Tag Archives: normandy trader

Wednesday 21st November 2018 – WINTER IS DEFINITELY …

… here. Temperature was at 3°C again this morning when I awoke. And it wandered around about 5°C for most of the day. Whatever Indian Summer we were having has now gone for good until the Spring.

Last night was a bad night for me. I didn’t go to bed until rather later than I intended, and it was once again a struggle to leave my bed. I’d been on a voyage too but it had gone right out of my head by the time that I was on my feet.

This morning I had a few things to do – like deal with an upgrade to the laptop that somehow managed to wipe out the language settings on it. I had to fiddle around for a while until I could type the password in the correct character setting. And then I restarted it – and the language settings came back.

Second thing to do was to upload Paint Shop Pro to this laptop. I’d forgotten that it wasn’t on board.

Third thing was that I had had a message from the builder of Waterfox – the Firefox clone that I’ve been using. There’s a hidden link to the disabled utilities (and why it should be hidden I really don’t know) and he pointed me in the direction of where I can find the *.ftp program. It has to be configured by hand and it takes a while to do that but now it’s up and running.

I’m sure that there were a few other things that I was doing this morning but I can’t for the life of me remember now what it was. I’m cracking up, aren’t I?

After lunch I started to attack the previous blogs to upload the photos that I worked on yesterday. What with a pile of interruptions (including having a little … errr … relax on two occasions) I worked back as far as Saturday. I’ll push on tomorrow and do the rest.

It was a beautiful walk around the walls this afternoon.

The tide was quite far in and the fishermen were out in their boats at the foot of the cliffs. These people here had a couple of rods and lines and were fishing with them from the boat.

Not sure what they were catching though. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves anyway.

A little further on around the corner, the sun was shining on the beach down at the Plat Gousset.

Although it was quite windy, the tide wasn’t in far enough to push the waves over the sea wall, so there were quite a few people out there taking advantage of the good weather and the sunshine.

And the beach cabins have definitely gone too. I wonder if they take them away and store them out of the season and bring them back again next summer.

Out in the Baie de Mont St Michel the wind was whipping up nicely.

Someone was out there in a sailing boat and it was really exciting to see the sails billowing out in the wind and pulling the yacht along at an impressive rate of knots.

But you can see that there was a sea mist out there today.

You’ll remember a few months ago that there was an exhibition of paintings and photographs suspended from the town walls above the Place Maurice Marland.

Today there was a tracked machine out there that looked as if it was there to take all of them down.

That’s an exciting machine all right. I wouldn’t have minded having that down on the farm when I was living there. I could think of a thousand and one uses for it.

That wasn’t all the excitement either.

As I was walking by the walls above the harbour, I noticed Normandy Trader down there. She must have sneaked in on the tide and I had missed her, and there she was setting off back out again.

I couldn’t see what it was that she was carrying with her but I imagine that it was a mixed cargo as usual.

It’s a little-known fact but an important claim to fame of the old medieval town of Granville that there’s a connection here with the royal family of Monaco.

One of the ancestors of Prince Ranier was a girl who lived in the town and married into the Grimaldi family. That was the home of her family and there is a plaque on the side recording that Prince Ranier came here a few years ago.

It looks as if they are now going to launch a programme of renovation on the family pile.

By the time that I returned to my own family pile, I was thinking that the Normandy Trader would be well out to sea by now.

And so I coupled up the big zoom/telephoto lens and went off a-wandering round to the Pointe du Roc.

And there, setting off into the sunset against a backdrop of the Ile de Chausey was Normandy Trader, en route for Jersey.

I took another photo of it with the lens at its fullest extent, and then back here cropped out Normandy Trader and blew it (the crop, not the ship) up.

I still can’t see what she is carrying, but the photo has come out quite well considering the distance over which I was working;

When I returned to the apartment, Gribouille was outside and he let me pick him up for a stroke.

Tea tonight was the rest of the falafel with pasta and vegetables in tomato sauce.

After doing the washing-up, I went for my walk around the Pointe du Roc. And it’s freezing outside too. Winter draws on, and quite right too in this weather.

The clear, still weather was great for photography and so I took a few photos of the night. The one that I took of the boats, the harbour and the lights came out really well.

I particularly liked the reflection on the water of the red harbour gate light

And that’s not all either.

Remember the other day when they were lifting that pink and white trawler up out of the water onto the quayside at the ship repair yard?

Well, there she is now. Up on blocks now and a ladder up against the side. There’s obviously some work that needs to be done to it, and it looks as if they have already made a start.

So back here now and I’m going to try yet again for another early night. Curled up under the blankets is the best place to be in this weather, I reckon.

Beach Plat Gousset Granville

The beach down by the Casino at the Place Marechal Foch.

Normandy Trader leaving Granville harbour on her way back to Jersey.

Normandy Trader setting out for Jersey

Tuesday 6th November 2018 – I’M NOT GOING …

… out for my evening walk tonight.

There’s a howling gale blowing outside right now – as strong as any that I’ve experienced since I’ve been living here. Had there been a high tide any time soon I would have gone to inspect the waves hopefully crashing down over the Plat Gousset. But it’s low tide right now so it’s not worth the effort for me to go out.

But never mind. I’ve already had a good couple of walks today.

And during the night too.

I was in the company of some nice young girl on a Saturday night. And taking the girl home she made some kind of remark about how she had to be at the railway station for 07:00 the following morning and how she didn’t know how she was going to do that bearing in mind that I usually refuse to leave my bed at any ungodly hour on a Sunday. I was just on the point of saying that she could stay with me for the night and then I could run her down there, when I realised that that kind of remark could easily be misconstrued. How I meant it was that I’d only have a 5-minute drive straight to the station instead of having to travel across town to pick her up and then back across town to the station, saving me half an hour that I could spend much better in bed. I certainly didn’t mean it in any other way (although I wouldn’t have found the idea unacceptable), but I had to think of a way to express it better so that she wouldn’t misunderstand.
A little later I was back in the Auvergne at Les Guis and I had to go down into St Eloy. The weather was fine up in the hills but down in the town it was snowing quite heavily. I ended up in some kind of meeting room on the first floor of a shop and amongst the people there was a girl who I knew really well. And it was either the Vanilla Queen or another certain girl of my acquaintance who bore a startling resemblance to the former – a startling coincidence of a resemblance about which I have commented to myself on many occasions. She was surprised to see me in view of the weather so I explained that up in the hills things were so much better. And we ended up having a good chat not about anything in particular but more in an effort for me to establish a certain position.

