… has been intense today – not like when you go camping when the excitement is in tents, but there has been lots going on.
As I went into the kitchen to make myself a coffee earlier on this morning, I could see the crowds gathering on the edge of the car park at the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs.
It wasn’t the ambulance that attracted the crowds – well, maybe it had something to do with it – but if you look closely, you’ll see that the film cameras are turning and the whole event is being filmed.
As we saw the other day when I was wandering around on my post-prandial perambulations, that the public car park outside has been turned into a lorry park.
The film crew vehicles are parked on there and I am sure that there are quite a few more than there were when we last saw them. And apparently they are likely to stay for a few days yet as the filming continues.
At the moment, I haven’t yet found out the name of the film that they are filming but there will probably be something in the papers. I haven’t checked since I went away to Leuven last week. I’m building up far too many arrears.
But back to the plot.
As one walks around the circuit around the headland, one stumbles across all kinds of film equipment that has been set up in all kinds of strange places.
This lot here was guarded by a security guard who was more interested in checking the messages on his phone rather than on the security of the equipment, so I was having a look round to see if there was anything that would fit nicely into the back of Caliburn.
There are all kinds of people doing all kinds of strange things too.
One of these guys was holding what looked like a microphone and manipulating a portable computer while the other one had some kind of strange black machine with a screen built in.
My initial thought was that they were checking the light with a very sophisticated light meter but having thought about the matter some more, I wondered if they were filming a background, complete with ocean noise, for “green-screening”.
That’s where you film the action against a background of solid colour (usually green but I use bright pink), film a background scene, like a seascape for example, and superimpose the action film onto the background scene, setting the solid coloured background of the action scene to “transparent” on your computer-generated image.
A lot of STRAWBERRY MOOSE‘s action shots are done by green-screening.
But anyway, I digress … “once more” – ed.
Last night I actually had a better night’s sleep. Still not as good as it could be, but an improvement on how it has been just now
After the medication I spent some time revising my Welsh ready for my lesson and I must be psychic because our lesson actually finished right at the point to which I had revised.
But I had a visitor in the middle – someone at the front door downstairs rang the doorbell.
It turned out that he was a locksmith come to change the lock in the apartment that has just been sold.
And I was thinking “if he needs someone to open the front door for him, he can’t be a very good locksmith”.
After lunch I sat down to make a list of things that need to be done within the next couple of weeks, including paying my internet hosting fees, which are not insignificant.
And that reminds me, if you enjoy or appreciate whatever I write, please make your next Amazon purchase by using the links on the sidebar to the right. It costs you no extra but I receive a small commission on the sale.
As usual, when I go out for my afternoon walk, the first thing that I do is to go over and see what is going on down on the beach.
This afternoon I was quite a bit later than usual so the photo doesn’t mean all that much. There was a fair bit of beach down there this afternoon but what caught my eye were the people down there on it.
There’s someone paddling in the water with their trousers rolled up to their knees, but even more interestingly, there seemed to be two people actually in the water up to their necks. Now that’s what I call “brave” as we come into the last third of October.
And that reminds me – although it looks quite nice and it is actually warm, it was freezing this morning and I have now put the heating on in the apartment.
It was another one of these strange, low-lying suns, which isn’t a surprise seeing what time it was when I went out.
It was quite strange because there was a ray of sunshine illuminating the holiday camp just outside Donville les Bains and was creating quite a spectacular effect.
It’s a shame that the camera couldn’t do the view justice, but I bet that those people over there on the beach were enjoying every single moment of it.
That was my cue to push off along the path, fighting my way past film technicians as I did so.
And as I was on my way out, everyone else was on his way back.
Although the harbour gates aren’t yet open, there are flocks of trawlers and other fishing boats heading back home with their catch. I counted about a dozen of them, and there were probably plenty more than I could see.
There weren’t many people out there this afternoon so I could stride on with alacrity – and “stride” too, because it seemed to take less effort to go around than it has done of late. I must be feeling better.
Down the path and across the car park went I, right the way down to the end of the headland.
And you’ll be forgiven for thinking that the sea was quite rough this afternoon, judging by the way that that speedboat is sending a shower of spray just about everywhere.
In fact, it wasn’t all that rough and there wasn’t all that much wind either. It was just the manner and the speed at which the boat was travelling. It was really bouncing about on top of the waves.
Judging by the flag and all of the radio antennae on the roof of the cabin, she seems to be some kind of “official” craft and that might explain everything.
My route took me along the south side of the headland and to the viewpoint overlooking the harbour.
There was no change in occupancy in the chantier naval but the outer harbour was heaving with boats. As I said earlier, the harbour gates are still closed but there’s quite a queue of fishing boats waiting to pass through into the inner harbour.
And over at the ferry terminal are Chausiase and one of the Joly France ferries for the Ile de Chausey. The ferries still run throughout the off-season, but on a very reduced schedule.
And I’m not going to mention the crane at all.
The smaller boats don’t need to go into the inner harbour. They can unload in the outer port at the wharf by the fish processing plant.
Down there is the fishing boat Bouchots de Chausey loaded to the gunwhales with shellfish, all being unloaded by the crane on the trailer on the back of the tractor.
They’ll be in the shops in the morning, nice and fresh.
Back here I had a coffee and had some work to to in respect of my new radio project, and then I stopped for tea.
The cauliflower was washed, diced and blanched and most of it is on its way to the freezer. The rest went into a cheese sauce along with potatoes, vegetables and some veggie balls from the mountain in the freezer and it was totally delicious.
Right now I’m off to bed. I have a list of things to do and of course I have my physio session later in the afternoon so I need to be on form. A good sleep will do me good and I hope that it’s going to be better than some that I’ve had just recently.
