decisions

and why I can't make many

Trouble is with making decisions is that if you make one, you then, at least for the time being, exclude all the alternatives.

Yesterday was a fairly rainy day, stayed indoors, except to feed my chickys, and thought that it may be a good time to make a few decisions. It sort of started off very well, I decided to make a broccoli and courgette quiche, then I decided to make some bread rolls and fill them with home made beefburgers for dinner. I had already decided the day before, to make a sponge cake, so I think that my "decision making ability store" was beginning to become somewhat depleted. I am a mere man of course, as my wife tells me, and my abilities are limited, so I have to go with that.

The really important decisions, remained unmade. 

Next year (starting this autumn) will be the year of the garden. I make that decision every year, but am never quite able to achieve it.

Am I going to finish off building my model boats I have started, or shall I start a new one ?(good job my wife doesn't read my blog)

Ditto for my model aircraft,

Perhaps I should think about putting my model trains out again, they were out before, but had to be put away to make room for our "home school". The layout took up one room 12ft by 16ft, so to lay the track and make the scenery and everything would probably take me through to next year, and beyond.

Am I to build the tricycle that I have bought the plans for ?

Am I to learn to play the banjo I bought recently ?

Am I to buy this new computer I keep going on about ?

Am I to sit down and plan the route for the long distance cycle ride for charity I have been thinking about ?

Life is full of decisions, and they don't get any easier as you get older either, in fact, I reckon there are more of them, and they get more dificult to make. 

As a kid, growing up in the 50's, in the UK. we were still on rationing for certain items following the second World War, there wasn't so much money floating around, credit was a dirty word, so if you didn't have the money, you didn't get the goods, it was as simple as that. I think I have already mentioned my bike, in a previous post, but, following that, the next year I asked Father Christmas if I could have a model aircraft. Well, a rather large, round, yellow and black object with a ruddy great diesel motor bolted to it, smelling of aircraft fuel, was duly delivered on Christmas day. I had never seen such a wierd object in my life, (but I was quite young at the time) the young airman my dad had bought it from had obviously built it himself, deciding to ignore completely the laws of aerodynamics, being about as succesfull as a flying brick, and about as fast. I don't regret my dad having made the decision to buy the aeroplane, it was a learning curve, I had an exceptionaly good time starting the engine, and eventually putting it into a boat the following year, which managed to nearly take off and elicit the complaints of the parents of the fleeing children, who managed to get out of the paddling pool in time, before my "bluebird" disintegrated on impact with the side of the pool. One lives and learns, that is what life is about.

Past experiences make decision making more informed of course, but they still don't make it any easier.

bread and butter pud

yummmmmmmmmmmm

You may or may not have guessed, but we are back home in the Dordogne, as of yesterday, and it's a darn site warmer here than it was in the north, it was beginning to feel decidedly chilly in the evenings with a really fresh breeze up your trouser leg. But not to forget of course, that one of the reasons for visiting the north, was to get away from the sometimes insufferable heat here at this time of year.

Of course, nothing ever goes smoothly, does it ? The trip back, was quite uneventful, the sticky, sticky tape held, (it should have done for the ruddy price I paid) and we remained dry for the journey. All we have to do now, is to negotiate the nuances of our camper van insurance, and wait six months until the "specialist" tells us the part is not available but he can sell us a very reasonably priced new camper van, "made in France" NO TA.

Computer has gone on strike !!! Odd really, it wasn't made in France, (perhaps the battery was !) so, I'm having to use my wife's machine, which is super quick, (well, it is for me) it makes odd noises, which I think are there to wake me up every now and again. Computers are NOT very cheap, are they ? I will have to save up my pocket money for a new one, and in the mean time, use this one, (and be very careful which sites I visit !!!!!) say no more. 

OK, what's all this about bread and butter pud, well, that tonight's pud, and I've just made it as follows.......................

2 inch deep oblong baking tray thingy, about 10" by 6" greased

Butter 6 slices of stale good quality bread

Put 3 slices in tray and sprinkle on 30 grms currants and some candied cut peel

Place rest of bread on top and add 30 grms more currants, and a bit of grated lemon rind

Meanwhile, in a jug, 50 grms sugar, about 350 mls total of milk and cream ( 60 of cream ) add 3 beaten eggs, and pour gently over the bread, (it is not meant to cover it), put in oven for 40 mins, or until golden, at 180 degC.

We've just eaten dinner, and I must say, that the pud was yummy, and very light, it should be eaten warm, and I like it with just a little light cream.

Over the next few days, I will try and sort out a few more photos which I put on this new computer of the coast up in Brittany, and after that, maybe do a few day trips on my bike around here, just to give you a taste of the Dordogne. At the moment, it's gardening and perhaps buy myself a hedge trimmer, to help make the place presentable.

Pity I can't write my blog on a hedge trimmer (could kill two birds with one stone)

revenge

sweat revenge

I know I shouldn't have only taken photos in the church yesterday, God got his own back and persuaded me to have langoustines at the restaraunt and during the night and all this morning I got a good dose of the skitters. Life's like that. Bugger.

My thoughtful wife gave me Immodium, isn't she good ?

Audierne

moving Herman

Thought it might be worth while moving Herman today, just so we could have a look around a bit, and have an evening meal at a restaurant  by the side of the harbour at Audierne.

So, off to Pont Croix this morn, stopped on the square and had a bite to eat, after having bought some nice bread, cheese and patè, (why is it everybody complains about the cheese I buy ?), glass of rosè and off to the cafè on the corner for a petitè cafè. Paid a second visit to the church ( hope God noticed), not that I actually did anything other than take more photos (sorry God), and then an afternoon in Audierne and the meal which was memorable for the reasons that it was pretty good and cost a bloody fortune, I paid for it out of my first UK. retirement cheque, (thanks UK).
The camera battery ran out of umph this afternoon after about six photos, I had forgotten completely that I needed to charge the thing, but the place is certainly worth a second visit, so I will probably take some more then. I will now try to download the few photos I have if I can stay awake for the hour that it takes here

Audierne harbour

That has just taken an hour to download, I am going to bed, good night

trip around the bay

on foot

view from the coastal footpath

my first girlfriend was called Heather

very very pretty place Por Peron

It's difficult to find things to moan about here. Seems to be a nearly perfect place to spend a holiday. The sun has decided to grace us with its' presence these last few days and I have walked the coastal footpath and cycled quite a bit too. 

The beach is just visible at the bottom of the last photo, and is about a five minute walk from our campervan "Herman". Herman is just about standing up to the strain of being lived in by the creatures from the blue lagoon, covered in sand and I have managed, I think, to find some sticky, sticky tape, and have stuck again the aluminium stuff over the hole where our window used to be, and apparently because we need to visit a few different places, we will test the effectiveness of the repair during the coming few days,"watch this space", (I will be watching the space where the window used to be).

I must just say, that this holiday and what I am managing to achieve physically now, is far removed from this time last year, when I was recovering from my cancer operation, when I had little or no energy and all the mental bumff that went with it was sending me a bit odd. The side effects of the operation have not gone away, they have diminished, but even after a year now I still have problems. But I am still around to annoy my wife and lad and I can't complain about that.

first day

on my bike

churchy pic

churchy pic

Pont Croix

Out on my first cycle to the village closest to the campsite, Pont Croix. Pretty little place with an enormous church right in the middle of it, and I mean BIG! 

It's supposed to be about a 10 km round trip from the campsite, but with hills like there are around here, it felt more like 20km. Pont Croix itself is built on the side and top of one enormous hill, descending into the village is great, but getting back out again, with panniers full of shopping is something else. Actually, I've done the trip about three times so far, and what with the cliff top walks here and all the fresh sea air !!! (wind and rain more like) I feel a little bit  fitter than I have done for a while now.

I must admit to being a bit of a bicycle anorak, not that I do a lot of riding mind you, it's just that I like bikes. I did have five of my own until I gave one of my road bikes to my son, last week. So now, I have one road bike and two off-road bikes, together with the dogs doodles I brought with me here, which is more like a tourer, old and American (but I won't hold that against it).

It's just a pity that I don't have eight lycra clad buttocks to straddle each of the saddles at the same time, (or at least that is what my wife says)

Herman the

teutonic camper van

I took a photo of it today on our happy campers camp site, minus front window of course. Herman , as you may have gathered is somewhat Germanic, well, at least the top half is, it is an LMC. you may not beleive it, I didn't at first, but LMC. is short for Lord Munsterland Caravans. Who in their right minds would want to call their company that !! perhaps Mr Munster, but that's only a guess. They don't make them any more apparently, I suppose the name just didn't roll off people's tongues.

The rest of the campervan is a bit of a cross breed really, engine from Citroen, noisy, diesely, smokey and grunty and the chassis from Peugeot (so good electrics there then!) the whole thing just rolls canardly, but it's comfy and does its' job. Bit like a brick shithouse with a heated lambs wool toilet seat. 

And it's as tidy on the inside !!

This is our home from home, up here in northern France. please note the red thing under the plastic sheet, it's an oven. Not many French campervans of this vintage were fitted with ovens, so we thought we would buy one so I could do the pies and pasties. And of course the pizzas, tonight, we had croissant, filled with ham, sliced hard boiled egg and covered in a home made cheese sauce and baked in the oven until the sauce was hot and bubbly, all washed down with red water.

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm !!

unsticky tape

receipe for something different !

ingredients.

1 camping car (or motorhome, depending if you are metric or not)

1 13 year old son

1 apparently patient and tolerant wife

1 flimsy plastic window, on aforementioned campervan

1 bed next to plastic window

1 overnight parking full of Roma gypsies

1 rather loud bang

Once you have gathered all the above ingredients together, stop at about 1 o'clock in the morning at a service area, then put your son in the bed next to the window and wait.!! Eventually, he will want to open said window to listen to what is going on with the 50 or so Mercedes and BMW cars of all nations parked next to us.

There were tents and sleeping bags everywhere, in the cars, on the cars and next to the cars, it's a wonder we didn't run any of them over when we pulled up, it was like tent city at the French ferry ports. 

What I want to know is, how come they all drive fancy NEW cars, and I've got an old Fiat Panda. There again, I don't choose to put a sleeping bag on the road to sleep, do I ?

In the morn, after having nearly choked the poor buggers to death with our big Citroen diesel motor trying to start, and having negotiated tent and sleeping bag land, we set off on our second leg to holiday heaven (at least, that's what the brochure said). Up the free motorway at 80 kph (50 mph in old money), singing the wheels on the bus as one does UNTIL? BANG. s**t, what the f**k was that, plenty of cars on the road, and no one honked, so we couldn't have lost all the bikes off the back, BUT, it was begining to become decidedly draughty.

Half hour later, "DAD" we seem to have a big hole in the front of the van !!! Time to try the emergency stopping area on the side of the motorway.

You're not wrong there son, where has the bloody window gone ?

Then it started to rain, Thank you God !!

I was just slightly upset, as one could imagine and when we eventualy arrived at the campsite, decided to patch the hole with one of those silvered screen things, designed for keeping the heat off the inside of your car (don't need one of those here).

I borrowed some tape of the campsite owner, big roll of wide silver sticky stuff.

Question,         who makes the best unsticky sticky tape.

Answer,            the French of course !!!!

Duct tape?, Gorilla tape?, never heard of it mate, but this stuff is French and it only costs twice as much as proper sticky tape, anyway it's all we've got!

It lasted about one day on the van, and we are not even moving. I reckon that it takes as much effort and cost to produce sicky tape as it does unsticky sticky tape, so why do these armpits sell us stuff that doesn't work at inflated prices????????

Stupid as it may sound, in future I will buy stuff that I want to work properly, from a reputable manufacturer who sells online at regular prices.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

very special expensive unsticky sticky tape as available here in France

still alive and kicking

just

contrary to popular belief, and because I haven't posted this last few days, there has been a rumour going around that I have managed to find the end of the world, and have fallen off it. It just feels that way. We have some good friends who are house, cat and chicken sitting for us, whilst we are off trying to find the edge of the world. (we did find it by the way, it is called Finistere, top left hand corner of France). Oh yes, and before I forget,  a big hello to Pam And Nick, hope you are enjoying your stay in our hovel, and you haven't been bitten by too many cat fleas.

So, a few days ago we filled our camper van to absolute bursting point with all sorts of things we couldn't possibly need, and headed north to get away from the intense heat and hoards of holiday makers (wrong move!! rains a lot here and every other car is either English, German or Dutch). It's a nice place though, and I will be taking photos and relating the story of our eventfull journey in a post to come. 

The campsite has wifi (apparently) and after three days trying, I have eventually managed to access it. However, just to complicate things, I have to use my wife's computer cos mine blew up, and I cant find my photos and the spell checker is in french, so according to that, I haven't spelt anything correctly yet. Life is interesting like that ain't it ?

The best time to get onto the internet here is about 2am. it's only 11pm. now, so I am receiving copious messages telling me it's stopped, no, it's started, no, it's just farted, it's raining, no really, it's really raining AGAIN !!!

My first ride on my bike today, after a break of over just one year, it felt very good to have the cool sea breeze whistling up my trouser leg, I've got my camera with me so expect some photos, if!!!! I can find them.

Poland

powitanie

I think that's Polish for welcome, feel free to correct me if I am mistaken.
I mention that, because, someone from Poland was reading my blog recently and it reminded me of when I visited Poland back in the early 1970's. I think it's changed a bit since then though.

Still well behind the iron curtain in the 70's, I did find the whole experience completely different from where I was living at that time in the UK. and in some respects, rather odd and perhaps at times a little frightening, let me explain.

I was an engineer officer at the time in the British Merchant Navy and had been working for some time for a company that shipped raw sugar from Trinidad, Jamaica and Mauritius back to London, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards and although those countries were extremely interesting to visit, eventually the novelty wore off and I was on the lookout for more distant shores to discover.

Mearsk, is a Danish company that at that time were building three huge ships that were going to sail under the British flag. I had applied to join the company, was accepted, and was awaiting the delivery of the second of the new ships being built in Norway. It eventually turned out I had a six month wait (on full pay of course) until the company decided that I would join, what was, the first ship which was sailing into Poland a couple of weeks before Christmas. Because I was an officer, it was my privilege to take my family with me if I so desired, I was advised at the time that it might be better if I waited until the ship arrived in Dunkirk, its' next port of call, but, being youthful, we thought "what the heck, it will be an adventure" I wasn't wrong !!

British Airways into Warsaw, and that's when the adventure started. There was supposed to be someone to meet us, NO-ONE. nobody spoke English, but we eventually found out we had to go to another airport and fly Lot Air to Stetin. We had to take a taxi, but had no Polish currency. Money had to be exchanged through a certified government bureau (I thought robbery went out with Robin Hood, but I was wrong) Finally, after all the paperwork we received our zloty and headed for the taxi on route to another airport somewhere, I didn't have a clue where we were going, I couldn't even pronounce it !!

So, when I saw the plane, I nearly turned around to go home, (when I was young my father bought a black and white, hand cranked movie projector, together with a five minute Mickey Mouse film, he had an airplane that looked a lot like the one that awaited us on the runway). It was freezing, everywhere covered in ice and snow. After what seemed an eternity we landed in Stetin (I think). We were the last plane to land there until the snow slowly melted in early spring. There was supposed to be someone to meet us, NO-ONE. In the tin shed that was the arrival and departure lounge, a nice Polish business man asked where we were going, as there were no taxis , and as it was coming on for midnight, the very hour that we turned back into pumpkins and our Polish Visas ran out, we decided to take the gentleman's kind offer of a lift to the port where the ship was waiting. Somewhere decidedly unpronounceable. 

The ship had gone, no-one knew where, and so the kind gent who had given us a lift, suggested the police might know and would help us. Ummmmmmmmmmm. as our visas had run out at midnight, I, my wife and my five year old daughter were promptly arrested and were given a police escort to where they thought the ship might be, (about three hours away, early hours of the morning, very very cold, road deep with snow, at 80mph.) could have been worse, these guys were bristling with guns, at least they didn't use them. More by luck than judgement, I reckon, after circling this new port for about an hour and having been asked about fifty times "zis von" no "zis von" no "zis von" no, it's the big blue one, we saw the big blue one, and were really looking forward to a little sleep time, think again mate. We could almost touch the ship BUT!! the man who had to look at our papers before we went on board, didn't start work until 9 o'clock and it was only 4 o'clock in the morning, so into a small, cold wooden shed we were ushered to await the man with the rubber stamp, wooden bench, just what the doctor ordered, no drinks, our luggage taken away, oh yes, and an armed guard outside our home from home. What a lovely welcome, it's no wonder that everyone wanted to leave !!

Time passed slowly !!! dawn arrived as the one single window slowly lit up, the door opened and we were invited to go on board the ship. Where is the guy then ? you know, the guy with the rubber stamp, oh, him. He was off apparently somewhere else, just keep telling yourself that it's a good job you don't live in a communist regime.

Just got sorted with my steward in our cabin when I got "bing bonged" (tannoy from Captain) to present myself in his office to meet and greet the guy with the rubber stamp. Couldn't believe the conversation we had with him, like talking to someone from  planet Zog. Did you change any money ? yep. How much ? about £200, have you got the receipt and any money you have left ? so I put it all on the table, at which point he pocketed the lot, rubber stamped something or other and left, jingling all the way. Don't worry Mike, the company will reimburse you everything, which they did straight away, out of the safe in the captain's office.

I got my own back. I changed on the black market sufficient dosh for a super Christmas, at about one sixth the cost in the UK. Not much choice though, just three shops , bread shop (queue half way down the road) shoe shop (queue half way down road) and a toy shop open with about a dozen different choices, my daughter ended up with the Polish equivalent of a Meccano set and a teddy bear about twice her size.
Perhaps I might go back some day, now it's changed, just for a visit.

Cyclists

can you spot the bikes ?

These pics were taken about half an hour after the caravan pics. The heavens opened, as you can probably see. When we arrived at about midday, we were probably about the twentieth car to park up alongside a very small road, half in the ditch, half in the road (that's why I took my old square box Fiat Panda). But when we left, the line of cars parked up must have been about half a mile long and on both sides of this single track road, which was a problem for those who didn't have the foresight to turn around before they parked and for those with impossibly large people carrier things, who must have been stuck in the pouring rain, waiting for the gendarmes to re-open the road the cyclists had been on, but of course, only in one direction. That's France.

the need for speed

there's a few

there's a few more

fast fuzz

there's three more of the guys

just a drop of rain !!