Tag Archives: early night

Tuesday 12th March 2019 – WHO’S BEEN A …

… busy boy then today?

But first, let me say that over the whole of the day I’ve put my feet outside the door for just about 10 metres today. There’s a howling gale going on outside with torrential rain to boot, and I’ve no intention whatever of suffering outt here unless I absolutely have to;

But back to events in here.

The alarms went off at usual and much to my surprise, I was up and about at 06:45.

Plenty of time to go on a little wander during the night too. I was wandering around somewhere that could easily have been Altrincham. There was some kind of walled yard with a creaky wooden gate, so I glanced in and I saw what I thought was an old twin-cylinder Honda motorbike. So I went in. It was in fact a small single-cylinder Honda with a large chain sprocket. I spoke to the owner and joked that I thought that it might have been an old CB450 “black bomber”. There were several old mtorbikes in this yard, so we had quite a chat about them, so he took me inside to the shed where there was a 200c Triumph single, a BSA250cc single and a couple of other old British motorbikes. And I was wondering which one of these I could fit into the back of Caliburn

The medication and breakfast were thus quite early, and then I settled down to work.

The first job was to attack the photos. I did an hour or so, and then carried on after tea. So that’s another couple of hundred dome for the month of September.

But in between, I attacked the European Paper Mountain and all of that is now done. The shredder didn’t make it right to the end though. It gave up with about a dozen papers to go and not even dismantling it to clean it seems to have worked. In the end I had to tear up the rest of the papers by hand.

Next step was to go through all of the loose papers that I had brought with me. I’ve sorted right the way through those, added a lot to the next load of shredding, sorted and filed those for 2016,17,18 and 19, and put the earlier years ready for filing in a spare binder in due course.

Finally, I went through all of the unopened post that had accumulated down on the farm when I wasn’t there. That’s all opened, sorted, some of it binned and the rest of it filed away.

And then we had a giant clean-up of the floor with a brush to sweep up all of the paper bits.

As well as all of that, I also had to make a telephone call to the Isle of man to sort something out, and that involve writing a couple of e-mails. All in all, about an hour was spent on that.

And I’ve rearranged things in the kitchen too, to make more space and to be better-organised. I shan’t know myself at this rate.

This all took me up to tea time, when I made myself a vegan burger with potatoes and veg, followed by chocolate cake and coconut-flavoured chocolate cake. And as I expected, it was delicious.

If that isn’t enough, after tea I fried some onios and garlic, added the remaining packet of tofu and herbs, fried it for a while and then bunged it all in the slow cooker. Even as we speak, it’s simmering away.

That’s for the shepherd’s pie that I will make tomorrow.

So even though it’s not yet 22:00, I’m going to go to bed. I’ve had a very busy day as you can see and I’m exhausted.

A good sleep will do me good, I reckon.

Sunday 17th February 2019 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

… day today.

Shame that I had to spend much of it sitting about on the Gare du Nord in Paris.

The mystery of why my train was cancelled was revealed today, and I really ought to stop myself from being so cynical. Apparently some workmen digging a hole by the side of the railway line during the week had come across an unexploded bomb from World War II.

It was still viable and so it needed to be defused. This had been programmed for Sunday morning and the entire neighbourhood had been evacuated and all of the trains stopped while the bomb squad defused it.

My suggesting that they run a Eurostar full of Brits past the bomb to make it explode was greeted with a great deal of support by the railway staff, but was not (unfortunately) put into practice.

For once in my life I had leapt out of bed with alacrity (and you all thought that I slept alone!) when the alarm went off.

And without my breakfast and without my medication, I attacked the packing, making sandwiches and the tidying up. As well as doing a back-up on the big computer. I also copied a pile of updated files onto the USB key that I take with me when I travel.

Off into town with my heavy load – I don’t know why I need so much stuff just for a couple of days, and past the Place General de Gaulle.

Here, they were setting up a brocante for the day. They always seem to have them when I’m either not here or on my way out.

And when I have been here to attend, there’s never been anything actually worth buying.

My route to the railway station takes me from the Place General de Gaulle up the rue Couraye.

I’ve seen this building before but I’ve never really taken much notice of the facade above the shop window.

It seems that this has been a ladies’ outfitters since it was built, judging by the inscription in the concrete work above the first-floor windows.

The train wasn’t in when I arrived so I had a coffee and a sit-down outside. It was a pleasant morning for the time of the year. No-one would ever have said the middle of February

Once the train pulled in, we all piled aboard, me clutching the coffee that I had bought from the machine.

Drinking the coffee and nibbling away on the biscuits that I had bought for breakfast, off we set. And for a couple of hours I had a comfortable sleep on board – just a little tossing and turning here and there.

During all of the time that I’ve been travelling this line, I’ve never really managed a good photograph of the Eiffel Tower.

Today, thought, the conditions were perfect and I finally managed to take a good photo of it.

And in thz background to the right on the crest of the hill you can see the Eglise Sacré Coeur away on Montmartre.

The metro though Paris was crowded today, but it was a strangely deserted Gare du Nord to which I arrived. Just a few people about and only two people in the queue for metro tickets. So seeing that I’m running out, I took the opportunity to buy another packet of 10 tickets.

In the Thalys office they wouldn’t put me on an earlier train – for the simple reason that there wasn’t one.

There was another Thalys on charter to a private group and the girl telephoned to see if I could go on it. The reply on the phone was “yes” – but at the gate it was “no”. So we had a big discussion about that.

And as it happens, it didn’t make any difference anyway because nothing was moving until 15:00.

Eventually I was ushered onto the TGV anyway, and at 15:01 we hit the rails. What surprised me about that was that the train was half-empty. It seems that everyone had been turned away or decided not to travel.

Another thing that surprised me was that we didn’t seem to take the usual route either. It looked completely different until after Charles de Gaulle Airport.

At Brussels I had a wait for my train, so I went to the shop for something for pudding and a bottle of water. I always seem to develop quite a thirst when I’m in Leuven.

The train that brought me from Brussels to Leuven was heaving. It was one of the “push-me-pull-u” express trains from Oostende and there were kids all over it brandishing sand-encrusted buckets and spades.

They had clearly been enjoying themselves in the fine weather – and who could blame them?

