… is a much more civilised time to be waking up on a Sunday morning, isn’t it?

But what’s not so civilised is the fact that I was still up and about at 04:00 this morning.

For some reason I just wasn’t tired and at some silly time in the morning I was dealing with the hidden files that I told you about yesterday on the portable drive – passing them over to the master disk and then having to work out a way of deleting them from the drive because, for some reason, they had been installed in the system drive part.

In the end, a good old proprietary file shredder came to the rescue. The one that I have can reach into the parts of the computer that other file shredders can’t reach.

As a result of my late arousal, I had a very late breakfast. And I almost forgot my fig rolls too. But I had both of them, which meant that I didn’t have any lunch.

The crowds out here wandering around told me that there was something afoot in the Medieval town. And so I grabbed a quick shower, but my nails, and went out hot-foot (or chaud-pied as they might say around here) to see.

Sure enough, we were having another brocante around the streets. And this time I managed to find something. A Michelin “Green Guide” of Normandy – a 1970-71 version in really good condition for all of €0:50.

There were lots of other things that I would have liked too, but I drew the line at paying €500 for a nice seascape or €220 for a nice model of a sailing ship.

The owner of the sailing ship told me of a secluded harbour in a wide bay where it could be kept, and he made it sound so good that I reckoned that his barque was worse than his bight.

Another thing that was going on up here was a photograph exposition in the open air.

It seems that someone has been out in an aeroplane or maybe one of these paraglider things and taken loads of photographs of Normandy from the air, and there were about 20 of them on display outside this afternoon.

Some of them were quite good too and there were one or two that made my quite envious. I wish that my photographs would turn out like his.

I had another bit of good luck too this afternoon.

The church, the Eglise de Notre Dame de Cap Lihou was open to the public today.

That doesn’t happen all that often, and the last time that I noticed the open doors I didn’t have the camera with me. But today, I was properly equipped.

The origins of the church go back to 1113 when it is said that fishermen dragged up a statue of Mary from the sea, presumably from an earlier shipwreck.

In honour of this event, a chapel dedicated to her was erected in this vicinity.

But all of this changed during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War

After the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 the English occupied Normandy and the the Medieval City was created and the fortifications built.

In 1440 the construction of the current church began. The granite blocks that were used in its construction were brought over from quarries on the Ile de Chausey.

And from then on, after the recapture of the town, the church was continually enlarged, with the sacristy being added as recently as 1771.

There are plenty of very worn gravestones on the floor of the church. It seems that this was the place for the notables of the town to be buried back in those days.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to read the inscriptions on them now.

As an important historical edifice, the church was added to the list of Historical Monuments on 12th December 1930.

While you admire another photo of the interior of the church, I headed for home.

Back here, shame as it is to admit it, after I returned I crashed out for a short while. And then I had to start to do some work.

There’s a possibility that I might be having at least three visits sometime over the next few months so I need to organise my diary, organise my appointments and make a few arrangements with others so that we all know what we are doing it – and, more importantly, when.

And that takes more time than you might imagine too. I don’t know where the time goes to these days.

With having had no lunch, I was ready for tea and with it being Sunday it’s pizza night. But surprisingly (or maybe not) I had a struggle to eat it. I’m definitely not doing too well, am I?

On the walk this evening I met Gribouille again and he came for a pick-up. And it seems that he has acquired a new younger brother, a little tabby, and he came for a pick-up and cuddle too.

And they weren’t the only things to see outside.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve seen this car before. It’s a Peugeot 403, built between 1955 and 1966 and which replaced the legendary Peugeot 203.

1,200,000 or so of these cars were built and there are still several thousand driving around on the roads of France as daily drivers, never mind as voitures de collection.

So I’ll try for an early night tonight. The alarm goes on in the morning and I really must organise myself. There’s a lot to do.