Tag Archives: petite foule

Tuesday 18th June 2013 – SHERLOCK HOLMES …

… and Doctor Watson had to deal with Professor Moriarty who was using 5 gold pieces to blackmail someone. This led to Holmes and Watson disguising themselves as workmen and along with 2 other people similarly disguised, one of whom was the interested party, having a most violet fight in a private bar in which Moriarty was present. At a certain moment Moriarty, fearful that things were getting out of hand, discharged a firearm, a duelling pisol in fact, in the general direction of one of the participants and that was the signal for Holmes to seize both the gold pieces and Moriarty.
After this, a girl and I were outside talking. But it wasn’t the talk that was interesting, but that we were looking at the sky. It was quite dark and there were thousands of stars in the sky, and the moon, less than half-full, was flitting by at a rapid rate of knots and there were wisps of cloud everywhere passing even faster. And on the way home, I noticed some workmen at work in a glass building, using the natural light because even though it was 22:22, it was still light enough to work by and so I took a photo of the scene.

Ahhh well, such are dreams made of, and it was really depressing to be awoken by the alarm at 07:30 when I had all of this going on in my head, especially as the morning was all miserable, grey and cold.

But I’d done a good evening’s work – a huge pile of stuff that had been building up over a year or so and now sorted out.

Apart from that, it’s been a quiet day today.

Cécile somehow managed to chainsaw her way through the electric extension cable the other day without electrocuting herself and so first job after breakfast was to pick up a new plug and fit it to what remained of the cable.

We took the opportunity to do another load of shopping as well – anyone would think that we are eating like pigs the amount of stuff that we are buying. I dunno where it all goes.

Exciting news after lunch, though.

Cécile received a phone message that her internet connection was ready and so we spent a good few hours trying to configure the connection. Even with the aid of a friendly cousin who lives on the island we had no luck at all.

grande phare la petite foule ile d'yeu france In the end we gave up the struggle and went for a walk

Our perambulations took us down to the sea shore yet again, and from a certain spot where we stopped there was a good view of the lighthouse that we had visited yesterday.

Here it is rearing its head up above the trees in the distance on top of La Petite Foule. It does look impressive
.

port de la meule ile d'yeu franceLater on, we all went for a little walk again – down the road in the general direction of Port de la Meule where we had stopped for a drink just as everywhere was closing up.

We didn’t go that far today because Cécile’s mother is getting on and it’s probably much too much for her.

Bit it’s still good to stretch our legs and breathe in the fresh air before going to sleep, I reckon.

But as for the internet, last thing at night, just as I was about to go to bed, I noticed that the thing seems to have struggled into life and after a few minutes’ manipulations I seem to be on line.

The world really is my oyster now.

Monday 17th June 2013 – I DON’T KNOW …

… how anyone could sleep through that racket that we had at about 06:00 this morning.

If the noise didn’t wake you up, then the flashing lights certainly would have done so. Its a long time since I’ve seen a thunderstorm like it, and all the inhabitants of the cemetery of Port Joinville down the road have come out to complain.

Now its raining cats and dogs. I’m glad that I crashed out last night at about … errr … 21:40 otherwise I wouldn’t have gone to sleep at all.

After breakfast we went for another load of shopping and I wanted to buy some mortar to seal the handrail into the length of piping as well as some rawlplugs to fix a handrail in the shower (my next task, so it seems).

I bought the stuff but remind me, someone, next time I think about doing something silly like living on an island. I paid more for 25 rawlplugs than I would pay for 500 at Screwfix, and a 5kg sack of mortar cost more than a 40kg sack at Brico Depot.

Having cemented in the handrail after lunch (after a siesta, of course – I’m becoming quite fainéant in my old age) we went for a drive out

We’ve already seen one lighthouse on our travels – the one at the Pointe des Corbeaux – but that’s not the most famous one on the island. Ohh no!

la petite foule phare de l'île d'Yeu franceAnd so with my fascination for the aforementioned, off we went into the doom and gloom in search of the phare de l’Ile d’Yeu.

Believe it or not, it isn’t situated on the coastline – something that comes as quite a surprise to most people.

It is however situated on the highest point of the Ile d’Yeu, a hillock called “La Petite Foule” at a height of all of 57 metres, and the lighthouse is sometimes known by the name of the hillock.

la petite foule phare de l'île d'Yeu franceBeing away from the coast, the hordes of tourists on the island don’t really visit it, and it is this fact that led to Thomas Hardy writing his famous novel “Phare From The Madding Crowd” … "are you sure about this?" – ed.

It has four things in common with the lighthouse that we saw the other day

  1. it’s not the original lighthouse on the site
  2. the previous lighthouse was blown up by the Germans when they evacuated the island in August 1944
  3. the current one was designed by Maurice Durand
  4. it was built in 1950


la petite foule phare de l'île d'Yeu franceAnd built in a modern 1920s-style art-deco design too.

Made of “modern” lightweight concrete on a stone base, it’s 36.5 metres tall and has a halogen light bulb of 650 watts that can be seen for over 23 miles.

It was badly damaged in a hurricane on 29th September 1952 and again by fire on 2nd November 1953 but was repaired each time

light buoys  l'île d'Yeu franceWith the lighthouse’s unusual situation well-inland, the dangerous parts of the coast (of which there are many) are protected by light buoys.

I was told that there is a certain technique involving lining up the light buoys with the big lighthouse in order to work out your position as you approach the island from the sea.

That wouldn’t help the pilot of the Air Quebec flight to London who, when asked by the control tower to “give height and position”, replied
“5’8″, front seat”

This evening we all had a sing-song of traditional French songs, something that Cécile’s mother particularly enjoyed, althugh I’m not quite sure why because a sing-song like that usually heralds a torrential downpour.