Tag Archives: football

Saturday 19th January 2019 – PART THREE …

… of “hunt the passport” continued today. And the result was exactly the same as Parts One and Two.

Even donning a pair of rubber gloves and sifting through two weeks of putrefying rubbish in the waste bin in the kitchen failed to produce a result.

The alarm went off as usual and in accordance with usual practice these days I was rather tardy in rising from the dead.

After breakfast I made a start on searching in the living room for the passport. That involved firstly going piece-by-piece through all of the cardboard and paper that had accumulated here over the last two weeks.

Once I’d done that, it all went into the back of Caliburn ready for the tip one of these days.

A little later I wandered off into town.

I’d noticed the other day that a strange sign had appeared by the archway into the medieval town, and I had overlooked to go and read what it was saying.

So I took the opportunity to go over there for a read, and it’s concerned with the roadworks for the fibre-optic cabling that is taking place all over Normandy.

First stop was the Bank. I know that they told me on the telephone that they didn’t have it, but it needed to be confirmed. And it was too, much to my dismay.

But over the road is the photo place, and I need a pile of photos for various things, so he rattled me off a quick pile of them.

On the way back I called into the market for a baguette and then wandered round to the Police Station to see if by any chance the passport had been found and handed in.

But as regular readers of rubbish might recall, it’s times like this that the Police Station is closed. Instead I went next door to the Carrefour and bought my rubber gloves.

On my way down into town I’d noticed that our old friend (and “old” being the operative word) the Bedford CF was parked up in it usual place in the rue des Terreneuviers

And so on the way back up the hill to home, I took a photograph of it. It’s been a while since we’ve featured an old vehicle on here

It’s probably at least 35 years old, but it keeps on rolling along regardless. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few months ago that they were taking out the engine at the side of the road on one occasion that it was here.

Back at the flat, Jackie contacted me. No luck at the Deutsche Bahn either but at least the loss is recorded and I have a file number. So I printed out the report, printed out a copy of the passport (I keep a scan of all of my important documents “just in case”), put it all in the expired passport from 2010 and put that in my pocket.

If I’m controlled on my journey, at least I’ll have something to show for it.

After lunch I went through the waste bin and that was horrible with all of the stuff that was in there. But it had to be done and at least I know that it’s not in there.

But I couldn’t see the rail tickets from my visit just before Christmas, so I don’t know where they are. And so I reckon that wherever they are, my passport is there too.

It’s certainly not anywhere else in the house. I’ve been right through it so I’m reasonably sure of that, so how did I manage to write the passport number on the form that I have?

Tea was out of a tin tonight, and then we had the football. The Welsh League Cup between Cardiff Metropolitan and Cambrian & Clydach, the team from Tonypandy.

Cambrian & CLydach are from the Second Level but they did really well and took some impressive scalps on their way to the final. They played quite well with a couple of really good players, but Cardiff Metro had much more experience. Cambrian should have had a penalty early in the game, but they should also have had two men sent off in the first 35 minutes – one for a stamping and the other for an elbow.

Cardiff Metro scored a goal in the first half, and a second with the final kick of the game following a breakaway from a Cambrian corner, with the Cambrian keeper stranded upfield.

The game hinged on a substitution from Cambrian after 60 minutes. They brought on a really quick and tricky forward, but took off the experienced centre-forward Richard French. He’s big and muscular and throws his weight around and while he might not have all that much skill, he was making his presence felt and unsettling the defence quite considerably.

Cambrian had a good spell for about 10 minutes after the substitution, and had they had French up front, they might have made their pressure count.

So now it’s bedtime. An alarm in the morning because I have a train to catch. And I’m not looking forward to it.

Saturday 12th January 2019 – I’VE DONE SOMETHING …

… today that I haven’t done for more than 25 years.

And that is …. to buy some batteries.

I don’t mean rechargeable batteries. I buy quite a few of those here and there and of course I buy batteries for Caliburn and for solar energy systems. But I wouldn’t ever buy a throwaway battery – until today.

There are two pieces of equipment round here – the pre-amp in the Ibanez acoustic guitar and the tuner foot-pedal – which take PP3-size batteries and both are flat. I have some rechargeable ones, but I left them in the Auvergne and I didn’t bring the PP3 recharger with me either. So when I saw a couple on sale in NOZ at €0:99, I set my scruples aside for the moment.

After the problems of yesterday, I ended up not being able to sleep, and doesn’t that always happen? But I did go off to sleep at one point and even managed to go off on my travels. My phone had been cut off and I had to telephone the supplier. We ended up having quite an argument and my French started to break up. The person on the other end made a remark so I asked him what he expected when I had just awoken at 06:00. I asked for an appointment so he replied that he would fix one for me – one and that was all and I had better be there. I replied that it wasn’t much good ringing about it and telling me the time and expecting me to be there if the phone had been disconnected so I wouldn’t receive the call. he told me that that was my problem – I’d get one, and one only.

At this point the alarm went off and I awoke.

It was a struggle to leave the bed and having a good shower didn’t make me feel much better. Nevertheless, I headed off to the shops regardless.

No-one produced anything special, although the bill at LeClerc was more than it might have been due to the necessity of buying a load of coffee. And I forgot which coffee it was that I am currently drinking that is really nice. I bet I have the wrong one.

Just for a change I also called in at the Biocoop because I forgot to buy some vegan sausages at the Loving Hut in Leuven and I fancy some for tea some time.

Back here, I didn’t have the strength to put away the shopping. I just had a coffee and sat down.

After lunch, I tried to sit down and do some work but in the end I gave up and went to bed. And there I stayed for a good two hours too.

Nevertheless, I struggled up to the Stade Louis Dior (and it was a struggle too) to watch US Granville play FC Nantes.

And if you think that the score 5-2 to FC Nantes reflects a one-sided game, you might be right. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have been criticising Granville’s defence on a regular basis for its somewhat casual approach to defending. Today they were up against a really clinical team that made them pay for it.

2 goals flattered Granville. Unless there was something that I missed, the player who scored Granville’s second goal looked about a mile offside to me.

Back here, there was more football. Y Bala v Caernarfon in the Welsh Premier League. I have never seen so many misses from so close to the goal in one match as I have in this game. And Alex Ramsey, who didn’t impress me all that much when he played for Rhyl a few years ago, had a blinder in the Caernarfon goal and rightly won the man-of-the-match.

Bala, and in particular Henry Jones, ran all over Caernarfon in the first half and could have had half a dozen. And they will look long and hard at that period too and wonder how they went in for their cuppa at 1-1.

