… because I’m really not feeling like sitting down and writing War and Peace after the day that I’ve had.<\/p>\n
As seems to be usual these days, I had a pretty disturbed night last night, not being able to sleep very much. It always seems to be the case when I have to arise early in the morning.<\/p>\n
But arise early I did and I had plenty of time for my train. I was on the station at 06:15 in the freezing cold – winter is coming quicker than you might think<\/p>\n
My train was the 06:33 to Brussels that arrived at about 07:05 so there was plenty of time for me to go to the supermarket and pick up a little something for lunch before my train left at 07:43.<\/p>\n
Yes, half an hour later than usual, simply because my usual one had no seats left. But even though this train costs \u20ac30:00 more, I don’t have to change trains at Lille and stagger halfway across town.<\/p>\n
We were 10 minutes late arriving in Paris Gare du Nord but there was still plenty of time to cross the city on the metro to Gare Montparnasse.<\/p>\n
The train that was awaiting me was a two-trainset one of 16 carriages, and was pretty much empty. It looks as if they were just using one trainset pulling the second one as a positioning voyage. I’d slept for much of the way between Brussels and Paris, and repeated the exercise on the train between Paris and Granville.<\/p>\n
In fact I was asleep when the train pulled into the railway station at Granville.<\/p>\n
The walk downhill into town was quite easy but to be on the safe side I’d bought a can of go-juice at the Carrefour in the Rue Couraye.<\/p>\n
The climb back up the hill in the Rue des Juifs was a nightmare as you might expect and I can’t go on much longer like this. It took me about four or five stops to make it up to the top, one of which was a nice long one while I drank the drink that I’d just brought.<\/p>\n
Back here I sat in my chair and vegetated for quite a while. It’s good to be back home, as Barry Hay once famously said.<\/p>\n
Later on I made a coffee and without moving from my chair I watched the football on the internet. TNS v Barry Town.<\/p>\n
With the demise of Connah’s Quay Nomads and the strengthening of TNS over the summer, TNS are pretty unstoppable and this is how it proved to be.<\/p>\n
Their 3-1 victory tonight was really a foregone conclusion but Barry’s defence was appalling. Their second goal came about because the Barry keeper didn’t dive to cut out a ball doing across inside his goal area at about knee-height.<\/p>\n
For the third goal, Declan McManus was standing in an onside position on the goal line right in the centre of goal with not a defender anywhere near him for about 15 seconds before he was presented with a simple tap-in.<\/p>\n
Round about 23:00 I finally summoned up the energy to leave my chair. I’ve had no tea tonight because I was too tired to make it and I’m just going to dash off a few notes before I go to bed. I’ll add the photos into the notes in due course when I’m feeling better.<\/p>\n
