Tag Archives: roncey

Tuesday 2nd May 2017 – THAT’S ME FINISHED!

Yes, I’m thoroughly whacked and I’ll be off to bed in a minute, where I’ll sleep until my name changes to Eric van Winkle.

It all started going wrong last night. I’d been too busy chatting and ended up going to bed quite late (for me just recently anyway). And then it took me ages to drop off to sleep. It seemed like for ever.

But sleep I must have done because I was off on my travels during the night again.

There were four of us working in an office. Our job was to oversee the writing of laws for a particular community. But suddenly three of us were transferred to law enforcement, which was not a very desirable job. It turned out that our fourth colleague had “invented” a gadget that had actually been something that we had all worked on, but he had claimed the rights to it and persuaded our boss that it was his. As a result, he was given the department all to himself and he had even gone and had a sign put on his desk that he was “lawmaker” before anything official had even been announced. I took this gadget down to the boss to explain to him about how we had done it but he refused to listen. I was so incensed by all of this that I was all for strangling him and ended up fighting with him like you would fight with an annoying cat.

The alarm awoke me this morning and hearing movement about, I went to join Liz for breakfast before she went off to work. And then I went for a quick trip out, as far as the boulangerie in the village for bread, seeing as how we didn’t have very much.

By the time that I returned, Terry was up and about. And then we set to work.

First task was to demolish a wall in the kitchen here. Terry was swinging the hammer and I was cleaning uo and taking the rubbish down to the trailer ready for the tip. By the time that we had finished, Terry’s mate had arrived so we insulated the kitchen ceiling and then plasterboarded it.

We had lunch after that, and then spent the rest of the afternoon constructing the studding for the plasterboarding on the walls throughout the kitchen.

By the time that 19:00 came round we were all completely exhausted. It took us an hour to recover before we could even put the tea in the microwave.

And I’m supposed to be ill too! I will be after all of this, I’ll tell you.

So I wonder what will be on the cards tomorrow, apart from more of the same.

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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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Sunday 30th April 2017 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… night that was!

I went to bed early and fell asleep after just about 10 minutes of a film that I’ve tried to watch on several occasions. But it didn’t do me much good because I was awake again at about 01:30, really uncomfortably, and I couldn’t go back to sleep again.

Not only that, there was some kind of incident early in the morning. I thought at first that the cat had caught a seagull or something, but apparently the landlady’s dog had had a fit – and I bet that it was a tight one too.

Mind you, I must have gone to sleep at some time or other during the night because I had been on my travels. I was with Roxanne and Laurence, trying to negotiate Roxanne’s entry into a different school. But the negotiations were extremely complex and I discovered that you had to pay for the lessons – including the basic ones like English (which surprised me – by the way, it was English as a first language too). In the end I turned to Laurence and suggested that Roxanne stay at home and Laurence teach her – after all, Laurence is a qualified teacher (which she wasn’t, but never mind).
We ended up being on a coach going down a steep hill – I wasn’t driving but the man who was driving it was having a few difficulties. trying to negotiate his way between a couple of parked lorries he ripped the right-hand side mirror out of its housing. No amount of fiddling about could get it to go back into position.

After breakfast I had a shower and a good clean-up, tidied up my room, packed up everything and then spent an hour or so catching up with some stuff on the internet. Once I’d finished organising myself I got my motor running and headed out on the highway.

There’s no electricity in my new place until Friday morning and so Liz and Terry had told me that if I didn’t mind sleeping in the middle of a building site, I could stay at their new place for a few nights. Of course, it’s not where you are and what you are doing, it’s who you are with that counts and so I headed off through the rainstorm (the first real rain that we have had since I’ve been up here) to Roncey.

Liz had cooked a gorgeous soup for lunch, and then I had a little surprise. Liz and Terry had bought two really nice sofas for the living room at their house in the Auvergne but there wasn’t room for both of them in the living room in the place that they have just bought. And so in thanks for a service that I had rendered to them a few months ago, we heaved the redundant sofa into the back of Caliburn and drove off to Granville.

Once we had dropped off the sofa, we went for a walk around the area where my new place is. It’s an old town full of beautiful stone buildings, narrow alleyways and city walls. And we found a café that looked like something out of the 19th Century, with live music too.

