Tag Archives: le havre

Tuesday 17th March 2020 – BLIMEY! WHAT A CHOICE!

The trains to Belgium are cancelled, as you might expect. And there are no trains from Granville tomorrow anyway.

So do I stay here and die of lack of my cancer treatment, or do I go by some other means and die of the virus?

But more about that later. Firstly, I managed to beat the third alarm again and had a decent start to the morning. I can’t wait to get to Leuven though because my stocks of medication are dwindling and I’ve already run out of one item.

The dictaphone came next of course. We had one of my sisters again in this dream and she was dressed up like some 1920s New Orleans dancer. I had to pick her up from school and she was all upset because they wouldn’t let her slide as in sliding up and down the ground on the ice. There was me, my sister and someone else, another person and we were in the car and we came to get out of the car when we were back home. I can’t remember now what she was saying but she was certainly acting very grown up for her age.
Somewhat later I was in a cruise ship that was coming in to dock somewhere. There were crowds of people on the railings. It was the end of the voyage apparently and we were all having to get ott. It was a quayside landing so everyone gathered their carry-on possessions and were milling around waiting for the order to disembark. There was a girl of about 10 there and I was having a chat to her, a little dark-haired girl. The order then came basically to leave so they started to leave. Then this girl came back so I don’t know what she was trying to do but she disappeared into the crowd so I didn’t get the chance to speak to her at that moment. I had my rucksack and my little camera so I was going to go off the ship to take a photograph and probably come back on as well and wait until later when it was the time to disembark. In the meantime there was something going on about the storage locker on board ship. They had a car and they were driving it into the storage locker. At first the owners of the vessel were very disappointed with this and very upset. But by the time that it came to the third time to drive the car in, they had come round to the fact that it was a good idea to have this storeroom opened. The third time they succeeded in bursting the lock but I’ve no idea now why it was that they wanted it open themselves.
There was another one of thsee nights where there was more going on too but if you are having your tea or something you won’t want to know about it.

After breakfast I had a look at some more digital files to split. I seem to have drawn the short straw with this today though because firstly, they were all very long and complicated ones to break up, and secondly, one of them just wouldn’t work at all and I’ve no idea why. Half of it was missing and / or unavailable and I’ll end up having to record this directly from the album one of these days.

As a result I was late going for my bread. We aren’t officially allowed out of our homes except for certain specified reasons, but “shopping for essential supplies” and “taking exercise in the vicinity of your own home” seems to cover that. We have to download a form off the internet each time we need to go out, fill it in and carry it with us

So having printed out and filled in a form, I could go outside for a stroll.

There was no-one else out there at all walking around the headland, but that wasn’t the story out at sea. Regardless of the situation, people still have to eat and fish will be quite high up n the menu over the foreseeable future. As a result, we had a few trawlers out there doing their stuff.

Trawlers, maybe. But I bet that we won’t see Thora and Normandy Trader for quite a while. They’ll be keeping a respectable distance while all of this will be going on

So no Channel Island boats and probably no gravel boats either. But there’s always other stuff.

If you’re out at sea you can neither give this virus to anyone else nor receive it and so taking to the water in your yacht seems to be a very sensible option. It’s times like this that I wish that I had a boat in which to sail.

All the time that I was out there, I reckon that all in all, there weren’t even half a dozen people out in the streets. But I learnt some tragic news at La Mie Caline. All non-essential businesses are to close for the duration of this outbreak. And despite being a bakery, their business has been classed as non-essential. Today is their last day of operation.

It beats me how anyone can consider a bakery to be non-essential, but I suppose that it’s do do with them having a café on the premises that they fall foul of this “public gathering” rule.

Back here I mused on the fact that having had to print out all of this paperwork et cetera, I hadn’t seen anyone official, never mind been asked to produce anything. But a friend who lives in Macon reassured me. She had had to take her cat to the vet’s but she had been stopped and asked for her papers.

There was a phone call too – and this has thrown my plans into disarray. Due to “other considerations” which are completely understandable, my appointment on Thursday with the nephrologist has been cancelled. I rang up the oncology department to confirm my appointment just in case but despite trying for an age, I couldn’t get through. Instead, I had a little … errr … relax and then finished off the radio project.

To back up the computer was next and then to load up all of the files that I need onto the portable hard drive that I take with me. No afternoon walk of course, much as I would like to go. The cynic inside me doesn’t take this as seriously as everyone else. I’ve lived through all kinds of things that we were told were going to wipe out the human race and I’m just wondering what’s going to wipe us all out after this.

Tea was an anything curry, everything left over in the fridge, followed by rice pudding, and then I had a shower.

Grabbing my stuff, I’m now ready to leave. I’ve decided that I’m going to go in Caliburn too even though I’ve nowhere to park him. But I’ll worry about that later, I suppose.

What I’ll do is to do the drive in two (or maybe more) stages, because it’s a long way. If I can get a couple of hours on the road tonight, park up in a lay-by and then continue tomorrow.

That is, if I get that far because movement is strictly controlled. While “travelling for medical purposes” is one of the exemptions, I reckon that they might raise an eyebrow or two at almost 700kms

But I set off, fuelled up at LeClerc and then headed for the motorway. No-one about at all and I had one of the quietest runs that I have ever had.

My route took me to Caen and then in the direction of Rouen and Paris

But I turned off in the direction of Le Havre and skirted the outside of the city. At one point I had to drive over the magnificent Pont de Normandie over the estuary of the River Seine. It the time that it was built, in the early 1990s it was the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world and also had the longest span (856 metres) between the pillars of any other cable-stayed bridge in the world.

Although it no longer holds these records, it’s still an impressive structure and I would loved to have had a better photo of this but unfortunately Strawberry Moose wasn’t with me to take the photo. He’s stayed at home, for I don’t want him to catch this virus

From the top there’s quite an impressive view of the town of Le Havre and its port. Everywhere was lit up and it looked like something out of Space 1999 but I couldn’t take a decent photo of it which was disappointing.

I picked up the motorway again at the north side of Rouen (it’s bizarre that there’s no ring road around Rouen) and headed in the direction of Calais, turning off for Amiens and then Lille.

In between Amiens and Lille I found a Motorway Sevice Area and settled down for a couple of hours on the front seats of Caliburn. I’d remembered to bring my bedding with me. It’s about 01:30 and I’ve driven about 350 kms in 4 hours, which is good going. It’s important to pass beyond the Paris-Le Havre-Rouen-Amiens area in the dead of night because if there’s ever going to be heavy traffic, it will be in that sector.

But that was one of the quietest runs I’ve ever had.

Thursday 11th October 2018 – I’VE BEEN OUT …

… today,

Josée fancied a drive out to sit on a beach and was attracted by the sound of Cabourg, the summer home of Marcel Proust at the turn of the 20th Century.

So boldly going where I don’t ever recall having been before but I bet you any money that I have, because at one time or another either with Shearings or with Nerina I’ve worked my way along the whole coast of Northern France, for as Proust himself once famously said, “remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were”.

Thus Caliburn, Josée and I set off for the seaside.

Much to my amazement, I had a reasonably comfortable sleep last night and if I did go anywhere on my travels I really don’t remember. But whztever, I was up early, medicated and attacking the web pages for my voyage on the Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour long before Josée had even shown a leg.

As a reslt of my new-found energy I now have two amended pages – one web page with lots of stuff on it and another oage which is day two of my blog which although had been published a while back, now has some photos on it..

After breakfast Josée had the idea of going to sample the local products such as cheese, sausage and the like. Of course, she won’t find any of that around here in my apartment so we duly set sail into the town.

A rather large carrier bag and a coffee later, we found ourselves back in the apartment making butties for the route.

It’s about a two-hour drive to Cabourg (and more if you go through the centre of Caen, if you stop to do a little shopping and also if you stop for a bathroom)

And at one of the places where we stopped for a comfort break, we found that our biblical friend Noah was also there making a comfort break too.

I couldn’t resist taking a photograph to prove that he had been there.

As a result of all of this it was about 15:30 that we arrived in Cabourg.

As the sky clouded over we ate our rather late lunch on the beach watching the horses and carriages exercising.

There’s a race track not too far from here and it seems as if trotting is quite the thing there judging by how they were exercising the horses today.

Wet sand is pretty good for exercise because it builds up the muscles of the horses and when they run on dry sand they have much more physical strength at their disposal.

After lunch Josée decided to go for a paddle in the sea.

Of course it’s probably far warmer than where I last put my feet in the sea – at Etah in Greenland about 1300 kms from the North Pole, but nevertheless I stayed on dry land and watched her enjoy herself.

She told me that it was quite warm in there (comparatively speaking but of course she is from Québec) but I’ll take her word for that.

I was far more interested in the activities down the coast.

We aren’t all that far from Ouistreham which is the ferry port for Caen and there are some big ships that sail out of there on their way to the UK.

There was one in the port when we arrived but at 16:30 flat it took off and set sail. I took a good photo of it, and also a good photograph of a seagull who decided to come and join in the fun.

THere was still time to take one or two more photos of the area.

The towns down along the coast looked as if they might be likely subjects and while Le Havre, although well visible, was too fr away to come out well, the seaside resort of Houlgate didn’t have the same issues.

That has come out quite well despite the weather conditions because by now it was starting to rain.

It rained almost as far as Caen but then we were stuck in a traffic queue. That took a while to clear so we were later than anticipated. And we had the usual issue at the toll on the autoroute where they wanted to charge me for Class 2 instead of Class 1.

Back here it had been a beautiful day with blue sky so Josée went fpr a walk in the evening twilight while I attacked a few more things to do. And then we had tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in 2012 I had been to a place in Québec called Harrington Harbour and I had spoken about a film that had been made there.

Josée actually knew the film so we found it on the internet and we sat down and watched most of it until she retired. And I quite enjoyed it, as well as recognising many places that I remembered.

But there was one thing that struck me about the film.

The “Doctor Lewis” is from Montreal and when he is installed in what is easily the best house on the island, he is heard to complain to his girlfriend about how primitive and shabby it is.

What this is implying is that the 90% of all Canadian citizens, those who live withing 50 miles of the US border, don’t have the least idea about the quality of life out on the Bas Cote-Nord – the “Forgotten Coast” – never mind places like Resolute, Grise fiord and Pond Inlet.

And if that’s the case, they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves

brittany ferries ouistreham caen portsmouth normandy france

josée plage de cabourg beach france

naval patrol vessel plage de cabourg beach france

trotting horses exercising plage de cabourg beach normandy france

Wednesday 15th November 2017 – IT WAS BUSY …

… down in the harbour today.

I was out for a walk around the cliffs today and there in the distance I noticed the arrival of our old friend the Grima. And so I quickly scuttled on round to the other side of the promontory to watch her come into port.

There wasn’t anything piled up on her dock so I hadn’t been expecting her to arrive today.

I’d never actually seen her come into harbour … "yes you have" – ed … and so I was keen to see her come sailing … "dieseling" – ed … into port.

She was carrying the usual load of scrap, including a white van something like a VW Caddy. And so I’ll have to go down to the port tomorrow to see what she’s fetched over from Jersey.

And, more to the point, what she’s actually going to be taking back because I’m sure that she wouldn’t find a one-way trip all that profitable. She’s need a return load.

And my luck was certainly in this afternoon.

You probably noticed in the previous photograph that there was another ship on the horizon looking as if it was about to come into port.

And you wouldn’t be wrong in that assumption because chugging into port behind Grima came Combattant. And she’s vertainly new to us here in Granville. I’ve not seen her here before.

She seems to spend all of her working life out along the north-east coast of the Cotentin peninsula working her way around places like Cherbourg and Dieppe, and has come here from Le Havre.

I thought that she might have been another gravel boat, but she is actually much smaller than they are – at just 55 metres.

But nevertheless, watching her negotiate the chicane into the port was quite interesting and quite a feat of seamanship.

As we admire her passing through the harbour gates, I couldn’t see what she was carrying. Or what she was taking away either because she didn’t tie up at the gravel dock but at one of the fishing quays

But whatever it was she’s come here to fetch, it won’t be much because she’s only rated at 668 tonnes and you won’t go far with that.

And much to my surprise, she’s quite an elderly ship – dating from 1977. And she looks it too

I’d had another bad night, despite going to bed early. Head cold again prevented me from going to sleep and it woke me up at about 05:15 too, so all in all it was a disappointment. No wonder I’ve spent most pf the day crashed out on the sofa feeling ill.

But I’ve done some more tidying up on the shelves in the kitchen and it’s looking quite good on there now. Plenty of space for everything now.

And then we had our afternoon walk.

Tea was oven chips, burger (one of those we made the other day) in a bap with peas and carrots. And delicious it was too. And then I went out for my evening walk.

Jersey was even clearer tonight than it was last night and we had something of a light show. With the clouds higher in the sky over there (it was cloudless here) the glow in the sky was beautiful.

So now I’m going to try for another early night. And I hope thzt I can have a better night’s sleep. I’m definitely not feeling up to anything right now.

Thursday 20th November 2014 – I’VE BEEN TO PARIS TODAY

And Terry came with me too.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have recently bought some huge 200 amp-hour batteries for my solar system here and I’ve been rebuilding the battery box and I’ve gradually been installing them one by one as the battery box takes shape.

I’ve been so impressed with these as you know – almost as impressed as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. But anyway, my wholesaler sent me a circular the other day to tell me that they were having yet another battery sale. The price for the 100 amp-hour batteries was extremely interesting and my ears pricked up, especially as the batteries in the barn are struggling along on their last legs as you know.

Having a decent secondary solar system in the barn is of course very advantageous for many reasons, and so I bit the bullet and placed an order.

There is also a new range of data loggers that look much better than anything that I have around here and so I ordered two of those so that I can give them a whirl.

I would have had all of this delivered, except that the company is now starting to sell solar water heaters and they had an exhibition model on display. This is what I want for here, and Terry is very interested too, and so we decided that we would go, pick up my batteries and so on, and have a lengthy chat about solar water heating.

And so at 06:00 Terry phoned me up to wake me, and at 06:45 we were on the road to Paris.

We arrived on the edge of Paris at about 10:00 and then spent 90 minutes covering a distance of just 20kms to our destination. Not traffic queues and not roadworks either, but my satnav has a fetish with the A86 autoroute. No problm with that in itself, but there’s a height limit of 2 metres on that road, and Caliburn is 2.17 metres. Every road that we took brought us back to the A86.

After a wile I gave up, headed for the centre of Paris and then the road out underneath La Defense. But of course the sat-nav can’t pick up a signal in the La Defense tunnel and so I missed the exit. It was certainly not my lucky day today.

Eventually we arrived and spent a good hour or so there. And the upshot was that I have now come home with a solar hot water system. I couldn’t miss out at this price, even if I don’t have any running water yet.

On the way home, I took a different way and of course in the end after much binding in the marsh, we came to the A86 – not once but three times. This was totally beyond a joke and so I headed west on the A14 to Le Havre and came home via Rambouillet. And if that wasn’t enough, I hit a part of the kerb with a hell of a whack at some speed and I’ve smashed a wheel trim (and probably a few other things too)

The rest of the journey was incident-free but we did come home via Brico Depot in Montlucon, where I bought the insulation for the battery box and a few other things, and then the LeClerc for a bit of shopping.

So, what a day! Nearly 900kms and spending all that money but my renewable energy system will leap ahead in spades if all of this works out.

But I do need to work out this route. It’s doing my head in.

-2

Saturday 17th December 2011 – NEXT TIME …

… that I do this crossing, I shall book a couchette.

