Tag Archives: lentil mushroom curry

Tuesday 10th May 2022 – IT REALLY WASN’T …

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022… the right kind of day to take your Nazgul out for a spin this afternoon.

This one came to grief at the Pointe du Roc and in all the time that I was watching, he was unable to go back into the air.

It reminded me of a story about a certain young lady. She was only the groundsman’s daughter but she never got off the ground.

Of course, one of these days, there will be stories written about me. Loads of them too. And I know exactly which wall they will be written on too. Not Crewe Bus Station unfortunately, because the public conveniences there have been completely flattened along with everything else in the town centre.

boats baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022There might have been plenty of issues about what was going on in the air but out at sea there was nothing at all to prevent the crowds from assembling.

When I saw all of these boats congregating offshore I thought to myself that there must be something exciting going on out there, because I haven’t seen so many boats assembled in one place before in the ordinary course of events.

It’s quite possibly a fishing party of some description because most of the boats – with one exception – were stationary out there.

Unfortunately it’s not the kind of thing that will be reported in the local newspaper so we’ll have to pass on this event and leave them to it.

sb934730 le grand bleu yacht zodiac baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022But there was something of note going on out at sea this afternoon that was worthy of note, and I’m not talking about the zodiac or the yacht in this photograph.

What caught my eye this afternoon was the trawler – simply because when I checked her registration number – SB934730 – on the database that I have, she wasn’t on it so she must be quite new.

SB stands for Saint Brieuc which is down the Brittany coast past Saint Malo, and the registration number and photograph corresponds with a trawler called Le Grand Bleu.

She was build by the Chantier Naval Bernard at one of their sites in Brittany and was launched on 22nd December 2021.

speedboat trawler baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022So be that as it may, let’s turn our attention to what I’ve been up to today while you afmire a few more photos of some sea-going craft.

My day actually started last night when I couldn’t go to sleep no matter how I tried. And I ended up being still here working at 01:30 because I couldn’t thin of what else to do.

When I finally went to bed it didn’t take long to go to sleep but no-one felt less like getting up this morning at 07:30 than I did this morning. In fact, for a couple of hours, if not more, I was right out of everything.

While I was supposed to be revising my Welsh ready for my lesson this morning, I even crashed out a couple of times too and that wasn’t any good at all.

petite laura baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Mind you, when the lesson started I managed to stay awake although I was a long way away from actually contributing very much.

There weren’t all that many of us in our lesson today either so it meant that we had correspondingly more to do. I for one was very glad when the lesson was over and no mistake.

And then it was time for lunch. Another big helping of leek and potato soup and like anything else that is heavily seasone,d it takes so much better the longer that it’s left. I’m certainly looking forward to the final helping tomorrow.

And that reminds me. While we’re on the subject of tomorrow … “well, one of us is” – ed … I’ll be eating the last of my fruit buns for breakfast tomorrow morning so I need to make some more in the afternoon.

cabin cruiser baie de mont st michel Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022After I’d finished lunch I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

This was where I was in Paris. I awoke to find that I was totally on my own so I don’t know what was happening with all this going on or not.

And that, surprisingly, was that. It looks as if I didn’t get up to much during the night which is a shame. Who can remember the nights a month ago when I travelled miles with all kinds of wonderful companions holding my hand? It looks as if these pills that the doctor is giving me are having some kind of effect.

That’s something that I find quite depressing. As I have said before … “and on many occasions too” – ed … what goes on during the night is much more exciting than what happens to me during the day.

hang glider place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Soon enough it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

However, as soon as I put my foot outside the door, the dark, cold hand of doom fell upon me as a Nazgul fluttered by overhead. This one was on his way back to the landing strip which is next-door to the cemetery.

As it happens, I couldn’t think of a better place for the Bird-Men of Alcatraz to take off. If they make a mistake on taking off or on coming in to land, you can just heave the remains over the wall into the cemetery. You don’t have all that far to go at all.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Having dealt with the issue of the Nazgul (for the moment) I went over to the wall at the end of the ca rpark to look down on the beach to see what was happening.

There wasn’t a great deal of beach but that didn’t seem to bother too many people. The weather was so nice with the temperature well in the 20s that it had brought everyone out and they were down there sunning themselves.

No-one brave enough to be in the water though which is a surprise. Plenty of people in boats of course but no-one actually in there swimming or splashing about. If they won’t go in there with weather like we had today, I don’t know when they will because this last couple of days have been gorgeous.

hang glider pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Plenty of people on the path wandering around as well as you can see, and also our stranded Nazgul.

That’s a good indication of how nice the weather was today. Not enough wind to keep this one in the air this afternoon. The seagull didn’t have any problems though.

While I was walking along the path towards the end of the headland I was taking a few photos of the boats in the bay. And as you have seen, there were plenty of those this afternoon.

But there was something of a haze out to sea today so photographing the islands out there was simply not possible. They will have to wait for another time when I hope that I’ll be lucky enough to photograph the Channel island ferries out there doing their bit.

cabanon vauban people on bench pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022The car park at the end of the path was quite busy too and it was interesting (to say the least) to watch someone reversing around trying his best to knock over a couple of pedestrians walking around there.

But I walked on down to the end of the headland to have a look at the bench there by the cabanon vauban. This would be the kind of day where I would expect to see people sitting there and I wasn’t wrong, was I?.

They were having a grandstand view of all of the activity too this afternoon. Certainly having their money’s worth.

But I was more interested in the coffee that I had remembered to set off before I came out so I wandered off on the path down the other side of the headland towards the port and home.

trawler l'ecume 2 j158 fishing boat valeque sagone d'angawelys chantier naval port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022And I was right about La Roc A La Mauve III. There she was! Gone! And never called me “Mother”!

But I can identify most of the other boats down there this afternoon. The one nearest the camera defeats me for the moment but behind her is Valeque and behind her is the Jersey trawler L’Ecume II.

Yesterday we saw another unidentified boat in there but from this position we can see clearly who she is. She’s called Sagone D’Angawelys.