I took the lift up to the gallery to walk across the railway lines, only to find that the lift on the other side was out of order. So I had to go back down again and brave the subterranean passage.

Here at my little hotel complex I had rather a surprising conversation with the manager.
“There’s something that I’ve always been meaning to ask you. Didn’t you used to play in a rock band years ago? Your name looks quite familiar”.

Now I can’t remember what I was doing even half an hour ago. So I’m bewildered how come some Flemish guy might remember my name from the only time my name ever appeared in the Music press – when I played bass for a well-known drummer from Wales in an ad-hoc band that played for just one night at Crewe Teachers’ Training College in 1976 or 77.

Having had a good sleep on the train I wasn’t really all that tired so much to my own surprise I didn’t crash out on the bed. Instead, I had a few things to do.

A little later I went for a walk into town for my pizza. After all, it IS Sunday.

Walking past the Herbert Hooverplein, the University library looked splendid, all illuminated in the dark. And with no-one around to spoil my view.

It was just inviting to be photographed and so I duly obliged.

Having had tea now, it might only be 22:00 but this is probably the cue for an early night. I need to catch upon my sleep and save my strength for the battle ahead tomorrow.

Friday 8th February 2019 – I HAD A MESSAGE …

… today on the telephone. “Your parcel will be delivered on 11th February”.

Now I don’t have a delivery planned or an order outstanding so I didn’t have a clue what it might be. I suspected that it might be some kind of scam.

But then I had another idea.

I had a look at the British Government’s Public Service website. And sure enough – there on my private page is a little note “Passport Application status – ‘issued'”.

That was quick – a lot less than the 6-week time limit that is advertised. That can only be good news. So after Monday, I can push on with a project that has been sitting on the back burner for several weeks.

In view of my recent difficulties I decided last night to go to bed somewhat earlier than of late and even not set an alarm for the morning to give me an opportunity to sort myself out. And so waking up at 06:35 wasn’t really quite what I had in mind.

That’s not the best of it either. I was awake at least three times during the night – once as early as 01:20. So you can see that I’m becoming rather fed up of this.

Three different travels during the night too. The first one involved some woman who had been charged to make a meal – possibly a pie – for some kind of meeting. But as time passed on, it became clearer and clearer to everyone that she was an alcoholic and as time passed on she became less and less coherent until she ended up sitting there in an alcoholic stupor.
The second part of the night’s activities involve me being in Macon, where I spent a summer once back in my youth. I was travelling somewhere which involved passing by the big airport at Lyon and so it involved taking the TGV but although we were certainly on the rails (which will come as a mjor surprise to regular readers of this rubbish) we were actually on board a coach.
Thirdly, I don’t remember very much about this but it involved some woman and there was some passing reference to her connection with Shirley Temple – people were comparing her with that actress for some reason, although presumably not with Graham Green’s review.

After breakfast I pushed on with the photo text database. What with one thing or another that took me right up until midday. And I’m now well back into December’s photos. It’ll keep me out of mischief for quite some time.

There was an interruption at Midday though. Rosemary rang me up for a chat and we were on the phone putting the world to rights for a good hour and a half. Not that our ideas will ever be accepted by anyone – they are far too serious and sensible.

After lunch, I cracked on with updating some of the blog entries. I’m now back as far as 23rd January and there will be more done over the weekend if I’m not interrupted by other events.

Talking of interruptions, I went out for my afternoon walk.

You can see what the weather was like simply by comparing this photo here with the photo taken from the same spot yesterday.

There was a howling gale, a spattering of rain and it was freezing cold. Not the right kind of day to be out at all but I have to keep on keeping on, as Bob Dylan famously said.

One thing that occurred to me was that while I’ve been on my travels I haven’t taken a photograph of the lighthouse down the road just recently.

You can also see one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to the right of the lighthouse, and in the foreground is one of the emplacements for the large naval guns that were positioned here.

You might also be able to see a cannon of some description immediately to the right of the lighthouse. there are several all dotted about, all of them damaged

A little further around the Pointe du Roc there was a good vies of the tidal harbour.

The tide was right out and all of the boats were aground on the mud bank.

St Pair-sur-Mer is in the background shrouded in the mist, and on the right is the ship repairer’s.

As for the objects in the foreground, I’m not sure what they might be. I reckon that they are lobster traps whereas others think that they might be dredging buckets.

Back here I carried on with my work – until about 17:30 when, overwhelmed with fatigue, I crawled into bed for an hour or so.

And then I was off on my travels. I was doing something and Rosemary was there. I had a cat, a black one but one that had the same shape as my grey one, and Rosemary was trying to pick it up. I ended up on a rafter going across the ceiling and the cat could only climb so far after me, so she took a flying leap – and missed, falling to the floor. But she found something else – a piece of wood – to climb up and come to join me on my rafter.

There were a couple of sorry-looking potatoes left over in the kitchen so for tea I made a potato and lentil curry. Totally delicious it was too.

Outside later this evening, the wind wasn’t all that strong but the sea was probably the best that I have ever seen.

The waves were totally astonishing – roaring up over the sea wall at the Plat Gousset and soaking just about everyone and everything down there.

It seemed like hours, but it was only about five minutes that I was standing there watching them. It was quite hypnotic.

On the way back, I bumped into someone who actually said “bonsoir”, and also Minette who had a little stroke.

But now I’m going to go to bed. have a nice early night. Shopping tomorrow and I need to be on form. Not that I feel much like it.

storm high seas plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

… “and on many occasions too” – ed … the big problem about going to bed early is that there is a tendency to awaken early.

But waking up at 03:50 is a bit on the ridiculous side.

And waking up with a thirst that you could photograph too, without very much in the way of drink to assuage my thirst either. Half a litre of drink and I could quite easily have polished that off.

But regardless of that, I couldn’t get back to sleep and just lay awake, reminiscing on the nocturnal ramble that I was having and which has now gone completely out of my mind, until 06:00 when the alarm went off.

I heard the other two alarms too, but the next thing that I remember was someone banging a door in the building – at 07:18. I’d gone right back to sleep again. I’d been on a nocturnal ramble too – pushing a shopping trolley around a supermarket in Stoke on Trent stocking up with food and toilet paper – things like that-until the trolley was overloaded. People were looking at me and so I said that I was stocking up now before prices went through the roof, and the strange thing about that, as I even recognised at the time which is surprising, was that I said it in French. In Stoke on Trent they struggle to even speak intelligible English.

