Tag Archives: bank holiday

Monday 28th May 2018 – IT’S BANK HOLIDAY …

… in the UK today. And seeing as how I’d missed a Bank Holiday the other day I decided that I would take advantage of the day by having my Bank Holiday today.

So no alarm and a nice lie-in until all of … errr … 08:25. Nothing like the lie-in for which I was hoping but a lie-in all the same.

A late breakfast too, and then I did precisely nothing at all for the whole of the day except to mooch around and take it easy. At least, the morning passed like that anyway.

But there was an unexpected twist at lunchtime. I was joined by not one but two lizards waiting for the bits to drop off the pear. I’ll probably end up with a whole herd of lizards by the end of next week at this rate.

bad parking granville manche normandy franceThis afternoon I went for my little walk around the headland. It was school chucking-out time too and so I was able to observe the antics of the parents.

Pathetic parking is a regular feature of this blog as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. here’s yet another example. You cans ee the woman parked right by the bus stop with two wheels on the kerb to prevent passers-by from passing by on the pavement and yet right opposite her is an empty car parking space.

Not to mention the free car park lass than 100 yards down the road of course. I’m really surprised that the local police don’t come round and ticket them all.

was a really pleasant surprise. Ingrid came on line so we had a chat and then a telephone conversation that lasted one hour and forty-one minutes. I’m surprised that I could find that much to talk about. But then Ingrid has her own health issues too and so we jog each other along as best we can

Ingrid asked me what I was going to have fr tea, so I had to make one of these instant decisions. And I decided on another lot of mixed veg with vegan sausages and vegan cheese sauce. That all worked very nicely and was delicious.

And what was even better that with two burners now, I can fry my onions, garlic and sausages at the same time that I make the cheese sauce. As they say, it’s little things like that which make a great big difference.

But while the cooking was reaching a climax, Rosemary rang me up. I told her that I’d call her back in an hour or so after I’d had my tea. And so after the tea and the washing up, I went for my evening walk around the medieval walls.

tidal beach granville manche normandy franceAnd with the tide being well-in, I was interested in seeing what the little beach at the foot of the steps that I had seen the other evening looked like.

The answer to that is that I can forget any idea of going for a midnight stroll on the beach down there. What’s left of the beach at high tide is cut off from the part where the steps are.

No way down and no way up. So not a good idea

granville manche normandy franceA little further along, I was distracted by sounds of hilarity coming from offshore somewhere. Not being able to see anything clearly, this was a job for the telephoto zoom lens.

There’s a diving platform about 4 metres tall right out on the beach and which is well-submerged at high tide. It’s quite a way offshore too and the sea was quite lively, so the last thing that I expected to see were a couple of people out there fooling around.

I watched them for a while to make sure that they were not in distress, and then left them to it.

Having paid my respects to Minette the black cat, who allowed me to pick her up yet again, I went back home and phoned Rosemary back. And there we were on the telephone for an hour and a half.

She’ll be back in the Auvergne sooner that she imagined, and having spent the last 6 months stranded in the UK after her operation she has made a decision that she’s ready to abandon the country too and settle permanently in France. She wanted to know the steps to take.

And I’ll tell you this – anyone who knows anything about Rosemary will realise from this discussion just how deeply the UK has slid into the abyss just recently if she’s upping sticks and moving on.

And as you all know, I can’t say that I blame her one minute. The last time that I set foot in the UK was over 5 years ago – a quick day-trip aller-retour to pick up Terry’s slates from near Folkestone. I can’t remember the last time that I was there before that, and I don’t miss it for a moment. I have no intention whatever of ever going back, although something might be brewing in the background which will mean that a day trip will be necessary some time soon. And I’m not looking forward to that at all.

So it ended up being a later night that I was expecting. But I’m not complaining. I don’t speak to enough people these days anyway. Frederick the Great once made the remark “the more I see of people, the more I like my dog” and he has my sympathy because I know just how he feels.

However Maria McKee wrote “a good heart these days is hard to find” and that’s just as true. It’s a very valuable commodity. I don’t have many friends but it’s quality over quantity any time. My friends are the best in the world and I’ll happily sit up all night talking to them without any problems whatsoever.

