Tag Archives: pontoon

Thursday 9th May 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes yet again.

All the way to LIDL and all the way back this morning, and I forgot my fitbit, didn’t I?

And I can’t blame being tired either, because I’d been to bed early and had a reasonably decent sleep.

Off on my travels too. I’d been staying in a hotel somewhere in a small town near Commentry with a couple of people and we’d been out looking for food. Eventually we came across a place that did couscous take-aways so we went and bought something from there. A while later I was back living in Les Guis so I had the idea of going back there to ask if they ever might need a delivery driver on occasions. I had to go home and print off a CV and I thought that while I was at it I’d print off a few extra copies and hand them out at similar places on the way. But the area was nothing like where I lived. It reminded me of the downhill slope of the road out of Clermont Ferrand past Vulcania and out to St Ours.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite beat the final alarm, but it wasn’t far away. And after breakfast and a shower and general clean-up I headed for the shops.

You can tell that it’s election time very shortly.

The council has special poster boards that it erects at strategic places just before any election, and competing parties can paste their posters up on there instead of defacing the walls and doors of buildings.

It seems to work quite well, and helps to keep the place tidy.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special at all, but at least the walk did me good and that’s the whole point of doing it.

Back here, I started to put everything away but my attention was distracted by some goings-on on the car park at the back.

It looks as if there’s some kind of meeting of driving schools going on in the public rooms. There are about a dozen driving school cars parked out there.

No idea what is going on though.

Back at work, I had a busy morning. Back in December 2013 I’d been to Clermont-Ferrand and ended up in the war cemetery there where I’d seen a few war graves.

Something about it had piqued my interest today so I spent a couple of hours doing some research into the incidents that led to the deaths;

Surprisingly there’s a lot of information available on the internet, including contemporary press cuttings and photos, and so I was able to edit the page to include an enormous amount of factual information.

We were interrupted by lunch, of course, taken indoors yet again due to the high winds. I’ve spoken to a couple of neighbours today and we’ve all been saying that the Spring this year is much colder than usual.

Having updated the page from Clermont-Ferrand, I attacked the photos from my 2015 trip to Canada. All of October 2015, all of September 2015 and half of August 2015 are now collated to the dictaphone notes by the time I stopped for tea. It’ll probably be finished tomorrow with a bit of luck.

There was the usual interruption for the afternoon walk in the wind.

And you can see just how windy it was by looking at the whitecaps on the waves down there

There was even someone out here wrestling with a kite, trying to make it stay aloft in the gale. He was having endless fun but I can’t say that he was particularly successful.

And I was shaken out of my complacent reverie by a rattle from overhead.

Someone in the area has had his chopper out this afternoon, because the helicopter went flying by overhead. It’s painted yellow with a red stripe and that makes me think that it’s the air-sea rescue helicopter.

It’s impossible to say whether or not it’s been out on a mission, or whether it was just a training flight.

Having had a day off yesterday for the Bank Holiday, the workmen were back today at the site of the new war memorial to the Heroes of the Resistance.

By the looks of things, they were installing shuttering along the edges of where that had dug out and laid gravels.

I hope that this doesn’t mean that they are going to concrete it over. I’ll use concrete because I’m no good at paving, but I’m sure the Council can do better than that. The paved path that they just dug up was quite well-done.

So I continued on my walk around the headland at the Pointe du Roc and had a quick glance at the Coastguard station to see if there was anything exciting going on.

There was someone out there on a ladder cleaning a piece of equipment. I’m not sure what it was though, whether it’s a CCTV camera or a siren or something.

But the concrete bunker underneath, that is roughly in the position which would correspond to where a mast anchored by that concrete cable-stay would be positioned.

Round now at the chantier navale to see what’s going on.

We seem to have acquired a different yacht today, the little one with the pale blue superstructure to the right of Grand Beau Temps.

The big pontoon dredger from the Vendee, St Gilles Croix de Vie is still down there and there seems to be someone working on her right now.

Further on around the footpath we can see down over into the harbour, and tied up to its quayside is our old friend Thora

She wasn’t down there in the harbour this morning when I went past on my way to LIDL, so she must have come in on the lunch-time tide.

And given the rather sharp turn-rounds these days, I wonder how long she’ll be staying

I came back here for my mug of hot chocolate and my brazil nuts and then continued on attacking the photos, with an interruption to wish Rosemary a “happy birthday”.

Tea was steamed veg and falafel with vegan cheese sauce. And I do have to say that it was the most delicious that I have ever made. I could eat that again – probably next week too for the second helping of falafel.

The apple pie and coconut sorbet that washed it down was delicious too.

