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Friday 8th February 2019 – I HAD A MESSAGE …

… today on the telephone. “Your parcel will be delivered on 11th February”.

Now I don’t have a delivery planned or an order outstanding so I didn’t have a clue what it might be. I suspected that it might be some kind of scam.

But then I had another idea.

I had a look at the British Government’s Public Service website. And sure enough – there on my private page is a little note “Passport Application status – ‘issued'”.

That was quick – a lot less than the 6-week time limit that is advertised. That can only be good news. So after Monday, I can push on with a project that has been sitting on the back burner for several weeks.

In view of my recent difficulties I decided last night to go to bed somewhat earlier than of late and even not set an alarm for the morning to give me an opportunity to sort myself out. And so waking up at 06:35 wasn’t really quite what I had in mind.

That’s not the best of it either. I was awake at least three times during the night – once as early as 01:20. So you can see that I’m becoming rather fed up of this.

Three different travels during the night too. The first one involved some woman who had been charged to make a meal – possibly a pie – for some kind of meeting. But as time passed on, it became clearer and clearer to everyone that she was an alcoholic and as time passed on she became less and less coherent until she ended up sitting there in an alcoholic stupor.
The second part of the night’s activities involve me being in Macon, where I spent a summer once back in my youth. I was travelling somewhere which involved passing by the big airport at Lyon and so it involved taking the TGV but although we were certainly on the rails (which will come as a mjor surprise to regular readers of this rubbish) we were actually on board a coach.
Thirdly, I don’t remember very much about this but it involved some woman and there was some passing reference to her connection with Shirley Temple – people were comparing her with that actress for some reason, although presumably not with Graham Green’s review.

After breakfast I pushed on with the photo text database. What with one thing or another that took me right up until midday. And I’m now well back into December’s photos. It’ll keep me out of mischief for quite some time.

There was an interruption at Midday though. Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we were on the phone putting the world to rights for a good hour and a half. Not that our ideas will ever be accepted by anyone – they are far too serious and sensible.

After lunch, I cracked on with updating some of the blog entries. I’m now back as far as 23rd January and there will be more done over the weekend if I’m not interrupted by other events.

Talking of interruptions, I went out for my afternoon walk.

You can see what the weather was like simply by comparing this photo here with the photo taken from the same spot yesterday.

There was a howling gale, a spattering of rain and it was freezing cold. Not the right kind of day to be out at all but I have to keep on keeping on, as Bob Dylan famously said.

One thing that occurred to me was that while I’ve been on my travels I haven’t taken a photograph of the lighthouse down the road just recently.

You can also see one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to the right of the lighthouse, and in the foreground is one of the emplacements for the large naval guns that were positioned here.

You might also be able to see a cannon of some description immediately to the right of the lighthouse. there are several all dotted about, all of them damaged

A little further around the Pointe du Roc there was a good vies of the tidal harbour.

The tide was right out and all of the boats were aground on the mud bank.

St Pair-sur-Mer is in the background shrouded in the mist, and on the right is the ship repairer’s.

As for the objects in the foreground, I’m not sure what they might be. I reckon that they are lobster traps whereas others think that they might be dredging buckets.

Back here I carried on with my work – until about 17:30 when, overwhelmed with fatigue, I crawled into bed for an hour or so.

And then I was off on my travels. I was doing something and Rosemary was there. I had a cat, a black one but one that had the same shape as my grey one, and Rosemary was trying to pick it up. I ended up on a rafter going across the ceiling and the cat could only climb so far after me, so she took a flying leap – and missed, falling to the floor. But she found something else – a piece of wood – to climb up and come to join me on my rafter.

There were a couple of sorry-looking potatoes left over in the kitchen so for tea I made a potato and lentil curry. Totally delicious it was too.

Outside later this evening, the wind wasn’t all that strong but the sea was probably the best that I have ever seen.

The waves were totally astonishing – roaring up over the sea wall at the Plat Gousset and soaking just about everyone and everything down there.

It seemed like hours, but it was only about five minutes that I was standing there watching them. It was quite hypnotic.

On the way back, I bumped into someone who actually said “bonsoir”, and also Minette who had a little stroke.

But now I’m going to go to bed. have a nice early night. Shopping tomorrow and I need to be on form. Not that I feel much like it.

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 1st January 2019 – AND A VERY …

… Happy New Year. Not just from me, but from someone else here in Granville too.

I’m grateful for all of the support and encouragement that everyone has given me over the last year. It’s the kind of thing that has kept me going.

As well as that, I’m also even more grateful to everyone who has given me hospitality over the year during my perambulations around the Northern Hemisphere. I may not have many friends, as I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … but those I have are the best friends in the world.

So back to the story.

Having complained about sleep issues for as long as I have, it’s much more exciting to report that today, I left my bed at all of … errr … 11:22. And breakfasting at 12:00 is much more like what I expect to see on a Bank Holiday.

I’d been on my travels during the night too. Into a veg shop in Germany to buy a couple of carrots. I’d pressed the key on the automatic machine and the carrots came down into the scales to be weighed, and then I had to go to the counter to pick them up and pay for them. However, I couldn’t remember the German word for “carrots”. In Flemish it’s wortelen and so I tried that, but the shop assistant didn’t understand me. I pointed to the carrots and she still didn’t understand.

After breakfast, or lunch, or whatever you might call it, I had a task to perform.

There was an upgrade proposed a while ago by my blog host but I put off doing the upgrade. However it was forced upon me and while I was in Leuven I performed the upgrade.

And it’s terrible.

The old interface was a simple text-based interface where I could (and did) add my own handwritten *.html coding which I saved in blocks in my text-ediiting program and which I used for every web site on which I worked.

But this upgrade wants everything done in blocks with the *.html coding incorporated into the site itself, and adding the search indices is next-to-impossible and is the most complicated procedure that I have ever seen – especially on a slow connection.

So while I’ve been trying to figure it out (or find another blog interface that does what I want) I’ve been recording my blog entries in my text editor.

Anyway, I’ve given up. It’s not working, and so I’ll have to go with what I’ve got. And that meant adding 6 days-worth of blog entries and editing the indices manually.

That’s what I’ve been doing today.

At last, I could open my Christmas present from Liz and Terry. And now that you can see it in all of its glory, you can see that it was well-worth waiting for.

And it really is delicious too.

This evening we had football. Welsh Premier League basement clash between Carmarthen and Llanelli. Carmarthen aren’t that good but they ran rings round Llanelli who looked determined to shoot themselves in the foot.

Some of Llanelli’s defending was suicidal. They just couldn’t get the ball out of their own defence and tried to play the ball around, losing possession on several occasions in desperate positions. Carmarthen won 2-0 – both goals coming from Llanelli mistakes.

On this showing, Llanelli look well-and-truly doomed and we’re only half-way through the season. And depending who comes up from tier two in the south next season, Carmarthen need to start to think about what they intend to do.

Tea was a vegan burger with a pile of veg and gravy. Totally delicious, as was the endive that I had as a treat.

Outside tonight for my walk, and there was no-one around at all. I didn’t see a soul.

That was quite a surprise because despite the cold, it was a really beautiful, clear, starry night.

There was some cloud pretty high up in the sky over St Malo, and the reflection of the streetlights was magnificent. The town of Cancale, over there across the bay, was nicely illuminated too.

Back to work tomorrow – I have such a lot to do. So I won’t be hanging around too long. An early night is beckoning and if I’m lucky I might just make it too.

Sunday 23rd December 2018 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER .

… thing crossed off my list of things to do.

Back in the early 1970s when I first started coming over to Oostende, I was always puzzled by the train that was waiting at the station for the passengers. Its destination was always Welkenraedt and I didn’t have a clue where Welkenraedt was.

A little later I had a look for where Welkenraedt might be. It’s a small town nestled in the Ardennes miles from anywhere.

That puzzled me even more as to why the boat trains from Oostende would be going there.
I eventually found the reason. It’s a junction station where lines from Spa and from Eupen come in.

But more importantly, it’s the last station of any importance before the German border. The electricity current in Germany used to be different to that in Belgium, so that was where the Belgian engine came off, and then a German locomotive would be attached to take the train on into Europe.

Alison and I went to Welkenraedt on one of our excursions out back in July to see what was going on. But it was always my ambition, strange though it might seem, to change trains there.

So here I am, on a windswept, soaking wet freezing platform huddled under a tiny shelter at Welkenraedt in the middle of winter waiting for a train to come in.

And no coffee for miles around either

Despite it being Sunday I’d left the alarm connected and at 06:00 it duly rang. No breakfast, no medication, just packing my backpack and then out into the dark, stopping off on the way to take a few photos of around the station area because I had plenty of time..

At 07:24 the train to Eupen came into the station and I leapt aboard. And at Welkenraedt I hopped out. These days the trains don’t go on into Europe but go round to Eupen.

We had to wait for a diesel multiple-unit to come rattling in from Spa.

We didn’t have long to wait until this filthy, dirty disreputable ancient thing came staggering into the station.

Old, covered in grafitti and all kinds of things, and the train was even worse. I’d be ashamed to be seen in something like this, and the idea that the SNCB would be content to send such a machine into a foreign country where it could be compared with the pristine stuff on offer over there is an absurdity to say the least.

But here it was and here I was. So I climbed aboard and rattled off into Germany.

Here I am finally in Germany, in Aachen in fact, at the Hauptbahnhof.

I have to change trains here, and there’s a wait of about 20 minutes for my connection, so there is plenty of time for breakfast.

German bread is probably the best in the world and so a couple of bread rolls of different varieties and a coffee were just what the doctor ordered.

My next train was already in the station. A newish double-decker that put the SNCB offering to shame. This rolled off out of the station, 10 seconds late, and an hour later, I was in Koln.

That was where I took this photograph, by the way.

Interestingly, the announcements on the train were in German followed by English. I imagined what might be the response from the xenophobic racist Brexiters if this kind of cosmopolitanism were ever to happen in the UK.

It’s years since I’ve been to Koln. About 2007 if my memory serves me correctly.

Looking for something to do to pass the time, I’d been idly scanning through the SNCB website and I found that a voyage by train from Leuven to Köln and return would cost me a mere €68:00 – that’s a four-hundred kilometre round trip.

With nothing much happening in Belgium, I decided to come for a day out.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the city, visiting all of the places that I had visited on my previous trips. But at midday I had to return to the cathedral.

When I was chair of the North European Regional Forum of Open University students, one of the committee members lived here in Koln. And by coincidence she was a big friend of my old friend Liz. Hence the regular visits to Koln. Jackie and I hadn’t seen each other since those days, but she had heard that I was coming to Koln and we were going to meet for lunch.

It was at that moment that the heavens opened. As I picked my way through the crowds I was becoming wetter and wetter, and so I was glad to meet Jackie and go for a coffee.

When the rain eased off a little we headed off into the town and an Italian restaurant. It was a strange place for an Italian restaurant. They wouldn’t do me a plate of vegetables with pasta and tomato sauce. I got the pasta and the tomato sauce, but they couldn’t do the vegetables. That can only mean one thing, as I’m sure that the more astute readers will realise.

By now the rain was coming down even worse, but we headed off regardless. Down the main shopping street and through a couple of the Christmas markets, looking at the products on sale.

We ended up at a hot drinks stall. Jackie had a gluhwein and I had a hot cocktail. The mugs were beautiful so we forewent the deposit and I took them away in my backpack.

Jackie’s partner came down to meet us. They were off to a carol concert at the end of the afternoon so I said goodbye

Now on my own, I retraced my steps back through the markets and down to the River Rhine, thinking that I could have done with a good Rhinecoat.

I walked up along the side of the river and then up the steps to the Hohenzollern Bridge – the huge railway bridge with a pedestrian footpath that straddles the river.

It was a dismal dreary walk in the dark and the rain but even so, it’s good to stand there in mid-stream and watch the fleets of barges and cruise ships passing by underneath.

Eventually I found myself back at the railway station. And to my dismay, the rear of the station has all been cleared up and modernised and the excellent fritkot that I remembered from the past has been swept away.

Nevertheless I did manage to fit myself up with some food. Back inside the station, I found a Thai restaurant in the subterranean shopping gallery that had a range of vegetarian and vegan food.

I had a stir-fry tofu with rice and it was really good.

My train was a few minutes early and already in the platform. To my surprise it was pulled by the same locomotive that had brought me out.

I hopped aboard and grabbed myself a comfortable seat. And here I had an interesting encounter with a German ticket-collector. It had been so wet that the damp atmosphere had caused the ink on my rail ticket to run and he couldn’t read it.

In the end, reason prevailed.

Another wait at Aachen for an even more disreputable Belgian multiple-unit. And which, surprisingly (or maybe not) it was likewise the same one that had brought me out.

There was graffiti all over the inside of the train and rubbish strewn all over the floor. Not a very good advert for the SNCB, sending atrain like this across the border into foreign parts.

And then another wait on the cold and wet at Welkenraedt for my train back to Leuven.

So now, I’m back home, looking and feeling like one more haggard, drowned rat, although I had no idea where I would find one more haggard drowned rat at this time of night.

And straight off to bed because I have the hospital in the morning and I need to be on form.

On my travels today, I took well over 100 photos. Some are in the text and some more below.

But if you want to see the rest, I’ve prepared a web page where you can see them in all their sodding and dripping glory, such as it was.

christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium

martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

train station leuven louvain belgium

hauptbahnhof aachen germany

automotrice sncb 644 653 hauptbahnhof aachen germany

Friday 23rd November 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… for quite some considerable time, we’ve had rain today.

Not enough to prevent me from going for my series of perambulations but enough to make me put on the raincoat and do up the hood. And it’s not a long knee-length raincoat, Rhys.

With having had a reasonably early night, I had a good sleep too.

During the night last night there was something of a family reunion. I’m no longer sure of the beginning or even the middle but right at the end I can remember going to bed – in Vine Tree Avenue of all places. But when I went to get into bed with Nerina, my younger sister was asleep in there too. When I awoke her to find out what was going on, she told me that there was someone else asleep in her bed so she had to find somewhere else to sleep. I went to look in her bed and found that one of my friends had actually gone to sleep in there.
As an aside, in real life whoever was asleep in her bed later became her husband. But that’s another story.

It wasn’t a particularly early start this morning either. I had a bit of a lie-in, and then I attacked the breakfast.

This morning I’ve been a busy little B. The blog for the last week or two is up to date and you can see where I updated starting from this page and working forward.

When I’m more organised, I’ll be starting from the end of October and working backwards, doing three or four a day until it’s all done. It might take me several years to do it but if I don’t start, I won’t finish.

Another task that I’ve done this morning that took me far longer than it ought was to merge the clipbook libraries.

The program that I use the most is a text editor called Notetab. I do evrything with it, from making brief notes right up to hand-coding my own web pages.

The main advantages that it has are that

you can have several *.txt or *.html files open at any one time
you can build up a whole series of clipbook libraries, so that you can save a regular block of text or coding that you use on a regular basis, and just one click inserts it into your document, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall

There are enough old computers here to sink a ship, and there are backups that date to about 1999, so this morning I started to extract the libraries from the various machines and merge them together.

having done a couple this morning, I then did a big back-up of the laptop and I’ll be backing up my data a couple of times a day from now on, always assuming that I remember.

While I was searching for something else, I came across a rare book going back to AD731 that has now been uploaded to the internet and available for free download. And so I’ve now added a copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People to my virtual library.

This is one of the very earliest histories of England and, along with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was the basis of much of what was known about English history in the Dark Ages.

And that reminds me. I brought my Domesday Book with me from the farm, but did I bring my Anglo-Saxon Chronicle?

This muesli that I made really is wicked. It went down a treat on my butties at lunchtime and there is still plenty left. And after lunch I came back into my little office and carried on with Day Four of the High Arctic.

There was a break for a walk around the headland. Although it was raining, it wasn’t all that bad-certainly not bad enough to stop me.

At the ship repairers, Aztec Lady was still there, up on blocks. There was a ladder up to her deck but I couldn’t see any sign of any work being done.

The trawlers are still up there too receiving attention. I’m not sure what they are doing to the pink and white one that we saw being lifted out of the water.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back when they were dredging out the harbour, they had a digger in the tidal basin here at low tide.

It was digging out a deep channel at the outside of the fishing quay by the fish processing plant.

This was done presumably with the aim of making a cut there that would provide access to the quay for a greater part of the day

There’s a whole line of smaller boats that have been queueing up outside the harbour now on their way in to tie up and unload.

If you look at the surrounding tidal harbour, you can see that it’s a long way from being submerged right now.

It certainly seems that the little channel that they dug out is working, and in spades too, which is good news for the port and the town.

More time available to unload means that more fishing boats can use the facilities

Just by way of a change I’d been chatting to a couple of neighbours too – one as I left the building and the second as I arrived back. It’s all go here, isn’t it?

In the mail today I’ve had the bill for the taxe d’habitation – the Council Tax – for next year for my house in the Auvergne. Eat your hearts out, you UK dwellers. My council tax for next year is all of €24:00.

Ingrid phoned me up after I came back. And we had a lengthy chat for a good hour or so about all kinds of things. She’s not too well right now, so I told her that some nice, relaxing sea air would do her the world of good.

There was a pepper left over so tea tonight was a stuffed pepper. I need to rid myself of the perishable stuff before I go away on Sunday.

Then, back into the rain. There was just one other person out there this evening but Minette, the black cat, was there on her windowsill. She had a good stroke and even allowed me to pick her up for 30 seconds.

But for some reason or another, I’m feeling quite tired. No idea why – it’s not as if I had a bad night. But I do seem to think that I’ve not had my usual afternoon doze so that might account for it.

It’s a good enough reason to go to bed.

Thursday 22nd November 2018 – I HAD A …

… better night last night, just for a change. Asleep before midnight and slept right through until the alarm went off.

I was off on my travels during the night. I vaguely remember being on board ship somewhere, but apart from that, nothing at all.

Once I was up and out of bed, I had breakfast and then organised the photos from last night which I had forgotten to upload. And the *.ftp program seems to work fine, which is good news.

A check of the thermometer showed me that last night the temperature had dropped down to 1°C. Won’t be long now before freezing point is reached.

Thursday is shopping day so I had a shower and a clean-up, and then put a load of washing on. What an exciting life I lead, hey?

On my way up the rue Couraye, I was noticing all of the signs for “Black Friday”. yet another Transatlantic custom that people over here have started to embrace.

But there are clearly some people who haven’t quite grasped the principle of Black Friday. How can you possibly have a Black Friday sale that lasts for a week?

But it’s something that I’m seeing more and more. People are losing all of their traditional customs and habits in the relentless search for profit, although some of the instances that I have quoted on here just recently would bring that into question.

We feature every now and again the progress of the installation of the fibre-optic cable around the town.

Here in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc just a little higher up the hill from the railway station they are now digging out a channel on the pavement so that they can pass the cable higher up the hill presumably in the direction of the telephone exchange

The date of connection is getting closer and closer. And I for one can’t wait.

The other week we saw them erecting the Christmas Tree in the Place de la Gare and on Saturday we saw it in position.

To further add to the chaos in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc, they are now erecting the Christmas decorations across the street.

The local council was there with a cherry-picker, and a couple of municipal police personnel directing the traffic around th obstruction.

I shook my head and went on to LIDL where I did a pile of shopping. Nothing special but they have now run out of grapes which is a tragedy, and the packets of nuts that I use in my muesli were still on offer so I bought a few more packets.

A few weeks ago I posted a photograph of a building with “Residence des Granvillaises” emblazoned thereupon.

On the way back from the shops I took a little diversion to the Rue Etoupefour to have a good look at the entrance to the building to see what it looked like at street level.

It’s not anything at all significant, which is probably why I haven’t noticed it at all during all of the times that I have passed by.

Back here I had a coffee and then carried on with the photos from earlier. As well as having a little doze for a short while. It seems to have become a regular thing these days after any kind of exertion.

Lunch was the baguette from LIDL with salad and more of my home-made hummus. It really is quite a fiery concoction and tastes delicious.

This afternoon I added the photos to a couple more blog entries. if you go to this page and work your way forward you can see them.

There wasn’t a great deal of excitement going on during my afternoon walk.

There was a speck of something out to sea and thinking that it might be Thora coming back, I took a photo of it and enlarged it when I returned home.

But it wasn’t Thora at all but a fishing trawler out there doing the business offshore. And I for one am looking forward to the excitement when the UK leaves the EU and we start to have fishing fights between the French and Channel Island fishermen.

I can still remember the 1960s when a bunch of Icelandic trawlermen took on the might of the Royal Navy during the Cod Wars – and defeated them hands-down. French fishermen are far more resolute than the Icelanders, and the Royal Navy is a mere shadow of what it was in the 1960s

My perambulations took me around the headland where I could overlook the shipyard.

Remember the pink and white candy-striped trawler that we saw the other day being lifted out of the water at the ship repairers?

We caught a glimpse of it last night up on blocks, but here it is today in the daylight. I’ll be keen to see what they are doing to it and how the work progresses over time.

And that wasn’t all the excitement down in the shipyard either.

It seems that the mystery of why the Aztec Lady has turned up in Granville has been resolved. Here she is, in the shipyard, up on blocks like the rest of the ships in here.

It looks as if I missed out on the hoisting ceremony which is a shame because that is something that is quite interesting.

Anyway, it enables us to have a good look at her while she’s here.

And we can also keep our eye on her and see what work is being done. It must be important.

On that note, I came back here for a coffee and to start work. And the work in question is Day Four of my trip to the High Arctic.

I need to push on with that otherwise it will never be finished. And there are plenty of pages like that already.

Tea should have been vegan sausages, but I didn’t notice until I’d started the vegetables that the sausages were somewhat iffy. Instead, a vegan burger was rustled up and it tasted just as good with the vegan cheese sauce as the sausages would have done.

No-one about at all during the evening walk, except for a solitary jogger. Nothing at all worth photographing zither tonight, so I can have an evening off.

On that note, I’ll go to bed. Plenty of work to do tomorrow.

Wednesday 21st November 2018 – WINTER IS DEFINITELY …

… here. Temperature was at 3°C again this morning when I awoke. And it wandered around about 5°C for most of the day. Whatever Indian Summer we were having has now gone for good until the Spring.

Last night was a bad night for me. I didn’t go to bed until rather later than I intended, and it was once again a struggle to leave my bed. I’d been on a voyage too but it had gone right out of my head by the time that I was on my feet.

This morning I had a few things to do – like deal with an upgrade to the laptop that somehow managed to wipe out the language settings on it. I had to fiddle around for a while until I could type the password in the correct character setting. And then I restarted it – and the language settings came back.

Second thing to do was to upload Paint Shop Pro to this laptop. I’d forgotten that it wasn’t on board.

Third thing was that I had had a message from the builder of Waterfox – the Firefox clone that I’ve been using. There’s a hidden link to the disabled utilities (and why it should be hidden I really don’t know) and he pointed me in the direction of where I can find the *.ftp program. It has to be configured by hand and it takes a while to do that but now it’s up and running.

I’m sure that there were a few other things that I was doing this morning but I can’t for the life of me remember now what it was. I’m cracking up, aren’t I?

After lunch I started to attack the previous blogs to upload the photos that I worked on yesterday. What with a pile of interruptions (including having a little … errr … relax on two occasions) I worked back as far as Saturday. I’ll push on tomorrow and do the rest.

It was a beautiful walk around the walls this afternoon.

The tide was quite far in and the fishermen were out in their boats at the foot of the cliffs. These people here had a couple of rods and lines and were fishing with them from the boat.

Not sure what they were catching though. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves anyway.

A little further on around the corner, the sun was shining on the beach down at the Plat Gousset.

Although it was quite windy, the tide wasn’t in far enough to push the waves over the sea wall, so there were quite a few people out there taking advantage of the good weather and the sunshine.

And the beach cabins have definitely gone too. I wonder if they take them away and store them out of the season and bring them back again next summer.

Out in the Baie de Mont St Michel the wind was whipping up nicely.

Someone was out there in a sailing boat and it was really exciting to see the sails billowing out in the wind and pulling the yacht along at an impressive rate of knots.

But you can see that there was a sea mist out there today.

You’ll remember a few months ago that there was an exhibition of paintings and photographs suspended from the town walls above the Place Maurice Marland.

Today there was a tracked machine out there that looked as if it was there to take all of them down.

That’s an exciting machine all right. I wouldn’t have minded having that down on the farm when I was living there. I could think of a thousand and one uses for it.

That wasn’t all the excitement either.

As I was walking by the walls above the harbour, I noticed Normandy Trader down there. She must have sneaked in on the tide and I had missed her, and there she was setting off back out again.

I couldn’t see what it was that she was carrying with her but I imagine that it was a mixed cargo as usual.

It’s a little-known fact but an important claim to fame of the old medieval town of Granville that there’s a connection here with the royal family of Monaco.

One of the ancestors of Prince Ranier was a girl who lived in the town and married into the Grimaldi family. That was the home of her family and there is a plaque on the side recording that Prince Ranier came here a few years ago.

It looks as if they are now going to launch a programme of renovation on the family pile.

By the time that I returned to my own family pile, I was thinking that the Normandy Trader would be well out to sea by now.

And so I coupled up the big zoom/telephoto lens and went off a-wandering round to the Pointe du Roc.

And there, setting off into the sunset against a backdrop of the Ile de Chausey was Normandy Trader, en route for Jersey.

I took another photo of it with the lens at its fullest extent, and then back here cropped out Normandy Trader and blew it (the crop, not the ship) up.

I still can’t see what she is carrying, but the photo has come out quite well considering the distance over which I was working;

When I returned to the apartment, Gribouille was outside and he let me pick him up for a stroke.

Tea tonight was the rest of the falafel with pasta and vegetables in tomato sauce.

After doing the washing-up, I went for my walk around the Pointe du Roc. And it’s freezing outside too. Winter draws on, and quite right too in this weather.

The clear, still weather was great for photography and so I took a few photos of the night. The one that I took of the boats, the harbour and the lights came out really well.

I particularly liked the reflection on the water of the red harbour gate light

And that’s not all either.

Remember the other day when they were lifting that pink and white trawler up out of the water onto the quayside at the ship repair yard?

Well, there she is now. Up on blocks now and a ladder up against the side. There’s obviously some work that needs to be done to it, and it looks as if they have already made a start.

So back here now and I’m going to try yet again for another early night. Curled up under the blankets is the best place to be in this weather, I reckon.

Beach Plat Gousset Granville

The beach down by the Casino at the Place Marechal Foch.

Normandy Trader leaving Granville harbour on her way back to Jersey.

Normandy Trader setting out for Jersey

Tuesday 20th November 2018 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… where I visited during the night but wherever it was, I was still there when the alarm went off. Dead to the world, in fact.

It took me a while to haul myself out of bed and organise myself properly. And after breakfast I had a couple of things that needed doing.

A shower followed, and then I dressed for the streets.

As the tide was out, I took my new route, down the steps, across the fish dock and the path over the top of the tidal gates onto the commercial dock.

I remember seeing Thora in the port yesterday and I thought that I had seen her still here last night. And she’s still here this morning, looking as if she’s taking on a load for Jersey.

But there was no-one about to talk to – she was doing a good impression of the Marie Celeste.

My destination was the Post Office, where I posted off my letter to Canada. And while I was there I bought a pack of 10 pre-stamped envelopes for use in France. i’m down to my last one here.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes for lunch.

Over the last week or so I’ve taken piles of photos but I’ve been too busy to deal with them. So having made myself a coffee, I sat down and started to review them, edit them and upload them.

And believe it or not, I did manage to get a shot of one of the dolphins yesterday. I’ll post it tomorrow so you can all see it.

Lunch was in here again. it didn’t rise much above 5°C today so I wasn’t going to sit on the wall.

Just by way of a change I’ve done some tidying up too. There was a huge pile of cables and lead that I had brought with me from the Auvergne so I sorted them out and tidied them up. And SHOCK! HORROR! I threw away a pile of stuff away too.

That’s not like me at all, is it?

Later on, I went for my usual afternoon walk around the Pointe de la Roc.

And there I was greeted by the sight of Thora sailing … “dieseling” – ed … off into the sunset on her way back to Jersey.

Enhancing the colours a little has brought out a really nice effect on this image.

She put on a slight turn to port after that so I took another photo of her.

Back here I cropped her out and blew up the image. I can do that these days, despite modern anti-terrorism legislation.

Considering that this has been cropped out and enlarged at full focal length, it’s not come out too badly given the distances that I was having to cover.

Round the corner and looking out over the Baie de Mont St Michel, I could see that the sailing school had been out this afternoon.

I have half a mind … “yes, quite!” – ed … to go out and learn to sail one of these days, but I’m not quite sure how I can fit it in given my state of health and medical requirements.

A theoretical course on sailing and navigation would be right up my street (or down my river) though.

There wa even more excitement down at the ship repairer’s.

It’s not every day that I’m lucky enough to see them lifting a boat out of the water but I was in luck today. It looks as if they have another job to do on a fishing trawler and they were lifting her out with the hoist.

I’ll have to check tomorrow to see if she has been put up on blocks ready for work.

The highlight of the walk though had to be this delightful nautical danse macabre.

A trawler had unloaded at the fish dock and was heading off into the inner harbour, just as Aztec Lady was on her way out.

They waltzed and weaved around each other as they sorted themselves out into their respective routes.

Back here, I had a little … errr … repose for a while and then there was another job that needed doing. I’ve had a temporary curtain hanging in here ever since I moved in and it’s been on my mind to have it taken up to the correct size.

But that’s not happened so I took it off and pinned it to the right size.

And then I finished off all of my photos and uploaded them to the internet.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper and then I went out for my walk. Freezing cold outside, it was, and so that probably explains why there wasn’t a single person (or even a married one) out on the streets tonight.

Beautiful it was though – clear and crisp night with some lovely moonlight.

Now I’m keen to see if I can have another good night. And while I’m dozing off I’ll leave you with a few more photos.

Thora going back to Jersey

Sailing school baie de mont st michel granville

Trawler Port de Granville harbour

Trawler being lifted out of the water and moved across the shipyard on the hoist.

The beach at the Plat Gousset

The Port de Plaisance at Granville harbour

Monday 19th November 2018 – IT WAS RATHER …

… a late night last night.

Another 01:30 finish as I was pushing on with doing things, and this was reflected in the struggle that I had to leave my stinking pit this morning.

During the night I was off on my travels again and although I can remember almost nothing of what I was doing. But there was one thing that struck me, as it has on many other occasions during the night. And that is the impeccable timing that goes on. There I was and I heard, in my voyage, the ping telling me that the telephone was just about to ring, so I reached out my hand and right on cue, the alarm went off. Absolutely perfect timing, and it’s not the first time that I’ve noticed this.

As soon as I awoke I went to look at the thermometer. 3°C right now, and that’s the lowest that it has been so far this autumn. We’re definitely in Autumn.

Breakfast was quite early too and that left me plenty of time to push onwards with work.

And sure enough, by lunchtime I’d finished all SIX of the web pages for the third day of my voyage to the High Arctic. You can go to this page and then work your way forward, if you have a couple of hours to spare, and admire the photographs.

Dozens and dozens of them.

That took me up to lunchtime so I had my butties in the apartment. It’s definitely out of the question now, this idea of sitting on the wall outside.

This afternoon I had a letter to write. Someone whom I met on my travels had written to me and now that I have a functioning printer I can reply. I’ll have to take it down into town tomorrow morning and post it off.

It was really windy out this afternoon but there was a crowd of people gesticulating wildly out on the peak.

There had been a couple of dolphins playing around just offshore and they had been giving a really good performance.

At first, I thought that I had missed it all, but on enlarging one of the photos that I took, I found that I had indeed captured one of them on film.

It’s rather blurred because it was way out in the bay and I had to crop and enlarge it, but it’s a dolphin all the same.

While I had the camera handy, I wandered round to the harbour.

We have Marité in her usual berth, but also, alongside, at the commercial dock is Thora. She must have sailed in from Jersey on the morning tide.

One of these days I’ll go down there and have a closer look at her.

Back here, I found myself away with the fairies for a while, which is hardly surprising after the night that I had. But once I came back round again, I had a good go at the blog entry for Day Four of my Arctic trip.

It’s been rewritten slightly and I’ve added a couple of dozen photos as a taster, just to keep things going until I can do the web page, which I’ll start tomorrow some time. In the meantime, you can see the blog entry here, with all of the photos.

There was an interruption during the early evening though. Someone telephoned me about my digger. He’s interested in buying it. But I don’t think that he’ll be buying it though. He was talking about “a couple of thousand Euros”, which isn’t even in the same library, never mind on the same page.

He mentioned that he would chat with his partner, but if he couldn’t rustle up the cash that I want he would borrow a digger off his friend. So he can do that then. I might be keen to move on a lot of the stuff that I don’t need these days, but we aren’t having a fire sale.

Tea was steamed veg and vegan sausages with cheese sauce. And using three times as much cornflour as I would normally use, I did get the sauce to thicken.

Freezing cold outside again. 4.5°C outside and getting colder by the minute. I wound up the heating when I came back in.

But I’ve hit a problem right now.

About 6 months ago, Firefox went all commercial and hacked off a lot of add-on utility programs. Presumably the utility developers wouldn’t buy a development licence. One of the utilities that went was the *.ftp program that I used.

There is however a lightweight browser – Waterfox – than runs on the Mozilla platform and the *.ftp utility ran on that. It’s been nagging at me to upgrade it for a while, which I haven’t done. But I’ve had to download it onto this laptpp, and the latest version to boot. And it’s running the new Mozilla platform and all of the utilities have gone.

Now I’m having to upload via my webhost’s control panel, and that is just so painful. Fire.ftp was just like a Windows Explorer platform and so simple to use. In fact it’s the only reason why I ever used Waterfox.

So that’s a waste of time then.

And on this note I’ll go to bed.

dolphin baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

fishing trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

After lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

Folligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

Saturday 10th November 2018 – THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with going to bed early is that there is quite often a tendency to awake early too. Early is one thing, but 04:48 is a bit ridiculous.

And even worse, I didn’t go back to sleep either I just lay there and vegetated until the alarm went off.

An early breakfast meant that I had plenty of time left. So I finished off the entry for the third day of my High Arctic voyage and put it on line where you can see it in all of its glory, with a couple of dozen of the … gulp … 127 photos that I took that day.

Once that was done I had a shower and then headed off for the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing at all special, and NOZ wasn’t much better. Leclerc didn’t come up with much either. All in all, it was a very light shopping bill today. And that includes the gram flour from the Biocoop.

But I nearly spent a lot more than that.

Having a look around in the Second-Hand Shop they had a beautiful Ibanez 5-string bass guitar and I had a good play around on it for about 15 minutes. Then I had to tear myself away before I spent a lot of money.

But the printer!

According to the Leclerc website, they have an Epson printer on special offer – €15:00 cheaper than the equivalent on Amazon.

I like Epsons, for the simple reasons that firstly the ink is cheap and secondly the colour cartridges are separate so you don’t need to replace the whole lot when just one colour runs out.

The advert said that the printers were available on order from the shop so off I went. And the usual inept Je m’enfoutiste who couldn’t be bothered to look for it on the on-line catalogue went off to chat to a colleague, and came back to tell me that “they’ve all gone”.

Back here, I had a look on-line, and there were plenty left. So I ordered one on-line instead and it will be in the drive-in in a couple of days.

But I’m getting sick and tired of this modern trend of je m’enfoutisme where shopkeepers and shop assistants are kicking people out of their shops because it’s too much like hard work to try to sell them something.

And anyone who has read Alvin Tofler’s The Third Wave will recall that he foretold all of this nearly 40 years ago.

People argue long and hard in favour of “shop local” instead of shopping on-line, but at least the computer and the warehouse robots are keen and eager to fulfil your demand.

While I was finishing off my lunch this afternoon there was a ring on the doorbell. Liz and Terry turned up to say hello, have a coffee and to give me some shopping that they had brought back from the UK for me. Stuff for Christmas such as mince pies, mincemeat and Christmas pudding, seeing as the English Shop in Everburg let me down.

We had a good walk around the headland and the walls in the wind and rain, followed by a coffee in the cafe in the old town.

Later on, I started to work on the web pages for Day Three but ended up by falling asleep on my comfortable chair.

On awakening, I noticed that US Granville’s 2nd XI was playing against LC Bretteville Sur Odon, and kick-off was in 40 minutes time.

Not wishing to hang around, I sailed off at a rapid rate of knots and was actually there 10 minutes before kick-off. I didn’t know that I could move so fast these days.

US Granville took the lead after just one and a half minutes. From their first attack they won a corner. The LC Bretteville Sur Odon keeper punched it out and a Granville player picked up the loose ball and drove it back into the crowded penalty area where it shot through a ruck of players straight into the net without touching anyone.

They had the ball in the net after 13 minutes too, but it was ruled out for a push on a defender.

LC Bretteville Sur Odon woke up after about 35 minutes and began to get on top. They almost equalised but a shot was kicked off the line by a defender.

The second half carried on with LC Bretteville Sur Odon clearly on top but a few unsavoury incidents which ended up with an LC Bretteville Sur Odon in the dressing room disrupted the game.

Three substitutes all at the same time refreshed the Granville team and, against the run of play, scored a dramatic second goal. A breakaway through the centre saw the ball blocked on the line not once but twice, but the third attempt on goal found the back of the net.

So a rather fortunate 2-0 win for Granville.

By now the rain had stopped so I had a good walk back home.

I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me and so I decided that I would have some fun with it in the dark.

As you know, I’ve not been able to get it to work as well as I would have liked in poor lighting, and the drawbridge into the old walled town here gave me ideas.

I took several photos of the pont lévis, using different shutter, aperture and ISO settings, to correspond and compare with the earlier one which was taken on fully automatic settings.

Most of them were filed under CS, but this one turned out quite well.

1/13 shutter speed, f3.75 and ISO6400, and darkened slightly.

Back home, while I was working on the photos, I noticed a couple of people nicely framed in the archway of the drawbridge.

I cropped out that part of the image and blew it up a little to see what it would give me, and it’s produced a nice effect.

However, it’s ended up being rather pixelated and that’s a disappointment. I don’t seem to be able to produce the quality for which I am looking.

Back home, I made myself a plate of mushrooms in tomato sauce with pasta for tea.

I’m ready now for an early night, especially having done 147% of my daily total, and I hope that I’ll be able finally to have a good sleep.

I need it.

Friday 9th November 2018 – I HAD A SURPRISE …

… lie-in this morning.

Apparently my phone decided to do an upgrade in the middle of the night and it was waiting for me to switch it back on.

It’s twice now that this has happened so I’ll have to think about having some kind of back-up in case it ever becomes a crucial issue, because I can see this one day ending in tears.

So with a late start this morning and a late breakfast I was getting a little behind in my work. And seeing as I’m now getting to some kind of crucial point in my journey in the High Arctic then I’m going to be doing an awful lot of research just now.

And as a result I had only done half of what I intended to do with Day Three of my blog by lunchtime. That’s not going to be back on-line anything like as quickly as I might have hoped.

Lunch was taken indoors today. It looks as if the outdoors eating is over now, especially given the wind.

This afternoon I did some tidying up – not as much as I would have liked of course but I’m finding it difficult right now to keep up with things.

That took me nicely up to my afternoon walk, when I braved the hurricane and set off around the headland.

And despite the wind, I wasn’t the only person out there.

We had some more pool-dippers down on the beach looking for crustaceans and the like in the tidal rock-pools. And whatever they find, they share with their friends because, as I have told you … “and on many occasions too” – ed … you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I showed you a photo of the workmen digging away at the side of the car park at the Pointe du Roc?

It’s quite clear now what they have done, but even though I’m now better-informed, I’m still none-the-wiser because I can’t understand why they have done it.

I suppose that all will be revealed in due course.

With the wind pushing me one step forward and two steps back, I eventually made it back here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch …
Cold telephone canvasser – “I would like to introduce you to Madame Klara, astrologist …”
Our Hero – “Well she’s not much good, is she?”
CTC – “How do you mean?”
OH – “Well, if she had been any good at foretelling the future, she would have known that I would tell you to !*à# off!”

Once I’d dealt with that, then back on with updating the blog entry.

Not very far though because Rosemary rang up. And we had a good chat for all of, would you believe, one hour and forty minutes. We had a lot to talk about.

Tea was a delicious steamed vegetable mix with vegan sausages and cheese sauce. That really was nice too.

The evening walk was round the walls, but even though it wasn’t too far off high tide, the sea round by the Plat Gousset was in the lee of the old town so that the sea wasn’t all that rough. No waves crashing up over onto the promenade.

But once round by the Place Maurice Marland I got the whole lot again, with rain and plagues of locusts too. If anything, the hurricane is blowing even stronger.

Gribouille had been rather stand-offish this afternoon but this evening Minette was sitting on her windowsill and being quite friendly.

There’s a little bit of a problem too. The dashcam was full so While I was out for a walk I set it to download all of the films onto the storage device. But for some reason or other the dashcam has reset its date so all of the films are out of order.

Not much that I can do about that, but at least I can reset the date. And this proves that the stand-by battery that will power the dashcam when the ignition is switched off works perfectly.

So now I’ll go for an early night again.

And hope that I get up at the right time tomorrow morning.

Friday 2nd November 2018 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… evening today.

And what first drew my attention to it was the sunlight reflecting off the windows at Agon-Coutainville, about 30 kilometres away across the bay.

And this photo was taken with the 18-105mm lens, and hand-held too. It’s not come out too badly either. And in case you are wondering, the Nikon D3000 camera.

Here’s a similar photo taken at lunchtime with the Nikon D3000 and the 70-300mm zoom\telephoto lens.

After its exertions last night when the storm whipped the set-up off the concrete bunker, I gave it a good going-over this morning to see what the damage might be.

And much to my surprise, not only is there no visible damage, everything seems to work just as it is supposed to. It must be more robust than I was expecting – and certainly more robust than the old Nikon D5000.

So while you admire a few more cropped and enlarged photos of the coast out past Agon-Coutainville (and if you think that they are blurred, they are cropped and enlarged segments out of a photo taken at a distance of 30kms), I can tell you a little about the morning.

Once again, the body clock works in spades as there I was, wide awake at 05:59 precisely (because I checked). One minute before the alarm was due to go off.

But badger that for a game of soldiers. I’d decided to have an extended break (to reimburse myself for my early Sunday), turned over and went back to sleep.

10:25 is a much more respectable time to haul myself out of the stinking pit.

And a breakfast at 11:15 is a very bourgeois way of starting the day in a relaxed and leisurely fashion.

All of this sleep had given me plenty of time to go off on a nocturnal ramble or two. And much to my surprise I could remember quite a lot of it, although I’m sure that there was so much more to be going on with.

First off, I’d been on my holidays again and we had had a delay, just like when we were off to the Arctic. There were 50 of us and we were being taken around to some temporary accommodation that had been found for us. And it ended up that we were being lodged in different log cabin or garden sheds, depending upon the class of accommodation that we had booked on the holiday. I trailed along behind everyone else who was given some higher-class cabins and ended up in a cheap garden shed. Seeing as it was in a warehouse it wasn’t too bad and I wasn’t too disappointed.
This bore quite a resemblance to a conversation that I had the other night with Alison, as well as another reminiscence about my legendary trip to the Far North.
Later on, I was doing my Sherlock Holmes impressions back in Victorian times, with my sidekick and a police inspector. We were trying to work out how someone had been shot and murdered in a house where the only other occupant of the house was visibly not involved with anything. It was a house in some kind of upmarket terrace with front gardens with brick walls and gateposts with ornamental pillars. It suddenly occurred to me how it happened and I went off to rig up a system to prove my point. A shotgun wired to the door with a time delay worked by a set of pulleys would blast anyone coming through the doorway a couple of seconds after opening the front door.
And sometime during the night Nerina put in an appearance. It’s a long time since she’s come to visit me, isn’t it?

And while you admire the photo of the beach at Donville-les-Bains and the miserable place where I looked at an apartment, then this morning (or what was left of it) I attacked a few more of the outstanding photographs.

This marathon session, which took me almost right up until tea-time (with a few interruptions) means that I’m now up to date as far back as a week ago.

You can see the efforts by going here and working forward.

With having had a late start this morning, I ended up having a rather late lunch.

And it was such a beautiful afternoon that I made my butties and went out to sit on my wall overlooking the harbour.

No lizards unfortunately – I think that they have gone into hibernation – but there were lots of other things about.

One of the Ile de Chausey ferries was leaving harbour and heading off out to sea.

Not to the island by the look of things, but probably a five-bob trip around the bay for sightseers – unless it’s a private charter because it didn’t seem to be going along any route that I recognised.

But this was when I tried out the zoom/telephoto lens to check that it was working. That’s miles out into the bay near Jullouville

I had a few more goes with the zoom/telephoto lens to make sure that it wasn’t just a one-off success.

Thats the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillais with the climb up to the Roche Gauthier and the blocks of flats up on the skyline.

There doesn’t seem to be much wrong with this photograph

And to underline everything, round on the other side of the Pointe du Roc, the weather was even clearer.

Jersey stood out clearer than I have ever seen it and so I took a photo of the island with the zoom/telephone lens.

Hand-held again – no tripod. And I cropped out a couple of small sections of the photos and enlarged them to see what kind of results they would give.

And if you remember from the other day when I took a few photographs of St Helier and enlarged them, then if anything these today have come out even better than those previously.

St Helier has certainly come out more clearly and more distinctly than it ever has done before.

And in case you have forgotten, that’s about 54 kilometres away from where I’m standing.

Ingrid rang me up this afternoon and we had quite a lengthy chat. So much so that it was rather late when I went for my afternoon walk.

At lunchtime someone had asked me the directions to an exhibition on the Granville soldiers in World War I

I didn’t know where it was but I made a few unofficial enquiries and managed to track it down – in the public rooms at the back here.

And one of the things that impressed me – or should I say “depressed” me was the fact while there were those who were honoured as being tué à l’ennemie, those who died of illness or disease in the army were treated less honourably, and those who were taken prisoner were treated little better than deserters.

One prisoner who escaped and made his way back to his unit via the Netherlands and the UK was treated as a spy or collaborator.

By now, it was quite late, and as I went outside I noticed the crowds gazing out to sea in the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

We were having yet another beautiful sunset this evening. The good day was drawing to a perfect climax. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had such a nice evening.

Apart from that, there wasn’t much else going on and I completed my walk without any further interruption.

Tea was a vegan burger with vegetables, and then I went off for a walk around the headland.

And what a beautiful evening it was too. Not a cloud in the sky, but thousands of stars clearly visible. Just like back in the Auvergne.

So I’ll leave you with a few more photos. I’m off to bed.

One of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey

Canoeing in the sea off the Pointe du Roc

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo

A cropped and enlarged section from a previous photo showing Breville sur Mer

A bit more of a beautiful sunset

Saturday 27th October 2018 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON!

Absolutely, so it was rather later than maybe it ought to have been before I crawled out of bed this morning.

But it’s Saturday, and Saturday is shopping day, so I had my medication, had breakfast, and then had a shower.

Not that there was much breakfast to have because unfortunately we seem to have had an accident. During the night the muesli that I had made the other day somehow managed to fall off the shelf and scatter all over the floor. That was a waste.

on the way up to the shops I observed what might possibly be described as “an incident”. A crowd, including several ambulanciers together with their ambulance loitering on the edge of the quayside looking down towards the water.

I would have gone over to ask them what was happening, except for the fact that there was nowhere to park.

At LIDL there wasn’t much of any interest to tempt me – and even less than usual seeing as I’m not going to be here for a few days. But they did have a couple of things in the €1:00 bin – a wipe-off notice board, a set of A4 binders and a notepad with pen that will be much more use for taking notes around the house instead of on scraps of paper.

BUT was next on the agenda. About this broken shelf. But apparently shelves aren’t included in the guarantee, as, I suppose, so is nothing else that might break down.

But I’m rather disappointed that they had some really decent fridges and freezers on special offer at 30% off that would have been ideal for here. Much bigger and better value, but it’s too late now.

NOZ had the usual rubbish too. Wine at €1:79 a bottle so I bought a few. Not for me, but I never seem to have anything to hand when I’m invited round to people’s houses or I have people round, so it’s gone into store in the bathroom.

They also had a new delivery of maps too, including a new map of all of Europe. Much better quality, much larger scale, much more modern and much more handy to use than the one in Caliburn that dates from … errr … 1992.

I remember the issues that I had going around the Czech Republic in 2015 when I ended up navigating by the stars. High time that I updated everything.

LeClerc came up with the usual stuff, but no sprouts. Even the price tag has been taken off the freezer now. It looks as if the next time I have space in the freezer I’ll have to freeze a pile more.

But they did have frozen peas, and also frozen mushrooms, seeing as I somehow managed to leave the frozen mushrooms that I had bought the other day out on top of the freezer so they had all defrosted.

With no-one keen to commit suicide on the car park today, I made it home without incident, made my butties and then went out to sit on the wall.

But not for long. Even though it was a nice day, the savage wind was really too much for me. I came in and ate them in comfort.

This afternoon US Granville were playing at Avranches down the road in the Coupe de France. I had every intention of going, seeing as the kick-off was at 16:00, but at 15:00 when I should have set out for Avranches I was flat out on the bed, crashed out.

When I awoke, I cleared up the muesli and vacuumed the kitchen area. But that was all that I could manage today.

later on it was the birthday party of Nicole, the “mother” of Gribouille. I’d been invited and I’d bought a box of chocolates for her so I went round. It was raining outside by now. The weather had changed.

We all had a good chat and something to eat, even though there wasn’t much for me.

As is usual, I didn’t stay long. I can’t keep going like I used to do, so that was that. I managed a quick plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil.

And that was that. Off to bed and an early start in the morning. Despite it being Sunday, I have the alarm set. I’m off to Leuven tomorrow on the train.

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

However I shall spare you the details. You are probably eating your tea or something like that right now.

But I was so far away on my travels that I didn’t leave the bed until after the 06:20 alarm which was rather disappointing. But then, I didn’t go to bed until late so I suppose it was only to be expected.

After the medication and so on (I missed breakfast due to one reason or another) I had a shower – and a haircut too. This new hair trimmer works a treat and my hair (such as I have left) looks quite good now.

And then I headed off to the shops.

Just by way of a change I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me so that I would be ready if I were to see anything worth photographing.

And Iw as in luck down at the docks because one of the giant cranes had come back.

I’m not sure why because there were no lock gates to be replaced. It might be replacing the mast in one of the boats but I couldn’t really tell.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few months ago a photo of a house down in the rue du Port where they had demolished some of the walls.

Today, I had noticed that they were cracking on with building up the back walls.

They had made quite a good bit of progress while I was away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I hadn’t been on my way for more than 15 minutes when I realised that I had forgotten the details for my rail tickets. So I’ll have to do that again.

At LIDL grapes were €1:99 per kilo so I grabbed a load of them. Together with, finally, a pastry brush and a few other bits and pieces.

On the way back home I had to go to the Hotel des Impôts to pick up a form. But it’s only open 4 days a week. Can you guess which day of the week it’s closed?

At least, it brought me home via a new route that I don’t use all that often and with different views than the usual.

It was pretty cloudy and miserable as you can see. But none of this stopped the sailing club from taking out some of their pupils today.

Not what I would call plain sailing in this kind of weather, is it?

There’s a really good view over the harbour from this spot too. I’ve not noticed this before.

There’s the Pointe du Roc out there just to the left of centre and the Eglise Notre Dame du Cap Lihou on the skyline just to the right of centre.

Where I live is one of the large buildings just to the left of the church spire.

Walking a little further along the promenade at the bottom of the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillaises, there’s a nice little beach here.

But it’s not a beach for sunbathing or anything like that because bathing isn’t permitted here due to its proximity to the harbour entrance.

To the right are the installations of the Port de Hérel where all of the maritime activities take place and where there is the Youth Hostel.

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

Down at the end of the promenade is a nice-looking block of flats – the Résidence Port Granville – that’s maybe 30 years old or something, with the Roche Gauthier in the background.

That’s the kind of place where I would like to have a little apartment, but I saw how much it costs to rent something even smaller than where I live, and it’s well out of my budget.

That’s not a surprise though is it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the house in the rue St Gaud that was demolished a year or so ago.

The other day we noticed the rear of the plot that was being rebuilt. From down here on the promenade we can see the front of the plot and how far they have advanced with the rebuilding.

Mind you, at this rate it’ll be another year or so before they’ll finish it, I reckon.

I carried on my little stroll along the Port de Herel and I was interrupted yet again.

Earlier today, we saw a large mobile crane working on one of the boats down in the harbour. But here now we have the mobile crane having finished its work and setting off to go back from whence it came.

It’s quite a bit of serious kit, isn’t it? I can think of a thousand uses for one of those back on my farm.

By now, I’d left the port and was climbing my way up the Rampe du Monte Regret and from there, there’s a good view across to the inner harbour.

We noticed in the photo of the cranes earlier today that the Channel Islands boats were moored up in the inner harbour.

Both of them too. Victor Hugo is there of course, but the new one, whose name escapes me for the moment, is also there.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen her back here for quite some considerable time.

I’ve often wondered where she has been for all of the summer. Probably working her passage out of Barneville-Carteret I imagine.

One of these days I’ll have to get myself aboard one or the other and go for a good run around.

Back here I unpacked everything and then made a coffee, seeing as I hadn’t had one yet today. And duly refreshed, I attacked yesterday’s photos.

Lunch was taken indoors in view of the cold, windy, overcast weather. And short commons too because I forgot the lettuce.

The afternoon was spent doing the rest of the photos and working on the pages for the Arctic. It’s really slow progress and I’m not sure why because it’s not as if it’s complicated or anything. I just don’t know what the issue might be.

But then, it didn’t help with having a little half-hour curled up on the office chair.

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

Despite the cold weather, it had brightened up considerably and the sun was out making the day quite pleasant.

And the sun wasn’t the only thing that was out either. The tide was out, and so were the people.

And that wasn’t all either.

The fishermen (at least I imagine that they are fishermen) were also out there working away.

No idea what it is that they are hoping to catch, but it can’t be very much given the size of the boats. But they are out there quite often so it must be something worthwhile.

Further down along the beach, the sun and the low tide had brought out even more members of the public.

They were all there having a good look in the rock pools, presumably for crabs and other crustaceans and the like. Although I have heard that there’s a ban on harvesting from the rocks around here due to pollution issues.

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

And the other day we talked about the old stone construction on the beach that I reckoned was a tidal fish pond.

Now that the tide is going out, we can see it much more clearly this afternoon.

I would have expected to have seen more water in there given the fact that the tide hasn’t long gone out. But there are several people having a ferret about in there to see what they can see.

Round on the town side of the walls, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the rue Paul Poirier for quite some time.

It’s all covered in bunting right now and I’ve no idea why. But it still looks quite interesting from up here.

It’s not as crowded as it usually is either. On a Saturday it’s absolutely heaving, but then that’s market day so that might account for it.

There’s not much going on today so I came back here to carry on work, with another coffee to keep me going.
.

For tea, I had a frozen potato and chick-pea curry from last year. And it was just as delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my night-time walk.

I took the 50mm lens and the tripod with me and took a hotograph in the dark of the rue do Nord inside the walls and the Plat Gousset.

On the left-hand edge of the image is the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

But the purpose of going out so armed was to have some more fun with long exposure photos

The scenery didn’t come up too well, but the moving car lights were a great improvement on what I managed yesterday.

I was out there for a good half-hour amusing myself with the lights, the exposure and learning quite a lot too.

Back here, I sorted myself out and then prepared myself for yet another early night again – I hope.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Hotel des Impôts and then, if I remember, I can pick up the rail tickets.

I’ll leave you to look at a few more of my long-exposure night photographs.

Night-time photography with long exposure times, Rue du Port, Granville, France

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

… a little better day today.

Despite a somewhat late night, I was still up and about before the 06:20 alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels during the night too – setting out from Portsmouth on a ship only for there to be a problem and we all having to disembark on the Isle of Wight. And there being so many of us that the island became dramatically overcrowded.

And that’s rather like the combined plots of a couple of Navy Lark radio programmes to which I was listening during the day yesterday. It’s all getting to me these days, isn’t it?

After breakfast I had a pile of work to do on the other laptop and that took me some considerable time. And there’s still a considerable amount to do too and it’s going to take me for ever to tidy things up.

On this laptop though I attacked the images from yesterday and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either. But they are all on line now anyway.

And for the rest of the morning I carried on with the photos from the High Arctic.

Lunch on the wall again, with my book and my butties and the warm sun. Beautiful it was, and you would never think that it’s almost the end of October right now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos but not for long because I ended up sprawled out on the bed again, flat out. And not just for 5 minutes either but for a good hour or so.

As a result it was 16:40 when I went out for my afternoon walk.

It was still quite a nice afternoon and the sun was still shining. As a result there was quite a crowd of people out there on the beach. Either playing about in the sand or hunting in the rockpools for lobsters and mussels and the like.

Which they immediately share with their friends, because everyone knows that you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

A little bit further on, part of the rue du Nord was fenced off.

There was a cherry-picker parked in the street with some people there working on a house.

I thought at first that they might be preparing it for repointing but on closer inspection it turned out that they were taking out a stone or two above the lintel.

As I have wandered along the old walls, I’ve often seen this feature here which resembles some kind of stone wall built into the sea.

And I’ve often wondered what it might be.

But a visit to that exhibition just before I left for the Arctic came up with the answer.

It’s apparently one of the many tidal fishpools that were found at one time all along the coast here. The tide fills the pools and when it recedes it leaves plenty of water and, hopefully, plenty of fish behind.

Tea tonight was some of the crèpes that I bought the other day with some kind of stuffing and kidney beans tucked in.

Tonight’s walk was with the tripod again but for some reason I couldn’t reproduce the photos from the other night. That must have been beginner’s luck.

This photo of the Baie de Mont St Michel, taken from the car park by the lighthouse didn’t turn out too bad.

But a few others ended up in the recycle bin.

On the other hand, this photo of the full moon, taken from the same place on the Pointe du Roc with the zoom/telephoto lens turned out rather well.

It was with the full 300mm focal length in ISO400, at a speed of 1/800 with an aperture of f5.6.

And then I went to shave the palms of my hands.

Seeing as I had the telephoto/zoom lens on the camera right now after the moon, I took a photo across the bay to St Pair sur Mer.

230mm focal length at f5.6 with ISO800 at a speed of 1.6 seconds and it managed to produce something without too much camera shake.

In the foreground is the roof of one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc

Round at the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour I set myself up with the tripod and the 18-105mm lens and a friendly local looking on.

And we were in luck because here in the outer harbour (the tide was in) there was a fishing trawler performing some kind of nautical danse macarbre as it left the quayside by the fish-processing plant in the moonlight.

IT passed through the harbour gates, which were open seeing as we weren’t all that far after high tide

I’m not quite sure what the trawler was trying to do but once she was in the inner harbour she cruised around for a while as if trying to find a berth in which to bed down.

Her lights stand out really well in the dark.

Talking of lights in the night, you can see a streak of red light in the centre at the bottom of the image.

I’d waited for quite a while in the hope that a car would go past so that I could have the effect of moving red lights, but nothing went past.

Eventually a young kid went past on a moped so that will have to do for now.

Back here now and working, and a raging thirst again. That’s a sign that I’m sickening for something again. And that’s no surprise. I haven’t been right for years now, and getting worse every day.

I’ll try to have an early night if I can and get myself ready for tomorrow. I’m off shopping on foot and I really don’t feel like it.

EPIC HALL

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