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Tuesday 12th June 2018 – I’VE HAD ONE …

… of those days where no matter how hard I’ve tried, I’ve gone one pace forward but two paces backwards. It’s frustrating.

It didn’t help matters by being wide awake yet again at 05:20 this morning. I’m not sure why either because there was no noise about and I hadn’t wet the bed either.

Nevertheless, it was a much more sensible and respectable 06:30 when I crawled out from under the covers and faced the world.

After the usual morning routine and a relax, I started on the clothes ordering. That’s n°1 task.

My choice of clothing is really easy – it’s all black and yellow and comes mostly from a place in St Helens, UK where they embroider my own little logo onto the clothes. Stuff there is reasonably cheap, reliable, reasonable quality and it saves me having to worry about what to wear.

It’s been nearly six years since I last had a clothing order and what I’m wearing now, the polo shirts particularly, are looking their age. A bit baggy and faded. So high time that I had some new stuff. The older stuff will make their way to Canada and stay in Strider

All of that took much more time than it should because there was a continual series of interruptions. I can’t even remember what they are now

Apart from that, having had an unbelievable success the other day in resurrecting an old hard drive I had a go at resurrecting a dead laptop and two old external drives. But unfortunately lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place and I have been singularly unsuccessful in that respect.

Lunch was taken inside today seeing as it was a miserable overcast morning. But by the time that I went out for my evening walk it had brightened up and was quite pleasant.

There’s a street fair here in the old town at the weekend where loads of artists will be exhibiting their works of art.

This involves quite a bit of preparation and they seem to be prettying up the Place Maurice Marland already with huge photos, although whatever might be impressive about these has totally passed me by, I have to say.

And I wonder what the wooden framework is for. I suppose that I’ll find out in due course.

Minette was waiting for me on her windowsill and let me pick her up for a stroke again this evening. I seem to be quite popular these days.

This afternoon though, as well as tackling the guitar, I’d had another session on that blog entry that I’m trying to update. I thought that I wasn’t making much progress but when I realise that so far I’ve written a world-record 3878 words and there’s still a long way to go, and what I have written has involved a lot of research, then maybe I have made more progress than I realise.

For tea tonight there was a little bit of Bombay potato left over from before I went away. I added a small tin of mushrooms to it and made some rice with vegetables. That made a decent meal.

but it wasn’t until I found myself drifting off just now that I realised that I’d gone all day up to that point without falling asleep. And with such an early start too. But I’m not going to crow. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, as I have said before.

I’ll go to bed shortly anyway and have a good sleep. I need to do some serious thinking tomorrow and concoct a cunning plan because ill as I am, I’m not going to let the grass grow under my feet.

And incidentally – have I had those two quotes from BUT and LeClerc yet?

Monday 11th June 2018 – I REALLY DON’T KNOW …

… why it’s so difficult to give my money away.

As I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … there’s supposed to be a recession on, and yet shops seem to be totally unwilling to take your money off you.

I had to go to LeClerc this morning to pick up the kitchen estimate that I had asked for last Tuesday. “Ohh yes – I haven’t finished it yet”. Since Tuesday! But at least he gave me a print-out of the price of the components.

And he can forget that. €2400 and that’s BEFORE we start to talk about any electrical appliances.

And he couldn’t do what I asked him about the cabinets. “It won’t work out” he says. And that’s nonsense too, because I can make it work without a moment’s effort. I want two cabinets, one of 90cms and one of 120cms, one on top of another, but with the bottom one turned at 90% so it opens to the front door of the apartment so I have somewhere to put my shoes and keys.

Just HOW difficult is that?

“Anyway, you’ll have your plan tonight”. So he’s clearly going to be working some very late hours because it’s almost 21:30 and it’s not arrived yet.

Prior to that, I’d been to BUT, and I made sure that I was there when it opened at 10:00 too. I finally found the girl who is doing the kitchens this week “but I’m booked up”.
“Total nonsense” I retorted. and told her what I thought of the arrangement, especially as I’d been fobbed off last week too and that was still rankling with me.

In the end, she agreed to see me at 14:00 hours, which just goes to show what you can do when you set your mind to it.

There was also the delivery point to visit as there was another parcel awaiting me. But no rizes for guessing that it was closed this morning. Monday is never a good day to try to do anything in France.

In the end, I went to the LeClerc supermarket and did some shopping. I need to eat anyway.

I need to sleep too, because I’m not getting any right now. I was in bed early enough after my exertions yesterday but it was very hard to drop off. And being wide awake at 06:00 was definitely not part of the plan.

There was plenty of time after breakfast and before I needed to hit the streets so I made a start on one of the pages of my trip to the desert back in April (was in THAT long ago?). And this page is going to rumble on and on because I’m far from finished, what with all of the interruptions.

Back out at 13:45 and stuck behind the grockles admiring the seagulls again and people who are totally unable to drive. But I was there in plenty of time nevertheless.

And now I understand why this girl only wants two appointments each day. Because despite it being a “point and click” 3D program that she uses to calculate the kitchens with an automatic counter and pricer, 90 minutes later we were still at it and we were far from finshed.

And she was another one who couldn’t understand what I was meaning about the two pieces of furniture one on top of another. And when I finally got it through to her, she replied that the computer wouldn’t do that.

So I took the computer mouse, highlighted the piece of furniture, pressed the “rotate” function and selected “90% anti-clockwise”. Took me 5 seconds.

“Ohh, I didn’t know it could do that!”

So she’s another one who is going to be working very late because it’s now 21:45 and despite her promise to do it today, it’s not here yet.

Mind you, she needn’t bother. I obtained a printout of the “price to date” and we were already at €2200 before we talk about the appliances. This IKEA price is looking a bargain.

After that I visited a few more shops, like GIFI and Centrakor (coming out of which I was drenched in a sudden, unexpected rainstorm) to see what they had going, and I went to pick up my parcel too.

Back here I had a coffee and a play on the guitar, and by then it was tea time. Vegan burger in onion gravy with rice and vegetables. Delicious.

And I’ve had my evening walk too.

So an early night and I need it too. I have quite a lot to do tomorrow.

And aren’t i getting crabby in my old age?

Monday 4th June 2018 – I’M NOT SURPRISED …

… that there are people complaining that there’s a recession going on.

Here I am, with a pile of money burning a hole in my pocket (well, I’m not, but you’ll see where we are going with this) and no-one wants to take it off me.

At least, at Brico Cash this afternoon, they had done my quote for this kitchen. But it’s not all that cheaper than IKEA – not when you consider the difference in quality.

But I wasn’t going to leave it at that. Next stop was the LeClerc DIY place, that was having a promotion on kitchens. And despite all of this money (there isn’t going to be much change from €2000 to buy what I want, if the landlord agrees to pay it) that I’m planning to commit (on my landlord’s behalf) it took over 20 minutes for someone to come to see me.

And then we had the usual salesman’s performance.
“Which worktop do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
“And which handles do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
“And which tap do you want?” – “I told you, the cheapest”.
And so we went on and on. And then he showed me two sinks to chose from. One was €98:00 and the other one was €105.
“What’s up with the one at €57:00?” – “Ohh – do you want that?”

So you can see that when I finally receive the estimate in my mailbox I won’t be going there. Someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of “le moins cher”.

But the icing on the cake has to be at BUT. They too are having a kitchen promotion so I went there. I had to wait 15 minutes while the salesgirl was dealing with a customer (but that’s not a problem) and then we got down to business.

“We only do this by appointment”
“OK, so let’s make an appointment”
“I’m going on holiday for Friday night so it won’t be for three weeks”
“So isn’t there anyone else?”
“Yes, my colleague, but she’s on holiday this week. You need to call her and book an appointment for when she comes back”
“Can’t you do that now?”
“I don’t have her diary, but I know she’s booked up when she comes back”
“So why don’t I give you the dimensions and you can do it at your leisure, and I’ll pick it up at the beginning of next week?”
“We don’t work like that. We need the customer face-to-face”.

So that’s another company that won’t be having my business either. It’s what the French called Je m’enfoutisme – or “I can’t be bothered”. And then the companies don’t have clients, and then they close down complaining that no-one is spending any money. Well, people have the money, and they will spend it, but the companies can’t be bothered to engage competent staff – and enough of it either – to deal correctly with the customers.

And I mean that too. During both of these discussions today, the phones of the salespeople were ringing constantly, they were dealing with other enquiries too and on occasion getting up and going down the aisles to look for things.

