Tag Archives: flu injection

Saturday 26th October 2024 – YOU AREN’T GOING …

… to believe this – or maybe you are, I don’t know – but do you remember that new prescription that I had just the other day?

And so here we are just 10 days later, and it’s already been changed. Furthermore, the medication that he added in? That’s been changed too. After just 10 days. I don’t know what the chemist is going to say when my poor cleaner goes there on Monday

The issue is that some of these pills and potions aren’t a regular order but have to be ordered specially. And you can’t order just one packet, you have to order – and pay for – a box full. Reimbursement isn’t made until the medication is prescribed and collected by the patient.

So if the chemist has ordered a boxful of rare stuff and only handed out one packet, she’s stuck with the rest until the expiry date at which point she has to throw it away, and she’ll be well out-of-pocket

In my opinion, she will have every reason to be upset by all of this and I’m glad that it’s not me who has to go to face her

But anyway, that’s something to worry about for another time.

Last night I struggled into bed just about at the correct time, just before 23:00. And glad I was too to be finally in bed

There wasn’t even time to start my little night-time mantra before I was asleep, but it didn’t last. Not that I was cold, because I’d gone to sleep in my tee-shirt, but it was a disturbed night nevertheless. I was awakening and going back to sleep on regular occasions too numerous to count.

When the alarm went off at 07:00 I had a great deal of difficulty rising up out of my stinking pit and it was a very undignified stagger into the living room to collect some clean clothes.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, and even a shave, and then all of the dirty clothes that were hanging about went into the washing machine and I set it off on a cycle (a very clever washing machine, mine).

Back in the living room I put away all of the shopping bags from LeClerc ready to hand back next time they deliver, and then put all of the drained carrots into the freezer ready for the next few weeks.

Back in here I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but I didn’t get very far before Isabelle came. With everything that I’d done, I was running late.

She gave me my ‘flu injection, and told me that the side-effects might be a painful shoulder and ‘lu-like symptoms for a very short while, so I need to have the Doliprane standing by, so I told her to clear off. This whole country floats on Doliprane – the slightest problem that arises and “I’ll pass you the Doliprane”. If you’re hurting, there’s a reason and masking the pain can just make the problem worse.

After she left I had breakfast and read my book. We’ve finished fossils and we’re now discussing the notes that the speaker who had proposed the mushroom book had prepared and brought to the meeting to present to the assembled multitudes.

And we’ve yet to find out anything about Mr Houghton’s “photographs of a very curious and interesting character”. I’ll be sure to tell you when I find out.

Back in here I finished off transcribing the dictaphone notes. I started off going to flower shows, inspecting flowers etc. I even in my dream sent myself a message although I’ve no idea what it was about but it concerns flowers etc and that’s mainly because everything that I’ve been discussing I’ve been reading about discussions of mixed lists

It’s quite impressive that I can even in a dream remember what’s been going on at the breakfast table. But what interest do I have in flowers? My friend Lorna once said that the only time I’d ever take a photograph of a flower would be if there were a car parked on top of it.

A couple of years ago I’d had a huge, blazing row with a member of public about something or other which had turned rather ugly. Anyway I thought no more about it but suddenly a group of policemen turned up and said that they were going to take me off down to the police station. I thought that it might have been for questioning, something like that, so I went along. I met my boss who was there. I asked him what was going on and he told me that this was going to be the hearing about remand and liability. I couldn’t understand this. I expected the proceedings to be similar to how they were in the UK. He replied “oh now. You won’t have bail. You’ll be remanded and the case will be dealt with tomorrow”. “That’s rather quick”. He asked “what are you going to do afterwards? Are you going back to your old job in the UK?”. I replied “I’m hoping that I’ll stay here”. He answered “well you can’t stay here if you’re going to do this. You’ll lose your job. For a start” he said, showing me a spark plug “this won’t be able to fit under your vehicle”. I couldn’t understand any of this. There was the guy with whom I had this altercation. The police turned to him and asked “do you still wish to go ahead with this?”. He replied “Yes” so two policemen took me inside. One of them asked “you don’t mind sharing a cell on your own, do you?”. I asked if there was going to be any bail. He replied “oh, no. The case will be heard in the morning. You’re remanded overnight. They took me down into the bowels of the police station like in one of these old films. There’s a room there with about fifty people in it on a load of benches and they just sat me on a bench at the back. There were several other people around and we were watching a procession that set off – all people in brightly-coloured clothes and flags of the various nations. A whole group of people from Sweden set off followed by some people from Croatia. I was all completely bewildered by this. I hadn’t the least idea about what was going on

I stepped back into that dream later on and was driving back to the house where I’d been just now. There was a pile of mud on the floor with some traffic lights on red. I didn’t see the line where to stop so I stopped where I thought it was and found that I was in the middle of the junction. I raised my hand in apology to everyone and drove off. As I raised my hand a Rover 820 saloon, a silver one with a pattern part wing on it pulled out of a garage. I thought to myself “that’s the guy with whom I’d had this row and that’s his car. I hope that he doesn’t think that I’m waving to him”. I carried on driving and eventually turned up at the house where I was supposed to be. I was looking for a parking place because parking on the street was not allowed. They were parking two-abreast on the pavement. I could see that outside the house where I was supposed to go there was some parking and there was also some room in the drive at the back.

All of the above is quite surreal, especially the flags. It reminds me of Carnaval here in Granville. I’m not sure why the Police would want to come knocking at my door these days though. I’ve been doing my best to keep my head down, but even so, there are some people who just won’t leave you alone

I was dictating into my hand again here, which is something that I do on the odd occasion. There’s a village just off the headland here called “Pentref-Uchaf”, the “Highest Village”. It was a tiny village. It was the village Open Day at the garage. One woman there learned how to fit gas bottles which she said was going to be interesting. I learned how to make mint drinks which was also going to be interesting. On the headland by the village was a big house where we were kept as prisoners. You could see by the trees which way the winds were blowing because the trees were growing in all funny shapes, all pointing towards the east. When I arrived at this house on remand I was asked which bed I wanted. I said that I didn’t mind. Everything they offered me, I said that I’d take whatever they give me, I’m not bothered. I was helping another inmate in the kitchen. He asked me which set of cutlery I wanted, the big one or the small one. I said that I wasn’t bothered. He replied that I was the ideal companion to be incarcerated with. We were trying to make a meal for people but we couldn’t find anything. The guy giving us the instructions took far too long and we’d prepared half of it by the time we’d finished. It was all really strange, the third part of this dream.

This prison bit – I hope that it’s not a forewarning of something. It seems to be rather persistent tonight. But last night I was dreaming in French and tonight it’s Welsh. When I start dreaming in Innu then you know that the World is at an end.

The washing was now ready so I sorted it out and hung it up to dry. And then back in here I attacked the correspondence. Everyone should now have had a reply, but if I’ve missed you, let me know.

My cleaner came early to fit my anaesthetic patches, and it’s just as well because the taxi came early too. We had to pick someone else up so we went round there but she wasn’t ready to come back yet to Avranches so we had a good drive down there on our own.

Being so early I was first in and first dealt with, but even though sticking the ports in me was painless the nurse missed her target so she had to take them out and start again. They are doing their best to torture me in there.

Once it was finally up and running they pretty much left me alone. However the doctor was another story. He came round and asked how I was and then told me about the medication. Later on he sent me the prescription.

As to why they are actually changing the medication I don’t really know. It doesn’t seem to me to be logical to change it so quickly before anything has had time to act.

Once they left me alone, I read my Welsh, listened to music and read my “Curious Church Customs”.

The taxi was waiting for me and we had quite a quick return, where I could only manage nine steps before I had to use my hands to lift up my legs – a backward step … "very good" – ed …

There was football tonight – Hwlffordd v Caernarfon, and what a dreary match that was. Hwlfford played the nicer football but Caernarfon’s approach was rather agricultural. The whole spark seems to have gone out of Caernarfon’s midfield this last few weeks

The final score was 0-0 and both teams were lucky to get nil. This was a match that I’ll forget quite quickly.

Tea was baked potato, vegan salad and a burger on a bun followed by apple cake and caramel soya cream. Nice it was too.

But now I have some dictating to do and then I’m going to bed. It’s an extra hour in bed in the morning and I want to make the most of it.

But the doctor at the Clinic didn’t only see me. He saw others too and after he left, I noticed that one patient whom he’d seen was crying.
"What’s the matter with you?" I asked him
"It’s the doctor" he said. "He’s told me that I have to take one pill every day for the rest of my life"
"There’s no need to be upset" I said "Lots of people have to do that. I’ve been doing it for nine years!"
"It’s all right for you" he said "but the doctor’s only given me six"

Thursday 2nd November 2023 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the weather last night. It did become rather windy. Not that there was very much about which we needed to worry – the gusts of wind didn’t go any faster than a mere 207 kilometres per hour as measured at the weather station by the lighthouse at the end of the road.

As well as police patrols on the cliffs to keep people away, several roads were closed, including the one that goes along the promenade near the sailing school where the waves were washing over the wall into the car park opposite.

At 06:00 the emergency services and the council workmen were called out to begin removing the trees that had blown down everywhere and to re-erect the signposts that had been uprooted.

It didn’t help my sleep very much either. It seemed that almost every time that I was off on a nocturnal ramble around and about, a large gust of wind awoke me and that was that.

Nevertheless when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was flat out asleep and it was something of a struggle to raise myself from the dead.

Later on I tried to telephone the garage about Caliburn’s Controle Technique but there was no-one answering. I imagine that they were among the many people who didn’t make it into work today. I know that my cleaner never made it into town. She gave up after going 150 metres.

Armed with a mug of coffee and a home-made fruit bun I had a listen to the rather depressing voyages on the dictaphone and to reflect on what might have been. There was something about meeting people via the internet last night. I can’t remember all that much about it except that there was a warning that if you encountered anyone taller than 5’8″ you had to communicate the fact to the organisers rather than proceeding as you might normally do. It wasn’t quite as simple as that – it was a complicated affair about meeting people and not simply a dating site or something like that.

We set out later from somewhere in the North to go somewhere down South in one of the hospital taxi vehicles. It looked as if the paperwork for my stay in hospital to sort myself out had been accepted and I could now travel that kind of distance instead of being stuck to a hospital that was much closer to home but maybe isn’t as specialised.

And then we were discussing ways in which our department could improve its output. Among the many suggestions was one that we should work closer with the local authorities. I set out a four-point plan of what I felt that the local authorities needed to do with out work, which was continually being interrupted by the guy in charge. There was a fifth point that I mentioned that each side should show the other some respect. For some reason he blew up at that. he began to list all the things that he said had happened including the fact that one of my colleagues had spent several weeks preparing something to be worked on by the local authority. I asked him “if that’s the case why are we having this meeting today to discuss ways of doing it if our colleague has already done it?” to which he blew up even more. He made it clear that he had no interest whatever in listening to anything that we had to say. In the end I told him that if he’s going to call a meeting simply to listen to our complaints and then shoot us down in this kind of fashion there’s no point at all having the meeting and I was going to do some work that was more productive rather than waste time around here. Somewhere in this discussion there was a situation on a roundabout where there was a system of wooden stakes that had been installed on it. Everyone wondered what they were. Someone actually identified them as stakes used to hold bodies still when the bodies are being cremated. That had everyone puzzled as to why they would want to put something gruesome like this in the middle of the roundabout in the town.

We were back discussing the hospitalisation of a young girl, what we’d need to do to make her stay as practical as possible but a gust of wind awoke me just as it began.

And there I was back at the hospital again, back as a young teenager in the Admissions section ready to be given a bed etc. While I was checking in another gust of wind sprung up outside awoke me and made me lose my train of thought.

Back at the hospital yet again trying to enrol this young girl onto a course of hospital treatment but just as we were filling in the forms yet another gust of wind awoke me while I was in the middle of counting something and it disappeared.

At another moment some woman wanted a sink or wash hand basin installing in her house so I had a word with someone whom I knew and took all the material down there ready for him to start but he never turned up. This woman did nothing but moan all the time about why he’d never turned up, what she was missing etc. In the end I sat down and began to do the installation but apparently that wasn’t good enough either. We had everything that we needed in the end in the same place, the electricity, the water, etc. We could screw the sink to a batten somewhere. I was doing my best to have the job done quickly but she was making so much of a nuisance of herself etc that it was just making it impossible. Even doing things like asking her to read me the M number off the top of the bolt – she just handed me the bolt and told me to look at it myself which wasted more time regardless of how impolite it was etc – all kinds of situation like that. In the end I just did the job any old how. I could have done a much better job that I did but it was just taking so long with her continual interrupting me etc so I was glad to leave the house afterwards.

And finally we were back trying to get this young teenage girl into hospital ready for treatment but the noise of the wind was such that it was making it impossible for anyone to hear what anyone else was saying to whoever. It was all becoming extremely complicated. We ended up having to experiment with a diesel multiple-unit, a modern type, having it flying just a couple of feet above the railway line to see whether it would fit underneath the infrastructure etc ready for it to come into service as quickly as possible. Again there was all kinds of confusion with the noise of the wind and no-one could hear anyone else. We were having real difficulty completing these reports.

All of that and, for the first time, not a single person whom I recognised. That was disappointing. It’s been ages since Castor put in an appearance so I imagine that she’s now gone for good along with the Vanilla Queen whom I met in the Arctic in 2018. But it would be nice to see Zero or TOTGA again.

Usually though, it seems to be my immediate family who keep on appearing.

With going out to visit my neighbour this afternoon I had a strip-down wash (I’m not up to climbing into the bath for a shower after my fall the other day) and then changed all the bedding at long last.

Back in the bathroom I went one better than Dave Crosby. I’m not sure why because there’s no danger of me having the ‘flu for Christmas because Isabelle the district nurse came by to give me my ‘flu injection.

However, there could be several other reasons why I’ll probably not end up feeling up to par. But I won’t be looking in my rear view mirror and seeing a police car because I can’t drive these days.

Before I went to my neighbour’s, I put the bedding and a few other things into the washing machine and then at my neighbour’s, I showed her the letter that I’d written.

She suggested a few amendments so I’ll retype it later and then post it tomorrow if I succeed in making it to the shops. She also mentioned that we’ve been invited to another neighbour’s tomorrow lunchtime.

Back here I took the washing out of the machine and then shook my head wondering how I’ve managed to survive as long as I have.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the struggle that I had a couple of weeks ago to take a basket full of damp clothes to the clothes airer. When I came to Granville I bought a little trolley-type of thing, basically a plank with 4 castors, because I thought that I’d left the big one back on the farm.

As it happens, I hadn’t. It was in the back of Caliburn so I left the new one in a cupboard here. So today, I fetched it out, put the basket of clothes onto it, and then pushed it along with my crutches. If only I’d done that last time.

After that I came back in here and finished off all of the notes for the second radio programme and then went for tea – fried rice with some of those Chinese whatsits.

When they run out and I can’t buy any more, I’ll have a go at making them. Some of the stuffing that I make for my stuffed peppers maybe made a little differently and I can buy some of that thin brick pastry on-line. It should be interesting to see how they turn out

And that’s it for tonight. The wind has dropped so I might well have a decent sleep tonight in my nice clean bedding. And then depending on how I feel, I’ll head on the bus to St Nicolas and the shops to see what’s happening there.

It’ll do me good to go out and about

Monday 23rd December 2019 – THESE FLU INJECTIONS …

… really work, you know.

My flu injection was only given to me about two weeks ago, and I’ve caught it already. How about that?

Yes, I awoke this morning full of aches and pains and feeling pretty exhausted. So mush co that it took me until about 06:45 to haul myself out of my bed.

After the medication and while I was waiting for it to work, I had a look to see what was on the dictaphone.

Last night I was out with a pile of people and I was doing some images for the website and doing all the tags. It wasn’t until I’d almost finished that I realised that I had the tags to all the wrong images, (something like I did the previous evening before going to bed) so I had to sit down and change them all. I managed to find a bulk utility that would change them all with just a few strokes of the key and when I’d done that the images leapt from the page and really took on much more relevance. I remember saying to whoever I was with that it’s amazing the power that you can get out of just a couple of words.

After breakfast I made a start on Strawberry Moose‘s Christmas card to his friends.

Over the past 18 months he’s made several new friends and he wanted them to feature on it too, so what could I do but oblige?

That took me longer than expected – although it didn’t really because I was far too optimistic that what I was able to do, I could do simply and without too much effort. But I ought to know better by now.

Anyway, it’s all done and dusted and it prints out nicely on the new photo paper. Someone whom I know doesn’t have the internet so I sent his by post.

That’s right – I went to the Post Office on my way out and posted the Christmas Card.

But first, seeing as the harbour gates were closed, I went for a walk around the port to see what was going on.

We have seen a lot of Aztec Lady just recently in the Chantier Navale. But here she is in the inner harbour now moored up behind Charles Marie and ahead of Victor Hugo and Granville; the two Jersey ferries.

My walk took me by Aztec Lady and I was hoping to see if there was anyone around, but I was out of luck. One day I’ll catch someone.

So after the Post Office I went off to LIDL and bought a few things, including a drinks dispenser, because I’m about to start to make my own drinks and see how they turn out.

On the way back I picked up my dejeunette from la Mie Caline and then came back to the apartment.

First job that I did was to peel the carrots that were here. They were starting to look rather sad. But once they were peeled I diced them and put them in boiling water just long enough to blanch them with some bay leaves.

Now having drained all day, it’s in the freezer freezing off.

Second task was to peel the three lemons that I had bought a week or two ago. Then to chop them up and put them into a pan.

The fresh ginger, peeled and diced into tiny cubes, was added and enough water to cover them and about an inch more was added. This was boiled gently for about an hour or so while I had my butties.

After I took it off the heat I added a couple of tablespoons of honey and gave it a taste. Far too much ginger. Still, you live and learn.

That’s going to stand for 24 hours or so, be strained to remove the lemon and ginger that hasn’t dissolved, and then more water added to take it up to about 3.5 litres. And then it’s for the drink dispenser that I bought.

Tomorrow the cooking continues. I’m going to try to make mince pies. You can’t have Christmas without them.

Having done that I came back in here to make a decent start on Sunday’s blog.

But as the flu bug took more and more of a hold I felt less and less like it and at one stage was seriously contemplating going back to bed. And it’s been a good while since that has happened.

But I fought off the impulse and went out for a walk around the city walls.

And I’m glad that I did too because the tide was well on its way in and even though the wind has dropped a little on land, there’s still plenty of force in the sea.

The waves were smashing down on the Plat Gousset with the most astonishing force.

And despite how impressive it all looked from up here, it still wasn’t disturbing the mariners too much.

There was a line of about four or five trawlers slowly battling their way into port and as I have said before … “on many, many occasions” – ed … my hat goes off to them all.

It’s not the kind of weather that would encourage me to go to sea in a small boat, that’s for sure.

Continuing on my walk, I broke into a run at one point but there were too many people around to really make it count.

Instead, I headed for home and caùe across another example of pathetic parking here in the rue Notre Dame.

Madam in the red Citroen has just pulled up and … I suppose … parked. But you can see that the pavement is really narrow where she’s parking, so she parks across all of it.

Not a thought for any pedestrian with mobility difficulties or a wheelchair or kiddies’ buggy user. It really gets on my wick, as regular readers of this rubbish will realise.

Remember that I told you the other day that they were renovating the old municipal offices in the place Cambernon?

Today, I noticed that the signwriters had been by so I went to see if there was any kind of clue as to what might be going on.

Sure enough, it looks as if we are going to have another restaurant here, called the Contremarche. And I do hope that it has vegan options because I’m fed up of not eating out here in the town.

And it’s going to upset the pizza van that parks just there, isn’t it?

Final thing this afternoon was to identify the source of this incredible racket that was going on over my head.

That’s right. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve met the local autogyro in the past on a couple of occasions. And here she is again, just passing over head.

And for a change I was lucky. I just managed to grab a shot of her before she passed out of sight over the church roof.

That was everything for my walk. I came back here and carried on with Sunday’s blog even though I didn’t feel like it. But anyway it’s on line now.

For tea I finished off the stuffed pepper stuffing in some taco rolls with spicy rice, followed by the last of the rice pudding.

And then I went out to brave the rainstorm for my evening walk around the headland, in two jackets and my new tactile gloves which really work.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to look at the Chanter Navale to see what’s happening there. Spirit of Conrad is still in there as you can see, and she’s been joined by a small fishing boat.

What I’ll have to do is to wait until daylight and then go for a proper look around to see what she’s up to.

By now the rain was belting down so I set off at a run for home. And shame as it is to admit it, I only made half of my little track before I had to give up.

Hardly a surprise with this flu thing going around my head

Now I’ve finished the journal for tonight, I’m off to bed. An early night will do me the world of good and I hope that I can shake off this flu.

It seems that I’m destined to catch it round about now and I’m getting rather fed up about it.

But then, this is what this illness is all about. I’ve no immune system so I’m catching just about every disease or bug that’s going around.

trawler english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves splashing on plat gousset granville manche normandy france

trawler entering port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Tuesday 10th December 2019 – I HAVE OFTEN SAID …

… “and you’ll say more often too” – ed … that it is really nice to speak to people, especially friends. And that friends always come first before almost everything.

So despite the amount of work that I have to do and how much of it is piling up and how I decided that I would crack on and have a really good whack at some of the outstanding backlog, then spending … errr … 2 hours 16 minutes and 34 seconds instead talking to Rosemary on the telephone was nevertheless quite enjoyable, even if it isn’t getting the baby bathed.

Not that I’m complaining. Far from it in fact … “perish the thought” – ed … but I seem to be going one pace forward and ending up two paces backwards right now.

Last night was another late-ish night as I was working on project 005 and trying to sort out the mess that I’d made of the vocals. But seeing as I was getting nowhere, in the end I finally gave up and went to bed.

Not much time in bed last night – probably not more than four hours in the end, but still time to go on a voyage of some description. I was out and about being placed into a group of people for some reason or other. They were going through the names of the groups and there was one group with a name like Anvil Brown and the Red Shoes, something like that. I knew that there was a girl in charge of this group and running it so I immedately opted to go into this particular one. I went over to see her to present myself and it was at that point that I awoke.
Back asleep, a little late I was doing some photography with a group of young girls. I was wanting to do it my way instead of the way that some interfering busybody was trying to have me do it and which was totally wrong in my opinion, but I awoke pretty smartly there too so I’ll never know how that one ended either.
But strangely, these are two other circumstances in which I can see parallels with actual events, and it’s rather worrying.

Not so worrying that it’s disturbing my sleeping and waking patterns though. I managed to struggle out of bed before the third alarm and deal with the medication issues followed by breakfast, and then I attacked the vocals for my project.

In the end I gave it up as a hopeless task and re-dictated them. And with a little judicious “cut and paste” I was able to make some kind of progress. It took ages though before it finished and I do have to say that I learnt quite a lot while I was doing it.

There was an interruption though from a text message. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a message yesterday evening telling me that my train for Thursday had been cancelled due to industrial action. And so I booked a seat on the bus last night. And so today I had a message to say that my train has now been restored, as you might expect.

There was just about enough time for me to have a shower and clean up before heading to town. And HOORAY!!!! I’ve reached my target weight – a weight that I never thought that I would ever see again. But I’m not going to stop. I’ll keep on pushing my fitness regime. 12 kilos in 5 months means that in about 33 months I’ll be gone completely.

At the Grand Café I met this musician guy who showed me his songs. Luckily there are no glaring errors like in Alquin’s Mountain Queen where Dirk Franssen invites a girl to his house to “see the Morning Glory”, although I did reckon that he should change “the Poles are melting” to “the Ice is melting” in one of his songs. After all, Poland has a tough enough time as it is.

For my trouble I was given a coffee and a CD of this guy’s band, and from there I walked up to the railway station to chat to the clerk about the trains.

I had to wait half an hour for her to come back from lunch, so that gave me plenty of time to have a nosy around the station to see what was going on. And the short answer was “nothing”. There wasn’t a soul about and the train that does the route Caen – Granville – Rennes, a Bombardier B82500, was parked up and abandoned.

Something similar to the Marie Celeste, I reckoned.

Granville is also home to several of the GEC Alstom Regiolis trains too – the ones that perform the service between Granville and paris and on which I travel.

But they were all down there parked up in the sidings and slearly had no intention whatever of moving today either. This strike looks pretty much complete.

Eventually the girl in the ticket booth came back. And when she did, she knew even less than I did. “We won’t know until tomorrow” she said.
“What time?” asked our hero.
“After 17:00” she said. So that’s a lot of help then, isn’t it?

La Mie Caline for the dejeunette was next, and then the doctor’s. It pays to be on the good side of your doctor because when I asked him about a prescription for a ‘flu jab, “ohh, I’ve got some stuff here” and gave it to me on the spot.

On my way down into town I’d noticed that Normandy Trader was in the harbour again.

I was pushed for time (as usual) just then but now I don’t have anything particular organised for the rest of the day so I went to pay a courtesy call.

But I didn’t have very much success at all. I shouted and shouted but there was no answer and so seeing as it’s inappropriate to go on board without an invitation, I wandered off and I’ll go back down there again in early course.

Although the weather was failrly miserable, I decided to come the long way home all the way round the Pointe du Roc.

That route would take me past the chantier navale that we had seen in the dark last night and I could see how things were doing in there. As we can see, Aztec Lady is there in the foreground and in the background behind it we have Spirit of Conrad.

Both of them are still there receiving attention although there doesn’t seem to be anyone about down there just now.

From higher up the hill we can see just how rough the seas are this afternoon.

There’s quite a heavy sea out there right now and La Grande Ancre – for I’m sure that it is she – has a battle on her hands as she fights her way across the baie de Mont St Michel towards the harbour.

And you can see how the weather has closed in across the bay at St Pair sur Mer

For a change just recently, I managed to make it home without falling over. I wonder where it all went wrong yesterday.

The first part of the afternoon after lunch was spent working on this teaser for this project of mine. That’s all done and dusted now and you can hear it here.

That led up to my afternoon walk time in the rain and the wicked wind. This storm that we’re having is blasting just about everything that gets in its way.

The tide is still quite a way out but even so you can see the mess that it’s making of the sea wall down here. Imagine what it must be like at high tide when the waves are at the peak of their force.

I wouldn’t want to be standing right there at that particular moment, that’s for sure.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my photos are being constantly photo-bombed by the flocks of the feathered and flying creatures that live around here.

While I was admiring the scenery, another one came flying by right in the area where I didn’t want it to be so in order to humour the bird I took a photo of it with nothing else in the image at all.

Now perhaps it will go away and leave me alone to get on and do other things

Although the tide wasn’t right in, there was still enough of it in for the fishing boats to be able to tie up at the quay by the fish processing plant to unload their catch. It was quite useful to dredge out a little channel there so that the boats would have more time.

The cranses up on top are working full-tilt winching up the catch to the processing plant and to the large commercial vehicles that will take the catch off to market somewhere.

But underneath where the private and small-scale operators unload their catch, they are quite busy too. In fact, it’s a very busy port with a lot of fishing activity going on.

Mind you, it must have been a magnificent sight down there 50 years ago with all of the deep-sea trawlers that went out to the Grand Banks, and the working railway line down to the port and the trains that took the catch away.

Apart from that there wasn’t a lot going on, although I did have to give directions to a passing motorist and then I came back here.

One of the things that I’m doing is to work on a live project for 27th December, so I made a start. And despite it being in theory quite straightforward, it wasn’t ‘arf complicated because the raw material that I had to work with was full of holes. You’ve no idea the lengths to which I had to go to in order to make some reasonable patches, but in the end it sounds something like a live project – all 56 minutes and 4 seconds of it, so I need just under 4 minutes of talking. That will be a challenge.

Tea was the leftovers from Sunday evening, with a few oven chips to lengthen it out. Totally delicious it was too

When I went out for my walk later in the evening, I noticed that there had been a change in the wind outside this evening. It had gone from being ridiculous to violent.

At times it was a real struggle to make any headway, so I didn’t hang about outside for too long. Just long enough to take a couple of photos including this one of Donville-les-Bains in the dark with that big floodlight thing shining away in the background.

But despite the wind I did my lap around as usual, even managing the full length of my run, and into a headwind too. Even I was impressed with that.

Rosemary rang me as soon as I returned home and now having updated my notes, I’m off to bed. All that I had planned to do this evening, well, it’ll have to be done some other time.

Story of my life, I suppose.

storm waves on rocks granville manche normandy france

fog at sea english channel fishing boat granville manche normandy france

storm high winds waves sea wall port de granville harbour manche normandy france

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy france

fishing boats unloading port de granville harbour manche normandy france

donville les bains night granville manche normandy france

christmas lights place cambernon granville manche normandy france

Thursday 6th December 2018 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN …

… strikes again.

With having the appointment for my anti-flu injection at 11:00 this morning I decided to go and do my shopping at LIDL as normal and call in at the medical centre on the way back.

And do you know? I was halfway into town, quite wet in the rain, before I realised that I had forgotten to take the injection with me and that it was still in the fridge. And that’s despite leaving a prominent note on the table in the dining room.

Last night was a rather later night than normal and I was still asleep when the alarm went off. Much to my surprise I was up and about fairly quickly too which is a change.

After breakfast I had another letter to write. One that I had forgotten to write the other day and which needed doing quite rapidly as there was a time limit involved.

After my abortive trip into town, and back here having found the medication, it was too late to go back out to LIDL so I stayed here and made a phone call. And as a result it was arranged that I can make another phone call on Monday afternoon in this respect.

But as an aside, I was given an e-mail address to which I can send a mail. But knowing the way things work, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I will be surprised if I have a reply.

Back into town for my injection.

That isn’t snow down there in the place General de Gaulle, even though it might look like it. They are busy setting up the decorations for Christmas.

Only two and a half weeks away now.

The nurse who attended to me is from Lille, and he has a Flemish surname. It turns out that he has relatives in Flanders and we spent some of the time talking in Flemish.

At the Post Office I posted off all of the letters that I had written over the last few days, and then worked my way round to the Railway Station to pick up my tickets. And I’m glad that I picked them up well in advance during office hours because the ticket-printing machine was once again out of order.

One of these days I’ll forget, turn up at the station for my train and the machine will be out of order again. I wonder what the penalty is for travelling without a valid ticket.

There were a couple of things in LIDL that I would have picked up today but I wouldn’t be able to carry them home. I’ll have to wait until Saturday when I go up there in Caliburn and hope that there will be some left.

The exertions of the morning had worn me out and I ended up crashing out for half an hour in my comfy office chair. That took me up to lunch.

This afternoon I attacked the files that I had downloaded from the desktop computer. And I found all of the OU postings that I had saved for further reference, including the legendary “I’m a Pottymouth” message by the equally legendary Lee Prostitute, fairy boots and all.

Now that the wet weather was drying out this afternoon, there were crowds out there walking around the Pointe du Roc.

And on my way out of the apartment I bumped into one of my neighbours coming in.

But there’s a storm brewing in the offing as the waves are slowly to climb up the sea wall. I hope that it it will be as good as the one last winter.

By the time that I rounded the headland and came back, it was school chucking-out time.

And so of course we have cars parked all over the pavements by the College Malraux and on the boulevard Vaufleury which is the main bus route and where the school coaches pass by.

There’s a huge free public car park just 50 metres up the road from there, but that is clearly too far for our poor little dears to stagger, so let’s just disrupt all of the traffic instead.

Why not?

And as I was coming back in, I met the same neighbour going out. It’s a small world.

Remember the tin of potatoes that I had opened in error yesterday? While I was ferreting around in the freezer I found a pie from last year left over. So I switched on the oven, prepared a quick rice pudding, soaked some of the tinned potatoes in olive oil, and bunged the rice pudding, the pie and the potatoes in to cook.

While that was going on, I cooked some frozen peas and carrots, and made some gravy. And it was all very delicious. Except the rice pudding, which wasn’t ready. But I’ll finish that off next time that the oven goes on.

No-one else was about on my walk last night, which isn’t much of a surprise.

I had plenty of time to stand on the walls and admire the view. The Christmas lights down in the town were illuminated quite brightly.

They seem to have done a good job of lighting up the mairie and I hope that they can do as good a job of the rest of the town as they have done down there.

There is quite an array of lights going up the rue Couraye too.

One of these evenings I’ll go for a walk up there and see what they are really like in the dark.

Alone out there I might have been, as far as human company went. But Minette was there though, and she let me stroke her for a few minutes before having a spit at me and wandering off. Dunno why she’s in such a bad mood just now.

On the way back to the apartment, I walked up along the rue St Jean.

From the corner of the rue du Nord there was a good view right down the street, under the gate and off into the place d’Armes. So I stopped to take a photograph of it on my way up.

Back here, I bumped into yet another neighbour. And she told me about a music course in the vicinity. I asked her to make further enquiries on my behalf.

So an early night is now on the cards. Tomorrow I’m going to wire up a big external hard drive to the desktop computer and copy the entire contents of the desktop computer onto the external drive.

Then, I can review it at my leisure without having to worry about the reliability of the desktop computer.

That lot should keep me out of mischief.

storm sea wall port de granville harbour baie de mont st michel manche normandy france

fishing boats port de granville harbour manche normandy france

Wednesday 5th December 2018 – WE DIDN’T …

… have any blue screens today. Or any frozen keyboards or major crashes on the big desktop computer today. For the simple reason that I didn’t switch it on at all.

To preserve it for a while longer I left it switched off and used the laptop computer to examine the portable drive onto which I had downloaded all of the data.

First thing was to remove all of the duplicate (and triplicate and, in some cases, quadruplicate) files. 22,000 or thereabouts out of the 78,000 or so that I downloaded yesterday and it took quite some time to do all of that. But luckily there’s a little program that I have on the computer that does it all for me, otherwise I would still be here doing it this time next year.

And I’ve come across yet more stuff that I had forgotten, including a pile of photos, and the sad thing is that I can’t remember where many of them were taken. The sad part about it all is that I downloaded onto the desktop computer all of the files for one of the previous versions of the blog when the host closed down, but the dates of the entries don’t seem to be on the files. It must have been a javascript key running from the webhost at the time.

I’ll have to think much more deeply about this.

There’s also a pile of data that needs to be sorted, and so I’ve a feeling that this is going to be a very long job.

I was interrupted by a phone call at about 11:00. Could I come to the doctor’s at 12:00 instead of 16:00? So I had to have a shower and a good clean-up before setting out.

On the way down into town, I noticed that Neptune was still in port, tied up at her quayside next to Marité and Normandy Trader.

I’ll go for a nosy round there after the doctor’s to see what’s going on.

At the doctor’s, I discovered that the situation about the vaccines is that you need a prescription from the doctor, and then go to the chemist for the supplies, and finally make an appointment with a nurse to do the injection.

The doctor did that all for me so I have to be at the nurse’s office at 11:00 tomorrow for the injection.

The doctor prescribed me a helping of Vitamin D to reinforce the injection. And you’ll be pleased to know that all of this medication cost me a grand total of €13:48. Cheap at half the price.

On the way back, I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and then went for a walk around the harbour.

Neptune was still there, and Normandy Trader had sneaked in on the morning tide.

I’d never had a close look round at Neptune before, so this seemed to be the correct moment to go for a suitable exploration

She’s a small bulk carrier of 2400 tonnes deadweight with a gross tonnage of about 1500 tonnes.

Built in 1992, she was formerly known as Islay Trader but changed her name quite recently, something presumably not unacquainted with the fact that she acquired something of a bad habit just recently of running aground and having to be towed off.

As you can see, she’s registered out of the port of Faversham, although I don’t imagine that she sails … “diesels” – ed … out of there these days seeing as how it’s silting up so rapidly.

These days we’ve seen her heading into Whitstable or, occasionally, Ridham whenever the tidal conditions are right.

That’s because Ridham is what is called a NABSA port – “Not Afloat But Safely Aground” – whenever the tide is low and no-one likes to have a heavily-loaded ship sitting on the bottom.

Victor Hugo was in port too.

She’s one of the ships that works the ferry service out to the Channel islands from the Normandy coast.

But it wasn’t her herself that caught my attention. What I was admiring was the notice where Hugo talks about the fact that there are four islands in the Channel Islands, which he mentions, but he can only find something to say about three.

As well as that, Aztec Lady had regrown her masts. There was a girl on deck working away so we had a chat for a while. They are off to the Far North of Norway soon, but not unfortunately to where I want to go.

As I arrived back here I was treated to a strange sight on the car park.

I’m all in favour of eating out wherever possible, but not in this kind of weather. So I admired the people who were taking their picnic lunch outside.

Not much danger of me joining them, I have to say. I’m going to eat my lunch indoors.

While I’m eating my lunch, I can tell you about the early part of the morning. With having had a really early night I’d had a really good sleep and was awake at 05:46.

I’d been on my travels too. Firstly, I had encountered someone from the Open University – an old guy whom I happened to quite like. A very quiet, timid type but last night he was busily killing off everyone who had offended or upset him. That was actually the plot of something that I had been watching on a DVD a couple of nights ago.
A little later I’d been at a football match, something like at Pionsat. But it was Bangor City who was playing and at a certain moment a long clearance out of the opposition defence had gone straight up towards the Bangor goalkeeper, who ran out to clear it. However he pulled a muscle and fell down, grabbing hold of the football as he did so in order to stop any attacker getting to the ball and scoring a goal. Clearly a free kick of course, but in view of the circumstances was it a yellow card offence for deliberate handball, or was it a red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity? The debate raged for quite a while about that one. Unfortunately, I awoke before the referee reached the scene and made a decision.

This afternoon I typed a couple of letters. Time to get a few things moving to secure the future. They’ll be posted tomorrow and then things will be off. And I forgot to go for a walk this afternoon, being so engrossed. Not that it matters quite so much as I’d had a good stroll out this morning.

Tea was an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit out of the freezer followed by pineapple and coconut-flavoured soya dessert. I’ll do this again because it’s lovely.

And on my walk around, I was all on my own except for a jogger. Minette was there and I gave her a stroke but she must have a sore spot somewhere because she suddenly leapt up, spat at me and cleared off.

Not quite an early night tonight, but I’m off shopping tomorrow and I’ll call at the nurse’s on the way back. Another thing crossed off the list.

normandy trader neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

samsung digger neptune port de granville harbour manche normandy france

low tide port de granville harbour pilot light manche normandy france

4th December 2018 – FIVE SCREENS OF DEATH …

… and that’s my lot today. The desktop computer seems to have been working so much better today. Especially as all 5 of these screens of death occurred in the last half-hour as I tried to use the Duplicate File Finder program to eliminate the duplicate files.

Because there were thousands of those. You have no idea of how many hidden directories and partitions I have found. Loads of files for which I have been searching for years and many of which I have even forgotten all about.

Most of them have now made it onto the portable hard drive and when the desktop computer has cooled down tomorrow I’ll have another run through it and see what else I have missed.

But there won’t be much time tomorrow though, because I’m going out in the afternoon. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a considerable amount of health issues over Christmas last year and I don’t want to have the same this year. And so I have made an appointment to have a ‘flu injection.

It’s free here (at least, I am reimbursed 100% for it) so as much as I hate the idea of injections, I’m going to have it. And I hope it works.

But back to the computer again.

I had it running again last night and it was doing so well that I let it go. And it was at about 02:30 when I finally decided to switch it off and go to bed.

So even though the alarm went off this morning at the usual time, I took little notice. It was more like 07:45 when I came round far enough to haul myself out of bed. And as a result it was a rather late breakfast.

Once all of the nonsense was out of the way I have spent all day with the big computer extracting the files. I’m doing it while the doing is good because I’m not sure how long it will keep going.

We had lunch of course, indoors these days, and then a little later, it was time for my afternoon walk.

Neptune was still in the harbour but Thora must have crept in on the morning tide because she was on the point of leaving the port at 16:00.

For a while I stood around watching her manoeuvre and I took several photos of her passing out.

By the time I got back home I could see Thora rounding the headland of the Pointe du Roc and heading out to sea past the Ile de Chausey

Opportunity for a good photo was looming so I loitered around for half an hour and took several photos of her disappearing into the sunset.

And given the lighting and weather conditions out there, some of them came out quite well.

On the way back, I bumped into Gribouille. He came for his stroke but could smell Minette on me from last night so he wasn’t too impressed.

The laptop was playing some of the old-time radio shows in the background while I was working.

And you have to admire Leslie Charteris. We had another episode of The Saint with my favourite Simon Templar, Paul Rhys in the title rôle.

And we had the immortal exchange of conversation
” ‘Orace, old chap. Things have been a bit dull for a while. Do you feel like a spot of action?”
“I’ll just load the revolver, sir”
You can’t beat the good old days.

Tea tonight was a vegan burger on a bap with the last of the potatoes. And talking of potatoes, when I went to open the pineapple slices for pudding, I found that I had opened the tin of new potatoes instead. It’s not my day, is it?

But that soya dessert stuff that I had bought – it went down really well with the pineapple slices when I eventually opened the correct tin.

Just me again on my evening walk tonight.

Neptune was still at her quay with her hydraulic hatches wide open.

I’m not sure of where they are up to with loading her but things must be progressing and she’ll probably be on her way tomorrow if they get a move on. I’ve never known her loiter in port for this long.

But there’s something else going on round by the place Maurice Marland just right now.

There has been talk of some kind of repairs to the city walls but tonight I tripped over some kind of crane or machine that was just dumped here without any warning.

And it’s pretty dark down here at night, you know. I could have done myself a mischief.

But the Christmas decorations around the town are advancing.

In the rue Paul Poirier, where I lived when I first came here, they have been out stringing up the fairy lights.

And it all looks quite pretty down there right now with the overhead lights in the foreground and the artificial palm trees in the background.

Round the corner in the rue Notre Dame Minette was sitting on the roof of a van. In order to come down to my level, she sat on her rear end and slid down the windscreen. I haven’t seen anything as funny as that for quite some considerable time.

With no desktop computer right now (it’s cooling down) I’m going to have an early night. After my exertions last night I reckon that I deserve it.

breville sur mer brehal granville manche normandy france