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Wednesday 20th June 2018 – THE WORLD’S WORST BANK …

… strikes again!

Remember that letter that I had to fax them yesterday? It seems that I had forgotten something off it.

And yes, I freely admit that it was my error. No argument there.

The bank sent me an e-mail and asked me to rectify the omission. No problem there either.

BUT

I had to reply by fax yet again. I couldn’t do it by phone, and I couldn’t reply to their e-mail either. Even though they had referred to my request in the e-mail that they had sent me, that it would be clear that any reply that I sent would have been in reply to their mail, and that the information was information that they had requested.

So that was yet more wasted time.

Like I say, I’m not denying my responsibility. I’m just moaning about the bank’s procedures. Had I still have been in the UK they would have been kicked into touch a good while ago. But then, had I still been in the UK, I would never have had the issues that I’m having now.

Last night, I didn’t get to see my film. I ended up going to bed fairly early instead. I was hoping to have an early night, but waking up at 03:45 was no part of my intentions whatsoever.

So much so that after breakfast I sat down and ended up being … errr … away with the fairies for a good half an hour.

But I pulled myself through, did some more tidying up and even vacuumed the living room, as well as measuring up a few things here and there, because I’m having a day out tomorrow.

hanging cloud port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOr, at least, I’m hoping to, if I can find the road.

On my trip into town this afternoon we were lucky to see the harbour. We’ve been swathed in a hanging cloud all day and it hasn’t lifted for a minute. It’s even worse right now.

If it keeps on like this, I won’t even be able to find my way out of the building, never mind out of town.

Having dealt with the housekeeping issues for today (Friday is to deal with the kitchen and Saturday is to wash the floor to let it dry while I’m out at the shops) I went back to the blog again.

The current whereabouts of my amendments is the day that I left Leuven to travel to Oostende. That page is not quite finished (although it might be by the time you read this) but it’s all now done from there onwards.

I’m determined to bring it all up to date before I’m much older, having left it somewhat … errr … incomplete during my all-too-frequent bouts of illness.

No point in going out for lunch today in the hanging cloud. I stayed in and read my book in the peace and quiet.

And then I had to fiddle about with the printer in order to make it work. It’s an ancient Hewlett-Packard that I inherited from Marianne all those years ago. It had an enormous amount of use while she had it, and it’s done some work here over the five years that I’ve had it. So it’s quite temperamental.

house demolition rue du port granville manche normandy franceAnd so off into town.

We’ve seen the hanging cloud, but I don’t think that you have seen the workmen down in the bottom-right corner who have now started on another house down on the rue du Port.

It’s difficult to tell whether they are knocking holes in the walls to fit new windows, or whether they are trying to knock the walls down completely. I suppose that time will tell.

gravel tipping port de granville harbour manche normandy franceHaving seen my friendly newspaper shop owner and sent off the fax, I came back up the hill.

And over in the port, another gravel lorry had arrived and had tipped its load. And behind it there was a digger driver busily heaping it all up into a tidy pile on the edge of the quayside.

Not in the gravel bins, you’ll notice. So that can really only mean that another gravel boat will shortly be paying us a visit. And I hope that I’m here to see it.

But I learnt some bad news in the newsagents. Madame la Maire has finally published her proposals for the port. She wants to build another casino and another pile of restaurants down there.

That means, quite simply, that all of the empty shops in the town will immediately be transformed into the kind of expensive boutiques that you see in every other seaside town – vastly overpriced for two months of the year and closed, gathering dust for the other 10.

And the port, instead of being a working, industrial zone, will become a haven for luxury yachts for 2 months of the year and deserted for the remainder.

It will totally destroy the character of the town, but such is the price that one has to pay for a bit of egoism.

And it did not go unnoticed that the proposals weren’t published until after the series of meetings with the residents (one of which we attended last week).

So that was my afternoon walk, and I crashed out yet again for a while. A coffee soon revived me though, and I had a good 50-minute session on the bass guitar. I’m cracking on.

After tea, which was a frozen mushroom and pepper curry in coconut milk, I went for my walk. And managed 120 paces at a run (well, a sort-of run). And if there was anyone else out there, I wouldn’t have an idea in this weather.

So now I’ll do a few bits and pieces and then have another early night.

And I hope that it’s more successful than the last one.

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Monday 22nd January 2018 – THERE’S NO TIME …

… like the present to start to change into some good habits.

And so I altered the alarm call from 07:30 to 06:45. Not quite the 06:00 of the last year or two, but it’s a change in the correct direction. If I’m having difficulty sleeping, I may as well have no sleep sitting on the sofa than lying in bed.

During the night I’d been on my travels too – I think. I spent it thinking about horses in warfare and how they pull their chariot or whatever behind them – and so they are most at risk from the enemy. But if you could put something in front of them, like a giant lawnmower, and had the horse push it, it would be so much better and much more effective. And so I went off on my travels experimenting. Of course there are countless difficulties in doing this, and I seemed to be having enormous amounts of fun trying to overcome them when the alarm awoke me.

After the usual medication and breakfast I had a few things to do, that took me much more time than it ought to have done, and then I got down to the correspondence.

I can’t remember now how many letters I wrote but looking through my correspondence directory on my laptop there hasn’t been a day when I’ve written anything like as many. Having to go back through my files of paperwork – that took the time as I kept on unearthing more stuff and yet more stuff that needed attention.

And then there’s the printing too, but luckily the printer seems to be working fine just now, which makes a really good change.

Next plan was to fill in these forms that I need for my replacement driving licence. That wasn’t easy because a couple of years ago all of the Groups for vehicles changed and now bear little resemblance to what is on my licence.

So I had to spend a while researching the new legislation to see exactly what new groups I am covered to drive. And it looks as if I’m covered to drive all of them. So I’ve ticked all of the boxes and they can decide if it’s appropriate.

And here’s an added problem – as if I don’t have enough to deal with. I need a “proof of residence” less than 6 months old. And with my electricity bills being annual, the one that I have is time-expired. So I printed off a receipt for my rent from just a week or two ago – and it seems that the Estate Agents have put the wrong address on the form.

The good news though is that when someone sends you a medical report listing a description of your illness and prognosis, they ought to do it in *.pdf format – not in *.doc format because documents in that format can be edited and that surely can’t be right.

I’ve had my to walks today, and my three meals. I need to make some room in the freezer as the peppers have run out and the peas are likely to follow them. So I had a frozen potato and lentil curry. Trouble is, with taking one of those out, there seems to be less room in the freezer than there was beforehand.

It’s an early start tomorrow and I need a shower before I set off, so I shall try for an early night. And – I hope – a decent sleep.

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Sunday 21st January 2018 – TODAY WASN’T …

… the day that I wanted either.

We started off with another depressing night where it took me ages to go off to sleep. And then I was awake again just before 07:00. Mind you I’d been on my travels during the night. Or, rather, someone else had. One of the football clubs whose results I always check is Greenock Morton in Scotland and someone from the club came to see me and chatted for three hours to me about the future plans of the club, all of which were very interesting.

But never mind 07:00 – it was more like 08:30 when I crawled out of bed – mainly for the reason that any male of my age will immediately recognise.

After medication and breakfast, I vegetated for quite a while (well, it IS Sunday) before I did anything. And when I felt like it, I put away the washing that had been drying in front of the radiator for a couple of days.

And having spent a couple of days looking for the little laptop that I take with me on my travels and which I couldn’t find it, I cme across it, in its little portable carry-case. What a silly place to leave it, hey?

Much of the day has been spent going through another portable external drive that I came across on my travels and discovering another pile of unsorted photos on there that relate to one of my trips to Canada.

They’ll need to be sorted at some time or other but I couldn’t face it this afternoon.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Going through the box that I was unpacking, I found two new ink cartridges. I’m hoping that they are for the Hewlett Packard that I have here (I can’t think why else I would have brought them from the farm) and they don’t look much like the old Canon stuff to me.

There should have been a football match at St Pair-sur-Mer this afternoon but with the depressing weather continuing, I decided to give it a miss. If last night’s games were called off everywhere I couldn’t see this match taking place with the additional downpour this morning and it’s a long way to go to find out.

But I’ve been for my two walks today all the same, and got myself pretty wet too in the process. It looks as if it’s never going to stop, doesn’t it?

And for tea, another pizza. And I’m going to have to stop buying the bases at LIDL. Last week’s was rolled backwards so it took all kinds of effort to get it out of the packet, and this week’s wasn’t any better and ended up being quite a mess. I’ll have to bite the bullet and buy the expensive stuff from LeClerc.

So back to work tomorrow, and I need to continue to write the pile of letters that are awaiting me. I’m out on Tuesday so I want to have as many as possible done for then so that I can post them off.

I shall take full advantage of this printer while it’s still working.

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Friday 19th January 2018 – MYSTERY SOLVED.

new harbour gates port de granville harbour manche normandy franceI now know what the shipping containers and the crane down in the harbour are all about. And unfortunately it’s nothing to do with a nes ship coming to the port.

I’ve always said that if you want to know the answer to the question you need to ask the question, so while I was out and about on my travels I went down to where everything was assembled and buttonholed a workman.

The harbour here is tidal as you know, but there’s the deep-water bit where the larger visitors tie up and that has a pair of tidal gates across it so that the water stays in the basin so the ships will stay afloat.

And it seems that we are going to hae new lock gates. All of the pieces are here, and the containers are simply tool stores and offices and the like.

So with the new gates we might be having some new visitors. Who knows?

I had another miserable night last night. I ended up watching a film – Austin Powers as it happens – and as you know any film normally sends me to sleep after 5 minutes. But not last night. I could have watched the film two and three times over had I so desired and I still would have been awake.

But I must have gone to sleep at some point, because I remember waking up. Still dark, long before the alarm. And by the time the alarm sounded, I was up, medicated and well on the way to breakfast.

It didn’t look very hopeful outside with yet more driving rain, but round about 09:45 the rain stopped and we had a very watery sun. “If I don’t go now I never will” I mused, and so off I set.

One of the places on my travels was the laboratory. There was an extra charge that I had to pay because they had to examine part of it again. Apparently I’m missing something in my body (and it’s not a brain).

And then to LIDL where I bought a baguette, some pears and some biros.

Now here’s a thing.

I need a black pen to fill in a computer input form, and there in one of the bins at LIDL were several packs of pens, some coloured blue and others coloured black. So I bought a pack of black ones, like you would – only to find that they have blue ink inside. How weird is that? I’ll go back tomorrow and buy some blue ones and see what colour ink they have.

On the way back, I called at the port as above, and then staggered (because it really was a struggle) back up the hill for a coffee.

This afternoon I made a start on the correspondence. And that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either because the last time that I updated my letterhead was in 2011 and a lot has happened since then. I had to redesign it completely from scratch.

Then I needed a pile of attachments so first of all I had to scan in a few documents. And then spend the next half hour looking for them in the laptop. But then I could write my letters (I managed three today) and print them, as well as all of the attachments.

And not only that, I could print off a few things. It’s a good job that when I received my French driving licence back in 2009 I scanned it into the laptop, because now I have a reasonable facsimile to use with my “declaration of loss” if I’m help up in a police spot-check. It’s good to finally have a working printer

It’s always a good plan to scan your official identity documents for cases such as this.

storm st pair sur mer manche normandy franceIt was then walkies time and as the rain was still holding off – just about – I went out for my afternoon walk around the Pointe du Roc again.

But look at that storm out there! Drifting along – and quite rapidly too – in the general direction of St Pair sur Mer. And as I watched, they got the lot too. It really was something quite impressive to see and I’m glad that it went over there and not over here.

Mind you, it did start to rain shortly after that, but nothing like what they had over there.

digger in tidal basin port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd down in the tidal basin the digger was out there again digging away. So I stopped to watch him for a while.

And to my surprise, there’s nowhere provided for him to dump the silt that he’s excavating. He’s just swivelling his jib around and dumping it elsewhere.

And so he can’t be dredging the basin then. It’s almost as if he’s looking for a body or something like that. I shall have to go for a walk down there sometime and see if I can find out what he’s up to.

Soup for lunch again, and tea, because I didn’t know what I fancied to eat, was baked potatoes and a tin of ratatouille. And that’s significant because that was the last tin of ratatouille from the European tinned food mountain.

Still plenty of other tins of other stuff from back then, but it’s all looking optimistic that ine day sometime soon I might clear it all out.

The walk this evening was punctuated my a couple of showers, and also by a couple of cats – I took a different route up on the walls to avoid the muddy footpath. So according to my fitbit I’ve done 113% of my daily effort today which is quite impressive.

In a short while I’ll be off to bed, and I’ve clearly earned it. I just hope that I can make the most of it.

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Thursday 18th January 2018 – IT WASN’T …

… such a good, exciting day today as it was yesterday.

It started to go wrong when I went to bed last night and found that, once more, I couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning for much of the night and waking up bolt-upright part-way through.

Mind you, I had been on my travels during the night but you don’t want me to tell you about them. You’re probably eating your tea or something. It’s what probably awoke me too.

When the alarm went off I managed to crawl out of bed at a reasonable time thereafter, and after the medication and breakfast I had a shower. And SHOCK! HORROR! I did a machine-load of washing, including the bedclothes. Tonight I’ll have brand-sparkling-clean covers on the bed and won’t that be luxury?

But no chance of going out. The rain was back, and in spades too. I really didn’t fancy the walk up to LIDL in this kind of weather.

I’m not really sure where the morning went, because I don’t recall doing anything much. It wasn’t as if the washing took all that much time. It was actually 14:00 when I noticed that it was lunchtime.

After lunch, checking my e-mails, I found that I had had a reply from the French Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés. I had sent them an e-mail to ask them where I could find the two documents that I need for Tuesday. They sent me a link, but that wasn’t the answer and I had to spend a good hour or so exploring the site before I found them.

They are not at all called what the Doctor told me that they were called at all, but they correspond to the description. And so I downloaded them.

And then they needed to be printed.

It took a while to sort out this mains connection but it seems to work now, which is good news. But the next issue is trying to make the thing function. The drivers aren’t loaded onto this laptop and I don’t seem to have brought the disk with me.

And so I had to track down an installation disk image on-line and download it – only 255mb of it and that took an age. And then set it up.

And much to my surprise it actually worked and I was able to print off the documents.

While it was doing all of that I did some more sorting out of papers and all of those are ready for a good examination in due course.

digger working in tidal port de granville manche normandy franceThe weather had cleared up by now so I went for my little walk around the headland again.

And there’s yet more excitement in the port today. Part of the port area is tidal and this is where some of the yachts and smaller fishing boats tie up, and ground out at low tide.

But there’s a digger out there just now working away. On what, I have no idea but it’s interesting to say the least. I shall have to go back tomorrow for another look.

Back here, i made myself a coffee. But I didn’t drink it though. I crashed right out and was gone for over an hour. A really deep sleep too and I felt quite feeble when I awoke.

Not too feeble though to have a session on the bass guitar again. And this time, one of the things that I was working on was “Orgone Accumulator” – the Hawkwind track that I played when I was with Mike Allen and one or two others whose names I forget. After all, it is over 40 years ago.

For tea I tried some pasta and managed to eat it all although it took some time.

But the walk was a bit of a disaster. I hadn’t gone 400 yards before the heavens opened and I was drenched to the skin. NO point in risking double-pneumonia so I came back home.

So here’s hoping for a better night, and a better day tomorrow. But at the moment I don’t feel like it at all.

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Monday 15th January 2018 – IT GOES …

… without saying that this morning didn’t go according to plan, doesn’t it?

In fact, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m continually being confounded by issues not of my own making and I have to go to extraordinary lengths to circumvent them.

Just for a change, I was awake before the alarm went off, but that’s not quite the same as saying that I was ready to leave the bed. In fact it was something of a struggle to haul myself out of my stinking pit.

Fist thing though was the urine sample. Despite a thorough search this last few days I’ve not found the report from Leuven so I had to go through the procedure here. That’s what I call “taking the P155”. Then I could have my medication and once that worked, I could have my breakfast.

There was a form to fill in to take to the laboratory and that involved some tracking down of stuff too. But once I’d done that I could set off. Into the howling gale and driving rainstorm. After the couple of nice days that we have had, it goes without saying that as I’m out and about on foot we are going to have this kind of weather, doesn’t it?

First stop was the Mobile phone repairer. Having been told that he was back today I made this my first port of call. But as I really ought to have expected, it’s Monday today and many places are closed in France on a Monday – the mobile phone repairer included.

Next stop was the mairie. The doctor who is doing my medical examination told me that I could find some forms here. But according to the mairie, not any more. The forms are available to download on line.

But at least this means that I need to take some decisive action to resolve the cable issues that I’m having with my printer. The tag that holds the plug in place has broken off so the plug won’t stay connected. I shall have to invent a means of locking it in position, or even making a direct connection.

But it’s just typical of Hewlett Knackered. They can’t use standard infinity plugs like anyone else – they have to go for something really fancy and complicated that breaks under the slightest pressure and renders the machine unusable (unless you have a devious mind of course).

Hiking up to the laboratory (which is just on the station roundabout) I was running out of steam – I clearly haven’t recovered from my health. And the bad news is that the lack of this urine sample means that I’ve had to pay €6:80. no wonder I’m spending a fortune with being so unprepared.

On the way back I picked up a baguette and then staggered back up the hill to here – thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly soaked to the skin – to such an extent that I had to change my trousers.

And just for a change, I had a coffee. First one (apart from some warm brown liquid at the football the other week) since I’ve been back from Leuven. And it tasted awful.

Soup with pasta and bulghour for lunch again, with some of the fresh bread (the rest went into the freezer) and then I had a relaxing afternoon not doing very much, although I did have a good session on the bass guitar. To my surprise, some of the stuff that we used to play 40-odd years ago came back into my mind.

For tea tonight, I made a huge curry – the first one for a while. Mushrooms, peppers and because it didn’t make as much as I was hoping, a tin of sweet corn. One helping tonight and four more for the freezer.

My evening walk was a disappointment. Pouring with rain still and a howling gale. So I just did a short lap around the streets and came home. No sense in risking another attack of Bronchitis.

Anyway, tomorrow I’m off down to town again to see if this mobile phone repairer is finally going to make it back to his shop. He better had be because it’s getting my goat.

And the music?

For most of the day we’ve had Jethro Tull going round. If I really had to choose one group to be my favourite, it would have to be Jethro Tull. It takes me back to my school days and Benefit, Stand Up, Aqualung, Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play – the latter two albums being so good that it took the critics 30 years to realise it.

Those five albums, and many others that they released subsequently, have been on my playlist for getting on for 50 years and won’t ever lose their place. Other bands and artists may come and go but Jethro Tull will always be there

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Wednesday 22nd February 2017 – I NEARLY HAD SOMETHING …

… exciting to report today.

There I was, gazing out of the window at he rear of the hostel this afternoon and I noticed a couple of people at the door of the big derelict church at the back here. This seemed like the ideal opportunity to gatecrash yet another official visit – I’ve always wanted to set foot inside there.

And so I nipped off down there hot-foot, or chaud-pied as they say in Wallonie or warme-voet as they say around here, to blag my way into the church.

Instead, there I found these three women trying to work the lock of the door, without very much success at all. In the end, although they agreed that I could join the party, they couldn’t undo the door and in the end gave it up as a bad job and walked away.

So much for that.

I had another bad night again last night. Ages to drop off and waking up a few times during the night, and being definiteively awake by 06:30. So much for that. And I couldn’t eat my breakfast either – most of it ended up in the waste bin, along with all of my food from the fridge yesterday I imagine.

After a brief relax (that spread into a good couple of hours) I wandered off down to the Carrefour by the football ground to but the food that ended up being thrown away (and about which you’ll hear me moaning for the next six months, I imagine). I also treated myself to more ice-cream sorbet and seeing as the pineapple slices are now back to full price, I ended up with a big tin of peach halves instead, just to make a difference.

Lunch was next on the agenda, and then I set to work. I installed the 3-in-1 printer that I had brought with me from home, having first downloaded the drivers and the accessory files from the internet. And once I’d done all of that (which wasn’t simple either) I started off to scan all of my receipts.

That wasn’t a five-minute job either, and it’s really quite ironic. Many years ago I had one of the very first Hewlett-Packard flatbed scanners and the user interface was so easy to use. And not only that, it remembered all of the settings too. This is a modern Hewlett-Packard 3-in-1 printer, an HP deskjet 2180 that I liberated from Marianne and not only is it unbelievably complicated to use, it doesn’t memorise the settings in a batch process so each document has to have its settings set individually, which is the most ridiculous thing that I’ve ever encountered.

But if you think that that is complicated, you ain’t seen nuffink yet because although it’s definitely progress that I can now submit all of my claims on-line, it’s such a time-consuming process. It takes ages just to prepare one form of 5 claims, and I have about 50 or so to do. I’m going to be here for ever.

Tea was vegan burger, beans and oven chips followed by peach halves and vegan lemon sorbet. Now I’m going to have an early night ready for my marathon paperwork session tomorrow.

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