… this afternoon, I noticed this rather enormous rain cloud out in the bay.
The wind was blowing from the south-east rather than from the north-west this afternoon, and blowing in spades as well. The cloud was down there in the south west though and so any change of direction in the wind could create a few problems.
Sure enough, about half an hour later the wind swung round 90° clockwise and about half an hour after that we had the rainstorm to end all rainstorms.
It didn’t last all that long but it was impressive while it happened and maybe tomorrow we might see some kind of change in the vegetation if we are lucky. It’s still looking quite burnt-out right at the moment.
Maybe tomorrow there might be some change in me too. A couple of weeks ago I was feeling burnt-out too, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. But I seemed to have improved – until I had that big fall on board Victor Hugo last week that stopped me dead in my tracks.
A good night’s sleep will probably do me a world of good too and last night I almost had it too. I only awoke a couple of times during the night and there was only one sound-file on the dictaphone.
But what a sound-file it was!
This was another really long, rambling dream that went on for ages. I was at school, in my room because we had little dormitories. Someone called me but I couldn’t think why. I went outside my room but couldn’t see anyone. I wandered round. In the end I found myself holding a young cat, a light-coloured tabby so I was walking around finding out what I was supposed to do with this cat. I must have walked around the entire school asking people questions about this cat. In the end I ended up in the secretary’s office. She explained to me that it was the cat out of their office. Could they have it back? Surprisingly I felt extremely disappointed having to hand back this cat because even though I didn’t have any equipment I would have quite happily taken it with me and kept it in my room. I told her that if she’s ever looking for someone to look after it for a while I’d be quite happy to do that. She replied “yes but there are a lot of people in the queue”. I was surprised at how disappointed I felt.
Later on there was some kind of festival going on in the school and there were loads of people milling around. I had some sandwiches and I was going off to find somewhere to eat but there was hot food being served so I wondered if this was going to be provided free. I ended up at a kind-of snack café where I could see the prices clearly displayed so I imagined that that would be the same everywhere. I went and found a seat where I could sit and eat my sandwiches. The guy there was Jolyon Robinson from school. He was going on about how few people were going round right now. I explained that most of them have probably gone into town to find a good restaurant. Wherever we went anywhere with the school and was staying on we’d go into town to find an Indian and eat Indians all over the UK. He thought that that was quite strange. I was rummaging around on the table and came across a bill for a restaurant. I said “there you are. Look at this”. I read out the items on the bill and the bill was something like £63:00 for 1 meal for 1 person. I noticed that the price for dessert was a flamenkuche which was £18:00. I said “ik kan een mooije flamenkucke gebacke” in Flemish. He looked at me strangely so I told him what it meant. I said that I wouldn’t pay £18:00 for one of these when I can make one in 20 minutes. Some woman sitting nearby came over and snatched the receipt away from me. She said “this is a receipt from (somewhere else). That’s wrong, what you are saying anyway” but I couldn’t understand at all about why it was wrong and why she was making such a fuss.
Strangely enough, with not travelling anything like as far as I used to do, the idea of adopting a cat is something that has gone round inside my head. For many years when I was on my own in the past I had a cat, my black cat “Tuppence” who used to do her best to chase away any girl who I brought home, and when I was married we ended up with four of them.
Despite having one of the best sleeps that I’ve had for quite a while, it was even so the worst morning that I’d had for quite a while about leaving the bed. I did beat the second alarm to my feet but only just. I was only half-dressed when it went off.
Back in here after the medication I transcribed the dictaphone notes, as you have seen, and the rest of the day was spent editing the photos from Jersey.
And that’s taking much longer than it should do, not because of any difficulty that I had with the editing, but finding out what was actually depicted thereupon. And it needs to be done too because after all, that was the whole point of going to Jersey in the first place
Right now I’m just off the coast here in Granville on my way home with another 15 or so photos to edit. And they won’t take too long to do seeing as I’m back home.
And aren’t they “famous last words”? We’ve heard all of that before.
With nothing else exciting happening, I went out for my afternoon walk.
High winds and overcast skies were enough to put the willies up anyone this afternoon. There was hardly anyone about up on top of the cliffs so I wasn’t expecting to see anyone down on the beach this afternoon.
And so I wasn’t disappointed to find that the beach was absolutely deserted this afternoon. There wasn’t a soul about
There was however someone with a van working on the new car-park barrier that was installed last week but as soon as he saw me coming, he hopped into the van and cleared off.
As for the bust that was loitering around here for a couple of days, I haven’t seen that since I said something about it on Friday.
Walking across the car park and down the side street to the viewpoint overlooking the port wasn’t easy. I was continually being blown about by the wind and when you are as unsteady on your feet as I am these days you’ll know all about it.
There wasn’t even one boat out at sea this afternoon and that’s no surprise either. Just have a look at the waves surging around by Le Loup, the marker light on the rocks at the entrance to the port.
No waves and spray splashing around at the base though. The wind is in the wrong direction for that today. We’ll have to wait for that until the wind veers back round to the north-west.
There was some work going on at the crane in the inner harbour.
The crane over there is the one that has recently been refurbished – at a cost not unadjacent to €80,000, so I’m told – but it looks as if there’s a guy down there giving the thing some further attention.
What with the barrier at our car park being adjusted just about a week after it’s been installed, it seems to be the thing these days that nothing seems to work as it should despite all of the care, attention and money that has been lavished upon it.
But on the subject of the cranes, I’m still dismayed that the gravel boats are no longer coming into the port. We haven’t seen one of those for a couple of years.
While I was up here on the cliffs I noticed that I could see the town of Cancale quite clearly.
While the view out to sea wasn’t all that much to write home about, the wind was keeping the air in the bay quite clear and the clouds were preventing too much reflection from the sun
Mind you, the rainstorm over there wasn’t doing the visibility much good. You can see how heavy it was.
Back here I had a coffee and then carried on with the photos until I ran out of steam. It’s quite hard to keep the concentration going for too long. At least, it is for me.
Tea was a taco roll with most of the rest of the stuffing, accompanied by rice and veg. It was delicious as usual.
Anyway, I’m off to bed in a moment. For some reason I’m feeling quite tired, although I haven’t done all that much today in the way of physical activity.
But what I am going to do it so try to walk with that crutch that I have in the cupboard from three years ago to see if that can encourage me to move around more. I’m fed up of being stuck around here leaning from wall to wall
In theory I could push on farther but I don’t have the confidence to do so right now. That walk back from the ferry terminal to here was a nightmare.
And I’m worried about what might happen if I fall over and can’t pick myself up, particularly when I’m very close to the edge of the top of a cliff.
