Tag Archives: shower

Thursday 1st February 2018 – I DON’T KNOW …

… what I did yesterday, but as well as having a message service on my phone, both of the alarmss now seem to work fine this morning. Ask me how I know.

And last night I was in some kind of public place like a shop where I’d bought a DVD, and I wanted to check that it worked correctly. This involved putting it in my DVD player, passing the signal trough some kind of pre-amp and then into a television to watch. And conveniently, all of my equipment was there on the shelf and wired up. I reckoned that this would be quite an impressive thing to accomplish in this public place so I duly set it all up. But it wasn’t as impressive as I wanted it to be and I was left with a pile of omelette sur le visage because somehow there was a radio programmme running in the background of ll of this with the sound coming out of the television as well as the sound of the image and the picture, and it was all very disappointing.

Not feeling much like leaving my bed this morning, the second alarm did the business which is just as well, otherwise I might still be in bed now. No idea why I was so tired, unless it was the after-effects of feeling so bad yesterday.

But the medication, breakfast and a nice hot shower brought me round somewhat and once the medication did its stuff I braved the high winds and headed for the shops. It was the usual struggle up the hill to LIDL and there wasn’t really anything that I needed or wanted. I just made do with a baguette and a couple of bits and pieces of food.

On the way back I went down to the docks to see if I could see what was going on.

But I was out of luck. It’s not easy to see from there at the best of times and particularly now, because they have fenced off everywhere in the vicinity where they are working.

What I’ll have to do is to wait until the tide turns, and then go off to the other side of the basin with the telephoto lens and see what I can see from over there

Back here I made a coffee and settled down for a relax – but not for long. The doorbell rang. It was the Postie with a registered letter for me.

Yes, my new driving licence has arrived – complete with the authorisation to drive buses and articulated lorries for hire or reward. I really can’t take that seriously. But it’s scanned into the laptop for future reference just like all of my important documents

After my soup I tackled some paperwork that had been building up and ow that’s all filed away. I’m certainly more organised than I have been for quite a while – and quite right too. Let’s hope that I can persevere.

My work was however interrupted by a need to have a little rest. And I don’t know what it was that awoke me but I sat bolt upright for some reason or other.

Despite already having had a good walk, it was a nice if windy afternoon so I went for another walk.

And I was wondering what was making all of the noise yesterday. It seems that they’ve been doing some gardening round at the back of the college and it looks quite neat and tidy now.

High time that they did something about it too. But whatever vehicle they had used had churned up the lawn by the lighthouse. It’s really not the right kind of weather for driving heavy vehicles on there.

But here’s a thing!

We saw the other day that there was a big digger out in the tidal harbour during low tide raking over the bed. He’s still out there, but today there was some other activity in the tidal basin.

Like this digger and a couple of earth-moving lorries hard at work making a deep channel.

And if that isn’t enough to be going on with, there was another digger and an earth-moving lorry working closer inshore too.

That’s the place where the fishing boats tie up – right by the fish-processing plant. And they seem to be making the channel along the sea wall there much deeper.

Whether this means that we are going to be having bigger trawlers coming into the port I don’t know. But all of this work in the barbour is exciting for a ship-spotting fan like Yours Truly.

Back here I carried on with a few things that I needed to do (without very much enthusiasm it has to be said) and then made tea. The falafel that I had bought weeks ago went straight into the bin untouched – well past its sell-by date. So I had rice with vegetables and a vegan burger.

With only one cooking ring, it wasn’t easy. But a little oil in a pyrex bowl with onions and garlic and cooked in the microwave for three minutes, and then add the burger for 6 minutes (3 minutes each side) and then add a little water and gravy power, and there you are.

I’d planned to go for a walk but just as I was getting ready we had the most astonishing storm. So I stayed here and played the guitar.

But later I did go for my walk, and you can see what weather we had had.

There had been a hailstorm and it seemed to have fallen like snow – fairly deep in places. I’m glad that I hadn’t gone out in it earlier.

Football on the laptop (or on my television of course) later. A Welsh Premier League match between Connah’s Quay Nomads and Bala Town. A pretty sad game, just like the bad old days of 15 years ago on the Nomads’ sodden, waterlogged pitch that gave no hope whatever of a decent match.

So I’ll see what tonight brings. A nice relaxing sleep, I hope.

Tuesday 30th January 2018 – I KNOW THAT I SAID …

… that I would be going out this morning. But one look at the weather once it started to become light persuaded me otherwise.

We all know about hanging clouds as a phenomenon in the Auvergne, but they aren’t the kind of thing that you expect to see right on the coast, but here we are.

In the photo, taken at 16:00 or thereabouts, it had lifted quite considerably. But round about 08:30 to log after lunch you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face out there. And it was wet too as you might expect.

Just for a change I had a better night’s sleep again, although there wasn’t all that much of it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there are several recurring themes running through my nocturnal voyages. For a start, there’s a certain ski-slope that figures quite often, but another one concerns cars. And we were off again on that one last night. It actually started off with me having to dress myself one morning – and in women’s clothes too (and I’m not sure why either). This led to the obvious question of what do I wear?”. Dressing as a man, it’s always quite easy. Whatever is on th floor from the previous night – or week – or month.
But later on, Nerina and I were moving house and so we were packing. And this involved finding the cars. As some of you might recall, this recurring dream involves me having a pile of Ford Cortinas, some of which might be taxed and some of which might be insured and some of which might be MoT’d – but none of them with all three – parked up at random all over Crewe. And so with having to move house, we needed to round them up. Nerina managed to find one of them, which was an off-white coloured Austin Cambridge as it happened, but I couldn’t remember at all where I had put my brown Cortina 2000E (the one that’s actually in the garage in Montaigut-en-Combraille). And so off we went on another panic-stricken crisis search – something that seems to be a regular feature of my life.

Despite not going out today, I had a shower and cleaned myself up quite considerably. I look rather respectable now, which will come as a great surprise to anyone who knows me. And I spent all day on these photos – making another 23GB of space on my external hard drive by clearing away masses of duplicates.

I went out for my walk this afternoon in the drizzle seeing as the cloud had lifted a little.

And to my surprise, despite the hanging clouds, we had a mini-storm in the bay and the waves were crashing on the sea wall. Some of them were quite impressive but of course there weren’t any of those while I had the camera ready.

But that’s the story of everyone’s life, isn’t it?

But we’re back yet again on this dreadful parking that seems to be dominating our pages right now.

Here’s another car parked with two wheels on the pavement across the road from the school, blocking the pavement for the kids walking down the hill, and there’s an empty parking space right across the road from where she is parked.

It’s this kind of behaviour that really gets on my wick. There’s just no excuse for it.

Tea tonight was spectacularly good. With the rest of the bulghour stuffing from yesterday, I made some spicy kidney beans with yet more bulghour, onions, garlic, mushrooms, olives, tomato sauce and olive oil. And while a spicy rice was cooking itself with some peas and carrots, I rolled some of the stuffing into two tortillas and cooked them in the microwave.

Thoroughly, absolutely and totally delicious. And there’s enough stuffing left over for another couple of tortillas for tomorrow.

We had the usual walk this evening in the light drizzle and now I’m thinking about having an early night.

But not before I tell you about the experiments with the hi-fi. I need to move it to a more permanent place, and while I was measuring up (I need some more speaker cable and I have miles of it back on the farm of course) I tried to experiment by connecting the old speakers to it – the ones from the old hi-fi system that doesn’t work.

And the result was that it seems to be the speakers, not the hi-fi, that have given up the ghost. They were coming through muted and distorted like they did on the old set-up.

And so the next time that I’m moving things around, I’ll try the new speakers in the old hi-fi. And see what happens then. That was a very expensive hi-fi system and I don’t want to discard it lightly.

Saturday 27th January 2017 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again. And I won’t have any left at this rate, will I?

And it wasn’t on the usual Saturday shopping either. A visit to LIDL, LeClerc, Noz and the Foirfouille ran out at just about €33:00 which is reasonably normal – especially when you consider that I spent about €12:00 in the NOZ.

Where the money went was in the electrical section of LeClerc.

You know all about the smartphone issues that I’ve been having just recently, and the little old Samsung that has been helping me out isn’t really doing the job in the long-term. I’ve looked at second-hand ones and there’s nothing that seems reasonable, and as you know, I’ve been quoted some ludicrous prices for some new ones.

There were some cheap ones on eBay and Amazon but the reviews weren’t all that good, and when you buy from places like that, there’s no comeback.

But in LeClerc they had some cheap Chinese ones on offer – with Android operating system. Only 3G, but I’m not too bothered about that, but 16GB of memory and upgradeable with a 32GB micro SD card (and I just happen to have one) and Dual-SIM. They were going for €89:99 but today there was a €15:00 cash-back offer available.

The advantages of buying from LeClerc are that

LeClerc wouldn’t deliberately set out to sell rubbish
They have a cash-back offer if the article isn’t satisfactory
There’s a two-year guarantee on parts and labour

I’m not entitled to a new phone for another year so if this keeps going until then I’ll be happy.

And it’s actually much better than I thought it might be, which is a surprise. The hardest part of configuring it was to fit the SIM card, because that is a complicated procedure. Everything works, and the internet access is quite rapid. So we’ll see how it goes.

There was also an exciting time with the new dash-cam. Configuring that wasn’t straightforward either, and the videos that it produced were rubbish. I must have spent an hour trying to make it record in a better quality, all to no avail.

But it did make a dramatic improvement later in the afternoon when I took the plastic protective coating off the camera lens.

D’ohhhh!

It was another miserable night where I didn’t have much sleep. I’d been on my travels too but I can’t remember too much about it except that we were in a café and there was this strange bar accessory. Some people might know of the machine that looks like a shower fitting with hose, with different buttons on the head that you select to dispense different soft drinks. There was one of those last night but it was dispensing different milks, such as soya milk and the like.

It was an effort to crawl out of bed and after having medicined and breakfasted, I had a shower and then set a load of clothes to wash while I was out.

And then we had the shops.

After lunch I had a play around with the new phone but ended up crashing well and truly out for a good half an hour. And then had the first of my two walks (all the local football tonight is postponed).

There was football on the internet which I watched on the TV – Llandudno v Rhuthun in the Welsh Cup. An exciting match that went into extra time before Llandudno ran out as winners. And while it was on, I carried on configuring the phone and now it seems to do what I want it to do.

Tinned curry for tea – only two of these tins left now which is a tragedy because there won’t be any more. I haven’t been to the UK for almost 5 years now and I’ve no intention of going again. So unless someone else brings me back a supply that will be my lot.

Tomorrow it’s a lie-in of course, and I do have to say that I need one too. So either I’ll still be flat out on my back at midday or I’ll be wide awake at 05:00.

It’s either one thing or the other right now.

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

… that will surprise, if not shock, regular readers of this rubbish who have been following my vicissitudes with bated breath, according to the medical examination that I was given this morning by a doctor who works in partnership with the French Government, I am considered fit enough to drive a 44-tonne articulated lorry or a bus with 75 paying passengers on the public highway.

Last night was another miserable night, having gone on yet another lengthy travel, the details of which were immediately wiped from my memory as soon as I awoke. And I staggered off into the living room with no medication and no breakfast this morning, for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless I did manage a shower and a change of clothes though – I need to look my best for my appointment at 09:15.

At about 08:00 I hit the road for Countances.

And it’s a good job that I allowed myself plenty of time because I needed it. Quetteville sur Sienne isn’t “Quetteville on Sienne” at all – it’s “Quetteville-in-the-Sienne” right now.

You’re all aware of the weather that we’ve been having just recently. While most of Europe has been swaddled in snow these last few weeks, we’ve had nothing but torrential rain

As a result the Rivier Sienne has burst its banks and the outskirts of the town (the town itself is perched on an eminence) are flooded.

It’s completely cut off to the north and so all of the traffic heading to Coutances and Cherbourg is diverted down a country lane. And by the looks of things, a couple more days of this weather and this won’t be passable either.

It certainly messed up my arrival.

But I was there in good time and, as luck would have it, I found a parking place right outside the doctor’s at the back of the sous-Prefecture. And that’s not something that happens every day either, is it?

Being early, I was first in. And out again after 10 minutes.

And this medical is a total farce. I hadn’t said anything about it because I was convinced that I would fail it, with my well-documented medical history. And I was determined to answer every question honestly, truthfully and completely. Which I did.

The only problem with that though is that he only asked two or three questions – and nothing of any significance.

The scar on my chest from neck to navel and the chemo port in my left shoulder should have given the game away but, unbelievably, he stethoscoped me with my tee-shirt on.