It’s a total lack of politeness, a total lack of courtesy and a total lack of respect for the customer. One thing about IKEA is that when you get your hands on a salesman, he’s yours for the duration and there are no interruptions. Even in Belgium too, and regular readers of this rubbish from many of its previous incarnations will recall the exciting encounters that we’ve had with Belgian customer service!

And the guy in Brico Cash, at least he was honest about what he could do and when he could do it, and he kept his word too.

While we’re on the subject … "well, one of us is" – ed … you’ll recall that I sent two mails to two different camera companies about camera lenses. That was about a week ago, and how many replies do you think that I have received?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall mailshots that I have sent out in the past about solar panels, wind turbines, camper backs for pickups – a thousand other things too – and they all have in common that 99% of the recipients never bother to reply.

And that, dear reader, is why you have a recession. The companies can’t be bothered. A bunch of je m’enfoutistes.

So abandoning yet another good rant for a while, I had a real struggle to leave the stinking pit today. It’s not as if I was all that late going to bed but there you are.

And after breakfast, I actually crashed out for 20 minutes or so. What a way to start the day.

I was going to make a start on tidying Caliburn, but one look out of the window told me not to bother. It was raining. Instead, I attacked the blog and I’ve dealt with the entries going back to late April adding photos that I missed. If you’ve missed them too, you need to go back and look.

Not only that, I tidied up the shelf unit in the kitchen, rearranged things better and now there’s much more space on there, which is just as well because it was getting quite out of hand.

Lunch was indoors today – no sense in going out to eat my butties in the rain. But when I went outside to do the rounds of the kitchen shops the rain had stopped.

Back here I went for my afternoon walk. It was school chucking-out time again and once more we have another fine example of pathetic parking.

Never mind the two cars in the background blocking the pavement, how about this guy? Not only parked on the kerb, right by a road junction, he’s parked across a pedestrian crossing too. You wouldn’t believe it.

But I did note his registration number. It began with DK. Can you think of which two letters are missing from in between?

Back here, I had another crash out and then some more blog-editing. I’m not back at 23rd April and my trip to North Africa now.

Another session on the guitar later on, and then tea. There was some of my vegan stuffing mix left over from last week and a green pepper from the weekend so I had stuffed pepper with spicy rice. Delicious it was too.

But while I was editing the blog I came across the Bombay Potato that I made myself the other week and it got my mouth watering again. So tomorrow night, in the absence of anything else, I might go for that for tea.

We had the usual walk around the walls tonight and I noticed that there’s a new craft gallery opened in the Medieval town.

It’s called “L’Envolée” which, I suppose, is supposed to mean “flight”, and it’s presumably named to describe the actions of the potential customers when they notice the prices of the objects on sale, because I don’t think that I’ve ever seen anything so absurd in my life.

Small rocks painted to look like sheep, on sale for as much as €60:00. That kind of thing. One thing is for sure, and that is that you won’t catch me spending my money in there.

So now I’m going to have to gather my strength. I have a voyage ahead of me on Wednesday morning.

And remember me saying that Caliburn and I might be off on a voyage very soon? A discussion this afternoon may well mean that I’ll be going on a voyage a long time before then.

Wednesday 30th May 2018 – WHAT A NICE …

… tea that was!

One of those evenings where I couldn’t think of anything much so some spicy rice with peas and carrots, and a vegan millet and mushroom burger fried with onions and garlic. Add some nice thick gravy and it was absolutely delicious. I really enjoyed it.

In fact it was a relatively delicious day, although you might not have thought so with the weather that we were having this morning. When I left the stinking pit (at 06:30) it was raining buckets outside.

There were a few things that I needed to do though. Not the least of which being that the World’s Worst Bankers have struck again. I received all of the paperwork for the renewal of my insurances at the end of June – sent to the wrong address and featuring the wrong (closed) bank account.

What is worse is that it’s the Bank’s own insurance agency that handles it. Clearly joined-up thinking is not the strong point of the Credit Agricole, is it? Anyway, I had to telephone them to sort it all out.

Plenty of photos needed to be edited as well, with the result that I missed out on a few things that I needed to do. But no worries, they can keep.

What wouldn’t keep though is the bread issue. Buying a new loaf was one of the things that I needed, but instead in view of the time I just nipped down to town to the boulangerie that I like for a baguette.

At least that gave me an opportunity to take a photograph of the Marité now that she’s come back here for the summer season.

One day I’ll check to see if there’s an exciting sea voyage, but as you know I’ve had issues with the lazy people who manage her and they aren’t my favourite people.

You need to be very careful about your sailing companions when you set off on a long voyage on a ship like this. They don’t seem to be interested in the ship or their potential clients at all, and that doesn’t bode very well.

But at least the weather had brightened up by now, and it was heading to be a nice day. Although the wind was pretty strong and I didn’t enjoy sitting on my wall. And my lizard didn’t put in an appearance.

This afternoon I revised a few blog entries by adding some additional photos, had the usual session on the guitar and chatted to Ingrid again. And, on a couple of occasions, teetering on the edge of falling asleep. Even my mid-afternoon walk – around the walls this afternoon – couldn’t clear my head.

By the time that I’d finished tea it hard turned into a beautiful evening and I really enjoyed my little walk which, for a change, took me around the headland.

The late-evening sun was throwing up some beautiful colours and the lighthouse looked quite stunning. It was well-worth taking a photograph of it this evening. I do’t actually have too many of the lighthouse here, do I?

And there weren’t too many people around either. What you might call “Phare from the Madding Crowd”.

With the beautiful evening and clear skies, I took photograph in the general direction of Mont St Michel to see where or not you could actually see it from here.

It’s about 30 kilometres away from here as the crow flies, so the big zoom lens should pick it up if it’s in a line-of-sight, but it doesn’t look like it unfortunately. But I’m intrigued to know what those white buildings are down there. I shall have to go for a nosy some time.

But what’s the building on the Pointe Carolles, on the extreme left? It’s called the Cabane Vauban apparently and was a lookout point dating from the 18th Century. I shall have to go for an investigation, won’t I?

But it’s amazing the things that you can pick out of a long-distance photo with a really impressive telephoto lens and a good image-editing program.

So I’m off to bed now. It’s my “walk to LIDL” day and I need to pick up my rail tickets for next week. I booked them today, so I hope that we aren’t going to have another strike.

Tuesday 29th May 2018 – IT WAS A BIT …

… of a shame about last night.

What with all of my efforts of recent days I made a point of going to bed at a relatively early hour last night so as to have a head start for today. But instead, I had one of the worst nights’ sleeps that I have had for a long time. One every unhappy bunny here again.

But anyway I was up at a reasonable-ish early time nevertheless but I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast quite then. I ended up for a while talking to someone on the internet about nothing in particular.

But after breakfast there were things to do, like another batch of photos to edit and a blog to update seeing that I didn’t do it before going to bed last night.

Once all of that was out of the way I occupied myself with a knotty problem on the 3D program that I use. And while I’m none-the-wiser, I’m certainly better-informed. And it’s hard to believe that with having done nothing but that this morning, I ended up going for a late lunch.

After that, it all went wrong.

There’s lots to do here but firstly there was a crowd of neighbours hanging around outside the building so I went to join them. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not the most sociable of people at the best of times, but when one is living ina close-knit community like this, one has to show willing.

And even that was interrupted by the arrival of Gribouille the ginger cat who allowed me to pick him up and stroke him for a while, much to the surprise of everyone else.

Once all that was out of the way there was only time for a coffee before it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk. But at the moment where I was just about to put my sooty foot outside the door the heavens opened and we had another drenching. I dunno who it is up there, but just let him know that he missed me.

Eventually it eased off and so I could go for my walk. And at least it kept the grockles out of my way which is also nice. I started off in my raincoat but by the time that I was back here it was boiling hot, clammy and close, and I was sweating.

That reminded me that I had forgotten my shower this morning so I hopped underneath for a general clean-up. And I cut my hair as well seeing as it was getting all a bit long.

While all of this was going on, Liz came on line with a computer problem that needed resolving, and Sandra wanted to chat about my plans for summer. Trying to fit my guitar practice in was all rather complicated.

Tea was a frozen kidney bean and aubergine whatsit from out of the freezer and then I had a nice walk around the walls.

There wasn’t a great deal going on on the seaward side of the walls, but round on the harbour side, I noticed that Normandy Trader was back in port.

She’s been in and out of here quite a lot just recently and so she must be getting a lot of work. And that reminds me that I haven’t seen anything of Grima for a while. I shall have to make further enquiries

And despite the huge piles of gravel building up on the quayside, we haven’t seen a gravel ship for a while either.

One ship that is back in port though, ready for the summer season, is the Marité. But she was moored in a position where I couldn’t take a decent photo.

