Tag Archives: bad night

Monday 1st January 2018 – HAPPY NEW YEAR

Having had a couple of bad nights just recently as you know, I decided that seeing as it was New Year’s Eve last night I’d simply stay awake until I felt really tired, and then go to bed regardless of the time.

I’m not sure how much of a good idea that was, because by 05:30 this morning I was pretty much fed up. I crawled off to bed regardless.

And I was off on my travels too. Jammed in on the rear bench seat of an aeroplane – the one that goes right across the back like in a coach or bus. I was sprawled all over everyone else which must have been uncomfortable for them, but no-one was complaining. But a man a couple of rows further forward made some kind of comment, to which the woman sitting next to me – an elderly timid spinster-type – said that she wasn’t inconvenienced in the least and that it was no concern of his. This led to some kind of animated discussion during which I happened to glance down and notice that I seemed to have forgotten to put on my lower clothing. How no-one else had noticed I really don’t know, and so I had to try to keep discreetly hidden.
As an aside – these nudity dreams are quite common but I couldn’t remember the last time that I had had one. There’s certainly no record on anything since at least 2013, and probably a long time earlier too.
A little later I was going down Flag Lane bridge towards the traffic lights at Wistaston Road, and ended up in a pub down there. It was a filthy, grimy place full of cobwebs and the like and the food was dreadful but for some reason everyone was having a good time and several people came up to me to thank me – including the guy with whom I went for a few coffees when I stayed in Leuven.

Lunchtime is usually about 13:00 as you know, but by that time I hadn’t even had breakfast. Yes, I missed the morning completely what with my late night and it’s been a long time since I’ve done that.

The porridge for breakfast was good, and the soup for an early tea was delicious too. The plate of pasta in tomato sauce that I tried later in the evening reawakened my toothache and as a result half of it ebded up in the bin. I don’t want to puch the boat out too far.

Apart from that, what else have I been up to?

Bangor City were playing Llandudno in the Welsh Premier League this evening and it was broadcast on the internet. Bangor City had 75% of the possession, spent most of the match camped in the Llandudno half with their keeper Dave Roberts making some stunning saves to keep them in the game, and then breaking away upfield from a wild slash out out of defence and scoring with the luckiest deflection you have ever seen.

And I’ve also downloaded Java onto my laptop.

I used it years ago when I was building databases but it hasn’t been a feature of any computing that I have done for 15 years and more. I want to build a couple of databases for different projects and there’s no point in totally forgetting my hard-earned qualifications from all of those years ago.

I must admit that I’m much more at home with *.sql-based databases but a Java-based runtime environment is an option with the Office Suite that I use and so that’s my project for the New Year.

So while we’re on the subject of the New Year, let me wish you all the best. I’ve appreciated your support during the last year which has been a quite difficult year for me, and knowing that you are there behind me has made a great deal of difference.

I hope that the New Year brings you everything that you wished for everyone else last year.

0

Sunday 31st December 2017 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… miserable night last night.

Still awake at 01:45, and back awake again at 04:00, drenched in sweat yet again, with a dry throat and a little nauseous. I can’t shake it off, can I?

My travels didn’t seem to be so extensive, just for a change. Back in the family pile and my mother and father and younger borther were fishing out of the bedroom window into the river. They had me tying flies for them. Suddenly my borhter shouted up that he almost had a bite, and had I been quicker and doing my job he would surely have landed it. But the bath in the bedroom had no fish in it, no-one had caught anything and even the family cat was looking disappointed. MY mother then made one of her famous decisions that we were going to carry on fishing until we caught a bathful, even if it would take until next year and we were living in tents through the winter snows. “Fat chance of that” I thought to myself. I have a comfortable bed in a nice warm house and I fully intend to stay in it regardless of whatever plans anyone else had. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring than spending time fishing.

09:00 it was when I left the bed for my medication. And at 10:00 I had an attempt at a bowl of porridge. Much to my surprise, I managed to eat it without any problems.

Even more surprisingly I managed a mug of soup at about 14:30, followed by a tangerine and a couple of biscuits.

And if that’s not enough to be going on with, later in the evening I tried a small plate of mashed potatoes in butter and soya milk, with peas and cheese.

If all of that stays in, it will be the first for quite a while. First time since the night I came home from Belgium 2 weeks ago that I’ve had a hot evening meal, and first time since then that I’ve had three meals in a day.

But the hot meal has brought back the toothache. It seems that I just can’t win.

