Tag Archives: forgot money

Saturday 30th July 2022 – WE’VE HAD A …

wedding place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022… wedding out here at the Public Rooms at the back of my building this afternoon.

It’s something that happens quite often but usually I don’t take very much notice but today, with having a rather late lunch, they poured out of the building as I was going into the living room so I took a few photos.

There’s a church just round the corner, L’Eglise de Notre Dame de Cap Lihouas regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and weddings take place there quite often because of the beautiful setting.

wedding place es Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022However since Laicité – the “Separation of Church and State” that took place in France at the Revolution and subsequently reinforced by a Law of 9th December 1905 there’s a civil ceremony that takes place in the public buildings in front of the mayor.

Thus everyone troops round here after the Church bit to complete the formalities with the mayor, and this is when everyone goes berserk.

Watching them all wildly celebrating reminded me of my lesbian friend from Shropshire who kept her sexual orientation a secret from her elderly relatives.

You’ve no idea how she felt when they all went up to her at every family wedding and said “you’re next! You’re next”.

So in the end she started to exact her revenge at funerals.

And while we’re on the subject of funerals … “well, one of us is” – ed … I felt like I should have been at a funeral today – in a wooden box being lowered into the ground. It has not been a very good day again.

When the alarm went off this morning at 07:30 I was sorting out a pile of medication and papers and things like that in my sleep and I must have leapt about three feet into the air. It took me completely by surprise. It was something to do with bridges over Germany and the heat. One of them had cracked and the asbestos was coming out so it was closed to passengers and pedestrians. People were having to cross by another one but they were limited in the number of times that they could go across and they had to show their ausweis. We were commenting on how Mother Nature is fighting back against the humans and how she’d eventually win, and I was shuffling these papers around.

As seems to be the case these days it took me a few minutes to stagger to my feet but once I was up, I was up. After the medication I set out quickly to Lidl for my shopping.

This was when Brain of Britain found that he’d come all this way without bringing his money with him.

However, years of very bitter experience has taught me better than this, and that’s why there’s €50 hidden in the back of my ‘phone case and another €50 hidden in Caliburn. However I didn’t have a coin for the trolleys so I didn’t buy as much as I would otherwise have liked.

It didn’t take me long in Lidl and I was back home by 09:40. I even managed to put everything away as well.

After a rather late breakfast I attacked the carrots. I was running low on frozen carrots so I’d bought so more fresh ones. I cleaned, diced and blanched them and set them to drain.

Unfortunately, they were only sold in lots of 1.5kg which was more than I was expecting so I was glad that I’d bought that extra-large casserole saucepan a couple of years ago.

And now the freezer really IS bursting at the seams, especially as I fitted the three packs of hot cross buns in there the other day. Nothing else can go in until a lot more stuff goes out.

But what kind of exciting life do I live these days when the highlight of my day is freezing a pile of carrots?

Sitting down here afterwards I drifted off into the land of Nod and that was that. Never mind my lunchtime fruit at 13:00. It was 14:50 when I awoke and round about 15:00 when I staggered into the living room to eat, encountering the wedding party on my way.

hang glider place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022After wards, I went out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

There was a large crowd of British people outside this afternoon looking at the Nazguls that were flying by overhead. Nevr mind the Nine Riders, there was probably about a dozen of them all together in all various stages of flight.

In fact it took them a considerable amount of time to come up and down the coast. They were still on their travels when I was going back into the building half an hour later.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022So having been overflown by a Nazgul or two I headed off across the car park to see what was happening down below on the beach.

We had the crowds again down there today making the most of the beautiful weather, although not as many this weekend as you might expect.

That’s because this is the weekend where everyone who has had their four weeks holiday in July will be heading for home and those who will be having their four weeks in August won’t have quite arrived yet. So there’s just that little quiet pause this weekend.

Mind you, I’m glad that I’m not on the roads or on the rails because that’s where we can expect to find a pile of chaos today.

yachts baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022Not much happening out at sea today either – at least in the immediate vicinity.

All of the fishermen were having the day off and there weren’t any ferries or freighters about. What we did have were a couple of yachts having a go at synchronised sailing around the bay.

