… since I had a proper Sunday?
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in the Good Old Days Sunday was a Day Of Rest. And not only that, but a lie-in too. And there were some Sundays when I didn’t show before midday too.
Those days seemed to be long-gone, didn’t they? Several times just recently I’ve been wide away on a Sunday long before my usual rising time of 07:00.
So what happened today that I was asleep until … errr … 10:13?
And a good sleep too. I was away on my travels too – carrying on from yesterday round here somewhere outside, with with three other people. All of them pseudo-priests, and were in fact three young lads whom I knew when I worked in Brussels.
10:15 in here, breakfast over by 10:45, and then a sit-down for an hour or so. Far too late to go for the baguette at the magasin de presse so I reckoned a quick stroll down the hill.
But what the …! What’s going on here?
Hordes of people clinging to various vantage points looking at what looks like a ship blowing off thousands of gallons of water for some reason or another.
I had to go and check that out. Maybe it was a shipwreck or something (I’d seen a ship on the horizon in the dark last night);
But I didn’t get too far down the hill though.
The Marité might not have been at home (she’s been gone for a few days now) but lots of other people were there on her quayside.
Some kind of military vehicle display I reckon.
So cancel the baguette I nipped down to the fritkot for a bag of chips and threw all of my plans into the air.
Some kind of military vehicle display it was indeed.
Probably about 20 wartime vehicles all told, of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Tanks, jeeps, lorries and motorcycles, and so I had a good wander around.
Quite a lot of stuff that I would have happily taken home in a heartbeat.
But pride of place anywhere, anyhow and on any occasion has to go to the magnificent Welbike.
Designed to fold to fit into a parachute supply container, these were used by paratroopers and resistance fighters all over Occupied Europe.
A brilliant idea, but the Villiers 98cc two-stroke engine was hopelessly underpowered for the rough terrain and many were abandoned by the paratroopers as an unnecessary encumbrance once the War opened out.
Naturally, this part of France, not too far from the D-Day beaches, would be where you might expect the odd one or two to surface every now and again.
From there I wandered off down the quayside and onto the harbour mole to see if I could see anything that was going on where that ship might have been.
It had cleared off, so it can’t have been a shipwreck, but nevertheless I had a superb view of the Iles de Chausey and so I gave the new zoom lens a run-out.
And the verdict? Not as good as I would have liked, but I’ve had much worse than this. And it IS automatic focus.
But it did occur to me that I’ve not taken a photograph of the port of Granville from this vantage point yet.
I was over there where that black triangle was the other day, and you can see one of the boats that go to the Iles de Chausey in the bay next to it.
To the left of centre are the lock gates for the commercial port. It’s a tidal basin so when the tide is going out they close the gates so that the water stays in and the big ships like Pluto and Victress can stay afloat.
I waled all the way back to here via the Coastal Path. First time that I’d done that.
There’s a good view right back across the port and the town from up here, and you can see the ship repairer’s yard too. They have a novel way of hoisting ships out of the water.
So I carried on back here but couldn’t see anything to suggest what that ship or whatever it was might have been doing.
And had a rest when I arrived. It was a long walk back here – 4.8 kilomtres in fact according to the Fitbit.
Tea was pizza tonight (well, it IS Sunday) and I had a chat with Liz on the internet. Now another walk and an early night. Start again at 07:00 tomorrow.
We have church bells going off and a choir singing in the vicinity tonight.
