Tag Archives: crash out

Friday 29th December 2017 – AND SO …

… late last night, I crawled off into bed. Feeling like death but I thought that I’d be better in there seeing as there’s more room and it’s more comfortable than the sofa.

It took an age to go off to sleep, having had enough of that to pass the time in the hospital. But when I did, I was really away with the fairies.

We started off back in the family pile in Shavington and I had to leave my bed as a matter of urgence. But in the bathroom, the end of the bath had been smashed off, the toilet was broken and the sink was in pieces. There was water flooding everywhere. I was totally amazed as to all of this. My brother said “didn’t you see the end sheets?”. I didn’t have the first idea of what he meant for a while until it suddenly struck me that he was referring to the work sheets at the end of the day. “We’ll all have a whip-round and fix this” he suggested, but I wasn’t having any of this. I didn’t know what had happened except that it wasn’t anything to do with me.
From there I moved on to my house in Gainsborough Road where I was with my mother. I opened the curtains in the front window and noticed just how untidy everything was (we’re back on this tidiness thing yet again). My mother told me that it would be an idea to take some of the stuff outside so I gathered up a pile of rubbish, put it in some black plastic boxes and took it outside. There I bumped into the big ginger cat – a huge thing, mostly legs like one of the drawings of a Celtic horse in art form. I picked it up and took it inside and showed it to my little sister. She ran off saying that she hated it so I put it down – when immediately one of the other cats leapt on top of it to play with it.
A litle later I was driving along the Calveley Straight on the A51 (although this was actually the North Wales Coast Road) when I saw a low-flying passenger aeroplane fire off a distress rocket. My former friend from Stoke on Trent was driving but before I could draw his attention to it, the aeroplane did a “U-turn”, turned black, and then bright-red bits like lumps of molten metal were falling off it. And then it disappeared from view. By ow he had seen it so we turned off the road to go to where it might have crashed – but just then two cars coming extremely rapidly in opposite directions took off into the air over the brow of a hill and collided head-on in mid air. The crunch was sickening and flying debris knocked over a bride, complete with dress, standing on the street corner. She was covered in blood. The accident had also knocked over a couple of small motorbikes and their drivers were sprawled out in the road. We dashed for the steps (me hopelesssly in the rear) that took us up a hill to where we reckoned the plane had crashed but I was blocked by hordes of people coming down. “We know that you are trying to help” said a man, “but you’re just cluttering up the place”. And then I realised just how stupid this all was. I hate the sight of blood and operations as you know, so what good would i be at an air crash? I couldn’t even go to tend to this bride or the people crawling about all over the place after the road accident.

So having dealt with that marathon, I took my place in the vague direction of the Land of the Living. I was still feeling dreadful and as the Doctor wanted to see me, I phoned for an appointment. It’s not urgent so I took one tomorrow morning.

And as a treat, I managed a bowl of porridge. It took me an hour to eat it and it was disgusting but at least it stayed in. That, I suppose, is progress.

I had to go round to the hospital aterwards. To take the details of my Health Insurance. And surprisingly enough, I felt a little better being out in the cold windy air. But then again, it’s hard to feel worse.

At the hospital I was pushed from pilar to post but eventually found the correct people who, much to my surprise, were quite helpful. Certainly the best financiers tht I’ve met so far on my perambulations around the various French hospitals. I suppose that being a seaside resort they are more used to foreign visitors with strange Insurance details.

What was even more helpful was that they opened a file for me “for future use”. I imagine that I might need it.

On the way back, I called at the Casino for a few more bits and pieces and then came home. Despite it being warm in here, by 15:30 I was tucked up under the quilt asleep.

Later in the evening I was feeling a little better – to such an extent that I made some tomato soup from a packet. Despite spilling a good proportion of it on the hob, I managed a couple of mugs of it – which even stayed down. And I even finished off with a soya dessert.

So tomorrow is another day. I feel better with some food (such as it is) and I hope that I can keep up tomorrow. Meantime we’ll see what the doctor has to say.

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Wednesday 27th December 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… last night about having a relapse last night, that’s for sure.

But first, having had a really early night I was well away with the fairies.

I was on an Arctic expedition last night – but not one that was doing anyone any credit. There were two camps – the advanced camp and the upport camp and they were both beset in the ice. The advancced camp was having a great deal of difficulty, being ice-bound as it was and was badly in need of support and supplies. However these were unlikely to come from the support camp which was organised in a totally chaotic manner and nothing was moving forward. I spend most of my time shuttling between the two, trying to see if I could hustle things along. But without any effect. And when sponsors started to reclaim their equipment I knew that the writing was on the wall for everyone.
After a little break involving a trip down the corridor and something to drink, I was back again. Living i extremely straightebed circumstances in a derelict shed full of waste and rubbish, rather like my barn in France. There was an old van in there and there was another couple – someone I knew from University in fact – living in it with his girlfriend. She needed to go to the bathroom, and so did I, so I offered to take her but the guy who was rather possessive refused to let her. So I asked if I could come through his van to leave the building rather than fighting my way all around. After I’d set foot out of the building she came – he’d agreed to let her go. She was carrying a ironing board and something else that needed to be delivered, both of which were to somewhere up in the Middlewich Street area of Crewe, one of which was an Indian takeaway. But I couldn’t remember where these places were which was rather bizarre.

I was awake fairly early but in no real hurry to leave the bed. I didn’t manage any breakfast though but nevertheless drifted along with the morning doing a little of this and a little of that.

The big mistake was making myself a bowl of soup in the early afternoon. I didn’t manage to drink much of it – and about an hour later back it came. And that was that.

It wasn’t much later that I went to fetch the quilt and the pillow – and there I spent the rest of the day – and the night too – flat out on the sofa hardly moving.

But the cough is back in spades again, and so is the nausea and vomiting. I’m just going to drift into graceful oblivion and if I’m feeling up to it, I’ll be back at the doctor’s tomorrow.

I just can’t go on like this.

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Tuesday 26th December 2017 – PHEW!

What a night!

It’s been a long time since anything like this has happened. Years, in fact. I was still sitting up wide-awake at 04:00 and I’ve no idea why.

But I was eventually in bed and started off at the leaving ceremony and prize-giving of my old school. And how we trashed it! Not in any serious, major way of course but we did rather run riot, altering the script into a series of double-entendres, puns, spoonerisms all kinds of things. Having fun changing round the prizes and all of that. Nothing too extreme but exactly as I had planned it back in 1972 and which was vetoed by everyone else as being rather over the top (well, it WAS a rather conservative school).
But from there I moved on into the rather exalted realms of royalty. And it really was one of those absurd dreams where we were all living in stables, tipping oats into cars to feed horses and the like yet wining and dining in luxury. Everyone was wearing coffee carafes around their necks and I actually overfilled the carafe of one of the princes, almost drowing him much to the amusement of his partner but not to him of course. And in the middle of all of this I was using the telephone to send some faxes, spread out all across a road and blocking some young girl in a car. While I was clearing a path she ended up talking to one of these royal people and was impressed that home decoration articles could be ordered in this way so she came over to make further enquiries. Once I’d finished, I found out that I had to go round to the NWF offices in Nantwich to pick up the copy of my faxes – but then the idea entered my head was that I needed to be there first before a representative from the Royal family arrived to take away all of the faxes, and even if I were there first, would I be allowed to search through the Royal Family faxes to find those that I had sent?

All of the foregoing took me up until, would you beieve, 11:45 in the morning. And when was the last time that I’d had a lie-in quite like that?

Of course, all of this makes me running late, but then again it’s not as if I have too many other things to bother me, do I? I ended up for a while having a nice relaxing afternoon on the sofa, not doing much at all.

This afternoon’s walk was exciting. The wind has sprung up and it was rather absurd out there. I had to keep well away from the cliff edge and there were times when I wasn’t sure if it was prefereable to turn back and seek shelter. But the promise of a hot chocolate at the end of the journey dove me along.

But a weird thing later.

The wind dropped somewhat so I went out for my evening walk, but at a certain moment I was overwhenlmed with fatigue. To such an extent that I really struggled to make it back home.

Straight to bed – without even my second hot chocolate – and I promptly crashed out.

Am I heading for a relapse?

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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.

notre dame de cap lihou granville manche normandy franceAt 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.

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Thursday 21st December 2017 – I’VE FINALLY BITTEN …

… the bullet and I’ve arranged a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning.

After last night, I was feeling rather better this morning. But to tell you how bad things really are, it took almost 2.5 hours of film on the laptop before I managed to fall asleep. I’m clearly not well, am I?

I’d been on my travels too – down Coleridge Way in Crewe. And when I say “down”, I mean about 30 feet down because it was all under water. A couple of trips down there at various epochs, comparing the cars that were parked there – like “N” reg Marinas, that kind of thing.

No alarm, but I was still awake quite early. Not that this meant that I left the bed early of course. More like 08:30 in fact.

It took me ages to summon up the force to leave the sofa for my medication, and it goes without saying that I declined breakfast. I was back on the sofa again.

For lunch, I made a litre of packet soup and managed to drink a couple of mugs. But that’s left a horrible, metallic taste in my mouth that I can’t shift.

There was still the question of picking up my medication so round about 15:00 I crawled into town. A baguette from the bouangerie (to go in the freezer with the other one) and some little bits and pieces from the Coccinelle. And then the medication.

The walk back up here was a nightmare. I fet weak and dizzy and had to sop every couple of hundred yards. Definitely the worst trip that I’ve ever made back here. That was what made up my mind to see the doctor.
“Is it an emergency?” asked the receptionist
I explained the circumstances.
“I can’t fit you in before 10:15 tomorrow” she said.
Imagine that in the UK?

And then I crashed out on the sofa.

Rosemary rang later and we had a little chat. Only a little one, because I’m not feeling so well right now. But by 18:00 I had succumbed, and went to fect the pillow and quilt.

I managed to force down some dry biscuits later, but without any real enjoyment. And now I’m going back to bed.

I wonder what the doctor will have to say tomorrow.

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Wednesday 20th December 2017 – IT HASN’T …

… become any easier or better today. In fact, I’ve probably hit rock-bottom today.

The nadir of it all was when I didn’t eveb have the strength to take the top off a bottle of pop. That’s enough to make anyone feel ill.

I had a nuit blanche last night, which is hardly a surprise seeing the amount of sleep that I had yesterday. I cancelled the alarms but even so, I was still awake at alarm-going-off time.

Mind you, it wasn’t until about 07:45 that I left my bed. I took my quilt and pillow with me and moved to install myself on the sofa as soon as I had taken my medication.

I had a slight interruption though with a major attack of nausea. That was the worst one to date, and it floored me completely. I should have gone out later to pick up the medication that had been ordered yesterday, but there was no chance of that the way I was feeling.

Instead, I’ve spent all day on the sofa asleep. Although I did manage to force down a bowl of porridge during te course of the morning.

One thing that I have done which hasn’t helped matters at all is that I’ve coughed so much that I’ve pulled a muscle in my chest. And I’m in agony whenever I cough.

US Granville were playing their final match of the season tonight and I had every intention of being there. But no chance of that. I’m going to bed – to sleep for ever I hope.

I wish that I was dead.

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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.

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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.

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Sunday 17th December 2017 – I’VE HAD A …

… horrible day today.

Easily the worst that I’ve had for quite some considerable time.

With it Sunday and being a lie-in, I was disappointed to be awake at 05:45. And so I tried my best to go back to sleep, despite a nip to the bathroom and a bad attack of cramp on the way.

Despite all of this, I must have been to sleep for I was on my travels. Wandering around the streets of New York City where, instead of parking meters, there were lockable storage boxes where you could leave your things while you were walking about.

But when I finally crawled out of bed at 09:00 I was feeling totally awful. It took me a while to eat my breakfast and then I had to have a sit-down.

I couldn’t stay seated for long – there’s a few things that I need for food and the supermarket in town is open on a Sunday morning so regardless of how I was feeling, I went shopping.

Down at the Coccinelle I bought what I needed and then, seeing as there was a brocante going on, I went through for a brows. But there was nothing at all worth my while.

It was a struggle back up the hill to here, and after a hot blackcurrant, I sat down on the sofa and crashed out.An hour later, I was awake, and still not feeling good, so I fetched a pillow and the quilt from the bedroom an sorted myself out on the sofa.

And there I stayed, flat-out until 20:00. I was feeling dreadful.

It’s 22:00 now and I’m slowly feeling a little better. I’m going to bed anyway now and seeing if I can have an early night. I’ll take a film with me anyway to make sure I go off to sleep.

And I hope that I’ll feel better in the morning.

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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.

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Saturday 9th December 2017 – YOU MISSED …

… even more excitement this evening.

Walking past the roundabout at the top of the hill this evening and I heard a crash. A scooter went one way, its rider went another and his artificial leg (for he was a unijambiste) did a Tony B Liar and went a third way.

It seemed that some woman had failed to stop at the entry to the roundabout and consequently despatched the aforementioned into the bushes.

I helped him to his feet, someone else screwed his leg back on and we all got him and his bike to the side of the road. He was more shaken than stirred but once I was assured that he was OK, I left him to get on with things and I went on for the football.

I’d had a reasonable night’s sleep for a change ad I’d been on my travels too.

We started off in some kind of theatre where there was some entertainment going on, provided by a group of kids. However the star of the show, a little blonde-haired girl, was missing and this started a frantic hunt. This led us into a kind of pre-school nursery school, the type that was intended for the sons of noblemen rather than the likes of us, and if ever I commercialise the little game that the kids were playing that helped them learn the names of the Greek philosophers, I shall clean up.

After breakfast I had to wait for my medication to work and it took so long this morning that I forewent my shower. I’d miss the bread in LIDL if I hang around too long.

And this would have been the cheapest shop yet had it not been for one or two special purchases. I’m going away on Wednesday morning as you know so I don’t need much. Just a couple of things in LIDL and a couple more in LeClerc.

NOZ had a couple of little bits and pieces but nowhere had a container to keep my Christmas cake. Not a large cake tin, and not a large plastic container either. I forget how many shops I went into (and some of them twice too) without success. In the end, I bought a plastic storage bin and sealed the cake in with clingfilm. I’m hoping that Leuven might come up with something suitable next week.

But I did find a new suitcase. You may recall that in Oostende a while ago my small wheeled suitcase gave up the ghost and I replaced it with a temporary one. That was a cheap and nasty thing, and not suitable for long-term use, so I’ve bought a small solid wheeled one for my trips to Leuven.

I’d planned to stop off on the way back to phptograph the storm breaking on the sea wall at high tide in the daylight, and so as you might expect, the wind has dropped today and everything has calmed down.

After lunch I crashed out for an hour or so, and then walked off up town to the football, stopping for the scooter incident on the way.

US Granville were playing St Pryve St Hilaire FC this evening, in front of a small crowd of just 515 people.

Although Granville were a little more focused this week, they still didn’t look all that impressive. They had more of the play but St Pryve St Hilaire FC looked more dangerous on the break. In fact, the Granville centre-forward ploughed a very lonely furrow up front without very much help from his colleagues.

St Pryve St Hilaire FC scored from a breakaway, shrugging off a couple of lightweight, ineffective challenges, and the equaliser from Granville was a ball over the top of the defence with a midfielder running on.

Mind you, we could have had several more goals but both goalkeepers were in inspired form this evening making several excellent saves, including the Grancille keeper making a marvellous double-save at point-blank range.

As the rain started to fall, in the last 15 minutes; Granville came to life again just like last match, but couldn’t find the killer thrust to win the game.

On the way back, I called in at the railway station to pick up my tickets for Wednesday, and then went for a wander to take the photos of the Christmas lights in the town. And I would have been out much longer had the weather been kinder.

Tea was potatoes, beans and vegan sausages done in the microwave, Delcious it was too. Now I’m going to have an early night and a nice lie-in tomorrow.

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Thursday 7th December 2017 – WE HAVE …

… a new visitor in the harbour today.

Thrashing her way into harbour today came Normandy Trader. She’s not a sister ship to Shetland Trader and Islay Trader but she is in fact a converted landing craft of the type that we have seen on several occasions in different places around the world.

She’s not by any means new to Granville – in fact she works a shuttle to here from Jersey on a regular basis just like Grima, and so I’m surprised that I’ve never seen here here before.

But here you can see her smashing her way through the storm into the harbour. It really is wicked outside and the spray is flying everywhere as the waves crash into the concrete sea walls.

The wind has turned round and is now blowing from the north-west, and that’s right into the harbour mouth. No wonder that Normandy Trader is making heavy weather of it. Landing craft aren’t designed for conditions like this, especially with a gross tonnage of just 73 tonnes. She was being tossed around like a cork out there.

Last night was a reasonable night for me. Although it took me a while to go off to sleep, I was well away. I somehow missed the first alarm, although I must have responded as the phone was in my hand when I awoke, not under the pillow where it usually is.

But anyway, the second alarm of Billy Cotton and his “Wakey waaaaaaa ….KEYYYYYY” took me completely by surprise.

After breakfast and a little rest, I had a shower and then braved the wind and rain up to LIDL.

Had I still been living on the farm, I would have bought quite a bit of stuff from their special offers this week. But with having changed my lifestyle considerably, there’s nothing that I really need.

But had I been Rhys, I would have been spending my money there. He’s trying to organise some interior lighting for his bus, and they had the rows of 12-volt LED striplights that I like so much. 212 lumens, which is the equivalent of about 18 watts of incandescent power, but drawing 0.1 watt. And you can link them together to give you a running strip light.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a pile back down on the farm and use them as work lights over the work benches. And they are great.

I walked back here in the rain and was almost trampled to death in the rush of a pile of little kids descending from a school bus. And back here, I had a coffee and a … errr … relax.

After lunch I braved the wind and gales and went for a walk around the headland. And I was the only person out there. And that’s no surprise given the weather.

Tonight I went out for my other walk around the walls – and I’ve done 105% of my day’s target according to the fitbit.

The wind has changed further round now and so I stood for hours on the headland watching the waves down below crash over the sea wall and onto the promenade. It’s an amazing spectacle, the power of nature out there.

Rosemary rang up and we put the world to rights for an hour, and I booked my trip to Leuven for next week too. I’ll be staying at the flathotel at the back of the prison.

Tea was steaeed vegetables and vegan sausages in vegan cheese sauce – and delicious it was too.

So seeing that I have no plans for tomorrow, I’m going to have a nice quiet day of relaxing and organising myself for Leuven

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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.

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Thursday 30th November 2017 – MY FITBIT …

.. will tell you everything that you need to know about last night. Hours sleeping – 3:36, of which restless sleep – 0:20.

That’s not very good, is it? No wonder I was feeling rather miserable this morning. But even so, I still beat the second alarm.

The fresh muesli was nice, and so was the coffee that followed it. And the nice hot shower was even nicer. I was ready for anything after that. Well, almost.

It was pouring down with rain outside and it looked as if that was that for my trip to LIDL. But at about 09:30 the rain stopped and we had some small amount of blue sky, so I dashed out to LIDL – well, dashed as well as I can these days.

The bread was nice, and so were one or two other things, but there were no special offers that tempted me. It seems to be toy week thee, and that will account for the massed crowds of people in there.

But on the way, I observed that we are having roadworks down the hill on the little side street. And when I can find out why my *.ftp add-on has disappeared from my web browser, I’ll post you a photo.

It seems that they are replacing the side wall at the back of the houses there. There was even someone with a strimmer cutting down the weeds just there.

I’ll have to go back tomorrow and have a proper butcher’s.

The rain held off too on the way back, which was good. I didn’t fancy being soaked to death. And it also meant that I could take a photo of the cherry-picker that was blocking the street while they were doing something to the eaces of one of the houses.

With the high winds that we’ve been having just recently (it’s blowing a gale outside right now) it’s hardly surprising that slates and the like are bing dislodged from roofs.

And Combattant was back at work today too, with the digger on the lighter at the side of it going flat-out digging up the silt.

They seem to be making a really good go of this dredging the harbour. I do hope that this will be the key (or should it be “quay”?) to more shipping coming into the port. I could do with some more excitement.

Back here, I had some coffee from the flask and then crashed out for half an hour, which is hardly a surprise. No sleep, a long walk and my general ill-health.

This afternoon I attacked another hard drive of photos. This is going to be a major piece of work as there are tons of the things on this drive. Everything that I want, except of course the ones that I’m looking for.

The story of my life.

Tea was oven chips, frozen peas, fresh carrots and a home-made burger on a bap with mustard and vegan cheese. Delicious it was too, but I’ve noticed that I’m almost out of oven chips.

Braving the hurricane, I went out this evening. It was raining on and off throughout the afternoon but now the rain has stopped, we have clear sky and an almost-full moon. And I would have taken some photos of the Christmas lights except that the battery in the camera decided to go flat at the crucial moment.

So off to bed in a moment, and I hope that I can have a decent night’s sleep.

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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.

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