Tag Archives: lie in

Tuesday 31st July 2018 – MISSION CONTROL …

… is finally up and running.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back here though, I had another disappointment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Sunday 29th July 2018 – I DIDN’T PUT …

… my sooty foot out of the building at all today.

And that’s not surprising, and for many reasons too.

Not the least of which being that after the exertions of yesterday I was feeling the strain. And so when I awoke (at 06:00, and on a Sunday too!) I turned over and went back to sleep – something that I would have done anyway even if I hadn’t heard the rain hammering down in the howling gale outside.

08:30 is a much more reasonable time to be up and about on a Sunday. And with a very late breakfast (and I almost forgot my fig bread again) I was ready for almost anything.

And almost anything turned out to be nothing at all. I had a very profitable day dealing with the European Photo Mountain instead.

Lunch was taken inside today, which is no surprise, and then I set to and made a lentil and mushroom whatsit. Odile is having an “at home” tonight and I’ve been invited, so I had to take something with me.

Not like me to be all civilised, is it?

We met at 18:30 and seeing as I don’t “do” socialising, I usually stay for just a couple of hours at the most. And so no-one was more surprised than me to find me still there at 22:30. THat’s not like me either.

And so I eventually came back and went to bed instead. Not a foot set outside the building.

Not many days like that, are there?

Monday 23rd JUly 2018 – TODAY I HAD NOT ONE …

… not two, not three but as many as FOUR lizards fighting over the pear droppings.

Not even I can drop enough bits of pear to feed four hungry lizards so they spent more time fighting over the bits than eating them.

Talking of fighting, I was fighting to wake myself up this morning. Last night wasn’t particularly late, but it was a struggle when the alarms went off, and I somehow managed to turn over and go back to sleep. 07:35 when I finally aroused myself today.

A nice empty dining table was awaiting me too so I could eat my breakfast in comfort. And then a nice little relax on an empty sofa in the uncluttered living area.

That was followed by a trip to the new workspace in the bedroom where I attacked the European Photograph Mountain.

I took some time out to do some tidying up as well. Some files and paperwork came out of the bookshelves in the living area and onto the shelves in the bookcases in the bedroom, and I tidied up in the bedroom too.

And while doing that, I found the missing computer mouse, the missing hospital paperwork and the missing medication. Tidying up certainly pays dividends.

Another thing that I did involved the scented candles that I buy from IKEA. I’ve put one in each of the clothes drawers in the chest that I assembled the other day. They should make my clothes smell quite nice.

It was a late lunch in the beautiful sunny summer afternoon sitting on my wall with my book and the herd of lizards.

There was quite a bit of movement in the port too. One of the Channel Islands ferries was coming into port from Jersey just as one of the ferries to the Ile de Chausey was setting out.

What with the piles of yachts and pleasure boats around the harbour entrance it was all quite exciting.

After lunch I carried on with my work in my new comfortable surroundings, with a pause taken for an afternoon walk around the Medieval walls to see what’s going on.

There were crowds of people hemmed in on the little sliver of beach that was defying the tide.

Looking at all of those people down there, that kind of thing would really put me off. I couldn’t relax or enjoy myself sitting down there amongst all of those people.

That wasn’t all that was going on down there either.

There were crowds of people out there in the sea, swimming around at the diving platform just offshore.

It really was a beautiful day, but not that beautiful. Not beautiful enough to entice me into the water anyway. Especially these days. I’m getting rather nesh in my old age

After spending my time admiring the crowds on the beach and in the sea I carried on with my trip around the walls.

There was a beautiful afternoon sun shining down onto the harbour making the water glow with some kind of opaque turquoise blue light.

I’ve not often seen the water in there looking quite as beautiful as this. We really were having a good day today.

Later on, I had some tea. Pasta and a kidney-bean and aubergine whatsit out of the freezer. It seems that my appetite has come back.

And then a walk around the headland in the evening sun. With a beautiful view right down towards the bottom of the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Still not sure that I can see the Mont from here though with the headland in the way, which is a shame.

