Tag Archives: paddle board

Monday 19th September 2022 – WE ALMOST HAD …

… a new record for the completion of our radio programme this morning. So while you admire several photos of the marine activity out on the water today I’ll tell you all about it.

Actually, I’m not quite sure what happened today but at about 10:10 this morning I was about to start dictating the final speech for the last track, and once that it would be edited, it would be done.

For some reason though, probably an error of mathematics, I ended up with 10 seconds too much of speech. That was quite disappointing because I’d taken great care to make sure that the length of speech was correct. One like of text in my text editor is about 290 characters and that equates to about 17 seconds when it’s edited down so I have a reasonable idea of how long a piece of text takes to dictate.

So finding 10 seconds of speech to “lose” from what I’ve already dictated and merged into the programme so far isn’t as easy as it might be. Sometimes there’s a nice piece of speech that is ripe for editing out but there might be the introduction of the track of music to which it relates that overruns it.

Anyway, while it finally saw the light of day at about 10:50, which is still quicker than quite a few that I’ve done just recently.

But almost as soon as I started to listen to it to make sure that it was OK, Rosemary rang me up. I’m convinced that she hid a camera in here when she came to visit a few years ago. Anyway, we had one of our lengthy chats again.

But the good news is that Miss Ukrainian has started school today at the High School in the nearest town to where Rosemary lives. I’m sure that that’s a good idea.

Even if she can’t speak French and follow the lessons, she’ll be mixing with kids of her own age. Where she’s living right now there’s no-one around at all of her age and a young teenager needs to socialise

But meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, last night was something of a mess.

It was later than intended that I went to bed, and then I didn’t have much sleep because I must have travelled miles during the night. To start off there was a lady-friend of mine. I don’t know who she was but she started to date someone who was a cross between Boris Johnson and Bill Bailey and only had one leg. he was a famous politician and would sneak away from meetings etc to be with her. On one occasion the two of us had booked somewhere to stay but there was only one double-bed so we thought that we’d just have to make the best of it. Biy he turned up as well so it ended up with three of us in the bed. I went out to go to the bathroom ready to go to bed. He and this woman were in there so I said to them on parting “don’t forget later on in the night that your partner is the one on your right. When I prepared to go to bed his security team was there. They were looking for him so I didn’t say anything. I went back to another room after I’d had a wash in order to leave them to it for a while.

Back in the same dream later I was up and about. Those two were still in bed. Meantime the house was filling up with people. Eventually the woman got up and came in to join us. I asked her if she knew what “discussing Uganda” meant. She replied that she didn’t. I said that if I come out with the phrase, do me a favour of bursting out laughing and I’ll explain it to you later”. She wondered what I meant by that. Eventually he came out of the room. I explained that Zero (who must have put in an appearance somewhere but shame as it is to say it, I can’t remember her being there)’s mother had been to collect her, implying that we had a young child in the house at the time last night etc. After about 10 minutes of embarrassed chatting from their side I said that I’m going off to wash my hair so I’ll leave them alone and they can “discuss Uganda” or something like that. The other people in the house knew exactly what that meant and burst out laughing. I went into the bathroom, used the bathroom and went to wash my hands and found that someone had coupled the shower up to the tap and hadn’t undone it afterwards. As soon as I turned on the tap the water went everywhere and soaked the bathroom. I managed to stop it, opened the bathroom door and hurled a huge volley of abuse about the person who’d had a shower and left the shower attachment attached to the sink and not removed it at the end. Of course you can guess who that probably was but it was an impressive volley of abuse all the same. I started to look for something to clean up the mess.

Back in this dream for a third time. I said that Zero had gone home and the kids who had been on the trampoline were leaving. I gathered that those 2 had gone back to bed again so I made some remarks about “ships that pass in the night” etc while they were there and various other things to give the game away that I knew exactly what had happened although I said them in a manner that implied that I knew nothing.

Moving on from there, there was a big party in the office. The office was absolutely filthy. There was stuff all over the place. There was only one girl and I think that it might have been my elder sister who was attempting to tidy it up. I wasn’t going home as I had something arranged in the town so I stayed behind and helped her as best as I could. I did several huge bowls of washing up. Then it came to be 19:10 so I went to put back everything that I’d done so far. She asked how the room was so I told her that it was still a mess. I told her what I’d done. She said “OK, you’d better wander off now and do what you have to do. I’m going to be late in the morning” she said. “I’m not going to be in at my usual early morning time”. I said “never mind. I’ll try my best to be there myself something early and see what happens”. I was really disappointed that all our colleagues, none of them would stay behind and help and none of them were interested in coming along to open up the office tomorrow either.

When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a meeting with the owners of this building but they were only just setting up the bottles of water for people to drink and I never found out what went on. It was all about some abandoned farmhouse and buildings on the side of a main road that they were talking about demolishing even though it was nice, old Victorian stuff. It would have made a really nice conversion to flats and houses etc rather than being just swept away.

Anyway so when the alarm went off I did manage to leap to my feet quite quickly even though it was early, and after the medication I cracked on with the radio programme, as I mentioned earlier.

There were a couple of interruptions. Firstly for an early morning coffee and secondly to answer the door. The nurse had finally printed out my vaccination certificate from last June. Just one or two things that I need to do now.

Having listened to the radio programme and also the one that I’ll be sending off for this weekend, I went for my lunchtime fruit And then I had the notes on the dictaphone to deal with.

So I stepped back into a dream not just once but twice last night. And a mention of Zero too. What a shame I can’t remember her being about although I know that she must have been there.

After all of that it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

And once again, it seems that the Nazguls were waiting for me to step outside the door again. I hadn’t gone more than three feet outside the building when one of them came swooping over the roof of the High School and heading in my direction.

A solo outfit too, but not to worry. There were several others waiting around in the distance, some of which were two-seater Nazguls. So at least there’s still an opportunity to go for a flight around.

And I haven’t forgotten …

So dodging the diving Nazguls I wandered over to the wall at the end of the car park to see what was happening down on the beach.

But first, my attention was focused on the events just offshore. yesterday we had a zodiac watching events unfold on the beach. Today, we have a paddle-boarded paddling past.

