… I’ve finished all of the dictaphone notes. I dragged the final ones into the “filed” subfolder at about 12:15 today. That was another job well-done and I can start to get on with things now – or, at least, I can when I’ve backed them up and deleted them from the back-up folder on the dictaphone.
If my memory served me correctly, from the time that I left France on 27th June until I’d recovered from my exploits away on or about 26th October, there were something like 286 entries to be transcribed.
Some of them were quite long too. Leaving aside the one of over four hours (which was 3 minutes of me talking and four hours of me sleeping), there were quite a few that ran into double figures too.
And some of the stuff was quite exciting too. It’s amazing the kind of thing that goes on in a nocturnal ramble and about which I am totally unaware until I come to dictate it.
Talking of “exciting” … “well, one of us is” – ed … you should have been with me during the night too, because it’s been a good while since I’ve had such an exciting time.
We started off the evening on board a ship – not sure which one but it could quite easily have been The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We sailed at night into this port that was held by the Germans, at night so that while they could see the ship, they could not see its nationality or anything. We sent a big party ashore – almost everyone in fact and made our way peacefully to the supply depot. We overwhelmed the people in the supply depot, one of whom was a 19 year old Danish Freikorps soldier boy by ruse or trick. I was having to speak to the German officer in charge who congratulated me on my German but didn’t much like my accent. I said that I was a Volksdeutsch, not a natural German. Having overwhelmed the supply depot, we collected the supplies and sent our first group off to clear the way back to the ship. However, they ended up being pinned down under fire by a young boy there. Whoever was leading that column said that he wasn’t going to go along and flush out this boy because he was only a kid. This obviously upset our commander because in war everything is important and no individual, regardless of age, merits consideration. He decided to send this young Danish Freikorps boy out there. He told him “he’s your mate – you do and get him out of there” and packed him off with one of our soldiers to try to talk this young kid out of his position so we could get off and go home before the Germans woke up and realised exactly what was happening.
And, dear reader, that was really exciting that was. For some unknown reason it was the most exciting and most realistic voyage that I’ve been on for quite some time.
A little later on – a good while later on in fact – I was away again, on the same ship and we ended up in New York. We saw our ship come into the harbour but I couldn’t find my camera to take photos of it. I was really dismayed by that. But as we docked, a group of people disappeared off onto the shore. I couldn’t find my camera and, even worse, I couldn’t find Strawberry Moose. I thought well, I’m going at least to have a look around on shore even if we can’t stay here long and I can’t get any photos. However, just as I got off the ship two people from the crew came back to the ship again. They were carrying Strawberry Moose in that big shoulder bag that I have and they had my camera. They explained that they had taken him off on a few photo shoots. So Strawberry Moose and I – I should say that I took Strawberry Moose with me. He came for a climb but having been in that bag he was all matted and his fur was a total mess – set off to climb up this hill up a load of steps where there’s a really good view over the docks. But it wasn’t the docks that I particularly remembered though, it’s the kind of New York that we have visited on numerous occasions on one of our nocturnal excursions where there’s the big elevated highway out of the city off to the left. Our ship was moored almost underneath that flyover type of place and all around the docks was greenery. There was another main road at ground level off to the left of the docks. There were steps up to the top and there were some people climbing them in front of me, obviously locals, and going on about the health clinic at the bottom, saying that it can’t have been there before these steps were open. Someone laughed and said “oh yes of course it was, it’s just that we couldn’t get to it”. I got to the top of the steps and the view from the top was stunning as you could imagine. You could see the ship and see all the docks below me and that highway that I mentioned and a couple of other roads and I went to take a photo of it all. As well as that there was something about a couple of other people up there. They were fuming because they had asked someone to take a photo of them and he had turned round and said “so you aren’t really third-party intimates are you?”. Their camera was one of these with different picture settings and “third party intimate” was one of the choices. That was the style of photo that they wanted but he had changed the settings and it ruined their photo. But just as I was about to take a photo of everything spread out before me, that was when I awoke.
And that’s not all either. I had another dream – a political dream this time. Clearly the situation in the UK is getting to me big-time. Again we were on the The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and again Cook was being broadcast on the TV, again all kind of falsehoods about Jeremy Corbyn, even though he was on the ship and even though we knew that these things were false. Even though they had been disclosed publicly as being false, the BBC was still broadcasting them as if they were the real thing.
All that I can say is that it was a good job that I had had an early night for a change. I would otherwise have never fitted all of that in.
Unfortunately I missed the alarms this morning, but I was up pretty quickly regardless, round about 06:30 or something like that.
