Tag Archives: aubergine kidney bean

Friday 29th November 2019 – IT’S A LIE!

I don’t care what Percy Penguin has to say about it. I do NOT snore in my sleep. Not that she would ever know because whenever we were together late at night, sleep was not the subject that was ever on my mind.

But how do I know that I don’t snore? The answer is that this morning I spent four hours listening to myself sleeping.

Well, okay. Not exactly listening, but examining a voice file with the aid of a graphic sound analyser program, and I could see three minutes of dictation, a thump when I fell asleep in mid-dictate, and then four hours of silence apart from the odd turning-over in my sleep and the odd banging of the headboard.

Yes, I’ve finally reached the marathon four-hour dictaphone *.mp3 file and it is indeed, just as I suspected, a mistake.

We almost had a mistake this morning too. I was positive that I had dictated the details of a nocturnal ramble into the dictaphone, but something made me check, even though it was the middle of the night, and I found that I hadn’t. Dreaming that I was dreaming again.

But luckily I could remember a lot of it and so I dictated it on the spot. And I’m really curious now to know what else I have been missing, that I dreamt that I had dictated.

But anyway, last night we were in the High Arctic last night on a ship that might or might not have been The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We were doing some kind of research project and our group was involved in doing some kind of research project in respect of birds. So we were being pretty serious about this and some of us were out on the pontoon and they were looking at all these birds like crows and raven in the water with their beaks open and studying them. It was obvious that there were a few people not intent on doing anything and were just lounging around. of course we were pretty serious and after I had been onto the pontoon to see what was going on I had to get back on board the ship and there were a load of people queueing trying to get on so I mimed as if I was whipping them on which made everyone laugh, those who were lounging around. Eventually I got back on board and had to start to work, and remembered saying “come on, let the dog see the rabbit” when I was trying to get on board the ship. And what I remember was that there were loads of weeds around floating in the water , it was pretty close to shore. Someone was counting the animals and one of our group said that she had seen a moose or something. And she had also seen a Clayton diesel locomotive. I asked “where did you see that?” so she said that it was just after we had left Hvalsey to head down here. I thought that I can’t remember seeing this, or even hearing about it. But I decided that I would leave it to stand anyway

So whatever that was all about, I really don’t know.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and this morning I definitely heard the second alarm, no mistake. But instead of leaping out of bed I somehow managed to go back to sleep yet again and the third alarm awoke me.

Today though, I was out of bed rather smartish and had an early medication and breakfast. And then I set down to work on the dictaphone notes as I had been promising myself.

By the time that I stopped for lunch, I was down to just 47 left. That’s been some quite dramatic progress today.

However, the morning was not without its interruptions. Three more parcels of this mega-order that I mentioned the other week turned up today.

Two of them I have yet to unpack, but the third one I did.

harvey benton 5 string fretless bass granville manche normandy franceWhen I was In Montreal in September I was playing about on a five-string bass guitar and that pleased me greatly. A few weeks later, I was having another play about, only with a fretless bass. And that pleased me just as greatly.

So when I was browsing around on the internet a few weeks back I came across a vendor who was selling a new but shop-soiled (I reckon that it’s a product return) 5-string fretless bass for a price that can only be described as “democratic”.

It’s not very often that I treat myself to extravagant expenditure, but I did the other day and I don’t regret it for a moment.

Not a patch on the Gibson EB3 of course. That will always be a special machine, but this one will do nicely as a supplement.

cock port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn that note, seeing as we are talking about music, I headed for town and my dejeunette for lunch. Down to the fish processing plant and across the path on top of the harbour gates.

Nothing much going on in there at all, but one thing that for all the time that I’ve been going in and out of the harbour, I have never noticed this cock before.

That’s not like me at all, is it?

On the way back I stormed up the hill like there was no tomorrow. I don’t understand that at all. Fighting fit for lunch, I was.

And after lunch, I made a start on the data files for my projects. That’s taking me longer than I thought die to having to redesign it a couple of times and also … ahem … editing the wrong base file. I wondered why all of these amendments that I was trying to make didn’t work.

As usual, I stopped round about 15:45 to go for my afternoon walk around the headland.

paimpol brittany granville manche normandy franceThe weather was astonishing though out there. There were a few clouds about but the sky was so clear that you could see for miles.

Over there that is the town of Paimpol I reckon, with the Phare de Paon and the Chapelle St Michel clearly visible. And all of that is about 80kms away, I reckon, from here.

The camera and the lens did well to pick up all of that.

plenevon brittany granville manche normandy franceMuch closer to home is the town of Plenevon. Over there to the far right near where that hill thing is.

That’s a mere 60 or so kms from there I’m standing, and you wouldn’t think so either but it’s amazing what a little “crop, enlarge and sharpen” can do.

The camera even managed to pick up a little fishing boat half-way across the water.

st malo pointe de grouin brittany granville manche normandy franceNow this is much more like it.

That’s the Pointe de Grouin just there and the Ile des Landes. Behind it is the entrance to the port of St Malo and on several occasions we’ve seen Pont Aven, the big Brittany Ferries ship, come sailing out of there.

It’s a shame that she’s not there right now though because it would have made a spectacular photo. You’ll have to make do with half a dozen small fih=shing boats instead.

sunlight cancale brittany granville manche normandy franceWe’ve had photos innumerable of Cancale across the bay, night as well as day. That’s about 25 kms away from me.

But what makes this one so special is that we’re having another one of those “sunlight streaming through a gap in the clouds” moments as we have done on a regular basis just recently.

It really is as good as floodlighting if you ask me, and probably better than some recent examples that we have seen.

sunlight windows beach jullouville granville manche normandy franceIt wasn’t just Cancale that was receiving the benefit of the sunlight either.

Down the coast at Jullouville about 10kms away the big building right on the shoreline was also receiving the benefit of the sun, right full-on into the windows

That must certainly have been something quite spectacular for those people in that large room there.

No change of visitor at the Chantier Navale so I came home. And I had a few things to do on the internet that took up a lot of my time.

But I did stop for tea – another frozen aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. Only 5 left now so soon I can start to think again about cooking mega-curries.

Outside for my evening walk, it was raining quite heavily. But I did press on nevertheless although I didn’t stop for photos. However, I did manage my run and made it halfway up the ramp at the end. I’m definitely geting fitter.

Football on the Internet tonight. Caernarfon v Cardiff Met in the Welsh Premier League. We had a brief discussion about the possible score and someone reckoned 2-1 to the Cofis. And at the end of the match I asked him if he had a recommendation for the 3:30 at Kempton Park.

Caernarfon did indeed win 2-1 and it was the correct result too. But it was a very quiet match with nothing much of any excitement, which is a surrpise where Caernarfon is concerned.

It was bogged down in midfield for much of the match with very few chances for either team. In fact all that really happened was that each side scored a breakaway goal from a loss of possession in midfield, and the winner was a tap-in following up a saved penalty.

The number of chances that they had, apart from those, you could count on one hand although Will Fuller in the Met’s goal was busier than Alex Ramsey up at the other end.

It’s very late now because I’ve been dawdling, so I’ll go to bed for the few hours of sleep that remains.

Shopping tomorrow plus dicaphone notes and project files. And then the cycle will start again.

Monday 18th November 2019 – SO HERE I AM …

… back chez moi after a pretty uneventful journey home.

And I do have to say that I’m not sorry to be back because I like my little apartment here on my little rock. It’s not much, but it’s hoe all the same.

But as usual, I couldn’t sleep last night. 01:00 I was still up and about. And I saw 02:00 come round too. But I don’t suppose that it mattered too much because there’s not too much else to do on the train except sleep.

At one point I did manage to drop off to sleep and I was joined during the night by Castor and Pollux. I’ve no idea why or what was going on but I do remember them leaping off the ship into the icy wastes. And I can’t even say if the ship was The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour either.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and by the time the third alarm went off at 06:20 I was dressed packed, had returned the key and was halfway down the street towards the station.

sncb class 21 electric locomotive leuven railway station belgiumAnd there wasn’t much time to loiter about for the train either.

Well in advance of the 06:42, I was in time for the 06:29. But I wasn’t sure whether that might have been a good idea when I saw what was pulling my train.

It’s one of the old Class 21 locomotives, the oldest of which is now 35 years old. And as more and more of them break down, and as many spare parts are no longer made, the worst ones are starting to be cannibalised to keep the others running for as long as possible.

interior of elderly train sncb belgium But never mind the locomotive. Where there’s an elderly locomotive it’s likely that there will be elderly carriages too and that was the bit that I wasn’t going to enjoy.

And I was right too. We had a rake of rather elderly carriages of the type with the plastic leatherette benches rather than the comfortable cloth seats that are found on more modern rolling stock.

So I settled down thinking to myself how lucky I was only going to Brussels and not to anywhere else any further away.

Things have progressed dramatically on the SNCB over the last few years, haven’t they?

Plenty of time at Brussels-Midi so I bought some raisin buns and sat on a seat to eat breakfast. As usual these days, I was harassed by the odd beggar or two and I told them to p155 off.

But a short while later there was “a commotion” elsewhere in the waiting room involving these people, the Police and Railway security staff were there, bags were being searched and people were being led away.

How bizarre.

Thalys PBKA 4322 gare du midi bruxelles brussels belgiumThe train was already in the station so we could board it quite quickly.

It’s one of the “PBKA” – Paris-Brussels-Cologne-Amsterdam – trainsets. Quite comfortable of course, and I was asleep before we had even left the station.

The motion of the train departing awoke me and I noticed that we were 15 minutes late leaving. So when the controller came past I asked her if she could note my ticket in case I missed my connection.

However she reckoned that we would make up some of the time and that anyway I’d have plenty of time to make it to Montparnasse – Vaugirard.

So I went back to sleep.

She was right though.

We’d made up about 5 minutes of the lost time and I sailed through the station to the underground and down onto the platform where there was a train already waiting.

As soon as I put my sooty foot upon it, it cleared off out of the station.

No issues on the line as far as the Montparnasse metro station, and then for someunknown reason the walk all the way through the labyrinth undergound and then through the station to the Vaugirard platforms didn’t seem as long as it usually is.

Mind you, there was a diversion for pedestrians due to development, and the new route took me along a platform where TGV had just pulled in, so I was swamped with people.

84xxx gec alsthom regiolis gare de granville manche normandy franceHere’s my train (on the left) at Granville railway station next to its brother who is working the Caen – Rennes line.

My train was already in at Montparnasse – Vaugirard although we had to wait a few minutes to board it. It was a shortened train too, just 6 carriages instead of 12 so there were no seat reservations and it was a free-for-all.

Luckily I managed to have a seat to myself, and I slept most of the way back to Granville.

That’ll teach me to have a late night.

erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy franceAnother very good and brisk walk all the way back home again.

The odd stop here and there to see what was going on in the town. And it must be getting near to Christmas because they are now erecting the Christmas lights in the town.

This blasted year has gone round round far too quickly for me.

Freezing cold in the apartment (9°C) so I wound the heater up full blast. did a little casual unpacking and then had a relax for a while doing some stuff on the computer.

And carrying on with my project about downloading digital tracks of some of the albums that I own on vinyl. I’m determined to digitalise everything.

Tea was a bag of aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit followed by fruit salad and coconut cream.

night jersey channel islands granville manche normandy franceAnd then I hit the streets – and immediately came back for the tripod because t was a really beautiful night.

The sky was so clear that you could actually see the individual lights on Jersey – all of 58 kms away, so I was determined to capture them.

But then I hit a snag – I couldn’t work out how to make the delayed shutter action work, so this one hasn’t come out as well as it might have done.

night baie de mont st michel st malo brittany granville manche normandy franceBut by the time that I had made it round to the headland, I’d worked it out. And so this one is much better.

Away in the distance across the bay and behind a headland or two is the city of St Malo. And tonight not only could you see the glow of the lights in the sky, you could actually see one or two lights over there.

It was a good idea to go back for the tripod.

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceThere was a load of traffic out there at sea tonight too.

While I was busy setting up my equipment and taking the photos, I’d seen a light slowly coming closer and closer towards me.

No prizes for guessing what it might be either. It can’t be anything else but a trawler of course, so I took a few photos of it at different speeds and exposures to see if one good one comes out of it.

trawler fishing boats fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy franceIt was a hive of activity in the port tonight.

The tide was quite a way in so there were plenty of fishing boats in the harbour unloading at the fish-processing plant.

I had a good look at them for a while and then came back. Running for part of the way – just a hundred yards or so.

Mind you, I had run up the stairs here to get to my room for the tripod so I’m not complaining.

Tomorrow I’m having a little lie in and then I’m back to work. There is plenty to do and not enought time to do it – the story of my life I suppose.

But at least I’m back home and that is good.

erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy france
erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy france

erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy france
erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy france

night baie de mont st michel st malo brittany granville manche normandy france
night baie de mont st michel st malo brittany granville manche normandy france

trawler fishing boats fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france
trawler fishing boats fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Saturday 9th November 2019 – CALIBURN IS BACK.

But he won’t be back for long.

Although he passed his controle technique, and with ease too, the garage owner and I had quite a chat about him.

He’s now not far short of 13 years old and several areas of corrosion on his bodywork have been brought to my attention and need to be looked at before the next full controle technique in 2 years time.

As a result of our discussion, I’ve been provided with the name and address of a good body repair place in Gavray that the garage owner recommends and I’ll be going off to have a chat with him in due course as soon as I find out what I’ve done with the paper.

It might cost me €1000 or so to put him right, but I know every nut and bolt on the vehicle and apart from the very odd little bit here and there, no-one else has ever driven him. If I move him on and buy something else, I don’t know what it is that I’ll be buying and that could be fraught with danger.

The kind of vehicle that I want – another van of the same or similar size – could have been doing anything and being driven by everyone. So in the circumstances I’m going to stick with Caliburn

charles marie new boat granville manche normandy franceIt was a nice walk out of the apartment this morning. The weather was coo and overcast – an ideal day for a good walk.

Passing by the harbour I gave my usual glance over the wall to see who was in there today. Granville and Victor Hugo are there, and so is Charles Marie. But there’s a new boat down there that I haven’t seen before.

It’s some kind of landing-craft type of freighter and I can’t see her name from up here. I shall have to go for a walk down to the harbour tomorrow for a closer look

woman with crabs marche ouvert rue paul poirier granville manche normandy franceWith it being Saturday, it was market day. And as well as all of the stalls in the Market Hall, there’s something of a street market too.

One of the attractions of the market is the woman who has got crabs. There’s always a large crowd around her as she is selling her wares and se seems to be doing quite well.

Mind you, I have enough problems of my own without adding crabs to them.

There’s definitely something going on that I don’t understand because I stormed up the hill to the top in the kind of fashion that I would use as if I were invading Poland, even singing to myself as I strode out.

fred bus restaurant route de villedieu granville manche normandy franceAnd I kept on going all the way out to the garage with just one or two little deviations (and if its deviations you want, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man”).