Having had a bad day yesterday, I wasn’t feeling much better today. For two pins I would have turned over and gone back to sleep.

But I went through the morning ritual and then hit the streets. Glorious sunshine and a temperature of minus 4°C. Not the day for loitering.

But loiter I did for at least part of the journey.

In the daylight I stopped to take a photo of the drainage work that I had seen in the Tiensestraat last night. They were all out there, the workmen, working on it. I hadn’t noticed the pipes last night so they may have been anly just delivered

A little further on down the Tiensestraat I was distracted yet again.

Fire engines and ambulances and barriers in the Herbert Hooverplein told us the story. There had been what I assumed to be a fire in one of the blocks of flats just there as you can see, and the emergency services had been called out.

They didn’t look to be in all that much of a hurry so I imagine that there wasn’t anything serious going on and that the crisis had passed.

My perambulations took me down the hill into the Brusselsestraat where there was more of interest going on.

There’s a huge plan to knock down the big modern hospital that is now surplus to requirements and also to refurbish a couple of the derelict 19th Century buildings in the vicinity.

They are water-washing the brickwork of one of these buildings, so that have shrouded it all off to avoid inconveniencing the passers-by.

I was early at the hospital and it was just as well because the reception area was heaving. It must have taken 15 minutes to be seen. And it was even worse downstairs. My appointment was for 09:50 and it wasn’t until 10:35 that I was taken off by a nurse to be fitted out.

She didn’t speak English so we had my insertion interview in Flemish. Things are definitely improving from that point of view.

There wasn’t a comfy seat for me either so I had to make do with a normal one. It definitely wasn’t my day.

But there s some good news. The protein loss has stabilised and the blood count has increased. And I’ll tell you for nothing that it certainly doesn’t feel like it

And that’s not all either. You never know what you are entitled to until you ask, and I asked a speculative question. The answer was quite surprising and it’s opened up a whole new vista of opportunities that I thought might have been closed.

It was long after 16:00 by the time that I was kicked out. And then I had the rounds of the chemists to do. There seems to be issues of supply of certain of my medications. I had to try three chemists before I could find what I needed – and then a lot of it was substitutes.

The Delhaize was next, to buy the food for the next couple of days. And as well as vegan sorbets and vegan margarine, I picked up some Vegan wienerschnitzels which I hadn’t seen before and … “SHOCK” … “HORROR” … some vegan cheese, which seems now to be on sale there. I forgot to buy some drink though, so I had to call up at the big SPAR near my accommodation.

Back here, I had a shower and washed my clothes. There’s a curtain rail right over the heater here so they won’t take long to dry. And that was the cue for a coffee.

The vegan schnitzels were delicious, with potatoes and frozen peas and carrots. and followed down by raspberry sorbet.

But having had a day where I wasn’t able to have a good sleep, I decided on an early night. I didn’t even do the washing up. Tomorrow is a Day of Rest while I gather up my resources and gird up my loins ready for the journey back home.

21 January 2019 fire herbert hooverplein leuven belgie

building work brusselsestraat leuven belgie

Sunday 20th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN BUILDING …

… up for a while so it’s no surprise that I was going to have a bad day sooner or later. But to have one on the day that I’m travelling is not what I was expecting at all.

Possibly it was the late-ish night that didn’t help, or possibly it was the fact that I couldn’t drop off to sleep..Or maybe even the fact that I awoke at about 05:40. But whatever it was, it wasn’t very good.

Still, no point in holding off the inevitable. I crawled out of bed.

No medication, and no breakfast either. Instead, I had a shower, a clean-up and a change of clothes, and then unplugged all of the electrical appliances (although I realised later that I had still left a few plugged in).

Packing the food and making the butties was next. A quick bit of cleaning up and tidying was next and then I hit the streets.

It was a long, lonely, difficult crawl up to the railway station and I really didn’t feel at all like it.

When I arrived at the station the garrulous cleaner was there so we had a little chat about things.

Luckily the train was in so I quickly grabbed a coffee and clambered aboard to my seat. I could sit and eat my breakfast in comfort while I waited for things to happen.

The train set off bang on time and that’s always encouraging, but my optimism didn’t last all that long. We’d only travelled a few miles before there was a call over the PA ystem “could any doctor or nurse on board make themselves known to the ticket collector?”.

Is there a doctor in the house? I hadn’t realised that I looked so bad.

But as it happens, it wasn’t for me.

Our train made an unscheduled stop at Folligny and all of a sudden there were a lot of people running around outside. Eventually, an ambulance pulled up on the station forecourt and the emergency personnel started to run around.

Round about this time I dozed off to sleep but by the time that I awoke we had the SAMU here too. And after a good while they evacuated a person on a stretcher. Judging by the heavy covers over the stretcher and the lack of urgency of the emergency personnel, it can’t have been good news for whoever it was.

75 minutes late, we headed off on our route. I made sure that I had the ticket collector sign my ticket to say that the train was delayed. It’s going to be touch-and-go for me to catch my TGV in Paris.

At Villedieu-les-Poeles I was joined by a fellow-passenger – a charming lady. I was looking forward to some convivial company but she just buried her head in her book and that was that.

70 minutes late at Montparnasse-Vaugirard so I had to move fairly rapidly – the last thing that I felt like. I was interrupted too by some African woman who wanted me to tell her the directions to somewhere or other – but what do I know?

We had a long wait for a metro too. This wasn’t looking good. And it was crowded too but I managed to grab a folding seat and make a start on my butties.

Much to my surprise, when I arrived at Paris Gare du Nord our train was already at the platform. She is our old friend PBKA 4304. We’ve travelled on this one on several occasions

Even more surprisingly I found that I still had half an hour to wait before I could board the train. I hadn’t been delayed as long as I thought. There was even a free seat in the public area for me to sit and finish off my lunch and that was even more surprising.

We were allowed on board the train early and I ended up with another charming and personable companion. But she was busy on her telephone so I curled up and went to sleep – just waking up long enough to have my ticket inspected.

