Tag Archives: rainbow

Monday 21st October 2024 – I’M STILL ACHING …

… just about everywhere that it’s possible to ache, and probably a few places where it isn’t possible either.

Mind you, I have to admit that I’m not aching quite as much as I was when I awoke this morning. I thought that a good night’s sleep might have helped everything ease off seeing as I was lying comfortably in bed, but it wasn’t to be.

A longer sleep might have been nice but once again, I missed by some considerable distance my target of being in bed by 23:00. It’s still taking longer than I would like to finish off what needs to be done, and there’s the added problem with the aches and pains that make me reluctant to move from my comfortable chair.

But once in bed I was soon asleep and I can’t recall any awakening until about 06:15. And even then, I turned over and went straight back to sleep again. When the alarm went off I was in a pub in London watching a pub band play. There were Keith Ginnell and his wife on keyboards. His wife had been a famous model in the past, Vicky somebody I think. On drums was Keef Hartley and the singer was Magic Michael. He was too tall for the stage and had to bend his head to fit under the ceiling while he was singing. he was singing that song “Giddy up, Bobby” and I was thinking how easy that was to play when I thought about it. Then I went to the bathroom where I overheard some kind of dispute going on between Keef Hartley and Keith Ginnell. I thought that it was a shame that they were arguing like that because they were a really good group.

What I didn’t dictate was that I was staying at that pub but had to clear out my room ready to leave. And in the WC I’d bolted the door behind me but nevertheless someone still came in and walked past me, and I wondered how they had managed to do that.

Now you are of course going to ask me who Keith Ginnell is and what the song “Giddy Up Bobby” is all about. And the answer to both questions is that I don’t have any idea at all. I know who Magic Michael is of course, and who doesn’t? He was one of the hangers-on with Hawkwind back in the early 70s and later on had a few singles out of his own, most of which sunk without trace. Keef Hartley was of course one of John Mayall’s drummers and later on had a group of his own, but Keith Ginnell and “Giddy Up Bobby” escape me completely.

What’s so surprising is that I could actually remember them.

While we’re on the subject of remembering … "well, one of us is" – ed … I didn’t forget someone’s birthday yesterday. Not at all. It goes without saying that I won’t ever forget it

So I staggered to my feet in a cloud of agony and slowly inched my way into the bathroom where I had a good scrub up and even a shave to make myself look pretty, even though it will take more than a scrub-up and a shave to make me look pretty.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And there was some stuff on there too. There had been a big riot somewhere. The soldiers were all hemmed in at some kind of barracks and had been completely overwhelmed. They decided that what they would so as a desperate kind of last stand for all those who were fit enough was to make some kind of fighting arrowhead and charge out of the building on their horses hoping to break through the enemy lines. So they charged out in this arrowhead and almost broke through but were held somewhere down at the bottom of Oak Street and Mill Street in Crewe. The fight raged round there for an hour or two when suddenly the enemy surrendered and gave up the fight. I’d been watching the events unfold and after the events went peacefully some kind of big American convertible, a huge car with a woman driver pulled up and said “taxi for Hall”. I climbed in and it took me off down Wistaston Road/Victoria Avenue. I was chatting to the woman – she’d been in London earlier in the day in the fog, just socialising. I told her that I’d been to Scotland and it really was foggy there. She was telling me how she did taxiing part-time, how she enjoyed it. She was working for Orange Cabs but she didn’t have a card with her number on for me so we carried on chatting like that and eventually she brought me home

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we were AT THE SITE OF THE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG HORN with LITTLE BIG ANTLERS a few years ago and the question that was going through my mind then was “why did Custer and his men dismount?”

On foot they would have no chance of escaping the native Americans, as events were to prove. Knowing that there was a detachment of soldiers with the baggage train in the vicinity, if they had formed a “fighting head” – a triangular-shaped formation, they stood a very good chance of piercing a surrounding line of enemy and the weight of their charge would have pushed at least some of them through the encirclement and on to safety at the far end of the ridge

But as for riots going on in Crewe, it’s extremely unlikely. The people there have long-since lost any free will and initiative.

The nurse came early and caught me off-guard this morning. He refrained from upsetting me, which was good, and now he’s gone off duty for a week which suits me fine. It gives me a chance to gather up my sang-froid ready for the next bout.

Still, the earlier he comes, the earlier he goes and I could crack on with breakfast.

Today, the Woolhope Naturalists are having a lecture on Space and Interplanetary rotation, sitting at a picnic around a waterfall. Some of their propositions have long-since been contradicted by later discoveries but it’s interesting all the same to hear the state of knowledge in 1867.

What’s also interesting is that the 48 members present had to go into the back of beyond to visit this waterfall, and not only did the railway company agree to stop the train at an isolated spot, it built a railway platform and had three gangers ready to help the party alight.

Just imagine that today! It would take them ten years to build the platform, even if they were so disposed to do so, and there would have to be all kinds of Health and Safety surveys and inspections first.

And this “Health and Safety Culture” – do you know what’s brought it on? It happened the day that Solicitors were allowed to advertise.

Back in the old days if you stumbled on a pavement and hurt your toe, you shrugged your shoulders and moved on. But once we began to see the "had an accident? It might not be your fault. Contact us for a free interview" advertisements, everything changed overnight.

The Naturalists were also visiting the famous church of Capel-y-ffin, a site that became notorious later on with the arrival of “Father Ignatius” and then the infamous Eric Gill, whose famous sculptures and type design did little to counter the later unsavoury allegations about his private life that were to occur once his biography was published after his death.

Having finished all that I came in here and finished off as far as I could (because some of it requires access to a television) and then carried on selecting music for the next radio programme.

My cleaner turned up to help me fit my anaesthetic patches and while she was here I gave her my orders for the supermarket tomorrow. And the taxi for the Dialysis Clinic was driven by a young guy and we had a very lively chat all the way down to Avranches.

At the clinic they didn’t hang about to plug me in. The first one hurt like hell but the second needle, I didn’t feel it at all.

The nurses asked if I had any pain anywhere so I mentioned the issues that I’m having. They gave me a Covid test and that was that. No doctor came anywhere near me to make further enquiries so I don’t see the point in asking.

As well as the doctor in charge, Emilie the Cute Consultant was there too and although she went to see a few other patients, she kept well away from me. Julie the Cook did likewise, so she must be a regular reader of this rubbish too.

I read my Welsh and spent some time reading, and I also had a little doze. While I was away with the fairies, being careful to avoid drawing the attention of the editor of Aunt Judy’s Magazine to my activities, I was on a train in Tunisia. A Tunisian woman in local dress came to sit next to me. I suddenly realised that I hadn’t validated my ticket so I stood up and went to look for a machine. There was none in my carriage and the next one was compartmentalised with the curtains drawn and what looked like discreet security guards. I turned to a guy in the vestibule of my carriage to ask him. He told me that you don’t validate it – the ticket inspector does as he or she passes – so I went to resume my seat. However it looked nothing like it did when I left and the Tunisian lady wasn’t there

There was a similar issue about TICKETS ON TRAINS when I was in Tunisia a few years ago, and I can well-believe the presence of Security Guards and curtained compartments on certain trains.

They unplugged me and threw me out into the torrential rain where my taxi was waiting, and we had to wait for the guy who lives in Sartilly. And he had already reserved the front seat

My driver was friendly enough but didn’t say too much and as we stopped outside the building, the rain stopped, the sun shone and we had a rainbow.

My cleaner watched me upstairs, and it was a retrograde number of steps today, no surprise with me feeling not too well. And I was glad to sit down and relax for an hour.

Tea was a lovely stuffed pepper with pasta followed by apple cake and soya cream and now I’m ready for bed.

But the subject of having pains everywhere reminds me of the guy who went to the doctor.
"Every time and everywhere I touch myself" he said "I’m in absolute agony."
And he proceeded to prod himself in his leg, his arm, his torso, his neck, his posterior, everywhere. And each time he winced in pain.
The doctor looked at him for a moment and then took him by surprise, prodding him in his ribs
"Did that hurt?" asked the doctor
"Well, actually doctor" said the man "no it didn’t. What does it mean? Am I dying? Do I have a serious problem?"
"Not at all" said the doctor. "All it means is that you have broken your finger."

Monday 4th October 2021 – REGULAR READERS …

… of this rubbish will recall that a couple of weeks ago we saw a shop unit in the Rue Couraye being renovated ready for some new owners.

Outside the shop there was a pile of boxes being delivered that looked as if, according to the label, that they had come from a book wholesaler, so I assumed that we were going to have a new bookshop in the town.

Now that it’s open, we can see that it’s not exactly a bookshop but is in fact a centre for comic strips and other assorted accessories that are associated with bandes dessinées.

They are much more popular here on the mainland than in the UK and in the USA.

But while we’re on the subject of shops … “well, one of us is” – ed … here’s a sign that I saw in a shop in the Avenue de la Liberation.

It’s proof that you don’t need any kind of qualification in mathematics to own or manage a shop. That’s the strangest looking 2 people that I have ever seen in my life.

Last night I wasn’t in bed as early as I was hoping so it was rather a struggle to force myself out of bed at 06:00. And after the medication and checking my mails and messages I sat down to work on the radio programme.

It was rather straightforward today, although it took me a while to find a suitable final track. Nevertheless I could have finished it before 11:00 had I concentrated but after breakfast I was side-tracked by a few things here and there and it was 11:20 when I finally finished it.

Strangely enough, I didn’t really enjoy doing this one and I’m not quite sure why. It’s probably something to do with the way that I’m feeling right now.

While I was listening to the finished product and also to the one that will be broadcast this coming weekend, I was going through my mailbox weeding out a pile of dead correspondence that is serving no purpose. It’s now down to about half its previous size.

After lunch I had a shower and then prepared to go out for my physiotherapy session. The days are being changed at the moment.

Outside in the wind I walked across to the viewpoint overlooking the harbour to see what was going on.

There wasn’t anything much going on down there this afternoon but there was certainly some activity going on over at the chantier naval.

Never mind the dredger, which is still there, regular readers of this rubbish will recall that over the past couple of months the yard has been packed continually with boats undergoing all kinds of repair and they’ve been making quite a mess of the place.

And so today they have brought in a street sweeper and it’s giving the place a really good wash and brush up, creating quite a cloud of dust as it goes past.

Further on down the hill, I stopped to look at the workman’s compound that has appeared in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers.

It looks as if things are about to start down there any day now. We can see that the road is closed and diversions signs have been posted.

The lorry has dropped off a container and they have already started to fill it with soil, although I can’t see to place from where they have scraped it.

But as the work progresses I’ll be able to find out so much more about where they are working anf what they are doing.

There are more roadworks going on here too.

Believe it or not, the passage over the drawbridge into the old town is a street, the Rue Cambernon, that’s accessible to motor vehicles. But that seems to be closed off too and the traffic diverted elsewhere.

Presumably there are roadworks going on up there too.

My route took me on down the hill and into town, and then up the hill in the Rue Couraye to the physiotherapist. Surprisingly, I only had to stop twice to catch my breath going up the hill. That makes a change from the last couple of weeks.

Today he tested my knee, seemingly having forgotten everything that I told him a few weeks ago, and then he put me on the tilting platform and then the cross trainer.

Even more surprisingly, I pushed my best time on the cross trainer to 4 minutes and had I tried a little harder, I could have done better than that. It seems that my health is slowly improving. Maybe the physiotherapy is doing me good.

