Tag Archives: shower

Friday 5th January 2018 – USELESS LOAD OF BANKERS!

I actually managed to struggle into town this morning.

And it’s just as well that I did too.

my early night didn’t work out as well as it ought to have done because I was wide awake at 05:00. Never mind the former times when the alarm used to go off at 06:00 (and it will again, starting next week) – by 06:00 I was sitting on the sofa having had my medication.

After breakfast, I had a shower and a good clean up, and then spent a good hour or two collecting all of the paperwork that I needed. And I’ glad that I did too because I had a nasty surprise.

But never mind that for a moment. First stop was the Police Station to complete the paperwork about my missing wallet. He had a grouch and a growl because, in his opinion, the work that they had done in Paris was bidon. But at least I now have a temporary driving licence so that I can legally use Caliburn.

And then we went to the Bank ready for a battle.

My bank cards are ready so I picked them up. And I paid a bill that need to be paid, and then battle commenced.

I shan’t bore you with all of the details. But a brief recap is that when I moved here, I went into the bank to open an account here, to close down my account in Pionsat, and to transfer all of my payments to the new account.

And then we’ve had the long sorry story of how everything seems to have gone wrong – a relentless stream of failures and incidents that have shaken my faith in the bank.

But today was the final straw. It seems that they haven’t closed the accounts in Pionsat at all, all of my payments have been paid in duplicate and I’ve been paying bank charges on two accounts that I don’t use.

Anyway I left them busily repainting the woodwork where the paint had blistered off in the heat. They are going to sort it out, so they say, but we’ll just wait until the next disaster. The Credit Agricole here in Granville is like lurching from one catastrophe to another, and my finances are catastrophic enough without any help from my useless load of Bankers.

But the most telling part of all of this was the question “who dealt with your affairs? Was it Madame xxxxx?”
Well, as a matter of fact it was. And having heard one or two stories, I’m not surprised that her name cropped up without any prompting.

Next stop was the Post Office to renew the redirection of my mail. That’s important because of my driving licence issues, more of which anon.

And here we had the delightful, typical Post Office scene of a crowd of people waiting in a queue while no less than THREE assistants dealt with one customer.

Everyone was fuming so I turned to the woman behind me
Our hero – “typical Civil Servants. No idea whatever about the Real WOrld. They should be made to take 6 months unpaid leave every five years and come and scratch around for a living like the rest of us and see what it’s like to live in the Real WOrld”
Woman behind me – “I’m a Civil Servant”.

Final port of call was at the Driving School.

To apply for a replacement driving licence on line, I nedd a special kind of certified official photograph and I had no idea where to obtain one. They would know, of course.

And indeed they did. So next time that I’m out on the town I can pay a visit.

When I returned home Liz was on line so we had a chat, and then it was lunchtime.

After lunch I did some tidying up and even had the vacuum cleaner out for a while. And I’ve made a few plans about organising myself better. If that works, I’ll be amazed because it’s never worked before. But all of this time spent hunting down paperwork is totally absurd.

Havng had a little (well, more than a little) snooze and an hour or so on the bass, I made tea. Baked potatoes and beans with cheese. And my vegan cheese slices will melt if I break them up and put them with the beans in the microwave.

And for pudding, some of Liz’s Christmas cake.

To finish off the day, I’ve been for a walk. It was slow and painful but I did it. So I’m hoping that I’ll have a decent night’s sleep tonight.

Final word must go to my former colleague and friend Anne-Marie. She joined the EU the same time that I did and we went round together for a while, even going on a skiing trip together for a week in Bulgaria. I’ve heard on the grapevine that she received her long-service medal from work the other daY.

Sp hats off to her.

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Tuesday 2nd January 2018 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… on the sofa last night at about 22:30.

And so when I awoke at about 23:00 or something, I dragged myself off to bed.

And there, I had a bad attack of cramp getting into bed and that, dear reader, was that. I didn’t have a wink of sleep at all.

I’d set the alarm for 07:30 but by the time that it went of, I was up and about and doing things. I was expecting visitors.

Working for 10 minutes on and half an hour sitting down I whizzed through the apartment and while it would be wrong to pretend that it was neat and tidy, all of the rubbish had been taken out and the important bits were all properly presentable. And I was able to have a shower too.

At about 11:15 Liz and Terry turned up. back from the UK, they popped by to see how I was getting on and I was able to reassure them. As you know, for a while I was at death’s door but this doctor pulled me through.

