Tag Archives: Jethro Tull

Thursday 26th February 2026 – TOTAL, ABSOLUTE CHAOS …

… at dialysis today. Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong and I had one of the latest departures that I have ever had. Consequently, I am running hours late, and it’s debatable whether I’ll finish my notes or not before I have to retire.

Last night wasn’t much better either. Despite having no tea, except for a slice of cake, I still couldn’t manage to complete everything at a reasonable time, and it was about 23:00 when I finally settled down in bed.

One thing that can be said, though, is that I stayed asleep until just after 06:00.

At that time, I suppose that I could have forced myself into an early start, but I soon put that silly idea out of my head and waited for the alarm to sound. And although I sat up quite promptly with my feet on the floor when the alarm went off, that was as far as I went for at least ten minutes.

Eventually, in the bathroom, I had a good wash and a shave. I’m not sure why, seeing as Emilie the Cute Consultant no longer loves me, and then I went into the kitchen for my hot drink and medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night.

I was in bed, having a lie-in one morning when a girl on crutches came into my room. She was being quite offensive about me still being in bed, saying that I had to get up and have breakfast etc. However, I had no plans to leave the bed for quite a while yet, but she became so insistent that in the end, I left the bed. The first thing that I did was to take one of her crutches, dismantle it and throw all of the different pieces off to different corners of the room. Then, I took the other one, dismantled that, and did the same again. And then I went back to bed.

What a rotten dream! I must really have been in a bad mood that morning. But it did remind me of Jethro Tull and –
"REMEMBERING MORNINGS, SHILLINGS SPENT,
MADE NO SENSE TO LEAVE THE BED.
THE BAD OLD DAYS THEY CAME AND WENT
GIVING WAY TO FRUITFUL YEARS"
– a song that includes one of Martin Barre’s best-ever solos that sends a shiver down my spine each time I hear it; it’s so good. And Glenn Cornick on bass, the best bassist that Jethro Tull ever had, playing one of his best-ever bass lines. I can listen to this track time and time again.

Later on, I had to go to drive somewhere. I said to a girl in my apartment that I’d be back later. We discussed food, and I said that I’d make something when I came back, to which she seemed to agree, so I wondered if she was going to be staying there by the time that I returned. However, I was absolutely overwhelmed by hunger at that point and on my way out to wherever it was that I had to go, I stopped at a supermarket and went in. I noticed that they had hot cross buns at half price – not hot cross buns but currant buns at half price, these packets of four – so I picked up a packet and one or two other things. I thought that this would keep me going until I returned

When I used to go wandering around the UK for weeks on end, back in the past, sleeping in the van, breakfast would almost always be a pack of fruit buns, a pack of hot cross buns or a malt loaf. Fruit buns at half price would be my paradise.

There was also something about football matches. In South Wales, some team had qualified for promotion to the next layer, from the third tier to the second. A girl who was with me who had something to do with this football club had to go to a meeting to discuss promotion, so I went with her. However, it seemed that the situation was simply being decided by choice, and when she arrived, most of the teams had already chosen where they were going to be. The only spots available for this particular team involved some considerable travelling distance, which made her quite disappointed and it led to some kind of discussion about people going to see football matches on public transport, someone saying that public transport and the connections were so bad that it took three hours for them to go to see their local football team by going on the bus. I reminded them of a football club in the north where a bus used to arrive fifteen minutes before kick-off, which gave everyone a good chance to go, but had been retimed just recently and was now at fifteen minutes past kick-off, which meant that no-one could go at all. This girl was still talking about this promotion, and she saw someone who appeared to be the secretary of this organisation who was packing things into her car boot as if she was going on a car boot sale. She asked a few questions but didn’t receive any kind of sensible answer, and that led to me making a comment that this looks like the quality of the organisation of this particular football league; it’s not a surprise that it all seems to be in such a mess. The woman with this car and the stuff in the boot was very, very unhelpful and didn’t seem to be interested at all in what she was supposed to be doing. She was more interested in packing her stuff for this car boot sale.

Judging by what happened in the dream, it was from the fourth tier to the third, and it would have been just like the Football Association of Wales twenty years ago to be more interested in organising a car boot sale than a football league. As well as that, the story about the bus timetable changing brings back a memory of a dream that we had a long time ago about a match on the border in North-East Wales.

There was another dream too, but the World isn’t ready to hear it, especially round about when everyone is eating his meal.

The nurse was late today, for a change, so he didn’t hang around. He was soon in and out, leaving me to breakfast and MAIDEN CASTLE EXCAVATIONS AND FIELD SURVEY 1985-6 by Niall Sharples.

We’re approaching the end, and it won’t be long before we’re in the summary, which should be interesting. However, I couldn’t pass by a remark such as "It has been argued (J Evans, Rouse, and Sharpies 1989) that, because of the socially dangerous nature of the ritual activities that would have taken place in this enclosure, such enclosures would be situated away from the settlement area."

This all sounds extremely interesting, and I wonder why these activities might be considered to be dangerous. Whatever must have been involved?

One thing that he does mention, which I found extremely interesting, is that during the Middle Iron Age, as the reconstruction and remodelling of Maiden Castle advanced, other hillforts in the area declined or were abandoned. Is this maybe a sign that the occupants of Maiden Castle had managed to impose themselves upon the settlers elsewhere and forced them to abandon their defensive sites?

There’s evidence that the style and quality of pottery changed round about this period too. Is this indicative of new arrivals bringing with them a different culture from elsewhere?

Back in here, there were things to do and then in a mad fit of enthusiasm, I attacked some radio notes that needed editing. Not only are they done, but the two halves of the programme are assembled. All it needs now is the joining track and the notes to go with it.

My cleaner turned up as usual to help me with my anaesthetic and then I had to await the taxi to take me to dialysis. And with just me today, we arrived at dialysis at 13:50.

Nevertheless, with several people arriving all at once, I was late receiving attention. And then the connection failed. This meant that they had to unplug me, compress the punctures in my arm, reload and recalibrate the machine and then plug me back in. By now, the anaesthetic had worn off and the cold spray can only do so much.

That was bad, but the guy in the next bed, his system simply stopped functioning. It took an age and three nurses to deal with his problems and then he had to restart too.

As a result, even though it was 18:35 when I was finally unplugged, there were still one or two people waiting patiently for their sessions to finish.

The taxi was waiting for me when I’d finished, but even so, it was 19:40 when I arrived back home. And I treated myself to an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit from the freezer, followed by fiery ginger cake and custard for afters.

Right now, though, I’m off to bed. But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about nurses … "well, one of us has" – ed … the receptionist telephoned the dialysis unit to say that the Invisible Man needed an urgent appointment.
"We have no room for him here" said the administrator. "Send him to the ICU."

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Sunday 25th August 2024 – TONIGHT’S PIZZA …

… was the best that I’ve ever made.

And having made some good ones just recently, that is certainly saying something.

In fact, all in all, it was rather a good day today, helped by the fact that I had something like a decent sleep last night.

It might have been after 23:00 when I finally crawled into bed but it was before midnight. And with a lie-in until 08:00 promised, that meant that at long last I was in line for a eight-hour sleep. And how I’ve needed one of those after all of the events just recently.

After I’d finished writing my notes last night I had some dictating of the radio notes to do. And after dictating the notes for the additional tracks for the two programmes that were half-prepared, I found that … errr … that was all. As far as dictation goes, I’m bang up-to-date at long last.

There are half a dozen or so programmes that need the notes writing, so that gaps in the sequence are filled in, but that aside, I’ve now prepared programmes up to 25th April next year.

If I can keep ahead like this, or even maybe extend the distance at which I’m in advance, I’ll have a nice head of programmes to keep going after I shuffle off this mortal coil.

And so at 23:45, having managed not to knock myself or cut myself or bleed anywhere, I crawled into bed, wrapped the quilt around me and that was that.

With the alarm set for 08:00 it was a big disappointment to awaken at 07:20. But even though I couldn’t go back to sleep there was no danger of my leaving my stinking pit at that time of morning. as the old song goes,
"REMEMBERING MORNINGS, SHILLING SPENT
IT MADE NO SENSE TO LEAVE THE BED
THE SAD OLD DAYS THEY CAME AND WENT
GIVING WAY TO FRUITFUL YEARS"
and while you’re at it, listen to Glenn Cornick’s magnificent bass line.

So at 08:00 I arose from the Dead and headed off to the bathroom. And at 08:20 I was washed and dressed and back at the computer listening to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We were having an expensive meal at a hotel. There were quite a few of us and we were on several tables. The boss seemed to be micro-managing the meal, telling people what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat, which was extremely annoying, leading to quite a lot of confrontation. When it came to the dessert, one of the desserts was “profiteroles”. There was a plate of eight mixed profiteroles and there were eight people at each table. When the server began to deliver the food he turned round ad said “huit profiteroles” and pointed to one of the tables. I heard someone at the table say “why is he allowed to choose the dessert for us?”. They said “there are eight profiteroles. Can you not choose your dessert. It makes no difference that he said which dessert this table could have. He’s nothing to do with this table”. Basically, we were told “this is what we were going to have, and like it!”. I stood up and told the server to take that away, come back here to interview each one of us and find out what each one of us wants”. He became extremely aggressive so I took two paces towards him, he took two paces towards me so that was it! It was a confrontation that had him in the end running away through the kitchen and outside with me chasing after him. I thought to myself “I’m going to get him organised and then once I’ve sorted him out I’ll be coming back here and getting hold of the boss to tell him what I thought of all of this” because I was now in one of these fighting moods that actually take quite a lot of stopping.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a dream where I’ve really been enraged. At one time they were a regular feature, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but I thought that I’d calmed down since the last time and that it would be permanent. But it’s obviously not to be. However, I’m continuing to be impressed that I can remember big and complicated words, like “profiteroles” for example, when I’m asleep. And not being too afraid to speak my rather colourful mind when it comes to addressing my boss is a regular feature that occurred more than once in the real World too.

Isabelle the Nurse was quite chatty this morning and we had a lengthy chat about nothing whatever while she sorted out my legs. She was telling me that it was the annual Melon market today. I can’t say that I’m too disappointed to miss it.

While I was making breakfast afterwards, my former neighbour who is now in a Home ‘phoned me. I think that she wanted her morale pumping up because she doesn’t seem to be coping too well with her new situation. We chatted for about 15 minutes and I hope that she felt a little better afterwards.

After breakfast we had football – Stranraer v Elgin City. And that was a game of two halves if ever there was one. It finished 1-1 but the first half was all Elgin on the attack and the second half was all Stranraer.

There has never been such a dramatic change in a game. I don’t know what Stranraer’s manager put in their half-time cup of tea but I wouldn’t mind a pint of it.

Later on I tacked the recordings that I’d done before going to bed. They are now edited and the programmes are completed.

While I was at it, I had a look at the back-up. There’s a big USB key permanently in a USB slot in this computer and I back up to it at least once a day. It’s pretty nearly full now but there’s a lot of stuff on there that’s superfluous so I went through and weeded out everything that has since been overtaken by events

Over the past few weeks I’ve been collecting music – soundtracks and the like – that I’ve downloaded to the computer. I’ve been going through it this afternoon, converting it to an acceptable format listening to it and chopping up some of it into sound-bytes.

There are tons to go at that have been collected for quite some time so this is a long-term project but I have a feeling that it’s a losing battle. I seem to be downloading it quicker than I can process it.

Something else that I did was to go one better than Dave Crosby – maybe because I had the ‘flu for Christmas. Although I’m not likely to be looking in my mirror and seeing a police car any time soon.

The pizza was, as I mentioned, totally delicious. The dough was really light and fluffy and this new vegan cheese that my cleaner found the other week seems to melt better than the last stuff.

So let’s hope that she can find some more of it for next time

So running rather late yet again, I’m going to bed ready to Fight the Good Fight on Monday.

But while we’re on the subject of haircuts … "well, one of us is" – ed … there was the story of the one-legged man who went for a haircut at the barber’s.
The barber unfortunately snipped the man’s ear and the man began to complain
To try to ease the tension the barber began some light-hearted chat. "I don’t think that I’ve seen you here before …" he began
"You haven’t" said the man. "I lost this leg in the War"

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Saturday 30th December 2023 – IT DOESN’T TAKE …

… much for me to descend into the pit of darkness and despair, and here I am again after hauling myself out yesterday.

That’s right – someone has sent me a soundtrack of the final Lindisfarne concert at Newcastle upon Tyne City Hall in 2003. “Here – play with this” – all 2 hours and 21 minutes of it.

So in a short while I’ll have a message – “can you do a 57-minute concert for me, with a 3-minute commentary in German?”. My German isn’t what it ought to be unfortunately but I’ll do my best. After all, I do owe someone a few favours, especially as rather a large amount of concert soundtracks have appeared in this way.

However, I have another idea for my purposes. Many of Lindisfarne’s songs were written by “Jimmy” Alan Hull, alas no longer with us, and many others were written by Rod Clements. Now if I were to go through the soundtrack and pick out the songs from each of the two, I might be able to make up a couple of concerts, one for each musician, and play it on their birthday or something.

But Lindisfarne …

If ever there were two groups that shaped my teenage years between 1970 and 1972, it would be Jethro Tull and Lindisfarne. Jethro Tull’s BENEFIT, STAND UP,AQUALUNG, THICK AS A BRICK and A PASSION PLAY have been on my playlist since they first came out, and witll always be there.

But then again, so will Lindisfarne’s NICELY OUT OF TUNE? FOG ON THE TYNE and DINGLY DELL

These were the groups that were played non-stop by my friends and me during that period but Lindisfarne were special. There was quite a big Lindisfarne fan club at my school and one of them follows this blog from the Shetland Islands (hello, Robert).

At Christmas 1971 I actually saw Lindisfarne. They played at a private members’ club in Crewe and I remember it very well, and for several reasons too.

Firstly, this was the occasion when Ray Jackson did his harmonica solo in the middle of WE CAN SWING TOGETHER, which usually lasted about 10-12 minutes.

However at “Up The Junction” in Crewe that night it went on, and on, and on, and was probably about 25 minutes long.

The story was that the rest of the band nipped out and went across the road to “The Barrel” for a quick pint. While they were out there, it was 23:00 and being a private members’ club, no-one was allowed in after that time, so the door was locked. The rest of the group was thus locked outside and they were banging on the door for 10 minutes trying to catch the attention of someone to let them back in.

The second reason was that I was 17 and my girlfriend at the time was … errr … not quite 14. Ordinarily, being under the age of 18 we wouldn’t be allowed in but my elder sister and her husband were both members and had cards of admission, and they weren’t photo-ids in those days of course.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "thank God" – ed … my girlfriend hadn’t ever drunk alcohol before, as I found out far too late to do any good. And it’s no use, you can’t take it out once it’s gone in.

Taking a girl of … errr … not quite 14 home steaming drunk a long way after her curfew time did not go down at all well with her parents as you can imagine and so as far as that relationship went, that was regrettably that.

Funnily enough, whenever I went out with a girl during that kind of period, something always went wrong and incited the ire of a set of parents. I never seemed to have any luck in that respect.

But as you can see, Lindisfarne has a special place in my heart and brings back quite a lot of memories from the period 1970-72 when I was finding my feet as a young proto-adult. It certainly did today.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … bed, when the alarm went off this morning I was reminiscing about my stag night before my wedding. And I’ve no idea why because it wasn’t anything earth-shattering.

In fact, all that happened was that a group of friends (yes, I did have friends in those days) and I went on a tour of the decent pubs in Crewe (I used to drink in those days) and finished up in an Indian restaurant on Nantwich Road for a curry after kicking-out time at the pubs.

There were a few pubs in Crewe that were what I call decent – an old-world type of atmosphere and served proper beer.

iI’s 31 years since I left the UK so of course I can’t remember many of them now but we had the Horseshoe up in Coppenhall and the Crown in Earle Street that served Robinsons’s beer, the Lion and Swan in West Street that served Boddington’s and the Express in Mill Street that served real Tetley’s.

However the Express was a pub where you had to be careful. It was a pub frequented by a certain type of person and a friend of mine had an uncomfortable 5 minutes in there when he went to pick up a passenger when he was driving a taxi for me.

It reminded me of the time that I was in Berlin with a coach on my way to Moscow. I decided to go for a walk that evening and one of the passengers decided to accompany me – a young Canadian guy.

At one moment we went into a bar for a beer and after a couple of minutes the guy with me asked “what do you notice about the customers here?”

“Well” I replied, “there are plenty of couples in here but I don’t see any women at all”.

And so in the best traditions of the News of the Screws, we “made our excuses and left”.

The Crown was another pub that I only visited on rare occasions even though it was one of the best pubs in the town.

That was because there were some customers in there who used my taxis. They were always in there every evening and there was something not quite right about what was going on with them, their friend and their children. And they were the clingy type.

There were a couple of other pubs in Crewe too that were worth a visit but I can’t remember them now. It was all such a long time ago.

So after taking the blood pressure I went for all of my medication – 15 tablets of it and then back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. One of my dreams about dreaming, a really long, involved one with about 8 or 9 different phases in it, part of which involved a school. I’d come to the attention of the local newspaper and in collaboration with the local radio station they wanted to broadcast it with me reading it, explaining it as I went along and could copy it into the newspaper. But of course, how do you explain dreams? How do you interpret them as you go along? Regardless of what Freud and these other people said, there’s absolutely no connection at all between the dreams and anything in particular so it was totally impossible, but they were insisting so I went to read it but I couldn’t remember what had happened, I couldn’t remember what went on and I couldn’t remember what I was going through at that particular time when I dreamt it. They were still harping on about this flaming dream and I was totally lost and submerged in all kinds of problems associated with trying to repeat it and interpret it.

And I’m impressed that I can come out with all of that during a dream when I’m asleep.

Later on I read somewhere in some kind of paper that there was going to be a dance at the school on Friday evening next week starting at 16:00 to celebrate the death of the headmaster Mr. Morris. I knew nothing about this and no-one had said anything so I didn’t know what was happening. Usually someone would mention something about a school dance to me because of obtaining all the PA equipment, disco deck etc but nothing had been said. So on the way back to class after lunch I was with my classmate who now lives in Munich. He had his satchel draped over his shoulder but not actually fastened but extremely casual and pale grey trousers instead of dark grey ones. I went and found one of the teachers whom I know organised a lot of events for the school and asked her when she was going to let me know about the dance on Friday week. She gave a very non-committal answer and someone else shouted at my friend to go and organise himself and dress properly, put his satchel on etc. Anyway, not knowing what to do I left and thought that the simplest thing to do of course is to force their hand. I went into my form room and quite a lot of my form-mates were there and I just announced “by the way, there will be a school dance a week on Friday” and gave them all the details as far as I could. I asked them if they could spread the word around their classes this afternoon. I thought that that is going to be the easiest way to deal with this situation – to take charge of it straight away anyway rather than leaving it until the last minute.

That latter dream was another one of those comfortable, warm dreams that I have occasionally that sound so real. No girl involved in it this time though, which is always a shame.

For the rest of the morning I’ve been doing something that I haven’t done since before I went to Canada at the end of September last year, and that is that I’ve been playing the 5-string fretless bass.

It’s complicated to play because it’s quite heavy, so I can’t play it standing up, and with it being a standard scale bass rather than a short-scale bass like my Gibson EB3 or the Fender in Canada, everything gets in the way, my arms and fingers aren’t long enough and of course my finger fall into different places because of the extra length and width, and there are no frets to guide me.

The 5th string is actually lower than the low E. It’s a low B but I had plans to take off the B string, move the others down one and add a low E guitar string to the top and tune it as I would the lower 5 strings on a 6-string guitar.

Back 20 or so years ago I played (briefly) with a female acoustic folk guitarist and so if there was a solo to play, I had to play it on the bass. And quite often, I would run out of frets so a bass with an additional upper string would have been perfect for that.

So on the bass I’ve been working through my running list and also trying to work my way through the bass lines for THE BARRICADES OF HEAVEN – including the organ riff – and Jethro Tull’s CROSS EYED MARY.

But imagine trying to play “Cross-Eyed Mary” in today’s PC sanitised world. That’s a song that, along with songs like Ted Nugent’s JAILBAIT, Grand Funk Railroad’s SHE GOTTA MOVE ME and Led Zeppelin’s SICK AGAIN, has been consigned to the dustbin of history and we aren’t allowed to mention them any more.

It all reminds me of the book-burning of the 1930s or the smashing up of alcohol in the USA in the 1920s by the Temperance movement.

Seeing as we were talking about Lindisfarne just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … there are plenty of their numbers on my playlist too and I enjoy playing them and singing along. We did a few with the aforementioned young lady acoustic guitar.

Of course, we have to have NO TIME TO LOSE

"Had more than my share of people giving advice
on the way that my life it should be
But look at the country man it’s looking so nice
it’s feeling so good to be free
No time, no time to lose"

Yes, that’s a verse that really strikes a chord with me. “Been there, done that” you might say.

So this afternoon I’ve been playing around with a Lindisfarne concert trying to make some kind of sense of it – a running order or set list would be a good idea for a start – and then I’ve been out gallivanting.

Yes, me socialising! One of my neighbours, the President of the Residents’ Committee, invited me for a chat and to my own surprise I was there for almost 2.5 hours chatting. That’s not like me at all, is it?

Back here I had chips (some were sweet potato too) vegan salad and one of those breadcrumbed soya fillets that I like. And it was delicious as usual.

Now that I’ve finished everything, I’ll dictate the radio notes ready for tomorrow when I’ll edit them and assemble the programme

But there’s a lot to do tomorrow. I’ve run out of pizza dough so I’ll have to make some more. There’s some bread to make too and also that bread-and-butter pudding so I’m going to be busy.

There won’t be much time to play the bass so I might have a go at that tonight. Walls of solid granite 1.2 metres thick have their advantages when it comes to soundproofing.

So I’d better clear off if I want to play the bass "I have no one to call my friend
The road I travel has no end
And so I turn my face up to the sun
And walk on down the road to kingdom come"

Yes, I’m certainly heading that way – sooner rather than later if I don’t cheer myself up.

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Wednesday 25th May 2022 – EVERYONE SAY “AHHH” …

seagull with chicks rue des juifs Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022… as a very proud mummy seagull shows off her brood of baby chicks to the assembled multitudes this afternoon.

Over the last two or three weeks i4ve been keeping a little desultory eye on her and finally today, I noticed that her eggs have hatched and she has her little babies all around her.

If I can count correctly, I reckon that there are three of them and that’s pretty good going for a brood of seagulls. She’s going to have her work cut out for the next couple of months while they learn to fly and to fend for themselves.

Not all that many of them actually survive to maturity and I remember a couple of years ago when we were keeping an eye on one particular nest where all of the offspring died.

This morning I must admit that I was feeling something like death after yet another good sleep. It seems that the deeper I sleep, the harder it is to awaken even if I do have a decent 8 hours-worth.

What I mean is that once more I was awake before the alarm went off but I had a struggle to leave the bed. It’s all something like Jethro Tull and
“Remembering mornings, shillings spent.
Made no sense to leave the bed.
The bad old days, they came and went,
Giving way to fruitful years.”
except that I’m a long way yet from THOSE FRUITFUL YEARS. I’m still at the “Fears of dying, getting old” stage.

Anyway I eventually staggered out of bed and went for my medication, and then I spent much of the day working on a table (the first of many) for my Welsh revision.

Welsh is a strange language. The “5 Ws”, or interrogative questioning words ‘When, where, why, what, who (and how)” take different verbs depending on how they are being used in a sentence.

Part of our exam is to ask questions based on missing words in adverts, for example the time might be missing and we are expected to ask the examiner “what time is the …” so a good working knowledge of these words and when they take either “mae”, “sy” or “ydy” is pretty important.

Tomorrow’s table is going to be verbs. There are four verbs that are used all the time – to go, to go, to have and to come so I’m going to make a table up for all of that as well.

And then there are 28 subjects that we have to revise and we’ll be expected to speak for a minute on five of thm that the examiner will choose. So every day I’m going to pick two and write out 6 sentences for each one.

That will be my revision.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022As usual, I wandered off outside for my afternoon walk at some point during the day.

And for a change I decided that I would go for a walk around the city walls, hence the change in perspective of the photo of the people on the beach.

As fas as I could tell, they were the only people down there this afternoon which wasn’t all that much of a surprise because first of all there wasn’t much beach to be on right now, and secondly, the weather had changed and it was rather cool, grey and overcast.

Certainly not the right kind of weather for being at the peche à pied today.

people in zodiac baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022While I was here I had a good look out to sea to see what was happening.

Unfortunately, the good weather that we had yesterday has disappeared. It’s fairly hazy and misty out there today so I can’t see all that much this afternoon.

All that I could see were a couple of small boats like this zodiac offshore with a couple of fishermen on board. But they didn’t have the same luck as the guy yesterday whom we saw pulling a tiddler out of the water.

That was something that was really quite surprising. I hope that we don’t have to wait another five years to see someone else catch a fish out there.

repointing medieval city wall rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022A little further along the Rue du Nord I went to have a look at the work that they are doing on the medieval city walls.

They are making some progress on the medieval latrine which is now a public convenience for those out walking around the walls, and they are also having a good rake-out of the walls to clear out all of the old mortar from between the stones.

They are going to have their work cut out to repoint all of that. It’s not the easiest job in the world as I remember from when I repointed the walls of my house in the Auvergne, but it really does look beautiful when it’s completed.

repairing medieval city wall place dy marche aux chevaux Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Here’s the part of the wall that they have completed already, or, to coin a phrase, “here is one I made earlier”.

Despite all of the complications, including being obliged to erect a “flying scaffolding”, a scaffolding that’s held up from the top and not from the bottom, they have done a really good job of this.

Mind you, the proof of the pudding is in the eating and we’ll see how it’s holding in in 20 years time. Or, at least, you lot will because I won’t be here by then unless a miracle happens.

It always reminds me of the time that a solicitor was looking for me in Brussels.
“Mr Hall! We thought that you had died!”
“Not at all” I replied. “I just smell like it”.

plat gousset Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022From the Place du Marche Aux Chevaux I walked off along the path underneath the walls towards the viewpoint overlooking the beach at the Plat Gousset.

Last week I mentioned that that were preparing the tidal swimming pool ready for the summer season, but with the tide being right in of course, we can’t actually see how it looks today.

But whatever they have been doing, they haven’t fitted the diving platform onto the top of the concrete pillar down there. They are usually quite rapid at sorting everything out ready for the tourists. It’s not like them to be dragging their feet.

But the sea is quite wild this afternoon so there wouldn’t have been anyone down ther eusing it anyway.

plat gousset Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022A little further on I stopped at the viewpoint overlooking the beach.

You can tell how miserable and depressing the weather is today by the fact that there are so few people down there. And not just on the beach, but also on the promenade. Considering that it’s school half-day, there would normally be quite a few more people down there.

The vertical axis wind turbine was going round quite quickly too. The story is that it was installed to power the lights on the Plat Gousset but I’m not sure whether it’s still working. It’s certainly in the ideal place to catch the wind that goes roaring through that gap.

That’s actually a man-made gap, dug out by the English during the Hundred Years War as part of the defences of the walled city.

bollards rue paul poirier Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Yesterday I took a photo of them installing bollards in the Rue Paul Poirier to stop motorists parking on the pavement.

And in the newspaper this morning there were all kinds of people, mainly tradesmen, expressing their discontent with the work that the Council had done.

Apparently they are worried about losing trade if motorists are unable to plough down pedestrians on the pavement and prevent pushchairs and wheelchairs from going by.

So I carried on along the path to see how the seagulls were going, and then headed for home and a hor coffee. It wasn’t smoothie weather this afternoon, not at all.

crane loading thora port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022After yesterday’s vitis to the port of Normandy Warrior yesterday, we have another visitor in there today.

This time it’s Thora who has come into port on the afternoon tide. They have already unloaded her and now they are busy loading her up ready for her return trip this afternoon. They don’t hang around long these days.

As you can see, she has quite a cargo to take back this afternoon. Things are looking up for business by the looks of things.

On the way home I had a chat with the newspaper shop owner and then came here for my coffee and, regrettably, to fall asleep again. I’m not doing too well right now but even so, it’s better than it was a week ago.

And it won’t be long before I have the Sports therapist person to see. I wonder what damage he can do to me.

There was the dictaphone to listen to too. There was a young girl who I was actively pursuing, for obvious reasons of course. Her story was that she was in an occupied country and there was someone, a soldier or a civilian, who had gone to ground on her. She had fallen in love with him But he was doing no good there. Sooner or later he was bound to be captured and that would lead to problems for everyone. The easiest way for them to deal with the issues would be for him to escape or evade and reach the UK where he could continue the fight, then come back when the war was over. But it was very hard to try to tell this girl about what was right and proper when she had her heart set on being with him all the time regardless of whatever risks they were running about being together and being caught etc. He would be much better off making a break for the UK and freedom

Tea tonight was a curry made of bits and pieces loitering around in the fridge. And it was quite delicious too. I seem to have the knack of making good curries these days.

So tomorrow I have the physiotherapist, some revision and then there’s plenty of paperwork that needs to be done. I can’t let that slip.

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Monday 26th October 2020 – WHAT A SURPRISE!

As the legendary TS McPhee once sang –
“I’ve done everything that I’ve ever set out to do”.

That is to say, what I had planned to do today, I did. Two radio programmes, all finished done and dusted, and all by 14:30 too. And I would have finished half an hour earlier had I not under-run the main one by 4 seconds and had to track down some filler.

Mind you, I cheated. After I’d finished yesterday’s notes, I wasn’t tired in the least and so I sat down to choose the music for today. And not only did I do that, I mixed the sound to equalise all of them, combined them in pairs and even added the intro to the first pair.

It’s amazing what you can do when you are motivated and aren’t tired. But where did this motivation come from? That’s what I want to know. It’s not like me just recently.

And if that isn’t enough to be going on with, despite the late-ish finish I actually beat the third alarm to my feet and I haven’t done that for a while either.

There was still time for me to have been off on my travels. We were in a hostel last night discussing some kind of bilateral union. The first thing that we noticed was that someone had rigged up some kind of cable for a microphone but had used about 5 miles of cable. Instead of going directly, they had gone and followed every kind of nook and cranny possible and used far too much wire. Then the question of “bilateral” came up. “What if one party doesn’t want to agree?”. “Well, we have a unilateral one”. They asked “how do you make that out?”. I replied “that involves the army of course”. I’m not quite sure where we went or what we discussed after this but we were certainly discussing for quite some time but I seem to have forgotten it all. But part of it involved something to do with salaries. They were one of the subjects discussed. It turned out that people believed that someone was paying someone else’s salary so that they could come into work, purely for “nefarious” reasons.

And I’m sure that there was much more to it than this but there was nothing else on the dictaphone and I can’t remember anything else.

By about 12:15 I’d finished the first radio programme. All 11 tracks, all of the text dictated and merged and all tied together to make an hour-long programme.

Then I started on the live concert. That involved the 7 tracks that I had, finding out that one of them was wrong so looking around for the correct version, combining all of the tracks and editing out the joins, and looking for an extra 30 seconds of speech that I knew existed but wasn’t on what I had, so I had to search for that and find it too and then add it in.

By the time I knocked off (and I had had my lunch break too) I’d written some of the text. Not all of it because this is something extremely private and the information isn’t in the public domain. It’s having to be sent to me by the people concerned and it will be here when it gets here.

But one thing is certain – and that is that when it finally is broadcast, it’ll be something really special. Something of which part has only ever been broadcast once and the other part has never been broadcast at all. I’ll be making radio history with this.

For the rest of the day I didn’t do very much. I considered that I’d worked hard enough. I did a few housekeeping bits and pieces while I waited for the horrendous rainstorm raging outside to calm down.

roofing rue st jean Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallWhen the right moment arrived, I buttoned up my raincoat and headed out for my afternoon walk.

And straight away I noticed that the roofers were up there at work again fixing the slates on the building in the Rue St Jean. Their machine was out there lifting the material up to the top, blocking the road to the Mercedes taxi behind it.

Other vehicles had passed through at the side of the machine without too much difficulty and without sounding their horns, and eventually the Mercedes did too. It makes a change for a Mercedes to be the victim of some selfish motorist – not that this is selfish at all of course.

rainstorm medieval city walls Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe rainstorm that I had seen in the distance now caught me good and proper as I was wandering down the Rue du Nord.

By the time I’d gone down onto the footpath where I run, we were having a hailstorm. You can see the size of the raindrops and hailstones in this photos and within minutes the bits of me were soaked right through to the skin – and I really do mean that.

No chance of running down there. You’ve seen the size of the puddles. And you’ll see the temporary fencing down at the end of the path to fence off yet another part of the walls that are slowly falling down. This leg of the run goes on about 50 metres or so past the end of the temporary fence.

water gushing up from foot of medieval city walls Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hallpicking my way gingerly around the puddles I made my way down the path, but came to a stop at a certain point along the path.

There was all this water bubbling up from the ground just here. I imagine that there must be some kind of drain from the street up above that goes down here, and the force and volume of the water has overwhelmed the outlet down at this level.

That’s not something that I’ve noticed before, usually because I don’t very often come this way in the daylight and certainly not in weather quite like this.

plat gousset Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe rainstorm had passed by the time that I reached the viewpoint looking over the Plat Gousset and the Place Marechal Foch.

People had now started to come out of hiding and were wandering up and down the promenade. Further along the coast towards Donville les Bains you can still the rain beating down on the beach along there and it was very likely that we’ll be getting another helping of rain pretty soon.

The tide is well in too. No room for anyone to sit on the beach – not that you would find any willing takers in weather like this either.

steps up to eglise st paul Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe other evening I posted a photo of the concrete Eglise St Paul on the end of the hill across the valley where the town is situated.

To get to the church by road, it’s a long, tortuous, circular route but if you are on foot, there’s a staircase from one of the little roads that leads off the Rue Couraye. I’ve never counted the number of steps, but there’s far more than enough for my liking wit my state of health.

The statue there at the head of the steps is a monument to the soldiers of France and interestingly, dates from 1904, before the carnage of 1914-18. Quite rarely, it’s a memorial to the dead of the Franco-Prussian War and hasn’t been overwritten with the names of the Dead from 1914-18 and 1940-45.

One of these days when I’ve been shopping at LIDL I’ll come back that way and have a closer look at it

So like a drowned rat, I ran across the Square Maurice Marland seeing as there was no-one else about, and made my way home, just about beating the next downpour that was following the previous one.

My session on the guitar was also much better. A few more Jimi Hendrix ones followed by a couple of Jethro Tull numbers on the bass and to my surprise I could sing along to all of them even while I was playing. As for the 6-string, I spent much of the time working out the chords to Tull’s “Wind Up” and then playing a couple of other sing-along numbers.

Tea tonight was one of the end-of-range burgers that I had bought 10 days ago. And decided that I didn’t like them all that much. Mind you, my apple pie for pudding was delicious yet again. And I forgot to mention – the fruit bread that I made yesterday is magnificent.

rainstorm boulevard vaufleury Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallLater on this evening the rain had died down so I ventured outside for my evening walk.

But it was too good to be true, and certainly didn’t last. I hadn’t gone five yards before the rain came drenching down and I was soaked to the skin. However I pushed on to do at least something tonight. Here’s the Boulevard Vaufleury down which I usually run (except for tonight of course) and you can see just how heavily the rain was coming down.

Even though I have to keep up my fitness as much as I can, there are limits. I wasn’t going to stay out in all of this.

moonlight baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallThe moonlight was shining brightly over the Baie de Mont St Michel tonight despite the rain fall so I went to take a photo of it.

Unfortunately it didn’t turn out as well as I was hoping. I couldn’t get myself into a good position, I was being buffeted about by the wind and drenched by the rain. No chance of getting myself set up properly in all of this.

However, not to have a completely wasted day today, I ran all the way home from here back to the apartment and the dry, shaking myself to disperse all of the rain before I dragged it all inside with me

So having finished all of that, I’m going to have a quiet early night. Tomorrow I have to be out early, taking Caliburn for his makeover. And on the way back I have to pick up my travel tickets for Saturday from the railway station.

It’s all go here these days, isn’t it?

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Saturday 25th April 2020 – ANOTHER BAD …

… day today unfortunately. But then, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it all comes and goes in waves and I’ll probably feel much better in a couple of days.

Last night was something of a later night than I was expecting but even so, not as late as some have been. And that’s why I was dreadfully disappointed about missing the alarm again. 07:00 when I finally left the bed.

After the medication I went to find out where I had been during the night. Not very far by the looks of things. We were having a radio meeting but sending our comments to each other as “comments” on a youtube video. That’s all I seem to remember of it so that was a waste of time.

Breakfast was next and then I made a start on digitalising the two albums for today. However, I broke off at some point early on to go and have a shower.

And of the 800 grammes that I lost and then put back on, I’ve lost 400 of them. So I’ve no idea what’s going on with my bathroom scales but as I have said before … “many times … sigh” – ed … my bathroom scales are about as reliable as the blood testing machine at Castle Anthrax.

NOZ is still closed – I went to have a look – and although the car park at LeClerc was half-empty and there was no queue outside waiting to go in, there were certainly more than 100 people inside.

At long last they had my small tins of kidney beans in stock but no pizza bases again. And no pizza flour either. But I bought some ordinary flour last time so I’m going to have a go at making some bread and maybe a pizza base or two tomorrow and see how it comes out, just for fun.

Hummus is getting rather low too so, for a change, I spent a little money and bought a pot of sun-dried tomatoes in oil. I reckon that minced up with some olives and garlic with basil, that would make a delicious hummus for the next round.

But I didn’t really spend an awful lot in there today but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the shopping bill because I’m convinced (as are many others) that prices are slowly going up.

By the time that I returned it was quite late so I had a coffee and then made lunch.

There were two albums that I had been digitalising today and it took me until something like 15:45 to finish them. But they were both big double albums with plenty of tracks and I managed to find them all without too much searching and only the odd two or three that needed some persuasion.

These are really classic albums too and almost every track is one that I can use on the radio so it was a very good job.

However, I don’t know why but I crashed out again this afternoon. A really deep, intense one that beats all of the ones that I’ve had to date and I remember thinking to myself at one point that this is no good at all.

It’s right, as well. It is no good. But one thing that I did mention 9 months or so ago was that I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and look on the bright side. Adopt a more positive attitude. That was something going on through my head when I was out later on for my runs.

First thing of course is that I’m still here. That’s confounded many people, especially those who saw me in January and February 2016. Back in those days I couldn’t even walk unaided so what would they say now to the fact that according to the fitbit, so far this month up to Tuesday (21 days) I’d run for a total of 3 hours and 40 minutes, or just over 10 minutes per day.

And just 18 months ago I was standing up to my knees in frozen water at Etah in Greenland, just 600 or so miles from the North Pole? Or 6 months ago I was wrestling with my conscience and my better judgement (not to mention my totally foul humour) as I traversed the North West Passage – a voyage that has killed a couple of thousand people in the past.

Another thing too – and that I’m living in my dream location with the sea lapping at my feet and working in a radio station where I’m given a free hand to write, engineer, direct and produce my own programmes.

None of any of this would have happened had I not been taken ill.

There was still a few minutes to go before guitar practice time so I made a start on bringing up to date the playlist for the Rock show (well, we were talking about the radio just now). It’s fallen way behind and there’s a lot to do. I probably did about a quarter of it and I’ll have a go at the rest tomorrow.

During the course of the day I edited another 25 photos from July 2019 and I’m now climbing up the side of a mountain to a waterfall in Seydisfjordur in Iceland. And I wouldn’t have been here either had I not been ill.

After the guitar session, during which I had some fun with Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath”, I had tea. Burger and pasta in tomato sauce with vegetables, followed by more apple crumble.

flags germany united kingdom united states of america france war memorial resistance granville manche normandy france eric hallIt would be wrong to say that I was alone out there tonight. But half a dozen or so people is a lot less than I’ve been seeing just recently.

There was nothing – nothing whatever – going on out to sea. I couldn’t see a boat or a ship anywhere. But there was a beautiful breeze that really made it a pleasure to be out (which was why i started to feel a little more positive) and the new flags on the flagpoles were flapping away wildly.

There hasn’t been a photo of them from this angle yet so I thought that the lighting conditions would make quite an unusual shot

la grande ancre port de granville harbour manche normandy france eric hallHaving recovered my breath I went on round the headland and ran along the clifftop on the other side of the headland.

In the distance I could see a boat parked up in the unloading bay so i was wondering if it might have been Thora or Normandy Trader. We haven’t seen them for a few days.

But it is in fact our old friend La Grande Ancre tied up down there and that’s confusing me because I was sure that I saw her sail out earlier in the day when I was on my way to shopping.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallHaving inwardly digested La Grande Ancre I carried on with my runs. And I do have to say that i seem to be running a little easier today and my fourth run – the longest – I added another 20 yards. I can’t be feeling too bad.

An additional surprise – I put in another 25-yard run, from a standing start uphill. And that is something that wouldn’t have happened even a week or two ago. This took me round to the rue du Nord where I could go to see what the sunset was doing.

The answer to that question was “not a lot”.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallThere was plenty of cloud out there this evening and we didn’t have the clear sky that would have given us a magnificent evening as we have had once or twice just recently.

Nevertheless, a little patience brought out a couple of really interesting photos as the setting sun put in a brief appearance between a gap in a couple of clouds.

But it didn’t stay long. A couple of minutes and it had gone again behind the vloud on the horizon.

sunset ile de chausey english channel granville manche normandy france eric hallThat must have been something of a disappointment to the girl whom I’ve seen for the last couple of evenings.

She and her friend came down the steps for a butcher’s at the sunset but they were too late tonight. However, at least I had a “bonsoir” and a smile, which is always nice.

So everything is finished – and so am I – just a couple of minutes before 23:00. Even though tomorrow is Sunday and a Day Of Rest with no alarm to awaken me, i’m off to bed early.

It’s some hope, I know, but I hope that I’ll feel better tomorrow. That evening breeze cheered me up a little so I hope that it’s the start of an upward trend.

We shall see.

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Thursday 14th June 2018 – I HAD AN EXCITING …

… e-mail today.

It’s from Nikon and it concerns the repair of my camera lens (which was the subject of a factory recall, as regular readers of this rubbish may remember). It’s the report of the examination of the lens to see if it falls within the guarantee, and the bill for any repair.

It tells me that it indeed a guarantee repair, and that the amount payable is €0:00.

It goes on to tell me that

  • I need to pay this before 15th August, or else interest of 10% per annum will be levied.
  • I can’t have my lens until I’ve paid the bill.
  • if my lens is retained after the 15th August there’s a storage charge of €40:00.

Therefore I have sent them an e-mail asking them for their advice in making payment. Do I pay with cash, cheque, banker’s order or credit card?

And I am awaiting their reply with interest.

We’ve also had a day of neighbourly interaction. I walked into town with one neighbour, and met another one while I was down there.

But first of all, I beat the alarm clock this morning. That is, I was awake before it went off, and that is not of course the same as saying that I was out of bed. That was slightly (yes, only slightly) later.

And a nice hot shower after breakfast and a change of clothes to make myself look pretty, and then off to town.

emma barthère photo exhibition place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceRemember the other day when I showed you the photographs that had mysteriously appeared on the city walls in the Place Maurice Marland?

Well, here they are erecting some more a little bit further along the walls. It’s going to be some exhibition.

And while I was standing on the wall overlooking the harbour taking this photo I fell in with one of my neighbours. She was on her way to the chemist’s for some medicines so we walked into town together.

poubelles granville manche normandy franceFrom there I walked on up the hill to LIDL and I was in luck by the railway station.

We have central rubbish collection points here in Granville where we recycle our refuse. But the collection points look so small that many people wonder how we cope.

The answer is that they are icebergs. Only one-tenth of the thing is above the surface and the rest is submerged. And there they are lifting a recycling bin out of the ground to empty into the refuse lorry.

Apparently the lorry does the paper one week, the glass another week and the general refuse the third week, or something like that.

passage piéton avenue des vendeens granville manche normandy franceThe roadworks in the Avenue des Vendéens are well-advanced and the road is open now in both directions.

They are working on the pavements now and there’s at least one car driver that is going to have a big surprise. Remember the car that we saw the other day parked across the pedestrian crossing? The driver isn’t going to be able to do that down the Avenue des Vendéens because the council is actively taking steps to prevent it.

And quite right too, if you ask me.

At LIDL I spent a little more money than I anticipated. Firstly, they had some giant cable ties on offer. And Iw as thinking yesterday that a couple of those would come in handy for fastening Caliburn’s fire extinguisher instead of having it rolling around the floor.

But more importantly, they had one of these Italian expresso coffee makers, the kind that you put on the hotplate to boil up and the steam pressure decants it. Being married to a girl who is half-Italian, I grew to like those very much.

I have one here but it’s not been used for years because it wouldn’t work on my induction hob so it’s in a pretty miserable condition. But this new hob that I bought the other week will work it just fine.

Back into town on my way home and I bumped into another neighbour, likewise on her way to the chemist’s. So I went with her and afterwards I invited her for a coffee. We were there for hours and when I returned here afterwards I found that it was actually lunchtime. It’s not like me to be this sociable, is it?

The weather was rather cloudy, overcast and windy. Not the day for sitting on the wall watching the world go by. I had my butties in here. And then I carried on updating the second (actually the first) page about my trip to the desert.

A long session on the guitar (I have to get weaving) and my afternoon walk as well.

Tea was a burger in a bap with baked potato and vegetables. I’ve now run out of carrots (LIDL didn’t have any loose ones and a big pack of them won’t keep) so I’ll have to invent something for tomorrow.

emma barthère photo exhibition place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceThe usual walk around the walls, and all is revealed. We can now see what this wooden framework was for.

Yes, more photos.

And I can tell you something about the photographer too. She’s called Emma Barthère, born in 1982 at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains, which must have been pretty uncomfortable for her mother.

At the age of 20 (ie 2002) she went to study in Paris and after 10 years of Parisian frenzy she abandoned everything and came to Granville in 2015. And if you can work that one out, please let me know.

As for the rest of her biography, I have at times been accused of writing pretentious prose … "you, Eric? Surely not!" – ed … but I can’t hold a candle to Emma Barthère, that’s for sure.

I’m going to try for another early night, but I’m stuck once again with Aqualung and Benefit. That means A Passion Play, Stand Up and Thick as a Brick are due to follow. Five of the best rock albums ever recorded.

And you know what that means, don’t you?

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Tuesday 5th June 2018 – TODAY HAS BEEN A DAY …

… of neighbourly interaction. That’s where all the time has gone.

Coming back from my lunch upon the wall overlooking the harbour, I noticed one of my neighbours out weeding the gravel in front of the building. It’s not right to be impolite … "it’s never bothered you before" – ed … so I went over to chat with her and was there for over half an hour.

A little later, coming back from town, I bumped into another neighbour on his way to run an errand, so we had another half-hour chat during which we put the world to rights.

But the French say, jamais deux sans trois and sure enough, on my way out for my afternoon walk, there was Gribouille the ginger cat. And he actually came running across the gravel to me so that I could pick him up and stroke him. About 10 minutes this time.

It was yet another effort to haul myself out of bed this morning, but at least I managed not to fall asleep after breakfast, which makes a change for just recently.

And today, it’s been a tidying-up day. Although first, I had to start to pack ready for my trip to Belgium tomorrow. And something is very wrong because I don’t seem to have very much that I’m taking.

Another thing that I need to do is to work out a route to the Prefecture de Police in the rue des Morillons. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the wallet that I lost in December has turned up at the Police Station and I have to go to pick it up.

It’s something of a hike and I can see me being very pushed for time. If the train is late I shall be snookered so I can’t afford to hang around looking for streets, especially with the perturbations on the Metro.

Tidying up, I said. That involved some (but not by any means all) of the papers that are hanging around here. There’s still plenty to do but if you don’t start, you won’t ever finish. So at least we’ve set off.

And then another task.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve spent about a year looking for some images on a missing hard drive, and that I finally found it the other day. Back in the winter I bought a huge new 4TB external hard drive with the aim of putting all of my images on them – all … errr … 2.5TB or so of them. I’ve been a busy little bee over the last 20-odd years.

And so I finally made a start on it. But have you any notion of how long it’s going to take? I started at about 11:30 this morning and 11 hours later I’ve moved 755GB. In other words, I’m going to be here for the Duration while this project organises itself.

As well as the usual walks this afternoon and this evening, I’ve been into town for a baguette for tomorrow’s lunch. I need to organise that too as I won’t have time tomorrow. And I had a little … errr … relax. But then 71% of my daily activity, I’m entitled to a brief 10 minutes.

Tea was the Bombay potatoes that I mentioned yesterday. And I’m getting good at these because they were delicious

I was going to finish off by having a really early night, but now Aqualung has just appeared on the playlist. That means that we are in for another Jethro Tull muisicfest and the last time that this occurred, I was still wide awake at 05:40.

But I hope not. Much as I love Jethro Tull I can do without it tonight. I have a lot to do tomorrow and it’s an early start.

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Tuesday 13th March 2018 – SHAME AS IT IS TO ADMIT IT …

… I couldn’t even last out the morning today.

And it’s not as if I’d had a late night or anything, and it’s not as if I’d been on an enormous voyage during the night either. Just into one of the rooms on this 3D site that I mentioned just recently.

But I had the medication and the breakfast etc, and a shower, shave and even a haircut today to get ready to go. And then I sat down with a mug of coffee.

Next thing that I remember was that it was 10:30 – I’d been well and truly out for a good 90 minutes. And in the morning too. This is certainly not like me. I could understand it a little if I had been out already to the railway station, but not at all.

You’ve no idea just how much this is dismaying me.

But anyway, in the bright sunlight (because it really was nice) I headed uptown to the railway station and picked up my tickets without a hitch. Mind you, there will be a hitch coming home on Saturday because works on the line are forecast. That’s not nice.

On the way back I called at that good boulangerie to pick up a couple of those tasty baguettes. One was for lunch today but the other one is for my butties for the road tomorrow. And nice the bread is too.

After lunch I hd a few things to do on the internet and to download a couple of things onto the laptop that I take with me on my travels. And then a bit (just a little bit) of packing ready for tomorrow.

And the usual session on the bass guitar – and trying to work out the bass line from “Wind Up” off the Aqualung album by Jethro Tull – one of the albums that has to be in the top 10 of anyone’s list. Everyone immediately thinks of the title track to that album, and good as it might be, in my opinion “Locomotive Breath” and “Wind Up” have to be two of the best rock tracks of all time. And I’m determined to work out the bass lines to both of them, even if Jeffrey Hammond is a hard act to follow.

Tea tonight was the rest of the home-made stuffing with a tin of kidney beans all filled into a couple of tortilla wraps with spicy rice. And delicious they were too of course. And then we had the walk in the beautiful evening. It really was nice outside considering the time of the year.

And so an early night tonight. I have to be on my way quite early – something like 07:45 – as my train is timed for 08:34.

I am not going to enjoy this one little bit.

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Sunday 11th March 2018 -JUST BY WAY OF A CHANGE …

… well, for just recently anyway, I managed to remember everything – including my mug out of Caliburn – when I went off to the football this afternoon.

The plan had been to go to Donville-les-Bains to watch the US Mouettes de Donville play the Jeunesse Cenillaise, but just as I was getting myself ready, something flashed up on the internet to wit that the cup match between US Granville’s 2nd XI and US Ducey, due to be played at Ducey-les-Chéris had been switched to the artificial surface at the Cité des Sports in Granville, where we were last night.

That suits me fine because instead of going in Caliburn, I can walk there. And if I take the long route home along the seashore I’ll have done almost all of my whole day’s fitness routine. So off I went, camera, thermos, mug and telephone, and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.

rugby cité des sports granville manche normandy franceIn what can only be describes as “changeable” weather, I arrived at the ground to see that game played by those men with odd-shaoed balls.

Not my cup of tea at all, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. We were a footballing school but one of the new masters tried to make us play with the oval ball but we soon saw him.

But the experience left a rather bitter taste in our mouths for years afterwards.

cité des sports ladies football team us granville manche normandy franceAnd if that wasn’t enough, there was a girls’ football match going on too and had I known, I would have been out there earlier to watch because it wasn’t too bad at all.

And I even gave some coaching from the touchline, which DOES NOT account for their 3-0 defeat. They were 3-0 before I arrived and I like to think that I helped them steady the ship a little.

But then, there were only 8 of them out there playing against 11 and so it’s not really much of a surprise that they were struggling. Perhaps they need some moral support.

And if so, that rules me out. Any support that I could give a bunch of girls would hardly be moral now, would it?

granville manche normandy franceAs for the main match, US Ducey are one division higher than Granville’s 2nd XI but the two teams were very evenly matched. In fact, of the two goalkeepers, the Ducey goalkeeper was by far the busier.

But the attacks of either side were pretty ineffectual and a 0-0 scoreline was hardly surprising.

We didn’t have any extra time, but went straight on to penalties. Hero was the Granville goalkeeper who made two good stops for his team to run out the winners.

Highlight of the match was the miserable old man from Ducey who “took issue” with a couple of Granville supporters who were hurling abuse at a Ducey player. “Don’t you go round hurling abuse at players” he cried. “You should be able to behave yourself without hurling insults about”.

Five minutes later, he addressed some rather unparliamentary language towards the referee who was booking one of his players. And a voice nearby piped up “Who was it who just said something about not hurling abuse about?”. I wonder who that was!

But it brought my section of the crowd rolling about with laughter, and that’s all to the good.

st pair sur mer jullouville kairon plage carolles manche normandy franceThe walk back along the coast was windy with the occasional shower, but that didn’t stop me taking some photos.

A couple of weeks ago I took a photo of St Pair sur Mer from around here, but that was cluttered up my street furniture unfortunately. Today I found a new spec from over a hedge in a field.

The photo isn’t as cluttered which makes a nice change for around here. You can see how nice the area looks and how much better it will be in ths summer.

pointe de la roc granville manche normandy franceAnd I discovered a new little lane that I hadn’t seen before, with some of the best views that I have yet to see of the town.

You remember back in October when you saw a photo of a house perched up on a clifftop overlooking the beach? Well, it was the lane that led to that particular house.

And it was worth the effort to get there with this beautiful view of the Pointe de la Roc.

place d'armes granville manche normandy franceAnd over there to the right of centre is the building where I live – the Place d’Armes.

There are four big stone buildings here that were formerly the military barracks, and they fell into disuse in the 1970s I believe. Since then, one of them has become the local college and a second is the Foyer des Jeunes Travailleurs – accommodation for young people from the countryside who come here to study or work.

The other two are being converted into small apartments. My building is finished and that’s why I’m here now, and the fourth one won’t be long.

eglise st paul granville manche normandy franceOver there is the church – the Eglise St Paul.

I have told you about this church on a couple of occasions. It’s one of the first large buildings in modern times (the Romans built thousands) to be built of concrete.

Many of hthe Roman concrete buildings are still standing after almost 2000 years, but this building will be a pile of dust before then. It’s closed to the public due to its deplorable, decaying condition and if that’s not a testament to Roman engineering I don’t know what is.

beach port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThere is a set of steps down to the road, and then another set of steps down to the promenade.

It’s not really the day for going for a walk along the beach, but the sea is good at any time of day and in any kind of weather – in fact the stormier the better.

After all, that is why I came to live here as you all know. Somewhere by the sea in one of the windiest corners in Europe. It’s just great.

ireland nolans lorry port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd remember the other day when I pointed out those two “O’Toole” Irish lorries on the dockside? On my way back I was almost squidged by a “Nolan’s” lorry heading for the same place.

So what’s bringing all of them around here? What I shall have to do is that next time I’m in town, I’ll see if it’s still there and then go to buttonhole the driver.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … if you want to know the answer to a question, you have to ask the question first.

But this morning, wide awake at 07:15. And on a Sunday too!

I’m not having this at all and so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep but that didn’t seem to work and by 07:55 there was a very disappointed me up and about prowling the kitchen.

But I’d been on my travels during the night though. To Budapest in fact (and I’ve not been there since 1994) and trying to get to the station. Wandering around aimlessly in the railway station trying to find which train goes to the airport as I have a flight from there and a time limit to keep to. For some reason I have the idea that every train goes to the airport and I don’t know why. But when I hear that a train is actually called to stop at the airport I leap aboard. There are three stops prior to the airport, which seems strange to me as they are all in different towns, and a couple of the locals – and very vocal locals at that – convince me that it’s a different airport than the one that I need and I’ll be hours sorting myself out if I stay on this train. So I disembark just as it is about to pull out, and continue my aimless ramble around the station.
Later on, I am actually at an airport (not the same one) and in the queue to have my passport checked. The people in front of me are there for hours and ll kinds of forms are being completed for them, including a dark green form with white boxes in which the entries are made. I wonder to myself if this is the ESTAS form for the USA and whether I could have mine completed on the spot like this.

We had an early breakfast and then, seeing as it’s Sunday, a good laze around. Although I did have 5 minutes on the bass guitar trying to work out a Jethro Tull number.

After lunch I hit the streets and then back here it was coffee and cake time. But SHOCK! HORROR! Mother Nature has beaten me to the last of the cake. That’s twice now, for the Christmas Cake went the same way too. I shall just have to have another birthday, won’t I?

The pizza was good again tonight and in the walk in the wind around the headland I made it to 115 % of my day’s activity. And that’s always good.

And an early night. Another easy day tomorrow and then on Tuesday I need to go for the train tickets. Just you watch me forget.

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Wednesday 7th March 2018 – AND IN KEEPING …

… with my previous efforts just recently, I have emulated my namesake the mathematician and done three fifth of five eights of … errr … nothing.

So after finally managing to have an early (that is – before midnight) night last night, I went off with the fairies to what seemed to be a Virtual Reality word somewhere. Clearly the events of the past few days have been getting to me. And the highlight (if you can call it that) of this world was being arrested by the police and being on the end of some customary police interrogation that made me unable to walk for the next three days. I’ll have to stop reading this book about Canada in the 1930s, won’t I?

We had the usual performance this morning and then I was sidetracked as I ended up speaking to someone in the USA for 90 minutes or so on the internet. It was about work so I don’t begrudge the time of course, especially if there might be some folding stuff in the offing, but it always happens at the wrong time, doesn’t it?

I was sufficiently distracted after that that I had a change of practice and had a practice on the bass guitar. Something that I usually do late in the afternoon but today it was here and now. And for some reason or another not only did the bass line to Led Zeppelin’s “Communications Breakdown” come back into my head after an absence of 40-odd years, I found myself playing the bass line to Hawkwind’s “Damnation Alley” and that goes back even farther in time.

And not only that, I seem to have regained the flexibility in my left little finger and I can now hold down the string with that. And that’s progress.

But I’ve now worked out why five-string bass guitars have come into fashion. I’m sure that I played the bass line to several tracks in the past – “Born To Be Wild” and “Locomotive Breath” spring immediately to mind – in the same key as I do now, but I find that I run out of notes at the bottom end. It’s maybe because my hearing has changed as I’ve become older and I’m playing it an octave lower than I did in the 70s. And if that’s true, it probably explains why all the bassists of my age and older are now using five-string basses, so they have an extra range of notes.

After lunch I did my best to fight off the temptation to close my eyes for a short while, but I wasn’t successful. But I dragged myself out after 10 minutes and went for a walk. It was nice weather outside and quite a few people were about, but there was nothing exciting going on.

Tea was, as promised, the falafel and vegetables with a vegan cheese sauce. And it was rather … errr … disappointing. In my haste I forgot to test the vegetables before I put them on the plate and to my dismay I found that they weren’t cooked enough. But you can’t recook them after you have smothered them in cheese sauce so I had to make the best of it.

It was another beautiful evening out there with the lights of Jersey glowing in the distance again. Visibility has been impressive at night this last couple of days.

So an early night again tonight – it’s my walk to the shops tomorrow.

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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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Tuesday 23rd December 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

stairs up to attic les guis virlet puy de dome france … the stairs up to the attic.

Well, as a matter of fact, I haven’t really. All of the wood has been cut and shaped, that’s for sure, but they haven’t been nailed into place. This is because the filler that I used on the screw holes took quite a while to dry. I wanted it to dry before I nailed down the stair treads, because access is so much easier to sand down the filler, paste the wallpaper and paint everywhere when the treads aren’t in place.

Not only that, I can put the varnish on the stair treads and risers before I nail them down too, and that will be another task completed. I’ll have two lovely shelves when they are finished and I can start to stack away the china and so on.

I had plenty of fun cutting the treads though. Two of them had to be cut by trial and error because taking measurements on the slant was not very easy. And much to my surprise, it all fitted where it ought to do.

We also had another Alpine day today and I had almost 60 amps of surplus solar energy today, with the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump loa reaching 33°C, which is the highest that it’s been for a considerable time.

In other news, you can imagine that with the events of the couple of nights over the weekend, about which I talked at the relevant moment, I’ve been on something of a nostalgia trip, spending a lot of time musing on events that happened, didn’t happen, could have happened, might have happened and what I would have liked to have happened at a certain moment in my life. This wasn’t helped today because the *.mp3 player reached the point where five particular albums suddenly presented themselves, one after the other,

These five albums, Benefit, Aqualung, A Passion Play and Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull and Nicely Out Of Tune by Lindisfarne, were five albums that were being played non-stop by a certain few of us during this particular 18-month period and it must be something more than just coincidence that they suddenly appeared, one ofter the other, at the time when I have all of this nonsense going on in my head.

It’s all becoming quite eerie.

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