Tag Archives: paul pena

Saturday 31st May 2025 – AS I SHOULD …

… have expected (because, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, it’s par for the course), this idea of changing my dialysis to the mornings was just a brief, ephemeral illusion.

When I arrived there this afternoon, I told them that my cleaner and I had had a lengthy discussion and decided that it was a much more practical arrangement for us, only to be told "it’s OK – we’ve found another solution now."

What with everything through which I have gone over the past few years, I’m convinced that the medical service (everywhere in the World, not just here) fails to understand that we are not pawns on a chessboard that can be moved here and there at will or at a whim. We are human beings, with lives of our own to fulfil and (in my case at least) my own life and activities have a much higher priority that anything that the hospital can conjure up.

So, as you can probably tell, I was in a bad mood today.

There isn’t any special reason for that either. Although it wasn’t early when I went to bed, it wasn’t all that late either. I was asleep quite quickly too, and there I stayed, totally flat out, until about 05:50.

It took something of an effort to raise myself from the Dead but when the alarm went off at 07:00 I’d sorted myself out in the bathroom, washed the clothes that needed washing and was on my way to the kitchen for my medication.

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a group of us from school again hanging around together. One of them was a girl from Shavington who went to Nuthurst, the exclusive private primary school in Nantwich. We were talking about the maths classes, discussing in particular these pyramid graph things that we used to do, describing how we used to do them and talking about one or two examples. This girl was saying that during one or two of her maths classes she became carried away and began to make one of these pyramid graph things for the pills but by the time she reached about the third row she just put the downward shafts and wrote underneath “lots and lots”. There was also something about someone whose idea of a pyramid graph was that if he had something like a small party and a big party he would just draw simply one line between the two elements and that would be his pyramid graph.

There’s a story about that girl too, but that’s another one that the World is not yet ready to hear

One thing that I, and, presumably, regular readers of this rubbish will recall is that just recently there has been a whole spate of these stories that the World is not yet ready to hear, coming into my subconscious mind during the night. There’s definitely an undercurrent of something, and I wish that I knew what it was. Maybe is simply a story of regrets for my wasted, mis-spent youth. But on the other hand, it’s certainly not wasted or mis-spent because everything about it was what brought me here. As Paul Peña once famously wrote and Steve Miller famously sang, YOU KNOW YOU GOTTA GO THROUGH HELL BEFORE YOU GET TO HEAVEN

Later on, I was in Congleton with the guitarist and drummer with whom I used to play. We were going somewhere in my van and we reached a house. I left the van and said that I’d be back in a minute, and wandered off. Then I came back and we climbed into the van and went to the next place. I said again “I’ll be back in a minute”, left the van and went into the drive. There was a woman there smoking a cigarette. I asked her a question and she just gave me a strange look, so I asked it to her again. She just smiled and gave me a very non-committal answer so I’ve no idea what was the matter with her. I went round to the back of the house and knocked onto the door. I could hear someone say that there was someone at the door. At that moment a big tabby cat stuck its head through the window so I went to stroke it. Then some young guy came to the door. I told him that my guitarist wanted to see him. He grabbed his cigarettes, came outside and went down to the van. We ended up then in another house. His response was that he was really comfortable with the idea that people from the street could come and go into their house at any time they liked. When the guitarist came back from wherever he had been, they began to talk. The drummer joined in with the conversation. I felt that I was being isolated here and I’d no idea why. In the end I simply sat down and waited for everything to finish.

When that group came to an end back in the Winter of 1976, my intuition told me that I actually was being slowly isolated and edged out, which was a shame. And then I had a load of other preoccupations that stopped me from pressing on. For the next couple of summers I lived in my van with the winter spent in that squat. It was not a very happy time and it took me a while to sort myself out – a task that is still not finished 50 or so years further on.

The nurse was on time today for a change, and we had the usual banal chatter about nothing of any importance whatsoever.

After he left I could make my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK. We didn’t stay long at Scarborough, and we’ve now arrived at Skenfrith Castle, which is in that fine old English county of … errr … Monmouthshire.

