… the big ginger cat Gribouille outside the building this afternoon when a woman approached.
She saw me, wrapped a scarf around her face and gently skirted around me, keeping a good two metres distance all the time.
And the thought going through my head was “couldn’t she have picked a more polite way to remind me that I didn’t have a shower this morning?”.
And indeed I didn’t have a shower this morning. I’ve forgotten that I’m heading to Belgium on Wednesday (Government legislation permitting) so I don’t really need anything. So much for the big rice pudding that I made on Sunday.
But yes, Belgium. That hotbed of disease where everyone is in a panic, yet you have about three times as much chance of becoming a multi-millionaire by winning the lottery than you do of catching this disease.
Of course, the situation could change at any moment but that’s something to worry about when it happens. I’m under no illusions. I’m elderly, I’m in poor health and I have no immune system. And so if I do happen to catch it, I’ll be the first to go under. But there’s no point in worrying about it.
Mind you, I did worry about last night when I crashed out writing out my notes. It’s only half-finished and I did reckon that I’d finish it today but that wasn’t possible. That’s for another time, I reckon.
Just for a change these days, I beat the alarm this morning and I was up and about having my medication long before the third alarm went off. It shows the benefit of an early night.
And back here, I had a look at the dictaphone. And I’m not at all sure what was going on here. There was a building that was probably Hankelow Hall where I squatted for a certain time. There was some kind of football match going to take place between two ad-hoc teams and I was on one of these. We assembled to play our match. It was in the harbour of a town, something like the harbour where this abandoned building was. So we met and again I realised that I didn’t have all of my things. I needed some more before the match would start. I needed to go home and pick them up but would I have time before the kick-off of our match? Yes so the house was plunged into darkness again and we were going to have to have another search around to find ourselves, find our boots and find the people with whom we were supposed to be playing.
later on I was in Montreal last night with someone but I don’t know who. The two of us were on a STM bus and something was happening. The passengers weren’t very happy with the driver and they were having a go at him and he was having a go at them. At a bus stop, “Denbigh” in the rue Denbigh (which doesn’t exist, by the way), the driver stopped the bus at the bus stop, got out from behind his seat and came down the bus to try to attack one of the passengers. The passenger hid amongst the crowd of people so the bus driver couldn’t get him, so the driver took out a bayonet-type of thing, went outside and started to unscrew the window of the bus so that he could get at the passenger. At that moment I called the police and the police started to take all the details ready to send an emergency vehicle I imagine, but the driver just disappeared. So he was gone.
For breakfast, I tried some of that apple-and-apricot purée that I made yesterday, followed by some of the apple and apricot cordial. And it wasn’t at all bad. I’ll remember this because every now and again they do have tins of fruit in at NOZ where the labels are torn, something like that. And this is a good way to use them up.
Having done that, I had a look at the digital sound files that needed splitting. Another four have disappeared today. Much to my surprise, they were all reasonably straightforward and it’s been a long time since that has happened
Today’s project was to send off a radio project for this weekend and then to do another one to replace it. And by the time that I’d finished I’d chosen all of the music (except the last track), written the notes, dictated them and was half-way through editing them.
No supermarket today of course, but that didn’t stop me from going out for my three walks today.
having chosen the music, I went out for the bread and for a look to see what was around. There wasn’t anyone walking around but there was plenty of excitement out to sea, like this yacht threading its way through the archipelago that is the Ile de Chausey.
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the number of islands out there varies between 365 and 52 depending on the state of the tides at the time.
Plenty of other stuff out there too.
Apart from the fishing boats, there’s a cabin cruiser too floating around in the Baie de Mont St Michel and that wouldn’t have been a sight you would have seen a week or so ago when we were having all of those storms and high winds.
But it does go to show you the liberty that exists on the open sea and it’s making me quite envious. I wish that I had a boat right now.
And how are you spending your enforced absence away from work?
These two guys have the right approach. They’ve gone fishing. And I can’t blame them because as the virus starts to bite and more and more people become sick, hunting and gathering might be the only solution so you may as well start early.
What I did like was the size of the bucket in which they were intending to store their catch. I was never one to dampen the spirit of optimism at all.
My wanderings took me down past the chantier navale to see how they were getting on with
No change there – she’s still sitting up on her blocks with half of her sides torn out. But there was no-one working on her at all. They’ve probably all been struck down by the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death or whatever it is.
And that fishing boat there at her side – that’s a different one to that which was there on Saturday. We seem to have had a tactical substitution of fishing boats.
The harbour gates were open so I couldn’t cross. Instead I continued down the rue du Port.
One thing that I have mentioned in the past is the mechanism by which the floating pontoons are attached to the supports, and I promised that one of these days I would have a closer look.
There seems to be two sets of rollers, an outer set and an inner rollar that ride up abd down depending upon the state of the tide. It’s a very clever arrangement and I hope that it works.
The town was deserted today. I counted no more than a dozen people scurrying around, most of whom were carrying bread. Only the bakeries seemed to be open – after all, people have to eat and bread is an important part of life here in France.
La Mie Caline came up with a dejeunette – at least the boulanger hasn’t succumbed to the plague as yet – and I came back home. I was tempted to go and take my butties and sit on the wall outside, so nice was the weather, but as usual I was sidetracked by something else.
My afternoon was even quieter. I counted two people out walking and another couple waiting at the bus stop.
My aim was to wander around to the chantier navale because on looking at my photos, I appear to have overlooked that there was actually a third boat in there this morning – and it was still there today.
No idea why it’s in there, and even less of an idea why it isn’t next to the other two, but that’s something else to keep my eye on. Although if I do go to Belgium on Wednesday I’ll miss all of the excitement in here.
Back in the apartment I dozed off for ten minutes or so but I still carried on with things until 19:00 and knocking-off time.
First thing was to deal with the carrots. They were peeled, sliced and diced and then par-boiled with bay leaves and left to drain.
While they were draining I made myself some of my patent stuffing and had stuffed pepper with rice. Tomorrow night I’ll finish off the left-over stuffing and whatever else is lying around in an Anything Curry ready for my departure on Wednesday morning.
This rice pudding will be a problem though. What am I going to do with all of that? A man can only eat so much, no matter how delicious it is.
My walk tonight was even more lonely. I was the only one out there except for a couple of people putting something into a car boot I managed my two runs though. The first one, I put about 20-25 metres onto my usual distance and the second one, I actually made it all the way up a couple of metres onto the second ramp. Yes, I seem to be improving in that respect and that’s good news.
Rosemary rang later on for a chat. She’s feeling the pressure and being so far from home, it’s not easy for her. But there’s not much that she can do about it right now.
So I’ve finished this entry and it’s already late. Yesterday’s entry will have to wait for another time while I go to bed.
But these days, imagine going to bed and wondering if you’ll wake up in the morning. It’s like something out of the Dark Ages, isn’t it?
reminds me of almost every late and lonely night that I have ever spent on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour, this particular track reminds me of just one particular night that was later than most and which I didn’t ever want to end.
, 
and 
and 
, and there would have been a few others that I would have been happy to see as well. 
