Tag Archives: brehal

Wednesday 24th April 2024 – THAT WAS AN …

… adventure!

Right now I’m back home sitting in my favourite chair and you’ve no idea just how grateful I am. It was the last thing that I expected today but as Paul Peña wrote and Steve Miller sang, YOU KNOW YOU GOTTA GO THROUGH HELL BEFORE YOU GET TO HEAVEN

Last night though, after I’d finished my notes etc I went straight to bed and spent a very pleasant hour or so listening to “Alquin” on the computer. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, THE MOUNTAIN QUEEN is one of my favourite albums of all time, especially since I met the group, a band from Delft in the Netherlands, in a dingy damp cellar underneath an old hotel in Crewe in 1975.

It was something of a disturbed, turbulent night. I can’t recall too many interruptions from the staff but there’s a huge pile of stuff on the dictaphone that you will discover as you read on.

By 08:00 I was wide awake and as no-one had come past by 08:30 to awaken me, bring me breakfast, take a blood sample etc, I left the bed, did what I had to do and then washed my clothes.

Just as I was hanging up the sodden rags to dry out, the doctor came in and handed me my leaving pouch.
"Am I leaving then?" I asked
"Ohh" she replied. "Hasn’t anyone told you? Anyway, your taxi will be here at 13:00"
What a shame she hadn’t come 5 minutes earlier when my clothes were still dry

She went through the documents with me and made sure that I understood everything.

And then I went through my requirements, including the fact that she needs to apply to the Securité Sociale. for another series of authorisations, but I don’t think that she understood. That’s important of course, so I’ll ring up the taxi company and have them involved in the proceedings.

"By the way" she added "You have a consultation at ‘Imagerie’ at 10:30" so bang goes my idea of a shower. It’s a good job though that I had a good wash and changed my clothes.

At 10:00 the driver turned up to take me to “Imagerie” and off we set.

When we arrived I was told that they wanted to take a few scans of my heart so I had to strip off, clad myself in some paper overalls and then lie flat out on a bed while they clamped all kinds of strange devices to me and pumped me full of some kind of fluid.

Once I was ready they passed me through one of these Stargate time-tunnel things, back and forth for half an hour or more, taking all kinds of strange photos while the machine made all kinds of strange noises and I had to do all kinds of breathing exercises

Eventually they dragged me out and with my head spinning and body shaking (and it still is, even now) I went and dressed ready for the ride back.

And whose stupid idea was it to take my blood pressure as soon as I’d come back from all of that?

Batman and Robin weren’t on duty today – I must have scared them off – so another young nurse came in to ask me "we need to have your room ready for another arrival at 13:00. Would you mind waiting in the waiting room?"

So that’s why they want me gone. "Well, if it’s a nice young lady, I don’t mind sharing the room" I replied but she told me to clear off.

They brought me my lunch to the waiting room – bulghour with chicken followed by pork and courgettes. The peaches with almonds for dessert were nice though.

The taxi was booked for 13:00 so of course he turned up at 14:40. With the A13 being closed it’s total chaos in the outskirts of Paris right now.

Once in the car we had to go on a TRAVERSÉE DE PARIS, with no Bourvil to carry my suitcase, to another hospital to pick up another passenger. The trip across the city was a nightmare and finding the correct entrance was something else too.

And then there were “parking issues” while the driver went in search of his passenger.

Eventually we set off for home, going a very tortuous way via Rungis and Versailles to avoid the queues on a journey that seemed to take for ever and after a pitstop near Caen, we had first to go to Bréhal to drop off passenger number 2. We eventually arrived back here at 19:45.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me which was lovely. She helped me up the stairs (and I needed it too) and into my room, where she went through the papers and took what she needed for the chemist. I had an energy drink – and I needed that too.

There was one jar of vegan pesto remaining and I’d saved it for some special occasion or other. “Now” seemed like a special occasion so I made a big dish of pasta with assorted vegetables and smothered it all with half the jar.

And it was delicious too.

So this is all that I’m doing. I’m totally wasted and I’m going to bed. With luck I’ll have a really good sleep ready to face Isabelle the nurse tomorrow morning

As for the dictaphone notes, there are quite a few of these. I was with my brother (so I was right) and we were having to go to Shavington. We set out to walk but it was really late at night. Our parents had gone to Sandbach but we wondered why. They were supposed to be doing something but we reckoned that it was really an excuse for a party and a drink. As we walked it was the biggest moon that we had ever seen. There was only probably about a tenth of it that was bright but we could make out the shape of the rest of it above the horizon. It was absolutely enormous. As we walked we looked at the houses and the Christmas lights. We wondered whether one of them was actually on fire because of the way the lights were working. Then we cut off to Shavington down that track that I take frequently in my dreams, a long, narrow track, but I’ve not been down it for a while but at one time I’d go down it once per week. As we started to go down there – we’d gone maybe a quarter of a mile – we noticed someone leading some horses. My brother made some offensive remark about me being unwilling to spend any money. It seemed that his idea would be to hire a couple of these horses and go to Shavington on horseback to save having to walk. I thought that there’s nowhere to leave the horses, you can’t just tie them up in the street like in a Western. You’re going to need someone to hold them while we were at the doctor’s. It’s all going to be just far too complicated to even think about hiring a couple of horses to go there and come back.

That’s a track down which I’ve walked, or skied, or climbed on many occasions during the night and I’ve no idea why it keeps on cropping up like this. I’ve no idea if it exists in real life and I’ve certainly never encountered it for real as far as I’m aware.

Later on I was with a girl and her sister. There was some kind of event going on in the village but it was really poorly attended. There were very few people there. There were two beer tents and most of the people with me, because we were a large group, preferred one tent but I thought that the beer in the second was much better. I tended to patronise that one. In the end I managed to persuade people that that one was best and they came over. They were wondering how everything worked so I explained that I bet that he was really disappointed with the attendance. I explained that when I used to put on rock concerts I’d hire a complete bar and just buy the beer etc but I needed about 80 or 90 people to make a profit at the bar and that rarely happened. They were surprised by that. In the end we set out to walk home. I’d sold everything that I had in rural France except for one plot of land where I had four Cortinas parked. My friend’s sister was planning on moving too. I had my old J4 so she told me that when we reached her house, to back it into the drive and do something useful but I’d no idea what she meant by that and what her plans were. There was a big house for sale with lovely gardens that had been empty for years. We were admiring that on the way back. My friend said that she’d enquired about buying it but it needed more money than she had. We carried on walking and talking back to my friend’s sister’s house but I’d still no idea about what was going on and there were only a few more hours left before the end of the day. if she was planning on moving today she was leaving it extremely late because we’re never going to fit everything of hers into my J4 van.

Cortinas as usual, and my old J4 van has started to make regular appearances just recently too which is bizarre. But it’s true about the bar. We could rent the bar and staff for free if the turnover was over a certain amount but the owner needed a guaranteed minimum to cover his expenses and that had to be made up by the hirer if there was a shortfall

And then I was watching two girls, one of them a ward of mine, fighting over a boyfriend using broadswords. It was an extremely tame affair with the two of them jabbing at each other. Most of the wounds with broadswords according to modern autopsy were like overarm slashes down onto the head yet these were just poking at each other. The ward of mine asked permission to go out with this boy. I gave it because I didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t but the other girl was extremely upset. This led to the fight.