We had crowds of people up here on the path creating quite a dust storm as they walked by so it was quite an uncomfortable walk down to the end of the headland.

Loads of brats playing around by the bunkers too. It’s almost as if there was some kind of organised activity taking place this afternoon.

sunlight reflecting off window brittany coast Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a couple of months ago I talked about the use of heliography by General Crook in his campaign against the native Americans in the late 19th Century.

The illustration that I used was the sunlight reflecting off a window down at the bottom of the bay over in Brittany.

This afternoon we had another example of the same thing. That’s about 20 miles away, I reckon, and reflecting off a glass window in the kind of strange atmospheric conditions that we have around here.

When you see things like this you can understand why Crook’s soldiers could send heliograph messages over 50 miles with a mirror in the crystal-clear weather conditions that prevail in the Arizona Desert.

While I’d been looking on the fleet radar earlier I noticed that the ferries Condor Voyager and Commodore Goodwill would cross each other at some point in the English Channel while I was out.

The former had left St Peter Port at 15:03 and was to arrive at St Malo at 17:00 while the latter departed from St Malo at 15:02.

sailing ship english channel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022And so when I scanned the horizon and saw a large object away out on the horizon I took a photo in the hope that I’d caught them both crossing each other.

However, enlarging and enhancing the image reveals that I’ve caught something else completely – a rather large 2-masted sailing ship.

Don’t ask me what she is because by the time that I’d worked out what type of ship she was, the rader plots for that area had long-since dispersed and I couldn’t bring up any historical tracks with any accuracy.

Nevertheless, even at this distance she’s a magnificent ship and I really wish that I knew who she was.

With the crowds around on the car park it wasn’t easy to make my way down to the end of the headland.

cabanon vauban people on bench pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022But with all of the people about, the display of heliography and the magnificent sailing ships right out there in the English Channel, it’s no surprise that there was something of an audience watching it all.

Down on the bench by the cabanon vauban this afternoon we had a couple of people enjoying the nice weather and enjoying the view that went with it

Plenty of people walking around the lower path looking as if they might go to join them but I wasn’t going to wait around. Instead, I was going to clear off down the path down the other side of the headland that takes me to the port.

open cockpit aeroplane baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022There had been several aeroplanes flying by out at sea this afternoon but they had all been too far away for me to identify.

This one was also too far away for me to identify but the reason why I photographed it was because, quite rarely, it had an open cockpit.

We don’t see too many of those these days and that makes me think that she’s probably a light aeroplane whose registration number isn’t on the list that I have. I checked the arrivals and departures from the airfield for today and there was no-one whom we didn’t know out and about at the time that I took this photo.

gerlean l'omerta fish processing plant port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022Before I went home I had a look down in the port to see what was happening there.

Marité had gone back out today but back in the port were L’Omerta and Gerlean who are playing “Musical Ships” down at the Fish Processing Plant.

Back here I made a coffee and had a listen to the dictaphone. I was in Security working at an airport. I’d been given a rifle because we suspected that someone was going to cause a problem boarding a particular plane. I ended up right at the back of the boarding place where I could see everyone in front of me. Sure enough, this woman started to protest and mount an objection. In the the end she was clambering through the false roof and fell through, falling to her death on the concrete floor of the terminal so everyone could go and board their planes. I had to put my rifle back which meant putting it in one of the rooms but all the doors had been locked. There was a way in there through one of the other rooms. This means going through a small gap but they had tiled over this gap so I was trying to work out how to enter the other room. Someone came along and began to take up the tiles. There was a metal tray underneath that they began to take up. There was the floor and then something else under that. I thought that this would take ages to do. Putting it back would take even longer and all that wanted to do was to put this rifle in the storeroom that should have taken 30 seconds. I couldn’t understand at all why I had to go through this enormous rigmarole just so that I could put back my rifle. Ther emust be a much quicker, normal way to do it than havinf to do all of this.

And then I was dealing with my medication, as I mentioned earlier.

There was time for me to have a play with the guitar and then I went for tea. They had some of those breaded quorn fillets in Lidl do I bought two packs. One of those with potatoes and veg was delicious.

Later on I downloaded some more radio programmes from that radio site that I mentioned the other day. I’ve finished all of the Paul Temple stuff and I’ve now found a batch of Tommy Handley “It’s That Man Again” programmes from 1943-44-45 so I have those on the go.

