Tag Archives: phare

Friday 29th November 2019 – IT’S A LIE!

I don’t care what Percy Penguin has to say about it. I do NOT snore in my sleep. Not that she would ever know because whenever we were together late at night, sleep was not the subject that was ever on my mind.

But how do I know that I don’t snore? The answer is that this morning I spent four hours listening to myself sleeping.

Well, okay. Not exactly listening, but examining a voice file with the aid of a graphic sound analyser program, and I could see three minutes of dictation, a thump when I fell asleep in mid-dictate, and then four hours of silence apart from the odd turning-over in my sleep and the odd banging of the headboard.

Yes, I’ve finally reached the marathon four-hour dictaphone *.mp3 file and it is indeed, just as I suspected, a mistake.

We almost had a mistake this morning too. I was positive that I had dictated the details of a nocturnal ramble into the dictaphone, but something made me check, even though it was the middle of the night, and I found that I hadn’t. Dreaming that I was dreaming again.

But luckily I could remember a lot of it and so I dictated it on the spot. And I’m really curious now to know what else I have been missing, that I dreamt that I had dictated.

But anyway, last night we were in the High Arctic last night on a ship that might or might not have been The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour. We were doing some kind of research project and our group was involved in doing some kind of research project in respect of birds. So we were being pretty serious about this and some of us were out on the pontoon and they were looking at all these birds like crows and raven in the water with their beaks open and studying them. It was obvious that there were a few people not intent on doing anything and were just lounging around. of course we were pretty serious and after I had been onto the pontoon to see what was going on I had to get back on board the ship and there were a load of people queueing trying to get on so I mimed as if I was whipping them on which made everyone laugh, those who were lounging around. Eventually I got back on board and had to start to work, and remembered saying “come on, let the dog see the rabbit” when I was trying to get on board the ship. And what I remember was that there were loads of weeds around floating in the water , it was pretty close to shore. Someone was counting the animals and one of our group said that she had seen a moose or something. And she had also seen a Clayton diesel locomotive. I asked “where did you see that?” so she said that it was just after we had left Hvalsey to head down here. I thought that I can’t remember seeing this, or even hearing about it. But I decided that I would leave it to stand anyway

So whatever that was all about, I really don’t know.

The alarm went off at 06:00 as usual and this morning I definitely heard the second alarm, no mistake. But instead of leaping out of bed I somehow managed to go back to sleep yet again and the third alarm awoke me.

Today though, I was out of bed rather smartish and had an early medication and breakfast. And then I set down to work on the dictaphone notes as I had been promising myself.

By the time that I stopped for lunch, I was down to just 47 left. That’s been some quite dramatic progress today.

However, the morning was not without its interruptions. Three more parcels of this mega-order that I mentioned the other week turned up today.

Two of them I have yet to unpack, but the third one I did.

harvey benton 5 string fretless bass granville manche normandy franceWhen I was In Montreal in September I was playing about on a five-string bass guitar and that pleased me greatly. A few weeks later, I was having another play about, only with a fretless bass. And that pleased me just as greatly.

So when I was browsing around on the internet a few weeks back I came across a vendor who was selling a new but shop-soiled (I reckon that it’s a product return) 5-string fretless bass for a price that can only be described as “democratic”.

It’s not very often that I treat myself to extravagant expenditure, but I did the other day and I don’t regret it for a moment.

Not a patch on the Gibson EB3 of course. That will always be a special machine, but this one will do nicely as a supplement.

cock port de granville harbour manche normandy franceOn that note, seeing as we are talking about music, I headed for town and my dejeunette for lunch. Down to the fish processing plant and across the path on top of the harbour gates.

Nothing much going on in there at all, but one thing that for all the time that I’ve been going in and out of the harbour, I have never noticed this cock before.

That’s not like me at all, is it?

On the way back I stormed up the hill like there was no tomorrow. I don’t understand that at all. Fighting fit for lunch, I was.

And after lunch, I made a start on the data files for my projects. That’s taking me longer than I thought die to having to redesign it a couple of times and also … ahem … editing the wrong base file. I wondered why all of these amendments that I was trying to make didn’t work.

As usual, I stopped round about 15:45 to go for my afternoon walk around the headland.

paimpol brittany granville manche normandy franceThe weather was astonishing though out there. There were a few clouds about but the sky was so clear that you could see for miles.

Over there that is the town of Paimpol I reckon, with the Phare de Paon and the Chapelle St Michel clearly visible. And all of that is about 80kms away, I reckon, from here.

The camera and the lens did well to pick up all of that.

plenevon brittany granville manche normandy franceMuch closer to home is the town of Plenevon. Over there to the far right near where that hill thing is.

That’s a mere 60 or so kms from there I’m standing, and you wouldn’t think so either but it’s amazing what a little “crop, enlarge and sharpen” can do.

The camera even managed to pick up a little fishing boat half-way across the water.

st malo pointe de grouin brittany granville manche normandy franceNow this is much more like it.

That’s the Pointe de Grouin just there and the Ile des Landes. Behind it is the entrance to the port of St Malo and on several occasions we’ve seen Pont Aven, the big Brittany Ferries ship, come sailing out of there.

It’s a shame that she’s not there right now though because it would have made a spectacular photo. You’ll have to make do with half a dozen small fih=shing boats instead.

sunlight cancale brittany granville manche normandy franceWe’ve had photos innumerable of Cancale across the bay, night as well as day. That’s about 25 kms away from me.

But what makes this one so special is that we’re having another one of those “sunlight streaming through a gap in the clouds” moments as we have done on a regular basis just recently.

It really is as good as floodlighting if you ask me, and probably better than some recent examples that we have seen.

sunlight windows beach jullouville granville manche normandy franceIt wasn’t just Cancale that was receiving the benefit of the sunlight either.

Down the coast at Jullouville about 10kms away the big building right on the shoreline was also receiving the benefit of the sun, right full-on into the windows

That must certainly have been something quite spectacular for those people in that large room there.

No change of visitor at the Chantier Navale so I came home. And I had a few things to do on the internet that took up a lot of my time.

But I did stop for tea – another frozen aubergine and kidney-bean whatsit. Only 5 left now so soon I can start to think again about cooking mega-curries.

Outside for my evening walk, it was raining quite heavily. But I did press on nevertheless although I didn’t stop for photos. However, I did manage my run and made it halfway up the ramp at the end. I’m definitely geting fitter.

Football on the Internet tonight. Caernarfon v Cardiff Met in the Welsh Premier League. We had a brief discussion about the possible score and someone reckoned 2-1 to the Cofis. And at the end of the match I asked him if he had a recommendation for the 3:30 at Kempton Park.

Caernarfon did indeed win 2-1 and it was the correct result too. But it was a very quiet match with nothing much of any excitement, which is a surrpise where Caernarfon is concerned.

It was bogged down in midfield for much of the match with very few chances for either team. In fact all that really happened was that each side scored a breakaway goal from a loss of possession in midfield, and the winner was a tap-in following up a saved penalty.

The number of chances that they had, apart from those, you could count on one hand although Will Fuller in the Met’s goal was busier than Alex Ramsey up at the other end.

It’s very late now because I’ve been dawdling, so I’ll go to bed for the few hours of sleep that remains.

Shopping tomorrow plus dicaphone notes and project files. And then the cycle will start again.

Tuesday 11th June 2013 – I HAD A GOOD …

… night’s sleep last night, just for a change.

In bed long before 22:00 and awoken by the alarm clock at 07:30. The sea air must be doing me some good.

Mind you, I felt better than the weather because once more, it was persisting down and this weather is really doing my head in right now. Happy holidays, hey?

This morning while mumsie had a little snooze Cécile and I went for a wander around the old port

mainland ile d'yeu franceThis afternoon, while mumsie was at her Seniors’ Club, we went to visit the posh side of the island.

That’s the site from which you can see the mainland if you look really hard enough and have a good telescope or, in my case, a really good 30mm telephoto lens.

By this time the rain had stopped and so we went for a good walk along the beach

fishermen's cabins ile d'yeu franceWe came across quite a pile of fishermen’s cabins on the shoreline.

Almost any one of which would suit me down to the ground, and I would have been tempted to make an offer.

I would, however be wasting my time apparently. According to Cecile, you could by a two-bedroomed apartment on the mainland for what they would want for one of these cabins.

phare pointe des corbeaux lighthouse ile d'yeu franceDown at the south end of the island at the Pointe des Corbeaux is a lighthouse, and you all know about my fascination with these.

It’s 19.2 metres tall and its light can under normal conditions be seen out to see for about 21 miles.

It was built in 1950 to a design by the local architect Maurice Durand, and replaced an earlier lighthouse tat the Germans had demolished on 25th August 1944 when they evacuated the island.

dirt track roads ile d'yeu franceThe roads are very much like the roads around Labrador and so I felt quite at home.

What even made it more so was that I encountered a grader, and it must be quite a while since we last saw one of those.

But what made me realise that it was not at all Labrador was the fact that we had a compactor as well.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that during all of the 2000 miles of the Trans-Labrador Highway we encoutered a mere … err … three, despite there being hundreds of graders at work on the Highway.

And while I’m writing this, the heavens have opened again. We really are having some astonishing weather.