Tag Archives: cathedral

Sunday 1st November 2020 – HAVING SET …

… the alarm for 08:00 this morning, I promptly slept right through it. it was 09:00 when I finally awoke and so i had to get a move on. Alison would be here at 10:30.

First job was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

We were in some kind of really posh hotel last night, a whole group of us in the USA and to get to where we were going we had to walk through these labyriths of corridors, up abd down stairs, everything like that. Someone had left a parel in my room soI opened it. There were all letters in there, a cardigan, and they were for my friend June and as well as that there was a robot-type doll child who was also for June as well so we set off through this hotel labyrinth thig to find June to give her all of her things and this doll. This doll took off and ran off down this pathway and climbed down these stairs as if it knew exactly where it was going and there wasn’t really much that I could doas I wasn’t able really to run after it and catch it.It certainly had a most ungainly way of walking.
The I had to go and fetch Liz and Terry. They were asleep in their van and it was freezing outside so I went and woke them up. Terry came out and he was dressed like Nanook of the North, quilted jackets with newspaper round him, and a hat and balaclava helmet as if he was sleeping at the North Pole. He eventually got out of his van. The frost was really deep, it was a really cold night. I said about going in to get some food. I could see that for some reason they weren’t all that concerned.
Later on I started driving for a taxi firm in Crewe. They had apparently taken over my business and were getting themselves organised and I’d started to drive for them. They were giving me all information and I’d sorted out some leaflets. I could see my old driver’s badge that they had and the plate off the car that I had. They were going on “if anyone ever gives you any trouble you’d better give them one of these leaflets and explain that you are a driver. I said “that’s not a problem because my badge is here and I can hand that out”. So off I went to get into my car. The woman from the place and a few of her friends were outside drinking coffee and I went to get into the car that hey would let me drive for the night. But in this yard there were all kinds of old cars, a Singer Gazelle, other kinds of cars there, obviously derelict and I thought that it must have been quite an unusual taxi company in the past if these were the cars that they were driving.

By now it was time to leave so I grabbed some toast and jam and headed to the door Alison was waiting on the corner so we headed off towards Aachen. We had to go via Liège instead of taking the short cut through the Netherlands because of the virus controls. But we were soon in Aachen and parked the car;

if there’s anywhere more dead than a German city on a Sunday, it’s a German city on a Sunday when the Sunday is a Bank Holiday.

And when the Sunday Bank Holiday comes in the middle of a pandemic lock-down, things are yet more dead.

We had to tramp for miles until we came to a café that was open. This is the Cafe Extrablatt on the Markt overlooking the Rathaus, which I think is a wonderful name for the headquarters of Local Gevernment.

Here I had a big monster coffee while we sat and listened to some woman bashing out the arias of an opera while stading on the steps across the way. i was surprised that it wasn’t pelting down with all of that going on. The packed crowd of about 8 people listening to her must obviously have enjoyed it, but everyone else (not very many else, that’s for sure) kept a decent distance away.

Next stop was to find some food.

Our Great Trek took us through the Munsterplatz and past the fountain that was destroyed during the war and which was rebuilt in 1951. We wouldn’t normally come this way, except that our favourite restaurant was closed and, once more, we had to tramp for miles before we found another that was open and which offered vegan food.

Eventually we found a suitable place, whose name I have forgotten, down by the Spa. I can’t remember now what Alison had but I had a bown of falafel and salad which was certainly delicious and well worth the money

After our meal we planned to goto the Cathedral so we retraced our steps;

There are some beautiful old houses in the Cathedral close that are always well worth a good inspection and a photograph is always worthwhile. No photos of the interior of the cathedral though. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that despite the immense wealth of the Church in general they actually employ people to go round and physically prohibit people from taking photos and we have encountered them before.

If you want to photograph the interior of the Cathedral you have to buy a permit to do so and there is no chance of that.

If they are short of a few bob here and there, they can always start by selling off some of the opulent treasures that are there. “Give all that thou hast to the Poor!”. Bah! Humbug!

We then went for yet another coffee and then headed back towards the car via the Square at the back of the Rathaus

The rear of the aforementioned building is not very often photographed so I thought that I would do the honours. You’ve seen a few of my photos of the front in the past.

It dates from the first decade of the 14th Century and is on the site of a much earlier building. There’s a kind-of grid that you can peer down to see the old stonework from the building that was here in Charlemagne’s time and when I come back with the NIKON D500 instead of the NIKON 1 J5 I’ll take a photo and show you just what I mean.

And shame that it is that I am obliged to say it, when I poured heaps of scorn onto the PLANNERS OF THE EXTENSION and said that it was some kind of mess that only a British architect could make.

So, before I go off and eat some humble pie, let me show you the Charlemagne Centre – a museum dedicated to the memory of Charlemagne whose capital Aachen was.

This Square is surrounded by the cathedral on the eouth side, the Rathaus on the north side, some nice early medieval stone houses opposite on the east side and a beautiful medieval stone meeting hall next door.

And the best that the modern planners can come up with to showase all of those is this God-awful monstrosity. I despair.

But at least, despite the best that the RAF and the USAAF could throw at it, Aachen’s cathedral remains pretty much intact, not like that did at Coventry where the planner did for the bits of cathedral that the Luftwaffe couldn’t destroy.

Said to be one of the largest and one of the oldest religious edifices north of the Alps, it started off life in 793 as the chapel of Charlemagne’s court and is where he was buried in 814. His remains are still in the Cathedral although there is dispute as to where they might be.

Charlemagne had been made Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope in 800 and from then on until 1531 almost every successive Holy Roman Emperor and German King, 31 of them to be precise (and 12 Queens) was crowned there

On that note we headed back to the car and drove home. Alison came in and had a coffee and a chat and after she had gone I switched on the laptop.

“An upgrade is taking place” it informed me. “Do not switch off”. So I didn’t and by 23:30 it was on 20% completed. So I gave it up as a bad job and went to bed.

Monday 17th June 2019 – I’VE HAD A NICE …

… day out today.

Sitting in the sunshine on the edge of a flower pot outside a supermarket eating a baguette and tomato, it reminded me of the summer in 1977 that I spent hitch-hiking around Brittany.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, is it?

Last night I went to bed rather later than I hoped. And despite turning over in bed a couple of times I slept right through to the alarm.

And it is another occasion where whatever I had been doing during the night was simply wiped out of my memory the moment the alarm went off, before I even had chance to grab the dictaphone. I do however have some kind of vague memory of being depressed about the nominations for “Sports person of the year” for a Nabisco breakfast cereal competition, thinking that as far as I was concerned, never mind who might be likely to win, the best names were missing off the list.

With an early start, I had an early breakfast and then dealt with a mass of files off the dictaphone. We’re now down to 60 files – and once they are all done I’ll have to update the blog to include the entries that I missed.

After a shower (I need to look pretty) I headed off up the road for the station and the train.

I was interrupted on the way down the hill though because they were cracking on with repairing the city walls and I thought that I’d stop and have a little look to see where they have got to.

Every day they are going further and further along the wall ripping out the loose stuff and building up. But nevertheless they are still quite a way behind schedule, according to the statutory notice on the protective fencing.

And of course that isn’t all of the construction work that was going on either.

There was a diversion in the rue Couraye, sending all of the traffic off down the back streets so I went on to investigate what was going on. It appears that they are digging up the street for some reason or other.

The street is paved with small granite setts and they were digging them up round by where there was a grid. It’s right opposite the reopened Credit Agricole so I’m awaiting news some time in the near future of a bold bank robberry

Even though I was early, the train was earlier still and was at the platform.

It’s one of the Bombardier X-76500 series of trains – the backbone of the French rural rail network these days. New, comfortable and smooth. A far cry from the old rattling Pacers that run around as best they can on the UK’s ailing network.