But I’ll be off to bed early. There’s an alarm set for tomorrow because I have things to do. That’s not like me, is it? I’m changing my habits so much these days.

Thursday 26th April 2018 – AND SO …

… after all of my exertions yesterday and the enormous distance that I travelled, I was in bed last night quite early.

No alarm either, so I was expecting to be awake by 05:00 or some other stupid time like that.

But just for a change, and by complete surprise, I was stark out until about 09:00. A long time since I’ve had such a deep and complete sleep.

I’d been on my travels too during the night. A couple of friends and I were running a company of three taxis, although the husband of the couple wasn’t all that keen. And neither were the other taxi operators, one of whom took a great deal of pleasure in driving past us while we were having an animated discussion about something or other.

First job after the usual morning routine was to unpack. And much to my surprise everything arrived back safe and sound, although the opened vegan cheese needed a little care and attention. And there was plenty of the Sahara desert inside my suitcase too.

Second job was to stick all of the clothes and the bedding from before into the washing machine and have it all ready and cleaned. I need to keep up to date with things like this as you know.

Third job was to go to the shops. Caliburn struggled a little to fire into life (I’ll have to check to see how long I’ve had the battery) and then I was off to LIDL. I know that today is usually the day that I walk there but I need too much stuff for that and anyway I’m still feeling the aches and pains of the journey.

The road was exciting though. Some old geezer in a car nearly took Caliburn and me out as he cut off the corner of one of the bends and a little later on, where the road narrowed and we were all stuck at the temporary traffic lights (the cabling work is still going on) some other old geezer sat there convinced that I couldn’t get through, although anyone else could have driven a bus through the gap.

And having eschewed my travelling jacket for something more suitable for the Normandy climate, I found that I had forgotten my wallet with my bank cards in. But not to worry – there’s a €50:00 note tucked away in the pocket of my phone case so I wasn’t as embarrassed as I might otherwise have been.

After lunch I had a chat to Liz on the internet and then set about dealing with the … gulp … 439 photos that I had accumulated in North Africa. And that wasn’t a job of five minutes either.

And what didn’t help was a major interruption as some rather dreadful news filtered through the internet. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have a soft spot for Bangor City FC in the Welsh Premier League, ever since my girlfriend at the time started to study there in 1975 and I used to go up there every weekend.

Two years ago they were taken over by a bunch of people who had trashed several other sports clubs, and I can confidently use the word “crooks” as one or two of them do have well-publicised criminal convictions. I predicted at the time that it would all end in tears.

And I’m right too, because this afternoon their application for a new licence to play in the Welsh Premier League was refused, and the club has been expelled. This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows the story of the current owners, because it is the same story that can be told by sports fans from many other clubs.

The only good news is that the freehold of the football stadium is owned by a football trust which leases the ground to the club. So at least it will be available for anyone else who wants to use it for football and won’t be turned into housing development that would be ohhh! so lucrative for the owners.

Tea was a frozen curry out of the freezer, and we had both of our walks today.

fete place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceThis evening’s walk was quite exciting though.

In the Place Maurice Marland there was someone setting up a marquee. And so I went over to her to ask her what was going on.
“We’e celebrating the opening of the Place today” she replied. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that it was closed for renovations during most of last year.
“But it’s been open for several months, now, hasn’t it?” said Our Hero
“Ues it has, but we had to have a formal opening” she replied.

Ahh well. Nothing like being up with the times, is there?

So now I’m going to have a rest because the alarm goes back on tomorrow. There’s plenty to do here.

Saturday 28th October 2017 – BRAIN OF BRITAIN STRIKES AGAIN!

There I was, doing the rounds of LIDL with a bag full of shopping. Just about to put my shopping on the convenyor when I reached into my pocket for my wallet with my money and bank cards in it.

Yes, I’d had my raincoat on last night, hadn’t I?

I had to dump my bag behind one of the empty tills and nip home for my wallet.

It won’t happen again though. I’ve left €50 in Caliburn and another €50 in the secret pocket in my mobile phone case. But what a silly thing to do!

A strange thing happened this morning. It was 08:20 when I awoke this morning. No alarm. For some reason or other the telephone had stalled at 23:49. And so we didn’t have sucj a good start to the morning anyway.

After doing some stuff on the laptop I went off for my trip around the shops and my unexpected return here. But the old washing machine has now gone to the great laundry in the sky – the dechetterie was open this morning which makes a change. The fridge is there too, along with another pile of cardboard boxes that had accumulated

At the Auchan I did the rest of the shopping. Including some frozen sprouts, frozen mushrooms and frozen peppers. What with the mango sorbet and the loaf of bread the freezer is now full. It’s far too small for what I need and I’ve a good mind to take it back to swap it for a bigger one.

Mind you, I thought that the fridge was far too small too, but I’ve managed to rearrange things around in there and there’s plenty of room in there now. I imagine that once I start to attack the frozen food it will be the same in the freezer there too.

After lunch and a bit of tidying up, I crashed out for half an hour or so, and then I caught up with a few other things that needed doing too.

football us granvillaise es hebecrevon cite des sports granville manche normandy franceBut this evening US Granvillaise’s 3rd XI were playing ES Hébécrevon on the artificial pitch at the Sports Centre. And as it was a reasonable evening, I dressed up warmly and walked all the way there. It’s about 3.5 kilometres up and down hill, and I reckoned that it would do me no good.

Much to my surprise the Sports Centre was closed up, so there was no buvette. How is this possible? In the Auvergne they wouldn’t even consider having a public event without a buvette, and yet here we are, twice in two days, THis isn’t the France that we know and love, is it?

As for the match itself, Granville were bottom of the league without a win and Hébécrevon were 9th. So I was expecting another defeat. But much to my surprise I saw one of the best matches I’ve seen for quite a while.

Granville were much better than their league position suggested and played some beautiful football. Hébécrevon huffed and puffed but never looked likely to seriously trouble the Granville defence, and the home side scored three of the best goals that I’ve seen for a while.

All three of them breakaways, two of which were solo efforts and the third was a cross from the young lad playing left-wing (who had an excellent game) into the centre to the forward who hit it on the half-volley straight into the corner of the net.

I walked back home wfterwards, stopping for a bag of chips. And nice they were too.

Now I’m off to bed and it’s a lie-in tomorrow with an extra hour in bed. We put the clocks back tomorrow – 1 hour if you live in the real world, 50 years if you live in the UK, 120 years if you voted for Brexit and 250 years if you voted Conservative.

Saturday 10th March 2012 – BRAIN OF A DUCK, YOU KNOW!

Yes, Brain of Britain drove all of the way to Commentry to do his shopping this afternoon, only to find when he arrived there that he had forgotten his money, his wallet and his bank cards.

And so all the way back to here to fetch them and then go all the way back again.

That meant that I didn’t have time to do much shopping and so I just did the bare essentials – and then only some because I forgot quite a lot, I reckon.

And after that, a nip to the swimming baths at Neris-les-Bains.

It was freezing in there this afternoon and I wasn’t sorry to come out after an hour or so.

But I did have an amusing time watching a group of kids in there. All aged between 6 and 8 I reckon and all came in individually with parents, but after a while I noticed that they were all playing together in a corner of the shallow end.

It never ceases to amaze me how unself-conscious kids of that age are, and how quickly they all seem to integrate.

puy de dome franceFC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing Sauret this evening at football down at the bottom of Division 4 of the Puy de Dome District league in Pionsat.

For once they had a full side out with a couple of new players as well as a few decent players who have featured for the second XI. And so they spent most of the match peppering the Sauret goal whereas the opposition just contented themselves with a few breakaways.

And such is the perversity of modern football that Sauret won the encounter by 2-1.

This was another match that Pionsat threw away. They really do need to win encounters like this if they want to crawl away from the basement.

Saturday 11th June 2011 – HIS NIBS IS AT IT AGAIN!

caroline strawberry moose caliburn sandbach cheshire ukHere you can see him dipping into his Auntie Caroline’s cod and chips.

To pass the evening, I went to see Caroline again.

We ended up going out to the chippy (not half as good as a traditional Belgian fritkot), I have to admit, and that was where His Nibs joined in the (af)fray.