Having seen the chantier naval closed over the winter while they overhauled the portable boat lift, it’ nice to see the place filling up again. A busy ship repair yard is the sign of a successful port and that’s important.

omerta petite laura sm517594 rocalamauve port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo May 2022Over at the fish processing plant we still have L’Omerta moored up at the quayside.

Behind her is Petite Laura just coming in to tie up and unload. We saw her earlier out in the bay on her way home.

The boat behind her tucked around the corner is the one that we saw there yesterday. We couldn’t identify her then but I can see who she is from this position. She’s called Rocalamauve and is carrying a Saint Malo registration number.

Back here I had a coffee and then started to play around with the photos, there were so many. But today things are taking me much longer than they usually go. I seem to have lost my enthusiasm somehow.

These days I’m doing that far too often.

Tea was a mushroom and lentil curry that was delicious as usual, and now that I’ve finished my notes I’m off to bed. I’m not sure whether to wish for a good night’s sleep or a disturbed night with plenty of travels to keep my interest going.

All of these First-World problems, hey’

Wednesday 25th August 2021 – I WENT TO …

… see the rapist this afternoon.

rue cambernon Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallFirst thing that I have to say about it all is that there’s traffic flowing again down the Rue Cambernon again.

It looks as if the braderie was only a one-day thing because everything seems to have been cleared away, all of the streets are now open and the cars are driving along them.

It’s a shame really because for that one day it was quite interesting and quite quiet too. It reminded me of the “car-free Sunday” that we had once a year when I lived in Brussels. All of the public transport was free, all of the parks and museums were open and you could wander everywhere without any interruption at all.

And, at the end of the day, the normal haze that hung over the city had gone and the sky was really clear.

Just for one day.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, one of the things that really gets my goat around here is the pathetic parking.

bad parking rue paul poirier Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallYou’ve seen so much of it that I’ve been trying to avoid showing it, in order not to bore you to death, but sometimes there is something so extreme that I have to feature it. Something like this, for example.

The white car, with a registration number from out of the département so clearly a tourist, has stopped – with a couple of wheels on a zebra crossing, and let his wife out to go and buy a baguette from the bakery here.

And then he sits and waits for her.

This is a bus route for the large service buses that ply up and down the coast, and he’s blocking the road so that this bus can’t go past.

And does he move? Of course he doesn’t. He’s a tourist. The town belongs to him. Who cares about the locals?

But anyway, let’s start at the very beginning.

Despite having a good deal less than 5 hours sleep last night, I was up and about at 06:00 and went to take my medicine.

Back in here again I checked my messages – well, I didn’t – just about half of them. I didn’t actually go to sleep – I was wide awake – but in something like a zombie-like trance for a couple of hours, unable to function at all.

When I finally gathered my wits – which takes far longer these days than it ought, seeing how few wits I have left these days, I made myself a coffee and cut a slice of my gorgeous fruit bread – which really is gorgeous by the way – and then came back in here to finish off checking my messages.

Next task was to prepare a music playlist for the week. It’s the turn of the music in the “BB” folder to be selected and it will be any 11 tracks from about 15 of the 50 artists and groups in the folder.

The playlist will now be running continuously until Sunday night (as long as the computer is switched on) and I’ll be listening to all of the relevant albums, choosing tracks that might be interesting, noting down their running times and the albums from which they come, and whether they are good or faulty.

And whether they are needing editing too. Chopping exciting bits out of “Tubular Bells” or “Thick as a Brick” – stuff like that. Much as I like the complete albums, my listeners would fall asleep if I played all of them non-stop.

There was the dictaphone to check of course and eventually I managed to get around to it. Last night I was living on some kind of island. There was a huge explosion that had destroyed part of the buildings. Everyone had to evacuate this island and move onto another one that was already occupied. Everyone immediately thought that it was me who had blown up this island or whatever it was, so no-one was really my friend and gave me all cold stares when I’d tried to talk to them about anything.

And doesn’t that remind me of an event about two years ago?

Later on, I’d been on a bike and apparently I’d started off walking. It was medieval times. I was loaded up and on my way somewhere or other. The priest of this area was standing there looking over the harbour and everything. As I walked past he made the sign of the cross to me so I made the sign of the cross to him. He said “good evening” and I thought “it’s morning, isn’t it?”. I carried on walking and then I was on a bike cycling down a hill near Lyon. A group of 5 people walked off the pavement straight in front of me. I gave them a tinkle of the bell. They moved slowly out of the way so I swore at them and cursed them in French. They were making all kinds of gestures and insults but I carried on. In the end someone invited me to appear on television. I thought “if they had heard that lot just now they wouldn’t have allowed me on at all.

After that, I know that I did something else, but don’t ask me what it was because I can’t remember.

After lunch I went and had a shower and a general clean and tidy up, and then went off on my travels to see the rapist.

transhipment porte st jean Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallBut I didn’t go very far before I came to a stop.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, because I’ve said it before … “and on many previous occasions too” – ed … living intra muros in the old walled city does have its drawbacks Like the height of the gateway into the old walled city.

If you are having anything big delivered, you need to have some kind of trans-shipment system in place because the chances are that the delivery lorry might not be able to fit through the arch. We’ve seen all kinds of Heath-Robinson arrangements since I’ve been living here.

port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallMeanwhile, a little farther on along the road I come out to one of the viewpoints on the outer walls – the one that overlooks the fish processing plant.

The first thing that I noticed was that all of the “charter hire” yachts like Aztec Lady, Spirit of Conrad and so on are conspicuous by their absence.

Not that it is a real surprise because I heard on the grapevine that the Channel Islands are relaxing their strict anti-Covid controls on visitors from France, and so everyone who is anyone has headed off in a northward direction.

And had I not had my series of appointments starting this week, I would have been tempted to have joined them as well.

Les Epiettes port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallEvery now and again we’ve been seeing a small red, white and blue boat running around in the bay or just outside the harbour.

It might be this one here. I know that we encountered one, called Les Epiettes once when we were on Spirit of Conrad out at the Ile de Chausey, but unfortunately we can’t see her name from here.

When I was back in the apartment later I checked the port call register and there was no trace of a boat that resembled her so she probably has her AIS switched off.

But I did discover something else and I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

charlevy port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallAnd I’m sure that we all recognise this trawler. It’s been the subject of quite a few photos just recently.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s our old friend Charlevy, anchored at the loading bay with one of the cranes working on her.

What I suspect is that while she’s been in the chantier naval she’s had all of her nets taken out and presumably overhauled and repaired on the quayside as we’ve seen them do before.

Today, it looks as if the crane is reassembling all of her fishing gear, ready for her to go back out to sea.

From there I pushed on through the streets and up the hill to the therapist. And the climb up there was a little better than on Monday.

He had me walking up and down a step, doing some stretching exercises and then standing on some kind of tilting, vibrating plate that reminded me on being on the deck of THE GOOD SHIP VE … errr … OCEAN ENDEAVOUR in a hurricane.

There was a kind of ski-walking machine there but that wasn’t a success. Not because I couldn’t work it but I didn’t have the breath to keep it going.

After half an hour he threw me out and I walked home, feeling actually a little more sprightly in my right leg than I have done for a while. I wonder what it will be like at the end of the sessions.

Passing the shenanigans outside the bakers I carried on towards home and my ice-cold strawberry smoothie. And the climb up the hill in the Rue des Juifs went rather better than the other day.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallWhile I was out, I thought that I’d go and see how things were down on the beach. It’s much more like my usual time of afternoon.

Plenty of beach to be on or course because the tide is well on its way out now. You could see quite a difference to how it was 90 minutes ago when i set off for my appointment.

But the holiday season is definitely coming to an end. Three days now on the run I’ve made the point that there have been fewer and fewer people down on the beach , and once again I couldn’t see anyone in the water either. It’s a sad end to a rather depressing summer season here.

ile de chausey baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallWhile I was at it, I was having a good look out to sea.

The NIKON D3000 was my main camera between the demise of the Nikon D5000 and the purchase of the NIKON D500 and while I was happy with it at the time, I’ve had to do a lot of post-work to pull out a photo of the Ile de Chausey from the haze out at sea.

None of the Joly France ferries in sight – they must all be sheltering in the gap between the two islands. Just the odd yacht or two out there this afternoon. Nothing much to be excite myself today. I did see a brown smudge on the horizon which at first I thought was Marité but it turned out to be a mark on the computer screen.

people on beach plat gousset Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallGoing back to the apartment, there was a view of the beach down at the Plat Gousset – a view that I don’t usually see because I’m going the other way.

Quite a few people going for a paddle around in the water retained by the medieval fish trap, and a few folk on the beach down there too. But seeing as that area is the most popular part of the beach, I was expecting it to be much busier than that.

A few people down on the beach at Donville les Bains though. I can just about make them out in the distance.

So back into the apartment I came and had my strawberry smoothie – and the next thing that I remembered was thatt it was 18:30. I’d been stark out for 90 minutes. The walk out and back had taken it all out of me.

There were carrots that needed peeling and blanching ready for freezing and then it was time for tea. I had the rest of the mushrooms which were going to start to do something rather peculiar if I didn’t do anything with them so I threw in a small tin of lentils and a few other bits and pieces and made a quick curry.

big wheel at night place albert godal Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallBack in here I came to write up my notes but while I was checking the radar to see whether it really was Les Epiettes coming into the port, I noticed a rather large boat coming into the port, larger than any that have been in here recently.

Immediately I grabbed the camera and dashed outside to see what it might be, falling over a concrete bollard in the street in the darkness.

Firstly though, the big wheel was working, even though it was quite late. People must be staying up until all hours, being still in the holiday mood even if they don’t want to go down to the beach during the daytime.

big wheel at night place albert godal Granville Manche Normandy France Eric HallOne of the attractions of the big wheel, especially for the spectator, is that it changes colour as it goes round.

As I watched, it went through all of the colours of the rainbow and made quite an exciting spectacle.

But only for a few more days. It usually closes down round about the end of August so maybe next week will be the last that we shall see of it.

And the tourists too. While I’m always pleased to see them leave, I do feel sorry for them for the miserable summer that they have had.

medical emergency at galeon andalucia port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallYou probably noticed in the two photos of the big wheel a set of lights coming down the hill in the Rue Couraye. What you won’t have heard of course is the sound of the sirens that came with the lights.

There’s something rather large and top-heavy down there and it’s certainly not a gravel boat as I was originally thinking.

And why it’s put into the harbour is presumably due to some kind of medical emergency that needs to be dealt with

medical emergency at galeon andalucia port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallBut in the meantime I can tell you something about her, because she has her AIS beacon switched on.

Believe it or not, she’s a Spanish galleon. Not a original one, I haste to add, and wouldn’t that be something if it were, but a faithful replica of a Spanish galleon of the 17th Century and at an overall length of almost 48 metres, she’s the largest ship of any description to come in here for quite a while.

How long she’ll be staying is something else, so I’ll be out there first thing in the morning to see her in daylight, because the harbour gates open early.

trawler leaving port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric HallWhile I’m out, I’m not going to bed quite yet. I may as well make the most of things

With the harbour gates being open, one of the trawlers here is taking the opportunity to slip out to sea. She doesn’t have her AIS beacon switched on so I can’t tell you who she is. It’s just a purple lozenge on my radar screen with no name attached.

Anyway, that’s enough excitement for this evening. I’m going back to the apartment to carry on with my journal entry for today before I forget any more.

Now, much later than intended, I’m off to bed. A whole day at home with no interruptions. I bet that I’ll fall asleep and miss most of it.

Thursday 11th April 2019 – IT’S BEEN ANOTHER …

… day when I haven’t been all that productive.

It didn’t help by not being out of bed until 07:30. I really need to get a grip these days before I miss a train or something.

Plenty of time during the night to go on a little voyage though. I was with Alvin last night and we were going through a pile of LPs that he had left. He wanted some of them copied, which meant playing and recording on blank records. I had a look through some of the stuff but there wasn’t anything there of any interest or importance as far as I was concerned, but he insisted on having it done. He told me that when it had been done the original records had to be taken to a certain place where I would get some money for it but the duplicates would be retained here. I shouldn’t take those as they would hand them back and cut down on his money. I said fair enough but it was a strange way to go about it. I couldn’t get the thing organised properly and made loads of mistakes trying to copy these albums but I carried on. While this was doing he was doing some calculations so I went to see what he was doing – “working 11 hours at $8:10 per hour”. I asked what it was and he replied that he was trying to work out if he could afford to be a policeman in Los Angeles. I said “not at $8:10 per hour! No-one could work for that”. He told me about all of the advantages he would receive and there was a fund to help out people who moved from a high-paid job to a low-paid job to make sure that their mortgages were paid. It all sounded quite precarious to me. But somewhere along the line, up in Neston I had an old house, on the roadside with newer houses build behind it. I was trying to find out how old it was but I wasn’t being very serious with my enquiries but I don’t remember very much about this.

After breakfast I had a shower and prettied myself up, and then set the washing machine off on a cycle. One of the things that I did was to put new bedding on the bed and wash the previous bedding. The stuff that was on it was on the verge of walking into the washing machine all on its own.

boat from chantier navale leaving port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd then I headed off into town for the shopping.

And I was surprised to see, amongst the boats that were waiting to leave the harbour when the gates open, this particular boat.

I’m almost certain that it’s the boat that was up on blocks in the chantier navale for a couple of weeks being resprayed and painted. She looks as if she’s off on her travels now.

repointing medieval wall granville manche normandy franceAnd despite having all of this massive array of scaffolding erected on the wall higher up, they are still working away at the base of the walls moving away all of the loose rock.

The machine that they are using is quite impressive. It’s a little mini-digger with a hydraulic breaker on the jib of it.

It’s breaking off all of the loose rock which is then being shovelled up into a skip which you can see in the foreground.

la granvillaise normandy trader thora granville manche normandy franceIt’s quite busy down in the harbour this morning too.

We have La Granvillaise moored up at the quay where Marité usually hangs out, and Thora is still there too, but she’s moved berth over to where the gravel boats tie up.

That’s because Normandy Trader has come into port, presumably on the early morning tide. They are already loading her up too, so clearly they don’t intend to hang about.

old man sharpening knives rue couraye granville manche normandy franceOn the way up the hill in the rue Couraye I noticed a really old man with a very interesting machine.

In there is a grinding wheel worked by a foot treadle rather like an old-fashioned sewing machine in the pre-electric days, and he seems to be sharpening knives with it.

It’s really nice to see a good old-fashioned artisan peddling … “groan” – ed … his craft on the streets even today. There ought to be more of it, I reckon.

gates open fishing boat leaving port de granville harbour manche normandy franceLIDL didn’t come up with much so I headed off for home, picking up a baguette on the way.

The gates of the harbour were now open and boats were leaving the port, including this fishing boat. Quite a few had already left, including Thora and Normandy Trader.

While Thora was in and out in 24 hours, the latter had an even quicker turn-round. I was right about her not intending to hang about in the harbour. They must be really busy just now.

It makes me wonder when I was saying last year that I hadn’t seen them for quite a while. I just reckon that their turn-round must have been so quick that I must have missed it.

pontoon port de granville harbour manche normandy franceMeanwhile, elsewhere in the harbour, the men were out there again on their pontoon.

It’s quite a mystery to me what they are doing out there. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that about 18 months ago they drained the harbour completely and dredged it out. So there can’t be much in there that needs checking.

I shall have to make enquiries at the port office next time I’m down there. Maybe they will tell me.

Back here I had a drink and a sit down, and then hung out the washing to dry. Once that was done I made a start on the dictaphone notes, but had to knock off for lunch.

joly france ferry ile de chausey baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceEven though it was rather windy out there, it was such a beautiful warm afternoon. And so i took my butties outside and sat on my wall overlooking the harbour.

And I was in luck this afternoon too. One of the ferry boats that does the run to the Ile de Chausey was coming into harbour. She’d obviously been on a little outing earlier this morning as there was quite a crowd of people.

She pulled up at her mooring at the ferry terminal and then unloaded all of her passengers.

joly france ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd then much to my surprise, she collected up another load of passengers, and then headed off out again into the Baie de Mont St Michel.

And with her having her back turned towards me, I could see that she’s the Joly France. Her sister is tied up in the harbour.

Of course, it shouldn’t really be any surprise that she’s busy. It’s school holidays in Granville of course and all of the kids are at a loose end and will be for next week too.

And so we can can expect to see much more of the Ile de Chausey ferries out and about then while the kids are off school.

lys noir baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceThe Ile de Chausey ferries aren’t the only things out there right now.

There’s an old sailing ship or, rather, a large yacht out there too. From what I could see of her, I think that she’s the Lys Noir.

We haven’t seen all that much of her just recently, so it’s nice to see her back. In fact, I’m wondering whether she might have been the sailing boat out there the other day that I thought was the Charles-Marie

Butties having been eaten, I came back and had another marathon session on the dictaphone notes.

Now I’m back into my notes for my trip around Labrador in 2017 which is good news. That’s good news because when that’s finished I can tie up the photos to the text and make a start on those web pages too.

st pair sur mer baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceLater on, I went out for my afternoon walk as usual. Today, it was around the Pointe-du Roc.

It was such a beautiful day and the haze was farther out than it has been just recently, so i could tke a really good photograph of the Baie de Mont St Michel and St Pair sur Mer just across on the other side.

And I was really impressed today with the colour of the sea today. Fr the last few weeks it’s been a murky grey colour, but today we have a nice proper blue sea.

flags european union france normandy granville manche normandy franceAnd with it being rather windy out there today, I could see the flag that they were putting up yesterday.

It’s actually the flag of Granville and that’s new to me because I didn’t realise that Granville actually had its own flag.

The red one with the two golden lions on it is the flag of the Duchy of Normandy, and I’m sure that you don’t need me to explain the other two.

On that note, I came back for a hot chocolate and, shame as it is to say it, a little … errr … relax on the office chair.

There was still enough time to do something else before tea, so seeing as I wasn’t in a particularly enthusiastic mood, I made a start on the searchable text database for the photos for June 2018.

For tea, I founf a lentil and mushroom curry in the freezer. It was one that I had made on 7th November … errr … 2017 and it tasted just as delicious as it did back then.

It seems that I’m getting right down to the bottom of the pile of curries now. I’m not sure how many ancient ones there might be still in there, but there can’t be many.

In a short while I’ll have to make a start on making some more.

fishing boats waiting to enter port de granville harbour manche normandy francelater on I went for my evening walk around the city walls.

There were still a few people out there enjoying the evening sunshine, and also a dozen or so fishing boats loitering around just outside the harbour.

It must be that the tide isn’t in enough for them to reach the Fish Processing Plant and tie up to unload. But I don’t imagine that they will have long to wait.

And so I carried on and came home.

Tonight I’m hoping for another early night and a good sleep. Tomorrow I’m planning on having something of a tidy-up in the kitchen and living room.

Things are getting a little untidy in there so I need to apply myself. After all, I’m off on my travels again early on Sunday.

scaffolding medieval wall granville manche normandy france
scaffolding medieval wall granville manche normandy france

boats ready to leave port de granville harbour manche normandy france
“boats ready to leave port de granville harbour manche normandy france

joly france ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france
joly france ferry ile de chausey port de granville harbour manche normandy france

lys noir baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
lys noir baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

Monday 25th February 2019 – HAVING MADE A …

… special effort to turn of all of the alarms this morning, I managed to sleep though all the way to … errr … 06:00.

But I still ended up going back to sleep and a gorgeous leisurely 09:10 before I finally saw the light of day.

Plenty of time to go on a wander during the night. Last night was rather confusing. I remember Cecile being around and I was somewhere on some housing estate that might have been old military property (going back to a discussion that I’d had a few weeks ago). I knew where a girl lived and the neighbours that she described in some disparaging terms. To where I lived, you had to go past – well past too and into the countryside, turn right and then right again, and I found that I wasn’t living too far away from her and that was a surprise. The garage door of my property had been forced in as if someone had driven into it and I was sure that I would be blamed for this, especially as my brand-new office car was parked in the drive, left there by a colleague. But I knew that I hadn’t driven it, I hadn’t had the keys and hadn’t signed for it, but that wouldn’t ever change anything about the apportionment of blame as I knew only too well. But we had to move on for there was work to do, and another colleague came and took my car away, leaving the garage door unprotected which annoyed me but I had things to do, so I wandered down to where Cecile and her friends were standing, and she indicated “over there” where the rest of the huissiers were assembled (I’m starting to see a few parallels here by the way) so I wandered over. They were all lounging around so I asked what was going on. They replied that they were all “just chilling”. So with nothing better to do, I “just chilled”.
A little later I was working away under a car doing something mechanical, and on finishing, I hauled myself out from underneath. The car was a big Jag V12 XJS and a former friend of mine and his friend were touching up the paintwork – and doing a nice job too, gloss white with black pin stripes all done by hand. They’d paid £200 for this car and were expecting to receive about £500 for it. I asked if there was anything that I could be doing, so they told me to help with the paintwork. Car painting is not my forte at all and I’d probably make it look worse than better, but I was told to help. After a minute or so, my ex-friend told me “you don’t do it like this … ” which I knew, but I said that it takes a while to work up a rhythm, so he gave me one of his customary long lectures which ended with “.. and of course you need to work up a rhythm” which was all more-or-less what I had just been saying. Yes, one of these long and pointless lectures. And the point is that people spend more time supervising someone doing a job poorly than they would spend doing the job perfectly themselves.

After breakfast (a big bowl of porridge), I attacked the blog. That’s up-to-date now as far back as Friday. That took a while.

And then I had run out of photos so I downloaded them off the cameras and started working on them to edit them. And now I’ve noticed another problem with the camera. The light sensor is fading out and over-reading. All of the photos from the weekend is under-exposed.

Seven years, I’ve had this camera. And seven years I had the Nikon D5000 before that started to play up too. Looks to me as if seven years is the life expectancy of a Nikon DSLR.

Just for a change, I was overwhelmed by hunger and ended up having a plate of cheese on toast for lunch. And that made me feel better.

And then to war.

The Bank statements that I had received from the Royal Bank of Scotland had shown that my letter of 2nd January 2019 had not been actioned. So I rang them up.

No point in asking a guy at a help-desk why, so we went through half of it and did it on-line. And then for the rest, having clearly told him that I intended to speak further to someone else higher up the chain, and told him what I thought about his employers in no uncertain terms, especially after he had held me on hold for 15 minutes because the “technology wasn’t working” he … errr … passed me on to another colleague to deal with the rest.

She didn’t have a clue either (although she was nice about it) and put me through to a third person who had even less to do with the matter. But she noticed something outstanding from 1990 which is good news to me, so passed me on to yet a fourth colleague to deal with that.

Well over an hour I was on the phone to them, and I’m still not much further on. But then that’s what happens when you are obliged to bank with the Worst Bank In The World.

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy franceAfter that marathon I went out for a walk around the walls testing the light – and there’s about three or four shots’ difference of light as what you might expect.

This is one taken with the exposure set by the exposure-metre gauges in the camera.

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy franceAnd this is one of the same view taken seconds later with the exposure set by eye with all of the other settings remained the same.

I’ll go out tomorrow with another lens and see what that can come up with, just to check.

There were a couple of minutes of fatigue – although not too much to worry about, and I carried on working. But with a stop for tea. lentil and mushroom curry from January last year. First time since Monday I’ve had three meals per day.

And then more football. A delayed match in the Welsh Premier League between Caernarfon and TNS. Caernarfon have gone off the boil this last few weeks and TNS always looked as if they could change up a couple of gears. 0-3 was by no means a false result.

And the mystery as to why TNS only play their star forward in brief cameos just recently looks resolved to me. He looks really ill to me.

So I’m off to bed. Another lie-in tomorrow to gather up my strength and do some work. If I feel as well as this tomorrow evening I’ll go back to the alarm on Wednesday.

And as an aside – I turned off the heating today.

peche à pied beach granville manche normandy france
peche à pied beach granville manche normandy france

peche à pied beach granville manche normandy france
peche à pied beach granville manche normandy france

new house building rue du nord granville manche normandy france
new house building rue du nord granville manche normandy france

new house building rue du nord granville manche normandy france
new house building rue du nord granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france
crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france
crowds on beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france

Sunday 29th July 2018 – I DIDN’T PUT …

… my sooty foot out of the building at all today.

And that’s not surprising, and for many reasons too.

Not the least of which being that after the exertions of yesterday I was feeling the strain. And so when I awoke (at 06:00, and on a Sunday too!) I turned over and went back to sleep – something that I would have done anyway even if I hadn’t heard the rain hammering down in the howling gale outside.

08:30 is a much more reasonable time to be up and about on a Sunday. And with a very late breakfast (and I almost forgot my fig bread again) I was ready for almost anything.

And almost anything turned out to be nothing at all. I had a very profitable day dealing with the European Photo Mountain instead.

Lunch was taken inside today, which is no surprise, and then I set to and made a lentil and mushroom whatsit. Odile is having an “at home” tonight and I’ve been invited, so I had to take something with me.

Not like me to be all civilised, is it?

We met at 18:30 and seeing as I don’t “do” socialising, I usually stay for just a couple of hours at the most. And so no-one was more surprised than me to find me still there at 22:30. THat’s not like me either.

And so I eventually came back and went to bed instead. Not a foot set outside the building.

Not many days like that, are there?

Thursday 23rd November 2017 – JUST BY WAY …

… of a change, I’ve done 101% of my daily activity today. It’s not very often I do that these days, is it?

I had a reasonable night’s sleep last night. No-one interrupted me at all and I was stark out until the alarm went off. And I only just made it out of bed before the second alarm too.

After breakfast and a little repose I had a good shower and shave and a general clean-up. And then I hit the streets. It was extremely cloudy overhead but I set off on foot nevertheless, and it wasn’t long before the rain started. But I pressed on nevertheless.

As I expected, it was a long sad haul up the hill past the railway station to the roundabout. I’m even finding that difficult these days as you know, but I have to press on otherwise I won’t ever get anywhere.

Destination was LIDL of course. Another loaf of bread, cut into three and two parts frozen for later on in the week, some menthol sweets to help me keep my nose clear, a lettuce and, on special offer, a guitar stand. That means that I can unleash the Gibbon.

combattant port de granville manche normandy franceOn the way out, I noticed that COmbattant had gone, but the lighter and digger were still there. And so I reckoned that it had gone off to dump a load of silt.

I was quite right about that because on the way back, there she was, moored up to the lighter and back at work again.

They seem to be doing a thorough job of the dredging anyway. Maybe we might see more ships coming into the port. Some old guy with whom I chatted fairly recently did tell me that maritime traffic had declined over the past few years.

After lunch, despite my efforts up town this morning, I went for a walk. It had stopped raining and the wind had dropped slightly so it was reasonably pleasant, especially for this time of year.

And while I was out, I was chatted up by a bunch of schoolgirls from Avranches and their teacher. That was a very pleasant couple of minutes.

Despite feeling a little better today and hoping that I could go all day without crashing out, I did succumb for about 20 minutes round about 17:00. That was disappointing.

Tea was some of that frozen mushroom and lentil curry in soya cream that I made a few weeks ago. And it defrosted very well in the microwave. I’m not mad keen on microwaves as you know but they certainly do what they are supposed to do.

casino beach granville manche normandy franceIt was raining this evening but nevertheless I went out for my evening walk.

Around the walls again in a clockwise direction. And I seemed to be the only person out and about which was hardly a surprise.

The wind had got up again and with the tide being right in the waves were crashing on the sea wall down by the Casino. It was all very exciting and very relaxing too. I love the sound of the sea.

pizza wagon old town granville manche normandy franceMy mate wasn’t sitting on his window sill, which is not really a surprise, but here’s a surprise – something that I hadn’t noticed before.

It seems that we have a pizza wagon here in the old town on Thursday nights. I was tempted to go to investigate but he was rather busy. And so I’ll have to go back again; next week maybe.

Back here I had a relax for a while, and then maybe I’ll go for another early night. I hope that there will be a little more improvement in my health tomorrow.

Tuesday 7th November 2017 – I’M NOT …

… feeling much better today either.

Despite going to bed early I couldn’t get off to sleep. It was 00:30 and I was still awake. I was still awake at 04:30 too, although I must have been asleep at one point. And I was still awake at 06:00 when the alarm went off.

No possibility of me getting out of bed though. I went back to sleep and it was getting on for 08:00 when I finally crawled out.

During the night I’d been on my travels too. To Oostende where I started off taking a female friend. We went to see a huge cruise ship that had arrived, and although it wasn’t easy to see. There was a tower block in the distance and I was explaining that behind it in the past would have been the huge pile of coal that fuelled the steamships that called here.
From there on, I was with a female partner – it might even have been Nerina – and I was skinning a cat in the same way that you would peel a mushroom. But halfway through the proceedings the cat appeared to recover consciousness. I couldn’t continue and had to pass the cat over to my partner to complete.a

I managed breakfast and then spent the rest of the morning vegetating on the sofa. I did manage to crawl off at one point. I have some Vick vapour rub somewhere – I know that I have because I remember buying it in Leuven – and I wish that I could find it.

Lunch was a struggle. I wasn’t hungry but I do have to eat. It took me quite a while to swallow my sandwich. And then I crashed out again for a few hours on the sofa.

I made tea tonight. I had lentils on the boil for quite a while. In the meantime I made the usual onion, garlic and spice base. In went the mushrooms, the lentils, a tin of mixed veg and some soya cream. I didn’t eat much because I wasn’t hungry. And there’s enough left over for another four meals, all of which went into the freezer.

So now I’m sitting with my feet up. I’ll be in bed very soon if I can clear my nose. A good sleep will do me good, I reckon,

Monday 17th July 2017 – LAST NIGHT …

… I had 5 hours 38 minutes of restful sleep and 1 hour 14 minutes of restless sleep. I can see that I’m going to become pretty annoying with this Fitbit thing.

But don’t worry – it only synchronises the data when I charge it up off the laptop. That’s about once every three or four days, I reckon. And if I charge it up off a plug then it will be even less frequent than that.

But it must have been the restless bit when I was away with the fairies. And just for a change last night, with something that doesn’t happen very often at all, I was an observer in this one.

For some reason the star of last night’s show was a woman. She needed to be somewhere at 08:15 and it was now 07:55 so she reckoned that she had a couple more minutes to loiter around before she needed to leave. But just as she was about to go her husband shouted down from his window that he would take her if she could wait a couple more minutes. It turned out that her husband was a medical man of some description and in taking her he was leaving a couple of patients unsupervised. While he was away something went wrong and he was hauled up before the GMC. It was held that as the nature of his wife’s voyage was something medical, he was not wrong to attend to her, but in abandoning his other patients for that period he was guilty of a lack of good judgement.

The alarm awoke me and after breakfast I went and had a shave and a shower (and to charge up the Fitbit off the laptop – hence the data – while I was in there). And I nipped down to the magasin de presse quite early for the baguette – before the crowds arrived.

Lunch was of course on my wall, and I saw the Grima come dieseling in. I was going to take a photo but I found that I had left my phone behind. But it was nice up there in the sun – I really enjoyed it.

For tea I put a mug full of lentils in the slow cooker at 17:00 and by 19:30 they wee done to a turn. With the left-over mushrooms I made another mega-curry with enough for three more days.

Good news on the blog front. I’ve now caught up with where I wanted to be. I have however lost 48 entries somewhere that don’t fall in the “unclassifieds” and don’t fall in the “updated” either. I’m intrigued to know what is the issue with them.

But what I’ve done is to start at the beginning – july 2009 – and go through looking for missed days – days which have been conjoined into others. I’ve already found eight or none that I have missed and which now have pages of their own.

Two pages in particular from my 2010 visit to Canada – this one and this one – have taken me all afternoon and quite rightly so.

They were immense and it gave me an opportunity to put into practice the idea about which I told you yesterday – to write up my daily adventures in North America on the blog rather than on the website – although I might do that as well in due course.

Now I’m going to go for a 10-minute stroll. I’ve done this the last couple of nights as the Fitbit is telling me that I’m not having anything like enough exercise and that I’m sitting around far too much.

Sentiments with which I concur wholeheartedly.

Friday 20th May 2016 – AND I’VE BEEN OUT TODAY TOO!

After breakfast I had a few things to organise and then round about 09:30 I hit the road for my place, calling at the Intermarché at Pionsat on the way in order to buy some bread for lunch.

At home I had a little rest of an hour or so and then I started to collect up the stuff that I need for Belgium (and also for Canada, just in case I have the possibility to go there later this year). A few things I couldn’t find, and a few things I forgot, but I’ll call there tomorrow on my way out to the motorway and finish off a few things.

This afternoon, I took it easy. I’ve cut my hair and had a shower – so I’m nice and clean and tidy ready for the journey back home. I’ve done a load of washing too and even as I speak, it’s going round and round in the dryer because there won’t be enough time to dry it properly.

I’ve not planned my food resources correctly because I have some mushroom and lentil curry and also some home-made vegan ice cream left over. I’ll just have to come back another time to finish it off.

And now I’m off for a very early night. There will be no alarm clock in the morning because I intend to have a good sleep if I can. I’ve a long way to drive tomorrow and I’m not really up to it. I’ll have to do my best and see what happens. I can’t expect too much in my state of health.

But what was nice was that I had an e-mail from the Social Services department asking me how I was feeling and whether I’d been able to manage the journey back. That was a very pleasant e-mail – it’s nice to know that they have been thinking about me.

I didn’t catch up on my last night’s voyages, I was off on a different track completely. While I was waiting yesterday for Caliburn to have his contole technique, I was reading the local paper and noticed a story concerning someone whom I know in Pionsat. He’s been fighting a complicated legal battle for the last five years and judging by the news story and his post on his Social Networking site last night, he’s finally been successful.

And so last night, on my travels, I was involved with him in some way. It’s pretty-much a truism to say that there are no winners amongst the civilian population in a lengthy court case because whoever comes out on top, his card is marked and the authorities are hell-bent on revenge. And this was the case last night. This boy was harassed and harassed by the authorities and in the end was carried off and convicted of something or other. He’d left some of his possessions with me while he was away and I discovered a secret compartment in his affairs and the contents of this compartment went to show that maybe he wasn’t as innocent as he liked to appear. But, then again, who is? As you probably know, I have a theory that all humans are pretty much the same in the grand, and some are caught and others are not and that is the big difference.
Later on during the night I went for a walk and came across a huge mansion-type place across a field and lake and through a forest of cherry trees laden with blossom. I didn’t have my camera with me so I went back for it and then walked through the lake (it wasn’t very deep at first but I ended up over my knees by the time I reached the other side) to take a photo but of course my camera wouldn’t work. It turned out that this was some kind of Girls’ Schools something along the lines of Ampleforth College,with the girls wearing red and white checked dresses. This all rang a bell with me because I’d sat on some kind of committee where some novel educational programmes submitted by various schools had been judged, and while the winner was from some kind of mainstream school, one that had particularly impressed the committee was one that had been submitted by a person who had since gone on to become a senior teacher at this school. I was therefore interested to see if any of these novel ideas had been applied at the school and after having presented myself to the headmistress, I was granted research facilities at the school to examine the teaching and the recreational activities. I quickly adopted a committee of three sixth-form girls. I was impressed with the keenness and throughness of these girls, but not so impressed with the fact that when the bell went for the end of the day they immediately deserted and left me to do the tidying up and that sometimes went on for quite a while. One one occasion I went round to their room and “swept them out” with a large-bristled brush. Another thing that impressed me about the school was the fact that all of the food was vegetarian, although I was unable to find out if there were vegan options.

Tuesday 17th May 2016 – I’VE BEEN OUT AND ABOUT TODAY

So having gone to bed quite early last night, I ended up chatting to Alison and Liz on the internet. And then, having dozed in and out of sleep for hours, it was midnight when I switched off the radio and finally settled down for the night.

I had quite a few trips down the corridor, what with one thing and another, but was wide awake by about 06:30, having been off to Stoke on Trent during the night. I’d bought a Land Rover chassis-cab with a crane or winch on the back. It was in good condition but a little scabby but down in the scrapyard we discovered two perfect doors (although of a slightly different colour) so we bought them and fitted them. The next task, as my friend explained to me, was the rear valance and he sorted out his angle grinder and wire brush to de-rust it so that we could paint it over. Zero came over for a chat too, which was very nice because it’s been a good few weeks since she’s appeared in one of my nocturnal rambles.

After breakfast I started to organise myself. I sorted out all of the washing into piles that will either go back home or come with me to Belgium, and then I sorted out the paperwork. I made an appointment with my doctor as I have some paperwork that she needs to see and I need a form signing. That’s for Thursday morning.

Once I’d organised that, I went off out and about.

first stop was the garage. It’s time for Caliburn’s Controle Technique on Thursday afternoon, so I’ve booked him in for a service and a visual check to make sure that there’s nothing about to drop off on the road.

The bank was next. There’s an important bill to pay and if I don’t pay it soon I’ll be transported for life or something so that was urgent. And then I went to the Intermarché for a bit of shopping.

Finally, I ended up back at my house where I dropped off a pile of stuff, stripped out the back of Caliburn and gave him a good brushing out, and now I’ve installed my temporary bed in there for when I go back to Belgium. I couldn’t find the OSB that I use and ended up having to use a sheet of plywood as a bed base. It’s not very satisfactory, bending and creaking in the middle, but it will have to do for now until I can think of something better.

But I’ll tell you something – and that is that I’m clearly not well. Two hours of working on Caliburn, and it wasn’t very hard labour that I was doing, and I was done for. I’ve no idea how I’m going to cope in the future if I can’t summon up the energy for this.

Instead of hanging out there to do more work, I ended up coming back here where I crashed out for three hours – really gone, I was. I’ll have to catch up back at home some other time.

Now that I’ve been to the shops and bought some garlic, I made one of my mega-curries tonight with mushrooms and lentils. But there’s plenty left for the next few days because I couldn’t summon up the appetite.

Now I’m off to bed again and to listen to the radio programmes for a while. I’m ready for a good sleep, even though I’ve already had a good sleep just now.

I can’t keep it up like I used to.

Monday 21st July 2014 – DURING THE NIGHT …

… we had 15mm of rain. No wonder I had difficulty sleeping and … errr … difficulty getting up this morning.

And if that isn’t enough, it’s carried on raining for most of the day and I shudder to think about how much rain there is the raingauge when I go downstairs in a few minutes to take the statistics… "20.5mm" – ed .

After breakfast I had an urgent letter to write and then spent the rest of the morning trying to make one of the three printers lying around here to work. To no effect whatsoever.

In the end, remembering that Cecile wanted me to check her post at La Batisse, I picked up her letters but at the same time printed off my letter. I could then send that off by recorded delivery at Pionsat.

plastic guttering les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch, I waited for the rain to subside and then went out to finish off the guttering. And it is finished too – at least as far as I can reach. And even though I say it myself, it looks as if it might even work. Tomorrow I’ll have to move the scaffolding round a little so that I can reach the rest of it.

I’ve also slackened off the cable that restrains the wind turbine against the wind. I’d tightened it up too tightly and it had bent the pole. Slackening it off a little put the pole more upright and even enables the wind turbine to pivot around better on its axis.

That all took until 19:20 when I knocked off and came up here where I crashed out for an hour or so. Tea tonight was a gigantic mushroom and lentil curry, seeing as how mushrooms were on special offer on Saturday at LIDL in Commentry. That will keep me going for three or four days.

Tuesday 28th January 2014 – I’VE PUT THE FIRST …

… piece of plaster board on the wall today. This is progress indeed.

Mind you,it took me long enough.

I had to go to the bank this morning braving the flurries of snow – they wanted some information off me – and then round to Bill’s house. It’s been a year since Bill left us and his estate needs to be finalised. Consequently it was the final call for people to buy anything that remains, before the house clearance people come.

Marianne’s son Pascal wanted a few things and there was some tidying up still to be done, so I helped Marianne do that and then gave Pascal a hand, and then took his stuff to a garage that he’s using to store stuff until he moves to his new apartment.

That took all of the morning but I wasn’t finished yet. When I was strapping something onto the roof I noticed that one of the brackets holding the solar panel to the underneath of the roofrack had sheared off. That needed fixing before I went too far and so there I was making a new bracket.

After lunch I fitted the two counter-battens and replaced one of the rails that I’ll be using to support a shelf. It seems that Brain of Britain has measured up for a 27mm rail but fitted a 40mm rail instead? No wonder it didn’t look level.

So having done that, I had to free all of the plasterboard from the stuff that had accumulated on top of it over the last year or so. And then, I could start on the plasterboarding.

And for tea tonight, I made a lentil and mushroom curry. There’s enough forthree more days which is just as well, because it was delicious.

Wednesday 15th January 2014 – I TURNED DOWN …

… a trip to Brico Depot this morning. You can see that I’m not feeling myself at all right now, which is just as well etc. etc.

Anyway last night I was playing bass with The Groundhogs on a revitalisation tour. Of course TS McPhee didn’t make it, and if that was me on bass, that only left the drummer as an original member.

A little later on, I was sent to work in Stockport and that cheered mr up because I could leave a whole pile of difficult post tobe dealt with by my successor, but on the other hand I was worried as I was bound to meet up with Nerina again.

Like I have said before … "and you’ll say again" – ed … I only with that my real life was half as exciting as my dreams

Meanwhile, back in the land of the living, by lunchtime absolutely everything that has no business being in the living room was elsewhere, and I had moved the old table to righht underneath the window.

This afternoon, I moved most of the tools downstairs and dismantled the temporary work bench. I also built a quick toilet room out of a piece of OSB and a piece of furniture out of an old caravan that I scrapped in 2007. There’s even light in there – of a sort.

I had Marianne on the phone too, but it’s soooo difficult trying to talk when I’m in this condition.

For tea I made a mega-lentil and mushroom curry – all cooked on the woodstove. It wasn’t half impressive

And there’s some left for tomorrow and Friday too.