Tag Archives: football

Saturday 13th October 2018 – WE WENT …

… today to the Ile de Chausey, and if you want to see all of the photos that I took, you need to go to THIS LINK.

But we started off as we meant to go on, by, just for a change, drinking coffee on the terrace.

Not exactly a terrace, but the footpath that goes along the walls at the end of the car park at the side of the building just here at the Place d’Armes.

It’s certainly a novel way to start off the day and I’ll have to do this more often.

Meanwhile, while I was drinking my coffee I noticed some movement way out to sea in the English Channel.

With my new toy, more of which anon, I took a long-distance photo of it with the intention of cropping and enlarging it in due course.

And sure enough, once I’d done the necessary, I could see that there was a yacht out there next to the marker buoy

But to start with, we are running low on supplies and so our first port of call was the local market. Saturday morning is market day so we toddled off through the wind into town.

Josée bought me a book which was very nice of her. It’s all about making drinks from natural ingredients and I’m sure that once I have time to sit down and read it I’ll have endless hours of fun with it.

And then off to the covered market where we bought some lettuce, tomato, cucumber and the like. And on the way back we went past a place selling vegan biscuits. So a pack of those disappeared into the shopping bag too.

Back here, I had a very pleasant surprise.

Having been totally dismayed by the photos that I took in the High Arctic in Canada and Greenland just now, I’ve bitten the bullet and done what I should have done in the first place and ordered some new lenses for the big Nikon.

When we returned, two of the three had arrived.

There’s a 50mm f1.8 lens, auto-focus of course to replace the old manual focus lens that I had. That’s ideal for low-light work such as for indoor evenings, concerts and sporting events.

But also, in pride of place, a 70-300mm telephoto zoom lns, likewise auto-focus, to replace another elderly and creaking manual-focus telephoto zoom lens that’s been lying around here since the Dawn of Time.

So grabbing the telephoto zoom lens, that disappeared into the camera bag.

While we were making our butties, Liz and Terry turned up. They had decided to accompany us and so we all set out for the ferry terminal.

The sea was quite rough in view of all of the wind but I enjoyed the crossing and I was there playing about with the big new lens. And I do have to say that I’m very impressed, almost as much as with my galvanised steel dustbin.

It does everything that it’s supposed to do, and does it quite well too. Obviously it’s not in the same class as a lens that might cost 10 times the price of course, but it’s good enough for what I want. Have a look at this photo of Mont St Michel, about 15 miles away and judge for yourself.

First thing that we did was to go and find somewhere to go and have our lunch.

A nice quiet beach seemed to be an ideal place to have our picnic, so we sat down, filled our faces and had a chat.

Although it was quite cool and windy, it was nevertheless very pleasant sitting out there on the sand with a pile of sandwiches.

Once we’d eaten, digested and rested we headed off into the hills, such as they are around here because the highest point on the island is only 31 metres high, to explore the island.

There are two villages here – one round by the landing stage and the other one where we are right now. This is called Les Blainvillaises, and receives its name from the fact that the houses were originally built by people from Blainville on the mainland who came here to explore the local marine resources.

There are also several other isolated houses, all looking as if they are made of local stone.

The island is well-known for the quality of the local stone and it has been used in the construction of many important buildings on the mainland in the area, including many of the buildings on Mont-St-Michel.

Many of the houses would be empty though at this time of year. There aren’t too many permanent residents, most of the houses here being holiday homes.

It’s a bit similar to the island of Agistri where I was in October 2013 in that there’s no source of water on the island and it all needs to be shipped in. So conservation of water resources here is quite important.

Naturally, I could solve the problem in a matter of days by installing a rainwater harvesting system there like I had back on my farm in the Auvergne, a system that served me well from the day I arrived until the day I left 9 years later.

Apart from the water issues, rubbish and litter are very tightly controlled.

There’s some kind of organisation called the Conservatoire de l’espace littoral et des rivages lacustres – “The Conservation of coastal and lakeside surroundings” – and its aim is to preserve and protect the coast and waterside of France.

It’s taken on the rôle of protecting the southern half of the island and its presence is everywhere, with rubbish bins and notices all over the place.

And quite right too because it’s an area well-worth protecting. There are thousands of tourists who come here every year and the place could quickly deteriorate into a rubbish dump if no-one took any interest in the island.

On the subject of people taking an interest in the island and holiday homes and the like, this building is extremely interesting.

It was originally a fort built round about 1559 to defend the island but subsequently allowed to fall into ruin.

Its potential was however realised by the industrialist Louis Renault, the founder of the Renault car company.

He began to restore the property in the 1920s and subsequently became became his summer residence. And this is how the property remains today, although of course Louis Renault has long-gone.

However his memory linger on on the island. Many people still regard him as one of the main benefactors of the island.

And so does his view, because this is the kind of view that would attract me to a property too. I could pass many a happy holiday here.

This construction on the edge of the beach right by the Chateau Renault caught my eye too.

I’m not sure what it is, but I reckon that it’s possibly a tidal swimming pool – one that would fill when the tide came in and would retain its water as the tide went out.

On the other hand it could be a tidal fish pool. These are well-known round here. The tide would fill the pond with water – and hopefully fish – at high tide, and then the owner of the pool could wade in after the tide went out to pull out all the fish.

And the drain at the bottom would lend support to that.

Although these islands here (because there are 365 here at low tide and 52 at high tide) are officially and geographically part of the Channel Islands, they are part of France.

We’re much closer to the Channel Islands than you might think – about 40 kms I reckon at a rough guess – and with the new telephoto zoom lens I could pick out quite easily the town of St Helier.

Although I wish that the weather would have been clearer so as to have given a better contrast.

But there is some kind of common history between all of the Channel Islands.

They were formerly the personal property of the Dukes of Normandy, hence when William the Conqueror invaded England and became king, he took his islands with him (if you know what I mean).

But his grandfather Richard II had in 1022 made a gift of the Ile de Chausey to the Abbey of Mont St Michel, hence the reason why these islands belong today to France.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a good while ago during a period of good light, I was able to photograph a church on the coast right across the bay in Brittany.

Today, with the new lens, I was able to take a photo of the same church from a viewpoint on the island, and was able to take a cross-bearing to verify the position.

And I can say that it is almost certainly the town of Cancale, where I stayed one night in April last year.

We continued with our tour of the island on foot (as if there was any other way to see the island except on foot), stopping to rest on several occasions to take photos or to admire the beautiful views.

And to enjoy the beautiful weather because considering that it’s the middle of October right now, the weather is really nice for the time of the year. Quite balmy.

And you’ll be surprised just how quickly 3.5 hours disappears when you are having fun and enjoying yourself.

We’ve seen the old 16th-Century fort that is now incorporated into the Chateau Renault. But there’s also a more modern fort here.

Tensions in Europe were rising and falling during the 19th Century and at one particular moment during the middle of the century, relations between the United Kingdom and France were somewhat tense.

As a result, in the late 1850s a new fort was constructed here at the back of the Plage du Port-Marie on the orders of the Emperor Napoleon III to defend the island and the Baie de Mont St Michel from any incursions by the British.

The fort was completed in 1866 but never saw action, although it was used as a Prisoner-of-War camp in the First World War and was occupied by a German garrison in World War II.

On the way back, the sea wasn’t quite as rough as on the way out but it was still pleasant all the same.

I took a pile of photos in the fading light and they came out quite well with the new lens. Despite the fact that it’s not as good in low light as a more expensive lens, the results are perfectly satisfactory for what I was expecting.

I really began to regret the fact that I hadn’t gone out and bought this lens before I left for the Arctic

Getting back into port was quite the thing though.

We were late returning and that 15 minutes makes all of the difference. The tide was going out rapidly.

The boat had to inch its way in over the sandbar and I was convinced that we were grounding out the bottom of the boat here and there as we tried to get in.

On the way back to the apartment I had a chat with Liz and Terry about something that had been preying on my mind for a few weeks. After explaining the situation to them, their understanding was exactly the same as mine, and exactly the same as Alison’s, with whom I had discussed this a couple of weeks ago.

No-one seems to think that I misunderstood the situation, so that’s comforting to a certain degree. But even so, it doesn’t change the situation one jot because what I (and other people) think about it has nothing to do with the situation at all.

Josée went for a walk around the town in the evening because there was a football match on the internet that I wanted to see.

That might sound terribly chavinistic to some readers of this rubbish, but the bare facts of the story are that I’d done about 130% of my daily activity today, I’d already had a couple of little “health issues” while I’d been out, and I couldn’t go another step. “Feet up on the sofa” was what was called for from my point of view.

So in the Irn Bru Cup we had Connah’s Quay Nomads of the Welsh Premier League v Coleraine of Northern Ireland. Coleraine were by far the more skilful side when it came to moving the ball around but they had no real answer to the uncompromising defence of the Nomads. It seemed to me that the match would be decided from a set piece and so it was – the Nomads centre-half rising highest to a very long throw-in from the right wing.

