Tag Archives: lie in

Sunday 5th November 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… very nice, busy day out today.

I’ve been round at Liz’s for most of the day. We decided a while agos ago to have a bake-in one of these days – an so we fixed on today.

We spent most of the day baking and making soups, and ended up with a huge pile of stuff. There’s –

carrot, coconut and ginger soup
pepper, squash and tomato soup
apple crumble
vegetable piee
coriander hummus
beanburgers

There’s enough here to keep us going for a couple of weeks, I reckon.

We split the proceeds between us but I could only bring a few bits and pieces home as my freezer is, as you know, pretty full right now. And I do wish that I had bought a bigger one.

I can pick up the rest another time.

This morning it’s Sunday and so there was no alarm. And so no-one was more surprised to see when I awoke that it was all of … errr … 05:10. But badger that for a game of soldiers. I went back to sleep until a more realistic 09:10.

I’d been on my travels too. A long complicated voyage but all that I remember of it now is being on a couple of cable-hauled barges going in opposite directions on the Manchester Ship Canal.

After breakfast – and nice fresh muesli too – I had a shower and a clean-up. And then I hit the road in the driving rainstorm. Liz’s two neighbouring kids were there and were in quite a chatty mood. Once they had gone, we could attack the cooking.

Lunch was carrot, coconut and ginger soup, and tea was pie and mash with peas. And delicious it all was too. But it was quite exhausting doing it all and I found it hard to keep awake. In the end I had to come home and crash out for an hour.

In view of the weather I didn’t feel like going for a walk. It’s not a good diea too because I seem to have acquired a streaming head cold after my night out last night. I’m going to bed in a moment instead.

Sunday 29th October 2017 – I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

Indeed.

Three days in succession I’ve been to a public event organised here in Granville, and three days in succession there’s been no buvette.

I just don’t know what the world is coming too.

What’s even worse is that today was US Granville’s 2nd XI match against RSG Courseulles in Regional Division 2 and there was a crowd in the region of 120-150 there to watch the game.

And there is a buvette at the Stade Louis Dior – and it was closed!

I’d had a good night’s sleep too – the long walk had clearly done me some good. And I was awake at 09:20 – or 08:20 in real time because the clocks went back today.

And I had been on my travels too. Something of a nightmare the first bit – as I was watching Jai Quitongo play in the Morton – Skint Midden match and score a beautiful swerving free kick from about 30 yards out – for the Skunks!
Later on, my neighbours started to clear their garden and peg out a driveway for concreting. And this meant that I could clear mine of al of the brambles. It only took me half an hour too, and I uncovered an old car, something like the old Cotina that’s lying around on the farm.

It’s Sunday today so I wasn’t in too much of a rush to do anything. I had something of a laze around. Abd my lunchtime butty was very nice too.

After lunch I walked – yet again – to the football. Today though it was at the Stade Louis Dior – a walk of about 3.5 kilometres – or 7 kilomtres both ways.

RSG Courseulles were mid-table but Granville were next to bottom – and you could see why that would be. I have never seen a team attack so much, have so many shots on goal – several of them completely open – and put them either wide or over the top. The attack was more than woeful – it was appalling.

The sad fact though is that they played the opposition off the park. The two strikers of Courseulles offered nothing up front – simply because they were given no service.

Any nother team could have scored a dozen against Courseulles – and so could Granville have done, but their attack really was shocking. We even had one shot on an open goal hit the post, bounce back into play with all of the defence wrong-footed, and a totally unmarked Granville attacker side-foot it wide from three feet out.

Granville in the end won 2-0 – with a free kick after a couple of minutes and a 30-yarder from a defender after a Granville attack had hit a post and rebounded out.

I walked all the way back afterwards.

My route back gave me a good view of the harbour too. All of the gravel is still there so it seems that whoever is coming for it hasn’t arrived yet, And all of the stuff for Grima is still there too.

Marite seems to have disappeared too. She’s not been around for a while. It’s all quiet down at the docks right now.

After having a little … errr … repose, I made my pizza. and the addition of ground black peeper really does make a difference. It was beautiful.

I shan’t be going for a walk tonight either. I’ve done enough today. An early night and an early start will see me right for the forthcoming week.

Saturday 28th October 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

There I was, doing the rounds of LIDL with a bag full of shopping. Just about to put my shopping on the convenyor when I reached into my pocket for my wallet with my money and bank cards in it.

Yes, I’d had my raincoat on last night, hadn’t I?

I had to dump my bag behind one of the empty tills and nip home for my wallet.

