Tag Archives: lentil tofu pie

Monday 22nd March 2021 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about all of the tourists having arrived here in Granville. The place was crawling with them this afternoon.

There was this couple sitting on the bench at the end of the headland by the watchman’s old cabin and they were just any one of any number of them that I could have photographed today, all lying around disporting themselves in the sun.

It beats me, it really does, what goes through the heads of some people in situations like this. What don’t they understand about a pandemic? How many more people have to die before they get the message?

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’m one of the last people to advocate the presence of soldiers on the streets but in a situation like this I would have the military out at each boundary checking people’s right to travel. The military might not be good for much, but this is the kind of thing that’s important.

This morning I was out of bed just after the first alarm and after the medication I made a start on the radio programme. I was right that I wouldn’t finish it by 11:15 but starting from scratch as I did and finishing by 12:15, that was pretty good going and I was happy with that, especially as I had my usual break for hot chocolate and sourdough fruit bread.

And once it was finished and I’d heard it, I crashed out on the armchair in the office and as a result I was late for my lunch yet again.

This afternoon I Had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. I was in Crewe last night and going to meet Esi. I’d already met her a couple of times around here and there and this time I walked up Earle Street and turned round the corner into Market Street and had the sun full in my eyes so I couldn’t see a thing. There was someone I knew standing on the left so I said “hi” to her but I couldn’t see who the other people were with her. It wasn’t until I’d gone past that I thought that the possibility might be that one of them was TOTGA. As I walked into the Square I heard someone shout my name. It was a boy’s voice, sounded like one of my classmates from school. I turned round but couldn’t see anything. There were some people loading a lorry and trailer with all kinds of mannequins to put into a new shop that was opening next to where the old cinema used to be. I carried on walking past the Bus Station and came to some waste land. I walked all over this waste land round the back of the bus station and the back end of the houses at the top end of Victoria Street but suddenly realised that I was miles away from where I was going to meet Esi so I set off to walk back. I remember at one point having a conversation but I only got 3 or 4 words out before I realised that I was too tired to say the rest.

Having done that I made another start on the photos from July 2019 and made good progress. I’m now down the james River somewhere near the border between North Dakota and South Dakota. There’s only about another 170 to do before they are all completed for the month of July 2019. Only 3 months or so to go after that. The big question is “will I finish all of this, or will all of this finish me?”.

There was the usual pause to go out for my walk this afternoon.

While I’d been working away the sun had been streaming in through the window so I was hoping that the day would be better than yesterday, and I wasn’t to be disappointed.

There was some mist about as you can see in the photo and there was plenty of cloud around too but at least it was an awful lot lighter than it was yesterday. It was cold but not all that windy and that’s the first time for ages that I haven’t been blown away.

No-one down on the beach wandering around, so it seemed but there were plenty of other people up here on the path on top of the cliffs and I had to thread my way through the crowds on the path and reclining on the lawn by the lighthouse.

Down at the headland there wasn’t anything going on except for the tourists of course but the vegetation was looking quite good today.

The trees are starting to sprout their leaves right now and the gorse bushes are in full bloom giving us a lovely carpet of yellow flowers down there by the bottom footpath and on the cliffs lower down.

But there was nothing going on out at sea and the Brittany coast wasn’t all that clear so I pushed on along the path and across the road where I was nearly flattened by someone in a minibus – something that doubtless filled you all with a great deal of dismay.

There was all kinds of excitement going on at the chantier navale this afternoon as you can see. It looks as if we are about to have another change of occupant in there.

The portable boat lift has moved from its parking place and is now hovering about over the trawler Hermes 1. In the absence of any other indication, it looks as if she is preparing to be put back into the water at the next high tide. I waited there for a good few minutes to see if anything was going to develop but nothing seemed to be moving and they weren’t in any rush to do anything.

The other boats are still there – Spirit of Conrad, Lys Noir, Freddy Land and, out of shot, Aztec Lady. But things are starting to become interesting down there right now.

Something else that’s been going on right now is the parking of fishing boats by the Fish Processing Plant and letting them go aground when the tide was out.

The tide wasn’t out far enough today to see whether there would be any there today, but one thing that I noticed is that there now is a fishing boat that seems to be tied up over by the ferry port next to Joly France. Why this is happening is beyond my comprehension but the cynic in me suggests that they must have increased the mooring charged in the inner harbour.

With nothing else going on down there I headed for home and my mug of hot coffee, and continued with the photos until it was guitar time, although a little crash-out yet again didn’t help matters very much.

Tea tonight was a lentil and tofu pie with vegetables followed by apple pie and ice cream. I’m trying to empty the freezer a little as I’m running out of room in there.

Welsh tomorrow so I’m off to bed early. I need to be on form. And then it’s printing out papers and packing ready for the road on Wednesday.

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 – I REALLY AM …

… eating quite well these days. I really am.

This afternoon I have had one of the nicest lunches that I have ever had.

For a start, I fried two rather large onions in a very large saucepan. To that, I added several cloves of garlic and an assortment of herbs. When they were browning nicely I added the four leeks that I had bought and which I had peeled and sliced, and stirred them in, along with a variety of herbs and ground black pepper.

Four small potatoes followed them into the pan, washed and cubed. They were stirred into the mix too.

Once everything was all mixed in, I added a couple of stock cubes, just enough water to cover the contents, and then a box of soya cooking cream. When it was all in the pot, I stirred it well in and left it to simmer for 45 minutes.

Once it was all well-cooked, it was all whizzed up and I ended with probably the finest vegan cream of leek and potato soup that I have ever eaten. I was really pleased with this.

And that wasn’t all of it either, not by a long way. I have made this morning the most perfect loaf that I have ever made after all of these attempts and with my leek and potato soup it was absolutely delicious.

It goes without saying that I was pleased about all of this because my day didn’t start off like that.

Never mind the first alarm, or the third alarm for that matter, it was 08:30 when I finally found the strength to leave the bed and that filled me full of dismay because it made me run so late for everything that I had to do during the day.

First task was to give the sourdough dough a second kneading, and then I shaped it and put it in the smaller of the two silicone moulds and left it for its second proofing.

Second task was to make a 500-gramme wholemeal loaf using traditional years. And I do have to say that for some unknown reason for which I really have no answer, the dough turned out to be absolutely perfect – exactly as it ought to have been – nice and rubbery and elastic and smooth.

It was then left for an hour or so to proof in a mixing bowl and I came in here to make a start on transcribing the dictaphone notes that have been building up over the last few days.

After a break for my hot chocolate and cake for breakfast I gave the dough its second kneading, shaped it and put it into the larger silicone mould and while it was proofing again, carried on with the dictaphone notes.

When the bread went into the oven I made my soup so that it was all ready for eating. It was a rather later lunch than usual but it was well-worth waiting for because everything was exactly as it would have been – especially as I finally seem to have managed to have made a loaf that came out exactly as it should have done after all these attempts.

Once lunch was over, I attacked the form for my registration with the Securité Sociale. Filling in the form was reasonably straightforward but finding the accompanying documents took rather more time than it ought to have done. And when the scanner function on the printer didn’t work and I had to photocopy some of them instead, that took longer still.

By the time that I’d completed everything I was ready for my afternoon walk.

It was quite cloudy outside and windy too and things hadn’t dried up that much. But I pushed on around my little circuit.

There was nothing whatever happening out there this afternoon. The only thing of any interest whatever was the fact that Chausiais and Joly France were moored up in the mud over by the ferry terminal and don’t look anything like moving within the foreseeable future.

And the only reason that I took the photos, I suppose, was for the sake of having taken a photo while I was out.

Back here, just as I sat down with my coffee, the telephone rang. Ingrid phoned me and we had another one of these very long chats that took me right up to guitar-playing time.

Tea was pie and veg with gravy followed by apple pie. Like I said right at the very beginning, I am really eating rather well these days. I have never in my life had such good food as I’ve been having since I’ve been living here.

The net result of all of this is that the blog entries for SUNDAY, MONDAY and TUESDAY have been amended to include the dictaphone notes, if you have the patience to read them because during those three nights I travelled miles, as well as taking a couple of old and welcome regulars with me.

Last night though I was with one of the Welsh rock bands and the story gradually evolved as we were trying to work our way between several concerts last night – I hadn’t actually got up on stage but I’d been jamming away in the background while they were there and one of the Man offshoots picked me up and we went off to perform a few gigs. There was a photo that they had passed around of Strawberry Moose playing the drums at some resort in North West England. They’d made some kind of remarks about the Vikings who had come along to conquer that country and were busy beating it up with rock and roll songs because Strawberry Moose still had on his helmet from our voyage with Adventure Canada on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. One of the couples had a daughter who was about 4. She was a very precocious kid and was actually playing and singing on one of the numbers on stage. Surprisingly she wasn’t doing a bad job at all and everyone seemed to be enjoying it. When we got off the stage at the end she stayed on the stage to do something and her mother had to go and fetch her back. Everyone was making a joke about her being 4 and doing all of this, and I thought that that was most unfair because what she was doing was nothing to laugh at at all. It was quite serious stuff and quite good and enjoyable. I thought that she was getting the rough end of this.

A little later on our coach pulled in to Audlem although it was nothing like Audlem. As we climbed up the hill which doesn’t exist of course we had to stop to let some people out. I asked about the toilets and they replied that they were in the Market Hall. They showed me where it was and I ran off. It was miles, absolutely miles, and on the way back running past this guy I came to a set of stairs and there was an archway over the top every 4th or 5th stair or something. rather than running through the archway I ended up on top of it running from one top of an arch to another down these stairs. I eventually reached the bottom and went outside, and the coach was there. One of the guys who had a toilet cistern said “it’s ok, there’s no hurry. This toilet cistern is no use to me – I’ve just found out that it’s made in Spain, not the UK. We’re just making 1 or 2 phone calls about how to deal with a certain thing” and the coach doesn’t seem much like moving at the moment so I just loitered around outside. This was a hot sweaty dream again.