The was quite crowded too. This route has only been open for a short while since the reinstated the curve near Folligny and it is clearly doing the business.

It was a very pleasant ride out to Coutances this lunchtime. It only took the train 25 minutes to reach there.

My appointment isn’t until 14:20 so that gives me plenty of time to go for a look round. I started off at the railway station because I’d never been here before. It’s quieter now that it used to be because in the past there was a direct line to Cherbourg via La Haye du Puits but that closed down back in the 1970s.

Nowadays trains follow the remaining line towards Caen and passengers for Cherbourg change trains at Lison

Outside the station and down the road a few hundred metres is a monument to the dead of the First World War of the town.

There are quite a few names on the memorial, giving you some idea of how much the French suffered during that war. In total, 1,357,800 French soldiers lost their lives out of a total population of 41,415,000 in 1911. That’s one-thirtieth of the population. To put it even more into perspective, in 1911 the population of France was 41,415,000. in 1921, the population was 39,108,000 – a decrease of 2,307,000

There were a few casualties listed for the Second World War. That wasn’t as disastrous in casualty terms because once the British front in the North-East of France collapsed and the Germans got in behind the French armies, the end was pretty quick.

If you were to look at a map of Coutances, you would see that the hospital is just outside the railway station.

But that doesn’t take into account the topography. The town is built on the top of a steep hill and the railway station is perched on the side. The hospital is actually 100 feet or so lower down the hill.

And in any case, I’m not going there.

Instead, I headed off down the hill towards the rheumatology clinic.

Down at the junction of the rue de Regneville and the rue Geoffroy de Montbray is this really beautiful cross. You see pleny of crosses and calvaries at road junctions in France, but I’ve seen few that have been as impressive as this.

And that reminds me of a story I once heard about a competition for the design of a calvary. And due to a misunderstanding on the telephone, one sculptor sent in the plans for John Wayne on his horse.

It’s been a whike since these pages have featured an old car. But that’s about to change;

Down near the bottom of the hill parked in a little yard was this beautiful little Renault Estafette.

Not the first one we’ve seen – we saw one around Granville a year or so ago. And had this been 30 years ago we would have seen them everywhere because they were the archetypical French medium-size vans used by inter alia the Police.

There’s a Carrefour supermarket at the bottom of the hill and although I could see it quite clearly, finding the entrance was quite something else. But eventually I was inside and furnished myself with a baguette, some tomatoes, some bananas and a bottle of water.

Outside, perched on the edge of a large flower pot in the sunshine, I ate my lunch as I mentioned above.

When we were in Coutances 18 months ago we got to see something of the Cathedral.

From close to, it was impossible to have a reall good view of the entire building but from down here in St Pierre de Coutances the view is absolutely excellent. You can really have a good idea of the size of the building.

The cathedral dates from the 11th Century although it has been redesigned and rebuilt on a regular basis. It was built on the site of a church dating from the 5th Century that was destroyed in a Viking raid, and it’s quite possible that there was a religious establishment on the site before then

On the way to the clinic, walking along the Granville road through St Pierre de Coutances, I passed a building that resembled very closely a railway building.

It had all of the style, architecture and patterns of other small railway buildings that I have already seen while I’ve been out and about on my travels.

I doubt very much that it was a railway station though because there are no “running in” notices on the side of the building, like you would expect to see in similar circumstances so I shall have to reserve judgement.

And as I was musing about all of this, I walked past a track that had every possible indication that you could wish that it might have at one time have been a railway.

It’s signposted as a walk out to the Pont de la Roque, the ruined bridge that’s a memorial to the Liberation of France out near the coast.

I’ve not as yet been able to trace any record of a railway line going out to there, but it certainly looks very “railway” to me.

Furthermore, I made another little discovery in this respect some time later.

On the way back, in the immediate vicinity but just around the corner in the Pont de Soulles, I discovered a street called rue du Tram.

And so I can see that I will have to be doing some more research into this, although I would have liked to see the tram that could have climbed up that bank without very much of a run-in.

It’s not only the bank that the tram would have had to negotiate, there’s a considerable disparity in altitude.

The road from which I took the photo of the rue du Tram passes underneath this enormous viaduct, over which passes the railway line on which I’ve just travelled from Granville to Coutances. If we assume that the terminus of the tram was near the railway station, then I imagine that the route must have been something like a roller-coaster ride, down from the station and then back up here.

However, returning to our story, at the clinic I didn’t have to wait too long. I was seen pretty quickly, given an ecograph, and the specialist diagnosed that I had a hygroma. He wanted to draw some fluid off the knee (which I will have to take to the laboratory for examination) so stuck a hypodermic in my knee – right in the most tender part of it.

I have never ever in my life been in so much agony.

On the way back I called at a pharmacie. I found one in the rue du Pont de Soulles but I was distracted once more.

Almost next door to the pharmacy, there in an alcove in a wall is an old hand pump for pumping up water, presumably from a well or a spring. It’s certainly an interesting place to find one

Meanwhile, in the pharmacy, I asked them to deal with the prescription that the specialist had given me. I have to make up a mix of 50% water 50% clinical alcohol and apply it to a patch that I have to place on my knee. For no longer than 20 minutes (because it will burn otherwise) three times per day.

From the pharmacy there was a stiff climb up some very narrow streets towards the railway station.

The rue des Teintures is pedestrianised from halfway up, which is just as well because it’s very narrow and twisty. But there’s a beautiful view of parts of the old city that I have never seen before, such as the old chapel of the Augustine monastery.

The old bell-tower is classed as a Historic monument by the French authorities, and quite rightly so in my opinion. However I can’t find out very much about it.

There was a three-hour wait for the train back – this new line only has four trains each way per day. So it was a good job that I had taken a book with me and that I had bought a bottle of water.

So while I was waiting for the train I was reading my book, drinking my water and … errr … having a little relax.

A train from St-Lô pulled in but to my surprise it terminated here and then set off back. It’s not like there’s a lot of traffic on the line so I would have thought that they might have run on to at least Granville.

Eventually my train came in – bang on time too which is always good news. There weren’t too many empty seats, which surprised me, but I managed to find a place of my own to sit and relax.

And for the first time for I don’t know how long, there was a ticket collector on the train who was actually checking the tickets. I’d bought mine on line before setting off, so I was quite okay.

I was soon back in Granville. I’d missed the laboratory, but I was just in time to see all of the shops close up. 19:00 already. Where did the day go?

There was a lot going on down in the town that I saw as I was climbing up the hill.

It goes without saying that with the tide in and the gates open, there was a line of trawlers unloading at the fish-processing plant. I just wish that I could remember what it was like back before 1992 when the Grand Banks were open and the port was heaving with deep-sea trawlers.

And even earlier too, when the railway line was operating and all of the catch was taken away by rail. I shall have to go to the library and do some research into the dockside railway.

There were a couple of people gazing over the wall at something going on down below, so I joined them.

There was a bride down there having her photograph taken amidst the plastic rowing boats. And I’m not sure why because it wouldn’t have been the place where I would have wanted my wedding photographs to be taken.

And that wasn’t everything either. On the way up the hill I’d seen a big black-and-white cat dash across the road, run up a tree, knock a pigeon out, dive out of the tree and drag the stunned bird off in triumph.

Well done him.

Rosemary had rung up while I was out. She rang me back later and we had a really good chat for ages.

For a change I didn’t feel like a big tea, so I just had a nibble here and there. Now I’m off to bed to relax my knee and have a good sleep.

And I need it too. I’ve done 125% of my daily target today – 9.8 kms. And much to my surprise, I don’t feel any worse than I did before I set out.