It won’t happen again though. I’ve left €50 in Caliburn and another €50 in the secret pocket in my mobile phone case. But what a silly thing to do!

A strange thing happened this morning. It was 08:20 when I awoke this morning. No alarm. For some reason or other the telephone had stalled at 23:49. And so we didn’t have sucj a good start to the morning anyway.

After doing some stuff on the laptop I went off for my trip around the shops and my unexpected return here. But the old washing machine has now gone to the great laundry in the sky – the dechetterie was open this morning which makes a change. The fridge is there too, along with another pile of cardboard boxes that had accumulated

At the Auchan I did the rest of the shopping. Including some frozen sprouts, frozen mushrooms and frozen peppers. What with the mango sorbet and the loaf of bread the freezer is now full. It’s far too small for what I need and I’ve a good mind to take it back to swap it for a bigger one.

Mind you, I thought that the fridge was far too small too, but I’ve managed to rearrange things around in there and there’s plenty of room in there now. I imagine that once I start to attack the frozen food it will be the same in the freezer there too.

After lunch and a bit of tidying up, I crashed out for half an hour or so, and then I caught up with a few other things that needed doing too.

But this evening US Granvillaise’s 3rd XI were playing ES Hébécrevon on the artificial pitch at the Sports Centre. And as it was a reasonable evening, I dressed up warmly and walked all the way there. It’s about 3.5 kilometres up and down hill, and I reckoned that it would do me no good.

Much to my surprise the Sports Centre was closed up, so there was no buvette. How is this possible? In the Auvergne they wouldn’t even consider having a public event without a buvette, and yet here we are, twice in two days, THis isn’t the France that we know and love, is it?

As for the match itself, Granville were bottom of the league without a win and Hébécrevon were 9th. So I was expecting another defeat. But much to my surprise I saw one of the best matches I’ve seen for quite a while.

Granville were much better than their league position suggested and played some beautiful football. Hébécrevon huffed and puffed but never looked likely to seriously trouble the Granville defence, and the home side scored three of the best goals that I’ve seen for a while.

All three of them breakaways, two of which were solo efforts and the third was a cross from the young lad playing left-wing (who had an excellent game) into the centre to the forward who hit it on the half-volley straight into the corner of the net.

I walked back home wfterwards, stopping for a bag of chips. And nice they were too.

Now I’m off to bed and it’s a lie-in tomorrow with an extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back tomorrow – 1 hour if you live in the real world, 50 years if you live in the UK, 120 years if you voted for Brexit and 250 years if you voted Conservative.

Sunday 22nd October 2017 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was one of the best yet. I think that the addition of some ground black pepper gave it that extra touch. It certainly went down well.

That was more than I did last night. 02:00 when I went to bed, more out of desperation than anything else, and I was still awake at 03:00 reading a book. The bad patch of my skin was itching like mad, even with some of this radical cream that I have, I had a bad itch on my wrist and I had cramp … in my fingers. I was a mess.

Mind you, I did manage to go on my travels though. I was on stage playing bass to a pile of Steppenwolf numbers. And I can still remember them now.

With there being no alarm, it was 09:22 when I awoke, but 10:30 when I left my bed. And it was cold in here too – about 14.5°C. That was the cue to hunt out a sweater. Winter is on its way, without a doubt.

After breakfast I had a shower and then did some more tidying up in here. I even had the vacuum cleaner out.

For lunch I just had a quick snack, and then Liz and Terry turned up. Hence the tidying. Liz had brought with her some home-made vegan apple flapjacks which was very sweet of her. We had coffee and then went for a long walk to the headland, down the footpath into the port where we stopped for coffee.

We returned by way of the town centre, the promenade by the casino and then up the staircase into the old town and then around the walls back here.

it was good to be out and about for a long walk. It’s tired me out again and that’s good news. I might even be able to have a good night’s sleep.

Saturday 21st October 2017 – IT SEEMS THAT FATE …

… is conspiring to be on my side just for a change

I awoke this morning without the help of the alarm clock, and that hasn’t happened for quite a while, has it?

But the bad news about this was that it was light outside. It was actually 08:52 and the alarm hadn’t gone off. The battery had gone flat during the night. So much for my efforts in trying to regulate my day, but at lzeast it gave me a chance to catch up on my sleep and that made me feel a little better.

The trouble with this though is that it ha a kind of domino effect. Getting up late meant that breakfast was late, and meant that going to the shops was late too.

First stop was LIDL of course. I stocked up with a few things there, as well as a ile of grapes. The price has increased today, but only to €2:29 a kilo and that’s still cheap.

A visit to some electrical shops was next on the cards to see if I can better what I saw in BUT the other day. I had a good look round but nothing seemed to compare with what was on offer down the road.

After the food shopping at Auchan I went to bite the bullet and sign away my life at BUT but … ARRRGGGHHH … too late! It’s lunch-time now and the two-hour lunch in France is sacred. The shop is closed.

And so I came back here, unloaded the shopping and had lunch.

After lunch, I did a little clearing up in here. It’s looking quite untidy after I’ve been here for a week – only I can do that – and having had a little snooze (and I’m not sure why) I had a chat to Rosemary on the telephone. And that was a chat that went on for several hours. We have a cunning plan for the New Year.

That took me nicely to tea-time. And just for a change I had baked potatoes, beans and vegan sausages. Nice they were too. And there’s enough left over for a couple of days too.

The weather put paid to my plans to go for a walk. It changed dramatically yet again late in the afternon and we ended up with a howling gale and a terrific rainstorm. I wasn’t going out in that.

But the one thing about having a lie-in and having a crash-out during the day is that it’s evening again and I’m not tired. Another late night, I reckon.

Sunday 15th October – OUR STORY YESTERDAY …

… ended with me creeping off to bed at 20:00 or thereabouts for a lie down.

It restarted at about … errr … 00:30 when I suddenly sat bolt upright again. Wide awake, of course, and that was that.

Interestingly, I’d been on my travels too. Out to sea in a small ship again but I’ve no idea where to.

I wasn’t wide awake enough to do all that much though. I had a mess around on the laptop but couldn’t keep the concentration, and I read a book for a while. By 04:00 or thereabouts I was ready to go off to sleep again.

And go on my travels again. This time we were camping – at one of these steam engine rallies or something like that. We were one of the first to arrive, and we had two tents so we could have had the choice of places. But somehow we had managed to cram ourselves into a tiny corner where there wasn’t much room to move about. It was then that I realised that I had left my sleeping bag and spare clothes behind, and I’d also forgotten to bring the spare tent pegs. The plastic ones that we had were not up to doing the job in this soil.
And then I moved on to being in a restaurant – some kind of posh house-type of place. But I just can’t remember now what was going on there.

09:27 when I awoke (it’s Sunday so there’s no alarm of course) but it was … errr … nothing like that when I finally crawled out of bed. I missed my bed while I was away … "you’ll have to improve your aim" – ed … and so I made the most of it.

Making muesli was the highlight of the morning, seeing as I had run out, but this fridge is finished. There’s an issue with the thermostat which means that it switches off, the fridge warms up, the ice melts everywhere, and the thermostat doesn’t switch back in until it’s too late. Everything inside the fridge is drenched.

After breakfast I went down into town to see if any of the shops were open. But we are now on winter hours of course so the little supermarket down below was closed. But never mind – it was a nice walk and did me good.

Just by way of a change, I had a visitor. My neighbour who looks after my keys came to see how I was doing, which was nice. But not so nice seeing as I had everything out and the place was a total tip. Doesn’t it always happen like this? Still, I gave him and his wife a little present for being so kind.

And that, dear reader, is your lot. I managed to rustle up some food (pasta, veg and tomato sauce) for tea but apart from that I’ve hardly moved. I should be going for a walk but I’ll postpone that for today. I had a little walk at lunchtime as you know.

So tomorrow we’re back in the routine. There’s an alarm set, and I need to visit the shops for just about everything. I tested Caliburn and he started up, which was useful. It’s been nearly 9 weeks since he’s had a run out. A little drive will do him good.

And I’m going to look for some new stuff too. A fridge, a freezer and a washing machine. High time I organised myself.

Monday 9th October 2017 – HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And everyone around here is celebrating and giving thanks – for tonight I’ll be on the bus back to Montreal – always assuming that it doesn’t forget me like last year.

I’d had a really early night again last night – alone again, as it happens, and I’d been off on my travels again. back in Virlet as it happens, and everyone was poking fun at me, although there didn’t seem to be any reason why. But I approached the Secretary of the Commune and she explained to me that I was wearing odd shoes. I had a look, and it took quite some doing, even on a close inspection, to see that they were different. How anyone else had noticed from a distance away at a casual glance was beyond me. I asked which “pair” she preferred, and she replied that the “dark blue” shoes were preferable. However they looked the same colour to me and while it might have been dark blue in reality, on my travels last night I reckoned that they were black. So off I trotted back home to look for a matching shoe, but instead found a pair that were a real pair, but were black, and nothing like as highly-polished as the ones that I was wearing (because they really were highly polished). And so, do I ignore the catty remarks, do I carry on hunting for “the other shoe” or do I put on the black, dirty shoes and if so how would everyone else in the village react?

When my alarm went off I went off to ride the porcelain horse, and encountered Cujo the Killer Cat on the way back. I went back to bed seeing as no-one else was stirring, and she stayed there with me for a while before disappearing off.

Eventually, the clatter of dishes from the kitchen told me that Rachel was up and about so I went to help her prepare the breakfast brunch. Famous the whole world over, as I have said.

My share of the breakfast was the beans on toast with hash browns and one of my vegan burgers.

In the afternoon, Amber’s boyfriend came round and we all chilled out and did precisely nothing at all. Round about 14:30, Hannah and her friend left to go back to University at Antigonish and the rest of us, having said goodbye, carried on chatting.

Tea for me was the rest of the vegan burgers, the rest of the beans, and some left-over potatoes from the Thanksgiving meal, followed by rice pudding ditto. Then I went for a shower to wake myself up.

At 19:45 I took my leave of everyone and Rachel drove me to Florenceville and the bus stop. We were an hour early which I preferred after the dreadful performance last year that inconvenienced just about everyone except the bus driver.

We weren’t alone either. One of Rachel’s neighbours was there, putting her son on the bus back to Montreal where he’s at University studying aero-engineering.

We were there quite early, as I have said.

And so, as you might expect, the bus was late arriving.

And Coach Atlantic is spending its money too, so it seems, because this was a modern, clean, comfortable coach, which makes a change from one or two that we’ve travelled on.

Not to say that they were ever dirty or uncomfortable – far from it. But they were starting to become rather long in the tooth. This one was brand-spanking new, with wi-fi, but, alas, still with no power points.

And no data tracker too. Most buses and coaches these days have data trackers fitted so that you can go to the website of the company and see where the bus or coach is. Once Coach Atlantic fits these to their coaches, there won’t be any of this “missing the bus” or waiting around for well over an hour in the pouring rain.

Because pouring rain was what we had had all day. I’d never seen anything like this rain. Heavy, yes, but not persistently so all day.

So having dozed all the way to the St Lawrence, I’m now at Riviere du Loup waiting for the bus that’s coming from the Gaspé that will take me on to Montreal.

It’s always a long night on the overnight bus but at least I don’t have far to stagger from the bus terminal to the hotel where i’ll be staying until tomorrow evening.

8th October 2017 – CUJO THE KILLER CAT …

… didn’t come to visit me last night.

And that’s just as well, because I wasn’t there.

I’m not sure where we started off last night, or even who I was with, but I can tell you exactly where we finished – and that was where we have finished quite a few times just recently, with Ford Cortinas scattered across various lock-ups in various parts of Crewe. It’s a few times that we’ve been in this situation, and I’m not sure why.
We moved on from here. I was an undercover policeman working in a partnership with a female policewoman. We had booked into a hotel undercover as man and wife in order to have a close look at the hotel’s security arrangements. But it all went wrong when I caught a young guy trying to steal a car – a Hillman Minx V or VI, and left-hand-drive too, from the hotel car park. He had a “health crisis” when we was caught, and it became obvious from my response to it all that I was a policeman and not who I was pretending to be.
And if that isn’t enough, I was in digs in a dingy seaside town when I heard that Michael, a boy from my school, was also in digs there. I went round to see him and his landlady knocked on his door to say that he had a visitor. He came out and, not recognising me, walked right past me. From there I ended up sitting in a church. It was a multi-denominational one and I was getting married, at the same time as someone else.They were catholic so they were on the right side, and I was a protestant so I took up my position on the front row to the left of the aisle.But there was only me, and more and more of the others so I was gradually crowded off my bench. I ended up outside with a fold-up chair with another few people, chatting to a young girl, and we watched a girl of about 5 go past in a full-length burqa. I made some remark about the “photographer” to this girl. Just then my bride arrived. It was Nerina. I offered her my fold-up chair but she went to sit on an empty bench nearby, near this girl who was sitting in a sand heap. I introduced them and much to my surprise Nerina was being sociable, chatting and playing cards with her. Not like Nerina at all.

But the second reason was that I was in bed by 20:00, curled up with the door closed, fast asleep. Even if Cujo the Killer Cat had wanted to come into my room, she wouldn’t have been able to.

I had to go off a few times during the night as well – down the corridor to ride the porcelain horse. And that’s just as well because I would probably still be in bed right now.

Everyone else had a lie-in this morning – there wasn’t much movement around until about 11:00 – not that that is unusual for a Sunday around here of course, as well you all know.

No Sunday brunch though. The Taylor breakfast brunches are famous the whole world over and people travel miles to participate. But today we are going out for lunch. Tonight will be my last night here (and isn’t that a shame? Hasn’t that gone quickly?) and so I’ve invited everyone out for lunch.

We crossed over into the USA and fighting the rainstorms, headed off for Presque Isle, Maine. There’s a Chinese restaurant there, the Oriental Pearl, that everyone likes that does a Sunday buffet lunch, and they do a vegetable and tofu stir-fry for me.

That took us several hours, and then Darren had a surprise for me. They have been expanding the shopping mall down the road, and one of the new businesses that has installed itself in there is Harbor Freight. Huge auto and tool suppliers they are, and I’ve visited their stores on many occasions. But it’s nice to see one in this particular neck of the woods.

Our exit coincided almost exactly with the exit of the girls from JC Penney’s – that couldn’t have been timed better – and we went across the road to Marden’s.

Marden’s is one of those chains of shops that buys up bankrupt stock, fire-damaged stock, all that kind of thing, and they are veritable Aladdin’s Caves of all kinds of things. Most of the tools and accessories in Strider come from there.

We had the usual complications at the border coming back, and then we all launched into something exciting.

A while ago, Hannah and Darren sent their DNA away to be analysed, and the results came back today. Their roots are clearly identified with Darren having Irish/Scandinavian ancestry (which ties in with the Viking settlements over there) and Hannah, as well as that, having British ancestry with a bit of Mediterranean thrown in for good measure (which ties in with what we know about her mother’s side).

That’s led of to a massive ancestry search and there have been all sorts of exciting things being thrown up the research. Mostly on her father’s side and some on ours too, which is interesting.

Anyway, I’m off to bed and I’ll leave them to it. Doubtless there will be more surprises being thrown up during the night.

Thursday 5th October 2017 – FOURTEEN HOURS.

I told you last night that I was just off to lie down for half an hour or so to rest.

And indeed I did. But not for half an hour though. I hit the sack round about 18:45 and it was just before 09:00 that I awoke. That’s just over 14 hours of sleep. I must have needed it – I’ll tell you that!

So 09:00 it was that I awoke. But it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of bed. And if it hadn’t been for the necessity to go and stroll the parapet, I would probably still be in there now.

I was on my travels too during the night. Hanging on underneath a bus watching the prop shaft revolve around to see where the problem with it was – a highly dangerous occupation perilously close to the ground. And my brother was there alongside me, giving me “solidarity”, something that would never ever happen to me in my life seeing that members of my family wouldn’t share a bus shelter with each other during a monsoon.
And from there we progressed onwards to me confronting a Border Crossing person – a very young female who was carrying three small teddy bears hugged to her chest. Despite the altercation, I did have to admit that I found her extremely attractive and when I confessed this to a friend he suggested that I go and chat her up. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”. But even on a nocturnal ramble I could work out that a 40-year age gap was a mountain too high to climb, despite the encouragement from everyone else.

So, a “somewhat late” breakfast, and then I loitered around here foe a “somewhat late” lunch – not doing too much to exert myself.

But after lunch I stripped out the back of Strider, collected up about three tonnes of rubbish which found its way into the incinerator, and sorted out the stuff that wouldn’t survive the winter, and brought that inside for Rachel.

Tonnes of stuff left over for food – I didn’t eat all that much while I was away. The tinned stuff and vacuumed stuff will keep, though, but the stuff in glass bottles and the easy-open tins that can burst when they freeze up in winter, they came inside.

And here’s a surprising thing. Strider has travelled over 12,000 kilometres in just 5 weeks, and as well as the dramatic improvement in fuel consumption, Strider didn’t consume a single drop of oil.

There’s still the same amount in that there was when we set out. And for a vehicle with 209,000 kilometres on the clock that’s pretty much extraordinary.

I didn’t do too much later. I reckoned that that was enough. Darren and Rachel came back from work and we had a good chat, and then Hannah turned up from University for the weekend with another cat that she cares for.

Of course that was a big mistake. The cat here is not called “Cujo the Killer Cat” for nothing.

So I’m off to bed now. It’s past my bed time. I’m going to have another relaxing day tomorrow as well. Apparently there are “plans” for the weekend.

Sunday 27th August 2017 – NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL …

… a good night’s sleep!

Despite all of the time that it took me to drop off to sleep last night, it was … errr … 08:50 when I awoke this morning – the joys of it being Sunday and no alarm clocks!

And I had been on my travels during the night too – but just don’t ask me where I went because as soon as I awoke this morning it all went clean out of my head.

With it being a Sunday, it’s the legendary Taylor Breakfast Brunch day and so we had to loiter around until 11:00 until everyone gathered their wits and we started cooking. And by 12:00 we all had our snouts in the trough.

I was starving too for some reason (I’ve probably got worms) so I ended up making some more toast.

After lunch, Rachel proposed some washing so I nipped and had a shower while my dirty clothes walked off on their own into the washing machine. And then it was time to load up Strider.

I’m not sure what’s happening here but either I’ve lost a pile of stuff or else I’m getting better at packing him, because there seems to be much more room inside.

That will come in handy because I’m leaving here tomorrow and getting on the Trans-Canada Highway at Woodstock. And despite there being just Strawberry Moose and me inside when we set off, by the time we get to Woodstock we’ll be half a mill … "ohhh no!" – ed.

Much to my surprise, one of the LED light sticks and the portable battery pack still had charge in them. But everything is being charged up and there are some water bottles freezing in the freezer ready for the 12-volt fridge.

I had a rest after that (I’m not as young as I was) and when Darren came home from cutting tyres we did some work downstairs.

Cue another rest.

The wi-fi here is a little flaky so Darren had bought a new modem and router so this was my task for the evening. And you can see that it all works.

As well as that, I made some garlic bread for our pasta supper.

So now I’m off for an early night – my last night here for a while. Tomorrow I’m hitting the road to Saint John for Strider’s insurance and licence tags, and to go and see Ellen who is in hospital there.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while;

Sunday 6th August 2017 – THAT’S A NICE …

… way to spend an afternoon!

Sitting in my living room with the window wide open, listening to the music. It’s the Festival of the Upper Town today and they had a live band playing in the little square.

No need for me to go out and watch – I could hear them quite clearly from here!

This morning I had a little lie-in. Awake as late as 07:45, but it was 08:15 when I crawled out

I’d been on my travels too during the night, with The One That Got Away. Her daughter was a ballet star but TOTGA thought that she wasn’t receiving the attention that she was due. I thought that she should force the issue by saying that she had received offers from elsewhere and was seriously considering them. But TOTGA thought that that was a bad idea in case her bluff was called.

I was out early for my baguette before the tourists cleaned out the place.

The skies were really clear this morning – no haze about at all and so I nipped in for the new camera and the new telephoto lens.

Jersey was there looking quite clear 30-odd miles away so I snapped off a quick photo.

The focal length isn’t as long as the one for the Nikon D5000 but it’s auto-focus and it’s come out reasonably clear for what it is.

Lunch on the wall as usual, in the bright warm sun, and then I went for a walk into the old town. The village fête wasn’t much to write home about, but there was some excitement.

They rigged up some kind of jousting machine where a member of the crowd was pushed down the hill in a wheelbarrow by a friend.

The person in the wheelbarrow had a long stick and the aim was to push the stick through the hole in the dolly.

It’s not so easy going down a hill at speed in a wheelbarrow, and if you miss the hole, you catch a soaking – just like these two girls.

Tonight was the best pizza yet – cooked to perfection. I did remember to take out the bottom baking tray and that certainly helped.

Now I’m off for a walk See if anything is still going on at the village fête. But I doubt it – it’s been quiet for the last hour.

Sunday 30th July 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I had a proper Sunday?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Good Old Days Sunday was a Day Of Rest. And not only that, but a lie-in too. And there were some Sundays when I didn’t show before midday too.

Those days seemed to be long-gone, didn’t they? Several times just recently I’ve been wide away on a Sunday long before my usual rising time of 07:00.

So what happened today that I was asleep until … errr … 10:13?

And a good sleep too. I was away on my travels too – carrying on from yesterday round here somewhere outside, with with three other people. All of them pseudo-priests, and were in fact three young lads whom I knew when I worked in Brussels.

10:15 in here, breakfast over by 10:45, and then a sit-down for an hour or so. Far too late to go for the baguette at the magasin de presse so I reckoned a quick stroll down the hill.

But what the …! What’s going on here?

Hordes of people clinging to various vantage points looking at what looks like a ship blowing off thousands of gallons of water for some reason or another.

I had to go and check that out. Maybe it was a shipwreck or something (I’d seen a ship on the horizon in the dark last night);

But I didn’t get too far down the hill though.

The Marité might not have been at home (she’s been gone for a few days now) but lots of other people were there on her quayside.

Some kind of military vehicle display I reckon.

So cancel the baguette I nipped down to the fritkot for a bag of chips and threw all of my plans into the air.

Some kind of military vehicle display it was indeed.

Probably about 20 wartime vehicles all told, of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Tanks, jeeps, lorries and motorcycles, and so I had a good wander around.

Quite a lot of stuff that I would have happily taken home in a heartbeat.

But pride of place anywhere, anyhow and on any occasion has to go to the magnificent Welbike.

Designed to fold to fit into a parachute supply container, these were used by paratroopers and resistance fighters all over Occupied Europe.

A brilliant idea, but the Villiers 98cc two-stroke engine was hopelessly underpowered for the rough terrain and many were abandoned by the paratroopers as an unnecessary encumbrance once the War opened out.

Naturally, this part of France, not too far from the D-Day beaches, would be where you might expect the odd one or two to surface every now and again.

From there I wandered off down the quayside and onto the harbour mole to see if I could see anything that was going on where that ship might have been.

It had cleared off, so it can’t have been a shipwreck, but nevertheless I had a superb view of the Iles de Chausey and so I gave the new zoom lens a run-out.

And the verdict? Not as good as I would have liked, but I’ve had much worse than this. And it IS automatic focus.

But it did occur to me that I’ve not taken a photograph of the port of Granville from this vantage point yet.

I was over there where that black triangle was the other day, and you can see one of the boats that go to the Iles de Chausey in the bay next to it.

To the left of centre are the lock gates for the commercial port. It’s a tidal basin so when the tide is going out they close the gates so that the water stays in and the big ships like Pluto and Victress can stay afloat.

I waled all the way back to here via the Coastal Path. First time that I’d done that.

There’s a good view right back across the port and the town from up here, and you can see the ship repairer’s yard too. They have a novel way of hoisting ships out of the water.

So I carried on back here but couldn’t see anything to suggest what that ship or whatever it was might have been doing.

And had a rest when I arrived. It was a long walk back here – 4.8 kilomtres in fact according to the Fitbit.

Tea was pizza tonight (well, it IS Sunday) and I had a chat with Liz on the internet. Now another walk and an early night. Start again at 07:00 tomorrow.

We have church bells going off and a choir singing in the vicinity tonight.

Sunday 23rd July 2017 – THAT WAS A LOVELY …

… pizza tonight.

And it would have been even lovelier had Brain of Britain taken out the baking tray from the bottom of the oven. D’ohhhh!

So having had a coffee last night far later than is good for me, it was about 01:20 when I crawled off to bed last night. And despite waking up at 07:45, I thought that there was little chance of that, so I turned over again.

I reckon that 08:50 is as good a time as any to leave my stinking pit on a Sunday. But that meant a hurried scramble down to the magasin de presse for my baguette before the grockles cleared out the supply.

And, sad as it is to say, I have been “observed”.

My usual spec on the wall at lunch was once more occupied by grockles so I had to sit elsewhere next to a mother and young daughter grockle group a little farther down. And some woman walking her dog came over to me “what’s up? Have the tourists pinched your usual place?”

Yes, I’ve been well and truly fingered, haven’t I?

And I wasn’t alone either – and I don’t mean grockles and women with dogs.

Sitting there minding my own business when along came a young tabby-and-white tomcat. He went around the various groups of people scrounging food, and came over to me to see what I had. Of course I had nothing for him, but he let me pick him up and give him a stroke.

Very relaxing, stroking a cat. It’s good for the stress.

So as well as crashing out for half an hour this afternoon, I’ve been on the blog again. A few more pages unravelled, but one that didn’t even merit a placeholder back in December 2011 has now evolved to almost 1700 words.

There have been a few like that too, haven’t there? I wonder what was so important back in 2011 and 2012 when I never found the time to go back and write up pages like this.

And I’ve had another little play with a computer program.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am a big user of Paint Shop Pro. The first serious computer program that I ever bought in 1996 and it’s served me faithfully for all kinds of image editing ever since – until I … errr … mislaid the disc.

I’ve turned my attic at Les Guis upside down on numerous occasions trying to find it, but to no avail whatever.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "thank goodness" – ed … on eBay the other week was a copy of PSP 8.1 – a major upgrade with many more useful features than my old PSP 7 that has done me almost 20 years service.

The price was far less that what I paid back in 1996 too and so I mentioned it to Terry and he duly obliged.

So that’s me now with about 4 years of work to catch up. I hope that I can remember how to use it!

I’ll make a start when I come back from my walk. It’s actually stopped raining for once.

Sunday 25th June 2017 – WITH IT BEING …

… Sunday, that calls for a lie-in.

And quite right, too.

So having had a rather late-ish night to ensure that I would be well away with the fairies, and having lain in bed until I couldn’t possibly lie there any longer, it was all of … errr … 08:05 when I finally arose.

Some lie-in, hey?

So after breakfast I vegetated for a short while and then hit the streets. The depot de pain here is closed today and the boulangerie down at the bottom of the hill is closed for holidays, and so this meant something of a trek. And it was a nice day for it too – not too warm and not too sunny either.

First of all though, I had to find some salad dressing. In the LeClerc, it all has milk in it. The Carrefour does not, but there’s another supermarket called Coccinelle. That was open and they came up with the business. Cheap and basic, but with no milk, and I can add herbs and spices and some mustard to it. I’m sure that I can make something of it if I try.

And the guy in the shop said how much he liked my accent. While that’s a compliment, it’s no good in my scheme to passer inaperçu – “pass by unnoticed”.

I’d bought a lovely baguette or two last Sunday from the big boulangerie near the Tourist Information place and the queue outside the door showed me that I was not the only one to like their bread. So I queued.

it was the right choice too, because sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour at lunchtime, I remarked to myself just how nice this baguette was. It’s a shame that it’s such a hike down to fetch it, otherwise I would be down there every day.

As for tea tonight, it’s pizza night of course. And with the oven, while I might not have a pie to bake I went for the rice pudding option. I’ve tasted better, which is no surprise as you can’t buy dessert rice around here, but I’ve also tasted worse too. And there’s enough for another two nights.

I want to get the most that I possibly can out of this oven while it’s running.

And what’s been the plan for today then?

Not a lot, seeing as it’s Sunday. We’ve had the usual crash-out this afternoon, which is a shame, but we’ve had a really good session on the blog. Just a few more days and January 2012 will be complete. And with this new speed-editing facility that I discovered, attacking the modernisation of what I modernised when I first started the modernisation procedure has proceeded apace too.

But tomorrow I have one or two urgent things to do so I need to be on top form.

Early night, anyone?

Sunday 4th June 2017 – IT’S SUNDAY!

And so I had a lie in – until all of 08:05! Will this luxury and indolence ever end?

Mind you, I nearly didn’t because I was on my travels again last night – quite early too, and it was such a nightmare that I sat up bolt-upright and couldn’t go to sleep for ages afterwards.

It concerned a young man who had a harem, if that’s the word, of women aged from about 15 to their 20s. Five of them, there were. And he treated them cruelly – a real sadist who used to do things like connect them up to electric currents and all of that kind of thing. Totally horrendous stuff. I didn’t know why they stuck it but they did, for reasons known only to themselves. But it was decided after a while to raid this place, free these women and do something about the young man in charge. And so we did. We forced our way into the property and managed to secure these five women. But the man was nowhere to be seen. We questioned these women intently about it and eventually the younger one cracked and said that he was in the back room with “the woman he took from the car”. It seemed that a woman aged about 25 had been abducted a few days ago. Now we knew where she was. We had to smash down the door into this back room and when we did, we saw that it was like some kind of gruesome operating theatre. I knew, even in my dream, exactly what I was going to see and I did see it too. And if I were to describe it to you it would put you off your tea for a week.
Ironically, as this dream progressed, it was very much like déjà-vu. I knew in my dream exactly what the next steps were going to be as if my subconscious had dreamt it before and knew in my dream that I had dreamt it before (if that makes any sense).

It shocked me to my senses – such as they are – for a while anyway.

After breakfast I strolled down to the magasin de presse for my baguette and then spent the rest of the morning working on upgrading the blog. That’s coming along nicely now.

At lunchtime I took my butties and my book and went to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour for a while in the sunshine; And beautiful it was too. When I felt the urge I went for a walk around to see if I could find the bus stop for the local bus that passes near here, and sure enough, there it is. It’s not as convenient as it might be, with this block of buildings situated right in between two stops. So either way, I have a 5-minute walk with my big suitcase. Still, it’s much more accessible than the Auvergne where going anywhere involves native bearers, three months supplies and a couple of hunting parties.

This afternoon I didn’t do a lot and ended up speaking for hours on the phone to Ingrid. It’s nice to hear her dulcet tones again.

And as I type this, I can smell the smell of the pizza cooking in the oven and it’s overwhelmingly delicious. It will be a good tea tonight.

And tomorrow I’ll be going on a major expedition myself into town. I’ll have to rest up properly this evening.

EPIC HALL

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