Tag Archives: rosemary

Sunday 31st March 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night I had last night.

It seems as if I hadn’t slept for a single moment although on reflection I must have been because at one point I was off on a voyage somewhere and when I find my dictaphone I can tell you all about it.

However, tossing and turning all night, I was eventually up and about at 07:20, to find that it is of course 08:20 because the clocks went forward this morning and we are now on summer time.

And that’s rather appropriate right now what with me stripping off yesterday and it looking quite good this morning too.

And much to my surprise, and probably the surprise of regular readers of this rubbish, who recall that I don’t usually work on a Sunday, I had a very productive morning.

First task was to find a pile of information that someone had asked for. That involved downloading a pile of stuff from the internet and reviewing it. And then organising a couple of links.

Once I’d done that, it reminded me that I had a form to fill in and send off. This is going to commit me to something quite significant but it’s one of those things that if I don’t do it right now, I probably won’t ever to do it again, and not for the obvious reason either.

So that’s now out of the way, but I’m expecting some “further correspondence” about it all. It’s quite inevitable.

Thirdly, I realised that I hadn’t booked any of my travel and accommodation needs for my next trip to Castle Anthrax. And so that’s now done and at the same time I booked my train from Brussels to Leuven. Since I’ve been buying those tickets in advance, I’ve never had them checked at all. You can bet your life that the only time I’ll be asked for them will be the time that I forget to buy them.

Another thing that I needed to do was to obtain the complementary information for my new passport. So I did all of that, only to find that I was actually on the wrong site and ended up wasting $29:00 which I won’t ever get back. A moment’s inattention has cost me dear.

And finally, I needed to contact a friend in Toronto about some issue that I might be having. But for once, she’s not on line. And so I’ll need to think again about that or find another work-around.

All of that took me up to a rather late lunch, so forsaking my usul habits, I had lunch sitting on the sofa watching the football. Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Cup semi-final against Cardiff Metro.

The Nomads won 3-0, which might make you thing that it was a pretty one-sided match, but that was far from the case.

The Met hit the woodwork three times, and had Will Fuller in the met goal not been recovering from a serious injury that has kept him out for a year, he would have been off his line to intercept a long ball out of the Nomads’ defence that led directly to their third goal.

And so the final will be, rather predictably, between TNS and the Nomads and with TNS having beaten the Nomads on every occasion this year, the result should be a foregone conclusion.

It was walk-time after that. Around the walls with the crowds of people out enjoying the afternoon sun. And who can blame them too because it really was nice.

There were even a few people out there swimming, but I thought that that was rather extreme.

I’m not really convinced that I would have been happy to have been on the beach just now. Not in my cozzy anyway.

There were crowds of yachts out there yesterday making the most of the weather.

And today, there were even more of them out there too. It was a shame though that there was so much haze on the horizon. You wouldn’t get to see very much out there.

One of these days I’m going to have to find a way to go out there for a sail around. I need to cultivate a couple of maritime mates.

There were things to do here when I returned but I ended up talking to a couple of people on the internet instead. I really need to stop being so distracted.

Later on, I made a huge cornish pasty.

While I was searching through the freezer the other day I came across a pile of curry that I had made for some project or other that had been left over. And so yesterday I had bought some rolled pastry only a square one this time, and this evening I put the stuff in it and folded it over.

While that was going on, I made my pizza and it was delicious. Even though I say it myself, it was the best that I have ever

On my evening walk around the headland I was totally alone. There wasn’t a soul about, even though it was still comparatively light.

But by the time that I came back I was so tired that I did only half of what I was intending, and then crawled into bed.

I’d had enough.

speedboat buoy granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 30th March 2019 – MOVE OVER IMELDA MARCOS

I’ve been shopping for shoes today.

Last weekend after the football there was someone outside the ground handing out vouchers for 25% off the winter sports goods at Intersport.

For a while now I’ve been looking for a new pair of hiking boots and also a new pair of trainers and not found anything that I really liked. So I thought that this morning I may as well go there and see what they have.

As a result, I walked out with a decent pair of walking trainers and a decent pair of hiking boots, and also a pair of photography gloves. And 25% off them all too, and that’s off the mark-down price on the last day of the sale too.

They both have 5 stars for everything, except for impermeability, for which they scored three stars. But this afternoon I gave them a really good drenching in waterproofing solution and when that’s properly dry in the middle of the week, they’ll receive a second coat too.

It worked, and worked in spades too, for the trainers that I wear right now and which have all of the tread worn off due to constant use, so it may well work for them too.

Last night I went to bed and slept right through all the way until the alarm went off. I only have a vague recollection of going on a voyage, concerning a man whose dog had died and he wanted to bury him, but he was lamenting the fact that the only thing that he had was his mother’s old silver casket and how he was going to miss it.

Despite waking up with the alarm, as is usual these days I turned over and went back to sleep again. 07:25 when I arose from the dead, and by the time that I had finished the usual performance and the weekend shower, it was 09:10 before I hit the streets.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special, so having bought the basics, I headed for NOZ.

But it took me a while to get there due to an enormous queue in the avenue des Matignon. It turns out that there had been a road accident involving a car and a motor bike.

If you look carefully, you can see the debris all over the road.

Eventually, I made it to NOZ and here once again, we are confronted with another pile of pathetic parking. It’s the kind of thing that really gets on my wick.

But in Noz, I made one or two interesting purchases. At long last I’ve found a proper pie tin and that cheered me up no end. And a couple of small ramekin dishes for the oven

Furthermore, there was an Inspector Maigret full-length DVD that will go quite nicely with my collection.

The shoes were next, and then back to LeClerc.

And isn’t it embarrassing and shameful when you see your country pilloried liks this even in the French local press. How could 17.4 million xenophobic racists, backed by a small group of opportunistic extremist politicians, drag the country through the mire like this.

But back to the plot, I didn’t buy anything special here either.

On the way home, I called at the second-hand shop to see what they had on offer. But there was nothing really that caught my eye at all.

Enormous queues again around the town with everyone taking the summer air. I’d even taken off my jacket. And the rue des Juifs is closed because of the works to the wall, and I had to go all around the houses to get back home.

Having half-unpacked my shopping, I had lunch.

It was such a beautiful day that I took my book and the special baguette that I had bought and went out to sit on the wall overlooking the harbour to see what was going on in the sunshine.

And it was quite a busy lunchtime out there too.

We had La Granvillaise out there doing her stuff after her major refit, and in the company of several other yachts.

And as well as that, we had one of the catamarans owned by one of the fishermen coming into port, presumably to unload this morning’s catch.

No lizards for my pear droppings though. they are probably still hibernating somewhere in a gap in the stone wall.

And then, back in the apartment I unpacked the other half of the shopping, having to stop for a little … errr … relax halfway through. And no surprise there.

US Granville’s 2nd XI were playing tonight. USAN Mondeville were the visitors.

I think that I’ve only seen them once this season and I don’t remember much about it. But it was such a nice evening that I went out for a good walk.

And I’m rather disappointed that I did go, because it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

While you all admire the official photographer and his equipment, I can tell you something about the match.

Although the two teams were pretty much even on the field, Granville had no answer to the power and pace of the corners that the Mondeville winger was banging in.

And they had even less answer to the power and the pace of the defenders who were running in unmarked.

Panic and chaos ensued at every one and Mondeville scored from three of them. Thei fourth goal was from a good clearance by a Granville defender that had the misfortune to find a Mondeville attacker totally unmarked with all of the time in the world 15 metres out.

And, as usual, Granville didn’t have anyone out there who had the striker’s instinct.

On the way back, Rosemary called me, so we arranged that she would call me back later.

But in the meantime, I was distracted by this vehicle on the car park of the Foyer Des jeunes Travailleurs. Excuse the very blurry photo but I only had the time to shoot off a quick image

It’s a cut-down Ford Fiasco being used as a trailer, and that’s exciting in itself.

An the apartment, Rosemary called me back while I was watching TNS v Barry Town in the Welsh Cup.

Rosemary and I had a very lengthy chat while TNS did the predictable. Barry just couldn’t seem to get going tonight.

So now it’s late, I’ve had no tea but I didn’t care. I’m going to bed and I intend to sleep for a week.

la granvillaise port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Thursday 28th March 2019 – IT WAS A …

… very busy day in the harbour today.

When I walked down to the town this morning, there in the harbour was Normandy Trader tied up to her berth.

She wasn’t in there last night, so she must have sneaked in on the early morning tide without my noticing her. and she looks pretty well loaded up too, so they must have been quick.

And the reason why they were so quick became evident when I returned from LIDL.

Normandy Trader had cleared off into the sunset and in her place we had Thora tied up there in her place.

And she had only just arrived, that’s for sure, because there were a couple of civilian-types busily scrambling up the ladder onto the quayside. And one of them was a lady of the female sex too.

Last night I wasn’t as early in bed as I was expecting and despite that, I was wide-awake yet again at 03:45.

It took ages for me to go back to sleep, but when I did, I certainly did. Although I heard the alarms go off, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I actually came into the land of the living.

Plenty of time therefore to go off on a little voyage or two. last night I was driving a bus from Chester to Crewe. One of the people on board this bus was George Scane – and what on earth is he doing in my nocturnal rambles? I was dropping off people at places all around Crewe – dropping them off in all kinds of strange directions and strange places in some kind of strange order. Going past the end of McCorquodale’s Printers in Catherine Street in Crewe and everyone was coming out of work – hordes of them. I was surprised that it was 12:00 Saturday lunchtime knocking-off time already, for I had a doctor’s appointment at 12:00 and I had a few other things to pick up from there too. We had to hurry. I was talking to this guy about women, saying that the only women I seem to find these days are women in their 90s and there was no interest in sex. He replied that I should make the most of it while I can and while it’s still offered, allthis kind of thing. He said that he was 103 – or else it was someone else he know who was 103 but he was quite old as well. This was all quite strange. Eventually we reached the doctor’s and I had to go in to ask about what I needed.
Apart from that, I had a very difficult voyage involving my father, and I’ll spare you all the details as you are probably eating your tea right now.
And I was also involved in some football match – Wales were playing Spain and I was out there on the field. Right from the very first touch of the ball at the kick-off one of the Spanish players had to leave the field. We thought that he had broken his ankle and the bench made themselves ready with a bucket of cold water, but in fact it was his boot that had broken. This ended with our team playing the Italians. They had just three people on the field – two men and a blonde-haired boy of about three. And somehow we didn’t have the will or the courage to press home our game decisively like we should have done.

As a result of all of that I was rather late organising myself and I didn’t do anything at all. After breakfast I had a shower, put a load of clothes in the washing machine, and then headed out for LIDL.

The other day I mentioned that they were working on the city walls just around the corner from here.

They had a mini-digger with a breaker attached and it was breaking up all of the rock at the foot of the walls. Why, I’m not quite sure but if it was that well-fixed that they needed a breaker, there seemed no point in moving it.

But he was having a load of fun doing it.

At LIDL I didn’t buy anything at all special today. There was tons of stuff and had I been back on the farm I would have had loads of stuff. But not here though.

On the way back home, I was round by the port again.

It was a beautifully warm, sunny morning – really nice to be out. And I wasn’t the only one enjoying being out. A couple of trawlers were just setting out for the fishing grounds

It made actually a nice photograph

With the Normandy trader having left the harbour I went back up to the apartment and sorted out the big Nikon D5000 and the telephoto lens to see what I could see.

There was some movement out on the horizon, hidden in the mist so I took a speculative photo of it to see what it might be.

It’s actually a couple of trawlers though.

Some more movement a little closer to the shore had me taking a photo to see what it might be.

But this time I was in luck. It is indeed Normandy Trader, heading off out into the English Channel in the direction of Jersey.

It didn’t take her too long to come in, turn round and go out again. I reckon that I must have missed dozens of visits by the ships.

That wasn’t all either.

There were a few more ships out there doing something or other. One of them was La Grande Ancre and judging by the buoys out there around her, she looks as if she might have some kind of fishing net out there.