But I shall probably sleep tonight. I had a little doze here and there in the station but I’ll need more than that.

gare de coutances railway station manche normandy france

old cars renault estafette coutances manche normandy france

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire Rue des Teintures, coutances manche normandy france

fire drill firemen st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

motorcycle training school st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Coutances manche normandy france

voie de la victoire Pont de Soulles st pierre de coutances manche normandy france

rue des teintures Centre Hospitalier de Coutances manche normandy france

Clocher de l’ancienne chapelle des frères Augustins rue des teintures coutances manche normandy france

bollards with metal inserts rue des teintures coutances manche normandy france

Clocher de l’ancienne chapelle des frères Augustins rue des teintures Centre Hospitalier de Coutances manche normandy france

Sunday 23rd December 2018 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER .

… thing crossed off my list of things to do.

Back in the early 1970s when I first started coming over to Oostende, I was always puzzled by the train that was waiting at the station for the passengers. Its destination was always Welkenraedt and I didn’t have a clue where Welkenraedt was.

A little later I had a look for where Welkenraedt might be. It’s a small town nestled in the Ardennes miles from anywhere.

That puzzled me even more as to why the boat trains from Oostende would be going there.
I eventually found the reason. It’s a junction station where lines from Spa and from Eupen come in.

But more importantly, it’s the last station of any importance before the German border. The electricity current in Germany used to be different to that in Belgium, so that was where the Belgian engine came off, and then a German locomotive would be attached to take the train on into Europe.

Alison and I went to Welkenraedt on one of our excursions out back in July to see what was going on. But it was always my ambition, strange though it might seem, to change trains there.

So here I am, on a windswept, soaking wet freezing platform huddled under a tiny shelter at Welkenraedt in the middle of winter waiting for a train to come in.

And no coffee for miles around either

Despite it being Sunday I’d left the alarm connected and at 06:00 it duly rang. No breakfast, no medication, just packing my backpack and then out into the dark, stopping off on the way to take a few photos of around the station area because I had plenty of time..

At 07:24 the train to Eupen came into the station and I leapt aboard. And at Welkenraedt I hopped out. These days the trains don’t go on into Europe but go round to Eupen.

We had to wait for a diesel multiple-unit to come rattling in from Spa.

We didn’t have long to wait until this filthy, dirty disreputable ancient thing came staggering into the station.

Old, covered in grafitti and all kinds of things, and the train was even worse. I’d be ashamed to be seen in something like this, and the idea that the SNCB would be content to send such a machine into a foreign country where it could be compared with the pristine stuff on offer over there is an absurdity to say the least.

But here it was and here I was. So I climbed aboard and rattled off into Germany.

Here I am finally in Germany, in Aachen in fact, at the Hauptbahnhof.

I have to change trains here, and there’s a wait of about 20 minutes for my connection, so there is plenty of time for breakfast.

German bread is probably the best in the world and so a couple of bread rolls of different varieties and a coffee were just what the doctor ordered.

My next train was already in the station. A newish double-decker that put the SNCB offering to shame. This rolled off out of the station, 10 seconds late, and an hour later, I was in Koln.

That was where I took this photograph, by the way.

Interestingly, the announcements on the train were in German followed by English. I imagined what might be the response from the xenophobic racist Brexiters if this kind of cosmopolitanism were ever to happen in the UK.

It’s years since I’ve been to Koln. About 2007 if my memory serves me correctly.

Looking for something to do to pass the time, I’d been idly scanning through the SNCB website and I found that a voyage by train from Leuven to Köln and return would cost me a mere €68:00 – that’s a four-hundred kilometre round trip.

With nothing much happening in Belgium, I decided to come for a day out.

I spent a couple of hours wandering around the city, visiting all of the places that I had visited on my previous trips. But at midday I had to return to the cathedral.

When I was chair of the North European Regional Forum of Open University students, one of the committee members lived here in Koln. And by coincidence she was a big friend of my old friend Liz. Hence the regular visits to Koln. Jackie and I hadn’t seen each other since those days, but she had heard that I was coming to Koln and we were going to meet for lunch.

It was at that moment that the heavens opened. As I picked my way through the crowds I was becoming wetter and wetter, and so I was glad to meet Jackie and go for a coffee.

When the rain eased off a little we headed off into the town and an Italian restaurant. It was a strange place for an Italian restaurant. They wouldn’t do me a plate of vegetables with pasta and tomato sauce. I got the pasta and the tomato sauce, but they couldn’t do the vegetables. That can only mean one thing, as I’m sure that the more astute readers will realise.

By now the rain was coming down even worse, but we headed off regardless. Down the main shopping street and through a couple of the Christmas markets, looking at the products on sale.

We ended up at a hot drinks stall. Jackie had a gluhwein and I had a hot cocktail. The mugs were beautiful so we forewent the deposit and I took them away in my backpack.

Jackie’s partner came down to meet us. They were off to a carol concert at the end of the afternoon so I said goodbye

Now on my own, I retraced my steps back through the markets and down to the River Rhine, thinking that I could have done with a good Rhinecoat.

I walked up along the side of the river and then up the steps to the Hohenzollern Bridge – the huge railway bridge with a pedestrian footpath that straddles the river.

It was a dismal dreary walk in the dark and the rain but even so, it’s good to stand there in mid-stream and watch the fleets of barges and cruise ships passing by underneath.

Eventually I found myself back at the railway station. And to my dismay, the rear of the station has all been cleared up and modernised and the excellent fritkot that I remembered from the past has been swept away.

Nevertheless I did manage to fit myself up with some food. Back inside the station, I found a Thai restaurant in the subterranean shopping gallery that had a range of vegetarian and vegan food.

I had a stir-fry tofu with rice and it was really good.

My train was a few minutes early and already in the platform. To my surprise it was pulled by the same locomotive that had brought me out.

I hopped aboard and grabbed myself a comfortable seat. And here I had an interesting encounter with a German ticket-collector. It had been so wet that the damp atmosphere had caused the ink on my rail ticket to run and he couldn’t read it.

In the end, reason prevailed.

Another wait at Aachen for an even more disreputable Belgian multiple-unit. And which, surprisingly (or maybe not) it was likewise the same one that had brought me out.

There was graffiti all over the inside of the train and rubbish strewn all over the floor. Not a very good advert for the SNCB, sending atrain like this across the border into foreign parts.

And then another wait on the cold and wet at Welkenraedt for my train back to Leuven.

So now, I’m back home, looking and feeling like one more haggard, drowned rat, although I had no idea where I would find one more haggard drowned rat at this time of night.

And straight off to bed because I have the hospital in the morning and I need to be on form.

On my travels today, I took well over 100 photos. Some are in the text and some more below.

But if you want to see the rest, I’ve prepared a web page where you can see them in all their sodding and dripping glory, such as it was.

christmas lights tiensevest leuven louvain belgium

martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

war memorial martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

railway station martelarenplein leuven louvain belgium

train station leuven louvain belgium

hauptbahnhof aachen germany

automotrice sncb 644 653 hauptbahnhof aachen germany

Thursday 23rd February 2017 – WHAT DO YOU NOTICE …

… that is not quite right about this photo? It’s the kind o thing that can only ever happen in Belgium

Closer inspection of the photograph should tell you what is wrong – there are a set of stairs and an escalator inside this Sports shop in Leuven. And the escalator is going downhill to the lower level, and to climb back up again you need to take the stairs.

That’s not the kind of thing you can make up, is it?

Only in Belgium!

I had a fair-ish night last night. Late dropping off to sleep although I did manage to sleep right trhough – until about 06:30 when someone else’s alarm awoke me. No idea whose, but anyway there I was.

I’d been on my travels too, reliving a “Gunsmoke” episode where some people were leaving the area and there was some dispute as to whether they would be taking their 4-year old girl with them. And I ended up babysitting for my sins. I don’t half have some rough jobs.

