Tag Archives: shower

Friday 21st July 2017 – WELL, I’M NOT …

… going out for an evening walk tonight, that’s for sure.

Not only do we have a howling gale, we have a lashing rainstorm too. And it’s pretty black over Bill’s mother’s too.

I had another bad night last night, that’s for sure. Only 5 hours and something-worth of sleep, with ony four hours of that in a deep and restful sleep. Yes, I’ve charged up the Fitbit and uploaded the data to the laptop.

I was busy working on another mega-blog page after my walk and somehow ended up being carried away. 01:45 when I went to bed. No wonder that I was tired when the alarm went off, and that I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon.

But a shower brought me round somewhet after breakfast and having dealt with “a computer issue”, i went shopping.

And I’ve been spending my money too, yet again. Although nowhere near as bad as last week.

The Centrakor was the beneficiary of my largesse today. They had some multi-USB hubs on sale at €3:99 and I need one of those, seeing as how Brain of Britain has somehow contrived to leave all three of his back in Virlet.

But of course one thing leads to another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

The Bluetooth oyster that I had as a hands-free device before the bluetooth radio – I took that to Canada for use in Strider, but it’s a different kind of lead than a standard USB lead, and I’ve … errr … misplaced that.

And so I’ve been havong a good look around for another one. And they had one in Centrakor – with a Bluetooth oyster device included. All for €7:99, which is the same price as I have been quoted for a cable. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Not only that, they were having a sale of silicon pie dishes and the like for just €3:99 which is cheap at anybody’s price. And now I have a proper round pie dish, a bread/cake mould and a mould for making six tarts. I’ll be having a go at making mince pies in the winter.

Note to self – ask someone to bring me a couple of jars of mincemeat from the UK.

I stayed in at lunchtime too – the winds were wicked out there and I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on my wall at all. And I rather lost direction this afternoon with the fatigue. So it’s not been a very good day.

But I did finish the blog entries about the trip to the UK in June 2011. Now to see what else I’ve missed before I start on the Canada 2011 pages.

And I did have a visitor at lunchtime – and I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I’m too tired to go into details tonight.

Footnote
I did go out – just for a quick lap around the block. And in the 5 minutes that I was out, I was soaked to the skin. Except where I had my new McKinley raincoat. That did exactly the job that it was supposed to do – and I wish that I had bought it in a bigger size now.

Monday 17th July 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… I had 5 hours 38 minutes of restful sleep and 1 hour 14 minutes of restless sleep. I can see that I’m going to become pretty annoying with this Fitbit thing.

But don’t worry – it only synchronises the data when I charge it up off the laptop. That’s about once every three or four days, I reckon. And if I charge it up off a plug then it will be even less frequent than that.

But it must have been the restless bit when I was away with the fairies. And just for a change last night, with something that doesn’t happen very often at all, I was an observer in this one.

For some reason the star of last night’s show was a woman. She needed to be somewhere at 08:15 and it was now 07:55 so she reckoned that she had a couple more minutes to loiter around before she needed to leave. But just as she was about to go her husband shouted down from his window that he would take her if she could wait a couple more minutes. It turned out that her husband was a medical man of some description and in taking her he was leaving a couple of patients unsupervised. While he was away something went wrong and he was hauled up before the GMC. It was held that as the nature of his wife’s voyage was something medical, he was not wrong to attend to her, but in abandoning his other patients for that period he was guilty of a lack of good judgement.

The alarm awoke me and after breakfast I went and had a shave and a shower (and to charge up the Fitbit off the laptop – hence the data – while I was in there). And I nipped down to the magasin de presse quite early for the baguette – before the crowds arrived.

Lunch was of course on my wall, and I saw the Grima come dieseling in. I was going to take a photo but I found that I had left my phone behind. But it was nice up there in the sun – I really enjoyed it.

For tea I put a mug full of lentils in the slow cooker at 17:00 and by 19:30 they wee done to a turn. With the left-over mushrooms I made another mega-curry with enough for three more days.

Good news on the blog front. I’ve now caught up with where I wanted to be. I have however lost 48 entries somewhere that don’t fall in the “unclassifieds” and don’t fall in the “updated” either. I’m intrigued to know what is the issue with them.

But what I’ve done is to start at the beginning – july 2009 – and go through looking for missed days – days which have been conjoined into others. I’ve already found eight or none that I have missed and which now have pages of their own.

Two pages in particular from my 2010 visit to Canada – this one and this one – have taken me all afternoon and quite rightly so.

They were immense and it gave me an opportunity to put into practice the idea about which I told you yesterday – to write up my daily adventures in North America on the blog rather than on the website – although I might do that as well in due course.

Now I’m going to go for a 10-minute stroll. I’ve done this the last couple of nights as the Fitbit is telling me that I’m not having anything like enough exercise and that I’m sitting around far too much.

Sentiments with which I concur wholeheartedly.

Saturday 15th July 2017 – OUCH! THAT HURT!

And I’m not talking about cutting my finger open with the sharp vegetable knife when I picked up the cutlery out of the drainer either. It was much more painful than that!

So last night was another restless night. Especially so seeing as how I was off on my travels again.

