Tag Archives: naval vessel

Tuesday 9th November 2021 – WE’VE HAD ANOTHER …

aeroplane f-hgsm baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021… aerial afternoon this afternoon, just for a change.

Not a nazgul or any bird-men of Alcatraz but actually an aeroplane flyng by overhead out in the bay on its way hame to the airfield just outside Donville Les Bains.

Its an aeroplane that we have seen before – F-HGSM, a Robin DR400/160 aeroplane that’s owned by the Aero Club of Greaves of Mont Saint Michel just down the road from here – coming out for a quick lap around towards the end of the afternoon.

aeroplane f-hgsm baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021We’ve seen her before, and a few minutes later we saw her again, this time flying the other way.

In fact she’s spent much of the afternoon flying up and down the coast between Avranches and Granville. The first this that she was picked up on radar today was at 14:41.

Unfortunately, many of her flights weren’t picked up on radar. Certainly, these two weren’t. The aeroplane doesn’t seem to have filed a flight plan either so I can’t say much more about what she’s been up to.

65px light aeroplane place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Jamais deux sans trois – “never just two without a third” as they say around here.

Sure enough, no sooner had F-HGSM disappeared off down the coast then around the corner came another aeroplane from the direction of the airfield. But as this one approached me it did a dramatic U-turn and headed back the way from which he came.

Unfortunately I can only tell you even less about this particular one because it’s another one with one of these short registration numbers – 65PX -that isn’t on any database to which I have access. So I let it go off on its way.

This morning, I had a great deal of difficulty going off on my way. Despite a reasonably early night I had an extreme amount of difficulty leaving my bed. But as I promised no to talk about my bad nights I won’t say any more.

After the medication I checked my mails and messages and then knuckled down to revise my Welsh from last week and to prepare for my lesson this morning.

There was a slight interruption though because the NIKON 1 J5 came back. I shall have a play with that in due course.

The Welsh lesson passed quite quickly and quite well too. An I need to remember now is “Fish Fingers, Baked Beans, More Beans, MMMMM”

After lunch I updated a few more days of the journal from late October, transcribed a few more entries for due course and then set about dealing with last night’s issues. I’d been back at my old school last night but I didn’t recognise anything of it. All of the House names had been changed to reflect the current way of thinking. I couldn’t see a timetable or a room list, a teacher list or anything like that. I was just wandering around aimlessly checking rooms to see if there was anyone I recognised, which I ddn’t. The teachers all looked strange, young and modern to me. Each class had a Social Media page that was pretty open and even the teachers were writing down their innermost thoughts on this. I went to have a look at the roll-call for students who had started this year. There were some from Pontypool, some from Galashiels, even some from Centreville in Canada. This has all changed from how it used to be with just local recruitment. I wondered where they were all staying because there’s nowhere for groups of kids to stay in Nantwich

Then about 85 minutes later, the problem with the school was that they were recruiting from all over the place, Galashiels, down south, even Cetreville in Canada. There didn’t seem to be anyone local at all. All the classes had Social Media accounts. Even teachers were writing their innermost thoughts down there. It didn’t look anything like the school that I knew with local recruitment. It seemed to me that there was a year that was being missed for which they weren’t offering tuition which I thought was strange. I must have dictated the previous notes and then gone back to sleep right back into where I left off yet again.

Later still, I’d been leaving France for Belgium and gone a different way than usual. I was looking over the map and the road that I wanted was over the edge of a page so I was wondering where I was going to end up. At first I thought that it looked shorter but then with it going off the page it started to look longer. I was wondering whether I’d made the right decision. I noticed that it seemed to end up back on the road that I used to take when I went down to the Auvergne through the mountains of the Ardennes. I was trying to work out exactly where that was going to be.
There was also something about living on a farm and buying a car, but I wasn’t allowed to use the car on the road. I bought it and I was trying to smarten it up and getting it to be a kind-of custom hot-rod thing. I’d bought 2 exhaust pipes for it that go down the outside of the car. Then I found out that there was another type that improved performance even more than I ought to have bought and it was starting to get a little bit crazy.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021In the middle of all of this I went out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

First stop is at the end ot the car park where I can look down on the beach. And considering that we are now rapidly approaching mid-November there were still plenty of people down there this afternoon.

It was actually quite a nice, sunny day which was a surprise, and there wasn’t very much wind. And as you can see, there was plenty of beach down there for everyone to wak upon with the tide being well out this afternoon.

seagulls harvesting bouchots donville les bains Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Further on down the beach towards Donville les bains there were even more crowds down there.

Mainly crowds – or shoud I say flocks – of seagulls. They seem to be enjoying themselves having a feeding frenzy in the tidal pools with all of the fish that has been left behind, stranded by the tide.

Further on down the coast the harvesters of bouchots are also out there at work. You can see a couple of their tractors heading out towards the beds. No trailers though, so they aren’t ready to pull them in just yet.

trawlers yacht baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021As usual, when I’m out and about looking at what is going on down on the beach, I have one eye looking around out at sea to se what’s happening there.

Right now of course we are living in interesting times so I’m keeping a close watch on all of the activity. And there’s plenty og avtivity out there this afternoon.

Out there we have a couple of trawlers looking as if they are working rather than heading in for home. And the yacht that’s out there with them is going to have a long wait before the tide comes in far enough for it to make it back home.

patrol boat baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021I’m not the only one keeping a close eye on the activity either.

Unless I’m very much mistaken, that looks like a French Navy patrol boat out there having a little wander around in the bay.

Of course, with things starting to heat up around here in the bay, it’s not surprising that the French Government has sent someone in to watch what is going on.

It’s not just the British Navy that has warships, despite what the crooks in Westminster and the collaborationist press will tell the gullible public.

There were quite a few people walking around on the path this afternoon in the nice weather, although I don’t know where they have come from. The schoolkids were out ther eorienteering too but none of them came over for a chat this afternoon.

people taking self photograph cabanon vauban pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Down at the end of the path I crossed over the car park to go down to the end of the headland.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, a regular feature on these pages is photographs of people taking photographs of people. And here were a couple of people in action down by the cabanon vauban.

Whether or not “selfies” actually count as photographs of people taking photographs of people, I’ve included it all the same. There was another couple as well on the car park taking photos of each other but I wasn’t quick enough for that.

man fishing off rocks pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021And our photoraphers weren’t the only ones down there at the end of the headland.

We had the fishermen out there on the rocks as well. Here is one of them almost up to his knees in the water casting his line into the deep. Not that he’ll be catching very much if past experience is anything to go by.

With plenty of things to do I couldn’t hang around very long to watch. I cleared off down the path towards the viewpoint overlooking the port.

joly france ferry terminal port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Over at the ferry terminal there was one of the Joly France ferries sitting in the silt. It’s the older one of the two with the larger upper deck superstructure

On this side of the harbour at the chantier naval there wasn’t anything at all happening.

The portable boat lift is still standing there in the middle of the yard with its wheels off waiting for something to happen to it. And I hope that they won’t be taking too long to repair it. The town needs the business that the chantier naval can bring.

joly france belle france port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021One of the ways of telling the two Joly France boats apart is by the step in the stern of the newer one.

There’s a really good view of the stern of the new one down there in the inner harbour and you can see the step quite clearly.

To the left of her is the very new Belle France ferry that came into the town earlier in the year.

And if you want a full house, Chausiaise, the little Chausey freighter, is over on the right out of shot. There’s nothing whatever going on over at the Ile de Chausey today, not like the other day when we saw them streaming out from port.

roofing rue du port Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021A little further along the road there was quite a racket coming from somewhere in the Rue du Port.

Looking down there from up on top of the cliff I could see that there was someone down there doing a bit of roofing.

It’s certainly the right kind of weather to do it. It’s a nightmare being up on a roof in a torrential downpour and a howling gale, as I know from bitter experience. And I’m surprised that, just for once, there isn’t a howling gale blowing around.

Anyway, there’s plenty of time for him to be soaked to the skin or blown off the scaffolding. It looks as if he’s only just started and the weather can turn at any moment.

people taking photographs boulevard vaufleury Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021A little earlier, I mentioned something about some people taking photographs of each other.

When I was down at the Pointe du Roc I wasn’t quick enough to catch them but I caught up with them in the Boulevard Vaufleury, standing in the middle of the road defying the oncoming traffic to take their photos.

She had a bunch of flowers earlier. I wonder where she has stuck them.

Back at the apartment I made a coffee and carried on with the dictaphone notes, and that took me right up to teatime.

It was a quick tea of taco rolls and rice with veg (not dropped into the sink tonight) because there was football on the internet. Hwlffordd v Barry Town.

Played in a driving rainstorm on a sodden pitch it wasn’t a very attractive game as the teams struggled to come to terms with the conditions. The match ended 1-1 which was probably a fair result in the circumstances although the goals were really messy goalmouth scrambles.

It wasn’t at all like the match LAST WEEKEND which had a couple of the finest goals you’ll see at this level of football.

Anyway now I’m off to bed for another night’s voyages. Listening to all of the stuff on the dictaphone I’ve been having some really vivid dreams just recently, and plenty of them too.

All of this corresponds with my dreadful nights and I’m wondering if there’s been a change in eithe rmy diet or my medication that has brought all of this on. I shall have to go back and review everything to see what it’s all about.

Wednesday 6th November 2019 – I DIDN’T …

… go anywhere special today as I predicted. I spent the day in a gentle orbit around the apartment.

But that’s not to say that it’ll stay like that. Foolish me had to open his mouth on Monday, didn’t he? And say that he’d been to Uumaannaq, had taken plenty of photos and had friends there.

And so someone rang me up. Something to do with the local High School. “It’s Greenland Week here next week and we’ll be discussing Uummaannaq. Are you free on Friday afternoon the 22nd?”

Ahh well! That’ll teach me to open my big mouth, won’t it?

Despite being a little later in bed than I would have liked, there was time to go off for a ramble or two. Again this is another dream that I can only remember a bit of. I was with someone who might have been Castor and we were helping me get myself organised (that’s going to be a long job isnt it? Something like the Augean Stables). There was a cupboard that was open and you could see everything in it. She asked what I was going to do about it and I replied that I wasn’t going to do anything – it was all going to stay in there so she was working out how to close the cupboard. You could see all files and all that kind of things that were on there. I don’t remember very much more about this dream but there was plenty to it. In this cupboard was all kinds of office stuff, files, binders, computer ink and I had a vague recollection that it belonged to something to do with the ship but I don’t know.
And it was certainly vivid because I remember distinctly in my dazed state going to get out of bed to go to tidy it up and close the door
A little later there were four young people playing outside on the deck right in front on the bows of The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. Don’t ask me what they were doing though because I was only asleep for a second.

There was a mad panic to fall out of bed. I’d vaguely heard the two earlier alarms but I desperately wanted to continue my run of early starts so having almost gone back to sleep, I just about managed to launch myself into consciousness just before the alarm.

After medication and breakfast I attacked the dictaphone notes. And up until lunchtime I had managed to transcribe only three. But when I tell you that the running time of those three is just short of 29 minutes, you’ll understand why.

I told you that there were some mega-files in that lot but that’s nothing to what’s coming up. There’s one of over 4 hours and another of over 3 hours.

And I managed to fit in my three walks today.

seagulls trawler entering port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAt about 12:45 I went out for a walk around a new circuit, down all the steps, along the rue du Port and back up the rue des Juifs.

But a racket coming from down in the harbour disturbed my reverie before I’d gone very far at all. We had a trawler coming into the harbour.

And it was probably fully-laden with fish too. You could tell that by looking at the large flock of gulls all around it. They are presumably waiting for the fish-heads to be thrown overboard.

rainstorm pointe de carolles granville manche normandy franceYesterday, you’ll remember that we had a lovely photo of Carolles all bathed in the most gorgeous and warm sunlight.

The situation today though is completely different. No sunlight at all – in fact it’s bathed in the most enormous raincloud.

And just in case you are wondering, you needn’t. 5 minutes later I got the lot right down the back of my neck, as regular readers of this rubbish may well have anticipated.

A rather dripping wet me came back to the apartment for some lunch.

And afterwards, I sat down to complete Project 002. Yes, I’m anticipating that this might run for more than 99 editions.

And straight away we had a problem – in that the audio mixer couldn’t be picked up by the big computer.

After a great deal of trial and error I managed to make one of the laptops pick it up, and I dictated my notes onto that. And it’s awful. It sounds as if I have my head in a bucket.

But I’m not going to go around like this. My friend Hans modernised his recording studio a while back so I got onto him. And he has an old PC mixing desk that is surplus to requirements. It seems to have every function on it that you could wish for and probably brews the studio tea while it is at it.

We negotiated a democratic price for it and tomorrow it will be winging its way here, I hope. As I said, it’s time for me to organise myself and do things properly.

house renovations rue du nord granville manche normandy franceFor the afternoon walk I changed my route and went for a walk around the walls.

The reason for that was that I wanted to see how they were doing with the house renovations in the rue du Nord.

As you can see, the one on the corner seems to be finished. They’ve extended the garage which is interesting, and the balcony that they have built over the extension does look quite nice.

I wonder what their plans are for it.

house renovations rue du nord granville manche normandy franceThere was another house under construction further down the rue du Nord as regular readers of this rubbish might recall.

That’s all finished now too, and I know what their plans for it are because as I’ve walked past it on many an evening walk, I’ve seen the lights burning in the window.

Someone is already living in it and I wish them luck. The view must be terrific from up top and I’m somewhat jealous.

montmartin sur mer granville manche normandy franceBut never mind the view from the top floor of the house. The view from down here is pretty good today too

For a change, now that the wind has died down somewhat, the atmosphere is a lot cleaner and there was a really good view out and up the coast. The seaside resort of Montmartin-sur-Mer was looking particularly attractive.

At least, I think that it’s Montmartin-sur-Mer. I lose count of which town is which all the way up there.

casino plage plat gousset beach granville manche normandy franceI case you haven’t gathered, the rain had stopped this afternoon and so there were people out and about.

There were even a few of them wandering around up and down the beach at the Plat Gousset by the Casino. But then again it is Wednesday afternoon so the kids are not in school. No reason why they can’t have a run about.

Talking of having a run about, there was no-one around by the time I got to my little running track, so I had a nice little run. Mind you, although I made it to my marker I was pretty much out of breath.

I have a feeling that I’m not going to see much improvement in my distances.

navy patrol vessel bair de mont st michel brittany granville manche normandy franceAnd talking of distances, out there in the distance close to the Brittany coast I noticed a dark speck that seemed to be moving very slowly.

With the big Nikon and the long zoom lens, I took a somewhat speculative shot of it with the intention of cropping it and blowing it up (he image, not the object) to see what it might be.

And it looks like some kind of naval patrol vessel out there in the Baie de Mont St Michel. And I’ve no idea why they would want to patrol out there. It seems strange to me.

Having finished the recording (for now) I could deal with tea. Some stuffing left over from the other night so I had taco rolls with rice and vegetables. Best ones that I’ve made too, although I’m not sure why.

And I finished off the last of the rice pudding too. That was nice as well

For the evening walk I went around the headland, totally alone. And I ended up running another few hundred metres along the footpath. I’m determined to do something about getting fit and keeping the weight off. So even on a quiet day I’ve done 64% of my daily activity and walked 5.0 kms.

So tonight I’ve done some web pages and I’ll listen to some music for a while, and then go to bed. Shopping at LIDL tomorrow, I reckon.

The walk wil ldo me good.

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 – CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

naval vessel channel islands granville manche normandy franceThere’s been a strange object anchored out to sea all day, about 12 miles or so offshore, just outside French territorial waters.

I had taken a photograph of it earlier today, and as it was still there tonight I took another one of it.

Back here this evening, I cropped the photographs, digitally enhanced them and, because I can do this without any regard to modern anti-terrorist legislation, I blew them up.

naval vessel english channel jersey channel islands granville manche normandy franceAnd now that I have done all of that, I can see what it is.

And much to my surprise, it turns out to be, as far as I can see, some kind of small naval vessel like a fisheries patrol boat.

It’s been in the Press over the past few days about how the fishermen from here are dissatisfied about the post-Brexit fishing arrangements. And when French fishermen are “dissatisfied, we all know what that will mean.

So I’m wondering if it’s a British naval vessel keeping an eye on things from outside the territorial waters.

But whatever it is, it’s not emitting a positioning signal on my AIS receiver, so it can’t be anything civilian.

last night, for once I had a really good sleep. I only awoke once during the night, and then only for a minute or two.

So there was plenty of time to go off on a little ramble or two. I was on the ship going to Iceland. We were told that we could listen to the radio. There was a programme about an island off the coast of Iceland that had been devastated by plague and everyone had been wiped out, broadcast in 10 minutes time. Meanwhile a new island had been located near Iceland so everyone dashed to the window to have a look. We were on a plane and it came past the island and Iceland and another load of islands in a geographical east-west line. At the end it did a U-turn to come into land. By this time it was the ship and scraped along the frozen river thing that led to the sea. There was a news broadcast about our ship and how we were getting to it, how at the moment it was full of loads of schoolkids from Stoke on Trent who had booked it for a week and gone on a voyage (familiar, anyone?).
later on I was with my father. We were repairing a car and had the cylinder head off it. We put the head back on and had the car started and we could move it but it wasn’t right. So we had to take off the cylinder head again. We could undo four of the bolts but the fifth was very problematical. It needed a very thin spanner and we couldn’t find it. We sent a girl to the garage to look for the spanner but she came back with a pile of assorted bits, but no spanner. In the end I went in and I couldn’t find the correct spanner either. I had a feeling that I was looking in completely the wrong place in the workshop – I couldn’t see any spanners. In the end I did come across the tool box but couldn’t see the spanner in there so I came back out. I thought “hang on a minute”. I could unscrew part of the nut by hand and it came off but it left the stud in there. It looked to me as if the head would lift out over the stud as there was just a securing collar that held it in place. By this time my father had gone off so I didn’t know where we were going to go with this. We were in Stoke on Trent and where this car had ground to a halt was outside some minicab depot and a West Indian guy clearly associated with this group of Pakistanis came out and asked me to move because it was making a mess outside his office. I said “yes, just give me two minutes”. But some time earlier I’d been away and I’d come back to Expo with the car I had as a chauffeur in those days. I’d taken my suit off and there were all kinds of things in it – money, papers, folders, wallets, all kinds. Someone asked me for my phone number. They’d given me a piece of paper telling me all about their organisation and would I publish it, then he came over to ask me for my phone number. I couldn’t remember any of my phone numbers at all – the Belgium mobile, the French mobile and landline so I had to go finding ways to recall them. I had my mobile phone and I thought my number will be in there but I couldn’t remember how to access it. I went into my bedroom and found my other suit and that had my wallet in it with all of my papers and money. I thought “have I been away for a few days without my wallet?”. The bedroom window was wide open but it was warm in there even though it was winter. In a flash I suddenly remembered my French mobile number, but now I couldn’t find the guy.

It was another day where I managed to be up and out of bed just after the alarms went off. And even more surprisingly I managed to go all day without crashing out, although I did flag a little later in the morning.

It’s not been such a productive day today though. I started off by finishing the blogs for August. They are up-to-date now.

I followed that up by attacking the photo database for July. I’ve done about 100 or so of those, and while I was at it I amended a couple of entries for that month, seeing as I needed to look at the coding for those days.

There was a little diversion later on in the morning. I forgot to say yesterday that I found a computer program that allows me to edit certain 3D items by adding morphs to them. I had a play around with that yesterday and I had another go at it today.

It’s really quite interesting because it means that I can do things like make clothing from one character fit another by adding morphs and then adjusting them.

Lunch was in here again because it’s still cold and windy outside. And then I carried on with the photos for a while.

new windows house renovation rue du nord granville manche normandy franceLater on, I went for my afternoon walk. Around the walls today.

My trek took me past the house that they are renovating on the corner of the rue du Nord.

The other day I noticed that they had removed the windows from the first floor and knocked out some of the wall underneath. Today, they seem to have fitted new full-length windows that might possible open.

My thought that we might be having a terrace out here could well be true.

fishing boats granville manche normandy franceThe tide must be on its way in right now and the harbour gates must be open.

There’s an endless stream of fishing boats coming out of the harbour now and heading off into the open sea.

On their way to attack the fishing grounds, I shouldn’t wonder, surveyed without a doubt by the naval vessel standing to just outside the 12-mile limit.

peche a pied granville manche normandy franceThey weren’t the only things heading out to do a bit of fishing either.

Down there among the rocks as the tide is sliding out is one of our old men doing a bit of the pêche à pied.

It’s quite usually a popular pastime at this time of the year but as far as I could tell, he was the only person down there today.

jersey channel islands granville manche normandy franceMeanwhile, we were having a really good day as far as visibility goes.

We could see way out on the horizon, and it’s been a long time since we’ve seen Jersey looking as clear as this.

Unfortunately, I must have missed the area of Jersey where St Helier is, because that’s not come out at all.

lighthouse agon coutainville trawler granville manche normandy franceWhile the view was so good, I went right up to the highest point of the walls because I had seen something else out to sea.

I wanted to take a photo of it, digitally enhance it and blow it up so that I could see what it is.

It’s actually a trawler out there in the foreground, and in the background we have our old friend the lighthouse out at the mouth of the River Sienne near Agon-Coutainville.

Back at the flat, I attacked the dictaphone notes. And while I may not have done all that many today, some of them were quite hefty. I reckon that as far as minutes goes, I’ve done more today than any other.

Some of the stuff involved doing some basic research while I was at it, and that took some time.

Tea was a curry that I found in the freezer – potato and lentil, I think, with rice and veg. Followed by the last of the apple crumble.

trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy franceAnd then I hit the streets for the evening walk.

A beautiful evening even if it was cold and windy. But the view was very interesting.

And there were still more trawlers heading out to sea and the surveillance of the naval vessel that was out there. There are clearly some strange things going on right now.

cancale brittany granville manche normandy franceBut the view tonight was even better than this afternoon.

Despite the dozens of photos that I have taken in the past of Cancale across the bay in Brittany, I can say that I have never ever seen it as clearly as I have done today.

You wouldn’t think that that’s 18 miles away, would you?

chantier navale granville manche normandy franceFinally around to the chantier navale to see what’s going on down there.

We have the large boat undergoing a respray, and I’m wondering when it’s going to be finished. To its right is another passenger vessel of some kind that’s come in for work.

But the other boat down there is some kind of elderly fishing boat. That’s been outside the workshop of the chantier navale for so long that I thought that it might have been a stationary exhibit.

So I’m wondering what their plan is now for it.

Back here, I’m going off to bed. Not quite as early as the last couple of evenings, but early enough all the same. Shopping tomorrow so I need to be on form.

brittany coast granville manche normandy france
st malo brittany coast granville manche normandy france

fishing boats granville manche normandy france
fishing boats granville manche normandy france

donville les bains granville manche normandy france
donville les bains granville manche normandy france

mussels beds airfield donville les bains granville manche normandy france
mussels beds airfield donville les bains granville manche normandy france