The train arrived in Brussels a few minutes early which was very nice. I actually had plenty of time to buy my ticket for my train to Leuven.

That was on time too so it wasn’t long before I was in Leuven. A nice comfortable ride in a nice comfortable train.

But winter is here in Leuven, that’s for sure. It’s minus 2°C and there’s plenty of frost lying about all over the place.

At my little lodgings there is no trace of my passport unfortunately, but at least my room is warm and comfortable. I unpacked everything and then, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out. And for two hours too. I was well away with the fairies.

I was awake later long enough to walk into town to pick up a pizza. After all, it is Sunday.

One thing that I noticed was that the Tiensestraat is closed off and they’ve dug up the road. Judging by the look of things it seems to be something to do with the drainage. But whatever it is, it will keep them out of mischief for a while.

My pizza was absolutely delicious and I really enjoyed it.

But I was soon back in bed. I just can’t last the pace these days, can I?

medical emergency gare du folligny manche normandy france

drainage work tiensestraat leuven belgie

Sunday 25th November 2018 – I WAS REALLY …

… Looking forward to my good night’s sleep, having made a determined effort to have an early night. But it all went wrong round about 01:45 when I awoke with a severe attack of cramp. So severe was it that all of my usual methods of relaxing the muscles failed to work and I ended up hopping around the apartment in agony until I could reset the leg;

It didn’t take me long to go back to sleep either. And when I did, I was away with the fairies again. On board ship, yet again, but this time on the way to Whittlesea Bay where Mrs Povey was busy organising the support for the local carnival. I really must stop listening to all of these episodes of the Navy Lark.

The body clock was working fine and I was awake before the two alarms. As a fall-back I have configured an older mobile phone to work as an alarm clock when it’s important, in case we have another upgrade.

No breakfast – just to back up the computer onto the travel memory stick attached to the keyring. And then to make my sandwiches, pack my rucksack,take out the rubbish and do some cleaning up.

It was raining outside, so I sorted out my raincoat again and had a rather wet and weary trudge through the dampened streets.

The tide was in so there were several fishing boats tied up at the quay by the fish-processing plants, unloading last night’s catch.

This one here has a great set of lights for seeing what it’s doing. It might be the same brightly-lit one that we’ve seen on a couple of previous occasions just now.

The town was quite deserted, as you might expect at this time of a sunday morning.

I mentioned the other day that they had begun to install the Christmas lights and I’d noticed last night that some of them were illuminated.

And so I suppose that I had better take a photo of them illuminated while there is no-one abot.

At the station I reckon that whoever had used the coffee machine before me had had a hot chocolate, because my coffee didn’t half taste strange.

There was a very friendly cleaner on the railway station and we had a very interesting while waiting for my train to arrive. There are all kinds of changes happening on the railways with the Caen-Rennes trains being diverted to pass by Granville, the doubling of the line between Dol-de-Bretagne and Avranches and the reinforcement of the shuttle service between Pontorson and Mont St Michel.

This is all good news, because there has been some talk about the possibility of closing the railway station and putting everyone on buses. But here we have an example of stopping one of the buses here (the bus to Folligny station) and increasing the rail connection. I’m keen to see how this is going to develop.

The train wasn’t all that full at first, although I had a couple of people witting opposite me. But slowly, little by little, the train filled up as advanced towards Paris. By the time that we arrived at L’Aigle the train was packed.

Somewhere between L’Aigle and Verneuil sur Ayre we stampeded a herd of deer in a field by the railway line. It must be that time of the year now, with the hunters starting to come out.

As we pulled into Paris, I admired the courage of the lady opposite who started to reapply her lipstick as the train rattled over all of the sets of points. I didn’t get to see the finished job but it must really have been something

The station at Montparnasse-Vaugirard wasn’t quite the chaos that it has been for the last few Sundays but it was crowded all the same. The Metro was pretty crowded too and I had to stand all the way up to the Gare du Nord.

At Gare du Nord I was lucky to find a seat where I could eat my butties but we had a rather curious incident there.

Some woman pushed a goblet with money in it under my nose. Thanking her, I took the contents. It was several Moroccan coins and a British sixpence. I put them in my pocket.

She then made a gesture, pointing to her mouth, saying “money – eat”.
I told her that she would break her teeth, eating money.

She then pointed to her belly, saying – “eat – baby”
I replied that if she has eaten a whole baby she would get indigestion.

This kind of desultory conversation continued for a few minutes and then she wandered off elsewhere.

Our TGV was packed to the gunwhales. Not a spare seat anywhere.

Luckily I was one of the first on board so I didn’t have to scramble for my seat, which was right down at the far end of the coach.

I spent most of the journey in a deep and profound sleep – with just one awakening to let my seating companion out, and another one for me to visit the bathroom.

We were bang on time in Brussels but so was the 15:42 to Leuven, which meant that I missed it. But there was another one right behind – at 15:56 to Eupen

That was 5 minutes late so there was quite a crowd gathered for it. Luckily I was right at the front so I was able to grab a seat but those who boarded the train at the middle had to walk the whole length of the train before they could find somewhere.

Here in Leuven it was freezing cold and foggy and I had a bitter walk all the way to my digs.

I’m in a room at the top overlooking the courtyard – I’ve not been in one of these before.

Tonight is pizza night so I had a stroll into town in the rain to the place that does my special pizzas.

They’ve put up the Christmas lights in the Tiensestraat, although they seem to be somewhat feeble. I was expecting to see much more than this.

It’s a sign of the times, I suppose.

Back here, I had my tea, and then a shower and clothes wash.

And it seems that I’ve forgotten to bring a spare pair of trousers so I hope that these will dry for the morning.

With the computer locking up, I decided to have an early night. 121% of my daily activity is enough for any man and I have a busy day tomorrow?

rue lecampion granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 14th November 2018 – 01:35 …

… 03:30 and 05:20.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fishing with a net off the Pointe du Roc

Thursday 4th October 2018 – I CAN TELL …

… that things are going downhill as far as my health is concerned. I’ve had a very bad day today.

So having crashed out last night definitively at about 22:00 (and no surprise there) I was wide-awake again at 02:15 on the dot and up working at 02:40. Which meant that I wasn’t disturbed in the least by the internet connection dropping and restarting at 02:30 onwards, and pinging the telephone each time that it did so.

