Tag Archives: refried beans

Tuesday 26th November 2024 – HOW LONG IS IT …

… since I’ve had a day where I’ve not done very much more than relax?

And before anyone says anything, I know that I shouldn’t because I have far too much work to do and not very much time to do it, but I had a nice, relaxing day all the same.

Last night, though, it was another late night. Not as late as some have been but still after 23:00. And once in bed I slept the Sleep of the Dead and remember almost nothing of whatever might (or might not) have happened during the night.

When the alarm went off I staggered into the bathroom as usual and had a good wash, then came back in here to listen to the dictaphpne to find out where I’d been during the night. There was something about FX4 taxis in London, whether I was thinking of buying one or going to work as a taxi driver but suddenly I was sent out on a mission to Brazil. While I was there my guide or whatever, she took me to several taxi proprietors in Brazil and I even had a ride in a new FX4 – a drive. I didn’t like it at all. I made a few enquiries about other things while I was there, the result of which was that by the time I came back to the UK I’d had a complete change of mind. My boss called me in and asked me what I thought of Brazil so I told him. Then I asked about the taxis so I told him that I’d given it some thought and now I’d decided that I was against it. He explained that that was why he’d sent me to Brazil, that I’d have some experience about making a decision when I would come back. He asked me quite pointedly “you didn’t actually drive any of them while you were there, did you?”. I replied “yes, I drove one or two”. That really took him by surprise and upset him for some reason.

What an FX4 would be doing in Brazil I really have no idea. There used to be thousands of them in London (and there probably still are quite a few) and any time-expired ones would be scattered to the four winds. I’ve seen them in France, Germany, the USA and Canada but Brazil would be most unlikely. I almost had one once, and not as a taxi. But when I was looking for a vehicle to come to Belgium when I was leaving the UK I went to see an FX4 that was for sale by a bus company in Stoke on Trent. And being a diesel, I would have had it too, had it not been sold before I could liquidate the cash. It would have been a useful tool to have had.

I was then working for the “despatching” for the railway. It was quite early in the morning and we had two trains going out at 05:22, little side-tank steam locomotives taking one or two carriages out, one going via Barrow-in-Furness and the other going direct to the destination. I went down at about 04:00, found the drivers and told the one that his trip had been cancelled and the second that he was to take his train around the other route. I don’t know why I did that but that was what I did. They had something of a moan but I explained that that was what was going to happen. I went back up to my office. Later on I suddenly realised what I’d done. I looked at the time and it was 05:18 and the trains were due to leave at 05:22. I dashed downstairs and outside onto the platform to find that the one had already gone and the other one had reversed off the platform and was heading back to the locomotive depot. I went slowly back upstairs thinking “I’m going to be in some serious trouble about this”. When I walked in to the office the boss said “I want a word with you”. I thought “here we go”. He said “I think that you ought to open your curtains, you know”. I replied “I’ve already opened them once”. He replied “then you need to open them again”. I opened the curtains and found that the ones outside had been closed too. I said to the people sitting at the table by the window to mind their heads. “I could have a nap hand of heads here if you aren’t careful”. I opened the window and opened the curtains.

Even now I can still see the locomotives. Little side-tank 0-4-2 outside cylinder things, both of them. But this is another dream that I don’t understand because, once again, it bears no relevance whatever to anything that I’m doing or have done.

However, when the alarm sounded and I awoke, I still had the affair of these two trains going round and round in my head. I don’t know what I hoped that I was going to do about it at this time of morning but anyway …

The nurse came early today. We had a chat about dialysis and he tells me that there’s no alternative to dialysis and the conversation went something like that between Sam and Frodo near the end of Lord of the Rings

"Have you thought of an ending?"

Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant."

After he left I made breakfast and carried on reading MY BOOK

Our hero, apart from giving us all kinds of travel information that would have been useful at the time, as well as a geological lesson on the soils of North America, is continuing to enthral us with his three favourite subjects.