As Coleraine pushed forward to find an equaliser they were leaving gaps all over the defence and the Nomads were very quick to exploit the breakaway. Twice they burst through the defence with just the keeper to beat, twice they were hauled down from behind with no attempt to reach the ball, and twice the referee reached into his pocket for a red card.

Down to 9 men, Coleraine made three substitutions to freshen up the team but the new players had no more luck. By now though they were becoming rather desperate and some of the tackles and … errr … incidents which they instigated have no place at all on a football pitch.

And towards the end of the game the Nomads brought on their star player, Michael Bakare, who had been rested, and he made the difference – brushing off a couple of weak, tired challenges to set up one of his team-mates for a second goal.

This was a good win for the Nomads – a dour, workmanlike struggle against a superior side and if they can play like that more often they could do much better in European competition than they have done up to now.

So now I’m off to bed. It’s going to be an early start tomorrow as Josée will be back on her travels to wherever her next stop might be.

Sunday 7th October 2018 – I’VE BEEN LUCKY …

… again today with the football.

This afternoon I went to the Stade Croissant at St Pair to watch US St Pairiase play ET.S. Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron in the Manche District League division 2. Cold and windy, but at least it was dry. But there’s a covered stand at the Croissant just in case and it’s as well to be insured.

Despite the poor conditions, this was yet another exciting match. A bit short on skill but plenty of effort and the game rolled from end to end.

The attacks and midfields were about even, but while Terregate’s defence was far better, the St Pairiaise goalkeeper was in inspired form and on one occasion made a superb triple-save from the Terregate attack.

But despite the really good Terregate defending, there was just one occasion when the St Pairaise attack got through and they made it count.

Later on in the final 30 minute the temperature of the match escalated and we had some thumping challenges and a few heated arguments. One St Päiraise defender was dismissed for a late challenge, a decision that I considered to be rather harsh but they still managed to hang on to their lead.

All in all, I’ve had a really exciting weekend at the football.

And on the subject of exciting times, last night wasn’t as good as the previous night or two, which was rather a disappointment. In bed quite late, but awake at 08:00. We aren’t having that – at least on a Sunday, so I turned over and went back to sleep. 09:00 wasn’t much better but that was about me finished for the night so at about 09:45 I arose from the dead.

Despite the brevity of the night’s repose, I’d been on my travels. Back to the High Arctic yet again (this really IS preying on my mind, isn’t it?) and the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We were all on there, saying our goodbyes to each other and slowly dispersing, until in the end I was hovering over the stern of the ship about 50 feet up in the air looking at the last person remaining there. I couldn’t see whether it was or not she who has become famous as The Vanilla Queen, because she kept her head bowed. But the interesting thing about this is not the fact that it might have been The Vanilla Queen, but the fact that even though I was well away in the Arms of Morpheus, the fact that it might have been her was of interest to me.
So tell me why, nocturnal Vanilla Queen
You haunt me, even in my dreams
I’m clearly feeling the strain, aren’t I?
And later, I was away again. In a big Ford SUV type of vehicle, all black except for gold doors, exactly the type of vehicle and the colour scheme that several police forces in North America use. However, although it was me driving it, I wasn’t in it (if that makes sense), my spiritual sense was in another vehicle with my brother (don’t ask me why because I don’t know either) and Darren, Rachel’s husband. They were driving through this North American city that bore more than just a passing resemblance to the Rue de la Loi in Brussels outside the Justus Lipsius building, and I was driving aroud there in the police vehicle. They had tried … well, not to escape, but to plan their route so that it didn’t cross mine, but I managed to intercept them and when they finally saw me from their side window, they did pull up to find out what was going on. I pulled up on the other side of a crossroads, to walk back I suppose, but I didn’t even manage to leave the car before I was wide awake and it had all disappeared.

Having a few things to do today, it was rather late when I sat down to breakfast. And afterwards I had a couple of hours on the laptop sorting out a pile of e-mails from many years ago, looking for e phone number that I was sure that I had been given at one time. It took a while but eventually I came across it.

And then I sorted through a pile of photos that had been accumulating over the past couple of years. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have started this project on several occasions and run aground each time. But I have to press on.

It’s Sunday, so tea was a vegan pizza.

And then I went for a walk around the headland. It’s good to get back into my old habits. Including, I’m sorry to say, a little departure away with the fairies after the football.

There wasn’t anyone else around this evening so I was all on my own.

And so I spent a lot of time overlooking the harbour to see what was going on.

The answer is “not very much”. The tide isn’t in far enough for the fishing boats.

There’s one of the Ile de Chausey ferries over there on the right, tied up to the illuminated landing stage.

That’s really all there was of note, so after taking a couple of photos I turned round and headed off back home.

It’s Monday tomorrow so back at work and back with an alarm again. So I’m going to have an early night.

Tomorrow I’ll be tidying up because I have heard that on Tuesday I might be having visitors.

Saturday 6th October 2018 – I’M BEING SPOILT …

… with exciting and passionate football matches just now.

After the thrills of yesterday, today was US Granvillaise v FC Bastia-Borgo, another club from Corsica.

Kick-off was at 20:00 so I had a quick shower, a shave, a change of clothes and headed off in the driving rain – on foot too – to the Stade Louis Dior.

A tiny crowd, which is hardly surprising given the weather conditions, was treated to quite a spectacle.

The match roared from end to end. Granville had marginally the upper hand because although the midfield wasn’t quite as strong as that of Bastia, the play down the wings was once more excellent.

Driving down the wings, they had the ball in the net (disallowed for an offside) and hit the woodwork a couple of times, but they went into the lead after 20 minutes or so with a low ball driven into the penalty area from the right wing and sidefooted in by the n°8 from 12 yards.

In the second half the match was more even and Bastia had a couple of really excellent chances to score, hitting the woodwork and a lob over the keeper headed off the line. But Granville scored a second – a goal quite similar to the first one.

In the final 5 or so minutes Bastia pushed well forward and looked menacing. But they couldn’t convert the chances that they created. On the other hand they laft huge gaps in the defence and on two occasions, the goalkeeper did really well to deny a Granville attacker in some one-on-one situations.

When the final whistle went we all breathed a sigh of relief. But it as a good win for the team and three hard-earned points.

Last night I had the Sleep Of The Dead and stayed asleep until 11:10 without a single interruption. I’d been on my travels too but as soon as I awoke any memory of where I had been disappeared completely.

After breakfast, in a novel departure (and showing signs that I must be feeling a little better) I attacked the tidying-up and I made a good deal of progress. It now looks almost as if someone lives here rather than a bomb site. Another good day should see it looking just like home.

I had a lengthy chat with Ingrid on the telephone too. We discussed all kinds of things before I had to dash off to watch the match.

On the way home I was soaked to the skin, except where my rain jacket had been. The yellow one that I had bought a few weeks before I went away. That was a good purchase too and I wish that I had worn the overtrousers that I had bought in Montreal.

The fritkot was closed, which was a disappointment. So I came home and to my surprise, I was striding out up the hill just like in the good old days. I must be feeling a little more like it.

With no chips for tea I rustled up a plate of pasta and veg in olive oil. This time, including sprouts because although they had no frozen ones in the supermarket the other day, they did have some fresh ones.

Now I’m off to bed, with no alarm and a good lie in, seeing as it’s Sunday. But there will be an alarm on Monday. I need to get back into the routine.

Sunday 16th September 2018 – JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.

You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

… I fell asleep last night as soon as my head touched the pillow.

But not as long as I would have liked because by 04:00 I was awake again. Clearly my guilty conscience is acting up again.

However I did manage to drop off (figuratively, not literally) again until the strident tone of first David Bowie and then Billy Cotton dragged me out of my stinking pit.

We then had the usual morning performance and then off to grab a coffee and watch the sun rise over Disko Bay. Beautiful it was too.

Two of the crew came to join me for breakfast but they couldn’t stay long as the team meeting had been brought forward. So I ended up mainly on my own – the usual state of affairs these days seeing as I seem now to have upset almost everyone on board ship one way or another.

This morning’s entertainment was a ride out in the zodiacs. We’re right on the edge of Disko Bay where there’s a huge glacier that calves off into the water. The trouble is though that there’s a huge subterranean terminal moraine at the head of the bay and the icebergs are too deep to pass over it.

And so they have to wait until either they melt enough to pass over the moraine or else there’s a collision from behind that forces them to capsize so that they might float over the top

Consequently the bay is packed with all kinds of icebergs waiting for the chance to leave. And then they head north on the Gulf Stream until that peters out and they are picked up by the Labrador Current that floats them back south again past Ellesmere island, Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland and on into the Atlantic for their rendezvous with the Titanic.

But if you want to see them, don’t wait too long. Global warming is such that the glacier here is breaking off and calving at 35 metres PER DAY. It won’t be very long before the glacier grounds out and then there won’t be any icebergs at all. It will all just slowly melt away.

However, I was feeling dreadful.

I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that there have been times on this journey where i really haven’t feel like going off on an outing, and today was the worst that it got. I was flat out on the bed with all of my issues to comfort me. I wasn’t going anywhere.