Just for a change just recently I managed to beat the third alarm out of bed and that made me feel a little better. Obviously going to bed at a more respectable (for me, anyway) time is a much better idea.

This morning I had a few things to do and once they were out of the way I had to sit down and fill in a form. I’ve collected most of the information that I need but I’ve no idea how I’m expected to fill in this form. I’ll just sign it, send it back with all of the assorted verifying paperwork to at least show a sign of goodwill and see what happens next.

When I was out at the shops on Saturday I forgot to buy a lettuce, so I nipped into town and the Super-U.

I had a little distraction – or two – down at the harbour.

Marité has now returned to her berth just there, with another smaller sailing ship alongside.

In front of Marité we note the reappearance of Normandy Trader who obviously cam in on the high tide earlier in the morning. There’s a pile of stuff on the quayside and it’s quite probable that will be loaded on board for her homeward journey.

That’s no all either. As I was looking at the ships, one of the lorries from the quarry turned up with a load of roadstone.

I waited for a while hoping that she would tip but the driver locked up the cab and walked away. It must be his lunchtime or something like that.

But it probably means that very shortly we’ll be having a visit from Neptune or Shetland Trader in early course.

At the Super-U they were rather sad, the lettuces in there I mean, not the people, but better than none. And I took advantage of the situation by buying a couple of packs of the mixed dried fruit that I add to the muesli.

While I was in town I picked up one of the baguette that I like.

It was not too warm today but not very windy either. And the sun was out so I took full advantage by going to eat my butties on the wall.

And this would be the kind of thing that I would find very funny, it it wasn’t so pathetic.

One of the themes that I feature quite often here, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, is the sad state of parking round here.

And as for this example of pathetic parking, here in the boulevard Vaufleury right by where I eat my butties, is about as bad as it gets.

I really don’t know what goes through the minds of some people that they can’t be bothered to even make an attempt at parking between the lines on the road.

I mean, it’s not even a BMW or a Volvo is it?

So having been dismayed by the parking, I didn’t stay out there for long. After all, it IS November.

This afternoon I attacked the High Arctic and I’ve made real progress on Day 2. It might even be finished by the weekend if I can keep it up. And then there’s only another 17 days to go. And these will be much more complicated than this one.

The afternoon’s walk was around the headland in the beautiful November sunshine.

But there were no ships to admire while I was out there. Only a pile of fishing boats coming in and out of the harbour on the afternoon tide.

Taking advantage of the ideal weather and sunlight conditions, I spent some time taking a pile of photos of the boats as they came in and went out.

There were quite a few boats tied up at the quayside unloading too.

The name of this particular one took me by surprise. Omerta, which might mean “manhood” in Italian slang, is more generally associated with the name given to the Vow of Silence that is rigorously imposed, with quite often fatal results, on members of the Mafia.

Not the name that you might expect to see on a fishing boat in Granville

This particular one, which seems as if it belongs to someone on the Ile de Chausey, was unloading piles of crustaceans and the like onto the trailer attached to the rear of the tractor.

She has quite a massive catch on board. Business must be booming somewhere.

Incidentally, in case you are wondering, which I’m sure that you are, a bouchot mussel is a mussel that has been grown from a string that is attached to a pole submerged in the water. By this method they are more grit-free and barnacle-free than one that has been grown on the sea bed.

All of the work going on in the harbour was overlooked by our old friend Georges-René Le Peley de Pléville, or Pleville le Pelley.

He was a privateer who sailed initially on a ship, the Françoise du Lac (on which in one engagement he lost a leg), out of Granville, and later rose through the ranks of the French Navy until he became the French Government’s Minister of the Navy

He was appointed a Senator in 1799 and died in 1805 aged 79

Back here, there was a brief moment of repose and then it was tea time. Falafel fried with onions and garlic with pasta and vegetables, with salad dressing and herbs. It was totally delicious too.

With not going out this evening, I can do my outstanding work and then have an early night. If I can keep it up I’ll be in a much better position to keep up with my work.

But I do need to start to take it easy. There’s only so much that I can do.

Fishing boats entering and leaving the harbour at the Port of Granville

Unloading bouchots de Chausey in the harbour at the Port of Granville

Friday 12th October 2018 – WHAT WITH ONE …

… thing and another (and until you get started you’ve no idea just how many other things there are) It wasn’t far short of 03:00 when I finally settled down to sleep.

That’s not leaving me too much time when there’s an alarm to go off at 06:00 is it?

Mind you, there was plenty of time to go off and disappear on another nocturnal ramble. This time it was to do with a load of girls who were saying goodbye to each other and going their separate ways. And I still haven’t worked out what that was all about either.

No-one was really hungry this morning so we didn’t have much in the way of breakfast. But I had a shower and then we put the washing machine on the go. I’ve no idea where all of this washing comes from – it’s certainly not me.

Once we’d gathered our wits, which in my case takes much longer than it ought, we went for a walk in the wind.

Granville was formerly the home of the well-known fasion designer Christian Dior.

His childhood home, situated on the cliffs on the way out of town, has been converted into a museum of his life and works, and it’s the kind of place that most women would like to visit.

and so this was our destination for this morning.

We went out along the walls of the old town and then down the steps onto the Plat Gousset.

Our attention was caught by a bicycle propped up against the wall with someone’s clothes draped over it.

So looking out to sea we saw someone perched up on the diving platform. And you can see how far in the tide is today by the fact that the platform is practically submerged.

And as we watched, our intrepid hero, clearly the grandson of Captain Matthew Webb, took to the windy water and started to swim back to the shore, cheered on by the onlookers.

As I remarked to one of the spectators, “he’s a braver man than I am” because I wouldn’t have liked to have been out there in those conditions.

It took him a while to make it back to shore though, although he never looked as if he was in any trouble.

However, we did have an interruption by some people who seemed to be rather concerned about what was going on.

Round the headland came the sea-rescue boat and it can’t have been a coincidence that they came on the scene just at that particular moment.

Of course, their services weren’t required at all but they were there nevertheless to keep an eye on the proceedings. Unless it REALLY was a coincidence.

It was a beautiful day for photography though. The colours really were superb and the excellent light brought them out perfectly.

I must have taken dozens of photos down there and it’s very hard to choose which one was the best of the bunch.

So I’ll just post one photo here and you can imagine all of the rest.

To reach the museum you have to climb up a couple of flights of steep stairs at the end of the promenade, but it’s well worth it, particularly on a day like this as the views from the top are stunning.

I was taking a few photos of the Ile de Chausey when I noticed a strange shape at the back of one of the islands of the archipelago.