I shall have to go for a drive down that way in due course. And while I’m at it, I’ll stop for a visit to the old excise lookout post out there on the headland.

And now to carry on with work. I’m enjoying my new working conditions and make the most of them.

But not until some silly time in the morning either.

Saturday 21st July 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… in several weeks I actually managed three meals today. I’m not sure why, but this evening I could have eaten a scabby horse, and then gone back for the rider.

But overall, the day wasn’t quite so impressive. As I said yesterday, I was going back to my desk in the evening to carry on working. And I did too, and I certainly didn’t expect to be still hard at it at 03:35 either It is getting just like old times again, isn’t it?

The alarms went off at 06:20 and 06:30, and I did here them too. But it was round about 07:35 when something in the street really woke me up. And that was enough for me to crawl out of bed.

A friend of mine has had some devastating news this last week and is receiving no help – in fact quite the reverse – from her husband. We’ve been chatting on and off for the last few days and she was on-line again. But at least she’s cheered herself up a bit now and things don’t look quite so gloomy.

And then another friend was on-line too and decided to tell me all about her bowel disorder just as I was sitting down to breakfast. Thanks very much!

I had a shower and a general clean-up and then headed off to the shops, negotiating the new barrier to the car park now that they seem to have that working.

LIDL came up with nothing special, but then it was off to the dechetterie to unload the European Cardboard Box Mountain. Caliburn moves around quite quicker now.

NOZ came up with, apart from the usual stuff, a new rucksack. Mine is really good quality but it’s too small and awkwardly packed. There were some big 60-litre rucksacks in there today, waterproof too, at just €19:95. It doesn’t have the useful pockets that the other one has, but it’s the size that counts and how the stuff is prportioned. The rest I can invent.

LeClerc didn’t have too much special either, although I did buy a new decent set of nail scissors. The ones that I have are about 30 years old and slowly giving up the ghost. These new ones are great.

But the media centre there came up with the goods. They were selling 32gb micro-SD cards for just €11:99 so I bought another three. And a good computer mouse too so that the really good one can go into the office and I can use the new one in the laptop on the sofa.

I was so enthralled by the micro-SD cards that I totally forgot that I’d gone in there to buy a new SD card for the big Nikon. I’ll have to do that next week.

Back here I made mu butties and then went to sit on my wall in the sun, with my book and not one, not two but three lizards now for company. I’ll have my own herd by the end of the summer won’t I?

There was a load of excitement too in the port.

The company that runs the ferries to the Ile de Chausey has two ships, one of which sometimes goes off on tours of the bay.

And with it being summer, we have one going out on a voyage while the other one is on its way itno port.

And then some tidying up. And the place does look different too now after that. I shall have to press on next week and make even more improvements.

I started some work too but, shame as it is to admit it, it wasn’t long before I was laid out on the bed fast asleep. For a good couple of hours too, and I would probably still be there now had I not had two really wicked attacks of cramp.

But when I awoke I was starving, hence the meal. Stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And it’s nice to have some proper hot food for a change.

Now, I’ll go back to working again. But not until 03:35. At least – I hope not.

Saturday 14th July 2018 – EVERYONE KNOWS …

… that today is a Bank Holiday – or jour ferié in France.

It’s also the day 200 – odd years ago that the French stormed the Bastille – the fortified prison in the centre of Paris. The reason why they did this is probably because with it being a jour ferié all of the shops were closed and they had nothing else to do … “are you sure about this?” – ed.

I celebrated the jour ferié by switching off the alarm last night and having a lie-in. But 07:45 was far too early to leave my stinking pit so I turned over for five minutes. And then it was 08:55.

With the usual morning performance, and then I had a very late breakfast. And having reorganised things a little better in here just recently, I set up the coffee machine – only to find that I’ve almost run out of ground coffee.

That’s right – ground coffee. So if people tell me that my coffee tastes like mud I can tell them that it was ground only half an hour ago.