Back outside for my evening walk again, and despite the wind it was another pleasant evening.

And another evening where the colours were totally beautiful too and they have come out really well in this photo of the beach at Plat Gousset at Donville-les-Bains.

You can see how strong the wind is by looking at the waves. Tons of white caps and the waves are quite strong. Just imagine the power in those waves there, waiting to be harvested.

And I wasn’t the only one out there enjoying the weather either.

There was a group of young people down there having a beach party and watching the sun slowly sink down to the horizon. It’s the kind of thing that takes me back 50 years.

As long as they were out of the wind they would be fine down there. It wasn’t quite so pleasant up here though on the walls.

A few days ago, I noticed a pair of seagulls up to no good in broad daylight on the roof of a house across the road.

And even more recently the gulls have been diving down to pick up the grass offcuts that the council had been cutting.

And now we know what is going on, don’t we? It’s nesting time and it won’t be long before we start seeing the baby seagulls staggering around on the roofs of the houses.

Just a final check in the harbour on the way home.

And Thora is still in the harbour, complete with her shipping container on board. Obviously the turn-round today isn’t that quick;

And round the corner I met the old lady who is Minette’s “mother”. We had quite a lengthy chat about cats, and even Minette came out to join in, although she remained rather aloof.

So back here and I don’t really feel like all that much. I’m going to have an early night and I’ll do the rest of this tomorrow morning.

helicopter pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 7th May 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… start to the day today.

Last night I told you that it might be rather late before I went to bed. But 01:00 was rather ridiculous.

As a result I totally ignored the alarms that went off, and it was almost 09:00 when I finally arose from the Dead.

I’d been on my travels as well. It was wartime and we were in Paris. Our task was to free Paris from the Germans. We’d formed these underground cells and one or two of these were confining these Germans to some kind of castle on a pinnacle separated from a rocky spur by a huge chasm. A red and white electricity pylon had been blown up and had fallen across the gap, and it was expected that the rest of the resistance would charge across it. I was summoned up for my troop and they were going to come and join me and said that all of the resistance would be ready for this attack. But when my troop turned up they were playing football – there was a football match going on. They started to pass the ball to me and I thought that we were supposed to be fighting, not playing football.
And that wasn’t everything either, but the rest of the story is not fit for human consumption, especially if you are eating your tea.

As you might expect, it was a very slow morning and it took me almost until lunchtime to attend to last night’s dictaphone entries and to organise yesterday’s photos. And there weren’t all that many of them either.

But later on, I managed to up the pace somewhat and by the time that I’d finished for tea the outstanding dictaphone notes have been reduced to a mere 65.

This was of course the period when I was falling seriously ill so it’s hardly surprising that although I had actually transcribed the notes for my 2015 trip, they were never connected up with the images. So as one task draws on to a conclusion, another one rears its ugly head.

There had been several pauses and interruptions too.

I tidied up all of the empty bottles and cartons and took them down to the rubbish bins, where I was detained for a chat by one of my neighbours for a while. She had a lot to say for herself.

Lunch of course, taken indoors yet again. And the hummus that I made the other day is delicious.

There was of course the usual afternoon walk.

And not too many people around either because the weather looks as if it’s on the turn. That must be keeping people indoors.

I certainly didn’t want to be out there on the beach on a day like this. It wasn’t very peasant.

But there are people who clearly don’t think like me, or else they are made of sterner stuff.

There was a couple sitting down there on the bench at Cap Lihou by the old medieval sentry-box. They were quite clearly enjoying the cold wind, the spray and the smell of the ozone.

And good luck to them too. They deserve it, and probably need it too.

As I have said on several occasions recently, we seem to be having more and more trawlers out here in the bay.

Despite the miserable weather this afternoon, this photo came out quite well, all things considered. It’s a trawler working away out there just off the north of the Ile de Chausey.

We’ve seen a few trawlers working out there just recently. I wonder if this means that the fishing shoals have changed their swimming pattern

There’s another change of inhabitants at the Chantier Navale today.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the yellow pontoon that appeared in the harbour a couple of weeks ago after the core driller left.

It seems that they have now pulled it out of the water and it’s up here having things done to it.

I’ll go dow tomorrow and have a close look at it and see what it’s supposed to be and what’s going on

Back here I carried on with the dictaphone notes, and had another lengthy chat with Rosemary. And by the time that I’d finished ready for tea, I realised that I had forgotten my shower today.

Tea was a stuffed pepper and rice followed by the apple pie and some of that coconut sorbet, which was delicious.

And then off for my evening walk around the walls.

For a little experiment I took the new monopod with me and gave it a try. There was plenty of activity still out there in the English Channel so I gave it a try with the camera.