And here we go again. On page 469 he tells us that "there is a sort of recess, which may have been the kitchen fireplace, the cooking being usually, in these towers, carried on in an upper floor".

Meanwhile, on page 471, he tells us that "The history of Skenfrith is obscure, but it is evident that it was built simply to contain a small garrison, and not at all as a private residence. The area contains no trace of hall, chapel, or kitchen."

Don’t you wish that he’d make up his mind?

Back in here, I’ve been chatting to plumbers. I posted an advertisement on one of these traders’ websites for someone to take away the bath and tile around where the bath used to be. I’ve had a few enquiries and I spent most of the morning following them up. We’ll see where this takes me.

My cleaner turned up, bang on time, to fit my anaesthetic patches and it was such a lovely day that we went outside to stand in the sunshine until the taxi arrived. And we took full advantage of the nice weather, because the taxi didn’t arrive until 13:05.

It was a nice, sunny drive down to Avranches and, to my surprise, I was seen quite quickly too. And only three and a half hours today which is good news. The less-than-good news is that the ice-cold spray that they recommended didn’t seem to do me much good and one of the pins hurt like Hades all through the session.

Early on, for about fifteen minutes, I crashed out but I soon got to grips with myself and pressed on to revise my Welsh, seeing as I’ll be in Paris on Tuesday instead of at my lesson. But it’s hard going when I’m wracked with pain like that. I really can’t concentrate.

Eventually I was let out and the same driver who brought me took me home in the sun and warmth. My cleaner was waiting for me and it was just as well, because it was a very, very weary me who climbed up these stairs. I shall really be glad to be downstairs and can cut out all of this.

Back in here I collapsed into a chair for a while and then eventually went to make tea. Falafel, baked potato and salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert.

So right now, I’ll dictate my radio notes and go to bed, in the (vain) hope of having a nice, long sleep. It’s been a while since the last one and in principle, it’s a lie-in tomorrow.

But seeing as we have been talking about pyramids … "well, one of us has" – ed … it reminds me of a story that Frankie Howerd used to tell.
During World War II he used to say that he served in Egypt and on one occasion he was taken in an aeroplane to see the pyramids.
Halfway round the circuit, the plane was hit by a gust of wind. It turned upside-down and Frankie fell out.
The pilot recovered control and performed a circuit around to see if he could see anything, when suddenly there was a “thud” and Frankie was back in his seat.
"What the …" uttered the pilot
"Don’t you worry about it" said Frankie. "The point on that pyramid is sharper than it looks"

0

Wednesday 24th April 2024 – THAT WAS AN …

… adventure!

Right now I’m back home sitting in my favourite chair and you’ve no idea just how grateful I am. It was the last thing that I expected today but as Paul Peña wrote and Steve Miller sang, YOU KNOW YOU GOTTA GO THROUGH HELL BEFORE YOU GET TO HEAVEN

Last night though, after I’d finished my notes etc I went straight to bed and spent a very pleasant hour or so listening to “Alquin” on the computer. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, THE MOUNTAIN QUEEN is one of my favourite albums of all time, especially since I met the group, a band from Delft in the Netherlands, in a dingy damp cellar underneath an old hotel in Crewe in 1975.

It was something of a disturbed, turbulent night. I can’t recall too many interruptions from the staff but there’s a huge pile of stuff on the dictaphone that you will discover as you read on.

By 08:00 I was wide awake and as no-one had come past by 08:30 to awaken me, bring me breakfast, take a blood sample etc, I left the bed, did what I had to do and then washed my clothes.

Just as I was hanging up the sodden rags to dry out, the doctor came in and handed me my leaving pouch.
"Am I leaving then?" I asked
"Ohh" she replied. "Hasn’t anyone told you? Anyway, your taxi will be here at 13:00"
What a shame she hadn’t come 5 minutes earlier when my clothes were still dry

She went through the documents with me and made sure that I understood everything.

And then I went through my requirements, including the fact that she needs to apply to the Securité Sociale. for another series of authorisations, but I don’t think that she understood. That’s important of course, so I’ll ring up the taxi company and have them involved in the proceedings.

"By the way" she added "You have a consultation at ‘Imagerie’ at 10:30" so bang goes my idea of a shower. It’s a good job though that I had a good wash and changed my clothes.

At 10:00 the driver turned up to take me to “Imagerie” and off we set.

When we arrived I was told that they wanted to take a few scans of my heart so I had to strip off, clad myself in some paper overalls and then lie flat out on a bed while they clamped all kinds of strange devices to me and pumped me full of some kind of fluid.

Once I was ready they passed me through one of these Stargate time-tunnel things, back and forth for half an hour or more, taking all kinds of strange photos while the machine made all kinds of strange noises and I had to do all kinds of breathing exercises

Eventually they dragged me out and with my head spinning and body shaking (and it still is, even now) I went and dressed ready for the ride back.

And whose stupid idea was it to take my blood pressure as soon as I’d come back from all of that?

Batman and Robin weren’t on duty today – I must have scared them off – so another young nurse came in to ask me "we need to have your room ready for another arrival at 13:00. Would you mind waiting in the waiting room?"

So that’s why they want me gone. "Well, if it’s a nice young lady, I don’t mind sharing the room" I replied but she told me to clear off.

They brought me my lunch to the waiting room – bulghour with chicken followed by pork and courgettes. The peaches with almonds for dessert were nice though.

The taxi was booked for 13:00 so of course he turned up at 14:40. With the A13 being closed it’s total chaos in the outskirts of Paris right now.

Once in the car we had to go on a TRAVERSÉE DE PARIS, with no Bourvil to carry my suitcase, to another hospital to pick up another passenger. The trip across the city was a nightmare and finding the correct entrance was something else too.

And then there were “parking issues” while the driver went in search of his passenger.

Eventually we set off for home, going a very tortuous way via Rungis and Versailles to avoid the queues on a journey that seemed to take for ever and after a pitstop near Caen, we had first to go to Bréhal to drop off passenger number 2. We eventually arrived back here at 19:45.

My faithful cleaner was waiting for me which was lovely. She helped me up the stairs (and I needed it too) and into my room, where she went through the papers and took what she needed for the chemist. I had an energy drink – and I needed that too.

There was one jar of vegan pesto remaining and I’d saved it for some special occasion or other. “Now” seemed like a special occasion so I made a big dish of pasta with assorted vegetables and smothered it all with half the jar.

And it was delicious too.

So this is all that I’m doing. I’m totally wasted and I’m going to bed. With luck I’ll have a really good sleep ready to face Isabelle the nurse tomorrow morning

As for the dictaphone notes, there are quite a few of these. I was with my brother (so I was right) and we were having to go to Shavington. We set out to walk but it was really late at night. Our parents had gone to Sandbach but we wondered why. They were supposed to be doing something but we reckoned that it was really an excuse for a party and a drink. As we walked it was the biggest moon that we had ever seen. There was only probably about a tenth of it that was bright but we could make out the shape of the rest of it above the horizon. It was absolutely enormous. As we walked we looked at the houses and the Christmas lights. We wondered whether one of them was actually on fire because of the way the lights were working. Then we cut off to Shavington down that track that I take frequently in my dreams, a long, narrow track, but I’ve not been down it for a while but at one time I’d go down it once per week. As we started to go down there – we’d gone maybe a quarter of a mile – we noticed someone leading some horses. My brother made some offensive remark about me being unwilling to spend any money. It seemed that his idea would be to hire a couple of these horses and go to Shavington on horseback to save having to walk. I thought that there’s nowhere to leave the horses, you can’t just tie them up in the street like in a Western. You’re going to need someone to hold them while we were at the doctor’s. It’s all going to be just far too complicated to even think about hiring a couple of horses to go there and come back.

That’s a track down which I’ve walked, or skied, or climbed on many occasions during the night and I’ve no idea why it keeps on cropping up like this. I’ve no idea if it exists in real life and I’ve certainly never encountered it for real as far as I’m aware.

Later on I was with a girl and her sister. There was some kind of event going on in the village but it was really poorly attended. There were very few people there. There were two beer tents and most of the people with me, because we were a large group, preferred one tent but I thought that the beer in the second was much better. I tended to patronise that one. In the end I managed to persuade people that that one was best and they came over. They were wondering how everything worked so I explained that I bet that he was really disappointed with the attendance. I explained that when I used to put on rock concerts I’d hire a complete bar and just buy the beer etc but I needed about 80 or 90 people to make a profit at the bar and that rarely happened. They were surprised by that. In the end we set out to walk home. I’d sold everything that I had in rural France except for one plot of land where I had four Cortinas parked. My friend’s sister was planning on moving too. I had my old J4 so she told me that when we reached her house, to back it into the drive and do something useful but I’d no idea what she meant by that and what her plans were. There was a big house for sale with lovely gardens that had been empty for years. We were admiring that on the way back. My friend said that she’d enquired about buying it but it needed more money than she had. We carried on walking and talking back to my friend’s sister’s house but I’d still no idea about what was going on and there were only a few more hours left before the end of the day. if she was planning on moving today she was leaving it extremely late because we’re never going to fit everything of hers into my J4 van.

Cortinas as usual, and my old J4 van has started to make regular appearances just recently too which is bizarre. But it’s true about the bar. We could rent the bar and staff for free if the turnover was over a certain amount but the owner needed a guaranteed minimum to cover his expenses and that had to be made up by the hirer if there was a shortfall

And then I was watching two girls, one of them a ward of mine, fighting over a boyfriend using broadswords. It was an extremely tame affair with the two of them jabbing at each other. Most of the wounds with broadswords according to modern autopsy were like overarm slashes down onto the head yet these were just poking at each other. The ward of mine asked permission to go out with this boy. I gave it because I didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t but the other girl was extremely upset. This led to the fight.

And overarm slashes being the common cause of death in medieval fights with broadswords. I was impressed that I could remember anatomical details like that during a dream.

There had been some dispute between two men over something too. One had gone into a second-hand shop, changed his clothes and hid in the shop in the hope of escape of his pursuer but that didn’t work. They had a fight too. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I was walking through Crewe planning on going for an ice cream with my brother’s wife (as if that would ever be likely to happen) when I bumped into a guy who told me that he was going to Birmingham for the best ice cream in the UK. I knew this guy from somewhere but I couldn’t think where so I decided to go with him. We dashed to pick up my brother’s wife but she wasn’t in so we headed for the railway station. I boarded the train with this guy and went to see the conductor about buying a seat but my friend told me that there were no seats available on this train. It was completely full. I had to reluctantly disembark and go back to my original plans.

There was something else but I only remember a small part of this. I was with a guy who was going across the Channel on a ferry so I thought that I’d go with him. We went in his car, drove to the ferry terminal and joined the queue but we couldn’t understand why all these people were standing around so strangely. We suddenly realised that each person was about twelve feet apart from the one in front and behind. That was how their cars were going to be parked on the ferry. There were no cars there though, just the people standing in position. We had to go to the back of the queue then walk twelve paces behind the person who was there and then stand and wait around. God knows what was happening to the vehicles because there were none about at all. Everyone else kept on turning up, people having fun in the ferns and bracken that were all around this car park. It really was the strangest thing that I’ve ever encountered, all of us just standing there twelve feet apart in our own little family groups etc and not a car in sight.

So after transcribing all of that I’ll probably go back to sleep again.

While I’m doing that, I can reflect on my conversation with the photographer as I left the Stargate
"Did you manage to find my heart?" I asked
"Yes I did" she replied
"Thank heavens for that" I replied. "I’m not turning into a Conservative after all"

0

Thursday 8th February 2024 – WE’RE BACK TO …

… where we were a few months ago with the freezer, and how it’s now jam-packed to the brim with food.

Actually, that’s quite good news because it means that I don’t have to worry too much about from where my next meal is coming.

Having said that though, there are half a loaf, a bread finger and four bread baps in there that are taking up some of the place and if I were to eat those there would me more room in there, but I’m not ready to do that yet. As long as I can continue to make bread, I’ll make it and if there’s any left over, I’ll freeze it for another time with all of the rest that’s in there.

That will give me something about which I can think the next time that I’m lying in bed tossing and turning 1.e.not a night like last night where, despite having a late night I was out like a light and remember nothing at all until I awoke.

First job was to check the blood pressure + 17.4/10.5, a bit of a change from 18.2/11.6 this morning. There were also some note to tape to the dictaphone because when the alarm went off I was on another planet somewhere

After the medication I came back here to start work – or, at least, to try to, but once more it was really difficult to get going this morning

Once I’d come back round into the Land of the Living I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. This time, I had managed to go for a wander. There was a Led Zeppelin song going through my head last night. I was singing it and needed to know whether there was a background music being played with it or not. If the song had background music being played to it, it would be liable to tax. I’d have to pay money but how would I know whether there was any background music being played to it or not at this time of night when I’m asleep?

And I wasn’t surprised that I dictated that last night because I’ve given up being surprised by what goes on during the night

Later on there were two of my assembled pizzas. I had two of them done and they were in the fridge. They’d been in the fridge for several days. What I needed to do was to take them out and put the tomato sauce on. I was in the kitchen but it wasn’t mine. A small girl came along to help but I don’t know why she did that either.

So if I’m dreaming about my pizzas during the night that’s a sign of something, I’m sure. But putting the tomato sauce on top? No thank you very much

When the alarm went off I was dictating the notes for a radio programme. They included a young girl bassist. I was writing all kinds of notes about her and what she’d been doing. She was quite young. I’d made my way down from the start and I think that she was one of the ones who was almost near the end of the programme

All of that reminded me OF MATT MINGLEWOOD’S BASSIST whom I met when I was photographer for the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton. As I believe I said at the time, she could come round and have a strum on my instrument any time she likes.

On the subject of radio programmes, that was today’s task but first I had to deal with a phone call. And it was exactly as I suspected it might be. "Mr Hall, we’ve had the blood test results. You have to stop taking medication X and take medication Y instead. I’ll send you a prescription."

So the prescription duly arrived, and then I had to change all of the print cartridges in the printer which is now printing and missing lines to I had to clean all of the print heads. So you ever have the feeling that it’s just not your day?

While I was printing off the prescription I printed off some paperwork about Strider. He’s now no longer officially mine and I hope that he has found a good home with his new owners.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s a shame about Strider. We travelled tens of thousands of miles together from the semi-tropical climate of Georgia up to the frozen peri-Arctic wastes of Northern Labrador, as far as it’s possible to go by road northwards.

He’s just the right height for me to slide in and out and using the cruise control, I can drive him with just my left foot. But I’m over here and he’s over there and that’s that.

And Liz has been very helpful too. She sent me a little parcel that arrived today with a knee support in it and also a vegan cookbook, the same one that she used when she was starting out.

It’s all an early birthday present for me and she says that she hopes that I find the cookbook helpful. Secretly though, I think that she’s fed up of me asking her all these silly questions, but I know that you love me really.

Who was next to interrupt me? Ahhh yes – I had to send off my Leclerc order as I’m running low. And so are they with this farmers’ dispute. Quite a few items of the dairy line are not available and there are no substitutes

But that’s not a real problem if I run out of desserts. Strangely enough, as it happens, I have been fancying a rice pudding for ages so when I bake my bread for the weekend tomorrow morning, I might put a rice pudding in with enough to keep me going for several days.

So halfway through writing up my notes for the radio programme the Leclerc delivery came and so I had to sort out everything and put it away, as well as de-coring and de-pithing a couple of peppers to go into the freezer. I have to build my stocks back up.

Earlier on, I’d sent a message to my cleaner about the new prescription and she popped down to pick it up and tell me the latest gossip about the building.

Back at work and I’d almost finished the radio notes when Rosemary rang for a chat. Just a short chat this evening, only 52 minutes. Barely enough time for an exchange of pleasantries

By now it was tea-time and I fancied steamed veg with falafel and cheese sauce. But I found some veggie balls made out of kidney beans that needed eating and they went down with cheese sauce just as well as falafel.

While I’ve been typing up my notes, I’ve been listening to Al Stewart again and SWISS COTTAGE MANOEUVRES came round on the playlist.

Right near the end of the song are the words "and I couldn’t say what I had won or I’d lost, or even just what I had seen. But when I’m alone I just think of her once in a while". Does it remind you of anything?

It certainly reminds me of something. I’m still shaking my head over that three days in the High Arctic. It was the strangest period of the really strange life that I have led, and there’s still no explanation that I can work out about what was going on.

Let’s face it – I’m well aware of my own limits and this was way beyond anything that would have been contained within them. I certainly couldn’t explain whether I’d won or lost, and I certainly couldn’t explain what I had just seen.

But many of Al Stewart’s songs are like that. These are of some kind of vague pining for a lost adolescence that might have been, if only we had been older and wiser, and doesn’t that apply to most of us?

It’s often been said about “how I wish that I’d had all of my adolescence back, but with all the experience (and the money) that I have today. Wouldn’t things be different?”.

Mine certainly would have been, but I don’t think that it would have been better. It wasn’t until I left Crewe and came over here that I really began to encounter real life in a much wider cultural setting. But as Paul Pena wrote and Steve Miller sang in BIG OLD JET AIRLINER – "you know you gotta go through hell before you get to heaven"

And while this certainly isn’t heaven, living in Crewe was certainly hell

0

Friday 29th July 2022 – AFTER EVERYTHING THAT …

… happened – or didn’t happen, as the case may be – yesterday, today was marginally better.

I say “marginally” because I managed to keep going until 18:00 before I crashed out, but I needn’t have bothered to stay awake because it wasn’t as it I did anything during the day. Staying awake was enough of a struggle on its own without adding any work into the equation.

hang glider donville les bains Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022So while you admire a few photos of the aerial activity that was taking place today, I’ll tell you about my travels during the night.

And there were plenty of those again because once more I had quite a mobile night.

We were talking about cars with this old lady. She was thinking of changing hers and was wondering what to buy. I said that as hers was running OK then keep it but she was insistent. We were talking about the merits of different cars and how in 1882 Ford introduced the turbodiesel small car etc. They had a Fiesta van from 1982 that was a turbodiesel on sale at this garage but they had loads of other vehicles as well including strange-looking tricycle-type machines. One was a “W” registration and I remember saying to everyone there that this was bound to be cheap because of the engine in it and what it is these days. We had a look and it had been reduced from €2800 to just €480, something like that. They had knocked over €2400 off the price. There were a couple of people who were eager to talk to a salesman about it. Someone asked me if I thought that it was a good deal. I said it was as well and if I’d been in the market I’d have been there harassing the salesman about it as well. Someone tried to say that it was a typo but I was sure that it wasn’t. It was just a case of disposing of these obsolete vehicles at any kind of price.

aeroplane 40y baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022And then I was at this chaotic road junction in Surrey somewhere near the Thames. It was a roundabout with loads of other roads feeding into it. There was a strict priority as you might expect but no-one was taking any notice of it. There were a couple of vehicles that we noticed – 2 were motorbikes where they had a flasher out so they were indicating but of course you couldn’t see it from the street. They were weaving in and out of the traffic as it suited them to go the way that they wanted to go regardless of any priority. It was causing all kinds of confusion and there were all kinds of argument that I was doing my best to stoke. What really caught my eye that I found extremely funny was that while there were cars parked in this queue waiting for it to clear the drivers would pop out and go to the coffee shop on the corner to buy a cup of coffee and come back. Sometimes the traffic had moved on but his car had been stuck there while he was away getting himself a coffee. He’d get into his car and drive on. There was one woman with a black enamel tea container thing that she had been to have filled and was taking back to her car. A group of us was having quite a laugh about that, talking about times that we’d had issues about getting tea. I mentioned the time that I was home on my birthday and everyone prepared a special coffee for me but I’d come in, I couldn’t find my normal coffee so I’d simply made myself a cup of tea and hadn’t even noticed this special coffee at all.

yellow autogyro pointe du roc Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022Later on we stopped right back into that dream, back somewhere else down in South London this time watching the traffic at 04:00 or 05:00, becoming light. There were a lot of vehicles around. There was a taxi that had parked up blocking a road junction and vehicles were having to negotiate around him on the kerb while I was out fetching a coffee. I was with someone and we were admiring the spectacle. In the end we decided that we would go and have a coffee. He looked at me and winked. “Back door?”. I said “yes!” like the other taxi drivers were doing. We walked across the street carefully trying to dodge the vehicles that were manoeuvring around this taxi and went into this café that seemed to be doing quite a good trade. I was having trouble walking and he ended up being way ahead of me. I was thinking “I hope he’s going to slow down and let me catch up with him before he goes along and orders something at the bar of this café otherwise we’ll find ourselves in a few difficulties here”.

Much of the day was spent stirring papers around here, not doing very much at all. I had my breakfast of course, rather later than usual, and my lunchtime fruit too. And at some point I managed to find the time to have a good play on the guitar.

And having crowed yesterday about how my playing has improved and how I don’t need to change key these days, I ended up changing key on David Bowie’s “Lady Stardust” and Paul Peña’s “Jet Airliner”, but primarily to suit my voice.

Having struggled to my feet later, I went out for my afternoon walk around the headland.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022As usual I wandered off across the car park to the wall at the end in order to look down on the beach to see what was happening.

And I could see that there was at least one person in tent on being down on the beach today. And it must have been exciting to watch the occupier move it when the tide came in. He wouldn’t have much time to pack it up.

Plenty of other people down there too and there were even a few of them having a swim in the water. Not surprising because it was a nice afternoon.

But while we’re on the subject of the tents, I once had a very cheap tent that blew away in a gale. “An Act of God” said some of my friends but I thought that it was a portent.

yacht baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022Before I left the viewpoint over the beach I had a good look out at sea.

There were some sails away in the distance and at first I thought that it might have been Marité or even Le Renard going out for a run around, but when I had a closer look at the photo on returning home I found that it was a yacht, nothing more, nothing less.

There wasn’t anything else out there at all this afternoon. No other pleasure boats, no fishing boats, no freighters and no ferries either. It was surprisingly quiet out at sea this afternoon.

Nothing else happening out at the end of the headland. No-one fishing and no-one on the bench by the cabanon vauban.

la confiance 2 chant des sirenes chantier naval port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022With nothing much happening here I headed off down the path on the other side of the headland towards the port.

And it’s all systems go in the chantier naval this afternoon. La Confiance II is still there along with the boat that came to join her yesterday but we have two others that have come in there today.

The one to the right of La Confiance II is unidentified because I can”t read the registration number, but the green and white one on the extreme right is Chant des Sirenes. You don’t need to see the registration number to work that out. Just a quick glance at the image of the mermaid on her bow will tell you that.

l'omerta fish processing plant port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022And while we’re on the subject of ships, we’re back to playing “Musical Ships” again.

Over there moored up at the wharf underneath the Fish Processing Plant is L’Omerta in her usual place. And on her own too. There isn’t even one of the port lighters to keep her company over there.

A little earlier I mentioned the fact that Marité might be out and about this afternoon. She certainly wasn’t at her mooring in the inner harbour when I walked past.

When I checked the radar tonight she was back in port, having spent the day doing a lap around the Ile de Chausey.

circus zavatta rue du port Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo July 2022While I was wandering around there was plenty of noise and music along with a running commentary.

Eventually I was able to pin down the source of the noise when a pickup went past down below in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers and turned into the Rue du Port.

It looks as if the circus is coming to town quite soon, and I wonder how the people who live in the new block of flats at the port who seem to be objecting to just about everything will cope with having a circus just down the road.

You can picture the scene of the locals in the flats trying to play bridge, and every time someone plays an ace an elephant would trumpet.

Back here I made myself an almond milk drink and then summoned up the energy to transcribe the dictaphone notes, which you have read already. And there I was, stepping back into a dream yet again. It’s becoming a habit.

Tea tonight was a burger with pasta and vegetables in a spicy tomato sauce and it was delicious. One of the better ones that I have made, thanks to the chili powder and the garlic salt that I added to it.

And hopefully there will be an early night tonight and a decent sleep. As I’m on the road next week I don’t want much in the way of shopping but I’ll go to Lidl tomorrow for some bits and pieces. I need a little bit of stock in the store here to keep me going.

0