Tag Archives: cherbourg

Tuesday 17th November 2020 – JUST FOR A …

… change this morning I managed to beat the third alarm. And reasonably comfortably too.

Mind you, I put that down to the fact that I didn’t go anywhere during the night – at least, not that I recorded anyway. By the looks of things it was a nice, relaxing night.

After the medication I did some work on the photos from July 2019 in Greenland and then prepared for my Welsh lesson. And the more we learn, the harder it becomes. I’m having trouble trying to keep abreast of it all.

Armed with a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of fruit bread, we had our lesson. And it passed quite quickly.

Of course we learnt some more words for “yes” and “no” – another 6 of them in fact. Basically, in a Celtic language, there isn’t a “yes” or “no”. If someone asks you “did you …” the answer is “I did”, or “will you …” – “I will” and so on. And when the verb declines as in Latin rather than there being a subject as in English, you can see how complicated this can become.

And we managed to have a break too. Basically we rebelled and decided that we had to go to the bathroom. Sitting straight through for 150 minutes just turns my head to jelly.

After lunch I was very busy. First of all, I peeled and diced some ginger very finely and then brought it to a slow boil in a saucepan. While it was simmering away, I peeled three oranges, put them in the whizzer just enough to extract the juice which I then filtered out (I like my new sieves) into a bottle and then whizzed the rest of it round into a pulp which I then added to the ginger and left it all to simmer.

As I suspected, the pineapple syrup was “off” so I whizzed up two pears and a pile of grapes into a very fine pulp and then filtered out the juice into the very large jug. The pulp I added to the ginger and orange mix which was still simmering.

The kefir was then strained through my very fine filter into the very large jug, all mixed well in and then strained back through the very fine filter into a few of the stoppered bottles. And while all that was happening I made some more kefir, with a dried fig this time

By now the orange and ginger etc was well ready so the liquid was drained off, the remaining pulp was thoroughly whizzed and any remaining juice was extracted.. All of this juice was then filtered to take out the solids and then heated again lightly. A couple of tablespoons of honey were added, the orange juice from step one was added back in and all placed in another stoppered bottle.

And here’s the finished product, as you can see. A big batch of fresh kefir, two large and one small bottle of pear and grape kefir, and a small bottle of orange and ginger cordial.

And I can’t wait to give it all a try. I had a quick sample of the ginger and orange cordial and it nearly blew my cap off. It should be quite exciting after it’s stood for a day or two. And it will be a couple of days before I get round to the kefir but that should be good too.

Believe it or not, that took me all the way up to walkies-time. I couldn’t believe just how quickly the time had passed by.

It was surprising to see so few people out and about this afternoon though. The wind had dropped quite dramatically and although there was plenty of cloud about it was quite a bright, warm day. yet there was just a handful of people down on the beach and no more than half a dozen pounding out the path around the headland.

When you think about it – a beach almost completely to yourself in the sun. That can’t be a bad thing, even in the High Arctic like the one that we found somewhere on Victoria Island that pleasant afternoon just as my world was about to fall apart.

It wasn’t exactly all that much more lively out at sea either.

Away in the distance out in the English Channel I could just about make out two objects. Wondering what they might be, I took a photo at full-range. One didn’t show anything that I recognised but the second produced a stationary trawler.

What was even more interesting about this photo was that just beyond it are a couple of these bobbing buoys that we have seen every now and again which are either mooring posts for fishing boats or else markers for lobster pots and the like.

And that’s surprising because they are way out in the distance offshore.

But anyway, all of that will be for another time, maybe (or maybe not).

There was still a circuit to complete so I carried on with my walk along the clifftop and over the lawn at the back of the lighthouse. There was a car parked on the car park and this little notice attracted my attention. It’s a shame that part of it is obscured but nevertheless it was certainly something very different.

And why not? There’s not enough humour and levity in the world these days. We all need things to make us smile with all of this nonsense going on right now. These are very sad times in which we are living right now.

From the car park I walked down the path past one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to see what was happening out to sea.

And the answer to that was, unfortunately, nothing. At least, nothing of the moving variety. There was, however, a certain moment, one that didn’t last long, of the sun’s rays shooting out through a hole in the clouds and illuminating a spot on the surface of the sea, just like a spotlight might do on a stage in a theatre.

Luckily I had the camera to hand and all ready, so I managed to take a quick shot while the scene still worked. It’s all very well these professional photographers saying that you have more time than you think, but they have clearly never worked with children animals and nature.

Past the chantier navale and no change there. Still the yacht and Ceres II and no-one else.

But there’s something going on here though at the wharf next to the Fish processing Plant. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we had a discussion a while back about the registration number of boats – CH being CHerbourg (where boats from this port are registered), SM for St Malo and so on.

Here, aground on the mudflats with the tide right out is a trawler registered “SB” which, I imagine, is St Brieuc further on down the Brittany coast. And what it’s doing here, aground and unattended, I really have no idea. It really ought to be tied up in the dinner harbour.

Back here, my friend with Covid was on line so we had another chat. It’s important that she keeps up her morale in this difficult time and I’m trying my best to give her my support. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll have to buy her own.

The hour on the guitar was, for some reason, not as enjoyable as it has been just recently. No idea why. I think that I’m on the verge of what I’m technically capable of doing yet I can’t seem to push on any more. I’ve been trying to fingerpick chords without too much success. But I’m better than I was before I started, I suppose.

Tea was a stuffed pepper again, seeing as I had some stuffing left over. And strangely enough it was the best that I’ve had so far. No idea why. The apple crumble was good too.

Out in the streets tonight I really was totally alone. I didn’t meet a single person anywhere on my travels.

At the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord I tried a little experiment. With the camera wedged up against a corner of a wall I tried a shot on a longish exposure to see if I could capture anything of the beach in the dark.

The photo is not very good but it reminds me of Doctor Johnson’s story about the dog dancing on its hind legs. The surprise is not that it was done so badly, but that it was done at all. I didn’t really expect to get anything recognisable out of it at all.

And apart from that, there was nothing of any interest as I ran all the way round to the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch.

Regular readers will recall that we see quite regularly the view across the Place down to the Plat Gousset, and the other day I took a photo of the view behind.

To the left there is of course the sea, but to the right there’s a stairway, the Escalier du Moulin A Vent, that goes all the way down to the Place.

There are loads of stairs and I counted them once. I think that I made it 128 or something like that. And at 4 steps to the metre, that makes ordinarily about 30 metres or so but there are several flat bits that have quite a steep slope so it’s a lot higher than that.

A run across the Square Maurice Marland, a walk around the rest of the walls and then another run and I was back home. And this last leg for some reason went pretty fluidly. Much more fluidly than I was expecting.

Tomorrow I must ring up about Caliburn. And then I have a really important job to carry out that I should have done 18 months ago and more.

Wednesday 21st October 2020 – THE ONE THING …

… that I can say about Social Media is that it’s amazing, the things that come crawling out of there.

When I was an adolescent I went to school in Nantwich and had a few friends and contacts there, but lost touch with most people over the years.

The town has its own page on Social Media and I am a member. Occasionally I see the odd name here and there that I remember, so I have a little reminisce. But the other day, seeing the name of a company reminded me of someone I once knew with the same family name. So I asked the question on there – “is anyone in touch with … ?”.

The power of Social media is stunning because within half an hour I had three positive responses and three hours later I was chatting to the person concerned. And as a result, anyone who listens to one of my “live concerts” ON THE RADIO in a couple of months’ time will be treated to the rarest of rare.

There was a rock group from Nantwich that soared to fame for five minutes in the early 70s and then disappeared just as dramatically – totally forgotten by everyone. But I can still remember the names of the three musicians. And I work on the theory that “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”.

And if you don’t make an effort you don’t get either so today I certainly did. I beat the third alarm by a good 30 seconds, I reckon, and that’s good enough for me these days.

So despite only having 5.5 hours sleep last night (I was reformatting the laptop after I’d finished my notes, a task that is still continuing by the way) I still managed to go walkabout.

I was playing football last night, would you believe? I’d gone to Gresty Road to see Crewe Alex play in the FA Cup but frankly it was a boring 0-0 spectacle and wasn’t really exciting me at all. On the next pitch a local Sunday afternoon side with a couple of players whom I knew, really only a scratch side, were playing against Hulll City on the Cup. They were hanging on for a 0-0 draw but of course as you might expect, it was all Hull City and very much a last-ditch defence kind of thing. So I went over to watch them. For some unknown reason I ended up as a substitute for them with about 30 minutes to go. I didn’t really do much but the team which by now had become Man City were attacking and attacking and attacking. On one occasion they worked their way down the left wing, cut back inside and a cross went to one of their players who hit this enormous volley straight at the goal. Of course with me being a goalkeeper my immediate reaction was to stick my hands up and divert it over the crossbar. An obvious penalty and an obvious sending off so I didn’t even wait for the referee to pull his card out. I just walked off the field. The referee took out his card and went to show it to another player. The other player was saying that it was him but of course I wasn’t any good so I might as well leave the field anyway. I said “no, no, it’s me, it’s me”. The referee, seeing that I’d already left the field and was walking up the field just showed me the red card. he didn’t even ask me for my name which was just as well because I didn’t even know which name I was playing under. I went back to Gresty Road and by now there was a torrential downpour, half the crowd had gone and there was no football. People were sitting around in the stands so I asked this woman and her little daughter who were sitting next to me “what’s happening now with the football?” She replied “I don’t know” but pointed to another guy and said “he’ll know. Why don’t you ask him?”. So I went over to ask him.

Later on, I was at a concert. It was something like The Grateful Dead taking place in Crewe market with all of the market stalls. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable because quite simply their music wasn’t loud enough, very very quiet and I was listening. I went over to the group’s mixing desk which was on a market stall in Crewe to tell them to turn it up. They basically shrugged it off and carried on. A little later they announced that tickets would be on sale for another concert, for $5:00 each with a reduction of $0:50 for everyone who had a Grateful Dead club membership, which cost $1:00. I thought “well I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. The sound might be better so I queued up. when it was my turn to get my tickets I said to the woman “I’m going to make myself very unpopular now with you”. She said “what note do you have? A $20?”. I replied “no, $100”. She sighed but I got the money out and handed it over. It was dated February this year. Anyway she took it and started to count out the money from the money that she had just been taking in from everyone else.