I don’t know if I mentioned it but the last time that I was out this way on foot I’d noticed a big red double-decker bus being used as a restaurant. And so I went for a closer look.

Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its long-disappeared guises will recall that that was my plan with Laurence – to have a mobile restaurant. And I actually encountered one once on Cape Breton Island in Canada.

One of the places that I called in at was the motorbike shop to see what they had on sale. There was only one bike that I liked – a Yamaha 4-cylinder. But it was too heavy for me to manoeuvre easily so I’ll have to forget that idea.

The second-hand shop, Happy Cash, had a few things in there that looked interesting, including a couple of decent bass cabinets. But my eye was caught by an electric piano on sale at €25:00 and I’m still wondering about it now.

gilets jaunes rondpoint leclerc route de villedieu granville manche normandy franceThat wasn’t all the excitement either.

It seems that the gilets jaunes are back demonstrating again. Both of them in fact. They must find it a pretty lonely vigil standing out there like that.

It’s not as if they serve any useful purpose either. They can stand on that roundabout for as long as they like and it won’t change anything one single iota.

Talking of changing things … “well, one of us is” – ed … just for a change, I didn’t have another early night either. I was playing on the guitar again until some silly time of the morning.

And yet again I managed to beat the third alarm to the draw. And that’s not like me at all.

Not enough time to go on a nocturnal ramble either last night. I was doing something with a couple of this big briques – the two and three-litre ones the kind that milk and so on comes in and just as I was getting myself organised and about to pour some orange juice or something into them the alarm went off.

So I’ll never get to know what happened about that.

After the medication I sat at the laptop and dashed off a few dictaphone notes – 9 to be exact. There’s a lot to be said for making an early start.

Another thing that I did was to go back to a project that I started a while back in Canada and look on the internet for digital recordings of “complete albums” that I own on vinyl. Over the course of the day I found 6 and they are all now downloaded and coverted to *.mp3 ready for splitting into individual tracks.

having picked up Caliburn I went to NOZ for the first time in months and although there was nothing special, I spent €16:00 in there.

For the benefit of my new readers (of which there are many) NOZ is a shop that sells off bankrupt stock, near-shelf-life items, overstock and that kind of thing. Occasionally you can pick up bargains in there and I’ve had a lot of good stuff from there.

The near-shelf-life products can be interesting too. And there are always some surprising things on offer that make quite a nice surprising change to my diet.

At LeClerc I stocked up with stuff that I hadn’t been able to carry while I had been on foot, although I forgot to buy any water. I’ve decided to cut out completely the sugar-laden fizzy pop stuff and just go for water instead.

Tap-water is always a possibility of course but here it’s held in a storage tank on the headland so I don’t know what its quality will be like.

By now the heavens had opened and I was soaked walking to Caliburn. And back here I was drenched as I ran down the road chasing the papers that had blown out of my hand.

Lunch was a baguette with salad and my home-made hummus. And it really is wicked too. I shan’t be bothered by vampires, that’s for sure.

This afternoon I did another pile of upgrading of the website but ran aground when I found a half-completed web page that I must have uploaded by mistake. To rectify the situation I had a go at that, and it will take much longer than I anticipated.

To have a little rest and to fight off the fatigue here and there, I had a play on the guitar too. I must keep on keeping on.

Suddenly though, I noticed the time. 17:20. Kick-off was at 18:00 and it had stopped raining.

child's roundabout place general de gaulle granville manche normandy franceThat was the cue to leg it off up town to the Stade Louis Dior.

On the way through town though I stopped at the Place General de Gaulle because there was some kind of ephemeral air about the kiddies’ roundabout tonight, all lit up as it was in the damp and doom and gloom.

And then I sailed off back up the hill that I had climbed this morning.

football stade louis dior Entente Sannois Saint-Gratien ssg us granville manche normandy franceBy the time I reached the football stadium I was in great form, which is surprising, and also just as well because we were drenched by the torrential rainstorm that suddenly opened up.

This was a match that I hadn’t wanted to miss because I hadn’t seen Entente Sannois Saint-Gratien – the Entente SSG – before.

They had been relegated from Division 2 last year and were still struggling to find their feet at this level. It’s a tough league.

supporter reading newspaper football stade louis dior Entente Sannois Saint-Gratien ssg us granville manche normandy franceIn view of the rainstorm, they allowed those of us brave souls out in the open to come along and sit undercover in the grandstand, which was nice of them.

We could then settle down and enjoy an exciting match, although some of my fellow spectators didn’t think it as exciting as I did.

Granville had the better of the first half without anything to show for it despite the several good chances that had fallen to both teams – mainly down to the unusual formation that they had adopted. They were playing a kind-of 4-5-1 lineup with a centre-forward who hasn’t been getting much game-time, and probably the club’s best attacker playing in central midfield.

It clearly wasn’t working and so at the start of the second half he pushed Sullivan Martinet up front. And almost straight away the match transformed itself into one-way traffic towards the ESSG. For about 15 minutes the goal was bearing a charmed life as Granville peppered it from all directions.

And eventually it paid off for Granville and Martinet who broke the deadlock.

Granville were still pressing forward and threatening the goal, but the trainer pulled off his two attackers and went to shore up the defence.

A strange decision to me because Granville lost their momentum and allowed ESSG back into the game.

And they could have equalised too but for some wretched luck in front of goal, but Granville held on for the win.

Back here in the rain without a pause for breath, and I even ran up the slope at the top of the hill just to get my heartbeat racing. It’s been an excellent day from that point of view and I notice that I’d walked 16 kms and done over 21,000 steps today.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit followed by rice pudding. And once this posting is finished, I’m off to bed. I’ve had a long, exhausting day, I’ve done a lot of things and, surprisingly, I’m feeling so much better.

And it’s Sunday tomorrow too. I can have a lie-in.

Tuesday 29th October 2019 – CALIBURN WOULDN’T …

… start this morning as I discovered when I went to give him a whirl while I was taking the rubbish outside.

The other day when I started him and ran him for a while I mustn’t have done it for long enough to recharge the battery properly because it was pretty low this morning.

Having hunted down a 10mm socket I managed to disconnect the battery and drag it up to the apartment. According to the multimeter, there’s just 11.9 Volts in the battery. Luckily a while back I bought a new small battery charger so I was able to couple it up and even as we speak, it’s simmering away nicely at 13.4 volts with 2 of the 5 bars illuminated.

By tomorrow morning it might be ready.

Mind you, it’s not a surprise. He’s well over 12 years old and he’s had just two batteries in that time. When the second one failed earlier this year, Terry gave me the one off his old van but it had stood around for a couple of years so I wasn’t expecting too much.

So I’ll have to see if this battery holds its charge when it’s done. If not, a new battery might be on the cards.

And Caliburn wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to start today either. I certainly didn’t. In fact it was about 08:45 when my sooty foot I put on the floor.

Mind you, I have a good excuse. And that was that I was still up and about working until long after 03:00.

Anyone would have thought that after my marathon hike across half of Normandy yesterday I would have been stark out flat on my back from round about teatime until the next Preston Guild. But not a bit of it. I kept on going – and working too, right until the small hours, even taking some time out to have a play on the guitar.

Mind you, I felt like death this morning and that’s really no surprise. It took me a good while to find my bearings and that’s not a five-minute job either.

Plenty of time though during the night to go for a wander around and I found myself back on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. And in the company of Pollux too, so welcome back to you. And when I finish scratching my head trying to decipher the incoherent ramblings on my dictaphone, I will tell you all about where I went and what I did.

When I awoke I found that I had run out of muesli so I had to make some more. And in my deadened state I managed to spill half of the contents of the cornflakes packet all across the floor.

After breakfast I reviewed the e-mails and found one relating to the meeting that I had yesterday. That involved doing some work.

Such as dictating a text in French (i had about 9 takes before there was one that satisfied me) and then editing it. And then adding a pile of music and editing that.

And while the music part was no problem, the dictation was – for the rather prosaic reason that I don’t have a microphone here. I had to dictate it onto the dictaphone, upload it and then edit it to remove the crackles.

It’s a good job that I spent all of that time a few years ago mastering “Audacity”.

So that was the morning taken care of – and there will be a few more days like this now until next Monday. And we’ll see where we go from there.

After a rather late lunch I went for a walk in the rain around the headland. There were a few people – only the foolhardy – out there desperately trying to negotiate the lakes that had appeared along the footpaths. I didn’t stay out long.

The historic dictaphone entries that needed deciphering today were all rather on the short side so I did 8 today. I’m trying to get ahead because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there are some marathon ones to come from the time that I was in an emotional whirlpool.

There was also time for me to do some file updating too. But talking of my website … “well, one of us is” – ed … it has been trawled for the last few days by a Microsoft bot with an IP address in Washington State, “Microsoft Way” to be precise, but with a physical presence in Chicago.

I solved the mystery of the New Jersey visitor but this one from Chicago is bizarre.

Tea tonight was an aubergine-and-kidney-bean whatsit. Aubergines were cheap the other day so I bought one with the intention of making a whatsit this week. And it’s delicious too, except that I might have been somewhat extravagant with the chili powder I’ll need to put the toilet paper in the fridge before I go to bed.

No walk though. It’s teeming down outside and after a few hundred yards I gave up and came back inside.

I’ll just have to go for a longer walk tomorrow.

Monday 29th April 2019 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france… sunset tonight. And when I deal with the photos from tonight (probably tomorrow if I am lucky) you will see exactly what I mean.

No chance of doing it tonight though, because the highlights of all the 5 games that I haven’t seen in this weekend’s Welsh Premier League have come on line even as we speak, and I shall be in for a footfest later.

Last night was another miserable night. I just don’t seem to be able to have a decent sleep these days.

But nothing is going to stop me going off on a nocturnal ramble or two during the night. With having chatted to Rosemary at length last night about my house in the Auvergne, it’s hardly surprising that it was on my mind. I was doing something with someone else back there last night I think and we were having to move a load of stuff. There were all mice in these sacks. We were dropping them and stamping on them to kill all the mice but I dropped a sack carelessly and expected it to give all of the mice a headache and stun them but it did nothing of the sort and the package broke and some started to escape and became tangled up in some brambles and I couldn’t see where they had gone to.
And later on I was back later on climbing up to my farm to do this furniture removal. My father turned up with a Luton-bodied J4 van. He drove it up the garden (something like at 30 Wardle Avenue) between the house and the shed and down onto the back lawn where it was in danger of bogging in. I would have just backed it up to the front door. I started to arrange things, putting everything into boxes. Gary hadn’t turned up so I asked TOTGA where he was but she didn’t know. It became clear that he had forgotten the date and thought it was Tuesday, which was the day that I had thought too but it was TOTGA who insisted that it was the Monday. I opened the door under the stage where there were piles of boxes and I gave instructions to my brother how to load them – the heaviest ones low down at the front. He took these out while we were getting everything else sorted out of the house. A little later on I climbed back up to the house and there were hordes of people fishing down below in the river. There were some climbing up the cliffs to get to the top and I didn’t want them to do this because it was my safety barrier. I had to climb up there too but I lost the path because I couldn’t remember where it was. I could see where was the access to climb up to my property but I couldn’t work out how I was going to get there. When I finally arrived at the top of this ascent I couldn’t climb it. It looked dangerous to me and I was going to fall down. It made me wonder how I had managed to climb up here in the past with it all being so difficult. I’d only have to carry the slightest thing with me and I would fall all the way down to the bottom. This can’t possibly be right.
A little later I was playing “air guitar” in a rock group with Alvin and someone else – can’t remember who. We were singing along to a track – Motorway City or Damnation Alley – and giving it all we’d got considering it was an air guitar type of thing. I was singing the lyrics, and Dave Brock was singing the real track that we were accompanying but our version of the lyrics were different. The third person with us, he smiled at me as I was belting it out and a discussion came round afterwards about the lyrics. I reckoned that we had them correctly according to the original version but in the heat of the moment in a live concert (it was a live concert that we were accompanying) Dave Brock forgets the words and makes them up as he goes along to fill the gap.

This morning despite the bad night I managed to beat the third alarm out of bed and I even had an early breakfast. But I rather flagged after than and it took me all morning to catch up with the dictaphone notes from the last couple of days and to do another half a dozen more from the backlog.

Only another 225 to do and that’s probably going to take me until next Christmas, even though I’ve set myself a timetable of the end of June to complete the task.

That took me up to lunchtime, which was once more taken indoors due to the weather.

This afternoon I started off as I meant to go on, by crashing out. On the chair though not in bed, although I don’t suppose that it would have made much difference.

But one thing that I did was to speak to some people ina hospital in Toronto. One of my friends sent me a link to Canada’s biggest cancer hospital so I went to have a word with them. And much to my surprise, they replied too.

I can’t say that it’s particularly positive but at least I am in dialogue with them. Who knows what might happen next?

trawler with seagull following baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceThat took me up to walk time.

There weren’t too many people walking around this afternoon, but the sea was pretty crowded. There were hordes of boats and yachts and trawlers out there working this afternoon, especially this one.

She must have only just hauled in her net, judging by the huge flock of seagulls flapping around it waiting for the discards.

Back here I started on updating the blog with some missing photos. I’ve now gone back to Sunday 21st April. This is taking me longer than I was expecting too.

For tea I made a huge aubergine and kidney bean whatsit. I sampled some of it too and it was delicious. It was followed down by another load of rice pudding.

I also attacked the carrots that I bought the other day and they are now par-boiled and frozen.

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceBack outside again for my evening walk tonight.

We had the gorgeous sunset of course, and so nice was it that there were quite a few people out there watching it too.

So now I’m back home, and I’m off to watch the football. About time I had a decent relax.

fishing with rod and line zodiac baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
fishing with rod and line zodiac baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

boats and yachts baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
boats and yachts baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

small bay cap de lihou granville manche normandy france
small bay cap de lihou granville manche normandy france

pecheur de lys fishing boat trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france
pecheur de lys fishing boat trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

aubergine kidney bean granville manche normandy france
aubergine kidney bean granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
sunset ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 24th April 2019 – WHAT A DAY!

Half of the day I’ve spent running around doing stuff, and the second half of the day I’ve spent the day recovering, lying in bed underneath the quilt for a good four hours.

Definitely what you might call a bad day.

With having to leave my bed early this morning, I had a really bad night’s sleep. I couldn’t get off at all and spent most of the night tossing and turning. I did manage to go a-voyaging and when I organise the dictaphone I can tell you all about it.

But up and about quite early and by 07:30 I was back on the road in the driving rainstorm that was going on.

Round by the docks, where Thora was moored at the quayside. She had obviously crept in on the morning tide because I didn’t see her there yesterday.

There was plenty of free parking at the cinema opposite the railway station.

medieval tower city walls st lo manche normandy franceBy 08:45 I was in St-Lô. And Then a 10-minute walk up the hill (past plenty of empty free parking spaces which wouldn’t have been there had I been relying on them).

And also past the medieval city walls and fortifications, or what’s left of them. The city was pretty much devastated during the battles of early July 1944.

The walls are fairly complete though to the eastern side of the city and my route to the Prefecture took me through one of the remaining gates.

I arrived at the Prefecture at 09:00 expecting to have to fight my way past the hordes of disgruntled British immigrants laying siege to the building, but there was no-one about at all, except for a security guard leaning on a wall smoking a cigarette.

The receptionist showed me the way upstairs to the waiting room where there was a water fountain for the thirsty (I couldn’t see a coffee machine but there’s a café on the corner across the road).

One other couple in front of me and they were dealt with and gone by 09:45, and I was called straight away, 15 minutes early for my appointment.

Constance, the girl who saw me, was very nice and friendly and chatted away throughout the meeting. Very nice indeed – she can put her stamp on my dossier any day of the week.

Ohhh yes, I can still chase after the women at my age. I just can’t remember why!

I had two folders, one with original documents that I’d been collecting over the last 9 months recording all the details of my life over the last 6 years and one with the copies, arranged in the order in which they were listed on the application form.

She only seemed to be interested in the copies that I gave her – not so much the originals – except for the passport of course.

ONLY THING MISSING – because I’ve moved house since I came to France, I need a Certificat de Domicile from my current Mairie. But that’s no problem. Constance gave me her e-mail address and I can send it to her by mail.

She took my fingerprints and a specimen signature, and that was that. She promised me a Permanent Resident Card valuable for 10 years, and said that it would be ready in three to four weeks. All I can say is that I admire her optimism.

So there you are, people, totally painless. A journey that started at the beginning of October has finally reached its destination and I hope to be fully registered in France in due course.

All of this Brexit nonsense has been putting me through an enormous amount of stress as you can imagine, but once I have my card in my sweaty little mitt, the silly, stupid xenophobic Brits can go to hell in a handcart.

eglise notre dame st lo manche normandy franceAfter my meeting I was intending to go sight-seeing around the town. But the rain put paid to much of that though.

However, I didn’t have to go far to encounter the Eglise Notre Dame de St Lo. It’s just around the corner.

You will probably notice the plain block wall between the two towers and think that it’s completely out of place. In fact, the church was badly-damaged by the American bombers and the medieval wall that had been there completely disappeared in the blast.

That was a temporary wall, and we all know that there’s nothing at all quite as permanent as a temporary solution.

war memorial prison gates entrance st lo manche normandy franceBut at least there is something still there.

These ruins were part of the entrance gates to the fortified prison that was here. This housed a great many prisoners of the Germans and many were killed when the building suffered a direct hit during the American bombing.

Today it’s a memorial to the civilians who lost their lives during the German occupation and the American attacks.

medieval tower city walls st lo manche normandy franceAt this point the rain got the better of me so I headed back to Caliburn.

I did however notice a really good view of the tower that I had noticed earlier, and I managed to take a photo of it from a better angle.

On the way back home, I called into the “Action” shop in Coutances and picked up another cheap dashcam. I have a little project in mind for that. And then to LeClerc for a couple of bits and pieces.

Back here, I noticed that Thora had gone from her mooring. That was a very quick turnround, which might explain why I went for so long without seeing her.

And so I had lunch and then crashed out in bed for four hours. I felt awful.

An energy drink perked me up a little and then I made tea – an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit from 9th April 2018. That’s the last one of those now so next week I’ll have to make some more.

My new camera bag arrived today. The cheap ones were on offer at Amazon so I treated myself to one – the first part of my mega-spending session to arrive.

sunset ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceAnd then I went out for my evening walk outside.

Having had the heavy rainstorms of today, there were still plenty of heavy clouds around. But they were blowing away quite rapidly and we were treated to this glorious spectacle of a beautiful sunset over the Ile de Chausey

The couple of trawlers silhouetted against the sea gave the photo some kind of ethereal quality.

rainbow granville manche normandy franceWhile I was out there, I was lucky enough to see a rainbow.

Round by the car park in the boulevard Vaufleury, I noticed it away in the sky round by Villedieu-les-Poeles, somewhere like that.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past I’ve taken several photos of rainbows, but the colours have never come out quite as well as they have done tonight. The red, orange, yellow and green are particularly startling.

Now I’m off to bed. I’m still not feeling so good so an early night will do me good. I might even sleep too.

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

… have any blue screens today. Or any frozen keyboards or major crashes on the big desktop computer today. For the simple reason that I didn’t switch it on at all.

To preserve it for a while longer I left it switched off and used the laptop computer to examine the portable drive onto which I had downloaded all of the data.

First thing was to remove all of the duplicate (and triplicate and, in some cases, quadruplicate) files. 22,000 or thereabouts out of the 78,000 or so that I downloaded yesterday and it took quite some time to do all of that. But luckily there’s a little program that I have on the computer that does it all for me, otherwise I would still be here doing it this time next year.

And I’ve come across yet more stuff that I had forgotten, including a pile of photos, and the sad thing is that I can’t remember where many of them were taken. The sad part about it all is that I downloaded onto the desktop computer all of the files for one of the previous versions of the blog when the host closed down, but the dates of the entries don’t seem to be on the files. It must have been a javascript key running from the webhost at the time.

I’ll have to think much more deeply about this.

There’s also a pile of data that needs to be sorted, and so I’ve a feeling that this is going to be a very long job.

I was interrupted by a phone call at about 11:00. Could I come to the doctor’s at 12:00 instead of 16:00? So I had to have a shower and a good clean-up before setting out.

marité normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn the way down into town, I noticed that Neptune was still in port, tied up at her quayside next to Marité and Normandy Trader.

I’ll go for a nosy round there after the doctor’s to see what’s going on.

At the doctor’s, I discovered that the situation about the vaccines is that you need a prescription from the doctor, and then go to the chemist for the supplies, and finally make an appointment with a nurse to do the injection.

The doctor did that all for me so I have to be at the nurse’s office at 11:00 tomorrow for the injection.

The doctor prescribed me a helping of Vitamin D to reinforce the injection. And you’ll be pleased to know that all of this medication cost me a grand total of €13:48. Cheap at half the price.

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and then went for a walk around the harbour.

Neptune was still there, and Normandy Trader had sneaked in on the morning tide.

I’d never had a close look round at Neptune before, so this seemed to be the correct moment to go for a suitable exploration

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy franceShe’s a small bulk carrier of 2400 tonnes deadweight with a gross tonnage of about 1500 tonnes.

Built in 1992, she was formerly known as Islay Trader but changed her name quite recently, something presumably not unacquainted with the fact that she acquired something of a bad habit just recently of running aground and having to be towed off.

neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAs you can see, she’s registered out of the port of Faversham, although I don’t imagine that she sails … “diesels” – ed … out of there these days seeing as how it’s silting up so rapidly.

These days we’ve seen her heading into Whitstable or, occasionally, Ridham whenever the tidal conditions are right.

That’s because Ridham is what is called a NABSA port – “Not Afloat But Safely Aground” – whenever the tide is low and no-one likes to have a heavily-loaded ship sitting on the bottom.

victor hugo quote port de granville harbour manche normandy franceVictor Hugo was in port too.

She’s one of the ships that works the ferry service out to the Channel islands from the Normandy coast.

But it wasn’t her herself that caught my attention. What I was admiring was the notice where Hugo talks about the fact that there are four islands in the Channel Islands, which he mentions, but he can only find something to say about three.

As well as that, Aztec Lady had regrown her masts. There was a girl on deck working away so we had a chat for a while. They are off to the Far North of Norway soon, but not unfortunately to where I want to go.

people picnicking place d'armes granville manche normandy franceAs I arrived back here I was treated to a strange sight on the car park.

I’m all in favour of eating out wherever possible, but not in this kind of weather. So I admired the people who were taking their picnic lunch outside.

Not much danger of me joining them, I have to say. I’m going to eat my lunch indoors.

While I’m eating my lunch, I can tell you about the early part of the morning. With having had a really early night I’d had a really good sleep and was awake at 05:46.

I’d been on my travels too. Firstly, I had encountered someone from the Open University – an old guy whom I happened to quite like. A very quiet, timid type but last night he was busily killing off everyone who had offended or upset him. That was actually the plot of something that I had been watching on a DVD a couple of nights ago.
A little later I’d been at a football match, something like at Pionsat. But it was Bangor City who was playing and at a certain moment a long clearance out of the opposition defence had gone straight up towards the Bangor goalkeeper, who ran out to clear it. However he pulled a muscle and fell down, grabbing hold of the football as he did so in order to stop any attacker getting to the ball and scoring a goal. Clearly a free kick of course, but in view of the circumstances was it a yellow card offence for deliberate handball, or was it a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity? The debate raged for quite a while about that one. Unfortunately, I awoke before the referee reached the scene and made a decision.

This afternoon I typed a couple of letters. Time to get a few things moving to secure the future. They’ll be posted tomorrow and then things will be off. And I forgot to go for a walk this afternoon, being so engrossed. Not that it matters quite so much as I’d had a good stroll out this morning.

Tea was an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by pineapple and coconut-flavoured soya dessert. I’ll do this again because it’s lovely.

And on my walk around, I was all on my own except for a jogger. Minette was there and I gave her a stroke but she must have a sore spot somewhere because she suddenly leapt up, spat at me and cleared off.

Not quite an early night tonight, but I’m off shopping tomorrow and I’ll call at the nurse’s on the way back. Another thing crossed off the list.

normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france
normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

samsung digger neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france
samsung digger neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide port de granville harbour pilot light manche normandy france
low tide port de granville harbour pilot light manche normandy france

Tuesday 9th October 2018 – OUCH! THAT WAS …

… a tough day today.

Just before going to bed I received a message from my internet supplier saying that my site had now been upgraded as requested. And so I set to and uploaded all of the Arctic photos while I was at it.

strawberry moose sue graff handstand antlerstand ocean endeavour canada september septembre 2018And while I was also at it, I had a little bit of fun with one of the photos of Strawberry Moose that we had taken.

One of the people on board The Good Ship Ve … … errr … Ocean Endeavour was an Olympic gymnastics judge and she had taken quite a shine to His Nibs. And so we had done a little posing session with the two of them.

Add a little bit of text and here we are.

The result of all of this was that it was about 02:00 when Yours Truly toddled off to bed. Not the ideal way to end the day when you have to leave your stinking pit at 06:00.

But it made no difference because at 05:05 this morning I was wide-awake and awaiting the alarms. I have a feeling that I’ll be paying for this later.

I’d also been off on a nocturnal ramble again.

Just by way of a change, not to the High Arctic. But where, I have no idea. But we returned to this very impressive stone building that turned out to be a boys’ school. We were all starving and having to queue up near the door, and I had the Cunning Plan to loiter around near the air hostesses because I imagined that with them being “staff”, they would be let into the dining hall first. But when we were let in, we were allowed to take one liquid food off the trays that were being handed around, and then another thing from somewhere else and so on. And eventually someone stuck a cold sausage in my mouth. I made my way back to my room, which was at the end in an alcove off the dining hall. And I was given a large plate of food to take with me. A little later I went back into the dining hall but it was now deserted. Someone had left their mobile phone in “broadcast” mode on one of the tables so I started to look around to see where it was broadcasting to (and to salvage some more food) but the few boys who were left were making such a noise that they interrupted my search.

Anyway despite the alarm going off at 06:00 it was much closer to 07:00 when I finally arose. And with plenty of things to do this morning it was about 09:00 when I had my breakfast. That was followed by a little tidying up and a half-hour session on the bass guitar now that I’ve restarted playing.

And then I had a little snooze. The first of three or four that I had during the course of the day.

Most of the day has been spent on the voyage to the Arctic. I’ve added the photos to one of the earlier pages of the voyage and expanded the text accordingly.

Having completed that (because it took much longer than it ought to have done) I’ve updated the front page for the travel section of the website, prepared an index for the voyage, completed an individual page of photographs for each day and made a start on writing the text for the first page.

None of those is on line yet because there’s going to be so much to do, but as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … if I don’t start, I won’t finish. So I need to push on.

It didn’t help with the odd bit of dozing off here and there during the course of the day. That 3-hour sleep didn’t do me much good at all.

port de granville harbour manche normandy franceLunch was on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard. And I dropped my banana by accident.

But it was a beautiful day, really sunny and warm with a lovely blue sky. I took full advantage of the conditions by taking a nice panoramic photo of the harbour and the surroundings, all the way round to St Pair sur Mer.

Later on in the afternoon, I went for a walk around the headland. Plenty of people out there today enjoying the sunshine. And I ended up by taking off my jumper and catching a little sun on my arms.

thora port de granville harbour manche normandy franceWe had a visitor in the harbour too. Thora had sailed into port today and was moored up at the crane.

I didn’t realise that she had a visor bow. I cant have been paying much attention. But there it is, raised up and out of the way of the loading operation.

One of these days I’ll get to go for a guided tour around her to see how she is and to find out how come Grima was retired from operation.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit with pasta, more to make some room in the freezer than for any other reason. I’ll be off shopping in early course and we need the space.

And then I had my evening walk around the walls in the pleasant evening.

Fallen asleep again, but I’m going to do this and them I’m off to bed regardless of how early it is.

I need to be on form for tomorrow.

Monday 23rd JUly 2018 – TODAY I HAD NOT ONE …

… not two, not three but as many as FOUR lizards fighting over the pear droppings.

Not even I can drop enough bits of pear to feed four hungry lizards so they spent more time fighting over the bits than eating them.

Talking of fighting, I was fighting to wake myself up this morning. Last night wasn’t particularly late, but it was a struggle when the alarms went off, and I somehow managed to turn over and go back to sleep. 07:35 when I finally aroused myself today.

A nice empty dining table was awaiting me too so I could eat my breakfast in comfort. And then a nice little relax on an empty sofa in the uncluttered living area.

That was followed by a trip to the new workspace in the bedroom where I attacked the European Photograph Mountain.

I took some time out to do some tidying up as well. Some files and paperwork came out of the bookshelves in the living area and onto the shelves in the bookcases in the bedroom, and I tidied up in the bedroom too.

And while doing that, I found the missing computer mouse, the missing hospital paperwork and the missing medication. Tidying up certainly pays dividends.

Another thing that I did involved the scented candles that I buy from IKEA. I’ve put one in each of the clothes drawers in the chest that I assembled the other day. They should make my clothes smell quite nice.

channel islands ferry jersey granville manche normandy franceIt was a late lunch in the beautiful sunny summer afternoon sitting on my wall with my book and the herd of lizards.

There was quite a bit of movement in the port too. One of the Channel Islands ferries was coming into port from Jersey just as one of the ferries to the Ile de Chausey was setting out.

What with the piles of yachts and pleasure boats around the harbour entrance it was all quite exciting.

crowds on beach granville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I carried on with my work in my new comfortable surroundings, with a pause taken for an afternoon walk around the Medieval walls to see what’s going on.

There were crowds of people hemmed in on the little sliver of beach that was defying the tide.

Looking at all of those people down there, that kind of thing would really put me off. I couldn’t relax or enjoy myself sitting down there amongst all of those people.

crowds at diving platform beach granville manche normandy franceThat wasn’t all that was going on down there either.

There were crowds of people out there in the sea, swimming around at the diving platform just offshore.

It really was a beautiful day, but not that beautiful. Not beautiful enough to entice me into the water anyway. Especially these days. I’m getting rather nesh in my old age

gates open port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAfter spending my time admiring the crowds on the beach and in the sea I carried on with my trip around the walls.

There was a beautiful afternoon sun shining down onto the harbour making the water glow with some kind of opaque turquoise blue light.

I’ve not often seen the water in there looking quite as beautiful as this. We really were having a good day today.

Later on, I had some tea. Pasta and a kidney-bean and aubergine whatsit out of the freezer. It seems that my appetite has come back.

baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceAnd then a walk around the headland in the evening sun. With a beautiful view right down towards the bottom of the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Still not sure that I can see the Mont from here though with the headland in the way, which is a shame.

I shall have to go for a drive down that way in due course. And while I’m at it, I’ll stop for a visit to the old excise lookout post out there on the headland.

And now to carry on with work. I’m enjoying my new working conditions and make the most of them.

But not until some silly time in the morning either.

Wednesday 13th June 2018 – WHAT A MISERABLE …

… day this was.

Mind you, I think that I laid the foundations for it by not going to bed until 01:25 and that’s no good. I was so engrossed in the page that I was working on that I hardly noticed the time. But at least it’s all on line now, all [gulp] 4651 words of it, a new world record and by a country mile too, and you can read it at your leisure.

And at 4651 words, you’ll need a lot of leisure.

So it’s no surprise that leaving my bed this morning was rather difficult and it was a long hard crawl into the living room. And crawl too. I’d had a bad attack of cramp during the night and I could still feel it – in fact I felt it for all of the day.

Once I’d breakfasted and organised myself, I went out to attack Caliburn – or more correctly, the untidy mess that is within him. He’s been emptied out, given a good brushing out, vacuuming and a wash of his dashboard.

Not only that, he now has his new seat covers fitted, although they are too small and I’m not sure how that can be, seeing as they are described as “Universal”.

And I found the missing spring clip. It had sprung into the tool box. So now the window winder winds properly.

You have no idea of the amount of stuff that went into the bin. And all of the stuff that was in Caliburn that really needs bringing in here.

By the time that I had finished, no-one was more surprised that me to see that it was 13:30. I’d spent a short while chatting to a neighbour and another short while giving Gribouille a stroke, but not that much. So I came in, made my butties and then went to sit on the wall in the sun because it was beautiful.

The lizard was there waiting for me and he even climbed up my leg to try to reach the pear before I had finished it. He’s getting to be very friendly now.

Back here I made myself a coffee and sat down for a moment. Next thing that I knew, it was 16:30. I’d been totally out of it for over two hours and hardly felt a thing. That filled me with dismay.

It took me ages to come round too. I’ve been noticing that not only am I crashing out for longer and longer, it’s becoming more and more difficult to shake myself out of it.

summer crowds sunbathing on beach granville manche normandy franceAs a result of my indisposition my walk this afternoon was very late.

But I’m glad that I made it outside because the weather was really delicious. Even nicer than it had been at lunchtime. The sun was penetratingly warm, truly the First Day of Summer.

The crowds were out sunbathing on the beach for the first time this year after the long, wet and windy winter that we have had and I can’t say that I blamed them either

summer crowds swimming in the sea granville manche normandy franceThere were crowds of people splashing around in the water too. But sooner them than me. It wasn”t that warm – or, at least, warm enough to tempt me.

But you’ll notice the diving platform here. You’ll remember a couple of weeks ago I posted a photo of a couple of people swimming around in the sea by the diving platform and it was almost submerged by the tide.

This gives you some idea of just how much of a tide we have here in Granville. And it goes out much further than this too.

Once I’d returned for my walk I had to phone up the UK to pay for my clothing order. It’ll be here within a week they reckon, ceteris paribus. But as for the order from BUT and LeClerc, not a sign anywhere. And I noticed that prices are starting to rise slowly but surely over there.

reunion publique haute ville maire de granville manche normandy franceThere was a meeting of the inhabitants of the old town this evening, chaired by the mayor of Granville so I went along to see what was happening.

I learnt a few things about the future projects but most of the time was spent listening to certain people airing their petty grievances which was a waste of time. And not the kind of stuff that needs to be discussed in a public meeting anyway.

But one exciting scheme was a project concerning the refection old railway lines down on the quayside. Could it be that they are going to actually do something about reopening the lines?

It would be exciting if they did, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Tea was a frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer and now I really AM going to have an early night. I can’t last the pace these days.

But at least Caliburn is sorted and ready for the road.

Tuesday 29th May 2018 – IT WAS A BIT …

… of a shame about last night.

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

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

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

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

After that, it all went wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThere wasn’t a great deal going on on the seaward side of the walls, but round on the harbour side, I noticed that Normandy Trader was back in port.

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

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

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

eglise notre dame de cap lihou turret house haute ville granville manche normandy franceAnd why I was prowling around trying to find a good spec, it suddenly came into my mind that I had never taken a decent photograph of the turret house built into the walls by the Eglise de Notre Dame du Cap Lihou.

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

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

I hope that it’s a good ‘un.

Thursday 5th April 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… better day today. I felt much more like it and managed to accomplish a lot of the things that I should have done yesterday.

And for a change we had a different kind of night. Flat out almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and then wide awake at 04:10. It’s either one thing or the other right now, and it’s certainly not the other, I can tell you that.

But I did go back to sleep again at some point for it was a struggle to resurface when the alarm went off. And then we had the usual morning ritual followed by a shower and a change of clothes. After all, it is Thursday.

Before I left for the shops I attacked the backlog of work, and I’ve now booked my rail ticket to Leuven and my accommodation there. But not a return ticket though. Idly surfing the internet like you do … "like YOU do, you mean" – ed … I found a three-day mini-break in Oostende (I like Oostende as you know) for just €110 plus local taxes. I need a break, and so that will do nicely, thank you.

On the way to the shops I called at the Bank. My rent here is being increased by the cost of living index – all of €3:74 per month, so I need to amend the standing order. And at the station to pick up my rail ticket, I had to help an old man (like I’m really young, of course) wrestle with the ticket machine. It’s not easy if you don’t know what you are doing.

Nothing of much excitement at LIDL although I did forget the Agave Syrup. I even had my hand on it at one point but was distracted and that was that.

On the way back I had to call at the Estate Agent. With the rent being increased, there is €0:34 to pay for the period at the end of April. But they didn’t have a till or a cash box and I didn’t have the correct money, so I’ll have to go there another time with the right amount.

home made vegan kiwi sorbet granville manche normandy franceOnce I’d had my coffee, I set to work.

10 kiwis, one banana; half a cup of desiccated coconut, one carton of coconut cream and a couple of tablespoons of honey (in the absence of Agave Syrup) all chucked into the whizzer and it created half a litre of kiwi mixture.

It’s now busy freezing in the freezer and tomorrow I’ll pass it through the sorbet maker to aerate it. And then it should be done. But I hope that the honey works. Agave Syrup is used for this as it keeps the molecules separate and doesn’t freeze the food in a big solid block.

But then, that’s what the aerator does.

hydrogen powered car granville manche normandy franceAfter lunch I went for my afternoon walk, as it really was a beautiful afternoon.

And technology seems to be catching up with me right now. Parked on the car park of the college this afternoon was a car powered by hydrogen – a mere 20 years after my Open University thesis on the use of hydrogen for motor fuel.