There was a war on, and of course the UK was very susceptible to a blockade. However there was no rationing and people were going about as it it all was of no consequence, something that struck me as being a great matter of concern.
And then I was with my mother (but whoever it was wasn’t my mother, thank heavens) and it involved something to do with Mark III Cortinas. She drove away and I was left holding a bonnet from the aforementioned – a light blue one. I was trying the blots with my fingers to make sure that they were loose enough without disturbing the settings. A couple of women in a cafe made some ribald remark about me being with a “much older” woman so I went over to say “hello”. Their tune soon changed when they saw me come over because they recognised me, and they realised that the “much older” woman had been my mother.
While I was in the queue here a whole group of people came to the counter and it was all people whom I recognised from from a difficult period of my life. They were all pleased and enthusiastic to see me but I wasn’t at all pleased to see them. They crowded around me and asked me how I was and I was really uncomfortable in all of this. We discussed work and they found out that I had given over a good job to go driving taxis – but at leat “it was my own taxi, and not someone else’s”.

I’ve no idea where all of these people have come from – people whom I met in the early 80s in a couple of unpleasant encounters and whom I wish never to see again. I can’t think whatever it might have been to trigger all of that off.

After breakfast and a shower, shave and clean clothes, Caliburn got his motor running and headed off down the highway in the general direction of the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing special and neither did NOZ, the rubbish shop. But at least they had a few more of these hexagonal herb and spice jars. I get through tons of turmeric here so I stocked up with two containers of that together with a couple more of different types.

At Centrakor I went a little berserk. They were selling cigarette lighter socket twin-USB adaptors for just €1:99. I need one of those for Strider over in Canada so I picked one up.

But they also had some of those portable battery packs for powering your mobile phone or other hand-held appliance – a 2600 mAh set-up and just €3.99. That’s half what I have seen them elsewhere at their cheapest, and that’s without postage and packing too of course!

LeClerc was just the usual banal stuff, but I REALLY went mad in Intersport.

The trainers that I bought at Sports Direct in Leuven last October have fallen apart. So I only paid €20 for them, I know, but they’ve been letting in water for quite a while and now the soles are falling off.

Intersport was having a sale so went to have a look around, and came away with a pair of Salomon Goretex trainer-style hiking boots. They should have been … gulp … €119 but they were reduced by 30% in the sale and they were so comfortable.

I hope that they last a darn sight longer than these ones that I’ve just chucked in the bin.

And that’s not all either.

My rain jacket is falling to pieces. It has a couple of holes in it (never good for a rainjacket – holes in it) and it’s looking well the worse for wear. I have another one but that is one of those bright yellow rubberised ones that is uncomfortable, bulky and sweaty.

Today though, reduced to just €24:95 was a proper McKinley breathable Aquamax. And in my size too, which was unusual.

And last, but by no means least – I’ve been talking for a while about buying a Fitbit – one of these that tells you your heartbeat, how far you’ve walked, how many calories you’ve burnt and all of that stuff. But when I’ve seen the price, it’s put me off.

But a new model has been launched and Intersport was clearing out the remains of the previous one. Nothing wrong with them at all – there’s just a new design – and they were reduced to just €50:00.

Yes, I’m making ready for my holidays, aren’t I?

All I need now is a new suitcase and a new camera.

But this Fitbit – “always ready when you are” it proudly announces on the packet. So I went to wear it … and the battery was flat! What kind of misleading publicity is that?

Back home, the whole town was heaving with grockles as predicted. Even coming home the back way I was stuck for ages. And it’s a good job that we have our own private parking here because the public car park was jam-packed, with grockles dragging off suitcases all over the old town.

Early for my baguette tomorrow, I reckon.

Fighting off the waves of sommeil this afternoon, I was on the blog again. Not reducing the “unclassifieds” but untangling a few bits and pieces from when I returned from the Ile d’Yeu until going back to Brussels.

I’ve put that bit off for a while, but a close look at it revealed that it was fairly straighforward to untangle so here I am. Well on my way to finalising that little lot.

Tea tonight was more mashed potato, frozen veg and burger. And I fried a little onion and garlic with my burger too and it was delicious.

I really do appreciate living here in my little apartment.

Tuesday 11th July 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… the computer told me that it wanted to perform a major update.

It’s been telling me that for a while actually, but last night it blocked the screen and wouldn’t let me proceed until I agreed.

And so I set it to perform at 23:59 and left the machine running when I went to bed. When I came round this morning to look at it, it was showing … errr … 21% completed.

As a result, today has been rather a difficult day.

It didn’t start off too well either. I was wide awake at 06:40 and when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already preparing another mix of muesli, seeing as how I’d forgotten to do that yesterday.

With no laptop, I went and had a shower and sorted out a few other bits and pieces that needed attention, and while I was at it, I came across an 8GB memory card from the summer of 2015 that I hadn’t backed up. I made a mental note …

Round about 11:00 the laptop finished what it was doing, and so I launched myself into a programme of backing up the memory card. I wrote a couple of DVDs with the contents, and then found the 750gb external hard drive that I use to keep the (millions of) photos that I’ve accumulated over the years.

The ones off the SD card went onto there too, only for me to discover that I seem to have backed up this card on there some time in the past.

But while I had the external hard drive coupled up, I went about and did a major backup of the contents of my data folders.

I do a major back-up like this once every year or so – usually just before I’m taking my laptop with me on a major journey. In between times, I back up to a dedicated 64gb memory stick.

And how times have changed – I remember when USB ports became the thing with Windows 98 Series 2, and my back-up memory stick then was all of 256kb – with plenty of room on there for everything too.

And that’s where I am right now – this back-up is still going on some 10 hours later, and it probably won’t be until 11:00 tomorrow morning that it will be finished either.

It hasn’t meant that I’ve not been updating the blog though – in fact I’ve had another good day and I’ve almost finished October 2012. Just 104 “uncategorised” entries to rewrite, which might make you think that it will all be over soon.

But far from it, and for two reasons too –

Many pages are “conjoined” pages – when I haven’t had internet access for one reason or another I’ve made a multiple entry as soon as I could. Since late 2013, when I started the new version of the blog, whenever I’ve not had internet access I’ve been writing up a page faithfully every night nevertheless and storing them up for a multiple-publication later. I’m going back over the conjoined entries and breaking them up into daily pages
It seems that round about August 2012 the blog-host that I used back then (before I brought my blog in-house) started to make up tags and categories that my current set-up recognises. And they show up on a few of the pages from then. So these pages aren’t included in the number of “uncategorised” pages but they need updating nevertheless to meet my new, exacting … "and modest" – ed … standards.
.

But what is exciting is to look at some of these old entries and what was going through our minds, and see how things turned out. A good example of this is the entry for 17th October 2012.

Here, Krys and I (whatever happened to Krys?) were discussing that we were having all the signs of an early winter. Krys remarked that she was “forecasting a bad and long winter this year”.

Well, the first snows fell just 10 days later – which is astonishingly early, and the last snowfall of the winter was on … errr … 25th of MAY. How about that for a prediction?

Tea was the second instalment of the aubergine and kidney bean whatsit, and now I’m sitting at the window watching the teeming rain and the storm, with the waves crashing down on the rocks across the bay.

It’s a phenomenal wind that we are having – just the weather to be out there on board a three-masted schooner. I’d really fancy a run-out in this weather.

And I forgot to mention that some blasted English grockles, complete with thermos flask of hot tea, pinched my spec on the wall overlooking the harbour at lunchtime. I had to go and sit somewhere else.

And talking of comments, don’t be shy. If you would like to comment on the entries on this blog, please feel free to do so. Because of all of the spam that seems to be back on the internet these days, they will be “held” until I manually approve them, and then you’ll see your name in lights!

Friday 7th July 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… tea!

Mashed potatoes, frozen peas and carrots done in the vegetable steamer, and a vegan burger and gravy done in the wok.

At least, it would have been nice, but 7 minutes in the steamer isn’t anything like long enough. The spuds take 15 minutes or so and when I cook frozen veg next time, I’ll cook them right from the beginning of the cycle.

Still, you live and learn.

Pudding was pear halves and blackcurrant sorbet and that all went down nicely too.

Last night’s sleep was better than the previous, but still not as good as the one from the night before. I was rather hoping that The One That Got Away would come back to continue where we left off last night, but no such luck. You can’t win a coconut every time, unfortunately, not even in the astral sphere.

After breakfast and a shower and shave (I need to look my best) Caliburn and I hit the streets. It’s Friday – shopping today. No point in doing it tomorrow – first day of the school holidays so we’ll be hemmed in with grockles.

I spent a fair bit of money today too – not an extravagent amount, but far more than usual. And I can’t think what cost all of the money. Highlight was in LDL – a set of electronic digital scales for the kitchen at €7:99. That’s not going to rock the boat.

But nothing special in NOZ and nothing special in LeClerc, and nothing at all in BUT. I can see that my plans for a mini-hifi for here are all going to come to nought, which is a shame.

Lunch again was on the wall overlooking the harbour, until the heat drove me in. And then I had an afternoon where … err … my concentration was not at its peak.

But I’ve cracked along with the blog entries, and a couple of those today were quite lengthy and involved. This one of La Roche d’Agoux was one of three that took ages to straighten out. I can see why I abandoned July and August 2012 when I was doing it last time. It wasn’t easy.

So another early night beckons. I doubt very much that The One That Got Away shall put in an appearance tonight – even though we were chatting on the internet for about an hour or so earlier this evening.

But it’s a sad state of affairs and a sad sign of the times that what goes on while I’m on a nocturnal voyage into the unknown is more exciting than what I’m up to in daylight hours anyway.

Tuesday 4th July 2017 – I WONDERED …

… what the noise was that I could hear as I awoke this morning.

After a couple of minutes, having had my curiosity aroused to fever-pitch, I staggered out of bed into the bathroom to find that I had left the bathroom tap running all night. That’s going to be expensive, isn’t it? I have to pay for the water here.

That’s twice that I’ve left the tap running. And also twice that I’ve left the fridge door open. I would say that I’m slowly losing my mind, but as regular readers of this rubbish already know, that went years ago.

Early to bed last night might have been one thing – early to sleep was something else completely. But once I dropped off, I was gone for good until the alarm went off.

I was in Northampton during the night too – don’t ask me why because I reckon that in the whole of my life I haven’t been there half a dozen times. I was in charge of an urban rgeneration project which was so weird – I could grab the ground like you would grab the corners of a tablecloth, give it a shake, and the old Victorian buildings there would immediately disappear and a whole new 21st-Century brick and glass urban landscape would appear – to the horror of the local residents. Then I would shake it again, and they would disappear and the old Victorian stuff would reappear, to the horror of the Planning Committee. I did this a few times until the leader of the planners told me to stop messing about and be serious for once (as if that is ever likely to happen, really!).

Breakfast and then a shower and shave – must look my best. and then off for the baguette.

And the guy in the magasin de presse was having quite a whinge. His brother, who lives in South-West UK is coming over and has just been to collect his Euros. 25% less than what he received the last time he applied. I made a New Years Resolution about 5 or 6 years ago to keep politics out of this blog but sometimes I’m overwhelmed – overwhelmed by the total and utter stupidity of the people with whom I once – for a great many years – shared what is rapidly becoming an insignificant offshore island.

Another thing that I’ve done is bitten the bullet and bought another copy of Paint Shop Pro.

That’s been my graphics editing program for over 20 years but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I … errr … mislaid it. I’ve hunted high and low for it for a couple of years with no luck and now that I’m here I don’t suppose that I’ll ever find it again.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … there was a later version than mine on sale on eBay. I’d noticed a few shortcomings with the version that I had, and most of them seem to be resolved in this upgrade.

But then we had a problem – with changing bank accounts, my Paypal account is out of date. Luckily Terry was on line at that moment so he did the business for me. It’ll be nice to get back to some serious photo-editing again.

Lunch on the wall overlooking the harbour – and some people had pinched my comfy spec. I had to find another place to sit and that annoyed me. I was enjoying the company of the lizards there, just as the lizards doubtless enjoyed the crumbs that I dropped.

As for the tea, just as nice as yesterday.

The blog amending is coming along in leaps and bounds – quicker than I anticipated. Except when I run agound, that it.

Today I ran aground on a page that I had written in June 2012 about Chateau-sur-Cher. All of about 120 words in haste. and then forgot it. Today I decided that I would attack it with gusto and it’s ended up as almost 1200 words.

Still, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, isn’t it? I’m now in July 2012. Only a few more months to go.

Monday 26th June 2017 – I SEEM TO HAVE ACQUIRED …

… a washing machine. And it’s sitting in the back of Caliburn right now.

Terry rang me up – and at 08:30 too. “Doing anything? I can’t get the dumper to start”

Actually, I wasn’t in the mood right then and there. If you had been through what I had been through during the night you would not have been either.

I had had a dreadful night, and there was a time round about 02:00 where I thought that I would never ever go to sleep. So much for the early night that I promised myself.
But I must have done at some time or other because I had a visitor during the night.

I’m not sure why Nerina came to visit me but, as this little girl who was in my room at the time remarked, she was wearing a black cloak – and there were various references to all kinds of famous fictional characters. The meeting at first was quite acrimonious but after quite some time it mellowed and in the end we finally agreed to a division of our assets. But not our physical assets – agreement was reached over that years ago – but all of the paperwork. And there we were, during the night, dividing up all of the paperwork sheet by sheet, regardless of whether the division made any logical sense for the accounts or the correspondence that were involved.

Ohhh, how I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did, and managed some breakfast -and while I was vegetating over a hot mug of coffee the telephone went. Fetching it back, I answered it and it was Terry.

I had a few things to do – like updating a couple of entries on the blog (I am determined to do some of it every day) and having a shave and a shower – and then I hit the road to Roncey.

Terry was right – the dumper wouldn’t start. But I made it start by pouring some drops of neat petrol down the air filter. Fired up a treat but it wouldn’t run on.

So knowing that it fired up, then it can’t have been an electrical or mechanical fault – must be fuel. Plenty of fuel in it and it was going down the fuel lines into the carburettor and the float chamber was full.

Here we were interrupted.

Liz has an old washing machine that only works on one programme and which rattles about the floor of the bathroom like a jive dancer on sherbet dabs. But having had a good month at work, she’s bought herself a new super-duper mega-washing machine and it came today. We signed for it and spent an hour mauling it into the laundry room and installing it.

What a beast.

And the washing machine is awesome too.

“Right, let’s sling the old one into the trailer. I’ll run it down to the dechetterie this afternoon”
“Why?” I asked. “Has it finally handed in its chips?”
“Ohh no” said Terry. “It still works like it always did – maybe more rattly these days – but it’s no use to anyone now we have this one”.
“I can think of someone who will have a use for it” I said. “Let’s sling it in the back of Caliburn”

I know that I decided that I would only have new things here in this apartment, and a new washing machine is high on my list of things to purchase, but you’ll remember that the other day I told you that I wasn’t going to spend any more money for a while and go to have a good time in Canada instead.

So it’s the launderette for me then for the rest of the year and that’s extremely inconvenient for all kinds of reasons. So any old washing machine that will keep running for 6 months or so will be a big bonus for me. It’ll save me €50:00 down at the launderette as long as it keeps on going.

Back to the dumper, and with fuel getting into the float chamber, it was time to take off the carburettor.

The carburettor is held on by just two bolts. But if I were to tell you the performance that we went through in order to gain access to the two bolts, and then to disconnect all of the throttle and choke linkages, you wouldn’t believe me. It was like that stupid Hyundai Trajet that I did two years ago – all assembled onto a subframe on a bench and then fitted into the framework, so you can’t get at anything.

That took us to lunchtime.

After lunch with the carburettor in my sweaty little mitt I went to take out the jets – but they are fixed in – can’t be dismantled. So I had to work out where all of the air passages were and use a compressor to blow them out backwards.

Sure enough, I eventually discovered a passage that was blocked and so with a fine wire I probed the orifice and eventually cleaned it out. And then a few more blasts of air to make sure.

I checked the float to make sure that it wasn’t holed, and then reassembled the carburettor. And then, I had to stick it back on the engine – which was even more interesting than taking it off.

The good news was that with the first pull (it’s a recoil starter) of the starter it fired up correctly. And Terry and Liz (who was by now back from work) reckoned that it was running better than it had for quite a while.

Liz made a gorgeous tea and afterwards we sat around in the beautiful evening sunshine chatting about this and that.

And now I’m home. And with a washing machine too. Terry and Liz think that they might be on their travels at the weekend so they will pop by and help me bring it upstairs and install it. So this weekend I might even be able to do my own washing. And isn’t that progress?

It’s looking more like home every minute.

Friday 23rd June 2017 – I’VE BEEN SPENDING …

… my money again today.

I’ve decided, with a great deal of reluctance, that the second instalment of furniture from IKEA can wait – and wait until I come back from Canada too.

I’m going to Canada for two months and I intend to have something of a good time while I’m there – hence the decision to be careful about what I spend in the meantime. Consequently there are a few things that I need that are very important around here that can’t wait until IKEA.

Like a wok (I bought a new one a while back as you might remember, but it doesn’t work on my induction hob), a dressing mirror for the bedroom, a laundry basket – stuff like that.

GIFI Was having a sale and so I blitzed round there this morning and acquired a laundry basket, a big dressing mirror that hangs on the back of the door, a waste bin for the bathroom, a large set of plastic drawers for the office, a chalk board and some chalk.

I went to NOZ too. And here my luck was in. NOZ is a chain of shops in France that sells bankrupt stock lines, overstocks and all that kind of thing, and is always worth a browse. Today, they were selling inter alia a variety of herbs and spices in those nice little octagonal jars that look so good. All at €0:99 each. And so i stocked up on the herbs and spices that I need and next week I’ll go back for more (if there are any) because the jars, when they are empty, will be ideal for refilling with other herbs and spices.

As for a new wok, a couple of weeks ago I’d seen one that I liked. Aluminium isn’t good for the health and these coated non-stick pans – the coating comes off them far too easily. But they had a range of these ceramic pans in the Auchan. Quite expensive, really heavy, and guaranteed for years.

I enjoy cooking very much, but doing it in sub-standard conditions with sub-standard equipment always gets me down.

And so I but the bullet and invested in the aforementioned. I’m fed up of frying stuff in a saucepan.

While I was there in the Auchan I bought some frozen peas and carrots too. Let’s hope the fridge keeps going until I can buy a freezer. Then I’ll be moving onwards and upwards.

But with the late night last night it was quite something to try to crawl out of bed. But a shower soon brought me round (well, almost) and a shave and clean clothes made me feel much better. The new washing basket is full now, so that will be another trip to the launderette some time soon.

On the car park at the Auchan, we had an exciting moment as some woman reversing out of a car parking space as I was walking past took my trolley with her. Had I been half a second later and she would have taken me with her too. And in the confusion that followed, I became separated from my baguette, and one or two other things too I suspect.

So it was a pretty thin lunch that I had today – and this afternoon I crashed out until … errr … 18:15. Heaven alone knows why. I reckon that it was about three hours that I was away.

There was one more slice of pie in the fridge and so I finished off that with my mash, peas and carrots done in the little steamer. We had mint and garlic in the spuds and rosemary on the veg and it improved everything considerably. I even remembered to make the gravy.

But the pie was delicious – I have to say that. And I’ll be baking another one in the near future. With the herbs and spices that I bought today, it should be even more so.

All in all, my diet is definitely improving and I’m glad about that.

Tuesday 13th June 2017 – SO HAVING SLEPT …

… the Sleep Of The Dead until all of about 05:00, I was quickly up and about and under the shower for a good soaking. And having finally attacked the half-baguette and the jam that I had bought the other day, I was ready for anything.

Yes, quite!

Packing was exciting. I’m sure that I’m taking back more than I went out with, not including the two pairs of trousers. And so ramming it into the rucksack and the shopping bag was … errr … exciting. I wish that I had brought a larger bag with me now.

I was out early to the station because there’s a supermarket at the back where I was going to buy some lunch stuff (no tomatoes unfortunately because Bane of Britain seems to have forgotten to bring the sharp knife that lives in his rucksack pocket) but the presence of an express direct to Brussels-Midi on the platform prompted me to change my mind, and I legged it up the stairs mucho-el-rapido.

Early in Brussels, I went to see if I could change my TGV ticket for one on the earlier train. For some reason, the SNCF on-line booking doesn’t recognise the 10:13 TGV and instead books me on the 11:13. That just gives me an hour or so to perform the Traversée de Paris and that’s pretty tight, especially when I don’t have Bourvil to carry my suitcases for me.

Luckily there was a place on the earlier train. One day there won’t be, and that will be the day that there will be perturbations on the Metro or the TGV will run late.

There was still a few minutes to spare so I popped to the Carrefour on the station and bought a baguette, a couple of pears and a bottle of water. It’s going to be a long, hot day.

The train pulled in a couple of minutes early and much to my surprise the door to my carriage was exactly where I was standing, so I was second on board.

And heaving – there wasn’t room to swing a cat, and the poor moggy that was in the carry-basket of the person in front of me had to stay cooped up.

We did have a moment of excitement though, when my baguette slid off the overhead rail and almost fell down the cleavage of the woman in front. She stuck it back on the rack, and bent it too for good measure.

But what’s all this about cleavages just now?

It didn’t take long to cross Paris on the metro, which it never does when you allow plenty of time, and it gave me a good opportunity to go for a little exploration.