Alone again at breakfast and then back up here for a little repose, and I’ve done a little alteration here and there on my internet homepage. I created a web page with all of the links to the sites that I visit regularly, and I use that as my homepage. It’s getting a little out of control so I’ve been amending it to read better – it’s now three columns instead of two.

Later on in the morning, I had a shower and shave, and then went out for a walk.

I ended up not at the church around here, but at St Peter’s Cathedral in the city centre. I wasn’t aiming to go there, but walking past, I noticed that the doors were open, so I nipped inside.

The pulpit is magnificent as you can see in the photo. It’s really quite a work of art, bordering on the grotesque, and wouldn’t be out of place in a grotto somewhere.

The rear of it, which you can’t see, is actually a grotto and it’s a representation of the Calvary, the cross of the crucifixion with, underneath, the cave where Jesus was entombed until the resurrection.

And it did remind me of Cap de la Madeleine, the place in Quebec that we visited in 2011 where they had a competition of artists and sculptors to design an appropriate monument for the Calvary. And an Irish sculptor sent in a drawing of John Wayne on his horse.

From here I went for a wander around the shops (see the photo at the top of the page) and ended up back at Sports Direct. They still had some of those good-quality sports trousers on offer at €23 for two, so I bought another couple, seeing as the ones that I bought the other week are quite good.

That means that I have enough decent trousers for now, and I can relegate some of the other ones down the chain. I’ve decided too that I’ll order some new polo shirts from my supplier in the UK – have a wardrobe upgrade.

After lunch, I cracked on with my medical expenses and I’ve finally finished them. It wasn’t half an effort but once I got into the rhythm it was fairly straightforward. At least it means that I don’t have to pay postage and recorded delivery letter fees, and sending them by the internet is bound to be quicker than the Post anyway.

Later on I had a crash-out, and then went for tea. I’d called at the Delhaize while I was out for some potatoes, and so I had sausage beans and mashed potatoes followed by vegan ice cream sorbet and peach halves.

It’s a day off work tomorrow for me (yippee!) so with an early night, I might even be on form. But I’ll be continuing my process of having a little walk every day. I’ll see if that does me any good.

Saturday 14th January 2017 – PHEW, I’M WHACKED!

I’ve had a really busy day today and I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. But ask me if I care!

I’ve always said that I’ll do what I have the opportunity to do whenever I have the opportunity to do it, and today was just like that.

Remember when I went shopping with Alison last weekend? She ended up not buying a ski suit but she did manage to pick one up during the week. But she decided that she would go to look for another one today – in Aachen, Germany, to be precise. Did I want to go?

Well, do bears go for picnics in the woods?

Last night was another typical bad night with an interruption in the small hours as usual. And that’s annoying me as you can imagine. But I made it into the kitchen for breakfast bang on time all the same.

Now here’s a thing that is more than unusual. it’s more than surprising too, and certainly extraordinary. And that is that I was down at the Delhaize in town, doing my shopping and back in my room afterwards for 09:00. When did that ever happen?

By 11:00 I’d showered, shaved, had clean clothes, all of that and gone outside where Alison was waiting for me.

And so, all aboard, we headed off eastwards down the motorway to Aachen. We farhn, fahrn, fahrn’d down the autobahn, in fact.

The weather could have been better though. It was cold, although not that cold, and grey and overcast with snow flurries throughout the day.

We arrived at Aachen where the snow had beaten us to it, and first stop was to sort out some clothing for Alison.

While Alison was searching around in the shops I went for a little wander around in the vicinity. Of course, when women are buying clothes, there’s plenty of time to do that, and even more so when people are in the queue for paying.

It seems that almost everyone in the city was shopping for ski-wear. After all, it’s Carnival quite soon and this is the traditional time for the kids to hit the slopes.

From there, we walked up the hill into town past some nice fairly-modern brick-built buildings that looked quite nice and blended quite well into the surroundings.

A coffee was next, and Alison knew a pretty good cafe. And I’ve drunk much worse coffee than that, I can tell you. I was surprised though, that there was no public toilet in there. I wonder what the EU would have to say about it.

But it does reinforce everything that I have said about the different attitudes that different countries have. Most countries agree to everything, and then have a very lax attitude about enforcing it. The UK fights tooth-and-nail, wasting everyone’s time, about various legislation, end then enforces it to the most ridiculous lengths. Remind me to tell you one day about the tip at Leek.

After the coffee we went off up the hill into the city centre, and while Alison went off in search of a woolly hat to go with her new ski jacket that she had bought, I went off for a wander around.

Luckily, Aachen was spared the worst excesses of the Allied terror-bombing of World War II so there is a great deal of the medieval city remaining, despite the American shelling and the SS demolition squads during its capture in October 1944.

And while it’s not the most attractive medieval city that I’ve ever visited, it certainly retains a lot of its charm.

The Town Hall, or Rathaus, which I always thought was a quite appropriate name for a town hall in any country or any language, was damaged during the capture of the city, but you would never ever think so from just looking at it.

And I don’t just mean the quality of the restoration either. The building could do with a really good clean for a start and it would look so much better if they were to take the time to do it.

One of the things that I did like about the Rathaus were the beautiful medieval wooden buildings – a pub so Alison told me, that were attached to the side, taking advantage of the stone wall of the Rathaus at the back.

It’s not the first time that we’ve seen this style of construction. There’s the same kind of construction in Belgium at a church near the Bourse that has wooden buildings constructed against it. It certainly saves on construction materials

Round the side of the central square was another small square tucked away out of sight. Alison told me that there was a restaurant there that had vegan food advertised on the menu, so that sounded like a good place to go for lunch.

It’s over there at the back, on the right, hidden by what look very much like historical remains. And I was intrigued to see these remains still standing – they look like the kind of remains that would have fallen down years ago.

Alison had a salmon steak and new potatoes, and my vegan ratatouille made with fresh vegetables of the day was even better. It was a little over-priced in my opinion, but it was still delicious and light years away from a bag of chips.

It too was served with sliced new potatoes and that worked so well that I’ll be trying this as soon as I can, now that I have a bag of spuds to play with.

But I didn’t think that the name of the restaurant was appropriate – fancy calling it the Living Room, which could be translated into Lebensraum, the project which concerned the Nazis invading Eastern Europe and exterminating its population.

And I shan’t say anything about setting the décor on fire either.

Outside the Living Room there was a view of the cathedral, to the right of the historic arches, and if you excuse the building work and the crane thing in the way.

It’s not the best view in the world but unfortunately, like many other well-preserved medieval cities, the cathedral is tightly hemmed in by buildings and it’s not possible to do any better than this.

If the RAF and the American artillery can’t clear the scene, neither can I

The cathedral itself is a magnificent pile and I expect that you are waiting with bated breath to see a whole raft of photos of the gorgeous interior, the tomb of Charlemagne, and all kinds of relics, including building materials such as marble that were sent by Pope Hadrian I to incorporate into the construction

Unfortunately there was a person loitering just inside the interior whose task it is to pounce upon anyone pointing a camera at anything, and demand a “licence fee” for the privilege of so doing.

Clearly the cathedral authorities have never ever heard of “Christian Charity” and don’t understand the concept of “sharing”. It’s not the first time that I’ve passed comment on the quality and value of the treasures contained in a church – something that goes totally against the concept of Jesus viz “give all thou hast to the poor”, but when it even comes down to naked exploitation and profiteering of the idea of sharing images of what the church possesses, then I’m convinced that there is something totally wrong with the church’s morality.

The oldest part of the Cathedral dates from 792 and is part of Charlemagne’s Palace – probably the only surviving part. And its rare octagonal shape is an indication of its age.

The stained glass therein is stunning too and all in all, it’s quite an impressive building. One day I shall go back – alone – and bring you back some photos to demonstrate what I mean.