And overarm slashes being the common cause of death in medieval fights with broadswords. I was impressed that I could remember anatomical details like that during a dream.

There had been some dispute between two men over something too. One had gone into a second-hand shop, changed his clothes and hid in the shop in the hope of escape of his pursuer but that didn’t work. They had a fight too. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I was walking through Crewe planning on going for an ice cream with my brother’s wife (as if that would ever be likely to happen) when I bumped into a guy who told me that he was going to Birmingham for the best ice cream in the UK. I knew this guy from somewhere but I couldn’t think where so I decided to go with him. We dashed to pick up my brother’s wife but she wasn’t in so we headed for the railway station. I boarded the train with this guy and went to see the conductor about buying a seat but my friend told me that there were no seats available on this train. It was completely full. I had to reluctantly disembark and go back to my original plans.

There was something else but I only remember a small part of this. I was with a guy who was going across the Channel on a ferry so I thought that I’d go with him. We went in his car, drove to the ferry terminal and joined the queue but we couldn’t understand why all these people were standing around so strangely. We suddenly realised that each person was about twelve feet apart from the one in front and behind. That was how their cars were going to be parked on the ferry. There were no cars there though, just the people standing in position. We had to go to the back of the queue then walk twelve paces behind the person who was there and then stand and wait around. God knows what was happening to the vehicles because there were none about at all. Everyone else kept on turning up, people having fun in the ferns and bracken that were all around this car park. It really was the strangest thing that I’ve ever encountered, all of us just standing there twelve feet apart in our own little family groups etc and not a car in sight.

So after transcribing all of that I’ll probably go back to sleep again.

While I’m doing that, I can reflect on my conversation with the photographer as I left the Stargate
"Did you manage to find my heart?" I asked
"Yes I did" she replied
"Thank heavens for that" I replied. "I’m not turning into a Conservative after all"

0

Sunday 11th November 2018 – I REMEMBER …

… last night saying something about going to bed early meaning waking up early and how I wasn’t hoping for another 04:45 start or whatever time it was.

And I was right too.

03:35 is certainly different. I can see that there’s nothing really to be gained by having an early night. It simply means that I have an early start.

Not so early though that I didn’t have time to go on a nocturnal ramble though. I was visiting a big city and was staying in a hotel well outside – so much so that we had to take a bus to the railway terminus. We piled on board and more and more people joined us as we made the tour around the hotels. And then a long drive to the railway station. We all alighted and people then went to change their money – one girl changed an enormous wad of €20 notes. I then got back onto the bus, which now had just half a dozen people on it, and we headed off elsewhere. It suddenly occurred to me that I shouldn’t be on the bus but on the train, so I dashed down to the front of the bus. The driver pulled up at another railway station and explained to me that there were two routes that I could take from here into the city, and how I had actually stolen a march on my comrades. It was then that I realised that I was actually on the south-western edge of London, and that was where I was headed.

But there was no danger whatever of my leaving the bed at that kind of silly hour of the morning. I did manage to go back to sleep where I stayed until all of about 07:30.

But that was my lot. By 07:45 I was actually out of bed and working.

I was pushing on with dealing with all of the photos that have built up over the week, but I couldn’t keep it up.

Never mind having a crash out in the chair – by 10:15 I was flat out on the bed underneath the bedclothes and there I remained until 12:15. Now THAT’s a Sunday lie-in!

Once I was back in the Land of the Living I had another hour or so on the photos and then stopped for lunch.

football bréhal la bréhalaise as folligny district manche normandy franceAfter lunch, I headed off the Bréhal for the match between La Bréhalaise (in blue) and AS Folligny.

Manche District 3rd Division so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of skill, but I was pleasantly surprised.

It’s not Premier League but at least there was plenty of effort and the players did what they could.

And I do have to say that the standard of football seems to be higher than in the Auvergne, that’s for sure.

football bréhal la bréhalaise as folligny district manche normandy franceFolligny are up at the top of the table and La Bréhalaise near the bottom, and it’s certainly true that the home keeper was by far the busiest of the two.

But the match hinged on a moment of magic from the La Bréhalaise n°10 who beat three men down the right wing with apparent ease, crossed into the centre where a beautiful shot from one of the attackers beat the Folligny goalkeeper, who had up to that point been a spectator.

The n°10 played a strange game. Much of the time he was invisible – drifting in and out of the gale – but occasionally he could certainly pull something special out of the hat.

We had a couple of bad-tempered moments out there and the referee, who looked as if he might be new, wasn’t quite sure of himself. But it all passed on quite well to the end of the game. And Folligny can feel disappointed about going home with nothing.

Back here I added some photos to a few of the pages from last week. You can see them by going here and working forward.

Tea was a vegan pizza and then a walk around the Pointe du Roc in the wind. But it’s not as windy as it has been for the last few days.

And now I’ll try once again for an early night and a decent sleep.

0

Thursday 1st November 2018 – I NEVER LIKED …

… the Nikon D3000 anyway.

And I bet that I’ll like it even less tomorrow when I have a close look at it.

It was a beautiful night tonight and I could see Jersey and St Malo quite clearly in the distance across the sea with a storm blowing away in the distance. Even the lights of the wind farm 70kms away beyond Barneville-Carteret could be seen in the distance.

I took quite a few photos of Jersey in the storm, none of which worked as well as I would like. Trying to take a photo on a tripod in the pitch black in a gale in the windiest part of France is not easy

jersey by night storm granville manche normandy franceThe best of a pretty poor bunch was this one taken with the 50mm f1.8 lens.

As you might expect there was far too much vibration with the 70-300mm lens and even with the 18-105mm lens with a long exposure time of 3 seconds.

But the lights of St Helier, 54 kilometres away, and the reflection of the street lights of Jersey off the clouds in the sky have come out really well given the circumstances.

And I reckon that once I get the hang of working the tripod in the dark, I might be able to get the photos to come out even better.

It’s all trial and error at the moment – plenty of trial and even more error.

And then I moved on down the coast to the end of the Pointe du Roc.

And there I was, standing on top of one of the concrete bunkers taking a few photos of everywhere in the clear light of the night, when a sudden strong gust of wind, something like the one that blew down the Tay Bridge in 1879, blew the tripod off the top of the bunker and right down to the ground, with the camera and the new 70-300 mm zoom/telephoto lens attached.

At that moment I was in the process of taking a long exposure of St Malo too. I suppose that that will come out in a very interesting fashion.

With no alarm I did my best to have a nice long sleep but it didn’t quite work out like that. I was awake early enough but despite everything I wouldn’t haul myself out of my stinking pit at that kind of time. 09:00 was much more like it.

While I was asleep though I’d been out on my travels. Driving an artic somewhere which was actually parked up in a lay-by where there was another lorry blocking me off. As I clambered into my lorry the other driver reversed his lorry so that I could leave the lay-by. A short while later I was walking down a footpath towards a lorry park on the motorway and was accompanied by another lorry driver. I told him that I was happy to go on my own but he insisted on accompanying me. Apparently there had been an “incident” and several people had been injured. And there were some of the drivers who thought that I was at fault.

After a rather late breakfast I had a lounge around for a while and then made a start on the photos from Belgium. And there were quite a few too.

For lunch I had my usual butties but I ate them inside. It’s definitely autumn outside and going cold now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos and had a few other things to do too, including some tidying up. And I managed a day without crashing out too, which is a little bit better.

