… all of the excitement this morning.

Much of the Pointe de la Roc is out of bounds to heavy vehicles, and coaches are only authorised to use a short stretch of the road that leads to the big car park.

But that didn’t stop this driver, and his mate in the coach behind thinking that the rules don’t apply to them. And they duly came up here and then tried to negotiated the corner into the Place d’Armes.

You have probably noticed that the registration number of the bus is “75” – a Paris number. And that explains everything. Rules in the Provinces don’t apply to Parisians as we know. They are far superior to be bothered by that sort of thing

And it was quite amusing to watch the drivers as they were suddenly confronted by the roadworks here.

One coach managed just about to negotiate the tight corner after many vicissitudes, but the other was well and truly wedged and it took the driver about 20 minutes to extract himself.

I did at one stage go over to the driver to ask him if he would like me to manoeuvre the coach for him, but I was met with the kind of greeting that would have been considered out-of-place in the fo’c’sle of an Australian whaler.

But he eventually extracted himself, turned round (narrowly avoiding missing a couple of parked cars) and then disappeared the wrong way down the one-way street.

I had my early night, but I didn’t have much of a relax though because I was tossing and turning throughout most of it. But that didn’t stop me goign on one or two of my voyages.

We started off with one of our 3D characters (and when you have your own 3D characters coming with you on a nocturnal ramble you know that you have problems) having to choose a new ski suit for a holiday and ended up after many more vicissitudes choosing a lemon – coloured one. And simple as that sounds, you have no idea just how long that took.
And from there we moved into the realm of realism (such as it might be) with my father telling me about one of his former colleagues (who actually drove my schoolkids about when I had my taxis) who was selling a Ford Cortina 2000E at the local auctions – for a reserve of £4800. Of course that was way out of my price and so I wasn’t planning to go, but a series of events conspired to have me in Whitchurch at the time of the auction and so I ended up there just in time to see him list the vehicle at a reserve price of £4080. But turning into the car park I had run over a glass bottle in Caliburn, and the tyre was punctured and a ball joint damaged. This man told me that he’d look at it after the auction as he was now running a small tyre business. So the bidding started on his car and was very sluggish round the £2000 mark, when suddenly it took off and went well over the reserve. And at the end of the auction the man told me that he now had to go to a funeral – but I shouldn’t go to Garage X because they weren’t as good as Garage Y – which coincidentally was the one to which I went anyway. He went off to look for his hearse, which he couldn’t find, and his wife told me what a marvellous person he was, to which I replied that I knew all about him. I ended up (I’m not sure how) with Caliburn at Garage Y (which bore a surprising resemblance to my father’s workshop) where the puncture was repaired. But I wanted to fit the wheel, to which he hummed and haa’d because he was planning to close up and didn’t have the time. But eventually I wa son my way and it was now really late. I was obliged to crash out in Caliburn at the side of the road, thinking to myself that seeing as how I’d just got back together with Nerina (it was all happening last night, wasn’t it?) what would she think about me having promised to live a more regular lifestyle, and being out at night like this. So being crashed out like this, I was rudely awakened by a police patrol (reminiscences of Switzerland a few years ago) for a “control” and I could in my befuddled state only find half of the papers that I needed. I had to admit that while I had the insurance certificate, I didn’t have the insurance policy and that led to some harsh words and difficult moments.

No wonder that I was thoroughly exhausted this morning after all of that during the night.

After the usual start to the morning and the Thursday shower, I postponed my trip to the shops seeing as it was totally pouring down. But by about 10:00 I could see some blue sky in the distance heading this way so I took to the streets, having my encounter with the coach drivers on the way.

LIDL was the port of call, and there was nothing special to tempt me. But the place was heaving – a vast contrast to last Thursday in the snow. Four of the tills were open but we still had to queue for ages to be served. That’s why I like to go early.

On the way out I’d noticed a load of stuff piled up at the quayside and so I reckoned that Grima was due in.

And I was right too. There she was on the way back, having the sacks of gravel or whatever they were hoisted aboard, giving her something of a list to starboard.

I hope that they had corrected that before she sailed.

Back here I had my coffee and then a little … errr … relax, before another session on the bass. ANd I ws working out a couple of Groundhogs and Hawkwind numbers – so intently tht I was surprised by how quickly the time passed.

After lunch, I was once more … errr … away with the fairies (I really don’t knwo what’s the matter with me these days) but pulled myself out of it and went for a walk instead.

There was quite a number of people out there this afternoon, even though the weather wasn’t the nicest. School holidays, apparently.

But I was distracted by movement down on the quayside just here. It seems that one of the large boats is being moved – and moved by road too. It’s a huge thing and they were having to take all kinds of special precautions.

Still, it all adds to the excitement of living here.

For tea tonight I had a frozen potato and lentil curry out of the freezer. And delicious it was too.

And that took me nicely round to my evening walk.

Cool and a little windy, with another marvellous view of Jersey, and also a marvellous view of the harbour here under the lights. You can see in this pic that when the gates are up and the water isn’t high enough to admit boats, there’s a couple of chequered poles visible, presumably to warn ships not to enter.

And there were crowds of people at the bar tonight. I wonder what’s going on there.

So if I’m lucky, I’ll have another early night. I’ll leave you to digest this … errr …. 1246 words.