Tag Archives: eglise notre dame

Friday 28th August 2020 – THERE WEREN’T …

high tide plat gousset granville manche normandy france eric hall… too many people on the beach today when I went out for my afternoon walk.

And that’s hardly surprising – and for several reasons too.

Firstly, the tide was well in, as you can see. In fact it wasn’t far off being high tide – although I suspect that the tide was on its way out just now.

Secondly, the weather was pretty miserable too. There was a very high wind, it was cold and there were occasional rain showers. I actually had a jacket on when I went outside and I can’t say that it was unnecessary.

This morning though was another miserable morning. The alarms, although I heard them, didn’t raise me from my bed. It was about 07:15 when I finally arose.

Nothing on the dictaphone either, although I have a vague memory of being somewhere in Portugal with a dog during the night. And if that’s as ever likely.

This morning, with a great deal of effort, I managed to complete the radio programme that I had been preparing. And that was more difficult than it might seem as well because the timings were all miles out and I had to improvise.

Unbelievably, that took me up to lunchtime. And seeing as I had forgotten to bake any bread this morning I had to make do with taco rolls. It’s a good job that I have a stock of those.

This afternoon I’ve spent working on the photos from my trip around Europe. Not that I’ve gone very far with those because firstly I had my route into the Czech Republic all wrong and I had to spend an hour or two going over one of these satellite imaging sites to see if I could identify anything.

Once I’d done that, I managed to trace and old abandoned building that I had seen. Once I’d identified it I was able to do some research about it and in the end I managed to find (in Czech) some information about it.

Czech was not a language that I learnt – they didn’t join the EU until after I had left – so I ended up having to teach myself a little Czech vocabulary in order to work out what it was that I was reading.

Mind you, it took me long enough.

yachts english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallIn between all of this I braved the weather to go out for my afternoon walk.

There was plenty of wind, as I said earlier, but it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good because there were certainly plenty of people taking advantage of it.

Not only did we have the yacht schools out there today, there was probably a dozen or so of them performing some kind of nautical danse macabre out at sea in the English Channel.

trees with blankets on trunks square maurice marland granville manche normandy france eric hallFrom the rue du Nord I carried on to the viewpoint overlooking the Plat Gousset to watch the high tide, and then I walked around to the Square Maurice Marland to see what was going on there.

Not a lot, as it happened, but it was amusing to see what was going on with some of the trees there.

There was no indication at all to suggest what was the purpose of these woollen wrappings around the trunks. It beats me – after all, it’s not as if it is winter yet – but there must be some kind of purpose to it all.

black mamba baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france eric hallWe’ve seen plenty of yachts out in the English Channel, but there were also quite a few on the other side of the headland in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

Regular readers of this rubbish will have seen this one before. It’s Black Mamba and she put in an appearance a few weeks before I went off on my travels on Spirit of Conrad.

She’s been hanging around now ever since, and one of these days I shall have to go along and chat to the skipper to find out some more about the vessel.

old cars jaguar xj s granville manche normandy france eric hallHow long is it since we’ve had an old car on these pages?

Round by the Eglise Notre Dame I saw this vehicle parked up. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen several old jaguars around the town, but we’ve not seen anything as rare as this old Jaguar XJ-S

It’s difficult to tell whether this is a Mark I or a Mark III. The side repeaters on the Mark III are different but on the Mark I it didn’t have them.

That makes me think that it’s a mark I with aftermarket repeaters, but that’s just a wild guess. Whatever it is, it’s certainly interesting.

Back here I carried on with my photos and then stopped for tea. There was some stuffing left from my pepper so I lengthened it with some kidney beans and had more taco rolls, followed by apple crumble

My evening walk was completely uneventful. There was no-one about in this wicked wind and there was nothing whatever going on. The only excitement was that there were still seven boats in the chantier navale.

Shopping tomorrow so i’m having an early night – I hope. And I need it too because I’m exhausted. Here’s hoping that tomorrow will be somewhat better.

Wednesday 24th April 2019 – WHAT A DAY!

Half of the day I’ve spent running around doing stuff, and the second half of the day I’ve spent the day recovering, lying in bed underneath the quilt for a good four hours.

Definitely what you might call a bad day.

With having to leave my bed early this morning, I had a really bad night’s sleep. I couldn’t get off at all and spent most of the night tossing and turning. I did manage to go a-voyaging and when I organise the dictaphone I can tell you all about it.

But up and about quite early and by 07:30 I was back on the road in the driving rainstorm that was going on.

Round by the docks, where Thora was moored at the quayside. She had obviously crept in on the morning tide because I didn’t see her there yesterday.

There was plenty of free parking at the cinema opposite the railway station.

medieval tower city walls st lo manche normandy franceBy 08:45 I was in St-Lô. And Then a 10-minute walk up the hill (past plenty of empty free parking spaces which wouldn’t have been there had I been relying on them).

And also past the medieval city walls and fortifications, or what’s left of them. The city was pretty much devastated during the battles of early July 1944.

The walls are fairly complete though to the eastern side of the city and my route to the Prefecture took me through one of the remaining gates.

I arrived at the Prefecture at 09:00 expecting to have to fight my way past the hordes of disgruntled British immigrants laying siege to the building, but there was no-one about at all, except for a security guard leaning on a wall smoking a cigarette.

The receptionist showed me the way upstairs to the waiting room where there was a water fountain for the thirsty (I couldn’t see a coffee machine but there’s a café on the corner across the road).

One other couple in front of me and they were dealt with and gone by 09:45, and I was called straight away, 15 minutes early for my appointment.

Constance, the girl who saw me, was very nice and friendly and chatted away throughout the meeting. Very nice indeed – she can put her stamp on my dossier any day of the week.

Ohhh yes, I can still chase after the women at my age. I just can’t remember why!

I had two folders, one with original documents that I’d been collecting over the last 9 months recording all the details of my life over the last 6 years and one with the copies, arranged in the order in which they were listed on the application form.

She only seemed to be interested in the copies that I gave her – not so much the originals – except for the passport of course.

ONLY THING MISSING – because I’ve moved house since I came to France, I need a Certificat de Domicile from my current Mairie. But that’s no problem. Constance gave me her e-mail address and I can send it to her by mail.

She took my fingerprints and a specimen signature, and that was that. She promised me a Permanent Resident Card valuable for 10 years, and said that it would be ready in three to four weeks. All I can say is that I admire her optimism.

So there you are, people, totally painless. A journey that started at the beginning of October has finally reached its destination and I hope to be fully registered in France in due course.

All of this Brexit nonsense has been putting me through an enormous amount of stress as you can imagine, but once I have my card in my sweaty little mitt, the silly, stupid xenophobic Brits can go to hell in a handcart.

eglise notre dame st lo manche normandy franceAfter my meeting I was intending to go sight-seeing around the town. But the rain put paid to much of that though.

However, I didn’t have to go far to encounter the Eglise Notre Dame de St Lo. It’s just around the corner.

You will probably notice the plain block wall between the two towers and think that it’s completely out of place. In fact, the church was badly-damaged by the American bombers and the medieval wall that had been there completely disappeared in the blast.

That was a temporary wall, and we all know that there’s nothing at all quite as permanent as a temporary solution.

war memorial prison gates entrance st lo manche normandy franceBut at least there is something still there.

These ruins were part of the entrance gates to the fortified prison that was here. This housed a great many prisoners of the Germans and many were killed when the building suffered a direct hit during the American bombing.

Today it’s a memorial to the civilians who lost their lives during the German occupation and the American attacks.

medieval tower city walls st lo manche normandy franceAt this point the rain got the better of me so I headed back to Caliburn.

I did however notice a really good view of the tower that I had noticed earlier, and I managed to take a photo of it from a better angle.

On the way back home, I called into the “Action” shop in Coutances and picked up another cheap dashcam. I have a little project in mind for that. And then to LeClerc for a couple of bits and pieces.

Back here, I noticed that Thora had gone from her mooring. That was a very quick turnround, which might explain why I went for so long without seeing her.

And so I had lunch and then crashed out in bed for four hours. I felt awful.

An energy drink perked me up a little and then I made tea – an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit from 9th April 2018. That’s the last one of those now so next week I’ll have to make some more.

My new camera bag arrived today. The cheap ones were on offer at Amazon so I treated myself to one – the first part of my mega-spending session to arrive.

sunset ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceAnd then I went out for my evening walk outside.

Having had the heavy rainstorms of today, there were still plenty of heavy clouds around. But they were blowing away quite rapidly and we were treated to this glorious spectacle of a beautiful sunset over the Ile de Chausey

The couple of trawlers silhouetted against the sea gave the photo some kind of ethereal quality.

rainbow granville manche normandy franceWhile I was out there, I was lucky enough to see a rainbow.

Round by the car park in the boulevard Vaufleury, I noticed it away in the sky round by Villedieu-les-Poeles, somewhere like that.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past I’ve taken several photos of rainbows, but the colours have never come out quite as well as they have done tonight. The red, orange, yellow and green are particularly startling.

Now I’m off to bed. I’m still not feeling so good so an early night will do me good. I might even sleep too.