While I’d been in the physiotherapist’s we’d had a torrential downpour that stopp just as I set foot outside – and that’s not like how things usually work for me, is it?

And across the road hovering over the railway station we had this really gorgeous rainbow. It’s been quite some considerable time since I’ve seen a rainbow looking as good as this one. It’s magnificent.

And, as we can see, the leaves are now starting to turn. It’s not as vivid as in the Canadian Maritimes, which is where I usually am at this time of the year, but we can see that autumn is now well on its way. I wonder what weather that is going to bring.

This afternoon I walked on down past the railway station and down to the abandoned railway line, which I followed down to the Parc du Val Es Fleurs.

The digger that we saw the other day is hard at it this afternoon, scraping up the old ballast and soil and dumping it into the back of that lorry that had reversed all the way up there from the Rue d Boscq.

They have made quite a large amount of progress with that since Friday afternoon. They aren’t going to be hanging about with this project. It’s quite a contrast with what seems to happen in Belgium, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There were no haphazard road signs at the foot og the steps, but there have been “other developments”.

The area at the foot of the steps has now been cordoned off and there’s a skip, a mini-digger and a van towing a trailer parked down there now.

The piles of soil are still here too. They don’t look as if they have changed in size – neither increased nor decreased.

From there I wandered off down the Boulevard Louis Dior to the corner of the Rue du Boscq to see how they were progressing there.

No change in the park opposite the Ecole des Docteurs Lanos, but there are plenty of goings-on across the road.

Having gone to all of the lengths that they have of preparing the surface, they have now dug a trench in it and they are laying some of this red cable trunking in it. That’s rather a shame after all of this effort.

Meanwhile, part of the car park here has been cordoned off. That’s being used at the moment as a parking area for the machinery and vehicles, but I could see them digging this up as well and resurfacing it to match the rest of the work.

Before I left the house I’d packed an energy drink so I wasn’t all that worried about the walk through the town and the climb up the hill towards home.

Once again, I only needed to stop a couple of times instead of the usual half dozen just recently.

One of the places where I stopped for breath was at the viewpoint over the harbour. And out there in the bay the sailing school was just setting out for the afternoon now that the tide was well in.

While I was watching them, I was leaning on the wall drinking my can of energy drink thinking to myself that had I not been having all of these problems right now, I might easily have been out there with them having a go.

That’s something to do that’s on my bucket list, but whether or not I manage to get round to it is another thing completely.

While I was waiting there to catch my breath I was looking down at the harbour gates.

They were closed at the moment but the pile of fishing boats that was out there told me that they would be open any time now.

And so I waited for about 15 minutes to take a photo of a nice stream of fishing boats following one after the other into the harbour, but as long as I waited, the gates didn’t open at all.

In the end I became fed up of waiting and headed for home.

Just up the road I bumped into a neighbour and we had quite a chat that went on for quite a while. And I learnt quite a lot of interesting facts too that will come in useful as time goes on.

Instead of going straight home, I went over to the wall to have a look down onto the beach.

The tide was well in as I said earlier, so there wasn’t all that much beach to be on this afternoon.

There were a few people nevertheless and by the looks of things, they appear to have been in the water. Not that it’s warm, of course. It’s pretty windy too so hats off to these people.

And for a change, there was nothing whatsoever going on out at sea. I couldn’t see even one boat anywhere out there.

While I was out here, I went to have a look at the workmen’s compound, or whatever it is.

Much of the stuff that has been there over the past few days has now disappeared. But to where, I don’t know. Perhaps it’s something to do with the roadworks in the Rue Cambernon.

Back in the apartment I had a nice hot coffee and then, regrettably, I fell asleep for 10 minutes. The first time for a couple of weeks and I was quite disappointed by that, having done so well just recently.

As for any nocturnal voyage, I was at British Salt and they were busy erecting barriers around all the doors so that no-one could see in. I was wondering what was going on. It was obviously something special that they didn’t want anyone to see. Then they wheeled out this extraordinary – it looked like a motor bike with a Ford Model T place to sit for 4 passengers and a huge engine at the back with a big exhaust. Someone called it the “White Fox” or something like that. It was a huge long thing so I asked if I could take some photos of it and the guy said “yes”. He started to move all the boxes and coats and everything that was on it. I started to help and I can’t remember where we went from that. We were all sitting around eating a meal later. Someone had to leave the garage and they had an A40 Farina hatchback thing. I expected them to open the doors wider but he managed to drive it in a slalom all the way round these sight screens and out like that. Then we were sitting down having a meal and talking, and that’s where this ended. It was a most impressive motorbike thing. I’ve never seen anything like this.

A little later or maybe earlier, I can’t remember now, there was a group of cowboys and a woman holed up inside a house, a cabin on the prairie because they were surrounded by Indians. The Indians took their buckboard, filled it full of explosives and rode it round and round until it blew up, all that kind of thing. Someone had managed to slip out and they were there for several days. Then there was a knock on the door. It was this guy who had come back and brought a few other people with him, the Matt Dillon type, US Marshall and a couple of his friends. They’d come to deal with the issue after all but it seemed that these Indians had gone. Whether it was because of the new arrivals or not, I don’t know.

Tea tonight was a stuffed pepper, and then I came in here to write up my notes.

That reminded me that I’d weighed myself just before I had my shower. And over the last week, I’ve lost half a kilo. I consoled myself by thinking that if I carry on at this rate then in a little over three years I will have gone completely.

Wednesday 20th January 2021 – I’M NOT SURE …

… whether today was a good day or a bad day. In fact it was probably a bit of both.

The good bit was that I almost beat the third alarm to my feet. And if you realise that it was after 01:00 when I went to bed, you’ll realise just what a feat that was. Mind you, when I say that I almost beat it, yes I was out of bed a couple of seconds after it rang, but it would be wrong to say that I was leaping about It took a good 10 minutes for the room to stop spinning around enough so that I could get off the bed.

After the meds I had a listen to the dictaphone.

There was some stuff on there from yesterday that I must have forgotten to transcribe. So I did that and added them back into the entry for yesterday where you can see them in all their glory.

And then I turned my attention to last night.

We were setting off on a cruise and it wasn’t an Adventure Canada cruise but another company. We all had to meet up and head back to board the ship. As usual I was last. We were in Nantwich and the ship was at Acton so everyone was streaming back up the road towards Acton. I set out at a run to try to catch everyone up. By the time I reached where the Star was, somewhere like that, I’d actually caught up the other people who were behind. Just in front of me before then was a woman, obviously something to do with the trip counting the people who went past. She said to 1 guy in front of me “you must be the last” but then I ran past and she looked at me “Oh God, not you”. I carried on running and the other guy there saw me and he started to run as well. For some reason I could run really well and really easily and had no trouble in keeping him away. I ran to the church and everyone was in there having a briefing. My father was in there somewhere – he was coming on the trip – but the briefing had finished by the time that I arrived. When I walked in, it wasn’t a church but a shower and they were all having a communal shower in about 4 or 5 different rooms. I had a look but couldn’t see my father in any of the rooms. I said “I’ll be glad to get back on board the ship again and have my familiar old cabin” and I quoted a number. Their response was “not that leaky old hulk” and started to talk about the showers and how the water went everywhere and soaked the beds, that kind of thing. A girl came out and asked “do you have a torch?” I replied “yes”. “Can I borrow it?”. She set off and went downstairs so I followed her. There was a motor garage there, a kind of workshop with benches in a glass-framed room. She sat down and I said “I can’t find my torch”. She replied “that’s a shame as I have some things to do”. “So why don’t you switch on the lights?”. “Am I allowed to?”. “Of course you are. I know the people who work here anyway”. She switched on the lights and she was taking a York diesel engine apart. She had all of the bits out and was busy writing notes about it. I watched her writing these notes and had a little chat with her for a while.

Yes, all of these exciting voyages and not a single person with whom I would really like to travel. I don’t know what the world is coming to.

For much of the day (although by no means all of it) I’ve been quite busy. I’ve had a letter to write to reply to one that I received in the Summer that somehow became lost. And that wasn’t easy.

In fat it led to the start of a major tidy-up in the office which, although it’s only just got under way, has resulted in a pile of outstanding filing being done and a load of paperwork being thrown away. And there’s still plenty more to go at.

Sadly the place doesn’t look much different than it did before I started – but then that’s usually the case when I’m tidying up. The place always seems to be worse and then when I run out of steam and have to sit down I’m in the middle of total chaos and that’s so disheartening too.

After lunch I sat down for 5 minutes to raise the steam for carrying on with the tidying up but I’m afraid that was that. 15:45 when I finally came round again having missed all of the early afternoon and I’m dismayed about that too.

It took a good half-hour to recover my composure after that so it was rather a later walk this afternoon than usual.

Not that I went very far before I took my first photograph. Just outside the front door in fact. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen seen them digging up the road in the Rue St Michel and probably noticed that there wasn’t anywhere to tip the spoil from the excavations.

But now we know the answer to that little problem. They have a little dumper bringing it all over here and tipping it on the car park of the building across the way.

So off I went on my travels along the footpath. And I didn’t go much further either.

One thing that strikes me is the series of stories about ancient mariners sighting “land” and which turn out to be false sightings. But when you see something like this that I saw this afternoon, it’s not surprising.

Of course a camera can’t produce the same effect that you have with the naked eye but here there’s a curtain of rain approaching across the English Channel and what is presumably the water bouncing off the surface is creating an effect that does look like land out there in front of the Ile de Chausey.

Not too many people out there this afternoon and that’s no surrpise because the storm has hit and we are having a hurricane right now.

But with being late out for my afternoon walk, the sun is much lower in the sky than it has been of late and once again we are having the reflections of the sunlight of the surface of the Baie de Mont St Michel. And I do have to say that this is one of the better ones of recent date, although we can thank the late hour for that.

And having thanked the late hour for the photo I pushed off along the footpath to see what was going on in the chantier navale. And just the same three boats as yesterday. No-one has left and no-one new has arrived.

By now the rainstorm that we’d seen out to sea had caught up with me and I was becoming rather wet … “so what’s new?” – ed.

The sun was out over on the other side of the bay as we have seen and with it shining over here, we were being treated to the appearance of a rainbow. Unfortunately the camera can’t bring it out very well but nevertheless it is there, if you look quite hard.

Having photographed it, I came on home for a cup of hot, strong coffee and the discovery that the hot water that i’d put in the water bottle that I had received from Adventure Canada when we were on board The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour was still hot.

That’s good news because for my early star on Monday morning I can take hot coffee with me to keep me going. Must remember to bring the heated mug out of Caliburn.

With hot coffee in hand I tidied away a few more papers and that took me up to guitar time. And surprisingly, it was an enjoyable session and I’ve recovered my voice – something that has just caused the rateable value of this building to hit rock-bottom.

Tea was a burger on a bap with baked potato and veg, followed by jam roly-poly. And while the jam roly-poly is well-overcooked, the general principle is sound and I shall be doing that again … “and again” – ed.

Later on this evening I wa giving Liz some long-distance computer maintenance advice. She’s having problems with her laptop going slower and slower so I spent some time helping her along with it. But there’s much more to do so this is going to be an ongoing task.

And now that I’ve written my notes, later than I hoped, I’m off to bed even if Joni Mitchell and Hejira, her greatest album by a country mile, has come round on the playlist. I need an early night and I deserve it.

Things aren’t getting any better round here and they won’t if I don’t take any decisive action.

