… as productive a day as I would have liked today. Full of all kinds of petty interruptions and so on that prevented me from cracking on.

It started well enough though. Up and about long before the third alarm had gone off. I’d been on my travels too, although this was all very confusing. It concerned someone who was allegedly running a taxi, driving around with music playing pretty loud but he didn’t have any taxi plates. He was summoned to talk to a couple of people about all of this and it turned out that the message had come from the Taxi Owners’ Association. He went very begrudgingly to the meeting but came out much happier. Apparently it was just two neighbours from somewhere or other who had written, so he just bought them a drink and the matter had been brushed under the carpet and he was quite happy about that because obviously he didn’t fancy going up against all these taxi drivers because they could all turn nasty and there were so many of them. His wife said something along the lines that they were all pussies anyway and that he would just sweep them aside. She turned to me and said “you’ve had enough confrontation with them and you were relatively unscathed from that point of view” (which was true). And that was that. But then it turned onto trains and we were working with coal trains. I was bragging that we had dealt with every coal train that came out of Crewe. There was that Keith Morris there and he asked “how do you know that you do?”. I said that I was sure. We ended up talking about one particular one that went out early in the morning at about 05:00 and was pulled by two Class 27 locos with 40 wagons. I looked at Margaret for confirmation and she didn’t really say very much. he wanted to know how I knew that they were class 27s. Of course you can tell by the number but I replied “well, I ask! If I want to know something, I ask because I take photos and edit the photos and write about them so if I want to know something about the photos I’ll ask someone locally and they will tell me the answer”.
From there we moved on. I had an old Ford Escort van like I have and we were all going somewhere. There were two seats in the front and a settee in the back but facing backwards rather than forwards. People were clambering in there. I was back in the house getting things ready to leave these people. I had a mattress that I was going to put down in the van for me to sleep on and al old blanket because there was insulation in part of the Escort but not down the left-hand side. So I put the blanket in and used it to fill in the gaps in the walls. They were all looking at it and I explained about condensation and how I was going to sleep in there and then I went to fetch the mattress.

With an early start I had an early breakfast and then cracked on with some work.

First task was to deal with all of the photos from yesterday, and then to attack the dictaphone notes. Another 5 have now disappeared and we are down to just 55. I’ll have to push on and deal with those pretty quickly if I can.

But I was interrupted by trying to arrange another blood test. Eventually, after much binding in the marsh I managed to arrange it for 11:30 tomorrow.

But even as we speak, I had a phone call from the nurse to say that she will be here at about 08:30 tomorrow morning.

After that, I went for another experimental run with Caliburn. But I didn’t get very far, for there was a police road block.

It seems that there was a Fete de dix-huit juin according to the policewoman holding up the traffic.

Whatever the Fete de dix-huit juin is, I really have no idea but the place was swarming with anciens combattants decorated in medals and the like, so it’s quite possibly something to do with the liberation of the town, although that didn’t take place until 31st July 1944.

Whatever it was, we were held up for half an hour – me in a queue of vehicles held up by the police and no controle technique on Caliburn

One thing that I can say is that I could drive reasonably comfortably all things considered. Seeing that I could move hi about, that prompted me to ring up about his annual service and controle technique.

But to my dismay there are no vacancies until the beginning of July and I won’t be here then. So I’ll have to sort out my flights and book him in for as soon as I return.

That took me up to lunchtime, taken once more indoors because it was raining yet again.

It had cleared up by the time I had finished, so i hit the streets for the laboratory.

The men were still working on the medieval walls, but the workmen on the house extension in the rue du Port were likewise working.

They are now working on the rendering on the second wall of the lift shaft – assuming that that there is indeed the lift shaft.

Only one more wall to go, and then I’ll be wondering what they are going to be working on next. There’s such a lot of rebuilding going on in the town right now.

Not much further along, I came to another stop.

There are some remains of an old Jeep dumped on the roundabout at the end of the Place Godal. Presumably that’s something to do with the fete too.

At the Laboratory I handed over the stuff that was extracted from my knee, and found to my surprise that they do blood tests there – and without an appointment too.

If only I had known!

Across the road is the station so I went to pick up my rail tickets for next week, which I had forgotten to do yesterday.

The sun was on the way out as i walked back, and that cheered me up somewhat.

A cold drink followed by a start on adding the photos to yesterday’s blog. But I was surprised at just how quickly the time passed.

For tea I had a stuffed pepper with spicy rice, gollowed by one of the cocount dessert things that I had made earlier. Liz had told me not to mut as much milk in, so I put about 350 ml of milk and 50ml of that coconut soya stuff in, mixed it up, and poured it into four bowls into which I had previously put a couple of pineapple rings.

After a couple of hours in the fridge it had set really well and it was delicious.

later on I went out for my walk.

First stop was to the monument at the Rond-Point des Francais Libres to see if I could see anything that might give me a hint of what was happening.

There were a couple of wreaths out there, but nothing that gave me any indication.

I shall have to make enquiries.

Down on the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs was a youth standing there, cut off from the mainland by the rising tide.

I gesticulated at him, but he didn’t reply and didn’t seem to be in any distress whatsoever.

He clearly didn’t seem to need any help, and so I left him to it and continued my walk

But had he really be stranded, it wouldn’t have mattered to me because not only would I have been unable to do anything, there was a speedboat loitering around just offshore

They would have been much better-placed to give him assistance.

But they didn’t hang aroudn long after I moved on. They roared past me like their boat was on fire.

Excuse the rather blurred photo but I was taken by surprise by these kids (of course, it’s very bad form for any photographer to be taken by surprise, but that’s neither here nor there).

Just as I was looking at them wondering what was going on, one of them stood up and dived off the sea wall straight into the sea.

I reckon that I was lucky enough to catch it, but what wouldn’t I have given to have had a faster shutter speed?

Meanwhile, as all this was going on, the roar of a couple of diesel engines told me that something large was coming ino port.

It’s our old friend Granville, the new Channel Islands ferry that has been suffering a load of problems just recently.

That’s twice now this week that I’ve seen her in the harbour here. Probably more than I ever saw her in the whole of last year.

She wasn’t the only visitor in the harbour either.

Charles-Marie is down there too, moored up in the inner harbour. She might be preparing for her summer season of voyages.

And while I was admiring her, I overheard some squealing coming from further down the road. Some young girl and her boyfriend were trying to walk along the top of the railings like some kind of tightrope walkers.

The girl wasn’t all that good, and after about four steps and a loud squeal, she fell off, right at my feet.

So now I’m back home and I’m ready for bed. I’m hoping to have a better day tomorrow.

speedboat pointe du roc granville manche normandy france

channel islands ferry granville manche normandy france