I’m not quite sure what she’ll be catching just there, but I’ve seen a couple of boats round about that spot. Perhaps it’s some sunken treasure.

Gribouille and his mum were out there too so we had a bit of a chat.

Back here, I made a start on the photos for the last few days. But I wasn’t there for long because it was pretty soon lunchtime.

After lunch I finished off the photos and now the last couple of days have their photos appended.

And then it was walk-time around the headland.

Thora has already gone back out, and that was really quick. And in the chantier navale we have a coat of heavy primer now added to the large boat that they have been preparing this last few days.

It should look really good when it’s finished.

A little further on we have a group of school children around the edge of the old, abandoned dry dock.

It’s round about the time that they have the classes découvertes where groups of children come to town and stay in the Youth Hostel, and then go round looking at the fishing industry – or, rather, what’s left of it after the collapse of the cod industry in 1992.

You can see the remains of the deep-sea fishing industry all over the place around here

And although Thora has now sailed away, we have yet another visitor in the harbour.

Not exactly a visitor but more of a permanent resident, because it’s Victor Hugo, the older of the two boats that do the Channel Islands ferry to Jersey.

Ironically, they bought a new boat to replace her, but she’s nothing like as reliable as Victor Hugo.

Back here, I spent some time with the dictaphone notes, and then attacked tea.

Main course was really easy.

There’s some of the leek and tofu pie left over from the other day so I fetched a slice out of the freezer. I bunged that in the oven along with a couple of potatoes.

Real potatoes baked in the oven, with pie, veg and gravy.

But why I had the oven on is because I’ve been baking again.

This week’s effort is an apple crumble and although it’s not turned out as well as I hoped, it’s still delicious

Apple, grated coconut, raisins, brown sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon. Topped with a mixture of flour, oats and vegan margarine.

On my evening walk there was no-one around so I wasn’t out for long.

Back here I had a good chat with Alison, then Sue and almost immediately after, another chat to Rosemary. I seem to be in demand right now.

So as a result, it’s later than I wanted it to be. But it’s always good to talk to friends.

Monday 18th March 2019 – IT’S HOSPITAL …

… day today. And so I need to be on form.

Consequently I had something of an early night last night. Plenty of time to go on a little voyage too, even if I did awaken at sometime round about 03:45. It’s not very often that my old friend Liz (who died 10 years ago) appears with me in a nocturnal ramble. But there she was last night. I’d been living abroad for a couple of years and I was on my way back to Crewe with her in Caliburn. We arrived back at my house (which was actually our old home in Shavington) to find my old black cat Tuppence outside the door – despite my instructions that the cats weren’t to go out. And she was very thin too – as if she hadn’t eaten anything for weeks. Inside, the other three cats were scratching away at some dried biscuits, despite my instructions that they were only to have tinned food, not dried. I was pretty annoyed about this and wanted to speak to the girl who was looking after the cats. But while I was thinking of this I heard a noise from out of the bedroom. She was actually in there making use of the double bed and a boyfriend. Not the kind of thing to arouse my sympathy.

Despite the alarms going off as usual, there wasn’t a great deal of rush. My appointment with doom isn’t until 10:30 so I had a little lie-in until about 07:00. A shower and a clothes wash and a general clean-up and I was ready for the road.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were here before, they were digging up the Tiensestraat and laying pipes.

They seem to have finished that now, and have moved all of the equipment to the Burgemeestersstraat where they are presumably continuing the work.

I wonder how long they’ll be working on replacing the drains around the city?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that for a year or so I lived in the Brusselsestraat quite close to the St Jakobs Kapelle.

However I never ever managed to go in for a look around because it was all closed up.

Apparently it’s in need of some considerable amount of renovation

But when I went past it today the door was open (although I couldn’t go in because there was a fence around it) and there was a pile of scaffolding up all around it.

It looks as if the renovations have finally started. That’s good news, if they can get it to stay up, but I wonder just how thorough these renovations are likely to be.

I hope that they are going to make a really decent spectacle out of it

For some reason, for which I’m not sure, it was something of a struggle to get to the hospital today. I had to make several stops on my way up the hill to the hospital.

The heat didn’t help much and I had to stop and divest myself of my outer clothing. It had been cold when I had set out, but it didn’t half warm up quickly.

The nurse today was the only one who speaks just Flemish so we had my insertion interview in that language. I’m getting quite good at this these days.

But the interesting thing is that the weight that I had lost when I was ill – it stayed off too. And I’m happy about that. And so should you lot too, because it means that in about 18 months at this rate, I’ll be gone completely.

The doctor came to see me too. And if she’s going to be on my case for the foreseeable future, I’ll be back next week, never mind next month, even though she forgot to sign my prescription and I had to argue at the chemists later.

As for the blood count, it’s down to 9.7. Something of a disappointment but only to be expected after my illness. At least the drop wasn’t as dramatic as the time 15 months ago when it fell through the floor.

Another thing that I did was to ask them to check my selenium levels. Robert, a former schoolmate who is a regular reader of this rubbish and is a retired doctor, came up with a couple of suggestions. A Selenium shortage is one, so seeing as they are testing the blood anyway, they can test for that too. But I can’t have these results for a day or two.

But I grabbed a copy of the rest of the results and when I’m back home, I’ll scan it so that Robert can see it. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the previous month’s figures to compare.

There seems to be an issue about my potassium levels too, so I need to cut back on the Coversyl that I take.

Rosemary phoned me too and we had a lengthy chat, and I had a little snooze too while I was there.

On the way home I stopped for the medication and also at Delhaize for some food for tea. Alison wasn’t up to going for a meal tonight so I’m eating in.

And Ingrid telephoned me too. She’s struggling a little with her health issues but her illness has now been properly diagnosed. While it’s not good news either, at least she knows what is the matter with her and she’s been taken in charge by her health assurance people and will receive the proper treatment.

And that’s my lot. Not much good news but it could be far worse than it is. I’m having a lie-in tomorrow as a Day of rest, but I have things to do in Brussels.

And so on that note, I’m off for an early night.

Monday 11th March 2019 – FOR THE FIRST …

… time since the football over two weeks ago, I had a mug of coffee – when I was at Liz and Terry’s. In fact I had two.

And that probably explains why I was still wide awake working on the computer this morning at 02:30, unable to sleep.

Eventually, I did manage to go to bed. And a short while later I did actually go to sleep.

When the alarms went off at 06:00,06:10 and 06:20 there was absolutely no danger of my leaving my little bed. 09:05 was mush more of a respectable time given the circumstances.

As a result, we can almost dismiss the morning as a write-off. by the time I settled down to do some work it was 12:20.

One thing that I had done was to get on the phone to my web hosts. My domain names need renewal and for some reason the direct debiting wasn’t working.

After several attempts I was connected to the French helpline where the formalities were completed. And I was struck by the accent of the girl to whom I was speaking. it turns out that not only was she a French speaker from Acadie in New Brunswick, she was actually there, and my call had been diverted to Canada.

a little later I nipped out to Caliburn. the memory card in the dashcam in Caliburn had filled up yesterday so I’d brought it in with me. This morning I uploaded all of the media onto the hard drive and then took the empty card back down to keep as a spare.

One of my neighbours was out there so we had a chat. But freezing in the howling wind, I came in quickly.

Lunch was as usual, and then I set to work with the shredder. Another huge mound of paper has gone to meet its maker and another day or two will see the rest of it on its way. And then there’s more to attack, to keep me out of mischief for the next 6 months.

This afternoon I braved the hurricane and went outside, bumping into another neighbour on the way.

Nothing much happening out there, except at the chantier navale where Armor, Charles-Marie and La Granvillaise were receiving attention.

But the funfair seems to have gone, and so does Neptune. She set off at 06:08 on her way to Whitstable.

Back here, I opened my birthday present from Liz and Terry. A gorgeous chocolate cake.

It won’t keep for too long and seeing as I’m off to Belgium on Thursday half of it went straight into the fridge.

But I also cut myself off a slice to taste. And it’s delicious, as you might expect. As I have now run out of apple pie, I’ll be having a slice here and there for pudding with my coconut-flavoured soya cream.

Rosemary rang me up later and we had quite a chat – 1:33 of it, to be precise. She’s back now in France and here she intends to stay.

Tea was the pizza that I should have had yesterday, followed by the last slice of apple pie.

And then the walk around the walls.

There was only a thin sliver of moon but with the clear sky there was a beautiful reflection on the sea.

The wind had dropped and it was cold, but there was no-one around at all, apart from a new black cat that came for a stroke.

So now I’m going to bed. Nice and early. I want to have an early start tomorrow as I have a lot to do.

But before I go, spare a thought for my niece’s eldest daughter. Her boyfriend was seriously ill and his chances of survival were slight. He had proposed marriage to her and they tied the knot on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately their time together was short. He passed away on Saturday morning.

Poor Zoe.

Saturday 2nd March 2019 – IT’S “CARNAVAL”!!!

And I was actually out there for part of the time joining in the festivities, even though I didn’t feel all that much like it.

It all started to go wrong even while I was still in bed.

It wasn’t as early as I would have liked – more like midnight in fact. And when the alarm went off at 06:00 (and 06:10, and 06:20) I didn’t actually haul myself out straight away.

Plenty of time though to go on a voyage, and It was certainly a weird one last night. Something like a sketch from “The Men From The Ministry” where someone (and it might even have been me but I doubt it) was trying to shave, but here seemed to be no soap so I’ve no idea what was being used and the blade was so blunt that it was merely smearing it around on the face. It wasn’t until much later that the realisation dawned that, sitting there half-shaven and in a mess, it might have been better to have simply used a new razor with a decent blade. And this ended up somehow with two people, the poor shaver and his sidekick, sitting in a car in the driveway of a country house doing everything wrong, and I’ve no idea why.

07:00 when I finally crawled out of bed and attacked the medication. And later on, we had breakfast of course.

There was an hour or so while I had a bash at the photo database, and then there was work to do.

I’d forgotten that I’d filled up a 32GB memory card on the Nikon 1 while I was away in Canada in September. I hadn’t saved the files and the card that’s in there now id filling up.

When I say “saved” the files, everything is saved onto the laptop and then on an external hard drive. But before I reformat the memory cards, I copy the images onto DVDs as an extra back-up.

These hadn’t been backed up as yet onto DVD so I spent a couple of hours copying them all onto a pile of DVDs, labelling and saving them. And then, of course, formatting the memory card.

I’m running out of space too in the hard-storage bit so I had to shuffle all of the disks around to make enough space in a storage container.

I had a quick lunch, and the went outside to head into town.

On foot of course because we are hemmed in right now. Just look at all of these caravanettes parked up on the public car park just outside our apartment building.

You can’t move for the blasted things and the blasted grockles that drive the blasted things.

And they are everywhere. Every last square inch of space has a caravanette parked on it.

Even our old friend the ancient CF Bedford isn’t safe. A couple of caravanettes have crammed themselves in around it.

And if you look across the port, you’ll see a few dozens more scattered around all over the place.

Anyway, I struggled up the road nevertheless to see what was going on

Including the unedifying spectacle of watching some unkempt middle-aged man struggling to keep control of three large dogs that were jumping up and down on a girl of about 7, and getting all upset when I told him that he ought to keep his blasted dogs under flaming control.

We almost had an “incident” there.

So I took up my place half-way up the rue Couraye and whatched the children’s parade come down.

It seemed to be strangely quiet this year – not even half the floats and parades that I remember from last year.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are the big days of the carnaval of course but even so …

After the parade, I went for a walk down town into the place Charles de Gaulle to see what was happening there.

Not all that much either compared to last year. I seem to recall that it was heaving in there back then.

But at least it gave me an opportunity to study some of the costumes of the paraders, and I was suitably impressed with some of them.

So while you admire a few more photos of the people and paraders, I climbed back up the hill for home.

And for some strange reason it was a long, weary climb back up here.

I could tell that I was not feeling myself right now yet again, and that’s no good.

Back here, I spent most of the time fending off waves of fatigue until near tea-time.

Two taco rolls with the last of the stuffing, with pasta and vegetables. Followed by one of these soya almond desserts.

The plan was then to go out and inspect the night-time carnaval activities, but a couple of things delayed me.

Firstly, I wasn’t feeling as well as I ought to have been. A kind of general fatigue and tiredness I suppose – the after-effects of my illness.

Secondly, I suddenly went freezing cold.The temperature in here is reasonably warm, but it was just how I was feeling I reckon.

Thirdly, a football match appeared on the internet. Barry Town v Cambrian and Clydach from Tonypandy, in the Welsh Cup.

I didn’t have the strength to plug in the laptop to the big TV in the living room.

Instead, I curled up on the chair and watched it on the big computer.

For a while anyway. I was just getting colder and colder so I ended up in bed under the covers watching it from there.

And then Rosemary rang me up, so I was chatting to her down the bed while watching the football.

Who says men can’t multitask?

We were chatting for almost all of the second half of the game and then my bad throat gave out so I had to hang up.

As for the football, Barry Town were clearly the better side (which is no surprise seeing as they are one division up) and they soon went into the lead.

But then they missed half a dozen easy tap-ins. One after the other was miskicked or sailed over the bar from three feet out.

And I remember thinking that they’ll pay for these misses.

Which they did, because all of a sudden they found themselves 2-1 down – two goals out of nothing had caught them cold.

But class will out and in the end they scored two goals later in the game to make the score look better than it ought to have done at one time.

Fitness and perseverence told in the end, for Cambrian and Clydach were puffing and blowing at the end.

So having missed the fair, I’m off to bed. Fatigue, headache and all.

I’m definitely not so good right now, but a good lie-in tonight and tomorrow might make me feel better.

At least I hope so. It’s the big parade tomorrow.

And if you want to see the rest of the photos of the carnaval for today, you need to go to THIS LINK

Friday 8th February 2019 – I HAD A MESSAGE …

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

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

But then I had another idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Monday 4th February 2019 – HAVING GONE …

… to bed reasonably early last night, I slept right through until the alarm went off this morning, with just a little interruption here and there. Nothing serious.

And on the subject of “nothing serious”, I was off on my travels last night too. And it concerned my old black cat Tuppence. She had an accident to one of her front paws and pulled her claws right out. All rather gruesome.

I didn’t loiter long in bed, and so we had an early-ish start today.

But not for long.

Round about 09:15 I was overwhelmed with fatigue. Not a desperate tiredness but I just couldn’t concentrate. And so I went to bed for an hour. No point in fighting the fatigue because I wouldn’t get anything done anyway.

I did close my eyes for about 10 minutes or so, but that was about it. And by 10:20 I was back up and fighting fit. Well, sort-of anyway.

This morning I was attacking the photos again. I’d taken quite a pile yesterday and they all needed editing and generally sorting-out. And it took me longer than I expected. No idea why.

There was an interruption too. Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we were on the phone for over an hour putting the world to rights. It meant a rather late lunch but never mind. There’s nothing wrong whatever in spending time chatting to friends.

After lunch, the next project was to resurrect the database that I started to make a couple of years ago. But a good search around the computer and I can’t find it anywhere. It mustn’t have survived the transfer over.

And so I started off another one. But for some reason or other I couldn’t make it work as I wanted. I seem to remember having exactly the same issue with the previous one and it took me ages to solve it. And I can’t remember how I did it now. This is going to take me much longer than I thought.

The wind had dropped by the time that I went for my walk. Just blowing at gale-force.

There were a couple of little trawlers out there heading for port, and it was quite amusing fun watching them smashing their way through the waves on their way home.

Many people really don’t appreciate the efforts and the dangers that fishermen go through;

But no sign of Neptune in the harbour though. She’s still offshore somewhere and her latest ETA is 00:00. I won’t be there to see her put in to port at that time of night.

But in the meantime, they are still bringing loads of gravel down from the quarry and dropping it off on the quayside ready for Neptune to take away

Tea was sausages in cheese sauce. Just as delicious as it always is. And followed by the rest of the rice pudding.

There was no-one else about for the evening walk. I was completely on my own. Mind you, the wind had dropped still more and it was now just “strong”.

The Casino at the Place Marechal Foch presented a very interesting photography subject this evening, down there all bathed in blue light. I don’t recall having seen it looking like this before.

So I’ll try to have another early night and a decent sleep tonight. I have things to do tomorrow.

But at least my birth certificate turned up today. It’s destroyed one of my pet theories about my origins, but presented me with several other mysteries.

We shall have to see.

fishing boat storm ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

fishing boats baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

vertical axis wind turbine plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Thursday 24th January 2019 – THAT WAS A …

… delicious tea tonight.

Potatoes, peas, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Some vegan sausages that I bought, all nicely covered in a thick, creamy cheese sauce with pepper and tarragon. It was one of the best meals that I’ve eaten for quite some considerable time.

And I deserved it too, because I’ve had a difficult day today.

I mentioned last night that I crashed out at about 18:30 or so. And despite my saying that I would be up and about fairly soon to carry on, that was that until about 01:00.

And by 01:30 I was so wide awake that I arose and started to sift through the files on the portable laptop I was awake enough to do that but not enough to catch up with the outstanding work. That took me up until about 05:00 when I retired for a second time.

Some time during one of my periods of sleep I had been on my travels. I was back in the Auvergne last night in my filthy, rat-infested hovel trying in vain to bring some kind of order out of chaos and not knowing where to start. I was distracted however by a couple of vehicles driving along the path outside my house so I looked out of a window (that I don’t have) to see a black people-carrier type of vehicle driving there. I went outside to find that my house wasn’t where it should be but somewhere up on the main road by Montcocu and at the side of my house was a small airfield. I ended up chatting to someone and the name of a former schoolfriend came out in the conversation. Apparently things weren’t going too well with him. But as we were chatting I noticed some concrete hardstanding at the side of the house to the rear, and I wondered why the thought of not putting a caravan on there hadn’t occurred to me in the past.

After all of my exertions yesterday, 09:30 was much more like a decent time to leave my bed. A very late breakfast automatically followed.

First task was to have another quick look around for my passport. I’d thought of one or more places that might be possible. But no luck, as I was expected. That led me up to the unpacking and the putting-away of the items from my new rucksack. And that worked quite well, and will be even better when all of the pockets and zips are broken in.

Lunch was late. There was still some hummus left and that went down nicely on my bread.

First thing to do in the afternoon was to print off the form to report my passport as lost or stolen. No sense in leaving it because there is going to be a time limit on this, what with one thing or another. Luckily, I had all the details to hand. Long and bitter experience has taught me to scan all of my important documents and keep them as image files. All of the details are there and there are even things that you can print if necessary.

When I went for my afternoon walk, it was raining outside. Not enough to soak me but enough to make me want to complete my circuit quickly. There wasn’t anything that I could see, with a heavy mist hanging over the sea.

Back here this afternoon I had to reapply for my new passport. The original application had timed out. And sure enough, the form needs to be countersigned by a professional person. Why they don’t tell you that before you print off the form I really don’t know, because had I known I could have done this and taken it to the hospital for countersigning. Now, I’ll have to find someone else.

Rosemary rang up later and we had another mega-chat. She’s doing well after her medical visit the other day and that’s good news. She was quite cheerful too and that’s always pleasant to hear. I told her about a few of my future plans because, you can be assured, that I always have plans running around in my head.

The weather had cleared up this evening and it was quite nice outside; But there was no-one about at all. I seem to be the only nocturnal rambler around here.

So I’ll try for an early night and a decent sleep tonight. I need to get myself into gear and push on with my projects.

Sunday 13th January 2019 – THIS WASN’T HOW …

… it was supposed to work, was it?

The big trouble with going to bed early is that I have a tendency to awaken early. And 05:35 is absurdly early, especially on a Sunday.

And I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I just lay in bed and vegetated until I had to go and walk the parapet round about 08:05.

Mind you, I had been on a little voyage during the night. Not only was I with Nerina but we had gone into Birmingham to look for something. And coming off the M6 at one of the raised levels we ended up at af all places a Workingman’s Club. There must still be one or two left somewhere, I imagine. We parked up and walked around an old road layout which had been abandoned due to a realignment. In there we found a quiet lounge where we ended up talking to some woman who had something to do with the running of the place. But she wasn’t much help for what we needed so we left and went back to our car. By now I was back driving a Shearings coach – an overnighter with people wearing red and yellow woollen hats fast asleep curled up against each other. I started to feel like going to sleep too which wouldn’t have done many people much good but just then a car came round the corner, crossed the white line onto the wrong side of the road and hit the front of the coach a glancing blow. That was that for the coach and we were all rescued, and I had to spend the night sharing the room of another driver. We were looking out of the window of this hotel at the snow and ice and thinking about all of the fun that was going on down there in the snow.

After breakfast, I had a lot to do and it took me quite a lot of the day to do it.

I’ve liberated all of the files from the old desktop computer but there was a whole series of algorithms that I had created back as long ago as 2008 when I could remember what I was doing, and all of these needed unravelling.

That took me until early afternoon and then I had a back-up to perform on the laptop to extract all of the files from there.

There was an interruption for lunch of course, and there might have been an interruption for going to watch the football at St Pair, but instead Rosemary phoned me. We ended up having another two-hour chat that took up most of the afternoon. As I have said before, it’s nice to talk to friends.

Tea was a pizza of course, and I forgot to put the garlic on it. But it still tasted very nice.

Later on, I finally managed to get outside for my walk. There was no-one about at all which was hardly a surprise. there was a hellish wind out there.

One thing that surprised me was that despite the fact that I’d had a depressing start to my day, I didn’t crash out at all. There was the odd wave of fatigue but I managed to fight it off.

So what will tomorrow bring? My new computer, I hope. And then I’ll have a few days of setting it all up. That will keep me out of mischief.

Saturday 5th January 2019 – IT’S CURTAINS FOR ME …

… here in this apartment.

Liz came round this afternoon with her sewing box and Terry came round with his tools. While Liz was cutting the curtain in the bedroom to the required length and sewing it up, Terry and I measured the curtain rods and cut them to length.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had bought some curtains from NOZ several weeks ago. We hung the new curtains from the rods, measured them to length and pinned them up. When Liz had finished the bedroom curtain she attacked the new ones that we had just pinned.

And when she had done that, she did the lace curtains in the living room too.

It’s really hard to believe, but this place is actually now looking like a home. If I’m not careful I’ll find myself properly settled in here.

Despite what I said last night, it wasn’t an early night at all. I got deep into something on which I was working and it was gone 01:30 when I happened to notice the time. I have a feeling that I’ll be paying for this in due course.

Leaving the bed wasn’t easy, especially as I was in the middle of a nocturnal voyage. I was in my old blue Cortina – PMB 270D – and driving down Welsh Row in Nantwich to visit a former work colleague. It was all left-hand drive stuff – steering wheel on the right, driving on the right. In the car I had three kerbstones in the car and was going to drop them off at his house so that he could make a parking place in the street but as I arrived he was pulling away in his car with his wife and kids – he’d been parked on a hatched area of the road where normally one isn’t allowed to park. I decided to call back later, and at that point I received a text from the guy saying “nice car” and a smiley. Down the hill I went and had to turn right but down here I had to drive on the left so I cut across the traffic at the traffic lights, just as a Ford Paramount coach appeared. I braked and he braked, but I just touched him ever so lightly and there was a tiny dent – a really tiny, barely perceptible dent on the front of his bus. It wasn’t anything at all but the driver started to make an issue of it, filling in forms and all this kind of thing. This annoyed me – not because of the actions of the driver but of disappointment with myself because it was such a ridiculous thing to happen and it was actually the second accident I had had that day and I was annoyed that the insurance people would start to do nasty things to me about it.

After breakfast I had a shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes. And then I hit the streets. It was a bit touch-and-go though. Caliburn’s battery has been sounding a little weak just recently but this morning it was a struggle for it to start. That will need replacing this week, I reckon.

I had to be quick around the shops because I’m expecting a postal delivery today. The parcels postie always arrives between 11:00 and 11:30 so I need to be back by then.

This morning I did the usual round of the shops – LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc – but didn’t buy anything at all special. In fact, it was probably the cheapest round of shopping that I have done for quite a while.

It was 10:40 when I returned, only to find that the postie had already been and gone. There was a message in my letter box to tell me that she would be back on Monday. But there was some stuff there – the powered USB hub and the powered adapter for the Roland Bass Cube amplifier. And it works too.

One thing that I like about having visitors is that it obliges me to tidy up and clean up. With the anticipated arrival of my visitors I cleaned and tidied the bathroom. It actually looks like a bathroom now.

After lunch Liz and Terry arrived and the first thing that we did, apart from have a coffee of course, was to watch a couple of videos. I’d received a package from the people with whom I’d travelled to the Arctic and included were two videos – the famous one of the iceberg capsizing and then a big one that Garrick Ng had made of the whole trip They made me all nostalgic and I’m ready now to pack my bags and return.

During the sewing bee, Terry and I went for a walk. Liz had been dropping hints about us being in the way and she finally stopped hinting and told us in no uncertain terms to clear off We had a wander around the walls and then went to the bar for a drink. By the time that we returned Liz had almost finished.

After Liz and Terry had left, I had tea. Liz had brought me a pile of home-made soup and some vegetarian chili. So pasta and chili for tea. And delicious it was too.

Rosemary called later. And we were on the phone for over 2 hours chatting about this and that. Rosemary is going back to the UK for her medical check-up next week and not looking forward to it.

By now it was almost 22:30 – too late for me to go for my walk. But there were a few things to do on the computer and no-one was more surprised than me to see that it was almost 02:00.

It’s been a long day, but it’s Sunday tomorrow. No alarm and so I’m going to sleep until I awaken.

Monday 31st December 2018 – BY THE TIME …

… I get to Phoen … errr … that you read this you’re probably already in 2019, so belated New Year wishes from me.

May I wish everyone for 2019 exactly the same as you wished for everyone else in 2018. And I also send special New Years wishes to everyone who was kind enough to offer me hospitality as I travelled around the Northern Hemisphere.

As I have said before … “and you’ll say it again<” – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those whom I have are the best in the world.

The morning, such as it was, didn’t start until about 10:15. That might sound much more like a reasonable time when I have a day off, but I forgot to mention that so engrossed was I about some things that I was doing during the evening that it was almost 04:00 when I went to bed last night.

A late breakfast therefore, and there was a treat in store for me.

Do you remember from Saturday when I bought the vegan pains au chocolat from LeClerc? This morning I made a start on them. A quick 30 seconds in the microwave to warm one of them up and to freshen it up, and on the table for breakfast

And they weren’t too bad at all.

I didn’t do very much for the rest of the day. After all, I’m on holiday, aren’t I?

Lunch was a couple of slices of toast with hummus followed by some fruit. No point in having a pile of butties when it’s late like this.

A little later on I went out for my afternoon walk.

There were the usual crowds of people about this afternoon around the walled town. And there were quite a few people out on the beach having a paddle in the sea to celebrate the New Year.

And good luck to them too – sooner them than me.

Tea was some falafel and pasta in tomato sauce. Delicious it was too

Rosemary rang me up after tea and we had a chat for … errr … one hour and forty-four minutes. And would have gone on even longer had the battery not gone flat in my telephone.

At 23:30 I went out for a midnight walk. It’s New Year and I wanted to be out on the streets.

My ramble took me down to the harbour, across the lock gates and into town. I took a few pics of the harbour at night and then wandered into town. There can’t have been more than a couple of dozen people around, and some of them were quite noisy.

It wasn’t actually the New Year’s celebrations that I was expecting, an so I came home. It’s not exactly early but it’s not late either. Nevertheless, I’m off to bed.

So while you all admire the photos, I’ll clear off. See you all next year.

fishing boat granville manche normandy france

beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

night steps staircase granville manche normandy france

night port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Thursday 27th December 2018 – THE ONLY PROBLEM …

… with going to bed early is that despite all of my best efforts, I end up waking up early.

But no danger of me leaving the stinking pit at 04:50. Instead I turned over and tried to go back to sleep until the alarm at 06:00.

I’d been on my travels too. I was making some coconut macaroons so I’d deep-fried the mandarin oranges and I’d assembled a pile of desiccated coconut but I couldn’t remember what else to put in them. And so I was scratching around trying to find a recipe.

When the alarm went off, I was up quite quickly and finished the packing. I left some stuff behind but all that I could practically take, I brought with me.

It was a good plan to come home today because there was almost no-one around. At the station, I arrived just as the express from Genk pulled in. And it was still there by the time I had bought my ticket so I leapt aboard. Usually it’s packed to the gunwhales but today it was quite empty as the commuters have another day off.

No-one in the queue at the Carrefour supermarket on the station where I bought my raisin buns for breakfast, and I forgot AGAIN about the chemists – to see if the one on the station would be open.

Our train was our old friend 4304 – one of the Thalys PBKA (Paris, Brussels, Köln, Amsterdam) trainsets from the mid-90s. Nice and comfortable but starting to show its age like most of them.

There were a few spare seats on board too so we weren’t too hemmed in. I sent the journey to Paris reading a book in comparative comfort.

At the Gare du Nord I stepped onto the Metro platform just as a train pulled in. And that was empty too. I had a seat all the way to Montparnasse which was just as well because this lt in my luggage was heavy.

As I negotiated my way around Montparnasse, Rosemary rang me. And we had a little chat for a few minutes. Then I had to nip down to Vaugirard for my train.

It was already there so I had to shift someone out of my seat before I could make myself comfortable. And it was cold on there too. Ice and frost everywhere and as we left the station we rolled into a thick bank of fog that came with us all the way to Granville.

Not that I know all about it because I had a little doze along the way.

Outside the station I was almost squidged by a woman driver who doesn’t seem to understand the principle of a zebra crossing.

It was a struggle to come back here. I was definitely feeling the strain of all of my exertions. But I eventually made it back and I was glad, even though it was cold in here.

I haven’t done much since I’ve been back. Just some unpacking (but not all of it) and made my tea (a burger and the veg that I brought back).

Later on, I went for my usual evening walk around the headland.

By now, the fog had come down and closed in and it wasn’t very easy to see anything. Everything outside was swathed in a surreal orange glow thanks to the reflection of the street lights.

It wasn’t thick enough to dissuade the fishing boats from working. There were plenty of those unloading in the harbour tonight.

So now I’m off for an early night. I’ve earned it, and I need it too. But whether I’ll get it is another thing. You know how things are these days.

night fog fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Friday 14th December 2018 – THAT’S ANOTHER …

…. day where I’ve accomplished much less than I intended to.

it started well enough because, having had a reasonably early night, I was awake and up and about before the final alarm went off at 06:19. And that’s a nice change.

Not so much about the weather though. It had been cold during the night and when I looked at the thermometer, it was 0°C outside.

Welcome to winter. It’s here at last.

After breakfast I had a start on the stuff that needed doing such as arranging some of the files and documents from the desktop computer but for some reason or other I didn’t seem to be able to start and I have no idea why. I wasn’t pushing on like I had hoped.

Even so, I made it as far as lunchtime although I hadn’t done very much. And a couple of nice sandwiches with some of my home-made hummus were delicious.

This afternoon I attacked the carrots. 1kg of them topped and tailed, peeled and chopped. And put in a saucepan with some bayleaves to blanch.

It was then that there was a buzz on the door. Liz and Terry had found themselves in the vicinity so they called in for a chat. It was nice to see them too.

We had biscuits and coffee and a good chat, and the fuse in the electrics decided to blow opportunely seeing as there was an electrician in the apartment. Now I don’t need to explain to Terry what’s going on.

After Liz and Terry left, I was deciding on going out, very much late, for my afternoon walk, when the telephone rang.

It was Rosemary who wanted a chat so we were there for almost 90 minutes putting the world to rights.

With all of the excitement, I don’t remember anything after that until just after 19:00. I’d been flat out on the office chair for just about an hour. I’m clearly not doing too well, am I?

Tea was a burger with pasta and tomato sauce. I wasn’t in the mood for anything exotic or anything that would take time to prepare.

For the first time this winter I wore my gloves. It’s going to be another freezing night tonight, I reckon. But I’m going to be tucked up in my little bed in the warmth in early course. It’s shopping day tomorrow.

Saturday 1st December 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… beautiful pie.

I remembered to buy the leeks this morning so I fired a leek with some onions and garlic and then tipped into it the pie filling from last time. While it was all frying around I greased my pie dish and put the roll of pastry in it. And then added the mix once it had cooled.

One thing that I hadn’t noticed was that it was “thick pastry” and not the usual roll. And because it weighed the same as the usual roll, it meant that it was of a smaller circumference. And so it didn’t join in the middle.

But not to worry. I cheated and covered the gap with a couple of slices of cheese.

While the oven was warming and before I started the pie, I made a small rice pudding and put that in the oven. The pie followed it later.

When it was nearly done I made some potatoes with some frozen peas and carrots, and some gravy. The pie I cut into 4 slices. Three for the freezer and one for the meal. And it was absolutely delicious. I’ll do this again, that’s for sure. And how I wish that I had bought a bigger freezer.

Last night was quite a good night. I did awaken here and there but not so that I remembered it particularly. I do remember going on a little wander though.

There was a whole group of us, including the guy with whose family I stayed in 1970, wandering around somewhere. e were having to be lodged in a house somewhere in the town because of overcrowding (no surprise here) but we ate at home, in a house that wasn’t really much different to Davenport Avenue. We all turned up there one day, to find a rather pleasant, cheerful (for a change) father actually cooking the meal, and that in itself is a major surprise.
A little later on I was watching a football match where a group of players with features resembling those of Mongolia were playing the Polish team. The pitch was very rough and uneven and had a famous downhill slope. The Mongolians (for want of a better word) were attacking downhill and missed a couple of sitters, blazing them over the bar when clean through on goal. The half-time score was 0-0, thanks also to a dogged rearguard defence by the Mongolians, and I had a feeling that with the Poles ttacking downhill in the second half, the Mongolians would deeply regret these misses. But I went over to talk to one of their players standing on the fringe of things at half-time. he explained that his country was actually a breakaway republic from Poland and so this match had a deep and emotional significance for his players and his country. How the Poles thought themselves superior! I explained that the Poles always had had a reputaion for being a dour, battling side that doesn’t give in easily, but he winked and said that he didn’t mean just about football. I had the impression that he meant to say that the Poles looked on their opponents as some kind of untermenschen who deserved to be dominated and their rightful place was right at the bottom of the pile.

There was the usual breakfast and shower and so on, and then I hit the streets. And despite visiting LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc, I didn’t buy anything at all extraordinary. Just maybe the €1:99 for a pair of pliers.

But one thing that they seem to have started to sell in LeClerc is the big tub of soya dessert and the one that caught my eye was the natural soya dessert laced with coconut. I’ve had some pineapple slices hanging around here for ages and one day soon whenever I finish the rice pudding I’ll have them with the coconut soya. That will keep me going for a few days I reckon.

It took me ages to summon up the energy to unpack everything and put it away and then I had lunch.

There was plenty to do on the laptop but unfortunately I didn’t do much. And falling asleep was only part of it. Sorting through some of the files that I had downloaded from the desktop computer was another big part of it.

I’ve mentioned the pie of course, but I didn’t get my rice pudding because the football came up on the internet. Barry Town v Newtown in the Welsh Premier League.

Played in the driving rain, it was all Newtown in the first half but they couldn’t find a striker to put the ball in the back of the net.

Whatever it was that they put in the half-time tea in the Barry Town dressing room, I wouldn’t mind a pint of it myself. They scored almost straight from the kick-off an0d then went up a gear, finishing a comfortable 4-1 winners.

And when the referee looks at the game later, he’ll probably agree that he has had better games than he did today.

However, I didn’t pay full attention to the second half because Rosemary rang up. She was keen to find out how I did in the hospital and we ended up chatting for about an hour and a half. And that was very nice.

As a result though, I didn’t have any of my daily walks today. I’ll just have to do twice as much tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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