Tag Archives: tidying up

Friday 5th January 2018 – USELESS LOAD OF BANKERS!

I actually managed to struggle into town this morning.

And it’s just as well that I did too.

my early night didn’t work out as well as it ought to have done because I was wide awake at 05:00. Never mind the former times when the alarm used to go off at 06:00 (and it will again, starting next week) – by 06:00 I was sitting on the sofa having had my medication.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a good clean up, and then spent a good hour or two collecting all of the paperwork that I needed. And I’ glad that I did too because I had a nasty surprise.

But never mind that for a moment. First stop was the Police Station to complete the paperwork about my missing wallet. He had a grouch and a growl because, in his opinion, the work that they had done in Paris was bidon. But at least I now have a temporary driving licence so that I can legally use Caliburn.

And then we went to the Bank ready for a battle.

My bank cards are ready so I picked them up. And I paid a bill that need to be paid, and then battle commenced.

I shan’t bore you with all of the details. But a brief recap is that when I moved here, I went into the bank to open an account here, to close down my account in Pionsat, and to transfer all of my payments to the new account.

And then we’ve had the long sorry story of how everything seems to have gone wrong – a relentless stream of failures and incidents that have shaken my faith in the bank.

But today was the final straw. It seems that they haven’t closed the accounts in Pionsat at all, all of my payments have been paid in duplicate and I’ve been paying bank charges on two accounts that I don’t use.

Anyway I left them busily repainting the woodwork where the paint had blistered off in the heat. They are going to sort it out, so they say, but we’ll just wait until the next disaster. The Credit Agricole here in Granville is like lurching from one catastrophe to another, and my finances are catastrophic enough without any help from my useless load of Bankers.

But the most telling part of all of this was the question “who dealt with your affairs? Was it Madame xxxxx?”
Well, as a matter of fact it was. And having heard one or two stories, I’m not surprised that her name cropped up without any prompting.

Next stop was the Post Office to renew the redirection of my mail. That’s important because of my driving licence issues, more of which anon.

And here we had the delightful, typical Post Office scene of a crowd of people waiting in a queue while no less than THREE assistants dealt with one customer.

Everyone was fuming so I turned to the woman behind me
Our hero – “typical Civil Servants. No idea whatever about the Real WOrld. They should be made to take 6 months unpaid leave every five years and come and scratch around for a living like the rest of us and see what it’s like to live in the Real WOrld”
Woman behind me – “I’m a Civil Servant”.

Final port of call was at the Driving School.

To apply for a replacement driving licence on line, I nedd a special kind of certified official photograph and I had no idea where to obtain one. They would know, of course.

And indeed they did. So next time that I’m out on the town I can pay a visit.

When I returned home Liz was on line so we had a chat, and then it was lunchtime.

After lunch I did some tidying up and even had the vacuum cleaner out for a while. And I’ve made a few plans about organising myself better. If that works, I’ll be amazed because it’s never worked before. But all of this time spent hunting down paperwork is totally absurd.

Havng had a little (well, more than a little) snooze and an hour or so on the bass, I made tea. Baked potatoes and beans with cheese. And my vegan cheese slices will melt if I break them up and put them with the beans in the microwave.

And for pudding, some of Liz’s Christmas cake.

To finish off the day, I’ve been for a walk. It was slow and painful but I did it. So I’m hoping that I’ll have a decent night’s sleep tonight.

Final word must go to my former colleague and friend Anne-Marie. She joined the EU the same time that I did and we went round together for a while, even going on a skiing trip together for a week in Bulgaria. I’ve heard on the grapevine that she received her long-service medal from work the other daY.

Sp hats off to her.

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Tuesday 2nd January 2018 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… on the sofa last night at about 22:30.

And so when I awoke at about 23:00 or something, I dragged myself off to bed.

And there, I had a bad attack of cramp getting into bed and that, dear reader, was that. I didn’t have a wink of sleep at all.

I’d set the alarm for 07:30 but by the time that it went of, I was up and about and doing things. I was expecting visitors.