And why I was prowling around trying to find a good spec, it suddenly came into my mind that I had never taken a decent photograph of the turret house built into the walls by the Eglise de Notre Dame du Cap Lihou.

So this seemed like as good an opportunity as ever to deal with that little issue. After all, it’s a beautiful house and I could quite happily live in one of those turrets, especially with the superb view that it has over the harbour.

And now, I really AM going to have an early night.

I hope that it’s a good ‘un.

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 – SO CARRYING ON …

… from where I left off last night, I ended up taking out the waste paper to the recycling bin. Such is the exciting life that I lead around here these days.

But at least it brought my day’s efforts to 101% of my target so that I could go to bed quite happily – albeit rather later than I had planned.

And during the night, I was off on yet another mega-ramble. One that was well-worth remembering, but unfortunately I can’t remember anything about it now. But all is not lost, because I recorded it for posterity on the dictaphone.

However, it comes to my mind that I have forgotten to copy it onto the laptop and transcribe it, so you’ll have to wait for another time before you can read all about it.

To be honest, I don’t know what I do with my days. Anyone would think that I was really busy, but that’s not the case. I’m just old, tired and ill.

But not so old, tired and ill that I couldn’t deal with the masses of photos that have built up over the last while. Including the ones that I mentioned yesterday. This one and this one were taken with the current lens on the big Nikon.

On the other hand, keeping to exactly the same settings, this one and this one were taken with the lens that I borrowed from Happy Cash.

I wish now that I had brought the spare lens with me instead of leaving it back in Virlet. I shall have to bite the bullet and buy another. This one is the one that I would really like, but I’m already selling my body on Boots Corner for the next 20 years so it will have to wait for a while. Does that place you know have anything cheaper, Rhys?

Lunch was spent sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour where I could gaze upon the activity.

And Normandy Trader sneaked in during the morning at some time. Here she sits, not yet loaded. Presumably waiting for a delivery.

The lizard that loiters at the foot of tha wall now seems to have become quite tame. He knows that I’m going to eat a pear, and he knows that some of it will fall to the floor. He’s a big fan of pears and at first he’d hide in the long grass and dash out for a quick bite and dash back in.

Now though, he comes out and hangs around waiting, even climbing over my foot to reach the piece that falls.

This afternoon I crashed out again and then carried on with the photos and a session on the guitar.

I went for my walk too, and they must have been flaming quick with Normandy Trader because she had badgered off. Slung her hook, you might say.

But they aren’t being flaming quick with Caliburn. He’s still at the garage and there’s been no phone call. Still, he’s out of mischief there.

Tea was a delicious mixed vegetables steamed in the microwave, vegan sausages and a nice thick creamy vegan cheese sauce. The freezer and the grated vegan cheese from the Loving Hut in Leuven haven’t half improved my diet. But I’ve run out of strawberries now.

Another walk this evening and now I’m ready for bed. And I need it too. I must remember to download my dictaphone notes tomorrow.

Saturday 20th May 2018 – LAST MATCH …

… of the season this evening at the Stade Louis Dior for the US Granville’s 1st XI.

And it was free admission too – what you might call an “Open Dior” evening, I suppose. And not only that, I was given an invitation to sit in the stand which was very nice. Even nicer was the fact that it was a beautiful evening.

Tonight’s opponents were Sologne Olympic Romorantin, a name that is bound to cause confusion. The club was formerly known as Stade Olympic Romorantin and the name change caught many people off-balance. The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we visited Graycliff, one of his houses) asked everyone he knew for confirmation of the name change, to which the famous singer Paul Simon answered “Sologne, Frank Lloyd Wright” … "are you sure about this?" – ed.

As for the match itself, it was a pulsating, thrilling encounter that finished 2-2. But this was two points thrown away by Granville, not one point gained.

Granville had half a dozen other really good chances to score that many other teams would have buried in the back of the net, including a free header from three yards out that somehow went over the bar.

As for the two goals conceded, one was a defensive mix-up where the keeper and two defenders waited around for one of the three to clear the ball, and the second was the Granville keeper coming miles off his line for a ball that he was never ever going to reach. In fact, the Granville keeper didn’t look his usual confident self throughout the match.

With having another reasonably early night, the alarm didn’t come as much of a shock that it normally did too. Although it did snap me out of one of my nocturnal rambles. Unfortunately the batteries in the dictaphone went flat so I don’t remember much of it. But somewhere along the line I was walking along a main road carrying a brown grip-kind of luggage thing almost identical to one that I was given for a birthday in 1977. I was supposed to be heading home but it was a long way and I was hoping that someone would stop to pick me up, although I wasn’t actively hitch-hiking. It was taking place on the edge of a town just where the houses start to give way to countryside and where the footpath ends. And it must have been on the mainland of Europe as I was on the right-hand side of the road. I wasn’t alone either, because here and there were a few other individuals loitering in the vicinity. Suddenly someone shouted that there was to be a train leaving the station so people started to flood off up a side street. I asked if that wa the way to the station and someone replied that it was so I followed the stream of people, even though my pride wanted me to stay on the road and walk home. At the station there was a railway official directing the people to the train. I seemed to recall that I’d been here before under similar circumstances and that the official had given us all temporary railway tickets, but this time he was just waving us to the train with no tickets being issued. So I was wondering exactly what was the scam that he was working over the passenger tickets and fares.

We had the usual morning routine, including a shower and a setting off of the washing machine (there was a backlog of laundry again) and then the shops.

The usual round of LIDL, NOZ and Leclerc. The former and the latter didn’t come up with anything special but at NOZ there were all kinds of bits and pieces. Nothing exciting though, except a cheap air mattress. It comes to my mind that I might be going off on my travels in a few weeks and of course, I don’t have my travelling mattress for Caliburn, do I?

It shouldn’t make any difference really because I’m not well enough these days to sleep in Caliburn as I used to, but it’s one of those things that you might always need it if you don’t have it.

But I called in at the Second Hand shop on the way back – the one from whence the new hi-fi came. They did indeed have a Nikon lens that will fit on the big Nikon. So when I go past there on Tuesday I’ll take the camera there and try it out. See whether it’s the lens or the camera itself that is faulty.

Back here, I crashed out yet again for half an hour, and then took myself off for a very late lunch on my little wall with my book. Beautiful weather it was too.

There wasn’t much of the afternoon left by the time I returned, so I didn’t do much before going off across town for the football.

Back here though later in the evening, there was a guided tour of the old medieval town here, with flaming torches (and perishing lamps and blasted lights too).

I went out and tagged myself on to one of the groups of wanderers to listen to what the guide had to say. It always helps to know about where you are living.

And it was quite interesting. He pointed out many things that I hadn’t noticed on my travels around on my own and gave us all quite an interesting tour.

But my heart isn’t in it, I’m afraid.

It’s not like the olden days when I could wander around like this for hours. By the time that we were heading back to the Église Notre-Dame du Cap Lihou I was tired and exhausted.

There was a whole raft of entertainment organised for for us all through the night, but it wasn’t to be for me. I came home and went to bed instead.

All of this is rather depressing, isn’t it?

Friday 27th April 2018 – GOD, IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… to get out of bed. I ached in every joint and every muscle.

I’d had a bad night too – couldn’t manage any sort of decent, continuous sleep.

Not that any of this stopped me going on the kind of mega-ramble that I haven’t been on in quite some considerable time though.

We started off with a whole bunch of us in some seaside area or resort and where I was staying was out of the town centre so I had to walk in every day down this same old road to get into town. But it was coming up to our time to leave so we were assembled waiting outside a building for something to happen. After a while I decided that I would go in the building. In there was a load of people whom I knew – probably most of them in fact – and we all ended up having a big chat. Someone began to talk about the time that he had been for a drive with Nerina and the exhaust had become detached from the manifold on the black Cortina and how she had driven over it. I told a few moe stories about car problems that we had had. I happened to glance out of the window to see everyone else starting to come in and they all looked really wet. I asked if it had been raining, and the people replied that it had been snowing too. After a while Anne and Mike (although it wasn’t Mike) decided that they would have to leave regardless of the weather. They went outside but just then two young girls came past on bikes and shouted to Anne “we’ve done it – we’ve done it”. It turns out that Anne and Mike were some kind of medical consultants or the like and had to go to change someone’s bandages, but these two kids had done it instead, and successfully too. I asked what this was all about, so someone explained it to me. And then another two kids appeared. They announced that they had done something else to someone else who needed medicl attention. This ws all very exciting, listening to the accomplishments of these kids. They wandered off so I followed them around the corner. There was this big fat muscular old man there wearing a fez. I went back into the building and ended up in a dark corner doing something, but there was some kind of commotion, and I heard a gruff voice say “right then, we’ll go to his room”. There was the man, dragging roughly a boy from my childhood heading obviously to my room. It was clear that a large amount of force had been used on this boy so I asked him if he was ok. The boy replied “no, not after what he’s just done to me”. That made me pick up the phone to start dialling 999. this man came round to my side of the desk to see what I was doing. I told him that I was phoning the police. He replied “no you aren’t” and went to snatch the phone from me. My response was to pick up one of these dagger-like envelope openers and plunge it straight into his stomach. That’ll settle his hash.
A little later I was changing jobs within an office and all of my old work was going to be taken over by someone else and I would be having new work. I was very very unhappy about this because there were lots of things that I ought to have done yet hadn’t done, and I didn’t want my shortcomings to be exposed to anyone else. In view of this, and seeing that I was beyind retirement age I decided that I would simply retire and walk away. I wandered over to a nearby school to see if any of the school buses needed a new driver, seeing as it was chucking-out time. I had realised that I would be terribly lonely in my retirement as I liked people and was always pleased to see them (!!!). As these kids came streaming out, a young blonde-haired girl came over and greeted me as if we were really old friends. For my part, I had no idea who she was. I couldn’t remember her at all. Nevertheless I told her that I was retiring and that leaving was going to make me fed up. She said that that wasn’t a problem as she baked quite regularly and she promised to contact me each time she baked something and I could come along and buy some cakes off her. We can exchange the money right outside the accountants’ office where I work and that will make him really agitated, seeing me receive money. So I wandered off and ended up in the company of two boys. I ws looking for stones because what I had been doing was building up a breeze-block wall on an earthen bank. But the bank kept on collapsing and as I tried to hammer the breeze block into the cement on the top of this bank it was either making the bank crumble away more or else shaling the breeze block. I needed the stones to make a stabilising layer. My search took me down this cut-off part of road where I encountered these two boys. One of them had a very long pointed stick and he was killing everything that he encountered – deformed stillborn animals, seals caught up in fishing nets – by stabbing them with this pole. I was outraged by this. Halfway down this cut-off we came across a really strong and powerful half-man, half beast thing. He said that if we want to pass, we would have to fight him for it. I immediately volunteered this boy who had been killing everything. I said that he seemed to be in the right kind of humour for the task. But of course, like most bullies, he immediately chickened out. We turned round and retraced our steps much to my disappointment with this boy chickening out of this fight. But that was only to be expected, I suppose. I wasn’t going to get my stones, was I?

With all of that going on, no wonder I was exhausted.

After breakfast and the usual morning routine I sat down and attacked the two missing days. So now Tuesday’s entry and Wednesday’s entry are both on line.

And when you consider that the total amount of words came to just a little short of 5,000, you’ll understand why it took me until 19:50 this evening to finish it off.

It might however have taken less time had I not … errr … had a little relax after my afternoon walk. A good hour or so I was gone. It’s all catching up with me, this jet-setting lifestyle. I’ll be non compos mentis for a while at this rate.

Tea tonight, seeing as I don’t have a great deal of variety in the house just now, was stuffed peppers. I remembered to buy some at LIDL yesterday. And then we had football. Cefn Druids comfortably beat Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League, live on the internet.

Afterwards, I went for a walk in the dark around the headland, and now I’m off to bed. An early night is called for as there is a lot to do tomorrow, as well as a football match in the evening.

I need to be on top form.

Tuesday 24th April 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

… and also wrong about my sunburnt legs.

Although I managed to go to sleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, it didn’t last long and by midnight or so I was back wide awake again and in agony.

03:20 came round – I saw that while I was tossing and turning hoping to find a comfortable position where I could sleep with less pain, and I must have done at some point because the next thing that I remember was that it was 06:37 and light outside.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. With two friends going down to the farm, or – at least – what passed for the farm last night. We met another couple along the way and they followed us all the way down to the house of my friends. When we arrived, I invited this couple in for a coffee (although of course it wasn’t up to me) but for some reason the husband wasn’t interested so there was just me and this woman. But my friend’s wife had cleared off somewhere and my friend was being extremely distant and offhand – I couldn’t work out what was the matter with him. So instead we went to look for my friend’s wife and ended up at the top of Underwood Lane in Crewe. It was rush hour – Rolls-Royce chucking out time and the streets were crowded with people on bicycles and there was a collision between a couple of bicycles right in front of us and that needed to be sorted out. We went into a bakery there and my friend’s wife was there. She made me take a loaf from the drawer at the bottom of the display unit. It was nice and warm as I put it in a paper bag and I went off to pay for it. I’d already bought a couple of buns from here and so I didn’t want to take them up to the cash desk with me but she was rather persuasive. As I came towards the queue there were maybe three different people heading towards it from about three different directions so she told me to use a handy shopping trolley as a barricade to block off the queue from any direction other than the one in which I was heading. So I blocked one man off so that he would have to come to get behind me in the queue.

Leaving my stinking pit was awful with the pain in my legs. But a close examination of them has realised – as I feared – that it’s not just the sunburn that’s causing me problems. My legs have swollen too. The heat can’t have been good for the water retention issues which is a tragedy as far as I am concerned. I thought that I had passed beyond that, but apparently not.

I was a little late going down to breakfast, and I almost missed the people I had been hoping to see. But that can’t be helped either. But it was such beautiful morning that rather than stay in and do any work I dressed up properly, making sure that everything was covered up, and went outside.

Outside in the car park we discovered that if the tourists don’t want to go to the souk, then the souk will come to the tourists.

It’s the usual cheap touristy nonsense sold at about 10 times its value (something that should come as no surprise to anyone of course) and there was nothing on sale that was of any interest to me whatsoever anyway.

but it clearly works for some people. Almost every child in the resort was wandering around later clutching a stuffed camel. Any why not after all? It’s a kids holiday.

Talking of kids (well, at least one of us is) the hotels here are very child-friendly.

There are five swimming pools here and they all cater for kids from all ages. These water chutes would keep many a child out of mischief for a considerable period of time.

And according to a woman whom I met on the bus that took us to the desert, there are others that are even more child-friendly than here.

A nice cold orange juice on the patio by the sea was a good place to start and then making sure that the parasol was positioned correctly I installed myself on a recliner with my book. And there I stayed for several hours – longer than is appropriate but at least I was covered up from the sun.

Back in my room I had a good relax for a while before going down to lunch. The usual salad and bread, and then I was off on adventure.

Just about half a mile from the hotel is a tram stop. There’s a coastal tram that runs between Sousse, the airport, Monastir and a few points south and I was determined to have a go on it. So running the gauntlet of the taxi drivers loitering outside, I headed for the highway and the tram.

No ticket machine on the station so I enquired of a fellow passenger as to the arrangements for paying. “A man comes round on the train” so she told me. So its still the good old-fashioned conductor them. Can’t say fairer than that.

Bang on time (which I suppose is something of a novelty out here) the tram pulled up at the stop.

You can see that it’s a nice modern tram – or, I suppose – train, really. All-electric and probably metre-gauge.

Comfort was, well, basic, but you don’t expect too much. especially when you consider the price. It must be five or six miles to Sousse at least, and the fare was 800 mills – that’s about £0:25. Who can complain at that?

And there was provision for disabled passengers too, and it seemed to be respected by the passengers.

One of the reasons for going to Sousse was that coming back the other evening I had noticed a couple of large ships in the harbour, and the harbour seemed to be easily-accessible.

And I wasn’t disappointed either.

Over there we have the Bekir Hacibekiroglu, a Turkish-flagged general cargo ship with a deadweight of 3500 tonnes. Built in 1985, she sailed … "dieseled" – ed … into the harbour here in Sousse on 15th April 2015 and from what I can find out, hasn’t moved since. And so I wonder what her story is.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the usual place for ships to go to be laid up is the Gulf of Piraeus and seeing as that is much closer to Turkey than here is – and also closer to the ship-breaker’s too – I was surprised to see her parked here for so long. Just think about the berthing fees

No such issues with the Sahra 2 though. By the time that I had returned to my hotel and looked on the ship-tracking website that I use, she was halfway down the Mediterranean. And when I came to type up this article she was in the Black Sea off the coast of Romania.

She’s an agricultural commodities carrier built in 1989 and flies the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – an unusual choice for any ship if you ask me. But then there is an “offshore banking community” there, of which it has been said that “its secrecy causes some concern”.

So maybe that’s the answer.