It’s not as steady as I was hoping for, but it has to be an improvement on hand-held long exposures in the half-light.

aAnd round the other side, I was distracted by a noise coming from the harbour.

It seems that Victor Hugo has been out on a run to the Channel Islands and had just come back, judging by the crowds at the ferry terminal.

She had unloaded her passengers and has now come into the inner harbour to tie up. She’ll stay moored here until she goes out again.

And still no sign of the new ship Granville that is to replace her. She was here the early part of last summer but had a breakdown and I haven’t seen her since, although according to her AIS signals she was in here a few times late last year.

So now I’m looking forward to an early night. I really ought to have one and a good sleep too. Last night’s fiasco I’ll put down to taking tomorrow’s bank Holiday one day in advance.

So an early start tomorrow.

trawler ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel brittany coast granville manche normandy france

working on monument de la resistance pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

yachts trawlers english channel granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 – I REMEMBER SAYING …

… yesterday to Ingrid that I was feeling probably better than I have been feeling for quite some time.

And so it’s no surprise whatever to learn that today I’d had a relapse.

Last night was nothing like as early as I was hoping and it was something of a disturbed night. Nevertheless there was enough time to go for something of a ramble. There were two schools in London. Both originated from the same family who owned a wealthy sailing factory. One was a kind of prison or reform school and the other was an upper-class school and everyone was always getting the two mixed up about who went where. The guy who was chairman of the Board of Governors at the wealthy school was the sole surviving member of the family who founded it so some people thought that there might be a confilct of interest between the objectives of the school and the running of it. The school was running through some kind of financial issues. I don’t remember too much about it except that on one occasion the chairman was sitting there with his head in his hands doing a really fine impression of Quasimodo going “the bills! Ohh the bills!”.

Despite the bad night I was up before the final alarm went off, but I’ve somehow awoken with my bad throat and coughing fit again. It’s never-ending, isn’t it? And a certain medical condition that plagued me for a considerable while and then mysteriously disappeared has suddenly come back with a vengeance.

With having had an early start I was all fit for work and had a good crack at photocopying and sorting documents for my little visit tomorrow, stopping for a shower along the way.

There are a few papers missing but I can assemble quite a comprehensive folder full of documents;

The printer ran out of ink midway through but luckily I had bought some more when I bought the printer. It was something of a performance to make the cartridge fit because Epson doesn’t like you using non-original cartridges.

There was also time to have a crack at the dictaphone, and now all of the notes for Canada 2016 are transcribed. I’m about a third of a way through them now, but I won’t be as quick with the next batch as there are some substantial files in there.

Lunch was taken indoors today because the weather has clouded over and ran was looking likely.

Back at work I had to change my hospital appointment because I need it to be a week later. And then it was necessary to book my accommodation and travel. So all of that is done.

On my walk around the headland this afternoon I tried once more the new route that has just reopened.

I reckon that the older path is the diagonal line that runs bottom left to upper right across the centre of the image.

That looks as if it’s formerly a path on some kind of gider bridge but it looks as if it’s slipped out of position. The part at the head of the bend looks as if it’s been dug out quite recently. It’s not very wide at all.

having climbed all of the steps back up to the top, I walked along the path to have a look at the chantier navale.

There’s another new arrival in there today. She’s Notre Dame du Cap Lihou, the local lifeboat whom we have seen out and about in the sea now and again.

No idea what she’s up to in there and I won’t be able to find out either I suppose, because I don’t imagine that she will be in there for long.

For a few days now we’ve been seeing the little pontoon in the harbour taking core-drill samples of the sea bed to investigate its make-up.

That’s now gone and we have a different machine in there. So I wonder what that’s going to be up to.

But It’s not escaped my notice that in the background are objects that look suspiciously like floating walkways, and so the next step, I imagine, is to place them in the water and secure them to the quayside.

Back here I tried to crack on with the mountain of photos but I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t fight off the sleep on the chair, and in the end gave up and went to bed. I think that climbing all of the steps was what might have finished me off.

For a good 90 minutes I was right out of it and I awoke feeling like death.

Tea was a slice of giant pasty with potatoes and veg followed by a rice pudding.

The evening walk, accompanied part of the way by a group of boys from the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs, was agony but I needed to do it.

At the beach at the Plat Gousset he tide was coming in, and coming in quite quickly too. There was a lovely current rolling over the beach and swamping the tidal swimming pool.

It was quite an impressive sight. Such a shame that there was no-one else around to enjoy it. I was quite on my own out there once those boys had cleared off.