We had a really good chat, caught up with all of out news and made a couple of plans for the Spring. A trip to IKEA might be on the cards in the near future.

This afternoon I recovered from my exertions and, much to my surprise, even though it’s now almost 23:00 I’m not in the least bit tired. And that’s a surprise after my nuit nlanche. I wonder if I’ll get to bed tonight as well.

As for food, I had my usual bowl of porridge at breakfast, but I didn’t feel like anything for lunch. Later in the evening I made another pot of soup, tomato this time, and heaved in a couple of handfuls of macaroni in it, as well as a tablespoon or two of olive oil. I need the fats and proteins right now.

Tow mugs of that went down nicely and I could even manage the sp.

One idea for the next time that I’m out is to buy some of this very fine, small pasta and I can keep on adding that into soups as I make them. That will be easy to eat and it will give the soups some body.

But here’s a surprise. Several weeks ago I bought from NOZ a couple of tins of cinnamon biscuits. It was the tins that caught my eye, never mind the content. Not large enough for my cake unfortunately but big enough for all kinds of things, and just €1:99 each. And when I saw that the biscuits therein were vegan, I snapped up the last two.

With Liz and Terry being here, I cracked open a tin. And I was totally surprised as to how nice they were. THis will have to go down as one of the deals of the year.

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Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll just have to get over it.

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

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Thursday 14th December 2017 – SO FAR TODAY …

… I’ve managed to go a whole 24 hours without a single disaster. That makes a nice change for recent times doesn’t it?

And I’ve also done 198% of my daily activity too, and that has to be a good thing.

We started off last night as we mean to go on, and that meant an early night. And to guarantee a decent sleep I switched on a “Bulldog Drummond” film. Always does the trick, that does.

A bad attack of cramp at 01:3à wasn’t quite so good, but that’s the kind of thing that happens. Soon back to sleep and right through to the alarm as well.

The morning was quite leisurely and included a shower, and then at 10:30 it was out to the shops.

I’d previously forgotten the Kruidvat – but not this time. They have pick-and-mix sweets and they are all labelled as to their allergy rating. I treated myself to a couple of hundred grams of gelatine-free gooey sweets. And they were delicious.

At Zeeman I bought a black jumper for €7:99. I don’t have enough jumpers back at Granville and another cheap one will do me just fine.

But of all of the shops that I went into (and there were dozens) I couldn’t find a cake tin. I don’t know what’s happening to the world.

Alison turned up and we went for a coffee and a wander around the shops looking for Christmas presents for her entourage. And we called into the Loving Hut for another pile of Vegan cheese and some spray-on vegan cream.

I then took my leave and headed off to the hospital.

A new place to visit. No longer do I go to the Day Centre but to the Haematology unit. And there, the girl fitted the vampire bat to my catheter port and extracted the blood in a matter of seconds.

But the thing there is amazing. They don’t call out your name – your photo appears on the TV screen thing next to the room which you have to visit. That’s new technology!

The good news is that – rather surprisingly – the blood count is UP – from 9.2 to 9.5. And also that the protein loss is DOWN – and that’s even more surprising. Professor Janssens is pleased with me – so back in another 2 months.

Back into town again in the rain where I again met Alison. And we went to la Cucaracha – the Cockroach – the new Mexican restaurant. My taco or tortilla or whatever it was stufffed with spicy mushrooms in tomato sauce with rice was absolutely delicious and I’ll make this at home sometime.

We put the world to rights until her bus came, and then I walked back here, stopping to photograph all of the lights. But the camera on this phone is unfortunately pretty useless.

I’m now going to try for yet another early night. It’s quite cold out and my room isn’t as hot as I would like it.

Curling up under the covers is what’s called for in a situation like this.

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Tuesday 12th December 2017 – WHAT A DAY!

I’ve walked into town three times today. No wonder that I’m exhausted.

Mind you, the up side to this is that I managed my 100% daily exercise total without any difficulty at all and as I sit here on the sofa I’m at 110% – and that’s without going for a walk this evening either.

Last night was an early night and I slept right through to the alarm which was very nice. And I didn’t beat the second alarm out of bed either which was rather depressing.

And just for a change I remembered to eat breakfast. And I followed that by a shower and also SHOCK! HORROR! a lap of the washing machine with the pile of clothes that has built up over the last couple of weeks.

Once that was organised I hit the streets and headed for the office of my mobile phone supplier. And there, I was asked if I had my passport with me.

So, back to the apartment and the passport. You would have thought that after all of this time living here in France (2006 on a permanent basis and a considerable number of years previously as a temporary resident) I would have remembered that you can’t go anywhere or do anything without “vos papiers“.

Back at the mobile phone supplier, and a long wait to be served. But eventually I was issued with a new SIM card that I could fit into th old phone that I bought in 2014.

Following on that, I went to the POlice Station. I’d remembered to find the identity papers of the telephone that was “lost” and now that I have my phone back up and working, I could give them a contact number.

As I returned back here, the fire brigade were working on the building across the car park. I told you yetserday that the hurricane had loosened all of the zinc guttering and shuttering on the roof. They were busy making it all safe.

After lunch I hung up the washing over the radiator in the other end of the room and started to assemble a few things that I need to take with me tomorrow. I had to configure the phone too but the down side of this phone is that there’s not enough memory to run the Apps that I need to run. No idea how I can work around this. If only I could download them to un off tSD card that is in there.

But I did notice that the telephone wasn’t connecting to the network. It was recognising everyhing as was working from the WIFI modem, but not making a connection.

And so back into town again.

The girl had a fiddle around and despite her saying that it must be my phone, my SIM card didn’t work on her phone either and she did something on the computer there. Maybe they forgot to reconnect the line or something.

Picling up a baguette from the posh bakers to make my butties for the journey tomorrow, I returned home. I’ve done enough for today. A relax, and tea was out of a tin.

Instead of going for a walk I did a little tidying and cleaning. And now I’m having an early night. I have a train to catch tomorrow of course.

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Tuesday 5th December 2017 – I HAD A …

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

Clearly, something is up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sunday 3rd December 2017 – THE ONE PROBLEM …

… about going to bed early is that there’s a tendency to wake up early. We all know this and we are all prepared for it, but even so, being wide-awake at 01:30 is rather an extreme example.

And so, after a couple of miserable hours of being awake and not being able to go back to sleep, I was resigned to being still there when dawn broke.

Nevertheless, I did manage to go back to sleep, and even managed to go a-wanderding.

We started off in a very rare coach – a “P” (as in 1975)-registered Duple Viceroy-bodied coach but fitted with a MAN diesel engine (in the days when the only foreign-engined coaches on the UK roads were the very occasional Volvo B58s) and how after about 30 years the company was considering upgrading it to a more modern one, and there was I hoping that I would be chosen to drive it.
From there we passed to much more exciting things. Some young guy was arrested for belong to some kind of secret organisation -and these people were possessed of a certain power in that firstly they could fly, and secondly they could change identity with anyone of a similar grade in their organisation. how they did that was to hold up their hads with a number of fingers visible – the number of fingers visible being the grade to which they belonged. Anyone of a similar grade seeing the sign would hold up a similar number of fingers and they would exchange identities. This young guy escaped from police custody and there was a hue and cry, but he succeeded in exchanging identities with several people, including the policean who was chasing him and taking his girlfriend as part of the deal.

It was 09:20 when I finally crawled out of bed. That was much more like it for a Sunday.

However, that kind of behaviour means that a great deal of the morning has gone – and with it my plans for (thinking about) tidying up the apartment. So why is it that when your living accommodation is spotlessly clean and tidy, no-one ever comes to visit; but when your place is like a disgusting tip because you’ve been too ill to clean it for the last three weeks, half of the building comes to call?

After lunch, I had a shower and then I hit the road. It’s Liz’s birthday very soon so we were having a little party. I’d picked up some chocolates for her from the manufacturer in town.

The road were greasy and muddy, and Caliburn is in a right filthy mess now. But we all had a good chat and Liz had made some vegan meat loaf, with enough left over to make a doggy bag for me.

But I didn’t stay too long, because I’m not up to much just now. I came home, clutching a Christmas present. And I can guess what it is.

Back here, I went straight to bed. No walk tonight and no surfing about on the internet. I’m definitely feeling the strain. Let’s hope I have a better day tomorrow.

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Thursday 30th November 2017 – MY FITBIT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The story of my life.

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

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

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

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Tuesday 28th November 2017 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I managed to get out and about this evening for my walk.

The weather deteriorated yet again this evening, but the rain stopped round about 20:45 so I set off for my stroll.

The clouds had gone too and despite the howling gale it was another one of these rally clear nights. So much so that not only could you see the lights on Jersey 30-odd miles away, but the red flashing lights on the wind turbines that we saw the other day way out at Barneville-Carteret.

While I was on my way round I saw my feline friend too but he paid little attention to me, being far more interested in stalking a small dog wandering down the street.

JUst by way of yet another change, I awoke early today. At about 04:10. And I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. But I must have been well away because the alarm awoke me at the normal time. And I managed to be out of bed by the time the second alarm went off.

After I take my medication, I usually have to wait about half an hour before I can eat breakfast, and I use that time to see what is happening in the world. Instead, I found two friends of min from the USA on line so we had a chat. And the next thing that I noticed was that it was now 09:45.

Too late for breakfast. I just had a coffee instead.

And in line with my new procedures, I had a shower too. I need to take far more care of myself than I’m doing. And a nice hot soak in a nice warm bathroom (that little halogen heater that I bought all those years ago is really paying dividends) did me the world of good.

After a rather late lunch, I went for my walk around the headland – about three of us there were out there in total. And that’s hardly a surprise given the wind and the overcast sky (it wasn’t yet raining at that point). And I followed up my walk with a coffee and a snooze as usual.

Tea was one of the vegan pies that we made the other Sunday – I need to make some space in the freezer. With mashed potatoes, frozen peas, frozen sprouts and fresh carrots cooked in the steamer, with gravy made from the liquid, it really was delicious, And that was followed by my evening perambulation.

And now it might even be an early night. You never know your luck.

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Thursday 23rd November 2017 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I’ve done 101% of my daily activity today. It’s not very often I do that these days, is it?

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night. No-one interrupted me at all and I was stark out until the alarm went off. And I only just made it out of bed before the second alarm too.

After breakfast and a little repose I had a good shower and shave and a general clean-up. And then I hit the streets. It was extremely cloudy overhead but I set off on foot nevertheless, and it wasn’t long before the rain started. But I pressed on nevertheless.

As I expected, it was a long sad haul up the hill past the railway station to the roundabout. I’m even finding that difficult these days as you know, but I have to press on otherwise I won’t ever get anywhere.

Destination was LIDL of course. Another loaf of bread, cut into three and two parts frozen for later on in the week, some menthol sweets to help me keep my nose clear, a lettuce and, on special offer, a guitar stand. That means that I can unleash the Gibbon.

combattant port de granville manche normandy franceOn the way out, I noticed that COmbattant had gone, but the lighter and digger were still there. And so I reckoned that it had gone off to dump a load of silt.

I was quite right about that because on the way back, there she was, moored up to the lighter and back at work again.

They seem to be doing a thorough job of the dredging anyway. Maybe we might see more ships coming into the port. Some old guy with whom I chatted fairly recently did tell me that maritime traffic had declined over the past few years.

After lunch, despite my efforts up town this morning, I went for a walk. It had stopped raining and the wind had dropped slightly so it was reasonably pleasant, especially for this time of year.

And while I was out, I was chatted up by a bunch of schoolgirls from Avranches and their teacher. That was a very pleasant couple of minutes.

Despite feeling a little better today and hoping that I could go all day without crashing out, I did succumb for about 20 minutes round about 17:00. That was disappointing.

Tea was some of that frozen mushroom and lentil curry in soya cream that I made a few weeks ago. And it defrosted very well in the microwave. I’m not mad keen on microwaves as you know but they certainly do what they are supposed to do.

casino beach granville manche normandy franceIt was raining this evening but nevertheless I went out for my evening walk.

Around the walls again in a clockwise direction. And I seemed to be the only person out and about which was hardly a surprise.

The wind had got up again and with the tide being right in the waves were crashing on the sea wall down by the Casino. It was all very exciting and very relaxing too. I love the sound of the sea.

pizza wagon old town granville manche normandy franceMy mate wasn’t sitting on his window sill, which is not really a surprise, but here’s a surprise – something that I hadn’t noticed before.

It seems that we have a pizza wagon here in the old town on Thursday nights. I was tempted to go to investigate but he was rather busy. And so I’ll have to go back again; next week maybe.

Back here I had a relax for a while, and then maybe I’ll go for another early night. I hope that there will be a little more improvement in my health tomorrow.

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Saturday 18th November 2017 – I WAS WELL …

… away last night.

Although it took a while for me to go off to sleep, once I’d gone I was well-and-truly gone and I remember nothing until the alarm went off.

That’s not quite true though. I’d been on my travels last night too. I started off in a businessand the local workhouse was parcelling off the orphan children into apprenticeships (I’ll have to stop reading these Old Bailey cases from the 1750s). I was allocated a young girl and I wasn’t sure of how I could best employ her to make the most of her apprenticeship.
From here I was with someone – who might even have been Nerina, and we were n an aeroplane. But the pilot, for some reason, lost control and the aeroplane crashed, right on the main road that rus from Brussels out to the Airport. Everyone survived the crash and managed to escape, but even though there was aviation fiel all over the place I had to go back into the aeroplane to rescue Strawberry Moose.

After the usual breakfast and a little relax, I went and had a good shower, a shave and a change of clothes too. And my little halogen heater works quite nicely in the bathroom too. And deciding to make the fullest opportunity of a nice clean me, I changed the bedding too and I’ll have a nice comfortable bed to sleep in tonight. And just as well too, because it’s Sunday and a lie-in.

Once I’d gathered my wits (which doesn’t take long these days) Caliburn and I went to the shops.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that just recently I’ve been walking up to LIDL and back, and so I decided to drive up the way that I came back on foot the other day. And much to my surprise, I was there in half the time without any queues and hold-ups at all. I’ll have to try this way again.

I didn’t spend anything special in there, but I made up for that later.

I called in at GIFI on the way out. It’s winter and with no pie huts at the football matches I’m freezing to death. And so I bought myself a thermos flask so that I could have some coffee to warm me up. And I bought a few other things too – but nothing exciting.

At the biocoop I bought some more vegan sausages and some sunflower seeds for the muesli, And next stop was NOZ. A few bits and pieces there too, including some sea salt. Not necessarily for the salt, but for the jars. They were those nice hexagonal ones that I like.

In the Auchan I didn’t spend anything special yet for some reason that I don’t understand my bill there came to almost €25:00 I’m not sure what I spent it on.

pisse dru beaujolais nouveau auchan granville manche normandy franceBut I did have a laugh as I was leaving. the Beaujolais Nouveau is now arriving in the supermarkets. The story behind the race to the market is that one year the crop was so awful that it didn’t last more than a couple of weeks so there was a rush to gt it to market and sell it before it spoiled on the shelves.

Here at Auchan my favourite beaujolais Nouveau was on offer and I consider its name to be extremely apt.

I couldn’t have called it anything better myself.

By the time I returned home it was 13:30, and by the time I’d unpacked, it was lunchtime.

After lunch I crashed out for a while – I’m clearly not doing very well these days, and then at 16:00 I hit the streets again – but on foot this time.

It took me ages to climb the hill up ast the railway station and I had to stop a couple of times to get my breath. Nevetheless, it was a mere 16:35 wwhenI arrived at the Stade Louis Dior.

stade louis dior us granville agneaux fc manche normandy franceGranville’s 2nd XI, in blac, were taking on Agneaux FC, two places above them in Regional Lzague 2.

This was one of the most exciting matches that I have seen for quite some considerable time.

Granville took the lead after just 3 minutes. A ball upfield, the keeper shouting “leave it” and he ran out of his goal to kick it … right into the back of one of his own players

The ball bounced clear, right onto the path of an attacking Granville forward and with the keeper stranded, the attacker had the simplest of chances.

And then the match went in pells. We would have 10 minutes of Granville pressure followed by 10 minutes of Agneaux pressure, and then it would swing round again. Three good (if lucky) saves by the Granville keeper, Granville thumped the Agneaux woodwork twice, but the score didn’t increase.

We did have a minor interruption when there was a major car acident in the street outside.

The two clubs have changed position in the table after this result and that’s good news.

cite des sports us granville co sourdeval manche normandy franceAt the final whistle, a brisk walk took me round the corner and down the street to the Sports Centre, where US Granville’s 3rd XI was taling on CO Sourdeval. Granville are third bottom and Co Sourdeval are second from top, so I wasn’t expecting much.

The final result was 3-2 to Sourdeval and the only mystery about this match was how Sourdeval scored only three. Because Granville were pretty poor, clueless and totally disorganised.

Granville’s two goals were a free kick that confused everyone at the back post and a solo run from the halfway line by the centre-forward. But apart from that, they didn’t offer bery much.

I walked back here via the fritkot for a bag of chips, and then went straight to bed. I think that today has taken an awful lot out of me. At least my new flask played dividends.

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Saturday 11th November 2017 – I’VE BEEN …

… socialising this evening.

And that’s not like me, is it?

Last night’s sleep was one of the best that I’ve had just recently. And I was away with the fairies too – out in the East End of London with the children who had accompanied me on a voyage the other night. Reading all of these historical criminal cases from the Old Bailey is clearly getting to me.

I beat the second alarm and after breakfast did a little tidying up and putting away the washing which is now perfectly dry. Putting it in front of the radiator seems to work. And then I had some things to do – like sort out a music playlist for this evening.

After lunch I crashed out for a good hour and a half and then had to go for a shower and a shave and a good clean-up. And then I hit the town.

It’s Brigitte’s birthday today and she was having a party on a boat in the harbour for all of her friends, and I had been invited. Braving the rain, I walked down there to the harbour.

We were 27 people on this boat, and they all tucked into a couple of huge seafood platters followed by cheese and birthday cake. Of course, there wasn’t very much for me but then again I wasn’t expecting it.

It’s not my scene at all, being there with all of these people for four hours or so, but I have to get out and socialise and to meet the other people from this building. I was even given a lift back, which was very handy given the rainstorm that we were having.

And I’m having yet another early night. And Sunday is a day of rest – a lie-in. And I’m intending to make the most of it.

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Sunday 5th November 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… very nice, busy day out today.

I’ve been round at Liz’s for most of the day. We decided a while agos ago to have a bake-in one of these days – an so we fixed on today.

We spent most of the day baking and making soups, and ended up with a huge pile of stuff. There’s –

home made baking liz messenger roncey manche normandy france

  • carrot, coconut and ginger soup
  • pepper, squash and tomato soup
  • apple crumble
  • vegetable piee
  • coriander hummus
  • beanburgers

There’s enough here to keep us going for a couple of weeks, I reckon.

We split the proceeds between us but I could only bring a few bits and pieces home as my freezer is, as you know, pretty full right now. And I do wish that I had bought a bigger one.

I can pick up the rest another time.

This morning it’s Sunday and so there was no alarm. And so no-one was more surprised to see when I awoke that it was all of … errr … 05:10. But badger that for a game of soldiers. I went back to sleep until a more realistic 09:10.

I’d been on my travels too. A long complicated voyage but all that I remember of it now is being on a couple of cable-hauled barges going in opposite directions on the Manchester Ship Canal.

After breakfast – and nice fresh muesli too – I had a shower and a clean-up. And then I hit the road in the driving rainstorm. Liz’s two neighbouring kids were there and were in quite a chatty mood. Once they had gone, we could attack the cooking.

Lunch was carrot, coconut and ginger soup, and tea was pie and mash with peas. And delicious it all was too. But it was quite exhausting doing it all and I found it hard to keep awake. In the end I had to come home and crash out for an hour.

In view of the weather I didn’t feel like going for a walk. It’s not a good diea too because I seem to have acquired a streaming head cold after my night out last night. I’m going to bed in a moment instead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Thursday 19th October 2017 – ONE DAY …

.. I’ll settle back down into my normal routine. But it won’t be soon, I reckon, because I’ve had another miserable day.

It didn’t help that I had another late night last night, despite my efforts to go to be at some time that might be considered more reasonable. And although I missed out on being out of bed by the time that the second alarm went off, it was something much more approaching it than it has been just recently.

And I’d been on my travels too – wandering around some huge industrial or chemical plant near Chicago. And as for the apparel that I was wearing, the least said about that the better.

After breakfast I went for a shower, a shave, a change of clothes and a general tidy-up. And for the first tie this winter, I had the little halogen heater going in the bathroom. It won’t be long, I reckon, before I have the heating on in the apartment.

In fact, after I’d been out for my baguette this morning, I left my fleece on. THat’s a sign of approaching winter. I shall have to look out for a jumper or a pullover or something when I’m on my travels around.

Going out for my baguette was the only time that I went out today. Round by lunchtime the weather deteriorated and we had a rainstorm for the rest of the day. At times it was quite heavy too.

But maybe I ought to mention that while I was out I bumped into my neighbour who was chatting to a lady in the street. I was introduced to her, which was very pleasant, becauseit’s nice to meet new people now that I’m living in a new place.

This afternoon I had a little repose, which is definitely becoming a habit these days unfortunately. And that’s really the highlight of the day.

And if you have ever heard of the phrase “too tired to sleep” that was what it was like later. It was quite late (or early next morning, which is more appropriate) before I could find the strength to pull muself ut of my sofa and into my stinking pit.

Let’s hope for a better day tomorrow.

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