Later still, we were coming into Shavington via Dodd’s Bank, Nerina and me. I asked if it was OK if we go to a pub – I mentioned the name of a pub – it was one in Crewe somewhere to go and see Jon Dean because he had my bank credit card and one or two other things that I needed for my journey. I could see as she answered back that she wasn’t very happy. As we got into Shavington there was someone (I couldn’t decipher who) who could see the 2 of us together and he smiled a bit because he probably heard that our relationship was just a little rocky but we were still together I suppose which cheered him up.

Somewhat later Jackie and Alison were round at my house revising. I’d been out the previous day to go to Manchester to fetch some car parts and had to go again today because some were missing. I went round to the wholesaler’s first to check and he said it wasn’t there and i’d have to go myself to Manchester to fetch it. I think that I’ve dictated (which I apparently haven’t, so I wonder what it is that I’ve missed out) a lot of this about going with Percy Penguin and having to go and pick her up from her home where she was living. There were loads of other people living in this home as well which which was overrun with cats. I had to find her – she was busy doing something and I couldn’t work my way back downstairs again. A woman told me where to go and I had to climb down a load of pipework which was very awkward as there were no stairs. She was at the bottom and was pleased to see me so I had to get ready to go. I wanted to go to the toilet but a cat kept on getting in the way. And then I realised that I wasn’t going to the toilet in the right place so I found that. Percy Penguin took so long messing around that it was now about 11:30 znd we’d never get to Manchester before the place closed for lunch. I wanted to be back for lunch as I was going to take Jackie and Alison somewhere. We got in the car ready to go and she was talking about driving lessons and how she’d taken a few but Covid had closed it down and when they reopened they had forgotten all about her. I wanted to put “Traffic” on the car radio but for some unknown reason their live album wasn’t on my playlist and I had to select some tracks which was pretty awkward while I was trying to drive. It turned out that they were tracks from some kind of play or something. There was an advert of some kind or other and the music of “Traffic” was used as the background so while I had that on there was some other music coming from somewhere and I couldn’t hear it properly. That was starting to annoy me and all in all I was becoming quite annoyed about everything that was going on.

And so the obvious question is “where am I going to be travelling tonight”.

Friday 4th December 2020 – JUST FOR A …

… change I had a lie-in today and didn’t leave my bed until about 07:30.

And it wasn’t necessarily through oversleeping either. When the alarms went off I was regaled by the sound of a torrential rainstorm and all kinds of wicked things going on outside and they certainly weren’t the kind of conditions conducive to constructive thought.

When I finally arose, I had my medication and then set a pile of lentils on the go in the slow cooker.

Back in the bedroom, I had a listen to the dictaphone. I was back at school last night. I had a girlfriend but one of my friends from school started dating her. After the first time he told me that he was going to be taking her out again. I told him that I wasn’t going to let that happen if I could. I would be taking her out. He started to turn all violent saying that he had all of the weapons arranged, all the oil and everything like that and he’d be dealing with it. But I stuck my ground and we ended up having this fierce argument.

Later on there was something to do with a dog. We’d come into possession of a dog for some reason. My brother, father and I were coming down Underwood Lane in Crewe and were talking about going to get some dog biscuits. We turned left into West Street but it wasn’t out of Underwood Lane but out of Minshull New Road. There was a pet shop right on the corner there so we stopped. But I couldn’t believe West Street. It was like the Blitz had hit it. Everything had been demolished and there was just the odd house here and there on the south side sticking up and a little Sprite 400 caravan with people living in it parked there with a washing line and a load of washing outside. We went into this shop and the woman asked what we wanted. My brother said that we were looking for dog treats. My father took out some money and it must have been a couple of hundred quid he brought out. I said “dad, what are you trying to do? Buy the shop or something?”. This woman put a pile of dog biscuits into a bag, this kind of thing and then a few packets of sweets, saying “this will do you right for Christmas” and charged I dunno about £20 or something for it. He took it and went outside but then started to give my brother a lecture about buying stuff. “What she’s probably done is given all kinds of stuff that aren’t suitable for the dog, stuff that’s past its sell-by date, all this kind of thing. We should have taken much more care about what we bought”. he started to go through it and found loads of stuff that wasn’t suitable. he decided that he would go back into the shop and renegotiate the deal. I was outside, looking at the road, how it went further on and zigzagged up this spectacular cliff like a wild west mesa or whatever. There were birds flying over there and a couple of dogs flying around. I thought that this was a really idyllic setting here but my brother and my father were in such a deep discussion about these dog biscuits that they failed to notice it.

By now, the weather had cleared up so I rinsed the lentils, put them back in with fresh clean water and flavouring, and then fried some onions, garlic, tofu and beans with more flavouring. When it was all cooked properly, I added it all to the slow cooker and left it in there to fester on “low”.

Grabbing my rain jacket and the rest of my equipment I headed off outside for the shops.

And you can see here what was going on this morning. I thought at first that it was snow but in actual fact it was a mega-hailstorm that had descended upon us from a great height. Most of it had melted now but there were still a few vestiges left.

So leaving it at that, I set off into town. And before I’d gone a quarter of a mile the heavens opened again and I was absolutely, totally and thoroughly drenched. This was not what I was expecting at all. There had been blue skies 15 minutes earlier.

How long is it since we’ve had an old car on these pages? It must be a while, I reckon, so here are two for the price of one.

The red one is a Porsche 924, a model made from about 1976 to 1988. About 150,000 were made which was no surprise because for a Porsche, they were relatively affordable. However, it was its affordability and popularity that were its downfall because many people who bought one were mocked for being “nouveau riche” arrivists. Although the vehicle handled well, its actual performance was lamentable for a top-end sports car until they began to be fitted with turbos. And the turbos brought with them their own problems.

The blue one is much more like my car of course. A Ford Capri from the early 1980s, this one. It’s described as a “280” by which I imagine that it has the 2.8 litre V6 “Cologne” engine in it (Strider has a 4.0 litre Cologne engine in it). Of course, if I were to own such a car, which I wouldn’t turn down, it would be a black one and the V engine would be binned and replaced with a 2-litre Pinto engine

having done a lap around LIDL, then loaded up like a packhorse I headed for home. As well as the immense shopping list that I took with me, they also had a few Christmas dainties that I could eat and so as they won’t be there for ever, I grabbed a few.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the last few weeks we’ve seen them demolishing the facade of a bar, La Civette, in the Rue Paul Poirier, and then building a wooden wall around it while they worked inside.

It looks as if they’ve had the unveiling of the new facade since I last passed this way. It’s a big improvement on what was there before and, thankfully, it doesn’t resemble too much the other new facades going up around the town that all look the same.

And you can tell how the weather is doing right now. Teeming down with rain and it’s really dark. all of the lights oare on in the street, despite it being 11:00.

Of course it’s Friday, not Thursday, so there are different things going on in the street that I wouldn’t normally see when I’m out and about usually.

We’ve talked … “at great length” – ed … about the fishing industry in the town and all of the lorries and vans that go to the fish processing plant to cart away the catch. But some of the produce is sold locally and every Friday morning there’s a stall on the harbour where one of the local fishermen sells his catch.

Straight from the sea.

It’s a far cry of course from the fish market in Oostende that we have seen before but nevertheless it’s an interesting venture. Seafood doesn’t get any fresher than this.

Back here I had a hot chocolate and a slice of my chocolate cake, and then had to speak to Rosemary. She’d rung me up to say that she was having computer issues. So I had to talk her through a remote session in order to fix it.

My Diploma in Computing does come in handy some times even though it was 20 years ago since I obtained it.

After lunch I had a look at the pie filling that was simmering away in the slow cooker. Far too liquidy and so to bind it and make it nice and glutinous, a couple of handfuls of porridge oats went in and were stirred around. That should stiffen it up somewhat.

Once that was organised I went and carried on with some of the arrears from Central Europe.

Later on it was time for me to go for my afternoon walk. And it was just as well that it had stopped raining.

But just look at the sky over there down the Brittany coast. When you consider just how nice it has been at times, this is rather depressing, isn’t it? This is what they call around here un ciel de plomb – a leaden sky. And you can see that it lives up to its description.

All that I can say is that I’m glad that I’m not out there at sea in all of that. The Brittany coast must be taking quite a pasting at the moment.

Over towards the Ile de Chausey it’s somewhat brighter, but there is still a terrific rainstorm cascading down on the population over there.

And the wind is blowing it my way so I don’t want to hang around here. I’m the only person out here walking and I can understand why if all of this weather suddenly arrives. So I clear off around the headland to see what’s on the other side.

And nothing of any significance over there either, except for more of the same. Nothing of note, apart from the usual, in the chantier navale. But by now the rain has arrived and it’s starting to fall quite heavily so I don’t want to hang around.

But there’s something bizarre going on down in the loading bay in the port.

Those two lorries shouldn’t be there unless they are delivering, and if they are delivering, we are going to be having an interesting nautical arrival down there pretty soon. I wonder what it might be. Still, we’ll find out in de course I suppose.

Musing on that for a moment, I turned and headed on home and a nice hot mug of coffee. And I can’t say that I didn’t deserve it. By now the rain was teeming down once more and I was soaked to the skin again.

Back here, I switched off the slow cooker and emptied the contents out to cool. A nice glutinous sticky filling. Just what I wanted.

So I made my pastry and put it in my mould. And when the filling had cooled down properly, I filled the pie base and made a pie lid out of some of the remaining pastry. With the pastry that was left, I made a quick apple turnover.

Now it was time for my session on the guitars. And I spent much of the time trying (and eventually succeeding) in working out the chords to Richard Thompson’s “Keep Your Distance”.

I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic for certain events that occurred over three nights on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour that one day I might talk about when I’m in the mood. There are a couple of lines in that song that really are quite relevant.

Half way through the proceedings with the guitar I’d switched on the oven and started off the pie and the apple turnover. Now, having finished the guitar, I came in and did a huge mound of washing up.

There were some potatoes left so I had put those in the oven too so I sorted out some veg – sprouts, carrots and runner beans, and put them in a small pan and cooked them in some gravy with some herbs.

Eventually the pie was done – at least on top. I wished that I had cooked it lower down in the oven and not on a metal tray as I had done. It’s a mistake that I always make, cooking too high in the oven and having a heat deflector underneath doesn’t help anything either.

But it actually tasted delicious and there are another 7 slices for the freezer for a later date. The apple turnover was impressive too. That worked really well.

It was time for me to go out on my evening walk and runs so I hit the streets, straight into the biting wind that made running almost impossible.

Nevertheless I pushed on as well as I could but I eschewed the route down on the footpath under the walls due to the bad weather. And as it was by now raining quite heavily I carried on the route that I took yesterday.

From up on the Place de l’Isthmus I could hear the waves crashing down onto the promenade at the Plat Gousset so I wandered down the steps of the Escalier du Moulin a Vent to have a look at what was happening.

It was certainly wild out there. And it’s hard to believe that we are still a fair way away from high tide. What this is going to be like in an hour’s time will be anyone’s guess, but it certainly would be something to see.

But not for me, unfortunately. By now the rain was coming down in sheets and I was being soaked to the skin.

Braving the weather, I stuck it out just long enough to take a second photograph and then ran all the way across the Square Maurice Marland in the general direction of home.

Just for a change, I took the shortest route possible. I’d had my walk out to the shops and back, my afternoon stroll and now my evening runs so I was quite confident that I’d done enough today.

Coming back the short way, I ended up in the Rue St Jean. And I reckoned that I haven’t taken a photo down here at this end for quite some considerable time. I’d better put that right.

And you can see the weather in this photograph. teeming down with rain and everywhere soaking wet. Including me.

And the Place Cambernon just down there with the Christmas lights peering around the corner.

having done that, I ran on home to write up my notes. 147% on the fitbit is good enough for me today.

Shopping at LeClerc and Noz tomorrow. And there will probably be other things that I need but which I’ve forgotten that I’ll remember when I return home. That always happens to me.

Tuesday 25th August 2020 – IT’S BEEN YET ANOTHER …

… day when I just couldn’t find the concentration to get going again. In fact, it’s been something of a bad day all round.

And, once more, it started off quite well again with me being out of bed before the third alarm went off. Twice in two days is going it somewhat!

And as well as that, I’d been on my travels yet again. I was in a big old metallic green V6 Granada last night. I’d only just bought it and I’d been out for a drive around Creve in it. There was no tax and no MoT on it and I was reluctant to take it for an MoT and I’ve no idea why. I should have just taken it and had it tested and seen what it needed but for some unknown reason I didn’t want to do that so I was just driving around in it thinking “should I go to Stoke on Trent in it? Should I see someone whom I know there etc etc and get him to drive my other car back?” I thought that I’d better get it insured at least but then I couldn’t remember where my insurance broker lived and I was drifting along the streets around the West End of Crewe looking for the street where he lived but I just couldn’t remember which one it was. Anyway I went into the Post Office for something or other. It was a Saturday and the Post Office was crowded so I started to queue but I couldn’t remember what it was that I wanted so in the end I got out of the queue and up to a table. Someone came along and dumped a pile of papers and a cheque book and then wandered out of theplace for some reason. I was looking at these papers wandering what was going on when a young guy came over. I can’t remember exactly how he said it but he was going on about how he really had three cars and how he was proud. I said that I had four cars up my drive at the moment. He asked what I had and I said “a Transit and three Ford Cortina estates” (But I could think of two estates, THE MK III and THE MK V, so what was the other one?). He was all enthusiastic about those.

This is quite reminiscent of a recurring dream that I have every now and again about having various Ford Cortinas parked up in all kinds of miscellaneous places all over Crewe

There was some paperwork to do of course this morning but shame as it is to say it, I fell asleep on the chair. That early too!

This is no good at all and I’m going to have to do something serious about all of this sometime.

But anyway I eventually awoke and had a look at my notes prior to my Welsh class starting.

And that was a disaster too because I couldn’t remember a thing. I’m going to have to deal with this issue too. But I think that in all honesty I’m breaking up, I reckon, and I can’t go on much longer like this.

After lunch the first task was to deal with the carrots. There was 1 kilo of them that needed peeling, slicing, blanching and freezing. For some reason, shop-bought frozen carrots seem to be pumped full of water and are particularly ghastly so I like to freeze my own from fresh.

Then apart from that, there was some washing up to do for the things that I had brought back from the Auverne. They are all done now, at least, as far as the glass jars are concerned. There’s still the cutlery for the camping kit to do, although that’s not necessary now because I can’t go off for a further wander around this year.

However, I can go out for my afternoon walk – or crawl, or whatever, even if it was later than usual.

And it goes without saying that I wasn’t the only one out there either. Despite all of the wind that we were having, there were still crowds of people taking in the sun on the beach .

There were quite a few people out in the water too and I bet that that was exciting for them. The kids with the surfboard probably enjoyed it.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw several lights out to sea in the evening.

There’s a bit more light out there again today and I was wondering what it might be. A long-distance shot with the big ZOOM LENS and enlarged when I returned home soon solved the mystery.

It’s one of the tall markers on the little tidal islands off the Ile de Chausey with the sunlight reflecting off the glass at the top. Nothing really exciting at all

We mentioned just now about people out there in the water this afternoon.

Here’s a few more of them out there in the distance off the shore by Donville les Bains. These people are out there kitesurfing and I do have to say that they have picked a nice day for it.

They were out there last Friday when i went for a walk with Liz and Terry but I didn’t have an opportunity to take a photo of them.

And if that isn’t enough, there are plenty of people down there in the water too at the Plat Gousset.

The waves are quite high with the wind that’s blowing in off the sea and all of the people seem to be quite enjoying the waves as they come rolling in.

A couple of surfboards out there too and of course the lifeguard in the green flourescent top to the right, keeping an eye on things for safety’s sake.

Now here’s a thing.

Round by the church I happened to notice this car parked up in the street. To my surprise it had number plates from Connecticut in the USa both front and rear and that made me wonder what on earth it was doing here. And, more importantly, how it had arrived here.

Mind you, it hadn’t escaped my notice that the Connecticut road licence in the window expired in 2009 so there’s clearly something not quite kosher about all of this.
.

Back here I had another go at the radio programme. I added the introduction to the first couple of tracks and then started on the notes but once more I made very little progress and i’m going to have to do better than this.

Tea tonight was delicious. Leek and tofu pie with potatoes and vegetables with gravy, followed by apple crumble and soya dessert. Despite everything, at least the food is good here.

Later on I went out for my evening stagger around the headland.

There wasn’t very much going on at all and apart from one other person doing the circuit in the opposite direction, I was totally on my own. Nevertheless it was interesting round by the chantier navale because we seem to have acquired another attendee.

There were five boats in there last night, I seem to remember, but tonight we seem to have ended up with six.

That’s not the only excitement down there either today.

Talking of ships arriving in port, we have Normandy Trader down there this evening. She must have come in on the afternoon tide.

It was mentioned that she should have come into port yesterday but I understand that she postponed her sailing for a day due to the high seas and the nature of the cargo she was transporting.

Back here now, it’s late and I’m not tired and I don’t know why. That’s not a very good sign. I can see it being a really difficult day tomorrow.

Monday 13th July 2020 – WE HAVE A NEW …

… kid in town today.

Sailing into port earlier today was the sailing ship Etoile. She’s a sail training ship from the National Marine, built in 1932 at Fecamp and normally moored up in the harbour at Brest.

This week however she’s flying the flag at different ports all around the coast and she’ll be here for a couple of days, so it seems.

Interestingly, she fled France in June 1940 and became part of the small Free French Navy based in Portsmouth during the war.

But enough of events 80 years ago. Let me tell you about my horrible day today while you admire the two Joly France boats performing a nautical danse macabre around the harbour this evening.

And it’s my own fault yet again. last night someone wanted to chat to me so we endedup chatting for an hour or so and that delayed the finish of the notes from yesterday.

However, Bane of Britain forgot to close the chat window so after a while someone else called in to say “hello”. That chat went on for a while and when I glanced at the time it was … errr … 04:20

Don’t misunderstand – I really enjoy talking to my friends but the issue with having friends all around the world is that sometimes the idea of different time zones seems to escape everyone’s notice.

So a very weary and haggard me slunk off to bed this morning. I’d switched off the alarms because expecting me to be up at 06:00 was somewhat optimistic.

09:30 was when I awoke, and 09:45 was when I leapt (or, rather, crawled) out of bed. After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone. I’d not been anywhere during the night but there were entries from the previous day so I transcribed them.

But it’s a waste of time looking for them because I’ve just realised that I’ve forgotten to amend the journal entry for yesterday.

Most of the day has been spent dealing with the next radio project. High time that I fired up the old brain cells.

Having sent off this week’s effort earlier today, so far, I’ve

chosen 10 tracks
combined them in pairs
added the introduction
chosen a speech for my guest
written the notes
dictated same
oploaded same onto computer
edited about 25% of them

And had I been sufficiently determined I could have done much more than I did. However there were several interruptions.

The first one was for lunch. And the bread that I baked yesterday is absolute perfection, even though I say it myself. And the sunflower seeds give it that certain little je ne sais quoi I was really impressed.

Then of course there was the afternoon walk.

It was rather grey and overcast with a little wind, but that didn’t deter the crowds one little bit. The place was packed and there were even kids swimming in the sea, which surprised me quite a lot.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m not too keen on going into the water at the best of times, but today would have been one of those days when even Jenny Agutter and Kate Bush couldn’t drag me in.

On the beach at the Plat Gousset there’s much less wind so I was expecting to see the crowds down there this afternoon.

And it seems that I wasn’t disappointed either. But I didn’t think much of the social distancing on the beach up near the sea wall. Some of those family groups are a lot closer than 2 metres, I reckon.

And once more, the water is pretty packed. In the tidal swimming pool with its suitably-clad lifeguard, and also in the sea. There’s a lifeguard there too – just underneath the centre of the photo.

They seem to be taking it quite seriously.

And not just on the beach or in the sea were the crowds gathering.

Up on the clifftop the birdmen of Alcatraz were gathering,ready to swoop all over us like a flock of Nazgul. At one time I counted as many as five in the air at one time which is some going.

And as I have said before … “on very many occasions” – ed … I’m impressed by the fact that they take off from a patch of ground right by the cemetery. If they make a mistake when either taking off or landing, they don’t have to be carried very far.

That’s rather thoughtful of them, don’t you think?

It wasn’t far from there to the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch either, so I went to have a look at the roofing job.

The scaffolding is still there. At least, some of it is – the same amount that has been there for a few weeks now. But what is interesting about this photos is that the seagulls have now discovered the roof and have christened it accordingly.

That’s one in the eye for the roofers, isn’t it? I hope that the roofers don’t actually need to go up there again

Talking of seagulls, I went round to the Square Maurice Marland to check on my baby seagull.

He wasn’t there again today but his mummy was. So I hope that nothing has happened to him. There were plenty of other baby seagulls on other roofs, all of them tentatively taking their first flutters into the air.

It’s fascinating to watch them as they have been growing. Keen birdwatcher that I am, it’s not usually birds like this that hold a fascination for me but somehow the seagulls have managed to attract my attention.

Back here I had yet another interruption as, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out yet again despite having stayed in bed as late as I did.

It’s rather depressing me, this is.

Tea was a potato and veg with a slice of home-made tofu and lentil pie from a while back taken out of the freezer. That was followed by apple crumble from yesterday and I do have to say that that was just as good as the bread. I was well-impressed with that.

Off on my run this evening and I had several interruptions. Gribouille the big ginger cat was waiting at the door for me and he let me pick him up.

I’m highly honoured, aren’t I?

So off I set and I managed to push the boundaries up a little tonight. Still a long way to go though before I reach where I was before I went away.

But even had I been fit and running properly, this would have stopped me in my tracks any day of the week.

It’s a modern Ford Ranger of course but what was exciting about that was that in the back someone had pitched a tent.

My thinking was that good idea that it might be, it’s not one that I shall be copying in North America for Strider. Knowing my luck, I would wake up to find that a bear was trying to get into bed with me and I’m sure that that’s not a very good idea at all.

Anyway, I pushed on with my runs, down to the clifftop, the walk across the wall, the run along the clifftop and then down the Boulevard Vaufleury.

As I rounded the corner I ran into Maryline so I stopped and we had a good chat for 10 or 15 minutes or so which was very nice and pleasant.

It didn’t really matter all that much that it made me late for the sunset because of all of the clouds that were there.

When I finally made it to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord I couldn’t see a thing as far as the sun went. Not too many people on the beach either. No picnickers, just a few people wandering around.

So recovering my breath I ran on back to the apartment to write up my notes.

My last Welsh course for a while tomorrow so despite it being a Bank Holiday here, I’ll have an alarm set and I’ll be up to do my preparation.

Then hopefully I’ll finish off the radio project and then deal wit my TWO courses.

Yes, despite what I said earlier, I’m enrolled in two new courses. The songwriting course of course, but there is also a 6-week course on “Building an Interactive Website”. I’ve been working in *.html for 23 years and I know pretty well the basics but I’m stuck in a time warp from 15 years ago – never progressed after teaching myself *.css.

So it’s high time that I learnt, and this looks like the ideal opportunity.

Sunday 3rd May 2020 – IT’S A GOOD …

… job that it’s Sunday and a Day of Rest, otherwise this could have been a disaster today.

A Day of Rest and a lie-in is one thing, and all very well too, but 11:15 is probably something of an exaggeration.

Mind you, that’s hardly a surprise when I listened to the dictaphone because during the night I’d put in a whole load of miles.

I’d started off with this virus in full swing and I’d been on a ship. I’d been asked if I could perform with the guitar for some people somewhere in Spain so I agreed to do it. I came off the ship with the guitar right in the middle of this raging illness. People were asking about me and asking about it but I can’t remember now very much more about it than that.
But later I’d been to Manchester for a job interview. I had NMP, the MkV automatic. It was a strange job interview because the woman was speaking to me in French although her French was pretty dreadful. She said that it’s no good applying for this job if you haven’t had this driving test here. I said “oh no I actually haven’t had my driving test here”. She said “what are you wasting my time for when it’s so important that you have a British driving licence?” I said that I had one. “When you said ‘here’ I thought that you meant ‘here in this town or whatever'”. By now we had transformed into Stoke on Trent (I was getting confused) and so this interview went on and I came out and got into the car and set out to drive home. At a certain point the road narrowed from a wide two-lane road into two narrow-laned roads to go through some kind of barrier. There was a big concrete post in the way in between where the road narrowed off and I hadn’t noticed. I thought that it was two lanes so I went to go into the outside lane and push on and put my feet down and I came across this concrete bollard. I went up and over it and had to reverse off. I was sure that this have done quite a bit of damage but I carried on driving. I had to go round in a circle now to get to where I was going so when I got to where this concrete pillar was again I could see the block covered in oil and an oily patch where the car had stuck so I imagined that it had damaged the gearbox and broken a casing and there was oil leaking everywhere. The only thing to do was to try to get home. So I set out for home. I noticed that the speedo wasn’t working and one or two other things. I was having to go quicker than normal, driving past these bridges where there were these schoolboys going back to school and a load of teachers hanging around outside chatting.
Still in connection with this I was back driving with a girl with me this time. We’d stopped at some town or another for a break and a coffee. As we were getting back into the car we noticed a Ford Cortina that was parked behind us. It was a yellow tobacco-leaf coloured convertible and it had written on the back “white wedding”. Of course that immediately caused a bit of laughter and so I went to get the camera to take a photo of it but the car pulled off before I could do so. There was another car there – a Bentley of some description, a mini-Bentley type of thing. There was a man and woman in it and they were asking where to go. Someone said “go that way because the other way is far too touristy”. We got into our car and went to start it. I noticed that from one of the gear lever rubbers or somewhere like that there was a small flow of water coming out of it and going straight into my box of food. I had a look and thought that i’d better take the bonnet up but I didn’t want to take the bonnet up because I didn’t want to see the damage that had been caused when I went over that concrete bollard but I had to do it. I lifted up the bonnet and there was all steam coming everywhere out of the joints so the car was obviously extremely low in water. I thought that the next step before I got home was to fill it up with water.
In the meantime there was something going on with an electric cooker. It required a four-way cable so that had to be rewired. So I’d done that and so I was trying to find out how to plug it into the circuit because of course I had a four-way plug but there was no four-way socket anywhere that I could see. For some unknown reason this led to a discussion about ventilators and children in a particular area of South Wales – the deaths of children had gone up 80% overnight.
Anyway, I was on a train. Somehow on a train heading to the city of London on an Underground train. For some reason that I don’t understand I got off at Wandsworth, I’m not quite sure why. I realised that I didn’t really want to get off at Wandsworth – I wanted to carry on to the City, to Victoria. So I got back on the platform and one of these limited-stop express trains pulled in so I had to run, dragging my case behind me towards it. So I ran but I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Terrible. I was running as fast as I could but I couldn’t seem to move. The train seemed to be further and further away. In the end the guard shouted “come on, come on” and I struggled to get there and just as I got there he closed the door but he opened it so I got on and then there was a woman with whom I’d been travelling with previously – it might have been someone I knew in Brussels, it could have been anyone. I sat down next to her and the train pulled out. After a few minutes I thought that it was getting remarkably rural for the City of London. I’d seen a few signs. We came to a hill and by this time we were driving on a road and came to a hill. I thought “God, this hill is familiar”. “I’ve been here in a dream” I said, “with Nerina. And she was on a bike and I was on a bike and the hill was so steep that Nerina got off and walked down the hill as I carried on cycling down and I cycled off and left her”. This girl said “naughty thing” and so I asked “are we heading out of the City?” She saud “yes, we’re just coming up to (somewhere, I can’t remember the name where there was a Motorway Service Area on the edge of the city)”. I said “God I’ve got on the wrong train, I’d better get off somehow”. There was a bit somewhere in this where we were on this road, a narrow road, and a whole fleet of orangey-red single-decker Duple coming towards us and our bus had to pull off on the wrong side of the road to let them pass. Anyway we all got off. There was another girl with us and we were walking. This girl I was with – she was talking about the things that she’d done and here in her house was a kind of tricycle she’d built out of a horse buggy. She was telling us about how the tyres had been moulded from a bread case, all that kind of thing. I made a remark that the rear end was a bit light as there was a front-end snowplough, don’t ask me why. She said “when Kevin Ayers was here he said something or other”. I thought “God, Kevin Ayers been here? Soft Machine? That’s incredible
Nerina was somewhere about in this too. We were walking down a street on a 1930s housing estate and she came up behind me with a small dog on a lead and we chatted about that.

It’s hardly a surprise that, with the late start and with a stop for breakfast, it was the middle of the afternoon when I finally finished doing my notes. And no wonder that I was in bed for so long too.

There was more than that too but as you are probably eating supper or something, I’ll spare you the gory details. But all that I can say is that why don’t I have exciting things like this happening to me during the day rather than to rely on some kind of vicarious pleasure.

There was time to digitalise an album though – another one that I did manually. This one was very, very straightforward now that i’ve worked out how to do it.

But it was an album that meant a great deal to me and took me back to 1975/76 when I used to hang around in Congleton so out came the acoustic bass and, to my surprise, after a couple of minutes, all of the old bass lines came back to me and I was well away for over 50 minutes doing that.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in culinary activities.

You can’t see the rice pudding that I made, but here you can see the lentil, tofu and bean pie that I made.

Yesterday I explained how I’d made the filling and I’d left it to marinade overnight. All of the liquid had been absorbed and it was stone cold – necessary when using it with pastry.

There’s enough there for at least 8 helpings, so that’s food one night per week for a couple of months sorted out. I’ll try a slice tomorrow with potato, vegetables and gravy.

So that’s tomorrow night’s tea. What about tonight’s?

Here’s a vegan pizza, with the home-made base that I made from the pastry last week. There’s not enough pastry – I think that I’ll need four mugs of flour instead of three for three pizza bases, but the freezing worked fine.

It turned out rather biscuity because the base was so thin, but more flour for the next batch should see that right. It’s a learning curve and I will get better at it over time.

I won’t know about the final product here until tomorrow either.

With the leftover pastry from the pie I made an apple turnover that I will have for pudding tomorrow, and then I went for the pièce de résistance – the loaf of bread.

I gave it the skewer test and it seemed to be done well enough, although it’s another armour-plated crust. But I’ll slice some of it tomorrow and see how it tastes with my home-made hummus.

And while we’re on teh subject of home-made stuff … “well, one of us is” – ed … the orange and gignger cordial was delicious this morning.

Eventually I made it outside, long after my usual time for an evening walk.

The moon had risen quite well already and so even though I didn’t have my tripod, I took a photo of it to see how it would come out.

Not as sharp as it might have been with a tripod but it’s not too bad, I suppose. I would have been very happy with a photo like this two years ago but I’ve learnt a lot since then.

My first run was down the rue du Roc and up the other end. half of it is up a steep hill and it kills me to do it but I have to push on … “or push off” – ed.

There’s a pause while I recover my breath and then I run down to the clifftop. And out there tonight were four or five fishing boats.

And not in the usual place either, but much further across towards the Brittany coast and I’ve no idea why they should be so far out over there. They must be working on some new fishing grounds because we’ve seen them in a few different and unusual places just recently.

There’s another one over there too – right across the Baie de Mont St Michel not too far from Cancale.

In all the time that i’ve lived here I don’t recall having seen them over there either.

But never mind, I carried on with my run and provided a little light entertainment to three kids who were stakeboarding on the car park on the Boulevard Vaufleury.

Not exactly what I would call “social distancing” but never mind. That’s their problem, not mine.

On the top of the cliff by the chantier navale I stopped to recover my breath.

Nothing any different going on in there so I left them alone, but over at the ferry terminal (still no new pontoons as yet) the lights were on and reflecting in the wet silt of the tidal basin.

They looked quite beautiful so I took a photo of them. And then carried on with my run.

The fourth run is the longest, and getting longer too. I can now make as far as beyond the second pedestrian crossing which is impressive. and with nothing else happening anywhere else I did my final two and then came home.

Tomorrow I’ll have to clean up the kitchen because it’s a mess and I’m too tired to do anything about it. My battery has gone flat right now.

An early-ish night is called for and I hope that it’s going to be as exciting as last night’s adventures.

Saturday 2nd May 2020 – THE LEAST SAID …

… about this morning, the better. It was not very good.

And that’s a surprise because it wasn’t as if I was all that late going to bed either. I’ve been to bed later than that and not had as much difficulty peeling my back from off the bed as I did this morning.

Maybe it was the effects of my nocturnal voyaging, I dunno. But according to the dictaphone Nerina and I been away somewhere for a while. However we’d only been gone a day and a half before we decided that we would have to go back home so we went back home. We were outside my house in Gainsborough Road talking to some people and I suddenly thought “there’s something different here. Things aren’t the same”. I had a really good look around and suddenly realised what it was. TNY, my 2000E saloon had disappeared out of the drive and there was a wet muddy patch underneath where it had been parked. I couldn’t think of what was happening. In the end I phoned the police. Nerina and I were at a meal or something and these policemen came over. They didn’t ask who I was – they knew immediately who I was which was no surprise in Crewe and they came along and stated asking me questions about it. One of the policemen said something like “as soon as I knew that it was you and an old Cortina I knew that there was going to be a story in this” and they started to ask me all kinds of questions about it. I was telling them and so on.

After breakfast there wasn’t a great deal of time to do much else. I had a shower, a general clean-up and a weigh-in (and I’m still stuck at 1100 grammes over my target weight and I can’t seem to bring it down) and then off to the shops.

No NOZ still – that’s well and truly shut right now, but at LeClerc it seemed that everyone and his dog was there today. There was quite a queue and the place was packed, just like any other normal Saturday.

And how glad was I that I’d made a few pizza bases last weekend? Not a one in the shop today and there were a few other things missing too. Not like the UK or the USA where it looks as if a plague of locusts has gone by though. We here in France are pretty disciplined about things like that.

But not this detention à domicile though. It seems that people are totally fed up of it all which is no surprise. But at least the figures are falling rapidly (only 1050 new infections today whereas there were 17818 in the USA and 4806 in the UK and those figures spell great trouble for those two countries in two weeks time – the death rate on any day seems to be about 15% of the infection rate of two weeks previously) so it may well be that, for the moment we have passed the peak.

“At the moment” because anyone who has studied history and seen the evidence of the Black Death of the 1340s, the Plague of the 1660s and the cholera outbreaks of the 1840s wil know that these illnesses and infections come and go over a period of a couple of years. They don’t just disappear.

So we aren’t out of the woods yet. We’re just moving into different woods.

Back here I had a coffee and then attacked a couple of albums. I had two that were half-digitalised and two where I’d only been able to find a couple of tracks, all projects suspended because all that I could find were *.mkv files.

using my new technique, I proceeded rapidly to finish them all off, but I’m going to probably have to do a couple of them again because there was something that I forgot to take into account – or, rather, didn’t realise at the time.

But I do now – and, luckily, I managed to resolve the situation half-way through.

Unfortunately, even though it’s a very efficient way to do it, it’s very labour-intensive and so there was no time to edit any photos. So that’s something that I’ll have to fit in somehow. It’s quite an important job, for a variety of reasons.

When I’d finished (with a break for lunch in between) I went and did some cooking.

Here is one I made earlier.

It’s an orange, ginger and honey cordial and it tastes as good as it looks.

Take a lump of fresh ginger, peel it and dice it into tiny squares. Stick it in a small amount of water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer.

Meanwhile, grab a handful of oranges, peel them and take off as much pith
(“are you taking the pith?”
“Yeth”)
and other bits that you can, stick the oranges in the whizzer and give them a little whizz round, just to separate the juice.
Pour off the juice through a filter into a clean, sterilised bottle and put the solids back in the whizzer
Whizz all of the solids round until they are properly pulverised then add them to the ginger and water, adding more water if necessary.
Bring to the boil and then leave it to simmer for an hour.
After an hour, turn off the heat, add a couple of tablespoons of honey (manuka honey is the best) and stick the lot into the whizzer.
Whizz it around for a good while until everything is thoroughly pulverised into a syrup
Add to the orange juice in the bottle and shake well to mix everything in.
And there you are – orange, honey and ginger cordial.

After that I put a cupful of lentils into the slow cooker with a couple of cupfuls of water and various spices, and put it on “high”.
Meanwhile I peeled two small onions and a pile of garlic and fried them in the wok with herbs until they were golden brown.
While that was happening I cut up a square of tofu and then added that to the onions, with a tin of white beans, some concentrated gravy browning and a pile of soy sauce and stirred it all around.
When the lentils started to boil I rinsed them and drained them off, then put them back in the slow cooker with clean water and more herbs and then tipped the contents of the wok into it too.
Once it all came to the boil it was put on “keep warm” for 6 hours to marinade.

That’s my vegan pie filling for tomorrow. I’ve bought a new proper pie dish today and we’ll see how this turns out.

And while I was at it, I cleaned the oven.

That’s what I call a busy afternoon!

After the session on the guitars I made tea. An “anything curry” with tomato sauce and pasta, followed by, seeing as I had no apple pie to hand, a banana and banana-flavoured sorbet with chocolate sauce.

The wind had dropped this evening although it was rather cool. Nevertheless I went out for my evening runs And I really don’t understand why the first run takes so much out of me when I seem to have cracked all of the others

But anyway I struggled up to my marker at the end of the hedge and then when i’d recovered ran down to the clifftop.

The night wasn’t bright but it wasn’t that dark either. It was quite clear out to sea and there was a really good view of the mouth of the River Sienne near Hauteville and the Havre de la Vanlée near Lingreville

It’s been a while since the view has been that clear out that way and we haven’t had a photo of there for quite some time.

Those wind turbines by the way are probably 30-40 kilometres away from here.

The Brittany coast wasn’t as clear, however and it wasn’t too easy to see.

But that object that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing with me a couple of weeks ago – it’s still there are the mouth of the harbour at St Malo. It can’t be a ship then. It must be an island.

That’s a disappointment because I’m always looking for exciting things to spice up my photos. With this detention à domicile you all must be as sick of the sight of trawlers and sunsets as I am.

With nothing else going on, I headed off to my spec at the rue du Nord to see what the sunset is doing. And on the way I pushed on my long 4th run another 10 metres.

The answer to “what is the sunset doing” is “not a lot”. It’s lost in the clouds. There were half a dozen of us out there all told, but we had a wasted journey.

So I ended up running back fome.

And that reminds me. According to the fitbit I ran last month for 5 hours and 37 minutes. That’s just over 11 minutes per day. And when you consider my age and my health and the fact that in February 2016 I couldn’t even walk, that’s pretty good going.

Sunday tomorrow. A lie-in and then a Day of Rest and seeing as there is nothing desperately outstanding, I can have a day of rest.

My pie filling is marinading nicely as it is cooling and that will make a really nice vegan pie for a couple of days.

But right now I’m going to make the most of my Day of Rest. But I bet that someone will come along and spoil it.

Thursday 2nd April 2020 – I’VE JUST HAD …

… a very friendly, very interesting and very lengthy conversation with a very nice young girl. She stopped me for a chat while I was out for my evening runs tonight.

We were there for about 10 minutes or so chatting away about all kinds of things.

And do you know what?

I don’t have the first clue who she is.

Something else that I don’t have the first clue about is why I bothered to waste my time by going for an early night. Just for a change, I beat the third alarm out of bed and after the medication I had a look at the dictaphone to see if I’d been anywhere during the night.

I’d started out by doing my best to obey the quarantine but I had to keep on nipping out of my apartment to the room in the attic for something or other. That meant going out into the street and in my the next door and up the stairs. This happened not once, not twice but three or four times and I was sure that someone would cotton on to what was happening. Sure enough, one time I did it, I heard another door bang in the room and heard someone going up the inside stairs, so I stood behind the door and waited. When whoever it was came in, I shouted “BOOH!”and scared them. It was a girl with whom I once worked and she’s someone I haven’t thought about for years. I had a laugh and a joke with her about the situation but I bet that she was being very curious about who was where, for reasons that I suspected were not entirely altruistic. The I was talking to someone else about this and they said “whatever happens, it’s not going to be right for ages and ages yet before the world is back to normal. All kinds of things have been cut off and we can basically forget all about”.
Later on, someone at work was selected for some kind of medical test so he started to prepare himself, saying “yes, I’ll call you when I get there and let you know how things are going on”. My boss recoiled in horror “no, no. Just give us a ring – it will be fine”. he was obviously extremely suspicious about this and I had the feeling that he would have been quite happy if this employee had picked up some kind of infection from one of these medical trials
Moi, je lui proposé que lui, il lui garde et envoyer un audio de son voyage et de contacter avec quelque chose d’intéressant mais il l’a réussi. Le patron lui a accordé raise parce que … Now why am I dictating this in French? I know that I sometimes dream in French (and in Flemish too before now) but this is the first ever time that I’ve dictated my notes in French … so they decided that the risks just weren’t worth the experience of broadcasting like that.
The next voyage was similar to the one just now about the being summoned and going for a walk and sending an audio report and that was rejected too as the story was pretty much the same
Later on we were discussing trains, HS2 and all of this and I’m still convinced that it’s just a white elephant and it’s not going to do anything particular. We had the usual arguments so I wrote a song about travelling from Amsterdam Schiphol airport to Brussels on the TGV. It came to the attention of Alquin and they weren’t sure – should I join Alquin or would they create a band for me and find me a couple of musicians or something like that. In the meantime I’d been collecting some stuff – I’m not quite sure what it was. Quarantine had ended and everyone was out on the streets. There was a big cinema complex and I was walking through it with stuff in my hat. And the thing that I remember was a really really familiar voice said “just leave it up here against the wall, Eric”. I looked round and it was a guitarist who I knew. I can’t think whether it was that Mike Averill or Sherman Downey – someone like that. He said it quite clearly in his voice that I could hear it in my sleep “just leave it here, Eric” and it was the surprise of the realism of the voice and how I heard it that awoke me
I was in a office last night working and the place was in a total tip as you might expect. There was a girl sitting next to me at my desk. She was going through all my papers and there was a load of stuff I didn’t want her to see because it was quite personal. I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she was looking for a file or a letter. I asked which one and she told me that it was in connection with an accident that I had had with a Woolworths van or lorry 18 months ago. She was going some kind of survey on it. She said “I thought that would be in the International file”. I said “no, for if it involved two people of the same nation it would be in the national, not the international one” so I had to go and fetch the file. There were papers everywhere in a big bundle and I thought that i would come back to sort these out. Then I got to thinking that I’m not going to be able to cope with all of this. I’ve probably had enough. I decided more-or-less on the spot that I was going to retire. It was only 2 days to the end of the month so I thought that at the end of the month I would retire and that would be that.

So after all of that, it’s pretty pointless going to bed early, isn’t it?

But as an aside, looking at where I’ve been during the last couple of nights, anyone would think that I had something of a preoccupation with this virus that’s going round. But that’s not the case at all.

It’s true to say that I’m being more careful than I otherwise would be, but I’m not taking this situation as intently or as keenly as some others, that’s for sure. Being engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the illness that I have, this virus thing is just another complication to add to an already-complicated tangle of affairs.

After breakfast I had a go at a couple of albums – tracking down the digital sound files and sorting them out.

And then, after a shower (the first for a few days) I headed out to town.

On my way out of the medieval walled city I stopped to have a look over the wall to see what was going on, as I had heard the crane in operation.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw Normandy Trader here in port the other day. And here she is, unloading another pile of what looks like shellfish and taking on board a load of timber as a return load to the Channel islands.

It was another quick turn-round too. When I went out in the evening, she was long-gone. She clearly doesn’t want to hang around with these current health issues going on.

My route into town took me down the Rampe du Monte A Regret

Over the past few months I’ve been seeing workmen there ripping out the vegetation that’s been growing in the cracks between the stones, but today I noticed that they’ve been repointing the joints.

This will look quite nice when it’s all done, but I wish that they would spend more of their time dealing with the bits of wall that are actually falling down.

We’ve seen plenty of those just recently.

As I was going past the laboratory, I called in to see where they had got to with my blood test results. They’d completed the examinations and had posted the results, but of course the post is somewhat sporadic these days.

They gave me a copy so I could review it at my leisure. My blood count is at 9.3, which is quite a surprise to most people because when I last had treatment – two months ago, it was 8.8.

We’ve seen in the past that the results from the hospital and the results from the laboratory differ considerably, and nothing seems to have changed right now. I know that the blood count can fluctuate, but surely not by this much.

There weren’t too many people in LIDL this morning so we didn’t have to queue outside. They didn’t seem to be short of very much at all (except pizza bases – I wonder why there’s a run on those right now) so I did what I needed, as well as buying a metre rule with spirit level and a few other accessories. A baguette too, seeing as my favourite boulanger is still closed.

Back here there was time to deal witha couple more albums before lunch, and also 20 or so photos from July 2019. Dynjandi and the Arnarfjördu were the places for which I was trying to remember the names yesterday.

After lunch I finished off the notes for the two radio projects on which i’m working, dictated them, and started on the editing.

To my chagrin I could have made much more progress than I did, but

I was in discussion for some of the time with Laurent about our Grande Marée Virtuelle – I have some lines to learn
I … errr … went off with the fairies for a good half-hour. And a proper one too – hardly surprising after my last couple of nights but disappointing all the same.

There was the usual hour on the guitars and then I stopped for tea. A slice of that tofu and lentil pie from February with jacket potates, veg and gravy.

While it was cooking in the oven, I sorted out all of the carrots that I had bought on Saturday, washed scrubbed, diced and then blanched them

By this time my tea was ready. And it was followed by a slice of apple pie with vegan ice cream and chocolate sauce. Thoroughly delicious.

Out on my walk this evening, I missed the sunset.

The sky was a beautiful red though, so I suppose that it’s better than nothing. And while I was admiring it was when I was accosted by the aforementioned young lady.

Bad news when I had my shower this morning. I seemed to have gained 800 grams since the weekend and that’s no good at all. As a consequence I put in no fewer than four runs tonight. I have to get things under control

Another thing that I need to do is to have a good sleep. It won’t be as long as last night’s, unfortunately, but it will still do me good.

But I wonder where I’ll finish up tonight?

Wednesday 19th February 2020 – THESE FAIRGROUND WORKERS …

… aren’t half cracking on with it, I’ll tell you that.

At lunchtime I went down to La Mie Caline to buy my dejeunette and after picking it up I went round to the car park at the Cours Jonville to see just how they are going on with the chapiteau that they started to erect on Monday morning.

Yesterday we saw that they had had a really good go at one of them but today they have leapt ahead in spades and they now have a second one up and it’s almost finished.

When they’ve done that I’ll have to get them to go round to my farm, won’t I?

As for me, I’m not very impressed with myself. I somehow managed to miss the second alarm and while I was contemplating my navel in bed, the third alarm went off. I actually had my feet on the floor half a second later but just couldn’t puck up the courage and went back to bed.

By the time that I was finally on my feet, that was half an hour of the day missed and gone.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

There was this family – a husband and wife and a couple of kids – girls about 11 and 9. They had been on their travels and I’d forgotten a lot of what had gone on but they ended up being back in Mexico. They were at some kind of place and they had an old Mexican woman with them who had befriended them. There was some music being played. While they were rejoicing about their escape or whatever it was that had got them to Mexico these two guys slowly sidled in from the dark. The kids were cheering and the husband was laughing but the two women, this wife and the elderly Mexican realised that these two guys were here and it was quite clear to them that these two guys meant some kind of mischief. They tried to get the person who was playing these records to stop playing them so they could all go off to bed but this person hadn’t really grasped the seriousness of it and carried on. Meantime these two guys were becoming a bit more intrusive and talking about all kinds of things and reading some of the comments that I had on piece of paper about the music that I was doing. One was making air guitar gestures that kind of thing and I thought to myself that this is going to start to turn really ugly in a minute.
Somewhat later, I was at the death of John Cipollina the musician. He didn’t die of lung disease at all but was killed in a motorcycle accident in South Street, Crewe, opposite the Up The Junction club. He’d been playing with man and I’d been recording it for a concert for my live shows and I was preparing it. There was an awfully long speech about the introduction and all of this kind of thing. We were all called outside and there was a car mounted on the pavement where the undertakers used to be and Cipollina and his motorcycle were there. They’d been hit by this car. They were asking “how is he” but his eyes were closed and all this kind of thing “don’t anyone go near him”. Someone said “we had to go near him. We had to disentangle the wheels of his motor cycle, all this kind of thing. We were there; we didn’t know what to do. We phoned an ambulance but the ambulance took ages to come along. We then all went off into the village hall where they had the autopsy and examination and someone was talking about suicide at one time – he’d rammed the car directly, I suppose. Then we had to go down to the High School, Sandbach High School and break the news to my daughter whoever she was because she was rather fond of John Cipollina.

Like I said, the things that go on during the night are far more exciting than whatever happens to me during the day. Someone once asked me if I were troubled by dreams during the night. I replied “well, no. I actually quite enjoy them”.

After breakfast (and my apple, pear, coconut and cinnamon purée and drink are delicious by the way) I attacked the radio projects. And by the time that I was ready to knock off to go and fetch my bread I’d finished project 26 completely and also done the “live concert” for the last week in March.

The way things stand now, I’m already dealing with the prjects for may but I’m short of a live concert for the end of April. I have a few things lined up that I could use but as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, anyone who has anything that they would like me to broadcast on their behalf is more than welcome to submit it.

With my new determination to push on past the 100% level on my fitbit every day, I decided on a very extended walk down into town to fetch my bread.

So off to duplicate my afternoon route around the headland and I’m glad that I did because there was something moving about in the thick mist out to sea in the general direction of where the Ile de Chausey might be.

Armed with the big Nikon and the mega-zoom lens I took a photo of it to crop and blow up back at the apartment in case it was anything interesting.

However, it was only Joly France off on one of her runs out there.

When I reached the lighthouse, instead of going off across the lawn my the War memorial as I usually do, the lack of any major wind today meant that I could go down the steps and right around the headland without any major discomfort.

It’s actually an exciting way to go, not just because of the physically-challenging nature of the walk for someone like me but also for the fact that there’s quite a lot of the old Atlantic Wall, like this gun emplacement, to see.

We normally wouldn’t get to see this when we are on the more usual route.

There’s another part of the Atlantic Wall that we don’t usually see either.

This is a slit trench that’s reinforced with concrete and I can’t make out whether it’s supposed to be a shelter (given the roof) or an observation post given that the direction of the trench aligns with the Channel Islands.

Whatever it is, it must have been a very lonely, cold and isolated vigil, being posted to a tour of duty in here.

Just now I mentioned something about “the lack of any major wind today”.

That may well be the case but you would never have thought so by looking at the waves here. The tide is still a couple of hours out yet the waves are storming in from out at sea and smashing their way into the sea wall here.

It’s going to be pretty exciting down there at high tide if they keep on going on like this, that’s for sure.

You can see exactly what I mean by looking at this photo here.

Out in the English Channel is this speedboat – at least, I think that it’s a speedboat – and it’s disappearing into one of the heavy waves that’s rolling in.

That’s going to be something of a wild ride into the harbour in a little vessel like that in waves like these. Whoever is on board will know all about the weather by the time that they arrive in port.

It was round about this time yesterday that I walked into town for my bread. And regular readers of this rubbish will recall that my arrival coincided with all of the fishing boats coming in to harbour.

The tide is about half an hour later every day so the gates won’t be opened for a bit, and this looks like the first of the fishing boats heading in for home. It’s quite a way out in the English Channel (hence the blurred photo) but it will take that extra half-hour to arrive here.

No particular need for me to rush for the harbour gates today then.

Just as well because … ohh look over there!

Yes, we have a visitor today. It seems that Normandy Trader has sneaked in on the morning tide and tied up at the unloading bay underneath the crane.

So seeing as I have plenty of time today, having finished my essential work for the week, I’ll go over there and have a talk to them. I have things to discuss.

So I make my way down onto the docks, across the harbour ates by the pathway on top, and across to the other side of the port.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall yesterday that we watched them float one of the new pontoons across the harbour to the far side.

And sure enough, there are some of the new pontoons, properly anchored (I hope) to the mounting brackets that they have been installing over the last few days.

But how are they going to get down to the pontoons? They’ll need some steps of some description.

Everyone was at lunch and the harbour was totally deserted right now.

That gave me a good opportunity to go and have a look at the big floating pontoon that they are using to transport the crane about the harbour to see what else is on there.

There’s a compressor and a generator on there as well as a couple of storage containers, and also some other machinery that I was not able to identify with any certainty.

Still, it’s enough to be going on with.

Once again, despite my best intentions, there was no-one about on Normandy Trader. I shouted and button-holed a passer-by from another ship, but no luck.

This is something that I’m going to have to deal with by correspondence or by phone.

At la Mie Caline I picked up my dejeunette, went to check on the chapiteau as above, and then headed for home.

And the workmen are back at work by now too. Clearly too tired to walk around the harbour, they have decided to sail across in some kind of outboard motor-propelled craft of some description.

Whatever is the world coming to? As for me, I believe that I did mention that the last day or so I’ve been feeling a little better. So much so that I actually RAN for 50 metres or so UP THE HILL o the way back.

How about that?

After lunch I updated THE RADIO PLAYLIST with the tracks that were played over the weekend. That’ ssomething that’s pretty important and I always seem to manage to let it fall into arrears.

After that, I realised that I hadn’t yet chopped up any digital soundfiles into the individual tracks. So that was the next task and I would have done that much quicker and been much farther ahead had I not confused myself by “copying” when I should have been “cutting”, pasting the same track three times and wondering why everything was out of sync.

What with all of that, I found myself rather late going out for my afternoon walk around the headland – the shorter route this time.

And it seems that I wasn’t the only one who was “late” either. The harbour gates have been open for a good few hours and they won’t be so far off closing. But here’s a fishing boat heading into harbour nevertheless.

There’s always someone who has to be last, no matter when they come in. Nothing wrong in that as long as he makes it in before the gates close. We’ve already seen one fishing boat stranded at the fish processing plant, caught by the receding tide.

It’s school holidays here in Granville right now. Most kids are at home or with grandparents but there are some poor kids who have to go on what is called classe découvert or “discovery class”.

It’s said to be a way of making children explore their environment, to see things in a different fashion than they would otherwise do and to learn about them in a different way.

But in fact, it’s more about putting the kids somewhere out of mischief because either there is no-one to look after them or the parents want a break themselves.

Mind you, knowing some parents as I do, perhaps a classe découvert is a good way for the kids to get some peace and quiet away from their parents, so don’t knock it.

Going past the top of the cliff I stuck my head over the top to see what was going on in the chantier navale

And we seem to have a change in there this afternoon too. There’s only one fishing boat in there now. The other one seems to have cleared off back into the water.

So I wonder who’s going to be next to arrive in the chantier navale. It would be nice to have something exciting in there for a change or perhaps from them to build a boat.

That would be interesting.

No chance of getting to speak to Normandy Trader now this afternoon, because she isn’t there.

She must have sneaked out as soon as the harbour gates opened earlier this afternoon. And into the harbour has come Thora instead. I want to speak to her skipper too but if I can’t catch hold of them I’ll contact them in writing to maybe arrange an appojntment.

And there’s someone else I would like to talk to about this matter before I forget. I shall have to sit down one day and draw up some plans.

Back here I … err … had a little doze for a short while and then carried on with some other stuff that had been building up while I’d been stuck in this “work” mode just recently.

There’s plenty of that lying around and I shall be doing it bit by bit. But there are several things that need doing fairly quickly, so now that I’m free of any serious commitment until Saturday, I can tackle them tomorrow.

But I also have a party to attend on Friday night, here in the building. I don’t really have the time but it would be unsociable not to at least go for half an hour. I know that “sociable” isn’t like me at all but these are mu co-residents and I have to be polite.

Tea tonight was some of the lentil and tofu pie from the other day with potatoes, veg and gravy, followed by apple pie (also from the other day) with the last of the Alpro Soya Cream and chocolate sauce.

And it was absolutely delicious. I really am eating so well these days and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Later on I went out for my evening walk.

It was beautiful outside with a relatively clear sky and you could see for miles. The lights of Brehal-Plage were really bright tonight and came out so well.

If you look closely, you’ll see a small red light in the background. In the absence of any other candidate, I reckon that that’s the warning light for the wind turbine at the back of Gavray, about 20-25 kms from here. That’s how clear the night was

So now that I’ve written up my notes I can go to bed, and have more exciting dreams, I hope. And maybe if I’m lucky, actually leave the bed when i’m supposed to.

Shopping tomorrow, the dictaphone and the sound-file chopping, and then the rest of the day is my own. Plenty to do, though, and it won’t be done on its own that’s for sure. I have to get a wiggle on.

Sunday 16th February 2020 – DESPITE IT BEING A …

… day of rest today, I have been a very busy boy.

And here is the evidence. Frm left to right we have a lentil-and-tofu pie, an apple pie and, to use up the rest of the pastry and apple, an apple turnover.

The other day I mentioned that there were only a couple of slices of pie left in the fridge. Well, there was some tofu that needed using up and I bought a couple of pastry rolls yesterday.

Lentils are never in short supply here and so there we were.

A couple of hundred grammes of lentils went into the slow cooker with some parsley, sage and rosemary, and then some water. And they were left to boil up.

Once they had boiled, I drained them off, rinsed them and put them back in clean water with some tofu, more herbs as above and a couple of stock cubes. And left them for a couple of hours.

And talking of a couple of hours, it was more than a couple of hours of sleep that I had last night. In bed at a relatively realistic time, I slept right through until about 07:50.

But there was no chance of my leaving the bed at that time of the morning. The howling gale and rainstorm that I could clearly hear going on outside made me crawl back down under the bedclothes. 10.30 is a much more reasonable time to arise on a Sunday.

After the medication I attacked the dictaphone. Apparently I was at a rock concert last night in Nantwich and there was a group playing and I was watching the group. I was with someone but I can’t remember who now and a woman came over. I knew this woman but I can’t remember who she was. She was big and tall and in a wide-brimmed black hat with a small crown, black cloak type of overcoat. She looked like a Bishop. She shouted at me but I didn’t recognise her at first but then I did and got talking with her. I noticed that one of the musicians was someone who had been a chauffeur with me, and he was with a saxophone. I thought “ohh, how strange”. We had a talk and a joke about cars, that kind of thing. I was meeting someone else but it was quite early so I went back to my apartment and got a burger and started to fry it. But being hit overwhelmingly by an overwhelming way of sleep I went to get into bed. I took off all of my clothes to get into bed and just then the doorbell rang. I staggered out of bed past a half-cooked meal, half asleep and asked who it was. “Oh, it’s Mikhael” the bass guitarist from the Hillbilly group. That was the guy I was waiting for. So I thought “‘I’d better let him get in and get dressed, stop eating and trying to cook this food, all of that kind of thing”.
After that I was in a museum somewhere and there was a discussion about a play taking place where two actors were throwing balls at each other – Roman actors. They were on version 2 of a CD or DVD and I had to check first of all to check that I had DVD version 2, which I had. So we checked and it was the Romans in bed that were throwing, these two guys were throwing these hard balls at each other until one was hit on the head and killed. We were discussing why the other guy hadn’t killed the first one and we thought “maybe he had been lying on his arm so long so his arm was weak and so he had to use his bad arm. This led to a discussion about military tactics at Flodden -Culloden rather where British soldiers were instructed to attack the man on their right whenever he raised his claymore to attack the British soldier standing on his right and never mind about the guy in front of you because your mate on the left would be taking care of him. Whenever they raised their right arm, their soft under-belly was exposed and that was where you would bayonet them. That went back to the crusaders and armour, how you would kill a knight is underneath the right armpit. Someone said “should we all go and get a glass of water out of the tap and resume this discussion somewhere more comfortable rather than around a few library desks.
A little bit earlier I was having to do something that was extremely urgent and I’d got off the Metro and there on the Metro was someone, the guy who played someone in Hawaii 50 and I can’t remember his name – a very famous actor. I quickly got back onto the Metro to get off a bit further down and was hoping that there was no-one at the station waiting for me. It was a long and convoluted route to get to where the safety deposit box was because obviously the previous Metro Station would have been better for that. I had to come off and walk across a crowded street which took ages and walking up this hill in the countryside. As I was doing it, some woman’s dog came along and started growling at me so I kicked it away. She complained. The dog came back and bit me so I gave it a really good heavy kick and she complained about that. I said “you should have your dog on a lead”. She said that lLeads are compulsory here which I thought strange. I had to walk up this hill and I reckon that it was a climb of about 500 feet and it was hot, in the summer and we were quickly out of the urban area into the rural area. I was feeling really uncomfortable at this walk and this climb. I have this the wrong way round haven’t I? It was first the man then the story about being on the tram and the dog biting me then finally the third part.
Later still I was on the The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again with a group of people, a family with very young kids and we were doing the usual family type of thing that you do with young kids, playing games and things. And then I went for a walk. We’d only been on this ship half a day or so but I’d been on it before so I knew my way round so I was wandering around quite happily. I walked past all these people on the deck sitting there in the lounge. I walked out and upstairs, outside and round and ended up being on the top of a double decker bus, an old green Crosville one. I worked out that on the top deck there was only room for about 20 people that you would expect on a double-decker bus or maybe more I dunno. Anyway I walked back down and these people were looking at le with amazement thinking “where’s he been?”. A stewardess called Kerry who I knew so I said to her, calling her by her first name and they all thought “wow he’s learning quick about the ship” and then we approached Crewe Bus Station which was a dock and I said to her “gosh, he’s coming in quick! Is he on a mileage bonus or something?” “Ohh God yes he is!” and he hit the quayside, bounced up on top of the quay. I said “that’s our holiday finished, isn’t it now?” But he kept the power on and the sip sailed round in like a U-turn, back to the edge of the quayside and dropped over and into the water again. I thought “God, I’d never ever thought of doing that” but there we were, back in the water again.

By the time that I’d finished typing that lot out I’d had breakfast, had a quick bit of butty and it wasn’t all that far off teatime. After all, it’s Sunday and I was in no hurry.

One thing though – because of the weather I hadn’t set one single foot outside the apartment but round about 16:00 the rain briefly stopped.

Seizing the chance I grabbed my coat and went outside for a walk. The weather was still grey and totally miserable as you can tell from this photo of the lighthouse and the coastguard station at the Pointe du Roc.

But the most important thing was that the wind had dropped considerably and that was good news. it had really been wicked.

And while the wind might have dropped there was still plenty of power in the sea.

That’s quite evident in this photo. The tide is well out right now and yet there’s enough force in the waves to bring them right up to the sea wall with something of a splash.

If it keeps it up, it’s going to be really impressive out there this evening at high tide I reckon. Not that I’ll be there to see it though.

Heading into town for a long walk by the very old road – or path more like – here’s something that I don’t remember encountering before.

It was the fencing and the “keep out” notices that drew my attention to it so I went to look. It seems that the cliffs are eroding just here and undermining part of the wartime German concrete.

There’s tons of that around here in the Atlantic Wall and we have seen plenty of it in the past, but this looks like one piece that we won’t be seeing for much longer.

But while I was there my attention was further caught, this time by the sound of running water.

There are a couple of springs up on the top and these days they disappear into some kind of guttering system. I’ve never worked out where they go to from there but now I think that I know.

This culvert here that discharges into the sea looks very much like the outlet for all of this.

With the tide being quite far out right now the gates to the harbour were closed so I could walk over the pathway at the top to the other side of the harbour.

Yesterday I mentioned the fete foraine here in Granville. The machinery and amusements are to arrive today and start to set up tomorrow. It looks now as if most of them have turned up already.

Here they are anyway, parked up at the car park at the end of the quayside near to the ferry terminal and here they’ll stay fr a couple of weeks.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve been following the fortunes of the two concrete breakers, the digger and the two tractors and trailers that are removing rocks from the ferry terminal.

The havy stuff parks over by the fish processing plant but here on the quayside are the tractors and trailers and all of the stuff that they have brought with them.

And this can only mean that we won’t be expecting a gravel boat for a while because all of this is parked where the gravel would be dumped for loading.

Last night we saw the arrival of the first lot of caravans for the fete foraine and they were parking up at the Place Godal.

Today there are a lot more of them as well as a couple of lorries that might well be something to do with the fairground attractions.

and just in case you hadn’t already noticed, it was now back to raining again. But the wind was still keeping down so I pressed on with my walk. After all, I can’t get much wetter than I am.

My little voyage took me along the sea front and down to the Parking Hérel.

Starting tomorrow this will be where the fete foraine will be erected. And it’s a complete work of art the things that they do to get it going.

Tomorrow I’ll be coming back from my radio meeting this way and I’ll be able to see how they are doing. And hopefully take a few photos of the erections that they put up. And it doesn’t take them long to do it.

For a variety of reasons there aren’t too many old houses of the traditional Normandy-Style here in Granville.

And this is one that I haven’t seen before, in a little alleyway off the rue Commandant Yvon. A real Normandy wooden-framed house. And not falling down either like the one in the rue Ernest LeFranc.

By now I was ready to return home but still wishing to push up the percentages on the fitbit I continued around the town for a while getting wetter and wetter and eventually made it back home for coffee and cake.

For tea I made myself the usual pizza, forgetting the sliced garlic, and then made my pies.

Before I’d gone out I’d checked the slow cooker. The mix was too liquidy so a couple of spoonfuls of oats had taken care of that and it was lookign quite good.

So pastry in the pie dish, add in the filling, moisten the edge of the pastry, put a top on, press down the top with a fork so that it seals, trim off the excess pastry, paint with soya milk and prick with a fork.

Roll out all of the excess pastry so that it’s flat again, cut out a circle to put in a pie dish, slice a few cooking apples very thinly and pack the pie dish with them, some lemon juice and brown sugar and forget the cinnamon and nutmeg but remember the desiccated coconut.

Roll out the remaining pastry, cut out enough for a lid, repeat the process as for the previous pie except to sprinkle on the top some brown sugar.

With the pastry that you’ve trimmed off, roll it out again and keep on trimming and adding back as you roll it to keep it square, fill it with the leftover apple brown sugar and coconut, fold it over and then bung the lot in the oven to cook while I’m eating my pizza.

And while I was eating my pizza I was wondering why I hadn’t fried any onions and garlic for the pie mix.

The pies weren’t ready so for pudding I had a banana with some of the Alpro almond-flavoured dessert stuff that I’d bought for the apple pie.

No-one about at all on my evening walk so I had a good couple of runs. My usual track on the north side of the walls was waterlogged so I improvised. And I even did a third run – or, rather, half a run – later on because having seen that I was now on 93% of my daily target, I extended my walk.

Now my notes are finished, my day of rest is over and it’s back to work tomorrow. A good night’s sleep is required and then i’ll be fighting fit for tomorrow.

I don’t think.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: lentil tofu pie

Monday 22nd March 2021 – I WAS RIGHT …

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