A little further on around the corner, I stopped for a while where the path around the walls overlooks the rue Paul Poirier.

The light was going quite rapidly so I took a photograph just as the street lights were coming on and illuminating the streets.

This will be probably the last photograph of street lights that I shall take on my evening walk until later in the year, unless I happen to be delayed in my plans for going out.

So back home now and I really am going to have an early night. Tomorrow is a big day so I need to be on form.

Friday 19th April 2019 – THERE’S NOTHING …

… like a good rice pudding for tea.

And that rice pudding that I had for tea this evening was nothing like a good rice pudding. I’m not sure what happened there. Maybe I didn’t put enough milk in it but it wasn’t as smooth and creamy as I would like it.

But there’s enough left over for the next couple of days so there’s a chance to improve it.

Last night’s sleep was somewhat better. Although I didn’t go off to bed early, I had a somewhat better sleep, even if I did awaken at about 07:00.

No chance of me leaving my stinking pit at that time though. 09:00 was much more like it.

Plenty of time to go on a ramble though. Last night I’d been invited to some kind of meeting at the Solar Energy Institute so I went along to some café-restaurant place and people were around there eating. My impression was that I had been invited to a meal too, and I was loaded up with a camera, telephone, laptop, notebook etc and I was desperately trying to do something on the laptop using just one hand before I could get to see this person. It too kme so much time that I was getting later and later, and I was 10 minutes late when I finished sending this document. I put everything down and sat at this table but no-one came so after 5 minutes I picked everything up and went to find the manager. I found that I had left the laptop behind, but I needed it as it had the name of this person on it. In the end I managed to locate the manager. He looked through the list of people on duty and said “it’s Katie” (or was it Kathy or similar?). But then he said “I’ve heard about you. You were camping out at that festival for a week and didn’t change your underwear” and made a gesture of holding his nose, which I found rather offensive because I had been washing my undies every day in the sink as I always do when I’m on the road. I went back into the restaurant and there was this girl sitting there with some small parcels. I thought that there can’t be anything for me, so I just sat down and had a look at the writing accompanying them, and it was mine. She approached me to confirm who I was, and satisfied, she undid these parcels which had some print work in, stuff that I had informally enquired about when I’d been at this festival. We began to discuss the festival and I made the point that it was one of those things that the people in the Auvergne had been organising, the same thing for 12 years and nothing has ever come of it. She said that this year it seemed to be really, really good. I replied that anything with Francois Carriatt involved in it couldn’t be really, really good. We had a lengthy discussion about how these people would start something with loads of enthusiasm but run out of steam before it got anywhere. The same old story every year for as long as I could remember. How all of the ex-pats would go along to help, full of enthusiasm but when they saw how it was all working out they all stopped going and left the locals to their mess and that was that. After a lengthy discussion she was telling me about the stage, to which I replied that I’d seen it al before. The discussion went round to selling things. How her parents used to sell tents, big heavy canvas ones but weren’t very good at it. They would take tents to camp sites and similar, and stick their tent next to the one they were selling and have a sign “tent for sale – see next door” but it never really worked. I said that this was a thing of the moment. People would come with their own sleeping arrangements and the only time that this was likely to change would be if there would be a torrential downpour in the middle of a festival when people who had been planning to sleep out would need shelter and then you could sell anything with no effort whatsoever

For breakfast I had, as well as the usual muesli, fruit juice and apple purée, a toasted hot cross bun. That was delicious too, I can tell you.

Today I’ve had a busy day, despite it being a Bank Holiday.

I started off by attacking the photos from my trip away. Quite a few had survived the short-circuiting of the memory card. and now they are all edited and uploaded.

I’ve also uploaded the photos that I took last night with the new 18.5mm f1.8 lens for the Nikon 1 J5.

Here’s one of them in its unadulterated glory. It’s simply compressed and not otherwise manipulated. And taken on totally automatic setting with no input whatsoever.

In fact, the images that I took in street lighting needed compensating because they were coming out too bright.

All in all though, I’m as impressed with this as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin.

The photos took me up to lunchtime, which I spent sitting on the wall outside in the glorious sunshine. The lizards haven’t found me yet, but the blackflies have.

The crane was there again, with a couple of pontoons by the look of it. And I now know their purpose because it was in the local newspaper this morning.

They are talking about replacing the floating walkways in the harbour, and they need to take core-drill samples of the seabed there to see what kind of anchorages would work best there.

I still can’t see why they hadn’t done it when they had the harbour drained out last winter.

This afternoon, in between falling asleep for 20 minutes and going for my afternoon walk, I attacked the dictaphone entries. All of them from my trip to Leuven and also another 8 from the backlog. another couple of months at this rate and it might all be done, ready for my next voyage, whenever and wherever that might be.

