Tag Archives: tourist information

Monday 8th October 2018 – SO MUCH FOR …

… the alarm this morning!

My telephone decided to do an update during the night and as a result it was waiting for me to restart it this morning. At … errr … 08:15 or thereabouts.

And it also took me until 09:00 to leave the bed either. I was making the most of it.

Just by way of a change though I had ended up with an early night. Flat out at 22:30 and Gone With The Wind in an instant.

And, would you believe, just by way of another change, back in the High Arctic. One might say that it’s all left quite an impression on me, mightn’t one?

Now here’s an exciting thing though. It was the final night of our trip before we were all due to break up in the morning. And just for a change we weren’t on the Good Ship Ve… … errr … Ocean Endeavour but somewhere else completely. And I was sharing a room with someone else, something that regulär readers of this rubbish will recall is highly unlikely indeed. This guy was of the “gung ho, full steam ahead” characteristics and he had changed all of the beds and bedding around in our room. My bed was in a different position, all of this kind of thing, and he had done it all in something of rather a strange way. But anyway, to cut a long story short … "Thank God" – ed … like The Knights Of The Round Table we had all been our separate ways, and we all had to meet up to come back to make our final reports the next morning. We were all sitting down in the lounge relaxing and who should come over to me but The Vanilla Queen. And it WAS her too. Not only did it look like her but she talked exactly in the same way with exactly the same accent that she had. She spoke to me too, which is most unlikely, and I couldn’t quite understand what it was that she was saying. So I arose and went over to her (which I wouldn’t normally have done) and asked her to repeat it. She replied “I don’t think that John Shearing needs to know anything about too much, but I want YOU to do the final debriefing and to tell everyone where we had been and what we were doing and all this kind of thing so that they could bring their notes of their holiday all up to date. I want YOU to do it”.
And to be quite honest, I was so amazed by this discussion that I awoke bolt-upright – 23:58 it was – wide awake, totally astonished. I went and tracked down the dictaphone, even managed to change the batteries in it correctly, and dictated the details so that I wouldn’t forget them.

And that wasn’t all the excitement either.

I’ve no idea who is was with whom I was rambling later on last night but she was certainly female and attractive, and she was driving a small car of the Austin 7 variety. We were having to travel somewhere and in order to do so we had to pass through a mountain range. There were two ways to pass through this range and they bifurcated at a small village. So we stopped in this village to fuel up and she tipped into the tank the contents of a metal can. I thought to myself that there wasn’t enough fuel in the can to take us to our destination and the nearest petrol station was a really good walk away. But to my surprise, where we had parked actually had a fuel pump and some woman there put a couple more gallons into the car. We then set off down the left-hand road at this fork and I thought to myself that this is a far quicker way than trekking though the countryside and little paths that I usually took and I wondered why I didn’t know this road. And we eventually turned up at a mountain pass that we have visited on nocturnal rambles on numerous occasions – usually on skiing trips and the like in the middle of winter.

As an aside, I should perhaps remind my readers (both of you) that I have indeed been asked if I am troubled by my nocturnal voyages and some of the situations in which I find myself.
My response was “definitely not. I actually quite enjoy them.”

After breakfast I loitered around for a while, including a session on the bass (because I’m starting to pic it up again after my voyage) and then set down to do some work.

Tidying up in the living room in fact. I need to make this place look much more like a home and make it clean. After a while I do have to say that it looks a little more like it, although there’s always room for improvement.

Next thing was, having been totally dismayed by the rubbishy photos that came out of my voyage to the High Arctic, I bit the bullet and ordered a couple of new lenses for the big Nikon. How I wish that I had done that a month or so before I had set off, rather than three weeks after I had come home.

And after that, I had a little … errr … relax.

TOTGA was on line later and so we had a little chat and then I went off and made my butties. There I was, sitting on the wall with my butties, my book and a lizard in the sunlight. It wasn’t warm but it was beautiful all the same.

Afterwards, I went off into town. With the possibility of a visitor arriving in early course, I need to know what activities are available. There’s a good Tourist Info place in town so my afternoon walk was down there to collect some leaflets.

Back here, I attacked some more photos but I couldn’t keep going and at about 17:20 I went ant lay down on the bed.

1:20 I was out for. 18:40 I finally came too and was able to carry on with what I had been doing. And that took me up to tea time.

While I had been going through the freezer I came across a pie that was left over from earlier in the year. So that disappeared into my stomach accompanied by some steamed veg cooked in the electric steamer and gravy.

Outside, i went for my evening walk around the headland, totally alone. Not another soul about anywhere although there were a couple of kids with scooters away on the car park.

Later I had another chat with TOTGA, with Liz and with Josée and then a little more work.

Now it’s bedtime and there will be an alarm tomorrow, I hope. Then it’s back to the grind again.

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Tuesday 19th June 2018 – THE ONE THING THAT I LIKE …

… about my blog, and one of the (many) reasons why I keep it, is so that when I have an altercation with someone, I have it chapter and verse about when and where it took place, and what was said.

So that way, whenever I’m having an argument with a semi-official body, I have the notes to prove my point.

But let’s not get ahead of ouselves.

Last night after having done almost everything that there was to do, I sat down and watched a DVD, something that i haven’t done for quite some time. Last night’s entertainment (if that’s the correct word) was Batman (the Movie). A totally absurd, incredibly camp film that is so bad that it’s good.

And what is probably the funniest part of the film is Adam West trying so hard not to laugh at some of the lines. Brings back many happy memories of the 1960s.

Despite the early night it was a struggle to come up for air this morning and I was a little later than usual leaving the stinking pit. But a breakfast and a hot shower brought me sort-of into the Land of the Living.

First thing was to put the bathroom back together and then to attack the living room. Do it while I’m in the mood. So that’s something like, stuff is sorted out, more stuff has been found (including my missing 32GB memory stick) and more stuff thrown away. And it was quite profitable too, because I found €1:03 too.

Spend, spend, spend!

And I’m glad that I did it too then and there because I didn’t have time after that.

Looking through the e-mails that had come in through the night, there were two that were very important and needed to be dealt with on the spot. And that involved a phone call to my bankers in the UK.

I’d tried a few weeks ago to set up an on-line banking service, but it had spectacularly failed, so I put it out of my mind. That was the first thing.

And despite what they told me, they had indeed been notified of my new telephone number. It’s there in black-and-white in my letter of 19th January, and when I had an argument with the bank’s customer service, they telephoned me back on that number on 6th February.

And since then, they’ve been sending me security codes when I’ve been using my UK credit card.

The second thing though is that I need to make a substantial payment to North America, and make it quickly. And I can’t do it by telephone despite whatever pleading I can use. It needs to be done in writing, although a fax machine is acceptable.

I threw away my old fax machine in 2011 so this meant a good hunting down of a fax machine in Granville.

First thing was to type out a letter, and while I was at it to deal with some more post that needed answering. That took me all the way up to 13:45. And then into town to search for a fax machine.

No go at the library. The Tourist Information Office was closed, the Mairie didn’t have one, and neither did the Post Office. But the Post office sent me across the road to the newspaper offices. They had a fax machine, but it was private.

But the newspaper shop next door advertised photocopies and photo-scanning, so I went in there. And sure enough, a very friendly newspaper shop owner had a public fax machine, so that was that.

I picked up one of my favourite baguettes and came back.

Lunch was exceptionally late and I was joined by no one but two lizards who spent more time fighting over a lump of pear than they did actually eating it. And that was surprising because there was more than enough for two.

school bus place d'armes granville manche normandy franceHaving had a lengthy walk just now, I abandoned the idea of going out this afternoon.

And so I was in my apartment to notice one of the school buses take the wrong turning up to the High School and get stuck in the gateway to the Place d’Armes.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw a couple of buses do that earlier this year, but at least there was much less drama associated with this one. With a couple of bits of shunting he managed to get round quite comfortably.

Instead of my walk I sat down on the sofa with a cold drink, and the efforts of earlier were clearly far too much for me because I was out like a light for a good half-hour. This isn’t doing me any good at all.

But I managed to fit in my guitar practice, and then made tea. A burger in a bap with baked potato. And remind me next time that when I go to defrost the burger in the microwave, to take it out of the plastic bag first.

radio mast jersey granville manche normandy franceIt was an absolutely beautiful evening, and the view across to Jersey was one of the clearest that I have ever had.

