… has been one of the hottest that I can remember. So much so that I almost abandoned my walk after about 5 minutes and come home for the shelter of my apartment with its 1.2m thick stone walls.
It certainly brought out all of the crowds and the town was heaving with people today.
So while you admire the crowds of people on the beach and in the sea enjoying the weather, I’ll tell you about my day today.
No alarm of course, but even though it was extremely late when I went to bed last night I was still up and about by 10:30. Had I made an effort, I could actually have been up and about earlier but hey! It’s Sunday! a good lie-in will do me some good.
At least it isn’t after midday so there is still a fair amount of time to do stuff.
The first stuff that I did was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.
Last night started off with me on board a ship, or a train, something like that. I eventually managed to access my computer and was sitting down there quietly going through some images. A young girl appeared behind me. She went to say “do you have a girl in a blue-grey background?”. Suddenly she shouted “yes you have, it’s on the screen” I asked “what is it?”. She replied “I need to have that photo”. I asked “and?”. “If you can let me have your computer I can copy them out”. I replied “no. I’m working with the computer. You can have it later when I’ve finished”. She made such a complete fuss about this that I said “I’ll tell you what to do. You give me a memory stick and I’ll copy all the files that you want onto it and you can take them away”. She said “I don’t have a memory stick” so I said “so you find one”. She said “you have one” to which I asked “so you want to use MY computer and MY memory stick to move some photos for YOU?”. I was trying my best to stay polite but it wasn’t working. I was starting to become extremely irritated. The more she insisted the more I became annoyed and I could see that this wasn’t going to end very well.
Later on I was in the Army and we were attacking a block of flats somewhere where my aunt used to live. We’d taken up positions and were busy preparing to go. One section had held them at bay first before we all arrived. They felt that they should have gone into the attack first as a result but as they weren’t they were busy trying to sabotage everything even down to the effect of shooting their own soldiers in the main army to try to have their way. It clearly wasn’t working and everyone was around there and they all gave the order to go. They swarmed in but were held up so there was a huge artillery barrage. Eventually they fought their way into this building. The other person who ran this other battalion was still going on about how he thought that it was all unfair. We could see that there was nothing that was going to happen besides that would console him even now that we’d gone into this building and looked as if we were going to occupy it successfully.
The situation at Lidl was getting out of hand. The manager wanted it done one way, the senior assistant wanted it done another way. The photographer who was taking the photographs wanted a third. Presumably he was working on instructions from the owners of the company so we didn’t understand why everyone else was arguing with him about it. Even when we went for lunch the woman who was serving the tomatoes was having words with this photographer guy. I thought that this was terrible because he was just doing what he had been told to do and nothing to do with what he thinks himself presumably. He won’t have any leeway deciding how this catalogue is made up.
I had a new washing machine and there was a free gift – a year’s supply of washing powder. I askd them if I could change the washing powder for something else because of course living on my own I don’t use all that much. It led to a most extraordinary argument with a salesman who called me all kinds of names under the sun for wearing dirty clothes, or wearing dirty clothes for ever etc. It was most unprofessional and I couldn’t understand what on earth was upsetting him so much when we were discussing a free gift.
I’d been working in an office somewhere. I had everything all done and the place was really tidy for a change with just a few files here and there that I thought that I could do on Monday and I’d be completely up-to-date. I wouldn’t have to worry about leaving my appointment and finishing in a mess when I retired. After all, I could have retired a while back because I’m over the retirement age. Meantime I emptied out all of my drawers. There was a big carrier bag and I thought that I’d struggle to fit everything in it. In the end I managed it. Then I went down to the station – the station at Wigan to buy a single ticket to Crewe. It would cost me £20:50 which I thought was extortionate. All these other people were waiting to use the ticket machine so I had to let them pass while I brooded on how I was going to go home. In the end I just went up to the machine and bought the ticket anyway. When I arrived home my flatmate had been home earlier. We went off to a night club to see a group. I was still fuming about this £20:50. When we arrived at the club the admission fee was £0:92 which I thought was much more reasonable. My friend said “hang on a minute” and went up to one of the members of staff to say 3I had a colleague with me” because I was carrying my camera so we actually could enter for nothing. he was going to report on it and I imagined that he pretended that I was going to be his photographer so we entered this nightclub for free.
This is quite a recurring theme in my dreams, isn’t it? Being at work on the point of retiring and wondering about what kind of mess I’ll be leaving behind.
Finally I was with Jackie and Alison somewhere. We’d been to an Indian restaurant the night before. Next morning we would all meet for lunch. I was still in bed at home in Shavington but the ‘phone rang. That awoke me so I left the bed and everyone was there. My mother said that my older sister had rung wanting to ask me a few questions. I went upstairs to the bathroom. The house was similar to the one in Shavington. I thought that the corner at the top of the stairs would be a nice place to put a 90° circular table and a potted plant or something. I would tell my mother that when I go downstairs. From there I ended up in the street going to this Indian restaurant. I was sure that I was really late. When I arrived everyone had on their face masks so I had to look through my pockets for mine. I then went in and found the 2 girls. One of them had already had her meal but the other was waiting for me to eat before she would order. I thought that with it being lunchtime I didn’t want very much so I just ordered some poppadoms and curry. When it came, it was an enormous dish. I thought “so much for my good resolution”. As I started to eat a man came over and said something to one of the girls. She shook her head but he carried on talking to her. She continued to shake her head, saying “no”. I wondered what on earth was going on because my German wasn’t good enough to understand.
The next task was to pair off all of the music that I’ll be using in the radio programme that I’ll be preparing tomorrow.
There’s some good music in that so I wanted to make it sound good so I spent some time on it and it wall worked quite well.
In between everything I went for brunch. Porridge and toast with some nice, strong coffee. If only I could find some decent baked beans. Unfortunately the French variety is not up to much and fool that I am, I didn’t buy a dozen or so tins when I was in Belgium just now with Caliburn.
As well as an hour or so on the guitar I’ve been writing a reply to a friend in the UK. She sent me a long message earlier in the morning and I had to set aside the time to give the matter some proper consideration.
In the middle of everything I went out for my afternoon walk in the middle of this heatwave.
We’ve seen all of the photos of the people on the beach, in the sea and swimming in the medieval fish trap but my immediate concern after all of that was with the repairs that are being undertaken on the medieval city walls.
This part of the wall here in the Rue du Nord looks as if it’s completely finished now and they have made a really good job of it. Although it wasn’t part of the wall that was under threat, there is no need now to worry about this.
All of the scaffolding has been taken down and the road is open to traffic again. It’s just fenced off now to prevent people leaning on the wall while the mortar cures.
While I was here I stood on the top of the steps to have a look at the outside of the wall.
Unfortunately we can’t see all that much here but it’s pointless going down to the bottom of the steps because it’s all sheathed in a shroud of scaffolding netting.
Nevertheless it looks as if the work here is going to be finished soon too. So what’s the next bit that they’l lbe doing that will keep them here for as long as the guy with whom I spoke a few weeks ago said that they would be staying.
Anyway, that’s a problem for another time.
Right now I headed off down the path further on underneath the walls.
Down there I was overflown by a helicopter, one that I don’t recall seeing before. I can’t even say whether it’s a military helicopter or a civilian one and there’s no clue visible that might enable me to identify it.
Further on down the path I had a good look at the crowds on the beach at the Plat Gousset. Hordes of people down there today enjoying themselves, parasols and sunshades and all.
The problem wth this is that the tide comes in here quite quickly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. This causes people to scamper to the protection of the promenade, just saving their essentials. Everything else, like their litter, is left behind and that’s how come there’s a lot of plastic floating around in the sea.
From the viewpoint over the Plat Gousset I wandered off around into the Square Maurice Marland.
There weren’t too many people here this afternoon but my interest was in the seagull chicks on one of the roofs in the Rue des Juifs on which we’ve been keeping an eye over the last few weeks.
These three seem to have grown quite considerably now and they look in the best of health, which is nice to see.
What else was nice to see was the ladder that the neighbour had put up against the roof and the tubs of water that have been put there for the seagull chicks to drink.
Obviously not everyone agrees with this policy of exterminating them
A little further along the path I stopped to see what was happening in the inner harbour.
Marité is still all at sea, just as I feel myself at times these days. However over there against the quayside is Cap Pilar and Hermes I. Both of these trawlers feature quite regularly on our pages.
Also on the quayside is a pile of freight, and also a pile of scrap metal. The scrap seems to suggest that Thora has been in port very recently. She brings in a lot of scrap from Jersey to be weighed in here whenever she has some spare room.
From the Square Maurice Marland I headed back towards home via the Rie Notre Dame.
Today is the day of the annual brocante in the old town here and I was expecting to see crowds of folk browsing around.
But that’s not the case today. For a start, there were only half the stalls here compared to previous years. And only half the people too. It seems that the hot weather has kept many people away, both stallholders and visitors too.
And as usual, I didn’t stop for a look around. I’ve been here before of course, and found that some people’s idea of the value of junk is totally different from mine
Instead I headed for home. I had some coconut drink in the fridge that needed drinking and this was the right time to drink it, especially with three large ice cubes.
Earlier on this afternoon I’d made another pile of pizza dough seeing that I’d run out.
There was some whole-wheat flour on sale at Leclerc so I’d bought some for my pizza. I wasn’t happy with the industrial bleached flour that I used last time.
After it had proofed I divided it into three. 2 lumps went into the freezer and I rolled out the third one and put it in the pizza tray.
When it was ready I assembled it and put it in the oven to bake.
Strangely enough it didn’t taste as nice as previous versions of the pizza. It’s not the base – that’s good enough (although it took some cutting) but maybe one of the toppings. But whatever it was, it’s given me the wind.
Perhaps I ought to go outside with a kite. I dunno.
Tomorrow morning I’m radioing again. There’s another programme to make that I can add into the queue so I’m going to have an early night. After all, an 06:00 start needs a lot of sleep just like anything else.
and which keeps on rolling along.
has been singing to me “Don’t Start Chasing Happiness – Let It Take You By Surprise. Don’t Go Casting Shadows …”. I suppose that I ought to be adopting a more positive outlook, even if I don’t feel much like it right now. 