A test of my vision and a few exercises in co-ordination, and that was my lot. I’m fit to drive a 44-tonne artic or a bus on the public highway. And if that’s an example of a medical undergone by every other lorry or bus driver in France, then God help the average motorist.

Being out early, I had plenty of time to kill. And so I went for a wander around the town.

Coutances is a Roman town, named for the Emperor Constantine, but was destroyed by the Vikings in 866, the French in the 12th Century (Normandy was an independent Duchy until 1204), the Huguenots in the 16th Century, the town planners in the 18th Century and the Royal Air Force and American Air Force on 6th June 1944 and a couple of days thereafter.

And so there are traces of ruins here and there about the place, and you can’t really identify them or say who it was who destroyed them.

But the Allies’ bombardments killed well over 300 civilians and there’s a monument to them at the back of the cathedral.

And I do have to say that I was very disappointed in this monument. I could have done something better and more powerful than this, and I expected to see at least a list of names of those who died.

But apparently not. And I can’t understand why

As for the cathedral itself, it remained surprisingly undamaged during the bombardment. Clearly, the Devil looks after his own.

But then again, it has suffered enough.

The first recorded church on the site (this isn’t of course to say that there weren’t earlier ones) dates from about 430, and the story goes that a heathen temple was cleared away to make the space.

This chirch was destroyed in the Viking raids, and when the town was reoccupied at the beginning of the 11th Century, construction of the cathedral began.

When the French took over from the Normans, they completely redesigned the cathedral and what wasn’t demolished was hidden by their modifications.

The interior of the Cathedral is nothing much to write home about.

I was expecting something spectacular give the cathedral’s fame as one of the favourite churches of William the Conqueror and as a pilgrimage venue, but it’s nothing like that at all.

It’s actually quite spartan ad even the stained glass windows are nothing like as flambouyant as you might expect.

The cathedral is the “Cathedral Notre Dame” – the Cathedral of Our Lady, and so ypu might be forgiven for expecting to see statues of Mary and Jesus all over the place.

But you’ll be very disappointed, because I couldn’t see any statue of any significance.

And as for the Chemin de la Croix, we’ve seen some exotic symbolisation on our travels, but here, there were just a few notices with numbers written thereupon – no paintings or statues at all.

The Twon Hall across the square though is certainly splendid and does the town a great deal of credit.

I’ve no idea when it was built, but a great deal of civic construction took place in the period of the “Second Empire”, so it’s quite possible that it dates from that period – the third quarter of the 19th Century.

The fountai in front of it was rather disappointing though. I was expecting much more than that.

I’m not sure how much the town hall was damaged by the bombings of June 1944, but you can tell that the surrounding area was pretty badly hit.

You’ll notice the building on the left – the row of shops with flats over the top (this is actually a hotel here). Go to any French town that was badly damaged during the war and you’ll see this style of building in every town centre.

Designed by architects such as Louis Arretche, they were designed to be thrown up in a matter of a couple of days to bring back the life into the town centres as quickly as possible, and they’ve withstood the pressure of time rather well.

At 10:00 I was outside the mobile phone repairer’s, and at least, they decided to have a look at it. And that’s progress. They would call me back.

I went for a coffee and then to do some shopping. Apart from the usual stuff that I need, I found a cheap shop and bought some stationery and also a new dash-cam – for just €11:95. I already have one but I don’t like it much – it’s big and obtrusive but it will do to take to Canada and install in Strider. The new little one, I’ll put in Caliburn.

They called me back bang on midday. They couldn’t get it to work so could I come by and pick it up?

Not until 14:00 after lunch so I grabbed a baguette and some stuff to go on it and had a quiet relax in the rain.

There’s an Orange shop in the town so I went in to see what they had. Strangely, they didn’t want me to browse the stock, but they would give me a “special deal”. They would knock 50% off one of their phones for me and let me have it at … errr … €349.99.

Quite.

Down the hill at the repairer’s, they also tried to fix me up with a deal. And while it might have bee more attractive, it wasn’t that attractive. So they suggested I try a phone laboratory in Saint-Lô who might be able to repair mine.

But when my new UK credit card arrives (I posted off all of my letters this morning too) I have another idea.

Having done all of that I came home, to find that yet another problem has arisen at the Bank. I’m not saying too much now, but I’m going out tomorrow to buy a pick-axe handle and I shall deal with the issues in the traditional manner by impressing my message into the skull of the bank manager in Morse Code with the aforementioned.

Having exerted myself quite a lot today, I crashed out for a couple of hours too. And I’m not surprised. And then it was tea. Microwaved potatoes with home-made burger in a bun from the batch at Liz’s, and vegetables. delicious it was too.

And then it was walkies. Around the headland.

And that was where I should have been had I been able to exert myself the other day. At the football. And Granville won too – 3-2 in extra time. Just 16 clubs left now in the Cup and I wonder who they’ll draw in the next round.

Rest assured – I’ll be camping out at the ground the night before and I’ve asked if, if the match is “away”, whether there will be any buses running.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve done over 100% of my daily activity target and that’s enough for today. All 1560 words of it.

Saturday 20th January 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… 24 hours I’ve had.

It all started to go wrong round about this time last night when I was thinking about going to bed. Never mind not being tired enough to go to sleep, I wasn’t even tired enough to go to bed – and that’s a surprise after everything that I did yesterday.

Instead I sat on the sofa, read some stuff on the internet and listened to a continual stream of Led Zeppelin until about 03:30.

Going to bed after that although still not in the mood, but I must have gone to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels again. But it’s another one that you won’t want to know anything about if you are eating your tea or have a nervous disposition.

But nevertheless, I was awake at about 06:00 before going back to sleep again – and a very tired and sad me hauled itself out of bed at some time later than the alarm.

After the medication and breakfast I had a shower and then hit the town – rather later than intended. I did the usual round of the shops and the only thing that I bought as an extra was a spectacle repair kit for €5:00. That’s important because it has lots of little stuff in it that will come in handy for dismantling this smartphone and seeing it I can fix the touchscreen.

However, firstly I didn’t spend a centime in NOZ and that’s only happened once or twice over the past seven or so years. There was nothing of any interest at all. In fact, I’ve been noticing that their prices are slowly creeping up and it’s nothing like the bargain basement that it used to be.

And secondly, no tickets for the football on Tuesday night. I tried at LeClerc, the stadium, the ticket agency and a couple of Sports bars. Not a one. And that’s surprising because the opponents, Concarneau, are only one division higher than Granville – it’s not at all like Bordeaux.

Back here, after lunch I found that I had forgotten to put on my fitbit after my shower. So that was a whole morning’s effort unrecorded. And I had so much to do too but instead, I crashed out completely and was gone into a really deep sleep for a couple of hours. 17:15 when I awoke.

There was football this evening at Cérences so off I set in the torrential rainstorm, only to find the stadium in total darkness. That’s not really surprising with all of the rain that we have had. A waterlogged pitch is inevitable.

So I had a quick drive around a couple of other grounds and they were all in darkness to so I came home and had tea.

The rain subsided later so I went for a walk around the walled town, keeping to the cobbled streets so as not to sink in the mud.

So now I’ll be off to bed if I can tire myself out enough. And Sunday is a lie-in and Day of Rest. But I doubt if I shall be able to have one. I’m not doing too well right now.

Thursday 18th January 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… such a good, exciting day today as it was yesterday.

It started to go wrong when I went to bed last night and found that, once more, I couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning for much of the night and waking up bolt-upright part-way through.

Mind you, I had been on my travels during the night but you don’t want me to tell you about them. You’re probably eating your tea or something. It’s what probably awoke me too.

When the alarm went off I managed to crawl out of bed at a reasonable time thereafter, and after the medication and breakfast I had a shower. And SHOCK! HORROR! I did a machine-load of washing, including the bedclothes. Tonight I’ll have brand-sparkling-clean covers on the bed and won’t that be luxury?

But no chance of going out. The rain was back, and in spades too. I really didn’t fancy the walk up to LIDL in this kind of weather.

I’m not really sure where the morning went, because I don’t recall doing anything much. It wasn’t as if the washing took all that much time. It was actually 14:00 when I noticed that it was lunchtime.

After lunch, checking my e-mails, I found that I had had a reply from the French Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés. I had sent them an e-mail to ask them where I could find the two documents that I need for Tuesday. They sent me a link, but that wasn’t the answer and I had to spend a good hour or so exploring the site before I found them.

They are not at all called what the Doctor told me that they were called at all, but they correspond to the description. And so I downloaded them.

And then they needed to be printed.

It took a while to sort out this mains connection but it seems to work now, which is good news. But the next issue is trying to make the thing function. The drivers aren’t loaded onto this laptop and I don’t seem to have brought the disk with me.

And so I had to track down an installation disk image on-line and download it – only 255mb of it and that took an age. And then set it up.

And much to my surprise it actually worked and I was able to print off the documents.

While it was doing all of that I did some more sorting out of papers and all of those are ready for a good examination in due course.

The weather had cleared up by now so I went for my little walk around the headland again.

And there’s yet more excitement in the port today. Part of the port area is tidal and this is where some of the yachts and smaller fishing boats tie up, and ground out at low tide.

But there’s a digger out there just now working away. On what, I have no idea but it’s interesting to say the least. I shall have to go back tomorrow for another look.

Back here, i made myself a coffee. But I didn’t drink it though. I crashed right out and was gone for over an hour. A really deep sleep too and I felt quite feeble when I awoke.

Not too feeble though to have a session on the bass guitar again. And this time, one of the things that I was working on was “Orgone Accumulator” – the Hawkwind track that I played when I was with Mike Allen and one or two others whose names I forget. After all, it is over 40 years ago.

For tea I tried some pasta and managed to eat it all although it took some time.

But the walk was a bit of a disaster. I hadn’t gone 400 yards before the heavens opened and I was drenched to the skin. NO point in risking double-pneumonia so I came back home.

So here’s hoping for a better night, and a better day tomorrow. But at the moment I don’t feel like it at all.

Tuesday 16th January 2018 – I HAVE MET THE WEIRDEST …

… mobile phone “repairer” the world has ever seen.

And it wasn’t easy either.

The bad night hadn’t helped much though. I was asleep quite quickly but awoke halfway through and counldn’t go back to sleep for ages. When I finally did, the alarm didn’t have the desired effect and it took me a good half-hour to haul myself out of bed.

Medication followed by breakfast, a shower, change of clothes and a good clean-up, and then I was ready for the town.

The howling gale and driving rain was enough to dampen anyone’s ardour, and might have done mine too, except that I was distracted.

We seem to have acquired overnight a crane and a pile of containers down at the port. What does this mean?

We had all of this dredging just before Christmas to deepen the harbour, so are we going to have a small container ship coming in? Or is there something else happening about which I know nothing.

That wasn’t the only excitement either.

The farces of law and order were out there blocking off the street while a cherry-picker went down there taking down all of the Christmas decorations now that the festive season is over.

No diversions signposted of course. The police were just waving away passing motorists who then had to find their own way around.

I found my way to the mobile phone repairer’s only to find, as regular readers of this rubbish will be expecting, a sign “open at 14:00”. It’s certainly not going to be, is it?

So I decamped to the Library for a duplicate card, only to find that that was closed too, with all of the people inside staring at me as if I had come from another planet.

I gave it up as a bad job and, picking up another baguette to freeze, came back home.

But as I climbed slowly and wearily back up the hill, I was once again distracted by activity in the harbour. The boat that does the pleasure trips out to the Ile de Chausey and round the Baie de Mont St Michel had just returned from somewhere.

And it doesn’t half make a racket as well. It nearly knocked me off my feet.

And we can’t conclude our morning’s walk without once more discussing parking.

Here are some more fines example of total and utter selfishness. The little Nissan was there last night straddling two parking places, so this morning there’s a car parked in front of it likewise straddling two spaces, and a car behind it straddling a disabled parking bay.

It’s hard to imagine anything more selfish than this and it really annoys me.

Back here, I crashed out for half an hour. Gone with the wind, you might say. Yes, I’ve still not recovered from my illness.

For lunch I finished off the soup and then repaired the saucepan lid. I had to cut down a screw that was in the package that I had bought, but now the lid looks really good with the black plastic remains of the old handle carefully equalled off and a chrome drawer handle to match the chrome decoration.

I suppose that I should have taken a photo of it because it looked so good – but I can do that tomorrow.

After all of that it was back through the wind and rain again to the mobile phone place where I had my bizarre encounter.

He was actually open, and there too. But he may well not have been, for all the good that he was doing.

The lady in the queue in front of me wanted her charging port on her tablet repairing. “But it’s not worth the expense. You’ll be better off buying another”.
“But all of my data is on it”
Well, you’ll still be better off with a new one, sorry”.
I mean – what kind of talk is that?

Then it was my turn. And it wasn’t any better.
“It might be your screen. That will cost about €100 and if it isn’t I’ll have to ty a few other things, so you will have wasted your €100 then. And then even if I do get it to work it will have cost you a lot of money, and I won’t be able to guarantee the repair”.

So what kind of “repairer” is this? Turning away work because he doesn’t want to (or, more likely, isn’t able to) do it?

And intending to charge me for supplying and fitting a new screen even if that isn’t the fault? It’s all total nonsense. I’ll wait until I go to Belgium and have some back-street repairer in Brussels have a look at it.

While I was there, I sorted out my library card (the library is just across the road) and then staggered back home once again where I took it really easy for the rest of the afternoon. Climbing up the hill twice in one day is not good for me right now.

Tea was superb. Rice with fresh carrots and frozen peas, with a green pepper stuffed with bulghour, tomato, onion, garlic, curry powder and tarragon in olive oil and cooked in the microwave. All covered in gravy.

That was just soooooo nice – a real culinary delight.

Just a little walk tonight – the howling wind and rain would be enough to put everyone off.

So I’m off to bed. I’m hoping for a better night tonight, and a better day tomorrow. I shan’t be doing very much, except recovering from my efforts today and cursing this incompetent “repairer”.

Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… to be able to watch the football on the big screen?

Unfortunately the laptop with the broken screen didn’t work – it’s quite an old laptop of course and the software in it won’t run the video plug-in for the browser.

But the laptop that I’ve been using as a media centre up until recently did the business, that’s for sure, and I was able to watch the first half of Cefn Druids v Llandudno in perfect comfort.

Unfortunately it wasn’t such a perfectly comfortable night? I was awake in the middle of the night and took a while to go back to sleep again. But I was dead to the world when the alarm went off and it was a struggle to leave the bed. How I’m looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow!

After breakfast I had a shower, a good clean-up and change of clothes, and then off to the shops, where I spent another pile of money.

LIDL had some hand towels of the type that I bought the other day so a pack of three disappeared into Caliburn, as did a battery charger. All of mine are back at the farm and in any case are over 30 years old. A little hi-tech modern one will do much better when I might need it.

At Mr Bricolage I bought a knob for my saucepan lid – the one on which I broke the handle the other day, and NOZ came up with the usual stuff.

Centrakor provided a new washing-up bolw of the correct size (so my wok and my pizza platter will fit into it), a few other bits and pieces and a box with a tight-fitting lid – just the thing in which to keep my socks and undies.

At LeClerc I went to look at the HDMI cables because the one-metre cable that I have isn’t really long enough for what I need. And with -metre ones on offer at just €9:99, that’s long enough for just about everything.

LeClerc was also having a sale on suitcases. And a small cabin-sized one on wheels at just €15:99 – just the thing for my trips to Leuven – also ended up in the back of Caliburn.

And I’m glad that I had bought that TV last weel, because there wasn’t a cheap one anywhere to be seen in the shop.

After fuelling up, I came back home, made myself some soup and then … errr … had a little rest for half an hour. And then cracked on with organising the shopping and sorting out another pile of papers. There’s actually some room in the drawers here now, and isn’t that astonishing?

At the end of the football I had to leave.

Caliburn and I went off to Cérences where we were the other week.

It’s the nearest Saturday night match and the home side were playing the Mouettes of Donville.

The first half was all one-way traffic towards the Donville goal. But the Donville keeper put in a performance that neither he nor I will ever forget, including a magnificent “Banks” reverse save. It was the performance of a lifetime and I don’t think that I’ve seen better.

At the start of the second half Donville made two substitutions and the two players that came on, playing down the left, changed the balance of the game and we had a much more even contest.

However it didn’t last. The new left winger had clearly unsettled the defenders and after about 25 minutes he was on the receiving end of a bad challenge and limped off the field. We then went back to the one-sided match that we had in the first half.

The Donville keeper was finally beaten with just 10 minutes to go – a long-range shot that dipped and curled out of his reach and in underneath the angle of the post and crossbar – but he still made a couple more top-class saves to make the result look a lot closer than it deserved.

But there was a lot of naughty stuff going on in this game about which the referee didn’t seem at all concerned. One Cérences player made two tackles in as many minutes, either of which merited a red card in my opinion but nothing was given. And so a minute or two later a Donville player exacted his own retribution by giving him a kick that would have felled an ox. No card for that either.

And that’s just a couple of examples. There were many more.

So, frozen to the marrow, I drove back here and now I’m going to bed.

A nice lie-in, I hope. I deserve it.

Tuesday 9th January 2018 – THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS!

Following the exciting events of my trip to Belgium the other week I need to apply for a new driving licence.

This isn’t going to be easy – in fact it’s flaming well complicated because it all has to be done on line these days and I’ve been putting it off for a while. But it needs to be done so I’ve bitten the bullet and made a start.

All kinds of different documents are required so this morning I set to work.

Firstly you need a photograph. And not any old photograph either but a digital photograph loaded onto the ANTS (The Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés) database with a serial number. You can’t do this yourself – you need a certified photographer who has access to the database.

Having made the appropriate enquiries the other day at the Driving School, I went off up there and eventually tracked him down. It took 5 minutes and, €20:00 poorer, I left clutching a pile of photographs and more importantly, the serial number of my photograph in the National database.

Back here, rather tired after my walk, I had a look at what else is needed.

Most importantly, I need to open an account with ANTS. And so I set to work on that. Eventually, that was up and running too. It took a while, with everything that I needed to enter.

Once that was done, I needed to make my application for a duplicate licence.

To replace a licence that is lost or stolen, you need a copy of the declaration made to the police. That was what I obtained the other day when I was out on the town. With no scammer handy, I took a photo of it and uploaded it it to the laptop. So I could add that to my file.

Next is a proof of address. This is going to be complicated because I no longer live at the address to which it was issued and any proofs of address that I have for there have long-expired.

Ordinarily I would have edited the date without batting an eyelid – we have the technology – but times have changed over the last 25 years and the French judiciary is not noted for its benevolence. There’s a space to add “additional documents” but only in *.jpg or similar format, so I typed a letter of explanation, took a screen print and saved it as an image. And attached that.

Then I needed a National identity document. Luckily I had scanned my passport when I received it a few years back, so that was no problem.

All that remains now is to pay for it, and to do that you can buy a stamp on-line with a credit card – €25:00 this will cost me. And so I attacked that too – almost done now!

But you wouldn’t believe it. Or, knowing me as you do, maybe you would.

I boked the stamp and went to pay for it. The bank needed to send a confirmatory code for me to enter so I waited.

And waited.

And I tried again.

And waited

And waited.

In the end, Liz sent me a text. Which I didn’t receive. So while I was clutching the phone in my hot sweaty mitt, she sent another one.

And a brief error message flashed up – “your mailbox is full. Please delete unwanted mails”.

There are all of 18 mails in my inbox so I went to delete them. And if that isn’t a complicated procedure I don’t know what is. It took ages, but they’ve all gone.

So Liz sent me yet another – with the same error message. This just can’t be right

There must be a hidden message box xomewhere on the ‘phone and can I like as hell find it. I had a look on the internet to see if that is of any help, but I seem to be one of a thousand people with the same problem. It’s an old Samsung Young S5360 so it’s not too much of a surprise.

But to fall at the final, easiest fence like this after having done al of the hard work is a real tragedy.

Anyway, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and galvanises us into action.

I’ll be in town on Thursday morning so I’ll go to Orange and see what they have to say about all of this. And I’ve also found a phone repairer in the vicinity. You’ll remember that I had an HTC smartphone that fell into a bucket when I was ill in Verdun. I managed to make it fire up but the keyboard didn’t work, so I’ll take that in on Thursday to see if it can be fixed.

GRRRRRRRR!

I’d had a reasonable sleep too last night, and was up and about shortly after the alarm. After breakfast I had a shower and a general clean-up and cut mu hair too. And a machine-load of washing turning away while I was in town.

But apart from that I didn’t have much time for anything else. Half an hour on the guiter again but struggling to keep awake while I was doing it.

Three meals again – breakfast, soup for lunch and for tea I had mashed potato and a frozen curry that I had made a while ago. Delicious it was too.

And I went for another walk in the rain this evening.

But now it’s bed-time. And I’ve earned it. I’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

EPIC HALL

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