Tag Archives: traffic jam

Tuesday 13th January 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

… why they send me on these wild goose chases halfway around the country and back so that some specialist in some hospital somewhere can tell me exactly what I already know and have known for several months.

As if I don’t have enough to do with my time.

And especially if it means crawling out of bed at some ridiculous time like 05:00.

Yes! 05:00! So last night I went without any food for tea, dashed through my notes, which were on-line at 20:27 precisely, the earliest time … "and by a long way too" – ed … that they have ever so been. And by the time that I finally made it into bed, it was just coming up to 21:00.

And when was the last time that I’d been in bed that early when I’ve not been feeling unwell?

However, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … it’s an absolute waste of time going to bed early, because all it means is that I awaken correspondingly early the following morning. So there I was, tossing and turning in bed, trying desperately to go back to sleep at just before 02:00.

That was a waste of time too, and I lay there, semi-comatose, until the alarm went off at 05:00 when I hauled myself out of bed and staggered off into the bathroom to make myself look pretty.

And that was also a waste of time.

The taxi came a few minutes early and luckily, it was one of my favourite drivers, the one who “presses on” like an old-school taxi driver and always has plenty to say for herself. She helped me finish my packing and then we set off.

So far, I’d been without food for almost twenty-four hours and without drink for about fifteen hours. I work on the principle of “what doesn’t go in won’t want to come out during the journey” — after all, four hours or so in a taxi is a long time. Nevertheless, I packed a couple of slices of my “energy flapjack” and a small bottle of water in case I have a diabetic crisis along the way.

We had a good run and a good chat all the way as far as Mantes-La-Jolie, in between Rouen and Paris, and that was where we hit the traffic and the farmers’ demonstrations. A wrong turn on the prif led us out on the autoroute towards Rungis and Orly further complicated affairs, and what was looking at one stage like an easy 09:45 arrival for my 10:30 appointment turned out to be a panic-stricken 11:25.

Having to find me a wheelchair (it’s a different building so I didn’t know where the doctor was and how far I’d have to walk, and we were already hours late) and having to understand the unnecessarily complicated system of lifts didn’t help matters.

While we were stuck in traffic, I’d telephoned the doctor to say that we’d be late, so he let in several patients ahead of me, which was quite natural. Consequently, it was 12:25 when I was finally seen.

He poked and prodded me, put all these needles into my muscles and passed an electrical current through them to test my nerve reactions, and then examined the results.

Before he began to test me, he asked me how I was feeling and whether there was any sign of improvement. I told him that I was feeling lousy as usual and I was sure that there was a definite deterioration since my examination last January.

His conclusion was "I’m very sorry to say that there is no improvement, and you are right about the deterioration."

As I said just now, I could have told him that without having to go all the way to Paris. What a waste of a day!

While I was there, I asked him about the stabbing pain in my foot. He told me that as my nervous system is slowly breaking down, things like this are to be expected and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. He actually put it into a more scientific explanation, but that was the gist of it.

My chauffeur was waiting for me when I came out, and after I’d been to warm my feet, we headed to the car. Getting out of the wheelchair was exciting, but in the end I managed it and we headed for home.

On the way back, I fell asleep twice, which is no surprise considering my bad night, and we arrived home to disappointing weather. In Paris, it had been bright sunshine, beautiful clear blue skies and quite warm for the time of year. Here in Granville, it was overcast, raining, windy and cold. At least we’d had no hold-ups on the road to delay us.

My faithful cleaner was waiting to help me into the apartment and instead of a disgusting drink, I had a caffeine-packed energy drink. And I needed it too after over twenty-four hours of nothing to drink.

Having disposed of that, I came in here to listen to the dictaphone notes. I was actually surprised that there were some.

I can only remember fragments of this dream but there was something about being at home. We were in Vine Tree Avenue and there was something about the weather, but I can’t remember what. Then, my mother came into the living room to find out what we’d been doing. In this little box, I had a very, very small puppy. My mother asked about it and I replied that I’d found it somewhere. She had a look at it, and she agreed that it was really small, and because of its small size, we could keep it. There was much more to it than this, but I can’t remember anything once I awoke.

What interrupted my reverie, as I found out later on, was that in reaching for the dictaphone, I dropped the battery charger and all of the spare batteries onto the floor from off the little table behind the bedhead I shall have to pick that up in due course. But me with a puppy? Not that that’s ever likely to happen. Dogs and I just don’t get on. Give me a cat or two … "or three or four" – ed … any day.

Tea was the other half of Sunday’s pizza, which I wolfed down because there was football on the television, Y Barri v Llanelli. Y Barri scored a goal after two minutes but surprisingly, Llanelli, well-adrift at the foot of the table, managed to equalise.

It was only delaying the inevitable though, as Y Barri scored four more before the hour was up. You could see than Llanelli had effectively abandoned the game after that because their heads went down and they lost interest in chasing the ball, but Y Barri, once more, refused to turn the screw and played possession football for most of the rest of the game instead of going for the jugular.

That was disappointing.

And so, with aching foot and totally exhausted, I’m off to bed.
granville
But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about my trip to Paris and the Neurology department … "well, one of us has" – ed … the doctor told me "there’s some good news and some bad news#34;
"What’s the bad news?" I asked.
"The bad news is that you are going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life"
"And what’s the good news?"
"I can get you a fair price for your crutches."

Monday 8th September 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

… this has been. It’s been another one where almost everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong and I’m beginning to become totally fed up with days like this.

It all began to go wrong last night when I seemed once again to take hours to do the simplest of things. It ended up, from an optimistic start, being quite late yet again. It wasn’t far short of midnight when I finished everything that I had to do.

As the programmer for the water heater was due to fire up at midnight, I waited around to make sure that it did. And it was just as well that I waited around for it because, in fact, it didn’t start up. It took me an age to work out how to fire it up manually (and I still don’t understand how I managed it) and it was after 00:30 when I finally crawled into bed.

It was quite a turbulent night yet again with more long periods when I was unable to sleep, but when the alarm went off at 06:29 it caught me unawares, deep in the Land of Nod. And it’s been a good while since that has happened.

After breakfast, I came back in here to see where I’d been during the night. We were in West Street in Crewe, a group of us. We were again packing ready to go away. At the same time, a big box came and I had to unpack it. It was my Fender Jazz bass and amp. I picked it up and began to play, but realised that I could no longer play. I didn’t know how to. I was racking my brains about how I was going to start to play the bass. After a while, Nerina came up to me and said “we’re leaving in five minutes. You have to get a move on!”. I started quickly to pack everything away, and Nerina said that she was going for a shower, however the other girl with us had begun to pack and I had to give her a hand, and either put my boxes into a big box with handles or else cut handles into the sides of my own for easy manoeuvre. But then I noticed the moon. It was huge tonight, it was very close and was completely full. Away in the distance, I could see the sun that was quite full too. I thought that we would have a lovely sky tonight. But back inside the office of the service station where we were packing, the girl who was packing my stuff, I asked her how she was. She said that she was struggling to fit my things in. I had a look in the hold of the ship. The first thing that I noticed was an old pool table. I asked why it was there, why can’t we move it? She said that it weighs a ton. It was an old-style table and no-one can lift it. “We’ve asked the Council if they would lift it but they need an authorisation and my authorisation” she said “has expired a long time ago”.

So I’m going away yet again. This has become a regular theme just recently, and it must be my body telling me something. The Fender bass is another issue that I need to resolve. The bass and amp are currently languishing in Canada and they need to be brought over here quite soon before I forget. As for the ship’s hold, that is self-explanatory. If I’m going anywhere, there is inevitably a passage on board a boat somewhere.

At another point, we were walking down Chestnut Avenue in Shavington, looking at the new houses. I mentioned that the houses on one side of the street were built on the rubbish dump. Someone else pointed out that the houses on the other side of the street were built on a hill slope, but one that was secured with special material like a net. It was the best material that we had ever seen. So we had a look in the driveways of one of the houses. In one of them, on the side that had been netted, we actually saw a piece of net sticking out of the ground so we had a good look at it.

These hare hardly new houses in Chestnut Avenue. I remember them being built in the early 1960s on the field in which we played and over the brook into which we fell with monotonous regularity.

When the alarm went off, I was talking to a girlfriend of mine about another girl with whom I’d been in a relationship. But the moment that I changed apartment to buy a bigger apartment maybe for us all to move into, she suddenly developed cold feet and our relationship immediately fizzled out. But that’s all that I remember about that because the alarm went off.

Nothing new in this either. It’s something that has happened on a couple of occasions in the past.

Isabelle the Nurse came in to deal with my legs, and she gave me yet another dire warning about the dialysis at home issue. I promised her that I’d mention it today at dialysis, promising that I’d refuse it.

After she left, I made my breakfast and read some more of ADVENTURES ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

Our author has arrived on shore and is busy setting up camps and trading posts. He describes the cruel and savage reprisals that took place during the inter-native conflicts, acts that defy description. And he also recounts his experiences in the forests with wild beasts when he becomes separated from his party for a couple of weeks.

It’s full of stories like that, all described with immaculate care and attention.

Back in here, the plumber had set me a few tasks to check the pipework, and that occupied me for quite a while. I had to break off because my cleaner arrived to apply my anaesthetic cream.

She was late arriving today so naturally, the taxi was early – although not before I’d fallen asleep for five minutes, sitting on my chair waiting.

There were three passengers all told, including me, with the driver, and we had to drop off one of them on the way. However, we arrived quite early and I had high hopes of being connected quite quickly.

And so I was, but one of the needles had missed its aim and had pierced me, making me suffer the most indescribable agony. It had to be replanted, and it wasn’t much better.

While I was lying there, I organised my shopping list for tomorrow. There’s some new vegan produce available and I’m determined to try it to see what it’s like.

The doctor came to see me, and amongst one of the things that I wanted to mention was that I intend to refuse the “dialysis at home”.

My explanation was that I’d spoken to people like the visiting nurses and they had strongly counselled against it. His response was "they don’t know what they are talking about".

That was, I thought, a very strange response seeing that one of the nurses was actually a nurse in the dialysis clinic in St Malo. However, that cut no ice at all. Instead, I carried on with my shopping list and, regrettably, crashed out again.

It took the nurses an age, unfortunately, to unplug me and compress the punctures, and when I boarded the taxi, I was told that not only was the closure of the autoroute this month responsible for a long nose-to-tail traffic jam through Avranches, a road accident at Marcey on one of the deviation routes had bottled that up too and it was chaos.

To rub salt into the wound, we had to go to the clinic at Avranches to pick up someone else. Going there, through the backstreets, wasn’t too bad but coming back was a nightmare. By the time that we reached the dialysis centre on our way back from the clinic, we’d already been on the road for over an hour.

So from one of the potentially earliest departures that I might have had, it was probably the latest ever that I returned home, totally fed up.

For tea, I just scratched something together quickly. I was going to make something interesting, but not at this time of night. For some reason that I can’t explain, I’m exhausted and so I’m off to bed. I’ve had enough for today.

But seeing as we have been talking about the wild beasts in the forests of North America … "well, one of us has" – ed … the amount of alcohol that they used to swig down while hunting was phenomenal.
That’s a characteristic of North American hunting that exists even today.
I was once with a group of hunters in the forests of Maine and it went something like this –
BANG! – "I got a deer"
BANG! – "I got a bear"
BANG! – "I got a moose"
BANG! – "Oh, sorry. You OK, Bob? Well, never mind. Throw him on the pickup anyway. No-one will notice the difference"

Sunday 14th August 2022 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!

It actually rained today. And I missed most of it.

When I (eventually) awoke this morning (yes it was morning) the bright blue sky that we had had for the last I don’t know how long had changed into a woolly grey mass of cloud and the temperature was probably 10°C cooler too. Not that you’d know it in here because being a stone building with walls 1.20m thick it managed to avoid the extremes of temperature that we have outside.

Mind you, it wasn’t far off midnight. That’s because come 03:00 this morning I was still up and about. I’ve no idea what time I eventually went to bed but I was glad that I wasn’t going out at 08:30 this morning.

In actual fact I was awake at 10:20 but there wasn’t all that much likelihood of me showing a leg at that time. It was much more like 11:00 when I finally staggered into the daylight and went for my medication, feeling quite grateful that I’d prepared the music for the radio yesterday instead of trying to do it today.

Back in here, in a mad fit of enthusiasm and I’ve no idea where that came from, I listened to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was a house somewhere down Minshull New Road or somewhere like that, a council house. I don’t know what I was doing in it but it was filthy, dirty, dusty, overfull of furniture etc. The only way out was to climb through a window, one of the smaller fanlight windows at the top. I’d been doing that for a while here and there. One day a girl in there got hold of me, told me her name and told me that she lived in this house and that she was fed up of people coming in and going out again through the window. I made a facetious remark about going out of the door which didn’t go down very well. I said “never mind. I’ll write you an apology. It’s no problem to me” so we agreed that I would write her an apology and she would accept it. We had a chat and she was saying how she hated this house and how she was hoping to move etc, quite a long discussion. In the end I decided that I had to go. Of course the only way out was through the window. I went to open the window which for some unknown reason wasn’t easy today. While I was at it two dogs, a big one and a small one came up and started gnawing at my leg. Then some old man came in and asked what I was doing. I explained to him and explained that I’d seen the girl. He didn’t seem to be all that pleased and was making up all kinds of reasons for it to be extremely difficult for me to climb out of that window. I was determined that I was going anyway. We were talking about travelling around the world. I said that I’d met some interesting people. He asked if I’d been to Moscow so I replied “yes”. He asked if I’d ever been to New York so I replied “yes”. He said that the World Trade Centre has only been down a few years so I replied that I’d been to New York a lot longer than those had been down. We had quite an acrimonious discussion, polite but bad-tempered. All the time I was trying to go out through this window so that I could leave but everything seemed to be conspiring against me to stop me going and to keep me in this flaming filthy, dusty, dirty house.

Later on I was at work. I’d been promoted and was working with the inspectors. We received certain information about different things and I suggested ways of dealing with it that were unorthodox but were bound to bring in results and weren’t illegal. Everyone looked at me strangely and as we didn’t have the staff we put it on the back burner for the moment. In the afternoon we were invited to a beach party so we went down there. A lot of the people were playing beach volleyball but I was peering through some papers that I’d brought with me sitting in the sun. I thought “when I’ve finished these papers I can go and join in the volleyball”. But everyone suddenly packed up and started to move. Someone asked where they were going and the response was “guess”. It turned out that they were all heading to the local night club because even though it wasn’t night time it was probably open by now. I had no intention whatever of going there but one has to be sociable. Just then some woman from the office came by with a huge folder and said “guess what I have in here”. I know that I was trying to lay my hands on a folder for work so I said the name. She said “no. It’s a list of all second-homes and country cottages in the UK”. I suggested that these be compared with the owners. If necessary we could make enquiries about them and tie them up to their owners and see what comes of it. Someone was there, a Prophet of Doom, saying that it would never work, that’s totally illegal” which of course it was nonsense. I was trying to argue my particular corner. For some reason these people seemed to be totally devoid of any imagination and were totally unlikely to make anything work with the kind of imagination that they had.

That’s one thing that I’ve noticed since I left the UK in 1992. These days British people seem to fall at the first fence when they are trying to do something. When a problem arises or a technical hitch develops or something goes wrong or a machine breaks or a plan needs developing, the first setback is enough to make them throw in the towel.

We were always taught to use our imagination, to think, and work out a workaround and I used to have loads of fun doing that. But I seem to be one of a very small breed of people today. It reminds me of the saying “99% of the population has problems, but the rest of us have solutions”.

After lunch I came back in here but strangely, I can’t remember now what I did. I know that I didn’t fall asleep, that is a surprise in itself these days. I managed to keep on going until it was time to go walkies but just as I was about to step out of the door Ingrid rang.

We ended up having a marathon session on the telephone too seeing as it’s been a while since we last spoke, and the result of all of this was that I was considerably late going for my afternoon walk.

As usual the first thing that I did was to go over to the wall at the end of the car park to look down on the beach.

There were hordes of people down there this afternoon but they weren’t there for the sunbathing.

That was because
1) there was no sun
2) It’s the time for the pèche à pied and they were all mainly down there at the water’s edge having a scratch around to see what they could pull up

And with the tide being quite well out, it was all systems go further down the coast.

At Donville les Bains there’s a bouchot farm and you can see all of the stakes planted in the sand. Someone made an accidental discovery that if you leave ropes and things in the water the shellfish will actually grow on them in preference to the sand.

And that’s quite a delicacy too because the shellfish aren’t full of sandy grit and taste so much better.

Why that works so well here, apart from the fact that we have so much shellfish, is that with the high tides, the ropes and stakes can be well-submerged for growing the shellfish but at low tide they are out of the water and can be harvested and the equipment maintained quite easily.

But here’s an example of an earlier generation of fish traps.

This is the kind of thing that would have been common in medieval times. They would build a wall of loose-fitting stones across a bay or estuary so that at high tide, water and the fish therein would over flow behind the wall. And as the tide went out, the water would exfiltrate through the gaps in the stones leaving the fish behind.

And then all of your medieval fishwives would wade in and catch the fish with their bare hands ready for supper.

It’s the kind of thing that would still work today if it were properly maintained.

There’s a sort-of modern version of it here.

That’s the tidal swimming pool at the Plat Gousset and the principle is the same. And today it seems to have caught quite a few fish of the two-legged variety in its trap.

The person in the fluorescent yellow jacket is the lifeguard. There is a handful of them scattered around at various places on the beach keeping an eye on the activities and making sure that no-one is swept away.

Not that they are likely to be swept away in the tidal swimming pool but you never know your luck, I suppose.

From there I wandered off to the viewpoint overlooking the Plat Gousset.

Whenever we’ve seen that just recently it’s been heaving with people on the beach taking the sun but not today. There aren’t too many people down there in this weather. They are all wandering around the Place Marechal Foch.

But what caught my eye in this photo was the long queue of traffic coming down the hill into town. I can’t remember ever having seen a traffic jam quite like that in all the time that I’ve been living here

The reason for that might be something not unconnected with what’s going on in this photo.

These days it seems that you can’t go anywhere without attracting the attention of the local farces of Law and Order. And a couple of Granville’s finest seem to be rather more than interested in what this biker is up to with his machine.

In actual fact there were four policemen altogether and maybe they were performing a spot check of vehicles entering the town.

Nevertheless it’s good to see them going for the same old stereotyped victims. Nothing much changes, despite the passage of time.

another reason might be that the town centre is all closed off to through traffic today.

No vehicles are allowed in there right now and so they are having to go around the outside. That means that gordes of pedestrians can roam around the streets in perfect safety to their hearts’ content.

Rather bad luck if you live in the town centre and need your car, but never mind.

When I lived in Brussels we had a car-free day one Sunday every year. All of the public transport was free and there were all kinds of entertainments in the street.

Where I lived was on a hill on the edge of the city centre and you could see the dramatic improvement in air quality down below by the end of the day.

My route from here took me through the Place Maurice Marland.

My seagull chick wasn’t there today so maybe it had gone off for a fly around with its mum. I hope that it wasn’t the one that I saw dead by the side of the street on Friday.

There was plenty of activity in the harbour this afternoon. It doesn’t look as if anyone had gone out working. Over there on the back wall we had Le Coelacanthe and little sister le Tiberiade. You can tell them apart in this photo as the gormer has the wings to its bridge.

In the foreground from left to right we have the new Suzanga, the blue Massabielle and on the right, the little white Nais.with red and yellow stripes.

Plenty of others too that didn’t make it into the photograph which was a shame.

Over there in the bay where the gravel boats used to tie up is the trawler Philcathane

The other two boats that are there, I didn’t expect to see them here today. Marité for example, the wooden sailing ship. With it being a Sunday in the middle of the tourist season I would have thought that she would have gone out and about into the bay with a crowd of passengers to earn a few bob while the going was good.

As for Chausiaise, a friend of mine in St Helier sent me a photo this morning of her over there in jersey. The freight situation is definitely hotting up here if she’s being pressed into service.

Victor Hugo, the Channel Islands ferry isn’t here though. She spent yesterday and today running around the Channel Islands but she’s back in port by the time that I’m writing this.

From here I headed for home through the old town.

It’s book fair today and everyone had set out their stall to sell their surplus books. But by the time that I arrived here it was quite late and most people had packed up and had gone home.

And regular readers of this rubbish will recall me talking about the Monegasque Royal Family and their connections here when one of the Grimaldis married a local girl. The browny-grey granite house on the street corner on the left is where she lived.

Carrying on homewards I had a look over the wall and out into the bay.

A little earlier I mentioned the pèche à pied. Over there you can still see a few people out there but they are now heading for safety as the tide is coming in. And it comes in here quite rapidly too so they don’t want to be caught hanging about.

It was raining ever so slightly as I reached home and that’s a good thing as this are has been declared in a State of Emergency because of the drought. But we’ll need much more rain than this to do any good. Probably about a week’s torrential downpour.

And now I remember what it was that I did after lunch.

Last weekend I used up the last of the pizza dough so I had to make some more. That was how I spent the early afternoon and it had been proofing while I was otherwise occupied.

When I came back from my walk two lumps went into the freezer and I rolled out the third one and put it on the tray for its second proofing.

Later on this evening I assembled my pizza and put it in the oven to cook. And it was delicious too.

But here’s something that I rarely do. In fact, I can’t think when I last did it.

Usually I know exactly what my appetite will be and I make my food accordingly. My pizza is always a standard, regular size.

But tonight, about a third of it went into the bin. I quite simply couldn’t finish it and that’s something that has rarely, if ever happened to me before. It’s not like me at all to be off my food and not even want to save it for breakfast.

What’s happening here?

Anyway that’s for another day as I’m off to bed right now. Radioing early in the morning so I need to be at my best. But not much chance of that.

Wednesday 24th June 2020 – I’VE BEEN …

… out and about on my travels this morning.

So while you admire the photos of the baby seagull, which now seems to be very fit and healthy, I can give you the account of my day.

And just for a change, it got off to a very good start, for I was actually up and out of bed before the third alarm – something that doesn’t happen too often these day. Maybe it was the early night that helped there – if you can call 23:45 an early night.

After the medication I had a listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

Last night there was a group of us working on a new history textbook for schools and this involved rewriting quite a bit of stuff that was already in it including a load of songs and so on. So we noticed that these songs to fit into the new way of things and it was quite difficult for everyone to get into the habit of hearing them in the new way and I remember my brother being particularly surprised at some of the changes made to the songs in order to make the songs fit the times more than anything else
There was something else going on during the night and I’ve forgotten a lot of it but I’d been caught doing something and been punished in some way by having to do something, carry out a few tasks and at the end of that time I was given £30:00 in 2x£15:00 vouchers to spend. Whoever I was with – it might have been Nerina – was really upset about that and demanded to talk to me about it. The guy who was watching me, I held up the two vouchers and waved them about to attract his attention and said that I was going into the building. Nerina came with me and I had to find a quiet room to have a discussion. There were about 6 rooms in this building and there wasn’t really one that was suitable – the walls were flimsy and there were people in adjacent rooms. In the end we found a room where the photocopier was and we were about to go into there. And that was when the alarm went off.

And even though it was Nerina who was with me for part of the evening I do have to say that regardless of any of our issues, I would much rather have her company on my nocturnal rambles than many of the others who have been putting in an appearance just recently.

I’m still not eating breakfast so having done a little work, Caliburn and I headed for the hills – Gavray, in fact.

When I arrived in the town I took a wrong turning and I’m glad that I did because I found something that I would otherwise have missed – an old disaffected railway station.

There was a “Light Railway Act” in France similar to that in the UK of 1896, and for a period of about 50 years the whole of France became honeycombed with what they called the tacot or “rattletrap” – a narrow-gauge voie metrique railway network.

It’s the kind of system that was highlighted in the Alec Guinness FATHER BROWN series of films in the 1950s of the books by GK Chesterton

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we have seen plenty of examples of this on our travels, especially in the Auvergne where I used to live and also here in Normandy along the coast.

There was also a voie metrique that went across-country from Granville to Conde-sur-Vire, opened in 1910 and closed in 1936 (and we’ve seen lines closed much quicker than that too). That line passed through Gavray and there would almost certainly have been a railway station here.

That has always been one of the things that I’ve been aiming to do – to track it down – and having taken a wrong turning in Gavray when I was looking for something else, I find myself falling right on it, quite by chance.

So while you admire the photos of the kayaker and othe rpeople in various water craft out there fishing today, I was busy tracking down the garage that I had come to visit.

Eventually I tracked it down and the guy had a good look at Caliburn. He reckons that it’s perfectly possible to do something with Caliburn. There’s no rot except in one wheel arch – the rest of it is simply rubbing down, rust-proofing, zinc priming and about a ton of underseal.

He’s not going to end up as he did out of the factory 13 years ago, and it’s not cheap either. But with my lifespan that’s left there’s no point in buying a new vehicle just for three or four years.

Caliburn and I may as well go out together.

So I headed on back to Granville and I’ll wait for the estimate to arrive. But I’ve decided that i’m going to have it done anyway.

When I reached the outskirts of Granville I took the by-pass and joined the traffic queue heading south towards St Pair sur Mer.

Brico Cash was where I was heading, to see what they had on offer today as I haven’t been there for a while.

And the answer is “not an awful lot”. There wasn’t anything that caught my eye particularly although I picked up some French plugs. A couple of the appliances that I brought from The Auvergne when I was there just now still have British plugs on them.

Traffic queues back here as well. I was stuck behind a grockle in a motor home admiring the blasted seagulls instead of advancing in an orderly fashion.

Back here there was still plenty of time before lunch so I had another look at the web pages that I’ve been amending.

That one is now completed and I’ve made a start on the next. I’ve now crossed over the border into Great Satan and I’m on my way to Bar Harbor in Maine.

By now it was lunchtime.

It was beautiful and warm and bright and sunny so I made my sandwiches (home-made bread, home-made hummus and salad) and went and sat outside on the wall again.

Even though the tide was well out and there were no ships or boats in the harbour, there was still quite a bit of activity going on down there today, despite it being the lunch hour.

There was a mobile crane down there and as I watched, it was joined by another one – the big mobile crane that comes here every so often.

The big crane extended its jib and they were both performing some kind of activity out there. I couldn’t see what it was, so I shall have to go out that way on my Sunday walk to see what has changed.

It can’t be anything too complicated because all the way through the manoeuvre … “PERSONoeuvre” – ed … one of the Joly France boats – the newer one – was moored right there and with the tide being out, it wasn’t moving anywhere else.

Back at the apartment I tackled the last week of my Accountancy course. I’ve finished it, not very successfully I have to say because I can’t remember all that much about what I just learnt.

That’s one of the penalties of old age. Two things happen to you then.
The first is that you forget absolutely everything that you are supposed to remember.
And as for the second thing – well, I’ve forgotten what that was.

There was the usual break for my afternoon walk.

Today, in the gorgeous hot sunlight I went for a walk around the walls of the medieval town. From there I could look down on the beach at the Plat Gousset and watch all of the crowds enjoying themselves.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and the brats aren’t in school so the beach was busier than normal, and that’s not a surprise. Given half a chance, I’d be down there myself.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago we saw the local council clearing out the old tidal swimming pool with a lorry and a digger – clearing out years of accumulated silt.

They’ve done a really good job by the look of it. It’s actually retaining some water and it’s attracted quite a crowd of people, splashing around in there.

And the people in the flourescent jackets – I’m convinced that they are the lifeguards, although how they are expected to swim while wearing those is anyone’s guess.

My walk went on along the walls and around to the viewpoint overlooking the Place Marechal Foch.

There’s been a roofing job going on on one of the roofs of one of the buildings down there for as long as I can remember, and they still don’t seem to have finished it.

Not long to go by the looks of things, but I recall having said that before. They were doing really well at one point but seem to have gone off the boil just recently.

From there I passed through the Place Maurice Marland to check on my seagull chick, and then walked on to the viewpoint over the harbour.

There’s some activity down there right now. A lorry has turned up and there’s a fork-lift truck that looks as if it might be thinking about unloading the lorry. Does this mean that either Thora or Normandy Trader are going to be paying us a visit some time soon?

And we have another group of fishermen over there wrestling with a rather large fishing net

Another thing that regular readers of this rubbish will recall seeing is the works van that appeared on the city walls near where they did all of that repointing.

The pointing on part of it in the Parvis Notre Dame was pretty poor so i speculated that the work might be something to do with that, and it seems that I was perfectly right. There are two men down there cleaning it all up

You can see how much excess cement that one of the guys has scraped off the wall – it’s all lying on the ground behind the car.

Back here I carried on with the course and, shame as it is to say it, crashed out a couple of times too. This is really getting on my nerves.

But I finished the course in the end and there was time to edit a few more photos. Tomorrow I’m going to start the final part of my music course. I want that out of the way too.

After the guitar I made tea. There was some left-over stuffing so I added some kidney beans and tomato sauce and made taco rolls

Somewhat later than usual, iw ent out for my evening run. It was far too warm to go out at the usual time.

All the way up the hill and down to the cliff without stopping, saying hello to the itinerant sheltering under the tree. Out to the sea there was plenty of activity and we have already seen some of the boats. We haven’t seen this yacht though, sailing back from the Ile de chausey into port, towing its dinghy behind it.

It’s making me all broody again and I’m going to have to do something about all of this before too long.

Just for a change there was no family group picnicking in the old gun emplacement.

There were however plenty of people down on the viewpoint by the old watchman’s cabin and they were having a good time by the looks of things

Quite a few fishermen too, down there on the rocks casting their lines out into the water. It seems to be becoming quite a regular thing these days.

My run continued on along the path on top of the clifftop on the south side of the headland

No kids jumping off the sea wall tonight, but instead we seem to have had some activity down at the chantier navale. One of the fishing boats that has been there for quite some considerable time seems to have gone back into the water.

There were a few other people down there taking photos of themselves in the evening sunshine. All in all, it was quite busy.

And not just there either.

Way across the port on the sea wall that protects the port de plaisance – the yacht harbour – there were crowds of people milling around tonight. They were certainly making the most of it.

As for me, I cleared off and ran all the way round down the Boulevard Vaufleury and the rest of my vastly elongated route round to the viewpoint in the rue du Nord.

The tide is right in right now so the chances of finding any picnickers on the beach was extremely remote.

However that little shelf that we noticed a few days ago – that seems to be the place to be these days as there are a couple more people making use of it.

And I’m still trying to work out the optical illusion surrounding the guy on the left. It looks thoroughly weird to me.

The people down there were enjoying another magnificent evening.

There were quite a few people up here enjoying it too, and quite rightly so for although it wasn’t as good as last night’s, it was still something special.

having watched it for a while I headed on home to write up my notes.

Tomorrow, it’s shopping day. There’s not much that I need but it’s stuff that I can’t do without so I shall have to go.

And then i’ll make a start on the last week of my music course. I want to get that out of the way before the weekend. It’ll give me a chance to do some other work that’s been sitting on the back burner for the last month or so.

High time I got a move on.

Friday 17th January 2020 – I BET THAT YOU ARE …

… all wondering where I’ve been with the posting of today’s activities, aren’t you?

The fact is that I didn’t get home tonight at all. In fact, it wasn’t until about 16:40 on Saturday that I put my sooty foot through the front door of my apartment.

And with not having had lunch either, I ended up running considerably later than planned. But then, that’s what plans are all about, aren’t they?

But anyway, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

It was another morning of missed alarms. Another 07:00 start and I really need to get a grip and get myself organised otherwise I’m just going to fade away.

But then after the medication I attacked the dictaphone in order to see where I had been during the night.

Strange as it may seem, I was back in my house back in Gainsborough Road and it was an absolute tip (I know that I live in total chaos but it has nothing on how my house was, last night, I’ll tell you). There was stuff everywhere all over the place and there was the football on – it was the World Cup or something like that – the European Nations match and I was trying to watch it on TV but there was just so much disorder going on around me that I couldn’t. I went into the kitchen to get something and the place was in such a state clothes and bits everywhere and someone shouted something like “come on, your tea’s ready”. It turns out that my brother and a younger boy had been given their tea and it was probably about midnight or whatever. I went into the room and it was the back room and there was one of my sisters sitting on a chair. I hadn’t seen her for ages and she was talking to someone, another one of my sisters. I went up to her and said something like “what are you going to do tomorrow morning, if you get up early?” She said “I’m going to come and wake you up”.
It was some time shortly after that that we found a young boy hanging upside down by his feet in a four-poster bed. We pulled back the curtains of this four-poster bed and there he was hanging upside-down by his ankles. What was quite bizarre was that after going back to sleep after dictating the first part of it, I stepped right back into it where I’d left off. And it’s not the first time by any means that I’ve done that either.

There was lots more to this voyage too but as you are probably eating your meal or something I’ll spare you the unpleasantness.

Once breakfast was out of the way I attacked the radio project that needed finishing. And that took a lot longer than I expected too, basically because the 10-minute audio file that I had dictated turned out to be only 04:20 by the time that I had edited it and so I had to find a completely different song to end the show than the one that I had planned.

Anyway, I eventually managed to complete it and that was mu cue to go off and buy my dejeunette from La Mie Caline

Having seen a white speck out in the English Channel I went to photograph it, only to find that I’d forgotten to put the memory card in the camera so I had to go back upstairs for it.

Downstairs again, I could photograph it and then in the comfort and safety of my own little office I could blow it up (the photo, not the object of course).

The result is inconclusive but probably a trawler-type of fishing boat I reckon. And you can see the Jersey coast in the background behind it. That gives you some idea of how far out the boat was.

Off then on my jaunt into town, but I didn’t get very far.

It’s all change in the inner harbour today. Chausiais and Joly France II have moved position. They’ve crossed over to the other side of the harbour and are now moored up in fromt of their sister over by the old cold store.

That’s a surprise for me. The only thing that I can think of is that they don’t want any debris from the car park renovation to drop onto the deck. And it also indicates that Granville and Victor Hugo are not going to be back home anytime soon

Yesterday, the regular readers of this rubbish and I saw them setting out a pile of “No Parking” signs in the Boulevard des Terreneuviers.

Today I went that way to see if I could pick up any clues about what might be happening down there.

Having had a look, I’m not really a great deal wiser. Apparently we are going to be having travaux – some kind of works – taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. That should be interesting to I shall have to go for my walk that way for a butcher’s.

There was excitement too down at the Chantier navale too right now.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve had four boats in there this last couple of days. But in about ten minutes time we shall only be having three of them.

Spirit of Conrad is still there and so are two of the fishing boats but the third one, the blue and yellow one, is just about to leave the scene.

Here she is, in the mobile sling, being lowered down into the water. And in a couple of minutes she’ll be sailing … “dieseling” – ed … off into the wild blue yonder.

So with another empty space in the place, does this mean that we are going to be having a new visitor?

But it also means that the tide is quite a way in, which also means that the harbour gates will be closed which also means that the path across the top will not be accessible and I’ll have to go along the rue du Port.

And as I went along the rue du Port I could see strange goings-on on the boat-launching ramp down into the tidal harbour.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall having seen the dredging operations out by the ferry terminal and we had a look at the machinery the other day.

But today they are giving one of the huge dumper-lorries a good hose down with a pressure-washer, presumably to remove all of the silt that has accumulated thereupon while they have been working.

Off I went to la Mie Caline to pick up my bread, and then I headed back home.

What I spend the afternoon (with a break for lunch of course) was to deal with the Johan Gallon (the coach of US Granville)’s speech.

It’s been completed now, with all of my questions edited in, and I’ve been going through to edit out the joins, the silences and the stumbles. When that’s completed I’ll be going through and making another pass to remove the irrelevances and I’m hoping that I’ll have it done for Monday morning – at least, that’s the plan.

At 16:00 I called it a day, grabbed a few things together and then Caliburn and I headed for the hills.

First stop was at the dechetterie. The European Cardboard Box Mountain has now been consigned to a skip along with the old broken office chair and I can now get into the back of Caliburn if ever I need to.

Second stop was at Liz and Terry’s at Roncey.

We had a good chat and I gave them their Christmas present, after which we had tea. Burger and chips with salad followed by ginger cake.

Terry and I then headed off in Calburn down the motorway towards Caen and the Stade Michel D’Ornano. It’s the last 16 of the Coupe de France and Granville have pulled a plum out of the bag for this match.

They are “at home” against Olympique de Marseille but the match can’t be played at the Stade Louis Dior as was the Bordeaux match two years ago. There, there is a capacity of just 3,000 and it’s very uncomfortable at that size too.

But the Stade D’Ornano at Caen is free and has 20,200 places. Even so, it was sold out in about 4.5 hours but I managed to obtain 2 tickets.

We were doing really well until we hit the outskirts of Caen when a road accident slowed our progress. An hour it took to advance 6 kilometres.

Then we hit the traffic heading to the stadium, became tangled up in the mesh of red lights, and then I lost count of the number of roundabouts that we passed in the frantic search for a parking place.

Spotting an ad-hoc parking place, we quickly stuffed Caliburn into it and ran down the road towards the next roundabout. Not seeing the stadium, we asked a passer-by who sent us back where we had started. Brain of Britain had miscounted, and parked Caliburn at the roundabout right by the stadium.

As a result we missed the first 30 seconds of the game.

Having been frisked at the stadium we were allowed in, but finding a seat was impossible. We ended up standing, with about 100 others on the stairs, with a couple of people who had made themselves comfortable sitting on the top step complaining about the “new arrivals blocking their view”.

But at a time like this and in a crowd like this, it’s “every man for himself”. Sardines had nothing on us.

The first half of the match was a surprise to most people.

It was pretty clear that Olympique de Marseille were the better team but it was also clear that US Granville weren’t going to lie down and roll over. They were pegged back for much of the half, that’s for sure, but they were breaking away quite regularly and going forward down the wings, with William Sea throwing his weight around up front.

The Granvillais goalkeeper was the busier of the two but it wasn’t by any means a one-way street.

At half-time we were treated to a display of drumming as the drummers marched around the touchline having a right old bang. There were also two teams of kids having a penalty shoot-out.

What was even worse was that I was dying to use the bathroom and desperate for a coffee but I had no intention of moving away from my good spec on the stairs having fought my way into it.

So we stayed put and waited for the second half to begin.

The second half carried on where the first left off , with Olympique de Marseille attacking, US Granville absorbing the pressure, and then hitting them on the break.

And then the match turned rather sour.

maseille had worked out early on that the danger men for Granville were little Lamrabette with his merry, mazy runs with the ball through crowds of players, and also big William Sea who was showing that despite his injury he still had what it takes to mix it on level terms with the Olympique Marseille central defenders.

As a result, they were flattening the two of them with regular monotony, but being very careful firstly not to do it quite enough to earn a caution and secondly to take it in turns so as no individual would be cautioned for persistent infringement.

It was saddening to watch a display like this from a team like Olympique Marseille against a bunch of amateurs and if that’s the idea of how Villas-Boas wants his team to play then he should be ashamed of himself.

Anyway, it had the desired effect because with round about 15 minutes to go, William Sea was finally fed up of being grabbed from behind every time he had the ball. He lashed out behind him with his elbow and unfortunately caught a Marseille player full in the face.

Having had a yellow card earlier in the game, that was that for Sea and he was off down the tunnel for an early bath and Granville were down to 10 men.

What was sickening about this was that the player who had been fouled them followed Sea to the touchline and taunted him about being sent off. A couple of Granville staff had to grab hold of Sea before he put the Marseille player over the stadium wall and out into the street.

And that, I’m afraid, was that.

At the Press Conference I’d mentioned that the danger time in every game where the professionals meet the amateurs is the final 15 minutes when the lack of fitness shows through and the amateurs run out of steam. And even more so when you are only 10 against 11.

And so it proved. 2 minutes later, Olympique de Marseille went ahead. They added a second 10 minutes later and then deep into stoppage time, a typical US Granvillais “lack of concentration” about which I have moaned on more occasions than many in the past gifted them a third.

Although before the game the general feeling was that had Granville come home with a 3-0 defeat they would have done really well but after the match that we had seen, a 3-0 defeat was a travesty.

And the tactics of a team riding high in the French Premier League against a bunch of students, supermarket shelf-fillers, taxi drivers, teachers and the like have left a bitter taste in the mouths of many, including mine.
.

The drive home was no better than the drive out. We had to fight our way through the maze of traffic lights which took an age and then another accident on the way back had us queueing again for yet another lengthy period.

As a result it was 01:00 when we finally reached Terry’s, and he offered me a bed for the night. By that time and after all that, I was totally done in anyway so I took up his offer and here I am and there I stayed.

Wednesday 4th July 2018 – THERE HAS TO BE …

… something extraordinarily civilised sitting with a coffee on a terrace in a hotel with my feet almost in the Rhine looking at a car ferry loading up and crossing over to the other side.

It’s not like me at all is it, this “being civilised” bit?

And having had a really good sleep in a really comfortable bed and a really copious breakfast, all for €53:00 per night, then you can understand why this place will be added to my list of places to revisit.

And comfortable bed it was too, although I wasn’t in it for long. I’d taken a plane back to Crewe, and landed at the airport at Radway Green. But the 320 PMT bus didn’t come to the airport and so this meant a long walk with my baggage to the Alsager road. And with having to be back three hours before the flight departure the next day with no public transport, it meant that I would only have time to put my foot in the town before I would have to turn round and come back. And anyone who knows Crewe will realise what a good idea that is, although for some reason that I can’t understand, it bothered me more than it should have done.

And while I’ve been sitting here on the terrace, I’ve been watching the railway line across the river on the eastern bank of the Rhine.

I’ve counted one train every couple of minutes or so, the majority of which are freight trains.

I can’t see the railway line on the Western bank but I can hear it, and the trains seem to be just as frequent. It’s a big contrast to the UK isn’t it?

And it’s not just trains either.

We saw dozens of barges yesterday sailing … "dieseling" – ed … up and down the Rhine too and it didn’t look as if we were going to be disappointed today either.

This one seems to be a gas tanker, and there are even tankers full of sulphuric acid that use the Rhine – one of those sank off St Goar a few years ago.

Having completed another mound of paperwork we all loaded up Caliburn and headed across the road for the ferry.

And this gave us a good opportunity to admire the hotel.

As I said, the Hotel Rhein Inn might be a little old and tired, but on the value-for_money scale, which to me is quite important, it scores an easy 10 out of 10.

I haven’t had such a good sleep and a nice breakfast as that for quite some considerable time.

Just as we were boarding the ferry across the river, a canoeist went heading across our bows.

That’s rather a dangerous sport to do here, I reckon with all of the river traffic. There aren’t just barges but cruise ships, pleasure boats, speedboats and all that kind of thing.

And so shouldn’t go lighting a fire in your canoe. After all, we have been told for many years that you can’t have your kayak and heat it.

So off we set.

And the crossing was not as straightforward as you might think because we had to dodge and swerve around the barges that were heading up and down-stream.

They didn’t look as if they took any prisoners while they were on their travels. “Full steam ahead” without even a hint of “left hand down a bit” to swerve around the other traffic on the river.

Now that I’m on the eastern bank, the first stop has to be on the edge of the town of Erpel.

That over there is the western tower – the one that has been transformed into a museum by the then-mayor of Remagen and financed by the sale of the stones from the demolished central towers.

And despite the bridge being more-associated with the town of Remagen I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better-seen from Erpel.

This is the eastern tower here in Erpel.

You’ll notice the slits in the brickwork here. The bases of the towers were designed to accommodate troops of infantry who would defend the bridge, and the slits were loopholes through which rifles and machine guns could be fired.

The accommodation in there has now been transformed into a Performing Arts centre.

Here on the eastern bank, the railway line that crossed the bridge disappeared into the railway tunnel halfway up the Erpeler Ley

This tunnel, almost 400 metres long, curved around to the right and joined up with a railway that connected to the line along the eastern bank.

It was hiding in this tunnel that the German engineers pressed the plunger that detonated the explosives that failed to go off correctly.

It was discovered later that an artillery shell had severed many of the cables that connected the individual charges.

There’s a good view of the town of Remagen from along here too.

The Rhine was at one time the frontier of the Roman Empire and here the Romans built a fort, which they called Rigomanus.

A town grew up around it and although the town was fought over and destroyed many times, each time it arose again from the ashes.

The church that you can see over there may well be the church of St Apollinaris.

The story goes that a ship loaded with Holy relics sailed from Milan to Cologne in the Middle Ages, but grounded at Remagen.

They unloaded some cargo to lighten the ship, and as soon as the relics of St Apollinaris were unloaded, the ship floated away.

His relics were then interred in the old Roman chapel here which was subsequently expanded into a church.

So if you are suffering from gout, epilepsy or venereal disease, this is the place to be.

Bad Hoffen up the road is also the place to be as far as I am concerned.

Here littered around a yard at an old factory was a whole collection of old commercial vehicles, one of which was this Oshkosk

Oshlosk is a company that is a builder of specialist vehicles in Appleton, Wisonsin, USA and was founded in 1917 to make severe-duty 4×4 vehicles

As for this lorry, I don’t have a clue what it might be, although rollers on the deck indicate that it might have been for use around a steel mill or something.

As for the car on the back, we all know what one of these is because we’ve seen one before. It’s a Cadillac Fleetwood and I reckon that it’s either a Series 7 or a Series 8, which puts in in the late 50s or early 60s

There was tons of stuff here and I didn’t really have much of an idea about what they might be.

There was even a “Whirlybirds” helicopter parked up here. Someone had had his chopper out.

I’ll have to do some research when I return home and I’ll update this page with a pile more photos so that you can see just what there was in here.

Not long after this, we had a little excitement.

It was grey and heavily overcast out over Bonn and I was sure that a storm was threatening.

We didn’t actually see any rain but I suddenly came across a patch of road that was soaking wet and you could smell the rain in the air.

It didn’t last long before we were in the dry again, but it really was bizarre. I learnt later that they had had a severe storm which, although it only lasted for a couple of minutes, was so severe that several houses had flooded.

We pushed on and as we drove past Bonn (which is on the western side) I noticed the ruins of a castle perched on a rock.

Ordinarily I would have gone to make further enquiries but I missed the turning to where it was situated and there was so much traffic that I wasn’t able to turn round easily enough.

And so we carried on

We eventually found a LIDL (you can never find one when you want one, and when you don’t need one you keep on tripping over dozens) where we were nearly squidged by a German drifting across the road in his car, mobile phone in one hand.

And having bought stuff for lunch, the next issue was trying to find a place to eat it. I must have driven down dozens of little alleys heading towards the river only to be disappointed with no parking.

Instead, I ended up crossing over the Rhine, just south of Cologne, thinking to myself that I’m glad that I’m not travelling eastwards.

I didn’t like the look of any of that at all.

Instead I pulled off the motorway at a very dirty unwelcoming service area and did my best to eat my food without noticing too much all of the rubbish that was littered around.

At Aachen I left the motorway to look for fuel and as luck would have it, the only petrol stations open were on the other side of the road and crossing over in all of the traffic was practically impossible.

So I pushed on, into the Netherlands and round by the winding road that goes across the highest point in the country, and into the Belgian Ardennes.

Still without finding any fuel.

I was now in that part of the Ardennes which had seen heavy fighting in the Battle of the Ardennes – or Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans launched a surprise attack on the American forces sheltering here, hoping to break through the lines and recapture Antwerp.

The attack failed but it caused heavy casualties. An American tank Corps based in Neufchatel was badly cut up by the attacking Germans and the citizens of the town, in partnership with the American Army, erected a memorial to the soldiers who had died.

So we carried on and eventually arrived in Liège. By now the fuel question was becoming rather desperate – Caliburn had done a record 840kms on three-quarters of a tank – so I pulled off at the big commercial shopping centre.

And wasn’t that a mistake?

We were now well and truly in the rush hour and it took ages to sort ourselves out. I took a little short-cut that I knew but to my dismay the motorway entrance was closed for repair so I had to go back and fight my way through the traffic.

I eventually reached the hotel, to find that Hans had beaten me by a good couple of hours.So I went for a quick shower and, shame as it is to admit it, crashed out on the bed for 20 minutes.

We ended up at Chi-Chi’s, one of the franchised Tex-Mex restaurants. They concocted a vegan meal for me which was totally delicious. But when was the last time that you ever heard of me leaving a table with food still upon it?

And not only that – Usually we spend our meal-times discussing the women and girls in the restaurant but today we ended up discussing our medication and bowel problems and the like.

Aren’t we getting old?

Back here, I couldn’t even keep my eyes open so I came back here and crashed out for good.

it had been a long day.

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Yes – I’ll tell you what was (and where it was too in due course).

But starting off, I had a really good night’s sleep in the hotel last night. Didn’t feel a thing at all.

and I was up reasonably early, did a pile of paperwork, had breakfast and a good shower too. Fit for absolutely anything.

And I needed to be, too. Because today is going to be the most difficult day of the journey. I knew that, and so I cannot say that I was unprepared for the events that were to unfold.

Having picked up some fuel, because by now Strider was running on fumes, we drove north up the island.

As I said yesterday, the Outer Banks (because I suppose that these are really still the Outer Banks around here) are in a perpetual state of flux and continually moving about.

A lot of work is needed to stabilise them, and here are three bulldozers hard at work moving the sand around

Back on the mainland I took a little diversion so that I could send you all Greetings From Asbury Park NJ.

It’s a little-known fact that when Brute Stringbean left the E-Street Band, they signed up one of the singers from ABBA to replace him.

He came over to the USA specifically to take up the role, and their first single was entitled “Bjorn in the USA”. You can’t say that you aren’t learning a lot by reading this rubbish.

As for Asbury Park itself, you need to have a good imagination of how this place must have been during the boom years of the 1920s and 1950s.

In those heady days the whole New Jersey Coast was the playground of New York City, but unfortunately they are long-gone and the town is just sitting here slowly decaying.

Today, it’s just really a shadow of its former self.

That is of course not to say that there aren’t any signs of opulence around the place these days.

The north side of the town seems to be very popular with the Upper Crust and there’s still plenty of evidence of wealth about.

And I for one would live in a house like this in a heartbeat. But I reckon that the entire readership of this rubbish couldn’t afford it even if we pooled all of our resources.

My journey up the New Jersey coast took me as far as the Highlands – and you can see why it is so named.

I mentioned the moving sand dunes of the Outer Banks – they are continually moving north and over the passage of time have isolated the cliffs of the former coastline from the shore.

The view from up there is quite impressive too, but we’ve seen it all before.

And so we hit the New Jersey Turnpike at Perth-Amboy, and we pay our … gulp … $15:00.

It’s 11:00 exactly, and you’ll need to make a note of the time because it’s quite an important feature in our story.

And you’ll also need to make a note of the traffic too. I’ve been keeping away from the heavy traffic as I travel north, as you know if you have been following this rubbish. But around New Jersey and New York there is no realistic option.

The best views of New York City that it is possible to have are from the Upper Deck of the Verrazano Bridge across the mouth of the Hudson River.

Unfortunately there’s no scenic turn-off (or scenic turn-on) to stop and admire the view and so the only way to appreciate it is to take an oblique photograph from Strider’s side window in the heavy traffic.

Unfortunately Strawberry Moose is not the best at photography. He needs to work on his technique.

It’s impossible to get onto the Belt Parkway. The queue was so long that I had gone way past the end of the queue before I saw the sign for the turn-off.

That meant hat I had to come off at Hamilton Parkway and fight my way through Brooklyn, which was not part of the plan, and rejoin the Belt Parkway at Queen’s.

This part of Brooklyn is “Chinatown” as you can tell by the signs on the walls and the people in the street.

Nose-to-tail all the way through Brooklyn and Queen’s. At least I console myself in that the Belt Parkway is exactly the same and it wouldn’t have been any quicker.

It gives me plenty of opportunity to admire the scenery as we pass through the city anyway. I’ve never been here before, and I’m probably never ever going to be here again.

And pressing on, I resist the temptation to pay a visit to Coney island just down the road. I’ll be stuck for ever

Having conquered Europe a good 45 years ago, it’s good to see the Ford Transit going on to conquer North America/

Both models are available here now – the “mini” and the normal Caliburn-sized one, and you can see just how much they are infiltrating the North American market.

They are even conquering the lucrative “school bus” market, and if that’s not a sign of official acceptance I don’t know what is.

I finally burst out of New York City onto the Belt Parkway at 13:30 – and that was the longest two and a half hours of my life, I’ll tell you that (or so I thought to myself at the time).

One of the suburban State parks looms up on the right and so that’s a convenient place to stop for lunch. Not only have there been difficulties with the traffic, it’s been piping hot too under the hot sun and i’m ready for a break.

Back on the road, first thing that happens is that we hit a “fender-bender”. And then the road works. And more road works.

I have to stop for fuel by now – (that means that I’ve travelled just 210 kilometres since I set off this morning). And then back in a long, depressing traffic jam that never ends.

I finally pull into Port Jefferson at 17:20.

At my lunch stop, The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that we were just 46 minutes away from here. And so Ihad timed it.

It had taken us almost three hours to drive this final leg of the distance, what with all of the difficulties that we had encountered. And I was thoroughly, completely and absolutely fed up.

I had even begun to wonder whether or not it might have been quicker to have stayed on Interstate 95 and fought my way through New York City after all.

No prizes for guessing why I’ve come to Port Jefferson, is there?

By pure coincidence and totally by accident … “of course” – ed … there’s a ferry that goes from here across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport in Connecticut.

This is going to be my lest ferry crossing of my voyage (Bar Harbor to Yarmouth is pushing the boat out a little too far, I reckon) and so I need to make the most of it.

And at about 18:15 we set off on the P T Barnum for Bridgeport in Connecticut.

And the name of the ship is certainly appropriate, considering the circus that we have been through in order to arrive here.

I was hoping to have been on the other side and halfway up the road to Boston by now instead of being on the ferry in the doom and gloom.

But doom and gloom is completely inappropriate considering the glorious sunset.

I mentioned earlier that it had been a hot day, and you probably noticed from the earlier photos just how clear and blue the skies had been

We were now being treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets that I reckon that I have ever seen. It was totally magnificent out here on Long Island Sound

There are two ships that ply this particular route across Long Island Sound.

The P T Barnum has a sister ship, whose name I had forgotten to note, and we encountered her in the middle of Long Island Sound doing the trip in the reverse direction.

Silhouetted in the splendid sunset like this, she looks quite spellbinding too. We were having our money’s worth out here.

And so we battened down the hatches for silent running and sailed off into the sunset.

Red Sky At Night might mean Shepherd’s Delight in the UK, but here on Long Island Sound, Red Sky At Night means that there are riots in New York City and they are burning the place down to the ground.

But tat’s not to say that we can’t admire the view as the sun disappears down below the horizon, can we?

And so Bridgeport, our destination, looms up out of the gloom. I’ve never set foot in Connecticut before now, and so that’s about to be put right.

The crossing itself was like a millpond. I’ve never been over such a tranquil sea in my whole life. There wasn’t a single wave to talk about.

But it was an expensive crossing, make no mistake. 90 or so minutes, and 19 miles, I believe. Just like the English Channel. And it cost me (and Strider) a walk-on fare of a massive and astonishing … errr … $57:00.

The P T Barnum is obliged to do a U-turn in her own length here in the river so that we can dock and drive off forwards,

And much to my surprise, I’m the second vehicle off the ferry. I’m not used to that!

Just at the back of the harbour is a big bridge over which Interstate 95 passes. And that’s the road that will take me all the way home as far as the USA border and it’s a drive of about seven and a half hours.

But I’m not doing that tonight – I’ll tell you. I’m thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly fed up (but then I was expecting this today. There was no other solution).

A sign looms up at the side of the Interstate – “Motel 6 next exit”. They’ve gone upmarket and expensive this last few years but I’m tired and fed up and want to stop.

They have a room too – for just $90:00 including taxes which is not too unreasonable either. I’ve had worse. But what is unreasonable is that their computer is down, everything is being done by hand and I have to pay cash.

I now have $5:00 to last me to the US border and Canada but I’m beyond caring. It’s 20:00 and well past my bedtime.

And so I bite the bullet, pay up, find my room and crash out.

ZZZZZZZZ.

Saturday 23rd September – I DUNNO …

… what I must have put in my tea last night because I ended up going to bed quite early and I didn’t feel a thing whatever until the alarm went off at 05:00. I can’t even say if I had been on a nocturnal ramble or not.

A few things that needed doing on my laptop took up some of my attention, and that was followed by a shower and breakfast. The microwave oven here in the room means that the big bag of porridge is certainly doing the business.

Having tidied up, packed Strider, checked out, helped myself to the free coffee on offer and all of that, I was on the road by 09:15. And that was a good decision too.

For the first 90 minutes the road was comparatively easy – which makes a great change from yesterday. But it dramatically changed once we arrived at the first major town, of which the name I forget.

Eventually, the matter explained itself.

I’d noticed that many of these vehicles on the road were flying violet flags of some description

And there by the side of the highway in this town was some kind of sports stadium with hordes of people hanging around, all dressed in this violet colour.

It looked as if there was going to be a gridiron match of some description and I’d hit the supporters’ rush hour.

Once that was dealt with, I carried on at a fair pace until we hit Roanoke. And the whole Highway between the edge of Roanoke and Salem was nose-to-tail for miles.

And in the heat, it was unbearable. But I waited until Strider’s fuel gauge dropped right down and then stopped in Salem for fuel.

And hats off to Strider yet again because despite the speed on the Highway when we could, and despite the traffic jams when we couldn’t, he’s done a new record of 567 kms on a tank, and the orange light hadn’t even come one.

We had quite a performance at the petrol station. Credit card issues (“insert your card, and tap in your ZIP code” – which of course I don’t have) so the girl (who was born in Leicester as it happens) had to do everything manually.

That was Strider organised, and for me, a coffee and, seeing as how hot it was, a big mug of that iced Slush stuff. That will cool me down while I’m driving.

By now we were on Interstate 77 and this seemed to be a lot quieter than Interstate 81.

And so on we went, sometimes bowling along, sometimes crawling. At least if gave me an opportunity to admire the scenery, which is even more stunning around here than it was back on Interstate 81.

I wish that I had had the time to stop and photograph more of it.

I kept on driving until I crossed into North Carolina and here was a rest area with “suitable conveniences”.

This was as good a place as any to stop. And the bread that I bought a few days ago – I seemed to have let it go on for far too long because it was only just edible. And the bagels that I bought – they are beyond saving too.

But if you want to know what in my opinion is so bad about the USA then we saw it here. The janitor in the washrooms, cleaning and tidying up, looked to be well into his 80s and barely able to walk. And yet here he was, having to carry on working for a living.

This wouldn’t be allowed to happen in a civilised country, that’s for sure.

We also had a brief 30-second rainstorm, and that freshened everywhere up.

We were making good time along Interstate 77 too – at least, until we were within spitting distance of Charlotte.

Here, the road signs proudly announced “Roadworks next 28 miles” – and they weren’t wrong either. The congestion was appalling around here and some driver in a VW convertible received a full blast of Strider’s horn.

From Charlotte onwards I77 was quite busy and progress was rather restrained – although we kept moving.

A funny thing happened on the edge of Columbia. The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav pulled me off the Interstate, sent me through a housing estate and then back onto the Interstate at the junction BEHIND where I had just come off.

And as I approached Rhys’s house, she sent me through someone’s back garden, much to the bewilderment of the occupier.

It was nice to see Rhys again, after 12 years. He’s living on the edge of town in a house in the woods in a very rural setting. We had a coffee and a long chat, and then went off into Columbia for a meal.

He’d found a really good vegan restaurant that did a lovely vegan burger with fried sweet potato, and that went down really well.

Rhys is in the process of converting a redundant school bus into a mobile home. Work is quite advanced and this is where my bed is going to be for the night.

And I have to say that I’ve earned it too. Strider is on 500 kms on the trip meter so that means that we have driven somewhere between 700 and 750 kilometres – and according to the The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav, we had a driving time of 7 hours and 54 minutes.

One thing is for sure – I shan’t be moving for a week.

Tuesday 7th March 2017 – WELL, I SAW A SIGN …

… and it said “Verdun”.

That’s another one of the places on my bucket list to visit before I go off to visit the hereafter, and there’s no time like the present so here I am.

But before we start, let me show you a photo of my room at the Papillon d’Or from last night and this morning. It’s a lovely room and a lovely place, and the breakfast was really nice too.

But the landlady clearly has a finely-developed sense of humour. There are two mattresses on the bed of course, and one (the one upon which I was sleeping) was thicker than the other.

And so in the middle of the night I rolled onto the other one, but it wasn’t where I expected and so I awoke in a panic, thinking that I was falling out of bed.

So by 06:00 I was wide awake and went for a shower as early as possible.

I had a slow recovery and by 09:30 I was on the road. And by 10:00 I was waiting in the queue at the IKEA on the border between Belgium and Luxembourg. It’s sale day today, there’s free coffee, and a €15:00 gift voucher for anyone spending more than €100 in the store. I need all kinds of new stuff for my new kitchen, wherever that might be, and so with some judicious purchases, I came out with €101:35 of new utensils, saucepans and the like.

But the most surprising thing of all this that I bought cost me €39:00 and I’ll post a photo of it in due course. Let’s just say that it will revolutionise my hotel-camping.

But the prize for one of the silliest signs ever must surely go to this one here.

It says, with absolutely no trace of irony “no spring-cleaning without a cup of tea”. However, as we all know, putting me with something light-coloured like this is a recipe for disaster.

The sign really ought to read “no cup of tea without spring-cleaning”. That’s much more like it where I am concerned.

I had a glance out of the fire escape window while I was wandering around. Over there is the border between Luxembourg and Belgium and there seems to be some kind of “incident” going on out there.

It looks like a fire to me, with all of that smoke.

And you’ll notice the weather. It’s foul out there with the rain pouring down like nobody’s business.

I had lunch and then I hit the road. Straight into a traffic queue that lasted for 7 kms. I despaired of this and took a detour out of the traffic, and that was when I picked up a sign for “Verdun”.

It’s a nice cheap hotel, the Hotel du Tigre (named after Georges Clemenceau, the French politician) and I’ve just had one of the best pizzas that I have ever eaten. And tomorrow I shall be off to visit the battlefields of Verdun. I’ve never been here before.

And Caliburn and Strawberry Moose have been able to cross off “Luxembourg” of their list of countries to visit.

Another milestone achieved for them.

Wednesday 13th July 2016 – I’M BACK …

… in Leuven. My stay back in France didn’t last too long, did it?

I had another good sleep, only having to leave the bed once. Well, twice actually, but seeing that the second time was 05:50, just 10 minutes before the alarm was due to go off, I didn’t bother going back downstairs. Instead, I dressed and went down to make breakfast.

By the time that I had done that, made my butties for lunch and had a shower and change of clothes, it was 07:10 and Terry was ready so we hit the road.

It was a beautiful drive right across France to the Rhône valley and Lyon, and we were there on the outskirts of the city by 09:20. The next 6 kilometres was a different proposition. With the traffic queue that we encountered and then the changes to Lyon’s road network that weren’t shown on Terry’s Satnav, it was 10:10 when we arrived at the station. It’s a good job that we had allowed plenty of time for the journey.

There was however plenty of time for a coffee as the TGV was late arriving. 11:00 was the time of departure, but we finally set off at 11:25. We stopped at Marne la Vallée, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Lille as I expected, but also at Haute-Picardie and Arras which I hadn’t realised. Consequently it was 15:30 when we pulled into Bruxelles-Midi.

The journey wasn’t boring though. I did a pile of work on my website, though and I was sitting next to a woman whose father was born in Les Ancizes. We had a lengthy chat about the Auvergne, and she and I set the world to right about the Brexit. It’s not very often that I meet someone who thinks along my lines.

A brief amount of excitement at Bruxelles-Midi was when I bought my ticket for my onward trip to Leuven. I used one of the automatic machines and I received my ticket, plus one from the previous passenger who had clearly forgotten to pick it up. I had to find an information booth to leave it there.

15:56 was my train to Leuven, and by 16:30 I was there on the station. And it was pouring down too. It started almost as soon as we arrived at Charles de Gaulle and had continued for almost all the way. Typical Northern French and Belgian weather.

It soon brightened up though and so I set off for my place of residence. Half an hour’s brisk walk it took me to arrive here and that was carrying a large bag too. That made me think how much my health must have improved. I would never have done this two or three months ago, and round about now i ought to be experiencing a collapsed blood count and expecting a blood transfusion instead.

It’s nice to be back in my little room again, even if I am moving on to another room tomorrow. I grabbed a coffee and sat down for a relax. Tea was rice with lentils peas and carrots and it was delicious too. I must remember to buy some more boulghour tomorrow.

Now, I’m going to have an early night. After my marathon voyage today, I reckon that I’ve earned it.

Friday 27th June 2014 – IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG, DID IT?

There I was this morning after another excellent night’s sleep in this comfy little spec at Meersburg (and I’ll stop here again, no problem), having breakfast of coffee and half a baguette smeared with strawberry jam, when I began to notice a regular stream of small ships sailing back and to across the lake.

That can only mean one thing – that there’s a ferry connection from somewhere over here to somewhere over there and so Yours Truly set out to investigate.

But did I say a good night’s sleep? I certainly did. And not only that I was on my travels again. I was watching some British World War I cavalry charge up this steep hill to attack a German post there and while they were all almost swept away and almost everyone was unhorsed, they carried the position whilst a few of their number tried to round up the loose horses. I remember saying to myself is that had the cavalry been followed up by a regiment of infantry they could have swept on right behind the lines and caused chaos.

Nothing new in this though – at the Battle of the Somme a detachment of infantry did succeed in breaking the lines in one place on the first day and had the cavalry, standing by in the vicinity, been sent in to exploit the breakthrough, they could have cleared up too. But that was a lost opportunity.

From there, Cecile and I went off to look at the animals at the shelter and an old black-and-white collie fell for me and so I took it home and we lived happily ever after. And there is nothing more unlikely than this, as you all know.

I found the ferry terminal, just a couple of kms down the road and €11:50 later, Strawberry Moose, Caliburn and I were sailing to Konstanz on the other side of the lake. Never a good idea, as you know, for me to find a ferry . After all, it makes me cross.

Getting to Knostanz was one thing – finding the correct border crossing into Switzerland (well, I am here!) was quite something else entirely and I actually crossed the frontier three times before I could find the correct road out of the town. A leisurely amble then took me along the southern shore of the Bodensee and eventually across into Austria at Bregenz.

Bregenz had the first (of many) traffic jams and so I didn’t get to see too much of the town but then a drive over the mountains, into southern Germany and a stop for lunch did the business.

On the way over the mountains between Austria and Germany, I encountered these two vehicles. Single-seater machines and equipped like proper little cars, with steering wheels and pedals. But judging by the wiring that I could see inside the vehicles, they may well be electric cars. However there was no-one around to ask.

Mind you, judging by the names of the vehicles – the red one being a City-El and the white one being a Mini-El-City, electricity is a good guess.

Onto the Autoroute after that, and wasn’t that a big mistake? Say what you like about Germans, when they organise something, they organise it in spades and the traffic jam on the autoroute was a belter. We must have sat for 2 hours without turning a wheel at one point. Stop-start all of the 113 kms to Munich and then fighting the rush hour traffic out of the city to Hans’ place.

So now I’m here, eventually, and after a decent meal and some live music in a pub nearby, I’m off to bed. A shakedown on the sofa. I wonder if it will be as comfortable as my last couple of nights in Caliburn?

-2

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: traffic jam

Tuesday 13th January 2026 – I DON’T KNOW …

Monday 8th September 2025 – WHAT A DAY …

Sunday 14th August 2022 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!

Wednesday 24th June 2020 – I’VE BEEN …

Friday 17th January 2020 – I BET THAT YOU ARE …

Wednesday 4th July 2018 – THERE HAS TO BE …

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Saturday 23rd September – I DUNNO …

Tuesday 7th March 2017 – WELL, I SAW A SIGN …

Wednesday 13th July 2016 – I’M BACK …

Friday 27th June 2014 – IT DIDN’T TAKE ME LONG, DID IT?

Your reactions

Excellent

Useful

Interesting

Weird

Surprising

Boring