But right now, I’m off to bed. Back to the grind tomorrow.

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Monday 21st May 2018 – I’VE GOT ONE …

… of these special spray-on cream tin things.

The one that tells you that it “contains the equivalent of 800 ml of fresh soya cream” – but doesn’t tell you that it only contains enougb propellant to eject about a quarter of it. That’s not very good and I’m not impressed.

In theory, I could puncture the can to liberate the contents but knowing my luck, there will be just enough propellant trapped inside to whitewash the whole apartment and everything in it.

Something else with which I’m not impressed is that the alarm went off at 06:20 as usual and again at 06:30 and I was out of bed something like. Only to read later on that morning that one of my friends is off on his annual Pentecost walk. Yes, it’s a flaming Bank Holiday here, isn’t it? Another day when I can lie in bed without feeling a pang of guilt. And I missed it.

And so I had a glass of Dandelion and Burdock instead. A bottle left over from Christmas 18 months ago. High time that I had a little treat.

I was going to say that I had done badger all today, but that’s not quite true. I’ve done a little tidying up of the crockery and cooking stuff. I’ve been looking for some glass mixing bowls for ages and as luck would have it, I found some in NOZ at the weekend so I bought two. Cooker, dishwasher, microwave safe too,, and at €1:99 each.

However, I have nowhere to put them, so I needed to have a sot-out of stuff. Didn’t take me long but it’s definitely working and it’s definitely tidying up. I ought to award myself a medal.

A beautiful afternoon so a long sit on the wall with my butties and my book, watching the heaving multitudes go straggling past.

joly france granville manche normandy franceAnd not so “straggling” either on some occasions.

The tide was right for the day trippers (or afternoon trippers in this case) to take the Joly France out to the Ile de Chausey – or were they going just for a lap or two around the bay?

But anyway, there was more than enough of them. The boat was pretty full.

And it’s rather ironic really. There was an article in the local paper about “Are there too many tourists going over there?” And I’ll tell you something else for nothing, and that is that if the tourists stopped going over there would be another article in the local papers about the islanders complaining that their economy has collapsed because there aren’t enough tourists going over.

Like many places, the inhabitants would be quite happy for the tourists to stay at home and just post their money over to the island.

la granvillaise granville manche normandy franceThat wasn’t all of the excitement either.

There’s another boat – the La Granvillaise – that does tours around the bay too. And that was setting off on a jaunt too. She looks quite an elderly boat too but in fact was built in 1990, albeit as a replica of a fishing boat – the Rose Marie – of 1897 that was a typical fishing boat of the bay at that time – a bisquine.

She has 410 square metres of canvas sail – the largest amount of any boat of her class in France – and so that’s much more like my style of voyaging

And I was there for ages sitting on my wall, totally engrossed in the Hundred Years War.

We British people think of the Hundred Years War as just being Crécy and Agincourt and not much else in between. For the French though, it was almost 120 years of complete and utter terror. In the past I’d been hunting high and low for a book that gives a detailed French perspective on the war and I finally found one a couple of years ago.

It’s certainly a right riveting read and it’s easy now for me to understand why the French hated the English so much after reading the stories of the atrocities that were committed by the English and their allies. “l’Albion Perfide” indeed.

With the weather being so nice, I had my two walks too, even though the place is heaving with people. And for tea tonight I had vegetables with a burger and some delicious gravy. It was really nice too.

So tomorrow I must take Caliburn to the menders for his service. And it’s a loooooooonnnnnnnng walk home from there. I’m not too keen on that idea. I’ll probably be ill for a week afterwards.

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Thursday 10th May 2018 – I’M BACK HOME

Yes, with Alison being busy I haven’t hung around in Leuven this time. I came straight back on the train today.

But let’s start at the very beginning – a very good place to start, as Julie Andrews tells us.

As for last night’s sleep, that was one of the best yet.

With having had a hard day yesterday I was struggling to keep awake even while I was writing last night’s blog and once I’d finished and had lain down on the bed, that really was that, even though it wasn’t quite 22:00.