But with it being a jour ferié, I had a little treat – another fig roll. So I pulled that out – and then forgot to eat it. So I’ll have two tomorrow because although it might not be a jour ferié, it’s a Sunday.

First task today was the photos. 271 from my little adventure and I’d dealt with about half. So all through the rest of the morning and the early afternoon I edited them all and then uploaded them to the internet.

A very late lunch, so I made my butties and went to sit on the wall in the glorious sunshine where I was joined by not one but two lizards. This pear treat is becoming quite the thing, isn’t it? I’ll probably end up with a couple of dinosaurs.

On the way back to here i Went via Caliburn to bring another load of stuff up to the apartment, and was accosted by a weird neighbour who wanted to have a good chat – and not about all that much either but it’s amazing just how some people can spin it out.

When I eventually returned to here, I transferred all of the files from the portable laptop to the one that I use here and made sure that they were all deleted to save space.

It was then I noticed that the portable “Storex” drive that I take on my travels, despite being practically empty according to the File manager, had over 5gb of material on it.

Of course, finding “hidden” files on an “empty” hard drive is only the work of half an hour or so – good old T223, hey? – and they were all revealed. More stuff that I knew that I had and had subsequently lost. So they’ll be reignited and moved in due course too.

With the neighbour outside, I’d missed my afternoon walk, but I carried on with another task. when I was in IKEA in Caen before I went away, I’d bought three little units to store the CDs and DVDs but it wasn’t enough. However it was all that they had.

However at the IKEA in Munich they had two more so I bought those (cheaper than at Caen too!) and assembled them this evening. Yes – working at 20:30, and on a Bank Holiday too!

But I didn’t miss my evening walk though.

It was a beautiful evening and there were crowds and crowds of people about, with a group of people having a party sitting on one of the old World War II gun mounts from the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc.

And had I not had all of this work to do, I would have joined them too, so nice was the weather.

You’ll remember the other day just how far out the tide had gone, with all of the people collecting shellfish offshore.

But this evening the tide was right in and you can see from the harbour marker light how far in the tide comes in and how high it reaches when it’s really high.

The tidal ranger here is one of the highest in Europe apparently.

While I was out on my walk I bumped into a friendly neighbourhood policewoman.

She told me that there would be a firework display this evening at about 23:00 or thereabouts down in the docks, so round about 22:30 I went back out again.

There was a huge crowd down on the quayside but not all that many up here.

And so I had a grandstand view of the proceedings, sitting on my wall.

We had to wait until about 23:30 before things got under way, and then the spectacle began.

It’s not usually my kind of thing, but I have to be sociable and take part in the local proceedings. And it was actually quite good – much better than I was thinking that it might be.

The crowds weren’t just on land either.

Just before the event started, a few boats pulled up outside the harbour and dropped anchor so that the people on board could watch the fireworks from offshore.

Nevertheless, I still reckon that I had the best view of the proceedings from up here.

The whole show went on for about half an hour, and the finale was certainly impressive.

It certainly lit up the harbour and probably the bay for miles around. And once it had finished all of the crowds and the boats drifted away.

I drifted off back home to my apartment for a relax, and then I’ll go to bed. And hopefully I’ll have another good sleep.

But when will my appetite come back?

baie de mont st michel ferry ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

firework display port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 13th July 2018 – I THINK THAT I WAS …

… right last night about the tides. When I went out for my butties, the tide was as far out as I have ever seen it.

There were quite a few people out there too, presumably having a root around in the sand for the shellfish.

Which, they would presumably share with their friends because, as I have said before … "on many occasions" – ed … you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Going to bed last night was at something of a much-more respectable hour, and I managed to sleep almost until the alarm went off, with a little hiccup at about 04:00 or something like that. I tried my best to ignore the alarm but I couldn’t go back off to sleep and it was about 07:00 when I left the bed.

We had the usual morning performance, but breakfast ended up being quite late. And I forgot my coffee too.

