Tag Archives: crash out

Saturday 12th August 2017 – THE LAST TIME …

… that I had to be up and about for a train, I remember saying something about the internal alarm clock. And so itwas this morning.

With the alarm set for 06:00, I was wide awake at … errr … 04:27.

Of course it goes without saying that I … errr … rested until the 06:00 alarm went off. And by 07:00 I was sitting down having had breakfast, cleaned the bathroom and toilet and tipped bleach everywhere (I’d washed the floor last night before going to bed).

Not only that, I’d taken all of the rubbish to the collection point and washed the wastebins too.

The bus was on time more or less and it was all pretty painless. But Brain of Britain has struck again – battery in the camera is flat. So no picture of the train this morning. I wasn’t going to use the phone camera, seeing as we are now in the middle of a torrential downpour. Flaming August, hey?

The train is only as far as Versailles – the Versailles Chantiers railway station. There’s a lot of perturbation on the Paris railway network with the construction of this new metro line so we are having to take the bus.

It took its time too getting to the Vaugirard railway station and then I had to fight my way through the metro.

We started off as we meant to go on, with the new suitcase being jammed in the turnstile and I had to appeal for help from the staff.

But the new suitcase proved its worth – being quite easy to pull along, unlike the previous one. And it’s a much more convenient shape too for passing through the crowds.

But there was a curious incident at Paris Gare du Nord.

Some young guy stopped me to ask me the way to the metro. And a minute or so later, as I was fighting my way through the exit turnstile, my bumbag became disconnected and fell to the floor.

Was someone trying to disconnect it in the crush? I couldn’t see how because they couldn’t have got away, but it was weird all he same.

The TGV was packed to the gunwhales and it shot along at a fair old pace into Brussels. I was soon installed in my hotel – the Midi-Zuid where I stayed with Hannah back in March.

Having fought of waves of sleep on the TGV, I wasn’t so successful here and was out for about an hour. And when I awoke, it was with a severe attack of cramp – so severe that I can still feel the pain in my calf even now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I suffered terribly from cramps in the leg but apart from a brief one about a week or 10 days ago, I’ve not had one for months and months. But this one was the daddy of them all.

I went out a little later for some food, but as luck would have it, I ran straight into the Foire du Midi.

It’s that tile of the year again when the whole of the central reservation of the big boulevard around the city centre in the area by the Gare du Midi is transformed into a giant funfair.

Hordes of people and all kinds of events taking place here.

I fought my way through the crowds to find something to eat – and that wasn’t easy because I found myself in the wrong street – I’m definitely losing my touch.

But having satiated my appetite I went back to watch the entertainment for a while. It’s all good fun and you could hear the screams from across town.

It would certainly put me off my chips being up there with them.

So now it’s an early night and prepare myself for the fray tomorrow. I’m meeting Alison and we’re going for a walk around the market. That should be fun.

Tuesday 8th August 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

I had to go to the Bank this morning. And as I was running a little low on fruit and stuff I decided to make a list and go to the fruit shop in town and pick up a baguette while I was there.

So down I strolled, picked up my fruit, picked up my baguette – and then came straight back up here having forgotten all about the bank!

I’ll just have to go another time, won’t I?

Bu I don’t think much of the fruit shop though. It’s quite expensive and the quality is nowhere near as good as in the Leclerc.

I’m still not getting the hang of this sleeping thing though. 02:30 when I went to bed last night and awake after just 4 hours and 28 minutes of sleep, of which 3 hours and 58 minutes was restful sleep and the other 29 minutes was restless. Maths is clearly not the strongest suit of my Fitbit, is it?

A minor crisis in which I have run out of muesli, but I’m not making a batch just for a couple of days. Luckily there’s a packet loitering around here from when I was living in “digs”. That’l do until I go.

And talking of going, I’ve been synchronising the computers today. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I bought a new laptop in the sales in June. I still have the old one, slow that it is, because of its light weight and extraordinary battery life. That will be coming with me on my travels.

Despite being the worst, slowest computer that I’ve ever owned, it’s done some sterling service and been on some incredible travels. And it will be on some more too. The synchronisation isn’t finished, but I’ll be dealing with that on Friday.

Not possible to go for lunch on the wall today. Every time one sets foot outside one’s apartment one is drenched with a squall of rain.

This afternoon I was on my travels again. I’d been invited for tea chez Liz and Terry as a pre-holiday treat.

