… let’s get busy.
That’s been the motto of today anyway, just for a change.
Last night however, I was pretty exhausted and so I was in bed before 22:00 just for a change. But being wary of what normally happens when I try for an early night – that I end up tossing and turning for several hours – I resorted to the old stand-by of putting the laptop close to the bed and watching a film.
Never fails, does it? Didn’t even make 10 minutes.
So I was up early and organised the medication and all of that. And I wasn’t the only one up early either as a friend was waiting on line for me. Seems that she has had some disappointing news and wanted a chat.
And so I did. That’s what friends are for.
A late breakfast was the result, followed by a later shower and then I set the washing machine a-go.
The walk up to LIDL was painful, but I have to keep on doing it. I need to push myself onwards while I can.
But I had a surprise across the road from there in the Avenue des Vendéens.
Two guys were looking at an old scooter which, at first glance from a distance, looked like one of the old Zundapp prototypes, so I went over to have a look.
It wasn’t quite as rare as that – in fact it was a Peugeot scooter from the 1950s. I’d never seen one before which, the owner told me, was hardly surprising as there can’t be more than a handful still left.
And I’d been lucky to see this one as he had only just wheeled it out of his garage for 30 seconds.
In LIDL my eye was caught by the size of these tomatoes.
Not having a tape measure handy, the best guess that I could make was that these were about 4 inches in diameter. You can get some idea of the size by comparing them to the “normal” tomatoes to the right.
I was going to say that I’d spent nothing today in there. But that’s not really true. But if you compare today with what I’ve been spending this week, it is pretty minimal, But all the same …
First thing that I needed was some coffee. I’d run out of the ground stuff, as I said earlier, so I bought a couple of packets to see what it’s like. Had I known that supplies were so low, I would have stocked up on the coffee that I liked when I was in Belgium. It’s not sold in France.
Another thing is that with having guests arriving, I need some spare sheets. No-one wants to sleep in a sheet after I’ve been sleeping in it – washed or not – and I’d bought a new one at IKEA. But today at LIDL they had some blue ones (my bedroom is blue) on special offer so I added one of those to the guest bag.
It seemed to be my lucky day with old motorbikes too. On the way back, I came across an old guy cleaning a Solex – you know, the typical French moped of the 40s and 50s with the engine underneath the handlebars.
This one was a later one from the late 60s with a pressed-steel frame and so I got to talk to him about it. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its long-gone guises will recall that I unearthed the remains of one of these in a field of brambles when I was doing a furniture removal back in 2002.
It seems that the guy collects bits and makes complete machines up out of the piles. So seeing as the Solex is doing nothing down on the farm and it’s not something that I’m likely to miss, I’ll bring it back whenever I’m next down there and donate it to the cause.
It pays to keep in with the locals.
We were having some more activity in the Bay as well.
Marité was out there having a little sail around the Baie de Mont St Michel, and she was in company with La Granvillaise.
One of these days I’ll have to take myself out and about on one of them, if they decide one day to go somewhere exciting. Quebec would be nice.
Back here I opened the window in the bedroom, put the clothes dryer thing in the window and hung up the washing. But this isn’t going to be easy with the new chest of drawers in the way. I need to have a think about this.
Liz was on line too and so we had a little chat. Strawberry Moose has his holidays to plan.
After lunch I tidied up Caliburn and got him looking much more like it. A pile of stuff went into the bin from there.
With that out of the way then I attacked the European Cardboard Box Mountain. And it’s now all gone down into the back of Caliburn. It’s amazing how uncomplicated it becomes when you have a ratchet strap handy.
But it was tiring work and I had to sit down halfway through and have a little … err … relax.
And if that wasn’t enough, I attacked the bedroom and did some tidying up in there too. And that looks much better, although there’s still tons to do. But it really is nice to be finally able to sit comfortably on a comfortable chair and do some work in a proper office environment.
The walk around the headland about finished me off, so now I’m going to bed. I deserve it too.
Tomorrow I need to make some more hummus seeing as I’ve run out of that kind of stuff for my butties and I don’t really want to attack the cheese as yet.
Mind you, with what I’ve done today I’ll probably be asleep for a week.
No point in going back pointing the stonework after that, and so I dug up all of the new potatoes. There aren’t all that many of them, so what’s happening there? Has someone else been eating them? Anyway, I’ve left them outside to dry and tomorrow I’ll be cleaning them and storing them away.