And for that reason, when someone knocked on my neighbour’s door at 05:00 to awaken him for work, I didn’t mind at all. For that was the first noise that I had heard all night.

First real noise, that is, because there had been plenty of others during my nocturnal voyages. We started off doing something that involved someone – an accountant from Vancouver – from where I used to work. What was interesting about this was not the voyage itself, but the fact that I awoke from it (although I didn’t) and thought that I had better write it down. And so I did – in a kind of spidery hand that when I looked at it after I had read it, I couldn’t make out a word. But of course I didn’t write it down at all. It’s quite amazing where these nocturnal voyages can take me.
A little later I was with Nerina again. She was in bed and she protested that I had hit her. I explained that there was some animal chasing a squirrel- a squirrel that was covered in fleas and maggots and the like – and the squirrel was trying to take refuge in the bed with her, and so I was preventing it from doing so. But of course you would never convince her of that.

But anyway, I was up with the alarm at 06:20 and went through the usual morning ritual, followed by a nice hot shower. Need to be fresh for my journey back home.

Having nipped out for a baguette, I made my butties for the trip and then made ready to leave. And then having to go back for the hat that I had forgotten.

While I was in the office and seeing as I know my plans (or, rather, Alison’s plans) for the next month, I booked my room. Appointment is on the Thursday so I’ll be arriving on the Wednesday, staying Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night (I’m determined to get to see the railway museum in Schaerbeek) and then back home on the Saturday.

At the station I bought my ticket for Brussels and stepped out of the ticket office to find a Brussels train already at the platform. And so I leapt aboard. And wasn’t that a mistake?

It’s a Bank Holiday in Belgium today and so many people are bridging the gap over to the weekend and having four days by the seaside on the Costa Stella. And the train that I had leapt aboard was the express to Blankenberge. So standing room only, I’m afraid.

But at least I was in Brussels with plenty of time (like two hours) to spare before my train; And the time would have dragged had I not found an abandoned Sudoku book with a couple of games still uncompleted.

tgv gare du midi bruxelles belgiqueUp on the platform I took my … errr … station where the noticeboard indicated that my carriage would stop, but the blasted thing shot past me without stopping and I had to run halfway down one of the longest platforms in Belgium.

It seems that instead of a 16-car unit, it was only an 8-car unit today – the bit that comes down from Amsterdam and Antwerp.

And packed too. It took ages to find my seat and then there was a regular change of companion until we finally settled on a young Dutch girl with a 7-month old baby. That kind of thing does my self-esteem a pile of good, I’ll tell you.

Across Paris with little or no effort at all, and then joining the crowds of people waiting at the Gare Montparnasse, where I ate my butties.

SNCF multiple unit gare de granville manche normandy franceThe train to Granville was heaving too and I had a fit of confusion, taking four attempts to find my seat, disturbing a couple of piles of people in the process.

But eventually I found the correct seat and settled down for the uneventful journey home. So uneventful in fact that I slept for much of the journey home, despite having the headphones on and listening to stuff on the laptop.

All of this travel is clearly getting to me

The walk back up here was likewise uneventful which suited me fine and it didn’t take too long to be back. And I seem to have brought a streaming headcold with me yet again.

And remind me not to travel on a Bank Holiday ever again.

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Monday 2nd April 2018 – 08:35 …

…. that’s a much more respectable time to wake up on a Bank Holiday, isn’t it?

And I’d been on my travels too. In an old Ford Cortina mk III in dark bronze with a white vunyl roof, the same colour that TNY should be had someone not painted it a horrible chocolate brown colour. I’d been taxiing in it, picking up passengers where I shouldn’t, in an underground car park (and we’ve been here on previous voyages too) out of my licensed area. I’d done two or three trips and on the return from the last one there was a proper licensed taxi waiting, so I was glad that I had been able to do at least those without being caught. But then I had to take the car for its taxi test and with the scuttle under the windscreen having rotted away, I was wondering how I could disguise it so that the tester wouldn’t notice. But back home, Nerina had returned to live with me and so I’d been out shopping and what I had done was to buy the same products as usual but twice as much. And that made me wonder if that was the correct decision, and what would she say about it, and what if she had also been out shopping and bought a load of stuff?

I had the fig roll for breakfast with the usual porridge, fruit puree, juice and coffee. And delicious it was too. That was a good plan in the absence of any hot cross buns. And then with it being Bank Holiday I had a really good relax and didn’t do too much at all except eat my vegan Easter Egg (thanks, Jenny).

I managed a trip out for a walk in the afternoon in the wild weather, along with the crowds who were bravely battling the elements. I’m fed up of all of this, that’s for sure.

But this evening, I was out socialising. So I had a good shower and clean-up before I went. My neighbours were back from Vietnam and were planning to exhibit their photos we I went round. There were about a dozen of us all told. We started at 19:00 and I left at 22:30 (three and a half hours of socialising is a record for me and I wasn’t the first to leave either).

There had been that much talking that we hadn’t even started the photos. But it does me good to get out and about and meet people instead of living in splendid isolation in my little apartment. People keep on telling me that I ought to get out more often.

So tomorrow the routine starts again. Up at 06:30. I’m not sure that I feel much like it but I shall do my best.

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Sunday 1st April 2018 – WHAT THE …

… heck am I doing wide awake at 06:35 on a Sunday morning? And a Bank Holiday too? That’s the biggest April Fool’s joke around now, isn’t it?

But by 07:15 I couldn’t stand it any more and I was up and out of bed going through the usual morning ritual.

With it being a Bank Holiday and in the absence of any Hot Cross Buns I had bought some fig rolls from LeClerc and while they aren’t a patch on Hot Cross Buns, they are the best thing that I can find and the one that I had with my breakfast (and there’s another one for tomorrow) was delicious with the raspberry jam.

And of course, being a Bank Holiday, I didn’t do very much at all, although I have been thinking – and that’s a novelty in itself, isn’t it? I might rearrange the layout in here a little and see if it makes it a little more intimate. I feel like a change.

shipping containers port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAfter lunch in the bright sunlight I headed for the Cité des Sports again. But I didn’t get very far before I was waylaid by the scenery.

Remember the other day when I posted a photo of the shed that they had built out of old shipping containers for the works for replacing the lock gates? It seems that they have now started to dismantle it

The roof has now gone, and I imagine that the rest will soon follow it.

us granville us ducey cité des sports football manche normandy franceAt the Cité des Sports this afternoon we had US Granville 3rd XI’s match against the uS Ducey 2nd XI. And being dressed for winter I was sweating by the time that I arrived, and had to divest myself of several layers.

But I’m not fooled by these false dawns as you know. Long before half time I had been obliged to put all of the layers back on and then some. And we had the rain to contend with too.

As for the match itself, I was almost on the point of saying what a dour midfield grind this was. Neither side had any attacking instinct whatsoever and added to that, Ducey had a couple of … errr … older centre-backs who had clearly been around the block a few times and knew the ropes.

But all of that changed with about 30 seconds to go. In one of their rare forays into the Ducey penalty area there was a lay-off to the Granville n°11 (who had up to that point been conspicuous by his absence) who blasted it past the US Ducey keeper into the net.

And badger me if 30 seconds into stoppage time we didn’t have a carbon-copy goal. 2-0 the score was, and up until 30 seconds to the end of regular time I reckoned that they wouldn’t even score one if they were to play all night.

But one moment that stands out in this game was the Ducey substitute – a young boy who came on to play in attack and when he was loudly criticised by his captain for some thoughtless pley, he stamped his feet and stormed off the pitch.

In view of the change in the weather eschewed the long walk home via the coast and came back the usual way. I was cold, fed-up and wet … "nothing new there" – ed.

Tonight’s pizza was cooked to perfection, it really was. And only a short walk – just enough to pass the 100% mark again.

Tomorrow is another Bank Holiday, and I have a fig roll and a vegan Easter Egg. I shall make the most of both of them.

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Friday 30th March 2018 – 10:30 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

new tidal gates port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd as promised, seeing as it was a nice day, I went for a long walk down to the harbour.

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

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

old dock gates port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut much to my surprise, I noticed that we have another tidal basin here.

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

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

boat lift port de granville harbour manche normandy franceBut that wasn’t all the excitement either.

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

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

It was still exciting though.

boats coming into port de granville harbour manche normandy franceWhile all of this was going on, the tide had turned, and you have no idea how quickly the basin fills up here.

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

They certainly put their backs into it around here

depot for fibre optic cable rue du port granville manche normandy franceON the way back, I headed into town and came that way round.

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

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

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

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

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

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

beautiful sunset english channel granville manche normandy franceAnd on my travels tonight, we have the “London Bus” phenomenon. Where you don’t see one for ages and then a load of them come along at once.

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

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

beautiful sunset heinkel he 111 cloud english channel granville manche normandy franceBut before I go, I’ll leave you with this photo and ask you if it reminds you of anything.

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

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

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Friday 14th July 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN DOES IT AGAIN!

Yes, remember yesterday? When I told you that I was going shopping today?

So there I was checking the date this morning (I take certain pills on odd-numbered days and certain others on even-numbered days) and it was then that I noticed …

Yes, 14th July. Quatorze Juillet – la Fête de la Bastille. The anniversary of when the Paris communards stormed the Bastille and released all of 14 prisoners.

And, of course, it’s a national holiday, isn’t it? And I didn’t have much food in the house either.

I’d had a bad night too – I’m not even sure if I slept at all. And I was up and about long before 07:00 too. But the Bank Holiday threw me out of my stride.

And so I’ve not done as much as I might otherwise have done. I’ve been spending some time socialising on the internet (something that I decided that I would dramatically cut down on) and also sorting out a huge pile of photos from 2007 that I discovered.

clairvoyant by appointment chatelguyon puy de dome franceIncluding this absolute gem from Chatelguyon in July 2007.

I mean, what kind of clairvoyant is this? Visits by appointment only?

If she were any good as a clairvoyant you wouldn’t need an appointment because she would know that you were coming, surely!

However, I did do some work on the blog upgrade. Not as much as I would like, of course, but then that’s always been the story of my life. And for much of the morning I was working on this page.

This was another one that started off as a mere 100 or so words as a placeholder, but now it runs to well over 1200 words and a pile of photographs too.

I had to do without a tomato at lunchtime (I had some vegan cheese instead – luckily I still have some left) and tonight we had mash and rozen vegeables (all cooked in the steamer) with a veggie burger and gravy, followed by one of my breakfast fruit purées.

Tomorrow I WILL have to go shopping but I’m not looking forward to that. The holiday season is well under way and the grockles will be out in force.

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Monday 5th June 2017 – NO CHANCE …

storms granville manche normandy france… English bed-wetting types, of anyone sleeping around here tonight.

Not with this howling gale that’s right now lashing the rock on which I stand, which will slowly sink into the sand, just as Barclay James Harvest predicted, if it keeps on going like this.

In fact, the day started off quite nicely. I was asleep until the alarm went off and, leaping out of bed, I grabbed an early breakfast.

An hour or so later I was down in the town in the glorious sunshine with my huge bag full of dirty washing. The idea was to arrive before the crowds did and before the shops opened, and find a parking place as close as possible to the launderette. In fact, I managed to find a free space right outside the door.

But the launderette isn’t much good. It didn’t clean my clothes too well at all and I had to send them through a second time. I shall have to think long and hard about this and about what I’m going to do in this respect.

While the washing was doing I nipped around the corner for a baguette and some tomatoes, and then headed back to the launderette sort out the clothes.

Next plan was to go to the Bank, the Estate Agent and the Insurance place, but Bane of Britain has struck again. It’s a Bank Holiday here today, so I discovered. So forget all of that.

Back here, I ran into (well, not literally) my neighbour who formerly lived in my apartment. We had a little chat – so little that it went on for over an hour and a half and it was midday before I ended up back in here with a coffee.

By lunchtime the weather had changed and I ate my butties indoors. The storm broke at about 15:00 and it was howling around. I dunno what it was that crashed to the ground up the road from here, but it wasn’t half impressive.

storm at sea granville manche normandy franceI braved the tempest and walked with the camera across to the cliff overlooking the harbour in the hope and eager expectation of seeing the waves lashing over the jetties and crashing on the rocks and all of that. But how disappointed was I?

The bay is quite sheltered from the winds and as a result what was going on down there was nothing like as impressive as I was hoping it might have been. The sea was barely stirring. I’ve had rougher waves in my bath after a plate of baked beans on toast.

storm at sea granville manche normandy franceBack here I had a few things to do to keep me out of mischief, but as the tempo of the wind increased I couldn’t resist the temptation to fit the zoom lens to the camera and stick it out of the window to see if the waves were any more impressive.

The answer was “some, not much”. I can see that living here is going to be a big disappointment. I was really looking forward to watching the waves come crashing up over the headland in the darkest depths of winter.

So having had tea, I’m feeling pretty tired but I suspect that it’s going to be a long night for me with all of this going on.

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Monday 1st May 2017 – HAPPY BELTANE

Or Happy May Day. Or Calan Mai Hapus, or Happy whatever else it is that you have celebrated today. Here in France it’s the fête de travail, the Festival of Work, and everyone celebrates that by having a day off work.

Not that anyone ever would be going anywhere because it’s been pouring down with rain today. I actually set foot outside – for all of 30 seconds when I went to fetch something from Caliburn. And that was that.

What with all of my exertions yesterday, I was in bed by 22:00. and despite trying yet again to watch the same film that I’ve been trying to watch for the last 100 years, I fell asleep more-or-less straight away. Mind you, I can’t have been asleep for very long because the film was still going when something awoke me.

After that, it took me a while to go back to sleep, despite how warm and comfortable the bed was, but once I was gone, I was gone until about 06:30 when the most terrific storm rattled me awake.

It must have been a good sleep though, because I’d been on my travels again. I’d moved house into a new apartment – and I do mean new because the building was definitely the latest thing. It wasn’t quite 09:00 and so there were people queueing up to enter it (it was doubling as an office block too) and there were security guards checking people’s bags and the like. I thought that this was going to bode well for my new abode if I could only enter it during office hours and then at the risk of being searched. But even though I had a blue IKEA bag full of shopping, somehow I managed to pass the security check without being bothered too much.
From there I found myself in an underground multi-storey car park, one that I’ve been in on many occasions during my nocturnal rambles over the years. But this time, I couldn’t really remember what I was doing in there.

Although I was awake early, I couldn’t hear anyone else moving about in the house so seeing as it’s a Bank Holiday today I disregarded the alarms and had a lie-in until 08:30. About time I took it easy, I reckon.

I’ve spent all of the day either reading a book, reading stuff off the internet, catching up with some work on the laptop or watching the cricket. And having a little … errr … relax too. That’s been about my lot really.

Liz made a nice vegan curry for tea and furthermore there’s enough left over for tomorrow too, which is very nice. It’s nice to have some decent food for a change.

Now I’m going to try for yet another early night. I wonder if I’ll manage to stay awake long enough to finish my film.

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Friday 11th November 2016 – I’VE ONLY BEEN …

… out of the building twice today.

Once was to the supermarket for my baguette this morning, and the second time was to go back out to the supermarket tonight for a black plastic storage crate that I saw in the rubbish. Unfortunately I’d forgotten about it so it was rather too late when I went out there, and it had already disappeared.

Ahhh well!

And it’s Wapenstilstand – Armistice day today so most of the shops were closed. Even though it was only 08:45 when I went for my baguette, there were only three left. That was pretty good timing, I reckon.

Apart from that, I’ve been talking to friends on the laptop, spent some time working on my web pages about the Coasts of Labrador, and … errr … had a little doze too.

Tea was the rest of last night’s kidney bean whatsit with pasta followed by one of these soya-based coconut dessert things.

Last night though I had something of a disturbed night, although my bed is quite comfortable and I’m reasonably-well installed here. And I was on my own for breakfast which makes a nice change. But it’s quite noisy now as a group of people has just arrived.

I hope that I have a good night’s sleep tonight then.

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Thursday 21st July 2016 – SO HAVING CRASHED OUT …

… in mid-afternoon yesterday, the next thing that I remember was it being 08:00 the following morning. That’s a night’s sleep of … errr … 16 hours and it definitely goes to show you that things aren’t right at all around here at the moment.

I managed to have breakfast – with the heaving throngs in the dining room. It looks as if we are quite full again at the moment. But all the noise was doing my head in, that’s for sure.

For the rest of the morning I didn’t do very much – just sat around here and vegetated. I missed out on lunch too, but I wasn’t too bothered about that. I’m definitely not in the mood for eating right now.

It’s a Bank Holiday in Belgium today and so Alison and I had agreed to go for a little walk. We met up in the Botanical Gardens just down the road from here and had a good chat.

But I couldn’t even do that either. Half a lap around the garden and I was whacked. I had to sit down for 10 minutes to catch my breath and even that didn’t seem to help matters very much. So less than one hour after leaving my little room to go out, I was back and on the bed again.

And there I stayed, yet again.

I didn’t crash out, but I was certainly in no fit condition to move. So there I lay for the rest of the day and that was that.

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Monday 16th May 2016 – NOW, THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!

I crawled off to bed at something silly last night like 20:45 or thereabouts. I know that it was still light but I didn’t really care too much because all that I was intending to do was to listen to the radio programmes that I’ve downloaded onto my laptop.

Sometime shortly afterwards, I drifted off and apart from a couple of trips down the corridor during the night, I remember almost nothing until the alarm went off at 07:45. And I could have turned right over and gone back to sleep too. But that’s just the kind of sleep that I’ve been hoping to have for quite a while.

During the night, I was flying off to Canada too. A big wide-bodied jet and I was sitting in one of the seats in the middle,and next to me was quite an attractive lady with black hair and a black dress. She got up to use the facilities and a couple of minutes later, this big black dog (on an aeroplane!) came and sat on the empty seat next to me. I gave it a stroke but I was really hoping that it would go so that the woman would come back but the dog stayed and stayed, and that was that. On arrival in Canada we docked at gate 37, the very farthest gate away from the terminal, but we all ran to the immigration desk and found that we were the first people there. There were three desks, two of which had about 12 people each and the third which had just two or three. I was wondering about this – suppose that I went to the one with the fewest people there and found that it was reserved for something special and was turned away, I’d lose the benefit of having been one of the first to have arrived at the immigration desks.

I had a good day today too. It started off (and finished) by me cracking on with the blog. All of March 2011 is done, as is the bits of April 2011 that I seem to have missed at some time or other, and I’m well into May 2011. I’ll really be catching myself up soon at this rate.

I’ve also had a good go at Caliburn. The back has been emptied, tidied, a load of stuff consigned to the bin and then I’ve sorted out the stuff that I’m leaving behind and the stuff that I’m taking back. You might be wondering why I didn’t take the leaving stuff up to my house, but the answer to that is that it’s a Bank Holiday and there are other tasks that I need to perform that depend upon places being open so I’m combining all of the trips tomorrow.

But the amount of stuff that I’ve taken out of Caliburn means that he’ll go a good 5kph faster on the way back to Belgium on Saturday.

Another thing of note for recent times is that I managed not to crash out this afternoon. Despite the odd wave of fatigue I kept going for the whole day and so now I’m ready for a really early night. I’ll be listening to the radio again in bed until I fall asleep and then I’ll see where I end up tonight.

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Sunday 1st November 2015 – I WAS IN CANADA …

… last night, getting ready to leave Rachel and Darren’s in order to fly back home.But time was dragging on and on and I wasn’t making too much progress about packing. With 10 minutes to go before take-off I was still in the spare bedroom with all of my electrical equipment all over the floor still charging up. And somewhere along the line I’d been given some ready-mixed cake dough in exchange for some that I had. And I needed to keep it for a few months after I’d returned to France, something that I knew would be impossible.

And by 09:35 I was wide-awake and out of bed which is something of a surprise considering that it’s Sunday. And even more so considering that I hadn’t gone to bed until 03:30. Just as I was getting ready to fo upstairs to bed, I came across a website that was broadcasting some matches from the Football Conference so I sat back down to watch Gateshead v Altrincham, Telford United v Stalybridge Celtic and Havant and Waterlooville V Wealdstone.

Today is a Bank Holiday here in France and I celebrated by doing exactly badger all, as is normal for a Bank Holiday. In fact, I didn’t even go outside except to take the stats. I did however read a book, Man Who Mapped the Arctic, the story of one of the more famous of the Arctic explorers of the first half of the 19th Century.

Not only that, I mad enormous strides yet again with my 3D program and I’m advancing rapidly – much more rapidly than my lamentable internet connection.

So tomorrow I’m back studying again. It’s nice to be back in Education. Tomorrow night, I’ll let you all know how it went.

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Monday 7th September 2015 – THIS BED …

… has made a world of difference – I’ll tell you that. It’s far too long for the bed, due to the dome-like nature of the latter, so even though I have to sleep curled up I was out light a light and off on my travels.

In fact I was in Shavington last night, wandering aimlessly around between Goodall’s Corner and the Sugar Loaf and I was joined by Zero, a young lady of my acquaintance who comes along to join me every now and again when I’m off on my perambulations. I’ve no idea why she should put in an appearance in the night though. Just one of those things I suppose, or else I’m hankering after my lost youth again.

The phone battery was going flat as I was going off to sleep and I couldn’t be bothered to put it on charge, so when I awoke I had no idea of what time it might have been and so I arose anyway – only to find that it was 04:00. And I couldn’t go back to sleep either.

It’s Labour Day in the USA today – a Bank Holiday – and so I had a day off. In fact I spent all morning reading a book and I don’t regret one minute of it either. And with the campsite office having coffee on tap as well; I was doing even better.

This afternoon though, I did a mammoth sorting out of everything that I had brought down from Canada yesterday and managed to fit most of the things into the storage boxes wit room to spare. And just as well too, because it’s going to be just a little tight for the next couple of days.

I seem to have acquired some duplicate tools too, not knowing what I had and what I didn’t have, and that seems par for the course of course. Still, better too many than too few. One thing though – I don’t have a metric spanner bigger than 18mm and 19mm is one of the most useful sizes on a Ford. Must sort that out too.

As it grew dark, and to celebrate the bank Holiday, I went into Rouses Point firstly for some cash and secondly for a meal. The transport cafe on the corner came up with one of the nicest spaghetti and tomato sauces that I have ever tasted and I thoroughly enjoyed that. Things are definitely looking up in North America.

But Strider now has a headlight out. I’ll have to fix that tomorrow.

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Tuesday 14th July 2015 – HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

That’s right – the story goes that the reason why the French stormed the Bastille on 14th July was because it was a Bank Holiday, all the shops were closed and they had nothing better to do.

But I had plenty to do, such as trying to find this insurance sticker. I’ve waded through all of these papers and some have been filed, some have been put tidily in a box and the rest have been filed under CS. But as for the insurance sticker, well, not a glimmer of it, I’m afraid. I’ve no idea where I might have put it.

The only thing now is to contact the insurance company and ask for a duplicate. And then that will guarantee that the original one will come to light immediately.

I’ve also done the notes for four days’ travel around Labrador and I’ve now arrived back in Newfoundland. I’ve also done some research as well and found a few really good e-books about the region that I have saved to read at my leisure.

Not only that, I’ve collected the details for a couple more months of radio rock shows and made up the icons for the albums so that I can build playlists.

But all of that was later first job, before I’d even had breakfast, was to make some muesli, seeing as how I’d run out.

All in all, I’ve had a busy day, despite it being a Bank Holiday.

Finally, I’ve made a huge aubergine-and-kidney-bean whatsit and that will keep me going for four days. It won’t take much to warm up, the food for the next few days, and it won’t make much washing-up.

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