But our team was last out and so by the time that we were called I was able to at least struggle downstairs to the changing room and dress for the weather.

It made me feel a little better, being out in the fresh air, and we did have a really delightful morning out, weaving in and out of the icebergs in the bay. Some were large, some were small, some were high, and they were all spectacular.

We had to return for someone who had missed the boat but once we were back out we stayed out for more than 90 minutes, freezing to death in the cold weather. But the view – it was totally spectacular.

Half of the boat was missing at lunchtime. They had gone on into town for restaurant food like Mooseburgers, walrus sausage and the like, at the invitation of the Tour Director. “Running short of supplies, are we?” The cynic inside me mused.

I stayed aboard though and was accompanied to lunch by the garrulous lady from a week or so ago and, true to form, I struggled to fit a word in edgeways.

I hadn’t changed at lunchtime because we would be first off in the afternoon. Heading for the town of Ilulissat on the side of the bay.

It took an age to reach there though. Our rather timid captain didn’t want to approach too closely for fear of the ice, so were were about 7 or 8 nautical miles offshore. That’s about 12-14 kms out so you can imagine the journey that we had. And in the freezing cold too.

But judging by the mass of blood on an ice floe that we passed, our passage must have disturbed a polar bear’s lunch break.

I can’t now remember if Ilulissat is the second or third-largest city in Greenland … "it’s the third-largest" – ed … but I do remember that it has a population of about 4,500.

Another claim to fame of the town is that it possesses the most northerly football pitch that I have yet to encounter, with the “grandstand” being a large and rather solid outcrop of rock.

There was a shuttle bus running around the town to take us to different places, but I went on foot for a good look around. Amongst the exciting finds that I made was an old DAB Silkeborg bus – a type that I haven’t so far encountered. After all, it’s been years since I’ve been to Denmark.

There were several memorials to various individuals and events and as my Danish isn’t up to much, I shall have to make further enquiries about them.

The docks was the place to go so I found the bridge where there was a good spec and took a few photos, including one of a chain suspension pipe – not a bridge.

There was also an exciting find where they had been widening the road. They had been drilling down into the rock in order to weaken it to break it off, and the drill bit had become stuck. And there it was, still embedded in the rock even today.

The boardwalk was the place to go, though. Up past the shops, the petrol station and the football ground. And then past the field where they kept the sled dogs.

Everyone whom I met told me how far it was, but I kept on going on foot despite the offer of lifts; and had a really enjoyable walk. I was really striding out now and it seemed that my worries of the morning had long-gone.

There were some antique sod-house ruins on the way past. And I wasable to identify them, much to the delight of our archaeologist. And some really stunning views too. But I climbed right up to the top with Strawberry Moose who had come along for the day out.

He had his photo taken on many occasions, including a few by me, and we all relaxed and chatted at the top for quite a while.

On the way back we missed our trail and had to retrace our steps for a while. I picked up one of the staff who accompanied me and she pointed out the UNESCO heritage sign as well as a few other things such as the home of the explorer Knud Rasmussen.

The dogs took exception to our leaving the area however and set up a howling cacophony of noise as we passed by.

Back in town, I had quite a laugh. A couple of young girls had bought a tub of ice cream (in this weather!) and, not having any spoons, were scooping it out with their fingers. One girl was rather timid but the other let me photograph her.

Our departure from the port was delayed as a Danish warship called, would you believe, Knut Rasmussen wanted to enter (he wasn’t bothered about the ice). And when we eventually managed to leave the port we were treated to the sight of a couple of men butchering three seals on an ice-floe.

It made me wonder about the earlier blood.

There were whales out here – we could hear them – but not see them. And we froze to death yet again as we raced back to the ship to miss the storm that was building up.

The Naughty Table was rather subdued tonight at tea. We had a new member who had been everywhere and done everything, and wasted no time in letting us all know, even to the extent of destroying the stories of another new member.

In the meantime, Yulia the bar attendant had seen His Nibs on the way out of the boat earlier today and lay in wait for a photo-bombing session.

Sherman was on the guitar later and we all had a good evening listening and joining in when we knew the words.

But I’m thoroughly exhausted so I’m off to bed.

The photos can wait until morning.

Saturday 25th August 2018 – HIS NIBS …

… is complaining again.

I’ve been packing my suitcase and it’s almost all complete now except for the things that I have forgotten. And much to my surprise the weight of the suitcase is only 13kg and there seems to be nothing at like there usually is in there.

So I’m not quite sure why he’s getting all upset. At least I’ve remembered to take him and he’s not been forgotten at home, like when I went to Africa.

Just for a change I’d had a good night’s sleep, right the way through to when the alarms went off. And I must have gone back to sleep afterwards because it was 07:30 when I finally came round.

After the usual morning routine I started with the serious tidying up. This involved picking up all of the rubbish off the floor, the table and the worktop, cleaning the latter two objects and vacuuming the floor. No shopping today!

Of course, these days I can only work in short bursts and taking a rest in between, and while I was resting I’ve done a serious back-up of the laptop. Kt’e all stored up on one of the hard drives on the top shelf.

Furthermore, I’ve copied all of the files onto the little laptop that I take with me on my travels, so that’s up-to-date too.

Lunch was on the wall again and two lizards came to join me while I sitting was there.

Although it was quite cold out there, the sky was really clear and you could see for miles.

And so, armed with the Nikon 1 and its zoom/telephoto lens, I went round to the other side of the promontory to see what the Ile de Chausey was up to.

That wasn’t the best of it either.

Out on the horizon the Channel Islands – or Jersey anyway – were standing out really well today.

With the lens and the camera the photo came out really well. You wouldn’t think that it was 54 kilometres away.

The results were so impressive that I could cut out a bit of the image, blow it up (which I can do even today despite modern anti-terrorism legislation) and enhance it to see what comes out.

And I don’t think that you’ll ever see St Helier as good as this, especially with the equipment that I can muster up.

Like I said – it’s 54 kilometres away

Back here I carried on with the housework and so on, and on my way out to the football I washed the floor behind me so that it would be dry when I came back.

Granville were playing C-Chartres Football today, and we had a crowd of about 750 to watch the match in the lovely weather.

It was an exciting match today. The Chartres team was better-organised but the Granville team played some really good football – one 15-minute spell midway through the first half was particularly impressive.

But the problem is that despite the beautiful football, Granville don’t have the strikers to turn it all into goals. And with the Chartres team being much better-organised and far more … errr … streetwise, it was no surprise to anyone that they eventually went into the lead.

5 minutes of injury time provoked a frenetic finish. Granville finally did manage to score an equaliser, the Granville keeper was sent off for punching an opponent, and the entire Chartres technical team was sent to the stands.

But 1-1 was the correct result, although it could have been so much better for Granville if only they could find a striker from somewhere.

It was a pleasant walk back from the football.

And the rue des Juifs – the road up to here – was closed again to traffic with street entertainment and all that kind of thing going on.

It’s something of a shame that I don’t have time to enjoy it, but I have far too much to do right now.

But that’s not all the excitement going on this evening.

There’s still plenty going on out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel. We have Marité still out there entertaining the crowds

There are a couple of other sailing boats out there too, but I don’t know which ones they are.

For tea I used the last pizza base, and while my pizza was cooking I had a shower and then put the washing machine on a cycle. The pizza didn’t work very well through. The pizza base had been in the bottom of the fridge and it had been waterlogged so it didn’t unroll as well as it should. And then it took much longer to cook.

So having done some more work here, I’m redy for bed. I’m hitting the road early tomorrow.

ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

lighthouse ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

street entertainment rue des juifs granville manche normandy france

Friday 17th August 2018 – IT’S BEEN …

… a quiet day today, after all of the exertions of the last week or so.

Much to my own surprise, I was out of bed after the first alarm. And that’s not happened for a while, has it?

And then after breakfast there was more work to be done, and then I started to have a good think about my plans after my next hospital visit. And that reminded me that I hadn’t booked my train to Brussels. That was something that needed my attention, and now it’s completed.

That also reminded me that I needed to go for my blood test. A brisk walk took me to the laboratory and they attended to matters. And much to everyone’s surprise that was all done and dusted and paid for within a matter of a couple of minutes. Not like the UK where you have to wait for a week or so.

And over the road I picked up my railway tickets from the station.

On the way back I picked up a baguette for lunch, but I didn’t make it back home straight away.

My attention was drawn to some movement on the horizon over by the Brittany coast, so I quickly grabbed the zoom lens and went for a wander to see what it was.

Cropping and enlarging the image and then digitally enhancing it, I could see that it’s our old friend the Brittany Ferries ship Pont Aven off a-wandering again.

When I came back home I found that I had no hummus. I’d run out. And so I made another large batch. Chick peas, tahini, olive oil, chick pea water, olives, tomato, garlic and herbs. All whizzed up in the whizzer.

Some of it went into the freezer and some of it into the fridge. That’ll keep me out of mischief for a good while.

Lunch was taken outside on the wall with my butties, my book and my camera.