As for my walk, there were crowds out there today, enjoying the sunshine sitting and lying about on the beach.

There were even some people in the water enjoying themselves, for there were some who were braver than others.

Not for me of course. I’m well-known for having refused the swim in the Arctic Ocean just 100 miles from the North Pole.
“I have this catheter port in my chest”
“What would you do if you didn’t have the catheter port?”
“I’d have to think of another excuse”.

Tea tonight was a slice of my leek and tofu pie from last year, with baked potatoes, vegetables and gravy. It was delicious. And even though the rice pudding didn’t come out as it was supposed to, it was still enjoyable.

later on this evening I went out for my walk, and there were crowds of people enjoying the sunshine.

Wandering around the headland was a party of teenagers, and they were trying to speak English to the couple of people who were leading the group.

Other people were out and about cooking tea in their caravanettes (and I didn’t half give one woman a shock when I walked around the corner)

There were yet more people enjoying the beautiful weather sitting on the benches overlooking the sea, including this couple on the Cap Lihou by the old sentry box.

It was that kind of evening tonight – nice and warm with plenty of sun. It really made me happy to be out there and I sauntered off singing quite happily to myself

It’s been a while since I felt like that.

My reverie was distracted by Victor Hugo coming in from Jersey with a load of passengers. It was quite an impressive sight because she’s an impressive ship.

I’ve not seen her sister ship around for a while so maybe she’s still under repair. They bought her fairly new from a Swedish ferry company but she’s been giving nothing but trouble since she came here.

Something of a white elephant, she’s turned out to be.

And in the Chantier Navale we were back down to the two boats that have been there for a few weeks now. The two trawlers that were there yesterday have now been released.

Shopping tomorrow so I’m going to have an early night. And quite right too. I need to gather up my strength for my next vicissitudes.

la grande ancre buoys granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

victor hugo baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

victor hugo baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Thursday 18th April 2019 – BANE OF BRITAIN …

… strikes yet again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that last night I wasn’t feeling tired so I didn’t go to bed until late. Not that it would have mattered very much because I switched off the alarms on my telephone so I could have a lie-in – necessary when I’ve been on a trip back from Leuven.

The fact that I hardly slept at all during the night didn’t bother me too much either because I was going to have a nice long lie-in this morning.

And all went perfectly according to plan as well, right up until 06:00 when I was awoken bolt upright . Bane of Britain had apparently forgotten that before going to Leuven he had set up the back-up alarms just in case the main alarms failed to go off.

And so that was that.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 09:00 that I finally crawled out of bed. But it was rather a waste of three good hours.

After a rather late breakfast I had a shower and then later I set the washing machine off on a cycle. Dirty clothes have been building up all around here and they need to be sorted out.

And I’ve had another piece of devastatingly bad luck here. I took the memory card out of the Nikon 1 J5 and put it in the card reader – backwards. So now it’s shorted out the terminals and damaged the card.

Luckily I had copied some of them from my trip onto the portable laptop, but the ones from yesterday’s return trip and the previous evening’s walk have gone.

It always happens like this.

I couldn’t go off to the shops right then because I was expecting a delivery. And it finally turned up at 12:10.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I happened quite by chance to notice a second-hand Nikon I 18.5mm f1.8 lens that would be ideal for very-low-light conditions. I’d had a message to say that it would be delivered today.

What surprised me was that the price for which it was on sale was one of these unbelievable prices – less than a third of the new retail price. And so I didn’t really expect it to arrive at all. But here it is.

And I didn’t expect it to work either, but I gave it a quick try in here and it seems to do what it was supposed to. I’ll go and try it out in the dark outside later on tonight after dark and see what it can do.

Once I’d organised the camera lens, I headed out for a rather late visit to the shops.

However, I was delayed by some kind of activity in the harbour. They were out on their little pontoon again working away with their machinery.

It’s really intriguing, what is going on right now. I really ought to go down there one of these days and buttonhole the guys, in order to enquire as to what is going on.

Further on up the hill and into the avenue Aristide Briand just a short hop from LIDL, when my attention was drawn to this clever piece of urban engineering.

They were working on one of the parking spaces the other day, and now it seems that they have in fact been installing a couple of bicycle racks.

But I wonder about the purpose of the disabled parking sign just here. How are you going to manage to park a disabled person’s vehicle in there?

LIDL came up with nothing special except for a pack of jubilee clips. I don’t have any here and that’s not a very good situation in which to find myself.

But on my way home, my attention was diverted by the objects on display in an antique shop in the rue des Juifs.

This is a painting that is actually on display here for sale. It’s not been painted by a 4-year old, but by a mature adult painter, so we are informed, and if you want to buy it, it will cost you a grand total of $650, believe it or not.

The art critic Linda Merrill in her book ” target=”_blank”>Aesthetics On Trial recounts a delightful story where John Ruskin once criticised James McNeil Whistler’s painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket” by saying that he “never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face”.

Well, I never expected to hear one ask six hundred and fifty Euros for it either.

Lunch was on the wall in the glorious sunshine. it really was nice today outside.

The Pecheur de Lys was down there in the harbour, nestling on the mud because the tide had gone out.

No sign of my lizards though. I would have expected to have seen them by now. I hope that they all managed to survive the winter in hibernation. It’s not as if it was a really hard winter again.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking is a habitual feature on these pages.

This one takes some beating though. On a blind bend by a road jusntion, right by a “no waiting” sign and blocking off part of a zebra crossing, we have some stupid motorist stopped to talk to his friends.

I really don’t know what it is that goes through the heads of some of the people on this planet. I really don’t.

Back here, I crashed out for a while and then awoke to find that there was a football match on the internet this afternoon.

There’s an international Under-15 tournament taking place right now, and Wales had made it to the finals against Belgium. It was quite an exciting match, especially as Wales won 4-0 and you can see the goals here.

Mind you, it might have been a different matter had the Belgian keeper not conceded a penalty and been sent off for his pains.

Tea tonight was another helping of that shepherd’s pie with vegetables and gravy, followed by fruit salad and soya cream. Totally delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my eveing walk.

There were plenty of trawlers out and about out there tonight. And the two boats in the chantier navale have now been joined by two small trawlers undergoing repair.

There were also a fair few people out in the fine weather enjoying the evening air.

Later still, I went out for a walk again with the new lens to see what damage I can do with it.

And now I’ll be having another early night. It’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow so another lie-in, if I have remembered to switch off every alarm.

I’ll leave you to admire the rest of the photos. The ones in the dark were taken with the new lens.

pontoon port de granville harbour manche normandy france

trawlers baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

pecheur de lys port de granville harbour manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 rue du roc granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 donville les bains granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 place d’armes granville manche normandy france

nikon 1 18.5mm f1.8 port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Saturday 13th April 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

… footfest today.

We started off at the Stade Louis Dior this evening when US Granvillaise were playing Le Havre AC’s 2nd XI. And what a giant of a side hey turned out to be. The two centre-backs, the centre-forward and a couple of other outfielders must have been 6 feet at least, and the goalkeeper towered over everyone by a good head.

And not only that, the two centre-backs were absolutely excellent in the air and with Granville being without an effective cenre-forward (story of their life) they didn’t get a sniff from open play.

The match started off at a roaring pace, with Granville streaming forward in droves, but to no effect whatsoever although they did hit the bar on one occasion. But as the match progressed Le Havre came more into it and they must have had the fastest team down the flanks (wingers and full-backs) that I have ever seen.

But that was all to no avail too because fast though they might have been, they couldn’t cross a ball to save their lives so we never got to see how good in the air the centre-forward might have been. And in the end, he was taken off and replaced by someone smaller, faster and more direct.

But Granville took the lead after about 50 minute. The little n°10 had the ball at his feet and dribbled his way into the penalty area. He was going nowhere so he was just inviting someone to bring him down – and of course, someone duly obliged. Penalty for Granville, which was duly slotted away.

The fast guy up front scored an equaliser about 15 minutes later, but then with about 15 minutes to go, Granville won a free kick about 25 yards out. It was a beautiful ball over the wall and although the big keeper got his hand to it, he could only help it on its way into the net.

So at ling last, after about 10 matches, Granville finally win a game. They hung on against some desperate last-minute attacks and we were all relieved when the final whistle went.

Back at home, we had TNS playing Barry Town in the Welsh Premier League. No matter how good a part-time team might be, they can’t match the level of fitness of a full-time club and in almost every game you see, the last 15 minutes, when the part-timers run out of steam, areusually crucial.

And so it was today. Barry played well for the first 60 minutes. They couldn’t match the quality of TNS of course – no-one in the Welsh Premier League can, but at least they were keeping up and being 1-0 down wasn’t the end of the world. But they flagged badly at the end and at about 80 minutes, at 2-0 down, they had clearly thrown in the towel. They basically stopped playing and it was embarrassing to see how easy it became for TNS as they had no opposition out there.

The match finished 4-0 to TNS and they could have had four or five more had they really tried.

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night although it was still something of a struggle to rouse myself.

And after the usual morning procedure I did some work until about 09:00 when I headed into town.

No major shop today seeing as I’m heading off to Belgium tomorrow, so just a couple of things from the market.

Seizing the opportunity, I went to to harbour to see if the pontoon was there and if there was anyone around it who could tell me what was going on.

I was however totally out of luch. No-one about at all.

But all of the machinery was lying around on deck, and the nature of all of this is still mystifying me.

But the pipes on board would seem to give me some kind of clue. They look rather like core drill bits to me, but why would they be drilling into the bottom of the harbour.

After a prowl around the docks I had a prowl around the market. I picked up a nice baguette, but no baking apples anywhere so I shall have to wait for a while to make my apple pie. But I did have a joke with a vegetable stall-holder and dome Belgian clients about a Potatomat, which regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

My route home via the rue Paul Poirier was interrupted by yet another disgraceful example of bad parking.

There’s a parcels delivery van from France Express delivering parcels in the street, and he’s simply pulled up, on a busy Saturday morning too, right in the middle of the street.

And that’s notwithstanding the fact that there is a parking place available right at the side of where he’s stopped.

I went over to ask him if he needed any help in parking his van, because if he didn’t know how I would gladly do it for him, but he took no notice.

Back here I had a … errr … relax for a while before doing some more work, and then out on the wall for lunch.

During my sojourn on the walls, I was entertained by one of the Ile de Chausey ferries. It had gathered up a load of tourists and was heading off for an afternoon’s trip around the bay.

There was also a wedding taking place in the public rooms so there were crowds about and around all of the parking places.

Later, I attacked the dictaphone notes and shifted another big pile of those, before walking off to the football, where I spent most of the second half talking to an old man there.

So now it’s bed-time, even if I don’t feel much like it. I’m travelling tomorrow so I need to be at my best.

And I forgot my shower today. Ohhh dear.

l’iris de suze fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france

fishing boat port de granville harbour manche normandy france

ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Thursday 11th April 2019 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I haven’t been all that productive.

It didn’t help by not being out of bed until 07:30. I really need to get a grip these days before I miss a train or something.

Plenty of time during the night to go on a little voyage though. I was with Alvin last night and we were going through a pile of LPs that he had left. He wanted some of them copied, which meant playing and recording on blank records. I had a look through some of the stuff but there wasn’t anything there of any interest or importance as far as I was concerned, but he insisted on having it done. He told me that when it had been done the original records had to be taken to a certain place where I would get some money for it but the duplicates would be retained here. I shouldn’t take those as they would hand them back and cut down on his money. I said fair enough but it was a strange way to go about it. I couldn’t get the thing organised properly and made loads of mistakes trying to copy these albums but I carried on. While this was doing he was doing some calculations so I went to see what he was doing – “working 11 hours at $8:10 per hour”. I asked what it was and he replied that he was trying to work out if he could afford to be a policeman in Los Angeles. I said “not at $8:10 per hour! No-one could work for that”. He told me about all of the advantages he would receive and there was a fund to help out people who moved from a high-paid job to a low-paid job to make sure that their mortgages were paid. It all sounded quite precarious to me. But somewhere along the line, up in Neston I had an old house, on the roadside with newer houses build behind it. I was trying to find out how old it was but I wasn’t being very serious with my enquiries but I don’t remember very much about this.

After breakfast I had a shower and prettied myself up, and then set the washing machine off on a cycle. One of the things that I did was to put new bedding on the bed and wash the previous bedding. The stuff that was on it was on the verge of walking into the washing machine all on its own.

And then I headed off into town for the shopping.

And I was surprised to see, amongst the boats that were waiting to leave the harbour when the gates open, this particular boat.

I’m almost certain that it’s the boat that was up on blocks in the chantier navale for a couple of weeks being resprayed and painted. She looks as if she’s off on her travels now.

And despite having all of this massive array of scaffolding erected on the wall higher up, they are still working away at the base of the walls moving away all of the loose rock.

The machine that they are using is quite impressive. It’s a little mini-digger with a hydraulic breaker on the jib of it.

It’s breaking off all of the loose rock which is then being shovelled up into a skip which you can see in the foreground.

It’s quite busy down in the harbour this morning too.

We have La Granvillaise moored up at the quay where Marité usually hangs out, and Thora is still there too, but she’s moved berth over to where the gravel boats tie up.

That’s because Normandy Trader has come into port, presumably on the early morning tide. They are already loading her up too, so clearly they don’t intend to hang about.

On the way up the hill in the rue Couraye I noticed a really old man with a very interesting machine.

In there is a grinding wheel worked by a foot treadle rather like an old-fashioned sewing machine in the pre-electric days, and he seems to be sharpening knives with it.

It’s really nice to see a good old-fashioned artisan peddling … “groan” – ed … his craft on the streets even today. There ought to be more of it, I reckon.

LIDL didn’t come up with much so I headed off for home, picking up a baguette on the way.

The gates of the harbour were now open and boats were leaving the port, including this fishing boat. Quite a few had already left, including Thora and Normandy Trader.

While Thora was in and out in 24 hours, the latter had an even quicker turn-round. I was right about her not intending to hang about in the harbour. They must be really busy just now.

It makes me wonder when I was saying last year that I hadn’t seen them for quite a while. I just reckon that their turn-round must have been so quick that I must have missed it.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the harbour, the men were out there again on their pontoon.

It’s quite a mystery to me what they are doing out there. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about 18 months ago they drained the harbour completely and dredged it out. So there can’t be much in there that needs checking.

I shall have to make enquiries at the port office next time I’m down there. Maybe they will tell me.

Back here I had a drink and a sit down, and then hung out the washing to dry. Once that was done I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but had to knock off for lunch.

Even though it was rather windy out there, it was such a beautiful warm afternoon. And so i took my butties outside and sat on my wall overlooking the harbour.

And I was in luck this afternoon too. One of the ferry boats that does the run to the Ile de Chausey was coming into harbour. She’d obviously been on a little outing earlier this morning as there was quite a crowd of people.

She pulled up at her mooring at the ferry terminal and then unloaded all of her passengers.

And then much to my surprise, she collected up another load of passengers, and then headed off out again into the Baie de Mont St Michel.

And with her having her back turned towards me, I could see that she’s the Joly France. Her sister is tied up in the harbour.

Of course, it shouldn’t really be any surprise that she’s busy. It’s school holidays in Granville of course and all of the kids are at a loose end and will be for next week too.

And so we can can expect to see much more of the Ile de Chausey ferries out and about then while the kids are off school.

The Ile de Chausey ferries aren’t the only things out there right now.

There’s an old sailing ship or, rather, a large yacht out there too. From what I could see of her, I think that she’s the Lys Noir.

We haven’t seen all that much of her just recently, so it’s nice to see her back. In fact, I’m wondering whether she might have been the sailing boat out there the other day that I thought was the Charles-Marie

Butties having been eaten, I came back and had another marathon session on the dictaphone notes.

Now I’m back into my notes for my trip around Labrador in 2017 which is good news. That’s good news because when that’s finished I can tie up the photos to the text and make a start on those web pages too.

Later on, I went out for my afternoon walk as usual. Today, it was around the Pointe-du Roc.

It was such a beautiful day and the haze was farther out than it has been just recently, so i could tke a really good photograph of the Baie de Mont St Michel and St Pair sur Mer just across on the other side.

And I was really impressed today with the colour of the sea today. Fr the last few weeks it’s been a murky grey colour, but today we have a nice proper blue sea.

And with it being rather windy out there today, I could see the flag that they were putting up yesterday.

It’s actually the flag of Granville and that’s new to me because I didn’t realise that Granville actually had its own flag.

The red one with the two golden lions on it is the flag of the Duchy of Normandy, and I’m sure that you don’t need me to explain the other two.

On that note, I came back for a hot chocolate and, shame as it is to say it, a little … errr … relax on the office chair.

There was still enough time to do something else before tea, so seeing as I wasn’t in a particularly enthusiastic mood, I made a start on the searchable text database for the photos for June 2018.

For tea, I founf a lentil and mushroom curry in the freezer. It was one that I had made on 7th November … errr … 2017 and it tasted just as delicious as it did back then.

It seems that I’m getting right down to the bottom of the pile of curries now. I’m not sure how many ancient ones there might be still in there, but there can’t be many.

In a short while I’ll have to make a start on making some more.

later on I went for my evening walk around the city walls.

There were still a few people out there enjoying the evening sunshine, and also a dozen or so fishing boats loitering around just outside the harbour.

It must be that the tide isn’t in enough for them to reach the Fish Processing Plant and tie up to unload. But I don’t imagine that they will have long to wait.

And so I carried on and came home.

Tonight I’m hoping for another early night and a good sleep. Tomorrow I’m planning on having something of a tidy-up in the kitchen and living room.

Things are getting a little untidy in there so I need to apply myself. After all, I’m off on my travels again early on Sunday.

scaffolding medieval wall granville manche normandy france

“boats ready to leave port de granville harbour manche normandy france

joly france ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

lys noir baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: pontoon

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Saturday 13th April 2019 – I’VE HAD A …

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