So I photographed it with the view of cropping it and enlarging it back at home to see what it was.

But there was no need to do that really because I could see that it was a moving object. And just a minute or two later it burst out into the open sea.

Yes, we have another cruise ship cruising around the Chennel Islands. Not a particularly big one by the look of things, but interesting nevertheless.

I’ve not been able to find out which one it was either which is a shame.

That wasn’t the only maritime activity either.

As we were walking along the Plat Gousset we had heard a hooter telling us that a ship was leaving port. And 20 minutes later our old friend Normandy Trader hove into view.

She mad a really good photograph as she steamed … “dieseled” – ed … off to Jersey with the Ile de Chausey in the background.

The grounds of the museum are really beautiful and you can see why the Diors chose this place to be their home with views like this all over the place.

When they moved here in 1905 or whenever it was, there was nothing but bare rock but Mrs Dior arranged for tons of soil to be brought to the premises and this was transformed into what we see today.

The young Christian Dior has aspirations to be an architect, and it is said that some of the features of the garden and some of the furniture were made to his own designs.

But beautiful as the place might be, it came into the hands of the Granville town council who are now responsible for the upkeep, and the place seems to be suffering under the budget cuts while public funds are stashed away to satisfy what many people consider to be Madame la Maire‘s somewhat “over-ambitious” plans to abandon the town’s heritage and transform it into a playground for the rich.

So abandoning our fears about whether the railway line will be torn up and the only way to arrive at the town will be by luxury yacht with crew of 25, we carried on our tour of the garden.

Granville has been dubbed by many people (especially Madame la Maire as “The Monaco of the North” and it’s true that mediterranean trees, palm trees, and even banana trees will grow here.

As I reassured Josée though, they aren’t native to the area but if they are planted and well-maintained, they will survive.

The interior of the building was quite beautiful too and Josée spent quite a while admiring the dresses and the perfumes.

My attention was caught by the collection of miniature dresses on show because you didn’t just buy a Dior dress for yourself and your daughter, you could even buy one for your daughter’s dolly and hat surely is the height of decadence.

On the way out of the building Josée stopped to sample some perfumes and another woman went to spray me with stuff thinking that I was her husband.

With not having had much breakfast, by now we were quite hungry where we made our way into town and the fritkot for lunch. And he was open too, not like Saturday night.

Josée had a plate of meat and salad while I had some chips and a veggie wrap. And it was all quite delicious too.

Back here, I had a little … errr … relax, and then we set off again.

At the Christian Dior museum they had told us that our tickets give us the right to a reduction in the admission fee to the Anacréon Museum of Modern Art down the road from me.

Modern Art isn’t my thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but Josée is quite into it and I have to keep my visitors happy. There wasn’t much in there that I would have liked to grace the walls of my apartment.

But Josée explained to me that I was understanding art incorrectly. If I simply want something to hang on a wall to look pretty then art isn’t for me. The purpose of art appreciation is to study and admire the artist’s technique.

So perhaps then art isn’t for me after all.

We stopped off for a drink on the way back and then went round for a long chat with Yves and Lily. They had a lot to say for themselves which is quite nice, but they also advised Josée against going musseling on the beach. Apparently there’s a virus going round and it’s not doing the shellfish any good at all.

Tea was some buckwheat crèpes with all kinds of stuff on (I had vegan cheese, onions, tomato, mushroom and garlic on mine) and to finish the day we saw the end of Seducing Doctor Lewis.

And after all of that, I’m exhausted.

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Thursday 9th August 2018 – I’M NOT SURE …

… what to say about last night.

As I mentioned yesterday, I settled down to watch a film hoping that it would send me off to sleep, but it was only a short one and was still awake when it ended.

But not for long because I was soon well away with the fairies.

But not for long because despite having been in a deep sleep I awoke at about 01:35 with a uncontrollable itch. And I know full well that if I start to scratch it I would do myself a mischief because these days I bleed more easily.

So after about 20 minutes of agony I had to leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit and head to the bathroom where I have some Aloe Vera cream. And I smothered myself in it.

It took a while for the pain to ease off but eventually I was out like a light again, right out until the alarm went off.

After the usual morning ritual the first thing that I did was to have a good shower and clean myself up a little. I’ve not had a shower for a couple of days and in this heat, even I was starting to notice it.

And it was around about here that I looked out of the window and saw the rainstorm. “That’s put paid to my walk to LIDL” I mused.

While I was musing, Ingrid came on line and we had a good chat. We spent some time working out a cunning plan because I have a few things simmering away in the background.

When we had finished chatting, I noticed that the rain had eased off slightly. So I found my raincoat and headed off out.

Another vessel in the harbour right now is Normandy Trader.. She must have sneaked into harbour under cover of darkness from St Helier.

And she didn’t hang about too long either. When I went out for my afternoon walk she had gone and as I write up my notes this evening, she’s well on her way back to Jersey.

Despite the rain, I felt on quite good form striding up the hill to LIDL – it’s been a while since I’ve felt quite like this. And at LIDL it was rentrée, or “Back to School”, so there was quite a pile of papers and pens and the like. I bought a few notebooks.

And not only that, earlier in the week they had a special offer on bathroom scales and I was sorry to have missed it. But they still had a few left so I’ve organised that. Grapes at €1:99 per kilo rounded off my shopping.

And striding out, back in the rain, it didn’t take me too long to return home.

At lunchtime it was still raining so I had my butties inside at the dining room table – now that I have one. My lizards will have to do without their pear leavings today.

There were a few other things that needed my attention this afternoon, and as a result my walk was rather late. There was some kind of event going on in the old town, and there were crowds of people. But whatever it was hadn’t started yet and I didn’t intend to stay out there and wait for it.

Tea tonight was different. There were a lot of odds and ends hanging around so with a couple of potatoes I made a curry and added some soya cream with it. Along with some rice and vegetables, it was beautiful and there’s enough left over for tomorrow.

It was a windswept walk this evening and there were just three or four people out there. I didn’t loiter out there long and came back, chatting to Liz on the way.

And in a week or two I shall be receiving (I hope) something exciting in the post.

So I’ll have an early nice and tomorrow morning I’ll tidy up. I’m expecting visitors.

Wednesday 25th July 2018 – I HAVEN’T DONE …

… very much in the way of catching up with the outstanding work here today.

And for a couple of good reasons too.

Firstly, I was in bed at about 22:30 last night, thoroughly exhausted despite my good sleep yesterday afternoon. But the result of that was that I was wide awake at 04:40 and out of bed working before 06:00, which will come as a surprise to anyone.