Having had a shower to make myself look pretty (hence the Fitbit stats – I charge it up while I’m under the shower), I took the opportunity of

going to the railway station to pick up the railway tickets for Saturday (you can’t trust these machines to work when you need them).
That was exciting because there was nowhere to park (I pinched a car hire space in the end) and also because the machine wouldn’t give me the tickets either without the bank card that I used to order them.
“See the clerk in the ticket office” said the machine. And so I did. And she asked me for my bank card too.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall me being stranded in Arizona in 2002 when a bank card was “suspended due to unusual transactions – and so now I have six different cards – and so we had quite a performance trying to decide which the card that I had used.
Eventually we sorted it out and I went outside to be greeted by the manager of the car hire concession and we had words.
going to Centrakor to buy some luggage labels. All luggage has to be fully-labelled these days and my suitcase – would you believe – does not have a luggage label supplied. At that price too!
So I bought a pack of flourescent lime-green ones. They’ll stand out on a baggage carousel.

But the traffic through the town was horrendous. One of these huge mobile home things driven by a novice having difficulty in manoeuvring through the streets. And so much time at the railway station that I was stuck in the rush hour and it took ages to move through the town.

Liz had made vegan burgers, which went down nicely with chips and peas, followed by fruit salad and vegan chocolate cake (and a doggy-bag for me). Liz let me borrow her printer to print off my flight tickets too, so that’s all sorted out.

But I was struggling to keep awake all evening so I made my excuses and left. No walk this evening – it was pelting down outside so I sat down to do wome work on the laptop.

But having fallen asleep three times in the middle of a couple of keystrokes, I gave it up and went to bed.

Totally wasted.

Friday 4th August 2017 – WHAT A NICE …

… meal!

I was at the shops today and at LIDL they were selling a pack of three peppers for just €1:49. Couldn’t resist that so I grabbed a packet. That’s one for the curry next week and the other two – well, one today and one tomorrow with a few bits hived off for the pizza on Sunday.

I like stuffing, and mine is excellent. An improvement on last weeks because I boiled up some bulghour and added that to the chopped tomato, mushrooms, onions, garlic, olive oil, pepper and herbs.

But not as good as last week because I forgot the tomato sauce.

Anyway, there’s more than enough left over for tomorrow – the rest will go in the curry on Monday.

But I shan’t do that again though – leaving it late to go shopping. I’ve tried to be away by 08:30 and first in the supermarket but it was 10:30 when I arrived and the queues at the tills at LIDL were out of the door.

And the usual mayhem at LeClerc. I’m glad that this is my last shop of the holiday season. Next time that I shop, it will be in Montreal. But all in all today, I spent just €24:00 for food for the week – and nothing else. No little toys or anything.

Mind you – grapes were at €1:69 in LIDL …

I had a strange night last night – awake at 06:30 and it’s been a while since I last woke up before the alarm. Mind you, I crashed out for half an hour this afternoon and that’s been a while too.

Lunch on the wall in the wind, and I’ve done some cleaning up too – necessary as you could smell the bin from down the street.

But highlight of the day has been finding a batch of about 500 *.zip files from 2010 that relate to when I started with my 3D program. I couldn’t find them when I changed computer in 2011 and subsequently forgot all about them.

But rooting around in a miscellaneous folder on an old hard drive that I’d coupled up to an external caddy, there they were. I’ve been uploading a few (like 200 or so) to the laptop and I’ll do the rest another time.

See – I am still being busy even if my motivation has all gone for the moment.

Saturday 29th July 2017 – I’VE HAD A BAD …

… day today.

It’s probably something to do with my very late night last night – gone 02:30 when I finally crawled off to bed. And it was difficult to leave it at 07:00, I’ll tell you.

For the first couple of hours I didn’t do too much and then for the rest of the morning I went into town. It’s market day, and seeing as I hadn’t been into town during the week I took the opportunity to go for a prowl around.

Still no bank accounts transferred over, and so we had “words” in the branch office there. And quite right too. They seem to think that a wait of almost three months is “normal” – but I don’t, and I told them so too.

But the good news is that at least my pension is now being paid into the account – which means that I can afford to eat now.

Although whether I can do that soon is another matter. We’ve had an “incident” with the fridge today and I can see me having to replace that if I find a cheap one.

It’s my fault – I’m the first to admit it. But chiselling off the surplus ice with a blunt instrument has always worked in the past on every other fridge that I’ve ever had. Why didn’t it work on this one?

I declined the butties on the wall at lunchtime. There was a howling gale blowing and it was pointless to try to sit in that.

Fighting off the fatigue (and not always winning) I attacked another blog page today but ran aground. My heart wasn’t in it at all. I have days like this occasionally as you know and so I’ll have another go tomorrow.

Tea tonight was exciting. I planned something quite different and ended up with stuffed pepper (not made one of those in years), baked potato and frozen veg (and wrestling with the freezer door in the process).

A mix of tomato, mushroom, onion, garlic, olive oil, spices and tomato sauce into the emptied pepper and cooked in the oven for 40 minutes at 180°C (with the baking tray out, of course). Done to a turn it was.

And the veg smeared in butter and black pepper – it was gorgeous. But I never thought on to cook a rice pudding while I was at it. I’m clearly losing my touch.

So I’ll brave the hurricane and go for a walk in a minute, and then an early night.

I wonder where I’ll end up tonight. Last night I was somewhere that looked very much like this place, but I was looking down on it from a couple of hundred feet. We were (or, rather, whoever down there was) fixing a lighthouse that needed a good clean as it was all oiled up and sooty. And we had it working, and the beam was magnificent. Well-impressed with that.

Wednesday 26th July 2017 – OWWW!

That hurts!

And in places where I didn’t even have places too.

The early evening snooze that I had didn’t interfere with my sleeping last night because I had a reasonably-early night and was asleep until the alarm went off.

I’d even been on my travels too, and who should appear but Zero. She who occasionally accompanies me on the odd night-time ramble here and there every now and again. Last night she was showing off her new tractor. She was impressed with a couple of features, such as the handbrake that sprung back out of the way after you had released it so far, and foot pedals that slid into place when you sat in the seat. I told her to be careful about the handbrake, and in my day it was the seat that moved, not the controls. But anyway she went off whizzing around in it to show off, and I hoped that she would come back to continue our chat. But then I had to travel off down some dirt track, and this had become part of a housing estate. But the rest of the area was quite overgrown and natural and had been declared a zone of Special Scientific Interest so we had to be very careful what we did and we could only park in certain areas.

But I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. I was aching everywhere. But where I’l aching most is in the muscles that go across the top of the chest and into the shoulders. Just the muscles that you use when you are sanding down filler. And I’m still aching even now.

It’s a good job that it was raining outside as I was in no fit state to go and sit on my wall. It was even a struggle down to pick up the baguette. And I spent much of the day drifting in and out of sleep. That’s how tired I’ve been.

However, I’m not going to let it interrupt my plans. I’ve no intention of “taking it easy” because that’s no quality of life. I’ll keep on going just as I always have for as long as I can, and if I have to pay the penalty over the following day or two, then that’s just part of the deal.

So right now, I’ll go for a little walk again and see what I can manage. No matter what I do, I have to keep moving.

And in the communal rooms across the Place, there’s a rock band that rehearses every week at this time. They aren’t much good but they are bashing out all the numbers that we used to play in “Jack the Ripper” and “Orient Express” in the early 1970s. I shall have to go and have a look at them one evening.

POSTSCRIPT
They were still playing when I went out fr my walk so I went for a quick butchers. Four guys in their 40s or so and a girl singer in her late 20s. Not very well-rehearsed, the drummer is too wooden and the lead guitarist isn’t as good as he thinks he is. As for the others, well, credit for them to being out there doing it.

Tuesday 25th July 2017 – I KNEW …

… that it was going to be a lot of hard work today when Terry offered me a slice of Liz’s home-made vegan ginger cake as I arrived.

And I wasn’t wrong either.

I’d had a bad night too. With crashing out so convincingly earlier, it was well after 01:00 when I went to bed. And it wasn’t half an ungainly stagger into the bathroom this morning when the alarm went off.

Having done a bit on the blog (I’m trying to update at least 2 entries every day no matter what) I hit the road. But it wasn’t so easy as it might have been as the telecommand for the barrier didn’t work. I had to rely on a helpful neighbour.

Calling at the Casino for some fuel and the boulagerie in Cérences for some bread, I arrived at Terry’s for coffee and cake.

A quick dismantle of the remote control showed that the battery wasn’t seating right. So I took 10 minutes to repair it properly and even made the warning light function – and that’s a first.

All morning was spent sanding down the walls that we had filled yesterday. Terry had the machines and I was doing it by hand in the corners where the machines wouldn’t reach – Terry couldn’t do that because of his shoulder.

By the time we stopped for lunch we were looking like snowmen.

This afternoon we finished off the sanding, and then we had the cleaning. And I’m not sure which took the longer either.

Final job was to sweep the chimney, which was blocked. This involved a trip around all of the neighbours until someone produced a brosse de ramonage – Terry had packed his so well when he had moved house that he had no idea where it might have been.

Terry was up on the roof and I was down below holding the ladder and checking the fire.

By 17:00 I was totally finished off (remember that I had given up all of this work) and came home. First thing that I did was to have a shower (I forgot yesterday) and rinse my clothes of the plaster dust.

Second thing was .. errr … have a snooze, and until 20:00.

I’d had the remains of Liz’s apple flan for lunch, but Terry had sent me home with the remains of Sunday’s hot-pot so that was tea quickly organised. And just as well too because I’ve seized up, aching everywhere and in far too much pain to move.

But I’ve freed off a little now so I’ll go for a short walk around outside, just to say that I’ve been.

And then an early night – I reckon that I’ve deserved it.

Monday 24th July 2017 – I HAVE JUST MADE …

… one of the best curries that I’ve ever made.

It’s a chick pea and mushroom curry, and I’ve no idea why it should taste so different (or so nice) but it certainly was. And there’s enough for three more days too.

And I’ve been out this morning too. Apparently there was home-made vegan ginger cake being prepared at Roncey so of course Terry needed a hand with the plasterboard in his living room, didn’t he?

So after breakfast I bunged a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine and Caliburn and I hit the streets for Roncey.

I went out there via Intersport. Liz had seen my fitbit on Saturday and was having a play around with it. She asked me if, next time that I was passing, I could pick one up for her.

And it was a good job that I was outside the shop already when it opened its doors, because they only had one left! They don’t have any now!

Terry had fitted the plasterboard but having pulled a tendon in his shoulder, couldn’t reach up to infill the joints. And so I spent a pleasant morning with a pile of pollyfilla (I thought that I had left all of that kind of work far behind me).

There’s plenty of vegan ginger cake left, so I reckoned that the pollyfilla would need a good 20 hours to dry, and I could go back tomorrow morning and sand it down.

Back here, I crashed out for a good hour. Clearly even doing that amount of work was too much for me, but you will be amazed at the lengths to which I will go in order to get my teeth stuck into a slice of Liz’s home-made cake.

So curry for tea tonight, and now a walk. And then a shower (for my nice, clean bedding) and an early night. I need to build up my strength in order to justice to another slice of Liz’s cake.

Friday 21st July 2017 – WELL, I’M NOT …

… going out for an evening walk tonight, that’s for sure.

Not only do we have a howling gale, we have a lashing rainstorm too. And it’s pretty black over Bill’s mother’s too.

I had another bad night last night, that’s for sure. Only 5 hours and something-worth of sleep, with ony four hours of that in a deep and restful sleep. Yes, I’ve charged up the Fitbit and uploaded the data to the laptop.

I was busy working on another mega-blog page after my walk and somehow ended up being carried away. 01:45 when I went to bed. No wonder that I was tired when the alarm went off, and that I crashed out for a couple of hours this afternoon.

But a shower brought me round somewhet after breakfast and having dealt with “a computer issue”, i went shopping.

And I’ve been spending my money too, yet again. Although nowhere near as bad as last week.

The Centrakor was the beneficiary of my largesse today. They had some multi-USB hubs on sale at €3:99 and I need one of those, seeing as how Brain of Britain has somehow contrived to leave all three of his back in Virlet.

But of course one thing leads to another, and once you make a start you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

The Bluetooth oyster that I had as a hands-free device before the bluetooth radio – I took that to Canada for use in Strider, but it’s a different kind of lead than a standard USB lead, and I’ve … errr … misplaced that.

And so I’ve been havong a good look around for another one. And they had one in Centrakor – with a Bluetooth oyster device included. All for €7:99, which is the same price as I have been quoted for a cable. Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Not only that, they were having a sale of silicon pie dishes and the like for just €3:99 which is cheap at anybody’s price. And now I have a proper round pie dish, a bread/cake mould and a mould for making six tarts. I’ll be having a go at making mince pies in the winter.

Note to self – ask someone to bring me a couple of jars of mincemeat from the UK.

I stayed in at lunchtime too – the winds were wicked out there and I wouldn’t have enjoyed sitting on my wall at all. And I rather lost direction this afternoon with the fatigue. So it’s not been a very good day.

But I did finish the blog entries about the trip to the UK in June 2011. Now to see what else I’ve missed before I start on the Canada 2011 pages.

And I did have a visitor at lunchtime – and I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow. I’m too tired to go into details tonight.

Footnote
I did go out – just for a quick lap around the block. And in the 5 minutes that I was out, I was soaked to the skin. Except where I had my new McKinley raincoat. That did exactly the job that it was supposed to do – and I wish that I had bought it in a bigger size now.

Thursday 20th July 2017 – TUESDAY NIGHT’S …

… sleep was something of a disaster, if you remember correctly.

Not so last night’s.

In bed at a reasonably early hour for these days (the days when I retired at 21:30 seem to be long-past, thank heavens) and I was out like a light until David Bowie awoke me.

Mind you, for all the good it might have done, I may as well have stayed in bed because it was miserable outside, with a storm-force wind, to such a degree that I was planning on cancelling my Thursday walk into town.

But it brightened up (just a little) and the wind dropped (just a little) by 09:30 so even though I hadn’t showered or shaved, I wandered off into town all the same.