There were a few people down there as well for him to watch. Probably a dozen or so scattered about all over there.

No-one in the water as far as I could see, but then again the paddle-boarder hasn’t fallen in yet. There’s still plenty of time for that.

Lots of other stuff down there for me to watch as well.

As I made my way along the path amongst the people who were wandering around, I noticed that out there on a rock just offshore was a whole colony of birds.

Cormorants, I reckon, but what do I know? All that I do know is that they aren’t any kind of bird which I would be interested in watching. I should have paid much more attention, because when we were married I had several long lectures from Nerina about bird-watching.

What I could do I suppose is to go on and on about how I don’t particularly like those birds, but it would just be another cormo-rant.

and so on that note I suppose that I’d better carry on with my walk and see what’s hapening with the aeroplane that has just taken off from the airfield.

It’s one of the aeroplanes that we see quite regularly as we are walking along the cliffs around here. She’s F-GCUM, a Robin DR400-180 that belongs to the local aero club.

My photo is timed at 16:01 (adjusted) which corresponds with a flight that she undertook when she took off at 15:15 and flew northwards. That’s not a usual flightpath for an aeroplane out of the airfield. usually they go out to sea and then down the coast to the south.

However there was something bizarre about the flight that she was undertaking just now.

As I watched her, she did a U-turn and headed back towards the airfield, almost as if when she had taken off but the pilot had forgotten his sandwiches.

Her actual flight plan though was she went north, as I said just now, and then flew back south, back over the airfield and out to sea but after just a couple of miles she performed a rather dramatic U-turn and flew back towards the airfield.

Once back over the airfield she carried on inland, performed yet another U-turn and back to the airfield where she landed at 16:09.

My route along the top of the cliff and across the car park was pretty much without incident today. Just a few craft out at sea that you have already seen, and no change either in the inner harbour or in the chantier naval.

Now that the heaving masses have headed back home at the end of the holiday season, we have the next generation of visitors.

The town and the cliffs are crawling with the pensioners out of the caravanettes or day-tripping on the fleets of coaches that are now arriving.

The poor little Iveco that waits to take the Homework Club schoolchildren back home at 17:00 is sandwiched between two rather large Mercedes Tourismo coaches, and thanks to Duncan Payne on the “Bus and Coach” group for identifying the bodywork.

It’s a good job that he did too. The driver of the brown one with whom I had a lengthy chat didn’t know and the driver of the green one drove off when he saw me approaching.

Unfortunately I’m out of the loop these days. I was left behind on Van Hool Alizees and Plaxton Premieres. I can’t believe that it’s almost 28 years since I last drove a coach after all the miles that I did in the past.

Back here I had a coffee and then I had a few things to do which took me up to teatime.

My stuffed pepper tonight was a really good one. I have really grasped the principle of those now. Plenty of stuffing left over for a taco roll tomorrow and maybe even some more to add into Wednesday’s curry.

But right now that’s that. Tomorrow I have a Welsh lesson and I hope that there will be more than four of us. But to be on the safe side I shall have to have a good night’s sleep and do some more revision tomorrow.

That is, if I can remember.

Tuesday 26th July 2022 – AFTER ALL OF THE …

… problems that I’ve been having over the past few days, today has been a rather better day from that point of view.

So while you admire several photos of all of the aerial activity that was going on outside this afternoon, I’ll tell you something about it.

Last night, I was much later than usual in going to bed. There was a Hercule Poirot programme, MURDER IN THREE ACTS, that came round on the playlist and so I stayed up to listen to it instead of going to bed.

Sleep is of course quite important but sometimes a little relaxation is quite good for the soul and I enjoyed the radio programme very much.

As a result, trying to wake up at 07:30 was extremely difficult indeed and I was very lucky that I managed to beat the second alarm to my feet.

After the medication and so on I came in here to deal with my mails and messages and then I had things to do.

However I didn’t do much. Surprisingly I didn’t fall asleep today (although I was pretty darned close to it) hence the day being rather better, but for all the good that I was doing today it didn’t really make much difference.

At least the weather was warmer today than yesterday. We’re slowly climbing back into heatwave territory.

It was rather a late breakfast today, with the last of my delicious fruit buns and some nice strong coffee.

And a rather late lunch too. Just the usual fruit at the moment. I’m still taking a lot of care about my eating habits and trying where I can to cut down on everything. This diet of fruit and nuts hasn’t lost me much weight but you ought to see me climb trees.

After lunch I went through everything that was in the kitchen and sorted out what I needed to make another batch of fruit buns. I seem to be running low on just about everything right now and I’ll have to stock up on my baking supplies.

It would be nice though if I could bring up here the two cupboard things that I bought in IKEA and install the proper oven.

What a state to get it, hey?

While we’re on the subject of all of the aerial craft that went by overhead this afternoon, here’s a horrible photo of the yellow autogyro.

Horrible because it was taken directly into the sun rather quickly through a gap in a couple of buildingss, but important because it’s the yellow autogyro.

And why that is important because the other day we saw a beautiful new and shiny red autogyro fly past and the thought had gone through my mind that the reason why I hadn’t seen it before might have been because it might have been the yellow one having been given a respray.

But as the yellow one is still up in the air then that can’t be the case.

Rather later than usual, for reasons that you will soon find out if you read on down to the end, I went out for my afternoon walk.

As usual I wandered across the car park through the crowds to see what was happening down on the beach this afternoon.

There wasn’t much beach to be on but that didn’t matter much because the warm weather had driven many of the people into the water to cool down. It was that kind of day today.

Quite windy too, as you have probably guessed when you saw the squadrons of Nazguls flying by overhead in one of the earlier photos.

There was quite a bit of excitement going on out in the bay too.

This guy was out on what looked to be a paddle board but he’d stopped to sit down and have a rest for a while when I saw him.

At first I thought that he might have been in a kayak but on closer inspection I ruled that out.

And he was on his own too, which is just as well because making love in a kayak is rather like Watneys Beer – it’s f***ing close to water.

yacht
While I was walking down the path and being overflown by all kinds or aerial machines, I was also looking out to sea to see what was happening there.

