Tag Archives: fish farm

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

… on my travels last night.

However I shall spare you the details. You are probably eating your tea or something like that right now.

But I was so far away on my travels that I didn’t leave the bed until after the 06:20 alarm which was rather disappointing. But then, I didn’t go to bed until late so I suppose it was only to be expected.

After the medication and so on (I missed breakfast due to one reason or another) I had a shower – and a haircut too. This new hair trimmer works a treat and my hair (such as I have left) looks quite good now.

And then I headed off to the shops.

Just by way of a change I’d taken the Nikon 1 with me so that I would be ready if I were to see anything worth photographing.

And Iw as in luck down at the docks because one of the giant cranes had come back.

I’m not sure why because there were no lock gates to be replaced. It might be replacing the mast in one of the boats but I couldn’t really tell.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing a few months ago a photo of a house down in the rue du Port where they had demolished some of the walls.

Today, I had noticed that they were cracking on with building up the back walls.

They had made quite a good bit of progress while I was away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch I hadn’t been on my way for more than 15 minutes when I realised that I had forgotten the details for my rail tickets. So I’ll have to do that again.

At LIDL grapes were €1:99 per kilo so I grabbed a load of them. Together with, finally, a pastry brush and a few other bits and pieces.

On the way back home I had to go to the Hotel des Impôts to pick up a form. But it’s only open 4 days a week. Can you guess which day of the week it’s closed?

At least, it brought me home via a new route that I don’t use all that often and with different views than the usual.

It was pretty cloudy and miserable as you can see. But none of this stopped the sailing club from taking out some of their pupils today.

Not what I would call plain sailing in this kind of weather, is it?

There’s a really good view over the harbour from this spot too. I’ve not noticed this before.

There’s the Pointe du Roc out there just to the left of centre and the Eglise Notre Dame du Cap Lihou on the skyline just to the right of centre.

Where I live is one of the large buildings just to the left of the church spire.

Walking a little further along the promenade at the bottom of the Boulevard des Amiraux Granvillaises, there’s a nice little beach here.

But it’s not a beach for sunbathing or anything like that because bathing isn’t permitted here due to its proximity to the harbour entrance.

To the right are the installations of the Port de Hérel where all of the maritime activities take place and where there is the Youth Hostel.

The view looking behind me is equally interesting.

Down at the end of the promenade is a nice-looking block of flats – the Résidence Port Granville – that’s maybe 30 years old or something, with the Roche Gauthier in the background.

That’s the kind of place where I would like to have a little apartment, but I saw how much it costs to rent something even smaller than where I live, and it’s well out of my budget.

That’s not a surprise though is it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the house in the rue St Gaud that was demolished a year or so ago.

The other day we noticed the rear of the plot that was being rebuilt. From down here on the promenade we can see the front of the plot and how far they have advanced with the rebuilding.

Mind you, at this rate it’ll be another year or so before they’ll finish it, I reckon.

I carried on my little stroll along the Port de Herel and I was interrupted yet again.

Earlier today, we saw a large mobile crane working on one of the boats down in the harbour. But here now we have the mobile crane having finished its work and setting off to go back from whence it came.

It’s quite a bit of serious kit, isn’t it? I can think of a thousand uses for one of those back on my farm.

By now, I’d left the port and was climbing my way up the Rampe du Monte Regret and from there, there’s a good view across to the inner harbour.

We noticed in the photo of the cranes earlier today that the Channel Islands boats were moored up in the inner harbour.

Both of them too. Victor Hugo is there of course, but the new one, whose name escapes me for the moment, is also there.

It’s the first time that I’ve seen her back here for quite some considerable time.

I’ve often wondered where she has been for all of the summer. Probably working her passage out of Barneville-Carteret I imagine.

One of these days I’ll have to get myself aboard one or the other and go for a good run around.

Back here I unpacked everything and then made a coffee, seeing as I hadn’t had one yet today. And duly refreshed, I attacked yesterday’s photos.

Lunch was taken indoors in view of the cold, windy, overcast weather. And short commons too because I forgot the lettuce.

The afternoon was spent doing the rest of the photos and working on the pages for the Arctic. It’s really slow progress and I’m not sure why because it’s not as if it’s complicated or anything. I just don’t know what the issue might be.

But then, it didn’t help with having a little half-hour curled up on the office chair.

The afternoon’s walk was around the walls again.

Despite the cold weather, it had brightened up considerably and the sun was out making the day quite pleasant.

And the sun wasn’t the only thing that was out either. The tide was out, and so were the people.

And that wasn’t all either.

The fishermen (at least I imagine that they are fishermen) were also out there working away.

No idea what it is that they are hoping to catch, but it can’t be very much given the size of the boats. But they are out there quite often so it must be something worthwhile.

Further down along the beach, the sun and the low tide had brought out even more members of the public.

They were all there having a good look in the rock pools, presumably for crabs and other crustaceans and the like. Although I have heard that there’s a ban on harvesting from the rocks around here due to pollution issues.

But at least it keeps them out of mischief.

And the other day we talked about the old stone construction on the beach that I reckoned was a tidal fish pond.

Now that the tide is going out, we can see it much more clearly this afternoon.

I would have expected to have seen more water in there given the fact that the tide hasn’t long gone out. But there are several people having a ferret about in there to see what they can see.

Round on the town side of the walls, I remembered that I hadn’t taken a photo of the rue Paul Poirier for quite some time.

It’s all covered in bunting right now and I’ve no idea why. But it still looks quite interesting from up here.

It’s not as crowded as it usually is either. On a Saturday it’s absolutely heaving, but then that’s market day so that might account for it.

There’s not much going on today so I came back here to carry on work, with another coffee to keep me going.
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For tea, I had a frozen potato and chick-pea curry from last year. And it was just as delicious.

Later on this evening I went out for my night-time walk.

I took the 50mm lens and the tripod with me and took a hotograph in the dark of the rue do Nord inside the walls and the Plat Gousset.

On the left-hand edge of the image is the beach at Donville-les-Bains.

But the purpose of going out so armed was to have some more fun with long exposure photos

The scenery didn’t come up too well, but the moving car lights were a great improvement on what I managed yesterday.

I was out there for a good half-hour amusing myself with the lights, the exposure and learning quite a lot too.

Back here, I sorted myself out and then prepared myself for yet another early night again – I hope.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Hotel des Impôts and then, if I remember, I can pick up the rail tickets.

I’ll leave you to look at a few more of my long-exposure night photographs.

Night-time photography with long exposure times, Rue du Port, Granville, France

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

… a little better day today.

Despite a somewhat late night, I was still up and about before the 06:20 alarm went off.

And I’d been on my travels during the night too – setting out from Portsmouth on a ship only for there to be a problem and we all having to disembark on the Isle of Wight. And there being so many of us that the island became dramatically overcrowded.

And that’s rather like the combined plots of a couple of Navy Lark radio programmes to which I was listening during the day yesterday. It’s all getting to me these days, isn’t it?

After breakfast I had a pile of work to do on the other laptop and that took me some considerable time. And there’s still a considerable amount to do too and it’s going to take me for ever to tidy things up.

On this laptop though I attacked the images from yesterday and that wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either. But they are all on line now anyway.

And for the rest of the morning I carried on with the photos from the High Arctic.

Lunch on the wall again, with my book and my butties and the warm sun. Beautiful it was, and you would never think that it’s almost the end of October right now.

This afternoon I carried on with the photos but not for long because I ended up sprawled out on the bed again, flat out. And not just for 5 minutes either but for a good hour or so.

As a result it was 16:40 when I went out for my afternoon walk.

It was still quite a nice afternoon and the sun was still shining. As a result there was quite a crowd of people out there on the beach. Either playing about in the sand or hunting in the rockpools for lobsters and mussels and the like.

Which they immediately share with their friends, because everyone knows that you mustn’t be selfish with your shellfish.

A little bit further on, part of the rue du Nord was fenced off.

There was a cherry-picker parked in the street with some people there working on a house.

I thought at first that they might be preparing it for repointing but on closer inspection it turned out that they were taking out a stone or two above the lintel.

As I have wandered along the old walls, I’ve often seen this feature here which resembles some kind of stone wall built into the sea.

And I’ve often wondered what it might be.

But a visit to that exhibition just before I left for the Arctic came up with the answer.

It’s apparently one of the many tidal fishpools that were found at one time all along the coast here. The tide fills the pools and when it recedes it leaves plenty of water and, hopefully, plenty of fish behind.

Tea tonight was some of the crèpes that I bought the other day with some kind of stuffing and kidney beans tucked in.

Tonight’s walk was with the tripod again but for some reason I couldn’t reproduce the photos from the other night. That must have been beginner’s luck.

This photo of the Baie de Mont St Michel, taken from the car park by the lighthouse didn’t turn out too bad.

But a few others ended up in the recycle bin.

On the other hand, this photo of the full moon, taken from the same place on the Pointe du Roc with the zoom/telephoto lens turned out rather well.

It was with the full 300mm focal length in ISO400, at a speed of 1/800 with an aperture of f5.6.

And then I went to shave the palms of my hands.

Seeing as I had the telephoto/zoom lens on the camera right now after the moon, I took a photo across the bay to St Pair sur Mer.

230mm focal length at f5.6 with ISO800 at a speed of 1.6 seconds and it managed to produce something without too much camera shake.

In the foreground is the roof of one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall here on the Pointe du Roc

Round at the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour I set myself up with the tripod and the 18-105mm lens and a friendly local looking on.

And we were in luck because here in the outer harbour (the tide was in) there was a fishing trawler performing some kind of nautical danse macarbre as it left the quayside by the fish-processing plant in the moonlight.

IT passed through the harbour gates, which were open seeing as we weren’t all that far after high tide

I’m not quite sure what the trawler was trying to do but once she was in the inner harbour she cruised around for a while as if trying to find a berth in which to bed down.

Her lights stand out really well in the dark.

Talking of lights in the night, you can see a streak of red light in the centre at the bottom of the image.

I’d waited for quite a while in the hope that a car would go past so that I could have the effect of moving red lights, but nothing went past.

Eventually a young kid went past on a moped so that will have to do for now.

Back here now and working, and a raging thirst again. That’s a sign that I’m sickening for something again. And that’s no surprise. I haven’t been right for years now, and getting worse every day.

I’ll try to have an early night if I can and get myself ready for tomorrow. I’m off shopping on foot and I really don’t feel like it.

Wednesday 30th August 2017 – AFTER MY NIGHT …

… in the time-warp of the 1950s last night I was ready for anything this morning.

Especially the coffee. I had calculated that it had been something like 65 hours since I had had a coffee and the presence of a coffee machine in my room meant that I was going to take full advantage.

I needed it too, because I’d had a bad night. I’m not sure why, but I found sleep very difficult. It wasn’t the musty odour and it wasn’t the traffic noise outside (it might have been an idea to close the window, I suppose) – I dunno.

But it hadn’t prevented me from going off on my travels again. I was joined last night by, of all people, Cécile. I was still living in Granville but in an apartment that resembled more my old flat in Hankelow in the mid-70s. Some work had been done on it but nt very much but Cecile was complaining that two people had promised to do work for her at her house had never been. We ended up going fora walk through the old town and stopped in a cafe where we had to share a table with three men who were having a meal. “We’re cousins” they said as they were tearing into the meat.
Meanwhile back at my place I was thinking about a few re-arrangements. Cecile was saying that I wasn’t making enough use of the high spaces in the rooms but I reckoned that the “little” room in the middle would make a nice music room. But just then Vincent from the football club appeared. He had a pile of cash to give me which was a refund of the insurance. I counted it after he had gone – there was about €45 there which seemed crazy to me because I seem to remember only paying €15:00.

I organised a shower for myself and then started to pack Strider, and I would have been away about an hour earlier had I not … errr … misplaced the keys. I seem to make something of a habit of that, don’t I?

Chucking-out time was 11:00 and the keys turned up at about 10:45 so I just about made it out in time.

Stopping, of course, for the obligatory photo of the lodgings,and having quite a laugh at the sign.

“Newly-refurbished rooms” – yes, quite an old sign, that.

I’d arranged lunch with Hannah so I set off for Antigonish, but on the way there I made a very sad discovery. Being outside in Strider through the winter, something has happened to the CDs.

They are all mangled and stuck together. Not one of them that I tried plays properly and that’s devastating news because the little *.mp3 player is not very reliable.

So, being early for Hannah and taking advantage of the facilities that modern technology has brought me, I took the SD card out of the old Canada phone that is now worthless and put it in the ‘phone that Josée has lent me (must remember to take it back out again) afterwards.

And when Hannah turned up, I was busy trying to concoct a “playlist” of all of the albums on that card so that I could play them through the auxiliary input on Strider’s radio.

Hannah and I had lunch at the little place that we know in Antigonish, and spent several hours putting the world to rights.

My opinion is, for what it’s worth, that when she graduates, she should go off to Toronto and do two years in one of these high-powered, forward-looking modern business organisations.

She can pick up all kinds of modern techniques and hints, as well as the confidence to put her ideas into practice, and then got to look for a small business somewhere in order to demonstrate her talents.

if she stays in Toronto she’ll gradually absorb their cultures and lose her own. After all, there’s no place at the executive table for someone who finished 15th (out of 62) in the North American national tractor-pulling championships.

Taking my leave, I shot off to the tourist information office at Canso – stopping at Auld’s Cove for fuel. And on his just over three-quarters of a tank of fuel Strider did 484 kilometres.

And if he can do that every time, I shall feel much more happy. That’s about 60 kms more than his previous best. You need to remember that he’s a 4×4 with an ancient-technology 4.0litre V6 engine.

Now I remember why I usually wait around until the beginning of September before going on my travels. Working my way through the travel guide that I picked up, everywhere that I called was booked up.

The only place free was an extortionate log cabin on a camp site near Baddeck, and so gnashing my teeth quite considerably, I set off.

The road is quite pretty around here.

It’s what they call the “Cape Breton Highlands” and we’ve visited them before on several occasions, usually going round the coast road.

But in something of a rush, I came right up the middle of the island and we’ve been this way too on a previous occasion.

It’s not as spectacular as the coast road but there are still some nice views.

But what spoils it all is this incessant “Highland Heritage” nonsense. The “history” of the different tartans and all of this nonsense dates from Queen Victoria’s time and that’s 100 years AFTER the Highland Scots came to settle here.

It’s certainly true to say that the different clans had different colours, but that’s because each clan lived in a different glen where a different dyeing plant would be more predominant.

But that’s all that it ever was until someone decided to amuse Queen Victoria. There was none of this weaving of intricate patterns and all the like.

It’s just like all of the bagpipes around here playing “New Britain” (the tune to which the hymn “Amazing Grace” is sung). That wasn’t written until 1829, 50 years after the Scots arrived, and had never been played on bagpipes until something like 1972.

Leaving aside another good rant for a moment (I’m far too cynical to be a good tourist guide) I come to a shuddering halt at the side of the road.

Here in the Bras d’Or lake are some weird objects and I was interested to know what they might be.

Consequently I buttonholed a passing Mi’kmaw who told me that it was a fish farm where they reared rainbow trout for the market, and it was something of a profitable venture.

He went into great detail about the nature of what they do, much of which is quite unfit for publication on pages such as this.

For some reason or other I missed my turning to the Bras d’Or Lake campsite and ended up in Baddeck.

We’ve been here before too, when we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum.

But it’s still a nice place to stop and take some photographs, because the views of the lake are quite attractive, and would be wonderful in nice weather.

Somewhere over there on that promontory is the former home of Alexander Graham Bell.

You might think that the museum ought to be over there instead of over here, but the property is still owned by his descendants who use it as a summer home and jealously guard its privacy.

And so that rules it out as a place to visit, unfortunately.

Eventually I manage to track down the camp site, and here I am. And if this is a “luxury cabin” I’d hate to see the basic ones. I’ve been quite unlucky with my accommodation so far, haven’t I?

To make matters worse, there’s no bed linen and no towels provided, so I’m rummaging around in the plastic boxes in Strider at some silly time of the night.

Luckily, hanging up the solar lantern in the back window has enabled it to keep its charge so at least there’s something to see by. But the mess that I’ve made means that i’ll be having to sort all of this out yet again in the morning.

Right now, I’m off to bed.

But not before I’ve had a shower and washed my clothes – now that I’ve found my towel.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: fish farm

Thursday 25th October 2018 – I WAS OFF …

Wednesday 24th October 2018 – I’VE HAD …

Wednesday 30th August 2017 – AFTER MY NIGHT …

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