Tag Archives: crash out

Wednesday 14th November 2018 – 01:35 …

… 03:30 and 05:20.

This is getting quite ridiculous, isn’t it? There’s absolutely no point whatever in going to bed early if I’m going to keep on waking up like this in the middle of the night.

But there was still plenty of time for me to go on a nocturnal ramble. I had a silver Ford Cortina MkII and it was ready to go for its MoT. Someone who had had a look at it reckoned that there was no problem with it passing its test but I’d had a drive in it and I didn’t like the brakes at all. I was convinced that it wouldn’t go through with brakes like this, but everyone else was certain. So I parked it up in Osborne Grove in Shavington and went home to Crewe. Wondering, of course, how I was going to get back to Shavington in the morning to pick it up. I was even considering asking my brother to drive me down, and that will explain to you just how desperate I was. I do have to say that the idea of driving home in the car and then driving it back next morning never occurred to me at all. However, there was another problem. In order to take the car for its MoT I needed a medical (don’t ask me why) and so I presented myself at the doctor to make an appointment. And if I couldn’t have the appointment on the spot, I was going to be well cooked about all of this.

After breakfast, I had a little sit around for a while not doing too much except a few odds and ends, and then set down to work on the High Arctic pages.

And by the time that I knocked off, there was just 16 photos to write up and that’s quite impressive, even though it didn’t feel as if I had been as focused as I had been yesterday. But I’ve arrived on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, organised my cabin and I’m on my way back upstairs for the official reception.

There were a few distractions, but nothing of any note. Lunch of cpurse, inside the apartment because the weather is now turning rapidly towards winter. It had been a nice beautiful morning with bright blue skies but by the time that I was thinking about going for lunch, it had clouded over.

But talking of winter, it wasn’t too cold for this person just here.

Another one of the interruptions was the usual afternoon walk and my attention was caught by this guy up to his waist in the water.

At first, I couldn’t see what he was doing but enlarging the photo back home I could see that he was fishing, either with a net or with a line with many hooks. And he seems to be doing quite well with it too.

Further around, overlooking the harbour, I noticed that the pile of gravel had been moved round now to much closer to the edge and the machinery has been brought up.

This seems like an indication that we are going to be having a gravel boat in here in the very near future.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one come in here and so we must be overdue.

We also had the usual stop for tea. The rest of the stuffing that I had made the other day, I put into two taco rolls, with vegetables and spicy rice. There was also a brief 5 minutes of … errr … repose.

By the end of the day the wind was back, although nothing like as strong as it had been.

There was a sea fog and a little of the damp fine rain on the north side of the Pointe du Roc but not enough to stop me going for my evening walk.

There was a beautiful night-time view over the harbour of the Port de Granville. And it came out quite nicely in the photo. You wouldn’t think that thisis a hand-held shot.

So now I’m going to have yet another early night. And one of these days I might actually have one.

Fishing with a net off the Pointe du Roc

Tuesday 13th November 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… just recently, I’ve had a profitable day and done a lot of work.

It didn’t start out like that though.

Waking up at 03:41 did me no favours this morning. And neither did reawakening at 05:46 I’m really going to have to do something about this.

But at least it’s taking me off on some astonishing voyages during the night.

Last night I was out in “The Wild West” in a homestead in an area where there were several other homesteads. And we’d been round o one of them for a bit of a hoedown, I suppose. We went home in our waggon in the dark after the event and reached home safely, only to find out that the people we had visited the previous evening had been massacred in their beds by the Commanches. And while we were looking around there for clues, we heard of another incident at another homestead so we went around there. I’ll spare you all of the gory details as you are probably eating your tea or something right now. Everyone started to talk about launching an offensive against the Commanche but I was busy loading my family into a waggon to take them to the fort. I was all in favour of launching an offensive but I wanted to make sure that my family would be safe before I went off.
Later on, I was round at Liz and Terry’s. We’d had a party of some kind and as Liz had to go off somewhere I said that I would do the washing up. Most of it was glass bowls and dishes and the like, and I was stacking them on the floor after I’d dried them, ready to put away. Someone walking past saw one of them on the floor and gave it a kick. He hadn’t noticed that it was the top of a huge pile of glassware, and ended up smashing a whole pile of the glassware. “Whatever am I going to do now to explain this to Liz?” I wondered. Anyway, after all of this, I went to bed. It was round about 700AD when I went to bed and when I awoke it was 1624AD – I’d been asleep for over 900 years. Liz was there by the side of the bed with an IKEA bag full of letters and post that needed signing and I had to go through them and initial them all. I apologised to Liz for sleeping so long but she said that I must have needed it and it must have done me good. In the bag were a few things that I hadn’t wanted Liz to see – after all, I’m entitled to a private life – so I had to distract her attention from them somehow.

With an early start like that, I had an early breakfast and then an early attack on Day Three of the High Arctic.

I had several breaks during the day – for a shower, a couple of walks, to make some muesli, lunch and so on, as well as a little … errr … relax during the afternoon, but nevertheless I’ve done about a third of the page. We’ve taken off from Yellowknife (twice in fact), refuelled at Pelly Bay and are now overflying Baffin Island well on our way to Mittimatalik.

Another couple of days like this and I’ll have this page finished. But can I keep on going?

Lunch was taken inside again today, but maybe I ought to have tried to go out on my wall and eat it.

When I did finally go out for my afternoon walk today, rather later than usual, It was much warmer than it has been just recently and the wind had dropped dramatically.

I wasn’t the only one out there enjoying the beautiful weather either. There was some kind of seabird scavenging in a rock pool down below.

The sun was shining nicely too and we had some really clear skies to enjoy.

The view over the tidal harbour was really impressive this afternoon even if the tide was out and there wasn’t anything out there moving around.

Outside the building as I arrived back I bumped into one of the neighbours. We had quite a lengthy chat about nothing special at all. But I have to be sociable every now and again.

Tea tonight was stuffed taco rolls with rice and vegetables. With the stuffing that was left over from yesterday I added a tin of kidney beans, some olive oil, tomato sauce and hot cayenne pepper.

Totally delicious, it was.

On my evening walk around the walls there was plenty of moonlight and with the skies being clear it was reasonably light.

From the top of the rise in the rue du Nord there was a view back down the street and across to the College Malraux at the back of where I live.

And this photograph has come out rather well too.

While I was out there I didn’t encounter a soul. And I mean that too. There was absolutely no-one around in the streets. They must have heard me coming.

The wind had dropped quite dramatically this evening and the sea was reasonably calm.

And with the tide not being quite fully in there were no waves tonight crashing up over the sea wall on the Plat Gousset

The tide was however in far enough that the gates to the innher harbour were open.

And so all on my own, standing on the top of the walls I was the only spectator of a beautiful nautical danse macabre as three trawlers came sailing in line astern into the inner harbour.

They swung round in a beautiful synchronised U-turn and went over to the quay at the back of the fish processing plant.

I stood up there and watched them for quite a while as they tied up, presumably ready to unload their catch.

And I walked back to my apartment, musing on the fact that the amount of free and exciting entertainment that I’ve been having from the boats in the harbour while I’ve been has been rather impressive.

And now I might be going. To bed, I mean. I’ll be making the most of an early night, I hope. High time that I had a decent night’s sleep. I still live in hope.

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

After lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

Folligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

Saturday 10th November 2018 – THE BIG PROBLEM …

… with going to bed early is that there is quite often a tendency to awake early too. Early is one thing, but 04:48 is a bit ridiculous.

And even worse, I didn’t go back to sleep either I just lay there and vegetated until the alarm went off.

An early breakfast meant that I had plenty of time left. So I finished off the entry for the third day of my High Arctic voyage and put it on line where you can see it in all of its glory, with a couple of dozen of the … gulp … 127 photos that I took that day.