It took me an age to transcribe my notes from the night, and that was followed by breakfast and a shower. With some time before I needed to leave the apartment I made a start on the remaining dictaphone notes.
It was soon enough time to leave the apartment and I wish that it wasn’t because, once more it was absolutely taters out there again.
We’ve had a visitor during the night. Normandy Trader has made it in and she seems to be pretty well loaded up. I can’t see what with though because of this blasted fog and mist that is shrouding everything.
One of these days I shall have to go for a look.
It seems that I shall also have to go and have a look to see what’s going on with Marité too.
They have set up a cherry-picker in the quayside and there were some guys up there in the nacelle doing some work on Marité‘s mast.
It seems a shame, but it seems that the days when you would send a small boy up the mast to fix the rigging are long-gone. Times are definitely a-changing.
The railway station was deserted when I arrived. The whole of the French public service is on strike today apparently. But no matter. I went simply to pick up my tickets for next week and I can do that out of the machine there.
There is something of a reliability issue with regard to the machines so I like to go and collect my tickets before the day of travel, just in case there’s a problem.
The main reason for going to LIDL was to buy a lettuce because I had run out, so while I was there I did a quick run round and picked up some other stuff.
On the way back to the apartment I passed by the big St Paul’s Church.
At the back of it, in the impasse de la Corderie, they have erected a large crane. And I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s for the church because that is definitely in need of urgent repair, or it might be for one of the houses nearby.
And it was round about here that I realised that while I had indeed bought a few other bits and pieces, I had forgotten to buy the lettuce.
Nevertheless, I did remember to call at La Mie Caline for my dejeunette and then I sailed on up the hill towards home.
There’s a little Square – the Square Potel – just off the rue des Juifs and here they seem to be setting up some Christmas decorations too. But what kind of decorations these are going to be I really don’t know.
When I come by here tomorrow I’ll have another look and take a photo of how everything has turned out.
Back at the apartment I made myself a quick coffee and then knuckled down to the dictaphone notes. And as I said earlier, they are now all done and dusted and I can relax somewhat until the next project – like the photos for example.
After lunch I made a start on cutting up some more of the digital music that I have downloaded. I only did about four all day, but one of them was quite complicated. Not because it was difficult (although the mixing that was done in the studio was appalling and I had to redo it here) but because there were plenty of little extras, like loads of applause tracks for example, that I could extract and keep in my sound library for future use.
We had a break in the middle of all of that for my afternoon walk.
it was still really cold outside today and the freezing fog hadn’t really lifted at all. You can see the haze covering the medieval walled town and the Plat Gousset.
And it waas much worse further down the coast and out to sea.
No chance of spying any fishing boats out there working today, but there was one leaving the harbour just as I rounded the headland.
Nothing worth photographing in the cjantier navale or, at least, nothing that we haven’t seen just recently, so I took a photo of the trawler instead.
And that didn’t take long to disappear out of sight into the mist either. I was going to take another one of it further out in the Baie de Mont st Michel but I couldn’t see it at all.
But there are strange goings-on at the passenger terminal for the ferries to the Channel Islands and the Ile de Chausey.
Joly France, one of the boats that runs to the Ile de Chausey, was moore dup there today, but Chausiais, the boat that the company has bought to carry out a freight service, that’s over there too having come out from the inner harbour.
Does this mean that the freight service is about to start? Watch this space.
There was no-one around at all so I tok the opportunity to have a good run. And I managed it all the way to the end of my little track where I cross the road. It might not be all that far – a mere three hundred metres or so – but it’s the principle of the thing.
One thing that I had forgotten to do was to take the rubbish out to the large collection point. So I went and did that too and reflected, on the way back, that this is now three times today that I have run up the stairs. When I first moved here, I couldn’t even walk up them.
Tea was a lentil and carrot burger with pasta, followed by rice pudding. And then off for my evening walk.
It’s even colder out there now so I didn’t hang around. Just a bried pause to admire the Christmas lights in the rue Paul Poirier.
And I have to say that they are something of a disappointment. Not because they aren’t very good but they seem to be no different from the previous years.
Ohh for someone with some imagination!
Moving on, I ran (yet again!) on my track but didn’t quite make it up to the top of the ramp. But then again, with all of the running that I’ve done today, I’m reasonably happy with that.
Minette was there so I said hello to her and then came back here in the warmth. An early night is called for, and a quiet day tomorrow. I’ll make a start on the photos and maybe even unpack the final box from the big delivery last week. High time I did that.
and headphones.