First task was to assemble the two small trolleys that I had bought from IKEA the other day. And now I have a vegetable trolley and a cooking utensil trolley and they are both very handy. And then I had a little tidy-up, much to my own surprise.

Lunch was quite late after all of that, and on the way back in I started to unload Caliburn. I’ve brought quite a bit of stuff up here now, but there’s still plenty to go. I reckon that tomorrow I’ll have to start to unpack things and do some washing.

Another thing that I did was to crack on with my 3D program that I have neglected of late. Especially as a few things that I wanted were in a “50% off” sale today only.

There was also a visit into town. The mixed dried fruit sold in the supermarkets that I frequent is pretty much rubbish but the Super U has some good stuff. I need it for my muesli so I went for a walk down there in the heat, and treated myself to a sorbet on the way back.

On the way back up the hill I observed all of the boats outside the harbour.

The tide was on its way in by now and the smaller craft could make their way to the quayside to unload their catch. The larger boats would have to wait for the tide to come further in before they could come in and unload.

But you can see the effect that dredging out that strip by the quay in the winter has had. Smaller ships can come in earlier to unload and this increases the available capacity at the fish processing plant.

No tea tonight either. My appetite seems to have disappeared. Not quite like it did over Christmas but nevertheless. But it’s not really a worry, because I have quite a bit of weight that I could do with losing, what with this water retention issue.

But it was a pleasant walk around the headland this evening anyway.

So back here and listening to Marillion again. I have a couple of tracks – The Web and Garden Party – going round on a continual loop for some reason. I can’t shift them out of my head.

Marillion is a magnificent band but they always send me into a deep depression and I’ve no idea why. Still, I’ve plenty of time to cheer myself up, haven’t I?

Thursday 12th July 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… afternoon!

Sat down on the sofa at about 15:00 with a nice cold glass of lemonade. Next thing that I remember was that it was 18:45 and all my ice had melted.

And I’d been on my travels too. Out in Canada. In another setting that I have visited in the past too. This time I was doing a circular tour of some area, and I had some kind of deadline to meet too, so I couldn’t afford to hang about and I was relying on the dashcam for photography, thinking that I’ll take some stills of my voyage from the videos. But I arrived at an area with a huge girder bridge going over some water, with a big main road like a motorway. But for some reason the motorway came to a dead stop before the bridge and there was a ferry announced. For some reason or other it reminded me of the set-up at the Confederation Bridge from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Isle in the old days. The ferry was leaving in 10 minutes and I had 8 miles to travel (we’ve had a couple of real circumstances like this on our travels) so I didn’t even have time to check the map to see if this was the correct ferry. I just had to put my foot down and get going, and look pretty silly if it turned out to be the wrong ferry.

Yes, the exertions of the last couple of weeks have really got me down, haven’t they?

A late night last night didn’t help much, but then again that was balanced out by the fact that although the alarms went off as you might expect at 06:20 and 06:30, I just turned over and went back to sleep again. 09:00 is a much more reasonable time to be out and about.

After the usual medicine performance I had breakfast and a shower and general clean-up, and then off out. Just outside, I bumped into one of the neighbours who told me that the remote controls for the new barrier are ready, so I added that to my list of things to do.

First stop though was LIDL where I stocked up with a few things – nothing special. Next stop was the remote control, and then across the road to LeClerc, where I wasn’t quick enough with the phone camera to catch an old Renault 4CV that was driving around the car park.

Nothing exciting in LeClerc so I came home and, picking up the coolbox out of Caliburn, packed everything away and put the coolbox soaking with bleach to clean it out.

My lizard was there waiting for me on my wall when I went for a rather late lunch, and then back here, well, you know the rest of the story.

Once I’d come round, I had a think about tea – for the first time in a week or more – and made myself some pasta and vegetables tossed in garlic powder, pepper and olive oil.

While that was doing, I assembled a couple of little things that I had bought in IKEA and tidied up the first part of the European Cardboard Box Mountain.

Once I’d washed up, the rubbish went into the bin across the road and I went for a walk around the headland. I need to restart my good habits.

While I was walking around, I was miles away with my head in the clouds, as is my usual situation.

But my reverie was interrupted by a rather loud reversing siren coming from down one of the boats down in the harbour.

It turned out that one of the ferries, Granville that go over to Jersey was in the process of reversing out of its berth at the Gare Maritime.

It seemed to me that it was rather a weird time to be going out on a ferry crossing, so I watched it for a while.

However it wasn’t setting off out, but moving into the inner harbour to be tied up next to its older brother, Victor Hugo.

We must be having a very low tide tonight for them to want to move it inside. There will probably be crowds of people out on the sands tomorrow at low tide.

Back here now, exhausted and ready for bed despite all of the sleep that I had had. I dunno where this is all going but I can’t say that I’m enjoying any of it.

Wednesday 11th July 2018 – AND SO …

… having ended up in my own bed last night at long last, I was out like a light.

And for at least an hour too, before I was wide awake again.

But that was plenty of time for me to go on a nocturnal ramble – and a mega-one at at that. but I’m not going to tell you about it right now, because it was so interesting that I went and fetched the dictaphone and dictated it right on the spot, at some silly hour of the morning.

So you’ll have to wait until I’ve transcribed my notes, whenever that might be.

But never mind. back to sleep again, and I was off on my travels again. it seems that I can’t keep still right now.

I was off around the North-Eastern USA, in circumstances and places where I have been on nocturnal voyages before and on several occasions too. And I met a group of people, amongst whom was this lady. We were discussing things that we had in common and as I was leaving, she added that there was something else – “sex” to be precise. And she went on telling me how she was living in a mobile home in her garden as her house was undergoing renovation, and not only gave me the address but also the directions. And of course I had no intention whatever of involving myself with anyone in that respect.
Instead, I ended up in the very American area of Wells Green near Crewe. Several of my current and former friends were by now in the picture and we had all arranged to go swimming together. It was my idea but I hadn’t thought about my chemo port in my chest. But I suppose I had better show willing. I was living in a layby by the old signal box at Gresty in a caravanette, the type that had a couple of pods that pop out at the sides, and they were out right now, and I couldn’t close them. But anyway, I ended up in the pool, and ended up on my own too as no-one else came to join me. And when I left the pool, I realised that I had left my clothing with my ex-friend from Stoke on Trent and he wasn’t here of course, so I had to wander around in my swimming trunks and a tee-shirt.

Just for a change in midweek, there was no alarm. Like I’m going to crawl out of bed at 06:20 in the morning after all of my efforts yesterday. 09:00 is much more like it, isn’t it?

And like any other good Day of Rest, that’s exactly what happened. I did nothing at all really. Didn’t even set foot outside.

It was a late breakfast, with one of the four half-baguettes and apricot jam that I had bought yesterday in Albert. And my first cup of coffee since leaving Liège too.

And then I began to attack the photos. Several hundred, there are, and they all need reviewing, editing and saving and that’s not the work of five minutes either.

I reckon that I have done about half of them before I began to look cross-eyed so I stopped and had a very late lunch. The other two half-baguettes, some hummus and the last of the tomatoes and lettuce.

I shall have to go shopping tomorrow, won’t I? And I mustn’t forget either because it’s a Bank Holiday on Saturday. The Storming of the Bastille or something.

So with Caliburn not having been unloaded and nothing unpacked, I’ve had a quiet day. But I do need to get myself organised. Something needs to be done in the next 6 weeks, it’s urgent and I can’t ignore it.

I shall have to get a move on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But here’s a thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was the cue to go for a stroll.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’ve seen this machine before too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 10th June 2018 – THOROUGHLY EXHAUSTED AND WEARY …

… I made my way last night to an early bed and crashed out rather promptly.

And bearing in mind just how tired and fed up I had been during the day yesterday, no-one was more surprised than me to be wide awake at 06:15. And on a Sunday too!

But if anyone thinks that I’m going to be out of bed on a Sunday morning at that time then they are completely mistaken. 08:54 is a much more respectable time to be out of bed.

Having taken some time to organise myself, it ended up being a very late breakfast. But with no fig roll or anything else to fill it out, you could hardly call it a brunch.

First task, and the most important one too, was to arrange my hotel for my next trip to Castle Anthrax. And as I suspected (and hoped), Liège did the business for me. I like Premier Class hotels and there’s one on the edge of the city with an IKEA to the right, a Kinepolis to the left and a motorway exit behind me.

Even better, the motorway is the motorway that runs from Germany to Brussels past Leuven, and is only a mile or so from where the motorway down to Charleroi and Paris forks off.

The price is more expensive than I was hoping, but just about everywhere is booked up that week as we know. In fact, within a 50km radius of Liège there were only 26 hotels of any kind that had any accommodation at all. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Next job was to sort out all of the photos from Leuven just now and to edit some of the blog entries to include the missing photos. So you might need to scan back a couple of days or so.

While we’re on the subject of photos, remember that ancient, very creaky hard drive that I rediscovered the other day after years of searching? I’ve been working on that too and recovered about 99% of the data on it. What’s lost is lost, unfortunately, but I was lucky to rescue that much, I reckon. I’ve been at that all day and it’s only just this minute finished copying what it can.

As well as all that, I’ve done a little unpacking too – not a lot but there was some stuff to go in the fridge and the quicker I started, the quicker I could finish.

We’ve had the usual two walks today – football has finished ow for the summer – and another really good vegan pizza for tea which always goes down well of course.

And that’s quite enough for a Sunday. I’m going to have another early night, ready to Fight The Good Fight tomorrow.

Back to work on Monday.

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

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

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

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

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

This afternoon I went for my little walk around the headland. It was school chucking-out time too and so I was able to observe the antics of the parents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 27th May 2018 – MYSTERY SOLVED

Remember yesterday when I said that I reckoned that my fitbit was playing up? I happened to glance at my fitbit this evening when I expected that the 100% of my day’s activity would be up. And it was showing 92% of my day’s activity.

But that’s not the exciting bit of it. A closer inspection revealed that it was indeed 7.7 kms – and that was 100% of my day’s activity when I first programmed it. It seems that somewhere along the line it has reprogrammed itself and a day’s activity is now 8.4 kms. So that’s going to wear me out even more.

But that’s a long time away from where we started. Although not as long as you might think because 09:10 is a really nice time to awaken on a Sunday morning. And 09:40 is an even nicer time to rise up from your stinking pit too.

This led to quite a late breakfast – a brunch in fact – and the fig roll is quite a good idea too. I have to treat myself on a Sunday after all. High time that I did that.

The rest of the morning, such as it was, was quite leisurely. And I ended up spending almost an hour and a half talking to Rosemary. She’s had her plaster taken off her foot and is now in ordinary footwear. But it’s a long, hard road to recovery for Rosemary, and she still has a long way to go.

With having a late start this morning I went without lunch. I grabbed some biscuits and made a flask of cold drink with ice cubes. And then I set off for the football.

An important match this one, for if US GRanville’s 2nd XI do better than FC ST Lo Manche they will be promoted.

The football wasn’t the only thing that was going on either.

There was a bicycle race – the Tour de Normandie – taking place this weekend and today’s stage finished here in Granville.

And so there were hordes of people and hordes of cyclists swarming through the town this afternoon as I was passing through.

All the way up the hill I was being passed by bunches of cyclists. And they were struggling up the hill as much as I was too.

And there were fleets of cars with the spare bikes on the roofs following the cyclists, and following the cars were the fleets of ambulances.

But I was diappointed that there weren’t the fleets of advertisers like there were in Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres. Anyone who grew up with French cycle races in the late 1960s will know exactly what I mean

There’s a lot of money in cycle racing in France these days, and you can tell that by all of the equipment that is on show being used by the bigger teams.