If you notice the radio mast over there, it’s really hard to believe that that is 34 miles away from here. But it is.

There was no-one about so i had another run. 110 paces tonight. But I was disappointed that the last two runs haven’t shown up on my fitbit. It’s disappointing to say the least. I’m clearly not going fast enough, but you can’t run before you’ve learnt to walk, can you?

sand and gravel port de granville harbour manche normandy franceRound the other side of the headland I could see that we’ve had a whole pile of deliveries to the gravel bins.

There’s gravel all over the place again, and even a couple of hundred tonnes of sand.

Does this mean that we’re going to have another gravel boat some time soon? I shall have to pay much more attention that I’m doing, otherwise I’ll miss it.

Tonight I think that I’ll watch another film. I’m becoming quite bourgeois in my sentiments these days. I’m going to have to snap out of that.

But one thing that I did during the odd period here and there of lucidity was to finally finish the blog entry for one day of my trip to the desert. And never mind finishing it, it almost finished me.

It still needs to be poof-read, have the tpying examined and have a spelchek, but it’s all of 5645 words, a new record and by an enormous margin too. You can read it at your leisure.

I deserve a medal.

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Friday 19th May 2015 – I FINALLY MANAGED …

… to go out for a walk this afternoon. Mind you, it was a bit touch-and-go.

Last night was another difficult night as far as sleep went, but I was still asleep when the alarm went off so it must have done some good. And it was a nicer morning too – I enjoyed my walk down for my baguette. And I did come back via the scenic route too seeing as how the weather was so nice.

I treated myself to another coffee when I returned, and then spent most of the morning sorting out the confusion on this old laptop. So far, I’ve cleaned out about 30GB of duplicate or unnecessary files and I’m sure that there’s more to come.

Once it’s tidied up, I’ll be moving most of them onto a portable drive and then I can “retire” this laptop. It has a smashed screen (I’m using an external screen off Marianne’s old desktop computer) and a keyboard that has some keys stuck and some other keys missing (I’ve plugged in an old keyboard) and it dates from 2011 yet it still soldiers along, which is more than can be said for the two that I have bought to replace it. One of them ground to a halt in Germany two years ago, and the current one hasn’t ever worked right since the first day that I bought it.

In fact, I’m half-tempted to salvage the keyboard and the screen from the one that failed and use it to rebuild the smashed one. Shame that I’ve left all of my tools and equipment back in the Auvergne.

After lunch, I carried on with what I was doing, as well as doing a little tidying up around here. Strangely enough, the place doesn’t look any tidier no matter how much time I spend on it.

I don’t know what it is about doing nothing much but it makes me more tired than when I’m working hard. I was away with the fairies for a good half an hour this afternoon. But I awoke round about 17:00 and decided that with the sun shining and the sky nice and blue, I really ought to go out and about.

place d'armes granville manche normandy franceFrom up on the city walls at the back of my apartment, there’s a beautiful view of the building where I live these days.

If you look at the tree in the centre of the photograph, the window directly above it is my bedroom window. The two windows – one of which is partly obscured by the tree – round the corner are the windows in my living room.

And if you look carefully, you can see Caliburn parked round the front of the building.

jersey channel islandsI’d taken the big telephoto lens with me up onto the walls, because it was another one of these marvellous days, ideal for photography.

And with the telephoto lens there was an excellent view of Jersey out there in the English Channel. It’s very difficult to believe that it’s at least 59 kilometres – 36 miles – away out there.

jersey channel islandsFrom this position, there’s an even better view of Jersey, and you can even see some of the superstructure and buildings on the island. I’m quite determined that one day in the not-too-distant future I’ll be out there on a day trip.

Especially if it means negotiating the buoy and the seagull that the telephoto lens has picked up.

And that reminds me. Michael Jackson had once applied to join the navy, but withdrew his application after he was told that no matter how it was pronounced, the objects that you find in each port are called B-O-U-Y-S.

granville manche normandy franceWhile we are on the subject of going out to the Channel Islands, there in the harbour this afternoon was the ferry that I would take when I go there. It’s not a vehicular ferry and you can tell by looking at it that it won’t take long to go there.

And that’s the reason why I’m here in Granville. Being a Pisces I always feel the call of the sea and here,
I can pop on a boat whenever I feel like it.

But it’s really a bad idea, because it doesn’t do my humour very much good. Every time I see a ferry, it makes me cross.

lighthouse granville manche normandy franceMeanwhile, back at the ran… err … on the city walls, there’s an excellent view right out along the coast. Right out there in the background on the horizon is the coast around Barneville-Carteret where I went to see those apartments a while ago, and that’s over 80 kilometres – 50 miles – away.

On the left-hand edge of the photograph is the lighthouse that warns of the rocks that are out there half-way between the coast and the Channel Islands. I do know it’s name, but it’s temporarily slipped my mind.

And on the right of the photograph is the big buoy that marks the entrance to the shipping channel into one of the rivers up there. This telephoto lens is magnificent, isn’t it?

granville manche normandy franceThat’s the main road into and out of the town. Right at the top of the hill is a roundabout – straight on is the road that leads eventually to Caen. The football stadium, the big shops and the hotel where I stayed the first night that I was here are along there.

To the right is the road that heads south along the coast to Avranches and eventually to Rennes and it’s how we would arrive here from the South.

Half-way up the hill at the roundabout that you can see there is where the railway station is – just to the left.

granville manche normandy franceThat down there is the road that leads from the harbour to the centre of the town.

The yellow building in the centre is the tourist information Office, and the light-coloured building next to it is the Mairie.

On the street corner to the right is the street where you find all of the normal town shops, and to the left is that nice little studio where I stayed for 12 days
.

carolles plage manche normandy franceI showed you a photo of this the other day, but that was taken with the standard lens. Seeing as I had the telephoto lens with me, I reckoned that I’d retake the photo.

It is of course the headland out at Carolles-Plage and you’ll remember that we walked out there a few weeks ago.

In the background is the coast of Brittany on the other side of the Baie de Mont St Michel

jullouville manche normandy franceHere’s another view of a photo that I took a few days ago but I’ve retaken it with the telephoto lens.

It’s Jullouville of course. That’s another place of the many that has had my company for for a couple of days, and it’s where I had that strange encounter with that weird estate agent.

The hotel where I stayed is behind the big building that you can see to the right of centre.

eglise st paul church granville manche normandy franceJust across there is the Eglise St Paul – St Paul’s Church. Despite it looking like a typical Byzantine basilica, it’s actually reasonably-modern, construction having started in 1891 and it’s still unfinished (and it’s very unlikely that it ever will be).

The dome by the way is not made of stone as you might expect, but is one of the early examples of the use of reinforced concrete. And because salty sea-sand was used in the construction, it’s quickly crumbling away and demolition of the entire building has not been ruled out.

And in the background, you can see the floodlights of the football stadium.

house with turrets city walls granville manche normandy franceTurning round a little more, my lens now focuses on my nice little building – the one with the turrets that we saw from down below the walls the other day when we were walking about.

I still reckon that the turret would be an interesting place to live, if ever it were to come on the market – not that it would be likely I suppose. The view across the harbour and the bay would be tremendous.

granville harbour manche normandy franceIn fact, that’s the view that you would have from the front window of the turret. We have the fishing port just there, with the mechanical grab for speedy unloading and the storage sheds right behind.

And then a little further back we have the town beach with that nice apartment block behind it.

In between the two, to the left, you can see the masts of the yachts parked up on the quayside

iles de chausey pointe de la roc granville manche normandy franceMeanwhile, behind me, there’s the end of the headland around which we walked the other day and where we took some photographs.

Our pirate friend is over there on his plinth, to the left of the mobile home that you can see disappearing into the distance towards the car and coach park.

In the background on the horizon to the right you can see the Ile de Chausey

eglise notre dame to cap lihou church granville manche normandy franceYou’ve seen several photographs showing bits of the church that is here in the old walled city, but this is the first decent view that you have had of all of it.

It’s the Eglise de Notre Dame de Cap Lihou and its claim to fame is that it’s built on the site of a chapel that was constructed by the English when they occupied the site during the Hundred Years War.

The church here today though dates from 1628 and took almost 50 years to construct. It was registered as a Historic Monument in 1930.

city walls granville manche normandy franceThe medieval aspect of the old city is apparent in photographs like this. While the buildings themselves might not be the originals, it’s very likely that the street layout has been preserved.

There are little alleys like that one down there all over the town and it gives the place quite a mystical air. The kind of place where it would be nice and quiet to live, but not very practical if you are the owner of a motor vehicle.

granville manche normandy franceIf we continue our walk around the city walls we’ll come to an area where they are undertaking some renovation work.

Part of the walls is fenced off while they repair it, and they are taking the opportunity to transform some of the vacant land at the foot into a public garden.

It’s not finished yet, and won’t be for a while, but it will be nice when it’s all done.

granville manche normandy franceAnd so we end up at the eastern end of town where there’s a car park and an orientation table. The pyramid shape that you can see in the photo is the roof of the tower of the casino, and then we have the Casino Beach and the promenade, with Donville-les-Bains in the background.

There’s the tidal swimming pool too. The idea is that it fills when the tide is in, and when the tide goes out, the water is retained. But these days there must be a leak in it

granville manche normandy franceThe final photograph, for now anyway, shows you a little more of the fortifications of the old city.

If you can clamber up the rock – which is not all that easy – then you have a ditch to negotiate before you arrive at the fortifications proper.

You can see how the shape of the fortifications permits the ditch to be overlooked from all points, so any attacking army trying to scale the walls would be trapped like rats in a barrel.

So from here, I headed off slowly back to the flat. That’s enough walking for today and it’s almost tea-time. And I have another helping of last night’s curry to attend to.

And then it’s an early night. I’ve done quite enough today, and I’ll leave you with another 1950 words to read. That will keep you lot out of mischief too.

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Monday 17th April 2017 – I FELL ASLEEP …

… in the middle of Carry on Spying last night.It just goes to show you how tired I was.

And it was a deep sleep too. I remember very little until about 06:20 this morning. I must have been really tired, that’s all that I can say.

I wasn’t hungry this morning so I passed on breakfast. Instead, I had a few things that needed dealing with on the laptop. and once I’d organised that, I decided to go for a walk.

jullouville granville manche normandy franceIt’s only about 50 or so metres to the promenade from here. And although the weather wasn’t the best (whatever happened to the sunshine that greeted me yesterday?) it wasn’t all that windy, just for a change.

There’s a good view of Granville right over there in the distance to the left. About 6 kms away, so they say, and maybe they are right too. But I didn’t fancy going for a walk all that way this morning.

carolles plage jullouville manche normandy franceNow that looks more like it, though. Carolles-Plage is 2 or 3 kilometres down there (it looks a lot closer with the telephoto lens) and I enjoyed my visit there the other day when I was driving around.

As long as the weather holds out, it should be a nice walk all the way down there and there’s a café, if I remember.
An early-morning cuppa will do me good.

metal detecting jullouville manche normandy franceBut I can’t leave here without taking a photo of the people on the beach? We saw a few the other day at Agon-Countainville and we weren’t sure what they were doing.

But there’s no doubt whatever about what these people are up to. They aren’t raking around for shellfish or anything like that, they are metal-detecting. and finding one or two things too by the looks of it.

And knowing what is washed ashore on the beaches of Normandy every now and again, they might be in for something or a surprise too one of these days.

jullouville carolles plage manche normandy franceafter a kilometre or so, the promenade gives out and you have to descend onto the beach.

It’s quite hard work walking on loose sand (well, it is for me these days anyway) and so I headed down to the waterline, otherwise I might find myself in Dire Straits.

Luckily the tide was still out at the moment (but on its way in, I noticed) and so I could find some firm sand upon which to walk.

jullouville carolle plage manche normandy franceDown at the headland at the end of the beach were a few clefts in the cliffs. I was planning to creep in but there were too many watery ponds and loose rocks about and I didn’t really fancy the idea.

Instead, I went and had the most expensive coffee that I have had for a long time – all €3:00 of it. There is a downside to coming to live at the seaside, especially in the middle of the tourist season.

But I needed the break and to sit and relax. It was a long way down to here.

jullouville manche normandy francehaving refreshed myself appropriately and had a little repose, I headed back slowly up the beach, dodging the incoming tide. And it was a slow wander back too because I was feeling rather weary and had to stop a few times to catch my breath.

It gave me an opportunity to examine the sea front at Jullouville though, and I noticed several apartment buildings,
or blocks of flats, along the seafront. I shall have to go for another wander tomorrow and make suitable enquiries.

I’m sure that something will present itself.

boat in bay granville manche normandy franceThere was something white on the sea away in the distance somewhere round about St Pair sur Mer. And with a decent zoom lens you can actually enlarge, crop and paste so that you can see what it is.

It’s some kind of cabin cruiser out there, and that’s turned out to be a nice photograph, with Granville away there in the background.

What wouldn’t I give for an apartment in a block of flats over there? Preferably one that doesn’t have a hedge screening the view.

I picked up a couple of baguettes (one for tea) from a boulanger who knows how to bake bread properly, and then I headed off to the Tourist Information Office to pick up a brochure on holiday lets. I need to make further plans for the next few months.

kite surfing jullouville manche normandy franceI took my bread and salad stuff down to the promenade so that I could sit and eat my butty as the sun had now finally come out.

And here right in front of me was a guy kite-surfing. There were a few of them actually, but he was the one closest to the shore so I took a photo.

I was also engaged in conversation by a rather vocal local yokel, of which there seem to be several hanging around in the neighbourhood. It’s quite easy to spot the dikkeneks from Paris and single them out from the yokels who live around here.

Back here in my little room I made a start on doing something, but the next thing that I remembered was that it was 16:25 – I’d had a good doze off, and for a couple of hours too. That walk had taken it right out of me, as things seem to do these days.

It was a shame to waste the sunlight and so I went back out for a stroll around the town and on the beach. And then returned here for tea -the rest of my vegetables and the second baguette.

Now I shall be trying for another go at Carry on Spying but I’m sure that I’ll probably go to sleep long before I … ZZZZZZZ

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Wednesday 5th October 2016 – BRRRR!

o'regal restaurant and motel kedgwick new brunswick canada october octobre 2016When I awoke this morning, bright and early, I went out to grab the cereal and soya milk from the back of Strider. And by heck, I wish I hadn’t!

Winter has definitely arrived, that’s for sure. Just look at this lot outside. It’s just like back home in the Auvergne isn’t it, with the hanging cloud, the cold and the freezing fog that has blanketed the Appalachian Mountains round about here on the edge of Kedgwick.

I had had a bad night last night despite just how comfortable it was in my nice big bed in my nice big room.

I’d crashed out by about 21:00 but I was tossing and turning all over the place and was really uncomfortable. Somehow I was tired and completely fast asleep and somehow I wasn’t, and I’m not sure that you’ll understand what I mean. But anyway, I was wide awake at 01:00, with the radio still playing, so I turned it off and this time I managed a decent sleep, until about 05:00

I’d been on my travels too, with the welcome return of Nerina, who hasn’t set foot in these nocturnal rambles for quite a while. We were at my house, in its usual state of papers all over the floor and we were looking for some papers that really ought to have been there but weren’t and this was all becoming far more complicated than it ought to have been. At he same time, Zero was at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up. She was being her usual cheerful self and we were discussing smoking. She said that she had tried a cigarette once, so I smacked her bottom for her.

When I sat down to breakfast I found that I had forgotten to fetch the spoon so I ended up eating my breakfast cereal with a fork and trying my best not to crash out again. I’m clearly not well at the moment.

o'regal restaurant and motel kedgwick new brunswick canada october octobre 2016Still, I can’t sit around here all day moping about the bad weather. I need to be moving on despite the fog. And this time, I didn’t forget to go and take a photograph of the night’s lodgings just for the record.

I’d been low on fuel too last night and there was an Irving’s next door – one of the reasons why I had stopped here – so I went off and fuelled up. I now have 97 Air miles after that – isn’t that good?

When I was on my way in the other direction 10 or so days ago, I’d stopped at the supermarket in town where I’d discovered baguettes on sale at half-price. I popped back in there on the way past this morning to see how the land lay and, sure enough, baguettes were on sale again. And so with what I had bought yesterday at Matane, that was lunch organised.

On the way through St Quentin the other day I’d noticed that there was a railway station in the town, on the old abandoned Canadian National railway line between Campbelltown and St Leonard.
narrow gauge steam locomotive railway station st quentin new brunswick canada october octobre 2016There were a few railway artefacts on display outside, and so I’d pencilled the station in for a visit on the return trip and so here I am.

The little locomotive had caught my eye and I wondered if it really was a narrow-gauge locomotive that had been rescued from a mineral line somewhere. But in fact it was built in 1985 out of scrap and recycled materials by a couple of Canadian National employees from Campbelltown.


platelayers trolley railway station st quentin new brunswick canada october octobre 2016That wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye either. What do you reckon about this?

It’s a platelayers’ trolley but enclosed (a necessity given the severe winters around here) and with a petrol engine rather than a pump-action handle, which is a bit of a cheat. They were used by the track maintenance crews during their duties, which included fire-watching because sparks from the steam locomotives setting the forests alight was a real problem.

So much so that it will come as no surprise for any regular reader of this rubbish to realise that the station building here at St Quentin is not the original one. That, just like any other building here in Canada, caught fire and burnt down.


railway bicycle st quentin new brunswick canada october octobre 2016However, the most exciting exhibit here at the railway station must be this weird machine.

I’m not sure of the proper name by which this machine might be known, and I certainly have never seen one of them before, but I think that it’s magnificent and I definitely want one of these.

There were lots of other stuff actually inside the station, which was by the way not only a museum but the local tourist information office and the offices of the local Chamber of Commerce.


caboose canadian national railway station st quentin new brunswick canada october octobre 2016There was some kind of collection of railway wagons here too and so I went for a browse.

This caboose caught my eye – and not just because it’s a caboose but because of the message that’s on it. It reads “Dessert tout le Canada” which, crudely translated by Yours Truly (and if there’s any “crudely” involved, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney, “I’m your man”) as “serves all of Canada”.

However, that’s clearly a spelling mistake. It should read “Désert tout le Canada” which means “Abandons all of Canada” – which is certainly true these days.

This is why I have to mess around on buses and rely on Rachel to pick me up in Florenceville when there’s an abandoned Canadian National railway line that passes at the bottom of her garden and an abandoned Canadian National railway station right next door to the tyre depot.

By now the hanging clouds had gone, the sun was out and I was coming out of the Appalachian Mountains. It was a beautiful day now so I headed to St Leonard and the Saint John River to find a place to eat my butties.

le rendez-vous des artistes st leonard new brunswick canada october octobre 2016I found a nice place to park up for my lunch – the car park for the Rendez-vous des Artistes in St Leonard. It was closed up so I didn’t think that anyone would mine.

What appealed to me about this place was that it had a good view over the river and right by one of the few remaining railway lines in New Brunswick. And I thought that I had heard a locomotive whistle too and so I prepared the camera, but nothing came by while I was here.


saint john river van buren maine usa october octobre 2016That over there across the Saint John River is the town of Van Buren, which is in Maine, USA. I was sitting right by the border crossing on the Canadian side of the river admiring the view and taking advantage of the beautiful weather.

And I wasn’t alone either. They say that there’s one in every village, and the one in St Leonard sought me out for a chat. He was speaking French and what with his accent and a speech impediment that he had, I couldn’t make out one word in every ten that he was uttering.

Nevertheless, we put the world to rights for half an hour and then, in the words of the reporters of the long-gone and long-lamented “News of the Screws”, I “made my excuses and left”.

Back up the hill and I hit the highway southwards, and aren’t I grateful for speed limiters and cruise control? I set the speed to 108kms and settled down for the drive back to Centreville, and it was then that I noticed in my rear-view mirror a County Mountie slowly closing up on me. But with the speed limiter I didn’t have too much to worry about in the normal run of events. He eventually passed me, having a good glance as he went by, but with the cruise control in operation he had no reason to pull me over and he eventually pulled away in front.

I was having visions of David Crosby and his
“It increases my paranoia”
“like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car”
“But I’m not giving in an inch to fear”
“‘cos I promised myself this year”
“I feel like I owe it to someone”
and reckon that it applies to me – I certainly owe it to myself, that’s for sure after all that I’ve been through this year.

I tracked down my mailbox too. And talk about a local postal service – my mailbox is about 7 or 8 kilometres from my plot of land. It’s astonishing. How I’m supposed to go and get my post in the middle of winter is totally beyond me.

But there was some really good news for me. Regular readers of this rubbish might recall that the motor insurance on Strider was cancelled about my head last year when we had the driving licence issues. There was a cheque in my mail box for the refund of the cancelled policy, minus the time on risk value, and this was not far off the total premium of the new policy. The cheque had timed out and so I took it back to the brokers in Florenceville and they wrote out a new one.

Waving that around in my sweaty little mitt, I went to the Scotia Bank and paid it in. I did a few more financial manoeuvres … “PERSONoeuvres” – ed … there, and now I reckon that I could keep on going over in Canada for a good while if necessary.

Back at the tyre depot I met up with everyone, had a coffee and a chat, and then we went back home to Rachel and Darren’s. Rachel made a lovely tea and we had a good chat, and then I crawled off to bed at some really early, ridiculous time.

This six weeks gap between treatments is evidently too much, but I’m not complaining. Despite the health issues that have now caught up properly with me, I would never otherwise have come here and I wouldn’t have missed my trip to Canada for the world.

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Tuesday 23rd August 2016 – PHEW! I’M WHACKED!

I’ve been on my feet all afternoon and tramped all the way around Leuven. And on the hottest day of the year so far too!

And it hasn’t been without its incidents too – some of them good, some of them bad.

The bad incidents concern the attitudes of various estate agents who, in many case, quite frankly couldn’t care less about potential clients and make no effort to give any assistance to anyone calling at the door.

Not only that, I doorstepped the Tourist Information Office about potential holiday lets lying vacant over the winter that might be let out profitably on a mid-term basis. But to give you some idea of what I’m up against here in Belgium, this was met with an outraged “but that’s illegal!” And so you see – trying to do something out of the ordinary here in Belgium is a waste of time.

But there has been some good, positive news. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had any, isn’t it?

Firstly, I found some information about a couple of flat-hotels in the city. And so I went off on the prowl. The first one was right out of town on the road to Kessel-Lo (you can see how far I walked), and the second one was, quite appropriately, right next door to the Nick, so I won’t have far to go when they find out about me.

The first one was the cheaper of the two. It looked rather like a barracks and the rooms were rather spartan, but it had everything that I would be likely to need. The second was in a much more beautiful setting and I really liked the look of the place, but this too was rather spartanly-finished and I could smell the damp. However, the price worked out at less than I’m paying here, and that’s with all of my own facilities. Consequently, we are starting to pull ahead a little (and about time too).

But I turned up trumps in another estate agent’s that I discovered by accident. The guy there downed tools and took me round the corner to show me a studio. On the third floor (with a lift) of a small building in the pedestrianised street between the city centre and the railway station was a small (and I do mean small) furnished studio – nice and clean with a wooden floor and with modern furniture. It’s basic I suppose but it’s there and while I don’t like the situation much, I’ve learned that I can’t afford to be choosy.

Another possibility is a flat by the seaside and some estate agent in Oostende has come up with something too. This was a long shot – something round about Plan Z I reckon – but once more it’s an option.

And so I’ll keep on trucking, but I’ll see what this place is like tomorrow afternoon. If it muts the custard, I’ll be taking that one seeing as how it’s situated near to the hospital. But if it’s no good, I’ll be going for the one in the town I reckon.

It was a long way back tonight and I was thoroughly exhausted. And soaked in sweat too. after a coffee and a little doze I went and had a shower and a change of clothes.

Tea was quite exciting too, especially after I dropped almost all a bottle of hot spicy tomato sauce into my pasta tonight. And the garlic bread was delicious too.

And I wish that these Flemish girls would stop wearing these skimpy skin-tight shorts in this hot weather. It isn’t ‘arf interfering with my breathing.

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Monday 3rd August 2015 – I HATE PEOPLE …

… who post on the internet photos of what they have been eating.

vegan meal clermont ferrand puy de dome franceHowever, just very occasionally, there are rare occasions where a meal merits being photographed, and this is one of them.

Right in the centre of Clermont-Ferrand this lunchtime, not one of the restaurants had a vegan meal on offer, but there was one where the chef was busy plying his art (and art it was) in the corner of the dining area and so I went over for a chat.

And this is the result. And no complaints whatever from me. I had a struggle to finish it.

So after a telephone call at a time where quite often I hadn’t even been to bed, I was down at Sauret Besserve and picked up Liz, and off we went to Riom for Liz’s hospital appointment.

I had a wait of about 50 minutes for a groggy-looking Liz to emerge, and then we went off for a coffee so that she could recover.

Next stop was the Auchan but there weren’t any of the Nikon D7000 cameras there – it’s an end-of-range deal and the prices had been slashed so I wasn’t expecting much, but nevertheless, we were nearby so it was worth a try.

tram clermont ferrand puy de dome franceAnd then a first for Liz.

We decided to go into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and the tram lines pass at the rear of the Auchan so, leaving Caliburn on the car park, we hopped on a tram that whisked us silently and effortlessly into the city.

€1:50 a ticket and there can’t be much better value than that. Anyone who has driven into the centre of Clermont Ferrand and tried to find a parking place will tell you all about that.

We went for a walk, went to the Tourist Information office and down to the Conseil-General – and I had a brainwave. I need to insure Strider, the Ranger, in Canada and I wondered if I could obtain a printout of my licence showing my motoring history.

We queued for a good while and, at the counter, “yes, we can do that. Do you have your driving licence?”
So I duly produced it
“And do you have your identoty papers?”
“Ohh blast! I’ve left them in Caliburn, haven’t I?”
“We are really supposed to see some identity papers in order to do this over the counter, but I’ll tell you what – let’s do it anyway”

So there we were!

pope urban II crusade cathedral clermont ferrand puy de dome franceBack to the city square and in the shadow of Pope Urban II preaching the First Crusade to the pigeons fluttering around the Cathedral, we had our lunch.

Back on the tram and off to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais programmes for the next few weeks, giving Samantha Fish her first run-out, and then back home.

All in all a quite profitable day.

And hats off to the reception staff at the hospital at Riom, hats off to the chef in Clermont Ferrand and hats off also to the lady at the driving licence desk at the Prefecture in Clermont Ferrand. Things are definitely looking up!

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Friday 20th December 2013 – DIDN’T WE HAVE A LUVVERLY TIME …

day out coach trip bus ride pionsat clermont ferrand puy de dome france… the day we went to Clermont?

Thanks, Marianne, for ringing me at 06:30 otherwise I would still be in bed now, but anyway off to a garage along the road between Pionsat and St Eloy where Marianne was to leave her car for a service, and then we headed into Pionsat to catch the bus.

33 of us, there were, on board heading for Pionsat’s annual shopping trip to Clermont. Many towns and villages in the rural Puy-de-Dome go there on the same day and the Conseil-General have a little welcoming celebration with coffee, orange juice and croissants – just as well seeing as how I didn’t have any breakfast. And we received a free tram ticket, shopping bag and little Christmas present too.

The queue for the tram was enormous and so we walked to the centre, which was quite nice seeing as we passed by the city’s cemetery. One thing about Marianne is that she’s just as interested in things like this as I am and an invitation for a stroll around the dead centre of any kind of urban settlement will not be sneezed at.

cemetery clermont ferrand monks puy de dome franceThere were formerly many religious establishments in Clermont Ferrand and we stumbled across many communal graves in which various groups of nuns had interred their departed members.

The communal graves of the monks were however much more interesting. Tucked away in a quiet little corner of the cemetery behind a few enormous tombs is their last resting place – one headstone for each establishment and a little plaque for each brother who is interred here. Things like that are quite poignant really.

And I wonder who is involved in the upkeep of this little plot because some of the communal graves of the nuns are, well, very sorry spectacles indeed.

commonwealth war graves cemetery des charmes dechaux clermont ferrand puy de dome franceThere’s also a Commonwealth War Grave here in the cemetery at Clermont Ferrand. 22 British, Canadians and New Zealanders are buried here. 21 are Air Force men and quite clearly three groups of 7. Pilot, Flight Engineer, Navigator, Wireless Operator, Bomb-Aimer and a couple of gunners.

One group died on 5th March 1944, another group on 10th March 1944 and the third group on 27th July 1944. Clearly three Lancasters shot down in the vicinity and with the proximity of the huge Michelin tyre factory – just a couple of hundred yards away from where I was standing taking this photograph, then no prizes for guessing what they were doing – or trying to do.

Or so I wrote at the time. Subsequent research revealed something rather different.

Only one of the aircraft was a Lancaster engaged in bombing the Michelin factory (with an alternative target of the marshalling yards at Aulnat).

These were the crew of Lancaster B III serial ND513 of Squadron 207 RAF, carrying identity EM-R. The crew led by Squadron Leader Dudley Pike had set off from Spilsby in Lincolnshire on 10th March at 19:42.

The aeroplane suffered a direct hit from flak and exploded in mid-air. The wreckage crashed close to the Anne-Marie-Menut roundabout between 23:00 and 23:30.

The earlier crash, on 5th March 1944, was actually a Stirling B III serial EF215 of 75 squadron RAF (although many of the crew were New Zealanders). She carried identity AA-M

She had taken off from Mepal in Cambridgeshire on 4th March 1944 at about 20:51. She had been loaned to SOE (the Special Operations Executive) and was on a training flight parachuting arms to the Resistance in the Auvergne.

Because of the foul weather (blinding, gusting snowstorms were reported) she couldn’t see the torch signals and so aborted the mission, but ran into the side of a Puy in the Le Cros – Douharesse area.

The upper middle machine-gunner luckily survived the crash and was arrested. The others perished and, according to a report issued at the time, the cause of death was as much exposure to the elements as the injuries received in the crash.

The third aeroplane Was another Lancaster B III, serial number ND527 (only 14 machines newer than that lost on 10th March). She carried identity LE-O and belonged to 630 suadron RAF, although some crew were Canadians.

She had taken off from East Kirkby in Lincolnshire at 21:17 on 26th July 1944 to bomb the marshalling yards at Givors, south of Lyon, but at 02:45 the following morning, in the middle of a violent storm, she was involved in a mid-air collision with Lancaster ND856 of 82 squadron.

The pilot of the plane attempted a crash-landing just south of St Ignat, 14kms north-east of Riom, but collided with trees. The plane burst into flames and the crew was immolated.

Incidentally, ND856 exploded in mid-air and its remains fell to earth four or five kilometres away. The crew was originally buried in the local cemetery close tot he crash site but were later exhumed and re-interred in the big military cemetery at Mazargues, near Marseille.

lieutenant W T L Short commonwealth war graves cemetery des charmes dechaux clermont ferrand puy de dome franceThe 22nd grave is that of Lieutenant WTL Short and his is an interesting story.

It doesn’t matter what your perception of the RAF Bomber Command is (mine is that they were a bunch of mass-murdering war criminals, but that is by the way), no-one will dispute that for the expense and effort involved and the number of casualties that they suffered, they were pretty much ineffective and much more could have been achieved at far, far less expense by quite simply parachuting into the target area a bunch of commandos armed to the teeth, with the aim of sabotaging the factories and their output on the ground. The rail campaign of Summer 1944 is a classic example of this, and who remembers the Heroes of Telemark?

But a close look at the headstone of Lieutenant Short will reveal that he was “attached to the FFI” – the Force Français de l’Interieur, which is the politically-correct way of describing the French Resistance. And I can’t help thinking that for what he cost the British Government, his efforts were probably far more cost-effective than those of his 21 neighbours. And what is even more sad about all of this is that if you go to The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website

and carry out a search for the Des Charmes Dechaux cemetery in Clermont Ferrand, you’ll find entries for the 21 airmen but no entry for Lieutenant Short.

basilica notre dame du port clermont ferrand puy de dome franceFrom there we walked on into town, stopping halfway for another coffee of course. Crossing the road we went to the Basilica of Notre Dame du Port.

This church dates from the 6th Century and was founded, so the story goes, by St Avit who, as we all know, comes from down the road here at la Cellette where he had a spring and a hermitage. The church was destroyed by the Normans during one of their invasions of the 10th Century and subsequently rebuilt. Unusually, the crypt is open to the public and so we went down there to see what we could see but the short answer to that was “nothing”. It did not escape our notice, however, that the crypt only stretched so far underneath the church.

town hall clermont ferrand puy de dome franceMarianne then took me to see the Town Hall, which is just around the corner from the cathedral, the famous cathedral where Peter the Hermit summoned the First Crusade back at the end of the 11th Century.

The Town Hall was an interesting place to visit. It was formerly some kind of Abbey, as you can tell from the inner quadrangle and cloisters. But we couldn’t go inside for a nosey – it’s lunch time already.

And what do you notice here? Yes – a blue sky. It was depressing, wet and miserable this morning, just like me. But now it looks as if the sun might be coming out.

clermont ferrand puy de dome franceThe Christmas Market was next on the agenda. That was in the square at the back of the cathedral, the square that is dominated by the Puy de Dome, which you can see all bathed in snow and wun on the skyline in the background.

At the market I bought my final Christmas present, so I’m glad that I came here, and then we headed off to the Tourist Information and the Conseil General where I picked up an enormous pile of stuff for Radio Anglais. We won’t be complaining about lack of events and information now for quite a while with all of this stuff that I’ve collected, and I made a couple of useful contacts too.

big wheel ferris place de jaude clermont ferrand puy de dome franceMy main reason for being here though is to hold Marianne’s hand on the big ferris wheel in the Place de Jaude. In her capacity as hournalist she decided that it would be quite a plan to get to the top and take some decent photos, but she’s not very good at heights. Consequently I was roped in for moral support.

The wheel is quite high as you can see, and the views from the top, such as this one looking north-west, are absolutely splendid. Mind you, I was quite disappointed as it was the smoothest ride that i’ve ever had. It gave no real sensation of movement and it certainly didn’t seem as if we were anything like this high.

cathedral clermont ferrand puy de dome franceMind you, another lifetime’s ambition has been accomplished. Taking a photo of the cathedral at Clermont Ferrand is next-to-impossible as it is hemmed in by all kinds of other buildings and there’s no really good shot.

I’ve been experimenting with extreme-length telephoto lenses from the surrounding summits of the Faille de Limagne but they haven’t really worked out. But sod that for a game of soldiers now. Up here is the nicest view of the cathedral that anyone could hope to see.

So a visit to a bookshop, a quick coffee and then back to the bus and home to 2°C.The temperature has plummetted and we might well be back into winter at last.

-4

Monday 30th JUly 2012 – YOU CAN TELL …

… what kind of day I was having today. When I looked at the clock after heaving a bucket-load of concrete into the lean-to wall, I noticed that it was 19:24 – 24 minutes after knocking-off time.

But at least, the one part of the wall, outer shell, inner shell and infill, is now complete. That’s the part from the field-end up to the window aperture. I can now turn my attention to the next bit.

But not tomorrow – I’m fixing Liz’s car. and not Wednesday either – I’m walking with Marianne on another one of our Wednesday walks.

vergheas puy de dome franceIn fact, Marianne and I were out walking this afternoon for a couple of hours. In a few weeks time she’ll be doing a walk around the village of Vergheas and she needs to plan for it.

It just so happened that this afternoon someone from the regional tourist office was giving a talk in the church to another group of people about the history of the village. Marianne accordingly blagged a couple of invitations, I went down to Pionsat to pick her up and off we went.

vergheas puy de dome franceIt was quite interesting too, for Vergheas is a very important place for such a small village, with something of a history.

It’s right on the border between the Limousin and the Auvergne and during the 17th Century many of the locals made their living by smuggling salt. The salt tax, or gabelle – was at a different rate in different areas and while Vergheas was a cheap area, the Limousin just down the road was one of the most expensive areas.

Buying salt outside your home area was not allowed, but the inhabitants of the Limousin came to Vergheas by their hundreds, with just 6 tax collectors to stop them.

black statue virgin mary jesus vierge noire vergheas puy de dome franceBut if Vergheas is famous for anything, it’s famous for its statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. This was brought back here by some Crusaders after the 4th Crusade and may well have been loot gained in the Sack of Zara (modern-day Zadar) in 1202 or even the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.

The Crusaders donated it to the Church and here it sits, attracting pilgrims from all over the place and it is said that various miracles have been performed here.

vergheas puy de dome franceThe biggest miracle of all, though, is what happened to the statue in 2001. Nothing can surpass this.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have mentioned on several occasions that the Religious Authorities every now and again take an inventory of the relics and possessions of the churches.

In 1973 there was an inventory taken of the treasures of the church here, and as soon as this was published, the church was raided by burglars and the statue was amongst the items stolen.

And that was the last that anyone heard of the statue until the astonishing events of 2001.

vergheas puy de dome franceIn 1997 an antique collector from Le Mans died and his executors spent the next few years hawking his collection around the antique shops of Paris in order to obtain the best price.

They called at one antique shop in 2001 to offer the articles for sale, just as the owner was reading a 1943 book that showed a photo of the statue.

And, by pure coincidence, at the same time on his desk was a newspaper article with a photo of the statue. It was the anniversary of the theft of the statue and the local residents using the medium of the Press to plead that someone might have a pang of conscience and return it.

Truth being stranger than fiction, the shop owner recognised the statue straight away, bought the collection and promptly returned the statue to the village.

vergheas puy de dome franceFrom the church we then went for a tramp in the woods. Unfortunately he got away and so we went for a ramble to the edge of the village and the fontaine – the spring from where the locals formerly obtained their water.

Pretty similar to the one that we visited last week in St Maigner but, as far as I am aware, no miracle has ever been acclaimed for this fontaine

I suppose that one miraculous event is enough

And I was told that I am apparently persona non grata with a couple of English people in Chateau sur Cher.

At the petanque yesterday, one of them went to pay his entrance money with a €50 note. Me being me, I turned to Marianne and said “I know these people. Make sure that that note is dry!”.

Apparently my comment was not appreciated.

Ahh well – ask me if I care. I hate people who don’t have a sense of humour.

And while we are on the subject of the petanque, I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw the doppelganger of a very dear departed friend. That quite knocked me back a little.

Apart from all of that, I’ve had the usual few hours on the website this morning.

This afternoon though, I managed to find an hour or so and I’ve planted some more carrots, spinach, radishes and some lettuce that I had setting in a few pots.

I’ve also noticed that a few of the lettuce seed that was out-of-date and so which I threw away on the garden a few weeks ago, some of that is sprouting.

Fancy that!

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Friday 16th September 2011 – IT POURED DOWN …

… all through the night and we had high winds too, but I slept right through it – didn’t feel a thing.

It’s overcast and cloudy but they reckon that it might clear so with a light heart and a spring in my step, I set off for Fredericton.

GIT numberplate fredericton new brunswick canadaFirst stop was the big Atlantic superstore on the edge of the city, and this caught my eye. Vehicle number plates go up to 999 here in New Brunswick, which is just as well.

They also go up to 999 in the UK so it’s also just as well that this combination of letters would never be issued over there, because 999 wouldn’t be anything like enough.

coffee cup holder kiddie's pushchair new brunswick canadaAnother thing that they would never dare sell in the UK would be a kiddie’s push-chair with a coffee cup holder like this one here.

It wouldn’t be a coffee cup that you would find in the cup holder, and it wouldn’t be an ice-cream holder that you would find in there either. In fact, it’s quite surprising the things that you find on sale here in North America that would never be sold in the UK – or maybe it isn’t.

justice building fredericton new brunswick canadaThat building over there has “Justice” written on it, so it’s probably quite appropriate that it’s hidden behind a pile of trees.

It also has two dates on it. The first one is 1878 and the second one is 1930, and so maybe the first one is the date that Justice began in Fredericton and the second date is the date that Justice ceased. I dunno.

But I will really have to stop being so cynical.

british army barracks fredericton new brunswick canadaThese are the old British Army barracks here in Queen Street. The British Army were here from 1784 to 1869, and was chefly known as the home of the 104th New Brunswick Regiment.

They were famous for a forced march of 700 miles in just 52 days to Kingston, Ontario through the snows of winter in 1813 during the war with the USA

city hall fredericton new brunswick canadaThis building that we have here is the old Fredericton City Hall. Built in 1876, it’s the oldest Municipal building in the Maritimes that is still in administrative use, and has been a Canadian National Historic Site since 23rd November 1984.

It’s quite rare in that it was built with a market hall underneath and which survived until as recently as 1951. Nowadays, the Tourist information department is housed there

george street blues project harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaBy now the weather had brightened up a little and the festival was under way.

On stage at the Officers Square was a local band, the George Street Blues Project. Too many musicians on stage for me, unfortunately. They can lose the harmonica player for a start as I’m not a very big fan of those. Every blues band believes that a harmonica is essential, yet very few harmonica players can play one properly.

george street blues project harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaThe guy at the front had an enormous amount of stage present and knew how to move a crowd, and they rocked along with numbers such as Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” and the Smokey Robinson hit “Get Ready”.

For an encore, they played the Kix Brooks number “Sacred Ground”, and that was that. I quite enjoyed that set.

Next up was an act called Christine Crowell, but the saxophones, trumpets and sheet music looked onimous and so I made my excuses and left. I had business elsewhere.

First step was to find the Canadian Government department dealing with commercial visas for people setting up businesses in Canada. After much searching and enlistment of the Fredericton City Hall, we eventually discovered that I need to speak to the Population Growth Secretariat (but why them I have no idea).

Kings Tower is where I’m supposed to be, and it has a shopping centre in it. Yes, a shopping centre, not a shopping mall. There’s hope for these Canadians yet.

Eventually I cut through swathes of red tape and blagged myself an interview with them. Her first question was, surprisingly enough, “how would your project help the growth of New Brunswick’s population?”
Never one to hold back when the occasion presents it self (as I have done so often in the past to my cost) I replied “if I told you that you would probably have me arrested”.
She tried again “we are trying to encourage the growth of young families here”
“Well”, I replied, “just because I look over the hill doesn’t mean that I am, and I still have considerable expectations along that line. If a suitable young woman were to present herself, I shall certainly try my best to increase the population of New Brunswick”.

And so she had another go. “You need to show some kind of proof of ability to invest $75,000 in your project”
“Well, I can put on the table proof of about $300,000 in cash” I replied. “Would that do?” Yes, I’ve just sold my apartment in Brussels, haven’t I, and I still have the cheque, which I haven’t deposited yet.

I picked up her pencil and notepad from the floor and handed it back to her, and I have to come back for my visa interview next Friday.

I popped round to the Festival Offices and had a chat with one of the girls there. And during this chat, the subject of “Radio Anglais
” came up. She asked about it, and so I told her, and then she asked me why I hadn’t applied for a Media Pass. Apparently I’m entitled to one, being the representative of a Media outlet.

So armed with my Media Pass, I went back to the festival.

chevrolet corvette 1978 fredericton new brunswick canadaI was however sidetracked, as you might expect, by an old and interesting vehicle.

This is a Chevrolet Corvette, from 1978 if the number plate is anything to go by, but it is certainly one of the later “3rd-Generation” Corvettes, judging by the rear lights. But it’s a little bit scruffy with a few scratches on the paintwork.

mike biggar harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaIn the Barracks Square tent was a guitarist called Mike Biggar. He comes from Rothesay which apparently is a suburb of Saint John.

He played a number that went something like “You Come To Me Like Sunset On The Water” or some such, that I don’t recall having heard before but it really was superb. I wish that I knew what it was.

24 pesos harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaOn stage at the Officers Square was a band from London – that’s the UK, not Ontario – called 24 Pesos. They had won some kind of competition, the prize of which was to come over here and play at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival.

It was a sort of modern blues, not really my scene, but there was no disputing the quality of the band. Their music really was good.

lonesome line harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaI went back to the Barracks Square after that, and discovered a band called Lonesome Line on stage. They come from Edmundston up in Madawaska and so we had an interesting little chat in French.

I wasn’t convinced by the wisdom of having an acoustic double-bass in an act like this. It doesn’t work when you are backing a lead guitar solo as you have so far to travel and so you can’t react quickly enough. And you will have noticed that it’s the drummer doing the backing vocals.

barracks square fredericton new brunswick canadaA pause in the proceedings enabled me to have a good look around the Barracks Square. We’ve seen the Barracks earlier, and this is the rear of the premises. It’s a grassy lawn in the quadrangle that will produce an interesting situation for the spectators if we have heavy rain.

The ground floor of the barracks here is transformed into little boutiques occupied by craft artists and the like but there’s not very much of interest to me.

lonesome line winners of competition harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaApparently there had been some kind of competition between the bands that were playing in the Barracks Square, and the winners were Lonesome Line, those who we saw just now.

And I was outraged by that. Lonesome Line were indeed quite good but there was no doubt in my mind that Mike Biggar was 10 times better and should have won this competition by a country mile. Still, I’ve often found myself in a minority of one at this Festival, so no reason to suppose that today will be any different.

buskers with police interaction harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaThere were quite a few buskers here and there around the town, including this couple playing down underneath the footbridge at the back of the library.

As the police car turned down there and pulled up close to them, I prepared the camera ready to record an “interaction” between the farces of Law and Order and the musicians. After all, I’m from the UK

buskers with police interaction harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaAnd sure enough, the window came down, the hand went out of the car and then, much to my surprise, the fingers came out and started tapping on the door in time to the music.

Like I say, I’m from the UK. I was half expecting to see an arrest on “public order” issues, a knee in the groin and a truncheon across the back of the neck.

And that reminds me – that’s the third policeman that I’ve seen since the festival started. Just imagine that in the UK. Three policemen in a couple of days at a do like this. There would be thousands.

That is, if the event were to take place at all. The British Health and Safety Inspectorate would have a field day with what I have seen here this last couple of days and the event would be closed down in minutes.

I hope that the Health and Safety Inspecorate is never imported into Canada

fraser and the offspring irving steps harvest jazz and blues festival fredericton new brunswick canadaI encountered a couple more buskers around the corner. On the steps of the Irving Building in Queen Street. These are called something like “Fraser and the Offspring” or some such name – it was very hard to hear.

I’ve seen many an impromptu band like this and indeed I’ve played bass and sang in quite a few, and these weren’t all that bad at all. I quite enjoyed listening to them and so did the little crowd that had gathered around them.

From here I went off to watch Taj Mahal in concert. No photography allowed at the Playhouse Theatre, but not to worry – I’ll catch up with them again in a public venue.

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Saturday 3rd September 2011 – CHARLEVOIX

cap tourmente tourist information office charlevoix quebec canadaThis is my spec from last night – the big Tourist Office on the slope down from Cap Tourmente into the Charlevoix. And it was just like home too with a huge hanging cloud hovering over me.

And while parking up at a place like this might be a good idea in theory, it falls down in reality because there is no coffee machine, and that is unthinkable. What kind of welcome is this for tourists?

baie st paul charlevoix quebec canadaBy the time that I had driven down the hill, through the town of Baie St Paul and up the hill on the other side, the hanging cloud had gone.

There’s a big parking place just along there with a magnificent view of the bay, the interior and also the town, and anyone standing on this point for more than 30 seconds will immediately understand why it is that the Charlevoix is the most beautiful place in the world.

la malbaie quebec canadaA beautiful drive along the coast brought me to the town of La Malbaie. I came past here on my first journey to Canada but I was in a little hurry and so never stopped. However, today I took the opportunity to stop and go for a wander around.

It’s a really nice town, quite pretty too, and its claim to fame is that it was here that I handed out my first business card to a potential client.

st lawrence ferry riviere du loup st simeon quebec canadaAs the mid morning sun cleared away the fog in the river, the views became spectacular. especially across the St Lawrence River.

And there is the distance is the St Lawrence Ferry that crosses between St Simeon and Riviere du Loup. We sailed on that on my first trip here too, smashing through the ice on the way across. But this year, I have another ferry crossing planned.

saguenay ferry tadoussac quebec canadaAnd I don’t mean this ferry either.

We’ve been on this ferry quite a few times and we are going on it again. It’s the Saguenay Ferry that crosses the mouth of the Saguenay River on the north bank of the St Lawrence at Tadoussac. It’s a symbolic ferry in that the river formerly marked the unofficial dividing line between “civilisation” and the backwoods.

T-rex car saguenay ferry tadoussac quebec canadaIt’s symbolic for other reasons, because look what else I’ve found here.

This is called a T-Rex and it’s a car, believe it or not, made in Quebec. About 50 of these are produced every year and if I lived here in Canada I would be the first in the queue for one of these. And of course, it would have to be called “The White Swan”, for the most obvious of reasons.

german caravan munich saguenay ferry quebec canadaAnd that’s not all of the excitement either. There was a mobile home and caravan on board the ferry and you will notice the number plates. It’s come all of the way from Munich in Germany.

I went over to interrogate the owners and it appears that they have crossed the Atlantic with a company called Seabridge, the vehicle being shipped by Atlantic Containers in a service that runs from Hamburg and a few other places over to Halifax and Montreal.

I shall have to look into this.

ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaThis rusting hulk that has come sailing into Les Escoumins is the boat that is taking me over to Trois Pistoles on the south bank of the St Lawrence.

It’s quite an interesting ferry. Tickets are sold in the petrol station in the town, check-in is done by a man who drives up in a car, uses the inside of his hatchback as a desk, and then drives off again afterwards

As for the ship – well, she’s seen better days, and that’s what makes this crossing really interesting. Anyway, I pick up my oar, I’m chained to my seat and off we go.

couple from massachusetts st lawrence ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaJust by way of a change, there were all kinds of exciting people on the ferry and I fell in with this American couple from Massachusetts.

Strawberry Moose won some new admirers of course, because he is such a gregarious moose, and the feeling was mutual.

We had a lengthy chat, during the course of which they mentioned that they just driven the Trans-Labrador Highway. They had done the trip in reverse, so they said, which made me think that they must have had a really good pair of rear-view mirrors, because there was no obvious crick in the guy’s neck.

strawberry moose st lawrence ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaAs the sun goes down on the St Lawrence River, Strawberry Moose surveys the scene.

Trois Pistoles is getting closer and closer and night is drawing in, so I won’t have much chance of finding a home fortonight. What I’ll have to do is to drive over the mountains tonight to the other side of Quebec on the New Brunswick frontier and see what presents itself.

I’m full of optimism, so all is well.

This is just a short account of everything that happened today. I took tons of photos and wrote loads of notes, so if you want to see it all, you need to go to this page and follow the account from there.

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Sunday 3rd July 2011 – Remember yesterday …

rainwater harvesting home made water filter les guis virlet puy de dome france… when I said that today I would be working on the guttering and the water filter system? Well in fact that was what I did this afternoon and you can see the results just here in the photo. We now have full-sized guttering and a full-sized downpipe with a decent-sized sump that is angled down to where the drain is.

The tube down to the settling pipe is 80mm like the rest of the guttering, and from there on, nothing else has changed.

I’ve been trying to fit a covering over the top but I can’t get it to fasten down. In the end I’ll be having to resort to cable ties I reckon. Now where did I put my cable ties then?

I also said that I would be doing some bread baking, but the less said about that the better. Apart from dropping some of my mix on the floor, I ended up with a couple of soggy lumps of I’m not quite sure what – and that after spending I don’t know how long looking for a third shelf for the oven. I reckon that the “best before” date of April 2010 might have something to do with this, and so I’ll have another go with some fresh stuff and see what happens. But I really need a decent flat tray for the oven.

fete touristique roche d'agoux puy de dome franceMarianne the local journalist from the newspaper La Montagne rang me up this morning to invite me to Roche D’Agoux for her presentation at the tourism morning. She drove in her car and I went as passenger.

This was not really such a sound move as I get bored with this kind of thing after about half an hour. I’m not really much of a socialite as you all know and 2 hours and more is more than enough for me.

eglise village church roche d'agoux puy de dome franceAnd so after a while I slipped away and went for a little walk around the village. Only a little walk of course because there isn’t too much of a village to see.It’s only a small place.

Centre of every village in France is the church, and generally speaking, they are well-worth seeing. The one here at Roche d’Agoux is no exception and is, for a change, in an exceptionally-good state of preservation for such a small village.

jeux de quilles ten pin bowling alley roche d'agoux puy de dome franceOne thing for which Roche d’Agoux is famous (because it has several claims to fame which we shall discuss in early course) is that it has a public 10-pin bowling alley – a jeux de quilles in the open air.

It actually works too, so I was told later, and I would have loved to have had a go. But I think that you have to bring your own bowling balls. But anyway, it’s not what you would expect to find in a village like this.

Back at the tourism exhibition, I discovered that the organisers were the people who organise the vintage fete at St Maurice pres Pionsat where they have all of the old cars. I had a good chat with one of the organisers about the Minerva – so much so that I’ve been invited to exhibit it there on August 14th. I need to get a move on and get it running.

leper window church roche d'agoux puy de dome franceWhen the do was over, I told Marianne about my little wander around the village and the visit to the church. She told me that the church is quite famous – one of the several things for which Roche d’Agoux is famous – and that we should visit the inside of it.

She went off on a voyage somewhere and came back brandishing the keys to the front door. She knew who held them and had gone off for a little negotiation on my behalf

leper window church roche d'agoux puy de dome franceIn the immediate vicinity of Roche d’Agoux in the Middle Ages was a very large leper colony and they were isolated from the general community, as you might have expected in those days.

However, the lepers were obliged to attend Mass just the same as everyone else and so special provisions were made for them in the church. They had their own alcove away from the mainstream congregation and could witness the mass through a special leper window

roche d'agoux puy de dome franceAnother claim to fame for Roche d’Agoux is that the village is built on an bed of quartz that runs for maybe 20 kilometres across the north-western Combrailles.

The village takes its name from one of the most important outcrops of this bed, It is full of quartz and semi-precious stones and has been exploited for its precious stones in the past as well as having been quarried for building material.

roche d'agoux puy de dome franceNow, it’s a viewpoint for the village and the surrounding area. There are steps around the side and you can climb up to the top for a look.

It’s often been said that the rock that we have just seen is part of a Medieval castle that was situated here in the village but that’s not correct. This was something that was written in a guide book in the 1880s and has simply been copied out liberally without anyone having actually come here to visit the site.

chateau de Guillaume de Rochedagoux roche d'agoux puy de dome franceThere was indeed a medieval castle chateau fort here in Roche d’Agoux, but that was over there on that eminence – the small hill over there about a quarter of a mile away from the rock.

Unfortunately we cannot go to visit it as it’s on private property and the owner doesn’t encourage tourists which is a shame. But apparently there are quite a few remains that can be seen, according to someone who went there many years ago.

town walls roche d'agoux puy de dome franceThere are some ruins visible here and it doesn’t take much imagination for them to be pictured as remains of the castle or even remains of a wall around the village, but that is pure speculation.

But anyway, all of this area was the fiefdom of Guillaume de Rochedagoux in the mid-13th Century. He was famous for having gone on one of the Crusades to the Holy Land. He passed through the land of the Armenians (you have to remember that back in those days the territory of Armenia was much bigger than it is in modern times), noticed the skilled weavers there, and brought some of them back.

This accounts for the history that this region had as a flax-weaving area in the past, and accounts for names of places in the area (for example the Moulin des Armenièns) and the surname Desarmenièn that you encounter around here.

Anyway the hospitality had been freely flowing at the fete de tourisme, so much so that I had to drive back.

brocante arpheuilles st priest allier franceAnd I still had time, after playing for a while with the rainfall harvesting equipment to go off to Arpheuilles St Priest and the brocante that they were having today.

There weren’t many stalls there – despite the glorious weather – by the time that I arrived and I wasn’t able to go mad. but “spend, spend, spend” it was indeed and I was out by as much as €4:00 by the time that I left.

But the brocante was not my only reason for going to Arpheuilles St Priest. We’ve talked … "at great length" – ed … about the tacot or ligne economique, the narrow-gauge line that meandered through this area of the Allier between Marcillat en Combraille.

ligne economique gare de chemin de fer arpheuilles st pierre allier franceIt actually passed through (and that’s a rare thing – that the tacot actually passed through anywhere) Arpheuilles St Priest and so I reckoned that I would go and see if I can find any trace of the line.

And having waded through a couple of hedges and a pile of weeds (and someone’s nicely-mown lawn) this is, what I reckon might have been the track-bed of the line. It’s very much like the width that an abandoned railway line might be and it’s heading in the general direction of Commentry

ligne economique gare de chemin de fer arpheuilles st pierre allier franceAnd now that I know what a tacot railway station looks like, having identified the one at Marcillat en Combraille the other day, I could go off and look for a building that corresponds.

And here we are – following my track-bed backwards across the road I ended up peering through the trees at this building, and this is what my money is on. This looks like a tacot railway station to me if ever I saw one.

So wasn’t this a busy day then? It kept me well out of mischief and I learnt a lot too.

And so have you now.

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