another really long walk to push up the 100% on the fitbit (it made it to 105% in the end). Not around the headland because we now have Storm Dennis. I went to town

And as I walked past the Place Godal I noticed that the caravans have started to arrive. Carnaval is always accompanied by a Fête Foraine, a funfair. Officially they aren’t supposed to arrive until Sunday but some of them anyway are here this evening, much to the displeasure of the motorists who would normally park here.

But it’s all good fun and brings piles of money into the town so you can’t criticise it from that point of view.

It was while I was there admiring the caravans that a trio of women came over to me. “Did I know where … (some restaurant) … was? It’s at the docks” they said.

The name rang no bells with me but i knew where the restaurants on the docks were so I led them that way. It occurred to me that as far as I was aware, I didn’t have a photo of them at night from down here so I resolved to deal with the issue.

And why not? No time like the present and I can add them to the list of photos that I’m making of the town.

Ohh yes, that’s the restaurant there – Le Regate. Anyway, I took them over there and left them to it.

While they were trying to find whatever it was there that they were seeking, I took a photo of the place. I may as well do that while I’m there.

And from here I went foe a leisurely walk into town down past the library. There were a couple of people sleeping in sleeping bags ina dorrway and I hadn’t noticed that before.

The Police Station os right by there too. I wonder why the cops haven’t taken these people in to arrange for them to have help.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw them erecting the kiddies’ roundabout in the Place General de Gaulle a couple of weeks ago, and then we saw it in action.

It’s a different story this evening though. They are actually dismantling it to take away. Obviously his period of rental is over and now, I imagine the whole place will be turned over to Carnaval

On that note I came back here to listen to the rest of my radio programme and then to write up my notes for the day.

And now that they are finished I’m going to go to bed. Sunday so no alarm and, for a change, nothing whatever that needs my attention that will divert me from a totally free day off.

And it’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those.

Tuesday 1st October 2019 – A PECULIAR THING …

… happened during the night.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that occasionally (but far more frequently these days) I have sometimes awoken during the middle of the night and then gone back to sleep and re-entered a dream at exactly the same point where I left off.

But last night we had something completely different. I awoke in the middle of the night and went back to sleep again, stepping back into a dream not at the end where I left off, but right back at the beginning where I had started.

And furthermore, as far as I could tell, it went on more-or-less (as near as I can tell) exactly as it had the first time round.

That has never happened before, and it was certainly an interesting experience.

For a change, I was relieved of duty on the school run today so I was in no rush to start the day off. Instead, I had a lounge around and when Rachel sent me a text message to say that my gearchange cable was in, I went off down to Woodstock in her car.

By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong so it was pretty crowded in the Golf, but I found room for the cable and some shopping from the Atlantic Superstore, including more of the vegan sorbet that we like and some fruit bread for me for lunch today and tomorrow – on special offer today.

Having stopped off at home to put the sorbet in the freezer, I continued on to the tire depot and had a look at Strider.

After much effort and difficulty, we managed to fit the cable. But now we have found another problem. The operating arm has a piece broken off it (which is probably what caused the fault in the first place) and the new cable isn’t holding on as well as it might. No point in spoiling the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar, so I’ve ordered a new operating arm and that will (hopefully) be there at Ford’s tomorrow.

But while we were underneath it, we did manage to find an aperture through which we can pass a cable or two. That means that I may at last be able to run a live cable or two through into the cab of Strider.

Apart from that, I’ve been going for parts, carrying sacks of grain about and answering the telephone as well as entertaining the customers. It’s all go here.

Later on, I went to pick up Amber from school (so I wasn’t totally relieved of duty) and had to fight the torrential rainstorm back home.

Tea was pasta tonight, and then I had a play with the failed laptop. Much to my surprise I managed to make it fire up and I can access part of the Windows directory now. Not the part that I want, but it does show me that the thing is not as totally dead as I was imagining.

That means that back home, I may be able to salvage some of the missing data, and that will be good news.

So now it’s bedtime. No idea what I’m doing tomorrow – I shall make it up as I go along. But an early night never goes amiss.

But remember the old Ford 1-tonne that mysteriously moved the other week? The old 20-tonne Ford that was next to it has also mysteriously moved today. But not as far.

After 20 years of standing it fired up first time with some accelerant and a new battery but the accelerator cable is stuck. It’s a long time since I’ve used a hand throttle.

Tuesday 9th July 2019 – HAVING SAID ..

… that I was planning on an early night last night, I wandered back to my cabin and began to watch a film. However, I never even made it past the credits, so tired was I

And it will be the same tonight because I feel totally wasted. It has been a really hectic day.

Something of a struggle to tear myself out of my stinking pit at the sound of the alarm. However I did make it to breakfast at the appropriate time, but it would be wrong to say that I was the life and soul of the party.

During the night we had sailed down the Eyjafjördur fjord and moored at the quayside in the town of Akureyri, the “Capital of the North”, just as Tintin did in the Aurora in The Shooting Star.

First item on the agenda was a trip out to some archaeological ruins but as our bus wasn’t until 09:15, I had time to chill out for a while before leaving. At least, that was the plan, except that my reverie was interrupted by the cleaner bursting in to clean my room.

But I made it onto the quayside in time and much to my surprise the driver was from Wolverhampton. Married to an Icelandic girl whom he had met in London, she wanted to return home so he came too. And just like us, he has no intention of ever returning.

We also learnt a few Icelandic definitions today. A tree is a tree, a wood is two trees standing close together and a forest is three trees ditto.

This morning’s destination was Gasir, an abandoned Norse village about 11 kms away. And when I say “Norse” I don’t really mean it because although it’s from the late Norse period, it’s actually a settlement just occupied seasonally by merchants trading with the area.

We don’t know for sure who these traders were but the discovery of German goods from the pre-Hanseatic days and alse English trade goods is very significant.

There were the remains of a church here and these were quite visible following some excavation, even down to the churchyard wall. Plenty of foundations of booths too, many of which have never been excavated. It was quite a big, busy place during the trading season.

So why was it abandoned? The answer is that you can see from the photo the spread of alluvial silt that has accumulated. Most boats anchored in the river to the side of the settlement but round by the 15th Century the accumulation of silt made this impossible.

It’s very tempting to consider the influence of the mini-Ice Age of this period that put an end to the Medieval Warm period, and look for a change in the weather, the tides and the currents causing the build-up of silt.

But one thing is quite clear. The archaeological investigations of the area so far carried out have turned up absolutely nothing of any size whatever. Trinkets that were easily lost or discarded and broken objects, but nothing of anything that would be classed as a large object. There was no wood discovered of any importance.

This points to what would be described as an “orderly evacuation” of the site where everything possible would be taken away for re-use, rather than a panic-stricken flight such as you might have when invaders arrive and the inhabitants take only what they could carry, or an evacuation following a fire.

Something else I learnt about Iceland this morning too. There are horses everywhere, thousands of them, and we asked their purpose. And the reply can only be given with an Icelandic accent, which is impossible to do in a text format, so you’ll have to do the best you can.

“Ven the horssiss is born they go out into the fields and learn to become ponies. Zen ven they get to four years we go to ride them. And of they bite and kick too much ve make zem into sausages”

So now you know.

On the way back I sat next to our Norse expert, hoping to pick his brains. However he must have had a hard day too because he dozed off and slept all the way back to the ship. So much for that!

After lunch we decided to have a little rest for a few minutes before setting off on our travels. We would meet again at 14:00. I remember seeing 13:50, but the next thing that I remember was that it was 14:10. I needed to put my skates on.

I ended up heading off on my own. Right out of the city to the Air Museum, the Motorcycle Museum and the Museum of Industry. But my admission pass didn’t cover them after all of that, so I headed back to town, stopping off at a few civic museums on the way.

One of them had an exhibition of maps and one of the comments startled me. It went something like “improvement in ships and navigation techniques in the 15th and 16th centuries meant that mariners could visit the New World” or something along those lines, completely forgetting that the Norse had been visiting the New World for 500 years prior to Cabot and Columbus.

Nothing else of any great interest although my admission pass covered them, but we did discover a Toy Museum. Several toys such as pedal cars and kiddies’ tricycles parked outside and Strawberry Moose enjoyed them immensely.

Further along on my route back I came across an ice-cream parlour that sold – would you believe – vegan ice cream, so I stocked up with a large coconut ice cream, that cost me almost €5:00.

Across the road was a signpost pointing up a steep path to the Botanical Gardens, so I staggered my way up there. And “stagger” was the word because it was long and steep.

But well worth the climb because not only was it beautiful, blue poppies and black tulips included, but the smell was delicious. I sat there for a good half-hour to soak it all up, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this isn’t like me at all. As I have said before, and on many occasions too, the only time that I would ever be likely to take a photograph of a flower would be if an old car were parked upon it.

Back down into town where I was nearly squidged by a couple of cars, I discovered that many restaurants are selling vegan options. No danger of me having difficulties about eating out – except the price of course because things are horrendous here.

After tea I had a nice hot shower which helped me to relax after my efforts. I washed my clothes too – I need to keep up-to-date with my washing as I don’t have much stuff. Then I girded up my loins. It’s going to be another very long day so I need to be on really good form. I remember the rush around that we had last year and if anything it’s intensified.

Still, no peace for the wicked.

There was another beautiful sunset so I stayed on deck and watched it as the pilot helped us navigate our way out of port and then came back down to go to bed. I need a good sleep ready for tomorrow.

Friday 21st December 2018 – THE BODY CLOCK …

… wasn’t working as well as I would have liked this morning. It took the alarm to rouse me from the depths of wherever it was.

And two alarms too, because with having issues about upgrades on telephones switching them off at important times, I’ve resurrected an ancient mobile phone to act as an alarm back-up for when I need to be up and about.

No breakfast as yet, and no medication either. I can’t afford the distractions right now. So instead, I made my sandwiches, did the washing up, took out all the rubbish and then vacuumed the place. On my way out, I washed the floor behind me too.

Dressed up like Nanook of the North, I sallied forth into the open air, only to find that it was 13°C outside. I hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards before I was sweating. It was something of a struggle with all of the stuff that I was taking with me.

Our train was already in the station but we weren’t allowed on it quite yet.

So while I was waiting I grabbed a coffee and admired the destination boards showing that trains from Caen and Rennes were also expected in the station.

That’s really good news from anyone’s point of view, especially mine. It’s nice to see an expanded railway service and might well prolong the active life of the railway station here.

The journey to Paris was pretty uneventful. I’d settled down in my seat and taken the bananas and packet of biscuits from my pockets. Along with the bottle of ginger beer that I had left over from my trip to Germany earlier this year and the coffee from the machine on the station, that was my breakfast.

I had made sure that I had a good view of the Eiffel Tower today. But fates conspired against me yet again, because it was shrouded in mist.

One of these days I’ll be able to have a really good of it and take an excellent photo. But I’m not holding my breath.

The railway station – Montparnasse-Vaugirard – was comparatively empty compared to how it usually is on a Sunday. The metro, however, was heaving although I was lucky enough to grab a seat by the door.

Plenty of time at Paris-Nord to eat my butties and read my book, and then off for my train. The arrival was about 10 minutes late so we had to wait a while while they cleaned it out, and then we could board.

It’s not one of the usual PBKA sets, but one of the Reseau 38000 tri-volt sets – known in the vernacular as the PBA sets because they don’t go to Cologne.

This one here, 4540, was the last to be built.

We set off on time, and hurtled off into the void. But I hurtled off elsewhere into my own little world for about 15 minutes.

Not only did we leave on time, we arrived on time too but we couldn’t disembark straight away as they had to uncouple the Amsterdam portion of the train. And so I missed the 15:52 to Leuven and had to wait for the next one.

This one was late and the third train arrived. So I legged it down the station and up onto the platform for that one, just in time to see it leave the station. And so I had to leg it all the way back to where I’d just been. And that wasn’t easy, with all of my luggage,

The train that I eventually caught was hauled by one of the SNCB Class 27 locomotives.

Built in the eary 80s, they and their sisters (because there are four almost identical classes) are the principle source of motive power on the SNCB

Their claim to fame is highlighted by the fact that one of this class, locomotive 2711, set a world record on 27th April 1991 by pulling 70 carriages from Gent to Oostende – the world’s longest ever passenger train.

The carriages of the train though were like something out of the 1960s. Probably the oldest on which I have travelled for a while. Old bench seats, poorly upholstered, just like something out of history.

And as we passed the carriage sidings at Schaerbeek, full of disaffected multiple-units awaiting dismantling, I wondered just how long it would be before these carriages join them.

I’ve a nice little room here at Condo Gardens. Up on the first floor overlooking the illuminated courtyard. I hope that I’ll be nice and comfortable here.

But I still went off to DelHaize for my shopping. The lights were on at the DenDreefStadion so I went down there to see if there was a match. But the place was all locked up, so I went back to the shops.

I spent a pile here too, but it is Christmas, and they do have (expensive) vanilla-flavoured soya ice-cream. And a pineapple too, ready-peeled and cored. So that’s pudding sorted out for the next few days.

Tea was some potatoes that I had brought with me, with atin of spicy beans and some frozen peas and carrots. Followed by some pineapple and ice-cream. That’s what I call a delightful meal.

It might only be 21:10 but I’m exhausted. I don’t even have the energy to watch a film. So I’m going to make the best of it and have a really early night in my warm, comfy bed. I’m going into town tomorrow morning.

Tuesday 26th September 2017 – OLD, TIRED AND CHEAP

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about my living accommodation.

As I mentioned yesterday, there’s a sea view “of sorts”. It’s not the best sea view by any means, but we have had worse than this and I’m not complaining.

The bed is super-comfortable – the sleeping issues that I’m having are due to me and not the bed – and the place is relatively clean even though it’s old and tired.

My neighbours are a little unruly, but you can’t have everything, and I’ve had much worse neighbours than those too.

Out at the back, which is actually the front of the little apartment, there’s a view over the street and the neighbouring hotel complexes.

Every hotel complex has its little private swimming pool (that’s next door’s just there) and terrace, although our terrace isn’t much at all to write home about.

But when the beach is 20 yards away, does it really matter?

And so this morning I was up with the cock and attacked the paperwork – well, sort-of anyway. And followed that with a nice shower and breakfast.

But I was obliged to bin the bread and the soya milk, and my razor has had it and I’ve run out of smelly stuff so a trip to the Food Lion – a Delhaize company with the same logo – was indicated.

The receptionist gave me directions, and made it sound like 10 miles away. So I went in Strider, only to find that it was less than half a mile away. I could have walked it.

But one of the shops here is having an offer that is absolutely irresistible. I bet that not many people would turn this down.

A free hermit crab with Woman Police Constable.

But I forgot to mention the usual Myrtle Beach issues.

Last time I was in Myrtle Beach, I witnessed what would only be called an “aggressive arrest” in the motel where I was staying.

Today, I popped outside, and there was another member of the farces of law and order visiting my accommodation.

And that’s not the best of it. I’d only been here about 18 hours and they had a pest control company in. “Termites” so I was told, but I don’t believe them.

Lunchtime was a visit to the beach with my butties.

I said before that it’s claimed to be the most beautiful beach on the Eastern Seaboard, and while I don’t agree with that, I’ve seen much worse.

The waves are quite impressive though, and the kids here were having a tremendous amount of fun.

But here’s a thing. Alison and I used to work for an American company in Brussels and we had a colleague who had married an American guy who had brought her here for their honeymoon.

She used to rave about how beautiful the place was, never thinking that anyone from Belgium would ever have visited here.

When I showed her my photos from 2005, she never ever said a subsequent word about the place.

Back here, I crashed out yet again, and was once more gone for hours. It was a good decision to go for three nights instead of two. I was hoping that I might have been able to make it out to the Outer Banks or something for a couple of days, but with my state of health I need to be realistic.

If I’m feeling up to it, I might stop off in New Jersey for a night or two. There’s always … gulp … Atlantic City.

I remembered to make tea tonight, pasta with kidney beans, tomato sauce and vegetables. And there’s enough left over for tomorrow too.

And then I went for a walk and, much to my delight, I found an ice-cream parlour just across the road that sold vegan sorbets. $4:99 for two scoops and seeing as this is the USA, they were person-sized scoops too.

They needed a mini-digger for them.

And then I saw it – the world’s first pantomime door.

This called for a photo opportunity for Strawberry Moose so I went back to Strider and fetched him.

And on the way there and back, he met a good many future fans who were pleased to make his acquaintance.

So now it’s bed-time. Not too early but then I’m not planning on doing too much tomorrow. A nice leisurely day before hitting the road on Thursday.

Friday 18th August 2017 – SO HERE I AM …

… sitting on the coach station in Montreal waiting for my bus to Florenceville, totally exhausted. Luckily there’s a seat right by the gate that I need because I won’t be able to crawl much farther – I’ve had a hectic day!

I had another good sleep last night – which is hardly a surprise after all of the walking that I did yesterday, and then spent half an hour trying various key combinations of the laptop to see if I could fire up the keyboard, because you’ve no idea how inconvenient this external keyboard really is.

But all to no avail.

I nipped out to Tim Horton’s for breakfast and, much to my dismay, we were having a torrential rainstorm. What a way to finish my last day in Montreal.

Back here I started to pack and despite having emptied some stuff out of the suitcase, it seems to be even more full than it was before and it’s becoming something of a struggle to close it up. Either I shall have to dump some stuff or Strawberry Moose will have to go on a diet.

First stop was round at Josée’s. She works as a co-ordinator of some kind of project for reinsertion of people into the mainstream and part of their work includes running a series of craft workshops. It’s Zoe’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to buy her a present, and I’d seen some stuff there that looked really nice.

So braving the rainstorm off I set, and I did have quite a lucky find. I stumbled across a second-hand computer shop where they had 50 laptops for sale, all of which seemed to be at bargain prices. Far from being the latest spec of course but if this one is about to give up the ghost I can organise a quick replacement.

Taking my leave of Josée I wandered up the hill to see what was going on. I noticed that a corner of the park had been closed off.

It seems that there’s an open-air music concert this weekend and they were all there setting up the stage.

Well, I wish them all the best of luck and I hope that the weather improves because it will be rather miserable if it doesn’t.

These people can give you much more idea of what the weather is doing right now.

I bet that you wondered what happened to all of the Routemasters that were phased out of London. The Londonders might not appreciate them but the rest of the world does and they are scattered all across the globe.

This is JJD274D with its top cut off being used as a sightseeing bus and the passengers are clearly enjoying it despite the rain.

You’ll notice that the rear platform has been “turned” for “driving on the left” operation

The weather slowly started to clear itself up so I headed back into town.

I’d heard about “Chinatown” and on my walk with Josée the other day I’d actually gone past it, so it seemed like a good idea to go into town that way.

But I do have to say that despite the banners and artificial arches it’s something of a disappointment. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was expecting more than this

By now it was approaching lunchtime so I made my way into the big Complexe Desjardins.

There’s a huge food court in the basement and also this magnificent fountain that’s really well-worth admiring – a performing art in its own right.

I had a good prowl around the different food outlets but ended up as usual at the Subway for my 12-inch vegetarian without cheese, and mustard sauce.

And here’s a thing!

Do you know what the must surprising thing in the world is?

It’s to discover that you are sitting on one of these toilets that has an automatic flush that sets itself off into motion about 30 seconds after you’ve closed your eyes for a little doze.

You may remember from yesterday that there were some ships in port but I was unable to read their names.

The weather wasn’t right for sunbathing so I reckoned that I’d go for a walk along the docks to see what they were.

That was however not counting on some kind of invasion by some kind of colonial troops. Not British “redcoats” quite clearly, but there was obviously something going on somewhere.

But I wasn’t in the mood to go and check it out – despite the depressing weather there’s an ice-cream van selling vegan ice-cream down at the Old Port and I reckoned that I deserved a treat.

We’ve seen the clock tower – the war memorial to the Canadian merchant marine victims of World War I – on several occasions, but never from this angle.

I’ve taken a little detour round to the offices of the Montreal Yacht Club to make “certain enquiries”.

One idea that has gone through my mind on several occasions is the idea about hiring a cabin cruiser for a week or two to have a cruise down the St Lawrence, and the Yacht Club seemed like the best place to make enquiries.

But apparently that possibility doesn’t exist on the St Lawrence, which is very depressing.

There are however plenty of “organised” river cruises something similar to this one, but that idea doesn’t appeal to me too much.

And Josée told me about the cruise liner that sails from Montreal to the Iles de la Madeleine, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw that ship in dry dock downriver a couple of years ago and we had a good look over it.

We were at the Gare Viger yesterday and although the building is still there, it’s difficult to see where the railway lines ran, due to modern construction that seems to have wiped out part of the track bed.

But not far away is this road viaduct that doesn’t seem to be serving much or a purpose these days.

It made me wonder if the railway lines passed underneath here at one time as they curved round to join up with the lines that run through the port.

There were steps up to the roadway so I climbed up. This was the road out of the city to the east and so I followed it.

Underneath in the shadow of the Pont Jacques Cartier is this weird building that looks like some old steam pumping house.

The slogan carved on the walls is “Concordia Salus” which is the official slogan of the City of Montreal, so it was formerly a municipal building of some description.

This on the other hand is a building belonging to the Quebec Provincial Government as you can tell by the Quebec flag that’s flying from the roof.

If you are thinking to yourself that this has something of the air of being the local nick, you are quite right – it’s the “Prison des Patriotes” – the old “Pied au Courant” gaol where the perpetrators of the 1837-1838 rebellion were incarcerated.

It’s now a museum.

but let us turn our attention to the Pont Jacques Cartier for a brief moment, seeing as we are passing underneath it.

That bit that we see here isn’t even half of it. That’s the Ile Sainte Helene over there – not the south bank of the river, and there’s just as much, if not more bridge on the other side of the island leading over to Longueil

While I was wandering around the docks earlier I fell in with a couple of Port security guards, so I asked them about the Manitoba.

They hadn’t even noticed that it had been there moored up for over a year so they couldn’t tell me what was going on with it.

But they did say that it was attended and that there was the occasional maintenance crew aboard, so it wasn’t abandoned or laid up.

Nevertheless, according to my own research, she’s been in port now for 486 days – since April 17 2016/

The next ship in at the docks is the Damia Desgagnes.

She’s a gas tanker of about 15;000 tonnes and has arrived in port from a voyage around the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal.

You’ll remember that we stuck our noses into the Welland Canal on our trip in 2010

Way over there in the distance we have the huge Algoma Guardian.

Not as huge as all that though – a mere 23;000 tonnes and built in 1987.She’s come in from Quebec, having been on a voyage down through the Great Lakes.

And even as I speak she’s back on her way up the lakes again.

Final ship – at least – that I could see, is the Ferbec, a bulk carrier of just over 27;000 tonnes.

Owned by the Canadian Shipping Lines, as you can tell, she arrived in port almost 3 weeks ago on a marathon journey that started on Christmas Eve in Shanghai.

Yes, I’ve been having my money’s worth here in the Port of Montreal, haven’t I?

It’s a long walk back into the centre of town and so, dodging the hordes of beggars that seem to be on every street corner here in ?ontreal; I headed back down the rue Ste Catherine Est.

And no surprises for guessing what I have stumbled upon here. I’ve heard about the installation of speed cameras here in Quebec and this is what one of them looks like.

But judging by the state of the roads around here, I wouldn’t want to be doing any more than 50kph. I’ve seen parts of the Trans-Labrador Highway that are in better condition than this.

I don’t know where the City is spending all of its money, but it’s certainly not on the public highway.

For those of you with a musical bent, you’ll enjoy Montreal right now.

I talked earlier today about the open-air concert and we’ve mentioned the public pianos when we’ve been here in earlier years.

They are still here – at least, this one in the rue Ste Catherine est is – and the guy who was tinkling away at the ivories wasn’t all that bad at all.

Not only that, while I was having a coffee outside the Tim Horton’s; some giutarist came and set himself up to busk in the street.

“I’ll take a photo of him in a minute when I’ve finished my coffee” I mused to myself” but by that time he had packed up and cleared off. It had been a long day and I was pretty exhausted.

But my luck was in – if that’s the correct phrase – higher up the street.

I happened to catch a performance by the worst bagpiper in the world – and I’ve heard some bad pipers, I’ll tell you that.

Everyone has to learn and that everyone has to start somewhere, that’s for sure, and I’m all in favour of live music, but there ARE limits all the same.

I’d be embarrassed to be out on the streets playing like that for money.

While I’d been on my travels I’d been looking out for a likely place to eat, and I’d noticed another falafel place. That was my next stop as by now it was after 19:00.

But to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. The food was reasonable but the price ended up being utterly extortionate so I’ve crossed that place off my list for next time.

A stagger back to the hotel for my suitcase which I had left in the cupboard, and then off round the corner to the bus station.

The bus was in early so I could grab a comfy seat, which is always nice and useful. Internet and electricity too so that I could listen to some good music.

And the irony of having spent a good hour or so crawling underneath the Pont Jacques Cartier is that we actually drove over it on our way out of town.

Didn’t stop at Longueuil though – no-one wants to board there apparently, so next stop is the Sainte-Foy interchange on the outskirts of the city of Quebec.

Thursday 17th August 2017 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… the disasters were quite limited today and I had something of an interesting day.

One of the things that I’ve been doing each time that I come here is to go to the end of the line of a different metro line to see what goes on there, and I’ve exhausted them all. But I’ve been a regular traveller on Bus 202 when I was out in the sticks and never seen what’s at the end of that. And so that was today’s plan.

I’d had a reasonable sleep, which always seems to put me in a better humour. And I’d been on my travels too. I was teaching an “English as a foreign language” course and at the interval I had some goodies to share out. But for that I needed some spoons and the ones in my drawer were so dirty – so I went off to wash them. It took ages too and in the end the person who was supervising me suggested that I abandon the treat that I had lined up, went back to my classroom and re-started the lesson a little early so that we could finish early and go home.

Breakfast was at Tim Horton’s as usual and I made full use of their internet. I noticed on one of these mapping sites that it’s possible to download maps for off-line use, so I downloaded a map of Canada just to be on the safe side. I’ll download a few others too while I’m at it.

After spending a few hours back here doing some work I went out to hit the Metro. And here I had quite a major surprise too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will remember that the metro trains here were old, filthy things from when the lines were built 50 years ago and had received nothing in the way of upgrade ever since then.

Well, all of this has changed.

There are still plenty of the old trains knocking about on the system but there are also some shiny new ones and I was lucky that the one that I wanted was one of those.

They are clean, nicely illuminated with “traffic lights” on the doors and you can walk the whole length of the car.

With them being open like that you can see some interesting views as the trains snake their way around the system and it occurs to me that at some point I might do a video of it.

I found a nice length of track that would be suitable.

Regular readers of this rubbish will also recall that last year on my travels I saw a really nice church and took a photo – but forgot to note the name.

That was on my list of things to do and so I went off for a little perambulation; seeing as I was in the vicinity.

And my luck was in too, and doesn’t that make a change?

Some guy was loitering outside doing stuff and seeing me admire the building he came over for a chat

He told me that it’s the Eglise Ste Croix and its claim to fame, because it certainly has one, is that it was moved here stone-by-stone 80 years ago (1931 as I was to find out later) during some redevelopment work.

Today it’s a museum and as there was some kind of event going on there, I was allowed to enter it for a look around.

I couldn’t take my bag (or my camera unfortunately) in there with me but I managed to smuggle in the telephone, and the results aren’t too bad, I suppose.

Although I wish that the stained glass windows had come out better.

There were all kinds of exhibits in there, mostly relating to works by local craftsmen through the ages.

Lots of carpentry – 18th and 19th-Century furniture and the like but it wasn’t possible to photograph them.

Here in a quiet, discrete corner there was the possibility to photograph this group of religious statues which I found quite impressive.

And so back to the DuCollege metro station down the road and the Bus 202. And off we set down to the end of the line, with me making careful note of where all of the bus stops for the interesting places like IKEA were.

You can do that now because with the modernisation of the Montreal Public Transport system that seems to be taking place, they have a stop-announcement system as the bus is driving – “prochain arrêt Cotes de Liesse Cavendish” which is where you alight for IKEA.

There are roadworks going on all over the motorway network here in Montreal right now, and when we were here last year I showed you why.

This year, our bus stops at the traffic lights right by another fine example of Quebecois motorway engineering.

The whole system is like that.

Our bus stops at the Dorval railway station – which I’m determined to try out one of these days – and then turns off into “Dawson”, which is the street where it is supposed to finish. And I prepare to alight.

But instead, the driver changes the headboard sign and we continue on. I wasn’t expecting this.

We skirt the huge Lac St Louis which is absolutely beautiful and where I was expecting to go for a walk, but we still carried on driving. For hours, it seemed.

But all good things come to an end and we fetch up at a huge shopping centre on the edge of the city.

And I’ve been here before because there’s so much that I recognise. And the funny thing is that we aren’t all that far from the airport. but what a road we took to get here.

I go off to organise lunch and then for a good prowl around the Walmart and the Home Depot down the road. Couldn’t find a Canadian Tire but there must be one somewhere in the vicinity.

I have two choices of going back to the city – one is to retrace my steps on the 202 and the second is to find the express bus 485 that operates in the vicinity.

I eventually track that down and leap aboard. A few stops around the immediate area and then onto the motorway into town, with a stop at Dorval railway station and the persistent queues in the roadworks and rush-hour.

I’m dumped at the Lionel Groulx Metro Station and take the metro to the Place d’Armes.

It’s a different way to the Old Port from the one that I usually take and I’m glad that I came this way.

There’s not much left of the original dockside buildings of the mid-19th Century when the port was in its heyday but I manage to stumble on one of the very few surviving areas.

This is just how the place – or any Victorian city in the British Empire – would have looked 150 years ago abd I bet that it won’t be here much longer.

And bingo! I strike it luck down on the Vieux Port.

We passed the ice-cream van yesterday and I hadn’t paid much attention to it. But today, in the heat, I give it a close examination and there we are! Vegan ice-cream!

Of course I cannot let an opportunity like this pass me by, can I?

Several ships in the harbour too; including our old friend Manitoba who still seems to be there from last year

I couldn’t read the names of most of the ships but this one seems to be the Federal Spey.

Although she’s in the colours of the Canadian Shipping Lines she’s another one of these that’s registered in the Marshall Islands, something possibly not unconnected with the fact that Corporation Tax for maritime activities in the Marshall Islands is just 3%

And people are so upset about refugees receiving a couple of hundred dollars!

And we had a miracle in Montreal too.

As I was walking by St Pauls … errr … I mean – the docks; the sun suddenly appeared through the clouds right between the arms of Jesus outstretched on top of his church or whatever it is.

Nothing wrong with a bit of divine intervention every now and again.

I carried on to my usual spec at the clock tower to sit on the steps, watched a young girl of about 3 playing with her parents, and admired the Manitoba and the Pont Jacaues Cartier.

They say that a good many historical places in the New World are named for the Europeans who discovered them.

And I’ve often wondered what Jacques Cartier must have said when he arrived here on 2nd October 1535 and discovered this bridge.

My road back into town took me past the Marché Bonsecours.

This is one of the most spectacular buildings still remaining in the old city and we’ve visited it a few times.

In fact on one occasion last year I crashed out in the coffee bar when I had a funny turn when I was out a-walking.

Luckily I’m feeling a little better this year than I did back then.

This group of people caught my eye, all dressed in white.

And if you want to know what they are doing, you have to ask them. And so I did.

It’s one of these crowding things, apparently. They all assemble at a certain spot and these are off to eat a sandwich somewhere in the city -in the street.

They’ve even brought their chairs with them

It’s not possible for me to come here without going to see the most beautiful building in the whole of Montreal.

This is the Gare Viger – the old Canadian Pacific railway station that was abandoned when they CPR pulled out of the east of Canada and is a sad reminder of the collapse of the Canadian railway system.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it was in a very sorry state and threatened with demolition at one time – which would have been a tragedy.

It has however been undergoing a programme of renovation and as luck would have it, a workman had nipped outside leaving the door open.

It goes without saying that as he nipped outside, I nipped in behind him and took a few photos before I was thrown out.

I have to say that I don’t think all that much of the renovations, but at least it’s been saved for the future – something that 5 years ago was looking very unlikely.

Now I’m sure that I can’t be the only one who sees the total irony in these two signs next to each other at the Chapelle de Notre Dame de Lourdes/

One of them reads “this church was erected in the Glory of Mary thanks to the generosity of her Friends” and the second one reads “it is strictly forbidden to loiter or to seek alms whether inside or outside the Chapel”

It’s this kind of thing that gives the Catholic Church the kind of bad reputation that it has today.

On this point I went off to a Lebanese restaurant that I’d noticed the other day and they served an excellent assiette falafel with diced potatoes. And didn’t that go down a treat?

Now it’s off to bed for an early night. My last day in Montreal tomorrow and I need to be on form because I’m on the overnight bus tomorrow night.

No sleep for me!

Sunday 18th June 2017 – LIZ CAME ROUND …

… while I was busy chatting to Krys (with whom I haven’t spoken for quite a while) so sorry if cut you off, Krys.

With Sunday being a day of rest and a cause for a lie-in, I was determined not to leave my stinking pit when I awoke. But finding it impossible to stay in bed any longer, I arose to find that it was … errrr … 06:55. Quite.

So after an early breakfast and a bit of a relax, I headed off to the magasin de presse for my baguette – and he was closed.

But no worries – down the hill to the boulangerie opposite the casino – and closed for holidays.

I ended up in the early morning heat (and believe me, it was hot) tramping around the town until I found a boulangerie that was open. And I’m glad that I found that one because the bread proved to be delicious.

Back up the hill I staggered (I was exhausted and boiling hot by now) and came back to do the rest of the tidying up and have a nice good shower to see me right for the rest of the year. And a chat to Krys of course and another one of my friends – the one who has been described on these pages on various occasions as “The One That Got Away”.

Liz and I had a coffee and put the world to rights, and then made our butties (I’d bought two baguettes). Once that was organised we headed off into the sun and found a spot right down at the end of the promontory by the lighthouse where was had lunch. Liz produced some sliced pineapple for pudding.

Later on after a few hours in the sun we found a cafe on the roof of the aquatic museum near here – and there was a splendid view over the harbour from up there. And much to my delight a close inspection of Liz’s ice cream disclosed that it was in fact a vegan sorbet. Now I really am in my elephant!

Liz went off home and I came back here and … errr … closed my eyes for a little. Well, it really was hot.

Pizza tonight was delicious, but as for the pie that I baked, I don’t make mistakes, I just learn a lot of lessons, such as the fact that I have bought the wrong pastry for a start. The lentils were nice though – done all day in the slow cooker, but the mix was far too wet and there was far too much of it (a pile went in the freezer for another time).

After I’ve finished the curry tomorrow, I’ll start o the pie on Tuesday. If it ends up in the bin, don’t be surprised. You have to pay to learn.

And I’ve made it into November 2011 with my blog revision. By my calculations, only another 300 – 350 entries to go. But the further I go, the more difficult it becomes and there’s a pile of stuff that is going to need some complicated unravelling

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: vegan ice cream

Thursday 2nd April 2020 – I’VE JUST HAD …

Friday 27th March 2020 – AND IF YOU THINK …

Thursday 26th March 2020 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

Wednesday 25th March 2020 – ANOTHER DAY STUCK …

Saturday 14th March 2020 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Wednesday 11th March 2020 – IT’S THE GRAND MAREE TODAY!

Saturday 29th February 2020 – THERE HAS BEEN …

Saturday 15th February 2020 – OH GOD NO!

Tuesday 1st October 2019 – A PECULIAR THING …

Tuesday 9th July 2019 – HAVING SAID ..

Friday 21st December 2018 – THE BODY CLOCK …

Tuesday 26th September 2017 – OLD, TIRED AND CHEAP

Friday 18th August 2017 – SO HERE I AM …

Thursday 17th August 2017 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

Sunday 18th June 2017 – LIZ CAME ROUND …

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring