… probably the worst day that I have had for quite a while. I have been totally out of it all for the greater part of today and for all the good that I’ve done, I may as well have stayed in bed and saved all of the anguish.
It was a night that was rather later than usual, but not as late as many similar nights have been, and I had a sleep without a great deal of disturbance – there was nothing on the dictaphone for example. But even so I just couldn’t get my head around it today.
Margaret Thatcher once famously said “anyone can do a good day’s work when they feel like it. But the secret of success is to do a good day’s work when you don’t feel like it” and what I did today was nothing like a good day’s work.
After the medication I came in here with the intention of working but I didn’t last too long at all before I drifted off into oblivion. Not actually asleep but not very far from it.
Round about 10:00 I snapped out of it and went for my hot chocolate and sourdough fruit bread, and that seemed to restore my vigour somewhat because I managed t edit about 30 photos of my trip to the USA in 2019. Right now I’m wandering around Fort Fetterman.
But I couldn’t keep going and ended off being really asleep after that.
It was rather a late lunch after all of that, and then I came back in here to do some more of my work on my yacht trip down the Brittany coast. And I actually managed to write a dozen or so words before things caught up with me again and that was that.
Rosemary awoke me by phoning me up and we had a good chat that went on for just over 2 hours and, much as I didn’t feel like it, I went for a very late walk.
As usual, I walked down to the end of the car park to stick my head over the wall to see what was goig on down on the beach.
Being as late as I was, the tide was on its way back in again so there weren’t all that many people down on the beach this afternoon as there had been yesterday. But even so, those who were down there were still having good scratch around to see what they could find in the sand.
The woman down there in the yellow trousers looks as if she’s found something interesting. And I hope that she will share it with her friends. Afer all, you shouldn’t be selfish with your shellfish
While I was there gazing over the wall, I had a bit of a gaze out to sea to see what was going on out there.
The tide is just at that moment where the large island of the Ile de Chausey is being divided up by the tidal creeks but before the smaller parts of it are submerged so it’s when the islands are at their most numerous.
With the tide coming in, the fishing bots are starting to come in too. It’s still going to be a while before there is enough water for them to come into the habour so they might stop off to do a little fishing on the way home while they wait for the tide.
And they have their friends out there to go fishing with today.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the fishing boats working in the Baie de Mont St Michel and as I came down the path and across the car park today I could see three of them out there again today.
There are rules and regulations, so I’m told, about when and where and how often they can fish, but it must be profitable for at least some of them to be out there in the bay for as long as they have been, unless it’s something to do with searching for new post-Brexit fishing grounds.
There’s also a small fishing boat out near Le Loup this afternoon too.
This is one of the boats that brings in the shellfish so its position seems to indicate to me that it’s out there laying traps, presumably for lobsters. If you look very closely in its wake you can see a few different types of buoys that probably indicate where it’s been dropping them off.
And you can see the difference in the tide today compared to where it was yesterday when almost all of the bay was flooded. When you are out there for the peche à pied you have to keep a very close eye on the speed of the tide.
The digger that we’ve seen there digging away at the sandbank at the entrance to the harbour is there again today.
He’s nibbling away at it quite rapidly now and the big lump has almost vanished. It will be interesting to see just how much they are going to dig away while they are at it. But make a note of this photo because it’s going to be important in a minute or two.
Meanwhile, you can see the mooring chains out there by the entrance to the harbour, and the buoys that are attached to them that float to the surface when the tide it in so that the boatmen know where to grapple with their boathooks when they need to tie up.
From our viewpoint here on top of the cliffs we can see down into the chantier navale
And once again there’s quite a rotation of occupants down there today. Anakena and Aztec Lady are still in there today, although the latter is out of shot, and so is the little fishing boat that appeared in there yesterday.
The other two fishing boats that appeared in there a couple of days ago have however gone back into the water. That was what I call a quick turnaround.
One of the Joly France boats is over there at the ferry terminal with Chausiais in front of it, out of shot.
Back in the inner harbour this afternoon is Granville, the newer one of the two Channel-Island ferries.
While they had the harbour drained she went out for a run around the bay while her older sister went to moor herself in Cherbourg. But now the water is back and so is she, and I never ever did find out what was going on down there that they needed to have all of the water drained out.
And now she’s back, there is still no indication of when, if ever, the ferry service to the Channel Islands is going to restart. Not only do they have the virus and Brexit to contend with, there’s the question of funding. The local council here that subsidises it thinks that the Channel Islanders should put their hands in their pockets too.
No sign of Marité though. She’s not come back. Apparently she’s going to be in Lorient for a while having her annual overhaul.
Remember a few minutes ago when I told you to make a note of the photo that I took of the digger and tractors working?
That one was taken at 17:41:20 and this one is taken at 17:50:24, just 9 minutes later. And you can see that the tide has already come in as far as the harbour entrance in that time and it’s forced the digger and the tractors and trailers to beat a hasty retreat to higher ground.
That’s what I mean by a rapid tide, and you can see why it’s important to keep one eye on it when you are out there because it can catch you unawares and there have been many fatalities in the past.
But that was enough for me. I came on home for my coffee and my guitar practice.
But as I reached the end of the road I could see behind me that a couple of the fishing boats that I’d seen out in the English Channel near the Ile de Chausey earlier had now arrived at the harbour. They weren’t going to bother to do any fishing on the way home. Instead they presumably intend to loiter around the entrance until the tide is far enough in.
After the guitar practice I went and made another quick tea. As I’m shopping tomorrow if I feel like it I’ll be going shopping so I used up all of the left-over food lying around followed by the last of the vegan ice-cream with some apple crumble.
More football tonight too. Connah’s Quay Nomads against Bala Town. If the Nomads were to win, they would put plenty of daylight between themselves and TNS at the top of the table. But after their magnificent effot on Saturday they failed to repeat it and went down 2-1.
That’s the big trouble with the Nomads – they can’t do it consistently enough. Another issue is that whilst their First XI is good enough, they don’t have enough quality on the bench to change things around.
Saturday’s return match against TNS is going to be extremely interesting. The Nomads won’t find that as easy as they did last weekend.
But now I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough. One thing that I do know is that no matter how ill I feel, I’ll feel better soon. Although one day, I won’t and that’s what worries me.