Two walks too. There was the evening walk around the headland – where I had my camera incident, and also the afternoon walk around the walls.

donville les bains granville manche normandy franceThe lighting conditions were perfect this afternoon and there was a good view of the coast.

Donville-les-Bains has come out really well, including the old hotel where I went to see that ruin of a apartment not long after I first came to Granville.

A bit too windy for the birdmen today though. There weren’t any of them out and about.

donville les bains breville sur mer granville manche normandy franceI cropped out a couple of sections of the photo of the beach and enlarged them.

As well as the old hotel at Donville-les-Bains and all of the beach cabins out there, you can see the spire of the church in the distance.

That might well be the church of Bréville-sur-Mer.

donville les bains brehal granville manche normandy franceThis section was cropped from the extreme left-hand edge of the photo and enlarged by about 25%.

There’s the camp site that we have seen before, and another church spire away in the distance.

That is very likely the church in Brehal and we’ve seen a much better photo of that in the past when we were experimenting with the older zoom/telephoto lens.

plage de plat gousset granville beach manche normandy franceThere weren’t any people out and about on the beach either.

You can see the waves crashing down onto the sand and the whitecaps will tell you that there was quite a wind blowing them ashore.

A few people on the promenade though braving the inclement weather.

Tea was a slice of pie that was left over from when Alison was here, with spuds and peas and carrots too.

So tomorrow I’ll check over the camera and see what the damage is. I might even switch the heating on too. I actually had the halogen heater on for an hour or so to warm up the office this afternoon.

It’s that kind of time.

0

Sunday 21st October 2018 – MARGARET THATCHER …

… once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. But to be successful you have to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it”.

And that’s how I’ve been today. Not feeling like doing a good day’s work at all.

Going to bed at 02:00 is one thing. But waking up at 07:15 was not what I was expecting. And by 08:30 I was fed up of going back to sleep so I got up instead. So much for my lie-in.

After the medication I had to make some muesli because I’d run out. And to my surprise I found that I had bought some sugar puffs instead of corn flakes. Ahh well. I must have been having a bad day yesterday.

But that led on to some tidying in the kitchen and now it’s starting to look a little more like a home. Even though it’s not my usual thing, to be working on a Sunday. But I was feeling a little better so I reckoned that I’d do it while I could.

Breakfast was rather late as a result, and that didn’t leave me with very much time. I had a few things to do, like to spread out all of the walnuts from yesterday onto a couple of trays and put them in the sun to dry. That’s very important, to ensure that they dry properly and thoroughly so that they don’t rot with the damp.

Once they are thoroughly dried, I can crack them open, extract the nuts, bake them in a frying pan and then grind them up.

This afternoon there was an exciting football match in prospect. La Brehalaise was playing FC Sienne – two clubs anchored at the foot of the table in Manche District Division 3.

I headed out there at 14:30 – straight into masses of traffic loitering around outside looking for a car park. And someone crawling along at 5mph looking for a place held me up for 10 minutes – he got a blast of Caliburn’s horn once I could finally get past him.

And then a Belgian pulled straight out off the kerb into the road right in front of Caliburn and it’s a good job that I’d had his brakes fixed. He had a “Hail Columbia” too.

football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceAs a result of all of the grockles admiring the seagulls I arrived late at Bréhal and missed the kick-off.

Nevertheless I did arrive just in time to see a rather late sliding tackle by the Bréhalaise n°11 on the FC Sienne goalkeeper, in vain pursuit of a loose ball.

This led to a yellow card for the n°11 and an ambulance for the goalkeeper.

football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceIt took a good while for the ambulance to arrive and for the paramedics to investigate the injury.

By my reckoning it looked not unlike a broken leg and the medics seemed quite concerned. After a considerable amount of treatment, they loaded him onto a chair and then carried him to a waiting ambulance.

All in all, the game was held up for a good half-hour while they attended to the keeper.

football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceWhen the match restarted we were treated to an exciting game of football.

Despite it being a bottom-of-the-table clash, there was a considerable amount of skilful play out there that wouldn’t have been out-of-place a couple of divisions higher up the pyramid.

It was also pretty clear that despite being at the foot of the table, FC Sienne was the more skilful and more purposeful side. They were certainly much-more organised.

And it was therefore no surprise to anyone that they took the lead. And no surprise to any regular reader of this rubbish how they did it either.

If I had a Quid for every time I have shouted and complained at goalkeepers for being stupid, I would be lying on a deckchair in the Bahamas dictating this to a bevy of beautiful bikini babes.

But here we go again.

A backpass to the keeper, the keeper being stupid and taunting the opposition attackers, waiting until the last minute to kick it upfield, but instead slicing his clearance straight into the stomach of the attacker.

The keeper scrambled away the rebound off the goal line just in time – he then saved a volley at point-blank range to keep out the follow -up (and I suspect that he didn’t know anything whatever about his save) but he couldn’t do anything about the follow-up from that.

And as the Sienne team pushed on, Bréhal scored an unlikely equaliser from a breakaway, catching the stand-in keeper on the wrong foot.

Bréhal then missed a sitter – a cross palmed out by the Sienne stand-in keeper straight to a Bréhal forward 5 yards out in the centre of an open goal. All he had to do was to tap in, but instead he blasted it about 25 feet over the bar.

But as the game went on, Bréhal scored and even more unlikely two goals and so ran out 3-1 winners ina match that they never ever looked likely to win at all.

On the way back I went for diesel and then came back here. Some more tidying up and a bit of work, and then a delightful vegan pizza.

moonlight baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceThere was a beautiful moonlight tonight.

My perambulations this evening took me around the headland instead of the old town, so I could gaze across the Baie de Mont St Michel and see the reflection of the light upon the sea.

This was taken, by the way, with the new 18-105mm standard lens and I shan’t say anything else about the High Arctic.

port de granville harbour manche normandy franceCarrying on around on my walk, and seeing as I still had the new 18-105mm standard lens on the camera, I took a photo of the outer harbour and the gates to the inner harbour.

What had enticed me to take the pic was the view of the lights shimmering on the surface of the water.

The red “traffic light” to tell us that the tidal gates are closed certainly produced an impressive effect

And now it’s bedtime. And I need to start work again seriously tomorrow. I’ve been letting things slide rather too much just recently.

football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceTreating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne


football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceTreating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne


football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceAmbulance La Brehalaise v FC Sienne


football bréhal la brehalaise fc sienne manche normandy franceTreating an injured goalkeeper La Brehalaise v FC Sienne


moonlight baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceMoonlight, Baie de Mont St Michel, Granville


moonlight baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceMoonlight, Baie de Mont St Michel, Granville


moonlight baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceMoonlight, Baie de Mont St Michel, Granville


0

Saturday 26th May 2018 – I HAVE JUST SEEN …

… something that I have never ever seen before.

One of US Granville’s attacker bursts into the EC Tessy Moyon Sports box, and goes down under a challenge from a defender. The referee blows hiw whistle and points to the penalty spot.

The match is being played at the Stade Louis Dior despite it being the 3rd XI. I’m in the grandstand, absolutely level with the incident and quite high up, so I have a perfect view. And in mt opinion that was one of the best challenges that I have seen at this level of football.

The Tessy Moyon players are furious, their coach is livid, The US Granville player comes to the touchline and shouts something to his captain. The captain takes the kick – and kicks it to the corner flag.