But Caroline’s cat Bigsy is very poorly and she might not pull through. I wanted to make sure that I saw her and gave her a stroke.

So after many vicissitudes, not the least of which was parking up for the night in a zone where there was no mobile phone signal (something that only I can do), I finally made contact with whatsername and, sure enough, my wallet was there.

That was just as well as I would shudder to have to think what I would have had to do had it not been there.

She was making breakfast for the family (it was quite early) I was also invited to eat there and that really put an end to my journey to Ilkeston and Vehicle Wiring Products, as they would have been closed by the time I would have arrived.

Instead I went to DK Motorcycles in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

As well as selling road-going machines the company also imports classic motorcycles from the USA. They arrive in all states of repair and I always like to go along if I can to see what’s arrived.

They had a few mint Hondas, including a couple of rare 1970s 350-fours as well as a pile of other stuff as well that was fit for renovation, including a 95%-complete Honda 160.

As an aside, I passed my motorcycle test on a Honda 160 belonging to my mate Ray Stigter.

Many of the machines that arrive there are only suitable to be broken up for spares and I always go to chat to the guys there because many of you might not know that I own probably one of the rarest of all Japanese motocycles – a CB92 “Benly” from 1961.

It’s basically complete and after we assembled it we even had it running after a fashion, but that was back in 1974 and that is a long time ago.

It desperately needs an overhaul but spares for it are impossible to find now – hence the regular visits to DK Motorcycles.

They might one day have one in that is only fit for dismantling but to date the guys in there freely admit that this is one motorcycle that they have never ever seen and don’t ever reckon that they will do either.

One regular feature of this blog in its previous incarnation was something to do with poorly-sited solar panels.

badly sited solar panels keele staffordshire ukBut we gave that up when we were overwhelmed with them. Some of these solar panel salesmen have no shame of course.

We’ve seen some dreadful ones on our travels in the past but this must be pretty near the bottom of the pile.

It’s all about the salesman’s income and nothing whatever to do with the reputation of the product that he’s selling

Lunch was at Waitrose in Sandbach and then I went to B&Q in Crewe to see if they had the doors that I need for my house. My house is dark and gloomy due to the small windows and if I’m putting partition walls in, this will cut the light down further.

What I need is some dirt-cheap glass-panelled doors and finding them in France is impossible. However B&Q does a nice cheap line in exactly what I want.

The door that I fitted into the attic came from there and you can see what a good job it does as well – hence a requirement for another half-dozen to match.

B&Q came up trumps in more ways than one.

  1. they had enough in stock.
  2. they had some that were only 650mm instead of 750mm and that’s what I need for the bathroom and the office.
  3. with my trade card I had almost £100 off the retail price – £240 for 6 instead of about £335 or so.

When you think about it … “you are always thinking about it” – ed … that’s just 20 weeks of rental on my mailbox paid off in one swell foop.

You can see why it’s important to have a UK address if I am buying stuff over here.

Now Caroline and I are having a coffee on Sandbach Services. In a short while I’ll be dropping her off at home and making my way in the general direction of Bacup.

I have to go to see a digger there tomorrow morning.

Friday 10th June 2011 – I FINALLY MADE …

… it down this afternoon to see this boss of The One That Got Away who had been hankering after seeing me.

And the reason for my visit was quickly unveiled.

It seems that his company has won a contract to supply and fit out a new village hall on the Staffordshire Moorlands, and it all has to be off-grid.

Off-grid is not something in which they have any expertise and so it seems that I’ve been drafted in on this project as well.

I’m not sure what the payment might be, but “panels at cost” is a good inducement for me to become involved in it, if nothing else.

We then spent until some ridiculous time this morning catching up on all the old times that we knew when she worked for me as a kid back in the 1980s, and discussed everything that has happened to us since we last met quite a long time ago.

It was lovely to see her again after all of this time and I was sorry to leave.

Terry rang me up as well during the day. He wants me to go to look at a digger in Accrington or Bacup or somewhere like that tomorrow, and then I need to be in Ilkeston as well to pick up some stuff from Vehicle Wiring Products.

But I’m not going anywhere until I’m reunited with my wallet, which I hope is still at whatsername’s. If it isn’t I am going to be having more than just a few problems.