0

Monday 25th December 2017 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

If you’ve made it this far then you are all doing very well and I’m impressed. I’m also grateful that you’ve kept on reading. It’s something to help your turkey slide down the digestive tract.

As for me, last night I almost fell asleep in the middle of watching a film. So I crawled myself off to bed. And aftr an hour or so I awoke and started to have another one of these nuit blanches. Strangely enough I didn’t feel at al bad about it – and that’s a change.

Somewhere during the night I did drop off, and went off on one of my rambles. And we had a couple of strange people either making their acting debuts or first appearances for a considerable length of time.

I was back running my taxis again. And on Saturday mornings when I was having a lie-in the telephone was manned by Wendy (wherever did she spring from?) and Simon came in for a couple of hours to deal with breakdowns and do a little mechanical work. I’d been assembling a kind of breakdown kit and even cobbled together an old Jeep Patriot kitted out with emergency stuff for him. BUt when I came downstairs he hadn’t come in to work. So I rang him to ask where he was, and he gave me a list of things that he’d been doing instead. Clearly he had no intention of coming in to work again. So I explained that he was free to go if he liked, but I would have appreciated a little notice so that I could have made other arrangement.
I was also in Canada during the night. I’d booked a room in a motel and they knew that I didn’t intend to arive until the small hours. And so I turned up at about 03:00, was given the key to the room looking forward to crashing out in it straight away – and it was filthy; Hadn’t been cleaned for a month and someone had even tried to light a fire in it, leaving cinders and charred wood all over the place. Even worse than that Motel 6 in North Virginia.

Although I woke up on several occasions during the night, it was at about 09:30 when I arose from my bed. And after my medication I sent out a whole stream of cheery greetings to people on the internet.

One or two of the sites on my social networking were running a couple of quizzes so I passed a very entertaining morning, punctuated only by a pause for breakfast.

The paté that I had bought for Christmas lunch – it wasn’t mushroom paté at all. I’d made a mistake. I remembered that they had none, so I had bought garlic and fine herb paté instead. Nevertheless, it was equally delicious on hot buttered toast, and I ate rather a large amount of it.

I’m glad that I had bought that toaster when I first moved in here.

Apart from that, I’ve nibbled some biscuits, some clementines, some swets and a bar of chocolate-covered marzipan.

home made vegan christmas cake granville manche normandy francePride of place goes, though, without saying, to the Christmas cake.

I don’t have many friends, but those that I have are the best in the wld – quality before quantity of course – and Liz has done me proud once again this year.

Her Christmas cake is absolutely delicious. Each year it gets better and better. So good health to you, Liz.

I’ve braved the hurricanes and been out for my two walks this afternoon – and merited my two mugs of home-made hot chocolate. More than you will ever know in fact because at one point in the proceedings I was actually running down the street chasing after my hat that had Gone With The Wind. That was totally unexpected – I haven’t really run for anything for over two years and didn’t know that I still could.

Mind you, the way that I’m out of breath, I’m not sure that I can.

Final word tonight must go on the perfidy of the internet.

You’ll remember that my web browser did a real mega-upgrade at the start of the month and dumped a pile of developers and their add-ons, including my much-loved *.ftp add-on.

And how I was left high and dry without a *.ftp program for a whole three and a half weeks.

And how I spent all afternoon in a relentless (and untimately successful) attempt to program my web server?

So today, a group of developers has launched an ultra-slimmed-down web browser using the Open Source code of the browser that dropped them, and many of the dropped code modules seamed straight in. I gave it a try and my *.ftp module was picked up immediately.

It’s called Waterfox and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the fastest browser that I’ve ever seen. No bells, no whistles, just what I want.

There will probably be a few problems to overcome but as long as it handles my file uploads seamlessly like it seems to be doing, it will be fine by me.

0

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

0

Sunday 17th December 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… horrible day today.

Easily the worst that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

With it Sunday and being a lie-in, I was disappointed to be awake at 05:45. And so I tried my best to go back to sleep, despite a nip to the bathroom and a bad attack of cramp on the way.

Despite all of this, I must have been to sleep for I was on my travels. Wandering around the streets of New York City where, instead of parking meters, there were lockable storage boxes where you could leave your things while you were walking about.

But when I finally crawled out of bed at 09:00 I was feeling totally awful. It took me a while to eat my breakfast and then I had to have a sit-down.

I couldn’t stay seated for long – there’s a few things that I need for food and the supermarket in town is open on a Sunday morning so regardless of how I was feeling, I went shopping.

Down at the Coccinelle I bought what I needed and then, seeing as there was a brocante going on, I went through for a brows. But there was nothing at all worth my while.

It was a struggle back up the hill to here, and after a hot blackcurrant, I sat down on the sofa and crashed out.An hour later, I was awake, and still not feeling good, so I fetched a pillow and the quilt from the bedroom an sorted myself out on the sofa.

And there I stayed, flat-out until 20:00. I was feeling dreadful.

It’s 22:00 now and I’m slowly feeling a little better. I’m going to bed anyway now and seeing if I can have an early night. I’ll take a film with me anyway to make sure I go off to sleep.

And I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

0

Saturday 16th December 2017 – AND AS BARRY HAY …

… once famously said – “there’s one thing that I want to tell you, man, and that it’s goof to be back home”.

Mind you, I nearly didn’t make it, because I didn’t have a very good day.

Sherlock Holmes – or rather Arthur Wontner – did the trick last night. I managed about 2 minutes of the film before I was away with the fairies. All of my walking – 155% of my daily exercise – had seen to that.

Mind you – if I do lay my hands on the person who decided that it would be fun to slam all of the doors in the building at 04:18 this morning he would be someone else who will be drinking soup through a straw for the foreseeable future.

None of that prevented me from going off on my travels though. I was in some kind of warehouse plece with a few other people chasing after a long-haired cat – a black mangy type of animal – with the intention of stroking it. But it disappeared from my view and I couldn’t remember what it was that I was supposed to be chasing and found myself chasing after a large wasp. Just imagine trying to give that a stroke!

This morning I wasn’t feeling so good. I had a bad attack of nausea that made me quite unsteady on my feet. But I managed to calm myself down intime to go searching for a bakkerei. I trawled the streets for 15 minutes before I found a supermarket, and only realised on the way back that had I turned right out of the alley instead of left, the first door in that direction would have sold me a baguette.

I made my butties for the journey but had run out of time so no shower – I can wait until I return home for that.

The train to Brussels was pretty uneventful but the bad news there was that to catch the earlier train would have cost me an extra €46:00. That’s not part of the plan at all so I sat down quietly in a very cold, draughty waiting area and read my book for a while.

The Thalys was one of the older generation of trains with everything manual and I couldn’t make the wi-fi work. But that’s not the end of the world at all really. I have plenty of other things to do.

Apart from visiting the bathroom I slept almost all of the way to Paris, and then I managed to cross Paris on the metro without any incident – and isn’t that a change for just recently?

The walk down the platform to Vaugirard was pretty uneventful, except that some woman was urging her mother on, in the most ungracious terms, to hurry for the train. Mummy was about 80 and so this situation brought back some memories from a previous existence.

They missed their train but there was another one in half an hour so they had to run all the way back to the ticket office to swap tickets and then run all the way back.

The look of despair on this old woman’s face was something that I shan’t ever forget.

But Vaugirard was packed out completely. I’ve never seen it so busy. Apparently it’s school holidays starting today. I grabbed a seat in the waiting room next to a nice girl who was going to Granville from Martinique for Christmas – the last seat available. We had quite a chat and I had to fight people out of her seat when she nipped to the bathroom.

The train was packed to the gunwhales with people and once again, I slept most of the way back. But on the station I bumped into my girl from the waiting room and I wished her a Merry .

Then began the long trudge back here.

It was cold in here, which is no surprise, but I had the heating on full blast while I watched Bangor City beat Cefn Druids on the laptop. The little laptop because the big one decided that it would do an upgrade as soon as I switched it on, and that took hours.

Tea was once more out of a tin, and then I went for a walk – for no good reason other than the fact that I was at 89% of my daily activity. I might as well wind it up to 100% – as it has been for every day this week.

Now it’s an early night. i’ll watch a film too. That seems to be working well right now.

0

Monday 11th December – WE’RE HAVING …

… a disaster here right now.

On the point of going off to bed last night, I looked for the mobile phone to put under the pillow to awaken me in the morning.

But no trace.

I rang the number but I couldn’t hear the ringing, so I went downstairs to tip out Caliburn to see if it was there. But no trace either. And so I ended up by sorting out the old phone that I used before I got into smartphones, and that fired up okay. At least I had an alarm.

All of this at 01:00 too.

Last night was really a bad night too. I was still awake at 04:30 so it was something of a struggle to rouse myself when the alarm went off. Down in Caliburn at 06:15 to see if I could hear the second alarm, but no such luck.

And so I turned out the apartment making more of a mess that it was before, and although I found my missing notebook (which is always good news) no trace of the phone.

The last time that I remember havong it was at the football match, so at 09:30 I set off to retrace my steps from Saturday. No luck on the roadside, no luck at the Mairie, which deals with the fottball ground issues, and so I went to the police and reported it missing.

My route took me past the railway station where I picked up my tickets on Saturday night, and no luck at the football ground, although I did meat Johann Gallon, the coach of the football club, and we had a chat.

What didn’t help matters was that not only did we have a driving rainstorm, we had a howling gale too and it was really uncomfortable. But I did get to meet a helpful chemist who not only pointed me in the direction of a good doctor, told me that he was authorised to dispense Belgian prescriptions.

I’ve invented a new drink too. Fed up far the moment with coffee, I bought some blackcurrant syrup and I’ve been drinking this with hot water and a dash of lemon juice. And it’s very more-ish. And so I’ve had no coffee all day (and no breakfast either)

This afternoon I had a good sleep to catch up with what I missed, and then went for a walk. But I missed the high tide so I’ll have to try again tomorrow. But all of the zinc guttering and facing on the roof of the building opposite is now flapping about in the wind.

Another sleep and then I spent the rest of the afternoon (such as it was) obliterating duplicate radio programmes from my laptop.

For tea I had potatoes with the beans and vegan sausages left over from the other night, and then went out for a walk. But I was blown back inside.

So I hope that I’ll have a better night tonight and I’ll be able to organise my telephone tomorrow. I can’t be doing with this Monday closing.

0

Tuesday 5th December 2017 – I HAD A …

… phone call this morning. Would I like to go for a coffee this afternoon?

Clearly, something is up.

I’d had a miserable night last night – awake at 04:20 with a dreadful itch that I couldn’t scratch and it was so annoying. But I’d been on my travels too and it was rather depressing. A friend of mine – a woman – had died and someone else hand hanged her in the bathroom. And there she had hung for a couple of weeks, slowly decaying. I knew that I had to dispose of the body via an undertaker but the longer I left it, the more complicated it became of course. There was no doubt that she had died of natural causes but this prevarication is yet another story of my life, isn’t it? I’d painted myself into a corner for no good reason.

After breakfast I had things to do – liek work on this enormous pile of photos and finding that many of them are duplicates – not that that’s much of a surprise. But I’ll plug away at them until they are all properly filed.

After lunch, I had a shower and then set off down to the docks, and the Grima in fact. Her master wanted to see me.

I helped the crew (of two) load the ship, had a good chat and was given a conducted tour of the ship.

The engine room is beautiful – two old Kelvin diesels, long stroke, slow revving, with plenty of roo to move aroud them; everything eccessible, and even a well underneath so you can drop out the conrods and pistons without dismanting the engine too much.

It’s a marine engineer’s dream and a far cry from this modern hi-tech stuff. You could dismantle this engine and repair it in mid-ocean without any problem at all.

But downstairs in the hold, around a coffee,, we got down to business. The guy who does the running around, fetching and carrying for the Grima, is getting more work than he used to, and so he’s not willing to drive around picking up parcels and the odd pallet, unless he charges the standard 25-tonne lorry rate. Even for an envelope.

That van that I was telling you about the other week that came on the Grima, they have dropped that here to go fetching and carrying the small packets but it’s not suitable for large stuff and they don’t often have time. Accordingly, they need someone with a large van – Transit-size in fact.

And so we had a lengthy chat about this and that, and there might be some developments on this score in the future. Who knows?

For tea this evening, I made a potato and lentil curry. And seeing that it fell short (like last week’s) I lengthened it with a tin of runner beans. A couple of weeks ago, NOZ had a vegetable steamer for a microwave oven. Nothing like as solid as a Tupperware one, but it was only €3:50 so I bought it. And it cooked my potatoes really well. I could be onto a winner with this.

I’ve had my walk too, and so I’ll try for an early night. And we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

0

Thursday 30th November 2017 – MY FITBIT …

.. will tell you everything that you need to know about last night. Hours sleeping – 3:36, of which restless sleep – 0:20.

That’s not very good, is it? No wonder I was feeling rather miserable this morning. But even so, I still beat the second alarm.

The fresh muesli was nice, and so was the coffee that followed it. And the nice hot shower was even nicer. I was ready for anything after that. Well, almost.

It was pouring down with rain outside and it looked as if that was that for my trip to LIDL. But at about 09:30 the rain stopped and we had some small amount of blue sky, so I dashed out to LIDL – well, dashed as well as I can these days.

The bread was nice, and so were one or two other things, but there were no special offers that tempted me. It seems to be toy week thee, and that will account for the massed crowds of people in there.

But on the way, I observed that we are having roadworks down the hill on the little side street. And when I can find out why my *.ftp add-on has disappeared from my web browser, I’ll post you a photo.

It seems that they are replacing the side wall at the back of the houses there. There was even someone with a strimmer cutting down the weeds just there.

I’ll have to go back tomorrow and have a proper butcher’s.

The rain held off too on the way back, which was good. I didn’t fancy being soaked to death. And it also meant that I could take a photo of the cherry-picker that was blocking the street while they were doing something to the eaces of one of the houses.

With the high winds that we’ve been having just recently (it’s blowing a gale outside right now) it’s hardly surprising that slates and the like are bing dislodged from roofs.

And Combattant was back at work today too, with the digger on the lighter at the side of it going flat-out digging up the silt.

They seem to be making a really good go of this dredging the harbour. I do hope that this will be the key (or should it be “quay”?) to more shipping coming into the port. I could do with some more excitement.

Back here, I had some coffee from the flask and then crashed out for half an hour, which is hardly a surprise. No sleep, a long walk and my general ill-health.

This afternoon I attacked another hard drive of photos. This is going to be a major piece of work as there are tons of the things on this drive. Everything that I want, except of course the ones that I’m looking for.

The story of my life.

Tea was oven chips, frozen peas, fresh carrots and a home-made burger on a bap with mustard and vegan cheese. Delicious it was too, but I’ve noticed that I’m almost out of oven chips.

Braving the hurricane, I went out this evening. It was raining on and off throughout the afternoon but now the rain has stopped, we have clear sky and an almost-full moon. And I would have taken some photos of the Christmas lights except that the battery in the camera decided to go flat at the crucial moment.

So off to bed in a moment, and I hope that I can have a decent night’s sleep.

0

Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then we had our afternoon walk.

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

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

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

0

Friday 3rd November 2017 – I KNEW …

… that I would suffer for my exertions this last week or so. And sure enough, today was the day.

Although I was out of bed at the appropriate time, I didn’t feel much like it, I was creaking and groaning from every joint and after breakfast, I sat on the sofa and hardly moved. Just the odd mug of coffee and stroll down the corridor, but for much of the morning I was sitting here on the corner of the sofa dozing away.

After lunch I was back on the sofa again for a couple of hours and away with the fairies again. But I knew that I ought to be doing something positive; so I went for a little walk.

shetland trader port de commerce granville manche normandy franceI was right about the pile of gravel on the docks though.

But it wasn’t Pluto or Victress who came for it, but a new arrival, the Shetland Trader. I’ve not seen her before.

Built in 1992 and almost 3,000 tonnes, she’s come from Buckie in Scotland, via Southampton and Alderney for the gravel, which she’s taking over on the usual run to Littlehampton.

But it does make you wonder what hope the UK has after Brexit when it has even to import its gravel from abroad.

With the rain trying its best to break through the clouds, I carried on around the walls.

swimmers beach granville manche normandy franceAnd there aren’t half some courageous people around these days.

Here we are in November and there they are down there, two women who have decided to go for a swim in the sea. All that I can say is “good luck” to them. Rather them than me.

I stood and watched them for a while, but didn’t squidge them with my welly – I left them to it and came back home for coffee and a warm, although I still haven’t put the heating on yet.

Later on in the evening, after having had a good chat with Rosemary on the telephone, I roused myself enough tp make tea. Mashed potatos, vegetables and a vegan burger. I even struggled out for a walk.

But I won’t be doing anything else. I’ve had enough and I’m going to bed.

0

Wednesday 1st November 2017 – I DON’T KNOW …

… who it was who decided to have a party underneath my bedroom windowsill at 04:20 this morning, but if ever I lay my hands on them, they’ll be drinking soup through a straw for the next few weeks.

What made it worse was that I was on an exciting nocturnal ramble and I remember saying to myself “I really MUST remember this!” – but I awoke with such a sudden start that it went comletely out of my head and I couldn’t remember a thing.

But never mind – I managed to be out of bed before the second alarm went off, no matter how much I didn’t feel like it. And after breakfast I had a shower and cut my hair. I haven’t done that since before I went to Canada and it was looking quite unruly.

For the rest of the morning I had the usual nonsense to perform on the laptop. That took me up to lunchtime.

Now I do have to say that this bread from LIDL really does freeze well. And it defrosts even better. I shall have to do more of this and I’m wishing now that I had bought a bigger freezer.

After letting my lunch digest for an hour or so I went for another walk.

derelict international harvester tractor port de commerce granville manche normandy franceMy route took me down to the docks so that I could see whether Grima had brought anything exciting yesterday.

There were these tractos – two of them – or, rather, one and a half because the one furthest from the camera is only the gearbox, cab and rear axle.

They are International Harvesters and by the looks of things they have been standing outside in the weather for a considerable number of years. There’s nothing much of any interest on them, that’s for sure.

animal park old freight yard granville manche normandy franceI walked on through the town to the car park where I left Caliburn when I first came here

There’s a little park just there with a pond and a couple of fenced compounds with all kinds of different animals in there.

I hadn’t actually been for a walk around it before, and so I took the opportunity to go for a good prowl around, seeing as it was such a nice day.

granville manche normandy franceThere was a zig-zag path at the back of it so I climbed right up to the top of it. And there was a good view down to where the old goods railway line used to run down to the docks.

I ended up on the main road out to Donville-les-Bains and from there it was quite an easy walk down the hill to the Casino.

But not so easy going up the hill on the other side to the Old Town. I Had to take my time up there. I’m definitely getting old.

I didn’t know what to make for tea tonight so I prepared some vegetables in a big dish with olive oil, chick peas and peanuts and put it in the microwave. It didn’t come out how I was hoping as the potatoes and carrots weren’t cooked enough, and the frozen veg was overcooked.

But it’s no big deal. You have to pay to learn. I’ll have to do the spuds and carrots on their own first next time.

So I’ve been out for my walk and I’m off to bed in a short while. Tomorrow I’m planning on walking out to LIDL to buy some more bread. We know that the bread sells out quickly, so I’ll have to go out fairly early.

0

Sunday 22nd October 2017 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

0

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.

0

Monday 16th October 2017 – I MEAN, YOU HAVE TO LAUGH.

There has been the most astonishing weather here today. In fact, pretty much the same as in the rest of Western Europe. Devastating high winds, pitch-black at 14:00, the sun a mere orangey thing somewhere behind a dark black cloud.

Loads of people have passed comment on it today, but it was all killed off by one poster who said “Everyone banging on about weird light and a strange orange glow in the sky clearly didn’t spend the 1970s in Teesside”.

It’s this Storm Ophelia that is doing it, a storm named after Ophelia, the daughter of that Labour politician Ed Balls, and I’ll bet that it will take you a minute or two to think about that.

He was famous for writing a speech for Gordon Clown, the-then Prime Minister, which prompted William Hague, leader of the Tory Party in Opposition, to rise from his seat and say “that sppech – typical Labour, it’s all Balls”.

The storm isn’t though. Half of BUT was closed off while they were dealing with something big and heavy that had come crashing down through the roof into the shop during the night.

During my night though, I went on my travels again. But I don’t remember where and it wasn’t for long because it was almost 02:00 before I ended up in bed. Jet-lag strikes again, I reckon.

The alarm went off at 06:00 but I was … errr … somewhat tardy in leaving my stinking pit.

LIDL was the first port of call for me today. And here I did the usual shopping, but plenty of it seeing as I’d let the stocks run down somewhat. It was the same story in Auchan.

In bewteen the two, I went to BUT, negotiating the debris in the store. The stuff in there was better quality and better price than in the Auchan and I was almost ready to sign on the dotted line.

Almost.

I asked if they had a delivery service and installation service and if they took away the old appliances, which they did. But it’s not free.

“It’s €30:00” siad the guy in the shop.
“Per delivery?”
“No, per appliance”. And they are bringing in three and taking out two.

So “sodomisez ça pour un jeu de soldats” as they say around here. We need a Plan B.

But Plan B won’t be the Auchan as their stuff is rubbish.

And here’s a thing.

After months of hassling, the Bio-Coop is now starting to sell Vegan cheese. It’s not the best by any means, but it’s a start and it goes to show you the power of persuasion. You’ll remember that I did the same at Amaranthe in Montlucon.

So I bought some, and some sausages. And that also meant pizza for tea seeing as how I’d missed out on Sunday.

I half-unloaded Caliburn and then I had to go for a sit-down for … errr … a while. That meant a very late lunch. And a bit of desultory tidying up – not very much of that.

Right now I’m feeling the strain so it may well be an early night for me. I’ll be like this for a week or so until I find my rhythm.

0