One of these days I’m going to review my journeys and review the amount of time I’ve lived in various places, and compare notes. I only lived in Crewe 1970-72, 1975, 1981-1992 yet it features the most by a country mile in my night-time travels whereas Brussels, where I lived the longest, rarely features at all. How bizarre is that?

After I’d been working for a good hour or so I suddenly realised that I had things to do. Thank heavens for my journal in which I write down what I need to do.

First thing was to peel and dice very finely a lump of ginger and put it into some cold water and bring it to the boil very gently.

Next was to prepare the dough for the bread. 500 grammes of cereal flour and rwo big handfuls of sunflower seeds with a couple of dessertspoons of salt. Some sugar was dissolved in 250 grammes of lukewarm water and then a sachet of yeast was added and shaken well in, and left until a nice foamy froth had formed.

Then it was all kneaded together and then left in the mixing bowl under a damp teatowel so that it might rise.

four lemons were next peeled and I took the pith off as well. This was all whizzed around in the whizzer so that the juice might separate. This was put in a cold sterilised bottle, and the rest was whizzed up further into a pulp and then added to the ginger in its water.

Having done the washing up, I then prepared the hummus
For any given quantity of hummus you need

50% of that quantity in chick peas
25% of that quantity in sesame seed paste
olive oil (this amount can vary depending on how you like the texture of your hummus)
chick pea juice (ditto)
Lots of garlic
fresh ground black pepper
sea salt

You should end up with something like 95% of your given quantity.
All of this should be then put into the whizzer and whizzed around and around into a nice smooth purée. It takes quite a while.

And now you need your filling. I made two loads

one with olives
one with dried tomatoes

but really you can use what you like.

Dice up your filling into tiny bits and then add it to your hummus. Then GENTLY whizz it in. Too much will purée it and that’s not what you want. Not enough and it won’t be mixed in thoroughly.

And there’s your hummus.

By now the bread had risen sufficiently so I gave it its second kneading, shaped it, and put it in the mould that I use these says – a silicon cake mould. better than nothing. And then the damp teatowel put over the top.

The lemon and ginger was ready after having simmered gently for an hour or so. I took that off the heat, added two tablespoons of honey and then whizzed it around and around in the whizzer until it resemebled a nice syrup. That was then added to the lemon juice in the bottle, mixed well up, sealed and put in the fridge.

By now, after about half an hour or so, the bread was ready. So that went in a hot oven for 75 minutes. I fed the sourdough and then came in to edit a few photos and to hunt down some places where I’d taken them. And that wasn’t easy either.

And here’s one I made earlier. Yes, we have a loaf of bread here all nicely cooked and fresh out of the oven. Lemon and Ginger Cordial too, but not the hummus. Most of that is in the freezer and there’s only a small amount in the fridge right now.

And I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that the fresh bread from the oven is delicious and my hummus is thoroughly wicked. I shall enjoy eating all of this and no mistake.

After lunch there was the kefir to see to.

There were two rather over-ripe pears so they were whizzed into oblivion. The resultant purée was pressed through a sieve to extract the juice into a big measuring jug, and the kefir that was brewing was filtered through my filter stack into the big jug. It was all then whizzed around and bottled.

This is something that I’ve never tried before so I’ve no idea how it works. I’ve seen a recipe for apple kefir but not for pear kefir, so I’m hoping that it’s going to work out fine.

While I’d been messing about I’d noticed some activity in the car park at the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs.

There’s a cherry-picker in there and I wondered what it was doing, so when I went out for my afternoon walk I went to have a peek. And it looks as if they are going some pointing work to the building that is used as the Communal Rooms, where you can hire a room for an exhibition or a wedding reception or something like that.

It’s high time that they did something about it. The upper floors are empty and abandoned and need some repair work so that they can be occupied. I hope that this will be the start of the renovation.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw them working on the roof of one of the houses in the Rue St Jean.

They seem to have made some very good progress since we last saw them. It looks as if all of the laths are now on the roof and they have started to trim off the overhang.

But I remain totally unconvinced by the flying scaffolding that they are using on the left-hand side of the house. I’ve worked in precarious positions in the past – in fact on my own house the rear was done with me working without scaffoding although I was wearing a safety harness.

And I’d feel much safer with that set-up rather that the set-up that they have.

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing yesterday was a group of people performing some beach art.

At the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord overlooking the beach I had a look down and I could seem them all again out there today having another go at some art. It looks quite pretty too today.

It’s a shame that the tide has to come in and wash away their hard work. Still, it gives them a clean canvas tomorrow for them to come up with another beautiful design. But it must be very said to see your previous gros oeuvre wiped out by the waves.

There were plenty of people about on the cliffs today too. Far too many for me to go for a run along the path, so I had a nice pleasant walk instead.

Threre were plenty of squeals coming from the beach that distracted me as I was walking. And at the viewpoint I could see the reason for that. Despite it being late October and quite cool outside, a group of kids has decided that it would be fun to run into the sea.

There are certainly some hardy people around, but I’m not one of them. I left them to it and carried on with my walk.

There was no-one around in the Square Maurice Marland so I took the opportunity to have a quick, impromptu run. And this was the view that I saw at the end of my run.

And this can only mean one thing. Lorries bringing in tonnes of gravel and diggers piling it up in heaps on the quayside. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there’s a quarry not too far away where a really had and durable rock is found. It’s excellent when used with tarmac as roadstone and it’s bought by many people, including two road-making companies in the UK.

And we haven’t seen a gravel boat in here for probably 6 months – a big 2,500-tonne bulk carrier – but it looks as if one of them is on its way to part for another load to take to Whitstable or Shoreham.

That’s good news as far as I’m concerned.

On the way out for my afternoon perambulation I’d seen an Electricity Board van parked up at the side of the road.

So this is what they are doing. One of the floodlights that illuminates the Porte St Jean hasn’t been working, but today it’s receiving some care and attention. Presumably the silicone in the tube is to make a waterproof seal afterwards to prevent more water ingress.

While the workmen were occupied I took a quick photo and then came on home at a leisurely walk to carry on editing photos.

That’s another pile done, including the most difficult ones where I had to track down a road accident. Just 55 left now.

Another task that I had to do was to convert a pile of files into *.mp3 ready for a radio programme, and to carry on working with the laptop organising that too.

Then I could have my guitar practice. And that went much better today and I actually enjoyed it. I was playing a few Neil Young tracks on the bass – tracks like LIKE A HURRICANE – and I find to my surprise that I can actually sing them while playing bass too and that cheered me up no end.

As for the 6-string, I spent my half-hour working out the chords to MODERN TIMES by Al Stewart. And again, to my surprise, by the time that I’d finished my session, I’d even worked out half of the lead guitar solo at the end, and made a reasonable attempt at playing it.

This evening I had the streets to myself when I went out for my evening promenade.

My first run up the Rue du Roc and my second one down to the clifftop were quite comfortable. And when I got down to the clifftop I could see in the distance the new moon shining brightly over the Brittany coast, so I walked round to the end of the headland to take a photograph of it shining over the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Actually, in view of the clear skies and good views I’d been tempted at first to take the tripod with me. But there was far too much wind for that tonight, which was a shame.

Instead, I ran on along the path on the clifftop past the Chantier Navale. No change there, and the yacht in there isn’t the Spirit of Conrad.

It’s all go though at the fish processing plant. When I’d been running around the headland I’d seen probably a dozen fishing boats making their way in with their catch tonight. By the time I’d reached my breathing point they were all steaming … “dieseling” – ed … into harbour ready to unload.

There were a few of the kids on the car park again tonight so I didn’t stay long there. I carried on with my run down the Boulevard Vaufleury.

Having reached the end-point of this particular leg of my run, I walked back down to the viewpoint over the inner harbour.

That was because on my live fleet monitor this morning, I noticed that Victor Hugo was on her way back from Cherbourg, via the Channel Islands. And sure enough, there she is obscured by Granville who has also returned to the fold from her sojourn at Cherbourg.

It looks as if they had gone, just like Marité, because the harbour was to be drained. And they are back now. Although there isn’t much chance of them resuming their ferry runs for the rest of the year.

There’s an even better view of the boats unloading at the fish processing plant from here.

We haven’t taken a photo in the dark of the view from here for quite some time so I reckoned that tonight would be as goos a night as any. I was rather late for watching them unload Les Bouchots de Chausey. There she is in the foreground, quite empty, and the tractor and trailer that takes away her load is rattling off down the streets.

So seeing as I was here I put in another run all the way to the viewpoint in the Rue du Nord.

And on the way back I actually encountered some people.

You will have noticed the electricians earlier fixing the light underneath the Porte St Jean that lights up the stonework and I wanted to take a photo of it. And sure enough, bang on cue, a couple of little kids ran into the shot to animate the scene. That adds a bit of colour to the scenery.

And from there I ran on home. I’d had a really good and athletic night out there again. I must be improving

While I was writing my notes, I tried my lemon and ginger cordial. And that reaches the parts that other cordials can’t reach. So now I’m off to bed, confident in the knowledge that A MAJOR INJUSTICE HAS BEEN PUT RIGHT. 90 minutes too late of course, and will probably be a very expensive 90 minutes at the end of the season. I’m still shaking my head in bewilderment and disbelief.

Friday 16th October 2020 – SOMEONE ELSE …

… has had his chopper out today, so it seems.

We’re used to seeing a helicopter flying around here but it’s usually the Eurocopter one that the Air-Sea Rescue uses. In fact we saw that one out and about the other night. But today it’s a new one that I don’t recall having seen before.

It looks as if it’s a private helicopter, not one belonging to a Government department or organisation. And it makes a change from the autogyro that we usually see flying around here in the afternoon.

And if it had been flying around here when the third alarm went off, I would have missed it because, once again, I failed to make it out of bed at the appropriate time and that has filled me with dismay.

And it’s not as if I had a late night either – well, not as late as some have been.

And I didn’t really go all that far during the night either. I’m not sure what was happening here but it was in lockdown and no-one was allowed out. There was one group or orchestra practising in a shipping container that was floating on the sea. But the container suddenly nose-dived and anyone in it was taken below the water. There were a lot of people appealing to the Ministry to allow people back out onto the beaches to avoid another tragedy

And later on, after many struggles Wales finally had its own navy although no-one ever called it out for very much. It wasn’t safe to go out in the ruler’s boat too far because of all kinds of different complications but we certainly had a navy by now.