So it was something of a surprise to find an old Peugeot 504 – probably getting on for 45 years old I reckon – doing service as a bicycle team support car.

Probably the most famous French car of the early modern era, the French equivalent of the British Ford Cortina III and IV, and seeing as we haven’t had an old car for quite a while, it gives me pleasure to feature it here.

So the most crucial match of the season here at the Stade Louis Dior. US Granville’s 2nd XI against AS Tourlaville. Everything riding on this match. No matter what FC ST Lo Manche do in their match, Granville must do better.

And by God they made hard work of it. For once the back four were incredibly nervous and were making a couple of silly careless errors. And it could have been so much worse as two suicidal backpasses from the usually-reliable central defenders put a Tourlaville attacker through for a one-on-one with the US Granville keeper.

Had the attackers been any better, US Granville could have been 2-0 down but one shot from one backpass went wide and the other one hit the post and bounced away to safety. And with only the keeper to beat.

And as for the keeper, he was nervous too. He dropped three simple crosses (luckily a defender got to the loose ball first each time) and was generally shaky throughout the match.

Eventually though Granville took the lead – a beautiful run down the wing, a good pinpoint cross into the centre and a forward sliding into the goalmouth steered it in.

And in the second half, a beautiful free kick put Granville 2-0 up. And that set the match aflame as Granville continued to pour forward, with Tourlaville resorting to some desperate (and quite often illegal) measures to keep them out, much to the frustration of the Granville players. Yesterday’s rainstorm to cool down the players would have helped here.

And then of course, another defensive loss of concentration right at the death allowed a Tourlaville attacker to finally find the back of the net.

So a 2-1 victory for Granville. And it was all in vain as FC ST Lo Manche had won by five goals to one.

So that was that. We’ll have to wait until next year now.

I had a nice walk back home in the warm early evening sunshine, just in time to see a saling boat come a-dieseling into the harbour. A bit disappointed that it didn’t come a-sailing in but you can’t have everything.

And it’s usually around here that I clock up my 100% of daily effort when I’ve been to the Stade Louis Dior. So I checked and you know the rest.

Tea was the usual vegan pizza and then I went out for a walk to clock up the missing metres. Not far of course, but far enough to reach the 100%. It’s a good thing, this fitbit. It pushes me along

So now it’s bed time and I can’t say that I’m sorry. I could do with an early night.

Friday 25th May 2018 – AND SO HERE’S …

… the new toy that I bought yesterday. It’s a vitro-ceramic twin-hob cooker, all plugged in and working.

Strictly speaking, you aren’t supposed to plug these in. They should be wired in to a dedicated cooking point, but as you can see, it has possibilities of being either a free-standing unit as well as a fitted unit in a worktop, and seeing as the max power output is 2960 watts, that’s well short of the 16 amps that they use in domestic circuits here.

So its utility as a free-standing plug-in unit is not to be sneezed at.

And I’m glad that I bought it because I’m fed up of only having one burner, which means that I have to shuffle things around when I’m cooking. An added advantage is that you can use any kind of flat-bottomed saucepan on it. So the ones that I stuck in a cupoboard that didn’t work on the induction hob, I can fetch them out again.

I spent an exciting afternoon stripping down, cleaning and reorganising the table that I use for cooking and eating. That’s all clean and tidy … "for the moment" – ed … and it actually looks as if someone is working on it now.

I’m amazed at just how dirty it was, especially when I’d done my best to keep it clean. It’s amazing when you discover when you take the oilcloth off to turn it around.

Just by way of a change, I didn’t crash out this afternoon. But as the Duke of Wellington said about the Battle of Waterloo, it was “the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.”

You can either attribute that to the fact that I was keeping quite busy this afternoon and didn’t have time to sit down and relax, or else you can attribute it to the fact that when the alarms went off this morning, I was in no hurry to leave my bed.

In fact, all in all, it was a rather leisurely morning while I sorted out a few things that needed doing. I wasn’t in any rush.

