Tag Archives: museum

Thursday 3rd September 2020 – YOU CAN TELL …

… that the nights are getting longer right now. Summer seems to have left us a long way right now and we are in a slow downward spiral towards winter.

Out on mt stroll tonight, around the city walls tonight, it was quite dark by the time I’d gone around and the street lights across the Baie de Mont St Michel on the Brittany coast were shining quite brightly.

It won’t be long now until i’m out with the tripod, I reckon. It will be the cue to be taking more photos of the night so I’ll have to learn how to use THE NIKON D500 with the delay action shutter.

This morning, much to everyone’s surprise, including my own, I was out of bed before the third alarm went off. Sitting on the edge of the bed in a dazed condition trying to gather my wits together in order to stand up and do something constructive.

I’d been on my travels too. I was out with Nerina again last night. We were looking at a couple of houses that she’d seen on the internet that she was interested in buying. They were round about the £76,000 £78,000 mark in Crewe and were semi-detached but of the smaller type. There was one that was particularly nice and she was looking at it. We found to our surprise that it had three bedrooms which was already something. There was a load of stuff included in the sale, including four kiddies’ bikes and a couple of kiddies’ scooters. She was wondering about those – going to make sure that they were written in the sale. I said “basically if they are there you make sure that they are written in”. She asked “what do you think I’m going to do with a kiddie’s bike?”. There was a pregnant pause as I was trying to work out whether or not I ought to tell her that I knew that she’d had a child or something like that. We had a good look at this house and it looked to be really good value for what it was, one of these 1920s types of small semi-detached houses the type that you would see around Bedford Street, that area, with a drive and a garage. There was a van parked there, like a Ford Escort van only a little bigger parked outside the garage door.
Had I not awoken with a severe attack of cramp at this particular moment, I wonder where this would have gone.
Somewhat later I was teaching some Russian girls gymnastics in the water. It was an established class but it had been allowed to go to rack and ruin, people forgetting to bring their gym clothes with them, forgetting this, forgetting that. I decided that we would have a tidying up of discipline so as soon as the girls came in I made them perform their handstands for me in the water in their uniform, and if they didn’t have their uniform with them they were to go home and fetch it. If they didn’t have a uniform they weren’t to come back until they had one. There were a few other things as well that I wanted cutting out as well. it provoked quite a few sullen disputes but I was insistent on doing this. And I was well on my way to doing it when the first alarm went off.

Once again there was much more to it all than this but as you are probably eating your meal right now, I’ll spare you the miserable details.

After my shower I went out to go to the shops.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the other day that we saw part of the Rue Des Juifs fenced off, and I said that I’d go down and see what was going on.

And as luck would have it, there was a notice on the fencing. Basically, there is an archaeological survey going on right now involving the building and grounds in which the museum is situated.

They seem to think that it dates back to the founding of Granville and the building of the fortifications by the English during the Hundred Years War.

Myy walk up to LIDL was pretty uneventful but I spent quite a lot of money in there, even though there wasn’t anything particular extra that I bought, except for a set of compasses thet I need for measuring precise distances.

And not only that, some of the stuff that I wanted wasn’t available either, so it’s on the list for Saturday and LeClerc.

On the way back, my load was rather heavy and it was a struggle up the hill, that’s for sure.

And as I stopped for breath at the viewpoint overlooking the harbour, La Grande Ancre set sail out of her berth and out of the harbour.

So having recovered my breath I carried on back here. I was too tired to unpack the shopping though. I sat down on my chair and that was that until 13:30. About 2 hours, I reckon that i was right out of it altogether, and it felt like it too.

After lunch there was some more paperwork to do and then I went out for my afternoon walk.

There were plenty of people out there today but as far as photography went, there was nothing particular going on at all.

What there was though was some kind of yacht out there just off the coast of the Ile de Chausey. That looked interesting to I took a photo of it for future reference.

My walk carried on around the headland rather aimlessly and then I came back here.

At my desk I cropped and enlarged the photo that I had just taken. It looks as if it has the same kind of sails and rigging as a boat like la Granvillaise or her sister across the bay, but there is another yacht with a similar rig that sails around here occasionally and it might be her.

After my slice of banana bread, I had a go at the photos from my trip around Europe. I didn’t do too many of those because much of the time was spent doing some research into some of the items that I had photographed.

At 18:00 I knocked off and had an hour on the guitars. And I do like my new acoustic guitar.

Tea tonight was taco rolls with the leftover stuffing, with rice and vegetables followed by rice pudding

For my evening walk today, I went for my trip around the walls.

Looking over towards the Ile de Chausey, I could see a light shining just offshore, not too far away from where that strange yacht was moored this afternoon.

Of course I can’t say that it’s the same boat, but whoever it is seems to be bedded down for the night over there.

A strange cat came up to me tonight for a stroke, and then I set off on my run along the footpath.

This took me to the viewpoint from where there’s a good view over towards Jersey and the Channel Islands.

The view was really good tonight and we can see the light of some kind of boat – probably a fishing boat – working just offshore. What else we can see is a series of red lights just to the right of the white light.

You probably can’t see it in this photo but in an enlarged photo you can see that it’s actually the warning lights on the big radio mast that we have seen in photos of Jersey taken during the day.

Before I went home I did another couple of runs. One across the Square Maurice Marland and the other one down the hill back home. The three runs in total work out at about 850 paces, which equates to about 500 metres.

So now I’m going to have an early night, as much as I can. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow so I’m hoping that I can have a good sleep and then a good day doing a pile of work.

It’s about time too. I’m just falling farther and farther behind.

Monday 31st August 2020 – MY BANANA BREAD …

… was something of a success today.

Not exactly perfection, because if the truth be told, it was rather on the dry side, but nevertheless it was delicious and I shall be looking forward to a slice every day with my afternoon drink.

In fact, I do recall purchasing bread like this when I lived in Belgium so from a commercial point of view, it’s quite passable and I shall be thinking of ways to improve it as a go on.

So while you admire the almost-full moon this evening, let me tell you that my day today wasn’t all that much of a success.

Far from it, in fact.

It all went wrong last night where for some reason I wasn’t in the least bit tired and ended up still being wide awake at 02:00. But it wasn’t wasted time because I was actually doing some productive work.

Consequently, no leaving my bed this morning until 08:30 was not the disaster that it otherwise might have been.

I was in Nantwich last night walking up Welsh Row and there was a little girl far too young to be a grammar school pupil but she was in the grammar school uniform all the same walking up there. So I had a chat to her about the school. She said that she didn’t like it all that much – she wanted to go to one in Kent. That’s all that I remember about that.

This morning I have spent preparing another radio programme. All of the first 10 tracks have been selected, paired and merged and the intro added to the first pair.

That took me up to lunch where I tried my new loaf of bread. And that’s pretty good as well and i’m quite pleased with that.

This afternoon I was about to start the text for the radio programmes but Ingrid rang me up. We were chatting on the phone for a couple of hours about all kinds of things

As a result my afternoon walk was somewhat later than usual.

There was plenty of activity out to sea today. This boat here out to sea caught my eye because I couldn’t make out what it was at first. It didn’t look like a fishing boat to me.

Back here at the apartment I had a closer look at it. Although it’s difficult to see, the colour scheme seems to suggest that it’s some kind of official boat – although the police and customs boats are usually grey and blue

Down on the beach though it was quite busy today.

Lots of people seem to be taking advantage of the final week of official holidays and a rare warm, comparatively wind-free day.

There were plenty of people in the water today too. And that was no surprise because just look at the colour of the sea. We’ve seen it this beautiful emerald-blue on a couple of occasions this year and it’s really enticing when it’s as beautiful as this.

My walk continued along the path underneath the walls of the rue du Nord and round to the viewpoint overlooking the Plat Gousset.

The tide seemed to be on its way out but what caught my eye here was the pile of seaweed on the beach. Usually it’s pretty clear of seaweed so I’ve no idea where all of this has come from today.

There were several bird-men of Alcatraz up in the air too although it wasn’t really as windy as it has been. Nevertheless they seem to be having plenty of fun out there this afternoon.

Round by the Square Maurice Marland there wasn’t very much at all going on so I pushed on to the viewpoint overlooking the harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we saw several pallets of granite on the quayside awaiting the arrival of one of the Jersey freighters. They are still there waiting, but they have now been joined by a pile of these big builders bags full of building materials.

Obviously the arrival of either Thora or Normandy Trader is quite imminent. And with none of the passenger ferries to Jersey operating, they may well be bringing in all kinds of exciting things and in the past we’ve even seen cars being winched out onto the quayside.

When I was out and about on my travels last week I noticed that in the rue des Juifs there were all kinds of warning notices advising of parking restrictions due to take place.

Today, I can see that all of the parking is now fenced off, and they had this skyjack machine roaming around in the streets.

When I go out to the shops on Thursday I’ll have a good look to see if I can see what they have been doing. It’s high time that they gave some of the walls a bit more attention rather like they did last year to the part a little higher up the street.

Something else that’s been on my mind has been the town’s museum, situated in the old gatehouse by the drawbridge.

That’s been closed “for renovation” since before I came to live here and it makes me wonder when they intend to reopen it, because there has been little sign of any kind of movement. Today though, a digger has appeared in the grounds and they seem to be digging a big hole.

It’s just going to delay the opening even more, I reckon. I don’t suppose that i’ll ever get to see what the museum is all about.

Round by the port, there was plenty of activity going on.

The fishing boat les Bouchots de Chausey had just come into port and was busy unloading piles of bouchots – the mussels that grow on strings – onto the tractor and trailer.

There were so many crates in the hold that they were using the quayside crane as well as the crane on the trailer. That looks as if it’s a really good catch and they can be well-pleased with that.

It’s nice to see something successful happening here, even if it is stuff that I don’t like.

From there I trudged my weary way back home again to check my photos.

The Birdmen of Alcatraz were still out there and as I reached my building a couple of them flew by overhead.

Back here I had my slice of banana bread and then sat down to work on the speech for my radio programme.

And shame as it is to say it, I fell asleep on my chair. Not just for 10 minutes either but for a couple of hours too. When I awoke I felt totally dreadful and it took me a good half-hour to pull myself together again.

It’s probably the worst that I have felt for quite some considerable time.

Tea was a burger on a bun with potatoes and vegetables followed by the last of the apple crumble.

There was no-one about at all when I went for my evening walk tonight.

The moon was beautiful tonight as you have probably already seen. it was quite low in the sky tonight and looked really impressive shining as it did over the water at St Pair sur Mer.

Back here I had a chat with Liz and then wrote up my notes for today. having done that, I’m now off to bed, and not before time because i’m pretty tired again right now.

It looks to me if i’m not going to shake off this ill-health for quite some time and that’s really depressing. And if countries continue to pull in their borders it may well be that i might not be able to reach Leuven for my medical appointment at Castle Anthrax on 7th October.

It’s already 9 months since I’ve had my four-weekly cancer treatment and I’m feeling the strain terribly.

It’s also exactly 12 months today since I had my “life-changing” evening – the first of three that I had in the High Arctic that really did change my life for ever.

Three nights that I wanted to go on for ever and at the time, it seemed as if they would too.

It’s quite nostalgic right now, and terribly, terribly sad that it all ended like it did. I don’t regret a thing for a single moment and I’ll never be the same after all of that. Despite the fact that the water has flown well underneath the bridge, I won’t forget it for ever.

Sunday 8th March 2020 – I DON’T KNOW …

… whose idea it is to ring that cacophony of church bells at 11:00 on a Sunday morning but it’s almost as if they don’t want you to have a decent lie-in on a Sunday morning when they go around awakening the dead like that.

It certainly put paid to my morning reverie and I was obliged to leave the comfort and warmth of my beautiful bed.

It wasn’t the first time that I had had to leave the bed either. Round about … errr … 04:00 or something like that, I had to go for a ride on the porcelain horse. I thought that I had passed beyond that, but apparently not.

So I went off and had my medication.

While you admire the high winds that we were having and the storm that was raging somewhere out in the Atlantic Ocean, let me tell you about my morning.

First thing that I did of course was to check on the dictaphone. And sure enough, I’d been on a little voyage. I was with someone last night who resembled a girl with whom I had worked for a while although it wasn’t her I’m sure, someone like that. We were discussing languages. Something weird had come up and we had a reply to do which we had done in French or Flemish or something. This led to some kind of discussion about languages and what do we do, how did we behave, all this kind of thing. I made the point sometime during this discussion that what we did is that we’d have the radio on if we were at home and just listen to a French programme or a Flemish programme. It didn’t really make any difference to the two of us what we were listening to. Any of the languages were usually pretty good for us.

After that, I carried on with the project that I’m undertaking – of digitalising my collection of LPs.

On thing that I’ve been able to do is to find about 120 digitalised sound files of albums that I own, and I downloaded them all. I’ve then had to split them into individual tracks.

It isn’t easy because many of them are studio master tapes where the tracks are recorded in “recorded order” of course which is quite often very different than the order in which they are published on CDs and LPs

Another issue is that some of the tapes include tracks that were never ever published – rejected for one reason or another – and which I don’t have a clue what they are.

And sure enough, one of the sound files on which I was working was one of the latter.

Eventually, after a great deal of effort, I tracked it down. It seems that I have somehow managed to lay my hands on a rare Swedish-only version of a master-tape with one additional track that was only available in a couple of countries and a second additional track that was only available in Sweden.

That should be quite a curio when it comes to playing it on the radio programmes.

13:30. That’s a very civilised time to have breakfast, I reckon. And the last of the home-made apple juice from when I made the apple and pear purée. It’s certainly quite interesting when I am responsible for the making (within certain limits of course) of almost every product that I eat for breakfast.

After breakfast I didn’t really do all that much. After all, it is Sunday and I’m entitled to a break one day a week when I don’t do much.

Nevertheless, round about 15:30 or thereabouts I decided that I would have lunch. I wasn’t all that hungry, and there was an end of a baguette from yesterday hanging around in the kitchen.

Luckily, I had remembered to fetch some hummus out of the freezer yesterday. Roasted pepper hummus too, made with my own fair hands.

So I had a hummus, tomato, cucumber and lettuce butty for lunch, followed by the usual apple, pear and banana for afters.

And that reminded me (although I’ve no idea why it would) that the lemon and ginger syrup that I make for my medication is running low. Sometime later this week I’ll have to make some more. I’ve plenty of ginger but I bought some juice oranges so I’ll go for orange syrup this time.

Whatever happens, I mustn’t forget my afternoon walk. I’m only on 3% wandering around the apartment.

Mind you, sticking my head out of the door, I wasn’t too impressed about the idea of going out.

By the looks of things, there was a huge storm brewing away across the baie de Mont St Michel over there on the Brittany coast. And knowing my usual luck, I would probably end up finding myself right in the middle of it before I’d gone too far.

But anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound. I set off out.

And I wasn’t alone either. Despite the wind there were crowds of people milling around enjoying the weather and I was determined to join them.

My route took me right around the headland and down the steps at the end. And the farther on my travels I advanced, the more I didn’t like the look of the weather. It was just looking worse and worse

Mind you, my luck was in, for once.

The storm was advancing quite quickly but as I rounded the headland at the Pointe du Roc I could see that it was going to miss me by a good few miles.

It had found shore down by the Pointe du Carolles and places like Carolles-Plage and Jullouville were taking something of a pounding. I’m glad that it wasn’t here, because it did look particularly nasty over there.

My perambulations brought me further around the headland and here I was greeted with a sight that made the walk all worthwhile.

As I have said before … “many times” – ed … there’s nothing between that harbour wall and the eastern seaboard of the USA and here we have the highest tides in Europe.

Consequently the power that can build up in the water whenever there is a major storm anywhere in the North Atlantic is really impressive and the sea walls here catch the lot of it full force.

regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen some really impressive seas come roaring in just here.

And today is no exception to that. I stoop and watched it all for a good 10 minites even though I had other things to do, just because it was so impressive.

Strangely enough, there were several people passing by here, but no-one else seemed to be interested in staying to watch the free show.

So instead, I had a wander down to the port. The harbour gates were closed as, believe it or not, the tide is well out (although you might not think so) so I could cross over to the other side of the harbour.

One thing that has been interesting me is the story of the new pontoons that they have been installing in the harbour. We’ve seen the pontoons on the north side of the harbour alongside the rue du Port but I wanted to look at the new ones on this side

That is, assuming that I can get close enough to them, because they are crowded out with fishing boats right now. There can’t be too many out at sea today.

Another thing that we’ve been looking at as we have been on our way around is the scaffolding that is bolted to the side of the harbour wall here.

Being a Sunday and with no-one around, I took the opportunity to have a closer look, trying not to fall into the harbour while I was doing it.

And the result is that I’m still not too sure of its purpose and the OSB boards here fixed to the wall don’t seem to be able to throw any light upon the subject.

All that I can think of, as a wild guess, is that it’s a set of steps for the crew of the floating pontoon to descend to their little boat.

We’ve also seen them installing steel pillars in the harbour in order to extend the row of pontoons out perpendicularly from the harbour walls.

Three have already been installed in the harbour and I was sure that there were others although I couldn’t remember how many. Consequently I went to have a good look aroud and eventually came across them.

And I was correct. I had seen them and here they are – five of them by my reckoning. That seems to indicate two lines of four each and that’s not going to be good news for the commercial boats that come here and need the open space to manoeuvre.

And that’s going to be interesting even sooner than we imagined, because Neptune, one of the gravel boats, has just left Shoreham Harbour – “next stop Granville”. I was right about the heaps of gravel.

As you probably saw in the previous photograph, the storm has passed, the clouds are now all gone and the sun is now out.

That made me decide to push on and have a marathon walk all the way along the Quai Hérel all the way down to the new block of flats (and how I would love to live here!) and the Pointe du Roche Gauthier.

That’s as far as you can do around here. The path comes to a sudden stop and you have to retrace your steps 100 metres or so until you come to a flight of steps that go back up to the road.

So, retracing my steps, I can show you the big modern building over there on the left.

That’s the CRNG, the Centre Regional de Nautisme de Granville, and it’s also where the Youth Hostel and the Salle Hérel are.

The Salle Hérel was quite interesting today – or should have been – because they were having a “Free Market” where everyone takes the stuff that they no longer want so that others may help themselves.

However I was too late because anything that might have been of interest had probably long-since gone.

My walk brought me up past the Tax Office and it was round about here that I had an exciting encounter.

It’s not so much the car, but what the owner was using as a bulkhead to stop whatever was in the back sliding forward into the passenger seat.

It’s an old freight pallet cut down to size and trimmed to be an exact fit. I was well-impressed by this and wished that I had thought of it in the past when I had the Passat.

My walk took me onwards down little alleys that I had only glimpsed in the past.

My aim was to do down past the station and down into the Park de Val es Fleurs to see what was going on around there but in the distance I noticed a flight of steps that I hadn’t seen before.

That made up my mind to go and follow my star wherever it was going to lead me and see what was at the other end – stopping for a glance backwards at the railway engineering depot in the background where the trains are stored and repaired.

My little climb brought me out into a little housing estate where a small path led to the main Avenue de la Liberation.

This path in turn led me past a nice modern block of flats in the chemin de Choisel. And nice though the flats might have seemed, it wasn’t my cup of tea because someone was playing some music full-blast with the windows in one of the apartments.

Where I live, I have solid stone walls 1.2 metres thick so I can play music as loud as I like without disturbing the neighbours. That wouldn’t work here at all.

Out on the avenue de la Liberation and here’s a thing.

Ever since I’ve been in Granville, and probably for many years prior to that, there were some old, abandoned houses that were fenced off from the road.

It’s been a good while since I’ve been past here on foot and to my surprise something seems to be happening to them right now. We have a crane, a new roof and all other kinds of exciting things.

That will be a nice place to live when it’s all finished.

While I was here, I could have carried on down the road into town, gone down another footpath and the steps to the Park de Val es Fleurs, or else through the gardens of the Musée Christian Dior and down the steps to the Plat Gousset.

Obviously the latter will bring me closer to the sea and with me being a Pisces, being close to water is one of my aims, so I made my way down the side of the tennis club.

Last time I was out here, I saw a big cruise ship out to sea, so I had a look to see if I was going to be lucky again.

Not quite. No shipping out there today but we did have one of these mysterious buoys bobbing around in the sea down there. I still haven’t worked out what they are four but my suspicion is that they are something to do with fishing gear – nets or lobster pots, that kind of thing I reckon.

There were crowds of people out there today and a long, continuous line of people coming up the steps.

The steps are quite narrow and there isn’t much room to pass anyone so I had to wait for a while while they came up. That gave me an opportunity to take a photo of the nice archway down there that leads to the final flight of steps down to the promenade.

And the sea was looking pretty rough down there too. This could be very interesting.

And i wasn’t wrong either.

It’s now 17:40 which means that there’s still an hour or so to high tide, and the sea is totally wicked out there, smacking into the sea wall here with an incredible force and sending spray everywhere.

It’s lucky that the promenade s quite wide otherwise I could easily end up marooned down here and that wouldn’t be very pleasant, having to climb all the way back up the steps again..

And I wasn’t alone here either.

This was a show that you would have to pay a fortune to watch in some places, but we were having it for free. There were probably a couple of hundred people down here this afternoon making the most of the entertainment and we were all having more than our money’s worth.

So impressive was it that I stayed down here for half an hour taking photos when one of the very big waves came in

We’ve had quite a few storms down here so far this year, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, and we’ve seen plenty of areas that have been fenced off due to the damage that the wild seas have caused.

There’s some more over there and apparently this needs to be fixed before the Grand Marée, the very high tide, comes in on Wednesday. They’ve engaged some workmen to do the job and they have erected some scaffolding to work from, but I don’t fancy their chances out there today.

It’s a good job that it’s a Sunday – a Day Of Rest – today when they can have a day off.

While you admire a few more photos of the storm on the Plat Gousset, I climbed back up all of the steps and walked home via the square Maurice Marland.

There was still about 40 minutes or so before teatime, so I busied myself with another pile of photos from July 2019 and my trip to Iceland. I really need to press on with that before i’m much older.

The trouble is, though, that with having no internet out there, I wasn’t able to do any research into the photos. Consequently every one that I am editing, I need to research to find out where it is and what’s in the image.

Sunday is vegan pizza night of course, but it’s also pudding time seeing as I have the oven on already.

It’s usually rice pudding or some such, but last week we had a delicious apple crumble. Apple pie has been on the menu too in the past and that was what I intended to try today, using the new pie dish that I bought.

These pastry rolls are the business. The cheap ones from LeClerc are vegan of course so I always have a stock of those on hand. And I’d picked up some backing apples too on Sunday.

So, grease the pie dish and unroll one of the pastry rolls and put that in, gently pressing down so that it’s in at the seam at the bottom.

Thinly slice a couple of the apples and lie the slices in on top of the pastry, making as many layers as you can fit in, so that the pastry is completely covered.

On every layer, a think coating of desiccated coconut, brown sugar and lemon juice (and some cinnamon and nutmeg, which I completely forgot, for some reason or other that I can’t explain).

Unroll another pastry roll, cut out a top for the pie, with an overhang of about 2 cms.

Wet with some mile the part of the pastry that is on the lip of the pie dish, then put the top on and press it down really hard with a fork to the pastry underneath on the lip. Then trim off the excess pastry.

Put a few slits in the top of the pie to let out the steam, brush with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar. Then bung in the oven.

With the excess pastry, coast it on both sides – and your rolling pin – with flour to stop it sticking, and roll it out with your rolling pin. It won’t be square, so keep on trimming it off and adding the trimmings into appropriate places so that it’s as square as you can make it

Grease a flat oven tray and gently with a couple of spatulas, pick up your flat pastry and put on the tray. Add the leftover apple slices into the centre, with desiccated coconut, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg (which I remembered this time) then fold over all of the pastry and press it together to seal it.

Prick it with a fork to let the steam out, brush with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar, and bung that in the oven too.

And here’s the end result. It all looks pretty impressive and I bet it tastes even better even without the spices in the pie. I won’t be trying it this evening though because there’s still some apple crumble left.

Instead, the turnover was cut into 2 and put in the freezer, and the pie went in the fridge ready to start on tomorrow.

Rather like the time that I made a meat and potato pie when I was younger. I left the eyes in the potatoes so that it would see me through the week.

I’ll get my coat.

One thing that I mustn’t forget is my evening walk. I’m already up to 95% so i don’t intend to go far.

The NIKON 1 J5 and f1.8 18.5mm lens came with me so that I could have a little play around. I reset the ISO to “MAX 3200” rather than “MAX 6400” as the graining is too much, and stopped down a couple of stops to see what I could produce with that.

And f1.74 at 1/50 second and ISO3200 gave me this image. And for a hand-held shot, it’s quite reasonable. Joly France looks quite nice out there at the ferry terminal.

There have been much worse shots than this.

I’m wondering what else I can produce with this camera if I show some patience. Some good might come out of the enforced deprivation of the big NIKON D500

While you admire the rest of the photos of the storm there is something else that I mustn’t forget – and that is to go running.

And it’s a good job that I did those two-and-a-half runs yesterday because I only managed one and a half today. Not because of lack of willingness or lack of fitness, but because my first run down the rue du Roc was right into the teeth of a howling gale.

When I hit the slope of the hill about half-way or so along my course, it stopped me dead in my tracks and that was that. Luckily the return run along to boulevard Vaufleury was with the wind so that was a lot easier and I managed an extra 20 metres or so.

So now I’m back home and in the warmth.

There are tons of photos to edit and lots to write, so i doubt that I’ll be able to finish it tonight. But I’ll do what I can before I go to sleep and whatever remains to be done, I can finish it all off tomorrow.

Not that I’m complaining of course. This was a good day out and a really good walk around – more than enough to tire myself out. If I do fall asleep while writing out my notes, it will be for a very good …

ZZZZZZZ

Tuesday 24th September 2019 – I HAD MY …

… nocturnal voyage last night of course, but don’t ask me where I went because I have no idea.

All I know is that there’s another rambling 10 minutes or so on the dictaphone and it all seemed to have happened over an hour or so starting round about 02:45.

Np prizes for guessing who was accompanying me though. Having had a couple of days of rest, certainly Castor was back on duty during the night. I wouldn’t have not remembered that.

The alarms went off at 06:00 as usual but it was … errrr … some time later that I roused myself. Plenty of time for medication and to do a few things that needed doing before Sandra came down and we had breakfast together.

After breakfast I had a shower and Sandra washed my clothes for me which was very nice of her.

Then I hit the streets. I was aiming for the centre of town and the museums. The most important one here in Ottawa is the Aviation Museum but it’s closed one day a week as regular readers of this rubbish will probably realise, its day of closing is Tuesday.

That left, inter alia the Houses of Parliament. But the notice that I had read on the internet that amongst the items that I’m not allowed to take into Canada’s Parliament building are
“any pointed object (e.g. knitting needles and letter openers), electric stun guns, martial arts weapons or devices, slingshots, replica guns, explosive devices, ammunition, fireworks, knives of any size, razors and box cutters, tools, blunt instruments, flammable or harmful substances”.
So what’s the point of going if I can’t do any of that?

That left the War Museum so I went there. I arrived at 10:00 for what was expected to be a 2.5 hour visit, but I left there at 16:00.

Finding the place was exciting. There are road works all over Ottawa and I couldn’t turn right into the street where the museum is. That led to a frantic 10 minutes trying to find a way in and I passed the same road three times.

In the end, I drove right through Gatineau across the river and out around the back so that I could line myself up correctly.

And the car park has a height limit of 6’6″ so the roof bars on Strider made a mess of one or two of their signs.

Part of the time was spent looking at the military records of my great grandfather Thomas William Cooper. He was 50 when he signed up to fight in World War I but he lied about his age and his medical record shows that he “looked about 34” in 1914.

What they made of him having a son aged 20 who enlisted at more-or-less the same time isn’t recorded. But the Canadian Army was desperate for men and they couldn’t care less, especially as he had prior military service in the British Army in India and South Africa.

However, when he was demobilised due to ill-health in late 1917, they had his date of birth – 1864 – correct and his card is marked “age 53 – looks his age”.

I was then let loose on the exhibits and spent most of my time looking at the vehicles in the basement. They even had an early Fordson E83W van in there, and they bring back many happy memories for me because when we were small, my father had two of them one after the other – KLG93 and XVT772.

We used to travel all the way down to Kent in them in the late 50s and early 60s and it was a nightmare cramped inside there at a maximum 35mph for 250 miles.

We were so delighted when my father traded XVT in and bought a CA Bedford 967NVT. A beautiful van, complete with windows down the sides and proper seats for us kids, but the bodywork rotted off that right before our very eyes.

By 16:00 I was ready to leave and having checked that the car park would be open later, walked into the city.

I went to the Supreme Court to check it out and to work out an escape route for when I’ll be in there. And I managed to find a good way out too. I’l be back tomorrow to stash some civilian clothes and cash there. But one thing though – it took me longer to pass through “security” than it took me to case the joint.

Up to Parliament Hill to check that out too but it wasn’t so successful. Ottawa is a mess right now, everything is under repair and the Parliament buildings are surrounded by fences, piles of gravel and workmen. All disappointing.

Back at the War Museum and found it to be all locked up, including the car park. I did a couple of laps of the building before I found an intercom. A voice at the other end told me to go to the main door and wait – so I did.

After waiting a while someone came for me so I said “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting” – and he looked through me as if I had two heads.

But then he had to answer his radio, and he spoke in French. So when I said “je m’excuse pour le derangement” and he actually replied.

A monolingual Francophone in Ottawa. Who would have thought it?

The payment machines had been switched off so they needed to be switched on again. And then my card didn’t work on either floor so I had to use a new one.

Then I could rescue Strider – and he left his mark on a couple more signs on the way out.

Tea tonight was leftover pasta and then I decided on an early night.

After all of the excitement today, I’m keen to see where my voyages are going to take me. But before I go, seeing as I’m in a little maudlin mod right now,
here’s a certain little relevant something for one of the people who I believe is currently reading this blog.

I hope that it means something to you.

Sunday 18th August 2019 – I HOPE THAT …

… tonight isn’t as lively as last night was.

While it was interesting if not exciting, to see the Aurora Borealis and I don’t regret it for a moment, it interrupted my sleep pattern somewhat and I couldn’t get back off to sleep properly. Tossing and turning throughout the night with a very shallow sleep, I was not very rested at all.

Nevertheless I was out of bed at something-like and in time to see the early morning sun. Although I couldn’t see much through the thick sea mist.

We had breakfast of course and then a briefing about the day’s activities. Sisimiut is our destination today and I’ve been here before, although that’s not important. It gives me a chance to revisit a few places that I saw last time, only with a decent camera. And for Strawberry Moose too, for last time he was here he went kayaking and thus didn’t see too much of the town.

We had the customary guided tour around the town and then back to the ship for lunch. And afterwards, shame as it is to say it, I crashed out for quite some time. Mind you, that’s hardly a surprise given the events of the precious night

It was nice and warm outside so I discarded my fleece and went back into town with His Nibs to take some photos and to visit the museum of the history of the town.

The weather though was quite deceptive. It WAS bright and sunny and warm out there, but then a fog bank came rolling in off the sea and it went really cold – which is hardly a surprise seeing as we are north of the Arctic Circle.

Sill, a good chance for a wander around and a photo opportunity or two for His Nibs.

Back here there was a kayaking demonstration so I took advantage of everyone’s preoccupation to have a roasting hot shower and a clothes-washing session. Travelling light as I am, with just three tee shirts, three sets of underwear and two pairs of trousers, it’s important to keep on top of everything.

There was the usual resume of today’s events and then a briefing about tomorrow’s activities, followed by the evening meal. We had a staff introduction afterwards and I chatted to a few members of the team.

But now it’s bed-time. It’s not likely that we’ll be disturbed by any nocturnal sightings because there’s a thick sea mist outside and you can’t see anything. A good sleep will do me good, especially as I’ve edited 212 photos today in between everything else.

But not before I’ve shown one of the two little girls here back to the stairway to her cabin. “Lost” she said. But more like “having a good explore” if you ask me. And why not? Being a little kid is all about exploring

So right now, having organised her, I’m off to explore my bed.

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 – I REALLY DON’T …

… know what is happening these days but I had a night that was almost the same as the previous few nights. Awake at about 03:10 or thereabouts, and again at 05:15 and not being able to go off back to sleep. I’m getting rather fed up of this.

With the alarms going off it was still a struggle to haul myself out of bed and I didn’t beat the third alarm by very much.

Up on deck to see what was going on. And the short answer was “nothing”. The whole world was shrouded in a thick mist and I couldn’t see a thing.

Instead, I went back to my cabin and had a nice hot shower to freshen myself up and to wash another load of clothes ready for departure. So, nice and warm and damp, I slipped under the covers for five minutes and the next thing that I remember, it was 07:55 – 5 minutes to breakfast.

After breakfast, I managed to track down John Blyth. he had given us yesterday a talk on the charts of the High Arctic and had said that he had the charts on *.pdf. So I slipped him an USB key.

There was a talk this morning on wild flowers of Greenland, followed by a charity auction. I was present in body but not necessarily in spirit as I attacked the photos. In effect, Jessie has asked to see my top 15 from this trip so I went through and sorted some out while everything was happening. I’ve ended up with about 30 which is rather more than she wanted but that can’t be helped.

By this time we had arrived in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. The most northerly capital city in the world.

Lunch was early today – 11:30 – so we had to be quick. And then we were called down to the bus that was to take us into the town centre. We were actually tied up at the quayside today for once so no need for the zodiacs

A delightful Inuit girl called Evie (which is a shortened form of her real name which, like most Inuit names has about 100 characters) took us on a walk around the cultural centre, the old town and finally to the museum.

And I learnt something that I didn’t know, in that films in the cinema in Nuuk, they are shown in “version originale” with subtitles in Danish. Not in Greenlandic because apparently there wouldn’t be enough room on the screen for the characters and it would take too long to read them.

Which reminds me of the old chestnut about why there are so many babies born in Greenland. The answer is that the Greenlandic word for “no” is so long that by the time the girl has finished saying it, it’s already too late for the guy.

The museum was interesting. Apart from the usual stuff that you would expect to see, there was an exhibition featuring the Norse in Greenland. That was quite exciting for me at least, so I made a beeline thereto. And remind me to find out more about the “farm in the sands” that has recently been discovered at Nipaatsoq.

By now Rosemary had joined me so we wandered off for a coffee where we learnt the dreadful news from the UK. It beats me just how so many people can be so stupid and irresponsible.and so keen to bring down chaos and disorder upon themselves.

We went off shopping and Rosemary bought a few souvenirs for herself and her friends and then we just about had enough time to catch the last bus back to the ship.

Tea was taken in the company of a Francophone Canadian couple and by a German guy from an adjoining table who insisted on joining in our conversation. But at least this Canadian couple was delightfully normal which makes a change.

Now, there’s a chocolate party going on in the back of one of the lounges so I’m comfortably esconced in the library typing my note. But as I see the mountain of uneaten delicacies making their way back to the kitchen, I’m appalled at the waste of food when there are so many starving people all around the world.

And in other news, I saw one of the young waiters, a tall thin guy from the Maldives, dressed in civvies and making his way off the ship. He told me that he was going home. Later on I asked one of the friendly waitresses about it. She confirmed that he was leaving, and when I asked why, she made a very non-committal gesture. Whatever reason there is for his leaving the ship, the staff is not allowed to talk about it.

It’s still early so I’m going to edit a few more photos before I go to bed. Our last complete day tomorrow and hasn’t it gone so quickly?

Saturday 20th July 2019 – HVALSEY!!!!

Today was a really exciting day in which a great deal was accomplished. Another one of my lifetime destinations has been reached.

But it wasn’t quite like that at the start. I awoke, just for a change, at 05:00 and couldn’t go back off to sleep. But that’s not to say that I was up and about very lively. I did manage to beat the third alarm but only just, and staggered into an early breakfast looking something like the Death of Nelson. I’m not feeling myself these days which is just as well, because it’s a disgusting habit.

After breakfast I went back to my room and relaxed for a very short while before we were called to the boats, and then we set off for Hvalso.

Hvalso is better-known by its Norse name – Hvalsey – and is internationally famous as having probably the best-preserved Norse ruins in North America. It’s long-been my ambition to come here and this is probably one of the main reasons why I’m here on this voyage.

There are the remains of a magnificent stone house with all of the outbuildings and other offices. No-one can really tell the date of when it was first constructed but it was expanded over a period of several centuries culminating in some work as late as the very early 15th Century, towards the very end of the Norse settlement in Greenland.

Not only that, there are the remains of a magnificent Norse church from maybe the 13th Century and which are quite intact considering that it has been abandoned for 6 centuries or so. Highlight of the church though is an incredible arched window of a type that I have never seen before in Norse architecture. I had no idea that they knew the principle of arches and keystones. And what is more, it is still intact and that is even more of a surprise.

Another claim to fame is that the last written event in Norse Greenland took place here. The Norse here were never very into writing so written records are … errr … scant. But in 1408 here is a record of a wedding that took place in the church between a local girl and an Icelandic man. And after that, there is no written word that ever came out of Greenland until the 18th Century and a new breed of settlers.

The fate of the Norse is unknown and any suggestion is mere speculation. However we can rule out that they returned to Iceland or Norway despite what some people suggest. While it’s certainly true that some did – the husband at the wedding was recorded as being in Iceland a couple of years later – they would not have sent out search parties to Greenland during the next few centuries to look for any Norse survivors had they all returned to Iceland or Norway.

And suggestions that they returned because of land inheritances in the rest of Norse Europe becoming more available after the Black Death is quite clearly absurd when you consider that the Black Death took place 70 years (or three generations) previously.

And even if that were the case, it’s by no means certain that every last man or woman would leave. We’ve seen for ourselves that when the Inuit at Grise Fiord were offered the chance to return to their homeland after just 20 or so years and leave the desperately inhospitable environment of Ellesmere island, a great many of them chose to cling on.

The church here at Hvalsey was built on the site of an earlier, smaller church and one of the walls was built over part of the old graveyard. Consequently as the bodies rotted away and the graves caved in, the wall on that side sagged dangerously but has now been stabilised.

While I was there I took the opportunity to go for a wander around with the geologist. I’d been attracted to the fact that in the walls of the church were several blocks of pink granite, quite unlike the main stone in the area, that has been so well-cut that there was not a single tool mark upon them. The general opinion, from our archaeologist that they had been cut by hand seemed most unlikely to me.

However, we soon found what we had been looking for. Not too far away, a bed of granite had at some time infiltrated the metamorphic rock and at one point there was a twin-fault line that passed right through it. The granite had been cleaved by Nature on both sides to absolute perfection and there was clear evidence that some of this rock had been removed.

So that answered my question far more easily than I had imagined. My opinion of this archaeologist is going downhill quite rapidly, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

We also had a kind-of stone corral for horses, several foundations that looked as if they might have base of medieval tithe-barns and warehouses, and a load of stone walls, clearly man-made but using some of the heaviest stones that you could imagine.

There was also something that looked very much like an Inuit grave or cache but this was disputed, and Nature had provided the site with all kinds of wild herbs that would have been a boon to any Norse chef.

One thing that Yours Truly uncovered that had been missed by the excavators of the site was some writing chiseled into the lintel over the doorway into the church. Anyone who knows anything about European architecture of the middle period of the Second Millennium will know that builders had a habit of carving the date into the lintel. That was what I had been looking for.

But as for what the writing might be, It seemed to be something like …CLL … and the rest was covered in a heavy growth of lichen that was clearly the original growth. Obviously it’s against the Law to scrape away any of the lichen so I shall have to leave that to the experts. But it doesn’t seem to suggest any kind of Roman numeral that I might be able to identify

While all of this was going on, we were overflown by an eagle. And there was a fisherman out there catching the cod that were leaping about all over the place. It was all quite lively. What wasn’t lively though was the farm further down the valley. Greenland has 37 farms, of which 35 are working. However this one is one of the two that isn’t. It ceased operation in 2006 when the owner retired and it was bought by people who use it just as a weekend retreat.

Back on the ship and lunch, by which time we had sailed to the town of Qaqortoq. This is the largest town in south Greenland, with about 3,000 inhabitants and our stop for this afternoon.

A guide took us around the town on a guided tour and showed us the sights. We were walking around for about 90 minutes and saw plenty of things, but nothing that I would call “startling”, except for the only public fountain in Greenland.

Somewhere round by the river we fell in with a couple of little girls aged about 7 or 8 or something. They were proudly displaying a bottle in which were several tiny little fish about an inch or so long. Obviously following in the Inuit traditions There were some young teenage boys leaping off a high cliff into a freezing cold lake. Rather them than me.

We finished up in the modern church, built in 1973, and had a tour around the local supermarket to see the prices in there. Not quite as outrageous as I was expecting compared to Northern Greenland.

The museums were interesting, especially the Norse museum where there were remarks that seem to confirm some of my ideas, and then we went for a coffee at the local hotel.

A little later, I took Strawberry Moose for a walk around the town and for a few photo opportunities, which he enjoyed immensely.

Tea tonight was a vegetable biryani which was probably among the best that I have ever eaten. It was totally delicious although I would have liked it to be more spicy, as you might expect. I can’t be doing with this North American idea of spicy food.

In the evening, while everyone was watching a film, I was typing my notes when Ben the Chef came over for a chat. A huge mountain of a man he was born in Brisbane but came to the UK when he was 3 and lived in Liphook and then in Wiltshire. We chatted about quite a few things for quite some time.

He told me that one day soon we are to have a banquet of local delicacies. He had been ashore today and bought a load of whale meat and things like that for us to try. And when I say “us”, I don’t mean that I will be participating. It all sounds pretty revolting to me and anyway I’m a vegan, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

So I’m now off to bed. No chance of an early night with so much going on, but I’d be happy if I could just sleep through until when the alarm goes off. One of these days I might just manage it, but I’m not holding my breath.

Saturday 13th July 2019 – HAVING HAD …

… yet another reasonable sleep with only a moderate amount of disturbance, I was ready for the alarm when it went off. And ready for the second one too. I did however manage to beat the third alarm.

For a change just recently, I remembered my medication too, so properly provided, I staggered up on deck to see what I could see. And the answer to that conundrum was “nothing at all” because there was more of this thick, clammy fog everywhere.

After breakfast, things changed slightly. We had a briefing or two but I drifted away after a while because I could see in the distance the mast of a boat. This was the pilot boat pulling up alongside and that told me that we must be close to land.

Accordingly, I went up on deck. And I’m glad that I did (and consequently missed the group photograph) because the manoeuvre to get into the harbour here at Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyar Islands is quite interesting. There was a volcanic eruption here in 1973 and a flow of lava spread down from the Eldfell mountain, engulfing half of the houses and flooded into the harbour entrance, almost closing it off.

As a result, the harbour mouth that used to be about 800 metres wide is now about 150 metres. The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour had to perform a series of spectacular manoeuvres, including turning around and reversing in. And when you have a 137-metre ship trying to turn round in a 150-metre opening, it’s certainly exciting.

Eventually we found our way in, pursued by a ferry from the mainland, and tied up.

I’d missed the start of lunch, which meant that I had to dash to be ready for our coach trip around the island. Our driver took us to the museum where we could see the history of the eruption as well as a house that had been excavated from the ash, and then off on a sight-seeing expedition.

He took us to a bay where Algerian pirates had landed and carried off half of the population into slavery, and also to the site of what is considered to be the first settlement on the island, dating from the late 9th Century and may even precede the official date of 874 AD that is given for the first Norse colonialisation of Iceland.

But it was very interesting listening to the guide and the driver talking about “Iceland” as if it were somewhere else and a completely different country to their own out here on Vestmannaeyar.

And had I known – but the local football club IBV Vestmannaeyar plays in the Icelandic Premier Division and they were playing “at home” this afternoon about half a mile away from here. I could have made the game had I put my skates on.

Back at the ship, the others wandered off for a zodiac ride. Strawberry Moose and I went for a walk down to the old fort, the old church and the old house to see what was going on. And I’m glad that I did as I only just managed to beat the caretaker locking up the church.

There were kids playing around, and a wedding party there too. All of the passing ships and boats were saluting them.

My trip took me to the local supermarket to compare prices. Seeing as this is an island in the Far North, I found that the prices were not as ridiculously high as I was expecting. In fact, some of the goods were priced quite reasonably when compared to the mainland of Iceland. I still couldn’t afford to live here though.

Back on the ship we had tea, interrupted by passing the island of Surtsey, the new one that sprang up out of the Atlantic 50-odd years ago and which we saw on our way into Iceland.

We all said our goodbyes too because tomorrow will be quite hectic as people leave. And then we had the “talent show”, from which I steered well clear. I’ve seen at first hand the embarrassment that this kind of event may cause.

So now it’s bed-time. And an early start yet again tomorrow. There’s a lot to be done so I hope that I have a good night’s sleep.

Wednesday 10th July 2019 – I HAVE TAKEN …

… today probably the most exciting photograph that I have ever taken in the whole of my life. And it’s been described by the professional photographers on board as a “unicorn moment”.

It was even featured as one of the Photos of the Day.

We’re in the town of Husavik, another one of the towns on the north coast of Iceland. Its claim to fame is as a whale-watching centre and we were out whale-watching this morning. There were plenty of them about too, hump-backs giving us a most amazing performance. There was even a mother and calf swimming around close by our boat.

At one point though I was rather bored and started to look around for something else of interest. My eye settled on an old sailing boat out across the bay, quite a long way. And just as I clicked on the shutter to photograph it, a large hump-back whale leapt out of the water.

I know that they can do that but it happens so infrequently that it’s rarely photographed. And here I was, quite by accident.

Last night was rather a strange night. Fell asleep watching a film yet again, but awakening round about 04:00 for a trip down the corridor. I did manage to go back to sleep and even on a nocturnal voyage involving Rosemary and an old Ford Anglia 105E but the moment I awoke it evaporated even before I could reach for the dictaphone.

It was a struggle to leave the bed this morning and having an early breakfast didn’t help matters. Back down to the cabin for a short repose and then off whale-watching.

We were on traditional oak boats and wrapped up in waterproof rain gear overalls although the sea was such that we didn’t really need them. Mind you it was rather hairy when the observer shouted “Thar she blows!” and 60 people all surged over to the other side. We shipped a wave in on more than one occasion.

But it was worth it because the whales were so active. We counted at least 5 different ones (not including my leaping whale) and we saw them on many different occasions too.

3 hours the journey was to take, and we were out for 3 hours and 5 minutes, so we had our money’s worth and i don’t begrudge them a penny.

Lunch was back on the ship and then we went out for a walk. We made it through town to the local museum (which we didn’t go in due to payment issues) and then walked back across another part of the town to the harbour.

There was a free exhibition there talking about the history of whaling and that was extremely interesting. So much so that we were well-engrossed in the place and they had to send a guide from the boat to remind us that we were due to sail.

On the way back I had to make a detour. I couldn’t find my mobile phone and I wondered if it had fallen out of my pocket on the whaling boat. As luck should have it, our boat was tied up at the quay with the staff from this morning helping people on board. They remembered me (who would ever forget me?) but there was no trace of my phone.

Time to go back to the ship, which I undertook in the company of another fellow-traveller who is recovering from a serious operation. Lots of people on here with health issues.

Evening meal was taken with the ship’s historian with whom I’d spoken a couple of times about the Norse. I floated a couple of names past him but he gave no hint that he recognised them.

So I dunno.

There’s a full house of activities tomorrow. I’m off on a photo safari with the official photographer tomorrow, followed by some free time and then a coach trip into the interior to see a nature reserve and the excavation of what is said to be a Norse settlement. I’m looking forward to that.

Something tells me that I had better have an early night.

Tuesday 9th July 2019 – HAVING SAID ..

… that I was planning on an early night last night, I wandered back to my cabin and began to watch a film. However, I never even made it past the credits, so tired was I

And it will be the same tonight because I feel totally wasted. It has been a really hectic day.

Something of a struggle to tear myself out of my stinking pit at the sound of the alarm. However I did make it to breakfast at the appropriate time, but it would be wrong to say that I was the life and soul of the party.

During the night we had sailed down the Eyjafjördur fjord and moored at the quayside in the town of Akureyri, the “Capital of the North”, just as Tintin did in the Aurora in The Shooting Star.

First item on the agenda was a trip out to some archaeological ruins but as our bus wasn’t until 09:15, I had time to chill out for a while before leaving. At least, that was the plan, except that my reverie was interrupted by the cleaner bursting in to clean my room.

But I made it onto the quayside in time and much to my surprise the driver was from Wolverhampton. Married to an Icelandic girl whom he had met in London, she wanted to return home so he came too. And just like us, he has no intention of ever returning.

We also learnt a few Icelandic definitions today. A tree is a tree, a wood is two trees standing close together and a forest is three trees ditto.

This morning’s destination was Gasir, an abandoned Norse village about 11 kms away. And when I say “Norse” I don’t really mean it because although it’s from the late Norse period, it’s actually a settlement just occupied seasonally by merchants trading with the area.

We don’t know for sure who these traders were but the discovery of German goods from the pre-Hanseatic days and alse English trade goods is very significant.

There were the remains of a church here and these were quite visible following some excavation, even down to the churchyard wall. Plenty of foundations of booths too, many of which have never been excavated. It was quite a big, busy place during the trading season.

So why was it abandoned? The answer is that you can see from the photo the spread of alluvial silt that has accumulated. Most boats anchored in the river to the side of the settlement but round by the 15th Century the accumulation of silt made this impossible.

It’s very tempting to consider the influence of the mini-Ice Age of this period that put an end to the Medieval Warm period, and look for a change in the weather, the tides and the currents causing the build-up of silt.

But one thing is quite clear. The archaeological investigations of the area so far carried out have turned up absolutely nothing of any size whatever. Trinkets that were easily lost or discarded and broken objects, but nothing of anything that would be classed as a large object. There was no wood discovered of any importance.

This points to what would be described as an “orderly evacuation” of the site where everything possible would be taken away for re-use, rather than a panic-stricken flight such as you might have when invaders arrive and the inhabitants take only what they could carry, or an evacuation following a fire.

Something else I learnt about Iceland this morning too. There are horses everywhere, thousands of them, and we asked their purpose. And the reply can only be given with an Icelandic accent, which is impossible to do in a text format, so you’ll have to do the best you can.

“Ven the horssiss is born they go out into the fields and learn to become ponies. Zen ven they get to four years we go to ride them. And of they bite and kick too much ve make zem into sausages”

So now you know.

On the way back I sat next to our Norse expert, hoping to pick his brains. However he must have had a hard day too because he dozed off and slept all the way back to the ship. So much for that!

After lunch we decided to have a little rest for a few minutes before setting off on our travels. We would meet again at 14:00. I remember seeing 13:50, but the next thing that I remember was that it was 14:10. I needed to put my skates on.

I ended up heading off on my own. Right out of the city to the Air Museum, the Motorcycle Museum and the Museum of Industry. But my admission pass didn’t cover them after all of that, so I headed back to town, stopping off at a few civic museums on the way.

One of them had an exhibition of maps and one of the comments startled me. It went something like “improvement in ships and navigation techniques in the 15th and 16th centuries meant that mariners could visit the New World” or something along those lines, completely forgetting that the Norse had been visiting the New World for 500 years prior to Cabot and Columbus.

Nothing else of any great interest although my admission pass covered them, but we did discover a Toy Museum. Several toys such as pedal cars and kiddies’ tricycles parked outside and Strawberry Moose enjoyed them immensely.

Further along on my route back I came across an ice-cream parlour that sold – would you believe – vegan ice cream, so I stocked up with a large coconut ice cream, that cost me almost €5:00.

Across the road was a signpost pointing up a steep path to the Botanical Gardens, so I staggered my way up there. And “stagger” was the word because it was long and steep.

But well worth the climb because not only was it beautiful, blue poppies and black tulips included, but the smell was delicious. I sat there for a good half-hour to soak it all up, and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that this isn’t like me at all. As I have said before, and on many occasions too, the only time that I would ever be likely to take a photograph of a flower would be if an old car were parked upon it.

Back down into town where I was nearly squidged by a couple of cars, I discovered that many restaurants are selling vegan options. No danger of me having difficulties about eating out – except the price of course because things are horrendous here.

After tea I had a nice hot shower which helped me to relax after my efforts. I washed my clothes too – I need to keep up-to-date with my washing as I don’t have much stuff. Then I girded up my loins. It’s going to be another very long day so I need to be on really good form. I remember the rush around that we had last year and if anything it’s intensified.

Still, no peace for the wicked.

There was another beautiful sunset so I stayed on deck and watched it as the pilot helped us navigate our way out of port and then came back down to go to bed. I need a good sleep ready for tomorrow.

Monday 8th July 2019 – I DIDN’T EVEN …

… know whether I was right or not last night, because I went straight to bed. And fell asleep in the middle of a Fu Manchu film.

Right through to about 05:20 too, which is pretty unusual. So when the alarm went off at 06:00 I was out of bed quite promptly.

Remembering my medicine for once, I went out to take a couple of early-morning photos. We were off the island of Grimsey, 40 or so kms off the Iceland mainland and half in the Arctic Circle.

A very early breakfast and I went to put on my cold weather gear. There are limits on the number of people allowed onshore at any one time so half of us, me included, were going for a ride in a zodiac first.

We saw the basalt columns and the stratified lava layers, and also puffins. There’s a big puffin colony on the island. One of them even performed a dance for me. There were several birds in nests jealously guarding their chicks.

Once we were allowed to land, I took a couple of photos of the harbour and the boats, and then we went for a walk out past the airport. Strawberry Moose came with me and he posed on the marker where the Arctic Circle crosses the land mass.

On our way back we passed another colony of puffins, one of whom had a load of sand eels in his beak. Or so it seemed at first, but on closer inspection it appeared to be its beard.

Back on board ship I had another relax and then it was lunch. Yet another buffet again today, and delicious it all was.

As we left the harbour I noticed a ship in the distance heading our way, so I set out down to the bow to photograph it. But I bumped into the guy who did the presentation yesterday on the Norse. I asked him a couple of questions about his presentation because there were certain things about which I disagreed.

And by the time that I had finished, not only had the other boat gone past, but it was in the harbour and out of sight. Instead I attended a presentation on polar bears in Iceland. And I still disagreed with the previous presenter

Later, we docked at Siglufjördur. This was formerly one of the biggest towns in Iceland but was badly affected by the collapse of the herring industry in the 1960s. At one time, 20% of Iceland’s exports was in herring and herring products from here.

Much of the old infrastructure had been abandoned but a couple of local teachers had collected what they could and restored it, and opened a museum in the old abandoned buildings. We were all invited to see how the herring fishery was back 100 or so years ago.

But aren’t people funny? I’d positioned Strawberry Moose at the wheel of an old trawler and stepped back to take a photo of him. And as I was stepping back, someone pushed right in front of me and climbed into the wheelhouse, obstructing my view and almost knocking His Nibs off his perch.

The old workshop and mechanics’ room was so interesting that I was almost the last person back on board. But I’d been delayed by a moment of high amusement. There was a kiddies’ bouncing castle thing with a pile of kids on it. A girl of about 8 was showing off, bouncing down onto her derriere and back to her feet. An older girl, about 10 or 11 or so, thought that she could do it so she bounced down onto her derriere and bounced right off the mattress into the bushes.

But one thing that I do have to say, and that is that on board our ship is an ancient guy who needs to go everywhere with one of these wheeled walkframes. It’s a totally unsuitable arrangement for life on board a ship, as you can imagine and it’s even worse on land, where conditions are even more difficult.

He set off with his walkframe to visit the museum, which is a good couple of kilometres from the docks, and as you might expect, gave out along the way. He struggled into the museum but they had to send a car to fetch him back to the ship.

This is really rather thoughtless of him, of the people with him and the people who run the operation. A certain level of mobility must surely be an absolute requirement on a voyage like this.

Tea tonight was another buffet and I almost ate the wrong meal. There was a vegetable curry so I helped myself to a good portion, only to find out that it had cream in it, and there was a special supply for me.

Later on, we were entertained by an Icelandic folk group playing all kinds of traditional airs. Not my cup of tea but I stayed and watched nevertheless.

Well, almost, because near the end a big trawler in a neighbouring berth set out to sea so I went outside and photographed it.

Now it’s another early night, and I can’t say that I’m sorry. I’m exhausted after my two long walks and it’s another busy day tomorrow.

Friday 3rd May 2019 – I’VE DONE …

… a massive 15% – almost 20% – of the outstanding files on the dictaphone list this morning.

211 was the figure at which I started this morning. By late morning it was a mere 172. And the only reason that I stopped was because I reckoned that I ought to be doing other things as well.

Actually, I cheated. I finally found out where I’d copied the notes previously. I’d actually typed them directly into the blog entries without putting them in the notes file.

Ad so I simply copied and pasted them into the dictaphone notes file, and that was that.

Despite my saying that I’d be having an early night last night, it didn’t quite work out like that. Just as I was planning on going to bed, I had a phone call.

And that put paid to my early night, and in spades too because by the time that I’d finished the phone call, my desire to sleep had gone and it was long after midnight when I finally hit the sack.

And I was off on a voyage too. I was in the EU last night and a princess probably the princess of Monaco came walking through. I had my camera with me so I took a few photos of them. She asked to see them and was quite impressed. She said that she would be at a meeting at the Parliament there at 09:15 next day and would I like to photograph her there. So about 09:05 I picked up all of my stuff, cameras and the like but because I didn’t have a flash I carried a copper frying pan with me that would reflect the light. As I set off I had to walk through my office. everyone was sitting there like at school and I just walked through with my camera and my stuff and straight out of the back door, leaving them open-mouthed at what was going on. I had to fight my way through the huge crowds at the Commission (?!) And found myself at the back of this big meeting where a huge discussion was taking place. There were thousands of people there but I couldn’t see this princess. We were discussing documents and all this kind of thing. Suddenly a document came up talking about storage and I realised that it was a document that I had prepared. They were passing copies about through the meeting to people who hadn’t had them and an extra copy of this document which was in two parts appeared at my desk. I hung onto it as no-one else behind me seemed to want it. A woman came in late and had all of her documents given to her late. She started to ask “who’s this EH who had prepared this document?” I said that it was me – tey asked me who it was; She said that she didn’t have a copy so I passed mine over or the spare one that i had. She was not very impressed because she was expecting a much bigger document. I couldn’t see this princess and her children (because she had some children with her) anywhere in this meeting, but they were all looking at me and my stuff wondering what I was doing. I think that that Nicole was there at one time.

It goes without saying that I didn’t leap joyously out of bed with the lark this morning. Just after 07:00 it was when I finally saw the light of day.

After the usual morning performance, rather later than it has been just recently, I did the photos for yesterday and then attacked the dictaphone notes.

What with a stream of interruptions and the like, and searching for the notes files, it took me until probably 11:30 or something like that to demolish a good pile of them.

Next task was to do some of the outstanding blog entries – to update the photos. I’m now back to 12th July 2018. I’ve left out the trip to the High Arctic because I have plans for that.

There were no photos for 11th July, and 10th July puts me back to the last day of my voyage around Europe. We’re at the Somme battlefield and I spent much of the remainder of the day allocating the text and alt tags to the photos from that period.

When they are done, I’ll update the blog entries as appropriate, and then think about doing the web pages.

here was lunch in between all of that, and it was taken indoors again. The high winds are putting the wind up me as far as sitting on the wall goes.

I called a halt to the photos when it was time to go for my afternoon perambulation.

And I immediately came under aerial attack. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that back in August when we were at the Cabanon Vauban we saw an autogyro fly right past where we were standing.

This afternoon, just as I walked out of the apartment, the aforementioned machine flew right over my head. And so I took a photo of it.

That wasn’t the only aerial operation going on this afternoon.

About 30 seconds later, one of the hang-gliders flew past my head. There were a few of them out there this afternoon enjoying the windy weather.

I must admit to having a little musing to myself about how exciting it might have been had the hang-glider and the autogyro had a meeting of the minds and bodies right over where I was standing.

And that was far from being all of the excitement out there too.

Round on the Pointe du Roc not too far from where the bunkers are situated, there were some people measuring up, setting pegs and tapes on the ground and marking something out.

Further enquiries (because I believe that if you want to know the answer to the question, you have to ask the question) revealed that they are going to erect a monument to the Heroes of the Resistance on this spot

We can’t have a trip around the Pointe du Roc without going to see what is going on in the chantier navale

We have the two usual boats that have been there for a while, and on the right is the old trawler that has been on blocks over on the far side of the yard for as long as I can remember.

But on the left we have what looks like a different trawler that has come in for some kind of repair or renovation.

In between dodging the aerial attacks earlier, I’d been looking out to sea to see if there were any boats on their way in.

I’d noticed something in the distance and snapped it once or twice, but sure enough, it eventually chugged round the Pointe du Roc and into the Baie de Mont St michel.

And then I was finally able to work out what it was. We have a fishing boat and it seems to be towing a smaller boat behind it.

Back here, I had another outstanding task that needed dealing with.

The memory stick that I take with me when I travel is a mass of confusion because I’ve been very lax in bringing the files up to date.

So what I did was uploaded them all to this computer and wiped the memory stick clean for future use. Then, with all of the files now on the computer, I eliminated all of the duplicates.

Next wtep was to allocate files to folders where I could.

Finally, I had a mass of files, some with two, three or even four copies which are all different. My next task is to do a compare and merge so that there is only one file for each, but with everything on it.

Tea was another slice of shepherd’s pie with gravy and veg, followed by fruit salad and soya cream.

Time then for my evening walk of course.

My trip took me by the house on the corner of the rue du Nord – the one that is currently under major renovation. They’ve now laid some grillage on top of the insulation that they put down yesterday, so it looks as if the concrete won’t be far behind.

I’ll be intrigued to see how it all comes out.

It was a thoroughly beautiful evening out there tonight, and the colours in the evening sunshine were marvellous.

Just the type of evening that is ideal for photography so I spent some time out there taking a pile of pics of the scenery.

This one of the cliffs above the Plat Gousset, with the Museum Christian Dior on the top, has come out particularly well.

talking of things coming out particularly well, on my way back home via the rue Notre Dame, I was greeted by Minette, the old black cat.

She came over for a good stroke, and she expressed a considerable amount of interest in the camera.

Clearly she was looking for her little moment of fame, and what could I do apart from obliging her? She really is a nice cat, although she would benefit from a good grooming.

So back here now, and I really am going to try for an early night. I was disappointed about yesterday so I want to catch up, and of course I have shopping tomorrow.

I need a pile of stuff too so I need to be on form.

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Friday 22nd March 2019 – GUESS WHO …

… forgot to switch on the alarm this morning?

Yes, Bane of Britain strikes again, didn’t he? At least I had an unexpected and welcome lie-in.

I’d been on my travels too. Dealing with issues of about two inches of water on the kitchen table and worktops (and how it was staying on there without running off I really don’t know) with tons of bits of bread all soaked in it. And I was using some kind of net to fish it out so that it didn’t wash down the drain and block it up.

As a result I had a very late start to my day, which I have spent mainly catching up with the photos (which are now up-to-date). On Monday some time I’ll have to start adding them to the blog entries.

But about 15 minutes of the day was also spent curled up on my chair asleep. Despite the lie-in and the brazil nuts, I can’t escape from this fatigue.

There was lunch of course, and for tea I found a curry in the freezer. Only three months old too. But the freezer is pretty crowded at the moment and I’m running out of carrots. I’ll have to buy some more tomorrow and hope that in the meantime the freezer will empty itself a little.

The walks were something of a disappointment in the sense that for the whole day we had a sea mist that obscured the view.

But with there being the lowest tides of the year right now, the pecheurs à pied – those who go scavenging in the rock pools along the coast – were out there in force right now.

One of my neighbours was down there too somewhere and he showed me his collection of fruits de mer later in the day.

But regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I mentioned a while ago that there was some talk of opening up some of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall to make some kind of museum.

I noticed today that one of them has been opened up, there’s some kind of grille or grating placed across the opening and they seem to have started work inside it.

So perhaps we’ll have our museum after all.

And this evening I was once more alone on my travels around the walls.

As I said earlier, there was a sea mist out there and it was making the surroundings look all rather surreal.

The buildings of the Place d’Armes looked quite Gothic in this sort of lighting.

And so I took a couple of photographs of them this evening, using different camera settings.

You can see the results in these two photos here.

I’ve managed to see both my cats today. Gribouille came for a good stroke, and so did Minette later – that is, until she smelt Gribouille.

So shopping tomorrow. I’m a little low on stuff at the moment so I need to stock up. A nice early night is called for.

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Sunday 6th January 2019 – ONE THING THAT …

… I do like about Sundays is being able to turn over, glance at my watch, see that the time is 09:30 and then turn back and go to sleep.

And had I not had the necessity to go for a ride on the porcelain horse I would probably be still there now.

During the night I was off on my travels too. I don’t remember too much about them except that on a couple of occasions I was hanging from the gutter of a house trying to get down to the ground. Someone had passed some kind of rod or pole up towards me but it was a long way short and I was busy pondering the likely consequences were I to drop form the gutter and hope to grab hold of the pole. And not just once but twice as well.

I’ve no idea what time it was that I finally did arise from the dead but breakfast was at a very democratic 11:00. And if that’s not a good Sunday, I don’t know what is.

Highlight of the day has to be the squash and potato soup with fresh brown bread. I told you yesterday that Liz had brought some soup round (isn’t she sweet?) and so I may as well make a start on polishing it off.

During the course of the afternoon Ingrid rang me up and we had a really good chat for well over an hour. As I have said before … “and you’ll say again” – ed … I don’t have many friends, but those I have are the best in the world.

Tea was, as usual, a vegan pizza. And a good one it was too. And I’ve started a new book. Liz disappeared with my Templar book so I’ve dug another one out from the back of the queue. It’s by Barbara Tuchman, the famous historian who has written so many valuable tomes, and this one is called August 1914

It’s the story of the events that led up to the outbreak of World War I written in a very technical and in-depth fashion. And it will be an interesting challenge for me to wade through its 608 pages because it’s written in French. I’m making quite a considerable collection of learned French tomes these days.

I missed my afternoon walk because of course I was busy chatting to Ingrid. But I made it out for my evening walk all the same.

There’s some kind of museum out at the back here behind the College Malraux.

It’s one of these places that is on my list to visit but I’ve never been able to visit it so far. For some reason or another it always seems to be closed

It was really cold out here tonight (well, cold for round here anyway) and there was no-one around at all.

But the sky was perfectly clear and beautiful outside, and once again there was a really good view of Jersey on the horizon.

The street lights of St Helier stood out quite well and they were reflected off the clouds to give the sky a nice orange tint.

When I had gone out for my walk, I’d left the lights on in the apartment so that I could see what the curtains looked like from outside in the evening.

The windows are not as dark as I was hoping – you certainly can see that someone is in at night – but it’s an improvement on what was there before.

I’m not going to complain about it, especially when you consider how much they cost me.

As for any other activity, I’ve done nothing at all. Just messing around on the laptop. It’s Sunday, so I’m allowed to have a day off.

Friday 12th October 2018 – WHAT WITH ONE …

… thing and another (and until you get started you’ve no idea just how many other things there are) It wasn’t far short of 03:00 when I finally settled down to sleep.

That’s not leaving me too much time when there’s an alarm to go off at 06:00 is it?

Mind you, there was plenty of time to go off and disappear on another nocturnal ramble. This time it was to do with a load of girls who were saying goodbye to each other and going their separate ways. And I still haven’t worked out what that was all about either.

No-one was really hungry this morning so we didn’t have much in the way of breakfast. But I had a shower and then we put the washing machine on the go. I’ve no idea where all of this washing comes from – it’s certainly not me.

Once we’d gathered our wits, which in my case takes much longer than it ought, we went for a walk in the wind.

Granville was formerly the home of the well-known fasion designer Christian Dior.

His childhood home, situated on the cliffs on the way out of town, has been converted into a museum of his life and works, and it’s the kind of place that most women would like to visit.

and so this was our destination for this morning.

We went out along the walls of the old town and then down the steps onto the Plat Gousset.

Our attention was caught by a bicycle propped up against the wall with someone’s clothes draped over it.

So looking out to sea we saw someone perched up on the diving platform. And you can see how far in the tide is today by the fact that the platform is practically submerged.

And as we watched, our intrepid hero, clearly the grandson of Captain Matthew Webb, took to the windy water and started to swim back to the shore, cheered on by the onlookers.

As I remarked to one of the spectators, “he’s a braver man than I am” because I wouldn’t have liked to have been out there in those conditions.

It took him a while to make it back to shore though, although he never looked as if he was in any trouble.

However, we did have an interruption by some people who seemed to be rather concerned about what was going on.

Round the headland came the sea-rescue boat and it can’t have been a coincidence that they came on the scene just at that particular moment.

Of course, their services weren’t required at all but they were there nevertheless to keep an eye on the proceedings. Unless it REALLY was a coincidence.

It was a beautiful day for photography though. The colours really were superb and the excellent light brought them out perfectly.

I must have taken dozens of photos down there and it’s very hard to choose which one was the best of the bunch.

So I’ll just post one photo here and you can imagine all of the rest.

To reach the museum you have to climb up a couple of flights of steep stairs at the end of the promenade, but it’s well worth it, particularly on a day like this as the views from the top are stunning.

I was taking a few photos of the Ile de Chausey when I noticed a strange shape at the back of one of the islands of the archipelago.

So I photographed it with the view of cropping it and enlarging it back at home to see what it was.

But there was no need to do that really because I could see that it was a moving object. And just a minute or two later it burst out into the open sea.

Yes, we have another cruise ship cruising around the Chennel Islands. Not a particularly big one by the look of things, but interesting nevertheless.

I’ve not been able to find out which one it was either which is a shame.

That wasn’t the only maritime activity either.

As we were walking along the Plat Gousset we had heard a hooter telling us that a ship was leaving port. And 20 minutes later our old friend Normandy Trader hove into view.

She mad a really good photograph as she steamed … “dieseled” – ed … off to Jersey with the Ile de Chausey in the background.

The grounds of the museum are really beautiful and you can see why the Diors chose this place to be their home with views like this all over the place.

When they moved here in 1905 or whenever it was, there was nothing but bare rock but Mrs Dior arranged for tons of soil to be brought to the premises and this was transformed into what we see today.

The young Christian Dior has aspirations to be an architect, and it is said that some of the features of the garden and some of the furniture were made to his own designs.

But beautiful as the place might be, it came into the hands of the Granville town council who are now responsible for the upkeep, and the place seems to be suffering under the budget cuts while public funds are stashed away to satisfy what many people consider to be Madame la Maire‘s somewhat “over-ambitious” plans to abandon the town’s heritage and transform it into a playground for the rich.

So abandoning our fears about whether the railway line will be torn up and the only way to arrive at the town will be by luxury yacht with crew of 25, we carried on our tour of the garden.

Granville has been dubbed by many people (especially Madame la Maire as “The Monaco of the North” and it’s true that mediterranean trees, palm trees, and even banana trees will grow here.

As I reassured Josée though, they aren’t native to the area but if they are planted and well-maintained, they will survive.

The interior of the building was quite beautiful too and Josée spent quite a while admiring the dresses and the perfumes.

My attention was caught by the collection of miniature dresses on show because you didn’t just buy a Dior dress for yourself and your daughter, you could even buy one for your daughter’s dolly and hat surely is the height of decadence.

On the way out of the building Josée stopped to sample some perfumes and another woman went to spray me with stuff thinking that I was her husband.

With not having had much breakfast, by now we were quite hungry where we made our way into town and the fritkot for lunch. And he was open too, not like Saturday night.

Josée had a plate of meat and salad while I had some chips and a veggie wrap. And it was all quite delicious too.

Back here, I had a little … errr … relax, and then we set off again.

At the Christian Dior museum they had told us that our tickets give us the right to a reduction in the admission fee to the Anacréon Museum of Modern Art down the road from me.

Modern Art isn’t my thing, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, but Josée is quite into it and I have to keep my visitors happy. There wasn’t much in there that I would have liked to grace the walls of my apartment.

But Josée explained to me that I was understanding art incorrectly. If I simply want something to hang on a wall to look pretty then art isn’t for me. The purpose of art appreciation is to study and admire the artist’s technique.

So perhaps then art isn’t for me after all.

We stopped off for a drink on the way back and then went round for a long chat with Yves and Lily. They had a lot to say for themselves which is quite nice, but they also advised Josée against going musseling on the beach. Apparently there’s a virus going round and it’s not doing the shellfish any good at all.

Tea was some buckwheat crèpes with all kinds of stuff on (I had vegan cheese, onions, tomato, mushroom and garlic on mine) and to finish the day we saw the end of Seducing Doctor Lewis.

And after all of that, I’m exhausted.

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