Back through the rainstorm and the roadworks for another one of Liz’s special meals followed by home-made vegan cake and a nice wood fire. Here I can sit and watch the rain falling outside while I am in the warmth.

And I have some furniture now. I’ve slept on that sofa before and I’ll be sleeping on it again until I can organise myself a bed. It’s only a sofa, but it’s a start.

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Sunday 9th April 2017 – WHAT WITH …

… my late night last night, I was looking forward to a decent, long sleep without an alarm to bother me. And so there I was, wide awake eventually, thinking that I can’t stay lying in bed for ever and wandering around the kitchen when I noticed the time – 08:30.

Yes, quite!

But after breakfast I started going through the room putting the less-essential stuff into one of my big blue IKEA bags to take down to Caliburn later in the day. And there was a fair bit to go too. It also gave me an opportunity to tidy up a little and do some more cleaning which you all know isn’t my strong point.

Once that was organised I went down to the boulangerie from where I bought that good baguette the other day. And it was bizarre, if not downright amusing, to see the difference in people’s tastes, with loads of people all coming and going in different directions carrying their favourite baguettes from their favourite boulangerie.

plage casino granville manche normandy franceFor lunch I made myself the usual sandwich and then toddled off to my favourite spot on the promenade at the back of the casino down at the end of the street to sit in the sun, to eat my butties, read my book and to admire the view.

With it being Sunday and also the hottest day of the year, all of the benches were taken and that meant a pretty uncomfortable lunchtime break.

plage casino granville manche normandy france I had to stand up in the sun, leaning on the wall, to eat my butties, read my book and admire the view. And to also rue the fact that, as I had mentioned yesterday, I have all of this beach furniture and I’ve managed to leave it all behind back in my barn in the Auvergne.

Normally, you might think that that will teach me lesson. But it’s far from being the first time that something like this has happened, and it will be far from the last time either.

There’s only so much time that you can spend standing up, and so back here, I had a little doze for half an hour and then hit toe road for Liz and Terry’s new place at Roncey. We had a delicious pie followed by ginger cake for tea, and hats off to Liz who had conjured that up out of nothing and cooked it in the oven in the caravan, because she has no kitchen.

In the fog and mist and in the dark I came back later. And it’s nice to be able to drive at full speed down narrow lanes without worrying whether you are going to hit a sanglier or a chevreuil.

So now its bedtime – my last night here. Tomorrow I have to find a hotel and that will be exciting. I’ve forgotten that it’s the Easter break.

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Sunday 2nd April 2017 – I HAD A NICE …

… walk this afternoon.

Much better than my sleep (or lack thereof) during the night because that wasn’t so good. I’ve no idea why because the bed is quite comfortable and it’s not particularly noisy outside, but nevertheless I couldn’t go to sleep. And when I did, I kept on waking up.

Mind you, with no alarm going off (well, it IS Sunday) it was about 09:15 when I hauled myself out of bed and first thing that I did was to go for a shower.

After breakfast, I hung around for a while and then went down to the end of the road to meet Liz. She took me back to see the house that they have bought about 30 kilometres or so from here in Roncey. It needs a lot of work, like most places do, but it’s down the bottom of a long private drive on a hilltop overlooking a picturesque valley and facing full south. It really is marvellous and has bags of potential.

We had home-made soup and then went off to the seaside at Coutainville. This is one of Liz’s favourite places and I can see why she likes it. We had a look there to see if there was any apartment to let but nothing struck me.

Nevertheless, a nice long walk on the promenade in the beautiful afternoon sun was just what the doctor ordered.

Liz had made vegan burgers and carrot-cake for tea tonight. It was nice to get back into my old habits. Especially as a doggy-bag was made up for me to keep me going for the next day or so – about which I shall have no complaints whatever. And Terry drove me back here afterwards as I was feeling quite exhausted.

It’s nice to see good friends, that’s for sure, and Liz and Terry are among the best. As I have said before, I don’t have many friends but quantity has never been a substitute for quality, and what friends I do have are the best in the world.

Now I’m going to have an early night and hope that I can sleep better than last night.

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