There was time to go on my travels too – up to the High Arctic once again where I was disguised or pretending to be an Inuit, saying goodbye to everyone. And it was one of those protracted, long emotional goodbyes that somehow managed to take several days as I visited many of the places where I had recently been (and several other places that I didn’t recognise either).

By the time 06:00 came around I was ready for my medication. And this was followed by breakfast. Muesli, apple puree grape juice and coffee. Back to our usual habits. and then back to work.

But I couldn’t keep going, which was hardly surprising. I curled up on the bed and that was that until 13:00. Out like a light.

When I awoke the coffee that remained in the percolator had burnt. That wasn’t much good. I had a bit of a stagger around to regain my composure, and at about 14:30 I decided to go out.

LIDL and LeClerc were the destinations today. Caliburn started perfectly after 5 weeks of pause and that was good news.

We didn’t buy anything special apart from a twin-USB plug for Caliburn but the bill still came to about €50:00. Supplies were pretty low with having had a clear-out before I came away.

But I saw my first “F” plate while I was out. That was hardly a surprise. I reckoned that they were due to come out at the beginning of September.

Back here I had a struggle to fit the frozen food into the fridge. I’d forgotten that I’d made a ton of frozen meals before going away. And having bought a pile of fresh mushrooms (they were on special offer) I’ll be making some more too.

By the time that I had done that and made my sandwiches it was 17:00 so I went to sit on the wall in the late-afternoon sun. One of the lizards came to visit me too which was quite nice. Clearly haven’t forgotten the pear droppings.

But back here, I couldn’t keep going and by 18:00 I was back in bed.

21:00 I awoke and found to coffee gone cold on the chest of drawers by the bed. There’s no doubt that I’m going downhill.

And the raging thirst is back. And as I have said before, that’s always a very bad sign. It usually heralds the start of a bout of ill-health and after all that I’ve been through just recently, that’s hardly a surprise.

But I shall keep on going. Still some life left in the old dog yet and I intend to make the most of it. But as TS McPhee once famously wrote
I’m like a ship on the ocean that’s rolling from side to side
But I’m not drunk I’m just dissatisfied
It’s not my body but my mind I can’t control
I have everything I need but still…..I want more

I’ve done everything that I’ve ever set out to do
I become so well known that they’ve put me in who’s who
But I’ve reached the limit and I don’t know what to do
If I can’t go no further I’ll have to go back…..to being poor

Tuesday 25th September 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE DAY!

This is easily the worst day that I have ever had (apart from days when I’ve been genuinely ill of course) and if I don’t manage to pull myself together somehow I’m going to be in trouble.

I’d been on my travels again during the night. Up to the High Arctic yet again, and I was onshore at the time watching the ship come in. But I’m not going into the gory details as you are probably eating lunch or something.

It took me a while to come round to my senses (much longer than you might think, given the amount of senses that I have these days) and then I had breakfast.And then ended up back on the bed for a while.

Round about midday I pulled myself together enough to have a shower and a change of clothes and to make some sandwiches, and then I hauled myself off up into town and the shop.

And this is where it all started to go wrong.

One of the things that I did was to go to see Ellen and find out how she’s doing. She’s in a bit of a state too and we make a right pair between us. We had a chat but I couldn’t keep my eyes open at all.

So I went back across the road – and fell asleep on a chair not once but twice.

By 17:00 I was totally wasted so when we returned here I went back to bed for an hour or so.

Everyone was out this evening so I made myself some baked potatoes, beans and vegan sausages. That set me up nicely for a while and when Darren came back from the chiropractor we had a chat for a while.

But I couldn’t keep going. Half an hour of that did me in. I have a lot of work to do but I just came back down here and crashed out for good.

That was that.

Tuesday 18th September 2018 – AND SO I WENT …

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.

You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

… to bed quite early (and missed all of the excitement too!) and crashed out almost immediately. The record that I was playing Colosseum Live … "now THERE’S a surprise" – ed … was still playing when I briefly awoke, so I quickly turned that off and fell back into the Arms of Morpheus.

It didn’t take me long to go off on my travels and a big Hello! to The Vanilla Queen who made her debut. “Vanilla Queen” indeed, living up to her alter ego! The stress is clearly getting to me, that’s for sure.

With having to be up and about so early I was awake at about 04:30. And again at about 05:15. I couldn’t go back to sleep after that and so I Arose from the Dead and started to tidy up and pack.

We’ve now entered Kangerlussuaq, the “Big Fjord” and so I took a few photos. No sunrise today unfortunately and not really all that much else to see. So I toddled off to breakfast where I had a lengthy chat with Dave about Glasgow and GreenocK. Heather came to join us too for a short while.

Afterwards I finished packing my possessions and then I had to wait around for ages to see what was happening.

Before I could check out. We received a USB stick with all of the voyage details thereupon, and I was able to go back upstairs to upload the photos of Strawberry Moose in his kayak.

Eventually we were called down to the zodiacs and were transported to the shore. We passed by Linda, the cruise director, and I’m afraid that I couldn’t resist it. I said to her “I suppose you’ll give me that e-mail address tomorrow”.

I really am wicked! But serve her right.

A fleet of buses was awaiting us – some modern monstrous machines and also a couple of really elderly vehicles, including a Kassböhrer-Setra and, much to my surprise, a DAB-bodied 1984 Leyland bus.

We went past the ruins of Kellyville, an old American radar base and then up the hill to the old American submarine radio base. Long-since dismantled, you could see how tall the antennae must have been by reference to the concrete base and the size of the cable stays. They were massive.

Much to my surprise the diesel generators were still present – a couple of really old straight-eights. I was about to give them a good look-over but before I could do so we were summoned back to the bus.

Back down the hill again and past the cupola for the gun that defended the port installations and the runway for the airstrip at Kangerlussuaq in World War II. In (and out) of the town to look at the Pride and Joy of the urban area – the new bridge that replaced the one that was washed out in an ice-flood in 2012.

We were told of the volume of water that passes through the bridge at the height of the melt-water season and I can’t remember now what our driver said it was but it was certainly impressive. Today we had a floating plaque of ice that was jammed up against the culvert with all of the water passing underneath.

He showed us the site of the old bridge and explained that if we were to dig down in the collapsed morass we would probably be able to recover a digger that was swept away in the confusion.

Up to the top of the mountain on the other side.

There was a beautiful view of Kangerlussuaq from the top, as well as the old radio and radar installations from the Cold War. Some of the equipment is now utilised by the Danes to pick up the data that is transmitted from weather satellites that pass overhead.

And I found some beautiful glacier-polished rock right on top of the mountain. It looked really splendid.

Back down to the airport – the largest in Greenland with the longest runway – another Cold War legacy. Plenty of time to kill before take-off so I went to watch the Air Greenland planes take off. This is the only airport in which the big jets can land so they unload and turn round here and there are endless shuttles of smaller planes that feed the passengers in and out and on and beyond.

I took the opportunity to eat my packed lunch too. Not that it took me all that long. Laszlo and I clearly have different ideas about the size of my appetite.

Still hordes of people congregating around so I spent quite a while chatting to Sherman, Michael, Christopher and Tiffany. They were sharing out the crisps which I thought was quite nice of them.

Eventually we made our way to the departure lounge and I had another stand-off in what laughingly passes as “security”.

“Empty your pockets!” barked a woman with a badge.
“Would you mind saying ‘please’ to me when you address me” I replied.
This led to an extremely warm 5 minutes until she buckled under.

And now our plane is 90 minutes late. isn’t that a surprise? It’s so late that the second plane has in fact arrived first.

I thought that it would be absolutely awful watching the others depart before us, but they sat for half an hour on the tarmac without moving – and then the rood opened, the stairs came out and the pilot descended.

The cynic in me started to work out all kinds of depressing scenarios and in the words of JRR Tolkein “all are dark and unpleasant”.

We were later told a story of what had happened. Apparently some kind of aeroplane had come to some kind of grief on the runway. Our plane couldn’t land and so had flown back to Iqaluit.

But none of this explains why plane 2 had managed to land on the runway, and why another aeroplane from Air Greenland had managed to land. And why they hadn’t grabbed one of the towing dollies that I had seen in action earlier and yanked the plane off the runway.

20-odd years of working in the tourism industry has imbued me with a desperate sense of cynicism that will one day surely be my undoing. However, I am guided by the comment that “a cynic is someone who sees things as they are, not as they are meant to be”.

And seeing the n°2 aeroplane take off before our (earlier) one had landed did nothing to dispel my feelings.

The tour company offered us a meal of sorts. And after much binding in the marsh they managed to rustle up a salad for me. A blind man would have been pleased to see it, I suppose.

But the biggest laugh is yet to come.

After the meal they gave me a bottle of water – unopened and sealed – out or the restaurant so I strode back into the waiting area. And they wouldn’t let me pass with it and we had quite an argument about it.

But behind me were the tour managers with 200 of the identical bottles of water and they passed those into the security area, right enough. And so we had another argument about that too.

In the meantime, the clock in the waiting room had ceased to function. That’s always a handy stand-by when people are feeling the drag of waiting around. They don’t notice the passage of time if the clock isn’t working.

The plane finally arrived at about 20:35 – a good 15 minutes after the “latest update” time and well over 4 hours after its due DEPARTURE time. And in the meantime Sherwin had given us an impromptu concert to pass the time. One suspects that a certain well-filled brown envelope had changed hands at some point. We even had Latonia singing along.

And once the aeroplane had landed, they started up the clock again.

I really must develop a more positive attitude, as I have been saying for quite a while.

Departure time should have been 16:30. We took to the air at 22:15. That was me thoroughly depressed.

What depressed me even more was when I talked to the cabin crew. They told me that there had been a “maintenance issue” and that, together with the associated paperwork, had delayed the take-off

Clearly someone is being … errrr … economical with the truth somewhere.

And I felt really sorry for The Vanilla Queen. She lives in Iqaluit but was having to take the charter flight to Toronto, and then make her way home via Montreal. So where do you think that we stopped for a refuelling break?

Much to my surprise they actually did have a vegan meal on board. And even more surprisingly, it was quite reasonable too, as far as airline meals go.

But that was as good as it got. My good humour that had been slowly disappearing over the last few days – well, the last vestiges have disappeared into the ether now. As Doctor Spooner once famously said, “I feel like a hare with a sore bed”.

I tried to settle down to sleep but no chance of that. I shall have to stay wide-awake with only my good humour to keep me company.

I don’t think.

Monday 13th August 2018 – YOU HAVE TO LAUGH!

A few weeks ago Hans and I were in a restaurant in Liège in Belgium surrounded by beautiful young girls who would surely have attracted our attention 10 years ago, but instead we were talking about our medication and bathroom visits.

This morning, Terry, Ingrid and I were sitting around the breakfast table discussing Old-Age Pensions.

We’re getting old, aren’t we?

Ingrid’s spare bed was quite comfortable, and I was joined during the night by one of her cats. And wasn’t the cat surprised when it discovered that it wasn’t Ingrid stroking it, but a stranger?

Once we’d organised ourselves, we headed off back to my house and began to search for objects that I needed and which I should have fetched when I was here last time. I discovered most of them, but one thing – the most important – has eluded me and I’ve no idea now where it might be.

With the piles of plastic crates that I brought with me, I started to pack up the books, CDs and DVDs that are still down there. But I did say that this was going to be emotional and I was quite right – especially when I discovered the mouse nests, complete with baby mice, in amongst all of the books.

It’s amazing just how much nature has taken over since November 2015 when I was carted off to hospital. To come back and live here, what with all of the weeds and all of the livestock, would be very difficult indeed for me.

In the end, I abandoned the project and locked up the house. I’ll have to come back and do some more when I’m feeling much more like it, whenever that might be.

We went round to say goodbye and thank you to Lisette, and also round to say hello and goodbye to Rob and Nicolette. They have always been very good to me and they were very supportive when I was here a few weeks ago.

We said goodbye to Ingrid too and I arranged with her that once my October session at the hospital is over, she might come to visit me for a while. She starts a training course in October so we’ll have to see how it fits in with her timetable.

Terry’s van is much more powerful than Caliburn but it has a low-ratio gearbox for more torque (which is just as well when you see what it usually pulls around behind it) and so it’s not so quick as Caliburn when it has a load on.

But it went really well on the way back and even though we stopped for half an hour for lunch, it took us a total of 7 hours from door to door on the motorway, and that’s impressive. Having left at 13:15, we were back at 20:15 on the dot despite having planned to be back by 21:00.

We had a quick snack when we returned, and then I went to bed for an early night. I was thoroughly exhausted and I’ve no idea how Terry must have felt.

Wednesday 8th August 2018 – WORKS EVERY TIME!

Yes, last night I had an early night and settled down to watch a film on the laptop. And I managed about 5 minutes of it before I dropped off.

Not quite like when I was in Canada and had the film and laptop running all through the night, but it was near enough.

And despite not having an alarm clock set for the morning, I was still awake at 06:00. Seems that I’m never going to have a decent sleep. But no danger of me leaving my stinking pit at that time. 08:00 is much more like it, isn’t it?

After the usual morning performance I settled down to do some work and as a result totally forgot about breakfast until it was far too late.

Just for a change, I haven’t been idle today. I’ve had a huge pile of e-mails that needed to be sent off, and following that there was a lot of stuff to print out.

I seem to have run out of coloured ink so everything had to be printed in greyscale. That was an issue that took quite a while to resolve, although I don’t know why. I never seem to have too much luck with printers. And I need to order some new cartridges before I forget.

It led to a rather late lunch – although it was rather cold sitting out there on the wall now that the weather has cooled down. One of my lizards was there waiting for me too.

And all of this meant that I missed my afternoon walk. Instead I was unpacking from my little trip, sorting out my stuff, and then going through a pile of paperwork. I need to deal with all of my medical expenses.

And I …errr … closed my eyes, but for just five minutes.

Another thing was to configure my on-line banking for my account in Belgium. That took longer than it might have done too. And once I was organised, I could see a memo from them dated 10th July saying that my identity documents have expired and I need to submit new ones.

That’s something that defeats me – it’s the same passport as five years ago, with the same number and anything. And although French passports expire after five years, mine is good for all of 10 years.

And so I rang up the head office and after hanging on for half an hour, I was told that it was a branch issue. And so I need to go to my branch. When I told the guy that I had no intention of going, seeing as I live in France, he took my number and said that he would have someone from the branch phone me back.

And we’ve heard all of that before, haven’t we?

Tea was a stuffed pepper and pasta, and then i finally did manage to go for a walk. And I was the only one out there tonight, now that the weather has turned.

The alarm will be back on tonight, so I’ll have an early night. I might even watch a film – or, at least, try to. One way of making sure that I fall asleep.

Thursday 19th July 2018 – IZZY WHIZZY …

… let’s get busy.

That’s been the motto of today anyway, just for a change.

Last night however, I was pretty exhausted and so I was in bed before 22:00 just for a change. But being wary of what normally happens when I try for an early night – that I end up tossing and turning for several hours – I resorted to the old stand-by of putting the laptop close to the bed and watching a film.

Never fails, does it? Didn’t even make 10 minutes.

So I was up early and organised the medication and all of that. And I wasn’t the only one up early either as a friend was waiting on line for me. Seems that she has had some disappointing news and wanted a chat.

And so I did. That’s what friends are for.

A late breakfast was the result, followed by a later shower and then I set the washing machine a-go.

The walk up to LIDL was painful, but I have to keep on doing it. I need to push myself onwards while I can.

But I had a surprise across the road from there in the Avenue des Vendéens.

Two guys were looking at an old scooter which, at first glance from a distance, looked like one of the old Zundapp prototypes, so I went over to have a look.

It wasn’t quite as rare as that – in fact it was a Peugeot scooter from the 1950s. I’d never seen one before which, the owner told me, was hardly surprising as there can’t be more than a handful still left.

And I’d been lucky to see this one as he had only just wheeled it out of his garage for 30 seconds.

In LIDL my eye was caught by the size of these tomatoes.

Not having a tape measure handy, the best guess that I could make was that these were about 4 inches in diameter. You can get some idea of the size by comparing them to the “normal” tomatoes to the right.

I was going to say that I’d spent nothing today in there. But that’s not really true. But if you compare today with what I’ve been spending this week, it is pretty minimal, But all the same …

First thing that I needed was some coffee. I’d run out of the ground stuff, as I said earlier, so I bought a couple of packets to see what it’s like. Had I known that supplies were so low, I would have stocked up on the coffee that I liked when I was in Belgium. It’s not sold in France.

Another thing is that with having guests arriving, I need some spare sheets. No-one wants to sleep in a sheet after I’ve been sleeping in it – washed or not – and I’d bought a new one at IKEA. But today at LIDL they had some blue ones (my bedroom is blue) on special offer so I added one of those to the guest bag.

It seemed to be my lucky day with old motorbikes too. On the way back, I came across an old guy cleaning a Solex – you know, the typical French moped of the 40s and 50s with the engine underneath the handlebars.

This one was a later one from the late 60s with a pressed-steel frame and so I got to talk to him about it. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its long-gone guises will recall that I unearthed the remains of one of these in a field of brambles when I was doing a furniture removal back in 2002.

It seems that the guy collects bits and makes complete machines up out of the piles. So seeing as the Solex is doing nothing down on the farm and it’s not something that I’m likely to miss, I’ll bring it back whenever I’m next down there and donate it to the cause.

It pays to keep in with the locals.

We were having some more activity in the Bay as well.

Marité was out there having a little sail around the Baie de Mont St Michel, and she was in company with La Granvillaise.

One of these days I’ll have to take myself out and about on one of them, if they decide one day to go somewhere exciting. Quebec would be nice.

Back here I opened the window in the bedroom, put the clothes dryer thing in the window and hung up the washing. But this isn’t going to be easy with the new chest of drawers in the way. I need to have a think about this.

Liz was on line too and so we had a little chat. Strawberry Moose has his holidays to plan.

After lunch I tidied up Caliburn and got him looking much more like it. A pile of stuff went into the bin from there.

With that out of the way then I attacked the European Cardboard Box Mountain. And it’s now all gone down into the back of Caliburn. It’s amazing how uncomplicated it becomes when you have a ratchet strap handy.

But it was tiring work and I had to sit down halfway through and have a little … err … relax.

And if that wasn’t enough, I attacked the bedroom and did some tidying up in there too. And that looks much better, although there’s still tons to do. But it really is nice to be finally able to sit comfortably on a comfortable chair and do some work in a proper office environment.

The walk around the headland about finished me off, so now I’m going to bed. I deserve it too.

Tomorrow I need to make some more hummus seeing as I’ve run out of that kind of stuff for my butties and I don’t really want to attack the cheese as yet.

Mind you, with what I’ve done today I’ll probably be asleep for a week.

Tuesday 1st May 2018 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

… better today.

I was in bed at some really silly time last last, like 21:00 or something. But that’s not the same as saying that I went to sleep. I definitely heard the immersion heater switch on at 22:25.

But drop off to sleep I did, sooner or later. But with having been stark out on the sofa on several occasions, I was wide awake and up and about at … errr … 02:15.

No chance of me making that any kind of time to be up and about on a permanent basis, and I eventually went back to sleep. I’d turned off the alarms of course, with my health issues, and 08:20 was much more of a reasonable time to be out of bed.

No breakfast today – I somehow couldn’t face it. And I spent the morning stretched out on the sofa. Taking it easy, which is not a bad idea. Liz came on line to see how I was. She had heard that I was unwell.

I did manage a butty or two for lunch – another very late one – and then I crawled off out for a walk. I wasn’t feeling at all like it and it was probably a silly thing to do, but I have to push myself onwards otherwise I’m going to be stuck on the sofa for the duration.

Back here, I had a coffee and then watched a DVD – well, some of it anyway.

Just for a change, I did manage some tea tonight. Oven chips, beans and sausage. Followed by strawberries and some of the sorbet that I made the other day. And I have to say it – it does taste as good as it looks and my sorbet maker churned it up nicely.

After tea I did go for another walk and met Minette, the black cat. She was lying in wait for me, possibly because she hasn’t seen me in a while.

So it’s yet another early night. The sore throat has almost gone but I’m sneezing like mad with a streaming head cold.

I just can’t win.

Sunday 29th April 2018 – HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Even as we speak, here I am curled up on the sofa underneath the quilt and wearing about 10 layers of clothing.

And I’m still freezing!

And in news which will cheer up almost everyone reading this rubbish, I have lost my voice too. I’m definitely sickening for something yet again!

It all started this morning, when I awoke, at the nice and gentle hour of 09:00, and found that instead of a throat I had two sheets of sandpaper there. And as well as that, I was rather unsteady on my feet. None of that was looking very good.

However, it hadn’t stopped me going on a midnight ramble. Last night I was out in North Africa, a very sandy, dusty city and I was part of an army that was on the attack. But the farther we advanced the more cut off we were becoming and there were fewer and fewer of us able to progress. Our situation bega to look quite desperate.
Just like the situation in a book that I was reading on the train the other day about the First Day on the Somme in 1916 in fact.
And later I’d been looking for somewhere to stay. I met up with some man who took me off to place that would be quite comfortable, and he would come to pick me up at 08:00 next morning to take me back to my car. But by the time 08:30 arrived he hadn’t turned up and there was so much to do, like loading my car (the mattress on which I had been sleeping needed to go right at the bottom for a start, so everything needed to be unpacked) before 10:00, the official check-out time. So to save time I set off to walk along the road along which he had brought me because there was a vantage point on a bend with a good view. I had my big red cantilever tool box with me as I walked through the countryside. And it was now 08:45, I was installed on the bend with a village down below but still no sign of this guy and I was wondering if I had done the right thing by moving, and worried that I would be locked out of my accommodation at 10:00 without all my possessions.

We had the usual morning routine of course and then I sat on the sofa and vegetated. On Sundays there is no alarm of course so I can stay in bed as long as I like. And as Matt Dillon so eloquently put it, “Sunday is the one day of the week a man can get up at noon and sit around with his boots off without anybody hollering at him about it”. We all deserve a day like that.

This afternoon I made some butties and a flask and headed out to the Stade Croissant. US St Pair’s 3rd XI were playing US Roncey-Cerisy in a bottom-of-the-table encounter in Division 3 of the regional league. It was cold and windy and at the kick-off the heavens opened and we had a torrential downpour.

Luckily there’s a grandstand there and so at least there was some shelter but I was getting colder and colder as time wore on.

As for the football, there was a general lack of skill as you might expect but at least US St Pair played with a plan and some shape, and they were quite adventurous in what they tried. Had they had some individual skill, or a proper centre-forward (because their “attack” was very lightweight) they would have run away with this match.

They did score once, but penalty was well-saved by the US Roncey-Cerisy keeper who rode his luck quite well. But US Roncey-Cerisy had their moments too particularly in the second half when they strung a few nice balls together and even managed to score an equaliser when the US St Pair keeper slipped on the greasy turf.

Three players who impressed me, all on the US St Pair team, were the old, balding left-winger, the red-headed central midfielder, and the rather portly centre-half who dominated his defence and played some excellent balls upfield.

ON the way back I had the heater on full-blast in Caliburn because I was now shivering. And back here I grabbed the quilt and dived underneath it on the sofa where I crashed out for an hour.

I did manage to make tea though – another excellent pizza.

So now, I’m not bothering with a walk in this weather. I’m going straight to bed and I’ll sleep for the duration.

Ask me if I care.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: early night

Tuesday 12th March 2019 – WHO’S BEEN A …

Sunday 17th February 2019 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL …

Friday 8th February 2019 – I HAD A MESSAGE …

Monday 21st January 2019 – AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE …

Sunday 20th January 2019 – IT’S BEEN BUILDING …

Sunday 25th November 2018 – I WAS REALLY …

Wednesday 14th November 2018 – 01:35 …

Thursday 4th October 2018 – I CAN TELL …

Tuesday 25th September 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE DAY!

Tuesday 18th September 2018 – AND SO I WENT …

Monday 13th August 2018 – YOU HAVE TO LAUGH!

Wednesday 8th August 2018 – WORKS EVERY TIME!

Thursday 19th July 2018 – IZZY WHIZZY …

Tuesday 1st May 2018 – I’M FEELING A LITTLE …

Sunday 29th April 2018 – HERE WE GO AGAIN!

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring