Tag Archives: caliburn

Wednesday 26th June 2019 – MY LAST DAY …

… here at home for a while. I’m off on my travels tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll be coming home.

As a result I’ve been working fairly hard (or as hard as maybe I can these days).

It wasn’t such an early night last night, and it was a nervous topsy-turvy kind of sleep. Plenty of time to go on my travels too.

I was working at a desk in part of a room and there were four of us to a table copying stuff off a screen to write some kind of thing about the sea. There was a seat empty next to me and some Japanese person came and plonked themselves down at it. They put a kind of cage around the screen and closed it so we were peering through this wire grill thing at the screen. I couldn’t see it properly as I was sitting out at the edge and I was getting more and more frustrated with this wire screen. In the end I had a bit of a tantrum about it. I had to move all of my things so that I could see the screen, and then move my chair, and then move my things again so I could see the screen. In the end a woman said “there’s another room and it’s a bit more quiet in there. Why don’t you go and sit in there?”. She had a look at what I was doing and said “you aren’t very far along, are you? You have 8 pages to do”. I said “I’m doing 8”. She took the double-page thing I was currently working on and took it off me. “No, you need to do some more”. I made a fuss about that but didn’t get this piece of paper back. Then I went into the other room which was much more quiet. I asked someone where there was an empty seat but no-one seemed to want to answer. I didn’t want to sit in someone else’s seat but no-one was answering. Someone piped up that seeing as there are no clerical assistant people in the room perhaps someone had better answer. But then one of the managers came in and said something like “I want to announce that so-and-so has now been appointed full-time” which made a young boy beam “and now we have som proper back-up clerical staff”. He was going on and no-one was answering my question. Some young guy from the other room then came in so I asked him “do you know which of these seats is free?”. He started to spout some kind of supercilious nonsense that was totally meaningless basically to say that he didn’t have the time. I was so close to running after him and hitting him, I really was. (And when was the last time that I have shown real anger during a noccturnal voyage?)
The paving slabs that cover this area are very easy to dig into, marked with dots and they were scattered all around this cemetery kind of place. There was no logical argument to dig in as to whether you were digging a foxhole rather than a trench defending system, so I didn’t want to go along and get my troop isolated like this up here (and I’ve no idea what this bit means or what it’s supposed to be connected to).
Later on, there was something going on with a woman, a party or a birthday party or wedding party or something. They were reading a eulogy to her. We were in another room listening. Someone in our party said “but there’s no sign of her being released from this hospital wherever it was she was supposed to have been released to and this eulogy was all about. As we went into the main room to enquire about it, the penny suddenly dropped wit them as well. Where’s this woman? The guy reading the eulogy said “I can’t go on until I’ve found out about the current whereabouts of this woman. Sh’s been missing for four years. Anyway they were handing out stars for a military parade somewhere that was to do with all of this. We received a star for our vehicle, a Citroen DS19 with a pickup army-type canvas tilt back, painted in army colours and looked rather like a shark or crocodile. We had to go to fetch that to present it to the organisers, so while we were at it, we though that we would go and hunt down this woman.
Finally, I had to go to look for Sir Brian, so off I went. I was in Gresty Lane and crossed over to Eastern Road. It was all flooded out there, and he came running past with his dog, with a pair of wellingtons, shorts and a sun-hat. At first I wasn’t sure if it was him, nut it was. I had to reverse after him as he had no intention of stopping. I finally caught him on Rope Lane bridge. I told him that some work had come in. He grabbed the notes out of the door pocket to have a look. I went to tell him about those and saw that they had gone. I had to say that a job had come in for next Wednesday, I had to take him off somewhere and that he needed to contact his office for further details. He’d made the odd genial remark here and there about the rain, that kind of thing

I wasn’t up as early as I would otherwise have liked, and after breakfast I started to pack. For some reason or other I have far too much stuff and so I’ve ended up leaving behind the Nikon 1 and a few other things too that I would otherwise have liked to have taken.

Not because of the weight – I’m well within my loading allowance – but for a simple question of space.

In between all of that I had a shower, and I’ve also cut my hair really short. I stuck the washing machine on too so that I will have some clean clothes for when I come back.

The tidying up has been progressing slowly, and there’s still plenty more to do. But I’ll do what I can tomorrow in the time that exists between getting up and leaving the house at 08:00.

As long as I can wash the floor before leaving, that will be fine;

And that’s not all either. I’ve made a lentil and bean pie to use up the rest of the leftovers, only to find that I forgot once more to use the mushrooms that remain.

Some pastry was left so I made an apple turnover.

All of that is now in the freezer. I’ve had to move the bread into the freezer compartment of the fridge. I hope that it stays frozen.

That’s really about everything, I reckon. Except that I had one of my walks this afternoon (and missed the evening walk, and yet still managed to end up with 42% of my daily activity) and took Caliburn for a lap around the block.

Now I’m off to bed. It’s going to be a hectic day tomorrow.

Tuesday 18th June 2019 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

… as productive a day as I would have liked today. Full of all kinds of petty interruptions and so on that prevented me from cracking on.

It started well enough though. Up and about long before the third alarm had gone off. I’d been on my travels too, although this was all very confusing. It concerned someone who was allegedly running a taxi, driving around with music playing pretty loud but he didn’t have any taxi plates. He was summoned to talk to a couple of people about all of this and it turned out that the message had come from the Taxi Owners’ Association. He went very begrudgingly to the meeting but came out much happier. Apparently it was just two neighbours from somewhere or other who had written, so he just bought them a drink and the matter had been brushed under the carpet and he was quite happy about that because obviously he didn’t fancy going up against all these taxi drivers because they could all turn nasty and there were so many of them. His wife said something along the lines that they were all pussies anyway and that he would just sweep them aside. She turned to me and said “you’ve had enough confrontation with them and you were relatively unscathed from that point of view” (which was true). And that was that. But then it turned onto trains and we were working with coal trains. I was bragging that we had dealt with every coal train that came out of Crewe. There was that Keith Morris there and he asked “how do you know that you do?”. I said that I was sure. We ended up talking about one particular one that went out early in the morning at about 05:00 and was pulled by two Class 27 locos with 40 wagons. I looked at Margaret for confirmation and she didn’t really say very much. he wanted to know how I knew that they were class 27s. Of course you can tell by the number but I replied “well, I ask! If I want to know something, I ask because I take photos and edit the photos and write about them so if I want to know something about the photos I’ll ask someone locally and they will tell me the answer”.
From there we moved on. I had an old Ford Escort van like I have and we were all going somewhere. There were two seats in the front and a settee in the back but facing backwards rather than forwards. People were clambering in there. I was back in the house getting things ready to leave these people. I had a mattress that I was going to put down in the van for me to sleep on and al old blanket because there was insulation in part of the Escort but not down the left-hand side. So I put the blanket in and used it to fill in the gaps in the walls. They were all looking at it and I explained about condensation and how I was going to sleep in there and then I went to fetch the mattress.

With an early start I had an early breakfast and then cracked on with some work.

First task was to deal with all of the photos from yesterday, and then to attack the dictaphone notes. Another 5 have now disappeared and we are down to just 55. I’ll have to push on and deal with those pretty quickly if I can.

But I was interrupted by trying to arrange another blood test. Eventually, after much binding in the marsh I managed to arrange it for 11:30 tomorrow.

But even as we speak, I had a phone call from the nurse to say that she will be here at about 08:30 tomorrow morning.

After that, I went for another experimental run with Caliburn. But I didn’t get very far, for there was a police road block.

It seems that there was a Fete de dix-huit juin according to the policewoman holding up the traffic.

Whatever the Fete de dix-huit juin is, I really have no idea but the place was swarming with anciens combattants decorated in medals and the like, so it’s quite possibly something to do with the liberation of the town, although that didn’t take place until 31st July 1944.

Whatever it was, we were held up for half an hour – me in a queue of vehicles held up by the police and no controle technique on Caliburn

One thing that I can say is that I could drive reasonably comfortably all things considered. Seeing that I could move hi about, that prompted me to ring up about his annual service and controle technique.

But to my dismay there are no vacancies until the beginning of July and I won’t be here then. So I’ll have to sort out my flights and book him in for as soon as I return.

That took me up to lunchtime, taken once more indoors because it was raining yet again.

It had cleared up by the time I had finished, so i hit the streets for the laboratory.

The men were still working on the medieval walls, but the workmen on the house extension in the rue du Port were likewise working.

They are now working on the rendering on the second wall of the lift shaft – assuming that that there is indeed the lift shaft.

Only one more wall to go, and then I’ll be wondering what they are going to be working on next. There’s such a lot of rebuilding going on in the town right now.

Not much further along, I came to another stop.

There are some remains of an old Jeep dumped on the roundabout at the end of the Place Godal. Presumably that’s something to do with the fete too.

At the Laboratory I handed over the stuff that was extracted from my knee, and found to my surprise that they do blood tests there – and without an appointment too.

If only I had known!

Across the road is the station so I went to pick up my rail tickets for next week, which I had forgotten to do yesterday.

The sun was on the way out as i walked back, and that cheered me up somewhat.

A cold drink followed by a start on adding the photos to yesterday’s blog. But I was surprised at just how quickly the time passed.

For tea I had a stuffed pepper with spicy rice, gollowed by one of the cocount dessert things that I had made earlier. Liz had told me not to mut as much milk in, so I put about 350 ml of milk and 50ml of that coconut soya stuff in, mixed it up, and poured it into four bowls into which I had previously put a couple of pineapple rings.

After a couple of hours in the fridge it had set really well and it was delicious.

later on I went out for my walk.

First stop was to the monument at the Rond-Point des Francais Libres to see if I could see anything that might give me a hint of what was happening.

There were a couple of wreaths out there, but nothing that gave me any indication.

I shall have to make enquiries.

Down on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs was a youth standing there, cut off from the mainland by the rising tide.

I gesticulated at him, but he didn’t reply and didn’t seem to be in any distress whatsoever.

He clearly didn’t seem to need any help, and so I left him to it and continued my walk

But had he really be stranded, it wouldn’t have mattered to me because not only would I have been unable to do anything, there was a speedboat loitering around just offshore

They would have been much better-placed to give him assistance.

But they didn’t hang aroudn long after I moved on. They roared past me like their boat was on fire.

Excuse the rather blurred photo but I was taken by surprise by these kids (of course, it’s very bad form for any photographer to be taken by surprise, but that’s neither here nor there).

Just as I was looking at them wondering what was going on, one of them stood up and dived off the sea wall straight into the sea.

I reckon that I was lucky enough to catch it, but what wouldn’t I have given to have had a faster shutter speed?

Meanwhile, as all this was going on, the roar of a couple of diesel engines told me that something large was coming ino port.

It’s our old friend Granville, the new Channel Islands ferry that has been suffering a load of problems just recently.

That’s twice now this week that I’ve seen her in the harbour here. Probably more than I ever saw her in the whole of last year.

She wasn’t the only visitor in the harbour either.

Charles-Marie is down there too, moored up in the inner harbour. She might be preparing for her summer season of voyages.

And while I was admiring her, I overheard some squealing coming from further down the road. Some young girl and her boyfriend were trying to walk along the top of the railings like some kind of tightrope walkers.

The girl wasn’t all that good, and after about four steps and a loud squeal, she fell off, right at my feet.

So now I’m back home and I’m ready for bed. I’m hoping to have a better day tomorrow.

speedboat pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

channel islands ferry granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 30th April 2019 – I’VE NOT HAD …

… a very profitable day today as far as my backlog of work goes. But there have been a few very good reasons for this.

Not the least of which being that I had yet another bad night. Tossing and turning for too much of it without actually departing hence.

At one point I must have been away with the fairies because I was off on my travels again. There was an exam taking place last night and I was doing part of the English syllabus. I was there in the exam room struggling my way through the first of three questions that I needed to answer when I suddenly found out that I had been named as a volunteer to take place in some kind of exam. They had needed someone to act as a “prop” to lie down while they danced a Highland Fling over and around, rather like a Highland sword dance. I was grabbed for this and taken out of my own exam before I’d even finished the first question. I was made to lie down and was dragged all the way across the floor and these ice floes until I was in the correct position. By now I was miles away from where my exam was taking place. All of these people turned up in a whole collection of old cars, motor bikes, pedal cycles. Even a unicycle that didn’t have a rider, an autonomous one. They all seemed to be symbolic of death. An old vehicle pulled up with a coffin in it and I had to lie there while they did this dance around me. I didn’t have a clue what was happening. Everyone was going on about their exams but I replied that they could consider themselves lucky. I hadn’t finished my first question yet, I only had three hours and I’d been dragged away over here and I don’t know when I’m going to end up back. All these kids started to join in. At one time a kid was trying to do a handstand balancing on two shovels. He could get himself off the ground like this but then he fell over and all the while I was panicking about my exam with all these old cars and people all around me trying to get me to be the prop for this Highland dance thing.

Nevertheless, just for another change I was up and about before the third alarm went off, but with some not inconsiderable effort too;

The usual morning performance was followed by a shower. I need to get myself clean and tidy because I’m having visitors. That also meant a really good clean-up around the apartment too to make it look more respectable.

Liz turned up bang on time so we had a coffee, biscuits and a good chat for an hour and a half until she had to go off for her appointment. I made a start on the dictaphone notes.

But I didn’t get very far. I had two interruptions, one half an hour after the other.

The second one, the most important one, I’ll tell you about in a day or so’s time when I’m ready. Instead I’ll tell you about the first.

In a few months time I’m hoping to go a-voyaging again and I shall be having my hands full as usual. Changing the lenses over with one hand free with the Nikon 1 is quite possible with practice, but with a full-size camera it’s impossible.

And so idly surfing the internet like you do … “like YOU do” – ed … a week or so ago I found one of these.

It’s second-hand, so I paid nothing whatever like the full retail price on here, but it’s only meant to be for use when I’m travelling on foot or on the train, not in Caliburn.

It means that I only need to lug around this one and the 50mm f1.8 lens for indoor shots, rather than all of the equipment.

The trouble with a lens like this is that with it trying to be everything, it ends up being nothing so I’m not expecting the quality to be as good as a pure focal-length lens, but it won’t have all that much use.

But anyway, you can judge for yourselves with the photos below.

Lunch was taken indoors again as there was a high wind and then I sat down to finish off the dictaphone notes.

Just as I did the last one of today’s batch, I crashed out. i’d already been away once or twice during the morning but this was more serious. I ended up in bed for 40 minutes, feeling like death.

Still feeling not much like it, I fitted the new lens onto the Nikon and went off on the prowl.

First thing that I noticed was a nice yacht in the distance. I reckoned that this might give me a good opportunity to try out the lens to see what it’s like.

And it’s not as bad as I was expecting.

We had a trawler right out to sea too heading back towards the Fish-Processing plant here in Granville.

It was unfortunately into the sun, but it was still worth an attempt. And it didn’t come out too badly either, although I had to manipulate the image somewhat to make it different.

Tomorrow, I’ll go out with the polarising filter and have a play with that and see what difference it might take. It might cut down some of the reflected sunlight off the surface of the water.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been saying for a while that these long gaps between seeing Normandy Trader and Thora in here must be down to the fact that the turn-rounds are so quick that I have been missing them.

And this is a case in point.

Just as I rounded the headland, I noticed Normandy Trader slipping silently out of the harbour.

She wasn’t there last night so she must have slipped in on the early morning tide, unloaded while the tide was out, and gone out again at the first available opportunity.

And I know what she does to earn her living too.

Her trips from Jersey to here are generally chartered by a co-operative of shell-fishermen who engage her to bring their catch over to Granville.

In an effort to catch Normandy trader heading off into the sunset, I wandered back over to the other side of the headland.

However I was rather disrupted by the noise coming from out of the bay over near St Martin de Brehal.

We have one of the Ile de Chausey ferries doing a trip around the bay. And whoever is giving the running commentary has no need of a loud-hailer or a tannoy.

It was quite a long wait for Normandy Trader to put in an appearance so I had to wait for a while.

But she turned up sooner or later and I wa sable to take a really good photo of her, with the Ile de Chausey nicely silhouetted in the background;

I really am going to gave to try the polarising filter and see if that gives me any better effects.

Back here, I dealt with the photos and then amended a few blog entries. I’m now back as far as Thursday 18th April.

That took me up to tea-time which was the rest of the falafel with steamed vegetables and cheese sauce, followed by rice pudding.

Later on I went outside for my usual evening walk.

My route took me past the house that is being renovated on the corner of the rue du Nord where I could inspect the progress that they have been making.

I noticed that the driveway for the house has been gravelled and levelled out, just as if they are about to drop a load of concrete onto it. It should be quite interesting to see it in a couple of weeks time

Further on along my walk I heard a noise coming up from the beach.

Having a look down over the wall, I noticed that there was a little party going on on the beach by the Plat Gousset.

It wasn’t that warm as far as I was concerned but I don’t suppose it matters if you are pretty well fuelled up. It’s all good fun if you are in good company.

So I’m off to bed. I have lots to do tomorrow and I have – surprise surprise – an appointment at 15:00 tomorrow. There’s a cunning plan rearing its head.

trawler fishing boat english channel granville manche normandy france

trawler port de granville harbour manche normandy france

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy france

tourist boat st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

trawler english channel jersey channel island granville manche normandy france

st martin de brehal granville manche normandy france

normandy trader ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 27th April 2019 – A HURRICANE …

… is not the ideal weather in which to be playing football.

It’s even worse when you are standing on the touchline watching the game too. Howling, whining gusts of winds of incredible violence, sudden torrential downpours that drenched everyone through and disappeared before one had time to put on one’s rain gear.

What surprised me was that the match was quite entertaining given the circumstances.

I didn’t feel much like going, though. yet another bad night. Yet another early awakening.

And yet another interesting nocturnal voyage. Last night I was doing my pension calculations. I worked out that I would get about £19:00 per month from the Belgian Government, £19:00 per month from the French Government but then I suddenly realised that i was living in Canada and I was entitled to a small pension from them because I’d been here for a couple of years and been working. That meant that I would be entitled to about £57:00 per month. I thought that that was fine because if I were very careful I could live on that. Of course everyone ridiculed this and said that it can’t be done, but one girl sitting at this table in the café said that there were loads of other things that I could do to raise money – for example she picked the entire crop of tea in the whole of Canada, to which I thought “I bet that it doesn’t take you long, does it?” because there isn’t all that much there at all. We were sitting outside what used to be a café but had closed down and the sign had been practically painted over. Someone was giving me some food – two cheese and onion sandwiches cut into triangles and put in a plastic bag and they went to give me the plastic bag. They said “hang on a minute – where’s your tray?” so I went over to where I had been sitting. “Ohh it’s over there is it?” they said and gave me this pack of sandwiches.

I was wide awake when the alarm went off at 06:00 but it was more like 06:45 when I left the stinking pit. Medication, breakfast and then a shower, and I was ready for the shops.

Braving the tempest raging outside, I made it to Caliburn ready to head to LIDL.

And you can see just how violently the storm was raging. You can actually see a wave of storm moving across the image of the photograph here.

I was glad that I was only out there for a matter of 30 seconds while I ran across the car park, and not actually having to walk to the shops.

After LIDL I went next to Noz and then to LeClerc. And all in all, I bought next to nothing and spent about €25:00 in all.

On the shopping list today was an aubergine. I’ve run out of aubergine and kidney bean whatsit so it’s time to make some more. I’s probably going to be an idea for me to spend one evening a week cooking some mega-meal, like a curry or a giant pie or an apple tart or something, parcel it up into individual-sized portions and freeze the portions. But then, how about me getting organised? I must be getting older.

Back here, I put the frozen food away and then crashed out for 20 minutes on the chair. Feeling the strain early in the day, I am.

Once I’d recovered myself, I put the shopping away and that took me nicely up to lunch. Once again, indoors in view of the horrendous weather.

This afternoon I had plenty of things to do but ended up as usual being side-tracked. I was having a little 10-minute play around with my 3D program and ended up running off down a long alleyway with a little application that I had discovered.

As well as that, I had an eye on the live updates for two football matches being played this afternoon. Crewe Alexandra came back from being dead and buried at 3-1 to run out 4-3 winners against Forest Green Rovers, and Morton scored a late winner at Dunfermline to escape relegation. Morton have in fact won more points in their last two matches than they have won in the previous two months.

At 18:15 I headed off to the football. The weather had improved in that the rain had stopped. But I wasn’t taking any chances and took my waterproof gear with me in the small rucksack.

There was a little deviation on my route. I had run out of that caffeine-based energy drink and that is what I use sometimes to lift me up when I’m flat out. I’d forgotten to buy any today but as LIDL was open and I was early I popped in for a few cans.

At the football, USM Donville were playing US Percy. I noticed quite a difference in the stature of the players on the field. The Donville players looked as if they were 11 ordinary people whom you might find on any street anywhere, whereas the Percy players looked more like athletes.

Nevertheless, on the field they were quite evenly matched and despite the wind it was an entertaining game. Donville had a n°9 playing up front who had some skill but was pretty much a lightweight easily pushed off the ball.

After 30 minutes, the Donville player pulled off a midfielder, pulled the n°9 back into a rather attacking midfield position, and sent on a substitute to play up front. He didn’t have the skill, but was much more aggressive and the game picked up.

Percy, playing against the wind, took the lead but Donville soon pulled back to level.

After the break, the second half was a game of two quarters. At first Percy had the ascendency and scored a second goal. But later in the game Donville gained the upper hand.

The n°12 playing up front got himself into some good positions. Had he had someone playing up front with him, something may well have come of them. He was quite unlucky with two good chances that he had too.

Not only that, had the ref not been unsighted and had the incident happened on the side of the field where the linesman could have seen it, Donville might have been awarded a penalty for a handball in the penalty area.

So 2-1 to Percy, which was rather unfair on Donville but these things happen in football.

On the way back, I was caught in a torrential downpour and by the time I had struggled into shelter to put on my waterproof trousers I was soaked to the skin and the downpour had passed.

Back here and hungry, I fancied something different for tea rather than a tinned meat.

So I cooked some pasta and when it was done, drained it off, added a big handful of frozen spinach, some garlic, some ground pepper and olive oil and warmed it all right though. The secret of course is not to overcook the spinach. That’s how you kill off all of the vitamins and minerals.

Once it was thoroughly warmed through I added a big handful of grated vegan cheese and stirred it all around.

That was probably the most delicious instant meal that I have ever eaten.

So now I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is Sunday and a lie-in I hope. I need a decent sleep, a good relax, and the will and energy to get myself back on track. My life is running away with me and I can’t seem to catch it up.

Friday 12th April 2019 – I’M NOT SURE …

… what kind of day it has been today.

It’s been one of those days where I haven’t felt like doing too much, but at least I kept on working and managed to be productive. So it can’t be all that bad.

What didn’t help was that despite the nice clean bed and the nice clean me, I didn’t have a very good night at all. I hardly felt as if I had any sleep at all last night.

However I must have done, because I went on a nice long ramble or two during the night.

My first voyage was something to do with the railway – the line blockages. a group of us were talking about someone who wanted to go off photographing and we had seen a place where a tram coming into town turning right at a curve and one coming out of town was turning right at the same curve (like at a T junction) and it all looked so beautiful that we thought about having some kind of choreography photographs of trams darting around bends in opposition to each other like this. Someone else asked “what do you think about this situation?” and showed us a model of a train that had derailed because the points had moved underneath it. Someone said something like at the front of this incident was a shop that was 2m60 away and all of his electricity was stopped because it was outside the limit of 2m from the accident where the current was broken, to give everyone time to escape. Electricity was only available very close to the accident. One feature of this railway line being blocked was a very large photo or model of someone that had apeared over the end of the railway line behind this accident blocking it off – someone like Nigel Garbage or another one of these far-right people. people were discussin ghow this could possibly be that a dummy like this could block the line. Wasn’t that just typical of the far right that in the interest of free movement they are blocking the railway line
A little later there were three of us on a voyage something like out of the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, me, another guy and a girl. And I knew even though I was asleep that I seemed to join this in the middle of the voyage. At first I thought that this girl was Nerina. She was ill in bed with a heavy cold moping around so in the end I asked her if she would like some Vicks Rub. Her ears picked up at that “Vicks Rub? Yes!! Do you have some?” So I had to search through my medical case and I found some so I gave it to her. her eyes lit up at that and she immediately got better. The three of us were in a car driving up Stewart Street and Valley Road with this most amazing moon or sun, rather like a half-eclipse of the sun. I suggested that we turn right down a side-street for a better view but then I thought that there would be a better view from a side street further on. We went on to that turning and then found that somehow the moon had gone behind the sun and it wasn’t as good as it had been earlier. That was quite a shame. We carried on, had a couple of adventures, things like that. In the end it was all over and we were due to go home. We were walking back into Sandbach from near where the M6 is. The guy went off somewhere to do something, which left me and this girl. She said that she was going to get a coffee. When she came back she was in tears, about how the guy with whom she was living had been quite nasty to her about the fact that she had been away. I was consoling her. Now, even though I was asleep, I knew exactly how it ended – that she ended up by leaving this guy and the two of us became a couple, but it was this little step in between where I couldn’t find the courage to take this step to ask if I could see her again, even though I knew exactly how it was all going to end up – very positively in my favour.

The alarms went off as usual, and it still took me 15 minutes to haul myself out of the not-so-stinking pit this morning.

After the usual morning ritual I attacked the dictaphone. And despite a few interruptions for nothing in particular, I was still going on at lunchtime.

There’s a whole whack of them now done and that’s made me feel a little better.

With it being such a beautiful day although it might have been a little cold, I went out with my butties and sat upon my wall.

Down below in the harbour, we might not have had any ships of any importance in there, but it doesn’t look as if it will be long before there’e one i-cumen in, just like William de Wycombe’s sumer.

The gravel lorries from the quarry are back in the port tipping the gravel. And tipping it on the quayside near to the conveyors rather than the bins too.

That can only mean that we should be expecting the arrival of a gravel boat in the not-so-distant future. Lhude sing cucu.

When I came back, I did a little tidying up (not too much of course) and then ran the vacuum cleaner around the floor for a short while. It makes the place look a little tidier.

The rest of the day was spent dealing with the photos for June 2018, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either because I didn’t recognise half of them.

I ended up spending an hour or two on Google Earth trying to mate up images with screen shots. But in the end, I managed all but one. That’ll teach me to lose my dictaphone in Caliburn during that trip to Germany, won’t it?

There were two little interruptions during the day. The first one was for a little … errr … snooze, and my second was for a walk arounf the Pointe du Roc.

My attention was drawn to some movement way offshore so I coupled up the big zoom-telephoto lens to take a photo to see what it might be.

It turns out to be a zodiac going flat out there way out to sea. That’s a lot farther out than I would be happy to take a zodiac, that’s for sure.

While I was out there with the zoom lens I scanned the horizon to see if there was anything else of interest out there.

Round to the right not too far out from Saint Martin de Bréhal is another one of these buoys that miraculously appear every now and again.

At one time I thought that it was something to do with fishing, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of any fishermen tending to it.

Around the corner into the Baie de Mont St Michel I heard a little putt-putt-putt of some kind of small diesel engine.

A few seconds later a little yacht came round the corner and hove into view. It would have been nice to see it with all of its sails unfurled, especially in this wind when it could have taken full advantage of it.

I can understand why a yacht might need a diesel engine, but not why anyone might be using it in the open sea in this weather. br clear=”all”>

Pathetic parking is a feature of these pages, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

We’ve seen some pretty miserable stuff but this here really does take the biscuit. Here’s a van driver far too lazy to even walk across the street.

Bad parking doesn’t get much worse than this. it really is quite shameful if you ask me. Whatever is the world coming to?

Back here I carried on with the photos and the research, and then stopped for tea. There’s a pepper lying around here that needs eating so I made myself a stuffed pepper with spicy rice.

That was followed by pineapple and soya cream, and a chat with Liz, another one with Alison and a third with rosemary. I’m in demand right now.

I had to cut the chats short though because it promised to be a beautiful sunset and I didn’t want to miss it.

Unfortunately there was a large cloud on the horizon over the Ile de Chausey so I didn’t get to see the sun sinking slowly down below the horizon this evening.

But never mind. there will be other opportunities, especially with what I have in mind for later this year, if it all goes according to plan.

Back from my evening walk, I watched the football. Bala Town v Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League. And Bala have come right off the rails just recently and Colin Caton has lost the plot a little.

Bala, totally disorganised at the back and leaderless up front, were easily swept aside for the third match in succession. What we were watching ir real relegation fodder for next season, and if only the Nomads had played with a decent striker, they could have scored 14, never mind just 4.

So I’m off to bed. No shopping tomorrow as I’m on my travels on Sunday. So i’ll have a little wander down to the market instead and see how the land lies.

It’s not an early night tonight, so I won’t be on very good form tomorrow. But I’ll see what I can do.

chateau de la crete baie de mont st michel port de granville harbour manche normandy france

pecheur de la lys chantier navale port de granville harbour manche normandy france

sunset ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Friday 5th April 2019 – – I WAS RIGHT!

Remember the other day when we were watching them pushing around the great heaps of gravel and moving them closer to the quayside and conveyors, and I was saying that we must be expecting the arrivale of one of the gravel boats?

So say hello to today’s arrival, someone whom we haven’t seen beforen and it’s nice to welcome new visitors to the port. Moored up at the gravel bay is is a new ship, the Eems Sea.

She must have slipped in on the late afternoon tide just now while I wasn’t looking.

Last night I had another decent sleep, with only a minor interruption. I was off on a travel too, but I’ll spare you all the details, seeing as you’re probably eating your tea or something right now.

There was an early start to the day too. I was out of bed pretty promptly too. And once the usual procedures were accomplished, I set to work. And I’ve had a very productive day too.

First task was to attack the searchable text database for July last year, starting from the beginning and working forwards this time. That wasn’t as easy as it might have been either because it needed quite a considerable amount of research to work out where I was, including hunting down an on-line version of Field Marshall Blücher’s memoirs and downloading them.

In fact I only managed about 60 photos. But serves me right because this was the period when I had mislaid the dictaphone somewhere in Caliburn.

Having run aground a little with that, I turned my attention to the photos for the High Arctic. That wasn’t quite so simple as it might have been either because I had to look up a few things for those too.

You’d be amazed (or maybe you won’t) about how much I’ve forgotten. But by the time I knocked off for lunch, I’d done another 160 of those too. Another day like that and I’ll have done a third of them.

In total I ended up with almost 1800 from that trip and the more closely I examine the photos on a decent screen, the more I see, the more I crop out, and I am slowly increasing the number all the time.

But as I said at the time, I’m dismayed by the quality of some of them – most of them in fact. I’ve a good mind to go back and take them all again.

It’s still winter outside so I stayed in for lunch. And this afternoon I had a phone call to make. My enquiry was actually successful in part, because although I didn’t receive the information I wanted, I was told that it had already been posted to me so it might be here any day soon.

While I was at it, I had a look around on Amazon for a few things that I needed. So I’ve been spending my money again.

But not in the USA. It seems now that Amazon is charging a “customs anticipation” amount to USA orders that makes the price no longer competitive with European pricing.

I smell a rat here, and I’m not talking about the contents of Baldrick’s apple crumble either.

On my afternoon walk around the Pointe du Roc, in a howling gale which explains why there were so few people about, I had a look at the chantier navale to see what was happening.

And I appear to have been mistaken about the band of colour that had appeared on the hull of the boat that’s being resprayed. It seems to be nothing more than a different type of masking tape.

And I’m not surprised that they have had to replace some of the masking in this wind. I imagine that the original stuff will be half-way down the Baie de Mont St Michel by now.

There was more excitement than that too.

In the harbour I was treated to the sight of a trawler doing a very impressive nautical danse macabre around the basin.

From this distance I didn’t recognise the trawler, but I doubt very much if it’s one that’s new to the harbour. Usually they stay quite close to the fish-processing plant to which they are attached these days.

And I now know the story behind the crane – why it was here the other day. There was an article in the local paper about it.

Apparently they are replacing some of the old pontoon walkways in the harbour and they were delivered the other day. The crane was there presumably to lift out the old ones and lower the new ones into the harbour.

They are spending quite a lot of money on the harbour just now, what with renewing the harbour gates, dredging and all of that. All they need now is a lot more commercial traffic.

A hot chocolate was on the menu when I returned from my wanderings, and then I had another whack at the dictaphone notes. At this rate, I’ll probably be finished sometime in about 2525. All of the tasks that I have to do will keep me out of mischief for years, if I live that long.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper with spicy rice, and having cooked it for a little longer on a lower temperature in the microwave, it was even better than it has been in the past.

It was still quite light when I went out tonight for my walk. And I was all alone out there too, even though it wasn’t dark outside just yet.

In the past I’ve taken a few photos of the Place d’Armes in the evening from up on the walls by the rue du Nord, but this is the first time this year that I’ve been able to do so in the light.

You can’t see very much of my building though. There’s part of it visible behind the cream building – the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs just to the left of centre.

Having done that, I carried on around the corner and there I could overlook the harbour and see Eems Sea tied up at her berth.

Although she might not look it, she was built as recently as 2010 in, of all places, Haiphong in Vietnam. 87 metres long, she is a bulk carrier with a deadweight of 2600 tonnes and a gross tonnage of 1862.

Being owned by a group of people from Werkendam, near Dordrecht, she flies the flag of the Netherlands.

And isn’t it nice to see a new arrival here in the port?

After that, I hurried home because we had football on the internet. Caernarfon Town were playing Connah’s Quay Nomads in the Welsh Premier League. The Nomads needed a win to keep clinging on to the coat tails of TNS whereas Caernarfon needed a win to give them hope of home advantage in the Euro playoffs.

The Nomads’ lack of a striker was apparent yet again because Caernarfon scored early in the match and the Nomads, despite all of their possession and pressure, never ever looked like pulling one back. If only the Nomads had a goalscorer, their season would have been completely different.

And so a late night tonight. and with me needing an early start in the morning, I shan’t be getting too much sleep.

Wednesday 13th March 2019 – TODAY I HAVE WRITTEN …

… the largest cheque that I have ever written in my life – and ever likely too as well.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my endless battles with the Royal Bank of Scotland – the worst bank in the world – and over the last couple of weeks I’ve finally had enough.

And with the impending disaster that is Brexit looming around the corner, I’ve liquidated all of my savings in the UK, consolidated it all into one account, and apart from a realistic working capital, I’ve shipped the rest elsewhere.

The next exciting moment will be when the Royal Bank of Scotland receives the cheque from the payee – what will they do then? This will be bound to be exciting. I don’t expect it to be straightforward at all and we might be in for a load of fun.

But I’m just appalled at the lengths to which I have to go in order to knock some sense into those people.

Having gone to bed at something like early last night, I was awake again at 04:35. and I was up and about at a reasonable time after the alarms had gone off.

we had the usual morning procedures of medicine and breakfast, and then I attacked the tidying-up.

All of the papers have no been filed, and because the bank statements folder was overflowing, I’ve rearranged all of that and filed elsewhere the statements for the later years.

And then I had to attack the bank.

I tried the on-line banking service and much to my surprise (and probably yours too) it went with only a minor hitch that was soon resolved. So I ended up wiht all of my dosh exactly where I wanted it.

And then I had to do another pile of on-line paperwork. That ended up with my having to write a letter. That meant nipping out to Caliburn to pick up the cheque book and to see the spectacle of the postwoman’s bike blown over in the gale and all of her letters disappearing off down the street.

All of this took me up to lunchtime, and the intention was that after lunch I would take the letter down to town. But I ended up … errr … curled up on my chair for 20 minutes.

That meant that I had missed to post collection, but I braved the tempest and went down to the Post Office nevertheless. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Down at the quayside though, I noticed a pile of goods lined up where Thora and Normandy Trader normally tie up.

This will probably mean that one or other of them will be coming into the harbour pretty soon to pick them up and take them over to Jersey.

Back here, I attacked the photo database for September in the High Arctic and did another 100 or so photos, with a break to have a shower and a clean-up.

Tea was next, and I made my shepherd’s pie. Tofu, onions, garlic, herbs and flageolet beans with a mashed potato topping. Plenty of it too, and there are five portions left that have gone into the freezer

out again later for my evening walk, despite the wind.

And here’s something that I haven’t noticed before.

At the side of the lighthouse is some kind of pylon, and tonight it’s showing two red lights. I’ve no idea why that might be, so I’ll have to ask someone next time I see anyone official loitering around in the vicinity.

Round the corner and out of the wind for a while, I could see the tidal harbour.

There were several trawlers in there unloading their catch. Three of them had finished and it looks as if they are lined up waiting for the gates to the inner harbour to open so that they can go in.

The pedestrian lights are showing green, and the sailing light is red, so the gates are clearly closed right now.

Further on round the corner I noticed that the Boulevard vaufleury is closed to traffic.

It seems that the wall on the corner of the next street down – the rue Mengnonette – is about to fall down and they don’t want anyone to be in the vicinity.

On that note, I came back here and did a little more tidying up.

But now, I’m off to bed. I’m hitting the road tomorrow so I need a decent sleep.

Monday 11th March 2019 – FOR THE FIRST …

… time since the football over two weeks ago, I had a mug of coffee – when I was at Liz and Terry’s. In fact I had two.

And that probably explains why I was still wide awake working on the computer this morning at 02:30, unable to sleep.

Eventually, I did manage to go to bed. And a short while later I did actually go to sleep.

When the alarms went off at 06:00,06:10 and 06:20 there was absolutely no danger of my leaving my little bed. 09:05 was mush more of a respectable time given the circumstances.

As a result, we can almost dismiss the morning as a write-off. by the time I settled down to do some work it was 12:20.

One thing that I had done was to get on the phone to my web hosts. My domain names need renewal and for some reason the direct debiting wasn’t working.

After several attempts I was connected to the French helpline where the formalities were completed. And I was struck by the accent of the girl to whom I was speaking. it turns out that not only was she a French speaker from Acadie in New Brunswick, she was actually there, and my call had been diverted to Canada.

a little later I nipped out to Caliburn. the memory card in the dashcam in Caliburn had filled up yesterday so I’d brought it in with me. This morning I uploaded all of the media onto the hard drive and then took the empty card back down to keep as a spare.

One of my neighbours was out there so we had a chat. But freezing in the howling wind, I came in quickly.

Lunch was as usual, and then I set to work with the shredder. Another huge mound of paper has gone to meet its maker and another day or two will see the rest of it on its way. And then there’s more to attack, to keep me out of mischief for the next 6 months.

This afternoon I braved the hurricane and went outside, bumping into another neighbour on the way.

Nothing much happening out there, except at the chantier navale where Armor, Charles-Marie and La Granvillaise were receiving attention.

But the funfair seems to have gone, and so does Neptune. She set off at 06:08 on her way to Whitstable.

Back here, I opened my birthday present from Liz and Terry. A gorgeous chocolate cake.

It won’t keep for too long and seeing as I’m off to Belgium on Thursday half of it went straight into the fridge.

But I also cut myself off a slice to taste. And it’s delicious, as you might expect. As I have now run out of apple pie, I’ll be having a slice here and there for pudding with my coconut-flavoured soya cream.

Rosemary rang me up later and we had quite a chat – 1:33 of it, to be precise. She’s back now in France and here she intends to stay.

Tea was the pizza that I should have had yesterday, followed by the last slice of apple pie.

And then the walk around the walls.

There was only a thin sliver of moon but with the clear sky there was a beautiful reflection on the sea.

The wind had dropped and it was cold, but there was no-one around at all, apart from a new black cat that came for a stroke.

So now I’m going to bed. Nice and early. I want to have an early start tomorrow as I have a lot to do.

But before I go, spare a thought for my niece’s eldest daughter. Her boyfriend was seriously ill and his chances of survival were slight. He had proposed marriage to her and they tied the knot on Christmas Eve.

Unfortunately their time together was short. He passed away on Saturday morning.

Poor Zoe.

Saturday 9th March 2019 – NEPTUNE IS BACK!

On my way out to the shops this morning, I noticed that Neptune had come in on the tide earlier this morning.

I stopped at the side of the road to take a photo of her. She’s busy pumping out the bilges – probably come over here in a ballast of water to keep her on an even keel in the stormy seas that we have been having just recently.

So she won’t be loading quite yet.

Last night was another decent night’s sleep. I was awake just before the alarm went off but I was in no hurry to leave the bed.

But last night was a rather interesting night. I was in a house where there were two separate gangs of organised criminals, and the aim was to keep these two groups separate so that they did not cross each other’s path. At a certain moment, we had to leave to go somewhere so I had to pack. And fo some reason I was packing all kinds of clothes that I had already worn and needed washing – with the argument that I could wash them in the hotel sink (although how I was going to iron the shirts was something else completely). I needed to pack the laptop and a few other things, but I only had a very short space of time to do it.
Later, I was somewhere round about the junction of Gresty Road and South Street talking to a couple that might have been the French mother and son whom I had met on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. I asked the mother if she had lived round here long, to which she replied in the affirmative. And so I enquired about a house at the back of the Royal Hotel in Pedley Street that was used as an artist’s studio, with a great big picture window facing south (which is bizarre because windows in artists’ studios face north, so that the light is even). She said that she knew nothing about it, but nevertheless she told me a surprising amount. So off I went round there to the area where I was on Wednesday morning and the Aldi supermarket and where, on reflections, I’ve been before, and found the house. In there were a couple of photographers and a couple of models doing some kind of greenscreen photography.

After the usual morning ritual of medication and breakfast, I had a shower and then set the washing machine going. There’s a huge pile of washing built up and I’m not sure how.

And then Neptune and the shops, calling at the paper container to dump another load of shreddings. It’s full now so I’ll have to wait for a while until it’s emptied.

LIDL had nothing special, although I did pick up another set each of AA and AAA batteries. I’ll have a big change-round of batteries here in the important stuff like the dictaphone and so on.

At NOZ, we encountered yet again another example of pathetic parking.

Judging by the registration number, that car is at least 10 years old, by the way.

Even though I spent a reasonable sum of money, it was on incidental stuff – nothing of any importance, except maybe a plastic werving spoon with holes in and, at long last, a nylon hand-whisk.

I have a metal whisk, which is great for using in a glass bowl, but no good in a metal saucepan. So €0:99 was money well spent.

Caliburn is getting low on fuel so I put some more in at LeClerc – the first since October, and then I didn’t fill it. I’m not going anywhere these days.

And in the shop, I didn’t buy anything special. There’s no point seeing as I’m going on Thursday.

Back here I actually managed to unpack and put everything away, and then I hung up the washing on the clothes drier in the windowsill.

After lunch I finished the blog entries for October so that’s up-to-date now.

But I couldn’t keep going. by about 14:30 I was under the covers in bed asleep, and there I stayed until 15:45.

However, I did managed to haul myself out of bed and go off for my afternoon walk.

This took me round by the rue du Nord and here on the corner they had started the renovation of a small block of flats here.

I shall keep my eyes on this work too over time, to see what they are doing.

Further on down the rue du nord, I had another look at the building works going on there.

That’s been going on all through the winter, in some kind of desultory fashion because he doesn’t seem to be making any rapid progress.

I’ve no idea when he might be finishing the job, but I’m not holding my breath.

Despite the fact that it was cold (I have the heating on again) there were quite a few people out with me walking around the walls today.

And down there on the Plat Gousset there were even more crowds of people milling around enjoying the early March weather.

It won’t be long before the tourists are back.

We even had a few people running around up and down the beach.

It’s not really a day for being on the beach, but at least they were enjoying it, so good luck to them.

But looking at the figure at the foot of the diving platform, and seeing how far out the sea is, when we have a high tide, the water is up above the level of the platform so you can see the tidal range around here.

The fairground out at the Parking Hérel is still going on, even though Carnaval finished on Tuesday.

For an experiment, I tried a long exposure to see if I could pick up the movement effect of the fairground attraction, but it didn’t turn out as I was hoping.

I can see that I shall have to work on my technique.

Further on around the walls, I ended up in the Place Maurice Marland.

And having talked yesterday about Spring, here today we have the daffodils blooming quite impressively.

We’re definitely expecting the sun right now then, aren’t we? Spring can’t be too far away at all.

Back on the walls, I had a look down into the harbour.

We have Marité of course, and also a trawler by the name of Le Styx, and also Neptune, who seems to have stopped pumping out the ballast water.

And unless I’m very much mistaken, she seems to have acquired a new digger. The old one was white – I’m pretty certain of that. But this one is yellow.

Back here, I made a start on the images for September. Only a world-record 1730 of them so it’ll take me an age to do all of them.

And then, finally, I can restart the web pages for my trip to the High Arctic.

We had a break for the football. A top-of-the-table clash between Connah’s Quay and TNS. Connah’s Quay lost the match, and the lead in the table, by a score of 2-0.

And the difference was that Connah’s Quay played with a very ineffective attack, whereas TNS were excellent up front.

The Nomads can say goodbye to the Championship after this, and we’re back in the usual position of TNS out in front.

Tea was out of a tin – ravioli with lentils and veg followed by apple pie and soya.

And then out for my walk around the headland in the rain.

Nothing much happening, except that the funfair seemed still to be working. Nothing else apart from that so I came home and made myself a mug of cocoa to warm me up.

Now I’m off to bed, and a good lie-in tomorrow I hope.

I certainly need it.

Friday 22nd February 2019 – HAVING HAD …

… a really bad night last, I couldn’t wait until 08:30 came around.

At 08:33 I was on the telephone. “Could Dr Plunet see me for 5 minutes some time soon?”
“How about 09:30?”

Eat your hearts out, NHS.

With not having had even a wash since Monday and not daring to try a shower, I had as good a scrub as I could and then headed off – in Caliburn because I couldn’t walk and I wasn’t really all that much up to driving either – down to town.

I was seen immediately – by a locum as the doctor is on holiday. He examined me, had a good listen to my bronchites wheezing away and identified straight away what was the problem with me. And I was right too. The viral infection is back.

So loaded up with medication, a loaf of bread and some pears, I headed off back home.

And having dosed myself up – back to bed where I lay and sweated myself to sleep.

However, the medication must have done some good because a while later I was up and about feeling better. The cough had eased, the streaming head had calmed down somewhat and I could actually think straighter.

This afternoon, Shock! Horror! after a bowl of soup I started on doing some work. I have so much to do that I haven’t done, and so much that I should have done these last few days.

So now is the time to press on. One of my web pages from 2005 is attracting media attention – positive attention too for a change. But the style is quite dated and needs rewriting, so that was my first task today.

And that took me longer than I expected too. But I kept on plugging away and even found time to make a start on the missing blog entries. They might be up to date sometime soon.

But not right now. It’s late and I’m off to bed. It’s Saturday tomorrow but I’m not going shopping. I’m not eating anything so there’s no need to buy anything. I’ll have a leisurely day instead and build up my strength.

Tuesday 12th February 2019 – THE GOOD NEWS …

… today (because there has been some) is that my new passport arrived.

There was a telephone call this morning asking me if I would be here this afternoon because the courier intended to pass by.

And so having confirmed it, I received a second phone call at about 15:35 to ask me which was the door to my block of apartments. Instead, I went downstairs and a charming lady handed me a big yellow envelope.

So now, being all legal again, that’s one less thing to think about. That is – until I lose this one.

For some reason or other, I was still awake and working at 01:30 last night. That’s usually a recipe for disaster but then again there’s no point in going to bed when I’m not tired and when I can carry on working.

Despite that, I managed to wake up when the alarm went off and I was out of bed comparatively early.

A comparatively early breakfast and then I settled down to work. And by the time that I had finished, I’d finished the blog back as far as 1st January 2019. And it’s not as easy as it might be either because until I fathomed out the depths of this new blog upgrade, the blog was itself inserting all kinds of redundant and surplus *.html code that bears little or no resemblance to the coding that I use.

It all has to be stripped out and while I have a computer program that does that, it strips out everything, including the coding that I want leaving in. And so I have to start again.

As far as the text database goes, I’m now back almost to the beginning of December. That was, by the way, a heavy month for photos so it’s going to take longer than it otherwise might.

I went out and about for my walk this afternoon as usual.

And was treated to the delightful sight of a group of British people blocking off the rue St Jean while they unloaded a trailer of furniture – because they were too lazy to carry the furniture 50 metres from the car park around the corner.

It’s this kind of thing that I hate, because it gives all of us a very bad name when they treat the locals with contempt like this.

However, leaving aside a really good rant for the moment, the weather this afternoon was beautiful.

It was sunny and warm (for the time of year) and the sky was quite clear. There was a beautiful view of the coastline all the way along from Donville les Bains down to Bréhal-Plage.

On the right of the image is of course that old hotel where I saw that miserable apartment that was to let.

And hardly surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one out there enjoying the beautiful weather;

As I mentioned yesterday, it’s school holiday so there were crowds out there strolling along the Plat Gousset and walking along the beach.

No-one actually in the water, though. And I can’t blame them. It wasn’t that warm out there.

And not only that, there was some activity in the port too. Our old friend Thora was in the harbour this afternoon tied up at her berth by the dockyard crane.

I could see that she was loaded up with a dozen or so of these enormous gravel bags, but whether or not there was gravel in them I couldn’t really say.

But whatever there is in there, it’ll all be off to Jersey in early course.

having been up on the top of the walls at the back of the Eglise Notre Dame de Cap Lihou to take a photo of Thora, there was a really good view of my apartment building.

It’s the building on the right there, part of an old military barracks with the parade ground in the middle.

Part of the old parade ground is closed off and is our private parking. You can see Caliburn in his little parking space just there.

The building in the background is now the College Malraux – the local secondary school. Their playground is the old military sports ground at the back of the College.

Back here, I had the usual strum on the guitar followed by a coffee. No Christmas Cake because I finished that off on Sunday. And then I started work again;

But not for long though. I was soon tucked up in bed under the covers fast asleep. And there I stayed for about 90 minutes. I wasn’t asleep for all of that time but it’s difficult for me to tear myself out of bed.

There was some of that potato and lentil curry left over from the other day. So I added half a leek and some sweetcorn to it to lengthen it.

And followed by tinned fruit salad and that soya cream stuff (almond this week, not coconut) it was thoroughly delicious.

Later on after tea I went out for my evening walk. Around the headland tonight, looking at the trawlers coming in with their catch.

And I tried a little experiment. The photos that I’m taking of various things at night are sometimes coming out poorly because I’m struggling to set the exposure correctly to stop pinpoints of light being too bright and distorting the image.

So tonight what I did was to set the exposure to where I would ordinarily have set it, and then reduced the ISO by one stop and increased the exposure by a couple of stops.

And it’s coming out much clearer – but there’s still room to go.

There was a large collection of lights just outside the entrance to the harbour. It looked as if it might have been a gravel boat such as Neptune standing off and hove to, waiting for the tidal gates to open.

But with the photo being much better and clearer than usual now, I could see that it was actually a couple of trawlers having stopped to have a little chat before they came in and tied up to unload.

But the harbour was really quite busy tonight.

There must have been eight or nine fishing boats in the outer harbour either tied up unloading or waiting for an empty berth. And half a dozen more here or hereabouts on their way in.

As I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … I would have loved to have been here in the heyday of the port when it would have been packed with Newfie trawlers.

So now I’m going to try to have an early night. I probably won’t sleep, what with having crashed out this afternoon, but I ought to make an effort.

I can’t keep on going like this.

people on beach granville manche normandy france

beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

thora port de granville harbour manche normandy france

rue st jean granville manche normandy france

night trawler ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

trawlers port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Saturday 19th January 2019 – PART THREE …

… of “hunt the passport” continued today. And the result was exactly the same as Parts One and Two.

Even donning a pair of rubber gloves and sifting through two weeks of putrefying rubbish in the waste bin in the kitchen failed to produce a result.

The alarm went off as usual and in accordance with usual practice these days I was rather tardy in rising from the dead.

After breakfast I made a start on searching in the living room for the passport. That involved firstly going piece-by-piece through all of the cardboard and paper that had accumulated here over the last two weeks.

Once I’d done that, it all went into the back of Caliburn ready for the tip one of these days.

A little later I wandered off into town.

I’d noticed the other day that a strange sign had appeared by the archway into the medieval town, and I had overlooked to go and read what it was saying.

So I took the opportunity to go over there for a read, and it’s concerned with the roadworks for the fibre-optic cabling that is taking place all over Normandy.

First stop was the Bank. I know that they told me on the telephone that they didn’t have it, but it needed to be confirmed. And it was too, much to my dismay.

But over the road is the photo place, and I need a pile of photos for various things, so he rattled me off a quick pile of them.

On the way back I called into the market for a baguette and then wandered round to the Police Station to see if by any chance the passport had been found and handed in.

But as regular readers of rubbish might recall, it’s times like this that the Police Station is closed. Instead I went next door to the Carrefour and bought my rubber gloves.

On my way down into town I’d noticed that our old friend (and “old” being the operative word) the Bedford CF was parked up in it usual place in the rue des Terreneuviers

And so on the way back up the hill to home, I took a photograph of it. It’s been a while since we’ve featured an old vehicle on here

It’s probably at least 35 years old, but it keeps on rolling along regardless. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall a few months ago that they were taking out the engine at the side of the road on one occasion that it was here.

Back at the flat, Jackie contacted me. No luck at the Deutsche Bahn either but at least the loss is recorded and I have a file number. So I printed out the report, printed out a copy of the passport (I keep a scan of all of my important documents “just in case”), put it all in the expired passport from 2010 and put that in my pocket.

If I’m controlled on my journey, at least I’ll have something to show for it.

After lunch I went through the waste bin and that was horrible with all of the stuff that was in there. But it had to be done and at least I know that it’s not in there.

But I couldn’t see the rail tickets from my visit just before Christmas, so I don’t know where they are. And so I reckon that wherever they are, my passport is there too.

It’s certainly not anywhere else in the house. I’ve been right through it so I’m reasonably sure of that, so how did I manage to write the passport number on the form that I have?

Tea was out of a tin tonight, and then we had the football. The Welsh League Cup between Cardiff Metropolitan and Cambrian & Clydach, the team from Tonypandy.

Cambrian & CLydach are from the Second Level but they did really well and took some impressive scalps on their way to the final. They played quite well with a couple of really good players, but Cardiff Metro had much more experience. Cambrian should have had a penalty early in the game, but they should also have had two men sent off in the first 35 minutes – one for a stamping and the other for an elbow.

Cardiff Metro scored a goal in the first half, and a second with the final kick of the game following a breakaway from a Cambrian corner, with the Cambrian keeper stranded upfield.

The game hinged on a substitution from Cambrian after 60 minutes. They brought on a really quick and tricky forward, but took off the experienced centre-forward Richard French. He’s big and muscular and throws his weight around and while he might not have all that much skill, he was making his presence felt and unsettling the defence quite considerably.

Cambrian had a good spell for about 10 minutes after the substitution, and had they had French up front, they might have made their pressure count.

So now it’s bedtime. An alarm in the morning because I have a train to catch. And I’m not looking forward to it.

Saturday 12th January 2019 – I’VE DONE SOMETHING …

… today that I haven’t done for more than 25 years.

And that is …. to buy some batteries.

I don’t mean rechargeable batteries. I buy quite a few of those here and there and of course I buy batteries for Caliburn and for solar energy systems. But I wouldn’t ever buy a throwaway battery – until today.

There are two pieces of equipment round here – the pre-amp in the Ibanez acoustic guitar and the tuner foot-pedal – which take PP3-size batteries and both are flat. I have some rechargeable ones, but I left them in the Auvergne and I didn’t bring the PP3 recharger with me either. So when I saw a couple on sale in NOZ at €0:99, I set my scruples aside for the moment.

After the problems of yesterday, I ended up not being able to sleep, and doesn’t that always happen? But I did go off to sleep at one point and even managed to go off on my travels. My phone had been cut off and I had to telephone the supplier. We ended up having quite an argument and my French started to break up. The person on the other end made a remark so I asked him what he expected when I had just awoken at 06:00. I asked for an appointment so he replied that he would fix one for me – one and that was all and I had better be there. I replied that it wasn’t much good ringing about it and telling me the time and expecting me to be there if the phone had been disconnected so I wouldn’t receive the call. he told me that that was my problem – I’d get one, and one only.

At this point the alarm went off and I awoke.

It was a struggle to leave the bed and having a good shower didn’t make me feel much better. Nevertheless, I headed off to the shops regardless.

No-one produced anything special, although the bill at LeClerc was more than it might have been due to the necessity of buying a load of coffee. And I forgot which coffee it was that I am currently drinking that is really nice. I bet I have the wrong one.

Just for a change I also called in at the Biocoop because I forgot to buy some vegan sausages at the Loving Hut in Leuven and I fancy some for tea some time.

Back here, I didn’t have the strength to put away the shopping. I just had a coffee and sat down.

After lunch, I tried to sit down and do some work but in the end I gave up and went to bed. And there I stayed for a good two hours too.

Nevertheless, I struggled up to the Stade Louis Dior (and it was a struggle too) to watch US Granville play FC Nantes.

And if you think that the score 5-2 to FC Nantes reflects a one-sided game, you might be right. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have been criticising Granville’s defence on a regular basis for its somewhat casual approach to defending. Today they were up against a really clinical team that made them pay for it.

2 goals flattered Granville. Unless there was something that I missed, the player who scored Granville’s second goal looked about a mile offside to me.

Back here, there was more football. Y Bala v Caernarfon in the Welsh Premier League. I have never seen so many misses from so close to the goal in one match as I have in this game. And Alex Ramsey, who didn’t impress me all that much when he played for Rhyl a few years ago, had a blinder in the Caernarfon goal and rightly won the man-of-the-match.

Bala, and in particular Henry Jones, ran all over Caernarfon in the first half and could have had half a dozen. And they will look long and hard at that period too and wonder how they went in for their cuppa at 1-1.

But in the last 15 minutes a couple of inspired Caernarfon substitutions transformed the game. They clamped right down on Henry Jones and scored two late goals to win 3-1.

Tea was out of a tin at half-time, so now I’m ready for bed. But whether I go to sleep is another matter.

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

… old times in here right now. I’m up to my knees, and probably even deeper, in papers and documents right now.

As part of my little project I have to find all kinds of paperwork going back 6 years. This last 18 months is pretty straightforward since I’ve been here but prior to that, especially during the period when I was ill my paperwork was all over the place.

However, when I was back down there in August I grabbed as much of it as I could and brought it back. So now, I have to go through about three sacks full of paper to find what I need.

I’m not having a great deal of luck from that point of view (at least, so far and there is still plenty to go at) but it really IS astonishing what you find when aren’t looking for it. After I took early retirement in 2004 I worked for a couple of years for an employment agency and for two American companies while I saved up to buy the roofing for my house in the Auvergne.

I’d practically written off anything to do with that period of employment, but today going through the European Paper Mountain I came across my registration certificate for the Belgian National Pensions Office. I’m not sure if I’m entitled to a pension from Belgium and even if I am, it won’t be anything at all to write home about, but at least I can write and make enquiries. You never know.

This morning I had something of a surprise.

When I awoke it was 06:45. What had happened to the alarm?

And then I remembered. Tuesday last week was New Year’s Day, and the previous Tuesday was Christmas Day. So I had switched off the alarms for Tuesday, hadn’t I?

And being nice and relaxed, I’d been on my travels. In a hotel trying to do a pile of paperwork in my room but not being able to concentrate, I went down to the reception area. There it was even worse, so I went back upstairs and tried again, but with no more luck than before. So in the end I packed my things and went outside to try to work out there, but the lorry driver who was taking me on saw me coming and pulled out of the lorry park, did a lap around the block and pulled up alongside me, blocking the road. And so I had to climb aboard, even though it meant that I wasn’t going to be able to do what I wanted to do before I reached home.

A slightly later breakfast (but not as late as some days just recently) and then a chat to Liz on the internet. She and Terry had an important meeting this morning so I wished them luck.

First thing that I needed to do was to obtain a couple of certificates from the British Government. Luckily, this can be done by internet but it’s time-consuming and took a lot of research – as well as being quite expensive.

When that was finally out of the way, I went down to Caliburn and brought up all of the paperwork. And despite stopping for lunch (more soup from Liz), my two walks and tea (a stuffed pepper) I was hard at it all day.

A good proportion of the paperwork has gone in the bin as “no longer necessary” but I found more vital paperwork that I expected to find – in fact I ended up being disappointed in that with a little more effort I might have had a lot more and I’m wondering where the rest might be.

On my walk this afternoon, there were a few people around for a change. It’s been quiet just recently out there.

Another place that was busy was the Chantier Navale. There are quite a few ships hauled out of the water right now receiving some kind of attention there.

I don’t recall having seen it so busy in the past. It’s clearly a booming business and I would have loved to have seen it in its heyday prior to 1992 when all of the Newfie trawlers were sailing out of here.

But there are still a few ships sailing out of here.

We have the gravel boats like Neptune of course, and the ferries to the Ile de Chausey and Jersey, but we also have the little freighters like Normandy Trader and Thora running the freight shuttles to Jersey.

Here today we have Thora in port. We noticed her last night having presumably come in on the evening tide

But despite the crowds this afternoon, this evening the walk around the walls was totally deserted apart from me.

But there was plenty of interest to see because the wind had risen and it was blowing quite strongly outside. The tide was well in too and so the waves were crashing down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset with quite some considerable force.

There was no-one down there taking advantage of the free shower on offer, which is probably not a surprise to anyone.

And Thora was still in harbour too.

That’s quite a surprise because she doesn’t usually hang about here for as long as this. I hope that she’s not having any difficulties.

And no cats tonight. I came straight home, had a chat to Alison after I came back and that’s my lot. A decent night’s sleep and then I’ll attack the paperwork part II. At least, if I know what I don’t have, I can start from there.

And I didn’t crash out today. How about that?

storm waves night plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Thursday 15th November 2018 – I’M FEELING …

… a little better right now.

After having a couple of really good days, it was odds-on that sooner or later I would have a bad one. And yesterday evening I could feel myself sliding down into the abyss.

By the time that I had finished writing my blog from last night, at about 22:00, I was feeling so miserable that I went straight to bed.

It didn’t take me long to go off to sleep either. And apart from one brief awakening, and I’ve no idea when that was, I slept right the way through to the alarm.

The first time for a while that I have had a decent sleep, and as you might expect, when I awoke, I felt even worse. But that’s not really due to the sleep, but due more to the fact that I was having a health crisis.

It took me a considerable while to tear myself out of bed and an even longer time to force my breakfast down.

Eventually I went into the bathroom for a shower and a shave and a good clean-up for it’s shopping day today. In Caliburn too and for several reasons, not the least reason being the fact that on Saturday we might be having a few blockades on the road so I needed to do a big shop today.

LIDL had nothing special, but the next stop – the Leclerc drive-in – certainly did. I’d had an e-mail on Tuesday to say that my printer had arrived and needed picking up. Today was as good a day as any.

At NOZ I swapped the glasses that were broken, and I bought a few other things. Including a 2-foot high Christmas tree complete with 6 silver balls and a set of fairy lights – all for €3:99. I’m really getting into the Christmas spirit, aren’t I?

Leclerc itself came up with nothing special and I was soon back home again, to find that I’d had a power cut while I was out.

However by now I didn’t even have the strength to put away the shopping. There was some coffee in the pot so I poured one out and came to sit down in here – where I promptly crashed out. And I was gone for an hour or so too and it was very uncomfortable.

This meant that I had a rather late lunch. Inside the apartment of course because it was quite misty outside.

This afternoon I had a very pleasant surprise. The people who had organised our voyage to the Hugh Arctic had sent me a promotional video of our journey. And it brought back many happey memories. There was a beautiful shot of Yours Truly and His Nibs on our way to the Brother John Glacier at Etah in Greenland.

And not only that, one of our party was lucky enough to be filming an iceberg when it suddenly capsized in front of her – and she had a beautiful film of it going over. She sent it to the company and they have sent it to us. It is really phenomenal and when I finally manage to organise myself I shall post a link to it.

This afternoon I started to feel a little better and I made some more progress on my third day in the High Arctic

We had the usual afternoon interruption for a walk. I have to keep this up as best as I can.

The tide was slowly going out and there were several people down there on the rocks searching in the rock pools for crustaceans and molluscs and so on.

Which, I imagine, they share with their friends because, as I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … that one mustn’t be selfish with one’s shellfish.

They weren’t the only people out there interested in the local marine life.

Out there just offshore close to the old diving platform were two men in a boat. One man and a dog short of Jerome K Jerome’s famous story of his trip up the River Thames.

I’ve no idea what it is that they catch just down there. One of these days I’ll catch a friendly fisherman and make suitable enguiries.

There was much more excitement on the car park round by the lighthouse on the end of the Pointe du Roc.

Parked up there was a pretty rare Triumph Thruxton.

I remember very well the original Thruxtons from the late 1960s – a series of Triumph Bonneville motorbikes specially modified for competition. However the modern reincarnation of the company launched a limited range of sports motorcycles with the same name in 2004

Back here and back on the High Arctic pages, and t won’t be long now, I reckon, until Day Three is finished. Always assuming that I can find it because the laptop has now crashed and it won’t restart at the moment. I’m having to type this on the laptop that I use as the media centre.

All of this took me up to teatime and I had a nice plate of steamed vegetables and vegan sausages. But once again, the vegan cheese sauce failed to thicken. I notice that I’m using a different brand of soya milk to the one that I usually use, and that might account for it.

I went out for my evening walk as usual after tea.

Despite the fact that the moon is a long way from being full, there was plenty of moonlight about. I hadn’t taken the tripod and the zoom/telephone lens with me so I had to make the most of the equipment that I had

Considering that it’s a hand-held shot, it hasn’t come out at all too badly.

Around the corner, I nearly collided with someone lurking away in the darkness. But he was the only person whom I saw, apart from the people loitering around at the bar and the pizza van.

But now I’m off to bed – something of a late night I’m afraid. I’ve managed to get the laptop to fire up but that’s all that it’s doing. Using a technique that I dredged from the back of my mind with good old T223 at the Open University, I’ve been able to force access to the files and I’m now copying them onto a back-up drive.

I can see me having to do this every couple of hours rather than every night. I don’t want to be losing work like this.

Fishermen in a boat near the old diving platform at the Pointe du Roc

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: caliburn

Wednesday 26th June 2019 – MY LAST DAY …

Tuesday 18th June 2019 – IT’S NOT BEEN …

Tuesday 30th April 2019 – I’VE NOT HAD …

Saturday 27th April 2019 – A HURRICANE …

Friday 12th April 2019 – I’M NOT SURE …

Friday 5th April 2019 – – I WAS RIGHT!

Wednesday 13th March 2019 – TODAY I HAVE WRITTEN …

Monday 11th March 2019 – FOR THE FIRST …

Saturday 9th March 2019 – NEPTUNE IS BACK!

Friday 22nd February 2019 – HAVING HAD …

Tuesday 12th February 2019 – THE GOOD NEWS …

Saturday 19th January 2019 – PART THREE …

Saturday 12th January 2019 – I’VE DONE SOMETHING …

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

Thursday 15th November 2018 – I’M FEELING …

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