Our third ship is the big one in the background behind the police and customs patrol boats. I couldn’t get any closer than this because that side of the port was a wall and a warehouse, not an open railing like this one.

She’s the Milou – which, by the way, is also the name of Tintin’s dog – a Panamanian bulk carrier with e deadweight of almost 17,000 tonnes. She arrived here this morning from Thessaloniki in Greece from where she had departed on the 11th, so she’s been getting about a bit too.

They aren’t the only ships in the harbour either.

Sousse was one of the centres of the Barbary pirates of the early modern era and there are several ships such as this one, all imitation pirate ships, that will take you for a run about the harbour for an hour or so.

It’s long been my ambition to got for a voyage on a sailing ship but in the heat on a sea as calm as a mill-pond isn’t quite what I have in mind. And besides, I don’t really have a couple of hours to spare.

Instead, I was going to explore the city for a couple of hours.

And the first port – if you’ll pardon the expression – is the beach. This is where all of the locals come to relax but there weren’t all that many people out there right now. They were all under the shade of nearby awnings or cafes, and where I should really be if I had any sense although that’s not likely now, is it?

It really was warm and I was glad that I had brought a bottle of water here.

Those people who were about were heading for that rather large rock over there. I’m not sure if it’s natural or man-made (the rocks around it, I mean – the concrete is certainly man-made) but it won’t be a diving platform. While it’s incorrect to say that the Mediterranean is tideless, whatever tides there are here are comparatively insignificant.

For that reason alone, you won’t find too many people diving into the sea off that. And I can’t say that I blame theM.

One of the (many) must-see places in Sousse is the Parc Charles Nicolle at the north end of the city centre. And I bet that you are all wondering who he was when he was at home, if he ever was.

He was born in Rouen in 1866 into a distinguished medical family, and followed in their footsteps into the medical profession. However he developed a deafness that inhibited his active role and instead he took to the laboratory.

In 1903 he was appointed chief of the Pasteur Institute in Tunis and remained there for the rest of his active life. At was during this period that the first serious studies of African (as opposed to world-wide) diseases and illnesses began, and he was in the van.

He will however always be noted for his fleas.

What I mean by this is that he was one of the first to investigate the spread of typhus and to work out that it was due to the flea. Disinfecting the clothing, taking a steam bath, and improving general hygiene and cleanliness, all measures that he applied to the patients in the hospitals, brought about a rapid decline in the spread of the disease.

His work in this field was to bring him a Nobel Prize in 1928.

As I wandered around the park I came across yet another photography shoot. I seem to be finding dozens of these right now, don’t I?

In this one we had a woman on a swing with a man pushing her, while a woman was taking the photographs.

No idza what they were advertising or what was the purpose of the shoot, but it seemed to be something quite complicated and serious by the looks of things.

I’ve mentioned previously that the Revolution in January 2011 affected tourism quite badly, and there were a couple of indiscriminate shootings in 2015, one of them just up the rod from here in Port-el-Kantaoui, that made matters worse.

We’ve seen a couple of hotels that have been abandoned as a result and here in the centre of Sousse there’s another one. I suppose that the issue with this one is that they can’t put a wall around it to keep the tourists in and the street pedlars and other unwanted people out

But it does go to show just how much tourism has been affected here in Tunisia by the events of the last few years.

Walking back towards the town I was accosted firstly by a taxi driver who was desperately searching for custom. I don’t know why these people think that Europeans don’t have legs but there you go.

But when I told him that I was walking, he told me all about the Medina (most of which I knew anyway) and pointed to where it was, which I also knew.

A couple of minutes later, I fell in with one of the waiters from my hotel. Or, rather, he fell in with me. He told me that it was the last day of the sale in the souk, and now was the chance to pick up a real bargain. And he knew just the person.

Without wishing to be impolite, I turned down the opportunity but he was most insistent, so seeing that I can waste far more of anyone’s time than they can ever waste of mine and that it was a chance to have a conducted tour of the souk, I tagged along.

One thing about the souk here in Sousse is that it’s said to be the most complete, orignal and authentic in the whole of North Africa. And who am I to argue with that?

Fighting off the hands that were trying to pull me into their boutique, we eventually arrived at some dingy shack down some dark alley somewhere.

And here I was shown some leather jackets.

The proprietor did the “fire test” to prove that the jackets were real leather, but of course he used his own lighter filled with his own gas rather than anyone else’s lighter filled with gas that he didn’t know, and we’ve all seen that behaviour before.

And then the bargaining commenced. It was a beautiful jacket, so he told me, “made of the finest leather and the quality is superb. It’s made by the same people who make all of the leading jackets for the Government and for export”.

It was on sale at 1350 Dinar (that’s about £425) but as a special favour to me I could have it at half-price – a bargain at just 675 Dinar.

The usual response when a price is mentioned in a place like this is to burst out into fits of uncontrollable laughter and so he tried again.

After about an hour, with my “guide”, clearly on a percentage, perspiring in a corner, we were down to 300 dinar but then I told him that I didn’t have any room in my suitcase to take it home anyway.

A while later he started to try to sell me a belt and when after another half hour, and a dramatic drop from 80 to 20 dinar, I walked away and left them cursing in their little booth.

I was more interested in the watch tower.

It’s called the Ribat of Sousse and construction began in the 8th Century when the Arabs took control of the area. It was slowly expanded and reached its present form in the 10th Century. It’s claimed to be one of the most complete and original of the surviving towers, and even has a toilet and a rainwater storage tank.

Unfortunately it also has a mosque, which means that seeing as it was prayer time I couldn’t go inside to climb to the top. But there may be another time for that.

The Medina of Sousse dates from roughly the same period (the city that was here when the Arabs arrived was totally destroyed) and is considered to be one of the finest, most complete of the “first generation” Arab medinas of North Africa. And as a “seafront” Medina it’s practically unique.

So much so that it was registered on the list of UNESCO’s places of importance in 1988, and quite rightly so.

As well as the metro station, Sousse has two main-line railway stations. And the one in the centre of town has a train that goes to Tozeur on the edge of the Sahara, and this train was going to be my fall-back method of getting to the desert in the absence of a better offer.

I wandered along there to have a look at the trains, but my attention was sidetracked by this pick-up.

We’ve seen several types of vehicle that here never offered for sale in Western Europe, and here’s another one. It’s a Mahindra Scorpio Getaway and here in Tunisia are the first that I have ever seen.

Although there is a set-up ready to import them into France and Spain (where it will be called the “Goa”) and maybe even the USA before too long

Back on the streets again and my route takes me past the statue of Habib Bourguiba – just in time for the rush hour.

And just in case you are wondering, which I must admit that I was too, Habib Bourguiba was one of the leaders of the movement opposing the French colonialism here in Tunisia.

He became the first President of an independent Tunisia and is considered by many to be the founder of the modern state.

But I’m more interested in the railway lines. It seems that at one time there was a line that connected the metro line and the main line with branches off to the docks. That would have been exciting to see.

Back at the railway station I found that there was a train all ready to depart. There was also a ticket window so I went to buy a ticket in advance of boarding.

And here we had a most delightful conversation –
Our Hero “do you have to tell the driver where to stop, or does he stop automatically at every stop?”
Girl in ticket booth (after consultation with colleague) – “yes”.
So there you are.

But never mind the Metro for the moment, I’m far more interested in the locomotive that is parked alongside it.

It’s a locomotive from our old friends the Montreal Locomotive Works and is one of the 145 examples of the MX620 C-C diesels of 2000 horsepower built during the period 1973-1980. The SNCFT bought 22 examples which, we are proudly informed, date from 1971. And I’m still trying to work that one out.

But it’s certainly not the kind of machine that you would expect to see on a tramway or a metro, or whatever they might call the line here.

Hemmed in like sardines we were on our train, which by the way was built by Hyundai in 2011. And we rattled our way back to the hotel tram stop. Another 80 mills – or £0:25.

I didn’t have to apply the test about whether I had to ask the driver to stop or whether he stopped automatically because there was a crowd of people waiting at the station to board the train and they stopped it for me.

I alighted and walked back to my hotel, dodging the traffic on the ring road.

Back here, I had a little rest and then came down for tea. And arranged an alarm call. My bus calls for me in the morning at … gulp … 02:40, so I need to be up and about by 02:00 at the latest.

I don’t like that idea at all.

Monday 16th April 2018 – I’M PAYING …

… €110 (well, €118 with taxes) for three nights in this hotel and I do have to say that I’ve not had such a good deal as this in most other places where I’ve stayed.

No breakfast of course at that price but I’ve brought my own, left over from the place in Leuven so that’s no big deal. But the bed was so comfortable for a cheap bed that I was out like a light and stayed out for quite a good while.

That didn’t stop me going on a midnight ramble though. I was in some kind of tower last night – a tower that was some kind of tourist attraction. Right at the top of it I was. But for some reason there was nothing that interested me and I was more interested in seeing how quickly I could descend to the ground. Old women, schoolgirls, families – nothing slowed me down and I was bowling them over like ninepins in my race to the bottom. Outside, I was just leaning on a fence in some kind of depression when I was tapped on the shoulder. Two people – a young man and his girlfriend – from his party were there and they were desperately trying to cheer me up – telling me about all of the machinery that was still in this mill and how there were a couple of big old engines in the cellar that were used to manufacture electricity. But nothing seemed to haul me out of my depression.

Nothing seemed to haul me out of my stinking pit either. After all of the exertions of yesterday I was aching in places that I didn’t even realise that I had, and I thought that my fitbit was really taking the mickey when it told me that “your activity yesterday will really benefit your health”.

After our usual morning performance I had breakfast and then, shame as it is to admit it, I closed my eyes and was away with the fairies for at least half an hour. I definitely did too much yesterday.

But you can’t keep a good man down for long – nor me neither for that matter – and I was out on the streets again.

Off on a walk down to the Delhaize supermarket for some shopping and a baguette for lunch. I have to eat;

And this is the kind of thing that would bring tears to the eyes of many single women. I’m not quite sure of the purpose of this display but it was certainly interesting from an aesthetic point of view.

And we had yet another delightful scene in here too – of a woman weighing the punnets of strawberries (clearly labelled 500 grammes) to find out which one had the most in it. I thoroughly despair of the human nature that is within some people.

Back here I had a few things to do and then I made my butties for lunch and hit the streets yet again.

But not very far – just outside the hotel where the people who run the bar opposite were unloading stuff from their van.

And you only need to look at the corrugated bonnet to tell you that this is one of the earliest generations of 2CV vans. And that makes it something of a rare beast. you don’t see too many of the cars of this generation about these days (although regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we do know someone who has one) never mind the vans.

In fact, thinking about it, with the Healey 3000 on Saturday, the Ponton last night and now the 2CV, I’ve seen more interesting vehicles this last three days than I have over the last three months.

Having dealt with the 2CV, my route took me along the promenade again in the general direction of the railway station.

And past some very interesting works going on down on the beach with them building a sort-of lego wall there on the right to stop the sand drifting over the new causeway that they had built a couple of years ago.

And there was some piling work going on at the end of the older, previous causeway that was the harbour mouth. So it looks as if the work on the modernisation of the harbour is going to be going on and on.

It’s always a bad idea for me to see a ferry. I get in such a bad mood because, of course, every time I see a ferry it makes me cross.

And of course there is a free ferry from near the aquarium that goes across the harbour to the commercial side of the docks where there are many of the fortifications still remaining from World War II, and also from World War I when Oostende was an important German submarine base.

There was only a short wait until the ferry put in its appearance too.

We saw these towers yesterday and I had been wondering what they were.

And so seeing as I was in the company of Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabin Boy aboard the Good Ship Ven .. err … Roger Raveel, I enquired of one of them what was going on.

It seems that they are the masts of more wind turbines for the offshore wind farm, whose headquarters you may remember we visited last time we were here. And the ships that are dodging in and out of the harbour are supply ships for the construction of the extension to the wind farm.

Being decanted onto the other side of the harbour, I threaded my way through the network of canals and locks that form the entrances to the various little avant-ports and found myself in the shipyard.

The shipyard was built in 1931 apparently but not much ship repairing goes on there these days. It’s pretty derelict.

The increase in size of ships and the decline of the fishing industry, as well as new high standards for pleasure boat construction, have put paid to hundreds of little yards like this.

But despite the air of dereliction, the yard wasn’t empty.

There was still this old fishing boat here, up on chocks and fenced off from the public. It’s looking very much the worse for wear these days and like the yacht from Delaware that we saw yesterday, this one won’t be going anywhere any time soon either.

As a fishing boat, you might say that it’s had its chips.

In our quest for yet another Ship of the Day today I wandered around the headland to see what I would see.

But the first thing that I saw was the barge with the piling machine scuttling off presumably for its lunch break.

Subsequent enquiries revealed that they are still working on the harbour with the intention of providing a safe haven for ships of up to 150 metres in length (which will be quite impressive from my point of view) and the work will continue for quite a while.

Not only that, according to the architect’s drawings, there seems to be the intention to put some kind of amenity building over there at the head of the old harbour entrance.

That would be a pleasant addition to the amenities offered to tourists by the town.

There was a ship sailing … "dieseling" – ed … about in the distance.

Of course I can’t be sure about it but judging by the gear that it had on board it looked as if it might be one of the supply ships for the new wind farm that they are building.

And so with the aid of the zoom telephoto lens I was able to have a good shot of it so that I could inspect it at my leisure.

But I was interrupted by a French couple who enquired about the piece of the bow of HMS Vindictive (which, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is stuck on a plinth just here, and which, because of the distraction, I forgot to photograph).

Of course it’s the kind of thing that I’ve talked about before … "at great length" – ed … so I was able to tell them everything about it. They may not be any the wiser, but they are certainly better-informed.

There was a biting wind out here and it was quite cold too, but I went down onto the beach and found a corner of the beach that was well-sheltered and in a sun-bowl.

And there I sat on the sand and ate my butties.

And read my book

And … errr … had a little relax in the sun.

And why not? It was the first time this year that I had felt really comfortable outside in the nice weather.

There is quite a bit of work going on along the beach here right now.

It seems that the sand has drifted quite considerably during the winter, probably with all of the storms that we have had (and if they had the one like we had at the beginning of January that would certainly be the case), and has buried the protective fences.

There are teams of diggers digging out the sand and passing it over to bulldozers which are spreading it out on other parts of the beach.

And judging by the amount of sand that needs shifting, they are going to be here for quite some considerable time.

A good way along the promenade in the direction of Zeebrugge is a little cafe and this was my destination today.

I’d had a really good walk so far and so I reckoned that I had earned a cup of coffee and a little relaxation. And apart from anything else, there is a gentleman’s restroom here.

So yet another sit in the sun with a coffee, the book and a little repose for half an hour while I gathered my strength for the return journey. It’s a long way back to civilisation from here.

I took a slightly different route on my way back.

After a mile or so I clambered up over the dunes behind the promenade and was rewarded by yet another candidate for “Ship of the Day”.

Never mind the smaller boat in the foreground – it’s hard to tell at this kind of distance whether the ship in the background on the horizon is a container ship or a cruise liner.

But nevertheless it is certainly an impressive sight and I’m glad that I bought the zoom telephoto lens for the new little camera.

Now this is what I had been clambering over the dunes to see.

We’ve mentioned the World War II fortifications and also the World War I ditto, but there are fortifications from an earlier date here too and the fact that they are built of brick rather than concrete will tell you that they date from before the mid-19th Century.

In fact, this is the Fort Napoleon, built by the aforementioned as part of his defences to keep out the Perfide Albion from invading the Continent.

It had also been a German command post in both World Wars so for some time it’s been on my list of places to visit

Every time that I’ve been to Oostende something has always cropped up to put a stop to any plan that I have had to come here, but not today. And so, in accordance with the usual procedure, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s closed right now to visitors.

Being obliged to scramble over fences and building roofs is not something that has caused me any great difficulty in the past, but it’s not the kind of thing that you do in Belgium. Belgian police have no sense of humour and are notoriously unpredictable in their reactions.

We have had some … errr … interesting encounters in the past, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Oostende was a German submarine base in World War I. A total of 19 were stationed here, of which 15 were lost.

I’ve never been able to find out which was the actual basin that they used, but there is a suggestion that it was apparently behind some kind of harbour gae. If so, this basin could be a very likely candidate.

I don’t think that the sunken boat over there in the corner is one of their victims however.

As an aside, it was announced over the winter that an completely intact and sealed World War I submarine, with just its bows blown off as it it had struck a mine, has been discovered just offshore.

This was also in the same basin.

And although she hasn’t sunk, she may as well because she has all the air of being a derelict.

She’s called Scorpios, having at one time been knows as Loodsboot 4 and is described as a “yacht”, although there are a couple of other “Loodsboots” with different suffixes that are described as “pilot tenders”.

Scorpios was actually built here in Oostende, in the Beliard Oostende Scheepwerk, but a long time ago. 1950 to be exact. She has a displacement of 499 tonnes and is registered in Antwerp.

As for her builders, the company was founded in Antwerp in 1877 but set up here in Oostende in 1923. The company’s main output was fishing boats.

The name of the company changed on many occasions as the smaller shipyards combined in order to remain viable, but the decline of the fishing industry saw the company finally slide into bankruptcy in 1994.

Their yard remained derelict for many years but was finally swept away in the modernisation of the port of Oostende in 2008

Heading back to the ferry I was lucky enough to be standing on top of one of the lock gates when the siren went off to tell me that the gate was about to open. I had to get a move on to avoid falling into the lock.

It’s that time of the day of course when the tide is coming in, up to the level of the water in the smaller docks and harbours and so they are opening the gates to allow traffic to proceed in and out.

And as luck would have it, right at this moment there were two fishing boats, O190 and O191, preparing to leave the harbour.

They were queued up at the inner gate (being a tidal harbour there is a double-set of lock gates here, one opening inwards and the other opening outwards).

Fishing is not something that is as common today as it was 50 years ago. In those days there would have been whole fleets of smaller coastal fishing boats in ports like Oostende but with the amount of over-fishing that took place, the fishing fleets have declined as quickly as the amount of fish that they used to catch.

Nowadays it’s mainly huge deep-sea trawlers that work on a more industrial basis out of the bigger ports.

Back on the western side of the harbour my walk along the promenade took me past yet more redevelopment.

When I first started coming to Oostende 40-odd years ago the whole sea-front area was nothing but nice belle-epoque villas from the lats 19th Century and small, cheap down-market hotels.

But today there’s almost nothing from that period remaining. It’s all been bulldozed away and replaced by modern holiday flats that cost an arm and a leg to buy or to rent. It’s just not the same as it used to be and I personally think that much of the character of the town has gone.

Nevertheless, it’s still one of the places that I enjoy the most for a little break for a couple of days and I’ll keep on coming here for as long as I can find some reasonably-priced accommodation close to the sea front.

It has some nice beaches, good walks, good, cheap rail connections to just about everywhere and not the least of the reasons being that it’s situated on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the World.

Out there on the horizon miles away but we can see quite well thanks to the telephoto lens is a ship that, i reckon, is almost certainly a container ship.

And although it’s difficult to tell at this distance, it seems to be “outbound” to the North Atlantic. That looks to me like the blunt end to the right of the photograph.

And in any case, traffic is regulated in the English Channel because of the volume of traffic, and westbound traffic is routed on the southern side. “Drive on the left”

Back at the hotel I had a little … errr … relax for half an hour or so and then later went out in search of food for tea.

The Syrian restaurant that I like and which does excellent falafelschotels was open, but so was the good Italian restaurant next door. But that was displaying a “closed on Tuesday” notice on the door so it looks like falafel tomorrow then and Italian meal tonight.

The penne al arrabiata here, zonder kaas of course, is wicked and it does have to be said that had there been a fridge in my hotel room I would have put the toilet paper in it ready for tomorrow. But I enjoyed every mouthful of it and I’ll be back here again next time I come to stay in Oostende.

On the way back to the hotel i was swept up in a party of kids streaming out of the Youth Hostel on their way to the beach for some late-evening amusement but I came back here to wash my clothes, to have a shower and take an early night. No internet up here in the rooms so instead I watched a film on the laptop.

And I made it down to the end too, for the first time in quite a while.

So now to settle down for a good night. The next night won’t be anything like as comfortable as this one. The alarm will be going off at 05:30 for a start and that’s enough to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

At least I can sleep on the train on Wednesday morning though.

Friday 30th March 2018 – 10:30 AM

How about that for a nice time to wake up? Never mind get out of bed.

That’s what I call a Bank Holiday, isn’t it? You can’t beat that. But then that’s what Bank Holidays are for, isn’t it?

And I’d been on my travels too. Working (sell, sort-of) in a Chocolate factory and we were all objecting to the amounts and the calculations of bonuses that were on offer there.

So with a somewhat late awakening, it was an even later breakfast. And seeing as it wasn’t that far off lunchtime I defrosted some of the bread that was in the freezer (good plan to buy that) and had bread and jam too. That way, I could skip lunch.

And then, I did precisely … errr … nothing whatever. And quite right too. It’s Bank Holiday.

Although, having said that, I did catch Ingrid and we had a lengthy chat on the ‘phone. It’s nice to hear her dulcet tones again.

And as promised, seeing as it was a nice day, I went for a long walk down to the harbour.

And here in all their glory are the new harbour gates. To be honest, they don’t look all that different from the ones that were there before but at least they are new, I suppose, and that makes a difference.

And they didn’t seem to be leaking, which I suppose is the point of them

But much to my surprise, I noticed that we have another tidal basin here.

I’ve seen this impressive-looking dock on numerous occasions but I’d never had a good poke around it until today. And you can see that there are actually some gates here too.

I’m surprised that they don’t resurrect this part of the docks too and have some ships mooring in here every now and again.

But that wasn’t all the excitement either.

There’s a boat lift here for pulling boats out of the water and putting them up on the top so that the shipwrights can work on them and I’ve been dying to see it in action.

And here it is, actually working. Not actually lifting a boat but they were using the crane part of it to lift out the diesel engines from this boat here, as you can see.

It was still exciting though.

While all of this was going on, the tide had turned, and you have no idea how quickly the basin fills up here.

And we had a whole procession of boats – seven or eight that I could see – flooding in with the tide and heading to the fish docks (which you may remember, they had that digger digging out several weeks ago) presumably with this afternoon’s catch

They certainly put their backs into it around here

ON the way back, I headed into town and came that way round.

And on the docks I noticed that they were erecting a kind of compound on one of the car parks. And so I made enquiries of a very vocal workman.

It’s all to do with the fibre-optic cabling. They’ll be digging up this road in very early course to lay the cable trunking, and this is going to be their depot and store.

So it really does look as if it’s All Systems Go round here now.

When I finally returned here I made myself a coffee and some of the beautiful biscuits that I had bought the other day to celebrate the fact that I had come all the way up the hill to here with a spring in my step and without stopping once for breath. That’s definitely progress.

And, shame as it is to say it, I forgot my session on the bass guitar, as I realised later. I’ll have to have half an hour on it this weekend.

Tea was a frozen curry – lentil mushroom and sweetcorn – and that was quite delicious too. As I have said … "on many occasions" – ed … it was a good move to buy this freezer.

And on my travels tonight, we have the “London Bus” phenomenon. Where you don’t see one for ages and then a load of them come along at once.

That seems to be the case with decent sunsets doesn’t it? Because we had another one tonight. This one was even better than last night’s, although nothing will ever beat those that we saw on Long Island Sound back in October.

And my mate wasn’t there for his evening stroke tonight either. That’s a shame. Stroking a cat is very good for the stress.

But before I go, I’ll leave you with this photo and ask you if it reminds you of anything.

To me, this can only be a low-flying Heinkel HE111 returning from a bombing raid on Portsmouth in late summer 1940. Have a look at some of the images on this page and see if you don’t agree with me.

It seems that nature is catching up – and I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Monday 12th March 2018 – I WAS RIGHT …

.. last night when I said that I wouldn’t be doing all that much today. In fact, I’ve done another emulation of my namesake the mathematician.

And despite my early night last night and being completely stark out, I still had a struggle out of bed this morning.

And it’s not as if I had done much during the night either. TOTGA put in an appearance again though. Well, actually she didn’t, but one of her kittens did. A tabby and white one found its way into my car and was roaming around the floor getting in the way of the pedals. So I told the girl in the passenger seat that we would have to go round there to drop off the animal. That’s not anything that should wear anyone out now, is it?

We had medication and breakfast and then the usual morning ritual, and then as promised I attacked the photographs that I took yesterday. And if you missed them, they are now on line in yesterday’s entry.

But looking at them, I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that I’ve wasted my money with this new camera. The photos are, quite frankly, total rubbish. The standard lens that’s included in the package is just not up to the job and can’t produce a properly focused, sharp image if it were to try all night.

Consequently, on my walk this afternoon in the howling gale that we were having, I wound up the Nikon and took a couple of lenses with me. The max extension on the standard lens is the same focal length on the min extension on the zoom lens, so I took several photos of the same views with the two lenses, matching the aperture, speed and ISO, and I want to see how they turn out.

It might be possible that it’s the standard lens, and not the camera that is at issue and if so, I’ll see what I can do about finding a cheap AF-S lens to fit it. The irony of it all is that I do have a spare standard lens, and I’ve left it back at the farm, haven’t I? That’s annoying.

Another thing that has occupied some of my time is this 3D program.

You remember a few weeks ago that I had a little project on the go about some items, and then this other 3D site appeared that resells content. So I searched the Internet this morning too and found a tutorial about making clothes.

It uses Hexagon, the deep-level 3D design program that I have, but it assumes a level of knowledge that I don’t have. Something that took the narrator of this video almost three minutes took me almost three hours and I still wasn’t satisfied with what I had done.

But then Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m certainly learning a lot as I go round, and if that’s not a positive sign of progress then nothing is.

Tea was the rest of the pepper that I hadn’t used on the pizza, stuffed with the usual mixture, and with spicy rice. And I seem to be running out of salad dressing. But I have a recipe for vegan mayonnaise and now that I have a blender, I intend to take full advantage of it.

But I cracked this evening. I turned the heating off on Friday night as I went to bed and it’s not been on all weekend. But with the wind and the clouds it’s gone quite cool again. So this evening I switched it on low again. No point in freezing to death is there?

So an early night and tomorrow I need to go and fetch my rail tickets. My train leaves before the ticket office opens and I’ve seen what happens when the automatic ticket printer fails to work. I’ve no intention of arguing with an intransigent ticket inspector so I want my tickets in my sweaty little mitt before I set out on Wednesday at … errr … 07:45.

Monday 14th August 2017 – AT THE HOSPITAL …

… the news is not so good.

While the blood count is up slightly at 9.6 from 9.5, something else in the body (and I’ve forgotten what it was) has plummeted by over 25% – from 39 parts to 29 parts.

This has caused a few raised eyebrows and they wanted me to come in again to see if it might be just an errant result.

But no chance of that! My flight to Montreal is at 15:20 and I intend to be on it – and I won’t be back until 12th October. So my appointment is on 13th whether they like it or not.

And here’s a thing – I asked the hotel manager whether it’s cheaper to book a room over the counter or over the internet by a booking agency. To my astonishment he replied “over the internet”.

That was the last thing that I was expecting because I know how much commission these booking agencies charge. But if that’s what he wants me to do, then that’s what I will do.

Despite being awake at about 06:00 or something, there was no chance of me moving. It took the alarm at 07:00 to shift me from my stinking pit. And after breakfast I came back here and attacked yesterday’s magnum opus.

That took me up to shower time, and then a slow meander down the road to the railway station.

And my luck was in too. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the trains to Leuven run at peculiar times – there are three all at once and then nothing for 40 minutes.

And so no-one was more delighted than me when an Inter-City pulled in just as I arrived at the station.

It was a double-decker too. Very nice, comfortable and modern, so I went off to sit upstairs.

Of course, Brain of Britain had forgotten his book and so he had to sit there and admire the scenery for the whole route.

Not of course that he was complaining about that too much.

At Leuven we had a nightmare of queueing for a new travel ticket – mine is on the verge of running out. But once it was organised it was off on the bus to the hospital and my appointment with Destiny.

I walked back through the town, picking up some stuff for lunch tomorrow as well as a nice sorbet as a treat. I reckoned that I had earned it.

You know about the irregular running of the trains between Leuven and Brussels. But here again I was in luck.

The train to Knokke was running late so just as I arrived on the platform, so did the train. otherwise I would have had an uncomfortable wait for the train from Welkenraedt.

These trains are old, dirty and rattly but they are here and that’s the important bit. I was soon back here.

We had another disaster for tea tonight. I’d been saving my plate of lentils for tonight but after they had taken my order and having waited for 20 minutes, they told me that “lentils were finished” even though I’d seen a plate in the cooler.

I ended up with a bag of chips instead.

It seems that I’m fated to have bad luck with my meals this time round. And so I’m glad that I’ve bought some emergency supplies for the plane tomorrow, to go with the crisps that Alison gave me on Sunday and which I forgot to mention.

Saturday 12th August 2017 – THE LAST TIME …

… that I had to be up and about for a train, I remember saying something about the internal alarm clock. And so itwas this morning.

With the alarm set for 06:00, I was wide awake at … errr … 04:27.

Of course it goes without saying that I … errr … rested until the 06:00 alarm went off. And by 07:00 I was sitting down having had breakfast, cleaned the bathroom and toilet and tipped bleach everywhere (I’d washed the floor last night before going to bed).

Not only that, I’d taken all of the rubbish to the collection point and washed the wastebins too.

The bus was on time more or less and it was all pretty painless. But Brain of Britain has struck again – battery in the camera is flat. So no picture of the train this morning. I wasn’t going to use the phone camera, seeing as we are now in the middle of a torrential downpour. Flaming August, hey?

The train is only as far as Versailles – the Versailles Chantiers railway station. There’s a lot of perturbation on the Paris railway network with the construction of this new metro line so we are having to take the bus.

It took its time too getting to the Vaugirard railway station and then I had to fight my way through the metro.

We started off as we meant to go on, with the new suitcase being jammed in the turnstile and I had to appeal for help from the staff.

But the new suitcase proved its worth – being quite easy to pull along, unlike the previous one. And it’s a much more convenient shape too for passing through the crowds.

But there was a curious incident at Paris Gare du Nord.

Some young guy stopped me to ask me the way to the metro. And a minute or so later, as I was fighting my way through the exit turnstile, my bumbag became disconnected and fell to the floor.

Was someone trying to disconnect it in the crush? I couldn’t see how because they couldn’t have got away, but it was weird all he same.

The TGV was packed to the gunwhales and it shot along at a fair old pace into Brussels. I was soon installed in my hotel – the Midi-Zuid where I stayed with Hannah back in March.

Having fought of waves of sleep on the TGV, I wasn’t so successful here and was out for about an hour. And when I awoke, it was with a severe attack of cramp – so severe that I can still feel the pain in my calf even now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I suffered terribly from cramps in the leg but apart from a brief one about a week or 10 days ago, I’ve not had one for months and months. But this one was the daddy of them all.

I went out a little later for some food, but as luck would have it, I ran straight into the Foire du Midi.

It’s that tile of the year again when the whole of the central reservation of the big boulevard around the city centre in the area by the Gare du Midi is transformed into a giant funfair.

Hordes of people and all kinds of events taking place here.

I fought my way through the crowds to find something to eat – and that wasn’t easy because I found myself in the wrong street – I’m definitely losing my touch.

But having satiated my appetite I went back to watch the entertainment for a while. It’s all good fun and you could hear the screams from across town.

It would certainly put me off my chips being up there with them.

So now it’s an early night and prepare myself for the fray tomorrow. I’m meeting Alison and we’re going for a walk around the market. That should be fun.

Friday 28th July 2017 – NOW HERE’S A FIRST!

Yes, I’ve been for a walk in the dark.

In fact, I’d just finished tea when Rosemary telephoned me. And with chatting about this and that, and all things considered, it was about 22:15 when we hung up.

A couple of weeks ago, that would have been broad daylight. But not so tonight. Cold, cloudy, windy – and dark! I can’t wait for it to be dark at a sensible hour so that I can have an hour outside with the new camera and see just how good its much-vaunted “low light” facility might be.

And Rosemary is just as bewildered as I am about what is happening in the UK right now. But don’t get me started on politics. I vowed that I would avoid them in this reincarnation of the blog.

I’d had a really good night’s sleep too. out like a light without a care in the world. And off on a mega-ramble too that was so exciting that I reached for the dictaphone to record it. And by the time that I’d put my hand upon the aforementioned, every single thought about where I’d been had completely evaporated.

Something that’s happening far too often these days.

After breakfast and a nice shower, I went off to the shops. And apart from a pack of button-cell batteries on offer in LIDL (I remember thinking when I had the remote-control issues the other day that I didn’t have any of those) I bought nothing exciting at all.

My trip – just to LIDL and LeClerc, came to a mere €23:00 and I was back here for 11:00.

But I do like the frozen vegetables in LeClerc, and when I come back, I’ll be buying a small freezer. The choice is endless and won’t that improve my diet!

Frozen veg is generally fresher than fresh veg, and you have much more choice – living alone means that you can only buy small quantities, and they don’t do small quantities of leeks, sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, that kind of thing.

And diesel – down to €1:10 at LeClerc – and queues a mile long too.

Lunch was on the wall as usual in the uncertain weather, and the Woman With The Dog came to say hello. As I said, people are noticing me now. I’m not sure whether that is a good or bad thing.

Apart from that, I’ve been on the blog doing the Canada 2012 updating. It’s not easy and I’ve only managed to unravel two pages – this one and this one – so far.

But never mind the slow progress – that’s two more pages than were done yesterday so we’re heading in the right direction.

The big question is though – will I finish this rewriting, or will the rewriting finish me?

EPIC HALL

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