It was quiet at lunchtime. No-one really loitering around on the streets. But a workman had pinched my spec on the wall so I had to sit further down to eat my butties and read my book. And my friend the lizard eventually tracked me down for the pear leavings.

I mentioned the tidying up of the cooking area. And I was hoping to make a start on emptying out Caliburn. After all, there is tons of stuff in there that I no longer need or use, as well as hoping to find the missing spring clip. But I didn’t have time. Looks as if that might be next week’s task.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with spicy rice. And then I went for a walk.

The evening walk is usually the one where I go around the footpath at the foot of the walls of the medieval town and it’s a very nice walk.

But not all of the walls are medieval. There have been some later additions to the fortifications and this covered passageway down there that leads out to the part that overlooks the Place Marechal Foch certainly looks much more recent.

The stairway and footbridge over the walls is of course even more recent.

As I walked further on around the walls I noticed something away across the Baie de Mont St Michel in the distance over near Cancale that might have been another ship lurking in the doom and gloom, like the one we saw a few weeks ago.

The benefits of having some good equipment and a decent graphics program is that you can photograph it and manipulate it so that you can have a better view of what there is to see. Hard to believe that that’s about 18 miles away, isn’t it?

And it seems as if I have photographed a fishing boat, an island and part of another island with a church thereupon. And not a ship at all, which is something of a disappointment.

I shall have to go back with a compass and take a bearing so that I can work out exactly where it all might be situated.

An early night tonight too. Caliburn has his controle technique tomorrow morning so both of us need to be on form.

Wednesday 16th May 2018 – I HAVE BEEN FEELING …

… a bit better today.

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

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

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

Still, it keeps me out of mischief.

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

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

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

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

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

After not having tea and not doing the washing up, I still went for my evening walk around the walls of the medieval city.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday 13th May 2018 – THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

Although the night wasn’t as early as I would have liked it, staying in bed until 09:20 is definitely the correct way to proceed on a Sunday morning.

And had I not wanted to go for a ride on the porcelain horse, I might even still be in bed now.

It didn’t prevent me from going off on a nocturnal ramble either. But I’ll spare you the details of this voyage. I mean – you might be eating your tea or something. But I will say that it was a continuation of one of my voyages from a day or two ago.

I had a nice, late breakfast that included a fig roll with strawberry jam and which was delicious as you might expect. And then a lazy Sunday where I did next to nothing. But as I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … everyone needs a day when they can sit around and do nothing without feeling the least pang of guilt.

This afternoon in the glorious sunshine I wandered off to the Stade Croissant in St Pair sur Mer where US St Pairaise’s 2nd XI was taking on US St Quentin Le Homme’s 2nd XI.

St Quentin, in green, were fifth in the table and St Pair were third-bottom, and the final score was 7-0 … for St Pair. Something that totally astonished me.

St Pair were easily the better team, and that was a surprise in itself. But the result did rather flatter them. Their second goal was a piledriver from 25 yards out that was screwed hopelessly wide of the goal and which fell quite by chance right at the feet of an unmarked attacker who would otherwise have been totally out of the play. And their third was a backpass to the keeper who went to trap the ball with his foot but it hit a bobble, bounced up, hit him on the shins and rolled out to an attacker 5 yards away.

Apart from that, the St Quentin central defence was just too slow. In fact, the whole St Quentin team was just 6 inches too slow all over the field, and it was that which made all of the difference. Had they been just that little quicker to the ball, none of this would have happened.

But it was certainly a surprising result.

At half-time, I had another look through Caliburn to try to find the missing spring clip. But instead I found two one-cent pieces. So “spend, spend, spend!”, hey?

Tea was another excellent vegan pizza (the ground black pepper makes all the difference) but this latest batch of grated vegan cheese doesn’t melt like the previous batch and you could see the join.

SO off to bed in a minute, and then back to work tomorrow. High time that I did something.

EPIC HALL

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