Tag Archives: paint shop pro

Sunday 1st March 2026 – DYDD GWYL DEWI …

… hapus iawn, pawb!

Did you all enjoy your leek soup? And did you arrange your daffodils neatly in your living room? And did you give your pet dragon a little treat? As long as you did all of that, you aren’t likely to receive a visit from an angry druid today.

As for me, I’m afraid that I didn’t. Sunday here is pizza day, and as well as that, I can’t go out hunting for daffodils, although Rosemary did send me some virtual daffodils via an internet chat program.

Instead, I’ve had something of a lazy day, and you’ll be surprised at just how productive I have been, because I know that I am.

Last night wasn’t as I had planned it either. It ended up being horribly late, just after midnight, when I stopped letting it all hang out and went to bed instead. And instead of the decent sleep and long lie-in that I wanted, it was one of those mobile nights where I was tossing and turning, half awake and half asleep, without actually going into a really deep sleep.

When the nurse put in an appearance, I was actually awake, and so I pretended to be asleep so that I didn’t have to leave my comfortable bed. He sorted out my legs and feet and then disappeared. I curled up under the bedclothes and tried my best to go to sleep, but with no luck at all.

Eventually, round about 09:15, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead. I gathered up my clothes from the chair and, throwing my slippers in the general direction of the bathroom, I scored a beautiful hole in one, right into the toilet bowl. What a way to start the day!

In the kitchen, I forgot my medication, but I had a lovely breakfast of porridge, hot coffee and two of my homemade croissants. That’s a really nice way to start the day, especially when you take your time and don’t go into your office to start work until 10:45. I wish that every day could be like this.

What took me so long was that I was engrossed in my new book, ESSAYS ON THE LATIN ORIENT by William A. Miller.

Today, we’re discussing the complicated relationship between Thebes, Athens and Sparta, a relationship that sporadically erupted into warfare, with any two pitted against the third. It’s helping me brush up on my classics from when I studied Latin at grammar school, and it’s amazing just how much of the old classical stories have been proved by modern archaeology to be true.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out what had happened during the night.

I was living in some kind of communal living thing. There were lots of different people there doing lots of different things. There should have been a meeting late one night before going to bed, but it turned out that the guy on whose behalf the meeting was being held had simply gone ahead and applied the texture mix to his skin, which meant that he’d be busy recovering or whatever, changing or something, and so the meeting was cancelled. That was extremely disappointing, so I gathered up a couple of things from the radio, some old English-language programmes that I’d done years ago and went to see the girl in the next room who worked for the local radio. She thanked me for coming but said that they were doing things in a different way these days and didn’t need the programmes that I had. However, there would be plenty of opportunity to do stuff in the future. She was thinking of having some kind of doll or something and she would want me to write the speech for it. I took my things to go back to my room, but on the way back, I heard that there had been some kind of announcement that Jim Dale, one of the CARRY ON stars, had been seen hiding in a tree near the old airfield up near Wardle – it was described as “Stoke Bank” in this news report. He’d been repeating one of his “Carry On” speeches from out of this tree and it had made the local news in all the papers.

Whatever the significance of the first part of this dream might be, I have no idea. As for the second part, I have a whole stock of English language radio programmes that Liz and I prepared when we were running “Radio Anglais”, programmes that were broadcast on French local radio. A short while ago, a radio station in Nantwich was calling for radio presenters and programmes, so I sent them one or two as tasters, to see whether they might be interested in a programme from me every now and again. It goes without saying that they never replied.

There is a “Stoke Bank” along the A51 a couple of miles from the old Wardle Airfield, which was my home … "the airfield, not Stoke Bank#34; – ed … for a short while when I was a baby. But there aren’t any trees there in which Jim Dale could loiter, whether or not he might be repeating a “Carry On” speech.

And I did once live in some kind of commune. But not for long, though. Firstly, I’m not a sociable animal, and secondly, most people in that place preferred to live off the backs of other, hard-working people. In the end, I preferred to live in my van.

Incidentally, throughout these pages, you’ll see links to Amazon products appearing every now and again. Being a Sales Associate of Amazon, I receive a small commission on goods sold via my links. It costs you nothing at all extra, but helps defray … "part of the" – ed … cost of my not-insubstantial web-hosting fees.

There are also links on the sidebar for AMAZON UK, AMAZON USA and, since the recent “troubles”, AMAZON CANADA for the use of my numerous Canadian visitors. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I am extremely grateful when someone uses them to make a purchase.

There had been a couple of girls who had come over for an environmental conference. I’d been chatting to one and I was getting on extremely well with her. For some reason, my brother ended up with their contact details, but I didn’t. On the Sunday, we had various things to do, like we had to pack our place up as we were moving house that weekend. We were busy organising everything, and there was this beautiful cupboard that I’d had my eye on for ages with several drawers in it. It just looked like a huge bass speaker. The price on it was something like £275.00, which I thought was too much. Someone whom we knew came along and asked about it. The woman said “if you take it now, you can have it for £180.00. He paid her cash on the spot, and I felt really annoyed because I would have had it for £180.00 any day of the week. I told her to wait a minute because it had some of my paperwork in it. I had to go through and find somewhere to put this paperwork. I asked someone if they had a sack, and my mother made some kind of comment about that, but I wasn’t in the mood to joke. In the end, someone found a large paper sack and I began to put my things into it. One thing that I’d noticed was that a plot of land on which I’d had my eye too, which was formerly a garage in Audlem, had come back onto the market. The announcement from the paper was that there was a confusion about the closing date of the auction. Of course, I was far too busy to concentrate on this and we were still putting away our things. I came across a press cutting that showed that this conference to which we’d been was going on today, and there was a chance to meet all the contributors. That really annoyed me because I could have gone along and seen that girl again. Then my brother came up with some kind of story about how his car, with a trailer on it, had an electrical fault and he’d had to manually flash the rear lights to make some kind of brake lights every time he stopped. I was still in no mood for any kind of joke

This is quite a regular theme, isn’t it? Here I am, just about to Get The Girl, and a member of my family comes along and throws a spanner into the works.

The chest of drawers sounds interesting, and had I been healthy, I would have gone all-out to make one. And moving house, cars with electrical faults and looking for plots of land were habitual themes in real life back in the day.

There was also something about a Grand Prix around by Monte Carlo, the Monaco Grand Prix, twisting and turning through the streets with all of these cars taking part. We were watching it from a distance, and suddenly, after about half of the cars had gone past, there was complete silence and nothing. Then, all of the Grand Prix drivers who hadn’t gone through in their cars, they came through, and they were running. Apparently, there had been a major accident somewhere and they couldn’t proceed any further with their cars – this major accident behind the leading group so they couldn’t proceed with their cars, so they were going to run the rest of the course.

Before I went to bed last night, I was reading a news article about Cadillac’s entry into the Formula One circuit, but that their engine is not considered to be as reliable as it needs to be. Running the course on foot would be a novel way to proceed, though.

There was some kind of dream going on about a football competition. One of the teams had been relegated. There was something about a particular match and it involved my vegan ice cream somewhere, but I really can’t remember any more about it because I awoke as it was under way and it all evaporated … "the dream, not the ice cream" – ed …

Llanelli has just been relegated from the JD Cymru League, and lest night, we were watching the Welsh League Cup Final, complete with its very emotional ending, followed by vegan ice cream for dessert.

Seeing as we have been talking about the Welsh League Cup Final … "well, one of us has" – ed … this is the LINK TO THE HIGHLIGHTS. This is the LINK TO THE FULL MATCH. If you have the time, it’s well-worth it from a footballing point of view. The highlights don’t really show anything like a fair representative proportion of the game.

When I’d finished the dictaphone notes, there was yet more football. Morton were comfortably beaten by Airdrie after going down to nine men, and then Stranraer’s long unbeaten run came to an end as they were beaten at home by Elgin City.

After a disgusting drink break, with some of the medication that I’d forgotten, I had a pile of *.html coding to edit.

First thing though was to upload my graphics program onto this laptop. That’s easier said than done because there is no DVD drive on it. I had to rummage around deep in the bowels of the box where all of the redundant hard drives are hiding, and there it was, right at the bottom. And to my surprise, the USB cable and power pack were with it. Usually, knowing me, I would have expected them to have been scattered to the four winds a long time ago.

The next step was to open the drive. With not having been opened for years, the springs had seized. Luckily, there’s an escape hole, and a straightened paper clip fitted in quite nicely to lever down the internal catch.

Having uploaded the program, I could then go ahead and prepare some graphic images. And then I had to hunt down a few web links to tie to the images, and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been.

The next task was to edit the *.html coding to include the images and their links, and I was dismayed at how much *.html coding I’ve forgotten. Turn the clock back thirty years, and I was writing web pages by hand in “Notetab” and even teaching basic web design to a couple of interested people, but I couldn’t do it now.

There was an hour to spare, so I made a start on the Welsh homework. I’ve done about two-thirds of it, and as it doesn’t have to be done for two weeks, I’m glad that I’m well in advance because I can have a relax at some point.

At 16:30 I knocked off to go a-baking. A loaf of bread and a vegan pizza were today’s output. The bread rose like a lift and looks excellent, and the pizza was absolutely delicious, with half left over for tomorrow.

But right now, I’m off to bed, ready for dialysis tomorrow … "I don’t think" – ed … and to reflect on what a busy day I’ve had, considering that Sunday is supposed to be a Day of Rest.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about The Monaco Grand Prix … "well, one of us has" – ed … Percy Penguin once told me that she’d like to go there to watch the Formula One race.
However, I told her "we don’t have the money to go to watch the Formula One race in Monaco. And in any case, it’s pronounced Gron’ Pree."

0

Monday 27th February 2023 – IT DIDN’T TAKE …

… long for me to finish off the two radio programmes this morning. They were all done and finished and up and running before 09:00.

And had I been more determined than I was, I might even have had them finished well before that too but I wasn’t in very much of a hurry today. I could afford to take it easy.

It had been another bizarre night too. In bed nice and early as is my wont on a Sunday evening but once more it took an age to go off to sleep.

When I finally did, it was another quite mobile night, as I discovered later in the morning when I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I was with someone, although I don’t know who it was. It wasn’t anyone significant though. A bow and arrow set belong to one of my siblings had come into our possession. We’d been out one night playing around with it. We were rubbish because it wasn’t as easy as it might sound. We’d spent a whole night trying to improve our performance but to no avail. In the end we gave it up. Next morning the messenger from work was away so they asked me if I’d run the deliveries between the various offices in Crewe. I worked out where I needed to go and set off on foot. For the final one which was quite a distance away from the others I ran all the way. I femt so much better having done that. Having dropped off what I had to drop off I was back at the house of my sister and her husband which was very close to Crewe town centre in Tollitt Street. I went round the back and gave back the bow and arrow. We were discussing this and my brother came in. He asked in a menacing tone if I’d brought everything back. I told him that I had and I told them all that they aren’t going to find this easy. If they are going out looking for good results quite quickly they are going to be very disappointed.

Later on I was round at the house of one of the people for whom I used to drive coaches. We were chatting in general about the employees. I was saying that it was a good job that all the employees whome he had were nice and friendly. He quoted the name of someone and said “he’s not. He’ll have his face pumped in by some passenger or other before much longer” which made me wonder why he kept on employing him. It turned out to be my father. I was reading a pile of old local newspapers. Some of the stories were extremely interesting to say the least. We were chatting about a couple of them. I was then thinking that maybe it’s time for me to go home as I have to be at work at 06:00 but time was drifting on and I was still lounging around there not doing anything thinking that at this rate I could see myself staying sleeping on his sofa and going away from here straight into work so I really ought to make a move to go home but I just couldn’t summon up the energy to be gone

And then I arrived in Brussels. I was changing trains to go on somewhere else. I had to wait the night so I tried to find a hotel. The first 3 or 4 that I tried had no room. I couldn’t go very far because of course I wasn’t very mobile with my suitcase. One hotel receptionist rang round 3 or 4 different hotels for me. She couldn’t find a room. She made it quite clear that that was all that she would do for me. I replied “right, I’d better go and find a railway arch”. Then I couldn’t find my suitcase. I started to search around the foyer of this hotel among all these people who were there but I couldn’t find it at all. I awoke in the middle of having a panic attack and that was quite uncomfortable. It was actually quite realistic

What else I’ve been doing is something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while. I don’t use my 3D program anything like as much as I used to and I’ve probably forgotten a lot of things that I knew how to do. But while I was looking for something else I came across a new image-editing program that’s freeware.

It’s used by the 3D programmers for editing objects because of its good transparency add-ons. I use Paint Shop Pro and have done for almost 30 years but it has its shortcomings when green-screening so I’ve been itching to try something that might work better. Consequently I downloaded this program and I’ve been playing around with it today to try to make it work.

It’s actually quite complicated and the layout and instructions aren’t logical. I found a tutorial but it’s for an older version and the interface is different and doesn’t relate to the version that I downloaded. So I’ll have to continue and see if I can figure it out as I go along

As well as that, I’ve made arrangements for my little trip out on Wednesday – booking my travelling arrangements. Coming back on Friday isn’t easy because there’s not very much time at a connection and if we arrive late I’ll miss it. So i’m not booking the second part of my return until I actually arrive.

And then there’s the music for the next couple of radio programmes. I’m starting to run low on opening tracks and ending tracks now, being at Programme 202, so it takes a while to sort them out. And then I have to make a running time of about 48’30” with 10 tracks and that’s not as easy as it sounds either.

It’s quite an art form to do it properly and it certainly keeps my brain ticking over. That’s quite important with advancing age. I’m within touching distance of my three score years and ten and my brain will seize up if I stop using it.

Tea tonight was one of the best stuffed peppers that I’ve ever made. The stuffing was delicious and the pepper was cooked to perfection. There’s not much stuffing left because after all I won’t be here on Wednesday night for my leftover curry. Wednesday night’s tea will be potatoes and lentils with peas and carrots out of a tupperware-type bowl.

So now I’ll hunt down some more music and then I’ll be off to bed. I’ve a Welsh lesson tomorrow so I need to be on form. As well as the usual preparation there are piles of words that I’ve picked up from the football matches over the last couple of weeks that I need to learn There’s no point watching the football if I’m not going to learn anything.

That’s how I started to learn Flemish when I moved to Belgium in 1992, and I’m not alone in this idea. A woman I know has a daughter who is just 11 and a big football fan. These days she’s only allowed to watch football on the TV if she watches it in a foreign language and she has to take a list of new words to show her mother at the end of every game.

It’s catching.

0

Saturday 19th October 2019 – I SEEM TO HAVE …

… made rather a mess of things just recently.

If coming home from North America to Europe via Africa isn’t bad enough, then the tortuous route that I have to take to complete my journey home really puts the tin hat on things.

of course, there are several reasons for this. The constant changing of my plans didn’t help, my own unwillingness to leave North America and of course my constant vacillation (never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until next week) are all factors that have contributed towards this, although I can quite rightly curse my bad luck on occasion too.

But let’s start with this morning.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I half-jokingly said that I would probably be wide-awake at 04:30 this morning. Well, do you know what? I wasn’t all that far out.

Last night I couldn’t believe how quickly time went by while I was writing up my notes and doing some housekeeping. In no time at all it seemed to be 03:00 in the morning and I was far from tired.

But to be on the safe side I switched off the alarms and went to bed. And resorted to the usual stand-by of watching a film on the laptop. It never seems to fail to work … “it has done once or twice, you know” – ed … and this time was no exception. Flat out after about five minutes.

There is a good reason why I never travel home the day immediately following my medication, and that is that there is sometimes a Counter-coup and this is exactly what happened today.

I was out like a light until 10:00 and didn’t feel a thing all night. And I still managed to go to sleep again until 11:00 when I was awakened by the chambermaid wanting to clean the room. But I chased her away.

It really was time for me to raise myself from the dead I suppose and I set to work. And this is where my troubles really began.

For a start, there are major reconstruction works on the railway line south of Brussels so there are no early morning trains. My favourite, the 08:13, is one of those that has been cancelled so I’m having to go later.

No chance of catching my 11:15 or whatever train to Granville, so it’s just as well that that has been cancelled too. In fact there are no trains going from Paris to Granville tomorrow, for some reason or other. The best that I can do is to take a bus at about 13:00. And that gets into Granville at heaven alone knows what time.

And if that isn’t bad enough, I seem to have forgotten that it’s Sunday tomorrow and there are no buses in Granville. So I’ll have to walk, with about 30kg of luggage about my person.

I’m not doing too well, am I? But at least, the absence of a printer to print my tickets has made me finally go “paperless” by adding some apps on my mobile phone, so at least some good may have come of it all.

Having organised that, the next thing to organise was some food. Off I headed to the Delhaize in the railway station for a baguette, some tomatoes, hummus, bananas and drink. What I ate was delicious and there’s more for tomorrow too.

This afternoon, in the absence of my decent graphics program (Paint Shop Pro) that has gone with the wind following the collapse of the old laptop, I’ve had to learn how to use the add-on facilities of Irfanview in order to carry out a project that needs to be done this evening for tomorrow.

Despite all of the time that it took me to do it, it’s simply not possible to do it as well as Paint Shop Pro might have done it. But it’s a free program and it’s reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s remark on women’s preaching – “It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

As if to underline the benefits of prudence when I’m having my medication, I was obliged to take to my bed round about 17:00 and I slept it off until about 18:30 or so. The strain is certainly proving too much for me right now.

But I made it into town this evening to my little cafe for a plate of lentils with bread. No chips though – I’m going to keep on with this “cutting down” of my dietary requirements to see if I can keep the weight off, and I’m also going to try to add another daily walk into my routine when (if) I finally make it home. At first that should be pretty easy because there is no food in the house and without a mobile Caliburn I won’t be able to do a large mega-shop for a while.

And to ease off all of the pain and torment about my problems right now, I had a listen to some more music. Ocean by a German group called Eloy, and it’s probably one of the finest “Krautrock” albums ever. I never tire of listening to it.

The opening track, “Poseidon’s Creation”, includes the line “Son of the Gods, daughter of the earth .. ” and who does that remind you of? It’s quite bizarre how things suddenly appear like that and trigger off a switch in your mind?

So on that note, seeing as we are discussing music, I’ll go to bed and try for a good sleep. It’s going to be another long, hard day tomorrow.

0

Wednesday 21st November 2018 – WINTER IS DEFINITELY …

… here. Temperature was at 3°C again this morning when I awoke. And it wandered around about 5°C for most of the day. Whatever Indian Summer we were having has now gone for good until the Spring.

Last night was a bad night for me. I didn’t go to bed until rather later than I intended, and it was once again a struggle to leave my bed. I’d been on a voyage too but it had gone right out of my head by the time that I was on my feet.

This morning I had a few things to do – like deal with an upgrade to the laptop that somehow managed to wipe out the language settings on it. I had to fiddle around for a while until I could type the password in the correct character setting. And then I restarted it – and the language settings came back.

Second thing to do was to upload Paint Shop Pro to this laptop. I’d forgotten that it wasn’t on board.

Third thing was that I had had a message from the builder of Waterfox – the Firefox clone that I’ve been using. There’s a hidden link to the disabled utilities (and why it should be hidden I really don’t know) and he pointed me in the direction of where I can find the *.ftp program. It has to be configured by hand and it takes a while to do that but now it’s up and running.

I’m sure that there were a few other things that I was doing this morning but I can’t for the life of me remember now what it was. I’m cracking up, aren’t I?

After lunch I started to attack the previous blogs to upload the photos that I worked on yesterday. What with a pile of interruptions (including having a little … errr … relax on two occasions) I worked back as far as Saturday. I’ll push on tomorrow and do the rest.

fishing with rod and line granville manche normandy franceIt was a beautiful walk around the walls this afternoon.

The tide was quite far in and the fishermen were out in their boats at the foot of the cliffs. These people here had a couple of rods and lines and were fishing with them from the boat.

Not sure what they were catching though. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves anyway.

beach plat gousset granville manche normandy franceA little further on around the corner, the sun was shining on the beach down at the Plat Gousset.

Although it was quite windy, the tide wasn’t in far enough to push the waves over the sea wall, so there were quite a few people out there taking advantage of the good weather and the sunshine.

And the beach cabins have definitely gone too. I wonder if they take them away and store them out of the season and bring them back again next summer.

baie de mont st michel yacht in wind granville manche normandy franceOut in the Baie de Mont St Michel the wind was whipping up nicely.

Someone was out there in a sailing boat and it was really exciting to see the sails billowing out in the wind and pulling the yacht along at an impressive rate of knots.

But you can see that there was a sea mist out there today.

skyhook place maurice marland granville manche normandy franceYou’ll remember a few months ago that there was an exhibition of paintings and photographs suspended from the town walls above the Place Maurice Marland.

Today there was a tracked machine out there that looked as if it was there to take all of them down.

That’s an exciting machine all right. I wouldn’t have minded having that down on the farm when I was living there. I could think of a thousand and one uses for it.

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThat wasn’t all the excitement either.

As I was walking by the walls above the harbour, I noticed Normandy Trader down there. She must have sneaked in on the tide and I had missed her, and there she was setting off back out again.

I couldn’t see what it was that she was carrying with her but I imagine that it was a mixed cargo as usual.

grimaldi house rue cambernon granville manche normandy franceIt’s a little-known fact but an important claim to fame of the old medieval town of Granville that there’s a connection here with the royal family of Monaco.

One of the ancestors of Prince Ranier was a girl who lived in the town and married into the Grimaldi family. That was the home of her family and there is a plaque on the side recording that Prince Ranier came here a few years ago.

It looks as if they are now going to launch a programme of renovation on the family pile.

normandy trader ile de chausey granville manche normandy franceBy the time that I returned to my own family pile, I was thinking that the Normandy Trader would be well out to sea by now.

And so I coupled up the big zoom/telephoto lens and went off a-wandering round to the Pointe du Roc.

And there, setting off into the sunset against a backdrop of the Ile de Chausey was Normandy Trader, en route for Jersey.

normandy trader granville manche normandy franceI took another photo of it with the lens at its fullest extent, and then back here cropped out Normandy Trader and blew it (the crop, not the ship) up.

I still can’t see what she is carrying, but the photo has come out quite well considering the distance over which I was working;

When I returned to the apartment, Gribouille was outside and he let me pick him up for a stroke.

Tea tonight was the rest of the falafel with pasta and vegetables in tomato sauce.

port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAfter doing the washing-up, I went for my walk around the Pointe du Roc. And it’s freezing outside too. Winter draws on, and quite right too in this weather.

The clear, still weather was great for photography and so I took a few photos of the night. The one that I took of the boats, the harbour and the lights came out really well.

I particularly liked the reflection on the water of the red harbour gate light

ship repair yard granville manche normandy franceAnd that’s not all either.

Remember the other day when they were lifting that pink and white trawler up out of the water onto the quayside at the ship repair yard?

Well, there she is now. Up on blocks now and a ladder up against the side. There’s obviously some work that needs to be done to it, and it looks as if they have already made a start.

So back here now and I’m going to try yet again for another early night. Curled up under the blankets is the best place to be in this weather, I reckon.

beach plat gousset granville manche normandy france
Beach Plat Gousset Granville

beach casino place marechal foch granville manche normandy france
The beach down by the Casino at the Place Marechal Foch.

normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy france
Normandy Trader leaving Granville harbour on her way back to Jersey.

normandy trader granville manche normandy france
Normandy Trader setting out for Jersey

0

Monday 26th March 2018 – HOW LONG IS IT …

cruise ship english channel granville manche normandy france… since we’ve had a Ship of the Day?

We have them every now and then of course but nothing like the ones to which we are accustomed, steaming … “dieseling” – ed … down the Straits of Dover or up the St Lawrence. But today was rather different.

With a huge 300 mm zoom lens and a high vantage point on the Pointe du Roc, a good image editor (Paint Shop Pro has never failed me yet after well over 20 years) and a bit of “crop and paste” I can take photos dozens of miles out into the English Channel and make them look fairly respectable, all things considered.

I’ve no idea who she is and where she’s going, but her silhouette bears a strong resemblance to the Brittany Ferries’ Pont Aven – the ferry that runs between St Malo and Portsmouth. That is of course mere speculation but she’s impressive just the same.

grima port de granville harbour manche normandy franceAnd that’s not the only ship that was out and about.

The rattle and clanking of an ancient Kelvin diesel engine left no-one in any doubt as to who else was just leaving the harbour as I rounded the headland.

It’s our old friend Grima presumably having nipped in last night under cover of darkness while I was flaked out on the sofa.

grima port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThere was quite a crowd up here on the city walls watching her leave port. French people of course, but judging by their accents not from around here.

They were making all kinds of remarks and speculations about who or what she might be so I was able to fill them in on the details. They may be none-the-wiser, but they are certainly better-informed right now.

But never mind ships for now – during the night I was on the strangest rail journey. Rattling down the long corridor of this double-deck train furnished with cheap red and white plastic seats and trim until we suddenly came to the carriage with the swimming pool in it. The only way past was to shoot down this hole underneath the pool in which you were propelled by compressed air, and it was full of water. Definitely not the stuff for claustrophobics. So I queried it with the two Japanese attendants who at first didn’t (or wouldn’t) hear me but eventually they understood what I meant and “ohh yes, that’s the only way”. “But it’s wet!” I replied. “So where’s your towel?” they asked. When I explained that I didn’t have one they immediately offered to lend me one, with a weary sigh as if they were totally fed up with people who come on their trains and don’t bring their own towels. And I still wasn’t convinced about this escape route. I come out in a cold sweat even when the word “submarine is mentioned and regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I once declined the opportunity to visit the interior of the aforementioned.

But this all began with a visit that I had made to Stoke on Trent with someone whom I know to go to pick up something from the car spares place. It was crowded and I eventually fought my way to the front of the queue. The three little Chinese girls standing next to me were after a car part as they couldn’t go to school until they had this piece. “Let me guess – it’s a Mercedes” I said, recalling a similar occasion that had occurred to me. Of course, it was, so I leaned across to my friend, told him the story and invited him to guess. He didn’t hear me so I went across to him – and found that I had lost my place in the queue. So back again and worked my way round, and eventually I was seen. I had to go outside for my part where the person dealing with me told me that the measurements were wrong. It wasn’t 84m but he could find something at 80mm. I reckoned that it was more like 84mm but he insisted on 80mm and it was the centre boss from a Ford Escort steering wheel. The one he had was dirty so he started to clean it up but this had already taken far longer than I had planned and I had things to do, so I took it as it was, explaining to my friend (by now joined by none other than Zero) that I would see him later – although I knew that I wouldn’t really have time. My route away took me to the hospital and I ended up in a ward where I had once stayed. It was crowded with people sleeping everywhere and in the corner were people doing relaxation exercises, pretending to be rabbits asleep. Something that I found quite amusing. My route out of here took me past all of the nurses whom had dealt with me, and they all kept on asking me if I had my permit to leave. I explained that I hadn’t even been in, but they of course asked me why I was here then. And it was during one of these encounters that I ended up on board this train.

And no wonder that I was exhausted after all of that. Quite a struggle to leave my bed when the alarm went off.

And for a change I managed the medication and a breakfast, followed by a shower and even a lap round of the washing machine. High time that I organised myself.

Once everything was up and running and the medication had done its stuff I headed out for the shops. And it was an expensive day too for in three of the shops I spent €25:00 each, and that’s not like me.

In LIDL the money went on a kitchen roll holder and a set of kitchen knives (which are rubbish – worse than the one that they are supposed to replace), some absolutely delicious strawberries (I remembered that I had half a can of spray-on vegan cream left from Christmas) and a punnet of kiwis. Yes, with my new sorbet maker, I’m not going to be short of desserts for the next week or so.

NOZ was having another sale of exotic drinks plus a DVD sale with some good stuff in there, and also a nice black fleece. I realise that I don’t have enough jumpers and fleeces are good because they dry quickly when you wash them or it rains. And this one has the pockets sewn that they make little inside pockets too, which are very handy for travelling.

And a rolling pin! I’ve finally found a traditional wooden rolling pin too. Been looking for one for ages.

LeClerc was just the usual stuff but a lot of it because I’d let the supplies run right down just recently. And just €2:50 in Centrakor, on a new measuring jug. I had something of an accident the other day with the previous one.

Of course today was just the kind of day to take your butties to the wall outside and sit thereupon, so I had some soup to finish off, didn’t I? And then I had my walk and my little guitar practice session.

The postie came meantime and bought me the first consignment of my order from the other day. With having no credit card I wasn’t able to treat myself to a birthday present but once I’d organised that last time that I was in Brussels I could go ahead and order some of this year’s wish list. We had the remote control that I mentioned, and a couple of DVDs. More is yet to come.

Tea was a burger and vegetables, and the usual evening walk.

Liz was on line later on so we chatted for ages. Dylan, her grandson, has just passed his flute exam (bravo Dylan) and Robyn, her grand-daughter, has just passed her first level ballet exam.

So I’ve ordered a command performance ballet when they come in the summer, Dylan on music and Robyn on the dance floor

What more can anyone require?

0

Monday 26th February 2018 – DON’T SOME PEOPLE LIKE TO RUB IT IN?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I went to my Health Insurance people the other day to hand in a pile of documents so that the Doctor who oversees my case at the Insurance office could see them.

And today I had a leaflet from them. “What steps to take when a member of our scheme dies”.

Yes, nothing like rubbing it in, is there?

Mind you I felt like death this morning. Having had a really good sleep yesterday it upset my body rhythm completely and it was 02:00 and beyond before I went to bed.

Struggling out at 06:20 was clearly too much and after breakfast I crashed out well and truly for a good 90 minutes.

However during the night I’d been on my travels again. A few of us were on a train travelling from Chester to Crewe past the old Calveley station, but someone kept on inserting into the voyage old photos of the Chester – Mold – Ruthin railway line. And I’ve no idea why.

After my little wasted morning I decided that it was time to do some work. And so I’ve been hard at it since then. I’ve had another session with this 3D program that I use. I’ve been doing something that I promised quite a while ago, and that is to experiment with textures and templates.

It’s one of those things that the first step takes for ever, but once you have done one of them, it’s fairly straightforward. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I’ve been using Paint Shop Pro as my graphice editor for over 20 years, but even now I’m having to find and use facilities and functions that I never knew existed.

Despite all of my efforts, it’s still not doing what I think it ought to do. And so I’ll have to put a great deal more effort into it. It’s certainly progress though, all the same.

Having spoken to Rosemary on the telephone, I went for a rather late walk this afternoon.

fibre optic cable layers pointe du roc granville manche normandy franceAnd I once more fell in with the workmen digging the trench. It seems that they are laying the conduit first, and the cables will follow. And then there will be the connection to the network later.

I did ask about the timescale, and he reckoned that it would be about a year to have it up and running. That’s disappointing from my point of view – I was hoping for it to be much more rapid than that.

But nevertheless, that’s progress too, and I can’t complain too much about that.

vegan chocolate cake granville manche normandy franceBack here, it was time for coffee, as it always is when I come back from my walk.

And I usually allow myself a little treat, and that’s why I like birthdays so much because, having visited Liz and Terry, I’m supplied with another vegan chocolate birthday cake.

Sticky, gooey and chocolatey, and absolutely delicious. This should last me a couple of weeks and then I’ll have to have another birthday.

Tea was a stuffed pepper with the leftover stuffing from the other day. And my walk this evening took me past quite a few people also out taking the air.

So having had a decent morning’s sleep this morning, I wonder how I’ll get on tonight.

0

Monday 7th August 2017 – THESE LATE NIGHTS …

… aren’t doing me much good, you know.

I set the alarm at 07:00 in the morning because when I was going to bed at 21:30 or something I didn’t want to waste the day as well. But just recently I seem to have regained all of my old routine – still awake and fighting fit at 02:00 – working on an animation, would you believe..

Back in those days, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that an 08:30 start was the norm when it was a 02:00 sleep. But no matter what, I’m going to hold out for these 07:00 starts.

All in all, this sea air, this “place of my own” and this new evening walk routine seems to be doing me some good.

So with all if this in mind, it took two goes on the alarm clock (Billy Cotton as well as David Bowie) this morning to get me out of bed and staggering into the bathroom, but there I was all the same.

Baguette on the wall for lunch too in the sunshine. It was a glorious afternoon and I was out there until about 15:00 with my book on The Hundred Years War.

It’s a strange war because most British people know of Agincourt, Crécy, the Black Prince and precious little else. For France though, it was about 115 years of sheer continuous terror with rampaging “Private Armies” devastating the countryside.

I know about it from the English point of view of course, so a year or so ago I bought a huge, thick book of about 1,000 pages going into intimate detail of the war from a French point of view.

Tea was a mega-curry. Should have had lentils in it but I forgot to boil them (they take about 2 hours to boil). However I had tons of stuff left over in the fridge like the rest of the stuffing for the peppers, a few mushrooms and the like.

Add to that the pepper left over from the three from LIDL and a large tin of vegetables, it all went together quite well and was one of the best that I’ve made. And enough for four days too.

Ingrid was on the phone for an hour having a chat. She’s in life-changing mode right now too so we compared notes.

But much of the day was spent doing something quite exciting. With my 3D program I just work with a couple of basic templates for figures and I’ve worked on them myself to develop some characters.

But the easiest one to work with is about 10 years old and is no longer supported so finding accessories is very difficult. Stuff disappears off the markets and the newsgroups and is never replaced. The Usenet discussion groups have a retention time of about 3,000 days so it’s all dropping off the end.

But the stuff that I found the other day included some stuff from a previous generation of templates and in a fit of inspiration I’ve managed to develop a little script to make it fit my template.

It’s far from perfect but I’ll keep working at it.

As well as that, I’ve discovered the secret of adapting morphs from older generations of templates to fit the templates that I use, and these are generally better-crafted than current ones.

Again; it’s far from being perfected bu I have a couple that work and that is indeed progress.

I’ll go for a walk now and see what later this evening brings me.

0

Sunday 23rd July 2017 – THAT WAS A LOVELY …

… pizza tonight.

And it would have been even lovelier had Brain of Britain taken out the baking tray from the bottom of the oven. D’ohhhh!

So having had a coffee last night far later than is good for me, it was about 01:20 when I crawled off to bed last night. And despite waking up at 07:45, I thought that there was little chance of that, so I turned over again.

I reckon that 08:50 is as good a time as any to leave my stinking pit on a Sunday. But that meant a hurried scramble down to the magasin de presse for my baguette before the grockles cleared out the supply.

And, sad as it is to say, I have been “observed”.

My usual spec on the wall at lunch was once more occupied by grockles so I had to sit elsewhere next to a mother and young daughter grockle group a little farther down. And some woman walking her dog came over to me “what’s up? Have the tourists pinched your usual place?”

Yes, I’ve been well and truly fingered, haven’t I?

And I wasn’t alone either – and I don’t mean grockles and women with dogs.

Sitting there minding my own business when along came a young tabby-and-white tomcat. He went around the various groups of people scrounging food, and came over to me to see what I had. Of course I had nothing for him, but he let me pick him up and give him a stroke.

Very relaxing, stroking a cat. It’s good for the stress.

So as well as crashing out for half an hour this afternoon, I’ve been on the blog again. A few more pages unravelled, but one that didn’t even merit a placeholder back in December 2011 has now evolved to almost 1700 words.

There have been a few like that too, haven’t there? I wonder what was so important back in 2011 and 2012 when I never found the time to go back and write up pages like this.

And I’ve had another little play with a computer program.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I am a big user of Paint Shop Pro. The first serious computer program that I ever bought in 1996 and it’s served me faithfully for all kinds of image editing ever since – until I … errr … mislaid the disc.

I’ve turned my attic at Les Guis upside down on numerous occasions trying to find it, but to no avail whatever.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "thank goodness" – ed … on eBay the other week was a copy of PSP 8.1 – a major upgrade with many more useful features than my old PSP 7 that has done me almost 20 years service.

The price was far less that what I paid back in 1996 too and so I mentioned it to Terry and he duly obliged.

So that’s me now with about 4 years of work to catch up. I hope that I can remember how to use it!

I’ll make a start when I come back from my walk. It’s actually stopped raining for once.

0

Thursday 20th July 2017 – TUESDAY NIGHT’S …

… sleep was something of a disaster, if you remember correctly.

Not so last night’s.

In bed at a reasonably early hour for these days (the days when I retired at 21:30 seem to be long-past, thank heavens) and I was out like a light until David Bowie awoke me.

Mind you, for all the good it might have done, I may as well have stayed in bed because it was miserable outside, with a storm-force wind, to such a degree that I was planning on cancelling my Thursday walk into town.

But it brightened up (just a little) and the wind dropped (just a little) by 09:30 so even though I hadn’t showered or shaved, I wandered off into town all the same.

Nothing doing at the docks – “no shipwrecks and nobody drownding, in fact nothing to laugh at at all” as the old song goes. So I wandered off to the bank to check the accounts and sure enough – the money STILL hasn’t come in. I’ll need to see to that.

Having picked up a baguette – one of the nice ones that I like from down town, I wandered back up here.

Lunchtime was as usual on the wall, but I didn’t stay long. I don’t mind overcast weather and I don’t mind winds, but when you have both together it’s a bit depressing and miserable.

But I have made a decision – and that is that I’m going to change my routine slightly.

I had to throw away a melon today and also a couple of nectarines. They aren’t lasting for a whole week in this weather.

What I shall be doing is on my Friday shopping trips, buying just enough for four or five days and having my walk into town on Tuesdays when I can pick up fruit for the rest of the week from down there.

Tea was the last of the lentil and mushroom curry – and nice it was too. I’ll have to invent something for the next couple of days. I’m sure that I can manage.

So apart from craching out for half an hour this afternoon, I’ve been on the blog again. Here’s a page that I half-started last night after I returned from my walk, but fell asleep with it only half-completed.

I can’t believe that I only gave this page a 100-word place holder back then. It concerns two subjects upon which I was working at the time and I remember thinking that I’ll go back and rewrite the page when I had a moment.

And then I must have forgotten.

But I didn’t accomplish too much today, what with my walk, my long chat with Terry on the telephone (a present has arrived for me today, thank heavens – many thanks, Terry), having a rest and that sort of thing.

But in an idle 10 minutes when I was stretching my legs, I brought out the sheep shearer and razed my head. It’ll do now for a bit, although I’ll give it the quick once-over before I go to Canada.

Tomorrow will be the same too with a shopping trip, so I shall have to push along much more rapidly when I can.

0

Tuesday 4th July 2017 – I WONDERED …

… what the noise was that I could hear as I awoke this morning.

After a couple of minutes, having had my curiosity aroused to fever-pitch, I staggered out of bed into the bathroom to find that I had left the bathroom tap running all night. That’s going to be expensive, isn’t it? I have to pay for the water here.

That’s twice that I’ve left the tap running. And also twice that I’ve left the fridge door open. I would say that I’m slowly losing my mind, but as regular readers of this rubbish already know, that went years ago.

Early to bed last night might have been one thing – early to sleep was something else completely. But once I dropped off, I was gone for good until the alarm went off.

I was in Northampton during the night too – don’t ask me why because I reckon that in the whole of my life I haven’t been there half a dozen times. I was in charge of an urban rgeneration project which was so weird – I could grab the ground like you would grab the corners of a tablecloth, give it a shake, and the old Victorian buildings there would immediately disappear and a whole new 21st-Century brick and glass urban landscape would appear – to the horror of the local residents. Then I would shake it again, and they would disappear and the old Victorian stuff would reappear, to the horror of the Planning Committee. I did this a few times until the leader of the planners told me to stop messing about and be serious for once (as if that is ever likely to happen, really!).

Breakfast and then a shower and shave – must look my best. and then off for the baguette.

And the guy in the magasin de presse was having quite a whinge. His brother, who lives in South-West UK is coming over and has just been to collect his Euros. 25% less than what he received the last time he applied. I made a New Years Resolution about 5 or 6 years ago to keep politics out of this blog but sometimes I’m overwhelmed – overwhelmed by the total and utter stupidity of the people with whom I once – for a great many years – shared what is rapidly becoming an insignificant offshore island.

Another thing that I’ve done is bitten the bullet and bought another copy of Paint Shop Pro.

That’s been my graphics editing program for over 20 years but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I … errr … mislaid it. I’ve hunted high and low for it for a couple of years with no luck and now that I’m here I don’t suppose that I’ll ever find it again.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … there was a later version than mine on sale on eBay. I’d noticed a few shortcomings with the version that I had, and most of them seem to be resolved in this upgrade.

But then we had a problem – with changing bank accounts, my Paypal account is out of date. Luckily Terry was on line at that moment so he did the business for me. It’ll be nice to get back to some serious photo-editing again.

Lunch on the wall overlooking the harbour – and some people had pinched my comfy spec. I had to find another place to sit and that annoyed me. I was enjoying the company of the lizards there, just as the lizards doubtless enjoyed the crumbs that I dropped.

As for the tea, just as nice as yesterday.

The blog amending is coming along in leaps and bounds – quicker than I anticipated. Except when I run agound, that it.

Today I ran aground on a page that I had written in June 2012 about Chateau-sur-Cher. All of about 120 words in haste. and then forgot it. Today I decided that I would attack it with gusto and it’s ended up as almost 1200 words.

Still, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, isn’t it? I’m now in July 2012. Only a few more months to go.

0

Monday 14th March 2016 – WELL THAT’S ME TOTALLY P155ED OFF!

I had my blood test at the hospital this morning, and the blood count has gone down yet again to 8.1. And that’s despite having a blood transfusion the other day. The operation that I had to go through 6 or 7 weeks ago has clearly done no good whatever and I might just as well have saved myself the agony.

The thing that gets me though is that no-one in the hospital seems to care. Here they are, messing about with allergy tests for a different medication to deal with the immunity issues following the removal of the spleen, and on Friday I’m in hospital for a scan on my lung to see where this blood clot (the one in my lung that I picked up in hospital) has got to.

But as to my underlying illness and the causes of it, and any potential solution – not a word!

What made me even more depressed about all of this is that while I was sitting in the allergy clinic with all of these patches and injections and so on, I was editing all of the photos that I took in Montreal and sorting out all of the notes that relate thereto. And then I got to thinking about just how much I enjoyed the city and how much I felt at home there. And then I reached a conclusion.

And that is that seeing as how no-one cares, then I don’t either. if nothing definite comes out of my visit to Leuven next week and they can’t sort something out, then I’m on the next plane to Montreal. I’ll find a quiet room in a house somewhere around the Cote des Neiges, which really is my favourite part of Montreal, and let nature take its course.

I can’t go on like this. it’s nothing short of purgatory for me to have to go through all of what I’m going through and for no good purpose either. I may as well not be here and be somewhere else instead, whether in this world, the New World or even the next world.

What didn’t help matters very much was that I had another one of those comfortable, reassuring dreams where everything went according to plan, our hero got the girl and we both walked off together into the sunset and all of that – something that never ever happened to me in real life and how I wished that it had.

I was back playing in my rock group from the 1970s again and we were totally unrehearsed – we hadn’t played together for years and we were featuring in a venue somewhere. This was downstairs in a basement somewhere, rather like Enoch’s in Crewe used to be, and we weren’t even sure what numbers we were going to play, never mind how we were going to play them. This went on and we didn’t have all that much idea about what we were going to do. We spent so much time discussing and debating it that we weren’t actually getting anything done. There were quite a few of our friends there, including one particular girl whom I fancied and who I was trying to impress, who were coming to see us and so we HAD to be organised. Came the afternoon of the gig and we decided that we would have a rehearsal. I headed off towards the rehearsal room, carrying my bass guitar and there was some girl, whom I had seen vaguely back in the past but I hadn’t particularly noticed very much, came over to me and asked me if my guitar was a Gibson SG. I told her to count the strings, which she did, and agreed that there were just four of them. And so I told her that it was in fact a Gibson EB3. We started to talk about bass guitars and musical instruments, and she said that she had a mandolin with four strings on it. Of course – a mandolin – that brings back Lindisfarne and “Road to Kingdom Come” and “No Time to Lose”, all of that kind of thing. We ended up having quite a chat about this kind of thing, and she said that she could actually play some Lindisfarne music on the mandolin. It’s always been my ambition to play in a folk-rock group like Lindisfarne so I egged her on to go and fetch her mandolin,which she did and we had a brief jam session. After that, we wandered off together hand in hand. As I said earlier, this was another one of these comfortable situations and I wish that I could remember who she was, or even what she looked like – rather different from the Girl from Worleston the other night whose face is still vividly fixed in my mind. Anyway, off we went, hand in hand and there were a few people loitering in the vicinity who noticed the pair of us together like that and gave a little smile to each other. We walked to a rocky wall where there were a few seating areas set into it at various levels – just flat, grassy areas. I invited her to sit down with me but she said that she had other things to do and didn’t have the time. I continued to encourage her to sit down, she continued to be doubtful and it was at this moment that I woke up rather dramatically and shattered the illusion, much to my dismay.
After the usual crawl down the corridor I ended up at the football – Nantwich Town in fact. And while Nantwich Town might have a new ground, down on Kingsley Fields, this match wasn’t being played there. And neither was it being played on their old ground at Jackson Avenue either, but in the street in London Road right more-or-less outside Churche’s Mansions. I was watching the game, with about 4 or 5 others (huge crowds they have in Nantwich), a couple of girls and a couple of kids, having a kick-around with the balls.There was a really strong, swirling wind blowing that was creating havoc and on one occasion, much to my surprise, I actually caught the match ball one-handed, swerving around in the wind as it went out of play and that was really impressive. For the rest of it, the conditions were really difficult and catching the ball, even a simple catch, was really difficult if not impossible. We were actually watching this at the back of a river and the house rear yards backed right onto it. One small boy was climbing over the back wall and the wooden fence on top and lost his footing, sliding straight down into the river and emerging all covered in green slime. That certainly looked unhealthy! All of these houses had basements that were well below the level of the water but were somehow really dry. I wouldn’t have liked to have lived down in there, although there were people quite happily doing so. There were two teenage girls watching this football match and they lived in one of the houses. At half-time they went back to their house where the mother was cleaning the room of one of these girls, and one of the girsl asked the other what she would like for breakfast. The other replied that she would like one round of cheese on toast with half a packet of crisps and a coffee. I said “breakfast? It’s getting on for 10:30 and most of us had eaten breakfast long before this match kicked off”. But anyway, the first girl dragged a big metal wood-stove out from a corner into the middle of her little basement room ready to fill it and light it to make the toast and put the kettle on. They asked me what I would like to which I replied that I’d had my breakfast a long time ago, but I’ll have a cup of coffee with them. They next asked me what coffee I wanted and what mug I wanted and I thought that they weren’t half making life complicated when all that I wanted was a simple cup of coffee.

But anyway, enough of this. I was up early enough, breakfasted and on the road by 07:40. And what a beautiful morning it was too. I was in Montlucon at the hospital by 08:30 and in the comfy chair by the power point at 08:40 too.

I had the blood test, as I mentioned, and then had the drain fitted, and then injected and patched with all kinds of things. My companion from the other day was there too and we had quite a chat. And while I might have won the “mine’s bigger than yours” competition by having the largest lump on my arm, I felt really sorry for her with all of the tests that she was going through and the mess that they had made of her arm. In consolation, I let her have my mid-morning cake to cheer her up.

We had quite a few moments of humour too, including when one of the others asked if she could leave the room to use the bathroom.
“You’re supposed to raise your hand” I retorted.
“Just like school” said someone else.
At least, despite everything else, there’s a good feeling of cameraderie there in that clinic and the nurse is a really good sport too, which is good.

But the bad side of this is that I’ve had a few adverse reactions so I need to come in again. I explained my situation, all of my hospital appointments and my visit to Belgium and as a result, exceptionally, they can fit me in provisionally at 09:00 on Thursday.

I mentioned that at this rate I ought to be looking for an apartment here in the vicinity of the hospital and asked the young girl here with me whether she had a spare bed in her room. She said she did, but her mother wouldn’t like it. I asked “who cares about your mother?” which made everyone smile, but didn’t have the desired effect.

Not that I expected it to either, but there you go.

As for the blood test though, it’s on the limit of the blood transfusion level, but that’s not good enough for me. I’m off to Leuven next week – 800-odd kilometres by road – and I need to be on my best form for the journey. So what I’ve done is to change my little one-hour appointment back at the allergy clinic from tomorrow to Wednesday at 09:00 seeing as how there was a space, and then went up to the day-hospital and persuaded them to take me in straight afterwards for a blood transfusion. That way, then at least I’ll be in something-like reasonable health to undertake the journey. Coming back won’t be too much of a problem as I don’t have a time-limit for that so if I’m tiring out, I can take a good rest and carry on later.

But as I also said earlier, I’m thoroughly depressed by the way that all of this is panning out. I’m thoroughly hating the past, hating the present and hating the future too.

To cheer myself up, I went to Carrefour and the Flunch to have a plate of chips and vegetables but that was a waste of time as they were stone-cold. Liz had given me a little shopping list that involved going to Grande Frais and the Carrefour so I bought the necessary and looked for something else to cheer me up but there wan’t anything there that took my fancy. That’s always the case when you’re in the middle of a black depression – nothing will pull you out of the pit.

Back home – for only an hour as Liz wanted the shopping by 16:00 – I still couldn’t find my copy of Paint Shop Pro or anything else that I needed. But there was a little issue that the water in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater was off the temperature scale. I had to drain off 5 litres of the water and put 5 litres of cold water into it. I’ve also plugged the fridge into the main circuit so that it’ll now be working 24 hours per day. I’ll have to do something because with no-one there drawing any current, there’s tons of surplus electricity and it’s all dumped into the hot water.

Yes, 41 amps of surplus energy was being generated when I arrived and the cables to the immersion heater element were stone-cold – a far cry from 6 months ago when they overheated at half of that and I had to rewire everything. All of this, the temperature in the water and the amps that the cables are currently … "ohh! Very good!" – ed … handling just goes to show how much current was being lost by the rubbishy cables that I had been using. Decent cables, even half the diameter, properly crimped and soldered, is definitely the way to go and I wish that my soldering techniques would improve.

However, if things continue like this, my soldering techniques won’t be an issue.

I stopped for diesel on the way back and also to the pharmacie at Pionsat for the next lot of anti-biotic prescriptions (which wouldn’t have been necessary except for this spenectomie, and what a waste … "you’ve done that already" – ed … and then back to Liz and Terry’s.

After tea, which was a stir-fry with the stuff that I had bought earlier, I said “sod it!” and went to bed. I’ve had enough disappointments for one day. I’d already crashed out for half an hour on the sofa and it was beyond me to keep on going – not when I wasn’t in the mood to go on fighting.

Tomorrow is another day. Let’s see how we get on with that. Not any better, I bet.

I’ll leave you all to sit and read this rubbish – all 2322 words of it.

And serve you all right too!

0

Thursday 12th April 2012 – I still didn’t …

… get very far with my holiday plans today. I was rather sidetracked.

I was asked if I could remove a gas tank from behind a house this morning. An unusual request, you might be thinking. And you are probably right. Even more so when you realise that it wasn’t meant to be physically moved – but removed by the means of what is commonly called “airbrushing it out” on a computer.

Of course, back in the old days I used to spend a great deal of my time doing that when a couple of friends and I ran “Shitesports” – a weekly review of affairs in football, and I was the correspondent for the “League of Wails”. Some of you might even remember the legendary “Juan Kusov” under which name my articles were published. Ohhhh happy days!

Anyway, so I set to work on the photo and “airbrushed out” the offending article, even though an airbrush is a tool that I never ever use when I’m doing something like this and I can’t understand why it’s called “airbrushing” anyway.

And here you can see my finished article. One gas tank suitably removed.

I had to do another photo as well, and what with having a letter to write (or, rather, translate) for someone it was after 17:00 when I finished. This is the kind of thing that takes hours to do, but nevertheless it’s worth it when you can make a good effort.

But once I’d finished everything I went back outside and carried on potting. All of the herbs are now done too, but I’m not expecting much to come from them. Some of the seeds looked pretty sad. Still, they won’t grow if I don’t plant them, that’s for sure.

And seeing as there was still a few minutes left before knocking-off time, I raked out the last two herb bins to remove the weeds and dead plants. And there I was a few weeks ago complaining that I don’t have any mint. Raking out the bin where the mint used to be, I was pulling tons of it out. And in the dedicated mint bucket, cutting off and pulling out the dead bits revealed quite a bit of healthy growth. So it’s not all bad news.

  Back up here, I couldn’t resist having another little play. Many of you have seen my … errr … “composite photos” – I post a few on here every now and again, especially when I’m recounting the adventures of Strawberry Moose, and so in a little fit of boredom I knocked up another composite photo, just to keep my hand in.

Of course some people will argue that it’s not a composite photo at all but that some aliens really did land in the Auvergne one day last winter and they will use this photo to prove it. But never mind – I wished I had something better to do as well.

But iat did rather remind me of the little girl catching her daddy in the shower.
“What’s that, daddy?” she asked, pointing to the obvious.
A rather embarrassed daddy replied “ohhh … errr … it’s a spaceship, baby”
“It’s not very big daddy, is it?”
“No love, but it gets bigger when it gets near Mars”

But some more work for me to do has come through this evening, and I’ll need to do that tomorrow. I’m not ever going to book this holiday, or finish my garden. But then why should I complain? I complain quickly enough when I don’t have any work to do. I ought to be thankful.

-3

Friday 1st July 2011 – I’VE HAD A …

… day off today!

And that’s not like me is it? On a Friday!

But I have,’t really had a day off. I’ve just been doing something different.

A couple of things, actually.

Firstly, since I moved on from Paint Shop Pro for my image resizing, I’ve been having issues with my thumbnails. Even at 93×140 , about 1/40th the size of the full-size images, they have been finishing up at about 60kb – about half the size of the full-size images.

I’ve tried everything that I can but I couldn’t resize them pro-rata and in the end I gave up. But messing around on PSP doing something quite different, I suddenly hit on how to do it – and once I’d worked it out I was off.

There were over 5000 images to edit but I could do it in batches, but that was still 24 batches – one for each month – and it took forever. Mind you it was worth it, the space I’ve saved on my hard drive and on my web hosting.

Second reason was that I’ve had another idea about refining my water collection. Is this the 6th or the 7th idea that I’ve had?

What has prompted this is the fact that the herb pots at the front of the verandah are waterlogged – seems like the water is overflowing the guttering again.

The trap isn’t collecting the dirt like it’s supposed to, due to where I’ve had to site it. Consequently the dirt is flowing down the tube and blocking the filter.

I’ve had an idea about fitting larger, full-size guttering, having a T-downspout with the drop arm as the sump, and the cross piece as the water pipe. Connecting up the 80mm pipe to that and feeding straight into the settling chamber.

Sounds rather complicated, but I’ll buy the bits tomorrow and you can see what I mean when I assemble it.

0