Apparently the referee was the only person in the whole stadium who thought that that was a penalty. But I’ve never seen a team kick away a penalty before. The Age of Chivalry isn’t dead after all.

It was another struggle to leave the stinking pit this morning, We Went through the usual morning procedure followed by a shower, and then Caliburn and I hit the streets

We went the long way out to the garage, out to near Bréhal and down the by-pass. The idea is to get the engine stinking hot so that it burns more efficiently and shows a better reading on the air meter. The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley, as Robert Burns would have us believe. I ended up being stuck behind a load of grockles crawling along the road.

However, none of this caused a problem and at the Controle Technique, not only were we early but we were in and out and finished even before the time of the appointment. Caliburn passed with no problems and there is nothing to worry about as far as his bodywork goes. He’ll be 11 on Tuesday by the way

Sopping today was just Noz and LeClerc. I didn’t feel like going all the way round to LIDL. And it didn’t take me long to buy what I needed (and to buy nothing else) and I was home by 11:30. Maybe I ought to go out this early again.

Having put everything away and having had a coffee, it was lunchtime. Beautiful weather for it too, sitting on the wall watching the shipping, eating my butties, reading my book and chatting to the lizard. He was enjoying the weather too.

Back here, shame as it is to admit it, I crashed out yet again for a good hour too. Perhaps this early start wasn’t such a good idea after all. But I was up and about and ready for my trek up town.

Some of the trek involved following a couple of beautiful young maidens. They stopped somewhere along the route and gave a kiss to some boy who was clearly a friend.
“Could I have a kiss too?” I enquired. But the trouble today is that no-one has a sense of humour.

stade louis dior us granville ec tessy moyon sports manche normandy franceIt was a beautiful evening for football and we were lucky enough to be at the Stade Louis Dior for this. It’s not very often that the 3rd XI get to play here.

No-one on the gate at all of course so we could just walk in and go anywhere, so I blagged a seat in the stands where the view is quite good.

US Granville were 8th going into the match and EC Tessy Moyon Sports were 7th, and eo we expected a hard-fought tight match and that’s exactly what we got.

stade louis dior us granville ec tessy moyon sports manche normandy franceGranville had most of the play but couldn’t convert the chances that they were making. And it seemed that fortune might have been on their side when Tessy Mosson were obliged to replace their goalkeeper with an outfield player after a collision.

But the new keeper was actually quite good – he’d clearly played in goal before and at a reasonable standard too. He was coming out for crosses – and catching them too – and his handling and distribution was quite good too.

But he was eventually beaten by a ball over the top and a Granville player running on for a one-on-one. No-one could complain about the keeper there.

thunder rainstorm stade louis dior us granville ec tessy moyon sports manche normandy franceBut the real highlight of the evening was the weather.

There had been some rumbling and grumbling in the distance, and then a huge dark cloud started to blow over the ground.

And you can see, if you look closely, the torrential rain that is falling, away over there in the distance. We were going to be in for it.

The rain waited until we were leaving the stadium before it let go. And then we got the lot.

Luckily there was a strong wind blowing so I kept in the lee of the buildings at the side of the road. Had I been in the open, I would have been a drowned rat before I’d gone 50 yards.

But it was quickly over. And we had one of those unusual phenomena of a sharp weather front, where you could see the end of the rainstorm like a curtain as it drew away from me up the street. It’s been a while since I’ve seen something like that.

sunset granville manche normandy franceBack here, I hadn’t completed my 100% daily activity which is a surprise. There’s definitely something wrong with the fitbit.

And so I went for a lap around the block until the 100% came up, and this enabled me to watch the sun sink slowly into the sea, surrounded by flashes of lightning and rolls of thunder something like The Return Of The Demon King.

But I was too tired to do much back here. I even fell asleep talking to someone on the laptop. So in the end I went to bed.

Sunday tomorrow. A day of rest. And I need it too.

0

Sunday 4th March 2018 – WELL, THAT WAS AN …

… interesting afternoon, and no mistake.

I was planning on going to watch US Granville’s 2nd XI this afternoon but a flash up on the internet announced that it was postponed.

Never mind. Subsequent research indicated that La Brehalaise up the road in Bréhal were to play La Patriote St Jamaise. And so I duly made my butties and hit the streets.

At Brehal the ground was almost deserted except for a couple of guys hanging around. They were indeed players from La Bréhalaise and they told me that the match had been forfeited by La Patriote St Jamaise. So that was that.

as gavray es tirepied football manche normandy franceBut never mind. There was a 4th Division match at Gavray between AS GAvray and ES Tirepied and I had just enough time to get there before kick-off.

And, as an aside, I’ll be coming here again. There’s a small covered area for spectators and that will be very handy in inclement weather.

As for the game itself, ES Tirepied are rooted to the bottom of the table and AS Gavray ran out 7-4 winners. You might think that this showed some level of poor quality, but far from it. It was a very interesting match.

Being a 4th Division encounter, quality was very lacking as you might expect, but there were a great many thoughtful and intelligent passes and play during the game that had the quality been up to it, it would have been wonderful.

as gavray es tirepied football manche normandy franceES Tirepied were not at all as bad as the scoreline suggests. They matched AS Gavray blow for blow but the difference was that this was a match of two goalkeepers.

The US Gavray keeper made a couple of saves that any goalkeeper in a higher division would have been proud to make, whereas the keeper of ES Tirepeid was, and without wishing him any malice whatsoever, clearly a guardien de fortune, pressed into service, one assumes.

And he did his best, and you can’t ever fault anyone for that. Chapeau to him for taking it on and persevering.

Final word has to go to an “incident” in the 50th minute. Just as ES Trepied were pulling themselves back into the gale after being 4-0 down at half time (the slope here gives a decided advantage to whoever is attacking down it) the referee blew for a penalty against them. And even the AS Gavray supporters, with whom I was sitting, were totally mystified as to what the referee had seen. The ES Tirepied players were stunned into disbelief and I have a good deal of sympathy with them.

This morning, I had a lie-in until 09:30. And quite right too. It is Sunday, and anyway, I was exhausted after my voyage during the night.

I was on my travels with TOTGA last night – hardly a surprise I suppose as I was speaking to her just before I went to bed (wonderful things, these social networks). We’d been to a rock concert in Carlisle and we had to return home. But we both had vehicles so she needed to follow me as I knew the way. She was impressed with the Motorway system and asked me loads of questions about it, which I could answer her of course. The route out of the venue car park was jammed with traffic and we slowly inched our way out and found the motorway, but there was a complicated section where you joined the motorway, crossed all three lanes to the far side and then crossed back to exit, all in a space of a couple of hundred yards which was no picnic in heavy traffic, so I had to stop and explain it to her and make sure that she understood exactly what was required.
Later, we were both working in an office which was run by a former inept boss that I had very early in my career. The accounts that he had managed were in total chaos and so he had engaged someone to maintain them, someone whom he had been pursuing for two years, so it seems. I spoke to the guy who told me that he’d turned down the job previously but had been persuaded to accept it, and wished he hadn’t because he’d never seen anything like the disorder and disarray. And then he started to rant about the facilities. There was no reception room, no canteen, nowhere to take a rest (a subject very dear to my heart as I worked such long hours in that place) and a whole host of other shortcomings. “And a condom machine” I quipped, making TOTGA blush to the roots of her hair.

THis morning I didn’t do too much. It’s about time that I had a good relax. And then we had the football of course.

Tea was a vegan pizza of course, and rather overcooked. And I know why too. It’s the frozen mushrooms. For a change I put them in the oven to defrost while it was warming and I prepared the pizza, and you should have seen the water that cme off them. No wonder the pizza hasn’t been cooking thoroughly. I’ll have to do that again.

And a walk this evening. It was a gorgeous day for a change and tonight I have never seen Jersey so clearly – even the house lights, which is pretty astonishing seeing that it is just over 30 miles away from here.

Ordinarily that would be something that would bode well for the morning, but here the wind changes so rapidly that it could bring anything in overnight.

We shall have to see.

0

Saturday 20th January 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… 24 hours I’ve had.

It all started to go wrong round about this time last night when I was thinking about going to bed. Never mind not being tired enough to go to sleep, I wasn’t even tired enough to go to bed – and that’s a surprise after everything that I did yesterday.

Instead I sat on the sofa, read some stuff on the internet and listened to a continual stream of Led Zeppelin until about 03:30.

Going to bed after that although still not in the mood, but I must have gone to sleep at some point because I went off on my travels again. But it’s another one that you won’t want to know anything about if you are eating your tea or have a nervous disposition.

But nevertheless, I was awake at about 06:00 before going back to sleep again – and a very tired and sad me hauled itself out of bed at some time later than the alarm.

After the medication and breakfast I had a shower and then hit the town – rather later than intended. I did the usual round of the shops and the only thing that I bought as an extra was a spectacle repair kit for €5:00. That’s important because it has lots of little stuff in it that will come in handy for dismantling this smartphone and seeing it I can fix the touchscreen.

However, firstly I didn’t spend a centime in NOZ and that’s only happened once or twice over the past seven or so years. There was nothing of any interest at all. In fact, I’ve been noticing that their prices are slowly creeping up and it’s nothing like the bargain basement that it used to be.

And secondly, no tickets for the football on Tuesday night. I tried at LeClerc, the stadium, the ticket agency and a couple of Sports bars. Not a one. And that’s surprising because the opponents, Concarneau, are only one division higher than Granville – it’s not at all like Bordeaux.

Back here, after lunch I found that I had forgotten to put on my fitbit after my shower. So that was a whole morning’s effort unrecorded. And I had so much to do too but instead, I crashed out completely and was gone into a really deep sleep for a couple of hours. 17:15 when I awoke.

There was football this evening at Cérences so off I set in the torrential rainstorm, only to find the stadium in total darkness. That’s not really surprising with all of the rain that we have had. A waterlogged pitch is inevitable.

So I had a quick drive around a couple of other grounds and they were all in darkness to so I came home and had tea.

The rain subsided later so I went for a walk around the walled town, keeping to the cobbled streets so as not to sink in the mud.

So now I’ll be off to bed if I can tire myself out enough. And Sunday is a lie-in and Day of Rest. But I doubt if I shall be able to have one. I’m not doing too well right now.

0

Monday 13th November 2017 – I’VE HAD …

… the worst day that I’ve had for quite some consderable time.

Crawling out of bed at the usual time was the usual performance and after letting my medication work, I had breakfast. And I was fine up to that point.

It was about half an hour later that I crashed out for the first time and that was how it went on for all of the day. Crashing out, sleeping, and whenever I was awake, trying to do things.

I’ve put the washing away and tidied up the shelves in the kitchen to make even more space, abd all of that is quite an achievement considering how bad I’ve been feeling.

jersey channel islands granville manche normandy franceSome time after lunch I reckoned that I would do my best to go outside for a walk, and maybe that might change things around a little.

And I’m glad that I did because it was quite beautiful outside today, and the air was so clear that one could see for miles. Jersey was about the clearest that I’ve ever seen it and so I went back in for the camera.

It’s hard to believe that it’s over 30 miles away from where I’m standing.

And Brigitte was loitering around outside too – lying in wait for me, I reckon.

lighthouse point d'agon wind farm carteret granville manche normandy franceFurther out around the coast I could see as far as the lighthouse at the Pointe d’Agon where I went with Liz and her family. That’s the brownish edifice to the right.

Far out to the left are some rocks that are, I suppose, outlying rocks of the Channel Islands. There’s a lighthouse out there too, and that’s the white building right on the left-hand edge.

There’s a big wind farm out near Barneville-Carteret and you can see that away in the distance behind the lighthouse of the Pointe d’Agon if you look hard enough.

brehal granville manche normandy franceI took a few photos around the coast too.

I’m not sure where that might be over there with the big church. It could well be Brehal, I suppose, although I don’t really know for sure. But it’s certainly an impressive building all the same.

I suppose that I shall have to go for a drive out around there one day to see if I can discover where it is. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

wind farm cerences granville manche normandy franceThere’s also a wind farm that you can see from where Liz and Terry live, and scanning the horizon, I managed to see a wind farm that might be the one.

There’s one thing about my new camera and its telephoto lens – that it can pick up views like these abouve, which in some circumstances, like the wind farm near Barneville-Carteret are almost 40 miles away from where I’m standing.

Anyway, I continued with my little walk around the walls and came back home.

I crashed out a couple more times, but summoned up the courage to make a pepper and green bean curry. With plenty left over for freezing.

And I’m going to have an early night. I hope that I feel better tomorrow because I really have been feeling like death today.

0

Thursday 27th April 2017 – I HAD A …

… day off house-hunting today. I wasn’t in the mood.

In fact, I’ve not had a very good day at all today.

Just by way of a change I managed to watch all of a film last night and even stayed awake for a while afterwards. But I did eventually go off to sleep and despite some fitful tossing and turning, slept until the alarm went off.

After breakfast I had a shower and a good clean-up, and herein lay a minor tragedy. I had had a jar of jam in my suitcase since Belgium the other week, and it’s somehow managed to be smashed. As a result there was jam everywhere and all over everything.

This led to an impromptu tidying up and sorting out session, and to a good wash of the suitcase with plenty of soap and hot water, before rinsing it off with the hosepipe. Luckily it was a reasonably sunny but very windy day so it had dried by the time that I returned.

Having done a few things on the laptop I set out for the shops. Bent Tin Ci … errr … Netto at Brehal was the port of call, where I bought my baguette and some salad stuff as well as a few other bits and pieces that I might need. and then off to Coudeville-Plage to pass the rest of the day.

Just for a very rare change, weather and lighting conditions at midday were absolutely ideal for photography.

ile de chausey coudeville plage manche normandy franceNot only that but I managed (having tidied up Caliburn quite a lot recently) to put my hands on the big telephoto lens so I was able to take a few shots out across the water.

There, many miles away, right out in the far distance on a rock is what I reckon might be a lighthouse. And I love the way that the haze on the water makes it look as if the lighthouse is floating in the air above the sea.

ile de chausey coudeville plage manche normandy franceAnd with the light being so good, I was finally able to take a decent shot of the Ile de Chausey out there, with the colours actually being a little more true to life.

Once I’m actually settled (whenever that might or might not be) I’m determined to take a little trip out there to see what the island is really like, and I hope that I’m not going to be disappointed.

But me disappointed with a sailing across the ocean? Not on your life!

articulated pedal people machine coudeville plage manche normandy franceWhile I was making my butties (I stayed inside Caliburn with this wicked wind today) this strange machine pedalled past.

We’ve seen loads of things similar to this along the Costa Stella in Belgium, but this particular multi-person pedal machine is quite different in that it appears to be articulated. That’s a first for me anyway.

I bet that the kids would have loads of fun sitting in the front of it though.

I wasn’t feeling good today, as I may already have mentioned, and I crashed out for a couple of hours. When I came to, all of the car parks were jam-packed with people.

Today is apparently what they call the marée. One of the days when the tide is at its lowest and so everyone has the right to go down to the low water mark and scratch around for cockles and mussels alive, alive-oh!

ile de chausey coudeville plage manche normandy franceThe beach was crowded with people, each havng his own little patch. And there were people carrying buckets that were pretty well filled with them. It must have been a good catch today.

And I do hope that they remember to share them with all of their friends and neighbours. For as I have said before … "and you’ll certainly say again" – ed … you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

It was a struggle to come home from the beach but I made it in the end, and I sat in the verandah to drink my coffee and read my book seeing as how it was really windy outside.

Tea was once again made in the kitchen in the garage, I’ve had a good chat with Rosemary and now I’m ready for bed.

And quite right too. I have a couple more ruins to see tomorrow.

0

Wednesday 26th April 2017 – THAT’S TWO MORE …

… ruins crossed off the list this morning.

Two new constructions of which I would have been the first inhabitant.

The first one was a nice apartment but the finishing was terrible. They had installed the kitchen unit and then painted the walls with the result that half of the paint was on the unit. And they hadn’t painted behind the unit either, which gave me a good chance to look at the plasterboard. It wasn’t “hydro” plasterboard but cheap 10mm stuff that wouldn’t last five minutes once it became wet (which is an odds-on certainty behind a kitchen unit). It wouldn’t have been so bad had they tiled it, or even painted it, but that was a load of rubbish and I’m not becoming involved with those kinds of issues.

The second one was a studio, nice and big, but with the black damp already rising out of the floor – and in a new untenanted studio too.

So no danger of me moving into anywhere here.

garden gnome brehal manche normandy franceBut I was disappointed about these apartments anyway, because there is someone living just across the road from here that has a similar kind of sense of humour as me, and that’s something quite rare in France, isn’t it?

This isn’t all that was on display either. The whole garden front, sides and back, was covered in garden ornaments. And I have to be honest and say that the idea of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a pile of sprouting mushrooms and half a dozen tuinkabouwters living in the immediate vicinity is one that would appeal to me.

old railway station ancienne gare brehal manche normandy franceThat’s not the only exciting thing here in the vicinity either. This building is actually just across the car park from the building that I was visiting, and regular readers of this rubbish will recognise this for what it is.

It is of course a railway station.

Brehal did once have a railway service, on the line between Granville and Conde sur Vire. Opened in 1909, it was another one of these ephemeral local lines – a tacot with a narrow gauge of one metre.

Ephemeral it certainly was. Not quite matching the 8 years of railway line between Pionsat and Gouttieres, it struggled on for a grand total of 32 years, closing officially in 1941 due to “wartime conditions” and never reopening.

However, I have seen in someone’s memoirs a story that it closed in the mid-1930s and that the rails were removed some time round about 1937-38

I’d had a bad night again – not comfortable in my new bed. And far too much noise for my liking. Despite switching off the film early last night, I couldn’t go to sleep and that’s the thing that always puts me in a bad mood.

After breakfast I hit the streets to Brehal to see these ruins, and then wandered off to the bank for some money. And found myself passing a launderette. I was having a free morning, and I had a pile of dirty clothes in Caliburn and having found the washing soap when I had Caliburn stripped out the other day, I spend a pleasant hour in the launderette with a good book while my washing was going round.

Having picked up a baguette, I headed for the beach. Far too windy and hailstormy to sit outside but I did profit by pulling about 6 months worth of rubbish out of Caliburn and dumping it in a waste bin.

oyster beds coudeville plage manche normandy franceAnd having a good look at the oyster beds out here too. With the tide being quite low right now, you can actually see them.

While I was eating my butty I had an interesting exchange of text messages –
“Why didn’t you say hello to me?”
“What?”
“When you walked past me just now”
“Did I just walk past you?”
“Yes you did!”
“Where was that?”
“On the car park”
“Which one?”
“The one right outside the sous-prefecture“.
“But I wasn’t there”
“Where are you?”
“Sitting by the seaside in Brehal in Normandy”
“Ohh dear – I’ve texted the wrong number! Sorry”.

Back here, I sat outside in the verandah with a good book and a coffee for a while. And then I made my tea in the kitchen in the garage.

But I’m really fed up with this. Not only do I have the landlady sitting watching me while I eat my breakfast, she came to watch over me while I cooked and ate my tea. And I’m not comfortable in my new quarters either.

I can’t be doing with this. It’s the cheapest place in the whole of Normandy and it’s easy to see why. I’m moving on on Sunday morning – and I don’t care where to – and it will be a cold day in hell before I ever come back here.

0

Tuesday 25th April 2017 – I HAD ONE OF THOSE DAYS …

… where I did nothing at all of any note.

After my early night (and falling asleep yet again in the middle of a film) I had an early morning – like 05:40. And I was up and about by 06:20. This really is becoming ridiculous.

Once breakfast was out of the way I didn’t do very much at all – just took it easy and lazed about.

There was a reason for that too – in that it was raining. First rain that we have had since I can’t remember when. Several weeks, at least. maybe even when i was exploring in Verdun a month or so ago. I really can’t remember.

However the sun did come out eventually and I plucked up the courage to go off and buy a baguette in Brehal. I could even sit and eat my butty and drink my coffee outside here, fighting off the cat who insisted to try to push the tray off my lap and climb on instead.

This afternoon though, I had things to do.

As you know, I’ve packed Caliburn upside-down. The things that were easy to hand went in first and the more difficult things went in last. That meant that my cheque book (which I shall need at the weekend) was right at the bottom.

Consequently, I unpacked Caliburn and eventually retrieved it. It really was right at the bottom too and took some finding. But tidying up in there has made much more space and I even found a few other things that will come in handy in the immediate future. I did forget to look for my nail scissors though.

Tea was more of the kidney bean whatsit that I made last night, and now I have to pack.

Yes, I’m moving, but not very far. I’m in a little apartment here that has two bedrooms, a kitchen/diner and bathroom. But it’s let until the end of the week to people who need both of the bedrooms.

But there’s a bedroom in the main part of the house with a sink and so on, and the landlady has rigged me up a kettle and so on in there. And there’s a kitchen in the garage space which is used by people who camp here in summer (there isn’t anyone at the moment) and I can use that.

It’s only until Saturday night, and then I have to move on. I really do hope that one of these ruins that I’m seeing tomorrow is up to the task. I’m totally fed up of having to keep on moving house like this – one day here, two days there.

0

Monday 24th April 2017 – REGULAR READERS OF THIS RUBBISH WILL RECALL …

… that on several occasions over the past years I’ve had to go out to look at some non-functioning wind turbines installed by a company that had its office in Montlucon.

And so today, it was more of the same. A 10Kw wind turbine installed on a mast just about 12 metres high (in order to sneak under the local planning laws but totally ineffective of course) and not functioning at all.

“When you switch it on and the blades turn round, there’s a pile of smoke that comes out of it”

One glance told me everything that I needed to know about it. There’s a water leak in the shed roof that drips right on top of the transformer. The transformer and all of the connections are thoroughly corroded and the corrosion is causing a short circuit. And that’s burnt out the inverter.

Furthermore, the owner has tried to connect up an exterior socket to the system and fractured the bus bar while he was doing it. Loads of other things too, and I could go on for ever … "not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t" – ed … about all kinds of things.

But anyway, I’m not getting my hands dirty fixing it.

He’s paid €32,000 for the installation, and he’s been quoted over €10,000 for the repairs from another company. But that’s not ever going to fix his problems – not until he can mount it about 30 metres higher. He told me that when it was working he had 7.5KW out of it, but I’ve heard that before, especially with the measuring equipment provided by the installers.

I had a bad night last night.

A nightmare, in fact that awoke me at 12:40. It concerned a group of women who had been condemned for some crime or other and the penalty was to walk towards a defending army well-dug in in the ruins of some bombed buildings, and the defenders were to hurl rocks at them to stone them to death. But their husbands or partners had to be handcuffed to them as they walked down the road, themselves running the risks of being stoned to death. One woman had no partner so I was chained to her. And the couples parted one by one, until it was our turn to leave the bus. And it was at that point that I awoke, sweating.

It took me ages to go back to sleep, but when I did, I was well away until the alarm went off. never felt a thing.

After breakfast I had a little relax (like I have to do these days) and then I went to tear to bits the load in Caliburn. I needed the printer (that I found) but couldn’t find the paper. In the end, the landlady let me have a few sheets. Then I could print off the letters that I had typed the other day.

For lunch I went down to Donville les Bains and the dunes where I was yesterday. I had a nice relaxing couple of hours lying on the sand in the sun while I ate my butties. It was beautiful there, and quiet too.

The tide was out as well, and consequently all of the oyster beds and whatever they are were clearly visible. A few tractors and trailers were out there harvesting, and presumably passing the produce around.

After all, you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

Returning from my trip out into the wilderness at Hocquigny, I went to Brehal-Plage where we had been on Saturday and reclined amongst the rocks for a while to read my book.

And it was here that I had a sudden thought – I had an urgent letter to post and I had forgotten. Although the Post Office was now closed, luckily, the Super-U at Brehal sold those pre-stamped envelopes so I bought a pack of 10 and I could post my letter.

Mind you, I almost didn’t make it there. Some stupid old woman in a Mercedes pulled out of a side road right in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes, and then came to a stop 50 yards further down while she made up her mind which way to go. And so she had a double blast on the horn for good measure.

Tea was a kidney bean and mushroom tomato whatsit, with enough left over for another three nights. I’ll have an early night tonight and hopefully sleep right through without any nightmares to awaken me.

0

Sunday 23rd April 2017 – THERE MUSTN’T BE …

… a single pie hut in the whole of Normandy, from what I can see. This afternoon I was down at the Stade de la Plage in Donville les Bains for their second team’s match against La Brehalaise’s first team, and there wasn’t one there either.

Unbelievable!

So falling asleep in the middle of yet another film last night, I was awake at 06:00, even though it was a Sunday. I’ve not had a Sunday lie-in for quite a while, have I?

But I did take it quite easy this morning and didn’t do all that much – just mooched about on the laptop and eventually I had a shower.

You’ll remember that I’d bought some bread yesterday, and so I made some butties, and then I headed off.

plage donville les bains manche normandy franceNear one of the camp sites that I looked at a while ago, there’s another pile of dunes with a beach beyond it.

Negotiating the vipers (because there are signs warning us that they are about) I climbed over the dunes and found myself a cosy little niche in between a couple of dunes, relatively-well protected out of the wind.

And here I had my lunch – the usual vegan cheese, tomato and lettuce sandwiches with that salad dressing that I bought the other day

granville plage donville les bains manche normandy franceThere’s a beautiful view from here right down the beach, past that miserable building that I visited a few weeks ago, and down to Granville and the head of the promontory.

That’s a walled city by the way, up there on the promontory. The old town of Granville. And there are some barracks over there dating from the 16th or 17th Century, long-abandoned and now being converted into apartments.

That’s another place where I’ve tried to contact an estate agent but, as you might expect, no-one ever called me back.

ile de chausey plage donville les bains manche normandy franceThere’s an even better view from here across the bay to the Iles de Chausey. And what I’ve done is to mess about with the colours and the contrast to enhance the differences in the topography, and you can see everything so much more clearly.

The islands are inhabited, as you can probably tell from the buildings that you can see out there. A couple of hundred, if that, in the winter, but several thousand in the summer when all of the grockles arrive.

A couple of sailings each day out there in the summer, but in the winter you are lucky if there are a couple each week.

ship of the day plage donville les bains manche normandy franceNow when was the last time that we featured a “ship of the day” on here?

It’s quite a regular occurrence when we are in Canada or near a main shipping lane, but this is the first time that I’ve ever seen anything worth recording in the Bay of Mont St Michel.

No idea what it is, of course, but it’s an impressive sight all the same. I only hope that there are more of them as time goes by.

oyster beds domville les bains manche normandy franceAnyway, that’s enough of the excitememnt for just now. It’s the time of the year when the tide is going out further and further, and this is the first time that I’ve been able to see the oyster beds as they emerge from the sea.

And people down there working on them too.

But don’t believe anything that anyone tells you about oysters. It’s a myth. I had 12 on my wedding night, but only 9 of them worked!

modern building plage donville les bains manche normandy franceThere’s a weird building here at the foot of the cliffs. It’s a block of apartments that dates probably from the 1980s or thereabouts and it looks as if they ran out of money before they had quite finished it.

There’s an apartment for sale in there, and I had a look at the photos in the estate agent’s window a couple of days ago. It’s quite cheap for what it is, and that’s what is worrying. I’ve heard about buildings like this all over the holiday resorts of France.

stade de la plage donville les bains manche normandy franceOne advantage of the apartments though is that they overlook the Stade de la Plage, the home ground of the Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville.

Today’s match is their Second XI against the First XI of La Brehalaise, whose Third XI we saw yesterday evening. It’s in the Second Division of the Manche District League so I’m rather hoping that it’s going to be better than what was served up last night

And indeed it was. La Brehalaise were much better than the Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville – in fact it took the latter about 20 minutes to get out of their own half after the kick-off.

La Brehalaise won at a canter, 3-0, with a beautiful header from a corner that would have graced the televisions of the Premier League, a hopeful lob into the penalty area with the bounce and the wind deceiving the the Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville goalkeeper, and a speculative shot from about 25 yards out that swerved into the corner of the net on a gust of wind.

There was a penalty awarded when the the Union Sportive des Mouettes de Donville goalkeeper tripped a la Brehalaise attacker who was clean through on goal. A red-card offence certainly, but the referee didn’t even brandish a yellow card, much to the astonishment of everyone in the crowd. And to run salt into the would, the keeper saved the penalty.

And, as I said, no pie-hut either!

After the game I headed back to the beach for an hour to sunbathe as it really was quite warm. And then back here for coffee and tea.

Now it’s an early night. I wonder what film I’ll fall asleep in the middle of tonight.

0

Saturday 22nd April 2017 – WORDS DON’T EXIST …

football La Brehalaise A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti ligue 4 district du manche Brehal normandy france… in the dictionary to describe the football that was on offer this evening down the road in Brehal.

I had the choice to go and watch US Granville in action against Lorient II but decided to come here to arural football match as it’s bound to be more intimate.

However, we were a “crowd” – it that’s the correct term to use, of just four here in the stadium to watch La Brehalaise III tackle A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti in a match from the Manche League Division 4, and there is no Division lower than this.

football La Brehalaise A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti ligue 4 district du manche Brehal normandy franceI’d seen in the schedule of results that despite their mid-table position, La Brehalaise had demolished a couple of other teams, scoring 9 and 10 goals here and there.

But I wonder what on earth they must have been like, because I couldn’t find the words to describe the football here tonight.

Dreadful was something of an understatement. It was like watching kids in Junior school running around in the playground in some kind of aimless chase after the ball.

From the kickoff, Brehal had a shot on goal – quite a soft shot as it happened, but the A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti keeper failed to stop it going through his hands, failed to grab it as it rebounded (twice) off his body, missed it as he dived for the loose ball, and it was cleared away by his defenders.

That would have been the clue for the Brehal players to pepper the goal with shots from just about everywhere but for the next 85 minutes, they had just three shots, not one of which went anywhere near the goal.

They had a centre-forward who insisted on hanging onto the ball at every opportunity instead of passing, and I don’t know whether one of the wingers had stolen his wife or something, but whenever the winger worked his way into a good position to receive the ball, the centre-forward turned his back on him and looked in the opposite direction.

It was no surprise that at half-time, A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti went into the dressing room 2-0 up. I can’t remember the goals now but they were simple efforts that had come about by the defence of La Brehalaise falling asleep.

female linesman football La Brehalaise A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti ligue 4 district du manche Brehal normandy franceNow here’s a thing that you don’t see every day.

Each team has to supply its own linesman and A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti came with a female linesman, or lineswoman … "try “linesperson”" – ed.

But one thing that we didn’t have was a pie hut. How can you possibly have a French social occasion without a buvette? I shan’t be going there again!

The second half started off again and we were treated to a superb goal from A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti. A free kick right around the defensive wall and despite a magnificent dive from the keeper, there we were.

After that, A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti seemed to switch off and they almost came undone because in the dying minutes of the game we had two breakaways upfield from La Brehalaise and they scored two goals from one-on-ones with the A.S. Montaigu Les Bois La Blouti keeper.

How things could have been different if they had attacked the goal from the start.

As for my start, it was another early one. 06:00 in fact. And after breakfast I cracked on with more stuff that needed doing.

That took me up until midday or so when I headed to Granville and the LeClerc for a pile of shopping, and the boulangerie over the road for bread for the weekend.

plage coudeville sur mer manche normandy franceOnce I’d bought what I needed, I headed for the seaside. Today was Coudeville-Plage, just down the road at Coudeville-sur-Mer, which is another one of those “sur mer” towns stranded a couple of miles from the sea due to the silting up of the coast.

The weather had changed today too. It was rather cloudy and overcast – nothing like the beautiful week that we had just had since I’ve been back.

granville plage coudeville sur mer manche normandy franceI could sit and eat my butty on a bench situated on top of a dune and I was quite comfortable here. There wasn’t as much wind about as over the last couple of days.

There was a good view of Granville away over there in ste distance, and you can see that dismal building at Donville les Bains where I went to see that dreadful studio.

You might have forgotten about that one – after all, I have seen so many ruins – but I haven’t.

iles de chausey plage coudeville sur mer manche normandy franceRight in front of me, away in the distance were the Iles de Chausey – an archipelago of which there are more at low tide than at high tide. Closely related to the Channel Islands further up, they were kept out of English hands by having been given to the monks of Mont St Michel in 1022, prior to the Norman conquest of England.

While I was busy admiring the view, Liz and Terry turned up and we went for a walk and a coffee (or two) along the promenade and watched all the people. The weather cleared up a little too, which was nice.

When I returned to Caliburn I had quite a surprise.

Someone had left a note on the windscreen wanting to talk about wind turbines. So I now have an appointment for Monday. As I have said before … "and you will say again" – ed … this vehicle advertising really works.

But despite my carping about the standard of play at the football this evening, I am the first to be aware that I have had a free evening’s entertainment thanks to the players and officials who turned out for the match, and I am very grateful.

0

Friday 2&st April 2017 – HAVING FALLEN …

… asleep early last night in the middle of the film that I was watching, I was wide-awake at 05:30 and up and about drinking a coffee at 06:20, long before breakfast.

Breakfast was another one of those discussion mornings and I’m really not up to that at all so early in the morning. I cleared off rather quickly into my little room where I had a few things to do, including to write a letter (and I’ll have to hope that the printer that I have brought with me in Caliburn is up to the job).

What with one thing and another, it was almost midday when I managed to leave here, and by the time I reached Bent-Tin Ci … errr … Netto at Brehal, all of the bread had gone.

But never mind. The Super U was around the corner and I bought a baguette there. 2 minutes to choose my baguette and about an hour to pay for it. And I’d probably still be there now had a woman not let me pass in front of her at the check-out queue.

plage les salines bricqueville sur mer manche normandy franceHaving organised lunch, I headed off for the tidal road and the sand dunes at les Salines by Bricqueville sur Mer where I went the other day.

There were quite a few people there today and several children, all of whom were having loads of fun in the sun and wind. I made my butties and I can now understand why they are called SANDwiches.

at least I had some more vegan cheese that I had bought in Leuven. Spreading paste or hummus here would have been interesting.

boat into water slipway plage les salines bricqueville sur mer manche normandy franceHaving eaten my butties and fruit I lay down out of the wind as much as I could to have a nice doze in the sun, because it really was a warm day.

However, my little doze didn’t last too long, and it wasn’t the kids who awoke me either. We had a big tractor that turned up on the slipway in mid-afternoon, and it was towing a rather large cabin-cruiser-type of boat

boat into water slipway plage les salines bricqueville sur mer manche normandy franceAnd that wasn’t the only excitement either.

Coming up from the southern direction from Saint-Martin-le-Vieux was another tractor that was towing another boat.

This wasn’t a cabin cruiser or anything like that but it seemed to be a small fishing boat. We’ve seen plenty of them out there fishing but I wouldn’t have expected them to have gone into the water at a place like this

boat into water slipway plage les salines bricqueville sur mer manche normandy franceThe larger cabin cruiser was however first in the queue to be launched, and the procedure gathered quite a crowd because it was really was quite a complicated procedure.

If you look very closely at the image, you’ll notice that the tractor that pulled the boat down the slipway has cleared off and we’ve acquired another, different type, something like the tractors that have big wheels and are high off the ground for working in the vinyards.

boat into water slipway plage les salines bricqueville sur mer manche normandy franceAnd so eventually the trailer with the cabin cruiser was shunted into the water and the cabin cruiser floated free and cleared off.

It really looked as if the fishing boat was to be next, but the tractor pulled it up the slipway and they cleared off into the sunset.

It wasn’t long before I cleared off in the sunset too. The sun started to go lower in the sky and the wind was going colder and colder. You can only stick it out for so long, as the bishop said to the actress, and I came back here.

It’s hard to read a book and drink a coffee when a cat wants to sit on your knee, and it goes without saying that the cat won in the end. But then I came back in here.

Tea was the last of the stuff that I had made the other night, lengthened with a tin of green beans. And now I’m ready for yet another early night.

And it goes without saying that the two phone calls from estate agents that I was expecting today – not one of them called me back.

What a shower!

0