… has told me some surprising things in the pas, but none more surprising than what it told be today.
Having coupled it up to the laptop while I went for my shower this morning, it told me that over the month of November I had performed 103% of my daily fitness routine – the first time ever that I have gone over the 100% for a month. I’d done almost 350,000 steps and I’d travelled an unbelievable 261 kilometres on foot.
Even more interestingly, I had run for a total of 1 hour and 27 minutes.
And if you think that it’s not all that much to crow about, remember that I’m slowly dying and that three and a half years ago I couldn’t even walk.
The hospital wants me to lie about in bed and take it easy to preserve my strength for the struggle that lies ahead, but there’s no chance whatever of that. In the words of Neil Young, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
And I’m going to go with a bang, hopefully with a nubile nymphet a quarter of my age. That’ll give everyone something to talk about, won’t it?
However, there wasn’t much to talk about last night. I was in bed rather later than I would have liked, and up and out of bed long before the third alarm.
As for the dictaphone, not a word. It seems that I didn’t go off anywhere during the night and that’s a disappointment. As I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … there’s far more excitement going on during the night when I’m asleep than there ever is when I’m awake these days.
In fact, probably my only hope of ever grabbing hold of a nymphet a quarter of my age will be at some point during a nocturnal perambulation.
With nothing to transcribe from last night, after the medication I attacked the backlog of dictaphone notes. With an interruption for breakfast and another one for a shower and clean-up, by the time that it came to leave the apartment the backlog was reduced to a mere 25.
And it goes to prove my point about these nocturnal ramblings because I seem to have passed through the extremely turbulent seas full of whirlpools and turmoil and moved back into calmer waters where I can carry on doing what I do best, whatever than might be.
It’s Monday so I have my regular Monday morning meeting at the Centre Agora at 10:00.
Just for a change I was late getting away, which was a disappointment because when I realised that I had forgotten to bring the little Nikon 1 with me.
That’s the camera that I usually take with me when I’m walking out because it’s small and light, and easy to carry in my pocket. And if I don’t ask it to do too much, the results aren’t all that much less in quality than the big Nikon D500.
And how I wished that I had remembered to bring it because the camera on the telephone is total rubbish. But it’s the best that I had with me so it had to do.
Nevertheless I would have loved to have had a decent high-quality shot of this beautiful image of them preparing the Christmas tree at the Place Pierre Semard.
Health and Safety in the UK would have had a field day, seeing this kind of thing going on. As Isambard Kingdom Brunel once remarked late in his life during an enquiry into procedure at the beginning of the Railway Age, “what would be said of such a mode of proceeding today?”.
But here’s a more normal photo of them erecting the Christmas tree. It’s nothing like as exciting, is it?
So I carried on to the Centre Agora for our meeting. I had a couple of ideas that might have been useful but because they came from me and not from any of the organisers, they were discreetly brushed aside.
But not to worry. I’ll just keep to doing my own little job and let them get on with it. I hate empire-building but it seems that i’m stuck with it right now. At least they didn’t ask me to make the coffee.
After the meeting I walked all the way back home, calling in at LIDL for a few bits and pieces. Carrots were reduced to half-price and as I’m running a little low, I bought a kilo to freeze.
How, though, I don’t know because there’s no more room in the freezer. I really did make a mistake buying this one. It’s far too small for me.
On the way back I picked up my dejeunette (they are recognising me now in La Mie Caline) and bumped into someone who had been present at the meeting just now.
After lunch I started on Project 004. I need to have about four or five all organised pretty quickly as there seems to be no-one working over the Christmas period and if I want to have my stuff dealt with, it needs to be in by 15th December at the latest.
By the time that I knocked off, I’d done all of the music that I need. I just need to do the speech but I can’t do that yet as my mixer panel still hasn’t arrived and I don’t want to use the dictaphone again.
We had a pause as usual for my afternoon walk around the headland.
The wind had died down somewhat and with the sun being out it was quite a beautiful day. The fishing boat that was out there at the northern tip of the Ile de Chausey was having a good time
And so was Gribouille, the big ginger cat who came for a stoke.
But out there today the skies were totally clear and while the Brittany coast was in haze, the view over to Jersey was the clearest that I have ever seen it.
We had some good shots of the Brittany coast the other day while Jersey was shrouded in haze, but it was the other way round this afternoon.
We’ve never seen the eastern corner of the island looking like this.
That’s St Helier there, and that’s about 54 kilometres away from where I’m standing right now.
We’ve seen the town before, but never with this much clarity. While it’s a tribute to the quality of the camera and the lens, it also has a lot to do with the weather too.
Probably more so in fact.
So as you admire some more of the beautiful Jersey coastline to the west of St Helier, I carried on with my walk.
Surprisingly, given the really nice weather, I counted no more than 5 other people out there taking in the air around my circuit.
This was really a day for being out and about
While you look at the western corner of the island of Jersey, I went to have a look to see what was going on in the chantier navale.
And the answer to that question isn’t “nothing” as you were probably expecting, but “nothing any different from the last few days”.
Just the usual suspects and no new additions.
And that reminds me. I haven’t seen a gravel boat for ages and ages. I wonder why.
It’s no surprise that there isn’t a gravel boat right now and I wouldn’t expect to see one because the tide is well on its way out just now.
All of the boats in the harbour are slowly setting down on the silt in the tidal harbour.
Except for the yellow and white on. That’s careening over quite alarmingly, although careening is a well-known technique in old ship-repairing. Ancient mariners in leaky ships would find a harbour like this where they could careen their boat to one side to repair the bottom of the boat.
And when the tide came back in and the boat would float up with the rising water they would turn the boat round so that when the tide went out next they would careen it over so that the other side was up and they could repair that.
There was no haze down at the bottom end of the Baie de Mont St Michel either. The hotels at the foot of the Mont St Michel were standing out quite clearly and that’s without any effort on my behalf or that of the camera and lens.
The Pointe de Carolles looks beautiful in this weather and the Cabanon Vauban that we visited a couple of times is perching proudly on the top.
Even the little town of Carolles-Plage and the beach is looking quite nice with its reflection in the damp sand
Back here I did a little (just a little) tidying up. The big suitcases for which I don’t have a place, I lifted up the mattress and the bed base and put them underneath the bed. I only use them once a year so they don’t need to be out in the way.
Another thing that I needed to do was to book my next trip to Leuven and Castle Anthrax. As you might expect, it’s on Friday 13th of December.
One of the things that I had been considering was to take myself off into Germany for a couple of days but there was nothing suitable. So I’ve booked my return journey for the Sunday.
And due to rail works, there’s no 08:13 again so I’m on the 08:43. And having to come home via Paris St Lazaire and Caen, I’ll be back 10 minutes early if all goes according to plan even with a wait of over an hour at Caen.
But it’s going to be an exciting trip back because I don’t know the way back across Paris from Gare du Nord to St Lazare and I don’t have much spare time if I miss my way.
Tea was a stuffed pepper, and it was quite delicious too. They’ve been selling some cheap spicy tomato sauce with garlic in Noz so I’ve bought a few jars of that and it adds a certain something to my stuffing.
Pretty cool outside tonight, so there wasn’t anyone about at all as I went for my eveing walk.
A great number of lights out in the English Channel though. Plenty of fishing boats were out there tonight, like this one slowly chugging back to harbour.
I remember saying a few days ago that I don’t think that I’ve ever seen as much fishing activity this close to shore in previous years.
We’ve seen plenty of activity in the bay near Bréhal-Plage just recently too and that’s something that I haven’t noticed previously.
There’s another fishing boat out there tonight having a go at trying to haul in a decent catch.
As for me, I continued my walk and as usual broke into a run on my little track. And I made it all the way to the ramp and half-way up there without too much effort.
So back here and I’m off to bed. 146% and 11.7kms today. Start the month as I mean to go on!