And while I was there, I was treated to the interesting sight of three lizards side-by-side eating from the same piece of pear.

It makes a change from fighting over it. They must be learning to trust each other after all of this time.

But that wasn’t the only excitement that was taking place.

There was a considerable amout of yachts and boats of all descriptions out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel, including our old friend La Granvillaise out there with a full load of passengers enjoying the sun.

Makes me wish that I was out there with them.

And it looks as if we might be having some entertainment in the Place Cambernon this evening too. A group of musicians were out there doing a sound check.

Seeing as it was nice weather I loitered for a while in the vicinity to see if they were going to do a warming up session too so that I could see what they might be about, but it was clear after a while that they weren’t going to oblige.

In the end I gave up the idea and left them to it.

This afternoon, apart from talking to another pile of neighbours, I attacked another piece of correspondence that had been hanging around here for a while. I’m going to have to keep myself up-to-date.

And I was on the phone to Rosemary for quite a while – so much so that I missed my tea and ended up with a packet of crisps.

No walk either this evening as I was watching football on the internet. Aberystwyth Town v Cardiff Metropolitan in the Welsh Premier League. Aber were really poor in the first half and were lucky to be only 3-0 down. They were much improved in the second half – although still some way off the pace – and the 4-1 final score was really rather flattering to them. Cardiff Met could have had half a dozen without too much effort.

So now it’s bed time. Shops tomorrow and I need to stock up as I’m having visitors. I hope that they’ve stocked up in NOZ – and that they have some staff to person the tills too.

boats baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france

beach hang gliders plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 11th August 2018 – SO HERE I AM …

… curled up quite nicely in Liz and Terry’s spare bed. We have an early start tomorrow morning so to save time I’ve come here tonight.

This morning though I was up fairly early and manage to make a good start to the day. And after the usual rigmarole I had a shower and then set the washing machine to work. I need to have all of the clothes properly cleaned.

Things were strange in the shops today. I went out much earlier than usual. At LIDL they were still selling their “back to school” stuff but there wasn’t anything else that I needed after Thursday’s visit. Mind you, the grapes at €1:99 per kilo were interesting so I bought a huge bunch.

But NOZ Was certainly interesting.

We started as we meant to go on with yet another fine example of parking round on the car park at the back. I really don’t know what goes on in the head of some people. I really don’t.

As for the shop itself, the place was half-empty as far as stock goes. There wasn’t very much on the shelves at all so there wasn’t very much that I wanted to buy. And when I did reach the check-outs I joined the lengthy queue waiting for someone to appear at the check-outs.

After 10 minutes of waiting for the till to be personned, I abandoned my purchases and left the shop. I have better things to do than to wait around like this.

LeClerc across the road didn’t come up with all that much. But then again, I wasn’t really shopping for much. No point in having food around here if I’m not going to be here to eat it.

Lunch was spent on the wall with my lizards and my book, and then this afternoon I loaded up Caliburn with all of the plastic boxes that had been lying around since I moved in. They are going on a little travel too.

The football season starts today and US Granville are playing Association Sportive Furiani-Agliani -the first time ever apparently that a club from Corsica has played at the Stade Louis Dior.

A whole raft of new players this season, but they seemed to have picked up all of the bad habits of the old players. A careless ball out of defence to an opposition attacker led to a penalty, and only a good save from the new goalkeeper prevented the Corsicans from scoring.

But that was typical of how the game went from a Granville point of view. And two soft goals conceded from free kicks underlined the careless play.

Granville may well have signed a whole host of new players, but not a centre-forward, so it seemed. There was a big n°9 out there but he wasn’t doing too much at all in midfield and I’m not sure why he was on the field.

The fact that they scored three goals (and won the game) was quite by accident.

The first one was from a long throw – one of the longest that I’ve seen – that took everyone by surprise after just two and a half minutes.

The second was a free kick driven low into the crowded penalty area which hit a defender and went in the net, and the third was the Corsican goalkeeper and two of his defenders waiting for each other to clear the ball, giving time for a Granville winger to run in and smash the ball into the net.

Granville did in the end produce a huge n°14 who went up front in the final stages of the game but I couldn’t see what his purpose on the field was either. He didn’t seem to be up to this level of the game at all.

From there I went to fuel up and then out to Liz and Terry’s for tea, followed by an early night.

We have a lot to do tomorrow.

Friday 10th August 2018 – IT’S NICE …

… to have visitors.

Not the least reason being that it encourages me to tidy up and do some cleaning in here. And so I was glad when Liz said that she was going to come round and inspect the premises.

It was something of a late night last night. 01:00 and I was still up and about. But I’d had a really good sleep, such as it was, all the way through until the alarm went off at 06:20.

Even more surprisingly I was up pretty smartly too, and that makes a change for just recently. And after the usual morning procedure and breakfast, I tidied up the place, took out all of the rubbish and did some cleaning too.

But all of this tired me out, as you might expect, and it’s no surprise to anyone that I ended up crashed out for a quick 20 minutes sometime later.

Liz came round at 10:30, had an inspection and gave the place her seal of approval, and we then had a coffee and a chat.

With it being a beautiful day, we went for a walk around the town walls and to see the photos that are on display – the ones that I posted on here a few weeks ago – featuring different places here in Normandy.

Liz doesn’t eat bread so we made a big salad for lunch, followed by the melon that I had bought the other day. Another coffee and a good chat to put the world to rights.

After Liz left, I had another little relax. And when I thought about going for my afternoon walk it was pelting down. That put paid to that idea.

Later on, I made tea. The rest of the curry that I had made yesterday along with more rice and vegetables. And a bit more melon for pudding.

The football season has restarted and so tonight we had Bala Town v Carmarthen. And although the score was 2-1 in favour of Bala, it rather flattered Carmarthen and it looks as if it’s going to be another long, hard season down in West Wales.

It was nice sitting on the sofa watching the football on the TV via the computer. Really nice and comfortable, even if it did mean that I missed my evening walk too.

In between all of this, I’ve been having to make a series of phone calls half-way across Europe, and it looks as if tomorrow afternoon I’ll be off on my travels for a few days.

It’s all go, isn’t it?

Saturday 7th July 2018 – ONE OF THESE DAYS …

… I’ll have a decent night.

But it wasn’t last night, that’s for sure. With all of the excitement following Belgium’s unexpected victory over Brazil there was chaos in the streets and enough noise to awaken the dead.

And so despite everything and all of my best intentions, it was hours before I managed to go off to sleep.

It was another morning too where I was awake long before the alarm went off. When I finally glanced at the time it was 05:47 and I was hoping for something rather better than that.

There had still been time to go on my travels though. Back driving a taxi and I’d been given a list of the regular clients which I was sure that I had memorised, and so I tore it up. And immediately there was a call over the radio “go to Nantwich and pick up so-and-so”. And I couldn’t remember where he or she lived. My notes were too badly torn to be able to be pieced together so I asked on the radio, but I couldn’t understand the reply which was rather garbled.
A little later I was in Eritrea (don’t ask me why) – an Eritrea that looked like nothing that I had ever seen of it. There was a military patrol walking down a road floating up observation balloons, many of which had fallen to earth and were littering the side of the road. Suddenly the patrol withdrew, leaving me isolated right out in front, a rather nervous place to be. Eventually I found a tourist guide who was selling tickets on a steam train ride. he was negotiating with someone and they agreed on a price of $50:00. The only thing that I could see in the brochure for a steam ride was at $130:00 so I asked about it. He replied that I needed to go to the railway station and book it there. He mentioned 13:30 but I didn’t understand if that was the time of departure or the time of return, and it was all so confusing.

So crawling out of bed I had my medication (now that I have some) but I still didn’t feel like any breakfast so I had a shower instead and cracked on with my paperwork.

The cleaner wanted to come in here at 11:00 but I told her to wait for a while as I was expecting a visitor.

And sure enough, just when I reckoned that I ought to go outside, I opened my door to see Alison pulling into the car park. Bang on cue.

Our first port of call was about 30 kms down the road in Welkenraedt.

Despite only having a population on 9,000 or so, it’s probably one of the most famous small towns in Belgium and it’s one that I’ve been dying to visit ever since I first came to Oostende over 45years ago

And for one of the strangest reasons too, because it’s not your usual run-of-the-mill tourist venue.

Back in the 1970s at the railway station in Oostende there would alwas be a train waiting to meet the ferries, and they would always be going to Welkenraedt.

It aroused my curiosity so I did a little research and found that it was a small town in the north of the Ardennes that didn’t look as if it had any significance at all, so I was puzzled as to why all of these trains would want to come here.

And when you look at the station, it’s a big, modern station that has plenty of facilities and it is all out of proportion to the size of the town

A little bit of research back in those days soon cleared up the question.

Welkenraedt is the closest railway station to the border between Germany and Belgium – in Germany until 1919 and in Belgium afterwards.

And when the railways were electrified, the German voltage system was different from that in Belgium until comparatively modern times. And until the Schengen agreement, there was a frontier post at the station.

