… this evening’s beautiful sunset, as the sun slowly sinks into the sea somewhere off the shore of the Ile de Chausey, let me tall you about my day, such as it was.
And for a change, it started off rally well too. I was actually out of bed and struggling into my clothes when the third alarm went off, and that’s not something that happens every day, especially these days.
And so I wandered off for my medication, or whatever is left of my medication until tomorrow.
After the medication, I had a look at the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.
And not very far, by the look of it.
There was something going on about a zoo during the night. There was a group of us, a Scottish rock group and I can’t remember which one it was. We were going hunting and someone brought a rifle along, but was soon persuaded to change it for a camera. We all had to wear face masks so I put this face mask on a little girl, a weird thing that needed all kind of strange tightening up, then told her to go to put hers on her brother and then come back to put mine on. Her brother was only a year or two older and he didn’t understand about face masks and they were having a bit of a struggle to get his face mask on.
Breakfast was next of course, and that was followed by a shower.
And those few hundred grammes that I had lost the other day – well, they are back. It seems that my bathroom scales are about as reliable as Castle Anthrax’s blood laboratory testing service … “you said that the other day” – ed.
And having had a good shower and clean up, then I cleaned and tidied the bathroom and you can actually see the surface in there now. That’s progress.
Having organised the bathroom I started on the kitchen and the dining area.
The kitchen looks as if it hasn’t been cleaned since Adam was a lad so it was high time that it was done. I usually always do that just before I go to Leuven, but I haven’t been there since January, have I?
And then the dining area. That needed a good going-over too.
So basically the place looks so much better now that it did yesterday.
The nurse (a new one) came at about 10:10 and I’m glad t was this one because even though he wasn’t particularly garrulous, he found a vein and insterted his needle quite painlessly. I’m always grateful for that.
He was in and out and gone within about 10 minutes, which meant that I could crack on with what I’d been intending to do.
We started off with the digital file splitting. Two albums of “Greatest Hits” and, to my surprise, both of them were completed today with just the odd little problem here and there but nothing serious.
That was followed by dictating the notes that I had written yesterday for the two radio projects on which I had been working.
And shame is it to say that I actually fell asleep while I was doing it. That was embarrassing, particularly as it was for about 20 minutes or so.
I can’t last the pace, can I?
But anyway, once they were dictated, I uploaded them to the computer
After lunch, I made a start on editing them, having a little chat with Rachel in New Brunswick along the way.
And even though I didn’t feel much like it and wished that I had something else to do instead of this, by the time that I came to knocking off at 18:00 I had made some quite remarkable progress.
So much so that I wish that I had had a day like this much earlier in the week when I really needed to do it.
- The dictated notes have been edited as necessary
- they have been converted to *.mp3 files
- they have been split into the appropriate segments to match the music that will precede and follow them
- they have all been merged together in the appropriate places
- the remaining time has been calculated
- the final, concluding tracks have been identified
- these have been enhanced and edited
- I’ve made a start on writing out the notes to conclude the programmes
Yes, I wish that I had more days like that.
An hour was spent on the guitar, just running over “Telegraph Road” again and once I worked out that not only is there a wrong chord, the chord pattern puts the breaks in the wrong place, then the identifying pattern was easy to spot
It’s a lot of hard work on the bass though, and I don’t think that I shall have it cracked any time soon.
For tea tonight, in my nice clean kitchen and dining area, I decided on a burger and bap for tea, with a baked potato.
Now that I know how much mustard to use (this “old-style” mustard is different to the more modern stuff) it comes out really well and tastes extremely delicious.
We’re on the verge of a crisis though. Tomorrow will see me use the last of the apple crumble. At the moment it’s tasting better and better as the spices in the apples have time to mix through
And then I had to go off for my evening runs.
The sun was still quite high in the sky right now, although I reckoned that by the time I had gone once around my little lap it will have gone down. So I put a spurt on and headed for the hills
And that was quite agonising too. For a couple of days I thought that I had cracked this little course of mine but that might have been rather optimistic. This evening I felt every inch of the way.
Eventually I found my way round to the chantier navale where I could stop to see that was going on.
And there’s been a change in there today. For the last week or so there have been four boats in there up on blocks but today there were only three.
The one that was on its own down the quayside seems to have disappeared – back into the water probably. They are clearly cracking on with things down there in the chantier navale regardless of any social distancing.
If you have a look at image, you’ll see that it’s been cropped from the previous photo. The girl in this image can be seen in the previous one right up at the top beyond the boat hoist and near the bright yellow plastic boat in the rack.
What’s interesting in this photo is that while I was taking the one of the chantier navale I could hear someone talking quite clearly, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Being of a curious bent, I had a good look around but couldn’t see anyone so I was puzzled. But then as the voice slowly became louder, I could see the girl approaching, and she was talking on her telephone.
She must have been a good 400 yards or so away from me yet because of the detention à domicile there was no noise of vehicles or other people and thus the sound of her voice was carrying for a much greater distance than you might expect.
The windows in the apartment had been open today and I had heard the pile-driver going off.
So when I stopped for breath on my run home, I went to see what they had been doing.
At first glance I couldn’t see any difference but on a closer look I think that one or two of the support pillars on the rue du Port side are deeper in the water.
They must have been having a hammering today.
While I was admiring the inner port, my attention was distracted by some goings-on in the corner over there.
Horses and hordes of seagulls circling around over there. It suggests that a fishing boat has just come in and is in the process of unloading. The birds will be on the lookout for a free meal as the process continues.
As for me though, I couldn’t hang around as I had things to do.
By now, the sun would be on its way out so I went for a butchers in the rue du Nord.
There was a girl there too, one of about ten people in total whom I had seen this evening, admiring the scenery too. I attempted to strike up a conversation with her as a gesture of solidarity but she wasn’t having it.
And so instead I carried on admiring the slowly-sinking sun. It really was beautiful.
After about 15 minutes the sun finally disappeared over the horizon and so in the nest tradition of the “News Of The Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.
No-one was around to notice so I ran all the way back to the apartment so as to make up my five runs.
About 30 seconds after I returned, the ‘phone rang. It was Rosemary and she wanted a really good chat so we were there on the ‘phone puttign the world to rights for a good hour and a half.
I sisn’t want an early night anyway.
But now everything is all done and way later than I intended, I’m ready for bed.
Tomorrow I have the doctor’s appointment at 10:00 and then I’m off to the shops. There’s quite a bit of stuff that I need. And so I hope that LIDL isn’t going to have a heart attack if I have the need to take a photo or two.
That is – if I’m awake in time because I was hoping to be in bed much earlier than this.