However, the downside of that is that after the usual morning routine and breakfast, I crashed out on the chair at the desk, and was out until about 08:50.

And again for half an hour later on in the afternoon.

The second reason was that this file transfer is dragging on and dragging on. I’m at about 30% of the transfer despite it being working non-stop for 36 hours.

It would have been a better idea to have done this with the laptop that has the broken screen and keyboard rather than blocking up this laptop for so long.

However, I haven’t been idle at all.

I’ve totally rearranged the living area – put all of the shelves with the CDs and DVDs alongside the glass unit and the posh bookshelves at the end of the room.

Next step was to drill out a hole in the back of the posh bookshelves And now the television, DVD and VHS players and the new hifi are all arranged properly in there.

Finally, I turned the sofa, carpet and coffee table around 90% so that they are all facing the TV, with the window now away to my left.

Everything works fine, much to my surprise, and it’s all now looking as if someone lives here. I could even be quite comfortable in here, which would be a surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish.

As a result of all of this, lunch was rather late. And as well as my book and my butties, I was joined by two of my lizards, with a third lurking away in the undergrowth nearby.

There seemed to be a lot of activity in the harbour too.

We haven’t seen Grima for quite some considerable time, but Normandy Trader was in there down at the bottom end loading up. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen her too.

La Grande Ancre was down there loading up too. I’m not sure where she goes but her turn-round time indicates that her destination is probably the Ile de Chausey.

Back here, in between having a little doze, I attacked the bedroom and that’s looking much more tidy too. And the things that I found that I had forgotten makes tidying up all worthwhile.

Later on, I went for my afternoon walk around the medieval walls.

The tide was on its way out and so there was a little bit of beach down at the foot of the cliff just here.

With crowds of people enjoying themselves on the sand and splashing themselves in the sea, even though the waves were just a little bit wild this afternoon.

But that was just a small sample of the people who were out there enjoying themselves in the sea.

Out there in the sea off the Casino Beach there were crowds of people swimming around.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall from a few weeks ago that the diving platform was almost submerged by the high tide. And even though the tide is far from being fully out, you can tell just how tall the platform is and how high is the tidal range.

And you might also remember the tiny sliver of beach that we saw on our walk the other day as the tide was almost fully in.

Today, with the tide on its way out, there’s much more beach for people to spread themselves around right now.

There still isn’t enough beach for me though. I’d much rather have the whole of the beach to myself of course but that’s not really possible around here in July and August.

But I do have a cunning plan.

I carried on with my walk around the walls and ended up overlooking the harbour.

The Normandy Trader was still there being loaded up, but there was also a great pile of activity as they assembled yet another huge mound of roadstone on the quayside.

It looks as if we might very shortly be expecting another visit from Neptune or one of her sister ships.

Back here, I rather ran aground with the tidying up and loitered around for a while. But then that’s no surprise. Any previous visitor who would come here now would see a totally different place from the one that they would remember.

Tea was a vegan burger with potatoes, vegetables and onion gravy. Delicious it was too.

Later on I went for a walk around the headland.

Nothing much exciting was happening and there weren’t too many people about, but in the harbour was a yacht that I don’t recall having seen before.

It looks as if it’s quite an old yacht, with its beautiful wooden superstructure. Unfortunately its name wasn’t visible so I can’t tell you anything about it.

I shall have to go for a walk down there tomorrow if she is still about.

And hopefully an early night with a good sleep. I’m off out tomorrow so I need to be on form. And this file transfer can manage itself.

Tuesday 29th May 2018 – IT WAS A BIT …

… of a shame about last night.

What with all of my efforts of recent days I made a point of going to bed at a relatively early hour last night so as to have a head start for today. But instead, I had one of the worst nights’ sleeps that I have had for a long time. One every unhappy bunny here again.

But anyway I was up at a reasonable-ish early time nevertheless but I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast quite then. I ended up for a while talking to someone on the internet about nothing in particular.

But after breakfast there were things to do, like another batch of photos to edit and a blog to update seeing that I didn’t do it before going to bed last night.

Once all of that was out of the way I occupied myself with a knotty problem on the 3D program that I use. And while I’m none-the-wiser, I’m certainly better-informed. And it’s hard to believe that with having done nothing but that this morning, I ended up going for a late lunch.

After that, it all went wrong.

There’s lots to do here but firstly there was a crowd of neighbours hanging around outside the building so I went to join them. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not the most sociable of people at the best of times, but when one is living ina close-knit community like this, one has to show willing.

And even that was interrupted by the arrival of Gribouille the ginger cat who allowed me to pick him up and stroke him for a while, much to the surprise of everyone else.

Once all that was out of the way there was only time for a coffee before it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk. But at the moment where I was just about to put my sooty foot outside the door the heavens opened and we had another drenching. I dunno who it is up there, but just let him know that he missed me.

Eventually it eased off and so I could go for my walk. And at least it kept the grockles out of my way which is also nice. I started off in my raincoat but by the time that I was back here it was boiling hot, clammy and close, and I was sweating.

That reminded me that I had forgotten my shower this morning so I hopped underneath for a general clean-up. And I cut my hair as well seeing as it was getting all a bit long.

While all of this was going on, Liz came on line with a computer problem that needed resolving, and Sandra wanted to chat about my plans for summer. Trying to fit my guitar practice in was all rather complicated.

Tea was a frozen kidney bean and aubergine whatsit from out of the freezer and then I had a nice walk around the walls.

There wasn’t a great deal going on on the seaward side of the walls, but round on the harbour side, I noticed that Normandy Trader was back in port.

She’s been in and out of here quite a lot just recently and so she must be getting a lot of work. And that reminds me that I haven’t seen anything of Grima for a while. I shall have to make further enquiries

And despite the huge piles of gravel building up on the quayside, we haven’t seen a gravel ship for a while either.

One ship that is back in port though, ready for the summer season, is the Marité. But she was moored in a position where I couldn’t take a decent photo.

And why I was prowling around trying to find a good spec, it suddenly came into my mind that I had never taken a decent photograph of the turret house built into the walls by the Eglise de Notre Dame du Cap Lihou.

So this seemed like as good an opportunity as ever to deal with that little issue. After all, it’s a beautiful house and I could quite happily live in one of those turrets, especially with the superb view that it has over the harbour.

And now, I really AM going to have an early night.

I hope that it’s a good ‘un.

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 – SO CARRYING ON …

… from where I left off last night, I ended up taking out the waste paper to the recycling bin. Such is the exciting life that I lead around here these days.

But at least it brought my day’s efforts to 101% of my target so that I could go to bed quite happily – albeit rather later than I had planned.

And during the night, I was off on yet another mega-ramble. One that was well-worth remembering, but unfortunately I can’t remember anything about it now. But all is not lost, because I recorded it for posterity on the dictaphone.

However, it comes to my mind that I have forgotten to copy it onto the laptop and transcribe it, so you’ll have to wait for another time before you can read all about it.

To be honest, I don’t know what I do with my days. Anyone would think that I was really busy, but that’s not the case. I’m just old, tired and ill.

But not so old, tired and ill that I couldn’t deal with the masses of photos that have built up over the last while. Including the ones that I mentioned yesterday. This one and this one were taken with the current lens on the big Nikon.

On the other hand, keeping to exactly the same settings, this one and this one were taken with the lens that I borrowed from Happy Cash.

I wish now that I had brought the spare lens with me instead of leaving it back in Virlet. I shall have to bite the bullet and buy another. This one is the one that I would really like, but I’m already selling my body on Boots Corner for the next 20 years so it will have to wait for a while. Does that place you know have anything cheaper, Rhys?

Lunch was spent sitting on the wall overlooking the harbour where I could gaze upon the activity.

And Normandy Trader sneaked in during the morning at some time. Here she sits, not yet loaded. Presumably waiting for a delivery.

The lizard that loiters at the foot of tha wall now seems to have become quite tame. He knows that I’m going to eat a pear, and he knows that some of it will fall to the floor. He’s a big fan of pears and at first he’d hide in the long grass and dash out for a quick bite and dash back in.

Now though, he comes out and hangs around waiting, even climbing over my foot to reach the piece that falls.

This afternoon I crashed out again and then carried on with the photos and a session on the guitar.

I went for my walk too, and they must have been flaming quick with Normandy Trader because she had badgered off. Slung her hook, you might say.

But they aren’t being flaming quick with Caliburn. He’s still at the garage and there’s been no phone call. Still, he’s out of mischief there.

Tea was a delicious mixed vegetables steamed in the microwave, vegan sausages and a nice thick creamy vegan cheese sauce. The freezer and the grated vegan cheese from the Loving Hut in Leuven haven’t half improved my diet. But I’ve run out of strawberries now.

Another walk this evening and now I’m ready for bed. And I need it too. I must remember to download my dictaphone notes tomorrow.

Thursday 17th May 2018 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… seeing how things have been going just recently, I had tea tonight.

And not before time either because one of the two peppers that were left from the last weekend has gone off and ended up in the bin. The other one was just about edible so I made a pile of my patent vegan stuffing and had stuffed pepper with spicy rice and vegetables for tea.

But that wasn’t the main reason why. Being at LIDL this morning, they had yet more of the cheap strawberries. And, of course, seeing as I was in Belgium last week and went shopping at the Loving Hut, I have some vegan spray-on cream, don’t I? And I’m not going to let nature beat me to them like it did last time.

Despite a reasonably early (for me) night last night, I didn’t fel much like it this morning and it took me a while to haul myself out of bed. After the usual performance and breakfast I had a shower too. Must make myself pretty for the shops.

But I nearly didn’t make it to the shops this morning. I sat down on the settee after my shower and promptly fell asleep. And it was a rather panic-stricken me that staggered awake at 09:35.

It was a nice day too as I headed through town and out the other side. And Normandy Trader was in the harbour loading up. So I reckoned on passing back that way on the way back to take a couple of pics.

Dodging my way through the roadworks which have now restarted but on the other side of the street so we still have the previous amount of chaos, I made it to LIDL.

As well as the strawberries and the bread that I needed, they had some of the packet spices so I bought a packet of cumin and of ginger. I don’t need them quite yet but they never seem to have them in stock when I need them.

They also had some insulated gourds on offer. They were quite cheap too so I bought one – the idea being that when I’m out and about on a hot day (if we ever have one) I can make a cold drink and put some ice cubes in it, and hopefully it will keep cold for a while.

But all the fun at LIDL seems to be taking place outside on the car park these days. Poor parking is a regular feature of this blog, and here’s yet another example.

They had closed off part of the car park with all of the trolleys as there will very shortly be a marquee on here, but this hasn’t stopped someone deciding to find a way to park right where they will be working.

It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

On the way back I went to the harbour to see Normandy Trader. But as you might expect, she had p155ed off already. That p155ed me off, I’ll tell you.

Back here I had a coffee and then I had things to do until lunchtime.

It was even nicer later on although the wind was a nuisance. But I still took my butties and my book and went to sit on my wall for an hour, thinking to myself that this would have been a good opportunity to try out the gourd.

This afternoon I had more things to do, a guitar session and a walk too. And I didn’t crash out at all, which is certainly good news. But what with my evening walk I’m at 114% of my daily activity so I’ll probably pay for all of this tomorrow.

And a nice tea too. Things are looking up.

NO plans for anything tomorrow so it looks like a “me” day instead. You just watch someone come along and spoil it.

Wednesday 28th March 2018 – I DIDN’T …

… go into town today either.

One look out of the window was enough to tell me all that I needed to know. It wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday but it was near enough.

Another reasonable sleep though – out like a light and slept right through to the alarms and then the usual morning performance.

Once the medication had done its job I started to attack the pile of photographs here. And I don’t want to tell you how many went into the bin because you probably wouldn’t believe that I even had that many. But I’m whittling this down – not necessarily into manageable proportions but at least disposing of unnecessary duplicates … "and triplicates and quadruplicates etc etc" – ed.

And it’s just as well that things are advancing because delivery 2 came today. A 4TB hard drive. The old 250GB one that has run for ever is now overflowing, the 750GB one I’m going to use just for backing up data and so the 2TB one is going to have its work cut out.

And to give you some kind of idea as to how things are shaping, I paid more for the 250GB one that I paid for the new 4TB one, and I do remember that thanks to its mammoth size I won’t ever need anything bigger than 250GB. But then, that was back in the days when a high-quality digital image was 25KB, never mind 25MB.

After lunch and the session on the guitar I went out to brave the howling gale, seeing as the rain had stopped.

And “howling gale” were definitely the correct words to use as, once gain, it was blowing a good ‘un. It is starting to depress me just a little this weather. It’s been a miserable, wet clingy winter that seems to have gone on for ever

Ready for a change, aren’t I?

The high winds and bad weather weren’t clearly upsetting too many other people though.

They have suddenly put quite a spurt on with this house that they are building, and have now started to put on the roof.

Not much of a pitch on that though. It’s a good job that they don’t have snow like in the Auvergne. We’ve seen roofs collapse under the weight of the snow that we can have down there.

It didn’t stop Normandy Trader from making her way into harbour either.

No idea what she brought in today, and when I took this photo she was fully-loaded and ready to depart.

And depart she did because when I was out and about this evening, she had left her berth and gone back to Jersey. She and Grima do seem to be keeping quite busy just now.

Back here, I had a coffee and really good chinwag with Rosemary on the ‘phone about this and that. She’s feeling a little miserable after her operation and needed cheering up.

And then tea. Tidying up the other day I had found a leftover pepper and so it was a case of “stuff that for a lark” – and I duly did. Delicious too, as were the strawberries and vegan cream for pudding.

When I went out for my walk is was still comparatively light, so I took a nice photo of some of the houses in the the Medieval town through the gateway at the back here.

20:46 in the evening, that was too. The nights are definitely getting shorter now. It was only a couple of months since it was pitch-black at 17:00.

This year is going just so quickly that I can’t keep up with it? Whatever happened to that six-weeks summer holiday that we had that used to last for ever?

JUst 15 minutes later though it was a totally different story.

By the time that I had gone round to the fortifications on the north-east edge looking over the Place Marechal Foch and the Casino it was pretty dark.

I had the 50mm lens with me too, but that has an issue with it, so it seems. The aperture ring isn’t locking, according to the camera, although I can tell that it is. I was going to take some photos with that tonight, but instead, tomorrow I’ll be looking at that to see what’s wrong.

And my mate the black cat was there again tonight. But he wasn’t in very much of a sociable mood, and neither really was I.

And just in case you were wondering, I’ve reached “Marillion” on the playlist. Can’t you tell?

Thursday 22nd March 2018 – IT WAS BUSY …

… down in the harbour this morning.

First of all, we had the Normandy Trader in. She’s on one of her shuttle trips between Jersey and Normandy bringing in a load of scrap, and I couldn’t see what she was taking away.

That was because by the time that I had got down there, she had loaded up and gone out. She didn’t hang about at all.

The reason for my delay was that another bit of movement in the harbour had caught my eye.

La Grande Ancre was just setting out on the tide – presumably heading towards the Iles de Chausey (she was back a short while later).

So despite her being registered in Cherbourg, it looks as if she’s now a permanent fixture here in Granville, and I’m all in favour of that as you know.

Also in the harbour today is a piece of history.

She’s the Lys Noir – the “Black Lily” and was built in 1914 in Arcachon as a pleasure yacht for a German prince. But on the outbreak of World War I she was confiscated by the French authorities as a prize of war and subsequently sold into private hands.

She was rebuilt here in Granville in the 1980s and now belongs to an Association to which she has given her name.

In front of it is the ferry that goes to the Channel Islands – presumably being prepared for the season.

But my attention was caught by the name that has been painted out underneath. She is in fact the famous former “Bornholm Express”.

She was built in Singapore in 2006 and came to Denmark on the deck of a cargo ship. Her task was to operate a fast ferry service between Sweden and the island of Bornholm. But the ferry service was unsuccessful and closed down.

And this is where she has ended up – arriving in 2014.

So apart from that, last night was a better night’s sleep and I was off on my travels.

I was in fact at a football match – Altrincham v Morton. But at the ground the end where I usually stand was full of yellow-shirted Southport supporters. However, walking into the ground (there was no-one on the gate) I was just in time to see Morton’s second goal – and we hadn’t played 15 minutes yet. A beautiful shot from a narrow angle on the right wing across the keeper. I headed to an open spot on the far side and found myself in a group of about 50 Morton supporters who were clearly delighted by the result. I started to chat to a young girl there, with half an eye on the game, but a group of very tall men came and stood right in front of us. Despite me asking, they weren’t inclined to leave so we went down to the front – a wooden wicker fence to keep the crowds off the pitch, but there out view was obstructed by a concrete wall which was actually the support of a motorway flyover

We had the usual morning performance, and then the shower, shave and general tidy-up, and then it was shopping time.

And remember the roadworks by LIDL? There was a workman loitering in the vicinity so I went over to quiz him, but he saw me coming and walked away.

Did I mention that there’s a new line of product on sale at LIDL? I can’t remember.

But we have kangaroo meat now on offer, and I bet that you are hopping mad about that.

As for me, I didn’t buy anything out of the ordinary as such but they did have some of the Swedish vegan oatmeal biscuits on offer – the second box half-price – so two large boxes came home with me. And delicious they are too.

On the way back I stopped at the building site that we saw last week, to see what was going on.

They are still clearing the site at the moment, but I did notice that they have put some retaining supports in between the two houses on either side.

The are obviously worried about movement while there’s nothing in between them holding them up.

They say that Auvergnats have a reputation of being près de leurs sous, as they say around here. But Auvergnats have nothing on a Normandy Solicitor.

Solicitors in FRance are allowed to act as Estate Agents and their price calculation is worked out on the basis of the asking price for the client, plus 6% to cover the expenses of the transaction.

So have a close look at the price of this property for sale in a solicitor’s office.

While I was on the docks just now, another thing that regular readers of this rubbish might recall is the piles of shipping containers that arrived for the people rebuilding the harbour gates.

You can se what they have done with them – made two walls and put a roof of sorts over the top.

And I can’t say that I blame them either what with this weather that we have been having.

After lunch I had a few things to do, and then I went off for my afternoon walk.

And I was right yesterday about “Spring is Sprung”.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning the topiary guy the other weeK. He’s been back and cut the bushes and this gave me an opportunity to inspect them.

And sure enough – the first buds of 2018 are out already, although you might not believe it given the weather that we have just been having.

There are also hundreds (and I am not joking either) of Primary School kids wandering around Granville at the moment in the company of dozens of adults. Being a firm believer in “if you want to know the answer, you have to ask the question” and so having buttonholed a teacher I was told that it’s “Classe de Découvert” – discovery class, and the kids (at least, those to whom i was talking) had come from Nancy for the week.

But when was the last time that you heard of British kids being sent halfway across the country for a week for a Discovery Class?

Tea was stuffed peppers and spicy rice again, and then my evening walk.

And now I’m off to bed – see where I end up tonight, hey?

Monday 12th February 2018 – IT’S SNOWING!!!!

We had bright sunlight quite early on and I’d turned the light off early today. But round about 10:30 it went pitch-black outside.

And so out of curiosity I went for a peep out of the window and sure enough, we were having a fall of snow.

No-one was more surprised than me to see it, that’s for sure. I love the snow as you know, and I was bitterly disappointed to think that I might have missed out.

Mind you, when I say “snowing” – that’s something of an exaggeration. Especially when regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen photos of the Auvergne where I lived and where we could have half a metre of snow at the drop of a hat.

This was just a bare covering of snow, and unfortunately it didn’t last long. The weather quickly brightened up and within 20 minutes it had all melted away.

But it’s snow nevertheless, and here are the photos to prove it.

I’d had another good night’s sleep and been travelling again. I can only remember a small part of it, and that involved a cruise liner with a scene something reminiscent of Carry On Cruising. There was also a pile of loose change to be considered too, and the pieces of money were large and mis-shapen, nothing like what you would expect coins to look like these days.

Medication and breakfast, and once it all worked I settled down and attacked the European Photo Mountain. I’m at the stage where I can slowly start to add things back into the stuff on the external hard drive. It’s certainly a lot tidier – and a lot emptier – than it was when I resurrected it.

But there’s still tonnes of stuff missing and I do wonder where it’s all gone to. There must be another external hard drive somewhere, but I’m badgered if I know where it might be.

With a minor interruption to look at the snow, I carried on with it until lunchtime, and soup again.

Back at work and I had a phone call to make. It’s another one of these cases where you send a letter to someone telling them of your change of address, so they send the next document to your old address. I’m fed up of all of this.

And then there was a letter to write. That involved a lot of work and research, but that’s done now. And then there was a pile of stuff to print off. My Health Insurance want a declaration that I’m still alive (I’m not even sure of that and I’m sure that you aren’t either) and there are some documents from the Health Insurance to hand in to them. All of that needed to be printed off in order to take with me on Wednesday.

And then I tidied up and filed away a load of paperwork that had been lying around.

It was a beautiful, bright, warm sunny afternoon so I went for my afternoon walk around the headland again.

And I was in luck – just in time to see Normandy Trader cast off forr’ead and cast off aft, and set sail … "diesel" – ed … out of her little mooring.

Yes, the tide is right in, so there’s no point in my going down to look at this new gate arrangement thing to see what they have done.

So with a touch of “left hand down a bit”, Normandy Trader negotiated the exit to the tidal harbour and headed off out to the open seas.

I thought that we might have had a maritime disaster on her hands as just as she was leaving, two fishing boats appeared coming in.

But keeping starboard to starboard instead of the more usual port to port, there were no shipwrecks, nobody drownding and nothing to laugh at at all.

Back here I had a cold drink for a change – it was so warm (for the time of year) and then my exertions caught up with me.

Half an hour later, I had a session on the bass guitar – this time picking out the bass line to “Ride a White Swan” by T Rex. As the skunk said when the wind changed, “it all comes back to me now”.

Tea was more tortillas (I want to finish off the packet before I leave) with another load of my home-made stuffing mix, which really is good, even though I say it myself.

The wind had got up again when I went out for my night-time walk. It seems like the easly Spring has come and gone.

So I’ll have an early night, I reckon. Plenty to do tomorrow and there’s the Mardi Gras parade for the carnaval tomorrow afternoon.

Not to be missed, so I’m told.

Thursday 8th February 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

… that will surprise absolutely no-one – certainly not the regular readers of this rubbish – having been deposed from the top of the pile by our historical favourites the Royal Bank of Scotland having risen briefly from the dead, the Credit Agricole of Granville go back in front in the race to reach the bottom of the barrel.

Having had a telephone call yesterday from my “service agent” asking me to confirm that everything was in order, at 23:00 last night I had a message from my mobile phone and internet supplier to tell me that th monthly standing order has been missed.

It was previously being paid by the Credit Agricole in Pionsat and the account that I wanted to be closed. And I imagined that it was also being paid from my Granville account, because I remember distinctly taking all of the paperwork there back in the early summer.

And futhermore I had sent the details to the Bank on the 5th of January and again a week or 10 days ago.

So now I’m wondering about my Electricity account and my annual insurance payments.

Just for a change I had the Sleep of the Dead last night. And I went on an exciting voyage too, although every memory of it disappeared the moment that I awoke.

After the medication and breakfast, I had a shower, a shave and a change of clothes. Need to make myself look pretty because it’s shopping oday of course. And the weather was, just for a change, beautiful. Cold but very little wind and -SHOCK! HORROR! – some strange golden thing in the sky.

First port of call was the offices of my phone supplier. I explained the situation about my payments and they gave me a telephone number to call. I could have done the change of bank details then and there, but Brain of Britain hadn’t brought his details with him.

Next stop was the railway station, and that took some finding seeing as how a fairground seems to have grown up around it.

Of course, everyone is preparing for Carnaval, and it looks like it might be exciting. I shall have to go for a good walk around tomorrow evening to see what gives.

At the station I picked up my rail tickets for next week, and I noticed that the times have changed. There are engineering works on the line so the train is departing half an hour earlier, at 08:34. That’s going to upset my plans a little, isn’t it?

Up the hill to LIDL – the usual struggle – and in there I didn’t buy anything exciting at all. I’ve run out of carrots and seeing as they don’t sell t hem individually, I had to buy a kilo. That means before I leave here, I shall have to make some carrot soup and freeze it.

On the way back I popped into the harbour to see what was going on. The tide was in, and so was our old friend the Normandy Trader.

Not in the usual berth for the freighters – I wonder why that is. Probably due to the lock gates and the depth of water in the basin I reckon.

But with the tide being in, there wasn’t much point in going to photograph what they were doing. I’ll have to go again.

Lunch was the remains of the vegetable soup and then I attacked the European Photograph Mountain. Having been out today, I’m exempt from a tidying-up session.

As well as that, I’ve been tackling a little bit on the database, playing the guitar and ringing up the number that they gave me in the phone supplier’s. That at least is up-to-date, no thanks to the Credit Agricole. I really don’t know why I pay them for the service that I’m receiving. They should be paying me.

Having bought some peppers at LIDL, tea tonight was a pepper stuffed with the last of the stuffing that I made the other night. And how delicious that was too.

As yet I’ve not been for a walk. There’s footy on the TV – Bala against Cefn Druids in the Welsh Premier League. And I’m glad that I’m not in Bala – the weather over there is worse than we’ve had.

But I’m on 96% of my daily fitness total so I’ll go for a brief walk around later after full-time. A shame to stop so short of my target.

Thursday 11th January 2018 – REGULAR READERS …

… pf this rubbish will not be at all surprised by today’s news.

I believe that I mentioned that I had tracked down the mobile telephone repairer in Granville – there is only one. And so this morning I set off to pay him a visit. And there on the door was a notice “Gone on Holiday”.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

I had another excellent night’s sleep, and off on my travels yet again. My mother was having yet another one of her “performances” and so I left home yet again. I found myself in a big house where there was a place for me to stay – but it involved climbing up a rope and leaping across a three-foot gap, hanging on by my fingers and hauling myself up. But somewhere along the line I had acquired a cat, and trying to climb a rope with it in my arms was difficult, and jumping across a three-foot gap would be impossible. And then what made it worse was that another cat decided to come along and join in the fun. He climbed up into my arms too.

After breakfast I had a shower and general clean-up, and then it was tile to hit the streets.

First stop however was the port.

I’d seem them the other day unloading a pile of stuff n the quayside and so I reckoned that it might be Grima coming in. But instead it’s his rival, the Normandy Trader.

She’s a converted landing craft as you can tell, but apart from that I’ve not been able to find out anything about her history. I shouldn’t be surprised if she’s a former Caledonion-MacBraye island hopper, but who knows?

The phone repairer was closed as I said, so I struggled on to LIDL. And it was a struggle up the hill as you can imagine. I’m not really in fit state to go on foot but I do need to push myself onwards.

And seeing that I didn’t want anythinf really, I did well to spend €25:00 in there. But they had unleashed some more towels so I grabbed another set to make two now. And the last set of AAA batteries (but it’s not the batteries that are the issue in the remote control – it must be goosed).

But on the way back, I made an exciting find.

I had to make a sharp deviation to avoid being run down, and found myself face-to-face with the letter boxes of the Associations that use the public rooms.

And there are a couple of things on here that I find quite interesting, as you might expect. I shall have to make further enquiries.

Back in the town, I had a cunning plan.

Being frustrated with this message limit that is blocking my credit card from making on-line payments, I headed to the Post Office. When I was there the other day I’d seen pre-paid credit cards on offer. One of those, with a payment up front, should enable me to complete this driving licence.

But regular readers of this rubbish will not be in the least surprised to learn that the Post Office has sold out, and doesn’t plan on having any more.

You can’t make that up either.

But not to be outdone. I went to the Orange shop and had a bit of a moan at one of the salesmen. And hey! Presto! A quick manipulation with my phone and a raft of messages suddenly appeared.

You might think that I can now go ahead and complete the form, but I have a better idea that might take a couple of days to come to fruition.

All in all, I was out for almost three hours,and I’d done 82% of my daily exercise, so I’d earned a sit-down. And at lunchtime I made myself a thick vegetable soup with pasta and bulghour in it. Delicious it was too, and I even managed some bread.

I was going to say that I had a good relax all afternoon, but that’s not quite true. It was such a beautiful afternoon that later on I tore myself off the sofa and staggered outside for a walk around the headland.

There was a strange-looking yacht out there too. It’s either sailing at a strange angle or else it’s one of these historic yachts of the type that you see around here every now and again.

UNfortunately, without the zoom lens it’s difficult to say.

Yesterday I mentioned the lighthouse here on the Pointe du Roc.

I did say that I’ve yet to take a good photograph of it, and so I resolved to put that right today.

I’ve mentioned … "on many occasions" – ed … that each lighthouse is painted a different colour so that mariners can distinguish them in the daytime, and different sequences of flashes so that ditto in the night.

But I think that they could have been a little more imaginative with the colour scheme here. But at least it blends in with the ruins of the Atlantic Wall.

There’s also a coastguard station here, operated by the French Military.

It’s complete with a radar installation as you can see. A really impressive piece of equipment.

And so I continued on my way around qnd passed the 100% mark so I’m now feeling very virtuous. And quite right too. It’s been a while, although I know that I’m going to suffer for this.

Back here I had a spell on the guitar and listened to the music on the new hi-fi. And we’ve now passed onto Tangerine Dream.

I’m not too keen on some of their more experimental music, but they went through a stage – well, two stages actually – of producing some albums that were unbelievably superb, and bring back many happy memories of when I was living in Hankelow in the mid-70s.

And talking of superb, let me tell you about tea tonight. Not really knowing what I fancied, it was mashed potato with cheese, and a huge plate of mixed vegatbels with bulghour and gravy. Tons of protein in that lot.

That so buoyed me up that I went for another walk (well, more like a stagger) this evening. And I’m now up to 128% of my daily activity.

So I’m off to bed now to easy my aching joints. God knows what I shall be like tomorrow.

Friday 8th December 2017 – PHEW!

This weather is getting worse and worse.

Tonight, going out for my evening walk around the walls, I was the only one out. And that’s no surprise because I nearly wasn’t. There’s a little sally-port out onto the cliffs onto a footpath that I follow, and I had extreme difficulty in forcing myself through the aperture with the wind blowing full in my face.

It’s a long time since I’ve seen a wind quite like this.

Mind you it’s a shame that the tide wasn’t in. Watching the waves crashing onto the sea wall would have been impressive.

It took a while to go off to sleep last night but once I’d gone I’d really gone until the alarm went off. And I know that I was out and about during the night, but as soon as I awoke it all disappeared in a puff.

I’d switched the heat off in here before going to bed last night so it was cold this morning. And it took a while for the place to heat up>. And while it was doing it I was cracking on with my photos. I’ve searched through about half of them and deleted a huge pile of duplicates, some triplicates and even, shame as it is to say it, some quadruplicates.

Another thing that I’ve done is to make a huge back-up. Having freed off plenty of space on this external drive, I have the space to move things about. And a back-up is important. I haven’t done this for a while and I ned to keep it up to date.

This means that the photos that I took recently ae now saved onto the external drive, and as I have an old laptop with an *.ftp program on it, I can now upload them to the web. But having had a good search around on the internet, I am not the only one by any means who is dismayed by my web browser’s decision to discontinue the *.ftp extension.

Despite the weather I went out for my afternoon walk. Just three other people out there being tossed around in the gale. But it was so clear out there that Jersey was the clearest that I have ever seen it.

And there was a famous storm raging out in the bay, and with the sun streaming through some small gaps in the clouds it was all looking quite beautiful.

There had been a change of shipping too. Normandy Trader had gone but Grima was back.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, with vegetables and rice. And good it was too.

And here’s some disappointing news. As a reward for beating Vitré in the Cup the other day, US Granville have drawn Bordeaux – one of the best teams in the whole of France. And it’s at home too, but being played on a weekend when I’m not here.

how desperate is that?

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

EPIC HALL

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