The streets surrounding the cathedral are not without interest. Small, tight and cobbled – the very typical medieval street scenes that were swept away in the mid-20th Century in most cities in the UK

And this sculpture was quite exciting too. All of the models on it are mobile and can be manipulated around. It drew quite a crowd and I had to wait ages for a suitable opportunity to photograph it, when there was no-one else loitering in the vicinity.

Aachen is quite a historic city.

Settlement dates back to neolithic times and was settled by the Romans, attracted to the site by the warm sulphur springs. It was in fact on the frontier of the settled Roman area.

Excavations have taken place in the city from time to time and some of the discoveries are on display, like this site in one of the town squares that is surrounded by a glass case. I particularly liked the idea of the drainage channel just here in the foreground.

The warm springs are just lower down from where these ruins are located, and I went off for a taste. Very sulphuric, and quite warm too. The taste was disgusting, but I had to try it. No point in being here if you don’t do something like that.

There is no photograph of the springs, and no photograph of the plaques with the list of names of the notable personalities who came here to take the water. This was because at this moment we were engulfed in something of a snowstorm.

As the snow eased off we walked back to the car.

Parts of the town are still decorated for Christmas, and some of the shop windows are phenomenal. This was one of my favourites, with the snowmen and other winter scenes, but there were plenty of others too.

And I can’t get over the bakeries either. I love German bread – there is just so much of it and it’s all good, and Aachen is no exception. Thoughts such as working out where the railway station might be in connection with the railway line to Leuven started to run through my mind.

As it grew dark, we hit the highway and headed for home. The return journey was quite quick and I was back here by 18:15. Many thanks to Alison for a good day out.

My day wasn’t finished though. OH Leuven were playing at home against Tubize, kick-off 20:00, so I braved the snowstorm and the freezing cold to go down there, grabbing a bag of chips on the way.

For a change, I wasn’t behind the goal but high up in the stand along the touchline level with the edge of the penalty area. A grandstand view, especially of down there where I usually sit.

AFC Tubize looked the better side and they had a player, the n°97, who looked streets ahead of anyone else on the field. His name is Jae-Gun Lee and he’s a recent signing, aged just 19, from Korea.

He’ll go far in European football, that’s for sure. Remember that you heard his name first on here

But OH Leuven went into the dressing room 1-0 up at half-time, rather against the run of play, thanks to an audacious step-over in the penalty area that totally flat-footed the Tubize defence.

I said that there was still plenty of time for OH Leuven to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and how prophetic those words were. From the first attack of the second half, Tubize won a penalty and it went all downhill after that.

And so in the torrential snowstorm that we were having, OH Leuven’s hopes drifted away. Tubize ran out 3-1 winners, and ended with the crowd booing the home side and cheering on the visitors.

That was rather harsh because OH Leuven had tried very hard, but their final ball was always falling short of where it was supposed to go. Nevertheless, they had plenty of chances to equalise, if not to win. But it was one of those games where nothing at all went right.

I walked back, freezing cold, and I’m tired and ready for bed. And I know that I’ll pay for all of this effort in the morning.

I’ll leave you instead with about 2,000 words and hope that you enjoy it.

Monday 3rd August 2015 – I HATE PEOPLE …

… who post on the internet photos of what they have been eating.

However, just very occasionally, there are rare occasions where a meal merits being photographed, and this is one of them.

Right in the centre of Clermont-Ferrand this lunchtime, not one of the restaurants had a vegan meal on offer, but there was one where the chef was busy plying his art (and art it was) in the corner of the dining area and so I went over for a chat.

And this is the result. And no complaints whatever from me. I had a struggle to finish it.

So after a telephone call at a time where quite often I hadn’t even been to bed, I was down at Sauret Besserve and picked up Liz, and off we went to Riom for Liz’s hospital appointment.

I had a wait of about 50 minutes for a groggy-looking Liz to emerge, and then we went off for a coffee so that she could recover.

Next stop was the Auchan but there weren’t any of the Nikon D7000 cameras there – it’s an end-of-range deal and the prices had been slashed so I wasn’t expecting much, but nevertheless, we were nearby so it was worth a try.

And then a first for Liz.

We decided to go into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and the tram lines pass at the rear of the Auchan so, leaving Caliburn on the car park, we hopped on a tram that whisked us silently and effortlessly into the city.

€1:50 a ticket and there can’t be much better value than that. Anyone who has driven into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and tried to find a parking place will tell you all about that.

We went for a walk, went to the Tourist Information office and down to the Conseil-General – and I had a brainwave. I need to insure Strider, the Ranger, in Canada and I wondered if I could obtain a printout of my licence showing my motoring history.

We queued for a good while and, at the counter, “yes, we can do that. Do you have your driving licence?”
So I duly produced it
“And do you have your identoty papers?”
“Ohh blast! I’ve left them in Caliburn, haven’t I?”
“We are really supposed to see some identity papers in order to do this over the counter, but I’ll tell you what – let’s do it anyway”

So there we were!

Back to the city square and in the shadow of Pope Urban II preaching the First Crusade to the pigeons fluttering around the Cathedral, we had our lunch.

Back on the tram and off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for the next few weeks, giving Samantha Fish her first run-out, and then back home.

All in all a quite profitable day.

And hats off to the reception staff at the hospital at Riom, hats off to the chef in Clermont Ferrand and hats off also to the lady at the driving licence desk at the Prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. Things are definitely looking up!

Friday 20th December 2013 – DIDN’T WE HAVE A LUVVERLY TIME …

… the day we went to Clermont?

Thanks, Marianne, for ringing me at 06:30 otherwise I would still be in bed now, but anyway off to a garage along the road between Pionsat and St Eloy where Marianne was to leave her car for a service, and then we headed into Pionsat to catch the bus.

33 of us, there were, on board heading for Pionsat’s annual shopping trip to Clermont. Many towns and villages in the rural Puy-de-Dome go there on the same day and the Conseil-General have a little welcoming celebration with coffee, orange juice and croissants – just as well seeing as how I didn’t have any breakfast. And we received a free tram ticket, shopping bag and little Christmas present too.

The queue for the tram was enormous and so we walked to the centre, which was quite nice seeing as we passed by the city’s cemetery. One thing about Marianne is that she’s just as interested in things like this as I am and an invitation for a stroll around the dead centre of any kind of urban settlement will not be sneezed at.

There were formerly many religious establishments in Clermont Ferrand and we stumbled across many communal graves in which various groups of nuns had interred their departed members.

The communal graves of the monks were however much more interesting. Tucked away in a quiet little corner of the cemetery behind a few enormous tombs is their last resting place – one headstone for each establishment and a little plaque for each brother who is interred here. Things like that are quite poignant really.

And I wonder who is involved in the upkeep of this little plot because some of the communal graves of the nuns are, well, very sorry spectacles indeed.

There’s also a Commonwealth War Grave here in the cemetery at Clermont Ferrand. 22 British, Canadians and New Zealanders are buried here. 21 are Air Force men and quite clearly three groups of 7. Pilot, Flight Engineer, Navigator, Wireless Operator, Bomb-Aimer and a couple of gunners.

One group died on 5th March 1944, another group on 10th March 1944 and the third group on 27th July 1944. Clearly three Lancasters shot down in the vicinity and with the proximity of the huge Michelin tyre factory – just a couple of hundred yards away from where I was standing taking this photograph, then no prizes for guessing what they were doing – or trying to do.

Or so I wrote at the time. Subsequent research revealed something rather different.

Only one of the aircraft was a Lancaster engaged in bombing the Michelin factory (with an alternative target of the marshalling yards at Aulnat).