Thursday 10th December 2020 – ISN’T IT NICE …

… when you see that someone has actually read something that you’ve posted and actually gone out and acted on it?

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few days ago when we were discussing the miserable array of Christmas lights around the port, and I aid something to the effect that I thought that at least they might have made an effort with Marité and having lights strung up in the rigging?

It seems that whoever they are in charge of her have read what I have had to say on the subject and strung up some lights in the rigging as I suggested. But you can’t exactly say that they have pushed the boat out, can you? I’ve seen far better lights than these in my time, as I’m sure you have.

All in all, it’s a rather disappointing effort and they could – and should – have done so much better with this. But at least they’ve read my notes and done something.

But what a bad day I had today.

And that’s a shame because it started off so well as I beat the third alarm to my feet – something that it always good news.

With the medication today I tried the mint cordial-flavoured Kefir that I had made but it wasn’t anything special and was also pretty inert which was a shame. I’d expected something much more lively.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone. I was working on my own with doing a videographic thing and this kid and her mother had done some kind of magic performance and her father asked me if I could add it on to a video which I agreed that I would do. But it wasn’t going to turn out as easy as I thought because some of it needed cutting out because it was too long but there was music on there and it would disrupt all the sequencing so I had to think of a way in which I could do that. The father was very precise about the bits he wanted including in this film and I started to be worried about whether I had the technology to actually be able to do it despite what i’d been telling people. First I’d have to look for a video editing program but I don’t have one of those.

I was with Castor last night in a pub in south-west London (hello Castor!) but I can’t remember very much about it except that she went to the bathroom and was gone for ages and ages and I was wondering if she’d run out on me again. Eventually she came back. We’d been talking about doing a furniture removal, something like that for her. She said that people she knew had some stuff. They lived in a place called Abbey Sides. They said that it was only like a 5 minute walk away. I had a look on the A to Z and she was right – it wasn’t all that far away from where we were. I suggested that we drank up and went to have a look. For some reason this was taking an awful lot longer than it ought to have done. But I don’t remember any of the rest of this and I can’t really remember the beginning either.

After that, I had a shower and shock! horror! I cut my hair! Now I look a little more human. And I wish that I’d weighed myself after I’d cut it, something that might have made me feel better.

After the shower I made a start on some of the arrears of my trip to Central Europe. It’s one of the three big ones today – the one where I spend a whole day in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic and this is going to take ages to deal with – there are about 50 photos in this.

Before setting off to the shops I had to pay a bill – or, at least, write out a cheque to pay a bill. The rates on my house in France are due again. And I bet that you wish you only paid … gulp … €26:00 per annum for your rates.

It was cold this morning as I went down into town, so I was glad that I had taken my gloves.

They make it easy to operate my camera and so when I saw a lorry and a fork lift truck unloading goods at the quayside it was a pretty straightforward operation to take a photo. At least the camera was charged today.

But this unloading can only mean one thing of course. And that is that either Normandy Trader or Thora is heading this way from the Channel Islands, or even now that there’s quite a pre-Christmas and pre-Brexit rush on, that Chausiais is going to be doing another little run.

So down the Rampe du Monte Regret I went and up the Rue Lecampion into town.

Just here in the Place Charles de Gaulle they seem to be setting up some kind of stall for street entertainment, presumably for the Christmas period. I suppose that Christmas still has to go on, even if I have never felt as less Christmassy as I am feeling right now.

All the decorations in the town are there too, and I’ll come by one evening in the dark when (hopefully) they will be illuminated, and take a photo of them to add to the records.

But instead, I posted my letter in the post office and pushed on.

Regular readers of this rubish will recall that several weeks ago I stumbled by accident upon a little alley in the Rue Couraye that had steps going down to the level below.

It was an alley that I hadn’t noticed before, and it’s been my goal to track down the other end and see to where it leads. So when I reached the end of the Rue du Bosq I had a look around and sure enough, I could see it leading down into the Rue du Marias just on the corner.

And from here it looks as if it goes through someone’s terrace. I’m not convinced that that’s a popular idea with some people.

At LIDL I didn’t buy very much, and nothing at all out of the ordinary except a ginger spice cake. I’m going to find some marzipan at the weekend and marzipan it and then ice it. It won’t be the same as a Liz Messenger cake, but it will be the best that I can do.

On the way back home, this delightful little notice here caught my eye.

There are building works going on all over the place and in the Rue St Paul there are at least three houses undergoing renovation. This is one of them and they have fenced off the front and indicated to pedestrians that they must somehow squeeze through the gap between the fence and the wall, unless they would like you to go through the window.

Either way, you need to be either very thin or very athletic so that rules me out. I walked around in the street.

By now the weather had broken and it was raining quite heavily. I was becoming soaked to the skin going home.

Back here I had a hot chocolate and some cake, and then promptly passed out fast asleep. And it was awful – one of these really deep sleeps that makes me feel so awful. I was stark out for an hour and then it took me an hour to come round, so awful was I feeling.

After lunch I crashed out again but I did manage to do some kind of work here and there on my day in Karlovy vary

But by now it was time for me to go out for my afternoon walk.

The rain had stopped falling by now but the wind was blowing somewhat and the sea was rather rough. This little fishing boat was making rather heavy weather of the journey back from the fishing grounds this afternoon back to the harbour.

And I now know why it is that these fishing boats have a roof over the deck like this. It’s to prevent the seagulls, who usually follow the boats in to harbour, from diving down and helping themselves to some of the catch.

While I was looking around, I noticed the view down the Cotentin Peninsula, and there was some astonishing stuff going on there as you can see.

The first thing of note was the rainbow underneath the clouds. We’ve had plenty of rainbows around here and this one is unfortunately far from the best, but it will do to be going on with.

The second thing is the sunlight. You might have to click on the image to see it but there’s a shaft of sunlight shining right down on the town of Hauteville sur Mer, illuminating it like a spotlight would on a stage.

We’ve seen quite a few of that phenomenon just recently too.

You will remember earlier that we saw them unloading a pile of merchandise on the quayside and I speculated that one of the Jersey Freighters may well be on her way in.

Well, not only has one of them come in, she’s going out too on the same tide. That’s Normandy Trader heading back out to sea with a full load on board, having undergone probably one of the quickest turnrounds yet.

If she’s turning round as quickly as this in port, it’s hardly surprising that we haven’t seen her all that often even though I know that she’s been on her way in. And the same with Thora too. I bet that we have also missed her loads of times.

So after watching her fighting her way through the waves on her way home, I walked on around the corner and across the lawn and the car park to see what was going on in the Baie de Mont St Michel.

There’s nothing actually happening right now out there, but we are being treated to another one of these late-afternoon winter suns of which we have seen plenty just recently. If you thought that it looked impressive over at Hacqueville sur Mer just now, how about this for a spectacle?

This is probably just about the best one so far. It’s come out really well and if you look carefully, underneath the cloud you can see the Brittany coast.

Not wishing to hang about too long, I trotted off down the path, across the road (where there was no dog to annoy me) and then down the path overlooking the clifftop, doing my best to avoid falling into one of the very large puddles.

And look at this! There’s been a change of occupant in the chantier navale, so it seems. Ceres II has departed now and our yacht is in there all on its own.

It’s going to be pretty lonely there if it doesn’t find any shipmates to come and keep it company. Not that I’m wishing ill on anyone, but we need a busy shipyard here so that we can have a thriving port.

But where has Ceres II gone to? She can’t have been gone long because the van that has been attending to her is still there.

The answer is that I reckon she’s there. The portable boat-lift still has its engine running so it’s been working quite recently. And that array of aerials and ancillary equipment that you can just about see looks as if it’s off Ceres II.

So I just about missed her going back into he water, which was a shame. But never mind. I decided to push on for home and a hot coffee, and do some work. There’s plenty of it, right enough.

Unfortunately my bad day carried on and instead of working I ended up crashed out yet again. This is absolutely no good at all and I wish that there was something that I could do about it. But it’s the story of my life right now and it isn’t going to improve.

After my guitar practice, which went according to plan, I had tea. I finished off the last of the fresh broccoli along with other steamed veg with some veggie balls and vegan cheese sauce, followed bu apple pie.

And while we are on the subject of tea, they had a big pack of mushrooms (well, it is the season, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall from the other day) on special offer in LIDL today so I must remember to do a pan of lentils in the morning ready to make a lentil, mushroom and potato curry tomorrow.

And if I leave the eyes in the potatoes, then it’ll see me through the week.

My runs tonight were rather half-hearted and although I completed them all (keeping to dry land) I can’t say that I was inspired.

But it was a really beautiful night to be out, another one of those occasions where I could see for miles. St Helier and Jersey could be seen with the naked eye 58 kilometres away and in the phot you can even see the red lights on the radio tower at the back of town.

That’s a hand-held photo by the way. It’s far too windy to take the tripod out at the moment but I’ll be out there with it one of these days when the wind calms down.

Nothing much happening elsewhere either. It was all rather disappointing.

The lights down in the Rue des Corsaires were visible so I took a quick photo and then cleared off for my run across the Square Maurice Marland, where battling against a gale-force headwind thoroughly exhausted me. But I had a look at the lights on Marité and then ran on to home and warmth

And before I went to bed I did a little radio work. I had the music going on in the background, the music from which I’ll be choosing the tracks for the next programme, and two absolutely ideal tracks came up. So I’ve been dealing with them. I may as well make a head start.

But now I’m off to bed. Plenty to do tomorrow still land I really don’t feel like doing it, but I have to crack on, I suppose. It won’t do itself.

Tuesday 13th October 2020 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was in bed quite early – long before 23:00. And it’s been a while since that’s ever happened when I’ve been feeling good.

Furthermore, I was up and about a long time before the third alarm too which is something that’s becoming less and less common as time passes by.

And nothing on the dictaphone either – I can’t have gone anywhere during the night too. But that’s not as relaxing as you might think because I woke up a few times that I can remember, tossing and turning about.

For much of the morning I was revising my Welsh. I missed last week’s lesson so I needed to catch up with it. And even though it is the language of my grandmother, I’m still bewildered about the fact that so far, after just 6 months of study, I’ve encountered so far about 9 different words for yes and 9 for no. There’s probably plenty more to go at in the future too.

It’s not the easiest language in the world to learn either. It has a thought path and a sentence and tense construction all of its own quite unlike any Romance or Germanic language.

But we had our lesson for 2.5 hours, learning yet another couple of words for “yes” and “no” and then I went for lunch.

After lunch I did some tidying up (just a bit – I don’t want to disillusion you all) and then dealt with a couple of knotty coding problems on my website which no matter what I do and what I try, I can’t get to work.

It has really bad weather to stop me going out for my afternoon walk, so the rain that was falling didn’t prevent me from setting off, even if two of my neighbours out at the front door were less than enthusiastic.

And I’m glad I did because although the rain wasn’t all that heavy here, it was pelting right down in the immediate vicinity and out at sea, we were being treated to the most glorious rainbow in the distance. It was the kind of thing that made me wish that I had a shovel handy.

And that reminds me of Nerina who told me once that when I died she would come round and dance on my grave. And for that reason I’m going to be buried at sea. Although the last time that someone else wanted to be buried at sea, 5 gravediggers were drowned.

Yesterday when I was out in the evening I didn’t notice anything special about the wind, especially when compared to what kind of wind we’ve been having recently.

However it’s significant that there were no workmen working on the scaffolding this afternoon and that a large part of the compound seems to have been blown down. That’s some kind of indication that we’ve been having really bad weather for part of the day and I must have missed it

Mind you, when I was having my Welsh lesson this morning I noticed that the weather was going through a rapid sunny/cloudy cycle so maybe there was a strong wind that was driving all of that.

But I’m not going to miss this if I don’t get a move on.

Out in the Baie de Mont St Michel there’s a wicked rainstorm in progress and the wind is blowing it this way. It’s not going to be long before it makes the shore and then we’ll know all about it.

In the foreground on the right you can see one of the bunkers of the Atlantic Wall, the German coastal protection of World War II. And on the left are some of the remains of another one.

The story goes that the local demolition packed that one full of explosive and detonated, hoping to remove it. They apparently broke every window within a 50-mile radius and moved a hatful of concrete bunker about half an inch. So they abandoned the procedure.

Incidentally, while we’re on the subject of the Atlantic Wall … “well, one of us is” – ed … the story of the storming of the Atlantic Wall on the Normandy beaches has always been one of those jingoistic gung-ho episodes that’s gone down in British and American folklore, but it really is nothing like that at all. The concrete to build the wall was supplied by a Belgian company that was issued with the plans and dimensions in order to calculate correctly the amount of concrete needed. The company was run by someone who was actually in the pay of the Russians and he transmitted all of the information to Moscow who sent it on to the British who then became aware of every last detail about the fortifications.

Of course, it wasn’t politic to admit that the Soviets had contributed substantially to the success of D-Day on a couple of the more-heavily-fortified beaches.

With no-one around this afternoon, I broke into a run along the path on top of the cliffs. An extra run will keep me fit and besides, it’s going to rain in a moment and I want to be home when it starts.

It seems that today I wasn’t going to be the only one heading for home in a hurry.

The fishing season is apparently now well under way again and with the pause in the bad weather the trawlers and other fishing boats are going out to work. And here’s one of them, heading for home across the Baie de Mont St Michel, presumably in the hope of making it home before the rain reaches here.

But it’s hard to work out if it has a catch or not. usually, the laden trawlers are surrounded flocks of seagulls hoping to catch a misplaced fish but this one looks as if it’s unaccompanied.

A few weeks ago we saw Coelacanthe and Le Tiberiade having their nets taken off by one of the cranes in the harbour.

Here today we have another trawler up at the quayside having its nets removed. After she’d been stripped, Le Tiberiade ended up on blocks in the Chantier Navale for a week or two having work done on her. I wonder if this means that within the next couple of days we’ll see this one up there on blocks too.

On the other hand, they could simply be going to sew up the nets. We’ve seen plenty of nets in the past spread out on the quayside being repaired.

As I watched the activity in the harbour Chausiais, the little freighter that runs out with goods to the Ile de Chausey, started up her engines and slowly moved away from the quayside.

It could be that she has a run out there to perform this afternoon now that the harbour gates are open, or else it could be that one of the Channel Island freighters, Thora or Normandy Trader, is on its way into harbour and need the berth. The building supplies that we saw on the quayside the other day are still here.

And so was the rain now. It was starting to rain quite heavily so I decided to clear off home without waiting to see what she was going to do.

Back here I had a few other things to do around here and then ended up with my hour on the guitars which went a lot better than it did yesterday.

A quick tea tonight and then outside for my runs where I was nearly swept away by a car coming the wrong way down the one-way street.

The footpath underneath the walls was still flooded out so I had to make alternative arrangements for my runs. In fact I ended up doing four lengths, not three.

Out at Donville les Bains those bright lights at the back of that old hotel are all lit up again. I’m not quite sure what they are. They might possibly be at the football ground where they might be training, but I don’t recall any floodlights the last time that I went to watch a match there.

Apart from that, there was nothing else of any interest so I ran on home. There was football on the internet.

Tonight was a top-of-the-table clash between TNS and Connah’s Quay Nomads. TNS won 1-0 which is no surprise seeing as I counted at least 4 regular Nomads first-team players, including their two main strikers, out injured. Despite being quite lightweight up front, they did the best that they could and it was an entertaining game, but TNS were always going to win this match.

So to bed now, not as early as I was hoping. And maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll be going off for a wander during the night. It makes quite a change to have a night in.

Tuesday 18th February 2020 – I CAN NOW ADD …

… to my list of accomplishments that of “tying up a trawler”.

I arrived at the harbour at exactly the moment that the harbour gates opened, and I actually do mean that because I was walking across the path on top when they started to close and I had to scramble underneath the barrier.

There must have been eight or nine fishing boats of various sizes sitting in the queue outside the gates waiting for the off.

Anyway, as soon as the gates opened, they shot in like greyhounds out of a trap and headed for their berths.

One of the later arrivals pulled up right by me as I was walking down the quayside. The skipper shouted “tie us up, will you?” and hurled me a rope. I missed the first time but the second time I caught it and looped it over a bollard and wound it round.

he seemed quite satisfied that I’d done it correctly so I cleared off. I had no idea that passers-by – civilians like me – were expected to know how to do things like this and be roped (if you’ll excuse the pun) into participating in the antics of the fishing fleet.

You learn something new every day.

Nothing new though in this morning’s antics. I missed the alarms again and it was about 06:45 when I finally arose.

But I’d been awake a couple of times during the night and on both occasions found myself dictating the account of a nocturnal voyage … into my hand. Dictaphone still on the chest of drawers.

It’s enough to make me wonder how many times I’ve done that in the past and what I might have missed.

After the medication I had a look at the dictaphone and … GULP there’s enough on here to keep me busy for a week or so, enver mind half an hour.

There was a group of kids, 7 or 8 or 9 and it was some kind of adventure quest. They had to travel to France for some reason or other, all dressed up, even two of them dressed as a pantomime horse with a girl dressed as a princess sitting on top, all dashing off down to Dover docks. I was one of the monitors – I had to follow them around and make sure that they weren’t getting up to any good. They had challenges that they had to meet on the way, like one where it was the task of this pantomime horse to actually involve itself in the encounter, this kind of thing. I pile of them made it down to Dover so I said “what happens now? Do you have to get your tickets?”. One said “ohh no. They said we could get our tickets at the other side” which sounded strange to me but they all seemed to agree that that was what was supposed to be happening. They were all jostling around for a place to sit. One of the girls was Helena who was probably a little older, 10 or 11 I dunno so i got talking to her. “What have you been doing?” “Well apart from having to drive my car to the Isle of Man, not a great deal” so I asked her to tell me about her kind of adventure in this particular thing but she didn’t have the chance to before I awoke
And I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Dictating a dream in my sleep without the Dictaphone. Strange. I was up on the Elm Drive estate in what should have been a council house but it was a big private house of mine. I was doing it up but I’d been taken ill as you know and couldn’t work so the work had really slowed down on this place. But Castor and Pollux were there and Jerry Kobalenko (welcome into my nocturnal rambles, Jerry) too. We were preparing for an expedition and it had started and we had lost a lot of equipment and I’d fallen through the ice. We’d had to arrange this kind of thing and ended up with no clothes so we were back at my house again drying off. I started to lend Jerry some clothes and stuff like that and get myself organised. Jerry borrowed my car which was a Mark IV Cortina RHD but with the gear lever on the right up against the door. He went off and did something and then I came back and took the car for a drive. Went down West Avenue and Richard Moon Street and out to Nantwich. Round Nantwich and back again all the way up Middlewich Road. I can’t remember where I ended up then, some town or other and had to do a U-turn. I pulled out of a side road and nearly knocked a lorry off over into the centre of the road. There was a huge power station where I did my U-turn and came back. Castor and Pollux were talking to me. They asked me what I intended to do about the house. I said that I was going to finish it off and live here. They were surprised and asked if I ought to be taking more care of my health. I gave them the usual story about wanting to enjoy what life I had left rather than being afraid and not doing anything. They were a bit surprised by this but I told them that was how it was. They asked what I was going to do for money. I wasn’t going to say anything but yes I’m OK for money, plenty of it. I said “you don’t need a job”. Castor said to Pollux “but everyone needs a job, you know” and Pollux was still wondering how you manage to live, all this kind of thing. I was trying my best to explain to her. I’d forgotten that bit about taxis when I was out in the car. I wasn’t supposed to be taxiing and I had to stop thinking about being a taxi driver. So this discussion went on and then was when I awoke to find myself dictating this dream out loud into my hand not the dictaphone so I’ve no idea what has happened there – and how many other times I might have dictated into my hand during my sleep and never been aware of it.
Interestingly, it proves the point that dreams are connected with memories and not out-of-body experiences – at least this one was. The area of West Street around West Avenue, Richard Moon Street and Middlewich Road has undergone all kinds of changes since the demolition of the railway works after I left the town. But not one of these changes appeared in my voyage around that area.
Somewhat later I was doing exactly the same thing again – dictating my dream into my hand while asleep. It was a cowboy situation – the James Brothers. One of them was an outlaw, fed up of them being on the run and wanted to go straight. He was talking to me about it. I went outside and there was the other brother trying to break in a horse. That was when I awoke to find myself dictating my dream in my sleep again
Later on I was with Nerina and we’d been working on a taxi. We’d had to have some letraset done to make some stickers and Karen Brierley had done it. The job was absolutely perfect and I wouldn’t have had the patience to do this, as I told her, but this was really good. In fact we’d been talking about business cards prior to this. Someone had taken us to a place and the guy had opened up a set of drawers that he rented out, right by the doorway. “You’ll know what’s in here” he said and opened the top drawer but there was nothing in it. he opened the next one and it was full of business cards and that’s how we got talking about stickers. We much preferred stickers for the taxis because you could stick them everywhere. Anyway then people then were going on about this taxi, painted white and letraset it but it was really late. My family were all up and Nerina was really tired, and I needed her to do some more work. In the end I smiled and said “yes, go on Nerina, go to bed”. I said to my mother that I won’t be up very long either. Even though they were planning to be up all night I’d go to bed and do this first thing in the morning. She went off to bed and I went out to work on this car. But I came back because I was in a suit. I took off the jacket and shirt and went to get an old tee-shirt. And as for jeans I’d but on a pair of overalls to protect the trousers.

As you can imagine, it took me much more than half an hour to type out all of that. I had a break for breakfast at some point and then came back to carry on and it was right into mid-morning by the time that I’d finished all of that.

That meant that finally I could start on the notes for the radio project on which I’m working, but I wasn’t at it for long because I needed to go for my bread.

First task was to leave the house of course. And it was a bright sunny day so i’d planned a nice long walk.

Not that i would get very far though before I had to stop. regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’m quite interested in the plant life around here – this kind of plant of course, not the other kind. So when I saw this mobile crane pull up on the other side of the harbour I stopped to photograph it.

No idea what it might be doing there. There’s already enough plant and machinery over there as it is.

As I walked down the boulevard des Terreneuviers I noticed that the fishing boats were now jostling for position at the entrance to the inner harbour even though the “traffic light” was showing red.

That could only mean one thing – that the harbour gates were closed but would be opening very shortly. I had a brief look at the chantier navale but there was nothing there any different from the last time I looked.

And so I pushed on rather rapidly, not even stopping to take a photo of the shellfish that they were hauling up from a boat at the fish-processing plant.

Just as I set foot on the footpath across the top of the gates the siren sounded. I moved rapidly but the barrier came down and the gates started to open before I could cross over.

Luckily I was on the far gate so I didn’t have to jump for it, but I still had to scramble under the barrier at the far side. But I’m glad I did because it gave me an opportunity to inspect the fishing tackle on one of the fishing boats.

So now I know where everything goes and what it’s for. I’ll have to get myself out there on a fishing boat one of these days and have a first-hand look at it.

So as all of the fishing boats cleared off into the harbour, I cleared off after them. And that was when I had my encounter with the other fishing boat that I had to tie up.

The guys were there with the pontoon and the large mobile crane. Having been rebuffed the other day I decided not to waste my time asking them anything but to wait and use my own eyes to see what was going on.

And I wasn’t to be disappointed at all, as you will see in due course.

Another one of the things that I’m doing right now is to go round by where the fête foraine – the funfair – will be for the carnival and see how they are getting on with arranging everything.

In the Place Godal, where some of the caravans of the entertainers are parked, there was this popcorn, toffee apple and ice cream stall.

Not that i reckon that it’s supposed to be set up there (although it wouldn’t come as any surprise) but my thinking was that they are waiting for the funfair to erect itself and then these stalls will fit in around the amusements.

So down to the Parking Hérel to see how they were doing.

And the big machinery is going up together quite nicely – and quickly. In fact the apparatus on the left was actually working, swinging back and forth. It made me wonder whether the inspectors were actually there today checking it over.

These machines are impressive but they are quite dangerous and can’t ply for hire until they have been inspected and have a permit to operate.

The Palais de Rire – the Palace of Laughter – looks impressive and they must have worked impressively to have it done this quickly. They had barely started on it yesterday.

But I learnt something today too, and I’m always in the market for learning new things.

There was a lorry there that was towing a couple of trailers – the typical “showman’s goods” lorry. So I asked someone with it what licence yuo needed to drive with more than one trailer.

The answer was (the Fench equivalent of) “a HGV Class one licence – nothing else”. In other words, any ordinary Heavy Artic licence. And I have one of those, don’t I?

But don’t worry. My days of driving all this heavy stuff are over.

From there I walked into town and La Mie Caline to pick up my dejeunette

And here across the road is something that wasn’t here this time yesterday. Clutching my bread quite tightly, I went for a closer look.

They are pushing along quite rapidly with the features for Carnaval as we can see. This is the stage from which they will make all of the announcements I reckon and where there might be some kind of entertainment during the evening – I dunno.

Yesterday I’d been past the car park in the Cours Jonville and seen them laying out the edges of the chapiteau – the big marquee where the Friday night Ball will take place.

And so I went that way today to see how they were getting on with it. And “getting on with it” they certainly are. It’s quite impressive the speed with which they are putting up these things and the marquee is certainly one of the more exciting things

So Friday night we’re going to ba having a Ball. Well, they are. I shall be tucked up in my warm little bed ready for the onslaught the following day.

The roadworks in the place des Corsaires have gone now and the street is open. Me though, I pushed on up the rue des Juifs until I was interrupted.

Excuse the dreadful shot but the sun was right in my eyes and in the camera lens. But here’s our mobile crane, now on this side of the harbour in the rue du Port and the big pontoon has sailed over here too.

And between the pair of them they are manoeuvring one of the pontoon supports into place ready for fixing against the harbour wall. I was lucky to catch this photo today.

Back here I had a late lunch and then set about my afternoon project.

Peel some ginger, dice it into some very tiny squares and then put it in a small amount of water to boil, then leave to simmer.

Meanwhile, peel four good juicy oranges and put them in the whizzer. Whizz them round and then filter out the orange juice which goes in the fridge in a bottle.

The left-over pulp goes into the pan with the ginger and it’s all left to simmer.

While that’s doing, put about 5mm of water in the bottom of your nice new big saucepan and add plenty of lemon juice to it.

hen peel, core and dice seven apples and three pears. When they are finely cut, add them to the water and lemon juice as you go along, swirling them around so that there’s some lemony liquid covering all of them to stop them browning.

Then add desiccated coconut and some cinnamon to the apples and pears, take off the orange and ginger and put the apples and pears etc onto the heat and bring to the boil and leave to simmer.

With the orange pulp and ginger add a couple of dessert spoons of honey and stir well in. Then add to the whizzer and give it a really good whizzing around to liquidise almost everything. Then when it’s cooled down, add to the orange juice and give it all a really good shake.

There’s a nice orange and ginger syrup to add to filtered water.

That was the cue to go for my afternoon walk.

There were crowds of people out there today because it was so nice, and I’m glad that I went out when I did because I saw a most unexpected sight. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing the new pontoons stacked up on the quayside the other day, but here’s one in the water heading across to the cranes that we saw earlier.

But how are them moving? They aren’t rowing them so maybe there’s an outboard motor somewhere, I suppose.

There had been a heavy rainstorm briefly a short while earlier but it had passed and was gone.

Not too far though because we had this gorgeous rainbow. We’ve certainly seen some impressive rainbows since we’ve been living here but this one is one of the best.

Back here I checked to see that the apples were done, and then strained off the liquid. That’s in a bottle ready to be diluted in early course.

As for the solids, they went into the whizzer and turned into purée for me to bottle. That’ll keep me going for a week or so.

Now I could finish off writing the texts and dictate them, just interrupted by a little 10-minute crash out. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to finish editing them before it was tea-time which was a shame.

For tea I had a stuffed pepper with rice followed by apple turnover and Alpro soya almond with chocolate sauce. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that now that i’m much better-organised my diet is improving 100%

Cutting out these shop-bought sugary drinks and their plastic bottles was really a good New Year resolution.

For my walk I managed my two runs and then headed back here to write up my notes.

And now bed-time. After my marathon adventures during the night last night I’m ready for a good sleep. I just hope that I remember to use the dictaphone if i want to dictate any notes.

Monday 11th November 2019 – WE ALMOST HAD …

… another day like yesterday.

No alarm of course so I was banking on a good sleep. Especially as it was about 04:00 when I finally wandered off to bed, such is the exciting life that I lead here.

And so awakening at 08:30 was no part of the plan whatsoever.

Just like yesterday I turned over to go back to sleep by by 09:30 I gave it up and raised myself from the dead.

Somewhere during the night I’d been off on my travels too. And it all had a very familiar ring when I compare it with what usually happens in my life too.

I was up getting things ready for a party and this involved doing all of the organising, the paperwork and the tickets and so on. I’d folded up a pile of tickets to put in my pocket and so on – my pockets were full of stuff and now I had to sit down and start to do the paperwork. First thing I needed to do was to find my pen – a highlighter pen – and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I emptied out all of my pockets and put the tickets in a nice pile and they all fell over and fell on the floor. I had a really good hunt around and in the end I found my pen – my highlighter pen – and then I had to go and get the letter to pick it up and highlight it and I couldn’t find the letter and I’d only had it in my hand a minute ago and I had to hunt around for this letter and I couldn’t find it and I could hear all people outside and I don’t know whether they had started to ocme to the party early or something like that but I was nowhere near ready at all and I still couldn’t find this paper and I’d only had it just that minute before.

Doesn’t all of that sound familiar?

We had the usual medication and breakfast, and then I spent an hour or two updating some pages on the website. I’m now somewhere on the north-west coast of Newfoundland in 2010 which means that I’m about a third of the way through – and that’s just doing the active pages too. When I look at all of the pages in the queue, it makes me shudder.

Another thing that I’ve been doing is working on my little project. This involves the help of Youtube and the Allman Brothers Band and a considerable amount of research. And I’m still at it even now.

There has also been some considerable excitement here.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the strap on my fitbit broke a few weeks ago and I ordered a new one.

It never arrived, so I complained. And it turned out that according to the supplier “it was delivered and signed for on 29th October”.

Well, not here it wasn’t, so I complained again. This morning they sent be a copy of the delivery receipt from the carriage company, and asked me about the signature.

My reply was that it certainly was not mine, and I could say that with confidence because the address on the delivery receipt is wrong. For some unknown reason about which I know absolutely nothing at all, they seem to have sent the bracelet to an address in Italy.

Nevertheless, we now have to go through some stupid claims procedure with the freighter, when the reason is there right before everyone’s eyes.

What will inevitably happen will be that it will take a year to sort out, by which time they will tell me that the product is now out of stock and I can’t get one anyway.

So in the meantime, I’ve found a generic one on eBay at a quarter of the price, and that should be on its way here now even as we speak. I can’t be doing with all of this.

With a late start I had a late lunch, and then I went out for another long walk – and then had to come back because I’d forgotten to put the memory card back in the camera.

And, even more strangely, there are 25 steps from the ground floor up to my apartment – and I ran all the way up. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, there have been days when i couldn’t even crawl up.

So armed with a memory card, it was back out into the howling gale (when is it ever going to stop?) and along the rue du Nord.

There was another really rough sea rolling in from the Atlantic and the waves breaking on the beach were quite impressive.

The tide is still quite far out right now.

And with the tide being quite far out right now, there was a large crowd out there on the Plat Gousset looking as if they were waiting for something.

Not that I might know what it would be, but if it’s waiting for the waves to come in and crash over the sea wall, I reckon that they have about another hour.

They could have gone for a coffee or two and come back with plenty of time rather than waiting out there in the wind.

My route this afternoon was longer than usual seeing how I’d missed my morning walk.

Instead of the habitual route I went down the steps, through the lower town and out to the port de plaisance – the yacht harbour – to see if there was anything exciting going on there.

And here tied up at one of the pontoons is one of our old favourites, the Lys Noir. I’ve no idea what she’s doing moored up out here, but she’s not doing very much right now.

Something else that I will have to do is to check her itinerary for the near future and see where I can go.

She wasn’t the only one of our old favourites in port today either.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Pecheur de Lys was taken out of storage earlier this year and put afloat in the harbour. And she’s still there too, riding out the waves.

But I wonder if she’ll ever get to see the open sea?

It was busy in there too. One of the ferries from the Ile de Chausey had just come in and it was disgorging its passengers and cargo out onto the quay.

However, my attention was elsewhere. Right now we were in the middle of one of these flash rainstorms that we have ever now and again. And a heavy one too.

And right there over the town we were being blessed with one of the most beautiful rainbows that I have seen in a long time.

We’ve had a few just recently and I’ve photographed a couple, but this one this afternoon takes the cake. And look how black the sky was too.

Meanwhile returning à nos moutons as they say down there, the inner harbour was very busy too.

The harbour gates can’t have been open for all that long because there was a regular procession of trawlers coming in to tie up at the fish-processing plant.

And also smaller trawlers too, with all of their family and friends lined up at the quayside ready to catch the catch as it’s thrown up by those down below in the boat.

There are two of our regular boats that weren’t in the water today.

Here up on blocks in the Chantier Navale is our old friend Aztec Lady that appeared in port the other week. There didn’t seem to be much evidence about the work that might be being undertaken and there was no-one with her to ask.

Mind you, I doubt that they would tell me anyway. Commercial charter companies are very reticent to talk about defects in their equipment.

Next to her up on more blocks is our other old friend Spirit of Conrad. Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve been for a birthday party on board about 2 years ago.

Her owner, one of my neighbours, was down there so I had a chat to him. Apparently she has a hole in the hull caused by some kind of impact damage and she’s going to be patched up.

He showed me the hole and it wasn’t really all that big and it seemed to be above the waterline too. So it won’t take long to fix.

On the way back, I walked all around the headland, in the teeth of a howling gale.

Out at the Pointe du Roc where we turn into the English Channel, the seas were quite heavy and this little trawler here was having something of a rough time of it turning her beam to the wind.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you think about the real cost of the lump of fish that goes onto your plate on a Friday. How would you like to work out there in conditions like that?

Coming into port in a storm like this is one thing, but how about going out to work in it?

When the other trawlers were coming in, there was one just setting out. And here she is ploughing her way out through the waves in the doom and gloom on her way to her fishing station somewhere off the coast of the Channel Islands.

It’s not something that I mind doing once in a while, but to be out there in weather like that all the time is not for me.

My mega-walk is now one hour or so later than when I started and the tide is now well in.

The waves are giving the sea wall at the Plat Gousset a real pounding and as you will probably notice, the crowd has diminished considerably.

And seeing as it’s rather late, I shan’t be joining them either. I’m going inside for a coffee, some warmth and to do a little more work.

In fact, I’m going to make tea. Stuffed pepper with rice followed by the last of the rice pudding. Bearing in mind last week’s problem, I gave the pepper an extra two minutes (one minute on medium and one minute on high) and it was done to a turn.

Delicious.

Back outside for my evening walk around the walls and I was all on my own, which was no surpise given the wind.

The tide was on its way out too so the crowds on the Plat Gousset have dispersed. I carried on with my walk and to my surprise not only did I run all the way up the ramp at the end, I ran on a few more paces.

What with running up the steps, and running here like this, I’ve no idea what is happening. But I’m going to make the most of it while I can.

And my fitbit tells me that I’ve done 104% of my daily activity too.

If I’m not very careful, I’ll be getting myself fit, and where will I be then?

Rather like the guy who decided that he was going to run 4 miles every night. By the end of the week he had to run 28 miles back home again.

I’ll get my coat.

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Thursday 7th November 2019 – FATHER CHRISTMAS …

… has been today.

They say that he only comes once a year, and when he does, he fills your stocking. Well, he certainly filled one of mine with what he brought today and he’ll be coming again because this is parcel n°1 of 5 … “actually parcels n°s 1 and 2 of 6” – ed.

What is happening is that I’m fed up of saying that I’m going to be doing something and then for one reason or another not doing it. I want to be pushing on … “or pushing off” – ed … and getting these things done, and having the correct equipment to do it too.

The acoustic guitar that I have here is a cheap £25 guitar that was left over from a music festival years ago and isn’t up to very much. This guitar is actually reasonably cheap but it has a good spec and that’s important.

This, and the concert ukelele that I bought too should keep me out of mischief for quite a while, if that’s going to be ever possible.

Talking about being kept out of mischief, I must have been kept out of mischief last night because I don’t remember a thing. It was a late night again, due to listening to music of course, and once more I managed to make it out of bed before the third alarm went off.

With no dictaphone notes to transcribe from the night, I had a quick go at one or two of those until the medication worked and I went for breakfast.

When I woke up this morning it was raining pretty heavily but by the time that I’d finished having a shower, the rain had stopped so I headed off to LIDL.

For a change I didn’t buy anything exciting there and the bill was quite reasonable for a change. But there was something that I ought to mention. Regular readers of this rubbish will remember the blackcurrant sorbet that I bought the other week. They had some raspberry sorbet today, in a larger container and cheaper than the blackcurrant. There’s some of that in the freezer here now.

O the way out to LIDL I’d had my usual glance down in the harbour to see what’s going on.

And we have a visitor here today. A regular visitor in fact – our old friend Thora. She’s come in from the Channel Islands presumably with a load of something to drop off, and she’ll be picking up stuff to take back with her when she leaves.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I had a conducted tour around her predecessor, the Grima but I’ve not managed to set my foot on board Thora yet.

One of the … “many” – ed … things that I have forgotten to mention is that yesterday on one of my walks I surprised a group of tourists being shown around the old town.

Today, there’s yet more of them. I encountered this party in the rue des Juifs admiring the architecture.

And so with all of these people around, I wonder what’s going on. I’m not used to crowds at all.

Back at the apartment after LIDL, I was treated to the most glorious sight of this magnificent rainbow just offshore.

A couple of my fellow residents were admiring it too, and just at that moment the heavens opened so I fled inside.

But that’s quite unusual for me, isn’t it? Usually the weather waits for me to leave and then soaks me all the way to the shops.

And talking of going all the way to the shops … “well, one of us is” – ed … I strode out there, strode all around the shop and then strode all the way back without stopping for a rest.

And so I’m not quite sure what’s going on. Maybe it’s with having lost this weight and maybe it’s with starting to go running again, but I’m feeling much more like it these days than I did before.

Up until (a rather late) lunch I cracked on with the dictaphone entries and by the time I stopped for my butty I had done 13 of them. Some of them were admittedly quite short but one or two of them weren’t.

After lunch I had a good play with my new toys and then attacked the web page updates. And by the time I was ready to go for my afternoon walk I’d amended 19 of them.

Mind you, I might have been ready to go for my walk, but I don’t think that the walk was ready to go for me.

There was a huge rainstorm going on out there that had totally enveloped the Ile de Chausey and knowing my luck, it would normally be heading in my general direction to have a go at me too.

But for some unaccountable reason it stayed put over there and treated the Ile de Chausey to a good dreanching.

The wind has died down now. It’s merely gale force.

We still have the heavy seas rolling in off the Atlantic, although nothing like as impressive as the heavy rollers that we saw the day before yesterday.

They were nevertheless still crashing down with some kind of fury on the rocks down here at the foot of the Pointe du Roc. It looks as if this storm is here to stay.

Back at the apartment yet again, and this evening I busied myself making a huge load of hummus. Basically, its 50% chick peas, 25% sesame seed paste, and 25% everything else like chick pea liquid, olive oil, garlic, black pepper, sea salt, and all whizzed up into a purée in the whizzer.

Finally, add a pile of olives and some fenugreek, and whizz it just enough to break up the olives, not to totally liquidise them. And then stick it in little pots one of which went in the fridge for use and the rest went in the freezer.

And it’s wicked.

But beforehand I’d peeled the carrots that I’d bought the other day, diced them and put them on to boil with some ginger, coriander and bay leaves.

When I’d cleaned the whizzer after the hummus, I put the carrots in (taking out the bay leaves of course) with some of the liquid, added some coconut cream and then whizzed that up into a delicious carrot soup.

That’s in the fridge now and that’s going to be lunch for the next day or two, with the leftovers going in the freezer.

Tea was the rest of the curry from the other night and it was delicious too. Even better than the night that I cooked it.

On my evening walk this evening the sky was perfectly clear out to the north, and you could see for miles.

There was a red light out there on the horizon flashing occasionally. It’s probably a marker light on the Channel Islands but I took a photo of it anyway and enlarged it.

You can’t see too much on the photo but cropping it out and enhancing it a little, it’s either a multiple light, I’m picking up the reflection off the sea, or else it’s that the camera was shaking around.

Not shaking as much as the guy who I surprised though. He was muttering about this “lousy sh**ty weather” so I crept up behind him and said “i quite agree”.

I bet that he went home to change his underwear.

It was such a good night that I had a good mess around with the camera taking a few night shots.

Nothing particularly serious – just messing around to have a little fun and games while I was at it. I didn’t have the tripod with me, just the monopod, so the images aren’t anything like as sharp as they might be.

To see what the quality was like, I’d left the ISO setting fairly low and was using a very slow shutter speed.

The view around the other side of the walls looking out across the town was pretty good too so I took a few photos of out there too.

What I’ll have to do is to wait for the wind to die down (if it ever does) and on a clear night like this, come out with the tripod. There were some good images that I took last year when i was practising.

And I managed my run too. I made it to my marker just about, and my lungs were bursting but I’ve got to push on and do somethign about my activity level.

Today I’ve done 110% of my daily activity and in the first week of November I’ve run for 26 minutes. I don’t think that I’d managed that much in total since my illness so things are looking up.

So it’s another late night and I’m listening to (and playing) music. I hadn’t realised just how bad that acoustic was until I started to play with this new one and I’m quite happy. But it got me going, I suppose and learning on a bad machine makes it so much more interesting and exciting to play on something much better.

So on that note, seeing as we are talking about music, I’ll leave you all alone.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

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night granville manche normandy france

Friday 1st November 2019 – I FOUND …

… the fitbit after all that. On the passenger seat in Caliburn where I must have left it when I was fitting the battery yesterday.

And I’d got up nice and early this morning specially to look. Even managed to beat the third alarm – and by a country mile too – and that’s not something that happens too often these days.

It was a reasonably late night too – mainly due to listening to some good music on the computer. And there’s nothing wrong in that as long as I’m working – which I was. In fact I updated some more of the web pages.

And so it was a short night too – but still plenty of time to go off on a ramble or two.

I started off back in the UK last night. I was in Cornwall walking around a headland and it was something (I don’t know what) to do but it was Marc Bolan and camping and he’d written the final verse of his song “Elemental Child” (… which I had been listening to just before going to bed …). They were broadcasting it over the radio and getting everyone to join in so anyone who was walking past or walking in the area they went and asked them if they would join in. This girl – she joined in too and did all of the song and to play it on the guitar or banjo or something. She asked about the lyrics so we pointed to where the lyrics were and she was brilliant. She had a really good go at it, this girl did. It really was a shame that I awoke.
A little later on, we were on The Good Ship Ve … errr … Ocean Endeavour again last night and it was time to go home. There were a couple of coaches come to pick us up. They had already been and we’d packed but then we had to go off on a lecture or something so the buses were put back and were to turn at at 12:00. This lecture finished at about 11:55 and it was all about book-keeping, this kind of thing, and the guy who was giving the lesson afterwards went to print off some stuff and I went to help him but he didn’t need me. he was talking to some other guy and the other guy was saying that in Accountancy they were still using BBC Micros but they no longer dominate anything so they don’t actually see anything of what they do. The other guy said that he learnt his Accountancy on a BBC Micro. I said that I did my Finance First Part on pen and paper – but no-one took the slightest bit of notice of me whatsoever which seems to be normal procedure these days on board that ship. Then I had to get to my cabin and it was 11:55 and there was already a bus on board and people getting on so I had to fly throught the crowds and the ship like lightning to my cabin. Luckily I had packed before hand but there were still a few things out that needed putting away. I reached my cabin which was right at the back of my ship and the porthole was open so I could see the second coach pulling up and feel a nice cool breeze blowing through the porthole. The first thing I did was to grab a drink – some of my orange Vitamin B12 drink. There wasn’t much left but I took a swig of it and thought “Gid this is warm, this drink but it will do me until I get to wherever it is that I’m going and then I can think again”. At that moment the alarm went off.

10 minutes later I was up and about and tackling the notes from the night while I was waiting for the medication to work so that I could have breakfast.

Once it started to become light I went outside with the purpose of retracing my steps from my afternoon walk to see if the fitbit was anywhere about. But as I said, I didn’t get any farther than Caliburn.

Back in the apartment I attacked the 20-minute dictaphone entry from 30th July. And miles of it there was too, starting from when I left the motel in Lamoure all the way across North and South Dakota.

By now it was midday so I headed of for my morning walk. Down to the Super U for some garlic and a lettuce. The lettuce is exhausted and I have no garlic at all and I need to deal with that issue. And as I left the apartment and headed off down the street we were hit with a torrential rainstorm. Luckily I went in my rain jacket and so I managed to keep something-like dry. But there were plenty of others who weren’t so fortunate.

For lunch I had half of the carrot soup (which wasn’t so bad after all) and then attacked my little project. What I did the other day, I’ve undone it and started again because I could do better than that. And it’s all turning out rather nicely, although doing it in French is rather challenging.

There was an interruption in my activities when I went out for my afternoon walk. And I was not alone for even though the weather was miserable this afternoon there were still plenty of people on the beach.

It’s that time of year when we’e having the highest tidal range – the grand marée – and the lower beaches are uncovered.

These areas are beyond the limits that are leased out as commercial fisheries so anyone can go out there for the peche à pied – fishing on foot – to scavenge what molluscs they can.

And I was right about the miserable weather too. Just look at the storm clouds.

But all of a sudden there was a hint of sun and we had the most magnificent rainbow. I managed to take a really good shot of it too.

It seems to be ending down in the town somewhere and I was tempted to back to my apartment to search for a spade.

There was an interruption after that. I received a text message “are you in?” to which I replied in the affirmative.

A few minutes later Terry and Liz turned up, with Darren, kate and the two kids. It was pouring with rain again so we went for a drink and a good chat. When the rain stopped (which it did for half an hour) we went for a good walk all the way around the walls and the headland and then they went home. I told Robyn to take good care of Strawberry Moose and she gave me a hug.

For tea I had two more taco rolls with the rest of the stuffing from the other night. Not enough though so I added a small tin of lentils so there was too much. No good for me, seeing as I’m supposed to be cutting down.

Football tonight on the internet. Not been too many of those this season. Connah’s Quay Nomads v TNS in the pouring rain in the Welsh Premier League.

In the first half, the nomads were dreadful and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times they made it into the TNS half. Meanwhile TNS were rampaging upfield at will and could have had a hatful. As it happens, one goal disallowed for offside and a good save from Lewis Brass the Nomads keeper was all that they had to show for it.

Connahs Quay made three substitutions early in the second half and after that we had much more of a match, with the Nomads taking the game much more to TNS.

And so it goes without saying that TNS finally scored with a breakaway goal after all of that.

We then had bizarre incident where the referee gave a penalty to TNS for a handball, spotted the ball, and just as Greg Draper was about to run up to take the kick, he changed his mind and gave a dropped ball which Brass smothered.

From that, the Nomads raced upfield and with Insall (who should have been on from the start) having a shot saved, Michael Wilde running in fastened onto the rebound and scored – his first shot on goal in the whole game.

So 1-1 it finished, and it leaves me shaking my head. I’ve seen many more much batter games than this one, and I’m totally bewildered by that weird first half.

So not having done too much I’m going to bed and I’ll start again tomorrow. I must get myself going.

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Wednesday 17th July 2019 – THIS EVENING …

… I was standing at the top of the stairs, lost in Space
“Do you need any help?” asked the waitress
“I’m thinking” I replied. “I need all the help that I can get with that!”.

Last night was another depressing night. I’m certain that the ship’s engines stopped at something like 04:00 because the silence awoke me and I didn’t hear the familiar rumble. In fact, I wondered where I was.

A trip down the corridor later, I was back asleep but only for about an hour or so before I was awake again. But absolutely flat-out tired and it was a real effort to beat the third alarm.

After the usual morning procedure I was up on deck. The sun was quite low, trying its best to peek through the clouds and so I took a couple of photos of what should have been the early morning sunrise to start off the day.

Breakfast was rather later this morning and we were there for quite some considerable time having a good chat, before we attended to the business of the day.

It was a very strange morning. There was a very low sea-mist drifting around so one moment we were swathed in a thick mist with some beautiful rainbows, and the next minute we were bathed in a bright warm sunshine.

So warm was it that we actually sunbathed on the rear deck for quite a while in the company of another couple of people.

And then the fun began.

“Thar she blows!” came the cry from the starboard side. And there cruising along at the side of our ship was a bottle-nosed whale. He accompanied us for a while before disappearing down into the deep.

Five minutes later we had another “thar she blows!”, this time from the port side. And there, performing a couple of antics was a sperm whale. He swam along the surface for a while and then with a swish of his tail he plunged downwards too.

By now we were insight of the Greenland coast. Just briefly because the mist closed in again at that moment. So that was that.

We went to a lecture on glaciers which took us up to lunchtime.

Lunch was interrupted by a “glaciers on the starboard bow!”. The mist had finally lifted, for good too and there up along the Greenland coast were some rather large icebergs waiting to catch the current.

We had a briefing later, and then we all crowded onto the observation deck to watch the scene as we negotiated into a deep fjord. Kangerluluk or something like that, it’s called “The Awful Fjord”, basically because there is nothing here. No landing, no grass, no wildlife, nothing at all.

but I do know that since the installation of AIS systems in ships, only one other ship had ever been in this fjord. And with a name like that, it’s hardly any surprise.

But this afternoon while we were positioning ourselves, we were having some really beautiful sunshine, which is something of a surprise in Eastern Greenland, so it goes without saying that for a half-hour or so I was on the back deck of the ship on a comfortable chair … err … rather relaxed.

Tea tonight was a buffet, and quite early too. And while we were sorting ourselves out, they were putting the zodiacs in the water. We dressed up in our winter woollies and then went for a cruise. There were three-hour cruises and one-hour cruises but we opted for the two-hour cruise, for reasons that every male my age will understand.

This took us to the head of a couple of glaciers where we saw some small icebergs and we were lucky enough to see a calving. No spectacular icebergs, merely a few small blocks of ice, but it was a calving just the same.

We then went across the fjord to inspect a few more icebergs. These were big ones and here was plenty of evidence of frozen rainwater and silt. There was even a glacier with a perfect band of soil. Had I seen that in Iceland I would have immediately thought of a layer of volcanic ash at some time during the formation of the glacier, but I’ve no idea of its significance in Greenland.

The most interesting find however was one that vindicated the President of the American Public Enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic.

He had asked the question “just what is an iceberg made of?” and was ridiculed, and even lampooned, because of what many people considered to be a ridiculous question. But here in the fjord there was a glacier that was studded with large rocks. Just the kind that might split open the side of a large ship.

There was a pit-stop for hot chocolate laced with Bailey’s for those that wanted it, and then back here on the ship we had hot soup and bread for supper.

It’s time for bed now so I hope that I have a decent sleep. But at least I know that my winter gear passed its first test. I was quite comfortable out there until the driver put his foot down to return to the ship.

Quite a pleasant evening all round.

Wednesday 24th April 2019 – WHAT A DAY!

Half of the day I’ve spent running around doing stuff, and the second half of the day I’ve spent the day recovering, lying in bed underneath the quilt for a good four hours.

Definitely what you might call a bad day.

With having to leave my bed early this morning, I had a really bad night’s sleep. I couldn’t get off at all and spent most of the night tossing and turning. I did manage to go a-voyaging and when I organise the dictaphone I can tell you all about it.

But up and about quite early and by 07:30 I was back on the road in the driving rainstorm that was going on.

Round by the docks, where Thora was moored at the quayside. She had obviously crept in on the morning tide because I didn’t see her there yesterday.

There was plenty of free parking at the cinema opposite the railway station.

By 08:45 I was in St-Lô. And Then a 10-minute walk up the hill (past plenty of empty free parking spaces which wouldn’t have been there had I been relying on them).

And also past the medieval city walls and fortifications, or what’s left of them. The city was pretty much devastated during the battles of early July 1944.

The walls are fairly complete though to the eastern side of the city and my route to the Prefecture took me through one of the remaining gates.

I arrived at the Prefecture at 09:00 expecting to have to fight my way past the hordes of disgruntled British immigrants laying siege to the building, but there was no-one about at all, except for a security guard leaning on a wall smoking a cigarette.

The receptionist showed me the way upstairs to the waiting room where there was a water fountain for the thirsty (I couldn’t see a coffee machine but there’s a café on the corner across the road).

One other couple in front of me and they were dealt with and gone by 09:45, and I was called straight away, 15 minutes early for my appointment.

Constance, the girl who saw me, was very nice and friendly and chatted away throughout the meeting. Very nice indeed – she can put her stamp on my dossier any day of the week.

Ohhh yes, I can still chase after the women at my age. I just can’t remember why!

I had two folders, one with original documents that I’d been collecting over the last 9 months recording all the details of my life over the last 6 years and one with the copies, arranged in the order in which they were listed on the application form.

She only seemed to be interested in the copies that I gave her – not so much the originals – except for the passport of course.

ONLY THING MISSING – because I’ve moved house since I came to France, I need a Certificat de Domicile from my current Mairie. But that’s no problem. Constance gave me her e-mail address and I can send it to her by mail.

She took my fingerprints and a specimen signature, and that was that. She promised me a Permanent Resident Card valuable for 10 years, and said that it would be ready in three to four weeks. All I can say is that I admire her optimism.

So there you are, people, totally painless. A journey that started at the beginning of October has finally reached its destination and I hope to be fully registered in France in due course.

All of this Brexit nonsense has been putting me through an enormous amount of stress as you can imagine, but once I have my card in my sweaty little mitt, the silly, stupid xenophobic Brits can go to hell in a handcart.

After my meeting I was intending to go sight-seeing around the town. But the rain put paid to much of that though.

However, I didn’t have to go far to encounter the Eglise Notre Dame de St Lo. It’s just around the corner.

You will probably notice the plain block wall between the two towers and think that it’s completely out of place. In fact, the church was badly-damaged by the American bombers and the medieval wall that had been there completely disappeared in the blast.

That was a temporary wall, and we all know that there’s nothing at all quite as permanent as a temporary solution.

But at least there is something still there.

These ruins were part of the entrance gates to the fortified prison that was here. This housed a great many prisoners of the Germans and many were killed when the building suffered a direct hit during the American bombing.

Today it’s a memorial to the civilians who lost their lives during the German occupation and the American attacks.

At this point the rain got the better of me so I headed back to Caliburn.

I did however notice a really good view of the tower that I had noticed earlier, and I managed to take a photo of it from a better angle.

On the way back home, I called into the “Action” shop in Coutances and picked up another cheap dashcam. I have a little project in mind for that. And then to LeClerc for a couple of bits and pieces.

Back here, I noticed that Thora had gone from her mooring. That was a very quick turnround, which might explain why I went for so long without seeing her.

And so I had lunch and then crashed out in bed for four hours. I felt awful.

An energy drink perked me up a little and then I made tea – an aubergine and kidney bean whatsit from 9th April 2018. That’s the last one of those now so next week I’ll have to make some more.

My new camera bag arrived today. The cheap ones were on offer at Amazon so I treated myself to one – the first part of my mega-spending session to arrive.

And then I went out for my evening walk outside.

Having had the heavy rainstorms of today, there were still plenty of heavy clouds around. But they were blowing away quite rapidly and we were treated to this glorious spectacle of a beautiful sunset over the Ile de Chausey

The couple of trawlers silhouetted against the sea gave the photo some kind of ethereal quality.

While I was out there, I was lucky enough to see a rainbow.

Round by the car park in the boulevard Vaufleury, I noticed it away in the sky round by Villedieu-les-Poeles, somewhere like that.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that in the past I’ve taken several photos of rainbows, but the colours have never come out quite as well as they have done tonight. The red, orange, yellow and green are particularly startling.

Now I’m off to bed. I’m still not feeling so good so an early night will do me good. I might even sleep too.

Friday 27th July 2018 – I’VE FINISHED …

… all that I can do in the apartment right now.

I’ve fitted the kick panel in behind the desk so that I don’t make marks on the wall with my feet, and I’ve also brought up the two worktops that I bought the other day. The small one fits nicely on the small unit where there is the kettle and the coffee machine, and the large one is on the larger unit.

They are both drilled and screwed so that they won’t move, and for once in my life I now have a decent kitchen worktop where I can prepare meals and cook to my heart’s content.

It was a bit touch and go though, not helped by the fact that despite not going to bed too early, I was wide awake at 05:10 this morning and couldn’t go back off to sleep.

The morning though was quite relaxing and then I’ve spent most of the day going through the enormous piles of photos that have built up over the years. I’ve probably reviewed a few thousand of them but then again that’s just a small drop in the ocean.

Mind you, it’s really relaxing having a proper desk, a proper seat and a proper place to work.

At lunchtime I was making my butties ready to go out and sit on my wall, but a sudden rainstorm put paid for that. It rained for a good hour too and so I ended up eating my butties inside for a change.

The weather cleared up in time for me to go for my afternoon walk around the walls.

There weren’t the usual crowds out there today, which is hardly a surprise given the weather. But the tide was quite far out and you can see the diving platform and how far out of the water it is.

Makes quite a difference from high tide, doesn’t it?

Back here I carried on with my work and that took me right up to tea. And even though I now have my new super-duper worktop, I didn’t feel much like cooking. And so tea was pasta and vegetables with bulghour and tomato sauce.

Tonight there should have been a lunar eclipse. There were crowds of people out and about waiting for it but the south-east was heavily overcast and we couldn’t see anything.

That is to say – we couldn’t see anything of the moon. We did have occasional flurries of rain and all of this produced a really beautiful rainbow.

It’s not very often that you can photograph them so well.

However, away to the west, the clouds suddenly dramatically cleared, just like someone pulling apart the curtains.

And slowly the sun came down out of the clouds and into view.

So at least, the crowds who were waiting for the eclipse with a feeling of disappointment had at least something to watch as the day drew to a close.

And as the evening drew on, the clouds lifted even more to the south-west and we could see more of the sun setting over the ile de Chausey.

There were still a few clouds low down on the horizon so we couldn’t see the sunset at its best but it was still good enough to keep us all entertained while it disappeared.

And then I carried on with my walk, being nearly squided by a motorist on a zebra crossing.

And when I told my friends that I had narrowly avoided being hit by a car, they all expressed their regret.

So having missed the eclipse, I came back here. I’ll be having an early night because tomorrow, I’m going on a picnic.

sunset english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

rainbow pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

sunset english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

rainbow pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

sunset english channel ile de chausey granville manche normandy france

Thursday 29th March 2018 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

… shepherd’s delight.

Red sky in the morning, Kairon Plage is on fire

Well, it was this afternoon actually. But we aren’t going to let a little historical inaccuracy stand in the way of a good poem are we? Politicians do much more than this and yet no-one else seems to mind.

I’d had the big zoom lens fitted to the camera this afternoon for a while because I’d been taking a couple of long-distance photos out towards Jersey.

Because of the mist that was lingering out there, they aren’t very good. But the one of the Ile de Chausey seems to have come out reasonably well all things considered.

It wasn’t really the right kind of day for that kind of thing. YOu can’t do much in a rolling ocean fog.

But as I stepped out of the building to go for my afternoon stroll, I had the standard lens on it

And although you can’t see it very clearly, you might just notice above that dreadful building in Donville-les-Bains where I visited a ruin last Spring, there are the vestiges of a rainbow.

Half an hour earlier it had been absolutely teeming down with rain, and freezing cold here. I wish that it would warm up so that I could switch off the heating.

Yet another reasonable sleep last night – I can’t think of what’s brought all of this about, and then after the usual performance and routine, I had a shower and a change of clothes.

That’s right – it’s Thursday and LIDL time.

Setting foot outside the building I noticed that while it might have been nice out of my window, it looked grey and depressing out of the front and the wind was puching it my way. So I nipped back in for my rain coat.

And I’m glad that I did because by the time that I’d gone half a mile it was p155ing down. And that’s how it stayed for all of the morning.

The roadworks have now reached beyond LIDL and today, I was in luck because the workman whom I buttonholed was quite garrulous.

It’s an assainismant project – drainage. But others are also taking advantage of his trench to put the fibre-optic cable down there.

You can tell that we aren’t in the UK, can’t you? Over there, they would each take their turn, usually once the previous set of repairs has finished. But that explains why there are markings on the street in severl different colours and handwritings.

Apart from the usual things, LIDL came up trumps again. Belts for a belt-sander, 4 for e1:99. I don’t have any sandpaper here and it’s something that I might need every now and again. And at €0:30 a sheet, belts at €0:50 each is a positive bargain.

Not only that, they had gas-filled pencil solderers. Best things since sliced bread these and I’ve been trying to get a decent one for hundreds of years. I probably won’t ever use it now, but it was there and on sale, and it’s here now.

Walking back through the rain, I noticed the reason why the crane has now gone from the harbour.

Yes, our new dock gates are installed and to be honest, they don’t look much different from the old ones.

The photo isn’t up to much – the zoom on the phone camera isn’t any good, so I’ll go for a wander down there again when we have some decent weather.

The postie came by this afternoon and brought me another pile of stuff. Most excitingly, the plug-in foot pedal tuner for the bass guitar. I don’t have a tuner here and have been doing it by ear, but it seems that my ear is about half a tone sharp. That explains my miserable singing, doesn’t it?

Lots of other stuff too, all of which will be mentioned in due course.

After tea – oven chips, beans and the left-over sausage followed by strawberries and vegan cream – I went for my evening ramble.

And at last, the first decent sunset that we have had since I can’t ever remember when. High time we had one of those. The slight rain that we were having didn’t dampen my ardour in the least.

And I’m now at 114% on my fitbit. That’s much more like it. I can go to bed in peace and satisfaction.

If my memory serves me correctly, it’s a Bank Holiday tomorrow. That means a lie-in of course.

I shall take full advantage.

Wednesday 26th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

… Caliburn, Strawberry Moose and Yours Truly stopped for lunch this afternoon.

I’m at Le Cap Ferret, which is on the French South-Western Atlantic coast not too far from Bordeaux. There is an errand and some Pionsat-based research to be undertaken in this neck of the woods and when I woke up this morning at Brive-La-Gaillarde to another round of miserable driving rain and the only spot of clear weather on the whole of today’s map of France seemed to be around here, I thought “sod this for a game of soldiers” and I’ve gone West.

“Not before time” I hear you say, but anyway, as Marshall MacMahon once famously said, “here I am and here I’ll stay”

One reason for coming here is that there is a big lighthouse on the Cape and as many long-term readers of this rubbish will recall, I have quite a thing about lighthouses.

But this one wasn’t what I was expecting to see for rather than being isolated on some kind of sandspit somewhere, it’s right in the middle of a built-up area. Access is very difficult and also it’s not easy to find a good spot to take a photograph. Still, one does the best one can.

I went for a good long walk for a couple of hours along the beach. Part of the beach is actually an enormous sandspit that stretches for a good mile, if not more, just offshore and it’s a wonderful place to go for a stroll.

There was practically no-one about which was surprising given how qwarm it was this afternoon. But I bet that it wouldn’t be like this in July and August, not by any means

We’d had a few sudden, short storms during the day, some of them quite heavy, and while I was out on my sandspit we had another one.

Come and gone in a flash, but we had the most astonishing rainbow and I’ve never seen one quite like this before. It came out really well on the photo which was something of a surprise as it doesn’t usually happen like this either.

But on the debit side, dunno if you remember me fixing the auxilliary charging circuit on Caliburn on Monday. Since then, there has always been an occasional little whiff of Sulphuric gas from the battery – no surprise as the battery is goosed and it’s only there to make a circuit. But this evening there was a different smell. The second battery is behind the driver’s seat so while I was driving, I put my hand down to feel if anything was out of the ordinary happening to the battery – and promptly burnt my hand.

The battery was more-than-red hot and so I think that it’s gone totally o/c. And so hot that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had burst into flames either.

I’ve disconnected it anyway and I’ll have another look at it tomorrow. Or sometime. Maybe.

But now I’m in a little seaside hotel just down the road from Le Cap Ferret. No idea where I’ll go tomorrow, but I don’t feel like going home.

And last night?

I was with Nerina and we went to the Victoria Hall in Hanley to see Neil Young. We were very early and caught him on stage setting up and checking his equipment. There were about 20 early birds in total and he invited us all on stage for a chat, and asked us if we had any questions.

I asked him about his songwriting – I reckoned that the songs that he wrote when he had the Black Dog looking over his shoulder were by far and away the best. Did he agree? And how did he cope with Depression affecting his songwriting.

He replied that he was so accustomed to it that he had learned to live with it and what he wrote, as long as it was technically competent, he had no qualms whatever about recording. Songwriting is all about expressing the writer’s moods and there is good and bad, just like in life.

He then asked for a volunteer todo something and, to my surprise, Nerina volunteered. Not like her – she always had very firm preiciples. But nevertheless she left her position of crouched on the floor at Neil Young’s feet and went off to do this task.

-3

Thursday 10th October 2013 – HERE ON THE ISLAND OF ANXIOS…

… in the archipelago of the Sporadic Islands, which also includes, apart from Angina just across the strait, the islands of Dos, Domestos, Manki, Kranki and Skanki, (the nearby islands of Hanki and Panki are actually part of the Ironic Islands) it is raining.

And I don’t just mean raining, but belting it down. That’s a good thing too because here on the island of Anxios there is no water, and every morning a water tanker, the Filiatra, steams (or rather, diesels) in from Piraeus and unloads a couple of thousand gallons.

After my walk down to the baker and the grocery shop, I was rather wet. But not so a family of feral cats that I encountered (the island is overrun with cats) – they had colonised a rubbish bin and had made something of a nest there. They didn’t half have a surprise when I opened it up to put a piece of rubbish in.

The weather brightened up right at the end of the afternoon and we were treated to a gorgeous rainbow over the island of Angina. A full rainbow too that went right out to the Soporific Islands way in the distance.

We were all casting about to see if anyone actually had a spade or two – we could have made our fortunes (and let’s face it, after this last 6 or 7 weeks I could really do with it too).

As the sun went down, we all gathered on the terrace to sing a mantra … "persontra" – ed … to the gathering dusk, and then we went off to our evening meal.

As far as the food goes, I’m being well-looked-after here and can’t complain at all. Proper vegan food – maybe not adventurous cooking but perfectly adequate all the same, and my little room is quite comfortable. I’m quite enjoying myself here right now and I’m glad that I came.

-3

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: rainbow

Monday 21st October 2024 – I’M STILL ACHING …

Monday 4th October 2021 – REGULAR READERS …

Wednesday 20th January 2021 – I’M NOT SURE …

Thursday 10th December 2020 – ISN’T IT NICE …

Tuesday 13th October 2020 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

Tuesday 18th February 2020 – I CAN NOW ADD …

Monday 11th November 2019 – WE ALMOST HAD …

Thursday 7th November 2019 – FATHER CHRISTMAS …

Friday 1st November 2019 – I FOUND …

Wednesday 17th July 2019 – THIS EVENING …

Wednesday 24th April 2019 – WHAT A DAY!

Friday 27th July 2018 – I’VE FINISHED …

Thursday 29th March 2018 – RED SKY AT NIGHT …

Wednesday 26th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

Thursday 10th October 2013 – HERE ON THE ISLAND OF ANXIOS…

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