Tag Archives: no food

Sunday 18th March 2018 – US GRANVILLE’S 2ND XI …

… beat AS Brécey 3-0 this afternoon in a league match at the Cité des Sports, the football pitch of which is photographed with the camera on the new phone.

And isn’t that an improvement on the cheap Chinese one?

And a casual observer watching the match will wonder why I’m not saying that the score was 13-0, and that’s because Brécey were, quite frankly, awful.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen such a one-sided match and had US Granville played with a couple of forwards who knew where the goal was, we could have had a cricket score. The Brécey goal was under continual siege with shots going everywhere except into the net.

Granville could even afford the luxury of taking off Marius, their star central defender after an hour because he was totally wasted out there.

There’s no point in risking him with an injury to rule him out of a more important match.

In fact we had to wait until the 89th minute for the Granville keeper to make a serious save from a Brecey (playing in red and black) player. Up to that point, he had been as much a spectator as we were.

Last night was another bad night for me, despite all of my efforts. At one point, I noticed that it was 04:26 and I was still awake. But 10:01 is a much more reasonable time to leave my stinking pit, that’s for sure.

It took me a while though to come round, and an 11:00 breakfast on a Sunday is always welcome.

The plan today was to go into town to the shops and the brocante, but with the news about Granville’s football match I put everything on hold.

With having had a late breakfast I didn’t need lunch, but I took some biscuits and a banana along with the thermos flask (and of course the building was open, wasn’t it?) to keep me going.

It had been snowing out at Roncey but here it was a nice sunny afternoon, with a little wind and not too cold. A quite enjoyable day in fact.

And the walk back was excellent too, and I retook all of the photos from last weekend.

You can enjoy this photo of St Pair sur Mer and Kairon-Plage away there in the distance, taken with the Nikon DSLR and the telephoto lens. You’ll notice the haze, and also the crowd of people enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.

I’ll put them up in early course – I have tons of photos that need attention right now and for some reason that I don’t understand, I don’t seem to have very much time.

But you’ll have observed that there’s not much wrong with this image here. If there is a fault anywhere with this camera (which is why I stopped using it), it seems to be with the standard lens

But the clouds were closing in the closer to home that I came, as you might have gathered from the previous photo, so I didn’t hang about on the way home.

But long enough to notice La Grande Ancre come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into harbour. And this good photo is taken with the old Nikon again but this time with the standard lens.

And so there’s not much wrong with this, so there’s definitely something strange going on somewhere. If only the new Nikon could do stuff like this.

As for the pizza – the best one that I’ve ever made. It was totally perfect. And as for my remark about the weather closing in, when I went out for my late evening walk it was raining. I was right there.

So an early night is called for. Supplies are low so this means a shopping trip. Just you watch it pour down.

Sunday 18th February 2018 -FOR A REASON …

… that I didn’t understand at first, I slept the Sleep Of The Dead last night.

But I awoke with a start at about 06:40. I realised that I had changed the time of the alarm yesterday so I knew that it wasn’t yet time to awaken, but after about two minutes it hit me that today is Sunday and the alarm was programmed not to ring. And so instead of the usual Sunday morning procedure where I try my best not to awaken, we had the opposite procedure with me trying not to go back to sleep.

And then another thought hit me too.

All throughout the night there had been complete and utter silence from next door. I hadn’t awoken once. Perhaps they weren’t out partying last night at all, but had left the place yesterday morning.

I wondered whether to do a lap of honour.

I’d been on my travels too. Nina, a former girlfriend of mine, was to put in an appearance and so I needed to tidy up Caliburn, especially the back if a little session of indoor alligator wrestling (unlikely) were to take place. I also had to do some more tidying up elsewhere and this involved Dismantling the hi-fi system. Some woman helped me do this because it wasn’t easy, with cables, headphone leads and all of this kind of thing all tangled up into some kind of spaghetti mess that we were desperately endeavouring to sort out.

So with my noisy neighbours apparently having left yesterday, and having had a good night’s sleep as a result (and about time too) I was ready for anything.

Well, almost.

I made a mistake in the boulangerie. To me, a baguette is a baguette, but apparently not in Leuven. Had Jesus ordered five of the ones that were given to me there would have been no miracle about feeding the 5000. I have enough to feed myself for a week.

I took my leave of the guy at the hotel. He asked me if I’d enjoyed my stay. I explained the issues that I’d had with my neighbours and he pulled a face. I told him that I would see him in a few weeks time, and hopefully he would have a quieter room for me…

Emerging from the alleyway at the back of the hotel (to save walking all the way round the block) I burst out laughing when I saw the boulangerie.

We’ve all seen (and some of us have stood in) the queues outside the bakers’ shops in Poland and Bulgaria, places like that under the Communists. And here in Belgium we have exactly the same situation.

Of course, maybe not for the same reasons, but it’s amusing nevertheless to see it.

My luck was in at Leuven station. The earlier express to Brussels was held up while they endeavoured to negotiate a wheelchair and its occupant aboard, and so I leapt on board too.

There’s no doubt whatever that the guy was disabled, but when I saw him a little later walking around the train I thought that he might have given the porter at the station a little more help. But then, that might have meant that the train would have left earlier and I would have had a cold and miserable wait on the station for the next train.

And I managed to drop my woolly hat – the one that goes on my woolly head – in the train and some woman shouted after me as I was about to alight.

And although it was a cold and miserable wait in the waiting room at Bruxelles-Midi, at least we had some entertainment. For police officers manhandling … "PERSONhandling" – ed … two boys out of the restricted area. “I didn’t steal anything” wailed one of the boys but the police are the same the whole world over and took no notice whatsoever.

The TGV previous to mine had been 10 minutes late but my train actually pulled in early, which made a nice change, and so I was one of the first to clamber aboard which is always helpful.

Old, tired and a little tatty around the edges. And the train wasn’t much better either. These first-generation TGVs have done quite a lot of work.

There were a surprising number of empty seats too – probably 80 or 85% occupancy. My experience of TGVs is that they are usually packed to the gunwhales.

We arrived at Paris Gare du Nord bang on schedule, which is just as well seeing that my train to Granville has been advanced half an hour because of the engineering works on the line. There’s no time to loiter.

But even more importantly, I arrived totally intact with nothing else missing from my trousseau. That makes a change after the events of the past few weeks.

But this train thing is going to become an issue in early course. They have a rolling programme of modernisation of the stations along Line 4 – the direct line between Paris Gare du Nord and Paris Montparnasse-Vaugirard. And on 17th March the platforms on the line here will be taken out of service.

There’s always an alternative route, like Line 5 to the Place d’Italie and then Line 6, but it’s complicated and takes much longer. And time is tight.

And in case you’re wondering, it is a different train from the one that I photographed in Brussels. Our train was made up of two train sets coupled together and they were of different classes.

I arrived at Paris Montparnasse-Vaugirard and my waiting room with 20 minutes to spare. And found a seat next to a girl from California who spoke French with a remarkably good accent.

You’ll remember last time I was here and the “incident” involving the woman and her mother. Here, we had quite an ugly incident where a couple arrived after boarding for their train had completed but before it had left, and they were refused admission to the platform. The abuse, insults and vitriol that they were giving the staff was outrageous.

Just to make things clear, it states quite definitely on your ticket that you should be present on the platform no later than 2 minutes before the departure time, and I’m sure that people don’t realise just how much of a walk it is to Vaugirard. Apart from the 1.3 kilometres of foot passage from the Metro (I’ve measured it), the platforms at Vaugirard are right down at the end of Montparnasse’s Platform 23, which is a very long platform. It’s a marathon hike and you won’t do it all in a couple of minutes.

Eventually we could board our train so I took my leave of my companion and had another nice travelling companion for some of the way home.

I left my seat though a couple of miles out because at a certain point there’s a really good view of the Eiffel Tower and I wanted to get an eiffel of it.

It’s not come out very clearly because there’s only so much possibility with a swaying train and a camera shot through a dirty double-glazed window.

After my companion left I settled down to my butties and then dozed almost all the way to Granville.

We arrived on time, which is late these days because of the engineering works, and I had to help a woman with her suitcase (what help would I be?) as she struggled with a screaming infant.

And then through the drizzly rain (quite a change from the weather in Paris) I had a weary, dreary walk home. It’s definitely taking a lot out of me. If my health deteriorates further (which it’s bound to do) I’ll have to remember not to come home on a Sunday. The buses don’t run on Sunday.

Back here after I eventually arrived, I crashed out on the sofa with a coffee and was out of it completely until about 20:30. I missed tea of course, but I did have a bag of nuts and raisins.

And with the fitbit telling me that I’ve done 80% of my day’s activity, I crawled out of the apartment for a lap around the old town. When I came back I was on 102% so that’s enough for today.

I’ve done enough. I’m off to bed where I shall sleep for a week.

Monday 25th December 2017 – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

If you’ve made it this far then you are all doing very well and I’m impressed. I’m also grateful that you’ve kept on reading. It’s something to help your turkey slide down the digestive tract.

As for me, last night I almost fell asleep in the middle of watching a film. So I crawled myself off to bed. And aftr an hour or so I awoke and started to have another one of these nuit blanches. Strangely enough I didn’t feel at al bad about it – and that’s a change.

Somewhere during the night I did drop off, and went off on one of my rambles. And we had a couple of strange people either making their acting debuts or first appearances for a considerable length of time.

I was back running my taxis again. And on Saturday mornings when I was having a lie-in the telephone was manned by Wendy (wherever did she spring from?) and Simon came in for a couple of hours to deal with breakdowns and do a little mechanical work. I’d been assembling a kind of breakdown kit and even cobbled together an old Jeep Patriot kitted out with emergency stuff for him. BUt when I came downstairs he hadn’t come in to work. So I rang him to ask where he was, and he gave me a list of things that he’d been doing instead. Clearly he had no intention of coming in to work again. So I explained that he was free to go if he liked, but I would have appreciated a little notice so that I could have made other arrangement.
I was also in Canada during the night. I’d booked a room in a motel and they knew that I didn’t intend to arive until the small hours. And so I turned up at about 03:00, was given the key to the room looking forward to crashing out in it straight away – and it was filthy; Hadn’t been cleaned for a month and someone had even tried to light a fire in it, leaving cinders and charred wood all over the place. Even worse than that Motel 6 in North Virginia.

Although I woke up on several occasions during the night, it was at about 09:30 when I arose from my bed. And after my medication I sent out a whole stream of cheery greetings to people on the internet.

One or two of the sites on my social networking were running a couple of quizzes so I passed a very entertaining morning, punctuated only by a pause for breakfast.

The paté that I had bought for Christmas lunch – it wasn’t mushroom paté at all. I’d made a mistake. I remembered that they had none, so I had bought garlic and fine herb paté instead. Nevertheless, it was equally delicious on hot buttered toast, and I ate rather a large amount of it.

I’m glad that I had bought that toaster when I first moved in here.

Apart from that, I’ve nibbled some biscuits, some clementines, some swets and a bar of chocolate-covered marzipan.

Pride of place goes, though, without saying, to the Christmas cake.

I don’t have many friends, but those that I have are the best in the wld – quality before quantity of course – and Liz has done me proud once again this year.

Her Christmas cake is absolutely delicious. Each year it gets better and better. So good health to you, Liz.

I’ve braved the hurricanes and been out for my two walks this afternoon – and merited my two mugs of home-made hot chocolate. More than you will ever know in fact because at one point in the proceedings I was actually running down the street chasing after my hat that had Gone With The Wind. That was totally unexpected – I haven’t really run for anything for over two years and didn’t know that I still could.

Mind you, the way that I’m out of breath, I’m not sure that I can.

Final word tonight must go on the perfidy of the internet.

You’ll remember that my web browser did a real mega-upgrade at the start of the month and dumped a pile of developers and their add-ons, including my much-loved *.ftp add-on.

And how I was left high and dry without a *.ftp program for a whole three and a half weeks.

And how I spent all afternoon in a relentless (and untimately successful) attempt to program my web server?

So today, a group of developers has launched an ultra-slimmed-down web browser using the Open Source code of the browser that dropped them, and many of the dropped code modules seamed straight in. I gave it a try and my *.ftp module was picked up immediately.

It’s called Waterfox and from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the fastest browser that I’ve ever seen. No bells, no whistles, just what I want.

There will probably be a few problems to overcome but as long as it handles my file uploads seamlessly like it seems to be doing, it will be fine by me.

Sunday 24th December 2017 – BY THE TIME …

… that you read this, you are probably all grouped around the Christmas tree grappling with the wrapping on your Christmas presents.

For those of you in North America and places west, you’re probably sitting down with a glass of something after having helped Santa spread all of the kids’ presents around under the branches.

Whatever your situation right now, I hope that you are making the most of it and that Santa has been kind to you.

For me, it’s a slightly different situation in that withut my bank cards I haven’t been able to purchase the things that I wanted for myself – or for anyone else either. I hope that I can organise all of this at some time in the near future otherwise it’s likely to become embarrassing.

Luckily, there were the twelve cans of alcohol-free beer at €0:25 each, and the peach-flavoured variety (the one that I’ve tackled to date) is extremely delicious.

It was a late night last night and a decent sleep, without sweating noticeably. And, I’m rather surprised to say it, a nice lie-in until almost 10:00 too.

So a late start meant that everything else was late too. Breakfast wasn’t until almosst 11:00, and lunch (I finished off yesterday’s delicious soup with some more bread) at 14:30.

A walk around the headland in the slight drizzle amongst the other couple of dozen people braving the weather – that cleared a few cobwebs.

And I walked round to the church to see if there was a carol service this evening. Something is going on at 22:30 his evening, so I made a mental note.

This evening, I managed to nibble a few things down – biscuits, clementines and that kind of thing. And I’ve put the time to profitable use too. With having no *.ftp program since my web browser streamlined its services, I’ve been configuring the control panel on my domain server for each of my websites to do the job.

It’s nothing like as user-friendly or as intuitive as the old web browser add-on and I soon saw why I abandoned it. But with no other course open to me right now I couldn’t think of an alternative plan. So pressing on and persevering, I’ve eventually managed to make it work and that must be something of a triumph.

At 22:15 I went for a lap around the walls and ended up at the church for 22:30. Not going in, I loitered outside to hear the music and singing but it wasn’t a carol service – an ordinary church mass and so I came home instead.

Two mugs of my home-made chocolate drink – one after each walk. And I remembered that I had a little coconut cream left fo I added that into the mixture. It made it quite richer too.

And I had a little relapse too. Asleep for half an hour round by 18:00.

So with not much going on in tha way of Christmas tomorrow, I’ll have an early night and another lie-in. I’m eyeing up some mushroom paté on toast for a breakfast treat tomorrow and that will be nice if I can swallow it down.

Saturday 23rd December 2017 – IF YOU’LL TAKE MY ADVICE …

… there’s nothing so nice
as sitting down on the sofa after a nice healthy walk, with a nice hot mug of hot chocolate, home-made with real patisserie chocolate.

Take a small saucepan
add an egg-cup of water and heat very slowly
add four squares of patisserie chocolate
stir the chocolate rapidly as the water slowly heats, so that the chocolate melts into a nice runny liquid (add a little more water if necessary).
just as the chocolate mix is on the point of boiling (whatever you do, DON’T let it boil) very slowly add two mugs full of milk, of whatever flavour of milk you like. I had soya milk, but coconut or almond milk is equally delicious, and even cow’s milk is good too.
Keep stirring rapidly and just as the mixture comes to the boil, pour half of it into a mug and sit down and enjoy it.
Save the rest for when you come back from your walk later in the evening.
Just remember to keep on stirring it while you slowly reheat it

I had a late night last night. And even so, I wasn’t in the least bit tired. 02:30 and I was still awake. It just goes to show about this infection- I must have had it for weeks. And how quickly it has seemed to improve.

By 08:30 I was wide awake though, and I found the bed to be saturated. No, Rhys! Not what you are thinking! All down my back. I must have sweated like a horse during the night in some kind of fever.

But having said that, I managed a proper breakfast for once – without the coffee though. I’m still not up to trying for that right now. And the breakfast made me feel much better too.

And the clementines! I’ve had a good attack on those today. And quite right too. it’s what Christmas is all about – free rein on a tray of the aforementioned.

During my illness I’ve let a few things go and so I’ve spent the morning doing some catching up. One or two important issues have arisen due to the loss of my bank cards the other week and they needed some attention. And someone else wanted a photo of mine.

My photos seem to be in some demand right now. In fact, one of mine of the Mohne Dam will be exhibited in a display in Reculver next Spring in celebration of the “bouncing bomb” of Barnes Wallis.

For lunch, I prepared a litre of this minestrone and olive oil soup that I had bought from Casino yesterday. Half of that went down very nicely too, and I even managed some bread with it. I’m definitely feeling a little better.

Having relaxed, I walked into town to the Carrefour. I wanted some soya milk for my hot chocolate, and I also picked up some falafel and – shame as it is to admit it, a Christmas tree. Well, a lump of log in a pot with a little bushy Christmas tree thing growing out of it.

And once more I bumped into the bank manager, and we had another lengthy chat. My account must be well in credit, that’s all that I can say.

But down in town there was a most unusual … errr … animal roaming the streets.

A giant rabbit was a-wandering around the street, carrying a man in its arms. Stopping to chat to almost everyone who had the time of day to pass, it was an immense attraction with the young kiddies of the area.

It seems that Strawberry Moose
and I aren’t the only ones with esoteric tastes

Back here I set up my little Christmas Tree thing, found the fairy lights that I had bought the other week and I now have Chrsitmas dcorations of some kind here in the apartment. And isn’t this decadence?

Whatever next?

No tea again though. My appetite might be improving, but not to that extent. Instead, later on, I went for another walk. The first evening walk since Sunday. And that made me feel much better too. What was even nicer was the hot chocolate when I returned.

So nw I’ll do the washing up and then go to bed. I’ve decided not to have an alarm until after New Year. Give me a chance to regroup, build up my strength and take it easy for a while.

And I can’t say that I don’t deserve it.

Friday 22nd December 2017 – WHAT A DIFFERENCE …

… a day makes.

24 hours ago I was at death’s door. I don’t think that I’d ever felt so ill.

I’d crawled off to bed early, consoled myself with one of my favourite films of all times, Casino Royale, the version starring David Niven and one with a whole raft of jokes running through it that would never ever be tolerated in the politically-correct environment of today’s United Kingdom.

And if that couldn’t cheer me up, then nothing could. And so I lay there desperately hoping that I could drop off to sleep, or that I would be struck by a thunderbolt, or the earth would swallow me up.

This clearly wasn’t going very well, so at about 03:00 I set the alarm for 08:30. Now that I had finally decided to go to the doctor’s, it would be rather a shame if I were to fall asleep and miss it.

And fall asleep I must have done, because I was off on my travels. Somewhere in mainland Europe in World War II dealing with escaping Prisoners of War. The Germans were actively looking for them and so we had hidden them in some small bulkhead rooms in this Navy destroyer. They started to have a good search of the ship and I realised that I hadn’t chosen a good place because there was no escape route from these rooms. Trying to think of a solution, one of my assistants came up with the idea that if we were to say nothing and the Germans might not notice them. And even if they did, they might not make the connection.

The alarm awoke me (so it was just as well that I had set it) and I struggled into the living room for my medication. No breakfast again, but I did manage to stagger into the shower.

I could stagger down to Caliburn and we had an exciting time driving to the doctor’s. I definitely wasn’t really up to doing that. But it’s a good choice, this doctor’s, because it’s on the bus route and there’s a chemist’s within a short walk.

By the time that I arrived I was in agony, but the doctor gave me a good going-over. Apparently I have one of the worst cases of bronchitis that he has ever seen. He gave me two options – a course of medication or 8 daily injections in my rear end. No prizes for guessing which I chose!

Having to obtain some more money from the Bank (thanks to this temporary bank card from Fortis Bank) I went for the medication from the pharmacie. And this is going to work out to be expensive, this health issue.

Just round the corner is the Casino supermarket so I called in for a tray of Clementines (Christmas isn’t complete without a tray of Celemntines to attack) and a loaf of bread to freeze. After all, I’ll be starting to eat again someday soon, maybe.

Back here, I had the first helping of the medication. And much to my astonishment, it wasn’t all that long before I could feel an improvement. To such an extent that I polished off the rest of the soup from yesterday. And that made me feel even better.

As a result, seeing that I don’t have any leeks, I went out again to the Casine and picked some up, along with a bag of mixed nuts, a pile of water (I’m almost out) and a couple of other things too. And, for the first time for almost a week, I almost felt a spring in my step.

This evening I’ve nibbled on a few things. I’m still not up to a cooked meal but who knows what I’ll be feeling like tomorrow.

But the problem is that I’m not much of a one for doctors. I’ve always been a believer in building up my own immune system to fight off illnesses and ben prepared to suffer for a few days in the process. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the idea that since my splenectomy in January 2016 I no longer have an immune system.

I’ll just have to get over it.

And I’ve not crashed out once today, or retreated under the quilt, and it’s 23:00. I must be feeling better?

Tuesday 19th December 2017 – TODAY HAS BEEN …

… just about the worst day of my illness so far.

I’d managed something of a reasonable sleep too, and even been on my travels again. I was back in an office where I had worked at one time and I suddenly realised that I was now over retirement age and still working – and no-one had said anything. I therefore decided to hand in my notice, to take effect in 6 weeks time at the end of May. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this is something of a recurring theme in my nocturnal rambles.

The alarms went off at the usual time but it was … errr … somewhat later that I crawled out of my stinking pit. I managed to take my medicaments but didn’t have breakfast. And if I’m off my food, you’ll know that things are serious.

Later in the morning I had a phone call. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago the Bank Manager had told me that there was a form that needed signing. And so he phoned me to arrange an appointment.

I need to go to the Bank about my missing cards, and I also need to go to the pharmacie for some more medication. So I struggled into the bathroom and plucked up the courage to have a shower. And I felt a little better after that. But only a little.

And so I braved the outdoors. At least it was a bright, sunny day even if it was cold and I made it to the bank. And to the boulangerie, and to the pharmacie. And I have to go out tomorrow too becausehe didn’t have all of my medication and needed to order some.

Back here, I had a hot blackcurrant and lemon drink, and then I was stark out on the sofa until … errr … 20:00.

However, I had awoken at some point, and even managed to eat one of the sandwiches left over from yetserday. And later, I had a packet of crisps and some peanuts.

So things might slowly be improving. Mind you, we mustn’t count our chickens and, to be honest, they couldn’t be much worse.

I’m off to bed, and I hope that I can sleep, and I hope that tomorrow will be better.

Monday 18th December 2017 – TODAY …

… wasn’t much beter than yesterday, unfortunately.

It started off well enough though, with me being wide-awake at 04:35 which is no real surprise given the amount of sleep that I had had yesterday.

Nevertheless, I didn’t move out of my bed until the alarm went off at 06:00, and then after breakfast I managed to find some little enthusiasm from somewhere.

But you can tell that I’m not myself at all though. I couldn’t finish all my lunch and I’ve had no tea either. And if I’m off my food you know that things aren’t right.

By 16:00 I’d had enough though and I fetched the quilt cover and pillow. And there I lay on the sofa until about 20:15.

I’d been on my travels too. During the night I’d been to MoT Caliburn in Belgium. The control was in two parts, and he passed the first part. There was someone dispensing diesel out of a big jerry-can and I managed to negotiate 5 gallons. From there, I had to go into another room for the second part of the check, and it was another large room in this filthy, dirty warehouse type of place, full of old cars. Nothing moved for half an hour so I went for a wander down. I found that I had been waiting in the wrong room because everything else was proceeding quite normally in a different room.

But I’d been on my travels during the evening too. I was on one of my trips to the USA and I’d been for a meal. It was now late but still quite warm and light. My route home took me past the local girls’ college where the female baseball team pitchers were practising. The field was quite rough so the ball was bouncing haphazardly and that made it interesting. I was lying on the field watching, next to a young black girl, who suddenly realised that she had lost the loaf of bread she had bought. So we had a good look for it, but couldn’t find it. I went into the bar to buy a soft drink – which was delicious – and then took it outside to carry on watching in the evening sun. I heard the PA announcer having fun with her announcements for student messages, and the subject of accommodation for hire came up. This gave me an idea about how I could have some even better holidays so I made a mental note.

Now I’m off to bed – another early night. I have to go into town tomorrow so I really do hope that I’m feeling better.

Monday 11th December – WE’RE HAVING …

… a disaster here right now.

On the point of going off to bed last night, I looked for the mobile phone to put under the pillow to awaken me in the morning.

But no trace.

I rang the number but I couldn’t hear the ringing, so I went downstairs to tip out Caliburn to see if it was there. But no trace either. And so I ended up by sorting out the old phone that I used before I got into smartphones, and that fired up okay. At least I had an alarm.

All of this at 01:00 too.

Last night was really a bad night too. I was still awake at 04:30 so it was something of a struggle to rouse myself when the alarm went off. Down in Caliburn at 06:15 to see if I could hear the second alarm, but no such luck.

And so I turned out the apartment making more of a mess that it was before, and although I found my missing notebook (which is always good news) no trace of the phone.

The last time that I remember havong it was at the football match, so at 09:30 I set off to retrace my steps from Saturday. No luck on the roadside, no luck at the Mairie, which deals with the fottball ground issues, and so I went to the police and reported it missing.

My route took me past the railway station where I picked up my tickets on Saturday night, and no luck at the football ground, although I did meat Johann Gallon, the coach of the football club, and we had a chat.

What didn’t help matters was that not only did we have a driving rainstorm, we had a howling gale too and it was really uncomfortable. But I did get to meet a helpful chemist who not only pointed me in the direction of a good doctor, told me that he was authorised to dispense Belgian prescriptions.

I’ve invented a new drink too. Fed up far the moment with coffee, I bought some blackcurrant syrup and I’ve been drinking this with hot water and a dash of lemon juice. And it’s very more-ish. And so I’ve had no coffee all day (and no breakfast either)

This afternoon I had a good sleep to catch up with what I missed, and then went for a walk. But I missed the high tide so I’ll have to try again tomorrow. But all of the zinc guttering and facing on the roof of the building opposite is now flapping about in the wind.

Another sleep and then I spent the rest of the afternoon (such as it was) obliterating duplicate radio programmes from my laptop.

For tea I had potatoes with the beans and vegan sausages left over from the other night, and then went out for a walk. But I was blown back inside.

So I hope that I’ll have a better night tonight and I’ll be able to organise my telephone tomorrow. I can’t be doing with this Monday closing.

Monday 4th December 2017 – AFTER LAST NIGHT …

… ‘s early night, I managed to eat the second alarm out of bed.

I’d been on a real mega-ramble too, but it disappeared out of my head the moment that I awoke.

Despite the early start, it was a late breakfast. I’ve been making some room on a portable hard drive so that I could extract the (hundreds of thousands of) photos that I had found the other day. I made a start on copying them but the old hard drive is pretty flaky and kept on cutting out so I ended up having to do it manually in batches.

And so it was a 10:00 breakfast.

After that, I started to review the images and found some real gems from years ago, but of course not the ones for which I’m searching. There must be another hard drive somewhere, although I’ve no idea where.

The late breakfast meant that I wasn’t feeling like any lunch. A bag of crisps kept me going. No point in stuffing myself unnecessarily. But you can tell that I’m not too well when I’m off my food.

Nevertheless I still went for my walk around the headland. And I’m glad that I did too because we had another visitor in the harbour.

Ship of the Day today is the Islay Trader, sister ship to the Shetland Trader that was in here the other week. She’s come in here from Rye in Sussex, but I didn’t notice any piles of gravel about.

She’s something of an unlucky ship too, having a history or running aground here and there.

After a little snooze this evening I made myself a pizza, which wasn’t as nice as the previous ones because I’m trying a different tomato sauce which isn’t as good, I reckon.

And then I went for my walk.

You may remember that the other day I talked about the street lights and illuminations. Tonight, I remembered the camera so that I could photograph them.

But I still can’t upload them right now, although I do know why. While my laptopn was doing an upgrade, I switched on the old one – and that immediately performed an upgrade of my web browser. And the *.ftp program disappeared from there too. So I tracked down the program, and tried to upload it. But it informed me that “this is not compatible with this version of …” … my web browser.

So I’ll have to track down another one.

And Islay Trader had cleared off too. She’s heading for Whitstable, which is a surprise.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. I need it.

Friday 1st December 2017 – I DIDN’T …

… go out for my walk this evening.

And it’s hardly surprising either.

I went out for my afternoon walk as usual but i never made it to the headland. The wind was totally wicked and I was blown more backwards than forwards. It was horrific.

And it’s even worse right now with the wind howling away like nobody’s business.

That was quite a shame, because I was having such a good day. I’d crawled off to bed really early last night and I’d been on my travels too, visiting a girl of my acquaintance, gone away and was on my way back, in my old Opel Omega. The access to this girl’s house was down a muddy track and at a certain place I lost traction. On getting out to see what I could do about it I was attacked by a small lioness and a small dog – an alsation-type. They weren’t vicious but it was still quite something and I had a great deal of difficulty getting back into my car. Once I was in though, and managed to close the door, i reversed out and took the damp patch at a run and got over it. I’d apparently had my mobile phone on during this adventure and so when I arrived in this girl’s kitchen she thanked me for the running commeentary.

And I sat up bolt upright at 04:50 too, and yet I managed to go back to sleep again until the alarm went off.

After breakfast I had a good crack on with these photos that are on this hard drive that I resurrected yetserday. About 735 gb of them in fact and considering that they are about 10-15 years old and a lot smaller than modern digital images, there are masses and masses of them. Many of which I don’t actually remember, and yet there still aren’t the ones that I’m looking for and which I certanly know should be somewhere.

After a late lunch I went outside and this was when I encountered the howling wind.

Instead, I went out down the other side of the headland and down the steps. The aim of this little ramble was to see what was going on with this road closure.

The road is now open, but we seem to have acquired a huge crane. The concrete slabs that I had seen and which I thought might heve been a new fencing system are in fact the weights that hold down the crane.

There was also a concrete hod there too.

There wasn’t however anyone around there to ask about what was going on, but I did notice that there seems to have been some work done on the rer of one of the houses down below.

It might well be that they are going to be building an extension or something being added on to the rear of the property, hence the crane and the concrete hod.

Back here dodging the rain, I carried on with the photos (something that’s going to take me about 6 months I reckon) and went through until about 17:30 before having a 10-minute snooze.

I didn’t have any tea tonight either. I seem to have been carried away by what I was doing and forgot. And so with no walk either, it’s been a disappointing afternoon.

Shopping tomorrow so it’s going to be a busy day.

Tuesday 28th November 2017 – AND JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I managed to get out and about this evening for my walk.

The weather deteriorated yet again this evening, but the rain stopped round about 20:45 so I set off for my stroll.

The clouds had gone too and despite the howling gale it was another one of these rally clear nights. So much so that not only could you see the lights on Jersey 30-odd miles away, but the red flashing lights on the wind turbines that we saw the other day way out at Barneville-Carteret.

While I was on my way round I saw my feline friend too but he paid little attention to me, being far more interested in stalking a small dog wandering down the street.

JUst by way of yet another change, I awoke early today. At about 04:10. And I thought that I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep. But I must have been well away because the alarm awoke me at the normal time. And I managed to be out of bed by the time the second alarm went off.

After I take my medication, I usually have to wait about half an hour before I can eat breakfast, and I use that time to see what is happening in the world. Instead, I found two friends of min from the USA on line so we had a chat. And the next thing that I noticed was that it was now 09:45.

Too late for breakfast. I just had a coffee instead.

And in line with my new procedures, I had a shower too. I need to take far more care of myself than I’m doing. And a nice hot soak in a nice warm bathroom (that little halogen heater that I bought all those years ago is really paying dividends) did me the world of good.

After a rather late lunch, I went for my walk around the headland – about three of us there were out there in total. And that’s hardly a surprise given the wind and the overcast sky (it wasn’t yet raining at that point). And I followed up my walk with a coffee and a snooze as usual.

Tea was one of the vegan pies that we made the other Sunday – I need to make some space in the freezer. With mashed potatoes, frozen peas, frozen sprouts and fresh carrots cooked in the steamer, with gravy made from the liquid, it really was delicious, And that was followed by my evening perambulation.

And now it might even be an early night. You never know your luck.

Saturday 30th September 2017 – AS I MIGHT HAVE SAID …

… the other day, North Carolina is a ferry-spotter’s paradise.

We haven’t finished with them yet by any means, because now that we are on Ocracoke Island, we still have to get off.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and one of the ways is to take the ferry over to Cape Hatteras. We’ve done that before, but so what?

While you admire the photo of my little home-from-home, let me tell you about my night.

I was dead to the world, that’s for sure, and our first nocturnal visitor was Michel from the football club – telling me everything that had gone wrong at the football club – just like he had done once in te Auchan in Montlucon.

As for our next visitor, it was either Nerina, Laurence or Cécile.And we were in my house, or whatever house that it was where I was living. It was up forsale although you would never have thought so with the mess – and someone came to see it. It was Christiane (what is she doing here?). My partner showed her round the ground floor and abandoned me to leave me to show her around the cluttered upstairs, even though I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I took her outside and showed her the jungle that was the grounds. She said that the car parking didn’t correspond to what she needed, so I showed her my idea which would have suited her – except that I kept on getting it wrong when I was trying to explain. After she had left I was sitting in the garden when my Inuit guide from Mulligan came in. He had a chain saw and began to cut up logs lengthways ready to sut them “across”. I was thinking to myself that I could do that, and there were plenty of other things that he would have been more profitably employed in doing.

My porridge didn’t take long to cook in the slow cooker, and I was away pretty smartish by 09:15, complete with free coffee from the motel.

A leisurely drive took me down to the far end of the island where I didn’t have to wait too long for a ferry.

You don’t here, by the way. There’s a regular shuttle service and there’s quite a rapid service, especially at this time of the year.

Had I come by here tomorrow, it would have been a different matter because they are going over to the winter timetable.

One thing that takes some getting used to is the route that the ferry takes.

This distance between Hatteras and Ocracoke island doesn’t look very much, but it takes 40 minutes to do the route, because you have to go in a rather exaggerated “S” route between the islands.

The channels across Pamlico Sound are quite shallow and despite the low draught of these boats, they can still easily run aground if they get it wrong.

The channel is marked for the entire length with marker buoys and signs, like these just here.

You can’t see for the sun unfortunately, but the buoys are marked red and green, for “port” and “starboard” just like a ship’s lights, but I was convinced that on occasion the ferry was passing to the wrong side.

But the channel and the sandbanks change after each storm so that’s not a surprise.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

and what does a pelican have in common with an Income-Tax Collector?
Well, they can bot shove their bills up their @r$e$

Only seven or so cars on the ferry so it didn’t take long to unload. And we were soon belting off northwards up Hatteras Island.

The village of Hatteras itself is quite pretty and probably well-worth a poke around on another occasion, but i don’t have that much time.

I want to be north of Chesapeake Bay by tonight and it’s a long way to go.

We do have to stop at some point because even though we’ve seen it before, we have to go to look at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

It’s the most famous construction on the whole of the Outer Banks.

Mind you, the Outer Banks just here are quite famous if you are a mariner. Not for nothing is Cape Hatteras known as “The Graveyard Of The Atlantic” with the amount of ships that have come to grief here.

The lighthouse didn’t used to be back there. Until 1999 it was just in front of where this sign is.

You can see from the sign how the sea level has risen over the last 140 years, which prompted the romoval of the lighthouse to a safer spot.

But even though it’s so graphically laid out here, the USA Government still denies the existence of global warming and rising sea levels.

Yes, the official position of the US President is to deny clmate change, global warming and rising sea levels. Yet here on Hatteras Island the evidence is impossible to ignore.

Everywhere are signs “water on highway” and despite the absence of rain and strong winds, you can see that the sea is slowly encroaching onto the roadway.

This will all be under water in 10 years or so.

We’ve been here before of course, and I reckoned that I would show you a photo once more of Rodanthe.

It’s significant because a couple of years after I had been here in 2005, they made a film set in Rodanthe.

And much to my surprise it really was filmed here too.

And the film seems to have brought unlimited tourists to visit the area, and with it the tourist attractions.

My memory of Rodanthe was that it was a quiet, sleepy place with a few tumbledown cabins and houses.

Not any more though. The tourists are out in force and have brought wads of cash with them. So the developers have cashed in.

Here’s something else that is changing so dramatically too.

The Herbert C Bonner bridge was a quiet, sleepy bridge when we came by here in 2005.

Today, as the sea levels are rising, the bridge approaches are slowly being submerged and so they are constructing this huge mega-bridge right across Oregon Sound with its several miles of raised causeway approaches.

Not that it will do them much good because the rest of the Outer Banks will shortly be under water as we have seen.

From here, I don’t hang about. We miss out the Wright Brothers site at Kill Devil Hills (not Kittyhawk) just up the road because we have been there before, and eventually come off onto the mainland where I stop for lunch and fuel at, coincidentally,the same petrol station where I stopped in 2005.

But out haste doesn’t prevent us from yet another photo opportunity, does it?

This area is well-known for its pirate and privateer activity, and so Strawberry Moose decides to get in on the action.

Finding a suitable boat, he now tries to find a suitable crew, or else he will be all at sea.

We cross into Virginia just after here, and enter the city of Norfolk. And Norfolk is a nightmare to navigate.

There are two ways to go north – one is the I-95 and sit in traffic queues in Washington DC and Baltimore all day, or else cross Chesapeake Bay and cross the Delaware River and follow the New Jersey Coast.

But the Bay crossing in Norfolk, despite being one of the most famous in the whole of North America, is so badly signposted it’s unbelievable.

You drive around for hours down a succession of small street and eventually you see a small one-foot square blue-and-white sign.

Blink and you miss it.

Unfortunately, you can’t see it very well because there is nowhere to stop and photograph it.

For a start, it’s 23 miles long, 17 miles of which is across water, and if that’s not something of a record I’m not sure what is.

And not only that, it shortens my route by 153 kms, so the toll fee of $13:00 is a bargain when you take the cost of Strider’s fuel into consideration.

It’s not just a bridge either.

It crosses a busy shipping lane up to Baltimore and so in a couple of places it dives into tunnels. And these are quite long enough on their own.

And that was quite a shame because there were three or four mammoth container ships sailing up the Hampton Roads and I missed them.

On the other side of the river I put my foot down and move north towards the Maryland border.

But 18:00 looms up, I’m tired and I’m still in Virgnia. And at 18:10 the Shore Lodge Motel in Olney looms up out of the gloom.

The room is clean and comfortable and after much negotiating we agree on $70:00, incuding taxes, which is not unreasonable.

I do without tea yet again and crash out more-or-less straight away, but I’m awoken by a group of people chatting by the ice machine just outside the door.

After about a couple of hours of this, I’m beyond fed up, so I ask them if they wouldn’t mind going somewhere else to chat. Well, that wasn’t actually what I said, but it meant that.

But my sleep has gone now, and this is going to be a bad night.

Thursday 28th September 2017 – WHAT WITH …

… having crashed out so completely and for so long yesterday afternoon, it was well into the small hours this morning and I was still awake.

But I heard the alarms go off at 05:00 and 05:15 respectively but somehow it was gone 08:00 when I was up and about.

My first thought was that I can’t go anywhere in the state that I was in, so I staggered off down to the office to see about staying for an extra day. But we couldn’t thrash out a suitable deal and so I took that as my cue to be moving on.

After breakfast we hit the road, and back through familiar territory from 2005.

When we were up here back then, I pointed out to you that most of the houses along the seafront are up on stilts.

We’re smack in the hurricane belt here and while they might not be as devastating as elsewhere, the fact that it’s so low-lying around here means that there can be some impressive tidal surges.

Just inland from the coast is what they call the “Atlantic Coastal Waterway”.

It’s like a canal that’s made up of rivers, lagoons behind the sandbanks and canalised sections to join everything up, and its purpose is to allow the “snowbirds” to sail their yachts and cabin cruisers down to Florida from Washington DC and Manhattan without having to do anything dangerous like going out into the open sea.

They aren’t really “salt-water mariners” here.

I mentioned yesterday that North Myrtle Beach is probably one of the most exclusive places in the USA.

Here, the “second homes” of the rich and famous are built around little marinas branching off the Atlantic Coastal Waterway so that they can sail down here and drop anchor in their own back gardens

You can’t do that at Rhyl or New Brighton.

I’m never in a very good mood when I see a car ferry. As you know, it always makes me cross.

And so being in the vicinity of the ferry across Cape Fear River, I decide to head that way instead of taking Highway 17 North-Eastwards.

And just by way of a change, I don’t have to wait too long as they don’t go on to winter hours until Saturday. That’s not something that happens to me every day.

There’s another ferry from here that goes out to Bald Head Island.

Bald Head Island is really nothing more than an endless succession of sandbanks, a couple of which have been stabilised by a healthy plant growth, and is the home to a mainly-seasonal population.

Its chief claim to fame, if it was one, is that it’s an important turtle-breeding and nesting area. And that I’ve yet to find the time to visit it.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it was the Union Army that won the Civil War. When things were on an even basis, the South could hold its own quite comfortably.

What did for the South was the naval blockade that stopped supplies of arms and munitions reaching the fighting armies and preventing the South from exporting its produce to gain foreign exchange.

Wilmington was just about the last open port remaining, protected by Fort Fisher which was just over there to the left of the crane and which we visited in 2005.

When Fort Fisher fell to the Union forces in January 1865, the Union Army controlled the entrance to the port.

They took Wilmington a couple of weeks later and in the absence of any supplies at all, the Confederacy collapsed in a matter of days.

By now though, the heat was ridiculous. 98°F, whatever that is in real money.

Luckily a Home Depot loomed up so I could take refuge in there and see if they had Terry’s batteries, but no joy – although the aircon was welcome.

Back on the road again, I stopped for some fuel and some of that iced slush as the heat really was oppressive, and then round about Jacksonville, found the first of the “Outer Banks Islands” – the sandbanks that protect the North Carolina Shore.

Some of them are inhabited, some connected by bridges, and some of them even have roads.

Emerald Isle is one such, and that’s my destination for tonight. There’s bound to be a motel or two along here and I eventually come across the Oak Grove Motel in Salter Path.

I’ve stayed in better places than this, but not many for $60 with kitchen and air conditioning.

First thing is to sit on my bed and … errr … relax.

Second thing is to notice the time – 21:00. Was I that relaxed?

So no tea again tonight. I just curl up down the bed and make the most of it.

And quite right too.

Wednesday 27th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOME …

… nocturnal ramble, that was.

I had a bad attack of cramp and had to stand up – and then I had to go for a meander down the corridor too. And each time, I returned to bed and restarted where I had left off.

And do you know what? Once I awoke, I couldn’t remember a thing about it at all. No idea where I went to.

So I spent an hour or two doing some paper work on the laptop, and then stopped for breakfast. I was feeling hungry as well so I followed it all with a bagel. Luckily I had bought some yesterday at the Food Lion.

I’d also bought some new razors and some smelly stuff, so I could have a good shave and shower too. That made me feel better.

There was a lot of noise outside while I was working and so I went to see what was going on.

It seems that there’s some building work going on at the part of the hotel at the back nearest the sea.

They had this huge crane down there lifting things about onto that roof. My block by the way is the one where the two palm trees are.

Seeing as it was so nice – and so hot – I decided to go for a walk this morning, especially as I was out of the building already.

It’s a good mile or two’s walk down into town and the route takes me past the fairground that we first saw when we were here in 2005.

Out of season, it’s only open at weekends though, and I’ll be long-gone by then, I reckon.

It’s hard for me to recognise anything here because the place has changed so much since those days.

I certainly don’t remember Ripley’s exhibition here, and I’m sure that there were buildings right by where I’m standing.

Mind you, there have been several hurricanes that have passed this way since 2005, and probably taken a lot of stuff with them.

I remember that place over there, and I remember saying at the time that I would be badgered if I’m going in there – or something similar anyway.

But I’m sure that it was on the other side of the road back then.

But never mind the changes – when I was here in 2005 they had loads of tee-shirts with all kinds of different phrases such as “when God made me he was showing off” – which I thought was appropriate for Zero.

And they were still on sale – the same ones too probably judging by the dust.

By now, the heat was intense and the sunshine was overwhelming.

And so having armed myself with a new hat (my old one is stuck on a boat somewhere up in North West River, Labrador) and sunglasses, I went off to find the pier.

That’s still here – the passing hurricanes seem to have managed to leave that well alone, which is just as well.

Here’s the view looking south from the pier. Not actually from down at the end, because it costs $1:00 to go down to the end and I’m a cheapskate.

It seems to be a fact that the further south you go from the centre of Myrtle Beach, the cheaper the accommodation becomes.

I’m a good mile or two down there somewhere, way beyond the other pier that you can see in the distance.

On the other hand, the further north you go, the more exclusive the place becomes and the more expensive it costs to stay there.

Right down at the end on the horizon several miles away is North Myrtle Beach, and that’s just unbelievably expensive.

At the far end of the road down there is a golf and country club, and prices there are just absurd.

This is the “Bible Belt” of the USA where they constantly deny the phenomenon of things like Global Warming.

And despite their official denials, you can see evidence everywhere that they really DO believe in global warming.

This explanatory panel about the presence of glacial ice sheets to the north and icebergs off the coast of Myrtle Beach will tell you that.

And yet Global Warming isn’t really happening, is it?

In the intense heat, I’ve bought myself one of these drinks of iced slush stuff and I sit in the shade of an overhanging tree to admire the view.

And listen to one holidaymaker wailing that he has confused the times of his bus back home and it’s left without him, so he needs to make other arrangements.

But I only have half an ear open to listen to him. I’m more intent on enjoying the sunshine and looking at the scenery.

That’s the southern pier, and no photographs from thereupon, because here you have to pay to set foot on the pier – never mind going down to the end.

And on this part of the beach we aren’t allowed to walk on the sand dunes. They have been reseeded with wild oats, the roots of which spread in an immense network that stabilises the dunes.

So you’ll have to make do with a photo from here.

By now the heat is overwhelming and I go wander slowly back to my room. And despite it being only 2 storeys up, I’m obliged to take the lift. The heat is debilitating.

I keep thinking to myself that I ought to make my butties for a late lunch – but it’s too hot and I’m too tired to go outside again for the moment.

Consequently I close my eyes for five minutes – to find that it’s 18:00 and I’ve been out for four hours.

It was probably the wrong thing to do, to go for a walk this morning, because although I’m awake, I can’t even find the energy to go and make tea – and it’s not as if it would take too much either seeing that all it needs is a warm-up.

But then, this is the kind of thing that happens every now and again.

EPIC HALL

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