He’s had another uncomfortable encounter with some Americans and so tells us that "civility, as I before faid, is not to be purchafed at any expence in America, neverthelefs the people will pocket your money with the utmoit readinefs, though without thanking you for it. Of all beings on the earth, Americans are the moil interefted and covetous."

That took place at a tavern where "at the American taverns, as I before mentioned, all forts of people, juft as they happen to arrive, are crammed together into the one room, where they muft reconcile themfelves to each other the befl way thsy can."

However, he reserves his most powerful vitriol for the slavery that he sees everywhere. "I am told, that it is no uncommon thing there, to fee gangs of negroes ftaked at a horfe race, and to fee thefe unfortunate beings bandied about from one let of drunken gamblers to another for days together. How much to be deprecated are the laws which fuller fuch abufes to exift ! yet thefe are the laws enacted by people who boaft of their love of liberty and independence, and who prefume to fay, that it is in the breads of Americans alone that the bleffings of freedom are held in jusl estimation…… It is immaterial under what form flavery prefents itfelf, whenever it appears there is ample caufe for humanity to weep at the fight, and to lament that men can be found fo forgetful of their own iituations, as to live regardlefs of the feelings of their fellow creatures."

Back in here I revised my Welsh and then went for the lesson. Once more, it all seemed to pass quite well. Maybe this dialysis is working on clearing my head a little and shifting the fog. I wonder what I have to do to clear whatever it is that’s blocking my memory from working.

After lunch Liz and I had a very long chat on the internet. And it’s been ages since we talked so we had a lot to discuss. It wasn’t quite a Rosemaryesque conversation but it was near enough.

Afterwards I had a few things to do and ended up being so engrossed that I missed my hot chocolate. That’ll teach me.

Tea tonight was a taco roll with the last of the refried beans. I’ll have to find a recipe to make them because they really were nice. It should be quite interesting, as long as they don’t use exclusively some obscure kind of bean that’s not available so easily over here.

My cleaner stuck her head in too. She’d been to LeClerc and had bought me some more cheese for future pizze. And also some coconut oil – four jars of it. She was going to buy just two for me but saw that they only had four in stock so she bought the lot “just in case”.

Now I’ll be cooking in coconut oil for the next heaven-knows how long.

So now, much later than usual, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow is another day. And there will be more of Isaac Weld’s book to read.

But his account of his visit reminds me of another Irishman who visited the USA but in modern times. He too had a run-in with an unfriendly American in the Tavern From Hell.
He mentioned that he was from Ireland and the American replied "Yes I know it. I know it well. My great great grand-daddy comes from there so I’m Irish" to which our Irishman snorted.
"But your Irish country is so sad" continued the American "everything is so small"
"What do you mean?" asked the Irishman
"Take your farms" said the American. "Why, back in Texas, I can get in my car and it takes two days to drive from one side of my land to the other"
"I sympathise with you" said the Irishman. "I know just how you feel"
"You do?" exclaimed the American, incredulously
"Oh yes" replied the Irishman. "I used to have a car like that myself"

0

Tuesday 18th November 2024 – IT LOOKS AS IF …

… I’m off back to Paris.

The Neurology department of the hospital where I go has summoned me to attend, some time in late January (I can’t remember the date right now), so I wonder if it has anything to do with the scan that I had a few days ago.

If it is, then that’s good. But if it isn’t, that’s good too because there can’t be too many people looking at my nervous system. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned, provided that they all agree on a course of treatment.

After all, it is a treatment that I’m hoping to have. If there’s any kind of possibility of improving my mobility then I’ll take it, and with both hands too.

It might even enable me to go to bed earlier too. Midnight these days is the new 23:00 and I reckon that I’ll be struggling to meet that kind of deadline too on certain days.

Last night though I was in bed just before midnight and was asleep quite quickly and there I stayed until about two minutes before the alarm went off when I had one of these dramatic awakenings that I sometimes have.

Despite being awake early (ish) it was still a struggle to find my way out of bed before the second alarm and into the bathroom before the third one. I had to rely on all kinds of determination to drag me out of bed.

But having washed, I came back in here to listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. Once again we had an alarm going off at 04:20. I was with some Native Americans at the time discussing health arrangements and medical examinations with them. We were considering how that kind of thing was going to work. My brother was there. He saw the vehicle that I was using, which was an old A60 van. He asked from where I’d had it. I told him that it was a hire vehicle. He thought that it was a great machine and he’d have to look out for another one. He’d try round all the Native American corporations to see who had one etc

And I remember nothing at all about the alarm going off. But I did own an AUSTIN A60 VAN in the past. He was called Bill Badger and we had a great many adventures together over the couple of years that I owned him

This dream continued afterwards and we were giving various Native Americans some kind of medical check. We had guides and tables to help us so we were puzzled when one girl turned up who seemed to be taller than the others but whose weight seemed to be far less than any that we had recorded to date. We had a look in our notes but there was nothing so we resolved to weigh her again only this time totally naked and without her dictaphone and music player around her neck (…fell asleep here …)

The second part of this dream – when I say that it “continued”, then according to the timestamps there’s just over an hour between the two parts. And this is another dream of which I have absolutely no recollection at all. But I clearly have Native Americans on my mind, what with reading Samuel Hearne and Jacques Cartier. And weighing is a procedure that we have to follow at the Dialysis Clinic, both before and after the procedure.

Then there was a football match taking place. I was watching from a balcony of a sports centre or something like that. The first thing that I noticed was that all the players of one team rushed towards the linesman to berate him for something. As they wouldn’t calm down the referee began to hand out yellow cards. As they continued, he sent them all off. I asked the other team, which was the Midland Bank, what had happened. They said that apparently every time their goalkeeper had been involved in a collision with one of their players the referee had given a foul against the goalkeeper. And then this ball, no-one was convinced that it had gone out of play except the linesman so there shouldn’t have been a throw-in but the linesman insisted and that’s why the other team was so upset. But while I was talking about this to someone i was reading through my e-mails. I’d had one from one of my friends on the Wirral. It was from the wife of the partner saying “now that the husband has a job on the new Radio Monte Carlo …” and that rang a bell with me because someone else whom I know as a DJ had begun to work for RMC so I wondered what was happening there, whether they were recruiting or something.

Sometimes I wonder what referees and linesmen see that I have missed, and what I have seen that they have missed. I’m sure that at times, the referee is refereeing a different match to the one in which he’s standing in the middle and which I’m watching. But working for another radio station where things are more challenging and more is expected would be exciting. Local radio is great but it does have its limitations. I’m ready to take on the World!

Did I dream that dream about our neighbours in Shavington? … "no you didn’t" – ed … I was on my way back home in Shavington, going down Vine Tree Avenue and they were standing outside their house? The first thing that I had to do when I went in was to move a settee outside. I could manage that fine on my own but when I was halfway through it the neighbours came round and began to chat but I carried on moving this sofa. I had it outside and I was going to stick it in the garage. Mrs Neighbour then came out for a chat. She watched as I opened the door of the garage – it was an “up and over” door and I stood this settee up on its end so that I could manoeuvre it in. She was astonished to see everything that was in there including the two cars parked one on top of the other – one was the green Princess. My brother was there too. He had this old rickety bike but there were one or two good things on it. I took that from him and threw it into the garage and pulled out another bike that was much more modern and generally in better condition but needed a good overhaul and service and two new mudguards. He could take the mudguards off the other bike. I told him that he could have this other bike but if he hadn’t done anything to it in a couple of weeks they were both going down to the tip. Mrs Neighbour was astonished by all of this. Later on I was an an autojumble. I was walking around and I saw stalls selling badges, all kinds of things that were of interest. Then I came across a stall selling rear light fittings. He had all the little strips of colour that I needed for the Mark III Cortinas so I enquired about them and he told me the price. They really were reasonable so I said to whoever I was with that I’ll be back here some other time and bring some money with me because there’s loads of stuff here that would be of interest to me. This other person shook their head and said “well, Eric, I just think that you are simply accumulating more kinds of old junk for all the good that you are going to do”.

“You are simply accumulating more kinds of old junk for all the good that you are going to do” – And there’s a lot of truth in that. My life is full of all kinds of half-finished projects that will never ever see the light of day. There’s a fortune stashed away in my barn and in my warehouse if only people will realise the value instead of hurling it into a skip. But anyway my brother made it into a dream yet again, and so did some neighbours whom I last saw in 1970 and haven’t ever thought about for a moment either before or since that date.

It’s Isabelle the nurse on duty for the next seven days so things will improve here I hope. She has many more interpersonal skills and is a much better conversationalist. But she didn’t hang about this morning because she had plenty of blood samples to extract, which is no surprise.

Once she’d gone, I made breakfast and carried on reading my book. And Samuel Hearne has now arrived safely back at the Fort, but not before experiencing yet more horror and depravity.

His group, now numbering almost 200 people, all heading for the Fort to trade their skins and furs, when they stumble across a small party of strange First-Nation people. Being only a small party, his larger party "robbed them of almost every useful article in their possession"

And worse was to come. His party"joined themselves in parties of six, eight, or ten in a gang, and dragged several of their young women to a little distance from their tents" and what Samuel Hearne goes on to describe cannot be imagined.

Hearne remonstrated with his party, only to be told "in the plainest terms, that if any female relation of mine had been there, she should have been served in the same manner".

In the past, I’ve read several third-party accounts of Hearne’s voyages and read several summaries, and not one of them has ever mentioned the cruelty and depravity about which Hearne writes, other than the massacre of the Inuit at Bloody Falls.

Back in here I revised my Welsh and then went to the lesson. And once again it passed quite satisfactorily. Although it doesn’t seem like it, I must be able to concentrate a lot better than I have done in the past. I just wish that I didn’t have this teflon brain where nothing sticks to it.

As usual, it’s a late lunch when I’m having my Welsh class, so there wasn’t a great deal of time afterwards. Nevertheless I attacked the radio programme notes that I had dictated on Saturday night that hadn’t been edited, and now they are all ready for use.

Strangely though, when I dictated this batch a few weeks ago, the running time was 7:05. Today though, for some reason, they are 7:36 – exactly the same notes. Now there’s a mystery if ever there was one.

There was a break for hot chocolate of course, and the finishing off the editing took me up to teatime.

Taco roll again, with more refried beans. I’ve run out of tomatoes so I had just mushrooms with onion and vegan cheese with the refried beans, and that worked too. There’s enough refried beans left over for one further meal and then that will be that, which is a shame. Refried beans was top of my list of things to find when I went to Santa Fe in 2002 and I’ve enjoyed every mouthful of the very limited stock that I’ve been able to find elsewhere.

Pudding was more home-made chocolate cake with strawberry soya dessert. There are two more tubs of soya dessert in the fridge and I can’t remember what’s in them, but I bet that it’s just as nice.

So later than ever, it’s bed-time ready for tomorrow which is shower day.

But that dream about the football referee reminds me of the boy at work who asked for the afternoon off to go to his uncle’s funeral – on the day of the Cup Final.
Later on, that afternoon, the boss was at the Cup Final and who should he see but his young employee watching the game from the terraces
"I thought that you said that you were going to your uncle’s funeral" roared the boss, angrily
"But I am, Sir" cried the boy. "I am"
"What do you mean" asked the boss
"Well my uncle is the referee" said the boy "and he’s just awarded a penalty against Manchester United"

0

Tuesday 5th November 2024 – A FEW YEARS AGO …

… I was given the sack for letting the Bonfire Night fireworks off in the wrong sequence.

In their opinion, it was bang out of order.

But that’s enough frivolity for the moment. Let us return to more serious matters

Last night I might not have been in bed by my preferred time, but it wasn’t far off it. But from having gone from “way beyond” a few months ago to a spell of a couple of weeks where I was “quite early” I seem to be creeping up and up again.

Once in bed, it took an age to go to sleep and that’s something that I’ve noticed after a dialysis session. It’s usually quite late by the time that I’m tired enough to sleep and going to bed early doesn’t change that at all.

And once I was asleep, I was awake again at 02:30, again at about 04:00 and a third time at about 06:00.

At that time I didn’t go back to sleep so in the end I gave it up as a bad job and when the alarm did go off at 07:00 I was already up and about.

That was just as well because I’d forgotten to finish my Welsh homework and send it off so with an extra half-hour of the morning to play with, once I’d finished washing and dressing I put the extra time to good use.

Mind you, I wish that I hadn’t because as soon as I pressed “send” I realised that I’d made a couple of silly errors and I wished that I could unsend it. But too late now.

Next task was to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night. And to my surprise there was some stuff on there. I had one of the chauffeurs from the ambulance company in here last night. He was talking about LeClerc and their on-line orders, people making joint efforts to order so that they could keep their delivery charges down etc. Then it was time for him to go back to work. He looked to make himself a quick sandwich and pulled out a slice of roast beef or something from his lunch box. He looked at it and asked “is it OK to eat this if it’s a little …”, then gave a noise like “uuggh” and threw it in my paper bin right at my feet. I told him that if the meat is off, go go to fetch a pie from the pie shop around the corner in Elm Drive. So he went off, but that piece of meat in my paper bin – ohh it smelt horrible and I can still smell it now.

And as a matter of fact I could smell it too – and see this slimy piece of brown rancid meat. But judging by the directions, I must have been living in that little flat at the back of the High School in Crewe, just off Middlewich Street to where we were all decanted after the house in which we were squatting was declared insalubrious. Ohh happy days!

Later on I’d been having a huge row with Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council yet again. There were two important bills that needed to be paid. They weren’t very big amounts but I was in dispute with them about it. They were insistent and were planning to take all kinds of action if I didn’t pay up. They sent me some copies of some newspaper articles that they intended to have published in this respect so I thought rather reluctantly I’d better pay the money and I can always continue the argument afterwards. In the meantime I put my house up for sale and the one that I had in Sandbach I also put up for sale on the grounds that whichever one sold I could move into the other. That was bound to cause a few complications for some people but I was beyond caring at this point.

Back in those days I had plenty of rows with the local council over all kinds of things and for being in breach of an Enforcement Order I was being fined a total of £1:00 per day for several years. Everyone wondered why I continued with the dispute and let the fines rack up but I knew something that no-one else knew. That is, to have complied with the Enforcement Order would have cost me a minimum of £25:00 per week, and much more than that too when variable costs are taken into consideration. So £7:00 per week was an absolute bargain and it could go on for as long as it liked. And I wish that I did have a house in Sandbach too. That would have been interesting. The council there was much more compliant.

There was another issue too about some people whom we knew. One of my friends was telling me that they had to go to stay at the home of the parents of one of them while the parents were away. There wouldn’t be any problem because the living room was far enough away from the bedrooms that they weren’t going to make any big issues. They’d have the chance to see their cats again because their parents were looking after the cats while they were also having huge housing issues. I said that it would be nice for them to see their cats again. He replied “yes. They might not ever get to see them again after that” which took me by surprise. He also said that if someone gets in contact with you, tell them that they won’t be going tomorrow at 15:00. I couldn’t understand the meaning behind that either.

Dreaming about cats is making me wish that things would hurry up and my tenant would move out from the apartment downstairs. Apart from a shower and a revised kitchen, a cat is something else that I’m also going to have

The nurse was late today. And she didn’t have time to stop and chat. Not that any of that surprises me in the slightest. It seems that every patient on this circuit is now postponing blood tests and injections until she’s on duty. I wonder how long it will be before both of them “get the message”. And what will happen then?

Breakfast came next, and reading this thesis. Our American friend is still being bewildered by events and incidents that are strange to him but perfectly normal to a European. “Why didn’t William invade and crush the Welsh?” is a perpetual theme of his thesis, being totally unable to grasp or to comprehend that it’s only Americans who have this horrible feeling of vengeance for every blow, no matter how small, that is struck against them. The rest of the World simply brush it off and carry on as normal.

He’s also puzzled about the Domesday Book’s description of “waste” in the east of Cheshire. “If the Welsh reached that far and destroyed it, how come they didn’t lay waste land much nearer the border in the West?”.

The answer is that it wasn’t the Welsh who laid it waste. William the Conqueror had had difficulty in pacifying the northern part of his realm so in 1069 he began what is called “the harrying of the North” and destroyed anything and everything in his way. And as what is today Cumbria and Northumberland were not part of England at the time, “the North” was much further South than it would otherwise be today. Consequently it’s likely that the eastern part of Cheshire was destroyed by William during his campaign of 1069-1070.

One of William’s chroniclers wrote "The King stopped at nothing to hunt his enemies. He cut down many people and destroyed homes and land. Nowhere else had he shown such cruelty. To his shame, William made no effort to control his fury, punishing the innocent with the guilty. He ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes. More than 100,000 people perished of starvation. I have often praised William in this book, but I can say nothing good about this brutal slaughter. God will punish him."

Back in here I revised for my Welsh lesson and then went to class. It was another one of these that seemed to pass off quite well and I seem to be slowly coming to terms with it. But still, with this teflon brain that I have, nothing at all is sticking to it.

After lunch I attacked the radio programme for which I’d begun to write some notes. And by the time that I’d knocked off for tea I’d finished all of it.

For this one, I don’t know how it’s all going to fit in so I’ve chosen more than the usual number of tracks, notwithstanding the fact that some are much longer than the usual, and I’ve written text for each one. I’ll dictate it all too, pin the speech to each track and then select what I need to make an hour’s worth of programme.

As if I don’t make things complicated enough.

My faithful cleaner stuck her head in at the door. She brought the mail and also the cheese for future supplies of pizza. It’s a good job that she goes to LeClerc every week because there’s a lot of stuff that I need that they sell but don’t deliver.

Tea tonight was more refried beans and salad in a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by lumps of ginger cake and soya cream. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … the cake may well be a failure but it’s still tasty.

So having done that, there are things that I need to do and then I’m off to bed. Tomorrow there’s a radio programme to assemble. I dictated the notes on Saturday night but I haven’t edited them yet. If I can do that and then make a start on the next programme I’ll be back on track, which will be nice.

But seeing as we have been talking about fireworks … "well, one of us has" – ed … and it’s Guy Fawkes night, someone asked me "How many Health and Safety Inspectors does it take to light a firework?"
"I don’t know" I replied. "How many Health and Safety Inspectors does it take?"
"Four" she replied
"Four?" I asked. "How come?"
"It’s easy" she answered. "One to light the firework, one to ‘phone the fire brigade and two to work the fire extinguishers"

0

Friday 5th November 2021 – I’VE BEEN …

… really busy today and accomplished quite a lot, what with one thing and another. And, of course, once you start, you’ll be surprised just how many other things there are.

Nothing important though, regrettably, but nevertheless it’s all helped.

home made fruit buns place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Perhaps the most important thing that I did today was to bake some fruit buns.

The last one of the previous batch disappeared on Wednesday and being so busy yesterday, I didn’t have the opportunity to make any more. it was toast for breakfast yesterday.

But as soon as I’d taken my medication this morning I made a start on the next batch.

It took an age to mix the dough because I think that my banana wasn’t as big as usual so the mix needed more liquid, but as you can see, it has turned out some lovely fruit buns and I’m really happy with these, even if the dough has separated in the oven.

st helier jersey Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021After a rather late breakfast I headed off into town to pick up my injections.

But straight out of the front door and looking down the bay, I was surprised to see just how clear everything was today. I could actually see the houses at St Helier, 58 kilometres away, with the naked eye and it isn’t every day that that happens.

Now that Normandy Warrior (more of which anon is up and running, I might yet have an opportunity to go out that way on board a ship to see what there is to sea on the coastline of Jersey.

trawler chausiaise port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Down the hill to the viewpoint overlooking the inner port I could see that Marité was still out and about on her travels

In her place there was one of the trawlers moored up there. Behind her in the loading bay is Chausiaise, the little freighter that goes over to the Ile de Chausey.

Ther eis still plenty of freight on the quayside after the two Jersey freighters were in port on Wednesday. This might mean that we’ll be having yet another visit some time soon to take it all away. Business seems to be picking up in the port at the moment.

sale of shellfish galapagos port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Of course it’s Friday morning, and that’s the day that it’s possible to buy fresh fish on the quayside.

The concession here is run by the owners of the trawler Galapagos and they are here every Friday morning, except of course when the trawler is in the chantier naval, as she was over the summer.

My first port of call was at the Medical Centre. I’d had my third Covid injection last Friday and I had to pick up my certificate. It was all ready for me so I didn’t have to hang around.

The pharmacy on the other hand was packed out with people and I had to wait a while before I could pick up my injections.

On the way back I almost – very almost – made it right to the way to the top without stopping. I was about 50 yards short and I’ve no idea why I stopped because I could have made it quite comfortably to the top. It was just an instinctive reflex action.

portable boat lift under repair port de Granville harbour Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021But the mystery of why the portable boat lift is parked up in the middle of the yard is now resolved anyway.

As we can see in this photo, it’s had its wheels removed so it’s no longer a portable boat lift. It must be under repair for one reason or another and it’s rather difficult to work on it where it usually lives, with all of the dangers of falling into the sea.

Back here, I had the account for repairing the NIKON 1 J5. I paid that and then seeing as I had my bank account open, I paid another bill or two that were hanging around in the queue.

This afternoon I finished off the journal entry from Wednesday with its 20-odd photos and that’s now on line. And then I went and did one of the ones from when I went to Leuven last.

And that’s not all either. I made a start on transcribing a few dictaphone notes from a while back and they’ll be updating a few journal entries in due course.

Meanwhile, from last night, A well-known gangster like Edward G Robinson came round to the house and what went on resulted in him wanting to be fed. I was in charge of the cooking so I made a main course which was OK but for dessert everything that I was proposing that I knew I had in the freezer or the fridge had gone as if someone had come in and raided the larder one night. This led to an extremely tense situation with him getting more and more angry until in the end I found a tin of pineapple rings. I was able to open them. Even though he was looking at me with a look that could kill, I managed to conjure up something with pineapple rings and ice cream but it was extremely uncomfortable, all of this, with him being menacing like that.

I was recording and editing some radio programmes at some time last night too but I can’t remember now why or when.

Afterwards, there was a football match going to take place between two teams. One team decided that they would put a little bit of dynamite in the changing room of the other team to destroy their equipment before the game. They were setting this dynamite up on the clothes locker but the other guy had the cable wrapped round his leg so when it came to go, he couldn’t leave. This led to a frantic scramble as they tried to untangle this cable. The two of them finally managed to leave the building. Instead of it being a small explosion it was a massive devastation that probably flattened stuff within a quarter-mile radius. Cars were destroyed and everything. People who survived gradually streamed away. Of course all the police were there, everything like that. At some point I was preparing to watch the game, someone asked me if I wanted a game to kick around but I said “no” because of my health. They tried to persuade me. It was hard to understand how anything living had been within that radius. Out of the shelter of a wall came this boy and girl. They’d obviously been having a smooch or something. being in this little recess had saved them. Out of the next recess stepped these two boys, clothes pock-marked and burnt but they were still alive. They walked away, filtered through this police cordonn checked and seen that they were victims and walked on. You could see all the street lights in a blue haze because of the smog and everything. A little earlier I’d been talking to a girl. She’d gone off somewhere down the road so I thought that this would be a good excuse for me to go and talk to her and see how she was doing so that’s what I decided to do

A little later my brother and I were going to watch the Alex. We were considerably early so I’d brought my computer with me to do some work. He was wondering if we had to pay or if we’d get complimentary tickets but I was better than that. I had a key to get into the ground. We fought our way through the crowds up to the front. There was a guy from school there so I said hello to him out of mischief more than anything else, used the key and let ourselves in. We were searched by a woman who was … err … very thorough then I had to find a place to sit where I could work amidst all the crowds. By this time I’d lost my brother. He’d wandered off somewhere so I had to follow him around. There were so many crowds of people that we ended up being blocked and couldn’t move. Worse, it was behind the commentary box so you couldn’t actually see the pitch from there. I was standing there hoping that this was all going to clear in the next few minutes so that we could find somewhere decent to sit and have a good view.

Finally I was with a girl last night and we ended up in a bar. For some reason she was very unhappy and had her head sunk down on her lap. I put my head down on top of hers and whispered a few nice things to her and gave her a little kiss. After a while she asked “shall we go?”. I was wondering about “go where and why?”. Of course, with my curiosity getting the better of me I sad “yes, let’s go” and we prepared to leave.

helicopter place d'armes Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Another thing that I did in the middle of all of that was to go out to look at the beach.

Not that I made it very far across the car park before I was called into action. Someone had his chopper out this afternoon and just as I walked out of the door it went flying past.

It’s the red and yellow one, the Air-Sea Rescue helicopter that is based at Donville les Bains. I’ll probably find out tomorrow what it’s been up to when I read the newspaper, unless it’s a training exercise. They aren’t usually reported.

people on beach rue du nord Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021Once the helicopter disappeared behind the college I went over to look at the beach.

There was quite a bit of beach this afternoon. The tide is well out yet and there were a few people down there taking advantage of the lovely afternoon because it really was nice as you can tell.

Considering that it’s the beginning of November the weather is unseasonably mild. It must be building up to a really hard winter I reckon. It’s been a while since we’ve been in the grip of an Arctic winter.

yacht jersey channel islands baie de Granville Manche Normandy France Eric Hall photo November 2021So with the nice clear weather, the view out to the Channel Islands was just as good as it was earlier in the day.

What caught my eye was something white right out there off the coast of Jersey so I photographed it on the offchance that it was something interesting.

Back in the apartment when I enlarged and enhanced it I could see that it was a yacht. I was impressed that I could pick it out at this distance.

It was Ingrid’s birthday yesterday but I was rather busy so I rang her up to talk to her once I returned. She told me all of her news, some of which wasn’t very cheerful, and I told her of mine, ditto. We’re a right pair, between the two of us.

Tea tonight was a baked potato, a vegan burger and a tin of refried beans. I haven’t had refried beans since I was IN SANTA FE IN 2002 but I found a couple of tins in Noz a while back and they need eating.

If I were to tell you that in the football tonight Connah’s Quay Nomads put 4 past Bala without reply, you would think that there had been a right spannering going on. And when I tell you that Beriala finished the match with just 9 players, you’re probably not surprised that it was a 4-0 defeat.

But the damage was done long before Chris Venables and Keiran Smith saw red, thanks to probably some of the most clinical finishing that I have seen, and three of the best goals that you are likely to see this season.

Bala unfortunately offered very little up front except for a shot from Chris Sang that he really ought to have scored. In fact it was something of a damp squib performance compared to Connah’s Quay’s fireworks.

A Connah’s Quay victory, certainly, but 4-0 is nevertheless a considerable exaggeration.

Anyway right now I’m off to bed now after my very busy day. No shopping tomorrow as there is no Caliburn but I’ll go down for a walk to the market and pick up a lettuce and some mushrooms.

See you in the morning.

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