Tag Archives: aztec lady

Thursday 31st October 2019 – I DIDN’T …

… manage to get out for my evening walk/run tonight.

Just for a change I’d managed to be ready quite early so that I could make the most of it, when Rosemary rang. One hour and 35 minutes we were on the phone and so that was really that. I can’t go for a walk at 22:00

And so, all in all, it was a good job that I’d had my long walk up to LIDL today.

Not this morning though because I was doing other things this morning. Like sleeping. I didn’t leave the bed until about 09:30 this morning.

And it wasn’t my fault either. There I was planning to go to bed and have a nice early night last night, and just as I was about to switch off the computer, then Hawkwind Live Chronicles came onto the playlist.

The best album I’ve heard for a long time too so I stayed awake to listen to it. All 1 hour and 25 minutes of it.

And as that ended, then Ocean by Eloy came on. The second-best album I’ve heard in a while. So I stayed up and listened to that.

What with one thing and another, it was eventually 03:05 when I switched off the computer and went to bed.

Mind you, it wasn’t completely wasted time because I’d done some work updating the web pages during that time.

A late start meant that everything else, like my shower, was late too. And before I hit the streets I had to organise the rail tickets for Belgium and print them all off so that I had them to hand.

First stop in town was at the bank. I needed to pay for what I purchased yesterday and as the money is going abroad it needed to be done quickly and, more importantly, correctly. Hence the bank.

Second stop was at the railway station. I know that I’m trying to go paperless these days but I would feel a lot better with the tickets actually in my hand, so I printed them off at the machine there.

Finally I made it t LIDL but I didn’t buy all that much. However they did have a range of vegan blackcurrant sorbet so in a gesture of solidarity I bought one. What I didn’t buy though was garlic! Sold out! And that’s a shock for me because a kitchen without any garlic isn’t a kitchen at all.

On the way back to the apartment I took a diversion via the docks to see the new boat. And she’s not a new boat at all but our old friend Aztec Lady back from her summer season at Svalbard I must remember one of these days to find out more about her voyages.

After lunch I tackled a job that I have been putting off for a week or so – and that was to freeze the carrots. Only just in time too because they were on the turn. But they are all peeled, diced, blanched and in the freezer.

And what was left (there were too many for the saucepan) I made a carrot and coconut soup, I was rather too extravagant with the powdered ginger and it’s rather overwhelmed it. Still, it’s in now and you can’t take it out.

While that was going on, I had a go at tidying the freezer. And there is tons of stuff in there. Enough pies to sink a ship for a start, and a second set of four frozen aubergine and kidney bean whatsits that I had forgotten that I had made. So for the next two months it’s pie one night and kidney bean and aubergine whatsit on another before I even start thinking about the rest of the meals.

Last night before going to bed I’d checked Caliburn’s battery. 14.0 volts and the “fully charged” light was on, so I had unplugged it. This morning when I checked it, it was showing 12.9 volts (which is good) and this afternoon, 6 hours later, it was still showing 12.9, so it’s not losing any significant charge. I coupled it up to Caliburn and he fired up immediately into life, so at least I can take him for his controle technique on Tuesday and be back on four wheels by the end of the week.

Having done that, I went for my afternoon walk. And on returning I found that somehow I have contrived to manage to lose my fitbit. And that’s before the new bracelet has arrived too, for which I pad a shed-load of money. No idea where I lost it either. It’s probably fallen out of my pocket while I was walking around, in which case it’s probably gone for good.

These days I seem to be making far too much of a habit of losing all my possessions. I’m not sure what’s going on but I definitely seem to be breaking up.

Back at the apartment I had a little doze for 10 minutes and regular readers of this rubbish will be the first to remark that this is the first time in about a week that I’ve crashed out. That’s definitely progress of some kind.

But once back on my feet I tackled a few of these marathon dictaphone entries. Five of them in fact and that might sound reasonable, but the mega 20-minute one is next on the list and I need to be on form for that. So that’s a job for tomorrow morning, I reckon.

Tea, was as promised, the burger on a bap. delicious it was too, even though it was interrupted by two young girls trick-or-treating. Luckily I have a sweetie-jar here so I was able to hand out some goodies. They aren’t getting their hands on my grapes though. That’s the one good thing that I’ve found about going out for small amounts of shopping several times per week – tha it means that I can buy several loads of grapes.

As I’d used the last of the coconut soya cream in the carrot soup, I went for the blackcurrant sorbet to go on my fruit salad, only to find that I’d forgotten to put it in the freezer. “That was an expensive way to get a storage container” I mused, but it hadn’t actually defrosted too far.

So Rosemary on the phone, and now bed-time. No guitar today, and no web-site amendment either. I’m falling behind again and I need to get on top of things. It’s too late for an early night too.

I really must get myself organised.

Wednesday 30th October 2019 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

… where I didn’t manage to fit in my morning walk. And you wouldn’t have gone either if you had had the rainstorm that we were having.

And for a change, I actually did manage to see the morning. Because while I didn’t actually manage to beat the third alarm, it was pretty close.

So with an early rising and an early breakfast, we had an early start to work. And by the time that I knocked off for lunch I had amended 38 pages of my website to bring it up to date with the newt coding.

That’s some going, I’ll tell you.

After lunch, I took the opportunity to book my accommodation and travel for Leuven. And to my surprise, there has been a change of horaire for the departure. Instead of 09:05 it’s now at 08:24.

And what with one thing and another, because of that I can arrive in Brussels half an hour earlier on a train via Lille.

So something good has come out of it.

But the journey back is going to be a little … errr … tight. I shall have to run.

Accommodation in the usual place at the back of the nick. I must practise.

The afternoon walk in the wet around the headland and much to my surprise there were a few others out there too. Nothing much going on, although there’s a new boat in the harbour. I shall have to go down to the port tomorrow to see who she is.

And I have to go to the bank tomorrow too and pay some money. I’m spending my dosh again and I’ll tell you what on in due course. But the new me is treating himself to a few important things, including something that he has been promising himself for years.

Later on, I hit the dictaphone notes and did no fewer than 11. “Impressive stuff” you might say, but that’s being rather disingenuous. Some of them were only quite small, and there’s one of 20 minutes in the pipeline for tomorrow and it looks as if most of it is actual talking too.

So that’s my work cut out for the afternoon. I’m glad that I’ve been getting ahead.

Tea was some of the remaining pepper stuffing, mixed with kidney beans and rolled into some tacos. With rice and vegetables, it was delicious.

There’s more for tomorrow too but I think that I’ll go for something different like a burger on a bap and have more tacos on Friday.

Still raining tonight but I went for a walk – and a run too seeing as there was no-one about. I’m going to try to keep this up. I may not be able to run the miles as I used to, but I ought to be doing more than I am and not throw in the towel.

And I won’t now either. It’s early so I’m going to carry on working on the web pages.

And a big “hello” to both Castor and Pollux who were there or thereabouts at some point during the night.

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

… have any blue screens today. Or any frozen keyboards or major crashes on the big desktop computer today. For the simple reason that I didn’t switch it on at all.

To preserve it for a while longer I left it switched off and used the laptop computer to examine the portable drive onto which I had downloaded all of the data.

First thing was to remove all of the duplicate (and triplicate and, in some cases, quadruplicate) files. 22,000 or thereabouts out of the 78,000 or so that I downloaded yesterday and it took quite some time to do all of that. But luckily there’s a little program that I have on the computer that does it all for me, otherwise I would still be here doing it this time next year.

And I’ve come across yet more stuff that I had forgotten, including a pile of photos, and the sad thing is that I can’t remember where many of them were taken. The sad part about it all is that I downloaded onto the desktop computer all of the files for one of the previous versions of the blog when the host closed down, but the dates of the entries don’t seem to be on the files. It must have been a javascript key running from the webhost at the time.

I’ll have to think much more deeply about this.

There’s also a pile of data that needs to be sorted, and so I’ve a feeling that this is going to be a very long job.

I was interrupted by a phone call at about 11:00. Could I come to the doctor’s at 12:00 instead of 16:00? So I had to have a shower and a good clean-up before setting out.

On the way down into town, I noticed that Neptune was still in port, tied up at her quayside next to Marité and Normandy Trader.

I’ll go for a nosy round there after the doctor’s to see what’s going on.

At the doctor’s, I discovered that the situation about the vaccines is that you need a prescription from the doctor, and then go to the chemist for the supplies, and finally make an appointment with a nurse to do the injection.

The doctor did that all for me so I have to be at the nurse’s office at 11:00 tomorrow for the injection.

The doctor prescribed me a helping of Vitamin D to reinforce the injection. And you’ll be pleased to know that all of this medication cost me a grand total of €13:48. Cheap at half the price.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and then went for a walk around the harbour.

Neptune was still there, and Normandy Trader had sneaked in on the morning tide.

I’d never had a close look round at Neptune before, so this seemed to be the correct moment to go for a suitable exploration

She’s a small bulk carrier of 2400 tonnes deadweight with a gross tonnage of about 1500 tonnes.

Built in 1992, she was formerly known as Islay Trader but changed her name quite recently, something presumably not unacquainted with the fact that she acquired something of a bad habit just recently of running aground and having to be towed off.

As you can see, she’s registered out of the port of Faversham, although I don’t imagine that she sails … “diesels” – ed … out of there these days seeing as how it’s silting up so rapidly.

These days we’ve seen her heading into Whitstable or, occasionally, Ridham whenever the tidal conditions are right.

That’s because Ridham is what is called a NABSA port – “Not Afloat But Safely Aground” – whenever the tide is low and no-one likes to have a heavily-loaded ship sitting on the bottom.

Victor Hugo was in port too.

She’s one of the ships that works the ferry service out to the Channel islands from the Normandy coast.

But it wasn’t her herself that caught my attention. What I was admiring was the notice where Hugo talks about the fact that there are four islands in the Channel Islands, which he mentions, but he can only find something to say about three.

As well as that, Aztec Lady had regrown her masts. There was a girl on deck working away so we had a chat for a while. They are off to the Far North of Norway soon, but not unfortunately to where I want to go.

As I arrived back here I was treated to a strange sight on the car park.

I’m all in favour of eating out wherever possible, but not in this kind of weather. So I admired the people who were taking their picnic lunch outside.

Not much danger of me joining them, I have to say. I’m going to eat my lunch indoors.

While I’m eating my lunch, I can tell you about the early part of the morning. With having had a really early night I’d had a really good sleep and was awake at 05:46.

I’d been on my travels too. Firstly, I had encountered someone from the Open University – an old guy whom I happened to quite like. A very quiet, timid type but last night he was busily killing off everyone who had offended or upset him. That was actually the plot of something that I had been watching on a DVD a couple of nights ago.
A little later I’d been at a football match, something like at Pionsat. But it was Bangor City who was playing and at a certain moment a long clearance out of the opposition defence had gone straight up towards the Bangor goalkeeper, who ran out to clear it. However he pulled a muscle and fell down, grabbing hold of the football as he did so in order to stop any attacker getting to the ball and scoring a goal. Clearly a free kick of course, but in view of the circumstances was it a yellow card offence for deliberate handball, or was it a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity? The debate raged for quite a while about that one. Unfortunately, I awoke before the referee reached the scene and made a decision.

This afternoon I typed a couple of letters. Time to get a few things moving to secure the future. They’ll be posted tomorrow and then things will be off. And I forgot to go for a walk this afternoon, being so engrossed. Not that it matters quite so much as I’d had a good stroll out this morning.

Tea was an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by pineapple and coconut-flavoured soya dessert. I’ll do this again because it’s lovely.

And on my walk around, I was all on my own except for a jogger. Minette was there and I gave her a stroke but she must have a sore spot somewhere because she suddenly leapt up, spat at me and cleared off.

Not quite an early night tonight, but I’m off shopping tomorrow and I’ll call at the nurse’s on the way back. Another thing crossed off the list.

normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

samsung digger neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide port de granville harbour pilot light manche normandy france

Saturday 24th November 2018 – WHAT A SHAMBLES!

And, just for a change, we aren’t talking about events on the North Shore of the English Channel either.

Up at the Stade Louis Dior this eveningin the beautiful sunset watching US Granville play US St Malo. Granville came straight out of the traps and missed two complete sitters in the first five minutes.

Granville scored the first goal after about 20 minutes and looked as if they were doing wuite well, but then they started to lapse into the usual lack of concentration and silly, stupid schoolboy mistakes.

Just after half-time they scored a second goal. This new n°10 whom they have just signed and who was playing a blinder, the smallest man on the field, rose highest at the back post to a deep cross and headed in.

But then, an astonishing thing. Granville went to sleep. This new n°10 drifted into anonymity and was later substituted, and St Malo then took the game by the scruff of the neck. They pulled one back after 74 minutes and a second, from a panic-stricken penalty, with five minutes to go.

And as the game drew to a close, it was Sr Malo who looked the most likely.

This bizarre behaviuor by Granville has cost them yet another two points. They’ve signed a whole raft of new players this season with the cup money, but they have still kept the same old habits, and they will cost them dear.

Last night was another reasonable night and I was away on my travels again – although I have absolutely no idea when or where I went.

And up reasonably early too, medicined and breakfasted.

With it being Saturday, it’s my usual practice to go to the shops today. But with my going off tomorrow morning, I decided against it. No point buying food that I don’t need right now.

I did go out, however. A nice walk around the docks.

But first I had something to do. Remember the story the other day of the railway line at the side of the docks?

I followed it a bit further along the docks and found a spot where the two rails merged into one. And so now I’m having third thoughts about my theory of the railway crane.

The tide was well out today so not only were the harbour gates closed and I could walk over them, I could satisfy my curiosity about how the harbour empties.

The harbour would have to slowly lose water over the course of the day as the tide goes out, so that the water inside could go down slowly and the gates could be opened before high tide

And there’s the drain, down there at the foot of the wall.

There are tidal markers too at the side of the wall so we can see the state of the tide. I’ll have to be down there one day as the gates open so that I can see the height of the water when they open the gates.

I carried on with my walk around the quayside to see what else was going on.

And it looks as if whatever has been going on with the Aztec Lady in the ship repairers has now finished because she’s now tied up at the quayside.

There was no-one about on the boat so I was unable to make further enquiries;

I was intrigued by the yacht that was moored next to Aztec Lady.

Closer observation revealed that she’s the Spirit of Conrad and we ought to know about this because she’s actually owned by one of my neighbours and if my memory serves me correctly I’ve been to a birthday party on board.

One of these days, I might even go for a sail on her because she goes off occasionally to the Arctic too.

Leaving the quayside, I off up to the railway station to collect my rail tickets for tomorrow morning. I always like to have them in my hand before the day of departure. There has been more than one occasion when the ticket machine hasn’t worked, and the booking office isn’t open by the time my train leaves.

After lunch, I did a little tidying up and cleaning up in here – not that you would notice the difference. But the microwave has been steam-cleaned and now looks a little more healthy.

And I had a play with the big tower computer too. But that wasn’t very successful – the CMOS battery is flat and the settings are erased. I’ll have to buy a new CMOS battery and reset everything.

Not that it’s any surprise of course. This computer hasn’t run since March 2011.

A little later I went off to the football, as I mentioned earlier.

The other day we had seen them putting up some Christmas lights around the town.

The main shopping street – the rue Campion – would ordinarily be the best place to start, but this is something of a disappointment.

I’m not much of a one for celebrations and festivities but I would have expected the Christmas decorations to be much better than this. I hope that they are going to add some more in early course.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that bad parking is a regular feature of this blog.

Here in the boulevard of the 2éme et 202éme de Ligne there’s yet another example, and while it might not be a BMW it’s a Volvo, and that’s almost as bad.

I don’t know why he needs to take up two parking spaces with his vehicle, but it’s clearly pretty selfish of him.
But what do you expect from a Volvo driver?

I eventually returned home and set about making tea. Something out of a tin as usual on a Saturday when there’s football, and then some more tidying up, including cleaning the coffee machine.

Now it’s bed-time, having had a very pleasant hour or so reprogramming the CMOS on the tower computer. It’s amazing how much I have remembered from my T223 course all those years ago, and it’s running along quite happily. Although for some reason or other I’ve programmed in the wrong settings for the video card. I’ll have to look at that when I come back from Belgium next week.

But now it’s an early night. There’s an alarm call in the morning.

Friday 23rd November 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

… for quite some considerable time, we’ve had rain today.

Not enough to prevent me from going for my series of perambulations but enough to make me put on the raincoat and do up the hood. And it’s not a long knee-length raincoat, Rhys.

With having had a reasonably early night, I had a good sleep too.

During the night last night there was something of a family reunion. I’m no longer sure of the beginning or even the middle but right at the end I can remember going to bed – in Vine Tree Avenue of all places. But when I went to get into bed with Nerina, my younger sister was asleep in there too. When I awoke her to find out what was going on, she told me that there was someone else asleep in her bed so she had to find somewhere else to sleep. I went to look in her bed and found that one of my friends had actually gone to sleep in there.
As an aside, in real life whoever was asleep in her bed later became her husband. But that’s another story.

It wasn’t a particularly early start this morning either. I had a bit of a lie-in, and then I attacked the breakfast.

This morning I’ve been a busy little B. The blog for the last week or two is up to date and you can see where I updated starting from this page and working forward.

When I’m more organised, I’ll be starting from the end of October and working backwards, doing three or four a day until it’s all done. It might take me several years to do it but if I don’t start, I won’t finish.

Another task that I’ve done this morning that took me far longer than it ought was to merge the clipbook libraries.

The program that I use the most is a text editor called Notetab. I do evrything with it, from making brief notes right up to hand-coding my own web pages.

The main advantages that it has are that

you can have several *.txt or *.html files open at any one time
you can build up a whole series of clipbook libraries, so that you can save a regular block of text or coding that you use on a regular basis, and just one click inserts it into your document, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall

There are enough old computers here to sink a ship, and there are backups that date to about 1999, so this morning I started to extract the libraries from the various machines and merge them together.

having done a couple this morning, I then did a big back-up of the laptop and I’ll be backing up my data a couple of times a day from now on, always assuming that I remember.

While I was searching for something else, I came across a rare book going back to AD731 that has now been uploaded to the internet and available for free download. And so I’ve now added a copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People to my virtual library.

This is one of the very earliest histories of England and, along with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was the basis of much of what was known about English history in the Dark Ages.

And that reminds me. I brought my Domesday Book with me from the farm, but did I bring my Anglo-Saxon Chronicle?

This muesli that I made really is wicked. It went down a treat on my butties at lunchtime and there is still plenty left. And after lunch I came back into my little office and carried on with Day Four of the High Arctic.

There was a break for a walk around the headland. Although it was raining, it wasn’t all that bad-certainly not bad enough to stop me.

At the ship repairers, Aztec Lady was still there, up on blocks. There was a ladder up to her deck but I couldn’t see any sign of any work being done.

The trawlers are still up there too receiving attention. I’m not sure what they are doing to the pink and white one that we saw being lifted out of the water.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back when they were dredging out the harbour, they had a digger in the tidal basin here at low tide.

It was digging out a deep channel at the outside of the fishing quay by the fish processing plant.

This was done presumably with the aim of making a cut there that would provide access to the quay for a greater part of the day

There’s a whole line of smaller boats that have been queueing up outside the harbour now on their way in to tie up and unload.

If you look at the surrounding tidal harbour, you can see that it’s a long way from being submerged right now.

It certainly seems that the little channel that they dug out is working, and in spades too, which is good news for the port and the town.

More time available to unload means that more fishing boats can use the facilities

Just by way of a change I’d been chatting to a couple of neighbours too – one as I left the building and the second as I arrived back. It’s all go here, isn’t it?

In the mail today I’ve had the bill for the taxe d’habitation – the Council Tax – for next year for my house in the Auvergne. Eat your hearts out, you UK dwellers. My council tax for next year is all of €24:00.

Ingrid phoned me up after I came back. And we had a lengthy chat for a good hour or so about all kinds of things. She’s not too well right now, so I told her that some nice, relaxing sea air would do her the world of good.

There was a pepper left over so tea tonight was a stuffed pepper. I need to rid myself of the perishable stuff before I go away on Sunday.

Then, back into the rain. There was just one other person out there this evening but Minette, the black cat, was there on her windowsill. She had a good stroke and even allowed me to pick her up for 30 seconds.

But for some reason or another, I’m feeling quite tired. No idea why – it’s not as if I had a bad night. But I do seem to think that I’ve not had my usual afternoon doze so that might account for it.

It’s a good enough reason to go to bed.

Thursday 22nd November 2018 – I HAD A …

… better night last night, just for a change. Asleep before midnight and slept right through until the alarm went off.

I was off on my travels during the night. I vaguely remember being on board ship somewhere, but apart from that, nothing at all.

Once I was up and out of bed, I had breakfast and then organised the photos from last night which I had forgotten to upload. And the *.ftp program seems to work fine, which is good news.

A check of the thermometer showed me that last night the temperature had dropped down to 1°C. Won’t be long now before freezing point is reached.

Thursday is shopping day so I had a shower and a clean-up, and then put a load of washing on. What an exciting life I lead, hey?

On my way up the rue Couraye, I was noticing all of the signs for “Black Friday”. yet another Transatlantic custom that people over here have started to embrace.

But there are clearly some people who haven’t quite grasped the principle of Black Friday. How can you possibly have a Black Friday sale that lasts for a week?

But it’s something that I’m seeing more and more. People are losing all of their traditional customs and habits in the relentless search for profit, although some of the instances that I have quoted on here just recently would bring that into question.

We feature every now and again the progress of the installation of the fibre-optic cable around the town.

Here in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc just a little higher up the hill from the railway station they are now digging out a channel on the pavement so that they can pass the cable higher up the hill presumably in the direction of the telephone exchange

The date of connection is getting closer and closer. And I for one can’t wait.

The other week we saw them erecting the Christmas Tree in the Place de la Gare and on Saturday we saw it in position.

To further add to the chaos in the Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc, they are now erecting the Christmas decorations across the street.

The local council was there with a cherry-picker, and a couple of municipal police personnel directing the traffic around th obstruction.

I shook my head and went on to LIDL where I did a pile of shopping. Nothing special but they have now run out of grapes which is a tragedy, and the packets of nuts that I use in my muesli were still on offer so I bought a few more packets.

A few weeks ago I posted a photograph of a building with “Residence des Granvillaises” emblazoned thereupon.

On the way back from the shops I took a little diversion to the Rue Etoupefour to have a good look at the entrance to the building to see what it looked like at street level.

It’s not anything at all significant, which is probably why I haven’t noticed it at all during all of the times that I have passed by.

Back here I had a coffee and then carried on with the photos from earlier. As well as having a little doze for a short while. It seems to have become a regular thing these days after any kind of exertion.

Lunch was the baguette from LIDL with salad and more of my home-made hummus. It really is quite a fiery concoction and tastes delicious.

This afternoon I added the photos to a couple more blog entries. if you go to this page and work your way forward you can see them.

There wasn’t a great deal of excitement going on during my afternoon walk.

There was a speck of something out to sea and thinking that it might be Thora coming back, I took a photo of it and enlarged it when I returned home.

But it wasn’t Thora at all but a fishing trawler out there doing the business offshore. And I for one am looking forward to the excitement when the UK leaves the EU and we start to have fishing fights between the French and Channel Island fishermen.

I can still remember the 1960s when a bunch of Icelandic trawlermen took on the might of the Royal Navy during the Cod Wars – and defeated them hands-down. French fishermen are far more resolute than the Icelanders, and the Royal Navy is a mere shadow of what it was in the 1960s

My perambulations took me around the headland where I could overlook the shipyard.

Remember the pink and white candy-striped trawler that we saw the other day being lifted out of the water at the ship repairers?

We caught a glimpse of it last night up on blocks, but here it is today in the daylight. I’ll be keen to see what they are doing to it and how the work progresses over time.

And that wasn’t all the excitement down in the shipyard either.

It seems that the mystery of why the Aztec Lady has turned up in Granville has been resolved. Here she is, in the shipyard, up on blocks like the rest of the ships in here.

It looks as if I missed out on the hoisting ceremony which is a shame because that is something that is quite interesting.

Anyway, it enables us to have a good look at her while she’s here.

And we can also keep our eye on her and see what work is being done. It must be important.

On that note, I came back here for a coffee and to start work. And the work in question is Day Four of my trip to the High Arctic.

I need to push on with that otherwise it will never be finished. And there are plenty of pages like that already.

Tea should have been vegan sausages, but I didn’t notice until I’d started the vegetables that the sausages were somewhat iffy. Instead, a vegan burger was rustled up and it tasted just as good with the vegan cheese sauce as the sausages would have done.

No-one about at all during the evening walk, except for a solitary jogger. Nothing at all worth photographing zither tonight, so I can have an evening off.

On that note, I’ll go to bed. Plenty of work to do tomorrow.

Tuesday 20th November 2018 – I’VE NO IDEA …

… where I visited during the night but wherever it was, I was still there when the alarm went off. Dead to the world, in fact.

It took me a while to haul myself out of bed and organise myself properly. And after breakfast I had a couple of things that needed doing.

A shower followed, and then I dressed for the streets.

As the tide was out, I took my new route, down the steps, across the fish dock and the path over the top of the tidal gates onto the commercial dock.

I remember seeing Thora in the port yesterday and I thought that I had seen her still here last night. And she’s still here this morning, looking as if she’s taking on a load for Jersey.

But there was no-one about to talk to – she was doing a good impression of the Marie Celeste.

My destination was the Post Office, where I posted off my letter to Canada. And while I was there I bought a pack of 10 pre-stamped envelopes for use in France. i’m down to my last one here.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes for lunch.

Over the last week or so I’ve taken piles of photos but I’ve been too busy to deal with them. So having made myself a coffee, I sat down and started to review them, edit them and upload them.

And believe it or not, I did manage to get a shot of one of the dolphins yesterday. I’ll post it tomorrow so you can all see it.

Lunch was in here again. it didn’t rise much above 5°C today so I wasn’t going to sit on the wall.

Just by way of a change I’ve done some tidying up too. There was a huge pile of cables and lead that I had brought with me from the Auvergne so I sorted them out and tidied them up. And SHOCK! HORROR! I threw away a pile of stuff away too.

That’s not like me at all, is it?

Later on, I went for my usual afternoon walk around the Pointe de la Roc.

And there I was greeted by the sight of Thora sailing … “dieseling” – ed … off into the sunset on her way back to Jersey.

Enhancing the colours a little has brought out a really nice effect on this image.

She put on a slight turn to port after that so I took another photo of her.

Back here I cropped her out and blew up the image. I can do that these days, despite modern anti-terrorism legislation.

Considering that this has been cropped out and enlarged at full focal length, it’s not come out too badly given the distances that I was having to cover.

Round the corner and looking out over the Baie de Mont St Michel, I could see that the sailing school had been out this afternoon.

I have half a mind … “yes, quite!” – ed … to go out and learn to sail one of these days, but I’m not quite sure how I can fit it in given my state of health and medical requirements.

A theoretical course on sailing and navigation would be right up my street (or down my river) though.

There wa even more excitement down at the ship repairer’s.

It’s not every day that I’m lucky enough to see them lifting a boat out of the water but I was in luck today. It looks as if they have another job to do on a fishing trawler and they were lifting her out with the hoist.

I’ll have to check tomorrow to see if she has been put up on blocks ready for work.

The highlight of the walk though had to be this delightful nautical danse macabre.

A trawler had unloaded at the fish dock and was heading off into the inner harbour, just as Aztec Lady was on her way out.

They waltzed and weaved around each other as they sorted themselves out into their respective routes.

Back here, I had a little … errr … repose for a while and then there was another job that needed doing. I’ve had a temporary curtain hanging in here ever since I moved in and it’s been on my mind to have it taken up to the correct size.

But that’s not happened so I took it off and pinned it to the right size.

And then I finished off all of my photos and uploaded them to the internet.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper and then I went out for my walk. Freezing cold outside, it was, and so that probably explains why there wasn’t a single person (or even a married one) out on the streets tonight.

Beautiful it was though – clear and crisp night with some lovely moonlight.

Now I’m keen to see if I can have another good night. And while I’m dozing off I’ll leave you with a few more photos.

Thora going back to Jersey

Sailing school baie de mont st michel granville

Trawler Port de Granville harbour

Trawler being lifted out of the water and moved across the shipyard on the hoist.

The beach at the Plat Gousset

The Port de Plaisance at Granville harbour

Saturday 17th November 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… little bit more like it.

22:30 or thereabouts was when I went to bed, and it took me a while to go off to sleep. However, once I’d gone, I was well-gone and that was your lot until about 05:45. It’s not quite a good night’s sleep but it’s better than what else I’ve been having just recently.

I was off on my travels too during the night. On a coach as a passenger heading into the centre of Shrewsbury. Of course, it didn’t even bear a passing resemblance to Shrewsbury even though there was a good wide river there. We had city walls, low gates and crowds of people to deal with. We reached the drop-off point at the centre of town and while the bus was to turn round (which wasn’t easy around here) I said that I would wander off and take some photos. Of course, it goes without saying that I intended to spend much longer photographing than the bus would take to turn round, but I reckoned that the bus driver would cope. Why I never asked him to drop me off by the gate into the town and pick me up later was something that even in a nocturnal ramble I couldn’t understand.

With an early awakening we had an early rising and an early breakfast. And then there was some stuff that needed doing. I followed that up with a shower and then headed off to town and LIDL.

The town centre of Granville was like a ghost town this morning.

Not even half the market was there, not even half of the usual customers and probably no more than a dozen cars.

Normally on a Saturday there would be market stalls all over the square and the place would be heaving with people. However everyone seemed to be respecting this Day of Action against the tax hikes here.

When Josée was here just now, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the lengths to which some people are going in order to inconvenience pedestrians and others – preventing them from sitting or lying down in sheltered places when they need to rest.

Walking up the rue Couraye this morning, my attention was caught by this window ledge and its … errr … decorations.

This is exactly the kind of thing that we were discussing. It’s the kind of thing that brings the town and the shop owner into disrepute.

You’ll remember a few days ago that I told you about the cherry-picker that seemed to be erecting Christmas decorations near the railway station.

So here we are at the place de la Gare and you’ll see that we have now acquired a Christmas tree.

One of these evenings I’ll go past it and see if it’s illuminated. It’ll be nice to see some Christmas lights.

Lidl was practically empty this morning, which was a surprise. But despite that, they didn’t have much that I needed.

On the way back, I met the guy to whom I gave the Solex a few months ago, and then took a diversion around the docks. The heap of gravel on the quayside is growing – it looks as if a gravel boat will be here sometime soon.

Do you remember that strange-looking boat that we saw coming into the port the other day? She was still moored up here so I went for a closer inspection.

She’s called the Aztec Lady and she’s out of Cherbourg.

Built in Southampton in 1977, she spent the first 20-odd years of her life going to all kinds of places around the world but since 2000 she’s specialised in sailings out to the North Atlantic and the Arctic. I see that I shall have to make the acquaintance of the owners.

She’s back in port after having apparently spent the summer in Norway and out in Spitzbergen and the Lofoten Islands.

Another boat in the harbour right now is La Grande Ancre

We’ve seen her on many occasions, quite often taking stuff out to the Ile de Chausey and on one occasion there was even a large van on board being taken somewhere.

Today though it looks as if she’s kitted out for going mussel-catching.

You’ll also remember that for several months the harbour was closed while they replaced the tidal gates into the inner harbour.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t been over to see the new ones since they have been installed and that’s not like me at all, is it?

They certainly look impressive enough and should last quite a while. But you can see that the sea water has already left its mark on them

The weight of the water behind the gates must be really substantial so not only must the gates be of solid construction, so must the machinery for opening and closing the gates.

And this little lot looks as if it really could do the business.

I don’t think that I have ever seen a hydraulic ram quite as solid as this one. This should do the business.

On the other side of the entrance to the inner harbour is the fish dock.

Wandering around on here was this cute little family, mummy and two baby goélands scavenging for fish waste.

The little ones were making quite a racket – so much so that it was giving me a nasty tern

It also seems that I haven’t taken a photo of the fish dock either.

To the right, it’s the tidal basin and the fishing boats tie up here when the tide is in. The catch off the commercial boats is lifted up here on the cranes to the fish processing plant.

The private fishers park their vehicles on the deck underneath where we are standing and they can unload their boats straight into their vehicles as we have seen in the past.

We’ve not had a photo of the new fish-processing plant either.

There was an older one on the other quay, presumably dating from when the trawlers from Granville went out to the Grad Banks fishing for the cod. Marité was one of the Grand Banks fishing boats in its prime.

But since the Cod Moratorium in 1992, the Grand Banks are off-limits. Now the fishermen are engaged in fishing in smaller boats much closer to home.

Their catch goes into the side of the building where it’s processed and then comes out of the front into the refrigerated lorries that distribute it

Back here I had a little … errr … repose, and then made a huge pile of hummus. It has olives and garlic as well as some cumin. And it’s delicious too. It was a large jar of chick peas so it made a lot of hummus so there is plenty in the freezer.

After lunch, I installed the new printer. And that took longer than you might have expected too. Basically because the wireless connection didn’t recognise the printer and vice versa. In the end, I had to set it up with the USB cable and that defeats the whole point of having a wireless printer.

This evening there was football on the internet. Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro in the Welsh Premier League. And the wheels seem really to have come off the Metro as they slumped to yet another defeat. There was no spark in the side – they looked tired and totally lacking in enthusiasm. And, shame as it is to say it, Alex Lang in goal is not even a shadow of the keeper that Will Fuller was.

Caernarfon won 2-0 and didn’t even break sweat.

Add to that the fact that, much to everyone’s surprise, Llanelli won again, it means that the bottom of the table is becoming rather exciting as more and more teams are finding themselves sucked into a relegation scrap. And if the Met don’t do something quickly, they will be in there too.

After tea, which was out of a tin, I went for a walk around the Pointe du Roc. I was the only person out there which was no surprise because it was freezing out there and my ears certainly felt it.

Winter is acumen in without any mistake at all.

And I forgot to post one of the photos of the walkway across the top of the gates into the port.

Friday 16th November 2018 – THIS WAS A …

… really bad day today.

Mind you, this was only to be expected considering that I was still awake at 02:30 this morning working.

It takes quite a while to extract the data files from the failed hard drive on the other laptop and to make sure that absolutely everything was saved onto the external back-up drive.

In fact by the time that 02:30 came round and I was seeing double or even treble and there was still a long way to go, I created a little batch program to do it automatically. It’s amazing how much I can remember of T223 when I put my mind to it.

The net result of all of this was that when I awoke at 06:00 it was all done.

And then I had the job of configuring the other laptop.

This is one that I bought a few years ago when I was living on the farm. I wanted a cheap laptop to work the auto-diagnostic kit. It had to have a CD-ROM but not much else, and someone produced one in which the on-board mouse wasn’t working. And an external mouse is no big deal.

But going back to the issues of the UK’s engagement with the EU, I decided that I ought to go back to having a desktop computer as a main set-up. There’s a company in Stoke-on-Trent that is well-known for making bespoke computers and they would do whatever it was that I needed.

So I sent them a mail and the reply was “we don’t sell our products abroad”. Yes, the UK has never ever got to grips with the idea of the European Union. After all, it’s not the first time that this has happened. Far from it, in fact.

And the Rosemary rang me up and we had a good chat for an hour and a half. We were laughing at the clueless rabble who are running the UK right now, where the guy who negotiated a deal with the European Union then resigned because he didn’t agree with the deal that he had just negotiated. Does it get any more clueless than this?

Finally I could get down to dealing with the High Arctic, only to be immediately interrupted by the pompiers. You can tell that it’s getting close to Christmas – they are now collecting their funds for the annual p155-up, selling their calendars.

This was the cue to have a little doze – hardly surprising – and when I awoke it was almost 13:30 so another late lunch.

This afternoon, I really did attack the High Arctic Day Three and spent a good deal of time on it.

That was despite an interruption to join the crowds milling around the Pointe du Roc in the glorious late-autumn weather.

It really was a beautiful afternoon and I spent quite some considerable time watching the waves come crashing down on the rocks just offshore.

It was a typical late autumn scene out there today

Walking around the headland to the point overlooking the harbour, I noticed that we seem to have a new arrival in port.

I don’t recall having seen this boat before so I can’t tell you very much about it right now.

What I’ll have to do one of these days is to have a wander around down to the harbour one day if she’s still there and see what I can find out about her.

Despite these interruptione, I’d finished all of the meta tags for the photos on Day Three of the High Arctic, split the page into four (or is it five?) and started the meta tags for the pages, when I was overwhelmed.

Not just slumping with my head on the desk either, but on the bed under the covers flat out for well over two hours. And you’ve no idea just how painful it was to awaken. It took me a good 20 minutes to gather up my wits which is a surprise seeing how few I have these days.

Tea was pasta and falafel and then a walk around the walls of the medieval town.

Now provided that nothing else goes wrong, I’ll have an early night and catch up with my beauty sleep. You have no idea just how much I need these days.

Tide on the rocks

Diving platform on the beach at Plat Gousset

The beach at the Plat Gousset

The tide coming in at the Plat Gousset

View across the town of Granville to the Port de Plaisance

Restaurants down on the port de plaisance.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: aztec lady

Thursday 31st October 2019 – I DIDN’T …

Wednesday 30th October 2019 – YET ANOTHER DAY …

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

Saturday 24th November 2018 – WHAT A SHAMBLES!

Friday 23rd November 2018 – FOR THE FIRST TIME …

Thursday 22nd November 2018 – I HAD A …

Tuesday 20th November 2018 – I’VE NO IDEA …

Saturday 17th November 2018 – THAT WAS A …

Friday 16th November 2018 – THIS WAS A …

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