But in the last 15 minutes a couple of inspired Caernarfon substitutions transformed the game. They clamped right down on Henry Jones and scored two late goals to win 3-1.

Tea was out of a tin at half-time, so now I’m ready for bed. But whether I go to sleep is another matter.

Tuesday 1st January 2019 – AND A VERY …

… Happy New Year. Not just from me, but from someone else here in Granville too.

I’m grateful for all of the support and encouragement that everyone has given me over the last year. It’s the kind of thing that has kept me going.

As well as that, I’m also even more grateful to everyone who has given me hospitality over the year during my perambulations around the Northern Hemisphere. I may not have many friends, as I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … but those I have are the best friends in the world.

So back to the story.

Having complained about sleep issues for as long as I have, it’s much more exciting to report that today, I left my bed at all of … errr … 11:22. And breakfasting at 12:00 is much more like what I expect to see on a Bank Holiday.

I’d been on my travels during the night too. Into a veg shop in Germany to buy a couple of carrots. I’d pressed the key on the automatic machine and the carrots came down into the scales to be weighed, and then I had to go to the counter to pick them up and pay for them. However, I couldn’t remember the German word for “carrots”. In Flemish it’s wortelen and so I tried that, but the shop assistant didn’t understand me. I pointed to the carrots and she still didn’t understand.

After breakfast, or lunch, or whatever you might call it, I had a task to perform.

There was an upgrade proposed a while ago by my blog host but I put off doing the upgrade. However it was forced upon me and while I was in Leuven I performed the upgrade.

And it’s terrible.

The old interface was a simple text-based interface where I could (and did) add my own handwritten *.html coding which I saved in blocks in my text-ediiting program and which I used for every web site on which I worked.

But this upgrade wants everything done in blocks with the *.html coding incorporated into the site itself, and adding the search indices is next-to-impossible and is the most complicated procedure that I have ever seen – especially on a slow connection.

So while I’ve been trying to figure it out (or find another blog interface that does what I want) I’ve been recording my blog entries in my text editor.

Anyway, I’ve given up. It’s not working, and so I’ll have to go with what I’ve got. And that meant adding 6 days-worth of blog entries and editing the indices manually.

That’s what I’ve been doing today.

At last, I could open my Christmas present from Liz and Terry. And now that you can see it in all of its glory, you can see that it was well-worth waiting for.

And it really is delicious too.

This evening we had football. Welsh Premier League basement clash between Carmarthen and Llanelli. Carmarthen aren’t that good but they ran rings round Llanelli who looked determined to shoot themselves in the foot.

Some of Llanelli’s defending was suicidal. They just couldn’t get the ball out of their own defence and tried to play the ball around, losing possession on several occasions in desperate positions. Carmarthen won 2-0 – both goals coming from Llanelli mistakes.

On this showing, Llanelli look well-and-truly doomed and we’re only half-way through the season. And depending who comes up from tier two in the south next season, Carmarthen need to start to think about what they intend to do.

Tea was a vegan burger with a pile of veg and gravy. Totally delicious, as was the endive that I had as a treat.

Outside tonight for my walk, and there was no-one around at all. I didn’t see a soul.

That was quite a surprise because despite the cold, it was a really beautiful, clear, starry night.

There was some cloud pretty high up in the sky over St Malo, and the reflection of the streetlights was magnificent. The town of Cancale, over there across the bay, was nicely illuminated too.

Back to work tomorrow – I have such a lot to do. So I won’t be hanging around too long. An early night is beckoning and if I’m lucky I might just make it too.

Saturday 29th December 2018 – SO MUCH …

… for my early night. It doesn’t do any good if you end up lying in bed tossing and turning for as long as I did last night. And then awakening at about 04:30 and not being able to go back to sleep for ages doesn’t help much either.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I wasn’t in much of a mood to leave my bed and it took me a while to come to my senses, which seeing how few senses I have these days, is rather astonishing.

We had the medication and then we had breakfast, followed a little later by a shower. And then I hit the streets, having set the washing machine off on a cycle. Quite clever, my washing machine.

LIDL didn’t come up with much, except a new pair of slippers. My old ones are starting to fall apart and they had some cheap ones in at just €4:99. And they had some cheap sheets on offer too. I don’t have really enough of those and I would have bought another one, but all of the blue ones had been sold. White is no good for me.

NOZ was pretty good and I would have spent a lot of money in there had I had the space and the inclination. But some orange-flavoured digestive biscuits, an Arsène Lupin DVD, a baking tray for mince pies and the like and three glass dessert coupes were amongst the things that I bought.

LeClerc didn’t have anything special on offer, although I did have a surprise. There on the shelves in the Industrial Bakery section was a pack of 6 pains au chocolate – the type that kids like to eat for breakfast. And the packet was clearly marked “VEGAN – 100% VEGETAL”.

I’ve been complaining about the lack of vegan products here in France – how they are 50 years behind the times – so this was an impressive find.

People making vegan products on an industrial scale need as much encouragement as they can receive, so I bought a packet of solidarity and support. It’ll be good to vary my breakfast habits here and there.

Back here, I had a coffee and then slowly unpacked the purchases. It took me a while and it’s still not done yet. I’m definitely slowing up these days.

After lunch I didn’t do too much at all – downloading a pile of stuff that I had tracked down on the internet and then organising a few directories so that everything is stored correctly. I want to have this computer organised ready for whenever the new one might come.

I was also following the football on the internet. And just for a change, the clubs that I follow all managed to win today. That’s not likely at all. Usually they all fall apart.

As for tea, I didn’t bother tonight. I’ve eaten rather a lot just recently and going without a meal for once won’t hurt me. I had a nibble on some Bombay Mix that I had left over from my trip to Leuven.

It was gone 22:30 when I went out for my evening walk. There was no-one around at all at that time of night except for the kids on the car park.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s Sunday so a lie-in is appropriate. But whether I would ever get one remains to be seen. I’m not doing too well right now what with one thing or another.

Saturday 15th December 2018 – WE’VE HAD A BIT …

… of an issue here today.

Coming back from shopping this morning I put on the coffee machine to make a coffee and the whole electrical system in the apartment went “bang” and cut out. Everything had gone and even when I switched the main fuse back on, there was still no current.

Down to the cellar to check the master switch but the door to the electric room was closed with a special lock which I couldn’t undo. And so I called up the Estate Agents.

She came round, showed me the secret to opening the door to the electric room, and I could then power up the apartment. But we had a chat about the electrical system and she said that she would arrange for an electrician to pass by after the New Year.

Last night wasn’t quite so early and as a result it was a struggle to leave the bed this morning. I’d been on an exciting nocturnal ramble too but by the time I’d sat up in bed it had completely gone from my head. I’m not doing too well here either am I?