I enjoyed the trip – easily one of the best crossings that I have ever had and I’ll be doing it again. But it’s so uncomfortable to curl up in a corner – there just aren’t any corners in which to curl up.

And when I discovered that a couchette would set me back a mere £20:00 if booked in advance (they were all sold out on this trip – I did check), well, it’s a foregone conclusion.

This journey saves me a couple of hours and about 10 litres of fuel over driving to Calais, and it puts me in a much better position for going up to the Midlands and the north, missing out all of London and the M25.

A couchette would more-than pay for itself, I reckon.

We were decanted into Le Havre at dawn and at a leisurely pace, took me less than 8 hours to reach home. The roads are excellent, as are most French roads, but these were comparatively quiet. I even managed to fit a little shopping in on the way home.

I beat the snow home – but only just. A huge pile of it had followed me all the way from the coast. And it was taters in here. Absolutely freezing in my attic, although the wood stove soon sorted that out.

And while I had been away the place had been ravaged by 75 kph winds. That generated a few amps of electricity, I can tell you.

So I’m not doing much now. A bit of food – curled up by the fire, and here I’m staying to catch up with my beauty sleep.

-3

Saturday 10th December 2011 – SINCE WHEN …

… has one day’s blog started with a full account of what happened the next morning?

It’s not a very usual occurrence, I know, but it does happen to me now and again – usually because I don’t keep “normal” hours like everyone else. Years of working nights driving taxis and coaches means that I’m more “nocturnal” than “diurnal”.

My days usually finish when I go to bed, no matter what time that might be. And when there have been days when I haven’t gone to bed at all – which also happens very occasionally, I find a convenient break-point.

And so I hit the road tomorrow at 00:30 with still a long way to go before the day is ended.

Today though, I had a very desultory, leisurely day. Taking it easy due to the long night which I knew that I was going to have.

And my heart wasn’t really in the packing and I didn’t really do as much as I should. As a result, I set off on probably the most ill-prepared voyage that I have ever made. And I have made a few of those in my life as well, as you can probably imagine.

The road to Le Havre took me on a merry, mazy way via Bourges, Orleans and Chartres.

Parts of the road were really quick and I was able to make quite good time, whereas others were … err … not so quick, especially when it came to navigating my way through the cities with the endless strings of traffic lights.

Finally I found a service area about 20 or so miles beyond Chartres and that’s where I went to sleep.

And it was freezing as well – frost and ice everywhere – but I’m not that easily defeated.

A few years ago I stripped an old Volvo saloon and that had heated seat pads in it. And so I wired one of them up to one of these 12-volt powerpacks, and you’ve no idea how warm my feet were in bed.

That is – until the powerpack’s battery went flat.

Friday 9th December 2011 – I WON’T BE …

… here tomorrow night either.

I’m going to the UK next week as you know, and I’ve been checking ferries.

And to my surprise, the ferry from Le Havre (2 hours closer to here than Calais) to Portsmouth (nearer to the Midlands than Dover) and return for Caliburn and Yours Truly is a mere €129.

Only problem is that the sailing is at 17:00 which would ordinarily mean an early start but as you know, I don’t do early. My plan is to leave here the night before and getting a couple of hours on the clock.

Anyway, this morning was rather … errr … late and had I not had a spam phone call I would probably still be in bed right now.

And then I had another call – someone wanting to visit. That meant no work of course, and tidying up in here instead, tip that it is. That took me quite a while.

So Nan came around and we discussed the initiative that she is doing for some organisation or other about co-projects (car-sharing and that kind of thing) in the area.

That’s the problem with being a minor celebrity … “chortle chortle” – ed … – people are always sounding you out for things like this. Not that I mind, of course. It’s nice to have visitors.

This evening I’ve been buying stuff on eBay. And getting it shipped to my mailbox in the UK. You’ve no idea how much money I’m saving by doing that. It’s the best £25 a month I’ve ever spent.

-2

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality