… boats do you see in this photo?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last few days I’ve been talking … “quite a lot” – ed … about the amount of maritime traffic out there since the detention à domicile ended, and this is exactly what I mean. In just one small segment of the ocean just here I count at least 8 boats. And there are more all over the water too.

We never saw anything like that amount of traffic when we were all locked up in our rooms, and I’m hard-pushed to think whether I was this much even when there was freedom of movement.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish won’t recall seeing is me up and about on my feet before the third alarm. Perhaps “up on my feet” is something of an exaggeration but I was certainly sitting on the edge of the bed with my feet touching the floor. So that counts as “being up” in my book.

After the medication I consulted the dictaphone. Apparently World War I had just started and they were disposing troops on the Western Front ready to face the German assault and the battle plans were now being changed and buses were having to be brought in to move the troops around to different places. In the end they manned Thiepval Ridge and a few other places and then the Germans attacked. But they weren’t sufficiently numerous and they were pushed back with some losses and we were detailed to go out and check the wounded and the dead. So we went out and found the wounded and had to persuade some of them too that they should be rescued and taken back behind the lines. There was the usual looting of the dead of course. In the end there was just one person left and the Germans were massing ready to attack again so we grabbed a blanket – there were four of us and we each took a corner with this wounded guy on it and took him back to our lines by holding on to the blanket. And I had to go and wait in the town hall place for the clerk of the court – a woman, Miss Doyle now Mrs Williams – to come down with the death certificates. She asked me if I wanted to say a prayer over the corpses but I hadn’t really thought about that so I don’t know. That was when I awoke. There was one bit earlier on where I came to join the unit. I’d picked up a library book about the fighting on the Somme but in previous wars like Marlborough and all of that. I walked into the room as a new boy and a group of people on the sofa moved up and tried to let me have a place on there but I put my book down before I sat down as I didn’t want to dismay them with my choice of reading matter.

As to what must have been going on in my mind I really don’t know because I haven’t given the matter of World War I much thought over the last while. Although, interestingly, looking up the details of Marlborough and the other Flanders campaigns from earlier years has always been something on my mind ever since I stumbled by accident across the battlefield at Malplaquet about 25 years ago.

This morning I’ve been busy baking.

To start with, I added a little sugar to 350ml of lukewarm water and then stirred it in. When it had dissolved I added the yeast.

While that was rising, I took 500 grammes of flour and added a teaspoon of salt and mixed it well in.

By now the yeast mixture was bubbling nicely so I added it into the flour and salt and kneaded it well in with my hands for a good 10 minutes. It was too wet so I added a couple of tablespoons of flour until I had the consistency that I wanted – a nice rubbery elasticky dough that didn’t stick to my hands, or anything else to that matter.

It had a really good kneading, probably about 15 minutes or so, and then I put it in the mixing bowl covered by a damp cloth on top of the overn, which I then switched on.

150 grammes of flour next, and 75 grammes of vegan margarine, all well rubbed together. And i’m told that I’m not rubbing it together long enough so I did it for an age. When I was satisfied that it was rubbed together adequately, I added 150 grammes of oats and rubbed all of that really well in too.

Then I peeled, cored and diced two large cooking apples and put them in a baking bowl with lemon juice, desiccated coconut, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, stirred it all well together, pressed it down really well into the bowl and then added the flour and oat mix.

That was pressed well down too and then put that in the oven.

Next task was to peel a big lump of ginger, dice it into very tiny bits, stick it into a large saucepan with a small amount of water, bring it to the boil and leave it to simmer.

The bread dough was rising nicely in the warmth so I spent another 15 minutes really pummeling it and working it with my fingers. It had a really beautiful texture.

Then I shaped it and put it in the backing dish that i’d bought last weekend, and then back on top of the oven under cover.

Three lemons were next. They were peeled and as much pith as possible was removed … “that’s taking the pith, yeth?” – ed … They were put in the whizzer and whizzed round just enough to separate the juice, which was strained off and put in a sterilisied bottle.

The rest of the lemons was put back and whizzed around until it resembled something like a purée, and this was then added to the ginger and water, brought to the boil and left to simmer again.

One mug of coffee later, the apple crumble was cooked to perfection so that came out of the oven and the bread went in instead (I must buy a bigger oven).

It was so well mixed, I have to say, that it really did rise before my very eyes, and it was so impressive, it really was.

By now the lemon and ginger had simmered enough, so that came off the heat and two tablespoons of honey were added. It was all tipped into the whizzer and whizzed around for an age until it really did look like a puree and then it was added to the lemon juice from earlier, and shaken well in.

The bread wasn’t ready for lunch but there was a little of the previous loaf left and a stray taco floating around so I polished those off.

But now my bread is done and just look at it all. I hope that it’s as good as it looks. I suppose that I’ll find out tomorrow lunchtime.

This afternoon I crashed out for a really good and deep half an hour, much to my dismay. And so i didn’t do all that I had planned.

There were a few pages of one of my websites that were brought up to the new standards and a web page on one of my other sites was rewritten. There’s a lot more information available these days than there was 20 years ago and I’ve even managed to track down the owners (at the time) of a vehicle that featured on that page.

And there was still time to edit half a dozen photos from Iceland in July 2019. And how I would have liked to have done more than that too.

But there has to be a break of course for the afternoon walk. I need to stretch my legs.

Maybe it’s legs that these people will be stretching in very early course – and arms too because it looks as if they are about to take the plunge into the waters.

It’s certainly pretty brave of them and you wouldn’t get me going in there for all the tea in China – not even in mid-summer. Call me “nesh” if you like, but I don’t care.

However, at least I took off my jumper and walked around in my tee shirt. I can manage that.

Over the last few days we’ve seen a speedboat in the English Channel off the coast of Brehal-Plage with some guys in it doing some fishing.

There’s another speedboat out there today too, although I’m sure that it’s not the same one that we have seen in the past. This one has a covered cabin, but the other one (or ones) didn’t.

And there is a pile of buoys out there in the water too. Too many to be anything to do with the fishermen, I reckon, so I’m wondering if they are connected with the yachts that come out of the harbour over there.

My walk continued along the top of the cliff underneath the walls and round the corner where there’s a really good view over the Plat Gousset.

And it’s just like a Bank Holiday weekend down there, isn’t it? You wouldn’t believe that there’s a deadly virus on the rampage with all of those people congregating together down there.

Plenty of people in the water to a greater or lesser degree too, and the usual sandcastle builders are hard at work with their latest edifices.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day we watched them erecting a scaffolding up against a house in the Place Marechal Foch.

One of the things that I wanted to do today was to have a look and see how they were getting on with what they were doing so I pushed on along the path. And they seem to be doing quite well too. Ripping off all of the slates and, by the looks of things, the wooden rafters too.

It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether the storms and high winds have had anything to do with all of that.

And so my walk continued across the Square Maurice Marland to the viewpoint over the harbour.

And here’s a thing. We’ve seen them installing the pillars to support the floating pontoons of the new walkways but today they have actually installed the pontoons and there is even someone walking on them. That’s progress.

In the background we have three yachts which I reckon are Aztec Lady Spirit of Conrad and La Granvillaise. I heard a story about Aztec Lady that when the virus broke out she was around Svalbard somewhere and ended up in quarantine in the Lofoten islands.

How true that is, I really don’t know but it sounds typical to me.

The harbour gates were closed but there was a lot of movement inside and outside the port as if the gates would be open at any moment.

A couple of trawler-type fishing boats were jostling for position and this one, Pescadore looks as if she’s getting ready for the open sea.

And judging by the amount of refrigerated lorries at the fish processing plant (there were four today) they are expecting another bumper catch today.

But what are these guys doing here?

While I was waiting for things to happen (which didn’t happen, but that’s another story) I watched them for a few minutes. They had lines with large-ish weights on the end and they were throwing them across the harbour entrance. You cans ee the “splash” as one of the weights goes into the water and you’ll see the lines for a few others that are already in.

Fishing is, as far as I am aware, forbidden in the harbour so it probably isn’t that. But it’s bizarre just the same.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there has been a lot of heavy engineering going on in and around the port just recently.

As I was observing the goings-on in the port a heavy low-loader, empty, passed by underneath me and I wondered what it had brought. But here’s the answer. We have a couple of diggers and a tractor and trailer parked on the slipway again.

It’ll be interesting to see what they’ll be doing over the next few weeks.

Back here I finished off my tasks and then had my usual hour on the guitars. My bass-playing is slowly (very slowly) improving but I seem to have run aground now with the 6-string. I’m not managing the rapid chord changes as well as I might.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger with pasta and vegetables, followed by a slice of the redfruit pie – just one more slice to go now before I can start on the crumble – with that soya coconut stuff. And it’s just as delicious as it was when I had the first slice.

So back out to hit the streets again. And I ran, with some difficulty, up to my marker at the end of the hedge and then, having recovered my breath, down to the clifftop.

Regular readers of this rubhish will recall that we saw a bright yellow zodiac out here yesterday and at first glance I thought that they might be back again today. But it’s a different zodiac and these people seem to be fishing with rod and line.

Perhaps it’s they who were in the speedboat over the last couple of days, I dunno.

having seen the hordes of people out here during the day having little respect for the social distancing rules, it’s no surprise to see that this evening it’s the turn of the younger generation.

All over the lawn were little groups having picnics and listening to music and the like, and this little group here down by the stone watch-cabin is just one example of many that I could of photographed.

There’s no particular reason why I photographed these instead of any other group, except that their pose was better. So don’t think that I’m singling them out for any special reason.

There’s no question of any social distancing here, is there?

The tide turned a couple of hours ago and what I imagine is happening here – based on no evidence whatsoever – is that the birds are waiting for the tidal flats to drain off so that they can get stuck in there for tea.

Not that I would know anything about the habits of birds, because the only birds that I am interested in studying are not birds of this type at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There’s a change of occupant in the chantier navale too today.

We had four boats in there for the last couple of days but today we seem to be doing our “Genesis” impressions – for Then There Were Three. The boat Joker that was on the far left-hand blocks now seems to have gone back into the water.

And if you look on the extreme left-hand edge of the photo, there’s a yellow zodiac just creeping into the photograph. I wonder if it’s the same one that we saw last night.

But talking of boats, it looks like we are going to have a new occupant joining the fleet in the port.

This artic has just turned up and on the back of it is a luxurious cabin-cruiser thing and that has to be worth a few bob, doesn’t it?

It beats me why they want to use the big crane to lower it in to the water though. Round at the port de plaisance – the pleasure-boat harbour, there’s a portable sling like the one at the chantier navale with a safe working load of 100 tonnes that’s specially made for purposes like this.

But maybe the artic is too long to negotiate the harbour over there.

In the beautiful evening sunshine I ran all the way down the Boulevard Vaufleury to the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord, with the usual pauses for breath of course.

There was still 15 minutes or so to wait before the sun finally set but I had too many other things to do this evening, not the least of which being to go to bed after my long day, so I contented myself with the photo of the setting sun as it was.

The days are lengthening rapidly now and it won’t be long before it’s after 22:00 when the sun finally sinks beneath the sea.

But before I leave I had a look around because, for a change, there wasn’t anyone else around here with me.

But I wasn’t as alone as I might have thought because the picnickers are just arriving down on the beach and settling themselves down for the sunset.

It seems to me that most people have given up on this “social distancing” thing, which is a shame. Because if it comes back in a second wave, which is usually the case in pandemics, it’ll be even more virulent and it won’t be just 7 weeks that we’ll be confined to quarters.

On that note, I ran back home to write out my notes, and managed to do about half of them before I crashed out on the chair.

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