After breakfast I had a shower and a clean-up and then went off to the shops. It was freezing cold, howling with wind and teeming down with rain.

We did the usual round of LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc, and bought nothing special at all. And on the way back I stopped off to pick up something special for a friend, more of which anon. Back here we had the electrical issues, and then I crashed out for a while.

After lunch I tidied up and put away the shopping. It takes me longer to do things like that these days as I’m slowly slowing up. And that reinds me that one of these days I must go through and clean the apartment from top to bottom.

Later on this afternoon, I hit the streets again. US Granville were playing AS Poissy and I’d bought a ticket for the game in the hope that the weather would change.

And indeed it had changed – it had become worse and it was dreadful outside.

But me no daft, me no silly, I’d dressed in my Arctic wet-weather gear and it worked to perfection.

I was comparatively comfortable squelching my way through the Christmas lights of the town and by the time that I reached the Stade Louis Dior I was hot and sweating despite the freezing weather.

After about 20 minutes, the weather changed again. And I’ve never ever in my life been out in such a torrential downpour and felt so completely dry. The money that I had spent in Montreal three months ago was well-worth it.

For the second half of the game, the weather changed yet again. The rain stopped, the wind dropped and the sky cleared. The stars appeared and the temperature fell.

As for the football, it was a good match. Poissy were better than their league position suggested and Granville made heavy weather of a narrow 1-0 victory. They had bags of chances too, most of which were blazed over the bar.

We had a peculiar incident too. A Poissy player was badly-injured and rolled off the field. And so the game went on. But the Poissy trainer then dragged him back onto the pitch so that the referee would stop the game. A yellow card at last for the player and the trainer, the former for stopping the game and the latter for entering the field of play without the referee’s permission, but the referee simply stopped the game for the medical treatment and ignored the sanction.

The referee also got a throw-in wrong. A Granville player kicked the ball out of play, but then took the throw-in. I noticed it, and so did the linesman who waved his flag like a chef de gare. The referee took no notice but a minute or so later, ran past the linesman and said (and I heard him correctly) “I know – I know”.

Walking back through the town in the cold but dry weather, I could take some time to admire the Christmas lights on the way home.

We saw this decoration here at the same spot last year at the roundabout at the start of the avenue des Matignon.

We seem to becoming quite festive all over the town now. it’s a shame that I won’t be here to enjoy it all but it can’t be helped.

Back here at home there was more football. On the internet this time.

Newtown v Llandudno in the Welsh Premier League. Newtown are a mid-table side and Llandudno are bottom of the league. And it’s easy to see why because Newtown swept them away 3-1 without too much difficulty.

Tea was out of a tin at half-time.

So I’ll be in bed in a minute. It’s late but it’s Sunday tomorrow so I’m having a lie-in. And about time too.

christmas lights avenue du marechal leclerc granville manche normandy france

christmas lights place de la gare rue couraye granville manche normandy france

Saturday 8th December 2018 – JUST TYPICAL, ISN’T IT?

Ohh the decisions!

Do I go out in a howling gale and rainstorm to watch US Granville’s 2nd XI, or do I stay in in the comfort and warmth of my own living room and watch Y Fflint v Y Bala in the Welsh Cup?

After a great deal of deliberation, I decided to watch the latter. And I hadn’t even had time to sit down on the sofa before the floodlights failed and the ground was plunged into darkness. Match abandoned, and that was that.

That was almost that this morning too. Another mobile phone upgrade during the night and so despite being awake at 05:15, it was 06:45 when I realised that something was amiss.

That wasn’t all of the activity during the night either. I’d heard on the grapevine that there was a driving job on offer on a temporary basis at an engineering firm in the locality, so putting on a pair of overalls, off I trotted. When I arrived there they wouldn’t let me in so being fed up about being left hanging around like this, I just strode in, through the doors and into the machine room where I loudly asked to speak to the foreman. There was a guy who was sitting on a bench behind a table with several other people. He lifted up his head and announced himself. And I recognised him. He was one of my father’s former colleagues and naturally he would identify my overalls, as they were a pair of brown ones from may father’s place (they didn’t use brown, by the way) that had been liberated at one time. He wasn’t sure about this job but said that there was a pile of scaffolding behind the factory that needed moving. A manual job wasn’t quite what I had in mind due to my state of health and I visibly wilted, but it was a start I suppose.
A little later I received notice that my employer was sending me to work in London on a temporary basis. So I was no idea why I was looking up trains to Glasgow. But anyway I sorted something out ready for the early morning (it was very late in the evening) but then I suddenly realised that I didn’t have the address of where I was supposed to be going. I needed my papers out of my rucksack. On the way down tea was served for the group of people with whom I had been travelling. There was absolutely nothing that I could eat so I decided to try my luck with a cheese sandwich. But to my dismay, I found after I had taken a bite out of it that it had chicken on it. So there was nothing at all that I could eat. When I reached our bus, which was an elderly worn-out school bus rather like the one at Pond Inlet there were already people on board waiting to move on. I asked the driver if there was any food that I could eat so, after a great deal of thought, he reckoned that there might be some pasta somewhere. I could see that this particular trip was going to be extremely difficult. I went on down the bus to see if I could find my rucksack to find out the details of where I was expected to be tomorrow.

With a late breakfast there wasn’t all that much time to organise myself before it was time to shoot off to LIDL. And they still had one of the big slow cookers left. The small one that I have here was bought for travelling and hotel use, and is too small for cooking in here. When I make a mega-curry, it overflows. So a 3.5-litre one is a much better idea.

NOZ didn’t have anything special except some of the alcohol-free beer that I bought last year. So I bought a tray of it. They also had some real and proper Digestive biscuits and I can eat those.

At Leclerc there was nothing special.

We’re back on the bad parking though. Someone who can’t even park his vehicle between two white lines, and can’t manage to pull it off the public highway either.

It’s worse than Belgium around here at times, where people used to find their driving licences in packets of crisps, as the old story used to go.

They had some more of the coconut-flavoured soya dessert but there was also some almond-flavoured soya dessert with €0:30 off on special offer, so I thought that I would try one of those this week.

And just two of the gilets jaunes today on the roundabout – looking bemused and bewildered as the motorists drove past ignoring them.

Back here I crashed out for a while and then put away everything that I bought.

Lunch was indoors of course with some more of the home-made hummus – delicious it was too.

This afternoon I attacked the pile of images from the desktop computer and removed yet another pile of duplicates. It’s getting to be something of a habit. There won’t be any left at this rate.

The walk around the walls this afternoon was in the wind and rain.

