… of being buzzed by just about every man and his dog who owns any kind of flying machine in this vicinity. It’s getting on my wick.

If it’s not the guy who had his chopper out the other week, it’s now someone in a low-flying aeroplane who has come for a look around outside my apartment.

This plane is actually F-BRTM, which is the 152nd Jodel DR-253B in the series apparently. But whether or not Jodel actually built it is open to question. The company stopped manufacturing almost 60 years ago and now just sells to home-builders licences for construction of its aeroplanes.

But as for flying, I certainly didn’t get off to a flying start. With my really late night last night – after 02:00 in the end – I couldn’t leave the stinking pit at all. 06:45 when I finally pulled myself together and arose from the dead.

After the medication I checked the dictaphone and here I drew a blank. I hadn’t been anywhere during the night, which was a shame. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … what I do and where I go during the night is much more exciting than what I do and where I go during the day.

After breakfast I began to catch up on a few outstanding tasks. First off, I cut up quite a few digital sound tracks that I had downloaded in the past into their individual component tracks

That took me up until almost lunchtime so I went to have a look in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers to see what this work thing is all about.

And I do have to say that I really didn’t see anything that looked relevant. In fact the only thing that really caught my eye was the tree shredder here, parked up for lunch, with loads of bits of small trees around it.

It would be quite surprising if they had closed the road and banned all parking simply for this.

Who knows?

This method of beaching ships and boats in some kind of ad-hoc informal dry dock situation is becoming something of a habit.

The other day we had the trawler type of fishing boat lashed to the harbour wall but today we have a small motor boat and outboard motor beached on the boat-loading ramp.

And I do have to say that I like how they have done this – dropped it onto the wall so that the outboard motor overhangs the steep drop and doesn’t ground out.

The heavy equipment that they have been using for the dredging over by the ferry terminal seems to have moved so I went to look for it.

And here’s one of the huge dumper lorries, being loaded onto a low-loader ready to be moved. There was a driver chaining it down so I asked him if the work was now completed. He replied that he didn’t think so but the equipment was required elsewhere.

And so we might be seeing it back some time in the near future.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the other day they were doing some kind of building work over by the ferry terminal with a concrete breaker and I’d said that I’d go for a look some time.

Today, with the tide being out, the harbour gates would be closed so I could cross to the other side by the path on top and go for a look.

And surprisingly there was nothing evident. But there were all of these columns that look as if they have been some kind of ferry pier at some time in the past.

So I shall have to make further enquiries.

The place to go for that, I reckon, was the compound that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few days ago too.

And I was in luck – at least, I thought that I was – because there were two guys just coming out of it. I went over to one of them but just as I walked up to him he got into his van and drove off.

Not to be outdone I turned round to grab hold of the other one but he must have seen me coming and disappeared off in a fork-lift truck.

Ahh well – I’ll have to come down here again too, won’t I? It’s not my day.

So instead, I went to La Mie Caline for my dejeunette and came back home for lunch, to find workmen painting the windows in the communal part of the building.

On the way up the hill there was a workman in what’s left of the compound that they had when they were working on the wall.
“Nearly finished?” I asked.
“Yes, nearly” he replied.

After lunch I started on another radio project – a rock music programme. And I’m glad that I chopped up all of that digital music this morning because I’ve been selecting bits out of there.

At one point I must have fallen asleep because I sat bolt-upright and it was 15:50. Time for my afternoon walk.

Outside it was bitterly cold to the point of being uncomfortable so I didn’t want to hang around. Having been buzzed by someone’s aeroplane, I did stop to take a photo of these two fishing boats crossing each other in mid-channel.

And I don’t know what happened to the photograph here but for some reason it didn’t want to work properly.

Continuing my walk around the headland in the piercing wind … “what wind?” – ed … PIERCING … “ohhh!” – ed … I was distracted yet again by the sound of a rather large engine.

Consequently I scampered around the bend and had a look over the wall to see what I could see, and there was yet more activity in the Chantier navale today.

Spirit of Conrad is there of course and so are a couple of fishing boats that have been there for a while too. But there is someone else coming to join them.

We saw the mobile sling working the other day when it was lowering the blue and yellow trawler-type vessel back into the water.

But today it’s pulling another fishing boat out. And as I watched, it moved across the yard with the fishing boat suspended beneath it and dropped the boat off on a set of chocks next to Spirit of Conrad.

And here, I imagine, she’ll be staying for a while. So I’ll keep my eye on her as I go for my daily wander.

But here’s a thing.

We saw the little blue boat with the outboard motor earlier, beached on the boat-loading ramp. But here she is now back in the water moored to the fish-processing plant, and she seems to have acquired a friend.

And if anyone were to ask me I would say that the latter is in the colours that I would expect to see on a Police boat.

So what with the Customs yesterday and the Police today, tomorrow we might be having Godzilla.

Back here I pushed on with the music and that’s all chosen, and I’m halfway through writing the notes. But I have a feeling that it might have to change because somehow I seem to have over-run by some considerable amount.

That’s something for me to look into tomorrow.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with pasta for a change, followed by more apple pie. And it really was a nice tea too.

having frozen to death this afternnon, I put on a fleece underneath my jacket and at least I felt a little warmer tonight outside.

Those lights that regular readers of this rubbish will recall me mentioning ages ago were on tonight and they stayed lit long enough for me to photograph them.

They seem to be in the position where I would expect Donville’s football pitch to be, but I don’t recall it having floodlights at all so who knows?

Despite the cold, I managed to do both my runs tonight because there was no-one around to laugh. My style of running these days is rather awkward to say the least but considering my illnesses and my age I’m surprised that I can do it at all.

With being nearly at the 100% mark I stretched my walk to pass the limit.

And here in the Boulevard Vaufleury in another miserable photograph (what on earth is happening to my technique?) we can see that the bollards are back.

So what are they going to be up to tomorrow? I can’t wait to find out.

The barrier into the car park is now fixed so I brought Caliburn back from the public car park and he’s now in his usual little place.

Now that I’m back I’ve written my journal and I’m off to bed – unless something exciting comes up on the playlist meantime.