Through the gap in the trees at the far end of the headland I could see Marité riding at anchor in the Baie de Mont St Michel near Le Loup – the marker light on the rocks at the entrance to the harbour.

But what’s interesting in this photo is the colour of the grass in the background. It’s a rather scorched light brown colour right now. Apart from that 5-minute shower that I mentioned the other day, we’ve not had any rain for ages and everywhere is looking rather like North Africa at the moment.

Marité wasn’t the only ship out there in the bay this afternoon either.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that yesterday we’d seen Belle France out at the bottom of the bay with, probably, a full load of passengers going for a look at Mont St Michel. Today, we have one of the Joly France ferries coming back from down there with a full load of passengers.

Have a look at her windows. They are in “portrait” format rather than “landscape” format and so that tells us that she is the newer one of the two. Her upper deck superstructure is smaller than her sister too.

Fighting my way through the crowds I wandered off through the car park down to the end of the headland.

And this afternoon, we had a fisherman out there on the rocks this afternoon. Just one fisherman, and he didn’t look as if he was all that interested in catching anything. He didn’t have a bucket of anything in which to put his catch.

Mind you we have actually seen someone catch something with rod and line a couple of months ago, although I didn’t see what he actually did with his catch. I was just hoping that it wasn’t one of Austin Powers’ bad-tempered sea bass.

With all of the activity out in the bay and the fisherman on the rocks, it’s hardly surprising that that there was quite a crowd watching everything that was going on.

Sitting on the bench by the cabanon vauban in a front row seat was this family watching Joly France go sailing past around the headland and Marité at anchor in the bay, as well as a host of other small craft out there too.

Having watched everything for a while I wandered off down the path and around the corner to go and see what was happening down at the port this afternoon

L’Omerta was still moored at her position at the Fish Processing Plant but I was more interested in the two boats that were moored behind her.

The one at the front is Yann Frederic and the one behind is Cap Lihou. I’m not quite sure what they were doing over there but there was quite a crowd of people watching them doing it and there was a van over there looking as if it was unloading some shell-fishing crates.

Meanwhile, La Confiance II was still in the chantier naval and Chausiaise was moored up at the ferry terminal.

The harbour gates were opn by now and all of the other fishing boats were streaming into the inner harbour.

And once everyone had gone sailing in, it was the turn of the ships in the inner harbour to come sailing out.

And just for a change these days I was right yesterday about the freight on the quayside when I said that it wouldn’t be there for long. Out of the inner harbour came Normandy Trader with a load of freight, including the swimming pool that had been on the quayside yesterday.

The guy walking on the deck by the crane is Nathan the skipper.

You can tell that she’s Normandy Trader and not Normandy Warrior by the raised deck at the back of the wheelhouse.

Anyway, this is why I’d gone out later than normal this afternoon.

Word had reached me on the grapevine that Marité was out and about this afternoon so I imagined that she would want to come home when the harbour gates opened and I wanted to see it.

Sure enough, as soon as the commercial congestion at the harbour entrance eased, she pulled up her anchor and set sal for the harbour and I watched her come into port and tie up.

She had quite a crowd of people on board too so it must have been a good trip. It’s a shame that her staff aren’t nicer otherwise I might be out there myself one of these days.

There was quite a crowd of people lining the walls watching her come into port this afternoon.

And that had led to some of the worst examples of pathetic parking that we have seen for a while. It’s a subject that I’ve tried to avoid but sometimes it’s inescapable and it’s the kind of thing that brings these holidaymakers and their caravanettes into disrepute.

When he finally moved off, he went to try to park in a car park in which caravanettes are prohibited as if it didn’t matter at all.

These caravanette drivers have a logic that only works in their bizarre minds

Before going in for a drink, I went over to the wall at the end of the car park to check on Normandy Trader.

It had taken me an age to make sure that Marité was tucked up safely in bed so by now Normandy Trader was miles out at sea. I was hoping that I’d catch her a bit closer to shore than I did.

Back here I had a drink of iced almond milk and then had a look at how my fruit bread was doing. I’d mixed up the dough before going out and now that it was proofed I divided it up into little rolls and put them on some baking paper on the shelf.

When they’s had another go at proofing, I brushed them with milk and dusted them with brown sugar and bunged them in the oven to bake for 35 minutes.

While they were baking I had a listen to the dictaphone. I had been playing in a rock group during the night. I was talking to one of the girls in it. There were a couple of people who were in the group who were very insecure and needed a lot of guidance. We had one or two people who would do that. For example, One girl (wit whom I’d worked a few times in the dim and distant past) needed a lot of prodding around and guiding and taking places and everything and there was a guy near to where she lived and where she worked who would do all of that. Some of us were very self-reliant and would make our own way without any problems. Others needed just as much help but couldn’t really find anyone to do things for them. It all came to be rather chaotic. There were the wrong kind of people hanging around and it was a shame because it was a really good experience except for these people. I was talking to one of the girls, explaining about that girl’s helper and how it would have been nice if everyone had found someone like that who could have led them around and worked on their personal development or whatever so that they would have been much more comfortable with themselves and the travelling.

But what’s she doing making a rather dramatic appearance in my nocturnal voyages? She’s someone about whom I haven’t thought for even a minute for probably 38 years

Later on I was out in my van and I’d encountered a young girl somehow. I’d lent her the music and she was really delighted with it. I’d made arrangements to go and pick it up again but when I arrived she was at her grandmother’s house at Kidsgrove up at the back, Newchapel way and a really steep hill to get there. I’d gone with Caliburn. Her grandmother had given me a list of things to do, some of which I could do on the spot and some I couldn’t, like disposing of a pile of mail for her etc. I invented some kind of procedure that meant that I’d have to come back there again in the hope that I’d see this girl when I went back. I had to sort out my tapes that she had. The grandmother asked me something about this job and I was stuck because I couldn’t remember what it was that I’d told her that I’d do. I had to invent something quite quickly. For once it seemed that I was going to be getting somewhere with some young girl which was very nice. When I left I noticed that I didn’t have much fuel in Caliburn so I’d have to go along and find some fuel somewhere and that wasn’t easy. This was once for a change something positive, even if I didn’t actually “get the girl” during the dream.

And Newchapel again? I’ve been there a few times during the night, probably more times than I ever was there in real life. That’s a mystery too.

By now the fruit buns were cooked and they looked absolutely delicious so I took them out of the oven to cool, and then thought about making tea.

Plenty of stuffing eft over from yesterday’s pepper so I made myself a taco roll with rice and vegetables and that really was delicious again. Spicy food tastes so much better after it has marinaded for 24 hours.

Back in here I wrote up my notes from today and engaged in an argument on my social network with someone who posted a photo that he had taken in Norway of a car and was insisting that it was a MkIII Cortina estate when it was actually a Ford Taunus

Yes, I can be a pedant when I have to be.

Tomorrow I’m hoping that I’ll feel better. Not crashing out (even if it was touch-and-go on occasion) today was already an improvement despite the lack of sleep, so a good sleep might make me feel even better.

But as events have shown, quite often a good sleep usually makes me feel worse. But whatever it is, it’s still quite depressing.

Saturday 23rd July 2022 – HAVING COMPLAINED YESTERDAY …

… that we hadn’t seen Belle France out and about anywhere for a while, quess who we ran into this afternoon?

Sure enough, there I was out and about on my afternoon walk and as i was crossing the lawn at the end of the headland, from around behind a bunker she came.

It didn’t look as if there was anyone on board so presumably she’s on her way out to the island to bring back a boat-load of tourists.

It just goes to prove once more that I have the Kiss of Death when it comes to things like this. Every time that I make some kind of profound comment I am confounded.

Just like yesterday when I was waxing lyrical about the subject of kites and I was wondering to what exciting place I would be heading and with whom I would be heading there. And instead I ended up going almost nowhere and with no-one either. There was just something vague last night about a few drinks in these tetra-packs and taking a car in for a service etc. I can’t remember anything at all about anything except that and I’ve no idea at all what was going on.

When the alarm went off I struggled to my feet – really struggled – and then after my medication I headed off to LeClerc. I was there so early that the place wasn’t open yet and I had to queue with a pile of other folk for a while before they would let us in.

Once inside I did my usual shopping and bought a few extra things as well. For instance, they had some alcohol-free beer on special offer so I bought a six-pack to add to the supplies in here.

It was only just after 10:00 when I returned so I had a nice early breakfast, and then everything fell apart. I had the worst day that I’ve had for quite a while – several years in fact.

You can tell by the times of the photos that I ended up not going out for my afternoon walk until about 17:00 (adjusted). That’s because from about 10:45 until about 16:45 I was flat out on the chair in my bedroom. Out like a light with no prosepect whatever of awakening.

Anyway, I eventually summoned up the strength to go out for my afternoon walk.

And as usual the first place to go was to the car park at the end of the headland to see what was happening down on the beach.

The weather had improved dramatically since yesterday and even since this morning when it was still quite cool.

By now it was quite warm and that had brought out the crowds, even if there wasn’t all that much beach right now for all these crowds to be on.

And I do mean “crowds” because there were loads of people out there on the beach today.

Some of them had even taken to the waters which was quite brave of them because I don’t think that the weather was that warm today. Not warm enough for swimming anyway.

In the previous photo we’d seen al kinds of water craft in the water just offshore.

A little further out we had a couple of men on paddle boards looking as if they were going for a good run along the coast this afternoon. Not that I know anything about paddle boards though. It’s not my idea of entertainment.

And that was really all that there was going on down at this end of the beach. There weren’t any Nazguls out and about this afternoon or anything else of any interest.

I left them all to it and wandered off down the path on top of the cliffs towards the end of the headland.

There might not have been very much happening down by the car park, but it was all action further on down the path towards the end of the path.

The sea was absolutely heaving with boats and there was hardly any room to swing a cat in between them.

This is just one photo of half a dozen that I could have taken that would have shown the same situation. It seems that everyone who is anyone has taken to the water his afternoon and it must have been total chaos at the slipway trying to put all of these boats into the water in the limited time that’s available when the tide is high enough.

And taking them out of the water is going to be even more exciting.

It wasn’t just pleasure craft that had caught my eye this afternoon either.

There was something large moving around out in the English Channel behind the Ile de Chausey so I took a photo with the aim of enlarging it and enhancing it when I returned home.

Back here when I examined the image more closely I found that her silhouette bore a close resemblance to the freight ferries that run between Portsmouth, the Channel Islands and St Malo.

And when I checked the fleet radar, I found that at the time that I’d taken the photo, the freight ferry Commodore Goodwill was out there in the English Channel. She left St Helier at 13:30 and arrived at St Malo at 18:50.

And seeing as we were mentioning yesterday an obscure 1960s one-hit wonder, today it’s the turn of another one – Pete Townshend’s chauffeur John “Speedy” Keen and SOMETHING IN THE AIR.

It’s one of our old friends, F_GBAI, a Robin DR400-140B from the aero club, flying out into the bay de Granville.

My photo is timed at 17:09 (adjusted) and she was picked up on the radar at 16:10. She flew around the bay, then back inland, then down the coast and back where she disappeared off the radar again right by the airfield at 17:23.

She wasn’t the only thing in the air either today.

This is something that I don’t recall seeing before. We’ve seen the yellow autogyro flying around here quite often but this is the first time that we’ve seen a red one. She looks quite new and clean too.

So pondering on this mystery I wandered off along the path towards the end of the headland to see what was happening there.

Surprisingly there was nothing at all. No-one fishing off the rocks and no-one on the bench by the cabanon vauban either. And so I wandered off towards the port.

Meanwhile, out in the bay here, we have La Granvillaise coming for a sail past, towing her little dinghy behind her.

The other day I believe that I mentioned something about hos we haven’t seen so many of the charter boats out there so far this year so it’s odds-on that we were going to see one of them out and about this weekend, wasn’t it?

No change in the chantier navale or in the inner harbour so I came on home for my chocolate drink. and to try to do some work seeing as I’d had a miserable day so far.

Tea was the left-over breaded quorn fillet from last weekend, with potato and veg. Really delicious. I’ll have to go back to Lidly to see if they have any more of those.

The one problem with having slept so much today is that I can’t sleep now. It’s quite late, or, rather, early next morning, and I’m still not tired. It’s totally messed me up, this sleep that I’ve had today and I’m going to regret this very much. But it’s a sign of the times I reckon.

It makes me wonder how tomorrow will work out with all of this going on – or not going on, as the case may be.

Thursday 11th November 2021 – I THOUGHT THAT I’D …

… I’d show you the crack in Caliburn’s windscreen.

According to the examiner at the controle technique this crack is in the field of view of the driver. It certainly is from where I’m standing taking this photo, but remember in Caliburn I’m sitting about a foot higher up from here so it’s nothing like in my field of view from the driver’s seat.

And that’s probably why, for every year since 2016 up until this one, nothing has ever been said about it.

There have been issues like this before. I’ve owned several Transits in the past and on one occasion I was stopped by a policeman for “overtaking on a blind bend”. It was certainly a blind bend for him low down in a Rover 2.6 but up in the driving seat of my Transit you could clearly see the road over the top of the hedge.

Still, not much I can do about it. It does really need replacing so I may as well do it to keep him happy

It does however remind me of the time that a nasty crack appeared on the wall of 10 Downing Street. But the police painted it over before Boris Johnson could read it.

This morning I had quite a fight to leave my bed. And when you see the notes that I transcribed off the dictaphone you’ll understand why.

We were at a holiday camp, a group of us, last night. There had been something going on about some kind of play or something like that and we were all going to have a meeting. We’d booked the place for a couple of days but the previous day while we were there the guy in charge went missing. Next morning there were all kinds of rumours flying around. Some girl came over to our chalet and just walked straight in – she didn’t knock or wait at the door or anything. She said “did you hear the news? So-and-so has been to see the authors of the play and started work already”. I replied “I knew that he had gone yesterday to do this but I want to stress that I knew that he had gone yesterday, but no that I knew yesterday that he had gone”. She replied “all the party is breaking up now and people are going home”. I said “we’re here for another day yet”. It was pouring down with rain, a real wet day. She said something like “you’ll be on your own here. You know that, don’t you?”. I answered “it probably suits me fine to be on my own like that”.

Later on I was with some young girl of mixed race with curly hair. I’d bumped into her 4 or 5 times in one day in London once and since then I’d been bumping into her every now and again. I’d actually started to chat to her because I thought she was nice. She was working in an office somewhere. One morning she’s gone in late to the office and gone to hang up her coat. Seeing as there were 4 or 5 coats in there already she decided not to and to hang it somewhere else. Then she went to see her supervisor to say that she had to leave in the afternoon. The Supervisor said that she couldn’t. The manager said that she had an exam to take in connection with her qualifications so that was going to be OK. Later on that afternoon I was with someone else when this girl walked past me and went down a side street that was quite steep. When she was halfway down she beckoned to me and made a gesture something like “when I’m at the bottom, tell him” – and I couldn’t see to whom she was pointing – “to come down”. I thought to myself “perhaps I ought to go down and have some interpretation of this. Wouldn’t it be a good idea,”. So I asked my friend “do you think that I ought to go down and see what she wants?”. My friend said “no, I don’t think she wants us and you’ll be very lucky if you see her again”. I replied “I’ve seen her so often just recently that I’m sure that there will be more to it”. I had a feeling that there was something nefarious going on, that she was either going to do a robbery or a hold-up or something. Everything about this seemed really suspicious, even not hanging up her coat with the other people looked suspicious to me.

There was something else about this girl as well, something to do with old-time radio. There was an old machine that was available. I’d gone to check the plugs in my room but the centre-piece of the plug where you plugged in the appliance was loose. I told my father and showed it to him. My idea was persuade him to let me have this radio so that I could listen to this girl. We found a few grub-screws but they weren’t the correct ones. They were all screws with broken heads that we’d used in carpentry or something. he said that he’d get round to it. Then he said to one of my sisters “isn’t one of you girls going to start putting a bolt across on your room now?”. One of them replied “there’s this thing, this machine that they say we can travel all around the world from our bedroom in 24 hours. Why would anyone want to do that?”. My immediate response was “why wouldn’t anyone want to do that?”. This started to lead to a discussion between my father and my sister. In the meantime I thought to myself “I’m trying to get hold of him to get him on his own so that I can ask about this radio so that I can get on and listen to this girl but at this rate I’m never ever going to do this. There were just so many distractions again”.

There was another thing about entertainment on board a ship and this girl was in charge of it. I was keen to sign up for the entertainment and everyone was surprised but it was a chance to talk to this girl. Someone said “she won’t be interested in you. She’s a professional hostess and has thousands of people every week whom she sees”. I replied “yes, but you live for the moment and you never know what the future holds.

So that’s three times that this girl put in an appearance last night – with me stepping back not exactly into the same place where I left it but pretty close to it with the same people showing up. There’s definitely something going on right now that I can’t explain.

A little later there was a group of us walking somewhere. We were discussing my dreams and the teacher said that that’s a fascinating subject and wished that she could have a copy. I said “I’ll give you a copy if you like. I write them down”. She seemed to be quite keen at first and then she started to make excuses “I don’t have my computer here” and a few other things like that. I replied “if you really want them you can have them. It’s not a big problem for me”. We went past a house and there was a woman outside. Someone pointed to some footsteps on the floor. The woman said “that’s my son and his football boots”. She had a look in the car and said “you can see where he’s sat when he’s come home and where he’s been looking for his stuff – first turning his head that way and then another way”. This woman rang a bell with me as she had some old cars. I asked where her old cars were. She replied “the woman who lived here has moved away”. I said “I know that she’s gone and taken some cars with her but I’m sure that you had a few old ones”. She pointed to an Austin A35 up by the hedge against the road and there was another one further down in the garden at the bottom. There was something else that I couldn’t recognise. She was talking about these cars and I said “I’m sure you had much more than this at one time”.

So is it any wonder that leaving the bed was rather problematic.

Having put the spare battery on charge last night, it goes without saying that Caliburn started fine this morning. We went to Aldi and while they had plenty of stuff in and plenty of choice, they didn’t have much of what I wanted. And watching girls probably not yet in their 20s dragging four tiny kids around the shop made me realise that this really is rock-bottom shopping.

Not that I’m elitist or anything like that but I’ll probably end up back shopping in Lidl.

Back here I had a coffee and a fruit bun and then attacked the dictaphone notes. And I don’t know what happened today but I had a really good shift and actually finished all of them and updated every one of the journal entries with the missing entries.

And apart from the family and Nerina, I had loads of exciting visitors. Miss Stoke on Trent was there a few time as was Percy Penguin, who doesn’t feature in these pages half as often as she deserves.

TOTGA showed her face too as well as some other people who flit in and out but one surprising omission was Castor. She didn’t turn up at all and I’d swap any appearance of anyone else in my nocturnal voyages for a visit from her.

Something really strange happened on that boat that night and I wish that I knew what it was.

Meanwhile back at the ra … errr … apartment I went for lunch with my nice new bread and then went outside for half an hour to tidy Caliburn a little and to find the screws to reassemble the door panel. I eventually tracked them down and now he’s looking so much better.

However, I wish that I knew where the spring clip that secures the window winder onto the axis sprung off to that day when I levered it off.

Another interruption, if there hadn’t been enough already, was my afternoon walk.

Down at the wall at the end of the car park I peered down onto the beach and was astonished to see all of the crowds down there.

There was even someone negotiating the currents with a paddleboard and I bet that he would have known all about it had he fallen off into the water.

And have you noticed the length of the shadows these days? The sun is sinking lower and lower in the sky.

It wasn’t just seeing all the people on the beach that was surprising either.

Out there in the bay one of the sailing schools from somewhere was being quite adventurous. Four of their boats had gone way out from shore and were busy parading up and down.

And that reminded me – I want to see what the heart specialist has to say about my heart next week so that I can plan about going sailing and going for a flight underneath a Nazgul. Things are building up here.

Further along on the beach there was plenty more activity too.

Out on the rocks at the water’s edge there was a guy casting his rod and line into the ocean, more in hope than in expectation I imagine. Remember that we have yet to see a fisherman with rod and line actually catch something.

There were a couple of other people down there too. I’m not sure what they were doing. At first I thought that they might have been doing some peche à pied among the rocks but it’s not very easy to see from this angle.

As I left the building to come out I was immediately overflown by one of the little light aircraft from the airfield but I wasn’t quick enough to photograph it.

But never mind. As I was walking along the path an old familiar rattle from the distance told me that one of the powered hang-gliders was heading my way.

Today, we’re having the red one come to overfly us. The yellow one must be having a day off today.

And that reminds me that we haven’t seen the yellow autogyro for a while either. I wonder where he’s got to.

We’ve seen crowds on the beach, crowds out at see and even a couple of things up in the air so far.

There are crowds on land too and when I saw “crowds” I really DO mean “crowds”. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many people walking around on the path down to the headland before at this time of year.

Mind you, it’s nothing at all like mid-November today. It’s much more like the balmy early evenings on a mid-September day and I don’t recall there being anything like any wind to speak of either.

Walking down the path and across the car park I came down to the end of the headland.

There were crowds down there as well. usually, we might manage just a couple of people by the little stone cabin there if we are lucky but today there were what looked like a couple of families that were admiring the beautiful sun that was blinding me and the camera.

Further out on the end of the rocks at the water’s edge were a couple more fishermen having a go with rod and line. But I didn’t really pay much attention to them.

Instead I cleared off down the path on the other side of the headland.

Over at the ferry terminal this afternoon in a foot or so of water was one of the Joly France ferries to the Ile de Chausey. The older one I reckon because, as you see, there’s no step in the stern.

And for once, they’ve folded up the crane correctly.

Nothing else happening out there. L’Omerta is still settled in the silt and the portable boat lift is still in the middle of the chantier naval with its wheels lying by the side.

Back here I made a coffee and then waded through another pile of photos from that rock concert a couple of weeks ago.

That took me up to tea time and steamed veg with falafel and vegan cheese sauce which was delicious.

Tomorrow I’m busy. There’s a public meeting about the twinning arrangements between Granville and Uummannaq and as I know Uummannaq and some of its inhabitants very well, I’ve been asked by the radio to go and record it and interview a couple of people there.

There’s also a rock concert in town to which I’ve been invited but I don’t know how I’m going to find the time to go.

First task though will be to find the spare battery and the two battery chargers for the NIKON 1 J5. Before I posted the camera off, I put them somewhere safe so I wouldn’t misplace them, so that means that it will be another 5 years before they next see the light of day.

Sunday 20th December 2020 – SHRIMP BOATS …

… are coming, there’s dancing tonight

Tonight while I was out on my run, I counted the number of fishing boats out at sea that were heading back to home, and made it at 18 as far as I could see, and there where probably even more others the that I couldn’t see too.

With Christmas rapidly approaching and with Brexit threatening to cut off access to the fishing grounds out there with the repealing of the Treaty of the Bay of Granville, anything that floats has probably gone out to sea to make the most of whatever they can catch between now and the end of the year.

As for me, I made the most of whatever sleep came my way last night. Despite not going to bed until 02:30 this morning, I slept all the way through until about 11:20, which isn’t too bad considering.

And plenty of time for me to go off on a voyage or two here and there. We were on board a ship last night steaming into a harbour – a really big harbour without many ships in there. We were imagining what it would have been like 100 years ago. We had to tie up and manoeuvre around in the port and that meant following the quayside edge very closely for quite a distance. I was thinking that 100 years ago with it full of ships we would never have done this. The cleats that you use for tying up the ship were missing – hadn’t been refitted after a paint job so we tipped out a box of them and found 3 but couldn’t find the screws then to screw them together. The screws that we had chosen out of here weren’t big enough. We didn’t have the right screws for some reason. Rosemary was there and she had to do something. I had the impression that it was to spread some jam on some bread or something but I can’t remember what it was she had to do. Then the ship pulled into port. By this time we were on the quayside and the ship pulled in and they threw out the ropes and tied her up. Down came the gang plank and we had to go back on board to get our things ready to move on. I helped on board those whom I was with.

Some time later I was on Crewe Bus Station with my mother and STRAWBERRY MOOSE waiting for a bus to Shavington. It was starting to become late and I thought to myself “I wonder where the thing has got to. It should have pulled in by now”. Mother was chatting away to people as she usually did. She talked to a bus conductor who told her that it had pulled in at the Zoom platform down there, platforms 4 5 and 6 which was where the buses usually went to. So what were we doing up at the top end of the bus station I don’t know. My mother needed some convincing and in the end she suddenly said “yes it must be” so off we ran. I had to fetch my rucksack which was extremely heavy and pick up Strawberry Moose. There was another girl there who was going to school for her first day. She was saying that it’s not going to be much fun if she turns up late for school or not even get in at all on her very first day. We ran on down to where the voice was, and I heard a voice shout “no, no, no” but I ignored it. I was just about to mount on the bus when I saw my mother up on top making “no” gestures so I had a look at the bus that I was just about to get on that he had indicated which was the K43 that goes to Nantwich via Willaston, not Shavington so I thought “what’s goign to happen now?” I had to get off again. A couple of minutes later she came back down. Then this really ancient kind of tram that was actually now a bus pulled into the bus station at Platform 1. We all went down to see it – it was “P” registered which was of course a nonsense because the thing was about 100 years old. We had a good look around it and found that it was an old Liverpool Corporation tram that Crosville had acquired and were going to use it as a bus. It turned out to be ours and we were actually going to have a ride on it as well. Someone took out his camera to photograph it so we all took out ours and stood back in a ring to take a photograph of it but for some reason my camera wasn’t working again and I just couldn’t get a pic of it. This was annoying of course because everyone else was wanting to walk down to have a closer look at it and I was asking them to wait until I had a photo which they were all willing to do but it was just taking me ages to try to take a photo. The camera just wouldn’t seem to take it

And I’m impressed that I can remember so much about the organisation of Crewe Bus Station in a dream after all these years. And it’s also strange that Crewe Bus Station always seems to put in an appearance round about this time of the year.

Later on during the night I was in Whitchurch – 2 of us had set off from Crewe or Nantwich and the guy I was with wasn’t ready so I said that I’d set off and he could catch me up. The usual way that we’d go to Shrewsbury would be via Audlem and Market Drayton but for some reason I went through Whitchurch that way. When I got into Whitchurch this guy still hadn’t caught me up and there was a huge flood in the centre of the town. By now I was on foot, and there was a Mark II Ford Zephyr taxi up to its doors in the water making really heavy weather of trying to get through. I thought that he shouldn’t have got through at all in this. A rough old thing as well with no interior trim or anything, a real ancient elderly machine. When we got past I took out my camera to take some photos but it wouldn’t work again. I ought to take loads of photos of these floods but I couldn’t get the camera to work. Then I noticed that trains were passing very slowly underneath the railway bridge so I went to see what was happening there. There was a load of workmen digging away at a pile of sand. It looked as if the bridge had collapsed onto the railway underneath in parts. I was there trying to take a photo of that but still the camera wouldn’t work. A guy came up and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was taking some photos for a blog. he replied “you’d better bring some bottles down for us. Me and my mates, we’d like some bottles” I said “I’ll talk to the readers – see what they have to say about it. They won’t even pay me for my travelling expenses”. In the end we were allowed down and I was having a look for the charge utile loading plate on the bridge. You could see where the bridge had collapsed under there – a proper Victorian construction. Again I went to take some photos but again the camera wouldn’t work. All that time I was trying to take these photos these kids kept on running around in front of me and the camera and I kept on telling them to keep away so they would keep away for a minute or two and run back again with all of this going on – the floods and the Zephyr up to its doors and the collapsed bridge and the trains inching their way past and the flaming camera wouldn’t work!

It’s not the first time that the NIKON 1 has let me down in a dream either. It seems to be becoming a regular feature in a nocturnal ramble these days, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

But while I’m on the subject, seeing as it came up in the middle of a nocturnal voyage, if you’ve enjoyed or profited from these notes, please make your next Amazon purchases by using the links aside. It costs you no extra but I receive a small commission that helps defray my web-hosting expenses

All of that took me right up until about 13:30 so I went for a hot chocolate and the last slice of my delicious fruit cake. And that gave me an idea.

One of the things that I’d noticed was after having fed the sourdough mother the other day, I noticed that for the very first time, it had risen spectacularly and the jar was full of gas.

Now one of the problems with my sourdough bread is that it doesn’t rise enough and it’s all rather damp and heavy like a cake. And so I prepared a sourdough dough mix and added all of my fruit and nut mix to it, including a couple of ripe bananas, and left it on one side.

If it doesn’t rise very much and ends up like a cake, as it seems to be doing right now, it won’t make any difference and it’ll still taste just as good with all of the fruit in it and I won’t be inconvenienced. And it’ll be a good opportunity to practice.

Having done that, I fed the sourdough again and put that on one side too.

When I’d been in LIDL last I’d bought a traditional ginger spice cake with nuts (completely vegan of course) because I have no Christmas cake this year with Liz being away. On Saturday I’d bought some marzipan so this afternoon I sprinkled my rolling pad with icing sugar and then rolled out a lump of marzipan until it was very thin.

While a couple of spoonfuls of strawberry jam were slowly melting in a saucepan over a very low heat, then using the cake as a template, I cut five slices of marzipan out of the bit that I’d rolled, for the top, the two sides and the two ends.

With the jam now nice and liquid and runny, I painted the 5 faces of the cake with a nice thick layer of the warm jammy liquid and then pressed the marzipan to it so it was now all covered (except for the base). That’s now going to cool and set for 72 hours and then I’m going to try to ice it.

By now it was time for me to go off on my afternoon walk around the headland to see what was happening.

And there were quite a few people out there today having a wander around on the last weekend before Christmas, and even a couple of intrepid wetsuit-clad paddle-boarders having a go at practising their art. It looks as if one of them didn’t quite make it out to sea, but I imagine that he’ll remount and have another go at joining his friend at some point.

There’s a seagull out there that isn’t all that pleased about what has been going on and is expressing its displeasure at one of the paddle-boarders. And we know all about their accuracy

While I was out there having a good look around, I noticed some movement right out at the north-eastern extremity of the Ile de Chausey.

It was very difficult to see what was happening with the naked eye so I took a long distance photograph to crop and enlarge when I returned home so that I might be able to see what it might be.

What was going through my mind was that it might be either Thora or Normandy Trader coming into port on an additional run, but in actual fact, it’s one of the larger of the trawlers from the port out there doing a little bit of fishing or whatever in that little corner.

From there I wandered off along the path towards the lighthouse, but there wasn’t very much going on that way. And so I wandered off across the lawn and then the car park and round to the end of the headland.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen quite a few good sunsets over here just recently. With us reaching the shortest day of the year I was hoping that we would have a good view of the sun at its perigee and today I was not going to be disappointed at all. It’s not as good as one or two that we have seen, but it’s certainly better than most.

No ships or anything like hat out at sea so I wandered off again on my walk.

But then I didn’t really advance very far before I stopped again.

We’ve seen plenty of fishing boat out at sea today, but it’s not just at sea that there’s a pile of fishing going on. Even though we are not at the period of the Grand Marée there are even so a few people down there taking part in the peche à pied this afternoon.

They were throwing a few things into a bucket, so I watched for a few minutes and then wandered off myself down the path. We still had our two boats in the chantier navale, the yacht and the fishing boat that arrived yesterday, and nothing else.

While I was out there looking down on the chantier navale, my train of thought was interrupted by my being overflown.

We’ve had plenty of people on land, and plenty of people out at sea, so there is no reason at all why we shouldn’t have plenty of people in the air. Today, it’s the turn of a Piper PA-28-181 Archer III, registration number F-GHYZ.

As far as I can tell, it’s a machine owned by the Rennes Air Club and according to its flight plan, it’s on its way to Rennes St Jacques Airport.

And so I wandered on home and made myself a nice hot mug of coffee to keep me going.

It was time for me to think about a puddling for next week. With plenty of cooking apples on hand, I made myself a small apple crumble. And with some crumble left over, I made a second, smaller one.

Earlier on in the day I’d taken out a dollop of dough from the freezer. By now it was defrosted so I kneaded it properly, mixed it around and then rolled it out and put it into the pizza tray, folding the overhanging edges back inside.

With an hour or so to spare I came back in here and had a play around with a few things that needed doing and did my Welsh homework for the day again.

When the pizza base had risen, I put on the oven and brought it to temperature and bunged in the apple crumbles. While the crumbles were doing, I prepared my pizza and when the apple crumble were cooked, I took them out and then put the pizza in.

While the pizza was cooking, I went out for my evening walk and runs. All the way down to the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord.

Earlier on, we saw the photo of all of the fishing boats out there this evening. Plenty more than were shown on the photograph as I mentioned, but there was something else that caught my eye.

This particular light here is something quite out of the ordinary and I’ve no idea at all as to what it might be. It’s not likely to be a fishing work light this close to the rocks at the Pointe du Roc. But nevertheless, there were still a couple of other lights in the background from other fishing boats making their way into the harbour.

While I was standing at the viewpoint at the Rue du Nord, I did my impression of Lord Darnhall’s wife at the sermon in the church on the first holiday of the year, and cast my eye about.

And here’s a thing that caught my eye too. I’ve no idea what this might be but there was some kind of light going on and off on the beach down below at the foot of the steps. There didn’t seem to be anyone standing around down there with it and after a few minutes, the light failed to come on again and that was that.

From there, I pushed on along the Rue du Nord, breaking into a run as much as I could. And then I disappeared down the path underneath the walls, avoiding the puddles.

Halfway along the footpath I stopped at my usual place to catch my breath, and there I looked out to sea.

It was reasonably clear on the horizon and so I had a try at taking another delayed-exposure photograph or two (or three or four with all kinds of different settings) of the general area in which lies St Helier. Most of them ended up filed under “CS” but one of them was worth another look, although I’ve taken many better photos than these.

You can’t actually see the street lights of the town down here but the red light on the radio mast at the back of the town is clearly visible on the photo, even if it wasn’t visible with the naked eye.

From there, I walked on down to the end of the path – forgetting to break into a run which was rather disappointing.

Across the Square Maurice Marland I ran, right away to the far side. From there, before I walked up to the top of the walls, I looked back across the square back towards where this leg of the run began and I have to say that I’ve not really appreciated the view from this viewpoint and so I decided to take a photograph from here looking backwards.

Down in the Rue Notre Dame I met Minette‘s mum so we had a chat for a while and then I ran on home.

By now, my pizza was properly cooked so I sat down and ate it, having photographed it first with my apple crumble.

No pudding tonight again of course – the pizza was quite filling and I didn’t need anything else to eat. And then I came back in here to write up my notes for the day.

Tomorrow I have my radio programme to do. I want to finish off the live concert for the month of February and then do a live concert for the month of March. If there’s time again, there’s the month of April to do and then we’ll be right bang up to date.

While I’m in Leuven, if I can do 2, or even 3 radio programme’s worth of music and then deal with the speech when I return, I’ll be well away with where I would like to be. 20 weeks ahead is ideal because if I have plans to do anything over the summer, although I don’t quite know what or whether we’ll even be able to do anything anyway, there will be a breathing space for me to have a little break.

And I can’t say that I don’t need one.

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: paddle board

Monday 19th September 2022 – WE ALMOST HAD …

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Saturday 23rd July 2022 – HAVING COMPLAINED YESTERDAY …

Thursday 11th November 2021 – I THOUGHT THAT I’D …

Sunday 20th December 2020 – SHRIMP BOATS …

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