The tide was out so no waves crashing over the sea walls, and not many people out there either which is hardly any surprise.

The waves were quite wild down there, rolling along the beach there like that. I didn’t fancy being out there myself

It gave me a good opportunity to have a look at the housebuilding that is (slowly) taking place along the rue du Nord.

I can’t remember now what was there before they originally started on the building, but whatever they are doing, they are taking their time doing it.

I imagine that we’ll be ending up sometime with a couple of apartments with a sea view or a single residence or something.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and spicy rice, all of which was a little more spicy that is good for me. I’ll have to put the toilet roll in the fridge for later.

And then the football – or lack thereof.

And a walk around the Pointe du Roc in a veritable hurricane – the storm had increased tenfold in velocity but strangely the wind had dropped. The waves were pounding over the sea wall by the harbour but there was nothing like enough light to capture it and I shall have to work on that.

Instead, I had to make do with the Christmas lights that have been installed down on the rue du Port.

They don’t look all that impressive from up here, and I bet that they are even less impressive from down there.

I can’t help thinking that they need to make more of an effort to brighten up the place and make it much more attractive and artistic.

It’s Sunday tomorrow so I’m in no rush to go to bed. I can have a lie-in instead, but I bet that someone will come along to disturb me.

bad parking leclerc granville manche normandy france

beach graffiti plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Sunday 2nd December 2018 – IT’S SUNDAY TODAY …

… and that generally means no alarm call and a lie-in. And so I was in no mind whatever to get up when I awoke at … errr … 04:35.

But there was a good reason for waking up at that time of morning. I was off on another one of my nocturnal rambles. And I’ve had some dreadful nocturnal rambles during my time, some of which, with very good reason, are not the kind that I would recount because you are probably eating your tea or something while you are looking at this. But last night’s was one of the most dreadful that I have had and it was difficult for me to write in my diary. It wasn’t the kind of thing that I would be pleased to remember.

So 07:45 was a slightly better time to awaken, and 08:30 was an even better time to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit.

With a late breakfast, sightly delayed because I made a mess of my morning sudoku and ended up with two eights on the same line. Can’t go round doing things like this.

Once I’d sorted myself out, I didn’t do much at all this morning. Just doing things that I like to do. After all, Sunday is the day that I can laze around and do nothing without any thought of disappointment. Everyone needs a day like this.

After lunch, I headed off into the rain in the direction of St Pair where the US St Pairaise were playing US Mortainaise at the Stade Croissant.

St Pair would be higher in the table if they could score more goals, and Mortain just simply can’t defend. So I’m not sure of what game I was going to get.

It was obvious from the first 20 minutes that St Pair were much the better side, but it’s true that they didn’t offer anything up front. Mortain, were at least, organised but well off the pace.

Eventually, St Pair scored a goal after much huffing and puffing, but much to everyone’s surprise Mortain equalised, with only their second attempt in the whole of the half.

In the second half we had a couple of changes. One of Mortain’s players had turned up late and judging by how he was greeted, he was obviously the star of the team. He came on and went up front in place of the n°9.

And St Pair brought on the n°14 – the guy with all the hair who impressed me so much the other week.

This was the crucial point in the match. The Mortain replacement, well, he might have touched the ball two or three times during the second half, but for most of the game he was merely an ornament on the field.

As for the St Pair n°14, they played him at first on the right wing, but when they moved him into the centre of the attack he ignited the game.

What didn’t help was that the Mortain n°8 – the only player on the Mortain team who was showing any real ambition, was the victim of a very heavy challenge and was forced out of the game. And that was that for Mortain.

Mortain tired rapidly in the last 20 minutes and folded up. The St Pair players were stampeding in droves through a non-existent Mortain defence, stranded out of breath halfway up the field. And the final score of 5-1 was rather exaggerated.

It could have been much worse too. St Pair were denied what I considered to be a stonewall penalty, we had a beautiful step-over from the n°14 that sold a dummy not only to the whole Mortain defence but unfortunately to his onw team as well, and a keeper in the Mortain goal who was clearly not a keeper (his first instinct was feet, not hands) and who couldn’t catch a ball, but could dive and punch with a great amount of bravery and would have done credit to any other keeper at this level.

Back here I was shelling walnuts.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I liberated a pile from Liz and Terry’s lawn a few weeks ago and they have been drying in the sun. This evening I shelled them all and grilled them while I was making my pizza. They’ll be ground up and made into nutburgers in early course.

The pizza was delicious, and so was the rice pudding that I made yesterday.

And my walk in the wind and rain was very nice.

The air was quite clear and visibility was beautiful. The street lights reflecting off the clouds over St Malo were definitely impressive tonight.

Cancale is to the left and the lights of the lighthouse on the immediate left margin of the photo.

It’s Monday tomorrow so I’m back at work. That’s a cue for an early night tonight. And where will I go while I’m asleep?

Saturday 1st December 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… beautiful pie.

I remembered to buy the leeks this morning so I fired a leek with some onions and garlic and then tipped into it the pie filling from last time. While it was all frying around I greased my pie dish and put the roll of pastry in it. And then added the mix once it had cooled.

One thing that I hadn’t noticed was that it was “thick pastry” and not the usual roll. And because it weighed the same as the usual roll, it meant that it was of a smaller circumference. And so it didn’t join in the middle.

But not to worry. I cheated and covered the gap with a couple of slices of cheese.

While the oven was warming and before I started the pie, I made a small rice pudding and put that in the oven. The pie followed it later.

When it was nearly done I made some potatoes with some frozen peas and carrots, and some gravy. The pie I cut into 4 slices. Three for the freezer and one for the meal. And it was absolutely delicious. I’ll do this again, that’s for sure. And how I wish that I had bought a bigger freezer.

Last night was quite a good night. I did awaken here and there but not so that I remembered it particularly. I do remember going on a little wander though.

There was a whole group of us, including the guy with whose family I stayed in 1970, wandering around somewhere. e were having to be lodged in a house somewhere in the town because of overcrowding (no surprise here) but we ate at home, in a house that wasn’t really much different to Davenport Avenue. We all turned up there one day, to find a rather pleasant, cheerful (for a change) father actually cooking the meal, and that in itself is a major surprise.
A little later on I was watching a football match where a group of players with features resembling those of Mongolia were playing the Polish team. The pitch was very rough and uneven and had a famous downhill slope. The Mongolians (for want of a better word) were attacking downhill and missed a couple of sitters, blazing them over the bar when clean through on goal. The half-time score was 0-0, thanks also to a dogged rearguard defence by the Mongolians, and I had a feeling that with the Poles ttacking downhill in the second half, the Mongolians would deeply regret these misses. But I went over to talk to one of their players standing on the fringe of things at half-time. he explained that his country was actually a breakaway republic from Poland and so this match had a deep and emotional significance for his players and his country. How the Poles thought themselves superior! I explained that the Poles always had had a reputaion for being a dour, battling side that doesn’t give in easily, but he winked and said that he didn’t mean just about football. I had the impression that he meant to say that the Poles looked on their opponents as some kind of untermenschen who deserved to be dominated and their rightful place was right at the bottom of the pile.

There was the usual breakfast and shower and so on, and then I hit the streets. And despite visiting LIDL, NOZ and LeClerc, I didn’t buy anything at all extraordinary. Just maybe the €1:99 for a pair of pliers.

But one thing that they seem to have started to sell in LeClerc is the big tub of soya dessert and the one that caught my eye was the natural soya dessert laced with coconut. I’ve had some pineapple slices hanging around here for ages and one day soon whenever I finish the rice pudding I’ll have them with the coconut soya. That will keep me going for a few days I reckon.

It took me ages to summon up the energy to unpack everything and put it away and then I had lunch.

There was plenty to do on the laptop but unfortunately I didn’t do much. And falling asleep was only part of it. Sorting through some of the files that I had downloaded from the desktop computer was another big part of it.

I’ve mentioned the pie of course, but I didn’t get my rice pudding because the football came up on the internet. Barry Town v Newtown in the Welsh Premier League.

Played in the driving rain, it was all Newtown in the first half but they couldn’t find a striker to put the ball in the back of the net.

Whatever it was that they put in the half-time tea in the Barry Town dressing room, I wouldn’t mind a pint of it myself. They scored almost straight from the kick-off an0d then went up a gear, finishing a comfortable 4-1 winners.

And when the referee looks at the game later, he’ll probably agree that he has had better games than he did today.

However, I didn’t pay full attention to the second half because Rosemary rang up. She was keen to find out how I did in the hospital and we ended up chatting for about an hour and a half. And that was very nice.

As a result though, I didn’t have any of my daily walks today. I’ll just have to do twice as much tomorrow.

Saturday 24th November 2018 – WHAT A SHAMBLES!

And, just for a change, we aren’t talking about events on the North Shore of the English Channel either.

Up at the Stade Louis Dior this eveningin the beautiful sunset watching US Granville play US St Malo. Granville came straight out of the traps and missed two complete sitters in the first five minutes.

Granville scored the first goal after about 20 minutes and looked as if they were doing wuite well, but then they started to lapse into the usual lack of concentration and silly, stupid schoolboy mistakes.

Just after half-time they scored a second goal. This new n°10 whom they have just signed and who was playing a blinder, the smallest man on the field, rose highest at the back post to a deep cross and headed in.

But then, an astonishing thing. Granville went to sleep. This new n°10 drifted into anonymity and was later substituted, and St Malo then took the game by the scruff of the neck. They pulled one back after 74 minutes and a second, from a panic-stricken penalty, with five minutes to go.

And as the game drew to a close, it was Sr Malo who looked the most likely.

This bizarre behaviuor by Granville has cost them yet another two points. They’ve signed a whole raft of new players this season with the cup money, but they have still kept the same old habits, and they will cost them dear.

Last night was another reasonable night and I was away on my travels again – although I have absolutely no idea when or where I went.

And up reasonably early too, medicined and breakfasted.

With it being Saturday, it’s my usual practice to go to the shops today. But with my going off tomorrow morning, I decided against it. No point buying food that I don’t need right now.

I did go out, however. A nice walk around the docks.

But first I had something to do. Remember the story the other day of the railway line at the side of the docks?

I followed it a bit further along the docks and found a spot where the two rails merged into one. And so now I’m having third thoughts about my theory of the railway crane.

The tide was well out today so not only were the harbour gates closed and I could walk over them, I could satisfy my curiosity about how the harbour empties.

The harbour would have to slowly lose water over the course of the day as the tide goes out, so that the water inside could go down slowly and the gates could be opened before high tide

And there’s the drain, down there at the foot of the wall.

There are tidal markers too at the side of the wall so we can see the state of the tide. I’ll have to be down there one day as the gates open so that I can see the height of the water when they open the gates.

I carried on with my walk around the quayside to see what else was going on.

And it looks as if whatever has been going on with the Aztec Lady in the ship repairers has now finished because she’s now tied up at the quayside.

There was no-one about on the boat so I was unable to make further enquiries;

I was intrigued by the yacht that was moored next to Aztec Lady.

Closer observation revealed that she’s the Spirit of Conrad and we ought to know about this because she’s actually owned by one of my neighbours and if my memory serves me correctly I’ve been to a birthday party on board.

One of these days, I might even go for a sail on her because she goes off occasionally to the Arctic too.

Leaving the quayside, I off up to the railway station to collect my rail tickets for tomorrow morning. I always like to have them in my hand before the day of departure. There has been more than one occasion when the ticket machine hasn’t worked, and the booking office isn’t open by the time my train leaves.

After lunch, I did a little tidying up and cleaning up in here – not that you would notice the difference. But the microwave has been steam-cleaned and now looks a little more healthy.

And I had a play with the big tower computer too. But that wasn’t very successful – the CMOS battery is flat and the settings are erased. I’ll have to buy a new CMOS battery and reset everything.

Not that it’s any surprise of course. This computer hasn’t run since March 2011.

A little later I went off to the football, as I mentioned earlier.

The other day we had seen them putting up some Christmas lights around the town.

The main shopping street – the rue Campion – would ordinarily be the best place to start, but this is something of a disappointment.

I’m not much of a one for celebrations and festivities but I would have expected the Christmas decorations to be much better than this. I hope that they are going to add some more in early course.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking is a regular feature of this blog.

Here in the boulevard of the 2éme et 202éme de Ligne there’s yet another example, and while it might not be a BMW it’s a Volvo, and that’s almost as bad.

I don’t know why he needs to take up two parking spaces with his vehicle, but it’s clearly pretty selfish of him.
But what do you expect from a Volvo driver?

I eventually returned home and set about making tea. Something out of a tin as usual on a Saturday when there’s football, and then some more tidying up, including cleaning the coffee machine.

Now it’s bed-time, having had a very pleasant hour or so reprogramming the CMOS on the tower computer. It’s amazing how much I have remembered from my T223 course all those years ago, and it’s running along quite happily. Although for some reason or other I’ve programmed in the wrong settings for the video card. I’ll have to look at that when I come back from Belgium next week.

But now it’s an early night. There’s an alarm call in the morning.

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

After lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

Folligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

Saturday 10th November 2018 – THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with going to bed early is that there is quite often a tendency to awake early too. Early is one thing, but 04:48 is a bit ridiculous.

And even worse, I didn’t go back to sleep either I just lay there and vegetated until the alarm went off.

An early breakfast meant that I had plenty of time left. So I finished off the entry for the third day of my High Arctic voyage and put it on line where you can see it in all of its glory, with a couple of dozen of the … gulp … 127 photos that I took that day.

Once that was done I had a shower and then headed off for the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing at all special, and NOZ wasn’t much better. Leclerc didn’t come up with much either. All in all, it was a very light shopping bill today. And that includes the gram flour from the Biocoop.

But I nearly spent a lot more than that.

Having a look around in the Second-Hand Shop they had a beautiful Ibanez 5-string bass guitar and I had a good play around on it for about 15 minutes. Then I had to tear myself away before I spent a lot of money.

But the printer!

According to the Leclerc website, they have an Epson printer on special offer – €15:00 cheaper than the equivalent on Amazon.

I like Epsons, for the simple reasons that firstly the ink is cheap and secondly the colour cartridges are separate so you don’t need to replace the whole lot when just one colour runs out.

The advert said that the printers were available on order from the shop so off I went. And the usual inept Je m’enfoutiste who couldn’t be bothered to look for it on the on-line catalogue went off to chat to a colleague, and came back to tell me that “they’ve all gone”.

Back here, I had a look on-line, and there were plenty left. So I ordered one on-line instead and it will be in the drive-in in a couple of days.

But I’m getting sick and tired of this modern trend of je m’enfoutisme where shopkeepers and shop assistants are kicking people out of their shops because it’s too much like hard work to try to sell them something.

And anyone who has read Alvin Tofler’s The Third Wave will recall that he foretold all of this nearly 40 years ago.

People argue long and hard in favour of “shop local” instead of shopping on-line, but at least the computer and the warehouse robots are keen and eager to fulfil your demand.

While I was finishing off my lunch this afternoon there was a ring on the doorbell. Liz and Terry turned up to say hello, have a coffee and to give me some shopping that they had brought back from the UK for me. Stuff for Christmas such as mince pies, mincemeat and Christmas pudding, seeing as the English Shop in Everburg let me down.

We had a good walk around the headland and the walls in the wind and rain, followed by a coffee in the cafe in the old town.

Later on, I started to work on the web pages for Day Three but ended up by falling asleep on my comfortable chair.

On awakening, I noticed that US Granville’s 2nd XI was playing against LC Bretteville Sur Odon, and kick-off was in 40 minutes time.

Not wishing to hang around, I sailed off at a rapid rate of knots and was actually there 10 minutes before kick-off. I didn’t know that I could move so fast these days.

US Granville took the lead after just one and a half minutes. From their first attack they won a corner. The LC Bretteville Sur Odon keeper punched it out and a Granville player picked up the loose ball and drove it back into the crowded penalty area where it shot through a ruck of players straight into the net without touching anyone.

They had the ball in the net after 13 minutes too, but it was ruled out for a push on a defender.

LC Bretteville Sur Odon woke up after about 35 minutes and began to get on top. They almost equalised but a shot was kicked off the line by a defender.

The second half carried on with LC Bretteville Sur Odon clearly on top but a few unsavoury incidents which ended up with an LC Bretteville Sur Odon in the dressing room disrupted the game.

Three substitutes all at the same time refreshed the Granville team and, against the run of play, scored a dramatic second goal. A breakaway through the centre saw the ball blocked on the line not once but twice, but the third attempt on goal found the back of the net.

So a rather fortunate 2-0 win for Granville.

By now the rain had stopped so I had a good walk back home.

I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me and so I decided that I would have some fun with it in the dark.

As you know, I’ve not been able to get it to work as well as I would have liked in poor lighting, and the drawbridge into the old walled town here gave me ideas.

I took several photos of the pont lévis, using different shutter, aperture and ISO settings, to correspond and compare with the earlier one which was taken on fully automatic settings.

Most of them were filed under CS, but this one turned out quite well.

1/13 shutter speed, f3.75 and ISO6400, and darkened slightly.

Back home, while I was working on the photos, I noticed a couple of people nicely framed in the archway of the drawbridge.

I cropped out that part of the image and blew it up a little to see what it would give me, and it’s produced a nice effect.

However, it’s ended up being rather pixelated and that’s a disappointment. I don’t seem to be able to produce the quality for which I am looking.

Back home, I made myself a plate of mushrooms in tomato sauce with pasta for tea.

I’m ready now for an early night, especially having done 147% of my daily total, and I hope that I’ll be able finally to have a good sleep.

I need it.

Sunday 4th November – SO THERE I WAS …

… standing in the foyer of this really impressive hotel. Big and magnificent, with as many luxury floors below ground as above. And how I was looking forward to the guided tour that I had been promised. And just as the guide appeared to see me and head my way, the blasted alarm went off and awoke me.

I’d forgotten that last Sunday I’d had the alarm working. So serve me right.

Anyway, no chance of me leaving my stinking pit at 06:00. I turned over and went back to sleep. 09:15 is much more like it for waking up.

And 09:50 is even better for leaving the bed of course, and 10:30 is much more like a decent time for a Sunday breakfast.

The temperature outside was 8°C and in here it was 10°C. A signal to put on the central heating. Can’t leave it too long without heating and then freeze to death.

With being up-to-date with the important stuff (but still plenty of less-important stuff to do) I had a whack at the trip to the High Arctic and did another 2000 words.

But the funny thing is that I don’t appear to be much further forward either. I don’t know where it all goes, this stuff that I write.

And talking of writing, I find that I’ve overlooked a couple of e-mails that I received while I was away with the fairies. I replied to one of them, and have another two to do tomorrow. As well as replying to a letter that I have forgotten.

I had a late lunch and then went out. Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville were playing AS Gavray and as it was a beautiful afternoon, a spell at a football pitch right by the sea sounded ideal.

But when I got there, the cupboard was bare. No idea what had happened there.

But US St Pairaise were playing at home against EC Tessy Moyon Sports so I thrashed around the ring road to the Stade Croissant.

I was somewhat late arriving of course, about 7 minutes after kick-off. But according to some of the locals I hadn’t missed anything exciting.

So I settled down in the grandstand with a coffee out of the flask (because there’s no pie hut at Donville) and watched the game.

St Pair is the team in orange and black, and Tessy Moyon in the yellow and red.

US St Pairaise are second in the table and Tessy-Moyon are adrift at the foot, so I was expecting something of a comfortable passage for the home side.

But that wasn’t how it was turning out for the first thirty minutes. It’s true to say that St Pairaise were the better-disciplined and organised side, but Tessy-Moyon were in there slugging it out and defending quite well.

It looked as it St Pairaise was going to make hard work of it.

In fact, there was some very good and thoughtful football played out there.

It didn’t come off as often as the players would have liked, which isn’t really a surprise at this level of football, but it was impressive to see the players trying.

And it didn’t ‘arf look impressive when it worked out.

What changed things was a substitution that the St Pairaise trainer made after about 30 minutes.

He brought on a new attacker – the n°12 – and he immediately ignited the game.

And scored with probably his first real kick – a delightful scissor-kick volley from a corner, right into the top corner of the net.

I bet that he wouldn’t ever do that again in a million years.

And so we continued in the same vein for the second half.

An evenly-matched contest between the two teams with US St Pairaise having marginally the better of the game, but then the n°12 suddenly getting to grips with the game again.

And things then moved up a gear.

Sure enough, with about 10 minutes to go, US St Pairaise scored a second goal.

A good header from a cross – the keeper really had no chance with that.

And EC Tessy-Moyon can feel aggrieved with the result. They weren’t maybe as good as Us St Pairaise, but St Pairaise weren’t two goals better. It’s hard to see, on this performance, how it is that EC Tessy Moyon are adrift in the basement.

And interesting as it might seem, not a single yellow card today, never mind any red one. That’s something to celebrate.

On the way back, I had a real surprise in Granville. A 1960s Van Hool-bodied coach came driving round the town. Immaculate condition, clearly recently restored and very impressive.

When I finally returned to my apartment (which wasn’t easy seeing as I was stuck behind yet another grockle admiring the seagulls) I went off to see if I could find it.

No such luck though. It wasn’t on the coach park down the road, which was the obvious place to look.

But what I did see was a classic example of what can happen when you put some street furniture in the wrong place.

So “Bottoms Up” to the Town Council of Granville, hey?

On the way round, it did occur to me that I have never yet taken a photo of the sports ground just down the road here.

This is the Gymnase Jean Galfione, whoever he was when he was at home, if he ever had been … “he won the Olympic Gold in the pole vault for France in 1996” – ed.

There’s a running track there and a sports field, used by the school.

If the coach wasn’t on the coach park, it might well have been on the mobile home park, so I went for a look around there.

It wasn’t there either, but this interesting vehicle caught my eye.

With Polish plates it was bound to be different, and indeed it is. A “Laika” caravanette, named for the Russian dog that was the first living creature to orbit the earth in a spacecraft – 61 years ago to the day as it happens.

I’ve never seen one of these previously

So being totally unsuccessful, I headed back for home.

And the Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou looking so interesting, I took a photo of that too. I’ve not taken a photo of it from this angle before.

Back here, Lili brought me back my dish from yesterday evening, and then I did the photographs from today.

Tea tonight was a vegan pizza, and very nice it was too. They are improving, although the oven still isn’t hot enough.

But now I’ve left it rather late for bed. I could have done with an early night for a change and I bet that I’ll regret this in the morning.

Saturday 3rd November 2018 – I SHOULD HAVE …

… gone to the football this evening. US Granville were playing the reserves of Paris St Germain at 18:00 and that was bound to be an occasion.

But instead I’d had a “communication” from one of the neighbours. Yves and Lili are moving out and a new tenant will be moving in shortly. They decided to have a farewell dinner, I was invited and the new tenant was there so I reckoned that I had better attend.

Not like me to be sociable but there are things that you have to do.

Last night I had a decent sleep and was up and about pretty smartly once the alarms had gone off.

And after breakfast I had a good shower and a clean-up. With the heater in the bathroom too. It’s definitely coming on to winter now.

On the way out to Caliburn I took the rubbish out to the skips, and then headed off to LIDL. As well as the usual stuff I bought another portable battery, seeing as they had some 3000mAh ones on offer at €12:99. The dashcam in Caliburn has a motion sensor that starts up the cam if Caliburn is knocked, but it needs a power supply to operate it when Caliburn’s ignition is turned off.

At NOZ they had some maps of France on special offer. Last year’s at just e4:99 so one of those is now in Caliburn for when I might go off on a voyage again. That replaces a map of 2002.

LeClerc came up with a crate of clementines. It must be getting close to Christmas. And a pile of coffee too seeing as I’m running out. The secret ingredient that I put in coffee makes all of the difference.

It took ages to return home, being stuck behind grockles and policemen holding up the traffic.

Lunch should have been on the wall in the sunshine but the wind blew me back in before I’d even sat down on the wall.

We had a cookery afternoon here, with me making some of my lentil, pepper and mushroom curries to take with me a-visiting.

It was a nice, quiet sociable evening but I came back here at 20:30 for the football. Bala Town v Cardiff Metro in the Welsh Premier League, and the home team ran out 3-0 victors in a rainstorm.

The big difference between the teams was Henry Jones. He’s several classes above the rest of the players in the Welsh Premier League – when he feels like it. Like much of the Welsh Premier League, there’s a big issue about consistency – they can do it now and again, but not all the time. Today though, he had one of the best games that I have ever seen him play.

In contrast, The Met’s principal playmaker, Eliot Evans, had something of an off-day and looked not even the shadow of the player he can be.

But now I have the halogen heater on in the bedroom. The outside temperature has dropped to 8°C right now and it’s only 11°C in here.

The central heating goes on tomorrow.

Saturday 27th October 2018 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON!

Absolutely, so it was rather later than maybe it ought to have been before I crawled out of bed this morning.

But it’s Saturday, and Saturday is shopping day, so I had my medication, had breakfast, and then had a shower.

Not that there was much breakfast to have because unfortunately we seem to have had an accident. During the night the muesli that I had made the other day somehow managed to fall off the shelf and scatter all over the floor. That was a waste.

on the way up to the shops I observed what might possibly be described as “an incident”. A crowd, including several ambulanciers together with their ambulance loitering on the edge of the quayside looking down towards the water.

I would have gone over to ask them what was happening, except for the fact that there was nowhere to park.

At LIDL there wasn’t much of any interest to tempt me – and even less than usual seeing as I’m not going to be here for a few days. But they did have a couple of things in the €1:00 bin – a wipe-off notice board, a set of A4 binders and a notepad with pen that will be much more use for taking notes around the house instead of on scraps of paper.

BUT was next on the agenda. About this broken shelf. But apparently shelves aren’t included in the guarantee, as, I suppose, so is nothing else that might break down.

But I’m rather disappointed that they had some really decent fridges and freezers on special offer at 30% off that would have been ideal for here. Much bigger and better value, but it’s too late now.

NOZ had the usual rubbish too. Wine at €1:79 a bottle so I bought a few. Not for me, but I never seem to have anything to hand when I’m invited round to people’s houses or I have people round, so it’s gone into store in the bathroom.

They also had a new delivery of maps too, including a new map of all of Europe. Much better quality, much larger scale, much more modern and much more handy to use than the one in Caliburn that dates from … errr … 1992.

I remember the issues that I had going around the Czech Republic in 2015 when I ended up navigating by the stars. High time that I updated everything.

LeClerc came up with the usual stuff, but no sprouts. Even the price tag has been taken off the freezer now. It looks as if the next time I have space in the freezer I’ll have to freeze a pile more.

But they did have frozen peas, and also frozen mushrooms, seeing as I somehow managed to leave the frozen mushrooms that I had bought the other day out on top of the freezer so they had all defrosted.

With no-one keen to commit suicide on the car park today, I made it home without incident, made my butties and then went out to sit on the wall.

But not for long. Even though it was a nice day, the savage wind was really too much for me. I came in and ate them in comfort.

This afternoon US Granville were playing at Avranches down the road in the Coupe de France. I had every intention of going, seeing as the kick-off was at 16:00, but at 15:00 when I should have set out for Avranches I was flat out on the bed, crashed out.

When I awoke, I cleared up the muesli and vacuumed the kitchen area. But that was all that I could manage today.

later on it was the birthday party of Nicole, the “mother” of Gribouille. I’d been invited and I’d bought a box of chocolates for her so I went round. It was raining outside by now. The weather had changed.

We all had a good chat and something to eat, even though there wasn’t much for me.

As is usual, I didn’t stay long. I can’t keep going like I used to do, so that was that. I managed a quick plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil.

And that was that. Off to bed and an early start in the morning. Despite it being Sunday, I have the alarm set. I’m off to Leuven tomorrow on the train.

Sunday 21st October 2018 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. But to be successful you have to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it”.

And that’s how I’ve been today. Not feeling like doing a good day’s work at all.

Going to bed at 02:00 is one thing. But waking up at 07:15 was not what I was expecting. And by 08:30 I was fed up of going back to sleep so I got up instead. So much for my lie-in.

After the medication I had to make some muesli because I’d run out. And to my surprise I found that I had bought some sugar puffs instead of corn flakes. Ahh well. I must have been having a bad day yesterday.

But that led on to some tidying in the kitchen and now it’s starting to look a little more like a home. Even though it’s not my usual thing, to be working on a Sunday. But I was feeling a little better so I reckoned that I’d do it while I could.

Breakfast was rather late as a result, and that didn’t leave me with very much time. I had a few things to do, like to spread out all of the walnuts from yesterday onto a couple of trays and put them in the sun to dry. That’s very important, to ensure that they dry properly and thoroughly so that they don’t rot with the damp.

Once they are thoroughly dried, I can crack them open, extract the nuts, bake them in a frying pan and then grind them up.

This afternoon there was an exciting football match in prospect. La Brehalaise was playing FC Sienne – two clubs anchored at the foot of the table in Manche District Division 3.

I headed out there at 14:30 – straight into masses of traffic loitering around outside looking for a car park. And someone crawling along at 5mph looking for a place held me up for 10 minutes – he got a blast of Caliburn’s horn once I could finally get past him.

And then a Belgian pulled straight out off the kerb into the road right in front of Caliburn and it’s a good job that I’d had his brakes fixed. He had a “Hail Columbia” too.

As a result of all of the grockles admiring the seagulls I arrived late at Bréhal and missed the kick-off.

Nevertheless I did arrive just in time to see a rather late sliding tackle by the Bréhalaise n°11 on the FC Sienne goalkeeper, in vain pursuit of a loose ball.

This led to a yellow card for the n°11 and an ambulance for the goalkeeper.

It took a good while for the ambulance to arrive and for the paramedics to investigate the injury.

By my reckoning it looked not unlike a broken leg and the medics seemed quite concerned. After a considerable amount of treatment, they loaded him onto a chair and then carried him to a waiting ambulance.

All in all, the game was held up for a good half-hour while they attended to the keeper.

When the match restarted we were treated to an exciting game of football.

Despite it being a bottom-of-the-table clash, there was a considerable amount of skilful play out there that wouldn’t have been out-of-place a couple of divisions higher up the pyramid.

It was also pretty clear that despite being at the foot of the table, FC Sienne was the more skilful and more purposeful side. They were certainly much-more organised.

And it was therefore no surprise to anyone that they took the lead. And no surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish how they did it either.

If I had a Quid for every time I have shouted and complained at goalkeepers for being stupid, I would be lying on a deckchair in the Bahamas dictating this to a bevy of beautiful bikini babes.

But here we go again.

A backpass to the keeper, the keeper being stupid and taunting the opposition attackers, waiting until the last minute to kick it upfield, but instead slicing his clearance straight into the stomach of the attacker.

The keeper scrambled away the rebound off the goal line just in time – he then saved a volley at point-blank range to keep out the follow -up (and I suspect that he didn’t know anything whatever about his save) but he couldn’t do anything about the follow-up from that.

And as the Sienne team pushed on, Bréhal scored an unlikely equaliser from a breakaway, catching the stand-in keeper on the wrong foot.

Bréhal then missed a sitter – a cross palmed out by the Sienne stand-in keeper straight to a Bréhal forward 5 yards out in the centre of an open goal. All he had to do was to tap in, but instead he blasted it about 25 feet over the bar.

But as the game went on, Bréhal scored and even more unlikely two goals and so ran out 3-1 winners ina match that they never ever looked likely to win at all.

On the way back I went for diesel and then came back here. Some more tidying up and a bit of work, and then a delightful vegan pizza.

There was a beautiful moonlight tonight.

My perambulations this evening took me around the headland instead of the old town, so I could gaze across the Baie de Mont St Michel and see the reflection of the light upon the sea.

This was taken, by the way, with the new 18-105mm standard lens and I shan’t say anything else about the High Arctic.

Carrying on around on my walk, and seeing as I still had the new 18-105mm standard lens on the camera, I took a photo of the outer harbour and the gates to the inner harbour.

What had enticed me to take the pic was the view of the lights shimmering on the surface of the water.

The red “traffic light” to tell us that the tidal gates are closed certainly produced an impressive effect

And now it’s bedtime. And I need to start work again seriously tomorrow. I’ve been letting things slide rather too much just recently.

Treating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne

Ambulance La Brehalaise v FC Sienne