It’s certainly interesting, the things that I get up to during the night.

All of the morning has been spent dealing with the photos from August 2020. And that took an age as well because the system that I tried, of dictating my notes out loud so that the recorder on the Dashcam would pick it up, was also a dismal failure.

In the end, I had to follow on the Dashcam the route that I took, look for road signs that I could decipher (which was not easy with the bright sunlight shining into the windscreen) and then timing the difference between two photos.

That’s complicated enough when it has to be done in German, but when you are dealing with notices, adverts and signs written in Czech, Slovak and Hungarian, it’s another thing entirely. It took me all the morning to do about 30, and there’s still plenty more to go at.

After lunch, I had to go out. Caliburn is now a teenager, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and for his birthday he’s having a makeover as I promised him. So basically I had to drive to Gavray where we repeated the process that we has done several months ago, and now he’s booked in for a week from 27th October.

There’s plenty of life left in him, that’s for sure, but his bodywork is looking his age and the MoT examiner made a few comments about it. It’s going to cost me an arm and a leg, and I really do mean that, but buying a new vehicle will cost me 10 times that. And if I get a second-hand vehicle, who knows what I’ll end up with?

And the repair will come with a 5-year guarantee, which is about all the life that I have left in me if I’m lucky, according to the doctor’s. They gave me a lifespan of between 5 and 10 years, and we’ve entered that period now.

Having returned from my rather pointless drive from Gavray, I went for my afternoon walk.

And at least I had very good weather for it. The weather was really beautiful this afternoon. A little cold and windy but really sunny outside. There were quite a few people down ther eon the beach making the most of the mid-October sunshine.

However, on the way out of town, I’d seen people carrying buckets and rakes and all kinds of things off onto the beach, so I wonder if it’s another Grand Marée when they’ll be swarming onto the beach for the shellfish in the public area.

There was other activity going on out to sea too.

The white boat that we saw away in the distance in the English Channel is still there, only now a bit closer to the Ile de Chausey. A look on the live plotter of the Fleet Monitor that I have (regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I host in my apartment the AIS receiver and antenna for the port) tells me that the research ship Antea is still out there.

That leads me to the conclusion that she is in fact none other than the aforementioned. The next question of course is “what is she researching?”

There were quite a few people out there on foot today wandering around in the good weather.

And the brats were out there again today, with their orienteering project. I’m not quite sure what it is that they are actually supposed to be doing because when I was walking past, one of the monitors was sending them off in pairs to stand by the control points.

It seems to me that one of these days I shall have to grab hold of a brat and interrogate it to find out what they are up to out here.

So off past the lawn to the Point of the headland to see what’s going on there.

Even though it’s the same time as yesterday more or less, the tide is about 35 or so minutes slower so it’s not deep enough in the tidal harbour for the fishing boats to come in to unload. But they are streaming back from their stations in droves and I counted probably 8 or 9 that I could see with the naked eye.

Here are a couple of them – a trawler-type on the left and an inshore shellfish fisher (and try saying that with someone else’s teeth in) heading back to port.

There was another one of these strange lighting effects today too.

There wasn’t a rainstorm today but there was plenty of cloud obscuring the sun in places. And every now and again the sun would pop out to say hello and there would be this extraordinary floodlighting effect, just like over there in the fields at the back of Kairon-Plage

Le Loup, the marker light on the rocks at the entrance to the harbour is nevertheless all in the shade and the guy fishing on the rocks in the bottom-left is nothing but a shadow.

While I was looking at the live plotter of the Fleet Monitor, I noticed that there had been a change in the boats in the harbour.

Victor Hugo, the older one of the two Jersey Ferries, the one that’s blue, is no longer shown as being present in the harbour. So while I was out I went for a look and sure enough, there’s only Granville, the newer one of the two present.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the ferries to the Channel Islands have stopped for the time being as the Channel Islands have closed their borders, and both of them were moored here. So why, at about 06:20 this morning did Victor Hugo suddenly pull up sticks and head off – to Cherbourg as it happens?

And of course Normandy Trader has cleared off too. Out on the early morning tide on her run back to St Helier.

There was the hour on the guitar with the same lack of enthusiasm, and then tea. I added a small tin of kidney beans to the remainder of the stuffing from yesterday and had taco rolls. That was followed by the third of those desserts, and there’s one left for tomorrow.

later on I went out for my evening walk and runs. 5 more runs, to be precise. I’m stepping up my fitness activity as much as I can.

And it’s just as well, because I was all alone tonight and I had the old walled city to myself. There was nothing much going on worth photographing so I settled for a photo of the Eglise St Paul – on eof the world’s first modern concrete buildings.

However in 1999, not even 100 years old, it was found to be in a deplorable condition and was closed. Bits of concrete drop off without notice so parking at the side of it is forbidden. A project of renovation has been considered, but at a cost of €7,000,000 which is considered to be beyond the budget of any interested party.

Now, here’s a thing.

A short while ago, I mentioned that Victor Hugo had left port early this morning and that Granville was there all on her todd. But after I’d finished my run across the Square Maurice Marland and looked down onto the port, I noticed that she had disappeared too.

At 16:53 to be precise according to my live tracker, not long after I came in. Or, in other words, as soon as the harbour gates opened. And she’s also in Cherbourg now apparently, so the crew who took her sister out there earlier must have come back by train and gone straight back out again.

It looks as if the ferries have now finished for the season if they’ve gone into winter quarters already. It was a pretty lean year for them, then.

Monday 28th September 2020 – JUST FOR A …

… change I had a good day today.

It started quite well too – long out of bed before the third alarm went off.

There was nothing on the dictaphone either. But although you might think that this meant a decent night’s sleep, in fact I was tossing and turning for much of the night and didn’t really have a good deal of sleep.

Nevertheless, fighting-fit (that is – fighting for breath and fit to drop), I attacked the radio programme for this week. And by the time I knocked off for tea, I’d finished it as far as the last track and it won’t take me very long (they are famous last words, aren’t they?) tomorrow afternoon.

Not tomorrow though, because of course I have my Welsh lesson at lunchtime and I need to revise.

What else I did today was to strip out the toilet and the bathroom and clean them to within an inch of their life – the first time since I don’t know when. And it went so much better once I’d emptied the vacuum cleaner of all of the rubbish in there.

There was the usual break to go for my walk in the afternoon.

We had an aeroplane fly overhead too, but it was too far out for me to read its serial number. However, looking at the flights that came into Granville this afternoon and a closer examination of the image, it could well be F-GBAI.

She’s a Robin DR-400-140B Major, serial 1289. That’s a model that went into production in 1972 and is still being made. She has a 160hp Lycoming O-320-D2A engine.

Not too many people out there walking about today either. The wind had dropped to just “strong” but it was overcast and cloudy, and pretty cold too.

Out at sea though, there were a few things going on. There were several fishing boats out there that were heading into port now that the harbour gates are open.

The sea has calmed down considerably which makes it a lot safer for them to go out. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were in the harbour on Saturday evening the place was packed with boats that couldn’t get out to sea because of the weather.

However, with the easing of the weather, everyone seems to be heading out to sea right now.

In the tidal harbour, once the water comes in, the crew of the boats in there have to make their way out by all kinds of precarious means, whatever is available. Just like this guy standing up in his little dinghy paddling out to his yacht.

It’s quite incredible really that this is the same way that a couple of thousand years ago, people would be going out in boats like this, coracles made of branches and the like. Nothing changes very much, except the materials that they use.

There was another fishing boat heading out to sea, and this one is quite interesting.

If you look closely at the registration number of the boat, it begins with SM. Here in Granville, they all begin with CH – indicating that they are registered in Cherbourg.

This one here that begins with SM – I saw that registration prefix on boats that we encountered down the Brittany coast and that implies in my mind that the registration office for that part of the world across the bay from here is in St Malo.

Back here, I finished off the radio programme as much as I could, without the final track, and then went for tea. A slice of pie out of the freezer with potatoes, veg and gravy. Totally delicious.

The last of the rice pudding disappeared too, and tomorrow I can start on the strawberry flan.

Later on, I went out for my evening walk.

The wind had dropped considerably by now but even so there weren’t too many people out there. There was no-one taking a walk along the promenade at the Plat Gousset.

My run along the footpath under the walls was quite pleasant. I have been feeling a little stiff for the last few days but it all seems to have eased a little this evening

On the way down, I bumped into a neighbour – the captain of the Spirit of Conrad. He’d been to La Rafale with his mates, so we exchanged pleasantries.

With nothing going on down in the Place Marechal Foch, I ran on round and across the Square Maurice Marland. No wind to hold me up tonight.

Nothing much going on in town either but the street lights illuminating the big houses in the Rue Lecampion looked quite impressive this evening. I stood and admired the view for a few minutes and then I headed off.

Having seen Minette, the old black cat, the other day, I was hoping that I’d see her again but no luck. That must have been a one-off.

As I walked into the Place Cambernon I looked down the street, the Rue Cambernon, to see what was happening there. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a “police incident” there the other day.

Nothing at all going on tonight, but the creperie restaurant down there was open and illuminated. It looked really nice tonight.

Back here I wrote up my notes and as there was not much to say about today I finished pretty early. I’m going to have an early night tonight ready for my Welsh course tomorrow. I need to be on form.

Thursday 4th June 2020 – THAT WAS PROBABLY …

… the worst day that I have had today for a couple of years.

It didn’t get off to a very good start either. I eard the three alarms go off but I was in no real mood to make a hurried exit from the bed seeing as I was going out for the day.

07:35 was rather later than intended, but nevertheless …

During the night I’d been on my travels too. I was in some kind of Institution and the virus was taking a grip. I was interested in learning how to do different stuff from different people like bread making, that kind of thing. And this continued on and on and you don’t really want to read the rest of it because you probably are eating your meal right now.

For a change I had some breakfast and then a shower, and headed off to LIDL for the mid-week shopping.

Despite being in Caliburn, there wasn’t any heavy stuff that needed buying or anything really exciting in the special offers either. Mind you, there was quite a queue to go into the shop – just 20 people at a time being allowed in.

Having done the necessary I drove off to Laurent’s place at Bréhal Plage and we went off together for a drive.

Not as many photos as I would have liked to have taken. But that’s because, quite simply, when someone else is doing the driving you’re pretty-much dependent upon them and their time more than anything else.

Our first stop was at Flamanville right up the coast near Cherbourg.

But before I say anything about it, I was distracted … “as usual” – ed … by something offshore. It’s been an absolute age since we’ve had a “ship of the day” on these pages and so the presence of a large one sailing by about 10 miles or so offshore immediately caught my eye.

Of course at this kind of distance it was impossible to see its name, but its silhouette bears a great reemeblance to that of Commodore Clipper, the shuttle ferry that runs between the Channel islands anf the Uk mainland and ideed she did leave St Peter Port in Guernsey about 20 minutes before I took this photo.

As for where Guernsey might be, the answer to that is that it’s right there. The island of Sark is there too, but that’s lost in the background of the larger island.

Where we are is at the head of a peninsula right up near the top of the Cotentin Peninsula, very close to the port of Dielette and it’s from here in the summer that there’s a ferry service over to the Channel islands.

Not right now, of course, because everything is postponed while we all recover from the virus.

It’s usually Granville that provides the summer service over there, because judging by the look of the port at Dielette, Victor Hugo is too large to go a-manoeuvring around in there.

The ferries run a shuttle service from here to the various Channel Islands. That’s Jersey over there, a mere 40 or so kilometres away, much closer of course than it is to the port of Granville.

So it looks as if Dielette is the place for me to come in the summer to go on a nautical excursion if I can’t hitch a lift on Normandy Trader or Thora

The weather was pretty grey and miserable today, which was a shame. Not the ideal day for photography.

Nevertheless, down there on the horizon in a faint grey wisp is the coast of Brittany, which according to my calculations is a very improbable 90 kms away. But there’s no other land anywhere else out there in that vicinity so I can’t even begin to think what else it might be.

It could, I suppose be wishful thinking, the same kind of thinking that led the sailors of Christopher Columbus to believe on a couple of occasions that they had seen land before they finally espied San Salvador, but it looks pretty realistic to me

There was a floating buoy just offshore, but I reckon that I know the reason for this.

Where we are (although you can’t see it) is at the side of the big nuclear reactor at Flamanville. This is France’s equivalent of New Brunswick’s Lepreau Reactor, in that no matter how much money they throw at it and how many technicians then send in to wotk at it, they still can’t make it fire up correctly.

To be fair, the original two reactors from the 1980s seem to work fine and at one stage they were producing as much as 4% of the total amount of France’s electricity without any major problem. A third reactor was commissioned in 2007, with an on-line date of 2012 and a cost of €3.3 billion.

However one catastrophe after another has pushed the start date further and futther back, with a latest date being 2022 and with costs now rising to €12.4 billion. And none of that is certain to be the final position either.

It makes people wonder at just what stage will these people finally throw in the towel and stop throwing good money in after bad money.

We drove from there all the way along the coast on the “Route des Caps” as far as it was possible to go by car – to the harbour at Goury La Hague at the Cap de la Hague.

This is another place that I will add onto my list of places to come another time when I have visitors because even in the most miserable weather it was really nice. This little harbour here would look beautiful when the tide is in and all the boats ar bobbing about on the waves.

But I couldn’t help thinking that that is a massive wall to protect such a small harbour.

Regardless of the despressing weather, this woman here seemed to be njoying herself.

She had her notebook out and was busy painting a scene of the local landscape while her dog sat patiently close by.

This is a beautiful building just here on the quayside and Laurent asked me if I could guess its purpose. After a few moments thought I had to donner ma langue au chat as they say around here

Apparently it’s the local lifeboat station.

And what is interesting about it is that it’s a roundhouse. There are two slipways, one behind the harbour wall and the other one straight down into the sea.

The lifeboat is on a turntable on the inside and depending on what the weather is doing and where the tide is, the turntable is moved round so that the lifeboat is launched down the most appropriate slipway

And it’s hardly surprising that you need a lifeboat in a location like this.

This is the view down the slipway that goes directly into the sea. There are enough rocks just offshore to put the wind up anyone. And talking of wind there was plenty of that today too.

The green and red posts in the water tothe left are, I reckon, to mark the entrance to the little harbour there. “Green” has five letters so that means “right” – you keep that to your right as you are coming in. “Red” is the same colour as “port”, which has the same number of letters as “left”, so you keep that to your left.

Had the weather been better, the view from here would probably have been better as well.

Nevertheless we could see a long way down the coast all the way past “La Roche” down to the Falaise – or cliff – de Jobourg. And looking at that cliff answered a question of mine – namely, why would there have been the signs of the école d’escalade – the School of Climbing – that I had noticed as we had driven throught the town of Jobourg to reach here.

Well, now we know, of course. One look at that rock face right down there tells us everything.

That’s the Cap de La Roche and behind it to the left is another industrial complex of eerie significance.

It’s the site of France’s answer to Sellafield, and where all of the country’s nuclear waste – altogether more than half of the World’s capacity – is stored ready for whenever they discover a method of disposing of it.

Laurent had always wondered why they had chosen that particular site, and of course I was able to tell him. The prevailing winds in this area come up the English Channel from the south-west, and there is no French land whatever anywhere in the direction to which they will be blowing.

Any leak of radioactive material whatsoever will be blown out to sea by the prevailing winds and make landfall somewhere over the south-east coast of the UK.

There are some more rocks out there in that direction too, with that beautiful marker light perched on top of them to warn shipping.

The island behind it is the island of Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands. These of course are British possessions which remained in English hands after the English were expelled from Normandy in 1204 for the simple reason is that the French King at the time didn’t have a fleet handy at the time to go along and invade them.

By the time that subsequent French Kings had arranged a Navy, the opportunity had been passed by and the islands had been reinforced ready to repel any invader.

The French Kings might have been forestalled, but others were not. In one of the most shameful incidents of World War II the British Government surrendered the Islands and their population to the Germans in 1940 without even firing a bullet in their defence.

Furthermore, even though the fighting had long-since passed them by, the British did not go along and claim them back from the Germans until after the end of the war. Hundreds of British citizens had died in the Concentration Camp on Guernsey or had been deported to places like TITTMONING, WHICH WE HAVE VISITED, Buchenwald or even Auschwitz, and the starvation of the citizens during the winter of 1944-1945 when the island was blockaded by the British caused hundreds of deaths.

Anyone who talks about hos “The British Won The War” needs to be reminded that without the help of the Americans they didn’t even dare to fight the Germans on their own soil until any danger of the German fighting back had been removed.

This here is a symbolic photograph.

It’s basically the final point of French territory around here – the lighthouse at the end of the Cap de la Hague. And a lighthouse is needed here too because of all the rocks that we have seen littering the area that will catch many a mariner totally unawares.

And shipwrecks just here are legion too – even big ships like the 10,000 tonne Button-Gwinnett that ran aground on the rocks on 19th December 1947 as well as any number of smaller vessels and pleasure boats that round the headland straight into a contrary current.

As well as shipwrecks on the shore, there have been innumerable accidents just off the coast too with collisions in the narrow navigable seaway.

This cross commemorates the crew of the French submarine Vendemiaire. She was built in 1910 when sumarines were in their infancy and submarine tactics were relatively unknown and untried.

On the 8th of June 1912 the three submarines of the Cherbourg flotilla were sent out to practise an interception on a few ships of the French navy that were steaming up the Channel. For some unknown reason the ships failed to co-ordinate their manoeuvre and the warship Saint Louis struck Vendemiaire amidships, sending her straight to the bottom taking all of hercrew with her.

Her wreckags was discovered in 2016 about 70 or so metres down, off the north-east coast of Alderney and the gash in her side was clearly visible, exposing her interior.

This photo was one that I took for my friend Louise.

She has a “thing” about useless gates, and while this isn’t a uselass gate it’s one of the next best things – a useless stile. I’m not sure at all why this would be there.

By now I was feeling really ill and the drive back to laurent’s was extremely uncomfortable for me. When we reached his house, I simply said my goodbye and drove home

Back here, I crashed out on the chair, and was gone for several hours. When I awoke, I was feeling even worse so I did something that I haven’t done for a couple of years and which I vowed that I would never do again, and that was to go and crash out on the bed.

And off I went on a long, confusing voyage. I was on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again. I was friendly with a couple who had come on board ship – a young couple. They had been on all of the yoages and were making a season of it but what had happened was that after the first couple of voyages they’d moved to the other side of the ship. When I encountered them later on they had had to move back. I asked them why and they told me “well the steward on the first side of the ship they were on was not very friendly so they wanted a nicer steward so they had moved across but they had no idea why it was they they had had to move back. We were chatting and by this time I was in Montreal and there I was wandering around in this shop like a big restaurant place. They had all these foods and sweets laid out where you could help yourself. I was wandering around trying to find something there to eat but there was nothing to eat for me. I was having a look at the sweets as well but there were no mint sweets of any kind that I could eat. I felt really bad about that. Then I was off again wandering around Montreal looking at an apartment. When I saw the rent, which was about 24,000 per year I thought that maybe I wouldn’t do that. But it was a nice lovely place down by the river. I was wandering around through the town and there was this abandoned car. The rear end was missing off it and the front end had been smashed and the engine was missing – a red one. I was wondering about the logistics of how I was going to stay – whether I could get a car, whether I could get a drivers’ licence, how much it would cost to get a driver’s licence on the Black Market, all kinds of stupid things like that
There was one instance where something was involved with firearms. I had a firearm which was not like me. Someone else had one and an issue came about that. I showed my firearm and this guy asked me all kids of weird and wonderful questions about it so I took the bullet and showed him the bullets. I quickly grabbed his and pulled his bullets out of his gun. They were a different type so I said something like “you have no room to talk about bullets” but this guy then turned to start talking about hunting which was not what I was trying to do at all.

Someone called me at sometime – I’ve no idea who because I didn’t answer. I was dead to the world and that was that.

No danger of me ever moving again.

Friday 20th March 2020 – I MADE IT …

… out and about this morning.

And I’m not the only one out and about either. Sneaking into the harbour unawares under cover of darkness presumably has come Granville, the more modern ferry that runs the route between here and the Channel Islands.

She was in Cherbourg the last time that I heard anything about her and I imagined that she would be staying there while all of this commotion was going on.

As for me, there wasn’t any commotion at all during the night. I had a shower and then went to bed somewhat earlier than just recently. And there I stayed until the alarms went off.

And for a change, i even beat the third alarm to my feet. That’s rather a rare occurrence these days.

After what remained of the medication, I looked at the dictaphone. I don’t remember very much about last night except that there were a lot of us. We’d decided individually of course that we’d go for a walk on our own but we all ended up at the same time on the beach. We were having to walk up and down the beach on our own but with big crowds of people.

Breakfast was next and then I had a look at some audio file-splitting. One file was very long and complicated and at first I had no idea how to do it conveniently. However, after a little pause for thought, the light went on and I started from the end and worked forwards instead of the other way round.

And it worked a treat too.

By now it was time for me to go into town to see the doctor.

Not one for this confinement lark, I went the long way round into town, past the lighthouse and the coastguard station on te Pointe du Roc.

And you can see the kind of weather that we were having too. It’s been nice and sunny for the last couple of days but today the weather has broken and we’re in a deep pervading mist that is really uncomfortable.

But the work must go on for some people. We can’t all be under detention à domicile otherwise we’d starve to death.

The fishermen are out working, even in the fog. And you will notice that in the vicinity of his boat there are a couple of what look like floats or buoys.

It’s been a mystery to me what these floats and buoys are for because I’ve never seen how they mysteriously turn up in the water. I suppose that this will be the nearest that I’ll ever become to finding out.

Carrying on around the headland I end up on the path that passes close to the chantier navale

There were a few people around there with face masks but I reckon that’s more to do with the dust that’s being created from the overhauling of Charles Marie. It’ll take more than fear of a virus to keep them from working on that boat, although I imagine that they will be forgetting all about the summer season.

But the fishing boat that was alongside her seems to have gone back into the water, presumably with her repair work finished.

With the tide being out, the harbour gates were closed and I could walk across the path on top to the other side.

But going past the fish processing plant, I noticed these objects here. Something rather more than buoys, they look like channel markers to me

And that’s going to be rather interesting because I wonder what channel they will be marking. But being here by the fish processing plant rather than on the other side of the harbour by the port office would seem to suggest that they are of more importance to the fishermen.

At the doctor’s, he had a couple of students with him. I forgot myself and he was horrified when I went to shake his hand. The two young students were wearing face masks, as was he, but I noticed that one of them had her mask only over her mouth and not over her nose.

That’s something that I’ve noticed with a few people. And I would have thought that covering the nose was just as important as covering the mouth, to be frank.

So what did the doctor say when I told him my miserable tale of woe?

He can prescribe most of my pills and potions. There’s one that he can’t prescribe but that’s not important
He can prescribe a four-weekly blood test – to be taken at home. And he’ll oversee the results.
If my blood level drops below the critical limit (8.0) he can arrange for me to have a transfusion.
He CAN’T prescribe any of the transfusions that I have. For a start, they aren’t registered or authorised in France.
If I catch an infection – of any kind – I’m well and truly on my own and there’s not a thing that he or anyone else can do about it.

I do have to admit that I would rather have been taken into care in Belgium where at least there would have been access to someone or something that might have been of some help, but there’s no point in worrying about that now.

The thing that surprises me more than anything about all of this is that whenever I want to miss a hospital appointment they give me all kinds of dire warnings about what might happen to me. But they don’t have a problem with cancelling them for four months (it’ll be six months at least by the time that this is all over) when it suits them.

The chemist came up with everything and even made a suggestion about the missing medication. They were all wearing masks and gloves in there, but they didn’t have any to sell to the public as one very disgruntled person in the queue in front of me found out.

Back here I made myself a coffee and then did another pile of file splitting. And I’ve hit a problem with this. One or two of the files are in *.mkv format and there’s something in the recent upgrade to Windows that automatically opens the files onto “standby” so, of course, you can’t delete them. And the more you have in your working directory, the slower the whole “Windows Explorer” procedure goes until the computer hangs up.

Judging by the panic in various chat rooms and forums right now, there are quite a few people affected by this. Here’s hoping that there will be an upgrade sometime soon.

There was a pause for lunch in the middle of all this. The second baguette from Belgium is rather harder than it might be but 20 seconds in the microwave sorted that out.

Later on, when the file-splitting was finished for the day, I started again with the photos for July and my trip to Iceland. I dealt with quite a few but I’m still no further forward because there were such a lot from my walk around Reykjavik.

What didn’t help was that I had a really good … errr … pause during the middle of it all.

This evening I knocked off early – at 18:00 – and had half an hour on the 6-string and then half an hour on the bass. I need to progress with this as much as I can, although my trip to Germany will presumably not be happening this year.

For tea tonight, I came across a bag of vegetable and mushroom curry from October 2018. There was slightly more than one portion in there so I lengthened it with fried potato, spinach, peanuts and brussels sprouts and there’s now enough for two nights. I’ll have the second portion tomorrow.

There’s the last of the rice pudding to use tomorrow too, so it looks as if Sunday is going to be a baking day. I bought a new 16cm pie dish in Belgium so I’ll give that a try-out, I reckon.

No stopping my evening walk either. Round the walls as usual and I managed my two runs – the first into the teeth of a gale and that was difficult, but as for the second I could have even made it up the second ramp had someone wit his dog not come round the corner just at the wrong time.

So now I’m having an early night tonight. Shopping tomorrow and that will be exciting as I’m expecting the hordes to be out and the shops stripped bare of food supplies.

My usual choices of meals – lentils, kidney beans, chick peas etc – are not usually the type that most people go for so I’m luckier than most in this respect but it will be difficult, I imagine, finding fresh fruit and veg . But we shall see what we shall see.

So now I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.

Tuesday 28th January 2020 – IF YOU WANT …

… to know what the weather was like today, this photo here will tell you everything that you need to know.

Miserable, horrible, grey and overcast with huge and violent rainstorms and incredibly high winds stirring everything up. In fact, a typical day on the western Normandy coast for just recently.

And when is it going to end? It looks as if this weather is here for the duration and isn’t going to let up very easily.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 I could hear the howling weather quite clearly and ashamed as I am to admit it, it drove me back underneath the covers where I stayed until just after 07:00. This wasn’t the kind of weather that would make anyone want to raise themselves from the dead, least of all me.

After the medication I had a look to see where I’d been during the night. I had been at a house with a group of people and we needed some things from a shopping parade down the street. There had been a really heavy snowfall and it was difficult to move around so I said that I would go. I had to go on foot because Caliburn was at the menders and I could pick him up and bring him back on the way back so that was what I decided to do. As I was leaving, one of the girls in this house shouted out “don’t forget it’s time to go and get your food and organise this and Eric’s going to get this and that”. I don’t know why she did that. Anyway I was off. I went to get a coupe of shopping bags. It was a really steep slope down the hill to this shopping parade and with the snow it was quite icy and slippy. There was a group of people coming up the hill. One of them was a girl dressed a kind of white smock kind of arrangement and she had a couple of other kids with her running up there. All of a sudden they slipped, came down the hill and collided with me. They knocked me over onto the ice, and there was me, this girl and a boy sliding down this hill and where the road went round a bend we went straight on over the edge and crashed into a snow bank. The girl was laughing about this and the boy said to her “you’re disgusting”. She said “yes, I know that I’m disgusting”. It all went rather downhill from there.

Those rubber spatulas proved their weight in gold today. Ordinarily I would have said that I had run out of apple purée for breakfast but with the rubber spatula I managed to scrape enough out of the jar for a small portion for breakfast.

After breakfast, I attacked the travel notes. In a change to previous voyages, I’m not taking all of my files with me on the laptop. I’m making a “travel noes” file where I can record everything, and then bring it back home and edit the entries into the various data files. It’s much less confusing that way.

But it seems that I’ve made a bit of an error with the radio projects. I’ve forgotten to leave a space for the live concert at the end of February. As a result, everything that I did that was labelled “Project 16” has now to be labelled “Project 19” to preserve the integrity of Projects 17 and 18 and the series of material from which I draw is now out of order and needs to be changed.

While I’d been in Leuven I’d found something that a friend of mine had asked me to see if I could find. I’d been successful so i’d wrapped it and I took it with me to post on my way to pick up my butties.

But as usual, I was side-tracked by the sound of a pneumatic drill coming from the other side of the harbour and seeing as the gates were closed, I could go over the footpath on the top to see what was happening.

And it’s not a pneumatic drill at all but a hydraulic concrete breaker on the jib of one of the diggers that have been dredging the harbour just now.

What they seem to be doing is chiselling out the rocks at the foot of the sea wall at the ferry terminal.

This will explain the pile of piles that regular readers of this rubbish will have seen with me the other day – removed so as to give access for the concrete breaker.

But does this mean that, with the dredging of the harbour to make it deeper and removing the rocks at the side to make it wider, are we going to be expecting the arrival of a new ferry boat that is larger than those that we have at present?

We are living in interesting times indeed.

This fishing boat, the Rocavi II is quite interesting.

There has been an article in the local newspaper about the Rocavi II just recently. It’s a brand-new fishing boat that has only recently been launched and on Saturday it was blessed by one of the local priests.

What with living in France, I suppose that breaking a bottle of champagne over the bows is pretty ordinary stuff and nothing whatever special at all.

A little further along the port, it looks as if Thora has been here while I’ve been away.

Much of her work involves taking building supplies out to Jersey and she doesn’t seem to have a regular load off the island. Instead, her owners collect scrap metal and as there are no scrapping facilities on the island they bring it here for processing. Regular readers of this rubbish will have seen quite a few loads of scrap on the quayside.

This lot of scrap metal looks as if it has been part of some structure that has been destroyed by fire.

With all of these distractions I missed the post. So I went to la Mie Caline and picked up my dejeunette and headed for home.

After lunch I made my own apple purée. Four apples peeled, cored and diced, a pear ditto and some cinnamon put into a saucepan with some water and boiled for about 45 minutes.

And it’s not a success. I’ve used far too much water – or else the fruit was too juicy – and it’s more like an apple drink than an apple purée. But I’ll use it over the next few days just to dispose of it and then I’ll make some more – with much less water this time.

But pears, bananas, rhubarb, apricots, all kinds of fruit can go into it and I’m hopeful of making some good stuff with this. I need to push on and do a lot more about being self-sufficient.

And then I started to write the notes for the first of the radio projects. But I wasn’t at it long because it was walk-time. What hadn’t helped was that for about 10 minutes or so I had … errr … had a little relax.

While I was out there earlier we had had a moment of sun. But not now. A howling gale and the rain that we had seen over the Brittany coast had caught me.

For that reason I didn’t hang around very long. Chausias was over there at the ferry terminal in a NAABSA (Not Always Afloat But Safely Aground) condition so presumably they are expecting her to be doing something in the near future.

The two passenger ferries were moored up in the inner harbour where they usually stay.

But no Channel Island ferries. Both Granville and Victor Hugo are currently moored up in Cherbourg and I have no idea why.

Spirit of Conrad has made good her escape from the Chantier navale so I was keen to see who had taken her place.

The answer is that there isn’t anything special in there right now. We have two of the inshore fishing boats that haul in the shellfish and one of the trawler-type of fishing boats that is over there where Spirit of Conrad used to be.

So at least there’s plenty of work for the shipyard to be doing and that should keep them out of mischief for a while.

Back here I finished off the writing and then dictated the notes. They are going to need some hefty editing too as I seem to have been somewhat extravagant.

Anyway, I had made a start by the time that I went to make tea. Vegan burger on a bap with baked potatoes and vegetables, followed by fruit salad and sorbet. And there’s still that left-over slice of apple pie in the freezer from before I went to Leuven. But that’s an oven job so it will probably be to go with the pizza on Sunday.

Howling gales and torrential rain tonight, and I was out in it. To make it worse, I had to go for a longer walk than usual as I was in touching distance of my 100% target so I may as well push on over.

The storm was raging and although the tide wasn’t all the way in, the waves were still crashing down on the Plat Gousset and soaking everything. It’s disappointing that they haven’t left the lights on along the promenade so that we can see the waves better.

And despite the miserable weather I managed to fit in my two runs this evening. My two little tracks were quite well sheltered.

But Iw as feeling the strain, I’ll tell you. It seems that the spell of good health I had in December is about as good as it is ever goign to be.

So having finished my notes, I’ll wait until “Yes In Concert” finishes ad then I’ll go to bed. The problem is that I have far too much good music here to which to listen to waste my time by going to bed and sleep.

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

Saturday 17th November 2018 – THAT WAS A …

… little bit more like it.

22:30 or thereabouts was when I went to bed, and it took me a while to go off to sleep. However, once I’d gone, I was well-gone and that was your lot until about 05:45. It’s not quite a good night’s sleep but it’s better than what else I’ve been having just recently.

I was off on my travels too during the night. On a coach as a passenger heading into the centre of Shrewsbury. Of course, it didn’t even bear a passing resemblance to Shrewsbury even though there was a good wide river there. We had city walls, low gates and crowds of people to deal with. We reached the drop-off point at the centre of town and while the bus was to turn round (which wasn’t easy around here) I said that I would wander off and take some photos. Of course, it goes without saying that I intended to spend much longer photographing than the bus would take to turn round, but I reckoned that the bus driver would cope. Why I never asked him to drop me off by the gate into the town and pick me up later was something that even in a nocturnal ramble I couldn’t understand.

With an early awakening we had an early rising and an early breakfast. And then there was some stuff that needed doing. I followed that up with a shower and then headed off to town and LIDL.

The town centre of Granville was like a ghost town this morning.

Not even half the market was there, not even half of the usual customers and probably no more than a dozen cars.

Normally on a Saturday there would be market stalls all over the square and the place would be heaving with people. However everyone seemed to be respecting this Day of Action against the tax hikes here.

When Josée was here just now, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the lengths to which some people are going in order to inconvenience pedestrians and others – preventing them from sitting or lying down in sheltered places when they need to rest.

Walking up the rue Couraye this morning, my attention was caught by this window ledge and its … errr … decorations.

This is exactly the kind of thing that we were discussing. It’s the kind of thing that brings the town and the shop owner into disrepute.

You’ll remember a few days ago that I told you about the cherry-picker that seemed to be erecting Christmas decorations near the railway station.

So here we are at the place de la Gare and you’ll see that we have now acquired a Christmas tree.

One of these evenings I’ll go past it and see if it’s illuminated. It’ll be nice to see some Christmas lights.

Lidl was practically empty this morning, which was a surprise. But despite that, they didn’t have much that I needed.

On the way back, I met the guy to whom I gave the Solex a few months ago, and then took a diversion around the docks. The heap of gravel on the quayside is growing – it looks as if a gravel boat will be here sometime soon.

Do you remember that strange-looking boat that we saw coming into the port the other day? She was still moored up here so I went for a closer inspection.

She’s called the Aztec Lady and she’s out of Cherbourg.

Built in Southampton in 1977, she spent the first 20-odd years of her life going to all kinds of places around the world but since 2000 she’s specialised in sailings out to the North Atlantic and the Arctic. I see that I shall have to make the acquaintance of the owners.

She’s back in port after having apparently spent the summer in Norway and out in Spitzbergen and the Lofoten Islands.

Another boat in the harbour right now is La Grande Ancre

We’ve seen her on many occasions, quite often taking stuff out to the Ile de Chausey and on one occasion there was even a large van on board being taken somewhere.

Today though it looks as if she’s kitted out for going mussel-catching.

You’ll also remember that for several months the harbour was closed while they replaced the tidal gates into the inner harbour.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t been over to see the new ones since they have been installed and that’s not like me at all, is it?

They certainly look impressive enough and should last quite a while. But you can see that the sea water has already left its mark on them

The weight of the water behind the gates must be really substantial so not only must the gates be of solid construction, so must the machinery for opening and closing the gates.

And this little lot looks as if it really could do the business.

I don’t think that I have ever seen a hydraulic ram quite as solid as this one. This should do the business.

On the other side of the entrance to the inner harbour is the fish dock.

Wandering around on here was this cute little family, mummy and two baby goélands scavenging for fish waste.

The little ones were making quite a racket – so much so that it was giving me a nasty tern

It also seems that I haven’t taken a photo of the fish dock either.

To the right, it’s the tidal basin and the fishing boats tie up here when the tide is in. The catch off the commercial boats is lifted up here on the cranes to the fish processing plant.

The private fishers park their vehicles on the deck underneath where we are standing and they can unload their boats straight into their vehicles as we have seen in the past.

We’ve not had a photo of the new fish-processing plant either.

There was an older one on the other quay, presumably dating from when the trawlers from Granville went out to the Grad Banks fishing for the cod. Marité was one of the Grand Banks fishing boats in its prime.

But since the Cod Moratorium in 1992, the Grand Banks are off-limits. Now the fishermen are engaged in fishing in smaller boats much closer to home.

Their catch goes into the side of the building where it’s processed and then comes out of the front into the refrigerated lorries that distribute it

Back here I had a little … errr … repose, and then made a huge pile of hummus. It has olives and garlic as well as some cumin. And it’s delicious too. It was a large jar of chick peas so it made a lot of hummus so there is plenty in the freezer.

After lunch, I installed the new printer. And that took longer than you might have expected too. Basically because the wireless connection didn’t recognise the printer and vice versa. In the end, I had to set it up with the USB cable and that defeats the whole point of having a wireless printer.

This evening there was football on the internet. Caernarfon v Cardiff Metro in the Welsh Premier League. And the wheels seem really to have come off the Metro as they slumped to yet another defeat. There was no spark in the side – they looked tired and totally lacking in enthusiasm. And, shame as it is to say it, Alex Lang in goal is not even a shadow of the keeper that Will Fuller was.

Caernarfon won 2-0 and didn’t even break sweat.

Add to that the fact that, much to everyone’s surprise, Llanelli won again, it means that the bottom of the table is becoming rather exciting as more and more teams are finding themselves sucked into a relegation scrap. And if the Met don’t do something quickly, they will be in there too.

After tea, which was out of a tin, I went for a walk around the Pointe du Roc. I was the only person out there which was no surprise because it was freezing out there and my ears certainly felt it.

Winter is acumen in without any mistake at all.

And I forgot to post one of the photos of the walkway across the top of the gates into the port.

Monday 20th August 2018 – SLEEPING ON THE SOFA …

… is quite comfortable, which is why I chose this sofa anyway, but for some reason last night I couldn’t drop off to sleep. And when I eventually did, I was awake quite early and couldn’t go back to sleep.

So I had my medication and then set out everything for breakfast. The muesli that I make myself went down very well, as did the bread from LIDL. Good stuff that, I have to say.

When we were ready and organised, I made some sandwiches and then we set off on our travels.

Our destination for today was Utah Beach.

On the north-eastern shore of Normandy, it was the most westerly of the landing beaches on D-Dau. Despite many problems and issues regarding the arrival of troops, many of whom were offloaded at the wrong place, the beach was quickly captured.

Of the 21,000 soldiers who landed here, just 197 of them were lost. It was one of the more successful landings.

The aim of the landing here was to seal off the Cotentin Peninsula from German reinforcements and to move on quickly to capture Cherbourg and all of its port installations.

Unfortunately, the American soldiers were so over-trained that they were very devoid of individual initiative. So when they were held up, they just waited for someone else to come up with a new plan instead of finding another way around.

As a result, it took three weeks rather than three days to capture the port, and the Germans had used the time profitably to destroy the port installations.

At a certain prominent point on the shore there were a few heavy concrete defensive strongpoints. A combination of air strikes, assault troops and naval gunfire saw them off.

This point here is one of the most prominent points on the coastline, and the shattered reinforced concrete scattered around here makes me wonder whether or not this was the site of one of these strongpoints.

Whatever it is, it’s been well-and-truly seen off.

A good way offshore were a couple of objects that looked quite interesting. I couldn’t make out what they were so I took a photo with the telephoto lens and enlarged it.

It’s still not very clear as to what it might be, but it looks suspiciously like the wreckage of some kind of ship. And the boat around it might indicate the presence of divers.

Of course, it could equally well be a bizarre rock formation. I shall have to wait until I can find a kayak so that I can go out there for a proper look.

There’s a museum here too. This contains all kinds of relics uncovered from the battlefield, discovered by local residents or donated by former soldiers who served here.

But this is more like the kind of thing that I would find interesting. If ever I buy my own island I would need something like this.

Caliburn would fit quite nicely on it and I could quite easily go across to the mainland and the shops in it. It would make life easy.

Mitchell Marauder B-26 bombers were used by the United Nations to bomb the German defences.

One of these planes and its captain was quite famous due to his exploits but was shot down a short while later. Parts of his aeroplane were recovered subsequently and are displayed here

I could have an enormous amount of fun with this 18-cylinder twin-row radial engine.

While we were wandering around I ate my butties, and then we set off again.

The key to the assualt on Cherbourg was the town of St Mere-Eglise.

With the land behind the beach being low-lying, the Germans had flooded everywhere to inhibit any invasion. The roads however are raised up on causeways and these all radiate out from the town, so the capture of the town was quite important.

A squadron of paratroopers were parachuted into the area early in the morning to seize the town.

Of course, the parachute drop went wrong and the soldiers ended up being scattered all over the countryside.

One unfortunate soldier landed on the roof of the church and as he slid down, his parachute was caught on one of the gargoyles.

And here he dangled while a battle was ranging right below him. Eventually the Germans spotted him and rescued him, but he subsequently escaped when the town was captured.

We had a coffee and then we set off back home for tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Liz and I had made some vegan burgers a while ago. And so for tea we had burgers in baps with potatoes and vegetables. And they were delicious too.

Hans is as much a film buff as I am, and so we sat down and watched one of the Inspector Hornleigh films. I still think that these films are really well ahead of their time considering that they date from the late 1930s.

And so, being thoroughly exhausted, I settled down on the sofa. I hope that I have a better night tonight.

landing craft utah beach museum normandy france

artefacts utah beach museum normandy france

martin b26 marauder utah beach museum normandy france

sunken remains utah beach normandy france

demolished fortifications utah beach normandy france

museum st mere eglise normandy france

church parachutist st mere eglise normandy france

Saturday 9th June 2018 – THIS IS TURNING INTO A DISASTER

And I’m not quite sure about where to start either.

I could, I suppose, make a start by telling you all about last night’s nocturnal ramble. And that was such a confused, jumbled, rambling voyage too and I’ve probably forgotten most of it.

But I do remember leading a party of other motorists to Granville but it was nothing like the Granville as we know it, and the road to there was even more different. Doing it in the semi-dark was another thing too, especially as there were no signposts. However I had been there once before and I could remember the way – at least everything looked familiar like the roundabout near the yacht harbour where we had to turn left. At a certain moment we left the main road and were driving along a farm track where there was suddenly a terrific drop. I remembered a drop, but nothing as terrific as this one but it had to be here because there was no other way that resembled this. Everyone else looked in a panic but I pressed on down the slope and it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be.
At some other time during the night I ended up in Bill Badger, my old BMC half-ton van from the 1970s. I’d put it back on the road after more than 20 years and it was running fine. I’d done some work on the engine too and that had me thinking about “why don’t I find a BMC 1622 diesel engine and fit that in the vehicle?”
From there I drifted into YLO, my first Cortina mkIV and I was going round to visit some sportsman. Much to my surprise he was living in very modest circumstances, the only sign of affluence being a small sailing boat in his garden that he was restoring. There was a notice on the gate to the effect that “no matter what, the boat isn’t for sale so don’t waste my time and yours enquiring”. He explained to me that his wife had just given birth and people always though that when you were there with new family commitments that took up much of your time, your hobbies would be the first to go, and go quickly and cheap too. I sympathised, explaining that I had a Transit van and another vehicle up on ramps in my garden right now.
Somewhere in all of this my mother put in an appearance. I’m not sure why. She was being assailed by a couple of women and even though I had no time for her at all, I couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for what she was suffering.

So there I was, at 05:20 sitting on the edge of the bed typing out all of this before I forgot it, despite the fact that with a long and exhausting day ahead of me, I needed all the sleep that I could get.

So an early breakfast etc, and organising myself, packing and the like. Ant at 08:30 I was at the supermarket buying a bottle of drink and a baguette.

Having made my butties I went off to hand in my keys and book the room for my next session, giving a big stroke to the cat on my way past.

It was here that today all started to go wrong, if you don’t consider awakening at 05:20 to be wrong.

My next visit here coincides with the big Werchter Rock festival in mid-Belgium, so there is no room at the inn. Not at any other inn in the region so I have been told. And I can’t change my appointment at Castle Anthrax because it fits in nicely with my other arrangements. And I can’t book a hotel in Brussels because I’m in Caliburn and there’s nowhere reasonable to leave him.

But there’s always a Plan B. It’s been years since I’ve been to Liège and I hardly know the city so I might book a hotel there and that will give me an opportunity to go for a wander around the city. I might even at last get to visit Welkenraedt – something that I’ve been trying to do for 45 years since I first saw it as a train destination at Oostende in the early 70s

Not only that, it’s easy to escape from too – avoids the necessity to struggle through the traffic on the edge of Brussels. There’s a motorway that goes from there to France via Charleroi instead.

But it’s still annoying.

At the station I didn’t have to wait too long for a train. It was another Oostende train and so it was heaving with holidaymakers. I ended up being crammed into a corner with about 20 young German kids, several crates of beer and a music centre playing “oompah” music.

That was certainly not what I wanted at that time of the morning, but at least I had a seat. So I can’t complain too much. Especially as one of the boys actually offered me a beer (which I of course declined).

At the Gare du Midi I didn’t have to wait too long for the TGV to be called and to my surprise it was already in the station so we could take our seats and settle down in comfort.

But that was to no avail because the train didn’t move. After a while we were told to dismount. We were apparently having a “technical problem”. They called for a new trainset and they coupled that up to the next TGV so we were half an hour late leaving Bruxelles-Midi.

I went in search of the train manager and made a fuss about my connection to Granville. We had a lengthy discussion and in the end she endorsed my ticket to Granville to the effect that I would miss my train due to their fault and not mine.

We pulled into Gare du Nord 35 minutes late, not 30 minutes late – and that extra 5 minutes proved to be crucial as we shall see.

There’s an RER “express” that does part of the route of Metro Line 4 missing out several stations, so I gambled on that as far as Les Halles. It was indeed much quicker but whatever time I saved was lost by having a long walk between platforms so it wasn’t any quicker really. But I have timed the journey in the past going on Line 5 and then Line 4 and I know full well that I didn’t have enough time today so it was a gamble to nothing.

At Montparnasse I rushed as quickly as I could but it’s a long way, and I reached my platform just in time to see my train departing. For the first time since 1992 I wished that I was back in the UK where the trains run when they feel like it and only pretend that there’s a timetable.

This meant a trip all the way back to the ticket office. It’s possible to travel to Granville on the TGV to Rennes and then the Caen and Cherbourg train from there, alighting at Folligny where there’s a bus that connects with the train. But that goes at 14:14 and by the time I’d walked all the way back to the ticket office and queued to see a counter clerk, that train had long-gone.

The clerk wasn’t all that helpful and I was in no mood for her light-hearted attempts at laughter. She refused to consider finding me an alternative route (far too much effort of course) and so there was no alternative but to wait three hours for the next train.

Another marathon walk back to my platform where I ate my butties and read my book. And listened to the desperate news that “the train arriving from Granville” … which will be the one that will be taking me back … “has been delayed by 40 minutes due to a signal failure”.

But to give them their due, as soon as it arrived and the passengers alighted and the crew had checked it for lost property, we were immediately waved on board. They hadn’t had time to clean it so it was something of a mess, but I didn’t want to wait around for another half an hour. 10 minutes late was quite enough.

During the whole route back I was in something of a daze. That 05:20 start had done me no favours whatsoever and the marathon dash and consequent stress had made things even worse. I wasn’t in much of a state to pay much attention to what was going on.

To make things worse, in view of everything that had happened today I was going to treat myself to a bus back home. But the last bus goes at 20:00 and we arrived back at 20:10 so that was that i had to walk.

And to make things even worse, the only bakery open in the town at that time of night had sold out of bread and buns for tomorrow.

It was a very long drag up the hill and I was stopped by a couple of tourists who needed directions.

So back here after all of that and I’m not up to much at all. I couldn’t even face making any tea. I’m going to go to bed and sleep until I awake. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Thursday 22nd February 2018 – TWO MEN …

… went past my window this afternoon.

And that was something of a surprise because I live on the first floor about 25 feet above the ground.

But it was no mystery when I went out to see what was going on.

There’s a cherry-picker out at the back with two men in attendance, looking at the guttering and the corner of the roof on the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs next door.

My guess is that the vicious winds that we’ve been having over the past couple of months have dislodged something important and now is the time to fix things.

What was a mystery was how I managed to forget completely and totally where I had been during the night. When the first alarm went off I could remember it but in the panic to be out of bed before the second alarm went off, well, that was that I’m afraid.

We had the usual slow start to the morning and while I was waiting for the medication to work I attacked the European Photograph Mountain for an hour or so and freed off another few GB of memory space on there. If I keep up like this, the disk will be empty.

A little later I went for my Thursday shower and general clean-up. And having done that, I hit the streets.

My perambulations took me down to the harbour of course, and there I just missed the raising of the drawbridge or whatever they do to it.

And we have a new ship in port, and I’ll have to make further enquiries about this one because it looks extremely interesting, having a van the size of Caliburn anchored to the deck.

Here she is; just joining the queue to leave port. I wasn’t early enough to see her when she was tied up.

With not having the telephoto lens with me, and being too far away to take a decent shot, I had to make the best of the job that I could.

I couldn’t read her name correctly because of all of the equipment dangling over the stern, but it looks as if she’s called La Grande Ancre out of Cherbourg.

There’s no reference of her on the internet that I’ve been able to find and she’s not in the port records either. So I’m not quite sure how I’m going to track her down.

I carried on to LIDL as usual and didn’t buy anything special. But being fed up of soup right now, I’ve bought some proper bread and lettuce and I’ll be making myself some butties for the foreseeable future. And much to my surprise, at lunchtime I found that I could actually eat them. It took a while, but there we are.

This afternoon I was feeling the strain of my walk. I’d made it all the way up the hill without stopping which is quite a feat and I knew that I would pay for that. But it didn’t stop me going out for my afternoon walk in the sunshine. It really was nice, although a bit windy.

Back here, I crashed out yet again, which is no surprise of course. And then I had a session on the guitar.

Tea was a stuffed pepper which was really nice of course, and then my evening walk. And 116% of my daily activity too, which is good news.

And so maybe an early night. And if I go anywhere during the night I’ll try to remember where it was.

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

… that will surprise, if not shock, regular readers of this rubbish who have been following my vicissitudes with bated breath, according to the medical examination that I was given this morning by a doctor who works in partnership with the French Government, I am considered fit enough to drive a 44-tonne articulated lorry or a bus with 75 paying passengers on the public highway.

Last night was another miserable night, having gone on yet another lengthy travel, the details of which were immediately wiped from my memory as soon as I awoke. And I staggered off into the living room with no medication and no breakfast this morning, for obvious reasons.

Nevertheless I did manage a shower and a change of clothes though – I need to look my best for my appointment at 09:15.

At about 08:00 I hit the road for Countances.

And it’s a good job that I allowed myself plenty of time because I needed it. Quetteville sur Sienne isn’t “Quetteville on Sienne” at all – it’s “Quetteville-in-the-Sienne” right now.

You’re all aware of the weather that we’ve been having just recently. While most of Europe has been swaddled in snow these last few weeks, we’ve had nothing but torrential rain

As a result the Rivier Sienne has burst its banks and the outskirts of the town (the town itself is perched on an eminence) are flooded.

It’s completely cut off to the north and so all of the traffic heading to Coutances and Cherbourg is diverted down a country lane. And by the looks of things, a couple more days of this weather and this won’t be passable either.

It certainly messed up my arrival.

But I was there in good time and, as luck would have it, I found a parking place right outside the doctor’s at the back of the sous-Prefecture. And that’s not something that happens every day either, is it?

Being early, I was first in. And out again after 10 minutes.

And this medical is a total farce. I hadn’t said anything about it because I was convinced that I would fail it, with my well-documented medical history. And I was determined to answer every question honestly, truthfully and completely. Which I did.

The only problem with that though is that he only asked two or three questions – and nothing of any significance.

The scar on my chest from neck to navel and the chemo port in my left shoulder should have given the game away but, unbelievably, he stethoscoped me with my tee-shirt on.

A test of my vision and a few exercises in co-ordination, and that was my lot. I’m fit to drive a 44-tonne artic or a bus on the public highway. And if that’s an example of a medical undergone by every other lorry or bus driver in France, then God help the average motorist.

Being out early, I had plenty of time to kill. And so I went for a wander around the town.

Coutances is a Roman town, named for the Emperor Constantine, but was destroyed by the Vikings in 866, the French in the 12th Century (Normandy was an independent Duchy until 1204), the Huguenots in the 16th Century, the town planners in the 18th Century and the Royal Air Force and American Air Force on 6th June 1944 and a couple of days thereafter.

And so there are traces of ruins here and there about the place, and you can’t really identify them or say who it was who destroyed them.

But the Allies’ bombardments killed well over 300 civilians and there’s a monument to them at the back of the cathedral.

And I do have to say that I was very disappointed in this monument. I could have done something better and more powerful than this, and I expected to see at least a list of names of those who died.

But apparently not. And I can’t understand why

As for the cathedral itself, it remained surprisingly undamaged during the bombardment. Clearly, the Devil looks after his own.

But then again, it has suffered enough.

The first recorded church on the site (this isn’t of course to say that there weren’t earlier ones) dates from about 430, and the story goes that a heathen temple was cleared away to make the space.

This chirch was destroyed in the Viking raids, and when the town was reoccupied at the beginning of the 11th Century, construction of the cathedral began.

When the French took over from the Normans, they completely redesigned the cathedral and what wasn’t demolished was hidden by their modifications.

The interior of the Cathedral is nothing much to write home about.

I was expecting something spectacular give the cathedral’s fame as one of the favourite churches of William the Conqueror and as a pilgrimage venue, but it’s nothing like that at all.

It’s actually quite spartan ad even the stained glass windows are nothing like as flambouyant as you might expect.

The cathedral is the “Cathedral Notre Dame” – the Cathedral of Our Lady, and so ypu might be forgiven for expecting to see statues of Mary and Jesus all over the place.

But you’ll be very disappointed, because I couldn’t see any statue of any significance.

And as for the Chemin de la Croix, we’ve seen some exotic symbolisation on our travels, but here, there were just a few notices with numbers written thereupon – no paintings or statues at all.

The Twon Hall across the square though is certainly splendid and does the town a great deal of credit.

I’ve no idea when it was built, but a great deal of civic construction took place in the period of the “Second Empire”, so it’s quite possible that it dates from that period – the third quarter of the 19th Century.

The fountai in front of it was rather disappointing though. I was expecting much more than that.

I’m not sure how much the town hall was damaged by the bombings of June 1944, but you can tell that the surrounding area was pretty badly hit.

You’ll notice the building on the left – the row of shops with flats over the top (this is actually a hotel here). Go to any French town that was badly damaged during the war and you’ll see this style of building in every town centre.

Designed by architects such as Louis Arretche, they were designed to be thrown up in a matter of a couple of days to bring back the life into the town centres as quickly as possible, and they’ve withstood the pressure of time rather well.

At 10:00 I was outside the mobile phone repairer’s, and at least, they decided to have a look at it. And that’s progress. They would call me back.

I went for a coffee and then to do some shopping. Apart from the usual stuff that I need, I found a cheap shop and bought some stationery and also a new dash-cam – for just €11:95. I already have one but I don’t like it much – it’s big and obtrusive but it will do to take to Canada and install in Strider. The new little one, I’ll put in Caliburn.

They called me back bang on midday. They couldn’t get it to work so could I come by and pick it up?

Not until 14:00 after lunch so I grabbed a baguette and some stuff to go on it and had a quiet relax in the rain.

There’s an Orange shop in the town so I went in to see what they had. Strangely, they didn’t want me to browse the stock, but they would give me a “special deal”. They would knock 50% off one of their phones for me and let me have it at … errr … €349.99.

Quite.

Down the hill at the repairer’s, they also tried to fix me up with a deal. And while it might have bee more attractive, it wasn’t that attractive. So they suggested I try a phone laboratory in Saint-Lô who might be able to repair mine.

But when my new UK credit card arrives (I posted off all of my letters this morning too) I have another idea.

Having done all of that I came home, to find that yet another problem has arisen at the Bank. I’m not saying too much now, but I’m going out tomorrow to buy a pick-axe handle and I shall deal with the issues in the traditional manner by impressing my message into the skull of the bank manager in Morse Code with the aforementioned.

Having exerted myself quite a lot today, I crashed out for a couple of hours too. And I’m not surprised. And then it was tea. Microwaved potatoes with home-made burger in a bun from the batch at Liz’s, and vegetables. delicious it was too.

And then it was walkies. Around the headland.

And that was where I should have been had I been able to exert myself the other day. At the football. And Granville won too – 3-2 in extra time. Just 16 clubs left now in the Cup and I wonder who they’ll draw in the next round.

Rest assured – I’ll be camping out at the ground the night before and I’ve asked if, if the match is “away”, whether there will be any buses running.

But now it’s bed-time. I’ve done over 100% of my daily activity target and that’s enough for today. All 1560 words of it.

Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

… down in the harbour today.

I was out for a walk around the cliffs today and there in the distance I noticed the arrival of our old friend the Grima. And so I quickly scuttled on round to the other side of the promontory to watch her come into port.

There wasn’t anything piled up on her dock so I hadn’t been expecting her to arrive today.

I’d never actually seen her come into harbour … "yes you have" – ed … and so I was keen to see her come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into port.

She was carrying the usual load of scrap, including a white van something like a VW Caddy. And so I’ll have to go down to the port tomorrow to see what she’s fetched over from Jersey.

And, more to the point, what she’s actually going to be taking back because I’m sure that she wouldn’t find a one-way trip all that profitable. She’s need a return load.

And my luck was certainly in this afternoon.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph that there was another ship on the horizon looking as if it was about to come into port.

And you wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption because chugging into port behind Grima came Combattant. And she’s vertainly new to us here in Granville. I’ve not seen her here before.

She seems to spend all of her working life out along the north-east coast of the Cotentin peninsula working her way around places like Cherbourg and Dieppe, and has come here from Le Havre.

I thought that she might have been another gravel boat, but she is actually much smaller than they are – at just 55 metres.

But nevertheless, watching her negotiate the chicane into the port was quite interesting and quite a feat of seamanship.

As we admire her passing through the harbour gates, I couldn’t see what she was carrying. Or what she was taking away either because she didn’t tie up at the gravel dock but at one of the fishing quays

But whatever it was she’s come here to fetch, it won’t be much because she’s only rated at 668 tonnes and you won’t go far with that.

And much to my surprise, she’s quite an elderly ship – dating from 1977. And she looks it too

I’d had another bad night, despite going to bed early. Head cold again prevented me from going to sleep and it woke me up at about 05:15 too, so all in all it was a disappointment. No wonder I’ve spent most pf the day crashed out on the sofa feeling ill.

But I’ve done some more tidying up on the shelves in the kitchen and it’s looking quite good on there now. Plenty of space for everything now.

And then we had our afternoon walk.

Tea was oven chips, burger (one of those we made the other day) in a bap with peas and carrots. And delicious it was too. And then I went out for my evening walk.

Jersey was even clearer tonight than it was last night and we had something of a light show. With the clouds higher in the sky over there (it was cloudless here) the glow in the sky was beautiful.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. And I hope thzt I can have a better night’s sleep. I’m definitely not feeling up to anything right now.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: cherbourg

Tuesday 17th November 2020 – JUST FOR A …

Wednesday 21st October 2020 – THE ONE THING …

Friday 16th October 2020 – SOMEONE ELSE …

Monday 28th September 2020 – JUST FOR A …

Thursday 4th June 2020 – THAT WAS PROBABLY …

Friday 20th March 2020 – I MADE IT …

Tuesday 28th January 2020 – IF YOU WANT …

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

Saturday 17th November 2018 – THAT WAS A …

Monday 20th August 2018 – SLEEPING ON THE SOFA …

Saturday 9th June 2018 – THIS IS TURNING INTO A DISASTER

Thursday 22nd February 2018 – TWO MEN …

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 – AND IN NEWS …

Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring