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Sunday 22nd December 2019 – REMEMBER A WHILE AGO …

… when we had been discussing those strange objects on the quayside, and that I’d made enquiries and they were in fact shellfish-dredgers?

Here I am today, down in the town by the harbour and here they are actually loading up some of the aforementioned onto one of the fishing boats here.

Clearly these items are still in day-to-day use, and that’s always good to know of course.

While we’re on the subject of shellfish and fishing … “well, one of us is” – ed … most of the stuff is either transported away in lorries for the mass market or else it’s sold locally in shops or local restaurants.

In Oostende we’ve seen the fish market where the trawlers unload and their catch is sold direct to the public, but there’s very little of that in Granville, which is a real surprise.

In fact, I think that I’ve only ever seen this stall set up at the end of the port to deal directly with the public.

In all the time that I’ve lived here, I can’t ever recall ever having seen anyone else doing this direct from a fishing boat. I mean, the produce is so fresh that a good vet could bring it round.

But talking of today, I had quite a surprise this morning. It’s Sunday and lie-in, with no alarm. But bird-brain of Britain had set an alarm for last Sunday in order to be up and about to catch his train, but had forgotten to unset it.

As a result, at 06:00 on a Sunday, on my Day of Rest …

But no chance whatever of that. I made sure that the rest of the alarms were switched off and went back down under the covers and there I stayed until … err … 10:00.

That’s much more like it for a Sunday.

Plenty of time to go off on a travel then. I was with Cecile last night – at least, I think it was Cecile – and we had been somewhere and I had to go to a hospital – I think we were in Stoke on Trent. It was something to do with a house in Stoke on Trent and it was where Carriatt was living with his father. He took us back to his little house – in Kidsgrove – with his little car and there was an older car parked in the drive and it was only used once a fortnight and sometimes it wouldn’t start. but back in his little house, a nice little semi-detached house and he told us about it. He’s had it three or four years and paid about £5500 for it. They were thinking of selling it and I was thinking that it was a nice kind of house and it would just do me. Pretty small and two people was probably stretching it a little bit but on my own that would really do me. I had to go on to the hospital and Cecile had to go as well. I got there and got myself registered in and I explained that Cecile had to be registered in – at least, I think it was Cecile. We both had to go for x-rays so they took a preliminary photo of her and gave it a reference number then we had to go out across the yard and register ourselves in for this X-ray thing. The woman said to Cecile “as you’re new here you had better come back and tell me the reference number of the object…” or whatever the word was “… for your x-ray”. She looked bewildered but I said “that’s OK, I know what’s happening here. Come with me”. She was a bit confused but I took her out. They were going to give reference numbers to people and that related to whatever photo they had of you on the file. If they had 3 or 4 they would choose 1 so that it could be linked into the right file. But Cecile had only had 1 taken here, this introductory photo, so that was obviously the number that was going to be allocated to her. So I knew what was happening. We had to go across the yard to the other bit of the hospital to register for this x-ray thing. I gave my details and explained “this is Cecile, she’s new and from the Netherlands (…don’t ask me why …) so the clerk explained the procedure to Cecile and she was slowly understanding it. We were hoping that we would get an appointment in 2 or 3 hours to give us time to go and do some sightseeing. Cecile then asked “do you have any aspirin”. This woman looked bewildered. “What’s aspirin?” So Cecile came out with the Latin name “aspartamine” (or whatever it was) so the woman said that Cecile needed to go to see them in the Pharmacy “over there somewhere”. Cecile became anxious, going to a third place and although we’d been registered in and she had taken away all our paperwork we hadn’t been given a time for our x-ray. I thought that this is going to start getting really confusing in a minute. It was just then that I awoke with a really bad attack of cramp.

But if Carriatt is now appearing in my nocturnal rambles I’m going to go off rambling somewhere else.

After the medication I transcribed the dictaphone notes while I was waiting for the medication to work, and then had breakfast. That took me up until about 11:10 and I had a feeling that I was not going to have a very good day.

Well over 100 photos from the Archipel last night and they all needed editing and so I set to work. When I noticed the time (14:00) I’d done about half so I thought that I’d better nip out for my dejeunette for lunch.

But one of the reasons why I was late was that I’d been helping Hans, designing a piece of code for him to display podcasts on his web page.

Anyway, off I set on my travels, right out of the door where I was met by a blast of wind that almost blew me back into the building.

You can see just how rough the weather was out there too. That’s the local coastguard rescue boat, I reckon, and there it is disappearing into a giant wave.

Not a day for anyone to be out at sea, I reckon.

Having picked up my dejeunette from La Mie Caline for lunch, and ordered a special “fig and raisin” loaf for the festive period (“don’t forget to pick it up on Tuesday, Eric”), I went to see what was happening in the town.

On a publicity leaflet somewhere I’d seen that there was to be a Brocante professionelle today in the rue Couraye.

Now I’m all in favour of brocantes as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I’m horrified by the prices that people around here want for objects that are not all that far removed from a load of old junk.

And when it’s a Brocante professionelle rather than a Brocante particulier, it’s going to be even more horrific so I didn’t even cross the road for a look.

Here in the place General de Gaulle there’s someone selling carpets and the like, and what that has to do with a Brocante, whether professionelle or particulier I really couldn’t say.

So on that note I headed back to my apartment for a very late lunch.

Back here it was almost 17:00 when I finished the photos, and then I sent them on to the radio HQ for them to pick one or two to illustrate the podcast of last night’s broadcast.

And when I have time, I’ll create a web page for you to see them and post the link here.

Better late than never, I decided to go out for my afternoon walk.

The wind was thoroughly wicked again tonight so I didn’t want to hang around long. I went around the city walls as it was out of the shelter of the wind and I could see what the storm was doing.

The tide wasn’t right in yet so we weren’t having the full effect of the buffeting but it was wild enough out there nevertheless.

By now it was becoming quite dark.

The lights of the rue Paul Poirier were looking quite good in the gloom from up here and they are always worth a photograph or two.

The streets were quite busy too with the shops being open in the run-up to Christmas and there was quite a traffic jam in the rue Lecampion as people headed for home.

By now it was starting to rain so I took the opportunity to run down my little track, much to the surprise and/or amusement of the couple who were heading my way.

Just by way of a change I made it al the way up to the end of the ramp and then I went into the place Cambernon to see what was happening and to look at the lights (and collect a raindrop on the lens of the camera).

Back here I made a start on the blog for Saturday but shame as it is to admit it, I fell asleep for 10 minutes. That’s not like me these days, is it?

Tea was a pizza which was delicious, and then out for my walk.

There was such a howling gale that I didn’t even attempt the Point du Roc. Instead I went round the walls again.

This time I hung about even less than before and amused another couple of people with my second run of the day. I have to push on.

Now, having finished the journal for tonight and dealt with an enquiry in English from Canada about the radio station, I’m off to bed.

An early night, and I’ve earned it. I’ll do Saturday’s blog tomorrow

I hope.

storms high winds plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 18th December 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about this meeting this evening.

To avoid offending your delicate sensibilities I shan’t say too much about it, except that I was picked up here at 18:45 and I was dropped back off at about 23:15. And they are already talking about a “part II too”.

There is however a silver lining to this. Chatting to the guy’s partner, it turns out that they have a pile of live music that the guy’s group recorded over various occasions and she’s going to send it to me. I sense another live concert in the making.

Last night, I remember that I was feeling quite tired quite early. I managed to fight off the sleep long enough to finish dictating the notes of the day but there was one thing that I needed to do before going to sleep.

And that was to go into the living room and light up the Christmas tree.

It was still up since last year – I hadn’t taken it down, for the simple reason that I hadn’t taken advantage of it. My medical appointment was on New Year’s Eve last year and I had no way of getting home afterwards so I stayed on in Leuven or a few days including Christmas Day.

For that reason, I decided to illuminate it early this year and take full advantage of it

And that reminds me. I had a look over my notes for the Christmas period to see how things were. Here I am today rejoicing that my blood count has crawled up to 9.2 from as low as 8.4 back at the end of June. And yet this time last year I was dismayed that it had dropped from 9.9 to 9.8.

How times have changed.

This morning I heard the first alarm and probably the second too, but instead of getting up I must have gone back to sleep because the third alarm awoke me. Drat and double-drat!

No nocturnal voyage either. I must have been dead to the world.

After the medication I sat down and cracked on with the photos. Now, the keywords are all done and saved to file. All 146, and by lunchtime too.

And that includes a couple of interruptions – firstly for breakfast and secondly to go into town for my dejeunette

There was some excitement too in the street around the corner.

Don’t ask me what was going on because I was about a minute too late to see it, but there was a cherry-picker there with its nacelle being retracted, and some people leaning out of the window of the nice house built into the walls.

It must have been something to do with them, I reckon, but I don’t know what.

There was some action down at the chantier navale too.

We’d seen the other day Aztec Lady being carried off my the mobile cradle and lowered into the water but as one boat goes another one arrives to take its place, like this fishing boat here.

There’s also a small yacht that has appeared in there too since I last had a good look. I’ll keep my eye on that one.

When I came back from town, I still had half an hour or so before lunch so I rewrote Monday’s blog and included the photographs of Monday and the dictaphone notes into it.

After lunch, I decided to carry on with the blog entries, but it set me wondering what to do about the …gulp … 22 photos from my walk around Paris on Sunday.

The answer was simple – “write a web page”. And so I set about doing it.

It wasn’t easy because I’d forgotten that Javascript doesn’t pass internet boundaries. I had to rewrite all of the Javascript files that I wrote back in October to make sure that all of the root directories are included in the file links.

So that’s now done and it’s now on line. Let me know if you spot any broken links – there’s a “contact me” box at the bottom right corner of your screen.

While I was out this morning, the postie had been by and left me a letter. Apparently I’d forgotten to pay a bill for my refuse collection so I decided to use my afternoon walk to go down to the estate agent and rectify the situation.

Not five minutes was I out of the building before I was buzzed by another low-flying light aeroplane.

It’s one of those lightweight things that I believe you can fly on some kind of basic restricted licence, although whether you can fly one so close to residential properties I really don’t know.

And I couldn’t see the registration either so I’ve no idea exactly what it is.

We’ve seen quite a few fishing boats just recently in the English Channel off the coast of Brehal-Plage. And there was another one out there today.

This one looks as if he has his net out too, so they are clearly giving it a go out there.

We’ve seen plenty of buoys out there too and we still haven’t worked out what they do and why they are there. If you look closely at the bottom right corner of the photo, you’ll see another one out there floating away to itself.

At the estate Agent’s I paid the bill and that was that. But something else too. With the events that are going on on the other side of the Channel right now, it won’t be too long before people start wondering whether I have the right to be in the country – the Estate Agents first of all as they have a statutory duty to check the bona fides of every resident.

A few months ago, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I managed to blag for myself a “residence permanent” identity card from the French Government. So while I was there I whipped it out and told them to photocopy it and put the copy in my file.

As I said the other day, the French love official documents and rubber stamps and all that kind of thing. Now that I have an official document – my identity card – I’m going to make sure that they all know about it.

Back at the apartment, having fought my way past my neighbours having a good chinwag at the door, there was another urgent task to perform. That was to dictate the notes for Project 007. There was enough time to do that and then take a shower before going off to this meeting at Brehal-Plage.

And now that that’s done and I’ve grabbed a bite to eat, I’m off to bed. It’s quite late and I have an early start tomorrow too. I hope that I can sleep well.

Tuesday 17th December 2019 – 10:30 am

Remember yesterday when I said that I had a day with no interruptions booked, and that I bet some basket comes along and spoils it.

Well, 10:30am. That’s when I had my first phone call, about a job that needed doing more-or-less immediately and with someone hanging on the phone while I made a start I could,’t put it off until a time more convenient to me.

That was followed at various times during the day of about half a dozen e-mails all of which needed some kind of immediate attention. At one point I was so engrossed that I almost missed the Post Office.

But let’s just say that after all of that, I didn’t manage to accomplish anything really of what I had set out to do, and that includes continuing the updating of the web pages, a task that I had missed off the list yesterday.

Last night wasn’t as early as I would have liked. I’d started a task – editing the photos – and I was intent on at least doing some of it. Again, not as many as I would have liked but at least a few of the enormous backlog.

For a change, I beat the third alarm quite comfortably and after the medication I attacked the dictaphone notes – with a little pause for breakfast.

It seems that I’d been on something of a travel last night too. I was recording programmes again for the radio (and when I say “again”, you’ll find eventually that I’d been dreaming about this a couple of times just recently). There was one that should be done every month and we were having to record four or five of them. We were doing them from different venues and there was some guy who was extremely interested in it and was hanging around watching and listening and making notes of what was going on. And there was another one that should have been done every month and that was a cricket broadcast and for some unknown reason they had done three broadcasts consecutively one after the other in the USA, about cricket matches in the USA and broadcast to the USA. Whether they were trying to get the USA to take up cricket, something like that I really don’t know. The chat with this guy who wanted to know what was going on was extremely interesting and I wish that I could remember more of what I was doing during the night.

Once the dictaphone notes were finished I began the photos. I thought that there were probably 100 or so. I never expected them to be as many as 146.

And with the continued spate of interruptions throughout the day it took me up to about 16:00 just to edit them. I haven’t written up the tabs yet

Despite everything that was going on today, I did manage to get out and about for my three walks today.

But wait a minute – what’s this? Here’s Spirit of Conrad right enough, and I know that Omerta has gone, and went a few days ago too, but where’s Aztec Lady?

She was here yesterday but she’s not there now. The ground’s all flat etc etc.

Actually, I do know what happened to Aztec Lady because I saw her go when I went out for my dejeunette at lunchtime.

Here she is, in the portable sling being carried down off her perch to the dry dock which, presumably with the tide being in, is now a wet dock.

And you’ll notice the steps there on the left. They are the stairs of the Escalier des Noires Vaches, my route down to the rue du Port that I take on my morning perambulation.

And here she is again.

Having been put back into the water after (presumably) the repairs have been completed, she’s off to find her berth again in the wet harbour, presumably somewhere over there between Victor Hugo and Charles Marie.

What I’ll have to do now is to go and hunt down her web site and see what trips are planned for the forthcoming season. I want to get back out to sea.

Maybe I should turn my attention elsewhere in that case.

Under cover of darkness it seems that Normandy Trader has sneaked into harbour. She’s now tied up in the usual place underneath the lifting crane which they use for unloading her and Thora.

Anyway, I was late. I was doing something – one of these urgent jobs – on the computer when I suddenly noticed the time. 11:40 – and there was a parcel to pick up from the Post Office and they close at 12:00.

Having picked up my parcel just in time, and picked up my dejeunette for lunch, I went down to the harbour to talk to the guys on Normandy Trader. I’d seen just now that they were about.

But badger me! Just as I got round to the quayside it was a case of “cast off for’rard, Sub Lieutenant Phillips” and they let go of the lines and set out for sea.

They must have heard me coming. That’s all I can say.

It’s really not my day, is it?

Lugging my heavy parcel I headed off back up the hill in the rue des Juifs and stood at the top, watching Normandy Trader heading off out of the harbour into the open sea with the Pointe de Carolles in the background.

Still, there will always be another day, I suppose. I went back to the apartment and carried on with the photos.

At about 15:50 I downed tools and took myself outside for my walk around the headland.

The wind had died down but there was some kind of weird sunlight effect yet again. The Ile de Chausey seemed to be bathed in some kind of bizarre blue light and everything seemed to be so clear. You could even see the colours of the houses quite clearly.

I’ve never seen it look like this before so I took a photo of it for the record.

While I was musing about the island, I was buzzed by a light aeroplane passing by overhead.

Because of the angle at which it’s flying, I couldn’t make out its registration number so I can’t tell you what it is. Anything that I might likely say would be pure guesswork and your guess is as good as mine.

And so I walked on, past the chantier navale and took the photo of Spirit of Conrad that I showed you earlier.

From up on the top of the cliffs I could see blue flashing lights in the distance so I took a long-distance photo to see what was going on.

It’s the day of the General Strike today and everyone seems to be demonstrating in the streets.

And that’s what gets on my wick. This strike is supposed to be against the Government yet the strikers are out there not interfering with the Government but interfering with the ordinary citizens.

Why should the ordinary citizens suffer because of all of this? It’s nothing to do with them at all.

Something else on my list of jobs to do was to start another project in order to keep myself well in advance. And so Project 007 is now under way. The music has been selected and tomorrow I’ll dictate the notes.

And then on Thursday I can make up the file. Three days per project – if I can keep that up it will be fine I reckon.

That took me up to tea time and I made the pizza that I had promised myself. It took ages too because I made a rice pudding too and that seemed to absorb all of the heat because although that was cooked to perfection, the pizza wasn’t. I’m really going to have to get a decent oven, I reckon.

Walk time afterwards and I was totally alone in the cold and darkness.

Except for the fishing boats. A whole line of them were in the English Channel on their way into port to unload their catch.

So having watched them for a while I carried on with my walk and did my run quite comfortably, although I was whacked at the end of it.

So tonight I really am going to have an early night. I’ve been ready for this for a while and I think that I ought to make an effort to catch up with my beauty sleep.

God knows I need it!

Monday 18th November 2019 – SO HERE I AM …

… back chez moi after a pretty uneventful journey home.

And I do have to say that I’m not sorry to be back because I like my little apartment here on my little rock. It’s not much, but it’s hoe all the same.

But as usual, I couldn’t sleep last night. 01:00 I was still up and about. And I saw 02:00 come round too. But I don’t suppose that it mattered too much because there’s not too much else to do on the train except sleep.

At one point I did manage to drop off to sleep and I was joined during the night by Castor and Pollux. I’ve no idea why or what was going on but I do remember them leaping off the ship into the icy wastes. And I can’t even say if the ship was The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour either.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and by the time the third alarm went off at 06:20 I was dressed packed, had returned the key and was halfway down the street towards the station.

And there wasn’t much time to loiter about for the train either.

Well in advance of the 06:42, I was in time for the 06:29. But I wasn’t sure whether that might have been a good idea when I saw what was pulling my train.

It’s one of the old Class 21 locomotives, the oldest of which is now 35 years old. And as more and more of them break down, and as many spare parts are no longer made, the worst ones are starting to be cannibalised to keep the others running for as long as possible.

But never mind the locomotive. Where there’s an elderly locomotive it’s likely that there will be elderly carriages too and that was the bit that I wasn’t going to enjoy.

And I was right too. We had a rake of rather elderly carriages of the type with the plastic leatherette benches rather than the comfortable cloth seats that are found on more modern rolling stock.

So I settled down thinking to myself how lucky I was only going to Brussels and not to anywhere else any further away.

Things have progressed dramatically on the SNCB over the last few years, haven’t they?

Plenty of time at Brussels-Midi so I bought some raisin buns and sat on a seat to eat breakfast. As usual these days, I was harassed by the odd beggar or two and I told them to p155 off.

But a short while later there was “a commotion” elsewhere in the waiting room involving these people, the Police and Railway security staff were there, bags were being searched and people were being led away.

How bizarre.

The train was already in the station so we could board it quite quickly.

It’s one of the “PBKA” – Paris-Brussels-Cologne-Amsterdam – trainsets. Quite comfortable of course, and I was asleep before we had even left the station.

The motion of the train departing awoke me and I noticed that we were 15 minutes late leaving. So when the controller came past I asked her if she could note my ticket in case I missed my connection.

However she reckoned that we would make up some of the time and that anyway I’d have plenty of time to make it to Montparnasse – Vaugirard.

So I went back to sleep.

She was right though.

We’d made up about 5 minutes of the lost time and I sailed through the station to the underground and down onto the platform where there was a train already waiting.

As soon as I put my sooty foot upon it, it cleared off out of the station.

No issues on the line as far as the Montparnasse metro station, and then for someunknown reason the walk all the way through the labyrinth undergound and then through the station to the Vaugirard platforms didn’t seem as long as it usually is.

Mind you, there was a diversion for pedestrians due to development, and the new route took me along a platform where TGV had just pulled in, so I was swamped with people.

Here’s my train (on the left) at Granville railway station next to its brother who is working the Caen – Rennes line.

My train was already in at Montparnasse – Vaugirard although we had to wait a few minutes to board it. It was a shortened train too, just 6 carriages instead of 12 so there were no seat reservations and it was a free-for-all.

Luckily I managed to have a seat to myself, and I slept most of the way back to Granville.

That’ll teach me to have a late night.

Another very good and brisk walk all the way back home again.

The odd stop here and there to see what was going on in the town. And it must be getting near to Christmas because they are now erecting the Christmas lights in the town.

This blasted year has gone round round far too quickly for me.

Freezing cold in the apartment (9°C) so I wound the heater up full blast. did a little casual unpacking and then had a relax for a while doing some stuff on the computer.

And carrying on with my project about downloading digital tracks of some of the albums that I own on vinyl. I’m determined to digitalise everything.

Tea was a bag of aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit followed by fruit salad and coconut cream.

And then I hit the streets – and immediately came back for the tripod because t was a really beautiful night.

The sky was so clear that you could actually see the individual lights on Jersey – all of 58 kms away, so I was determined to capture them.

But then I hit a snag – I couldn’t work out how to make the delayed shutter action work, so this one hasn’t come out as well as it might have done.

But by the time that I had made it round to the headland, I’d worked it out. And so this one is much better.

Away in the distance across the bay and behind a headland or two is the city of St Malo. And tonight not only could you see the glow of the lights in the sky, you could actually see one or two lights over there.

It was a good idea to go back for the tripod.

There was a load of traffic out there at sea tonight too.

While I was busy setting up my equipment and taking the photos, I’d seen a light slowly coming closer and closer towards me.

No prizes for guessing what it might be either. It can’t be anything else but a trawler of course, so I took a few photos of it at different speeds and exposures to see if one good one comes out of it.

It was a hive of activity in the port tonight.

The tide was quite a way in so there were plenty of fishing boats in the harbour unloading at the fish-processing plant.

I had a good look at them for a while and then came back. Running for part of the way – just a hundred yards or so.

Mind you, I had run up the stairs here to get to my room for the tripod so I’m not complaining.

Tomorrow I’m having a little lie in and then I’m back to work. There is plenty to do and not enought time to do it – the story of my life I suppose.

But at least I’m back home and that is good.

erecting christmas lights rue couraye granville manche normandy france

night baie de mont st michel st malo brittany granville manche normandy france

trawler fishing boats fish processing plant port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to Caliburn. Stood outside on the car park for four months without turning a wheel while I was on my travels. So I gave his ignition key a turn this morning and admittedly after something of a struggle, his engine did fire up.

So I left him ticking over for 10 minutes to warm his engine up. I’m impressed.

The bad news though is that the garage can’t fit him in until the 5th of November and that’s filled me with dismay.

But hats off too to Grahame, one of the regular readers of this rubbish, who has just passed his citizenship test for Austria and is well on the way to having an Austrian passport.

So that’s Alison in Belgium, Jackie and Hanzi in Germany, Rhys in the USA, Rachel in Canada, and I of course have my permanent residency status for France and will be organising my French nationality once I get myself straight. Now we have Grahame in Austria.

What we are actually witnessing is a new 21st Century diaspora, an “involuntary mass dispersion of a population from its indigenous territories” as those of us from the UK who are capable of doing so are renouncing our heritage and moving forward to the Brave New World.

Usually, diasporas are associated with an unwanted element of the population, such as Scottish Highlanders, Acadians, Jews and the like being expelled from their home. But this new phenomenon consists of a different kind of person, something like the inverse where it’s the more mobile, more resourceful, more energetic person who is taking the initiative.

And these people are spreading out all over the world, as you can see from just my very small circle of friends. They are taking their considerable skills away from the UK, to the detriment of that country, and into their adopted country. The UK’s loss, the rest of the world’s gain.

And I couldn’t care less for the UK.

Yesterday I was going on … “and on and on” – ed … about my fourteen hours asleep yesterday. And so it goes without saying that I would be paying for it in early course.

Like last night.

I was in bed “something like” and dozed off for a short while but awoke pretty quickly. Lying in bed tossing and turning, this wasn’t doing me any good at all so round by 01:30 I gave it up as a bad job and hauled myself out of bed to carry on working.

It was a good idea too, because I was able to push on quite rapidly with the updating of the one of the websites that I had mentioned yesterday.

As well as that, I uploaded all of the photos – all 4,000 or so of them, up to the computer where I’ll begin to edit them in early course.

One of my friends was on line too, unable to sleep, so we had something of a chat.

Round about 06:30 I was overcome by fatigue so I took to my bed. I was out like a light and remained so until about 09:30.

Feeling like the Wreck of the Hesperus (although I have no idea where I might find it, except at Norman’s Woe of course) I staggered out of bed and it took me a while to organise myself.

Medication and then breakfast of course, followed by (at long last) a shower and a good tidy up of myself, for which I was extremely grateful because I needed it, and then I set the washing machine on the go with a load of clothes.

And I worked out that I spent FOUR MONTHS away from home with just

three tee-shirts
three sets of underwear
two pairs of trousers
two fleeces
one set of Arctic underlayers

Travellig light, you might say, except for Strawberry Moose, who took up far more space for himself and his affairs than I ever took for me.

As promised, I took my morning walk. Just down to the Super-U supermarket for some tomatoes, lettuce, fruit, onions and garlic. It was necessary because I didn’t have anything in the apartment, and it gave my morning walk some point.

It was a beautiful day today so I went and had lunch sitting on my wall overlooking the cliffs. The sunshine was delicious and there was a lizard out there enjoying itself.

This afternoon, I paid for my next year’s web hosting
which reminds me – if you enjoy what I write, please make your next Amazon purchase by using the links aside. It costs you no extra but earns me a small commission that helps defray my webhosting expenses
and then ordered a new bracelet for my fitbit. And that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either.

Another thing that I did was to contact three music shops about something that I need. And, once again, as yet there is no response from any of them. As I have said before, people complain about there being a recession and yet they don’t have too much interest in replying to genuine business enquiries.

All this money that I want to spend and no-one seems to want me to spend it with them.

The afternoon walk was beautiful. The weather was gorgeous and there were crowds of people milling around outside in the sun. Even a few kids running in and out of the sea, clearly having loads of fun. After all, we are in the school holidays.

Back here, I carried on upgrading the site that I’m working on, as well as negotiating with my web host about an upgrade to the server that he uses. It looks as if we might be moving into the 21st Century, something that will please me greatly too.

And in between all of that I’ve also spent an hour or so playing on the guitar – the bass of course but mainly the acoustic six-string. And I’m working on three numbers that I want to play competently on a six-string within a week or so.

But these are beautiful lyrics.
She’s got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky

Now and then when I see her face
It takes me away to that special place
And if I stared too long
I’d probably break down and cry

Sweet child o’ mine

She’s got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I’d hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain

Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I’d hide
And pray for the thunder and the rain
To quietly pass me by

Sweet child o’ mine
I wonder if they remind anyone of anything in particular?

Tea was pasta and vegetables tossed in olive oil, garlic and black pepper (and I forgot the sea salt) and delicious it was indeed. Followed by a very lonely walk around the headland in the calm bright night.

Bedtime now, and I hope that I might be able to sleep for a while tonight. There is so much to do and there I was looking for a break after my exertions.

Wednesday 28th August 2019 – WE HAD A …

… medical emergency today.

Not me, I hasten to add, but when they announced “Eric” a lot of people almost cheered until they realised that it was “the other one”.

With not finishing our concert until 00:25 or so, and having to write up my blog afterwards, I felt like death this morning. But I hauled myself out of my stinking pit before the third alarm and was up on deck taking photos – not that there was much to take because the weather was totally and miserably awful.

While we were at breakfast someone spotted a pod of beluga swimming around in Flexure Bay, so we went up on deck. And despite the rain, we stayed there for an hour or so taking photos. I counted in one of my photos about 100, which would seem to indicate a pod of about 300 and that is phenomenal. I only wish that my photos would do them justice.

Nevertheless, despite the rainstorm that was going on, we decided to launch the zodiacs and go for a cruise around. We need to keep our distance from them of course but we can go closer in a zodiac than a ship.

So we were about half of us in the water when we were called back to The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. A passenger, taken ill during the night, needed uegent medical attention and the nearest attention was 9 hours sailing away, all the way back up Peel Sound to Resolute.

We were overflown by a 4-engined aeroplane which was checking our condition and the ice in the vicinity, and then eventually after we had travelled almost all of the route a coastguard vessel came to meet us. Twice, in fact, for after they had disembarked the patient they realised that he had left his passport behind.

Once that was accomplished we set sail again, up Peel Sound and all the way back the way we had come.

During the day we had been entertained. Lots or workshops organised and I went to the one on naval charts and the one on the Inuktitut language, but for some reason that I can’t explain (well, actually I can but it’s a long story and regular readers of this rubbish will recall it anyway) my heart isn’t in it at all.

Tea was with LIndi, Danielle and Ashley, the three most beautiful and charming girls on board and wasn’t I the lucky one?

And then I went back upstairs to watch the sunset (which was beautiful), to photograph a rainbow, and to learn to play “Gloria’s Eyes” on the ukelele – and much to my surprise it woks quite well.

But it can’t make up for the disappointment of not being able to sail down Prince Regent Inlet and Bellot Strait. I’m dismayed about that.

But still …

A little walk around the deck now before an early bed. It’s a very early start tomorrow as we are meeting an icebreaker.

Sunday 25th August 2019 – WE HAD OUR …

… first engagement with the ukelele today. During the evening’s recap different groups had to give a discussion about what they had learnt the other day, so we gave a rousing performance of “You Are My Sunshine”.

Unfortunately no-one passed around the hat, but then again that wasn’t a surprise because we are a long way from meriting it, but the Icey Arm 6 are on the road!

This was another night where I didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked, but then no-one is complaining because we had the “everyone up on the starboard bow” call. Sure enough, there on the bank at the side of Buchan Gulf was Mummy Polar Bear with baby. Too far away to be spectacular but we could see them quite clearly and take photographs.

The downside of all of this is that the bear and her cub were wandering about right where our landing site was to be in Icey Arm. She was there first so we had to leave and look for someone else. My suggestion that we make a list of passengers without whom this cruise would operate more smoothly and send them ashore on the first zodiac as bait was met with disdain

While we were turning round to look for another site I checked my photos. And to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I resolved to speak to the photography guy but we were interrupted by the most magnificent set of cliffs that you could ever wish to see. Called “Executioner’s Cliffs”, they were over 1000 feet high and vertical. Marc the geologist and I spent a very happy hour or so examining the rocks and we even identified a volcanic cone.

That session too was interrupted. A pod of narwhals decided to join in the fun and while we couldn’t see their tusks we could see them cavorting about – after a fashion because once more I wasn’t up to the task with the photos.

After lunch, I button-holed the photographer. We adjusted one or two settings on the camera to improve the quality of the colour of the photo, but there wasn’t much that we could do about the lack of sharpness. Shaking about happens to everyone of a certain age and it’s nothing to do with the camera either.

He suggested that I ramp up the ISO to about 6400 – to let in plenty of light. Then, go for the widest aperture possible when taking telephoto shots – and then go for speed on the shutter. My camera had a capability of 1/8000 and that is what I should be aiming for, if you excuse the pun.

So I tried it, and for the first time in an age I managed to take a really good photo of a bird in flight from a distance. Some of the images are still not as good as I would like, but a rolling ship is not a very good photography platform. I can’t wait to get onto dry land and give it a go.

But one thing that I suppose that I ought to mention is that it’s not a case that the quality of my work is deteriorating. Far from it. it’s that being around other people, many of whom are professional photographers, I’m realising that my work has been rubbish all along and I’ve never felt the urge to work on my technique and improve it.

This evening at the recap we had our performance, and I’ve taken a ukelele to bed with me. I’m determined to have a good crack at it over the next week.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed. It’s a busy day tomorrow as we are heading to Dundas Harbour and the abandoned RCMP post there. But the bad news is that Rachel the Archaeologist tells us that we have a representative of the Canadian Parks Archaeological Service on board the vessel so everything is being done “by the book’.

No informality with the rules and that’s going to cramp my style an awful lot.

And we didn’t step ashore today at all.

Saturday 24th August 2019 – TODAY I HAVE BEEN …

… learning to play the ukelele. And furthermore, I now know four chords (C, G, F and Am) and can play two songs. And if Status Quo can tour the world for 50 years with just 3 chords, I can do far better than that.

Last night I was wide awake again just before 04:00 and it took an age to go back to sleep again. Mind you, I comfortably beat the third alarm out of bed.

As I intimated yesterday, all events are cancelled for today. There had been talk of going into a couple of fjords in order to spot wildlife and the like, but there’s a howling gale raging on Baffin Island right now and while it’s not enough to cause us many problems out here 25 kilometres offshore, it could be devastating in a narrow and uncharted fjord. We are going to stand to offshore until it all subsides and head on north as soon as it’s safe to do so.

Consequently we had a series of on-board workshops. This morning I attended the photo-editing workshop during which I came to the conclusion that not only is my technique rubbish but the program that I use is even worse, and both must be improved when (ever) I return home, if not sooner.

After lunch we had a lecture on polar bears, during which I fell asleep and then made a fool of myself by asking a question that had been covered during the time that I was away with the fairies, and then the ukelele session that I mentioned just now.

I also took advantage of the computer technician who has now managed to stop (but not remove) the Walmart splash screen that has been annoying me, and I also went to see the expedition leader about a project that I have in mind.

Tea was with the photographer and I had a curry that had been specially made for me by the chef. Later, I finished (hooray) editing the photos and now I’m up-to-date for the month of August. But they are all going to have to be done again as I’m far from satisfied with the output.

But not tonight though. I’m off for an early night. Everything starts back up tomorrow if the storm subsides.

Thursday 22nd August 2019 – JUST FOR A …

… change I was out like a light last night quite early, and stayed out until about 05:20 (which would have been 06:20 in real money of course). I ended up going back to sleep for a while and it was something of a struggle to sort myself out when the alarm went.

After the medication etc I went for a walk on deck to take some photos and it took me a while to find the early-morning orange juice, which wasn’t in the same place as usual. People shouldn’t go around changing my early morning habits when I’m walking around only semi-conscious.

One of the staff joined me briefly for breakfast, and then it was back down here to prepare myself for the morning out.

We’re in a fjord off Disko Island and the plan is to go ashore. We’re divided up into different groups, so I chose to go off with Marc the geologist and learn some more about rocks. And we had a great time too. We’re on proper original bedrock from 3.8 billion years ago, layered with dozens of layers of volcanic rock which had been eroded away by glaciers in certain areas so we could see all of the strata.

As well as that, Rachel the archaeologist had found some old fox traps and we inspected them. The traps were used to catch foxes more for their furs than their meat although that would be eaten too if necessary.

And the walk around the island as far as I went was quite interesting too. I even stumbled upon one or two of our party drying some caribou meat ready for one of the Country Food evenings that we have sometimes. Well, they have, because as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m a vegan.

On the way back we were unlucky enough to miss a whale. One or two of the previous zodiacs had seen it but not us.

On board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a shower and another clothes-washing session and then headed off for lunch. I sat with a guy who for some reason that only he knows, didn’t want to speak and who left the table rather abruptly.

I must change my after-shave.

This afternoon we had a series of lectures (during which I fell asleep) and a singles party. But I’m no good at socialising so I didn’t benefit from it.

There was a Francophone table at tea so I joined it and we had a chat, and that was followed by a disco. I dressed up Strawberry Moose and took him along and he proved to be quite popular as usual.

But woe is me. I made a dreadful mistake. One of the little kids on board (the different one from the other night) who I put at about 11 if she was lucky is in fact just 13 and was most put out when I had a guess at her age and got it so wrong. I’m no good with ages at all.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve had another major go at the photos and am now up to 18090980 and well into the photos of this trip.

Things are looking up.

Tuesday 20th August 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… bad night.

Not at all helped by the fact that I had to get up and go hopping around the cabin for 10 minutes to try to overcome a really bad attack of cramp in both ankles. No idea why that might be. maybe it’s because I don’t have enough salt, and watching one of the staff sprinkle salt all over his chocolate ice cream this evening and tell us all just how wonderful it is, then maybe I ought to try it too – except that I don’t eat ice cream of course..

With no rush for the morning, I was in no rush either and I was comfortably beaten by the three alarms. But it’s been weeks since I’ve had a proper Sunday lie-in and a real day of rest so I reckoned that I deserved it.

We’re now in the fjord at Ilulissat, famous for its icebergs. And there are plenty in here too. They are all ground out on the terminal moraine that’s at the entrance to the fjord and it’s only when they melt a little, when there’s a really high tide or when there’s enough force in the congestion behind them that they can pass over into the sea.

They move something like a maximum of 35 metres per day but that’s not a daily total. It’s a daily average over a period of several weeks. Sometimes they won’t move at all for days.

We went out in the zodiacs to look at the icebergs but ended up whale-watching instead as a pod of fin whales and then a pod of hump-backs decided to strut their stuff right by where we were sailing. It all gave quite a surprise to the fishermen who were hauling in their long lines with halibut.

After lunch we went to town – literally. I’ve been here before but I still like the place so Strawberry Moose and I had a nice long walk out down the boardwalk to look at the ice congestion in the fjord. It really is so spectacular.

And much to my surprise I could remember the short-cut back home again.

There’s a museum in town – the birthplace of Knud Rasmussen, who probably just about beats Vilhjalmur Stefansson to the title of “Last of the Famous Polar Explorers”, so I went in there to have a look around. It was extremely interesting to me, and His Nibs found a couple of photo opportunities there.

There is an old church in the town too so on the way back to the ship I took myself over there to see it. It looked quite interesting too but it was locked up so it wasn’t possible for me to go in to inspect it.

While we’d been down at the boardwalk another cruise ship had come in. It was the MSC Orchestra with a capacity of 3200 passengers.

Watching them try to unload with a series of lighters and tenders was amusing – the weight of 240 passengers at a time on the jetty was causing it to sink below the waterline and they were wetting their shoes. They had gazebos to protect the poor dears from the sun (in the High Arctic!), all of that, and an endless procession of guides.

But 3200 visitors in a town of about 4500 is impossible, and the situation at the boardwalk must have been ridiculous.

On arriving back on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour I had a good shower and clothes wash, and then carried on the photos while we had the debriefing. And I fell asleep too.

After tea I went up to the top deck lounge and carried on with the photos until fatigue brought me back down again. I’ve now reached 19080553 from the late afternoon of 8th August. Still tons to get through but I’ll just have to keep on trucking, won’t I.

But not tonight. I’m off to bed.

Monday 19th August 2019 – WE’VE BEEN …

… to Nassuttooq, or Nagssugtoq today – or Nordre Stromfjord as it is more usually known to west Europeans.

At least last night we weren’t interrupted by anything tangible such as a bellow from the bridge down the PA system. However I failed to take full advantage as I had yet another miserable night where I couldn’t really drop off to sleep. It’s really annoying, especially following some of the really belting sleeps that I’ve had on land just recently. The demons must have caught up with me again and I can’t shake them off.

Once more awake long before the alarm, it was still a struggle nevertheless to leave the comfort, warmth and safety of my stinking pit. But there I was up and about something-like, and on the deck in time to take a few photos of the early morning sun. it was then that I remembered that I had forgotten to take my medication.

Breakfast was fairly early today, following which we were fitted for our boots. Not like the army – “too large? Stuff this paper down them!” or “too small? Hold on while I chop off your toes!”. They were actually a decent fit in my case, and even had they not been, an exchange was possible.

Lunch was ridiculously early, like 10:30, and then we hit the zodiacs heading for a landing.

They’d found quite a nice landing today, throwing us out onto a bed of rock and then we had a walk around the area where there was something for everyone. Our archaeologist, Rachel ten Bruggencate, found some fox-traps but Yours Truly, wandering off on his own, found the remains of some ancient temporary hunting lodges and three graves, and I was pleased about that.

Highlight though had to go to the geologist, Marc St Onge, who found the exact pressure point where two continental drift plates had collided with each other. Embedded in the resultant agglomerate were some garnets, formed due to the high pressure exerted by the colliding plates.

Another one of the passengers found a wonderful erratic boulder (there were plenty of those of course but this one was exceptional) that had also come from a similar colliding point but where there had been some volcanic rock.

Back on board the ship we had the usual debriefing and the agenda for tomorrow and also a couple of presentations, one of which I missed due to taking the opportunity to have a shower and wash some clothes. And now the clothes line in my shower has broken.

The marine biologist is an Irish guy whose name I didn’t catch and we had a lengthy chat at tea, following which was our Inuit musician giving a concert. So I went along to listen.

No young girls out exploring the ship this evening and needing assistance to find their way home again, so now it’s bedtime for me. I had passed out in one of the presentations, which means that I must need an early night.

But not before I’ve edited yet another pile of photos. I’m now up to about 365 but it’s not making much impression as the more I edit, the more I seem to be adding in.

I shall never get on top of all of this.

Sunday 18th August 2019 – I HOPE THAT …

… tonight isn’t as lively as last night was.

While it was interesting if not exciting, to see the Aurora Borealis and I don’t regret it for a moment, it interrupted my sleep pattern somewhat and I couldn’t get back off to sleep properly. Tossing and turning throughout the night with a very shallow sleep, I was not very rested at all.

Nevertheless I was out of bed at something-like and in time to see the early morning sun. Although I couldn’t see much through the thick sea mist.

We had breakfast of course and then a briefing about the day’s activities. Sisimiut is our destination today and I’ve been here before, although that’s not important. It gives me a chance to revisit a few places that I saw last time, only with a decent camera. And for Strawberry Moose too, for last time he was here he went kayaking and thus didn’t see too much of the town.

We had the customary guided tour around the town and then back to the ship for lunch. And afterwards, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out for quite some time. Mind you, that’s hardly a surprise given the events of the precious night

It was nice and warm outside so I discarded my fleece and went back into town with His Nibs to take some photos and to visit the museum of the history of the town.

The weather though was quite deceptive. It WAS bright and sunny and warm out there, but then a fog bank came rolling in off the sea and it went really cold – which is hardly a surprise seeing as we are north of the Arctic Circle.

Sill, a good chance for a wander around and a photo opportunity or two for His Nibs.

Back here there was a kayaking demonstration so I took advantage of everyone’s preoccupation to have a roasting hot shower and a clothes-washing session. Travelling light as I am, with just three tee shirts, three sets of underwear and two pairs of trousers, it’s important to keep on top of everything.

There was the usual resume of today’s events and then a briefing about tomorrow’s activities, followed by the evening meal. We had a staff introduction afterwards and I chatted to a few members of the team.

But now it’s bed-time. It’s not likely that we’ll be disturbed by any nocturnal sightings because there’s a thick sea mist outside and you can’t see anything. A good sleep will do me good, especially as I’ve edited 212 photos today in between everything else.

But not before I’ve shown one of the two little girls here back to the stairway to her cabin. “Lost” she said. But more like “having a good explore” if you ask me. And why not? Being a little kid is all about exploring

So right now, having organised her, I’m off to explore my bed.

Wednesday 24th July 2019 – OUR LAST …

… complete day on board ship – for now anyway – and what an interesting day it has been.

The day started off with, probably for the first time for quite a while, some uninterrupted sleep. And although I awoke at about 05:20 or thereabouts, uninterrupted it was. And for the first time for quite a while, I actually felt almost-human when i awoke.

It was a much better start to the day.

Outside, there were things to see too and that made it so much better. Much better than being totally shrouded in fog and mist

We’re sailing down a fjord, the name of which I forgot to note, somewhere round near the settlement of Qeqqata. And I made a discovery too, and I was lucky enough to photograph it.

It might well be a haphazard pile of stones but from the angle from which I took the image, it looked just like a ruined stone house (and I’ve seen a few of those – even lived in one too – in my time). It was on a spit of land sticking out at the junction of two fjords, in exactly the spot where one might expect an early settler, even of the Norse era, to erect a dwelling.

I showed it to the on-board archaeologists, and they seemed to think that it was something man-made. And who am I to dispute that? After all, we are somewhere in the vicinity of the limits of where the Western Settlement of the Norse might have been.

After breakfast I edited some photos for a while and then later on we had a talk on geology. And shame as it is to admit it, I dozed off in the middle of the discussion. I don’t know why, because up to that point I had been feeling quite good.

Once the talk was over we donned our wet-weather winter gear and clambered aboard our zodiacs for a final cruise. Past various nesting colonies of kittiwakes and guillemots up to the head of the fjord where a glacier was busy calving off into the water.

Strawberry Moose came along too and he went for a short kayak trip with Genevieve. He has more luck with the girls than I do.

But my luck held out today, just for a change.

My camera was in the right place at the right time with the right settings just as a huge pile of ice calved off the glacier. It made the most enormous splash although by the time the tsunami reached us it was pretty miserable.

By now the old Danish guy was feeling the cold so we headed off back to the ship. And that turned out to be lucky too because we caught sight of a young bearded seal sunning itself on an ice-floe. Baldur called up the other zodiacs to come to see it, and so it chose that moment to slide off the iceberg into the water.

But not before I took a photo of it. And what a stunning photo it was too and I’m well-pleased with that one. It’s definitely one for the family album.

Lunch was a barbecue on the rear deck and then we had all of the usual housekeeping stuff and instructions for our disembarkation tomorrow morning. That was followed by a packing session as we need to vacate the premises, and I can’t find the hood for my camera lens. And that’s a disappointment and no mistake.

There was another photography session dinner this evening and we had quite a discussion, which was punctuated by the ship making a severe U-turn as if it had missed the turning into our fjord.

And as Rosemary and I were leaving we were accosted by one of the Québecois women who wanted a chat. An elderly woman who is travelling alone and by the looks of things hasn’t made any friendships. We all had quite a chat in French.

On the deck, the views were spectacular as we entered the fjord and I took quite a few photos before the cold wind from the interior drove me inside. I wrote my notes, has a chat and that was that. I’m off to finish packing and then to bed ready for an early start in the morning.

It looks as if it’s all over for another trip.

Tuesday 16th July 2019 – A NICE …

… pleasant surprise awaited us yesterday evening. We would be passing into a different time zone during the night and so we have set our clocks back one hour.

An extra hour in bed is always welcomed, especially these days when I don’t seem to be getting enough. But then that’s the story of my life, isn’t it?

Mind you, that’s not how it worked out, because we had the roughest seas yet. There were doors banging closed all over the place and trying to sleep under those conditions with all that noise going on was not easy. I also had to make a trip to the bathroom on one occasion, after having warned myself yesterday about the folly of drinking tea too late at night.

So all in all it was rather disappointing.

I made it up before the third alarm but don’t ask me how because I wasn’t feeling much like it, and then a stagger up on deck to take a few photos. And there wasn’t much to see except the rear end of the ship swaying about violently in the high seas, which was in itself quite impressive.

Instead, I went back down and started to edit a few more photos. But not as many as I would have liked because firstly the mouse froze and then when I went to restart the laptop it wouldn’t fire up correctly and I was there for hours.

Abandoning the laptop for a while I came up for breakfast. And we were rather few in number because of the weather, although as the morning wore on, the bad weather did subside somewhat. Nevertheless, it was quite interesting watching the chefs try to cook omelettes in the raging storm.

After breakfast the laptop still hadn’t fired up so I went to a talk on the “Vikings” (not the “Norse”, which annoyed me intensely) in North America. And what a dismal performance that was. Our lecturer insisted that the site at L’Anse aux Meadows is “Vinland”, even though not even the Ingstadts who excavated it have committed to that point of view.

Furthermore, he insisted that the Norse only ever came to North America for three years, even though there is written documentary evidence that they were still visiting “Markland” for timber until at least as late as 1347, and quite possibly much later too.

Finally he insisted that the Greenlanders simply “returned home to Iceland and Norway”, even though it is on written record that various Icelanders, Danes and Norwegians visited Greenland on several occasions over the next three centuries looking for them, which they would surely not have done had they known that they had “returned home”.

His lecture was full of falsehoods and incorrect suppositions and all in all, I was as disappointed by this lecturer as I am ever likely to be about anything. I was close to denouncing him as a fraud.

Round about 11:30 the laptop finally staggered into life so I was able to attack the photos and that took me up to lunchtime. And, to be on the safe side, I backed up the data

After lunch, I finally managed to buttonhole the ship’s naturalist (not “naturist”) and showed him my photos of sea mammals. he told me that they were white-beaked dolphins. They hunt in packs, with one acting as the principal fish-scarer, aiming to panic the fish into a big huddle so that the other dolphins could catch them easier.

It was a busy afternoon. Next we had a visit to the bridge where the cadet officer explained the ship’s equipment to us, and then there was a lecture on the basics of the language of Greenland – basically an Inuit-based language with Danish influences.

Finally I was summoned to the cruise director’s office. Being a non-American, the ship can’t take me beyond Greenland unless I am in possession of an Electronic Travel Authority. I actually do have one so they took a photocopy of it.

Dinner this evening was rather different. I ended up at a table hosted by the ship’s photographer. There were about 6 of us and we all had quite a lengthy chat for about two hours and decided to form a little on-board photography club. That’s always good news because anything that gives any sort of help whatsoever is always well worth it.

This evening there is a folk music concert by two Icelandic musicians but I’m not in the mood. I’ll crack on with some more work and seeing that we’ll gain another hour at some point during the night as we move into Greenland time, I’ll have an early night too and hopefully make the most of it.

Monday 15th July 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

… really depressing night last night. We hit a few strong waves round about 04:00 and that awoke me. I couldn’t go back to sleep and so ended up making a visit down the corridor for the usual reasons. I must stop drinking tea late at night.

But after that, I managed to go back to bed and to sleep, only to wake up 90 minutes later.

Despite the early awakening it was still a struggle to leave my stinking pit and I only just managed to beat the third alarm call.

Upstairs on deck it was cold and windy, and really foggy too. We had somehow managed to negotiate the entrance to the harbour at Heimaey here on Vestmannaeyar without having to turn round at the harbour mouth and reverse in as we did last time. Instead, we turned round inside the harbour.

After breakfast I had a little relax and then took Rosemary to visit the old buildings down by the lava flow. She had missed them last time.

Later on, while Rosemary went for a walk to the museum, I went for a really good stroll around the town and right around the other side of the harbour and the fishing docks. And if you think that I smell bad, you should smell the air when you have a fish-processing plant on one side of you and a colony of seabirds on the other.

One of the things that I did was to make some kind of story of photographs involving a returning trawler, a couple of fork-lift trucks stacking boxes full of fish, another fork-lift truck loading them into a shipping container, a huge lifting truck loading the container onto,the back of a lorry and finally the lorry disappearing into what passes for the sunset around here.

There is a ship repair yard here too and it makes the one in Granville pale into insignificance. They have a kind of internal railway system to move the ships around from the slipway and although it wasn’t being used it was still something interesting.

But I was surprised to learn that one of the largest customers for Icelandic fish is Nigeria. I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Back on board ship I started to edit the outstanding pile of photographs but didn’t get very far because it was time for lunch. And time for an argument too (it didn’t take long, did it?) when someone asked me if I would be reaping the benefits of Brexit.

This afternoon I had another good crack at the photos and managed to edit quite a few dozen, although I was interrupted by going to crash out for a good 90 minutes during the afternoon. I’ve not been having such a good day.

But I’m impressed with some of the photos that I have taken. editing them, cropping and enlarging them has produced a good few that are quite spectacular. Investing in this camera was a very good decision.

Bad news though in that we aren’t going to go near to Surtsey to have a close look at the island. The sea is too rough and the weather is too bad for us to approach it with anything like the proximity that we need to have a good look.

After tea we had a singles party but there were only a few of us there. The weather has really got up now and the waves are not to everyone’s liking. But there was one person too many – a young guy who had been everywhere and done everything, a German who blamed the French for all of Germany’s problems.

I really don’t know where they dig up these people.

The evening soon came to a close as people disappeared quite quickly. I stayed up to do a little work and to organise myself better. We gain an hour tomorrow so we aren’t in too much of a rush to go to bed.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: photo

Sunday 22nd December 2019 – REMEMBER A WHILE AGO …

Wednesday 18th December 2019 – I WAS RIGHT …

Tuesday 17th December 2019 – 10:30 am

Monday 18th November 2019 – SO HERE I AM …

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 – HATS OFF …

Wednesday 28th August 2019 – WE HAD A …

Sunday 25th August 2019 – WE HAD OUR …

Saturday 24th August 2019 – TODAY I HAVE BEEN …

Thursday 22nd August 2019 – JUST FOR A …

Tuesday 20th August 2019 – YET ANOTHER …

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Wednesday 24th July 2019 – OUR LAST …

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