Nothing doing at the docks – “no shipwrecks and nobody drownding, in fact nothing to laugh at at all” as the old song goes. So I wandered off to the bank to check the accounts and sure enough – the money STILL hasn’t come in. I’ll need to see to that.

Having picked up a baguette – one of the nice ones that I like from down town, I wandered back up here.

Lunchtime was as usual on the wall, but I didn’t stay long. I don’t mind overcast weather and I don’t mind winds, but when you have both together it’s a bit depressing and miserable.

But I have made a decision – and that is that I’m going to change my routine slightly.

I had to throw away a melon today and also a couple of nectarines. They aren’t lasting for a whole week in this weather.

What I shall be doing is on my Friday shopping trips, buying just enough for four or five days and having my walk into town on Tuesdays when I can pick up fruit for the rest of the week from down there.

Tea was the last of the lentil and mushroom curry – and nice it was too. I’ll have to invent something for the next couple of days. I’m sure that I can manage.

So apart from craching out for half an hour this afternoon, I’ve been on the blog again. Here’s a page that I half-started last night after I returned from my walk, but fell asleep with it only half-completed.

I can’t believe that I only gave this page a 100-word place holder back then. It concerns two subjects upon which I was working at the time and I remember thinking that I’ll go back and rewrite the page when I had a moment.

And then I must have forgotten.

But I didn’t accomplish too much today, what with my walk, my long chat with Terry on the telephone (a present has arrived for me today, thank heavens – many thanks, Terry), having a rest and that sort of thing.

But in an idle 10 minutes when I was stretching my legs, I brought out the sheep shearer and razed my head. It’ll do now for a bit, although I’ll give it the quick once-over before I go to Canada.

Tomorrow will be the same too with a shopping trip, so I shall have to push along much more rapidly when I can.

Wednesday 19th July 2017 – THIS WALKING IDEA …

… is supposed to make me sleep better at night.

And it worked for the first couple of nights, but last night I dunno what happened because I was still sitting up here working at 01:45 and even when I did go to bed I couldn’t sleep (note to self – check Fitbit next time that I charge it up)

So a very tired me staggered out of bed this morning … errr … somewhat after the alarm had gone off.

Grey, miserable and windy. But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather. And I didn’t feel much like going out for my baguette this morning. But I was early too, which makes a change.

Lunch on the wall, with no lizards and mice to keep me company, a little … errr … repose this afternoon, and another helping of lentil and mushroom curry for tea.

And the blog.

Having spent some time last night (or, rather, early this morning) untangling my visit to the UK in early June 2011, I started the assault on the pages.

I’m halfway through at the morning, having dealt with pages like this one that never even had a place-holder before. The next half a dozen have been done too.

It’s amazing the things that I have forgotten, and the things that never made it onto the blog. it’s high time that I caught up with it.

And remember the other day when I mentioned my mammoth expenditure?

The first part of it has come today. But of course it’s the part that doesn’t work without the other bit, so you’ll have to wait a little longer to see what it is.

Tuesday 18th July 2017 – CRASH! BANG!

No, I’m not doing the washing-up.

There I was at lunchtime sitting on my wall at lunchtime eating my butties and admiring the view (and watching the Grima depart for Jersey with a full load of stuff on board) and thinking to myself “it’s going a bit dark across the bay round by Cancale”.

Back here at about 15:30 the most enormous hurricane sprang up – totally astonishing; I stuck my head out of the window and I could see the wild storm lashing the rocks.

About 5 minutes later it went as black as pitch and I thought “hey up – we’ll get the lot in a minute!” and I hadn’t even finished saying it when there was the most impressive flash of lightning followed by an incredible thunderclap.

And then we had the rain.

Sheets and sheets of it, with the orchestra and light show rumbling on and on.

It all cleared up after about half an hour and we were then back in the sunshine. But that was so impressive. I really enjoyed the show.

What else that was impressive was that I was out like a light last night and slept right though until the alarm went off.

I don’t remember too much abut my little voyage last night though. Except that it was in Luxembourg – or was it Liechtenstein – and a visit to the country’s tax office, only to find that because of the small size of the country there wasn’t enough room for the Government offices there so they were all in the next town in a neighbouring country.

Today, I’ve been pressing on with the blog. And most of the time has been spent on just one particular page. 2300 or so words on there, and it’s hard to believe that there wasn’t even a placeholder there before.

Not only that, I’ve probably done another 9 or 10 too and I’m in April 2011. And I would have done even more had I not … errr … had a little rest.

Won’t be so easy in a bit though because there’s a huge mess of pages to untangle from when I was in the UK. It’s hard to believe that I went from March 2009 to early summer 2011 without setting foot in the Perfidious Albion except for a day trip to pick up the tile cutter.

But then again, apart from a quick day trip for Terry’s slates, I’ve not been there since December 2012. And I can’t say that I miss it any. My future is well and truly here.

And those of you with long memories will remember me moaning a while back about a data cable for my Canadian mobile phone, and Rhys using the medium of the “comments” page to show me on that he had seen?

Well, it arrived in the post today.

So many grateful thanks from me, and you will be receiving a plain brown envelope in the post shortly after I set foot in Montreal.

The comments facility on this blog is a powerful thing. Why don’t you try it some time?

Thursday 13th July 2017 – IF YOU WANT TO KNOW …

… the answer to a question, the most important thing to do is to ask the question.

And I now know all about the Pluto and the Victress.

I was flat-out in my stinking little pit when the alarm went off this morning. Which totally surprised me because I’m lucky to be still here

I was well-away with the fairies last night, starting off on my old Honda Melody looking for an ice cream. And on the way back I was passed by a couple riding horses rather recklessly down a narrow street. 100 yards further on they had been stopped by a plain-clothes policeman in a silver Range Rover who was giving them both a lecture and an on-the-spot fine, so as I rode past, I made a few remarks of … errr … “encouragement”. It was then that I realised that I had no insurance, road tax or MoT and with the number plate I knew that it would be checked immediately. No hope of flight of course so after a minute or two of wracking my brains I decided to leave the bike in the back yard where I lived and clear off. Of course I did that but I hadn’t gone 50 yards when the landlady stuck her head out of the back gate and told me that I was wanted. No hope of escape now.
A little later I was on a push-bike going into Newcastle upon Tyne. But it certainly wasn’t the Newcastle upon Tyne that I ever knew. I’d taken the route twice and so didn’t have my map with me but I was pretty certain of where I was going so it was no problem. So down the hill, turn left and then round this sweeping right-hand bend following the tramlines – a road that would take me very close to the city centre. But here on this corner, people kept stepping off the kerb right in front of me. And for some reason or other, this degenerated into a situation that appears quite regularly in my nocturnal voyages – namely that I have Mark III Ford Cortinas scattered all over the town in various states of MoT and Tax and Insurance, and I need to consolidate them all so that only the 100%-legal ones are on the road and the rest are safely stored otherwise I’ll lose them, including my precious estate car.

After breakfast and a little pause to gather my wits (which doesn’t take too long these days) I hit the streets, direction town. It was a lovely morning, that’s for sure.

Down the hill and down the bank, and then down the ramp to the harbour and there was a superb view of the Marité looking so splendid in the sunlight

I’m determined that one of these days I shall go out aboard her, even if it is only for a lap around the bay. But I bet that I’ll be very disappointed and find that it will be a diesel-powered “sailing” all the way.

That will be sad.

There was another pile of scrap on the quayside, mostly old agricultural stuff and the usual scrap fridges and cookers.

This seemed to bear out my theory from the other day about the Victress and Pluto bringing it in. But then I had another idea.

By this time I was down near the harbour offices so I popped in to ask them about the ships.

And it seems, I’m wrong. Yes, it does happen occasionally, which I know will surprise you all.

There’s a big quarry near Avranches that produces a special kind of stone and every so often Victress and Pluto come in to load up 2400 tonnes per trip to take back to the UK.

But they always come in empty – it’s not they who bring in the scrap.

So who’s bringing in the scrap then?

It didn’t take me long to find out.

No prizes whatever for guessing what this is – or, rather, was.

She’s the Grima and her claim to fame is that she was formerly the ferry that operated the Shetland Island Council route between Bressay and Lerwick between 1972 and 1992.

She has a carrying capacity of about 8 or 9 cars or so and was sold when the volume of traffic began to overwhelm her. She eventually became a work-boat for the Lerwick fishing industry

She was still displaying her “Lerwick” lifebelts so I hailed the crew who were relaxing on deck.
“Blimey! You’ve come a long way in that”
“Not really” replied the skipper. “Only from Jersey”.

It appears that she now sails out of Jersey and comes into Granville a couple of times each week bringing in the scrap (there are no scrap-processing facilities on the island) and taking back building supplies, wood and the like.

She’s probably not licensed for passengers, but I have a Cunning Plan. You don’t need a maritime permit or whatever to be a ship’s cook and my cooking has never killed anyone yet – although I have seen a couple of people stagger out of my kitchen.

They say that there’s a time for fishing – and a time for mending the nets.

Clearly for today it’s the latter. Here they all are with their needles and thread having a good old sew and sew.

That looks as if it’s the kind of job that might take for ever with a net that size, so good luck to them

We all know what these are, but what surprised me was what they are doing out of the water.

And even more importantly, have they put anything back in to replace them? It would be exciting if they hadn’t.

It’s a little-known fact that Michael Jackson applied to join the US Navy. But he withdrew his application after the Recruiting Officer told him
“I don’t care how it’s pronounced. Those things that line the approaches to every harbour are called BUOYS”.

I headed off around town to check my bank accounts (money STILL not received) and where I bumped in to my neighbour again as I had done last week.

Next stop was to see the estate agents to warn them of my absence. And I forgot to check the times of the buses for the station in … GULP … just 30 days time.

Lunch was once again on the wall overlooking the harbour.

Not much going on today but I did watch the ferry for the Iles de Chausey heading off with quite a crowd on board. Sea as calm as a millpond so they probably all had a good time.

And I had a new lunchtime companion today. Never mind the four lizards who always come to see me – when I dropped my apple core onto the ground for the wildlife, a brown mouse appeared – right at my feet – and dragged it off into the undergrowth to munch at its leisure.

Apart from that, I’ve been bashing away on the blog once more. Not quite the 20-odd (and sometimes more) pages of recent date though.

I ran aground round about 7th January 2013 and that’s when it all went haywire as my concentration and efforts were diverted. So I’ve advanced to June 2013 where there’s a couple of weeks that need to be done.

Then the difficult bits will start.

That wasn’t the only reason that I fell behind. The walk this morning had taken quite a lot out of me and I was totally out of it for two hours and more this afternoon. I clearly can’t last the pace.

But with the final batch of kidney bean and aubergine whatsit having bitten the dust today, and having had a good chat with Liz and Rosemary, I’m ready for bed.

And quite right too. Shopping tomorrow!

Sunday 9th July 2017 – GRIBOUILLE …

… is one very unhappy moggy this morning. And who can blame him?

He went out at first light for his usual early-morning constitutional, but upon his return home for breakfast, started to scratch. And scratch. And scratch. So cue the flea-powder.

Consequently when I went out for my baguette this morning, there he was sitting sulking on the path outside his home, having abandoned his perch on the windowsill in a fit of pique.

He wasn’t the only one having a fit of pique this morning either. Having made a point of having a late-ish night last night in preparation for a major lie-in for a change, I was up and about at … errr … 06:40. And it wasn’t with fleas either.

But the early start meant an early breakfast, and it also meant an early start on the blog. And with great effect too, because not only have I finished the modernisation to the modernisation, I’ve started on the modernisation to the modernisation to the modernisation.

Yes, it seems that even recently, I’ve not been keeping to the standards that I intended to set.

And the bringing up to date of the pre-July 2013 stuff is proceeding apace. I’d done three entries before I went out for my baguette and all in all today, I’ve done … errrr … 20 or so.

Including a couple of rather lengthy entries. Not as long as the marathon entry that I amended yesterday, but nevertheless, enough to keep me out of mischief for a while. I’m now well into September 2012.

I enjoyed my trip out for the baguette this morning. It gave me a chance to see who and what was about on the streets.

Such as this gorgeous Peugeot 403. You used to see these by the thousand all over the streets of France and even now there are still plenty about being used as everyday drivers.

Well over a million of these were built between 1955 and 1966, replacing my beloved Peugeot 203, and so well-made were they that they seem to have long-outlived the “Farina” 404 that replaced them.

Back here and pressing onrelentlessly with the blog, I did manage to pause for lunch.

That was taken once again up on the wall overlooking the harbour. And what a busy harbour it was too today.

Pluto had left on the morning tide and by the time that you read this she will probably be in her next port of call, which will be Whitstable in Kent.

But there were plenty of other ships floating around out there making the most of the beautiful weather. Grockles clearly out in force.

As for me, I came back in here to escape the heat and have a little … errr … relax before cracking on again.

Tonight’s pizza was the best yet. Still took too long to cook, but delicious all the same. It would be nice to have the perfect oven that does exactly what I want but I need to be realistic and admit that that is never going to happen.

And so we’ll have an early night tonight. And a good sleep too, I hope.

Thursday 6th July 2017 – I DIDN’T FORGET …

… to have my 17:00 melon this evening. Which was just as well, because it went down a treat. And in this heat, it was beautiful.

It was hot even when I awoke this morning, and as I was sitting doing nothing very much just after breakfast I could see the temperature on the thermometer rise and rise.

I’d had a bad night last night though. Took ages to go to sleep, and woke up in the middle of the night feeling really uncomfortable. It took ages to go back off to sleep again, but when I did, I was away with the fairies.

It was the turn of the person who has been described in this rubbish on many previous occasions as “The One That Got Away” to accompany me on my travels. And she didn’t get away last night – not ‘arf she didn’t! I was back in Crewe (heaven alone knows why!) and going to Hunter’s Lodge – along a road that bore absolutely no resemblance to the road to there, which wasn’t a problem because Hunters Lodge wasn’t anything like it is either. Anyway, there I fell in with the aforementioned and ended up commuting to work across the Channel every day.

So I was flat out when the alarm went off. And … errr … flat out when the reminder went off too. But then again, if you were in an amorous clinch with The One That Got Away during a nocturnal ramble, you wouldn’t want to wake up either.

At 09:15, I went for my little walk into town. Down the hill, down the ramp, and, something that I hadn’t yet done, a good stroll around the harbour. Lots of boats and quite a bit of activity too, and I fell in with a fisherman who told me about all of the fish that one catches here. Mind you, he wasn’t doing so well. In fact, he was doing pretty badly.

And it was around here that I fell in with one of my co-habitees. She had gone for a walk too. And so we chatted for quite a while about nothing in particular, and I went about my business.

That involved a trip to the bank. And sure enough, the payments that I wanted to check had been made, which is good news. The bad news is that my accounts from Pionsat STILL haven’t been transferred over.

This is … errr … unsettling me somewhat. When I go shopping tomorrow I shall go to see if I can find a pickaxe handle anywhere. Giving someone a message by tapping it into their thick skulls in Morse Code with a pickaxe handle usually works wonders.

Back here, thoroughly exhausted and boiling hot by 11:05. That was a nice walk.

And then I spent the rest of the day on the blog. I’ve done tons of it too, although much of my time was spent on just one particular day – another one of these ones that I briefly sketched out and then moved on.

Lunch on my little wall, a little doze in the afternoon too. I’m getting into something of a routine – and isn’t that uncomfortable?

Last of the curry for tea tonight. I shall have to be more adventurous tomorrow.

But with the shops, let’s see what’s on offer.

Monday 3rd July 2017 – IF THE CURRY …

… that I made tonight tastes any better in 3 days time than it did tonight, it will be something worth eating!

Onions fried to perfection (I love my new wok) with garlic, mushrooms and chick peas. All fried up with cumin, coriander and paprika. Add a tin of mixed vegetables, boulhgour, peanuts and gravy browning, and there you are. Delicious! I was really impressed with that!

But apart from that, it’s been a very mixed day today. Lots of good things and a few things not so good.

We started off with a really good sleep. I remember nothing whatever until the alarm went off. Dead to the world, I was.

After breakfast, I sat down for five minutes to relax and drifted right away with the fairies for a good 45 minutes again – the first of MANY such departures during the day.

And impressive departures they were too. Not a subconscious dozing but a proper full-blooded sleep. I’m clearly sickening for something again.

But I did manage the baguette and in between the waves of sleep I cracked on with the blog. I was doing really well too until I suddenly hit “the wall”. I don’t mean the kind of physical tiredness wall thing, but a much more substantial thing than that.

Yes, I can’t think why but for some reason, I’d lost a huge stack of photos from June 2012. 37 for a summer month just didn’t seem right to me.

Luckily I have all of my external hard drives here and so after sifting through ever so many of them I did actually find the one with the back-up images. Took me ages to do it, mind you – you have no idea how many images that I have, and how many external drives that I have either – but there they were.

That took me to lunch when I went and sat on my wall overlooking the harbour. And as it was such a nice day – not too hot and not too windy – I sat out there for quite a while admiring the fishing boats coming in to unload their catch. Plenty of them too!

This afternoon I attacked the issue that I mentioned briefly yesterday. Not much hope from my insurers – “we’ll let you have our reply within 15 working days” – thanks very much – so I sent off a delaying letter to the Tax Office to give them something to think about meantime.

And then I turned my attention to my journey in August. Eat your hearts out, you British rail travellers. From Here to Eterni … errr … Brussels – 650 kms of which half is done on a new Multiple Unit and the other half on a TGV – costs me just €73:00!

Three nights in the Hotel Midi-Zuid – the one near the station where I stayed with Hannah in March. Excellent value for money and a sale on so I’m there for €150. How about that?

And then three nights in the Hotel Bon Accueil – the cathouse at the back of the bus station in the centre of Montreal near the Berri-UQAM metro station where I stayed last year. That’s setting me back €180 which, for the centre of Montreal is a steal.

I’ve declined the Comfort Inn at the end of the runway at Dorval. Much as I love the hotel and the atmosphere of standing waiting for the bus 202 at the side of the motorway, I have to be practical these days with my health.

One thing that I have decided to do however, so as to still have my fix on the bus 202 is to catch it at Ducollege metro station like I used to do, but do the entire route to see where it goes after the airport hotels.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. And if it’s as good as the last one I shan’t complain at all.

EPIC HALL

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