Tag Archives: European Paper Mountain

Thursday 21st March 2019 – AS REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall, today has been a difficult day.

It always is the day after I return from hospital, but today was rather different from the others.

Margaret Thatcher (and how we miss her, with this shower in charge) once said “anyone could do a good day’s work when they felt like it, but the key to success is to be able to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it”.

And that’s what happened today. I didn’t feel very much like it at all, but I did do a very good day’s work all things considering.

Admittedly, when the alarm went off at 06:00 (and 06:10 and 06:20) I didn’t take much notice. I turned over and went back to sleep. And that’s no surprise either. Despite being tired it took me ages to go to sleep last night and I thought that I would never drop off. But I did, and was awoken by the alarms. No chance of leaving the bed at that time though. I turned over and went back to sleep and that was how I stayed until 07:22

Last night I was in London with some other guy and we were looking for a place to stay on a long-term basis. There were student flats available and we were sent to see one near the Thames on the north bank somewhere Fulham way, in a modern block of flats. It was the tiniest room that you have ever seen, with two beds in it and there was already one person in it, so we didn’t know if this person was to leave or whether we would end up with three sharing this tiny room. I was fitted with some kind of arm bracelet, for a reason that I didn’t know at the time. There was a large ginger cat roaming around the area so I picked it up and stroked it, and took it outside with me, to the horror of everyone else who explained to me that the arm bracelet meant that I wasn’t allowed to hold a cat outside the building. Someone mentioned that my Aunt Mary lived in London so why don’t I telephone her. So I did. She told me that she now had a bike so I asked her why she didn’t cycle down the Embankment to meet me. So off she set and we – by now Cecile was with me – went down to meet her. She came out of the subway in the wrong direction as if she had been riding east, and then we lost sight of her. But there she was, a few levels down at street level so we waved and she came up. By now she had transformed into Marianne, and she came over to give me a great big hug and said how much she had missed me. But strangely she had another guy with her too.

07:50 was when I left the bed. So it was rather a late breakfast this morning.

Never mind though. Off into town.

I didn’t gte very far though. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that there are some very low gates into the old medieval walled town and the streets are very narrow, so large vehicles are not permitted in there.

Everything has to be off-loaded and trans-shipped, including ready-mixed concrete.

We saw Normandy Trader in port yesterday afternoon, loading up with a cargo.

She’s now gone from the port, but there’s plenty of cargo left on the quayside. This means that we might well be expecting a visit from Thora.

On the other hand, it could be that Normandy Trader was actually unloading, and we are waiting for the cargo to be taken away.

First stop was at the Railway Station. My old fogey’s railcard is on the verge of expiring so I need a new one. And it’s a good job that I went early because the lady in front of me looked as if she wanted to be there for the Duration.

So armed with my new railcard, I headed off (on foot, not on the train) to LIDL.

We’ve talked in the past about recycling and waste here in Granville, and I was lucky enough to see one of the waste lorries emptying one of the town’s waste containers in the avenue des Matignon.

I hope that they will be emptying the paper bin near me so that I can dispose of some more of the European Paper Mountain.

Although I didn’t buy anything special in LIDL, I did treat myself to a bag of brazil nuts. Two people – one of whom is a doctor and the other one is a patient – have told me now that brazil nuts contain plenty of vital vitamins and minerals, one of which is selenium, a deficiency of which is said by some to be one of the possible causes of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Back here, I did a little (only a little) tidying up and then did the filing of all of the mail that had built up while I was away. And there was a lot of it too.

There were four letters that needed my attention and so after lunch I set down to work. One of the letters was unnecessary because over lunch I had received a mail to say that the issue was resolved, but I managed the other three without any problem.

And then, I … errr … crashed out on the chair for 20 minutes.

On recovering, I headed off back into town and the Post office and dispatched the three letters. That’s another task out of the way. We’ll have to see what comes of those.

on the way back, I took a little sight-seeing diversion to push my daily fitness target up to 100%.

Round by the harbour now we have a lorry just pulling in. So is he going to be delivering more supplies for the next freighter, or is he going to be taking away the supplies that are already here?

Watch this space.

At the moment we are experiencing one of the lowest tides of the year, and for a town that already has the highest tidal range in Europe, a low tide is pretty exceptional.

With all of the fruits de mer around here, the peche à pied or fishing on foot by scavenging in the rock pools and the sand for oysters and mussels is very popular.

The situation basically (it’s much more complicated than this in fact, but this will give you a basic idea) is that the accessible fishing rights between the high tide and the low tide are leased out to people and companies and are thus private.

But the fishing rights for the beach beyond the low tide limits aren’t leased out because they aren’t usually accessible. They are public access fishing areas.

So when we have exceptionally low tides, about a dozen or so times a year, everyone floods out to the public access areas to try their luck.

They are still quite busy at the Chantier Navale.

It seems that Armor has cleared off, but Charles_Marie and la Granvillaise are still here.

We have a new boat too. I’m not sure if she’s one of the ferries for the Ile de Chausey, or whether in fact she’s something else.

I Shall have to go out and check at some point.

Back here I attacked the mountain of photos that have built up while I was away – fighting hard the temptation to go and lie down for half an hour. But I survived up until teatime. Pasta and a burger, followed by chocolate cake and soya dessert.

This evening it was dark when I went out for a walk, and spent much of the time out there watching a trawler coming out of the English Channel towards the harbour.

I took a pile of photos of it at different speeds, apertures and ISO settings and you can compare them all by looking at them here and also below.

But I’ve done 118% of my daily activity today, which is good news. I’ve been at or over 100% for almost every day since last Thursday. It’s hardly a surprise that I’m feeling the pressure just now.

So on that note, I’m going to bed. And it’s not even 21:45 yet. I’ve had a hard day.

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night trawler tying up port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 12th March 2019 – WHO’S BEEN A …

… busy boy then today?

But first, let me say that over the whole of the day I’ve put my feet outside the door for just about 10 metres today. There’s a howling gale going on outside with torrential rain to boot, and I’ve no intention whatever of suffering outt here unless I absolutely have to;

But back to events in here.

The alarms went off at usual and much to my surprise, I was up and about at 06:45.

Plenty of time to go on a little wander during the night too. I was wandering around somewhere that could easily have been Altrincham. There was some kind of walled yard with a creaky wooden gate, so I glanced in and I saw what I thought was an old twin-cylinder Honda motorbike. So I went in. It was in fact a small single-cylinder Honda with a large chain sprocket. I spoke to the owner and joked that I thought that it might have been an old CB450 “black bomber”. There were several old mtorbikes in this yard, so we had quite a chat about them, so he took me inside to the shed where there was a 200c Triumph single, a BSA250cc single and a couple of other old British motorbikes. And I was wondering which one of these I could fit into the back of Caliburn

The medication and breakfast were thus quite early, and then I settled down to work.

The first job was to attack the photos. I did an hour or so, and then carried on after tea. So that’s another couple of hundred dome for the month of September.

But in between, I attacked the European Paper Mountain and all of that is now done. The shredder didn’t make it right to the end though. It gave up with about a dozen papers to go and not even dismantling it to clean it seems to have worked. In the end I had to tear up the rest of the papers by hand.

Next step was to go through all of the loose papers that I had brought with me. I’ve sorted right the way through those, added a lot to the next load of shredding, sorted and filed those for 2016,17,18 and 19, and put the earlier years ready for filing in a spare binder in due course.

Finally, I went through all of the unopened post that had accumulated down on the farm when I wasn’t there. That’s all opened, sorted, some of it binned and the rest of it filed away.

And then we had a giant clean-up of the floor with a brush to sweep up all of the paper bits.

As well as all of that, I also had to make a telephone call to the Isle of man to sort something out, and that involve writing a couple of e-mails. All in all, about an hour was spent on that.

And I’ve rearranged things in the kitchen too, to make more space and to be better-organised. I shan’t know myself at this rate.

This all took me up to tea time, when I made myself a vegan burger with potatoes and veg, followed by chocolate cake and coconut-flavoured chocolate cake. And as I expected, it was delicious.

If that isn’t enough, after tea I fried some onios and garlic, added the remaining packet of tofu and herbs, fried it for a while and then bunged it all in the slow cooker. Even as we speak, it’s simmering away.

That’s for the shepherd’s pie that I will make tomorrow.

So even though it’s not yet 22:00, I’m going to go to bed. I’ve had a very busy day as you can see and I’m exhausted.

A good sleep will do me good, I reckon.

Friday 8th March 2019 – SPRING IS SPRUNG!

the grass is riz
I wonder where de boidies is;

But never mind the birdies for the moment. We have the first sighting of buds on the plants today and I can’t believe that this has grown overnight, so I don’t know when they first appeared.

But nevertheless, it’s a welcome sign and always cheers me up when the buds appear. The sun can’t be far behind.

Last night was another good sleep, right the way through until the alarm went off. I’d been on a little voyage too. I was planning to travel to Canada one evening, and so sometime during the precious small hours I decided to go for a walk, despite the fact that I hadn’t even started packing. I was going along Nantwich Road in Crewe and on the corner of Ruskin Road where Chatwins was, there was an open-air bar with people sitting outside on long tables and benches. At that moment this really beautiful petite girl turned up and I was overwhelmed by her, but just as I was about to go over to talk to her, she took out a cigarette and lit it up. And nothing is more guaranteed to turn me off is someone starting to smoke. I ended up back somewhere where there was an array of television screens hanging from the walls, with a row of comfortable spacecraft-type seats in front of them. There were two people sitting on them – an older man and a young girl aged about 12 or so. I sat down on one of the chairs and pressed a button to select a film, which was something like a Star Wars film or similar.

07:00 when I finally arose from my stinking pit and I do have to admit that I could have forced myself out a long time before that too.

But having had the medication and then the breakfast (I’m enjoying my porridge) I set to work.

My trip around my blog and the searchable text database had brought me back to 14th October, and I could see why I had stopped there, because the previous day was our trip to the Ile de Chausey, with about 80 photographs.

And so I revised the blog entry for 13th October to make it much more readable, and to remove most of the photos from there.

Instead I created another web page specifically to show the photos and while I was at it, I noticed a little problem.

It seems that I have put an extra closed division in the coding of the web page that had forced some of the coding out of its container. I must have done that when I changed the web counter over.

So I had to go through and identify where it was, and remove it. And from all of the pages for the Carnaval too. And there were one or two other coding issues that needed correcting.

All of that took me up to lunchtime – a good morning’s work that was.

After lunch, talking of the carnaval, the first task was to vacuum the apartment. I think that I’ve shaken all of the confetti out of my clothes and the apartment was looking as if it had dandruff. So all of that was dealt with.

I seem to recall that last year I was still vacuuming up the confetti 6 months later, and it’ll probably be the same this year.

Next task was to shred another load of paper. The European Paper Mountain is looking much more manageable now and it won’t be long before it’s all gone.

The rest of the afternoon, such as it was, was doing a few more blog entries and, unfortunately, a little repose for 10 minutes on my chair.

Of course we had the usual walk around the headland this afternoon, and I stopped to see what was going on in the chantier navale

As well as Armor and La Granvillaise, we seem to have acquired another boat down there. She’s the Charles-Marie, another one of the tourist boats that hangs around the harbour.

I’ll have to go for another wander around down there to see what they are doing to her.

Tea tonight was a potato and lentil curry from 5th December … errr … 2017 and it really was delicious too.

And then I went for my walk around the walls. There was a strong wind and rain but the sea had died down so we didn’t have anything whatever compared to last night.

No-one around at all again so I was on my own. So I didn’t hang around.

Tonight will be an early night. I’m hoping for an early start tomorrow because it’s shopping day.

I don’t need much of course because I’m leaving on Thursday

Saturday 2nd February 2019 – WHAT AN APPALLING …

… football match this evening.

US Granville excelled themselves in cluelessness against CMS Oissel, 5 places below them in the table, at the Stade Louis Dior.

Oissel were a lively, energetic team and could easily have scored three goals in the first five minutes as they tore relentlessly into the Granville side. Only some excellent goalkeeping kept them at bay.

Granville had no answer and never really looked remotely like troubling the Oissel goalkeeper. The only surprise was that the score was only 1-0 for Oissel at half time.

It went from bad to worse on the hour mark. A Granville player put in a rather heavy challenge on a Oissel player and received a yellow card. And, for absolutely no reason that I could see or hear, while the Oissel player was on the floor receiving treatment, the referee strode over to the Granville player and showed him a straight red card. There was nothing whatever, no off-the-ball incident, no foul language, no dissent or anything that I saw that could have possibly warranted the straight red card.

Surprisingly, being a man down, Granville played their best football after this and had the Oissel defence under pressure – only to be hit by a breakaway upfield and a second Oissel goal.

There should have been a third one, for with the Granville keeper stranded, an attacker completely unmarked had a shot at the goal … and hit the post!

And even more astonishingly, a Granville player picked up the loose ball, kicked it upfield catching the Oissel defence cold and a Granville player slotted a goal back, after much binding in the marsh in the penalty area.

Granville then pushed on upfield, only to concede yet another breakaway with the last kick of the match.

But all in all, it really was a dreadful, clueless, aimless performance that was going absolutely nowhere. If you have the strength or the courage, you can see the goals here

Last night, I was in bed early. Long before 23:00 in fact. Not that it did me much good because I was awake again at 02:45. Eventually I did go back to sleep, where I remained until the alarm went off.

But during the night I was in the East End of London last night and ended up with a girl – a girl who was clearly someone of ill-repute. We were walking along the streets arm-in-arm having a laugh at a politician who had likewise met a girl of ill-repute and was walking the streets with her but pretending that they weren’t together, even though it was quite obvious that they were. This girl and I ended up in a typical East-End dosshouse right in the heart of Ripperland London round by Fashion Street and Thrawl Street off the Whitechapel Road. The house was was far, far worse than anywhere where I have ever stayed in my life. I stayed there the night and in the morning the girl disappeared off to have a shower, so as I needed the bathroom I followed her, although I lost track of her even though I could hear the water running. I was appalled at the state of the house – the toilets were nothing more than a couple of holes cut into benches, the plaster was falling off the walls and my fellow-tenants did not inspire me with any confidence whatsoever. When the girl came back she made a remark about being glad that she hadn’t bought the other shampoo because there was conditioner in it. I asked her if she didn’t use conditioner, to which she replied that she liked to use a separate conditioner.

Just for a change, I was up fairly early too. Breakfast was early and then I had a shower, even doing a machine-load of washing.

Before going out, I shredded another load of paper from the European Paper Mountain and then it all went into the paper bin outside.

Today was one of the most minimal shopping days for quite a while. LIDL had nothing special, and neither did LeClerc. In fact, I spent a mere €16:00 in there. And that includes some tofu. I remembered the vegan pains au chocolat too.

At NOZ, they had a guitar lead, a couple of nice cereal bowls and a couple of CDs. Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation and Joe Satriani’s “Super Colossal”. And at €1:99 each too.

This afternoon, having had a brief doze for 10 minutes, I made the filling for the next pie.

I fried some onion and garlic in olive oil until it was caramelised and then added sage, rosemary, parsley and the tofu. All of that was fried on a low heat for about 20 minutes, and then I added a stock cube and some water.

While all of that was marinating, I went off for the football.

Back here was tea out of a tin and then I put the tofu in the fridge. Tomorrow, I’ll fry up some leeks and green flageolet beans and then add the tofu mix. That will make a beautiful pie filling.

So no alarm tomorrow. It’s Sunday and a lie-in. And I can’t say that I’ll be sorry.

I’m looking forward to a decent night’s sleep, and I have clean bedding to enjoy. So I hope that I can make the most of it.

Thursday 31st January 2019 – THE WEATHER …

… was something of a disappointment today.

During the night the skies had clouded over. The temperature had gone up slightly so there was just some surface frost here and there. No snow and no heavy icing.

For a change, I’d had a decent sleep – right out of it all until the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. I’d been in a submarine (which of course is extremely unlikely, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall) and it had been the subject of a depth-charge attack. And all of the loose deck furniture, barrels and cases and chairs and all kinds of things, break free and float to the surface. What surprised me more than anything is that the very thought of all of this makes me break out into a real sweat in real life, yet last night I was quite calm and relaxed about it.
A little later I was joining a crowd of people at the side of a swimming pool, everyone sitting on these white plastic chairs. One of the people sitting there was a girl with whom I would have been pleased to be associated. So I went to sit next to her. She said that she needed to be sitting on the end of the group so that she could go to dance, and were I to sit there I would be preventing her. So I suggested that we swap places but she found another excuse for that.
And so it went on.

The alarm went off as usual, and I was soon out of bed – but not as soon as I would have liked. And after breakfast I had a good shower and clean-up and then hit the streets.

It was cold out there and I found, rather unexpectedly, a patch of solid ice.

I’ve mentioned the fibre-optic cabling works before.

It seems that now they are digging up the pavement in the rue des Juifs ready to connect up the lower town with our bit up here.

But I had a chat with the guys there and there is still no date announced for when the fibre-optic cabling might become operational.

Down in the harbour Normandy Trader was there next to Marité.

She was loading up ready to leave. A large lorry was down there and I imagine that it had come to deliver a load or two of stuff to take back to Jersey.

One of these days I’ll go down for a chat with them on board.

At the Post Office I posted my letter from the other day and then went off to LIDL.

I’d already slipped on a patch of ice earlier, and here at LIDL there was a load of snow that presumably had fallen off a lorry or a car that had turned into the car park.

At LIDL there was nothing of any interest there so I came home and had a coffee.

And a chat on the internet with someone whom I had met on my little sea voyage in September. That was a pleasant surprise.

After lunch, I did a mega-back-up on the laptop that I’m back to using as a media centre and then started to tidy up in a big way a series of directories that had become all tangled up over the last ever so many years. That was a long and difficult job and it’s another one that will go on for a while.

As well as the session on the bass guitar, I also started the paper-shredding session. Piles of paper here in the European Paper Mountain that is of a sensitive nature, so I’ve promised myself to shred it. I’ll do a few each day until it’s all gone. At least it won’t overfill the paper bin outside.

In between all of this, I went for a walk around the headland.

Another part of the path is now closed off due to being unsafe so it’s all becoming quite confused. I’m wondering if my apartment block, over there on the right, will slide into the sea sometime soon.

It wasn’t very pleasant out there though. The wind was howling and the rain was teeming down. it was cold too so when I was walking into the wind it was stinging my face and it was very uncomfortable.

Not having crashed out at all yesterday, I was disappointed to go off with the fairies today. Twice. But only for 10 minutes each time. I suppose that that’s an improvement. Especially following my walk up to LIDL.

Tea was a slice of pie that I found in the freezer, with vegetables and gravy, followed by a rice pudding.

For the evening walk, the rain and wind had died down so it wasn’t too bad.

There was a nice ethereal view of the Place d’Armes in the distance, with part of the rue du Nord illuminated by the street light on the corner. The night and the light brings out the best in places like this.

And just for a change, I wasn’t alone tonight. There were a couple of other people out there too.

So I’ll have an early night tonight. Catch up with my beauty sleep and a relaxing day tomorrow.

Wednesday 9th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

…day.

And it all started off so well too.

Despite a night that wasn’t as early as it might have been, I was still up and about relatively early. I’d even been on a nocturnal ramble but wherever I had been, I don’t remember now because it disappeared from view as soon as I awoke.

After breakfast and a little attention to a few things here and there, I attacked the European Paper Mountain. And by the time that I had finished for the day (more of which anon) almost all of the most important papers had been itemised and filed away in a special binder.

I’d even gone through and made a list of papers that are missing, and I’ve started to send out enquiries for the missing ones.

One thing that surprised me more than anything though was that after living in total chaos since 2012 (according to the papers that have already been filed), with papers just about everywhere all over my house in Les Guis, in sacks and boxes and all over the floor on three levels of home, and living in all kinds of unsatisfactory temporary accommodation until moved here in May 2017, there are so few papers missing.

In fact, I was hard at it for most of the day.

Lunch was soup again, and it was even nicer than before.

I managed to go on my couple of walks today too.

in the wind. Few people about, but then again that’s not a surprise. The wind is a bit strong. But there’s clearly something going on with the tides because there were people out there on the beach scavenging in the rock pools.

Flexing their mussels, you might say.

In fact the tide was quite far out and in the distance I could see that there was a lot going on.

I don’t know whether they are oyster beds or mussels beds just offshore at Donville-les-Bains but whatever they are, it looked as if they were taking advantage of the low tide by doing a spot of harvesting.

There were a few men with a couple of tractors and trailers working around amongst the staves.

But even though the sky was cloudy and overcast, and the wind was quite strong, it was for some reason a beautiful day for photography.

You couldn’t see all that far today but what you could see came out really well.

With the 70-300mm zoom lens I was able to pick out features on the Ile de Chausey that are usually enveloped in haze and spray. That view over there is probably 14 or 15 miles away at the far northern end of the archipelago.

That wasn’t all of the excitement either.

Anyone remember the film Tora Tora Tora? And in particular the scene where as rhe Jpapanese pilots step into their aeroplanes and the sun breaks through the clouds?

That’s exactly what happened here just as I walked around the corner to the Place Maurice Marland and looked over the Baie de Mont St Michel. It really was so impressive.

From my vantage point back on top of the walls, I could see that there was a lot of activity going on on the quayside down below.

There was a lorry pulling up down in the harbour, loaded with another 20 tonnes of gravel. It’s not the first one either because there’s already quite a pile there by the conveyor.

That can only mean one thing – that is that Neptune or one of her sisters will be putting in an appearance pretty soon to take it all away.

There’s a derelict building in the Place Cambernon. Apaprently it was formerly the library and meeting hall.

It’s been like that ever since I moved here nearly two years ago and there was some talk at the mayor’s meeting last year that something was going to happen to it.

And here we are, with scaffolding up and the builders have moved in. This should be an exciting development once things get under way and the work advances.

Back here after my walk, something else that I managed to do was to book my next trip to Leuven and my medical appointment. It’s quite exciting in that the fares are on special offer so I’ve booked my trip – 600 kms each way of which 300 each way are on a high-speed TGV – for a mere €138.

For 1200 kms! I bet that you wouldn’t ever have a fare like that in the UK.

And my room for three nights in Leuven because I’m going to stay on for an extra day and come back on Wednesday.

But the bad news is that round about 17:00 I started to wobble. I kept it up for about 10 minutes and then that was that. On the bed.

At 18:30 I briefly came round and crawled under the covers, and there I stayed until about 20:30. Totally flat out. And I would probably still be there now had I not been required to go for a ride on the porcelain horse.

Mind you, I did go off on a nocturnal ramble. And a welcome return to Zero. She used to accompany me quite regularly on my travels during the night but she’s not been around awhile so it was nice to see her, even if she was known during this journey by another name.

I’ll spare you the details though. You are probably eating your tea right now, which is more than I did because I missed my tea slot.

I did manage to arouse myself enough for my evening walk though.

And the night was another one of those nights that was crisp and clear, and probably deep and even too, with a good view for quite a considerable distance.

Across the bay, the lights of Cancale were quite clear, and you could see the reflection up there in the clouds of the streetlights of St Malo.

There was a patch of light moving across the bay from the direction of the Ile de Chausey.

I wasn’t sure at first if it might have been one of the ferries, but on closer inspection it appears to be a trawler coming into port here at Granville on the evening tide.

And for once, I was able to take a fairly clear photograph of it. It’s not come out too badly, all in all.

So back in my cosy little nook. Tomorrow is shopping so I’ll need to get my rest. But what with all of this rest and sleep, I’m not sure what state I’m going to be in if I don’t manage to go to sleep again.

ostreiculture donville les bains granville manche normandy france

ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

sun through clouds baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night st helier jersey granville manche normandy france

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

… old times in here right now. I’m up to my knees, and probably even deeper, in papers and documents right now.

As part of my little project I have to find all kinds of paperwork going back 6 years. This last 18 months is pretty straightforward since I’ve been here but prior to that, especially during the period when I was ill my paperwork was all over the place.

However, when I was back down there in August I grabbed as much of it as I could and brought it back. So now, I have to go through about three sacks full of paper to find what I need.

I’m not having a great deal of luck from that point of view (at least, so far and there is still plenty to go at) but it really IS astonishing what you find when aren’t looking for it. After I took early retirement in 2004 I worked for a couple of years for an employment agency and for two American companies while I saved up to buy the roofing for my house in the Auvergne.

I’d practically written off anything to do with that period of employment, but today going through the European Paper Mountain I came across my registration certificate for the Belgian National Pensions Office. I’m not sure if I’m entitled to a pension from Belgium and even if I am, it won’t be anything at all to write home about, but at least I can write and make enquiries. You never know.

This morning I had something of a surprise.

When I awoke it was 06:45. What had happened to the alarm?

And then I remembered. Tuesday last week was New Year’s Day, and the previous Tuesday was Christmas Day. So I had switched off the alarms for Tuesday, hadn’t I?

And being nice and relaxed, I’d been on my travels. In a hotel trying to do a pile of paperwork in my room but not being able to concentrate, I went down to the reception area. There it was even worse, so I went back upstairs and tried again, but with no more luck than before. So in the end I packed my things and went outside to try to work out there, but the lorry driver who was taking me on saw me coming and pulled out of the lorry park, did a lap around the block and pulled up alongside me, blocking the road. And so I had to climb aboard, even though it meant that I wasn’t going to be able to do what I wanted to do before I reached home.

A slightly later breakfast (but not as late as some days just recently) and then a chat to Liz on the internet. She and Terry had an important meeting this morning so I wished them luck.

First thing that I needed to do was to obtain a couple of certificates from the British Government. Luckily, this can be done by internet but it’s time-consuming and took a lot of research – as well as being quite expensive.

When that was finally out of the way, I went down to Caliburn and brought up all of the paperwork. And despite stopping for lunch (more soup from Liz), my two walks and tea (a stuffed pepper) I was hard at it all day.

A good proportion of the paperwork has gone in the bin as “no longer necessary” but I found more vital paperwork that I expected to find – in fact I ended up being disappointed in that with a little more effort I might have had a lot more and I’m wondering where the rest might be.

On my walk this afternoon, there were a few people around for a change. It’s been quiet just recently out there.

Another place that was busy was the Chantier Navale. There are quite a few ships hauled out of the water right now receiving some kind of attention there.

I don’t recall having seen it so busy in the past. It’s clearly a booming business and I would have loved to have seen it in its heyday prior to 1992 when all of the Newfie trawlers were sailing out of here.

But there are still a few ships sailing out of here.

We have the gravel boats like Neptune of course, and the ferries to the Ile de Chausey and Jersey, but we also have the little freighters like Normandy Trader and Thora running the freight shuttles to Jersey.

Here today we have Thora in port. We noticed her last night having presumably come in on the evening tide

But despite the crowds this afternoon, this evening the walk around the walls was totally deserted apart from me.

But there was plenty of interest to see because the wind had risen and it was blowing quite strongly outside. The tide was well in too and so the waves were crashing down on the promenade at the Plat Gousset with quite some considerable force.

There was no-one down there taking advantage of the free shower on offer, which is probably not a surprise to anyone.

And Thora was still in harbour too.

That’s quite a surprise because she doesn’t usually hang about here for as long as this. I hope that she’s not having any difficulties.

And no cats tonight. I came straight home, had a chat to Alison after I came back and that’s my lot. A decent night’s sleep and then I’ll attack the paperwork part II. At least, if I know what I don’t have, I can start from there.

And I didn’t crash out today. How about that?

storm waves night plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Saturday 13th June 2015 – I KNOW THAT I SAID …

… something about all of the things that I was going to do today. Well, none of that happened at all. I was sidetracked quite severely today.

A short while ago, while moving some stuff around downstairs, I came across a box marked “LPs”. And having you told you all a while ago about the little program that I have discovered that enables me to download tracks off the internet, I brought the box up here to go though it, see what LPs are in it, see what I already replaced with a CD and then see what is available on the internet for the LPs that I already own and which I dn’t have on CD.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … I lifted out the first dozen or so LPs, and that was all that there were. Underneath was a huge pile of paperwork. probably about half a tonne, I reckon.

It’s all stuff that I brought back from Brussels when I sold the apartment, and another pile of stuff that I had accumulated while I was living downstairs in the lean-to between 2007 and 2009. All of which I had completely forgotten.

So this morning, with a nice stiff mug of coffee I sat down and attacked version 2 of the European Paper Mountain.

By the time that I had finished, I reckon that about three quarters of it will be on its way to the great paper mill in the sky, and probably a lot more will follow it once I’ve closely examined it all. But I have found tons of stuff that is important, including all of the registration details for the Brian James car transporter that I bought a couple of years ago. As well as that, I’ve found a letter that I’ve been looking for for 3 years, a couple of instruction books that I need, and all of the Canada papers for my visit of 2012 and for my land at Mars Hill Road.

So, bingo!

Now, one thing leads to another as you all know, and once you start off, you’ll be surprised at just how many other things there are. Piling the waste paper into an IKEA bag, I decided to add another pile of waste paper – and then another etc etc.

And moving the box away from the wall left a space which was just the right size for the small set of shelves that Hans gave me last month when I was in Eching.

All of the food and cooking gear has now gone onto those shelves and at one swell foop this place looks a lot better than it did before (although there are still a hundred miles to go).

Now, I have a space next to the desk, so I moved my comfortable chair over there. I can now reach the external drives and the external DVD player simply by reaching out my hand. This led to a session of copying to my laptop the CDs that I bought in Canada and subsequently that have been sitting in a nice orderly pile on the desk. I’ve recorded 15 of them, which leaves just a mere 23 to go, but it’s a start.

This was hard work and so I closed my eyes for a little doze. and just as I was dropping gently into the arms of Morpheus, Rosemary rang for a chat. So there I was, for a good half hour.

I’d checked the clock at one moment and it was 17:57. Next time I looked, it was 20:18. Where did that 2 hours go? I must really have been engrossed in what I was doing.

But honestly, it doesn’t look any better in here. But then, I can’t do this tidying-up lark at all. All of this stuff heaved out or tidied up on shelves and the place just looks worse.

But you can see now why I didn’t do what I had intended to do today, and it wasn’t for lack of effort either.

Remember that yesterday I mentioned the rainstorm?

We had 40.5mm that fell in a three-hour period. And today, despite the good start, we ended up with another downpour in the evening and that gave us another 15mm.

That’s good news for me because my water tanks are full to overflowing. And as there are two tanks together – the rainwater falls into the top of the back tank, sinks to the bottom, passes through the connecting piece (which is at the bottom of the tanks) and into the front tank, with the overflow at the top of the front tank, then there’s a continual circulation of water in there and this is good for aeration. This means that it’s not just a stagnant pool of water.

And as I pull water from the bottom of the front tank, this is where the freshest water will be anyway. So a really heavy downpour like this is really good news for me.

-1

Sunday 8th July 2012 – 11.5 mms …

… of rain fell last night. And apart from the very start of the downpour I heard nothing at all because I was in bed by 23:40 or so and that was that until Marianne rang me at 10:00.

Well, almost, because if I ever find out who it was who telephoned me at about 04:00 or thereabouts, I shall go round to visit them with a piece of lead piping.

Despite my early night it was still a struggle to crawl out of bed this morning and I was late for Marianne, but eventually we arrived at La Cellette and set up Marianne’s exhibition even though I wasn’t feeling much like it.

Nane was there and she made me a cup of coffee and that made me feel a little better, and Rick the trailer guy was there with his string quartet – they were doing the music today and a very good job they were making of it. That made the day so much better too.

The crowd was rather disappointing though, but better than last year when, rather astonishingly, no-one turned up at all.

This afternoon I finally finished sorting out all of the photos – all nicely arranged, stored and documented – and I’ve sent the ones off that this author guy wants. That’s that out of the way and hopefully the cash will be in the bank in early course. Some photos were in triple, if not quadruple, examples and I’ve cleared tons of room out on the external drive that I’ll be storing them on from now on.

But there are files stored on there from when I first started backing up on external drives, back in 2002, and what might be a good idea would be to go through them all and make a proper continual stream of files instead of having them stored by reference to the hard drive that they used to be on. Another thing that I might do is now that the big desktop computer is redundant, to take one of the 500GB drives out of that and fit it into a caddy that I have lying around here, and make an external drive just for photos. You’ve no idea how much space these photos take. The first few years of digital photography, 2001-2005, take up less than 1 DVD of space. In one week in Canada in 2010 I used more space than that.

And before I forget, for I’ve already forgotten twice, a big thank-you to Rhys as the phone that he sent to me arrived on Friday and it works fine.

-2

Saturday 7th July 2012 – It’s flaming well raining again;

It’s not like me to use bad language – in fact I only swear when it slips out, as the much-maligned Percy Penguin, who doesn’t appear in these pages anything like as often as she deserves, will be only too pleased to testify, but this weather is rather getting on my nerves.

This morning we had a few clouds and the weather slowly improved during the day, to such an extent that when I was shopping in St Eloy this afternoon I treated myself to a sorbet. But this evening it clouded over, and then we had the storm.

I was late going to St Eloy too – 16:00 or so. and I didn’t spend long (or much) there either – just a quick whizz around. But our water butts haven’t come (as if we were really expecting them) and that’s bad news.

So what have I been doing that’s been holding me up? Well, I’ve sold some photos to a book publisher and of course he wants the originals, as you might expect. But could I find them? I could find everything except the ones that I wanted and so I’ve been on a frantic search. Eventually I tracked them down on a long-unused hard drive (no idea where the DVD backup for that period went) and so that was that problem solved. But having reached the conclusion that my photo filing is total rubbish, I’ve spent all day (and probably tomorrow too) sorting them all out and filing them as they ought to be filed. And when that’s done, I’ll redo the back-up photo DVDs.

And while all of that was a-doing, it gave me an opportunity to start filing away the European Paper Mountain. if I’m not careful I might find myself all organised and that will never do.

-2

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 – I didn’t do a tap …

… of work on the house today. Just recently, as you know, I’ve been in great demand. If it’s not Rosemarie after my services, it’s Marianne. But today it was Bill who rang up. I can’t think what I have done to be so popular. It isn’t like me.

Anyway, Bill had to go to St Etienne or thereabouts this afternoon to pick up a dog. It’s a long way and he wasn’t sure of the route and so he asked me if I would go with him. And it was a long way too – 6 or 7 hours all told there and back (it was actually half-an-hour beyond St Etienne) in the glorious sunshine. Still, a nice drive out for a change.

This morning though, I was on the website again, except for 10 minutes when I was having a blazing row with someone from the electricity company. She wanted to check the pylon but she couldn’t approach it because there are too many brambles and nettles and so on in the way. She had a right old go at me about it and I patiently said nothing until she finished, when I told her that the land out here is actually the property of the commune, not me, and I would be grateful if she would moderate her language when she spoke to me, remove herself from my presence, and go to see the mayor and use the same offensive terms to him. It really was quite an animated discussion and she won’t be back here in a hurry when I’m around.

Apart from that, I’ve been dealing with the European Paper Mountain this evening and making enormous progress. I won’t know myself at this rate.

-2

Sunday 15th May 2011 – I’ve hardly been …

… outside today. Just once to take the lid off the cloche, and once to put it back on again and to take the stats. And that was that.

For the rest of the time I’ve stayed up here – catching up on tons of outstanding correspondence and so on, and there’s still tons to do but I haven’t done it.

But even in the confines of my comfy little corner I can still stir up a whirlwind, so I’m told. There’s one of these industrial walks next Saturday – I don’t know if you remember last year the one where we visited all of the old coal mines and quarries – and this year its to look at a few bits and pieces and to visit a Roman gold mine. So of course Yours Truly sent a message to the contacts group to inform them of the walk, with a little light-hearted comment such as “and we are going gold-prospecting, so bring your own shovel and pan”. And to cut a long story short “thank God” – ed my message has appeared word for word in the local newspaper.

Of course the organisers are furious but then again what can I do about it? I didn’t report it to the newspapers and the local reporter who covers the area – she didn’t report it either as it was she who told me about it. So who did?

Ahh well.

Anyway, back at work tomorrow. And I need to go to Riom in the afternoon. High time I was a little more pro-active.

Sunday 8th May 2011 – And just for a change …

… seeing as it was Sunday, I was up and breakfasted by 08:30. These days I can’t even manage that usually on a weekday when I’m supposed to be working, never mind a Sunday when I didn’t go to bed until 03:45.

Anyway, after watching a film on the DVD I set about attacking the huge pile of paperwork that’s been accumulating here for the past two years or so. Half of it has gone into the bin, most of the other half has been put tidily for now, and (most importantly) all of the bank statements that I can find for now have beeh filed away. One plan that I have is to spend 15 minutes each day on the Central France Paperwork Mountain until it’s all filed away. Mind you, with an average lifespan of just about 18 years left to me, I’m not sure that there will be enough time left.

All of that took me to, would you believe, 14:00 and so I had enough time to grab a butty before going off to St Marcel for the match against Beaune D’Allier. And having seen yesterday the world’s smallest centre-half, today I had the privilege of seeing the world’s narrowest football pitch. St Marcel were comprehensively beaten 4-2, but the standard of play (for a 1st Division match at level 7 of the French pyramid) was absolutely woeful. Pionsat’s 3rd XI, more renowned for their enthusiasm than their skill, could have spanked both these teams with plenty to spare.

And I manage to keep up my record of one moment of skill each year from the touchline. Another high chandelle – or “up-and-under” to the uninitiated, right over where I’m standing, and finding myself right underneath it, I wait until it’s dropped right down and then head it back into play. Three years running now that I’ve done that.

On the way home I have a little hunt around St Fargeol for the old railway station there but I’m not able to find it, and back home, with the solar water at 39°C (the sun now clearing the trees) I have a gorgeous solar shower. I quite enjoyed that.

With a coffee and a film I sit down on my room but the exertions of the day, particularly the late finish and early start, mean that the next thing that I know is that it’s 22:20 – yes, I’ve crashed out again, and I had so much to do this evening. Ahh well.

Monday 24th January 2011 – It’s a shame about the forest.

And I should know. I served on 5 Open University Students Association committees (OUSA Belgium, NERF, the SRG, the Region 9 Regional Committee and the OUSA EC) for about 3 years and I have just thrown all my papers away. And it took three huge Royal Mail sacks to take it all down to the skip here. Heaven knows how many trees that represents but if you calculate the number of people who actually serve on these committees it must be at least something the equivalent of the New Forest.

Yes, the European Paper Mountain indeed.

But at least I can get into my office now which is just as well, for that’s where I’ve been sleeping and so I’ll have room to spread out tonight.

We also have an electric oven and grill. Terry helped me fight my way into the garage that I rent downstairs and we pulled out the fitted oven that I bought a few years ago in a sale. A slightly shopsoiled display unit it was and so reduced from £769 to £307 and so in keeping with my idea of going for quality at a reduced price rather than full-price rubbish, I bought it and stored it in the garage until I was ready for it.

It seems too that the rewiring that I did in the kitchen was rather … errr ….unorthodox and with Terry being a fully-qualified time-served electrician he put that right in no time at all – well, geologically speaking that is.

The cleaning and throwing away of stuff is also continuing and at this rate we’ll have a place to sit down by the weekend.

I’m hoping that we can have the place finished off in a couple of weeks so that I can sell it and have another weight off my shoulders but in a certain respect I shall be sorry to leave here permanently even though it’s been almost four years since I paid it any more than a flying visit.

-2

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: European Paper Mountain

Thursday 21st March 2019 – AS REGULAR READERS …

Tuesday 12th March 2019 – WHO’S BEEN A …

Friday 8th March 2019 – SPRING IS SPRUNG!

Saturday 2nd February 2019 – WHAT AN APPALLING …

Thursday 31st January 2019 – THE WEATHER …

Wednesday 9th January 2019 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

Tuesday 8th January 2019 – IT’S JUST LIKE …

Saturday 13th June 2015 – I KNOW THAT I SAID …

Sunday 8th July 2012 – 11.5 mms …

Saturday 7th July 2012 – It’s flaming well raining again;

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 – I didn’t do a tap …

Sunday 15th May 2011 – I’ve hardly been …

Sunday 8th May 2011 – And just for a change …

Monday 24th January 2011 – It’s a shame about the forest.

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