Once that was done I had a shower and then headed off for the shops.

LIDL came up with nothing at all special, and NOZ wasn’t much better. Leclerc didn’t come up with much either. All in all, it was a very light shopping bill today. And that includes the gram flour from the Biocoop.

But I nearly spent a lot more than that.

Having a look around in the Second-Hand Shop they had a beautiful Ibanez 5-string bass guitar and I had a good play around on it for about 15 minutes. Then I had to tear myself away before I spent a lot of money.

But the printer!

According to the Leclerc website, they have an Epson printer on special offer – €15:00 cheaper than the equivalent on Amazon.

I like Epsons, for the simple reasons that firstly the ink is cheap and secondly the colour cartridges are separate so you don’t need to replace the whole lot when just one colour runs out.

The advert said that the printers were available on order from the shop so off I went. And the usual inept Je m’enfoutiste who couldn’t be bothered to look for it on the on-line catalogue went off to chat to a colleague, and came back to tell me that “they’ve all gone”.

Back here, I had a look on-line, and there were plenty left. So I ordered one on-line instead and it will be in the drive-in in a couple of days.

But I’m getting sick and tired of this modern trend of je m’enfoutisme where shopkeepers and shop assistants are kicking people out of their shops because it’s too much like hard work to try to sell them something.

And anyone who has read Alvin Tofler’s The Third Wave will recall that he foretold all of this nearly 40 years ago.

People argue long and hard in favour of “shop local” instead of shopping on-line, but at least the computer and the warehouse robots are keen and eager to fulfil your demand.

While I was finishing off my lunch this afternoon there was a ring on the doorbell. Liz and Terry turned up to say hello, have a coffee and to give me some shopping that they had brought back from the UK for me. Stuff for Christmas such as mince pies, mincemeat and Christmas pudding, seeing as the English Shop in Everburg let me down.

We had a good walk around the headland and the walls in the wind and rain, followed by a coffee in the cafe in the old town.

Later on, I started to work on the web pages for Day Three but ended up by falling asleep on my comfortable chair.

On awakening, I noticed that US Granville’s 2nd XI was playing against LC Bretteville Sur Odon, and kick-off was in 40 minutes time.

Not wishing to hang around, I sailed off at a rapid rate of knots and was actually there 10 minutes before kick-off. I didn’t know that I could move so fast these days.

US Granville took the lead after just one and a half minutes. From their first attack they won a corner. The LC Bretteville Sur Odon keeper punched it out and a Granville player picked up the loose ball and drove it back into the crowded penalty area where it shot through a ruck of players straight into the net without touching anyone.

They had the ball in the net after 13 minutes too, but it was ruled out for a push on a defender.

LC Bretteville Sur Odon woke up after about 35 minutes and began to get on top. They almost equalised but a shot was kicked off the line by a defender.

The second half carried on with LC Bretteville Sur Odon clearly on top but a few unsavoury incidents which ended up with an LC Bretteville Sur Odon in the dressing room disrupted the game.

Three substitutes all at the same time refreshed the Granville team and, against the run of play, scored a dramatic second goal. A breakaway through the centre saw the ball blocked on the line not once but twice, but the third attempt on goal found the back of the net.

So a rather fortunate 2-0 win for Granville.

By now the rain had stopped so I had a good walk back home.

I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me and so I decided that I would have some fun with it in the dark.

As you know, I’ve not been able to get it to work as well as I would have liked in poor lighting, and the drawbridge into the old walled town here gave me ideas.

I took several photos of the pont lévis, using different shutter, aperture and ISO settings, to correspond and compare with the earlier one which was taken on fully automatic settings.

Most of them were filed under CS, but this one turned out quite well.

1/13 shutter speed, f3.75 and ISO6400, and darkened slightly.

Back home, while I was working on the photos, I noticed a couple of people nicely framed in the archway of the drawbridge.

I cropped out that part of the image and blew it up a little to see what it would give me, and it’s produced a nice effect.

However, it’s ended up being rather pixelated and that’s a disappointment. I don’t seem to be able to produce the quality for which I am looking.

Back home, I made myself a plate of mushrooms in tomato sauce with pasta for tea.

I’m ready now for an early night, especially having done 147% of my daily total, and I hope that I’ll be able finally to have a good sleep.

I need it.

Thursday 8th November 2018 – I’VE FINISHED …

… the second day of my mega-voyage to the High Arctic and it’s now on line.

All you need to do is to go to this page and follow the link to Day Two. There are five pages in total and they should give you hours of endless fun.

Even more exciting is the fact that I’ve made a start on adding some photos to Day Three of the blog. That might even be finished if I have a good day, and then I can start on the web page that goes with it.

Or pages, probably, if it’s anything like Day Two.

In case you are wondering, I’ve had a good day today and done quite a few things. That early night that I had must have done me a world of good.

There was even time for me to go off on a ramble during the night. I was heading towards a boat, travelling down a valley, and we were to collect a group of kids to take skiing with us. They came running down the sides of the valley down to the bottom, screaming and squealing like young kids do. And what was surprising about all of this was that there was plenty of snow on the sides of the valley so it was difficult to understand, even during a nocturnal ramble, why they would need to go off somewhere else to ski.

After breakfast, I finished off the form that I’d been completing, but at this moment the printer decided to pack up yet again. It always seems to do this at a crucial moment, and it’s getting on my nerves.

But then again, I did pick it up in the Spring of 2013 and it was second-hand so I can’t complain too much. But I’ll be buying another one on Saturday. I hope that I’ll have more luck with this, but it never seems to work out between me and printers.

A shower and setting the washing machine going, and then into town, with Yves and Lily whom I encountered at the foot of the stairs. We had a good chat until we went our separate ways in the town centre. Me to the magasin de presse for the photocopying and then to the Post Office to send it all off.

On the way up to LIDL there was a cherry-picker working on one of the lamp-posts by the station.

It looks as if they might be starting to put up the Christmas decorations. It’s getting closer to that time of year already. And of course, I’m not going to be here to celebrate it, am I?

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special – in fact, the cupboard was pretty bare. But I did remember to buy 2kgs of carrots for freezing.

On the way back to town, I went past the private car park of the local Tax Office, and saw a sight that made me laugh.

There’s a demonstration due to take place soon against inter alia the amount of tax being charged on fuel.

People are expected to show their solidarity by putting their reflective chasubles on top of their dashboards.

I found it extremely ironic that a couple of people who apparently work in the Tax Office are demonstrating against the amount of taxes being charged.

In the town centre there was a big crowd around the War Memorial.

The local schoolkids had been learning about the Armistice as part of the school curriculum and so they were holding a commemoration service there for them.

There was a considerable number of adults who were passing by and were swept up in the emotion.

There was an enormous number of kids there listening to the service.

And there was also a film cameraman recording the event, presumably for the local television channel.

He was quite interested in filming the kids listening to the service, and so I couldn’t resist the opportunity of filming him doing it.

I have quite a few photos of this kind of thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

On the way back here, I had a strange encounter in the rue des Juifs.

In one of the art galleries there was a really nice painting of a tramp steamer. It looked quite nice so I was interested in having a closer look at it.

Just as I was about to go inside, the owner came out
“I’m just closing up because I’m going to an exhibition” he said. “I’ll be back in a week”
And he locked up the shop right in front of me.

The next person who complains that there’s a recession going on will get a smack in the mouth. People throwing customers out of their shop like this.

Up the hill again where I fell in once more with Yves and Lily who were on the way back home.

Lunch was inside again – far too windy to go outside and sit on my wall. And then I finished off the web pages that I mentioned earlier.

A cookery session followed next. I peeled, sliced and blanched the carrots and then prepared them for freezing. And 2kgs is too much to freeze at one go. 1kg at a time will do in future. But I should really have bought a bigger freezer.

There was a pile of mushrooms left over too so I prepared a mushroom and potato curry with the left-over potatoes from the previous batch, and added a giant tin of macedoine vegetables and a dollop of soya cream.

And now there’s no room in the freezer for it so I don’t know what I’m going to do.

What with all of that, I was rather late going out for my afternoon walk around the Pointe du Roc.

And that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either, due to the high winds that were still blowing a gale around in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

But the winds were making quite an impression on the waves, as well as blowing the seabirds around somewhat.

they couldn’t have found it very easy to move around, and neither did the pedestrians down there either.

A little further around the bend we came to a position where we could see the wind full-on with the waves, pushing them forward towards the port de plaisance.

They were making some really pretty patterns too and it looked quite impressive.

You can see what kind of a beautiful day that we were having too. It was rather a shame that the wind was cooling everything down.

With the time that was left before tea I started on Day Three of the blog, and sometime during the proceedings I had a little repose.

At tea time I went to try a helping of the curry with boiled rice and veg. Not my best, I have to say, but then I only made it to use up some of the food that was left and in danger of going off.

It was at that moment that I remembered that I had left the washing in the machine.

The high winds didn’t prevent me from going for my evening walk around the walls.

Even though the tide was well on its way out, the high winds were still catching the waves and smashing them down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset.

What was even more impressive was that the new f1.8 lens was working well enough to pick up the motion, and the crop of the image was sharp enough to bring it out.

So I carried on with my walk around the walls and back into the old medieval town.

And here at the Place Cambernon there was a hive of activity. Dozens of people at the bar, and the pizza van that comes here on a Thursday evening was doing a roaring trade.

One day I’ll take some of my cheese down to the van and try out one of their pizzas

Back home in the hallway I met Brigitte who was back from her holidays. We had a good chat for over an hour down there.

It’s definitely my day for being sociable with the neighbours.

However, it’s made me later than I intended to be and I won’t have a night as early as I would like.

But I’ll do my best.

Children’s Armistice Day commemoration

Children’s Armistice Day Commemoration

Storm, high winds and waves, Plat Gousset

The Pizza Van in the Place Cambernon, Granville

Wednesday 31st October 2018 – THE BODY CLOCK …

… is working well again to day.

Never mind the awakening at 01:30 – that’s the kind of thing that happens quite regularly these days, but the being wide-awake at 05:20 can only be good news, especially as I needed an early start.

The downside of all of this is despite being off on yet another nocturnal voyage during the night, all that I can remember is that I was shepherding around another group of young ladies. But as for why, I don’t have a clue now and isn’t that disappointing when I’ve spend the evening with a bunch of bouncing beauties?

06:10 I was out of bed and it took me just 2 minutes to pack the rest of my stuff.

But not all of it.

I’ve lost the top off one of my little water bottles – one of the ones that I use to bring soya milk and fruit juice with me when I come on a Sunday.

Well, when I say “lost it” what I mean is that I seem to have brought with me the top off one of the bottles that I didn’t need and so threw away. And I must have thrown away the good top with the bad bottle, if you see what I mean.

Anyway, by 06:30 I was on my way to the railway station and it’s a long time since I’ve been out and about this early.

And doesn’t the station look beautiful in the artificial lighting?

At the railway station, instead of catching the 07:09, the 06:36 was rather late so I hopped on that without having to wait around at all.

As a result I was early in Brussels, but the Carrefour in the station was open so that I could pick up some raisin buns and some fruit for breakfast.

I didn’t have to wait long – just long enough to eat my breakfast in fact, before we were ushered up onto the platform for our train.

And on there in the windswept weather the train soon put in its appearance and we could clamber aboard. And just for a change, I was first on board.

And then we had to wait.

dDe to the late arrival of the portion of the train that arrives from Amsterdam, the TGV was 12 minutes late leaving the station.

It was one of the same rather elderly TGVs but it was much cleaner and tidier inside than usual, although there was no water in the washrooms.

And the journey was so uneventful that I can’t remember a single thing about my seating companion

15 minutes late arriving in Paris Gare-du-Nord but the Metro was quite rapid and, for a change, half-empty.

And we were on the platform at Montparnasse-Vaugirard with 20 minutes to spare.

There wasn’t even enough time to have a look around. I’d only been there a couple of minutes before they called us up to the train. And I ended up sitting next to a nice young girl, but unfortunately she wasn’t interested in having a chat.

We set off on time too and for the first 30 minutes or so I caught up with my beauty sleep.

Once I’d woken up, I carried on with my “Voyages Of The Norsemen“.

Bearing in mind that the book was published 104 years ago, it’s a totally fascinating read.

For example, Hovgaard quote a beautiful story that “There is a tradition among the Eskimos in Labrador about a fierce race of men of gigantic size and strength, who delighted to kill people. But these men themselves could not be killed by either darts or arrows, which rebounded from their breast as from a rock”..

Can you think of a better description by isolated people of small stature when they talk about Europeans of the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries dressed in breastplates? It’s now accepted unequivocally that Martin Frobisher did in fact reach and explore Baffin Island in the 1570s and breastplates would have been in his wardrobe, but it’s interesting to speculate about who might have been there before and dressed in breastplates too.

It’s a similar kind of situation that I mentioned years ago about the old Mi’kmaq legend of Glooscap building a giant canoe and planting trees in it, which can, from the isolated mind, be no better description of the building of a European ship by European people on the coast of Nova Scotia long before the arrival of John Cabot.

The train pulled in on time at Granville station, which is always good news.

Here on the platform we were met by a couple of giant pumpkins. It’s nice to see the SNCF employees enter into the spirit of Halloween.

And that wasn’t all either. All the way down into town I was assailed by all kinds of demons and ghoulies. Someone whom I knew was chased into a pit by the demons, but was dragged out by the ghoulies.

On the way past the boulangerie I stopped to pick up a baguette for lunch. It’s been a long day and I’m hungry.

On the way up the hill, I looked over the wall into the harbour.

There was Victor Hugo moored up, all dressed in some kind of corporate advertising as if she had been hired to go off on a private excursion

I heard somewhere that one of the Channel Islands ferries had been broken down for a month during the holiday season and had cost the operators a great deal of money.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the summer I did mention that I hadn’t seen her sister for quite some considerable time.

I had a very late lunch and then for the rest of the day I vegetated. I had a visit from the neighbours who invited me for a drink on Saturday, and I managed a walk around the headland later.

But it’s cold. 11°C in here and this would ordinarily be the signal to switch on the heating. Winter has arrived at last and it’s only going to get colder.

But I’m not. I’m going to be and I’m going to stay there. It’s a Bank Holiday so there’s no alarm tomorrow. I intend to have The Sleep Of The Dead, so just you watch someone come along and spoil it.

Tuesday 30th October 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… the early night for which I was hoping last night.

Just as I was planning to go off to bed, onto the radio came one of the “Saint” radio programmes. Not the 1950s Vincent Price offerings, but the much-more-modern hour-long Paul Rhys offerings.

Apart from the fact that the scripts are much more exciting and much more realistic than the TV series and the Vincent Price programmes, the voice of Paul Rhys is quite hypnotic and he has a marvellous way of building up the tension. I can’t go to bed when he starts up. I have to stay until the end.

No idea if the body-clock worked last night. It might have done but I was in no mood to look at the time anywhere. I’d switched off the telephone and was intending to sleep until I awoke. I reckoned that I needed it.

It was about 08:50 when I awoke. And even then, I just stayed flat-out until about 11:00. There’s nothing like having a nice breakfast at something like 11:30 is there?

By now though it was raining and so I had a rather damp walk down to the bus station. And here I found that I have forgotten my bus tickets too so I had to buy another 10-trip ticket. I’ll have quite a collection of these before I finish.

I didn’t have to wait too long for the bus – in fact, a matter of seconds. It took me longer to remember where I had put the bus ticket that I had just purchased.

And here’s a sticker that signifies the end of the western world, at least as far as Belgium is concerned. From now on, you are no longer allowed to bring your fritjes on board Belgian buses.

It’s another nail in the coffin of the traditional Belgian lifestyle. No longer do fritjes overcome everything.

There are roadworks in Everberg so the bus went a different way than usual. As a consequence I missed my stop and had a rather wet walk through the Flemish countryside to the English Shop.

The bad news here is that they are no longer stocking the cheap Waitrose Christmas produces, like mince pies and Christmas pudding. All that they are carrying this year is the more expensive stuff with all kinds of stuff that I can’t eat. Even the “Free From” mince pies have egg in them. So that’s ruled all of that out then, hasn’t it?

They only had two tubs of gravy browning too and that’s not really helpful either. I’ll get through those in no time flat.

It was something of a wet, weary trudge to the bus stop with all of the roadworks. And although I was on time, the bus wasn’t and I had to wait 10 minutes in the pouring rain.

Back at Leuven I nipped into the supermarket at the back of the station for a baguette and a tomato to take back to my room for a rather late lunch. I had some salad left from yesterday and some vegan cheese from The Loving Hut, as well as some fruit left over from my travels.

And then, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out yet again on the bed.

Later on, I was back out again to meet Alison.

We went to the Greenway Thai Restaurant in Parijsstraat where we both had a very nice coconut curry, although apparently not as nice as the one that Alison had had last time that we were there.

There was no hurry this evening so we stayed around for quite some time and had a good chat about this and that.

We followed that with a coffee by the fire in the bar at the Kloosters Hotel around the corner and then she drove me home.

With having an early start tomorrow, I did a quick lap round the room and did some of the packing, and now I’m off to bed. There’s a long way to go tomorrow and I can’t afford to hang around.

So I’ll leave you with a few photos of the evening just to show that the Nikon 1 can do it when it really wants to. Unfortunately, it’s not usually when I want it to or when it needs to.

The Tiensestraat in Leuven

The Muntstraat in Leuven

The Tiensestraat in Leuven again

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Fourth Hotel in the background.

The Grote Markt in Leuven with the Town Hall in the background

The Martelarenplein in Leuven

Monday 29th October 2018 – IT’S NOT LOOKING …

… too good right now.

The blood count and the protein loss are stable – and while that might sound like good news, it isn’t. It should be ameliorating rapidly. And even worse, they are continuing on this the Multigam treatment, even though it’s not doing what they were hoping that it would do. It seems that they haven’t come up with an alternative yet and I suppose that I shall be having it from now on, every few weeks until my inevitable demise.

That’s what I call depressing news.

And talking of every few weeks, it’s back again on 26th November and yet again on … errrr … 24th December. So it looks very much as if it’s Christmas here in Leuven. Another Christmas away from home, but at least it’s better than last year when I spent it in hospital.

And if you think that that’s bad, the very worst news is that I had a “special interview” too, with the result of which Kaatje the Social Worker was summoned to see me. Apparently people here think that I might now start to benefit from some help around the home and wheels will be put in motion.

Apparently my apartment needs to be continually in a state of pristine cleanliness to avoid me picking up a disease or a virus. Remember that they took out my spleen 30 months ago so I have no immune system. I’m thought to be in such a state that the slightest disease or infection will polish me off.

I’m not quite liking the sound of this.

But at least my body clock is functioning correctly.

Wide awake at 05:13 and that’s good news. I hope that it keeps on going. That will be useful. But I do have an early start on Wednesday so I bet that the body clock will fail to respond on that morning.

It goes without saying that I didn’t leave the bed quite then. No point in rushing and anticipating the alarm when I have plenty of time.

Plenty of time to reflect on my little nocturnal voyage last nignt, because I was off on my travels again. I was the father of a young girl and I’d sent her to a finishing school in Switzerland (although she was far too young for that). After a few months I’d travelled to Switzerland to see how she was doing, to find that she was out on the ski slopes skiing. I waited for her, and she eventually came down to join me. We ended up sitting on a terrace thinking about ordering a meal, when she decided to go into the bar for “the usual reasons”. On her way in she started to talk to a boy by the door, and had a brief conversation with him.
When she came back we went off to the restaurant and while we were waiting to order I asked her what the conversation was all about. She replied that she had mentioned where she was going for lunch in the hope that he would come over to chat. Obviously he wasn’t all that interested, and she told me that while she was up on the ski slopes she had chatted to a few other boys and told them about her lunch arrangements, hoping that one of them would come down to accompany her. But not one of them turned up and I felt really sorry for her because she seemed to be so disappointed.

We had the medication of course, and then the breakfast. Following which I attacked some work that had built up.

With having had a shower last night, I didn’t bother with one today but instead, had a good shave and a clean-up before heading for the hills.

The weather was rather cloudy, misty and overcast and showed no real sign of brightening up. And quite cold too. It made me reflect that when I was last here for a night in Leuven, for my July visit, I was sweltering in the heat. Last night, I had the heating on full-blast.

In the Tiensestraat the shops change hands regularly and it’s always interesting to see the comings and goings.

This is the latest arrival, the Bia Mara fish and chip shop, although he’s not quite arrived yet.

But I think that he might be on a hiding to nothing. Perhaps he hasn’t heard about Brexit and the abolition of Free Movement for UK citizens.

He would be better off offering mosselen en fritjes.

Here at Castle Anthrax I was early. But I still had to wait rather longer that I should to be plugged in and wired up. I was weighed too, and much to my surprise I’ve put on the weight that I had lost. I couldn’t believe that all of the food that I ate on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour and I lost weight, yet back home where I’ve been more restrained I’veput on weight.

But once it was organised, that was that. I lay in a state of semi-consciousness for most of the day drifting in between wakefulness and sleepiness. Not that there was much else to do.

Once I was liberated from my chains, I left and then had to go back again to pick up my wallet that had fallen out of my pocket behind the chair where I was sitting.

On the way back, I called in Delhaize for food for tea and then in the Loving Hut for some more vegan supplies.

Back here, at 128% of my daily activity, I crashed out on the bed for an hour. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?

Tea was baked potatoes and chili beans, and that’s my lot. I’ve done enough for today and I’m going to have a lie in tomorrow to recover my strength and then go for a bus ride.

Sunday 28th October 2018 – AND HERE I AM AGAIN!

Safely shored up in my home from home from home in the Dekenstraat in Leuven. All ready … “I don’t think” – ed … for my visit to Castle Anthrax tomorrow, where I hope that Doctors Piglet and Winston will be practising their arts (although, knowing me, I’ll end up with a retired Bulgarian discus-thrower).

Last night was another night that was later than intended too. But there’s nothing whatever wrong with my body clock because at 05:17 (which is 06:17 in real money) I awoke bolt-upright.

It goes without saying that I didn’t actually leave my stinking pit at that time though. I did at least wait for the alarms to go off before showing a leg, and then out to the medication as usual.

While I was waiting for the medication to work I made my butties for the road. It’s a long day of course with plenty of waiting about, usually in places where there isn’t any food or drink. And even if there is, I usually can’t eat it anyway.

After breakfast I did some tidying up – not much, and it’s the first time that I’ve ever gone away from home and left it in a tip. Due mainly to not having had the energy to clean it up this last week or so.

As I have said before, I can see myself going slowly downhill and one of the (many) reasons for keeping this blog is to keep a check on my health, my moods and my state of mind and to be able to compare it with entries from a while ago in order to plot the deterioration.

I definitely think that it was my efforts in the High Arctic that finished me off, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As Neil Young once famously said, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
My my! Hey hey?

Having taken the rubbish to the bins and having backed up the laptop, I trudged off my weary way to the station.

And it was weary too. Everything is in the big rucksack (which now has a broken clip due to an accident in the bedroom just now) and while that has worked in the past, it was a struggle today. But then again, dragging a small suitcase behind me would have been even more of a struggle. I’m just glad that I didn’t have the giant one to bring. I would never have managed with that today.

Much to my surprise, the train was on time at Granville. I grabbed a coffee from the machine and leapt aboard. I should have had a seating partner – a nice young girl – but the train wasn’t all that full so she toddled off to an empty seat nearby.

The silence and the emptiness didn’t last long because at Vire we were invaded by a trainload of boy and girl scouts. But they cleared off after a while to another part of the train.

Never mind the “by the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong” – I reckon that we were that many aboard the rain by the time we pulled into Montparnasse. And I’ve no idea why because the school holidays aren’t over yet.

Last time that I was here on a Sunday the whole place was heaving in total chaos. And it was just the same today. I’ve never seen so many people about on the station.

And the queues for the tickets for the Metro were enormous. It’s a good job that I still had one left over so I could proceed to the platform directly.

The Metro was heaving too but luckily I could grab a seat by the door and there I stayed. But I had noticed that carrying my rucksack seemed to be a lot easier than it had been earlier in the day even though there was the same amount of stuff in it.

The queues for the Metro tickets at the Gare du Nord were much smaller- only 6 people in front of me and two cashiers – so I took advantage by buying another carnet of 10, seeing as I had the time.

A single journey is €1:70 but a carnet of 10 is €14:90 so it’s a decent saving, and it also means that you don’t have to hand around in these enormous queues all the time.

Up in the Gare du Nord it took me ages to find a place to sit and eat my butties. I’d tried outside but it was freezing and there was a bitter wind blowing down the alley between the station and the offices next door.

On the TGV to Brussels and I slept most of the way. I may as well make the most of the opportunities that come my way.

We were bang on time in Brussels- 15:47.

And the 15:52 to Leuven was bang on time too which meant that I had only just enough time to grab my ticket. I had a very bizarre and garrulous seating companion who told me loads of stuff that I didn’t really want to know, and then he promptly fell asleep.

I’ve never heard anyone snore as much as he did, but he soon awoke when he realised that he was about to miss his stop at Brussels-Nord. I’ve never seen anyone so big move so quickly. Evidently his bow tie could double up as a propeller if necessary.

A good stride out from the station brought me to my lodgings where I was immediately recognised by the proprietor. Unfortunately my room is not one of the quieter rooms but it’s still good.

And unpacking, I discovered that I’d forgotten to bring an ice cube bag with me.

For tea I went into town to pick up a peng … errr … pizza. Which reminds me – mustn’t forget to buy some more vegan cheese tomorrow.

Back here and a shower and then an early night with a Bulldog Drummond film. And true to form, I fell asleep after 5 minutes.

Final word though goes to my friend Clare in the Auvergne. She told me that today they had had the first snow in the Auvergne, and she sent me a photo.

Last time that they had had snow that early (winter 2012-13) it had snowed until 25th May 2013 – a record.

Looks as if it’s going to be a long winter.

Saturday 27th October 2018 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON!

Absolutely, so it was rather later than maybe it ought to have been before I crawled out of bed this morning.

But it’s Saturday, and Saturday is shopping day, so I had my medication, had breakfast, and then had a shower.

Not that there was much breakfast to have because unfortunately we seem to have had an accident. During the night the muesli that I had made the other day somehow managed to fall off the shelf and scatter all over the floor. That was a waste.

on the way up to the shops I observed what might possibly be described as “an incident”. A crowd, including several ambulanciers together with their ambulance loitering on the edge of the quayside looking down towards the water.

I would have gone over to ask them what was happening, except for the fact that there was nowhere to park.

At LIDL there wasn’t much of any interest to tempt me – and even less than usual seeing as I’m not going to be here for a few days. But they did have a couple of things in the €1:00 bin – a wipe-off notice board, a set of A4 binders and a notepad with pen that will be much more use for taking notes around the house instead of on scraps of paper.

BUT was next on the agenda. About this broken shelf. But apparently shelves aren’t included in the guarantee, as, I suppose, so is nothing else that might break down.

But I’m rather disappointed that they had some really decent fridges and freezers on special offer at 30% off that would have been ideal for here. Much bigger and better value, but it’s too late now.

NOZ had the usual rubbish too. Wine at €1:79 a bottle so I bought a few. Not for me, but I never seem to have anything to hand when I’m invited round to people’s houses or I have people round, so it’s gone into store in the bathroom.

They also had a new delivery of maps too, including a new map of all of Europe. Much better quality, much larger scale, much more modern and much more handy to use than the one in Caliburn that dates from … errr … 1992.

I remember the issues that I had going around the Czech Republic in 2015 when I ended up navigating by the stars. High time that I updated everything.

LeClerc came up with the usual stuff, but no sprouts. Even the price tag has been taken off the freezer now. It looks as if the next time I have space in the freezer I’ll have to freeze a pile more.

But they did have frozen peas, and also frozen mushrooms, seeing as I somehow managed to leave the frozen mushrooms that I had bought the other day out on top of the freezer so they had all defrosted.

With no-one keen to commit suicide on the car park today, I made it home without incident, made my butties and then went out to sit on the wall.

But not for long. Even though it was a nice day, the savage wind was really too much for me. I came in and ate them in comfort.

This afternoon US Granville were playing at Avranches down the road in the Coupe de France. I had every intention of going, seeing as the kick-off was at 16:00, but at 15:00 when I should have set out for Avranches I was flat out on the bed, crashed out.

When I awoke, I cleared up the muesli and vacuumed the kitchen area. But that was all that I could manage today.

later on it was the birthday party of Nicole, the “mother” of Gribouille. I’d been invited and I’d bought a box of chocolates for her so I went round. It was raining outside by now. The weather had changed.

We all had a good chat and something to eat, even though there wasn’t much for me.

As is usual, I didn’t stay long. I can’t keep going like I used to do, so that was that. I managed a quick plate of pasta and veg tossed in olive oil.

And that was that. Off to bed and an early start in the morning. Despite it being Sunday, I have the alarm set. I’m off to Leuven tomorrow on the train.

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

However I shall spare you the details. You are probably eating your tea or something like that right now.

But I was so far away on my travels that I didn’t leave the bed until after the 06:20 alarm which was rather disappointing. But then, I didn’t go to bed until late so I suppose it was only to be expected.

After the medication and so on (I missed breakfast due to one reason or another) I had a shower – and a haircut too. This new hair trimmer works a treat and my hair (such as I have left) looks quite good now.

And then I headed off to the shops.

Just by way of a change I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me so that I would be ready if I were to see anything worth photographing.

And Iw as in luck down at the docks because one of the giant cranes had come back.

I’m not sure why because there were no lock gates to be replaced. It might be replacing the mast in one of the boats but I couldn’t really tell.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few months ago a photo of a house down in the rue du Port where they had demolished some of the walls.

Today, I had noticed that they were cracking on with building up the back walls.

They had made quite a good bit of progress while I was away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I hadn’t been on my way for more than 15 minutes when I realised that I had forgotten the details for my rail tickets. So I’ll have to do that again.

At LIDL grapes were €1:99 per kilo so I grabbed a load of them. Together with, finally, a pastry brush and a few other bits and pieces.

On the way back home I had to go to the Hotel des Impôts to pick up a form. But it’s only open 4 days a week. Can you guess which day of the week it’s closed?

At least, it brought me home via a new route that I don’t use all that often and with different views than the usual.

It was pretty cloudy and miserable as you can see. But none of this stopped the sailing club from taking out some of their pupils today.

Not what I would call plain sailing in this kind of weather, is it?

There’s a really good view over the harbour from this spot too. I’ve not noticed this before.

There’s the Pointe du Roc out there just to the left of centre and the Eglise Notre Dame du Cap Lihou on the skyline just to the right of centre.

Where I live is one of the large buildings just to the left of the church spire.

Walking a little further along the promenade at the bottom of the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillaises, there’s a nice little beach here.

But it’s not a beach for sunbathing or anything like that because bathing isn’t permitted here due to its proximity to the harbour entrance.

To the right are the installations of the Port de Hérel where all of the maritime activities take place and where there is the Youth Hostel.

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

Down at the end of the promenade is a nice-looking block of flats – the Résidence Port Granville – that’s maybe 30 years old or something, with the Roche Gauthier in the background.

That’s the kind of place where I would like to have a little apartment, but I saw how much it costs to rent something even smaller than where I live, and it’s well out of my budget.

That’s not a surprise though is it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the house in the rue St Gaud that was demolished a year or so ago.

The other day we noticed the rear of the plot that was being rebuilt. From down here on the promenade we can see the front of the plot and how far they have advanced with the rebuilding.

Mind you, at this rate it’ll be another year or so before they’ll finish it, I reckon.

I carried on my little stroll along the Port de Herel and I was interrupted yet again.

Earlier today, we saw a large mobile crane working on one of the boats down in the harbour. But here now we have the mobile crane having finished its work and setting off to go back from whence it came.

It’s quite a bit of serious kit, isn’t it? I can think of a thousand uses for one of those back on my farm.

By now, I’d left the port and was climbing my way up the Rampe du Monte Regret and from there, there’s a good view across to the inner harbour.

We noticed in the photo of the cranes earlier today that the Channel Islands boats were moored up in the inner harbour.

Both of them too. Victor Hugo is there of course, but the new one, whose name escapes me for the moment, is also there.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen her back here for quite some considerable time.

I’ve often wondered where she has been for all of the summer. Probably working her passage out of Barneville-Carteret I imagine.

One of these days I’ll have to get myself aboard one or the other and go for a good run around.

Back here I unpacked everything and then made a coffee, seeing as I hadn’t had one yet today. And duly refreshed, I attacked yesterday’s photos.

Lunch was taken indoors in view of the cold, windy, overcast weather. And short commons too because I forgot the lettuce.

The afternoon was spent doing the rest of the photos and working on the pages for the Arctic. It’s really slow progress and I’m not sure why because it’s not as if it’s complicated or anything. I just don’t know what the issue might be.

But then, it didn’t help with having a little half-hour curled up on the office chair.

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

Despite the cold weather, it had brightened up considerably and the sun was out making the day quite pleasant.

And the sun wasn’t the only thing that was out either. The tide was out, and so were the people.

And that wasn’t all either.

The fishermen (at least I imagine that they are fishermen) were also out there working away.

No idea what it is that they are hoping to catch, but it can’t be very much given the size of the boats. But they are out there quite often so it must be something worthwhile.

Further down along the beach, the sun and the low tide had brought out even more members of the public.

They were all there having a good look in the rock pools, presumably for crabs and other crustaceans and the like. Although I have heard that there’s a ban on harvesting from the rocks around here due to pollution issues.

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

And the other day we talked about the old stone construction on the beach that I reckoned was a tidal fish pond.

Now that the tide is going out, we can see it much more clearly this afternoon.

I would have expected to have seen more water in there given the fact that the tide hasn’t long gone out. But there are several people having a ferret about in there to see what they can see.

Round on the town side of the walls, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the rue Paul Poirier for quite some time.

It’s all covered in bunting right now and I’ve no idea why. But it still looks quite interesting from up here.

It’s not as crowded as it usually is either. On a Saturday it’s absolutely heaving, but then that’s market day so that might account for it.

There’s not much going on today so I came back here to carry on work, with another coffee to keep me going.
.

For tea, I had a frozen potato and chick-pea curry from last year. And it was just as delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my night-time walk.

I took the 50mm lens and the tripod with me and took a hotograph in the dark of the rue do Nord inside the walls and the Plat Gousset.

On the left-hand edge of the image is the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

But the purpose of going out so armed was to have some more fun with long exposure photos

The scenery didn’t come up too well, but the moving car lights were a great improvement on what I managed yesterday.

I was out there for a good half-hour amusing myself with the lights, the exposure and learning quite a lot too.

Back here, I sorted myself out and then prepared myself for yet another early night again – I hope.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Hotel des Impôts and then, if I remember, I can pick up the rail tickets.

I’ll leave you to look at a few more of my long-exposure night photographs.

Night-time photography with long exposure times, Rue du Port, Granville, France

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

… a little better day today.

Despite a somewhat late night, I was still up and about before the 06:20 alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels during the night too – setting out from Portsmouth on a ship only for there to be a problem and we all having to disembark on the Isle of Wight. And there being so many of us that the island became dramatically overcrowded.

And that’s rather like the combined plots of a couple of Navy Lark radio programmes to which I was listening during the day yesterday. It’s all getting to me these days, isn’t it?

After breakfast I had a pile of work to do on the other laptop and that took me some considerable time. And there’s still a considerable amount to do too and it’s going to take me for ever to tidy things up.

On this laptop though I attacked the images from yesterday and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either. But they are all on line now anyway.

And for the rest of the morning I carried on with the photos from the High Arctic.

Lunch on the wall again, with my book and my butties and the warm sun. Beautiful it was, and you would never think that it’s almost the end of October right now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos but not for long because I ended up sprawled out on the bed again, flat out. And not just for 5 minutes either but for a good hour or so.

As a result it was 16:40 when I went out for my afternoon walk.

It was still quite a nice afternoon and the sun was still shining. As a result there was quite a crowd of people out there on the beach. Either playing about in the sand or hunting in the rockpools for lobsters and mussels and the like.

Which they immediately share with their friends, because everyone knows that you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

A little bit further on, part of the rue du Nord was fenced off.

There was a cherry-picker parked in the street with some people there working on a house.

I thought at first that they might be preparing it for repointing but on closer inspection it turned out that they were taking out a stone or two above the lintel.

As I have wandered along the old walls, I’ve often seen this feature here which resembles some kind of stone wall built into the sea.

And I’ve often wondered what it might be.

But a visit to that exhibition just before I left for the Arctic came up with the answer.

It’s apparently one of the many tidal fishpools that were found at one time all along the coast here. The tide fills the pools and when it recedes it leaves plenty of water and, hopefully, plenty of fish behind.

Tea tonight was some of the crèpes that I bought the other day with some kind of stuffing and kidney beans tucked in.

Tonight’s walk was with the tripod again but for some reason I couldn’t reproduce the photos from the other night. That must have been beginner’s luck.

This photo of the Baie de Mont St Michel, taken from the car park by the lighthouse didn’t turn out too bad.

But a few others ended up in the recycle bin.

On the other hand, this photo of the full moon, taken from the same place on the Pointe du Roc with the zoom/telephoto lens turned out rather well.

It was with the full 300mm focal length in ISO400, at a speed of 1/800 with an aperture of f5.6.

And then I went to shave the palms of my hands.

Seeing as I had the telephoto/zoom lens on the camera right now after the moon, I took a photo across the bay to St Pair sur Mer.

230mm focal length at f5.6 with ISO800 at a speed of 1.6 seconds and it managed to produce something without too much camera shake.

In the foreground is the roof of one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc

Round at the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour I set myself up with the tripod and the 18-105mm lens and a friendly local looking on.

And we were in luck because here in the outer harbour (the tide was in) there was a fishing trawler performing some kind of nautical danse macarbre as it left the quayside by the fish-processing plant in the moonlight.

IT passed through the harbour gates, which were open seeing as we weren’t all that far after high tide

I’m not quite sure what the trawler was trying to do but once she was in the inner harbour she cruised around for a while as if trying to find a berth in which to bed down.

Her lights stand out really well in the dark.

Talking of lights in the night, you can see a streak of red light in the centre at the bottom of the image.

I’d waited for quite a while in the hope that a car would go past so that I could have the effect of moving red lights, but nothing went past.

Eventually a young kid went past on a moped so that will have to do for now.

Back here now and working, and a raging thirst again. That’s a sign that I’m sickening for something again. And that’s no surprise. I haven’t been right for years now, and getting worse every day.

I’ll try to have an early night if I can and get myself ready for tomorrow. I’m off shopping on foot and I really don’t feel like it.

Tuesday 23rd October 2018 – THE BAD NEWS IS …

… that when I went to put on my boots to go out this afternoon, I noticed that the right boot had split all the way down the seam.

That’s really disappointing because although I’ve had them for about 18 months I’ve only worn them for the last three or four months and they cost me a lot of money too. It seems that the whole idea about “quality” has right gone down the tubes just recently.

Despite something of a late-ish night I was up and about before the third alarm went off, and that is certainly progress. I’d been on my travels too, but as soon as I awoke it all disappeared right out of my head and I don’t have a clue where I was … “nothing new there” – ed.

After the medication and breakfast, I had a few errands to do before I can start work. And there were such a few that it was about 10:30 when I finally settled down in front of the laptop.

First task was to deal with the photos from yesterday. There were more than I thought too and now they are all on-line. And well-worth a look too because a couple are really good.

After that, I had a little fun with the old Nikon D5000 that died a death about three years ago. I fitted a new battery in it and eventually it powered up. And I could see the problem – in that the LED screen display is so weak that in the natural daylight outside it looks as if it’s not lit – and hence the camera appears not to work.

So I fitted a lens and an SD card into it and sallied forth for lunch on the wall with butties, book and the aforementioned. I started to take a few photos with the camera but after the first photo, there wasn’t enough in the battery to power up the auto-focus.

I put the battery back in the newer Nikon and it worked perfectly. Back in the old one and there we were again with not enough power.

It looks as if the PCB is corroding and stopping the current from passing through. But then again I’ve had it over 8 years and it’s done some heavy work in that time. And it was second-hand when I bought it too, having been manufactured in 2008 apparently.

So it’s not too bad, I suppose.

At least the camera in the mobile phone was working, which was just as well.

At a meeting that I had attended a few months ago there were complaints from householders about kids descending the cliffs and clambering over the roofs of the houses.

And while I was eating my butties there was a group of kids doing just that.

This afternoon I carried on with my High Arctic pages for a while.

But later I went out for my afternoon walk around the walls.

With it being he school holidays there were quite a few people about, walking on the beach in the sun.

Not as many as you might expect, but there was a wind that was quite strong that would be enough to keep most people away

But there were some people out there who were taking full advantage of the wind.

In the past, we’ve seen plenty of photos of the birdmen soaring up over the cliffs and the Pointe du Roc on the gusts of wind.

And there they were this afternoon too. And I had the zoom/telephoto lens at the ready

There were quite a few who seemed to be performing a bizarre kind of aerobatics as their appliances struggled up the cliffs.

I’ve said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … that one day it’s all going to end in tears, and at least, if it happens to this guy here, he won’t have far to go afterwards.

Erma Brombeck once famously said of skiing “I’ve no intention of participating in any sport that has ambulances waiting at the bottom of the hill”, and in the same vein, I wouldn’t want to participate in any sport which involves being up in the air in an unpowered machine performing aerobatics right over a cemetery.

Round on the other side of the walls there were a couple of people working on the steep slope.

They had this most impressive drill that was making short work of drilling into the rocky slope and I wouldn’t mind taking this back to the Auvergne with me.

Full of curiosity as to what they were doing, I made the appropriate enquiries. Apparently there had been some rock falls along the slope so they were in the process of erecting a safety net across the face to retain any falling rock.

Back here, I had a little … errr … relax and was the distracted by opening the door of the fridge to find that one of the door shelves had broken, and everything on it came crashing to the floor.

Tea was a burger and bap with baked potatoes and vegetables. Delicious it was too.

But there are no photos this evening. It was reasonably clear outside in the evening but there was a vicious wind going on and it was difficult to keep my feet around the headland, never mind the tripod too.

So it’s another early night. And then I have an important thing to do tomorrow with a serious time limit.

I need to be on form.

Hang gliders Granville

Plat Gousset, Granville.

And where have the bathing cabins gone?

Hang gliders over the cemetery in Granville.

Monday 22nd October 2018 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… and about with the camera and equipment this evening. And for quite a long time too.

In case you’ve been wondering … “which I’m sure you haven’t” – ed … I have been somewhat inspired by my trip to the High Arctic as well as being totally dismayed by the photos that I was able to produce with what is really substandard equipment.

That’s not really to complain too much about the Nikon 1. As I said at the time, it’s okay for photos under normal conditions but in the kind of conditions in which I was working and with the kind of photos that I was trying to take, it just wasn’t up to the job.

It was simply my mistake in buying it.

So now that I’ve done what I should have done in the first place and bought some decent lenses, I was out tonight having some fun.

And I’ve encountered another slight problem – although it was one that I was suspecting.

I was using the new zoom/telephoto lens with a very long exposure – 10 secs in fact – with the camera mounted on the tripod (which I have rediscovered in the back of Caliburn after all of these years).

But the zoom/telephoto lens is quite heavy, and with the attachment for the tripod being on the camera, it’s all out of balance and has a tendency to topple forward.

And in a high wind like last night, even with the tripod tightened up to the max, the wind was still blowing the lens round.

As a result, with the 10-seconds exposure, the photos have come out quite blurred.

You can see exactly what I mean by comparing one of the photos above with the photo just here.

This photo has come out as well as anyone could possibly expect. It was taken with exactly the same settings for speed and exposure as the previous ones and on the tripod.

The difference is though that it was taken with the new standard lens, not the heavy zoom/telephoto lens.

When a very fast shutter speed is used, there is barely a trace of camera shake using the zoom/telephoto lens on the tripod, as you can see in the photo of the almost-full moon that I took last night.

But there’s no problem that can’t be surmounted.

The answer to this is to find a tripod mount that attaches to the lens at the mid-point of balance to that the equipment won’t sway about so much in the wind.

And I’ve been able to track one down on the internet. It’s expensive, but it needs to be correct.

While we’re on the subject of photos, I spent today working on the photos that I took on Saturday and Sunday and adding them as appropriate. I’ve still not done Friday’s yet but I shall get around to that in due course.

With my late night last night, it was a struggle to leave the bed this morning.

Especially as I had been on my travels during the night. On an island somewhere doing some painting and I don’t mean painting some woodwork but actually doing some kind of artistic stuff and that’s not like me at all is it? I was in some kind of higher group where there was some kind of price of £300,000 mentioned. Even during a nocturnal ramble I’m well-aware of my own shortcomings in the artistic world and I couldn’t understand what I was doing in a group that was far beyond my own capabilities.

After breakfast I had some work to do and that kept me out of mischief for a while, and then I spent a while with the 3D program that I use. I had a sudden idea about that that I needed to develop.

As well as that, I had to make my travel arrangements for the weekend. I’m hitting the road on Sunday afternoon for Leuven and Castle Anthrax and I need to sort out somewhere to stay.

And the return railway trip on Wednesday is shockingly expensive. It’s the day before a Bank Holiday so prices are through the roof. I’m having to travel on the 08:13 TGV, which means that I will need to be at Leuven station for about 07:00 and I’m not looking forward to that one little bit.

All of that took me up to lunchtime (I just don’t know where the time goes these days) and I took my sandwiches in here, seeing as it was windy and overcast outside.

This afternoon I started on the photographs, with the usual interruption to go for my afternoon walk.

And I chose the route around the walls because I wanted to go round the headland tonight.

Plenty of people around out there too. It’s school half-term so people were taking the air.

It might be coming towards the end of October and the start of winter but the weather was still warm enough for people to head out onto the beach.

By the afternoon the weather was showing signs of brightening up.

The sun was peeking through the clouds by now and illuminating parts of the beaches round by Donville-les-Bains and Bréville-sur-Mer and making the afternoon look quite tempting.

Had it not been for the fierce wind it would have been a really beautiful afternoon.

While you admire a section of the previous photo cropped out to show the ruin where I saw a derelict apartment 18 months ago, I can tell you about my little visit.

There’s a photo club here in Granville and they were having an exhibition in one of the public rooms. So I went along to look.

There was nothing on display that particularly excited me and although I wanted to chat to an official, they all seemed to be huddled around in a group chatting about last night’s television programmes.

Not particularly welcoming, unfortunately. So I moved on.

But not too far though.

There have been several changes in the town while I was away in the Frozen North and I’m slowly catching up with them. Like this demolition site in the rue du Nord overlooking the medieval walls and the sea.

I wonder what they are going to build here in its place.

And round by the port I noticed that we aren’t alone today.

Thora has sailed … “dieseled” – ed … into the harbour from Jersey without me noticing.

She must have come in on the morning’s high tide. That was round about 06:30 this morning so that sounds about right to me.

There’s no evidence on the quayside to show what, if anything, she brought over from Jersey.

But she’s already taken on a considerable load of supplies for taking out. And a close inspection of the load from this kind of range seems to indicate that it’s stones or rocks of some description.

So I’ve no idea why they would be wanting to export them to Jersey

While you admire yet another photo of Thora, I went back to my apartment, had a coffee and sat down to continue with what I was doing.

That was the plan anyway. Instead I ended up on the bed flat out until well after 18:00. Not even a coffee can keep me going these days.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with spicy rice and it was delicious as usual. And then off around the headland in the moonlight with camera, lenses and tripod.

Now I’m back, much later than usual, I’m off to bed. I’ll have a go at carrying on tomorrow and we’ll see where I can get up to.

Saturday 20th October 2018 – HAVE YOU EVER …

… had one of those days when you can’t even summon up the energy to put away the shopping?

That’s the kind of day that I’ve been having today.

It’s not down to tiredness – at least, not THAT kind of tiredness because what with my early night, I was wide awake at 05:28 and raring to go … “of course” – ed.

And after breakfast and a shower I started to attack last night’s photos. But eventually I set off for the shops.

LIDL didn’t come up with anything special today (apart from grapes at just €1:69 per kilo – I DO like this time of year).

Next stop was at NOZ and I had a little more luck there.

But out on the car park we had another case of pathetic parking. It’s getting to be quite a regular thing these days.

It’s a sure sign that Society is getting out of control, and that usually happens when a civilisation starts to grind to a halt.

So abandoning yet another good rant for the moment, I went inside the shop. They had some really good atlases of central Europe and also of the Benelux countries.

I still use paper atlases, especially when I’m on the road and I regretted not having any up-to-date atlases with me when I was on the road earlier in the year. So now, for less than €10:00 I’m all set up for if I ever again go beyond the eastern borders of France.

And if I ever go on the road in France, I have the atlas that I bought several weeks ago before I went off to all points North.

LeClerc didn’t come up with anything special but I spent a lot of money in there. I’d run almost completely out of muesli product and so I needed to stock up the supplies.

But there was much better – and surprising – luck in the electrical shop there. Apart from the new hair-trimmer that I bought, they also had some SD cards of – would you believe – 2GB capacity.

The hi-fi in Caliburn and the one back at the farm are still “old technology” stock and can’t read any more than 2GB at a go. So I’ve been struggling when it comes to recording more music to play in Caliburn and on the farm as the supply of 2GB cards has dried up.

They had 3 of these cards for sale and after I left, there weren’t any at all.

Having had a look on the internet, it seems that many of these on-line shopping sites are now offering them. Obviously, retailers and manufacturers have been misled by the amount of old-technology equipment still in circulation and still being used, and they are now having to re-manufacture them in greater numbers.

On the car park we had an exciting moment where some old codger walked in front of Caliburn as I was driving out. He growled at me for not stopping so I had a few words with him about his behaviour.

Well, two words actually. And one of them was “off”.

Back here I made my butties and went outside on the wall in the beautiful sunshine with my new book, as I have finished the Hundred Years War.

The current book is De La Defaite Au Désastre written by Jacques Benoist-Méchin, a member of the French Vichy Government and a rampant Nazi apologist who was sentenced to death in 1947 because of his collaboration with the Nazi authorities during the war and and for calling on Frenchmen to fight on the side of the Nazis.

His book sets out his opinion of the events from the Fall of France until the occupation of Vichy France by the Nazis on 10th November 1942.

And I hadn’t read half a dozen pages before I came across (le pays) a échafaudé le myth de la libération pour se dispenser de réfléchir aux moyens d’être libre. Chaque fois qu’on lui a demandé d’avoir le sursaut d’énergie nécessaire à son redressement, la nation s’est dérobée. Elle a préféré la facilité, l’illusion, le délire n’importe quoi plutôt due de travailler à son propre salut..

Crudely translatd by Yours Truly (because, after all, if you want any crudity anywhere, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man”) “(the country) developed the myth of liberation in order to abandon the necessity of having to think about the manner in which it was going to be free. Each time that it was asked to have the leap of energy necessary to set itself upright, the country became undone. It preferred the easy path, the illusion, delirium, anything at all, rather than work hard at its own salvation”.

Does this ring any bells with the current situation somewhere in the vicinity?

Back here, I wanted to start to tidy up but shame as it is to say it, I crashed out. And crashed out good and proper too, for an hour and a half or so.

Once I’d gathered up my wits, which takes much longer than it ought to do these days considering the amount of wits that I have left, I headed off to Roncey and chez Liz and Terry.

Terry proudly showed me his new toy.

Due to certain circumstances he had been obliged to crawl underneath his van the other day and what he had seen had given him a great deal of food for thought, what with the controle technique coming up imminently.

And what with the imminent arrival of Brexit and the potential difficulties of dealing with right-hand-drive vehicles, he had sallied forth and treated himself to a new van. One of the mid-sized Cevel van of the Fiat type.

These are really good vans of course – properly built and last for ever in the right hands and Terry should have plenty of use out of it. And with what he can save in fuel he can buy himself a little trailer for moving wood and plasterboard and the like. That’ll be much more convenient that going everywhere in the big van for no good purpose.

Liz cooked a nice tea of stuffed aubergines, followed by an apple cake with ground walnuts and quince purée. And seeing as her nut trees were still producing at a rapid rate of knots, she sent me out with a plastic bag. And now I have enough walnuts to sink a ship too.

Later in the evening there was a Welsh Premier League match on the internet. TNS, the perennial leaders, were having an inconsistent season by their standards, and Connah’s Quay Nomads are currently leading the table. Tonight, it was the Clash of the Titans with all to play for.

And it all went wrong after 15 minutes or so when TNS took the lead with a goal from nowhere.

By this time, I was overwhelmed again so after recovering my strength I headed for home. Back here just in time for the final whistle, with the score 3-0 to TNS. As I have said before … “on many occasions” – ed … the big trouble with the clubs in the Welsh Premier League is their lack of consistency. They can play really well at times, but then it all goes wrong as they lose concentration. And this is what’s happening now as a whole variety of clubs pin together a good run of results and then suddenly it all goes haywire.

It’s Sunday tomorrow and a lie-in. So I had a lounge about on the sofa for a while – and then fell asleep. It was 02:00 when I finally crawled off to bed.

I hope that I do get my lie-in tomorrow.

EPIC HALL

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