There’s a bus from Paris-Montparnasse directly to Charles de Gaulle airport, so I tracked that down and made “certain enquiries”, and the SNCF also has a suitcase collection and delivery service, and that can be extremely advantageous as my health declines. I made “certain enquiries” about that, too.

My luck was in over at our side of the railway station. Here parked up at of the terminus platforms was a nez cassé, or “broken nose”.

These are the typical French SNCF electric locomotives built in the 1970s as part of the modernisation plans of the SNCF. They took the French railways to a new level, tanking along at a good 100 miles per hour without even drawing breath and despite being supplanted by the TGVs and being over 40 years old, most of them are still in service.

But it’s rare to find them over here. Their usual stamping ground is in the North-East of the country. That’s why I was so surprised to see one.

Nothing over 40 years old about our conveyance to Granville though. Not even 40 months old, these things.

It was totally heaving too, at least as far as Avranches, and for some reason I couldn’t make myself comfortable which is a change. And I was drifting in and out of sleep all the way up here. I’m not as young as I was. I didn’t do any work of any description, which is not like me as you all know.

But I was glad for the bottle of water because it really was a hot afternoon in the crowded train.

Bang on time we arrived, and so nice was the afternoon that instead of waiting for the bus, I set off to walk home.

Climbing the hill out of town was a struggle so I stopped for five minutes or so to admire the view. And this gorgeous sailing boat is in here today.

No idea of her name, but she seems to be registered in Granville so I shall have to make some further enquiries. But what wouldn’t I give for a lap around the bay in her?

And this reminds me of the story of the sea captain who bought the land at the bottom of a shallow bay in order to create a colony. But while only a mere handful of people expressed an interest, no-one would board his ship.

They all thought that his barque was worse than his bight.

Back here, I crashed out for a while and then made a quick tea out of tins. I wasn’t going to hang about because I really was tired. It took a lot out of me, these three days.

But at least on the train I can do it in three days. Not a chance of that if I were to drive. And it cost me just €195 for the trip. Diesel would have cost me €160, and then we have the autoroute tolls, a hotel each way at the mid-point and all of the stress.

No, going on the train is the way to go without a doubt.

Friday 2nd June 2017 – HAVING A RIDE …

… on Rosie the Crocodile – and just look at those big scary teeth!

While I was out doing my shopping his morning I had a phone call from Liz. “We’re all going down to the beach at Montmartin sur Mer this afternoon after lunch. Would you like to come with us?”

Do bears go for picnics in the woods?

Last night was a really bad night for me. I was still wide awake at 04:35 and wasn’t sure that I would ever go off to sleep. But I must have done, and crawling out of bed at 07:00 wasn’t very easy either as you might expect.

A shower brought me round somewhat, and then I noticed a little calamity – something along the lines of the fact that I seem to have run out of clothes again. I had a good rummage around and managed to find a few clean things but I really shall have to go to the launderette next week. I have actually found one in the town by the harbour.

Once I’d organised myself I headed off to the shops. Going on a Saturday morning, is, as we know, a waste of time. I went to the Bio shop for some vegan sausages (I fancy sausages, beans and chips), to Mr Bricolage for some fittings for the curtain rail in the bedroom, and to LeClerc for the groceries and some diesel.

But I’m going to have to think again about the bio shop. The stuff in there is quite expensive, the choice isn’t up to much and the staff is quite surly in there. I shall have to see what I can find in the way of mail-order outlets once my bank account is FINALLY organised.

And we weren’t alone on the streets either. By one of the roundabouts was a police motorcycle patrol who was interested in vehicles entering the town. Not quite sure why, but he took a note of Caliburn’s registration number.

After lunch I headed for the beach at Montmartin sur Mer.

While I was on my way up the coast I was overflown by a flight of four aeroplanes. Big four-engines French Army transport planes of some description – I’ve no idea at all what they might be.

But when I was walking down onto the beach after parking up Caliburn they flew back again, directly overhead. This gave me a good opportunity to take a close-up photograph of them as they roared by. They were certainly impressive – and noisy. Just imagine what 500 Avro Lancasters going by overhead must have sounded like. No wonder you needed an intercom

At the end of the beach, away in the distance, they performed a U-turn and flew back off at a tangent somewhere inland. They were clearly up to something, that’s for sure.

As an aside, it was explained to me later that there’s to be a drop of parachutists over the Invasion Beaches to commemmorate D-Day in a couple of days time. I reckon that these would be just the type of aircraft to carry paratroopers and so maybe they are having a quiet rehearsal of low-flying over the beach.

While I had the camera out – do you see that lighthouse across there? That’s the lighthouse on the Pointe d’Agon where we were the other day. We’re actually at the mouth of the River Sienne (not the Seine) and the currents offshore are gradually shifting the mouth southwards by that huge sand bar over there.

Built in 1856 on the site of an old fortress washed away in 1776 by an exceptionally high tide, the lighthouse is now a good kilometre from the mouth of the river today.

We had fun building Rosie the Crocodile and then the lack of sleep last night took hold. I can’t think of any finer way to spend a sunny afternoon out at the beach than by having a good crash-out for a couple of hours. I was well away. And everyone was laughing because I’d put my cap on my face to protect my face from the sun, and as I was breathing in and out, my cap was going up and down like in one of these cartoon films.

Liz and Terry very kindly invited me back for tea and we all had a really good chat, as Kate, Darren and the kids are going home tomorrow. And then , I came home.

It had been a long day and so it wasn’t any longer that I hung about before going to bed. I have no plans for tomorrow so we’ll see what that day brings.

Friday 26th May 2017 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since we featured a proper “Ship of the Day” on these pages?

When I was in Montreal or somewhere down the St Lawrence we could take our pick of dozens each day, but it’s usually pretty thin pickings whenever we are elsewhere.

But not today though, because today our ship really has come in.

It’s another really high tide this week and it’s brought in the Victress, who has sailed in from Southampton to pick up a load of gravel. Built in 1992, she flies the flag of Barbados and displaces about 1500 tonnes.

Not the biggest ship we’ve seen, but the biggest that we’ve seen in recent times and the biggest that we are likely to see here in Granville. She’s not there now, though – the ground’s all flat. And she’s somewhere out in the Channel so it seems. And I’ve not been able to find out where she’s heading.

She was formerly known as Uranus but this was changed due to ribald remarks from captains of other ships – something along the line of “with my binoculars I can see Uranus from here”

After breakfast this morning I had a quick shower and shave and change of clothes and hit the streets in search of the bus stop. Of course I have a choice of two, and of course it was “the other one” but just €1:00 and pretty painlessly (and I’ll do this again) I was decanted at the top of town to rescue Caliburn. He’s had his service, and the strange noise seems to have gone, and he’s had his controle technique. That gives me two years motoring without any major worries, which is always a bonus.

And on the way back, I picked up my oven. That’s now installed and working – and I had to change round my kitchen a little to fit it on the shelves and things don’t fit as well as they did before, which is a shame. But tomorrow I’ll be tracking down a pizza tray, some bread-making stuff and some oven chips. THis is going to start to become interesting.

For lunch I headed off to my usual spot – the clifftop overlooking the port – and this was where I made the acquaintance of Victress. But not for too long because once more I was burnt out of my position and head to retreat to here where I promptly crashed out for an hour.

And while we’re on the subject of photographs … "well, one of you is" – ed … it occurs to me that you have yet to see the view out of my living room windows.

It’s not very inspiring unfortunately (although I’ve seen much worse) but if I look over to the right-hand side I can in fact see the sea.

It’s not exactly the sea view that I was hoping to have, and I don’t have a terrace which would have been perfect, but here in Granville I can’t do much better than this. Especially as if I just step outside the front door of the building the view is stupendous as you know

Later on, I went out to Roncey. Liz’s grandchildren (whom you have seen many times on these pages) are coming to stay tomorrow and it’s important that Strawberry Moose is there to greet them. So now he’s playing hide-and-seek down the bed.

Back here, I had another dollop of the kidney bean stuff that I made yesterday and it was just as delicious too.

So tomorrow it’s a mega-shop again. So just you watch me forget something important.

Sunday 21st May 2017 – FIVE MINUTES …

… under the grill, five minutes with the microwave, and one minute with both of them combined. That’s how I cooked my pizza this evening and while the base was very soggy (as you might expect) it was cooked and the toppings were done to a turn. I’m not going to improve in this, I reckon – at least, not until I buy a real oven and that might be something of a problem because a couple of people have told me about the electrical requirements that the apartment wiring needs – and it simply doesn’t have them.

Sunday is a lie-in of course, and so I valiantly resisted the temptation to leap energetically out of bed as soon as I awoke. In fact, by the time I could no longer stand it and crawled out of my stinking pit, it was … err … 07:05. My lie-in had lasted all of five minutes.

But Sunday is also a Day of Rest and so rest I did. The most strenuous thing that I did was to have a shave and a shower, although cleaning the table-cloth was a very close second. And for most of the day I mooched around cleaning up the laptop.

With the weather being so nice, I went out at lunchtime and sat on the wall on the other side of the headland overlooking the port. Here, I ate my butties and read my book for a while. I went for a little stroll afterwards, but not for long.

And that, dear reader, is the summary of my day.

I did have a chat with Liz on the internet, and I’ve done the washing-up too, and now I’m sitting with my feet up and a book by my side.

Today is finished and tomorrow is another day. I hope that the weather will be as nice as this one.

Tuesday 16th May 2017 – TONIGHT’S TEA …

… was bangers, beans and baked potatoes. The rest of the sausages and the left-over half-tin of beans from Saturday night, and some potatoes from the pile that I bought the other week. A bit of pepper on the beans and some vegan margarine on the potatoes, and it was a meal fit for a King.

Last night I was tossing and turning again and I really don’t know why, and I was up long before the alarm went off.But I had a busy morning, even if it doesn’t seem that I accomplished much.

It was washday today and by that, I started off with me – a nice, long, hot shower and a shave, followed by some delicate clothing that needed hand-washing and which I’d been putting off for quite some time.

Once that was out of the way, I attacked all of the rest of the crockery and cutlery that I had brought from the Auvergne, which I had taken there from Brussels after I had sold Expo. And there were tons of it too. All of the cutlery I left soaking in boiling water for several hours to kill whatever might have been lurking on them.

As for the saucepans, they were almost new so I brought them with me (and two of them work on the induction hob too) so they were steam-cleaned – by the simple expedient of jamming the lids on and weighting them down while some water boiled away inside. Any germs that might have been loitering within them have certainly had their chips now.

This afternoon I had to go back down to the bank, so I took the final load of paper out to put in the recycling as I passed by. And I encountered the bus driver who was taking a short break at a bus stop.We had a chat and she filled me in about the bus service around the town. It’s about 20 minutes from here to the railway station and it costs €1:00 per trip. That will suit me just fine.

And as I was passing the library, with 10 minutes to spare (yes, there are still libraries in Mainland Europe) I popped in and joined. Cost me €10:00 but it’s an unlimited supply of books, CDs and DVDs as well as all kinds of exhibitions and debates.

The Bank hasn’t made much progress in transferring my accounts. And the girl whom I saw asked me for lots of information that I didn’t have (shame that she hadn’t asked me last time to bring it with me today) so this is going to grind on and on. And the amount of paper (in a paperless office) that she printed off for me to sign must run into a respectable forest.

It was hot on the way back so I treated myself to a sorbet – and nice it was too. And when I arrived, I crashed out for a while, to be awoken by Ingrid who wanted a chat. Always nice to talk to friends of course.

And Hannah and Liz chatted to me on the internet too after tea. That was nice too. Hannah has almost finished her course in Madrid now – hasn’t time flown by? She’ll be hitting the rails for a few weeks before flying back to Canada, and she might pass by here.

So now, it’s an early night again. I’ll need to choose another DVD to take with me.

Thursday 11th May 2017 – I ENDED UP …

… not going to bed – or to sofa – very early at all. In fact, just as I was about to retire someone came on line and we ended up having a very long chat about all kinds of things – a chat that went on for a couple of hours. It was after 12:00 by the time that I retired, and that’s not something that’s happening too often these days as you know.

Nevertheless, I was awake quite early – long before the alarm – but it took me quite a while to summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit. It wasn’t easy, I promise you. and it took me ages to pluck up the courage to go down to the depot de pain for my baguette.

But once I was awake, I was off. And I’ve had another hard-working day today too. I now have two rather large bookcases, ready to bring some more books back from the Auvergne next time I’m there, whenever that might be, and I also now have another quite posh set of shelves.

And I bet that my LPs never ever thought that they would ever see the light of day again, but there they are on the shelves along with the DVDs and CDs that I brought with me (not all of them by a long way) and the Hi-Fi – first time that the Hi-Fi and the LPs, and the DVD and Video players, have seen the light of day since 2011 and how I have missed them … "you’ll need to improve your aim" – ed.

Although that might not sound like too much, what took the time was filling the shelves and rearranging everything. That was quite a work of art and now it can truly be said that the floor is quite reasonably tidy for me.

But it wasn’t like that at one point, because I was at a certain moment up to my knees in cardboard boxes. And I’m not joking either. But now, all of the cardboard has been gathered up from everywhere and there’s a big pile right by the side of the sofa. When the rest of the stuff is brought out of Caliburn (which might be tomorrow – you never know) I can move the empty cardboard down into Caliburn and head off to the dechetterie.

Rosemary rang me up later this afternoon for a chat – all of … errr … 1 hour and 11 minutes. I like talking to Rosemary and it’s good to talk to her, especially when we are putting the world to rights. And it seems to need it just now, doesn’t it?

So now, I’m going to have a shower. And there’s a good reason for this – namely that tonight I can finally go to sleep on my new bed. All new bedding, quilts and pillows too, and you have no idea just how much I’ve been looking forward to this. That’s why I’m going to pretty myself up and smell properly for a change.

It’s a shame to ruin the new bed, isn’t it?

Wednesday 3rd May 2017 – I’VE BEEN TO COUTANCES …

… more times today that I have been in the rest of my life.

Well, anyway I reckon so, because when I was there a couple of weeks ago I didn’t see anywhere or anything that made me think that I had been here before when Nerina and I did out Grant Tour of Normandy and Brittany in 1991.

But last night, once I finally managed to drop off to sleep, I slept the Sleep Of The Dead and it wasn’t until the alarm went off that I awoke.

Terry and I were on our own today after breakfast and I had to go into Countances for the stuff that we needed for today’s exertions – the pipes for the plumbing of the heating in the kitchen, some more metal studding for the walls and a few other bits and pieces too. While I was out at the shops Terry started to fit the wooden bracing supports on the wall where the kitchen units will be.

Upon my return I helped Terry finish off the bracing and then we had a mega-tidy-and-clean-up, which took us up to lunchtime.

After lunch we fitted the insulation and the plasterboard on the ceiling in the hall, and that was quite exciting seeing as there was just two of us. And then an inventory of stock showed us that we were still short of what we needed and so I had to return to Coutances.

While I was there, I noticed that the Intermarché had a couple of small 6kg washing machines on offer at just €199. There’s plumbing for an automatic washer at my new place and so this could be a possibility.

Back here, we finished off the day by installing all of the studding down the wall that runs down the front of the kitchen and the hallway. That took a while as there were many fiddly bits to be done.

Liz had done a machine-load of washing for me before she went. I’d found a bag full of dirty washing at the bottom of the pile of stuff in Caliburn and so I’d put it all in an empty black holdall similar to the one that I use for travelling that had a set of clean clothes and stuff like that. And then I’d brought the wrong one with me and left behind in my apartment the one that I should have bought. And so tonight I had a shower in the gorgeous new shower here and a change of clothes to make me smell nice – if that’s at all possible.

The Electrickery Board has changed the time of my re-connection on Friday to between 13:00 and 17:00 so I’m staying here tomorrow to give Terry another day of help, and I can sleep here until Friday morning. That will take me nicely into town on Friday morning to do the essential shopping to start myself off.

The big question is, though, will I have faded away by Friday morning? At this rate I wouldn’t rule it out.

EPIC HALL

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