But we saw that when I lived on the farm – what I was doing back in the 90s becoming mainstream 10 or 15 years later.

fibre optic cable rue du port granville manche normandy franceIt’s not the only thing that is catching up either.

We saw the works for the fibre-optic cable and saw them building the new compound for the next phase. And here they are, now attacking the rue du Port as predicted.

Queues a mile long, seeing as it was school chucking-out time, but not that that’s ever going to bother them, is it?

work on place d'armes granville manche normandy franceI mentioned that there are four buildings here that formed part of the barracks. One is now the College, the second is the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs and contains the public rooms, and the other two are being converted into apartments (I live in one of them).

The last one is already part-occupied, and I see that they have now started on work on the final section of it.

I tried to buy an apartment in there, but no-one ever returned my phone calls. And people complain about a recession, don’t they?

bidet place d'armes granville manche normandy franceBut being of a small mind, I had to laugh at the name of the company that is currently working in there.

Mind you, anyone who knows anything about the “Carry On” films, and in particular Carry on Don’t Lose Your Head will understand exactly what is humorous about the name.

But I digress. I came back in for a coffee.

I’m not sure what happened to the afternoon after that. Next thing that I knew, it was 18:45. I must have been stark out for a good 90 minutes or so. This is really getting to me, isn’t it, this ill-health? I shall have to pull myself together somehow.

But I still managed to find the energy to make my aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. And the helping that I had tonight (there are four others for the freezer) was delicious. I really enjoyed that.

place marechal foch granville manche normandy franceIt was a beautiful evening when I went for my walk, and I bumped into an old lady out for a perambulation being followed around by a dog and several cats, one of which is my long-haired black cat.

It turns out that the cat is indeed hers, and she is called Minette (the cat, not the woman). We had quite a lengthy chat but Minette kept her distance. I suppose that the smell of Gribouille, who once more let me pick him up for a stroke, had made her rather jealous.

But it was weird to see this little procession down and around the streets of the Medieval town

So I’ll have a drink and a little relax and then I’ll go to bed. I have my carrot soup to make tomorrow, I reckon.

Friday 26th January 2018 – NOW, HERE’S A THING.

I had a telephone call this afternoon – at 18:22 to be precise.

It was the bank, exactly as I had hoped. You may or may not believe this but some time shortly after the Bank sent me this famous letter, they actually received the document that they were seeking, so it’s no longer necessary for me to trouble myself to go to the Branch to sign the paperwork. And so the person to whom I was chatting presented his apologies quite profusely.

And then we had a long chat about Banking procedures and the like, and I gradually brought the question round to my problems with the Branch. And after listening to my complaint, he agreed to approach the manager himself, obtain an explanation of all of the errors, and have the manager contact me next week with his proposals to resolve the issues.

So it pays to complain and it pays even more to complain to the right people. Opportunities don’t come along very often but you need

  1. to recognise them
  2. to seize them with both hands

when they do.

Another miserable night last night, and I was running around all over the place. But I’ve no idea where I went because it was one of those dreams that disappeard right out of my head as soon as the alarm went off.

It was a struggle to leave my bed though and I wasn’t feeling at all like it this morning which was a shame. I can’t remember what it was that I did either. I remember fetching a binder ready to transfer all of my bank statements into one place but somehow that project wasn’t even started, never mind finished. It really was a wasted morning.

Just for a change I fancied cheese on toast for lunch, seeing as how I’ll be off to Leuven soon and I can buy more cheese. It was difficult to eat but I managed it all the same and it did make a nice change from soup for once.

This afternoon I cracked on – despite crashing out at one point for a good, deep half-hour. I rescued the micro-SD cards that I use in the dash-cam, copied their contents onto an external hard drive and reformatted them. While that was going on, I spent a considerable amount of time setting up the older dash cam, charging it up and getting it ready to take to Canada next summer.

I had another attack at the photos that I re-found the other day and actually managed to start something off with them, and I’ve also made a start on the dictaphone notes from North America this last summer. Add to that some tidying up and you’ll see that we are making good progress for a change.

Half an hour as usual on the guitar, where I suddenly remembered the bass line for “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”, and I went for the usual couple of walks.

Tea was a frozen Aubergine and Kdney-Bean whatsit. And delicious it was too. There might even be room in the freezer now for the peas and the frozen peppers that I need.

But I wonder if I’ll have an early night? I could certainly do with one.

Monday 20th November 2017 – I HAD A …

… better day today.

Although it wasn’t as early a night as I was hoping for, it didn’t take me long to go off to sleep. And now that my head cold is abating slightly, I slept right the way through to the alarm. And if I’d been on my travels during the night I don’t remember a thing.

Afer brzakfast; I didn’t do all that much. I’m still not full of beans. Instead I was searching for things on the internet. And I found a lot of things that, although not what I was hoping to find, were interesting all the same.

And I found the time to cut my fingernails too. They had grown like talons.

Lunch was very interesting too. For a reason that I don’t quite understand, I’ve been cutting my bread horizontally instead of vertically. Today I cut it vertically and it seemed to be much more filling than it otherwise have been.

You can see that I don’t have too much on my mind at the moment that things like this can be quite absorbing.

This afternoon I crashed out for a while and so it was rather late that I went for my afternoon perambulation. I must have been feeling better if I could summon up the energy to tear myself off outside.

Tea tonight was aubergine and kidney bean whatsit in tomato sauce. Going through the freezer the other day I discovered that I didn’t have any of that stored up. And so I bought the stuff to make one. And much to my surprise I remembered to put everything in it, peanuts and olives included.

It was quick to cook but took ages to eat (just one portion, there are four to be frozen for another day) that I didn’t go out for my walk until later than usual.

i’ll see if I can have an early night tonight now. I hope that I’ll feel even better tomorrow.

Wednesday 18th October 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… bad day today.

As you know, I have them occasionally. And with all that I’ve been doing just recently together with the jet-lag, it’s hardly surprisng. The late night didn’t help matters at all either.

But I did manage to get away during the night, although I’m not quite sure of where I was. It was, I reckon, back at a place where I used to work in Stoke on Trent many years ago. My name had been romantically linked with a young girl, the daughter of one of the women who worked there. While there was no truth in the rumour, I was in no rush to deny it because it was quite flattering. She was quite an attractive girl and I liked her dry, matter-of-fact sense of humour.

That took me nicely up to the alarm at 06:00. But as for the alarm at 06:15, I’ve no idea what happened to that because I certainly didn’t hear it. I was lying there in bed, trying desperately not to fall back asleep, and trying hard to haul myself out of bed.

I reckoned that it was about 07:00 when I set my feet on the ground, but I was surprised by the fact that it was light outside. That was easily explained because it was in fact … errr … 09:40 and that might well account for it.

And I had been on my travels too during that period. I was back in that group of people with whom I was hanging around when I first moved to Brussels. They were all planning to go off on holiday but someone had dropped out at the last moment so there was a spare seat. I decided that I would like to go on the holiday (which I found out was to Malta) and gave all my details. But by now it was Friday evening, we were departing the next afternoon and yet the people in charge of this trip hadn’t given my details to the travel agent. “We’ll do it in the morning” they replied, but I reckoned that this was cutting in extremely fine.

After a rather late breakfast I didn’t feel up to much and so I missed my baguette. I had a little snooze too. But I gathered my wits about me by 14:00 to go into town for a walk and buy a baguette. I picked up some olives and some salad dressing stuff too.

It was therefore a rather late lunch, and by the time that I had nad another little doze, that was the day effectively gone. Luckily tea didn’t take too much effort.

And so I’ll be in bed pretty soon. And I hope that I’ll feel better tomorrow.