These were the crew of Lancaster B III serial ND513 of Squadron 207 RAF, carrying identity EM-R. The crew led by Squadron Leader Dudley Pike had set off from Spilsby in Lincolnshire on 10th March at 19:42.

The aeroplane suffered a direct hit from flak and exploded in mid-air. The wreckage crashed close to the Anne-Marie-Menut roundabout between 23:00 and 23:30.

The earlier crash, on 5th March 1944, was actually a Stirling B III serial EF215 of 75 squadron RAF (although many of the crew were New Zealanders). She carried identity AA-M

She had taken off from Mepal in Cambridgeshire on 4th March 1944 at about 20:51. She had been loaned to SOE (the Special Operations Executive) and was on a training flight parachuting arms to the Resistance in the Auvergne.

Because of the foul weather (blinding, gusting snowstorms were reported) she couldn’t see the torch signals and so aborted the mission, but ran into the side of a Puy in the Le Cros – Douharesse area.

The upper middle machine-gunner luckily survived the crash and was arrested. The others perished and, according to a report issued at the time, the cause of death was as much exposure to the elements as the injuries received in the crash.

The third aeroplane Was another Lancaster B III, serial number ND527 (only 14 machines newer than that lost on 10th March). She carried identity LE-O and belonged to 630 suadron RAF, although some crew were Canadians.

She had taken off from East Kirkby in Lincolnshire at 21:17 on 26th July 1944 to bomb the marshalling yards at Givors, south of Lyon, but at 02:45 the following morning, in the middle of a violent storm, she was involved in a mid-air collision with Lancaster ND856 of 82 squadron.

The pilot of the plane attempted a crash-landing just south of St Ignat, 14kms north-east of Riom, but collided with trees. The plane burst into flames and the crew was immolated.

Incidentally, ND856 exploded in mid-air and its remains fell to earth four or five kilometres away. The crew was originally buried in the local cemetery close tot he crash site but were later exhumed and re-interred in the big military cemetery at Mazargues, near Marseille.

The 22nd grave is that of Lieutenant WTL Short and his is an interesting story.

It doesn’t matter what your perception of the RAF Bomber Command is (mine is that they were a bunch of mass-murdering war criminals, but that is by the way), no-one will dispute that for the expense and effort involved and the number of casualties that they suffered, they were pretty much ineffective and much more could have been achieved at far, far less expense by quite simply parachuting into the target area a bunch of commandos armed to the teeth, with the aim of sabotaging the factories and their output on the ground. The rail campaign of Summer 1944 is a classic example of this, and who remembers the Heroes of Telemark?

But a close look at the headstone of Lieutenant Short will reveal that he was “attached to the FFI” – the Force Français de l’Interieur, which is the politically-correct way of describing the French Resistance. And I can’t help thinking that for what he cost the British Government, his efforts were probably far more cost-effective than those of his 21 neighbours. And what is even more sad about all of this is that if you go to The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website

and carry out a search for the Des Charmes Dechaux cemetery in Clermont Ferrand, you’ll find entries for the 21 airmen but no entry for Lieutenant Short.

From there we walked on into town, stopping halfway for another coffee of course. Crossing the road we went to the Basilica of Notre Dame du Port.

This church dates from the 6th Century and was founded, so the story goes, by St Avit who, as we all know, comes from down the road here at la Cellette where he had a spring and a hermitage. The church was destroyed by the Normans during one of their invasions of the 10th Century and subsequently rebuilt. Unusually, the crypt is open to the public and so we went down there to see what we could see but the short answer to that was “nothing”. It did not escape our notice, however, that the crypt only stretched so far underneath the church.

Marianne then took me to see the Town Hall, which is just around the corner from the cathedral, the famous cathedral where Peter the Hermit summoned the First Crusade back at the end of the 11th Century.

The Town Hall was an interesting place to visit. It was formerly some kind of Abbey, as you can tell from the inner quadrangle and cloisters. But we couldn’t go inside for a nosey – it’s lunch time already.

And what do you notice here? Yes – a blue sky. It was depressing, wet and miserable this morning, just like me. But now it looks as if the sun might be coming out.

The Christmas Market was next on the agenda. That was in the square at the back of the cathedral, the square that is dominated by the Puy de Dome, which you can see all bathed in snow and wun on the skyline in the background.

At the market I bought my final Christmas present, so I’m glad that I came here, and then we headed off to the Tourist Information and the Conseil General where I picked up an enormous pile of stuff for Radio Anglais. We won’t be complaining about lack of events and information now for quite a while with all of this stuff that I’ve collected, and I made a couple of useful contacts too.

My main reason for being here though is to hold Marianne’s hand on the big ferris wheel in the Place de Jaude. In her capacity as hournalist she decided that it would be quite a plan to get to the top and take some decent photos, but she’s not very good at heights. Consequently I was roped in for moral support.

The wheel is quite high as you can see, and the views from the top, such as this one looking north-west, are absolutely splendid. Mind you, I was quite disappointed as it was the smoothest ride that i’ve ever had. It gave no real sensation of movement and it certainly didn’t seem as if we were anything like this high.

Mind you, another lifetime’s ambition has been accomplished. Taking a photo of the cathedral at Clermont Ferrand is next-to-impossible as it is hemmed in by all kinds of other buildings and there’s no really good shot.

I’ve been experimenting with extreme-length telephoto lenses from the surrounding summits of the Faille de Limagne but they haven’t really worked out. But sod that for a game of soldiers now. Up here is the nicest view of the cathedral that anyone could hope to see.

So a visit to a bookshop, a quick coffee and then back to the bus and home to 2°C.The temperature has plummetted and we might well be back into winter at last.

-4

Sunday 4th November 2012 – YOU ARE PROBABLY WONDERING …

… where I was last night when the report of the daily activities never made it to the world.

The answer is that I was crashed out here on the sofa. I dozed off in the middle of the Panthers v Redskins gridiron game and that was that until about 02:00 in the morning.

Having lived for so long in splendid rural isolation, I can’t come to terms with modern urban living. Traffic all through the night, people moving about at 06:00, dogs barking, horns blowing.

No, it’s no good for me. I had almost no sleep in my little room.

24 hours ago though, I was some where completely different.

I was sitting up on the car park at the panoramic viewpoint just outside Clermont-Ferrand on the D941.

I’d bought a pot of jam and some orange juice yesterday, this morning I’d picked up half a baguette, and here I stopped for breakfast.

This is one of the best places in the whole of the Puy-de-Dome to come and admire the view, even when it’s raining.

It’s certainly a class above almost everywhere else (the St Lawrence River excluded, of course) where I’ve stopped for breakfast when I’ve been on the road

And I wasn’t alone here either because several other people had come to join in the proceedings

We’ve been to the cathedral of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption – Our Lady of the Assumption – in Clermont Ferrand on many occasions as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Unfortunately though, we’ve never been able to take a really good photograph of it because it’s all hemmed in by buildings.

No such difficulties from up here though, is there? Especially with a 300mm zoom lens

And when I crop the photograph and blow it up, because I can do that despite modern terrorism legislation, I can produce something magnificent because the building really is superb

It’s the third cathedral on the site. The original one was built in the 5th Century and was destroyed by Pepin le Bref in 760 and again by the Normans in 915 – this time rather more permanently.

Its replacement wasn’t considered grand enough in the period of the magnificent church-building programmes of the 12th and 13th Centuries, and so construction of the present one was commenced in 1248.

Clearly built by the local council, the final (for now) stone of black pierre de Volvic was laid more than 650 years later, in 1905.

But it’s the second cathedral that is the most famous. There on the steps on 27th November 1095, Pope Urban II made the call for the First Crusade to the Holy Land, and laid the foundations for much of what has gone wrong in the world ever since.

Regular readers of this rubbish – albeit in one of its previous incarnations – will recall the view in that photograph.

That’s the Plateau de Gergovie and Liz and I, on one of our fact-finding missions, went to sit on the top of the hill and have lunch.

That’s said by many, including Napoleon III, to be the site where the Gaullish leader Vercingetorix inflicted upon Julius Caesar the first major defeat that he suffered.

Having breakfasted and … errr … relaxed for a short while, I headed off down the D941 in the direction of the historic village of Miremont.

The claim to fame of Miremont is the church of St Bonnet situated on top of an isolated rock on the edge of the village.

This is another one of those places that has been high on my list of places to visit, and following the football club about is certainly enabling me to see the sights

It dates from the middle of the 12th century, although I would have given it perhaps 50 years more.

But never mind the church for a moment, jut look at the site that it has.

It’s situated on a pinnacle of rock overlooking the confluence of the rivers Sioulet and Chevalet, – an ideal defensive position for any nobleman bent on increasing his power in the region

And as we know, some of these noblemen were as bent as they come.

We’re lucky in that the church was built in such a place.

As peace descended onto the area in the years before the horrors of the Hundred Years War, the inhabitants left the safety of the tops of the inaccessible hills and into the more accessible and more fertile valleys.

Consequently this church escaped the rush of church “modernisations” and “rebuilding” in the 13th Century following the return of the Crusaders with the wealth that they had pillaged from Constantinople and the Holy Land.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a pet theory about early churches in rural France.

I’ve said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that I reckon that they started life as chapels to fortresses built in easily-defensible positions.

As the importance of the fortress declined in the era of peace, the importance of the church increased and gradually took over the site.

We are very fortunate here in that with this site being so inaccessible, it was never pillaged as ruthlessly for building stone when it was abandoned, as many other sites have been.

And so a good prowl around in the undergrowth produces very clear evidence that there was some kind of fortification up here.

This looks very much like the remains of one of these four-cornered fortified chateaux to me, the type that the Knights Templar loved to take over for their Commanderies.

As for the football, which is why we are here after all, it was a triumph for the FC Pionsat St Hilaire 2nd XI.

They’ve had some really bad luck in matches since the start of the season and at one time not so long ago they were hopelessly adrift at the foot of the table.

However a good win last Saturday night against the Goatslayers buoyed up their spirits.

Today though, for the first time in a couple of years, they played like a team with belief.

This was mainly down to Emeric who played today, being unavailable for the 1st XI last night. He drove the team on relentlessly from midfield.

And special mention must go to Kevin, who volunteered to play in goal and had an excellent game.

Vincent has come into the senior side from the juniors this season.

He has a lot to learn of course, but being coached from the crowd on the touchline, he managed to score his debut goal for the team – the first of many, we hope.

The tean finished by winning convincingly, 3-1, to move up to fourth from bottom.

And despite all of the criticism that I have given to the defence, the back four played magnificently. If only they could play like this in every match they would have no worries at all.

It’s a shame about the driving rain though – it put a dampener on the proceedings though.

And so, having had a nice weekend away from home, which surely does me good, I headed off back for my pizza and garlic bread.

I deserved them.

Thursday 15th September 2011 – I HAD …

… an absolutely excellent nights sleep last night. Out like a light although I did have to get up to go for a gypsy’s in the middle of the night

This morning however it’s not as gorgeous as all that as far as the weather goes because there’s a low hanging cloud or mist all over the place. Its all grey and overcast and misty damp and clammy not very nice at all.

Nevertheless I managed to make my way to Home Depot where I managed to purchase my weed control blanket, but not a brush-cutter. There was nothing suitable so I’m going to have to see about getting a second hand one. I managed to organise a few other exciting bits and pieces while I was there, including some cheap metal shelving clips that will make nice and ideal straps for holding solar panels on the roof of the car.

I had an interesting chat with one of the sales staff there. He’s called Danny and comes from Croatia. And so we had a good chat about Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia and places like that, reliving old journeys that we had made.

And then down to the University of New Brunswick where to find my way around campus I stopped a girl but she didn’t understand any English. So when I asked in French she didn’t understand any of that either so I asked her what language she did exactly speak thinking that I might summon up something and she said Persian. So how she is going to study in New Brunswick at the English-and-French-speaking University is anyone’s guess.

Its Doctor Chang with whom I need to speak about my wind turbines and he’s not in, as you might expect and so I’m going to have to come back here again. I hope that he will talk to me because judging by the leaflets that I saw about what he has been doing he could be an extremely useful person to know.

And I heard that lorry that sounds like an old Foden 2-stroke diesel when it’s slowing down so I dashed out to see, and it’s a Western Star. Thats not too much of a surprise as at one time Western Star had a major interest in Foden junior’s ERF lorry manufacturing business down the road in Sandbach.

But what has just come around this corner here at these traffic lights is something that I haven’t seen for I haven’t a clue how many years and that is a Honda 6 When was the last time I saw a 6-cylinder Honda. Of course we are talking motor cycles here, in case you are wondering.

So with a couple of hours to kill, I can go for a wander around Fredericton.

This white building is the legislative Office of Conflicts of Interest Commissioner, and that’s an enigmatic organisation if ever I heard of one. I wonder what he does and what cases he’s considered during his tenure of office.

But it is a nice building, isn’t it? I could live in a place like this with its nice round turret

Here’s another nice building almost next door on the corner of King Street and Secretary Lane. And it also has a nice round turret of the type that would appeal to me.

It’s the Maison Jewett House, whoever Jewett was when he was at home if he ever was. Ahhh – yes, he was a local doctor and, strangely enough, he wasn’t the first owner of the house. It’s now being used as government offices

I always like to have a look at war memorials and Canadian ones are quite surprising to a European such as myself.

In Europe, there are usually at least 5 times more victims recorded for World War I than there are for World War II but here in Canada, the numbers are about equal. However, that’s rather misleading. The population in Canada was much smaller in 1914 than it was in 1939

This is the Christ Church Cathedral and while I’ve seen many bigger cathedrals than this, I’ve also seen one or two smaller ones.

If you think that it’s small and that you might have seen it before, it’s said to be a copy of St Mary’s church in Snettisham, Norfolk and having seen the church when I visited my friend Lorna who lived nearby, I can see the resemblance.

The cathedral was built between 1845 and 1853, and its claim to fame was that it was struck by lightning on 3rd July 1911. it did make me wonder what they had done in the cathedral to have incurred this sort of divine wrath.

There used to be a railway line or two here in Fredericton but today it’s one of two provincial capitals (the other one being Charlottetown on Prince Edward Isle) to have had its railway lines ripped away.

The track bed is now a riverside walk and the bridge across the Saint John River is a walkway and cycle path.

It was on here that someone wished me a “good evening young fellow” so there’s clearly a vacancy for a good optician in the city.

Down along Queen Street is the Legislative Assembly Building for the Government of New Brunswick.

It dates from 1882 and replaced a previous building which, for the benefit of those of you who have not yet come to terms with life in Eastern Canada, was destroyed in a fire in 1877. The dome, by the way, is over 40 metres high.

To the left is the old Education Building dating from 1816.

Fredericton is actually situated in York County, New Brunswick, and over there is the old York County Building of 1855

It also served as the County Court back in the old days, and what was unusual about it was that back in the early days it had a market underneath with the Court buildings on top. I suppose that if they set up the stocks outside, the spectators wouldn’t have too far to go to find the rotten fruit and vegetables.

Despite what you might think, this really is a lighthouse. The Saint John River used to be navigable to paddle-wheelers as far upriver as Perth-Andover. There were 21 lighthouses along the river, and this one at Fredericton was the farthest north.

12 of them remain today, of which 7 still serve their original purpose, such is the volume of pleasure traffic that might be found on the river

This is something that really gets on my wick.I always understood that Christians were supposed to turn the other cheek, forgive people their sins, and pardon the wrong-doer. I read nothing in the Bible that states that sinners and wrong-doers would be towed away.

It’s this kind of hypocrisy that brings the church, Christians and Christianity into disrepute. Didn’t St Paul say something about “be not afraid to entertain strangers, for thereby, some have entertained angels unawares”?

This is Officers Square where there is a museum that preserves relics of life in the area in bygone days.

It has a considerable military significance and every day tourists can witness the Changing of the Guard, followed by, at the Royal Canadian Bank down the road, the Guarding of the Change.

There’s also going to be a stage here for the Festival tomorrow.

As far as the festival went, I was at the Hoodoo House tonight.

First on stage tonight was a guitarist called Morgan Davis, and he started off by giving a pro-active demonstration of playing on a cigar box guitar.

Next up was Geoff Bartley, who plays like an early T S McPhee when he lets go and ups the tempo, which is unfortunately something that he didn’t do all that often. But he did let rip with a superb version of Chuck Berry’s “Nadine is that you”.

Rambling Dan Stevens certainly lived up to his name. He a real rambling blues singer who sings just like an old blues singer should. His version of “My Baby Don’t Need No Loving” was excellent and the jam that he did at the end with Geoff Bartley was magnificent.

The main group tonight is Joe Murphy, Garrett Mason and the Water Street band, with a keyboard player who looks just like Mini-Me
. Murphy did a lead-guitar type of thing with bottle neck slider and his guitar fell to bits in the middle of it.

They are pretty good and they really rock when the mouth organ player pi … errr … leaves the stage. He spoils it after a while. You can have far too much of a mouth organ. If he’s not there they are really tight and they really rock. I quite enjoyed them.

And now we have torrential rain storming down outside and one of the venues has been flooded out. I won’t be going for a late-night photography walk-around tonight I’ll tell you that.

And thanks to Dave and his wife from Nottingham and now New Brunswick who looked after me so well here this evening. They have given me quite a few hints to follow up.

Monday 6th September 2010 – I just KNEW …

… that it wouldn’t be THAT easy.

I’ve been all the way to Clermont Ferrand today about this perishing driving licence. And here’s a pic of part of the centre of the city with the Puy-de-Dome towering in the distance. I hope you like it.

So I got to the city early this morning (well, early for me, anyway), found a parking space, paid for three hours parking and picked up a nice thick book (on the Treaty of Yalta, in French if you must know) as I know what these Government departments are like

At the prefecture I took my ticket for the queue and was totally astonished to find that the number of people ahead of me in the queue is … errr … NONE – now that’s a first in any Civil Service department anywhere in the world. What a waste of all of this parking money that I’ve just spent!

And so the woman at the counter went through my paperwork, and suddenly came to a dead stop.

“What’s this?” she said, brandishing a document that she had found.
“It’s my medical statement that I had done on Friday” I replied
“I can see that” she said, “but why have you had it done?”
So I explained slowly and gently that it was for a PSV and HGV driving licence.
“I can see that” she replied “but who told you to do it?”
“I understood that this was the procedure and no-one has told me any different” I replied
“Well, the doctor should certainly have told you different. He ought to know that for all new French commercial driving licences, whether for a new candidate or a transfer in from abroad, the medical is done here by our official doctor!”

So I explained that I needed the licence, and an International one to boot, by the end of September. She retaliated by offering me a medical appointment in, if I heard her correctly, the year 2016.
Yes, it was too good to be true. I knew it would be.

But after a lengthy discussion she did in fact become quite helpful in her own way. She promised to do her best to have my medical certificate accepted. And if she failed, she would send my Belgian licence back to me to take to Canada, but she would “make sure” that I received an International Driving licence.

Now having had years of promises made to me by all kinds of Civil Servants the world over, my bitter experience is to reserve judgement until I have the paperwork in hand. But it was really nice to find a French Civil Servant doing her best to deal with a difficulty that is not covered by the rules and regulations, and doing her best to think around corners and find a solution.

So after that I went for a wander around. I had paid for all this parking and I wasn’t going to waste it. And in any case I hardly know Clermont Ferrand, even though it’s the “county town” of the area where I live.

The most important place to visit in Clermont Ferrand is the cathedral. I went inside and managed to take one photo, and then we had an announcement –
“it is now midday and the cathedral is closing until 14:00. Could all visitors make their way to the exits”.
Yes, even God has his two-hour lunch break here in France. Heaven help the sinners in the meantime.

I can’t be doing with this.

So had a good wander around until 13:15 and then off to the Footy offices where they gave me some log-in details for the website so that I can see my programme. And I am indeed refereeing on Sunday as announced earlier.

Then to Brico Depot for some wood for Terry, followed by a stop off at the Carrefour at Riom for some shopping. But I didn’t do much as I was waylaid at the computer counter. I have a couple of printers here – the very old first-generation printer/scanner/copier that won’t work on Windoze Vista and so I have to copy it onto the old laptop to print it, and the little DJ540 that swallows expensive ink cartridges at an alarming rate. And I need a working printer to print out my refereeing stuff and stuff for the local history group, so I was pricing up another load of cartridges for theDJ540 when I was interrupted by a pile of Epson SX115 printer/scanner/photocopiers reduced on sale to just €49. And the ink for them is the cheapest on offer. So I bit the bullet and purchased one of the aforementioned.

At Liz and Terry’s I gave Terry his wood and inspected our new toy, the Ifor Williams trailer, which isn’t half a mega-beast and well-worth the money that we paid, and then back here to pull more caterpillars off my brassica – I’m in the middle of the second round of the cabbage-white infestation.

It was my turn to animate the Anglo-French group this evening and I had everyone discussing DiY tools and words that derive from them. It went down rather well.

And in other news, terrorists have attempted to bomb a Primary School packed with children, and an 8 year old boy discovered the primed and armed bomb, picked it up and took it into the classroom to show all of his classmates. The carnage that might have been caused can only be imagined.

Now where did this outrage take place? Iraq? Afghanistan? Well actually, it was in Antrim, Northern Ireland, which for those of you who are geographically-challenged, is in the UK. Of course it is rather ironic about how the UK is going to war to deal with “terrorists” who attack armed soldiers who are trained to fight back and to kill, so I carefully scrutinised the news report for the expressions of outrage, horror and revulsion from the British Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the B liar and assorted American politicians who have criticised Scotland’s “interaction” with one of that ilk, yet do you know what? There’s not a word!

And I wonder what they would have said if it had not been the white-skinned Paddy O’Reilly who had planted this device, but the brown-skinned Abdul Mohammed?

And I’m waiting for the aforementioned Paddy O’Reilly to be uncovered and to be named as someone with an interest in the Irish Republic, because I shall be eagerly awaiting the Anglo-American invasion of that country to sort out that nest of vipers that are sending foreign fighters abroad to spread their messages of extremism and hatred amongst innocent children.

But I am not holding my breath as it isn’t going to happen. The Brits and the Americans, and the Irish, and most of the other white-skinned westerners are the biggest bunches of hypocrites I have ever encountered.

It makes me sick.

-3

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: cathedral

Sunday 1st November 2020 – HAVING SET …

Monday 17th June 2019 – I’VE HAD A NICE …

Sunday 23rd December 2018 – SO THAT’S ANOTHER .

Thursday 23rd February 2017 – WHAT DO YOU NOTICE …

Saturday 14th January 2017 – PHEW, I’M WHACKED!

Monday 3rd August 2015 – I HATE PEOPLE …

Friday 20th December 2013 – DIDN’T WE HAVE A LUVVERLY TIME …

Sunday 4th November 2012 – YOU ARE PROBABLY WONDERING …

Thursday 15th September 2011 – I HAD …

Monday 6th September 2010 – I just KNEW …

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