Working for 10 minutes on and half an hour sitting down I whizzed through the apartment and while it would be wrong to pretend that it was neat and tidy, all of the rubbish had been taken out and the important bits were all properly presentable. And I was able to have a shower too.

At about 11:15 Liz and Terry turned up. back from the UK, they popped by to see how I was getting on and I was able to reassure them. As you know, for a while I was at death’s door but this doctor pulled me through.

We had a really good chat, caught up with all of out news and made a couple of plans for the Spring. A trip to IKEA might be on the cards in the near future.

This afternoon I recovered from my exertions and, much to my surprise, even though it’s now almost 23:00 I’m not in the least bit tired. And that’s a surprise after my nuit nlanche. I wonder if I’ll get to bed tonight as well.

As for food, I had my usual bowl of porridge at breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything for lunch. Later in the evening I made another pot of soup, tomato this time, and heaved in a couple of handfuls of macaroni in it, as well as a tablespoon or two of olive oil. I need the fats and proteins right now.

Tow mugs of that went down nicely and I could even manage the sp.

One idea for the next time that I’m out is to buy some of this very fine, small pasta and I can keep on adding that into soups as I make them. That will be easy to eat and it will give the soups some body.

But here’s a surprise. Several weeks ago I bought from NOZ a couple of tins of cinnamon biscuits. It was the tins that caught my eye, never mind the content. Not large enough for my cake unfortunately but big enough for all kinds of things, and just €1:99 each. And when I saw that the biscuits therein were vegan, I snapped up the last two.

With Liz and Terry being here, I cracked open a tin. And I was totally surprised as to how nice they were. THis will have to go down as one of the deals of the year.

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Wednesday 13th December 2017 – “SMILE”, THEY SAID …

… “things could be worse”

And so i smiled. And sure enough, things WERE worse. In fact, they are just about as bad as they can be right now. It’s Friday 13th, for heaven’s sake, when things usually go wrong. But not for me. I’m a Wednesday’s child, and Wednesday’s child is full of woe. And there is no-one more woeful than me just at the moment.

At least I was out of bed early. That’s the good news. But from there, it went steadily downhill. The torrential downpour outside with me having to walk all the way to the station dragging my suitcase behind me really put the dampers on everything.

But I had a good breakfast, tidied the apartment a little, emptied the rubbish, and set off through the rain.

Up to now, this was a reasonable day. And the train journey to Paris was quite uneventful. We actually pulled into Montparnasse, right by the entry down into the Metro. Saved me a pile of time, that did.

Down in the bowels, I bought two Metro tickets. I’m usually pushed for time on the way back, so I buy my ticket in advance. And then down into a crowded metro and into an even more crowded train.

Alighting from the train and going up to the barrier, that was when disaster struck me. On Saturday it was my telephone that had disappeared. Today, it’s my wallet. With all of my money, my bank cards, my driving licence and everything else.

Somewhere in the Metro that had gone for a burton.

And so there I was, stranded in Paris with no money, no bank cards, no means of support – you don’t go far on €0:46. There’s a secret pile of cash at home – the ‘fighting fund’ for emergencies – but it’s no good there.

I filled out a report for the police and they gave me the Credit Agricole’s cardstop number. So I was able to do that.

And lucky I, having kicked my phone network provider around the head and having made the internet on it work, I was able to track down the Cardstop numbers for the Fortis Bank and the RBS and stop those too. Luckily I was quicker on the phone than the new possessor of my wallet is, because no payments had been made.

All of this made me late and I had to dash for the train, and luckily I just about made it.

On the TGV there’s internet so I tried to contact Alison. But my laptop chose that moment to do an upgrade (and while it was at it, it upgraded my web browser so I’ve now lost the =.ftp extension there too).

But having persevered last night with the mobile phone I had eventually made my Social network register itself (and it took hours too) so with the slowest connection I have ever seen (it’s quite an old ‘phone) I could finally contact the outside world.

But Alison had by now gone back to work and had switched off her phone.

So there I was with no cards and no money and no way of getting from Brussels to Leuven.

But I’m nothing if not resourceful. The train docks at 15:47 and there’s a branch of my bank down the road 5 minutes away that’s open until 16:00.

And so I was first off the train and down the ramp.

And I’d actually gone halfway out of the station before I realised that I hadleft my jacket on the train – with my camera and a few other things in the pocket.

And so I raced back, and just about caught the train before it pulled out to Amsterdam. And in a frightful panic, retrieved my raincoat.

The Bank closes at 16:00, and I had my foot in the door at 15:59. It’s a good job that I had made a declaration to the police because, armed with that and a passport, I could be issued with a temporary Bank card.

It’s only valid for a short while and there are limits with what you can do with it, but anything is better than nothing right now.

Back through the driving rain to the station, and armed with a ticket I could board the train. And then from the station at Leuven a walk through the driving rain to my flat-hotel at the back of the nick. Luckily I’d paid that in advance.

Later on in the evening I went out to do a little shopping. And the rain, if anything, was even worse. I might have felt better had I not had to buy my toiletries, seeing as how I seem to have forgotten to bring them.

But at least I can eat – and the microwaved potatoes with spicy beans were delicious.

But to add insult to injury, the battery on the camera is flat and I’ve forgotten the charger.

Do you ever get the feeling that it’s just not your day?

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Tuesday 12th December 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

I’ve walked into town three times today. No wonder that I’m exhausted.

Mind you, the up side to this is that I managed my 100% daily exercise total without any difficulty at all and as I sit here on the sofa I’m at 110% – and that’s without going for a walk this evening either.

Last night was an early night and I slept right through to the alarm which was very nice. And I didn’t beat the second alarm out of bed either which was rather depressing.

And just for a change I remembered to eat breakfast. And I followed that by a shower and also SHOCK! HORROR! a lap of the washing machine with the pile of clothes that has built up over the last couple of weeks.

Once that was organised I hit the streets and headed for the office of my mobile phone supplier. And there, I was asked if I had my passport with me.

So, back to the apartment and the passport. You would have thought that after all of this time living here in France (2006 on a permanent basis and a considerable number of years previously as a temporary resident) I would have remembered that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without “vos papiers“.

Back at the mobile phone supplier, and a long wait to be served. But eventually I was issued with a new SIM card that I could fit into th old phone that I bought in 2014.

Following on that, I went to the POlice Station. I’d remembered to find the identity papers of the telephone that was “lost” and now that I have my phone back up and working, I could give them a contact number.

As I returned back here, the fire brigade were working on the building across the car park. I told you yetserday that the hurricane had loosened all of the zinc guttering and shuttering on the roof. They were busy making it all safe.

After lunch I hung up the washing over the radiator in the other end of the room and started to assemble a few things that I need to take with me tomorrow. I had to configure the phone too but the down side of this phone is that there’s not enough memory to run the Apps that I need to run. No idea how I can work around this. If only I could download them to un off tSD card that is in there.

But I did notice that the telephone wasn’t connecting to the network. It was recognising everyhing as was working from the WIFI modem, but not making a connection.

And so back into town again.

The girl had a fiddle around and despite her saying that it must be my phone, my SIM card didn’t work on her phone either and she did something on the computer there. Maybe they forgot to reconnect the line or something.

Picling up a baguette from the posh bakers to make my butties for the journey tomorrow, I returned home. I’ve done enough for today. A relax, and tea was out of a tin.

Instead of going for a walk I did a little tidying and cleaning. And now I’m having an early night. I have a train to catch tomorrow of course.

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Wednesday 22nd November 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… beat the second alarm out of bed this morning. But there’s a good reason for that – and that is that if ever I lay my hands on whoever it was who telephoned me at 04:00 in the mornng I’ll be beating them and they’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the next couple of months.

I’d been on my travels too. On a railway station somewhere trying to unload some luggage from a carriage but wasn’t able to do it in the time allowed. But I remember thinking to my self “it doesn’t matter – it’s only a dream and it’ll be all right in real life”. From there, I went off taxiing in XCL, my red Cortina estate. I’d picked up one of my friends, a guy I knew from school, in Oak Street, Crewe, to take to Heathrow Airport to pick up another guy whom I knew at school. And I was thinking that won’t he be surprised when the other friend tells him who is the driver of the taxi.

So it was 06:45 when I arose from my stinking pit – a nice little lie-in for me just for a change. And after breakfast I had another go at sorting out another pile of photos that have been accumulating around. And it’s sad because I’ve forgotten a lot about some of the photos that I took years ago, and I’ve no idea where I’m going to find the text.

And so as a result I’ve joined a couple of groups on my social media account and am posting them on there little by little so see if any fans can help identify them. But I do wish that I knew where I saved the old “Yahoo” blog when “Yahoo” took them all offline in 2009. I shall have to organise myself better.

After lunch I carried on with the photos and spent some time sorting out the freezer, trying to make more room in there. It’s getting rather full. As a result, for tea I had oven chips with one of the vegan burgers we made the other day and the bread rool that was in there, and some frozen peas with fresh carrots. With cheese and mustard in the burger bap it was delicious.

And although I crashed out, it was only for about 20 minutes.

There was a howling wind outside and it’s been on the go all day. So this afternoon I was nearly blown off the cliff as I walked around the headland.

granville manche normandy franceAfter tea I braved the howling gale yet again and went for a walk around the walls of the old town.

Tonight though I remembered to take the new Nikon with me so I could take some photos in the dark and see how they turned out.

This is of course the square by the casino with the beach to the left.

granville manche normandy franceA little further round I could take a photo of the street that leads up to the town centre.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I first came to live here in Granville I stayed in a tiny apartment that was situated just down there at the crossroads right in the centre of the photograph.

Would you believe that that was 8 months ago now? Doesn’t time fly?

place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceLast night when I was out I went round to the Place Maurice Marland and took a photo of it. But with the camera on the phone it didn’t come out very well.

And so on my perambulations this evening with the decent camera I took another photo of it, and it’s come out rather better.

On the way back I bumped into my new feline friend and he had a good stroke for 10 minutes. It’s very relaxing, stroking a cat. Good to combat stress.

So we’ll try for another early night, and hope that no-one interrupts me this evening.

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Thursday 16th November 2017 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

RED SKY granville manche normandy france…Shepherd’s delight
Redsky in the morning, Avranches is on fire.

We were treated to a most glorious sunrise this morning – one of the nicest that I’ve seen for quite a while. And so I snapped a photograph of it through the window. It was rather too cold to open it.

It’s the kind of thing that can cheer me up. We’ve said before about how Ancient Man worshipped the sun and it’s seeing things like this that helps you to understand why.

And I needed cheering up too because I’d had another bad, congested night. It took hours to go off to sleep and I was awake quite early on.

But I’d been on my travels too. Back to the back garden of Vine Tree Avenue where I was ill and the place was all overgrown. And who should come along to help me (in reality to do it for me) but Guus and Lieneke.
And later I was with Nerina and I was itching to show her the waterfall that I had discovered out in the wilderness. She agreed to come, and this meant descending into the bowels of an emigrant ship past all of the desperate people in there, and then going down through the holds and bilges. I could see that Nerina was unhappy about it and I was doing my best to encourage her and urge her on. I knew that it would be well worth the effort once she got to see it, but it was hard to motivate her.

After breakfast I loitered around for a while to give my tablets an opportunity to work and then I hit the streets.

combattant granville manche normandy franceFrom my vantage point by the drawbridge I can look down on the harbour and see what is going on.

And we can see what Combattant is doing down there right enough. There’s a lighter now moored up alongside and that has a digger on board. I’d heard about a project to dredge the harbour and it looks as if they are making a start.

As an aside, I did once hear a story about dredging in the Port of London where a dredger pulled up a car that had been in there for 30 years – and still had the occupants in it.

grima granville manche normandy franceGrima was still down there too. She had unloaded her cargo of scrap – it was one of these mini-Ford-Transits –
and was busy loading up a pile of stuff to take back to Jersey.

But what caught my eye was the pontoon tied up to the side of the boat. It made me wonder what was going on down there and so I resolved to go down for a look on my way back.

At the moment, I was off to LIDL.

It was a struggle for me to get up the hill. I clearly wasn’t feeling much like it at all, being ill as I am. But eventually I made it up there and picked up a loaf of bread and some pastry. I fancy having a go at another pie

combattant ar-mor granville manche normandy franceI had a slow walk back down to the harbour for a look at Combattant.

The lighter by her side is called Ar-Mor. That’s an old Celtic word for Brittany and means “Land of the Sea” or “Land by the Sea”. Until comparatively modern times Brittany was known as Armorica.

There was a crewman working on the Combattant and we had quite a chat. He confirmed that she was here to dredge and would be here a few days. That explains,
by the way, her erratic port movements.

pontoon grima granville manche normandy franceDown the dockside to the Grima and I soon found the reason for the pontoon. We have a frogman in the water having a good look at the underneath of the ship.

Talking to the skipper, it seems that there’s something blocking one of the water outlets – and while we were chatting, the frogman pulled a huge pile of seaweed out.

And here’s an interesting thing – to put a diver in the water in the port of St Helier costs a minimum of £1,000. Here in Granville, it’s simply an hourly charge. And that’s the reason why he was having it done here

We had quite an exciting chat too – putting the world to rights, and as he was doing that, a lady went aboard. Subsequent enquiries revealed that he has a licence to carry 12 passengers, and that there are some cheap hotels on the Quayside at St Helier. Now doesn’t that conjure up all kinds of interesting ideas for a weekend away?

But the most interesting part of our discussion was when I mentioned that I had a Ford Transit van. He occasionally needs the odd pallet of stuff collecting and no way of doing that, and so he eagerly wrote down my phone number.

After lunch, I crashed out for an hour or so and then did some tidying up on the shelves again to make even more space.

Tea was delicious tonight. I wasn’t in the mood to cook so it was a tin of ratatouille with pasta. And doesn’t the ratatouille taste better with a teaspoon of garlic powder and half a teaspoon of chili powder?

I’ve been for a walk tonight and now I’m hoping for an early night and a better sleep.

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Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

grma PORT DE COMMERCE granville manche normandy france… down in the harbour today.

I was out for a walk around the cliffs today and there in the distance I noticed the arrival of our old friend the Grima. And so I quickly scuttled on round to the other side of the promontory to watch her come into port.

There wasn’t anything piled up on her dock so I hadn’t been expecting her to arrive today.

grima PORT DE COMMERCE granville manche normandy franceI’d never actually seen her come into harbour … "yes you have" – ed … and so I was keen to see her come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into port.

She was carrying the usual load of scrap, including a white van something like a VW Caddy. And so I’ll have to go down to the port tomorrow to see what she’s fetched over from Jersey.

And, more to the point, what she’s actually going to be taking back because I’m sure that she wouldn’t find a one-way trip all that profitable. She’s need a return load.

combattant PORT DE COMMERCE granville manche normandy franceAnd my luck was certainly in this afternoon.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph that there was another ship on the horizon looking as if it was about to come into port.

And you wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption because chugging into port behind Grima came Combattant. And she’s vertainly new to us here in Granville. I’ve not seen her here before.

combattant PORT DE COMMERCE granville manche normandy franceShe seems to spend all of her working life out along the north-east coast of the Cotentin peninsula working her way around places like Cherbourg and Dieppe, and has come here from Le Havre.

I thought that she might have been another gravel boat, but she is actually much smaller than they are – at just 55 metres.

But nevertheless, watching her negotiate the chicane into the port was quite interesting and quite a feat of seamanship.

combattant PORT DE COMMERCE granville manche normandy franceAs we admire her passing through the harbour gates, I couldn’t see what she was carrying. Or what she was taking away either because she didn’t tie up at the gravel dock but at one of the fishing quays

But whatever it was she’s come here to fetch, it won’t be much because she’s only rated at 668 tonnes and you won’t go far with that.

And much to my surprise, she’s quite an elderly ship – dating from 1977. And she looks it too

I’d had another bad night, despite going to bed early. Head cold again prevented me from going to sleep and it woke me up at about 05:15 too, so all in all it was a disappointment. No wonder I’ve spent most pf the day crashed out on the sofa feeling ill.

But I’ve done some more tidying up on the shelves in the kitchen and it’s looking quite good on there now. Plenty of space for everything now.

And then we had our afternoon walk.

Tea was oven chips, burger (one of those we made the other day) in a bap with peas and carrots. And delicious it was too. And then I went out for my evening walk.

Jersey was even clearer tonight than it was last night and we had something of a light show. With the clouds higher in the sky over there (it was cloudless here) the glow in the sky was beautiful.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. And I hope thzt I can have a better night’s sleep. I’m definitely not feeling up to anything right now.

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Thursday 14th November 2017 – THAT WAS A DELICIOUS …

… tea, that was. Mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, vegan sausages and cauliflower cheese. The vegan cheese doesn’t melt very well so it could have been better, but not with the material that I have to hand.

The bad news is that I finished off the apple crumble tonight. With ice cream yet again, because I’d used the saucepan to make the cheese sauce. All in all, a meal fit for a king.

But what was even better was that the meteorological conditions tonight were absolutely perfect. Not only could I see the street lights or similar out on the Isle of Jersey, but all of the lights on the island were reflected in the clouds so that there was a pale glow in the sky right over where the island is, and it was magnificnt.

You can tell that I’m feeling a little better today.

Strangely enough, I had a bad night’s sleep. My head cold has started up again which is no surprise after being soaked to the skin on Sunday, so it took ages to go to sleep. And I was awake early too.

However, I’d been on my travels too during the night. Back into one of the offices where i worked and everyone from the manager down to the most junior office assistant, was harassing me, and enjoying it too. Not that this was any surprise – it was the story of my life and never bothered me in the past – but it was just by way of a remark.

I managed to beat the second alarm call and so we had a nice early breakfast. And a little more tidying up and sorting out the freezer, labelling all of the stuff that I’ve cooked in the past.

And I also had a little snooze too – but nothing like as deep as yesterday’s efforts.

After lunch I was away with the fairies again for a short while and then I had a stroke of luck.

You may remember from a few days ago that I was sorting out a huge pile of photos going back years. But I’d … errr … misplaced the keywords for the sorting. And browsing around here and there, I managed to come across something that dated back to about 2006 and while it didn’t contain all of the information that I needed, i gave me enough to get going with while I make further enquries.

Another thing that I did was to find on my Social Networking site a group of people who are interested in old lorries. I’ve joined it and I’ll be posting the odd photo here and there and asking for help in identifying them.

replacing water mains haute ville granville manche normandy franceAt about 16:00 I went out for a walk around the walls. And a little deviation to see how they were getting on with replacing the water pipes.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I went to this meeting where they were discussing this programme to replace all of the lead piping in the Old Town, and they had started on Monday, so I was keen to see how they were doing.

And they seem to be making good progress too, which makes a nice change.

Now I’m fed and watered, been out for another walk in the moonlight, and now I’m ready for an early night.

I hope that I’ll be feeling a little better tomorrow too.

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Monday 13th November 2017 – I’VE HAD …

… the worst day that I’ve had for quite some consderable time.

Crawling out of bed at the usual time was the usual performance and after letting my medication work, I had breakfast. And I was fine up to that point.

It was about half an hour later that I crashed out for the first time and that was how it went on for all of the day. Crashing out, sleeping, and whenever I was awake, trying to do things.

I’ve put the washing away and tidied up the shelves in the kitchen to make even more space, abd all of that is quite an achievement considering how bad I’ve been feeling.

jersey channel islands granville manche normandy franceSome time after lunch I reckoned that I would do my best to go outside for a walk, and maybe that might change things around a little.

And I’m glad that I did because it was quite beautiful outside today, and the air was so clear that one could see for miles. Jersey was about the clearest that I’ve ever seen it and so I went back in for the camera.

It’s hard to believe that it’s over 30 miles away from where I’m standing.

And Brigitte was loitering around outside too – lying in wait for me, I reckon.

lighthouse point d'agon wind farm carteret granville manche normandy franceFurther out around the coast I could see as far as the lighthouse at the Pointe d’Agon where I went with Liz and her family. That’s the brownish edifice to the right.

Far out to the left are some rocks that are, I suppose, outlying rocks of the Channel Islands. There’s a lighthouse out there too, and that’s the white building right on the left-hand edge.

There’s a big wind farm out near Barneville-Carteret and you can see that away in the distance behind the lighthouse of the Pointe d’Agon if you look hard enough.

brehal granville manche normandy franceI took a few photos around the coast too.

I’m not sure where that might be over there with the big church. It could well be Brehal, I suppose, although I don’t really know for sure. But it’s certainly an impressive building all the same.

I suppose that I shall have to go for a drive out around there one day to see if I can discover where it is. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

wind farm cerences granville manche normandy franceThere’s also a wind farm that you can see from where Liz and Terry live, and scanning the horizon, I managed to see a wind farm that might be the one.

There’s one thing about my new camera and its telephoto lens – that it can pick up views like these abouve, which in some circumstances, like the wind farm near Barneville-Carteret are almost 40 miles away from where I’m standing.

Anyway, I continued with my little walk around the walls and came back home.

I crashed out a couple more times, but summoned up the courage to make a pepper and green bean curry. With plenty left over for freezing.

And I’m going to have an early night. I hope that I feel better tomorrow because I really have been feeling like death today.

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12th November 2017 – I’M DRENCHED.

I was going to say that I’m all wet, and no-one would disagree whatever with that comment.

It’s Sunday today and so I had a good lie-in. I’d been on my travels too. With Nerina in fact, roaming around the streets to the south side of Hungerford Road in Crewe looking for a supermarket calle Macksie’s where we were going for lunch. I had a vague idea where it was – somewhere off to the north of Hungerford Road but I couldn’t think of where it might be and no-one else whom we asked knew either. We ended up in a Court listening to a couple of cases and Nerina was showing her boredom. I could understand that because what we had heard to date wasn’t exactly setting our lives on fire, but there was one case coming up that would be intensely interesting and I was really looking forward to it.

It was about 08:30 when I came to life (such as it is) but more like 09:20 when I crawled out of my stinking pit. A late breakfast which meant that there wasn’t much of the morning left.

Just for a change, I tidied up the shelves a little in the kitchen and made much more space. There’s actually some empty spaces there now and I reckon that I can do even better than that too.

Never mind lunch – at 13:00 I hit the streets. US Granvillaise are playing Vierzon, one division below, in the French FA Cup, kick-off 14:00. Despite the howling gale-force wind I walked up there – and lost half of my biscuits to the gale.

The two teams were quite evenly matched, but the wind made a mockery of the match. Granville scored an early goal, but Vierzon had two corners, two gusts of wind, and consequently two goals scored direct that eluded the entire defence.

Early in the second half Granville had a corner which the defence could only scramble out from under the bar and which was knocked into the net by a lurking Granville forward. And 5 minutes later, a Granville attacker took advantage of a gust of wind to curl a shot in around the keeper.

After that the wind dropped and we had a torrential downpour that soaked all 816 of us in the crowd. We were drenched. And the match petered out into a 3-2 win for Granville.

But Vierzon were panicking and losing their cool, with the result that quite a few of their players found their way into the referee’s notebook. And With a lopsided notebook like that, it’s no surprise that a couple of Granville players found their way in too – and for some quite inocuous offences too.

After the match I dripped my way back home in time to see the second half of the TNS v Queen of the South match on the laptop.

Pizza for tea of course, and the pepper makes it taste even better. That was followed by Apple crumble and ice cream too.

And now it’s an early night again. Back to work tomorrow, if I haven’t caught flu again, that is.

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Saturday 11th November 2017 – I’VE BEEN …

… socialising this evening.

And that’s not like me, is it?

Last night’s sleep was one of the best that I’ve had just recently. And I was away with the fairies too – out in the East End of London with the children who had accompanied me on a voyage the other night. Reading all of these historical criminal cases from the Old Bailey is clearly getting to me.

I beat the second alarm and after breakfast did a little tidying up and putting away the washing which is now perfectly dry. Putting it in front of the radiator seems to work. And then I had some things to do – like sort out a music playlist for this evening.

After lunch I crashed out for a good hour and a half and then had to go for a shower and a shave and a good clean-up. And then I hit the town.

It’s Brigitte’s birthday today and she was having a party on a boat in the harbour for all of her friends, and I had been invited. Braving the rain, I walked down there to the harbour.

We were 27 people on this boat, and they all tucked into a couple of huge seafood platters followed by cheese and birthday cake. Of course, there wasn’t very much for me but then again I wasn’t expecting it.

It’s not my scene at all, being there with all of these people for four hours or so, but I have to get out and socialise and to meet the other people from this building. I was even given a lift back, which was very handy given the rainstorm that we were having.

And I’m having yet another early night. And Sunday is a day of rest – a lie-in. And I’m intending to make the most of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

football us granvillaise es hebecrevon cite des sports granville manche normandy franceBut this evening US Granvillaise’s 3rd XI were playing ES Hébécrevon on the artificial pitch at the Sports Centre. And as it was a reasonable evening, I dressed up warmly and walked all the way there. It’s about 3.5 kilometres up and down hill, and I reckoned that it would do me no good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Monday 23rd October 2017 – I ACTUALLY MANAGED …

… to go out for a walk this evening.

There was a reason for that – in that I hadn’t set foot out of the apartment all day.

With being in bed at a (relatively) early time, I was up shortly after the alarm went off. I’d been on my travels during the night too. In some city in Eastern Europe that bore more than a passing resemblance to the Delamere Street – Chester Street – Greenfield Street area of Crewe with all of the traffic filtering out of half a dozen lanes into just one heading down towards Flag Lane. And I was driving rapidly through the countryside and totally missed a bend that was obscured by overhanging bushes and ended up going through someone’s gate and onto their property. Some girl, who bore more than just a passing resemblance to Cecile, came out to see what was going on. She saw me in my car in the bushes and said that I’d been extremely lucky. There had been a house just there and I’d missed driving into the old cellar by inches. And she was right too!

So with an early start and an early breakfast, you might be expecting an early trip to pick up the baguette. But I’d bought a large loaf from LIDL on Saturday, I’d not touched it, and it was in good shape. So need to go out for bread.

And not only that, the weather was quite foul too. High winds and torrential rainstorms, so that was that. Instead, I stayed in all day and started to tidy up the various hard drives and external drives that I’ve been using just recently.

Not only that, I’ve rearranged the hi-fi system that I invented” the other day. It won’t work with the big speakers unfortunately, but at least I’ve managed to make space in the book cases to fit it all in, so at least it’s tidier.

All of that took me until teatime. And so I finished off the beans, had some more sausages and some baked potatoes. Nice it was too.

And having been for a walk (the wind and rain quietened down this evening), I’m pretty tired. I might even have an early night tonight. And just as well too, because I have a half-day out planned for tomorrow.

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Sunday 22nd October 2017 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saturday 21st October 2017 – IT SEEMS THAT FATE …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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