So while the passengers were having their passports controlled, the train would be changing engines and then going on to Aachen or Cologne or maybe further still.

Welkenraedt is officially a German-speaking town but when it was transferred to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles, the SNCB, the Belgian railway company, opened a locomotive depot here and transferred in a large number of French-speaking railway workers.

They flooded the town to such an extent that you will struggle to find German spoken here today. We saw a couple of signs in German but that was about that.

We went off to find something to eat as Alison was hungry, and I forced down a helping of overcooked chips. I’m clearly feeling better after my crisis of Thursday and Friday.

But you can’t cometo this region without going down the road to Moresnet.

For several reasons really, not the first of which is this absolutely gorgeous railway viaduct.

It’s not quite on a par with the Tracel de Cap Rouge of course, that’s rather exceptional, but it’s by far the best that you are likely to find around this part of Europe.

According to the information that I have found, it was built during the period 1915-1916. The pillars are fine examples of reinforced concrete of that period.

It’s just over 1100 metres long and at its highest, it’s about 60 metres above the velley of the River Gueule

That tells us a couple of things

There may well have been something here prior to that period that was demolished at the start of World War I
It escaped demolition during the fighting of World War II

Knowing my usual luck, we would ordinarily have had to wait for about three weeks to see a train pass over the viaduct, and then we would have missed it because we had gone for a coffee.

But that’s not the case here. This is the main railway line that runs between Aachen and Antwerpen, one of Europe’s busiest ports.

We’d hardly pulled into the village before a freight train went rattling by just above our heads.

So while you admire the village of Moresnet and Alison and I have gone for a coffee with the friendly young girl who runs the village café, let me tell you a little story.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Treaty of the Limits in 1816 redefined the border between the Low Countries (because Belgium didn’t exist at that time) and the Kingdom of Prussia.

For various reasons, they couldn’t agree with what to do with the commune of Moresnet and so they planned to divide it between them.

Unfortunately, any logical dividing line ran right through a very important and valuable quarry and they couldn’t agree where the line should go so that each country would have half the value.

Eventually, they agreed that the quarry and a surrounding piece of land would be a neutral zone administered jointly by one official from the Low Countries (Belgium after 1830) and the Kingdom of Prussia (the German Empire after 1871).

And so you had Moresnet, Neu-Moresenet (the German bit) and Moresnet Neutre.

In 1914 Germany took all of it, so at the Treaty of Versailles Belgium was awarded all of it, so in 1940 Germany took it all back and in 1945 Belgium regained all of it.

There has been quite a lot of excitement in such a sleepy little Belgian village

But our conversation with the serving wench was quite exciting. being practically right on one of Belgium’s linguistic borders, our conversation drifted between French and German with hardly a pause.

Belgium is a fascinating country.

And if that’s not enough to be going on with, just up the road some time round about 1750 a miracle involving Mary the Mother of Jesus is said to have taken place

Pilgrims came to visit the site so a small chapel was built, followed by all of the usual facilities for the visitors, and the village of Moresnet-Chapelle developed.

A group of Franciscan Friars (and seeing as this is Belgium, they were probably chip monks) were sent from Aachen in 1875 to provide spiritual comfort to the visitors.

As a result, some substantial development took place.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve talked on several occasions about the Chemin de la Croix – 14 stages of Jesus on his way to his crucifixion, death and subsequent resurrection.

We’ve also been to see a a magnificent example of this at Cap de la Madeleine in Quebec.

In 1895 they decided that they would emulate it (the filthy beasts) right here.

In 1895 German benefactor provided some cash to purchase the land around the chapel and they set to work.

The work was completed in 1904 and today there are 14 grottoes made of puzzolane, each featuring one of the stages of the Chemin de la Croix.

The aim is to visit each one, purchase a candle to light in each (which must bring in a fortune) and say a prayer at each one, in order to be absolved of your sins.

Of course, I don’t need to, for regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous guises will recall that I was granted absolution by the Pope, having passed through all of the Holy Doors in Rome during the Period of Grace in 2000.

I choose my friends carefully as you know.

The twelfth station, the Calvaire or Calvary, featuring the crucifiction, is always a good ‘un and there’s no exception here.

In fact, it was so popular at one time that they have installed benches here and occasionally hold open-air church services here.

But clearly not masses, because the place is pretty-much deserted today.

And I shan’t bore you all by repeating the story that a Frenchman delightfully told me, that they asked for a famous sculptor from each country to send in their impressions of how the Calvary should look, and the Belgian sculptor sent in a drawing of John Wayne on his horse.

Final stop (for now, anyway) on our day out was just a couple of miles up the road.

Here we have the Driehoek – or “Three Corners” – where the countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet.

And when we had Moresnet-Neutre, it was a Vierhoek because that area had a bit of it too.

The girl in red is sitting half in the Netherlands and half in Germany, and the girl on the floor is half in the Netherlands and half in Belgium.

Not only that, the highest point in the Netherlands – the Vaalserberg – is only 100 metres or so from the border and so we had to pay that a visit too.

It’s all of 322.4 metres above sea level, or 1,058 feet for those of you still dealing in real money.

And in the background you can see an observation platform. Apart from the fact that it cost real money to go up there to the top, the number of steps that I saw was enough to put me off the idea.

So having been driven up the Vaal(serberg) our next stop was across in our third country of the day – Germany. And those silly Brits who voted to leave the EU just don’t understand the advantages of having Breakfast in Brussels, Lunch in Luxembourg, Tea in Turin, Supper in Sampdoria and Bed in Bari.

Aachen in fact was where we went, where Alison wanted to take me to a café that she had found. And even though we arrived 12 minutes before the advertised closing time of 18:00, they refused to serve us.

Consequently we nipped to Mullers for some of my white coconut chocolate, and then to the cat café that we had visited a while ago.

The cooking smelt delicious so Alison had some thick soup and I had hummus with raw vegetables and bread.

It’s not far back to Liège from Aachen, even though you pass through three countries to get there. and I was in time to see Russia defeated by Croatia. And I could tell by the way that the first Russian limped up to take his penalty, head bowed to the ground, that he was going to miss it.

Tomorrow I am on the move, and so an early night – if my neighbours let me. They are being just a little rowdy, but then you can’t win a coconut every time, can you?

-1

Wednesday 27th June 2018 – WHAT A DREADFUL …

… night that was!

It was stifling hot in that bedroom so I had opened all of the windows. And not long after going to be I was joined by a moth and a mosquito. That put paid to any hope that I might have had about a decent night’s sleep.

No breakfast at the hotel either, so I had another shower and then my laptop decided to crash. It was clearly not going to be my day.

Having sorted myself out I took my stuff downstairs and handed in the key, to find the proprietor and her friend tucking into a hearty meal. “Kein frühstuck” indeed.

All in all, what with one thing and another, I wasn’t very impressed. But you can’t win a coconut every time and I’ve had some pretty good deals in the past.

Outside, all of the streets were full of policemen. I’m not sure why, unless they had heard that I was in the vicinity.

Apparently it is something to do with the roadworks and they are directing the traffic.

But all of Switzerland’s roads seem to be undergoing repair right now. It’s like one huge building site and there’s no end to it.

The road to Zurich was fairly rapid for a change and it didn’t take long for me to arrive there. But driving around it took me much longer than it might have done. It’s changed considerably over the last 30 years and the last time that I was here it was dark.

Another thing that they have a habit of doing is putting the main destinations on the “motorway” road signs and only the small villages on the ordinary road signs. And when you only have a small-scale atlas, it doesn’t help.

No point in asking The Lady Who Lives In The Satnav. She doesn’t recognise Swiss Motorways as being toll roads and doesn’t understand the concept of “avoid all motorways”.

Winterthur was easy to negotiate, although people there don’t understand the idea of roundabouts, and I had not one, not two but three close encounters at various times.

At St Gallen, I gave up. No idea of the village on the Swiss side of the border and “Bregenz” was only advertised by the motorway, so I bit the bullet and went that way.

I dodged off at the exit before the border, and luckily there were no police patrols checking for motorway toll stickers, and crossed into Austria at Lustenau.

Diesel was only €1:21 at Lustenau so I fuelled up Caliburn. I also fuelled up myself – Austrian bread is nothing like as good as German bread but a couple of bread rolls with my salad and that was me organised.

Through Feldkirch and onto the S16 eastwards, and I took a little diversion.

The Arlberg Pass has always been my preferred destination over the Alps but there’s another pass over the mountains between Partenen and Tschafein that I had never taken. So boldly going where the hand of man had never set foot, Caliburn and I set off.

But somewhere stuck up a blind allet is the little village of Silbertal.

Somewhere else that I had never visited before today, and it’s one of those villages that in a country that had 99 out of the 100 prettiest villages in the world, Silbertal is well in the Top 10.

Unfortunately parking was an issue here, as was time, so I didn’t have the opportunity for a good look around.

At Schruns, where I was trying to find a place to stop to take a couple of photographs, I nearly squidged a pedestrian who couldn’t make up her mind whether to cross the street or not.

Having both dillied and dallied, we decided to advance at exactly the same moment.

But eventually I found a parking space and could whip out the Nikon and show you some of the beautiful South Tyrolean scenery.

I’d parked up on the car park of the local football club, FC Schruns, and seeing as the ground was open, I went for a wander inside to see what was happening.

Certainly an improvement on many French football grounds that I had visited, although when I saw the prices for a season ticket for the forthcoming season’s matches, I’m surprised that they weren’t playing at Wembley Stadium.

“Somewhat elevated” would have been an understatement.

Over there, that’s not Schruns but those houses on the side of the hill are in the town of Tschagguns.

I’m not sure how the name of the town should be pronounced, and so I’ll leave you to pronounce that as you see fit.

All I can say is the name sounds very appropriate if you have to carry your heavy shopping up there. You can rule me out of that, no matter how idyllic the view might be.

Tschagguns has a very good claim to fame in the realm of Winter Sports, in that it’s a ski-jumping centre.

Not that you would, of course, expect me to be up there. For me, I’m all in favour of terra firma when it comes to skiing. The more firma, the less terra.

And even so, they can’t be much good up there because even Eddie the Eagle once beat an Austrian ski-jumper.

And now I realise why I’ve never come this way before.

Just up there shortly before the head of the Pass is a toll booth. And they expect me to pay €21:50 to pass the next 40 kilometres to Landeck.

Even having negotiated the price down to €15:00 that was still €15:00 more than I was ever intending to pay, so I turned round and retraced my steps.

Maybe it might cost me more in fuel, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Now, this is much more like it. I’ve made my way all the way round and this is St Anton at the foot of the Arlberg Pass.

When you see the road up there, that’s been improved considerably since the late 1970s when we used to struggle up there with 47 passengers in lightweight Ford R1114 coaches in the good old days of Salopia.

Caliburn leaps up there of course, as you might expect and one of these days I’ll post a video of the climb.

Only one town in the whole wide world where Strawberry Moose and I would be right at home, and that’s the town of Lech.

The name is quite appropriate.

Nerina and I first came here on our honeymoon in 1988 in a beat-up old, rusting Ford Cortina estate OCC 883S (which, by the way, was younger than Caliburn is now, although you wouldn’t ever think so).

And we so liked the place that we vowed that one day we would come back.This is the second time that I’ve been here since then.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I came here in June 2014 in the snow, although this year, the snow is way up the mountain.

I do wonder sometimes if Nerina ever made it back. Knowing how things pan out, I’ll probably bump into her walking through the streets here tomorrow morning.

And in case you are thinking that I’m joking, it did once happen in Brussels like that in 1991. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

I went to the little guest house where I stayed before but that was closed up and deserted.

Several other places were fully booked but one hotel, although totally deserted like the Marie Celeste, had left its doors open and the internet switched on.

Consequently an on-line booking agency quickly found me a room that was well within my price range only 390 metres from where I was standing, and the Lady WHo Lives In The Satnav did the rest.

So here I am. A nice comfy single room run by an Australian landlady (yes, Australian, not Austrian) but the plugs won’t fit my slow cooker so it’s a scratch tea tonight.

Apart from that, no complaints whatsoever and I’m going to be very comfy here.

I hope.

Saturday 16th June 2018 – AND THERE I WAS …

… last night crowing about how i hadn’t crashed out yesterday.

Well, pride comes before a fall as we all know, and so this afternoon, I crashed out for today, yesterday and for the whole of next week too. A good 90 minutes in total, I reckon. Well away with the fairies.

I did say, didn’t I, that I would pay for yesterday.

It wasn’t as if I’d had a late night either. Well, not by my standards anyway. Mind you, there was a firework display somewhere in teh vicinity so I didn’t go to bed until after it had finished. And I awoke under my own steam too before the alarm went off.

After the usual morning performance there, I had a shower, a change of clothes and all of that lark and then headed to the shops. And they were all packed to the gunwales too.

LIDL had nothing exciting, but there were a few things in NOZ that were noteworthy, including jars of tahini at just €1:49 which is for nothing. I use a lot of it in my hummus, so I bought 4 jars and Liz asked me (because I sent her a text) if she could have one of them. Not a problem.

At LeClerc I bit the bullet. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have carrot issues. For a reason that I can’t understand, they don’t seem to last more than thre or four days here. I don’t like frozen carrots at all but I can’t see an alternative so I bought a packet. 1kg at €0:79 – even cheaper than fresh and will last a darn sight longer too.

But I did spend some money in GIFI. Something caught my eye when I was in there the other day so I went there to see if they still had one, which they did. And tomorrow, when I’ve assembled it, I’ll show you what it is.

Back here I put everything away and then managed to configure my laptop to watch French television and settled down to watch the football, France v Australia.

But I switched off in disgust shortly after half-time. It seems now that they can stop the game so that the referee can look at the TV and the action replays and reverse his previous decisions.

That, of course, is a total nonsense. It’s bad enough, this stop-start football these days, without bringing this into the game. Soon, they’ll be stopping the game to decide on throw-ins and the like, and presumably running commercial breaks while they do it too.

It’s the death-knell for football as far as I’m concerned. Since time-immemorial part of the whole football experience for the fans includes having a good old moan at the referee. Take that away and you lose half of the excitement.

Instead, I made my butties and went to sit on the wall with my book and my lizard.

I was however distracted by something in the distance.

But with the big telephoto zoom lens that I have, I can photograph it and then crop and enlarge the image for a closer look. And it turns out to be some kind of small motor boat, like a customs launch or something.

And if you think that the photo is blurred, you need to remember that the coast over there is over 18 miles away so the boat is probably 14 miles away. It’s not oo bad in th circumstances and I would have to pay a lot of money to have anything better.

Back here I had a few things to do and then I crashed out as I mentioned earlier. But once I revived myself I went for a walk around the headland in the hordes of people who were out taking the air, stopping to give Gribouille a pick-up and stroke on the way out.

Liz was on-line later so we had a little chat and then just for a change I sat down and watched a film on the DVD. Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me. It took ages to get it to play, but fired up in a matter of seconds once I switched the remote control over from “record” to “play”.

Tea was out of a tin tonight (it’s Saturday) and then I went for my evening stroll.

First thing that I noticed was yet more objects way out offshore so this was another job for the big zoom lens.

It turns out that they weren’t ships at all but a couple of islands out to sea, and I realised that I have made this mistake once before.

Still, you can’t win a coconut every time. We did once catch a ship out there with a speculative shot, you may remember.

THis isn’t a speculative shot, by the way, even though you might think so.

Up in that tree is a large tortoiseshell cat.

The tree is growing from the ditch at the town end of the fortifications and the upper branches are leaning against the top of the wall. And this seems to be the favourite route of the aforementioned El Moggo.

She (for I imagine it’s a female) was quite adept at getting up and down there too.

And that sailing boat that we saw coming in to the harbour back three or so weeks ago, it’s coming back in this evening too.

One of these days I’ll wander down to the harbour and find out its name. I’m sure I must have known it at one time.

But I’m very disappointed that it’s not actually sailing, but dieseling into the harbour. I’d be much more impressed to see some real seamanship with it coming in under the power of the wind in its sails.

Talking about wind and sails though, Marité isn’t in the harbour today. I wonder where she has got to. The people who run that have disappointed me too, on several occasions too, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Narrowly avoiding being run down by a motorist going up a one-way street the wrong way, I stopped to take a photo of a little street party in the Place Cambernon.

It seems that the gallery which I mentioned the other week is having an “open day”, or open evening more like. But as I said at the time, the prices of the objects in there are enough to put anyone off.

Instead, I came back home and settled down.

Sunday tomorrow, and a lie-in. And I reckon that I’ve earned it. I’ve had a hard week and I’m feeling the strain. There’s a jazz concert in town this evening, but I’m just not up to going unfortunately.

Sunday 3rd June 2018 – PART THREE …

… of this week’s footfest saw me head out to St Pair sur Mer.

There were two matches there this afternoon – the 3rd XI playing ES Trelly QC and the 2nd XI playing ET S Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron. But the matches were being played simultaneously which is a shame and seeing that the 2nd XI were playing in the Stade d’Honneur where there is a grandstand in which we can sit, I chose to sit down and eat my butties in comfort.

The final score was 2-2, which was a very fair reflection of the play. But three of the goals were scored due to mistakes by the defenders and the fourth was another one of these disputed penalties (and I was too far away to be able to give my opinion).

In fact the 1st half was quite error-strewn and I wondered where it was going to end. 2-1 wasn’t the half-time score that I was expecting.

St Pair equalised in the second half, which was a much better half than the first one, that’s for sure. The teams seemed to be concentrating more.

But we had another little … errr … dust-up between a couple of players late in the game. And the St Pair bench rounded on the ET S Du Terregate Et Du Beuvron trainer to express their opinion of his players. “Did I say any different?” was his measured reply. And that took the wind out of their sails.

So we left them examining the woodwork of the goalposts at the southern end of the ground, which had been clouted more times than enough by a few of the more-powerful shots of the attacking teams.

And I told you wrong about last weekend. It wasn’t the final weekend of US Granville’s 2nd XI. It was their final home match. They were away at Caen this afternoon and had I known last night, I would have stayed over somewhere for a weekend out.

So they still had to do better than FC St Lo Manche this afternoon, and the impressive 4-0 victory that they recorded gave everyone bags of home.

And then the news filtered through – FC St Lo Manche 1 – AS Tourlaville 1. A draw. And US Granville win the championship by two points and are promoted to Regional 1. Well done them!

So exciting days out next season to places that I don’t have a clue where they are.

I didn’t have a clue where I was this morning either. But at least it was 09:20 which is a very reasonable and respectable time to be waking up on a Sunday morning.

And with it being a Sunday I took it easy too and didn’t have breakfast until late. Later than intended too for I had run out of muesli and had to make some more. There was just enough stuff too, but I’ll have to add some more stuff to the shopping list for next time.

After breakfast I actually SHOCK! HORROR! did some tidying up. Clean clothes all over the place and the stuff from Thursday on the clothes airer was dry. So all of that went away. And that led to a rearrangement of the wardrobe.

Not only that, I uncovered my missing external hard drive – the one for which I have been searching for about a year with all of the missing images on it and which has been a regualr subject of discussion on here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But I was mistaken here too. It wasn’t an external drive at all. It was an old internal drive off an old desktop model that I had stuck in a caddy which I thought was empty. And that’s why I couldn’t find it.

And another external drive – the one with all of the old photos from 20 years or so ago that I couldn’t get to work – I had a play with that and got that to work too, so before I went out I set it up to copy everything over to the hard drive wih the more modern stuff.

Making a butty or two and an icy flask, I went off to the football and nearly squidged several pairs of grockles who just aimlessly amble into the middle of the street without looking and then stop to admire the seagulls. I hate grockles absolutely.

Back here later, I made another pizza. And this one was cooked perfectly. How I managed that was that I had taken a handful of frozen mushrooms out of the freezer before I went otu, to leave them to defrost. When it was time to make the pizza they had defrosted perfectly, and you have no idea the amount of water that came out. That’s where all the heat of the oven has been going – evaporating all of this water.

After tea I went for my usual evening walk – around the headland tonight. Just in time to see the last passenger boat come back from the Ile de Chausey with some more unwelcome tourists.

Over Jersey, which was clearly visible – the best that I have ever seen it – it was clear. But more and more cloudy the further south you went Round over Mont St Michel it was stormy with lightning and rainstorms everywhere.

I didn’t hang around outside then. I wasn’t going to get caught in that.

There was srill some cold drink left in the flask so when I returned I went to drink it. And to my surprise, the ice cubes hadn’t completely melted. That’s about 8 hours and it was still freezing cold in there. A good move that – getting it to do cold drinks as well as hot ones.

So bedtime now. I have to go and pick up my kitchen estimates tomorrow afternoon . Tomorrow morning then I might just make a start on tidying Caliburn. We shall see.

Saturday 2nd June 2018 – I HAD A REALLY NICE …

… evening out this evening.

I’ve never been to a US Granville away game and in fact I’ve never been farther than Cérences or Gavray to watch a football match since I’ve been in Normandy. But it’s the last weekend of the season and there were no Saturday evening matches in the vicinity.

However, I noticed that US Granville’s 3rd XI was away at La Barre de Semilly in the suburbs of St Lô about 60 kms away from here, it was a lovely evening, and as Caliburn and I are off out on an adventure sometime soon maybe, a good run-out would do the both of us some good.

So fighting our way through the grockles driving along at 10 kph admiring the seagulls and having to make a stop for fuel (the first since February, would you believe?) we hit the open road and Caliburn had a really good run out all the way to the match.

And through a rainstorm too for about 10 minutes. That was a surprise.

As for the game itself, Granville – in black – lost 1-0 to a penalty that … errr … excited a considerable amount of animation. Beautiful ball through the defence, forward racing on to it, keeper ditto, forward beats the keeper to the ball by about half a millimetre and instead of saving the ball, the keeper saves the attacker.

Keeper upset about the penalty (although he shouldn’t have been, because it was a penalty) and the US Semilly-St André bench upset about the lack of card being brandished (but they shouldn’t have been because there was clearly no intent to commit a foul).

After that, the match became … errr … somewhat heated and wasn’t far off boiling point until the final whistle. At one point the Granville trainer hurled a load of what one newspaper reporter described 120 years ago as “language lower than Billingsgate” at an opposition player, much to the derision of the home supporters.

But having had a mug of coffee specially made for me, who am I to complain? US Semilly-St Andre are 5th in the table and US Granville are 8th. 1-0 would have been a fair reflection of the score under normal circumstances, and particularly this evening when the Granville attack was, I’m afraid to say, utterly clueless. I don’t recall the Semilly-St André keeper having a single shot to save whereas the Granville keeper was kept quite busy (although he too really only looked in difficulty on two or three occasions).

And I don’t recall seeing a team caught offside on so many occasions during a match as the Granville side was either.

Now just a word about the Man in the Middle.

Anyone who saw the team sheet that the Federation Francaise de Football published will have seen that the referee for this match should have been a certain Rene Lechevallier but quite clearly he didn’t turn up.

In his place we had Arthur Lowe, the legendary Captain “They Don’t Like It Up ‘Em Sir’ Mainwaring of “Dad’s Army” fame refereeing the match

So now you know what happened to him, don’t you?

So we had a really quick drive home after the match. It’s been a long time since Caliburn has had a good run out like that and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

That wasn’t the only football that I saw today either. A message appeared in my mailbox (probably a generic one I reckon – I mustn’t flatter myself unduly … "quite!" – ed …) that one of Granville’s female teams was playing against FC Rouen’s female teams in their division’s playoff finals. Rouen were said to be bringing a bus-load of supporters so could we all go along to cheer.

It was a beautiful afternoon to go out for a good walk so I made an icy flask and some butties and set off for an unexpected afternoon out.

There was a big crowd too – probably 120 people watching the game. And having not seen a female football game (except that one in the USA in 2015) and so I didn’t know what to expect. But it was certainly much better than I reckoned that it was going to be, although the number of foul throws was astonishing.

I was quite impressed with Rouen’s n°3 – a girl called Zoe apparently – and she was quite a good footballer too. I would have gladly massaged her clavicles to warm her up for the game had I been there any earlier.

But the best player on the field, and by a country mile too, was Rouen’s centre-forward called Afssia. Big, awkward, and quite a handful for any defence, and with a surprising amount of skill too, she made all of the difference. She hit the woodwork, had a goal disallowed, forced the Granville keeper into a brilliant one-handed save, and scored the only goal of the game. She was a league apart from the other players on the field.

At first I thought that Rouen would run away with the game because they looked menacing right from the kickoff and Granville looked a good couple of yards off the pace. But after 25 minutes the Granville trainer changed the team formation around and brought on a girl called Magdalena to play behind what was a very lightweight front two. That made a world of difference and Granville looked much more threatening from then on.

In fact, when Afssia ran out of steam near the end and was stuck in midfield (to be fair, she’d been on the receiving end of a very heavy challenge late in the game) the run of the game changed dramatically. Granville were surging forward in streams for the final five minutes and had they had someone who could have produced just a single moment of magic, they could have done something here.

1-0 was about the right score, I reckoned, but after watching the first five minutes I had been anticipating a cricket score by the final whistle. And after all said and done, I quite enjoyed the game. It was certainly different.

We saw the other day that the Council was out beautifying the town ready for the summer season which starts to get into swing this season.

They put up the bunting, but I’m not quite sure what is the purpose of all of these wind decorations that seem to be dotted all over the place.

They are certainly quite interesting, but I’m not sure that the Council’s thinking that this sort of thing will bring the millions of masses out of Paris to see them tells us more about the mentality of the Council or more about the mentality of the Parisiens

Apart from the girls’ football match and the pretty decorations, what else was different about today was the fact that I was actually out of bed before either of the alarms went off. I had been in bed fairly early (for me anyway) and for some reason I ended up being wide awake at 06:10. No sense in lying in bed.

First task after breakfast was to copy all of the dashcam videos onto the laptop and free up the SD cards. And after that, I connected up one of the external drives now that I can access it, and did a mega-back-up of all of the images on the laptop. While that was going on, I had a shower and a clean-up.

Then it was off to the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special but I did buy some loose sugar and some flour. After all, I have a cunning plan. NOZ was next, and again, it was just the usual stuff, but also a pile of DvDs because they were having another mammoth sale of surplus stock. That’s piles of DvDs that I have acquired just recently. One day I might sit down and watch some of them.

The Foirfouille was practically cleaned out. Anything really exciting had long-gone. But I did finally find something in which to keep my oil and vinegar and I’m pleased about that. And they had a set of front seat covers to fit a van too, with the one single and one double seat. Seeing as they were reduced to just 30% of the normal price and that it was Caliburn’s birthday, I treated him to a set.

At Leclerc there was nothing exciting either, alhough I did buy some pizza flour. I have a cunning plan for that too.

Back here, I crashed out for a while before heading off to the football. And for some reason which I don’t understand because I have been feeling a little more like my old self just recently, it was a long hard slog up the hill this afternoon.

So now I’m back and I’m off to bed for my Saturday night lie-in. A Day of Rest tomorrow

Sunday 27th May 2018 – MYSTERY SOLVED

Remember yesterday when I said that I reckoned that my fitbit was playing up? I happened to glance at my fitbit this evening when I expected that the 100% of my day’s activity would be up. And it was showing 92% of my day’s activity.

But that’s not the exciting bit of it. A closer inspection revealed that it was indeed 7.7 kms – and that was 100% of my day’s activity when I first programmed it. It seems that somewhere along the line it has reprogrammed itself and a day’s activity is now 8.4 kms. So that’s going to wear me out even more.

But that’s a long time away from where we started. Although not as long as you might think because 09:10 is a really nice time to awaken on a Sunday morning. And 09:40 is an even nicer time to rise up from your stinking pit too.

This led to quite a late breakfast – a brunch in fact – and the fig roll is quite a good idea too. I have to treat myself on a Sunday after all. High time that I did that.

The rest of the morning, such as it was, was quite leisurely. And I ended up spending almost an hour and a half talking to Rosemary. She’s had her plaster taken off her foot and is now in ordinary footwear. But it’s a long, hard road to recovery for Rosemary, and she still has a long way to go.

With having a late start this morning I went without lunch. I grabbed some biscuits and made a flask of cold drink with ice cubes. And then I set off for the football.

An important match this one, for if US GRanville’s 2nd XI do better than FC ST Lo Manche they will be promoted.

The football wasn’t the only thing that was going on either.

There was a bicycle race – the Tour de Normandie – taking place this weekend and today’s stage finished here in Granville.

And so there were hordes of people and hordes of cyclists swarming through the town this afternoon as I was passing through.

All the way up the hill I was being passed by bunches of cyclists. And they were struggling up the hill as much as I was too.

And there were fleets of cars with the spare bikes on the roofs following the cyclists, and following the cars were the fleets of ambulances.

But I was diappointed that there weren’t the fleets of advertisers like there were in Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres. Anyone who grew up with French cycle races in the late 1960s will know exactly what I mean

There’s a lot of money in cycle racing in France these days, and you can tell that by all of the equipment that is on show being used by the bigger teams.

So it was something of a surprise to find an old Peugeot 504 – probably getting on for 45 years old I reckon – doing service as a bicycle team support car.

Probably the most famous French car of the early modern era, the French equivalent of the British Ford Cortina III and IV, and seeing as we haven’t had an old car for quite a while, it gives me pleasure to feature it here.

So the most crucial match of the season here at the Stade Louis Dior. US Granville’s 2nd XI against AS Tourlaville. Everything riding on this match. No matter what FC ST Lo Manche do in their match, Granville must do better.

And by God they made hard work of it. For once the back four were incredibly nervous and were making a couple of silly careless errors. And it could have been so much worse as two suicidal backpasses from the usually-reliable central defenders put a Tourlaville attacker through for a one-on-one with the US Granville keeper.

Had the attackers been any better, US Granville could have been 2-0 down but one shot from one backpass went wide and the other one hit the post and bounced away to safety. And with only the keeper to beat.

And as for the keeper, he was nervous too. He dropped three simple crosses (luckily a defender got to the loose ball first each time) and was generally shaky throughout the match.

Eventually though Granville took the lead – a beautiful run down the wing, a good pinpoint cross into the centre and a forward sliding into the goalmouth steered it in.

And in the second half, a beautiful free kick put Granville 2-0 up. And that set the match aflame as Granville continued to pour forward, with Tourlaville resorting to some desperate (and quite often illegal) measures to keep them out, much to the frustration of the Granville players. Yesterday’s rainstorm to cool down the players would have helped here.

And then of course, another defensive loss of concentration right at the death allowed a Tourlaville attacker to finally find the back of the net.

So a 2-1 victory for Granville. And it was all in vain as FC ST Lo Manche had won by five goals to one.

So that was that. We’ll have to wait until next year now.

I had a nice walk back home in the warm early evening sunshine, just in time to see a saling boat come a-dieseling into the harbour. A bit disappointed that it didn’t come a-sailing in but you can’t have everything.

And it’s usually around here that I clock up my 100% of daily effort when I’ve been to the Stade Louis Dior. So I checked and you know the rest.

Tea was the usual vegan pizza and then I went out for a walk to clock up the missing metres. Not far of course, but far enough to reach the 100%. It’s a good thing, this fitbit. It pushes me along

So now it’s bed time and I can’t say that I’m sorry. I could do with an early night.

Saturday 26th May 2018 – I HAVE JUST SEEN …

… something that I have never ever seen before.

One of US Granville’s attacker bursts into the EC Tessy Moyon Sports box, and goes down under a challenge from a defender. The referee blows hiw whistle and points to the penalty spot.

The match is being played at the Stade Louis Dior despite it being the 3rd XI. I’m in the grandstand, absolutely level with the incident and quite high up, so I have a perfect view. And in mt opinion that was one of the best challenges that I have seen at this level of football.

The Tessy Moyon players are furious, their coach is livid, The US Granville player comes to the touchline and shouts something to his captain. The captain takes the kick – and kicks it to the corner flag.

Apparently the referee was the only person in the whole stadium who thought that that was a penalty. But I’ve never seen a team kick away a penalty before. The Age of Chivalry isn’t dead after all.

It was another struggle to leave the stinking pit this morning, We Went through the usual morning procedure followed by a shower, and then Caliburn and I hit the streets

We went the long way out to the garage, out to near Bréhal and down the by-pass. The idea is to get the engine stinking hot so that it burns more efficiently and shows a better reading on the air meter. The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley, as Robert Burns would have us believe. I ended up being stuck behind a load of grockles crawling along the road.

However, none of this caused a problem and at the Controle Technique, not only were we early but we were in and out and finished even before the time of the appointment. Caliburn passed with no problems and there is nothing to worry about as far as his bodywork goes. He’ll be 11 on Tuesday by the way

Sopping today was just Noz and LeClerc. I didn’t feel like going all the way round to LIDL. And it didn’t take me long to buy what I needed (and to buy nothing else) and I was home by 11:30. Maybe I ought to go out this early again.

Having put everything away and having had a coffee, it was lunchtime. Beautiful weather for it too, sitting on the wall watching the shipping, eating my butties, reading my book and chatting to the lizard. He was enjoying the weather too.

Back here, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out yet again for a good hour too. Perhaps this early start wasn’t such a good idea after all. But I was up and about and ready for my trek up town.

Some of the trek involved following a couple of beautiful young maidens. They stopped somewhere along the route and gave a kiss to some boy who was clearly a friend.
“Could I have a kiss too?” I enquired. But the trouble today is that no-one has a sense of humour.

It was a beautiful evening for football and we were lucky enough to be at the Stade Louis Dior for this. It’s not very often that the 3rd XI get to play here.

No-one on the gate at all of course so we could just walk in and go anywhere, so I blagged a seat in the stands where the view is quite good.

US Granville were 8th going into the match and EC Tessy Moyon Sports were 7th, and eo we expected a hard-fought tight match and that’s exactly what we got.

Granville had most of the play but couldn’t convert the chances that they were making. And it seemed that fortune might have been on their side when Tessy Mosson were obliged to replace their goalkeeper with an outfield player after a collision.

But the new keeper was actually quite good – he’d clearly played in goal before and at a reasonable standard too. He was coming out for crosses – and catching them too – and his handling and distribution was quite good too.

But he was eventually beaten by a ball over the top and a Granville player running on for a one-on-one. No-one could complain about the keeper there.

But the real highlight of the evening was the weather.

There had been some rumbling and grumbling in the distance, and then a huge dark cloud started to blow over the ground.

And you can see, if you look closely, the torrential rain that is falling, away over there in the distance. We were going to be in for it.

The rain waited until we were leaving the stadium before it let go. And then we got the lot.

Luckily there was a strong wind blowing so I kept in the lee of the buildings at the side of the road. Had I been in the open, I would have been a drowned rat before I’d gone 50 yards.

But it was quickly over. And we had one of those unusual phenomena of a sharp weather front, where you could see the end of the rainstorm like a curtain as it drew away from me up the street. It’s been a while since I’ve seen something like that.

Back here, I hadn’t completed my 100% daily activity which is a surprise. There’s definitely something wrong with the fitbit.

And so I went for a lap around the block until the 100% came up, and this enabled me to watch the sun sink slowly into the sea, surrounded by flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder something like The Return Of The Demon King.

But I was too tired to do much back here. I even fell asleep talking to someone on the laptop. So in the end I went to bed.

Sunday tomorrow. A day of rest. And I need it too.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality