LTC rocked to the sound of children’s laughter.

Geo. and family had caught the early ferry and so arrived in the evening rather than as the bats were scratching themselves and thinking of flitting off to the graveyard – and I cooked for us all (I pity them).  He gave me my present on which I dwelt at such length in the last edition and I gave it a thorough examination.

On Tuesday we sauntered and then had the grand barbeque; it was a masterstroke.  Daff and Charles’ grandchildren galloped about with Catherine and Finlay and the adults, as I have mentioned, were able to be adults.  On the Isle Aux Pies (in reality Magpie Island, to me Eel Pie Island) there is a French equivalent of Go Ape, the rope course company, and the younger and youngest generations had a reunion on Wednesday.

Two years ago, when Geo. and family took me with them to Barney and Lara’s, they all went round a local version of Go Ape and I stayed with William, the oldest and youngest keeping each other company whilst all the sandwich fillers had fun.  This time, again, I was the bag-watcher and had to confront an uncomfortable situation – willing mind, wilting flesh.  It is only four or five years since a silly woman watched myself and three others go round a Go Ape course; she kept making comments about two of us being exceptional for our age.

As some joints now creak and groan and definitely let me know when I do something they don’t like I am confronting ageing with less than good grace.  At Cathy’s on Friday I had kicked off the downie after opening the window – in the morning I was woken by aching hips.

Between Heron Bleu and Leclerc on Monday, for some unconscious reason, I was remembering a few cheeky moments which also lead to you are wonderful moments.  I stopped, dismounted, de-helmeted and was going through my shed jacket, ear plugs and gloves routine when a French Caribbean woman asked me how old I was.  I told her and she went into the wonderful you routine; I couldn’t avoid it, I had to reply along the snow on the roof but a fire in the cellar routine and how an old man could still have an eye for a beautiful young woman and kissed her hand.  She lefty tripping the light fantastic.  The higher the pedestal, the further to fall; Wednesday’s rude awakening was all the worse for it.  And all of this after a wonderful moment.  They had followed satellite instructions and we were in the wrong place (1-0 to the Luddites), Alison, Catherine and Finlay debussed and Geo. and I took the car to the car park (the other side of an impenetrable barrier).  On way I had to open a gate which I think some high-minded walkers had shut to prevent others following our bad example – and just beyond we saw the biggest wild boar since the British Army of Occupation of the Rhineland was renamed in the 1950s.  As we would have missed it but for the shenanigans it was game, set and match to The Luddites.

Our amazing fortune had me living in the moment and marvelling at our good luck.  Geo. couldn’t get to his camera in time and was transported back in time to The Shankhill Road and threw a paddy.

Thursday was, as ever, market day and I had to collect the butter which I had ordered last week.  Ma Petite Trayeuse had warned me that she would not be there so the regret was ameliorated (slightly).  As Le Pisse-Meme is not WiFi’d we had to go (under extreme duress…) to Le Douanerie; the new owners have made a pun on their menus – le douane rie (from the customs’ house to the laughing customs officer).

Our afternoon was spent going to Penestin, where Alison took command of a beach spot and we others went to the rocks that Cathy and I had found and I identified as good scrambling.  Geo. was more interested in the World War fortifications, I thought it was a maze for simpletons (not that Finlay or Catherine, despite being in the maze qualify as such).

On the other hand, I was fascinated by this chemin and the waves crashing at the base:

 

Geo. spent rather long trying to get a photo of some paragliders and so we were gone for quite  a long time, hence swimming time was curtailed by an encroaching tide (and Geo. had missed nine calls from Alison apprising him of the circumstances).

It is a good job that Alison is such a lovely person – she committed the almost unforgivable offence of blurting a crossword answer;  they had picked me up an i on the ferry and – with her help on that clue – I finished it.  It was not unique experience but is an occasional enough happening to attract a little glow of pride, just like burning lions.

On Friday, at last as far as the junior members of the cast were concerned, we took the inflatable boats of a previous entry to Etang Aumee.  At first Geo. and Finlay took to the canoe and he returned swearing that it had a leak.  I further inflated it, took it for sea trials and insisted the cause was due to, as pirates say, “Avast Behind” – which would make him an A.B. rather than a P.O. but he told me that he could not be demoted.  That hasn’t stopped me; I think he feels the joke has gone on for long enough… and far be it for me to suggest to the other Crisis Grumpy Chums that I have found a wee chink in his armour.  His secret is safe with me…  As is the vastness of his behind…

The fleet, on the etang Aumee…   And one of those pictures which takes some of the shine off the intrepid explorers…

The whole lake is not that shallow, just the one spot.

What with another day spent at the lake, a return barbeque with Daff and Charles (their family had moved on) and various trips hither and thither, my time as mine host was passing in a flash.  Successfully try as I do to live in the moment for most of the time, I did have a flash of sorrow that, albeit Geo. and family are fantastically good friends, I spend more time with them than with my family at these moments of great pleasure; alhumdulallah.  I have worked with too many clients or guests who have ruined themselves physically and/or mentally to go down the same route.

As I write it is the British late summer bank holiday, there are but few migrating birds remaining; summer is ebbing fast.  In three days it will be September and no more moules frites for another year.  But I still have a fortnight of mainly outside jobs, then some BSB ones followed by a weekend rolling in the mud with the Crisis Grumpy Chums and off on another (fairly long) adventure.  Ah me.

“Holy shorts, Batman”. “At least we know who it is, Robin”.

Post Cropredy, one last breakfast in a bun, one last result on the tea season ticket – okay, two, the latter being for on the road.  An early enough away to beat the main crowd and so quiet roads to the motorway and a gentle run back to BSB.  Gosh, I’m getting boring in my old age.

The big paint-in (to be very 60’s – decade although current age also fits) continued with another huge investment in the chandlery.  The magic, one type does under- and topcoat paint is expensive but does (obviously) do away with the need for two types – and, more importantly, seals in one go.  With a whole month at LTC all would go to hell in a handcart otherwise.

An early peak to Les Grands Vacances came with Monday’s drive (on the bike, in good weather, so took a clean pants route) to see Mattie.  That made two thirds of my off-spring in one UK sojourn, the percentage of total family was less but still the best I could realistically hope for.  Not only did we manage the two small plumbing jobs that he wanted, I also did post-festival dhobi and had a jolly good blether, to boot.

Leaving early on Wednesday morning (which was an adventure in itself as he is as bad as me at reveille and I don’t know how to set the alarm clock to ring on my phone), the road was another clean pants one and I even got a wave of thanks from one of Dorset’s finest. Having just passed a car crash (where everything seemed to be under control so I didn’t stop) I was driving past the oncoming traffic jam when a police van came towards me, on my side of the road, with blue lights flashing; I pulled in and waved him through, he waved a thanks to me…  At least, I think that’s what it was – I am not used to the police doing that; normally it is, “do you know what speed you were doing, sir?”

Despite the traffic I was at the ferry port with time to spare – even time to be searched by a very polite port security officer.  I did think of questioning his kind offer of me choosing the bag to be examined – I must pick the one with drugs/firearms/bombs in, oh hang on, I’ve got a better idea…   My run of i cryptic crosswords continued and the crossing so quick I was at Cherbourg in a trice.  It is a while since I have driven the Cherbourg route and some of the not indicated road has been ‘improved.’  Luckily the nice, sweeping bends, very definitely clean pants bits south of Percy (in this case a small town rather than a small engine) were intact – and there was space to whizz past the slower moving traffic.  The new(ish) to me bike is not a sports bike but does everything I want and perhaps a little bit more; if I leant far enough to need sliders on my knees I fear I would never get up again, at least not without a creak and a groan.  That would bring a whole new meaning to going round in circles.

Thursday was market day (as usual) at LRB and it being high season everything was in full swing and crowded.  Alchie Annie is being very saccharine, aspartame over the top gooey and insisted on driving me in, which actually quite helpful as it allowed me to buy\ sufficient supplies to keep me going.  In her befuddled way she is convinced that LRB is at imminent threat of a terrorist attack and so will not go near a crowd, thus I shopped and then met her at the former yellow teapot cafe.  She has a friend, another Cathy, who is not particularly keen on me; they were sitting together until Cathy saw me approaching.  She leapt up like a shot rabbit, ran inside, paid and hot-footed.

I successfully completed the great biscuit smuggle; Pat was making melon sorbet and Trevor was hiding somewhere in the garden and so I left them to it and went, two melons to the good.  They live close to Charles and Daff, another British couple, so I popped in there – and arranged to host a barbeque on Tuesday for them, one of their children with wife and two youngsters, and Geo. et al.  It was a stroke of pure genius – the four children ran off their excess energy making new friends with each other (and the adults could do adult things…).

The main adult thing allowed me to show off my marvellous new toy.  Geo. has spend a long and happy time playing rolling in the mud with his bushcrafty friends, who like to show off their various now minority interest skills.  One is an ironsmith, who Geo. filmed making the intriguing little item (see attached video)

 

which he then bought and gave to me as a thank you for having them stay.  Having them stay is thank you enough, I really enjoy their company, but the wee gift was icing on the cake.

 

It was only after I took this photo that I realised how similar to the Nepali figure 1 my new bottle opener looks and thus the whole thing resembles the face often portrayed on Buddhist stupas  as the all seeing one…  For those with a vivid imagination, of course.

The weather being fine (for some) – poor Geo. suffers in anything above slightly warm and the forecast for their arrival was for hotter – my holy shorts have made their summer bow.  For those of a delicate disposition I am loth to announce that my sorting and shedding has lead to the discovery of a few more pairs-in-waiting, but one person’s loss is another’s gain – the fashion for slashed knees in jeans means that rather than having to cut them off I have a resale option!  This could be the end of the road for one of history’s longer serving fashion trends.

On Friday Cathy arrived with Christian to collect the rest of her belongings – Phillipe, Lena’s father has still not come for his more intrusive furniture – and we arranged to meet at Le Pisse-Meme later.  To enable me to enjoy the ambience I was invited to stay over and thus discovered that Maison Plaud, boulangerie par excellence, has their pain de menage (household bread) on a Saturday morning as well.  I had thought it only available on Thursdays and Sundays; oh, divine joy.

There was a concert at Le Pisse-Meme on Saturday evening and the set had a certain je ne sais quoi:

Punk rock was. to me. fairly grungy anyway; quite why now there is steam punk, grunge, whatever I really don’t know – but it did seem to be appropriate.  With ‘Unlop’ on the side of the moped I wondered if it was for Oey or Ichael, but I couldn’t see either of them winning a TT on it.

 

The Bishop’s Fist and a Flock of Spotty Chickens.

Cropredy is a small village in north Oxfordshire and was once home to several members of Fairport Convention, a folk-rock band.  Some thirty-eight years ago they set up their own festival and have had one ever since despite one wobbly year when the main organiser and her husband, the base guitar player, split up.  This year is the band’s 50th. anniversary and so, with due fears of mawkishness, I had booked my ticket long ago.

The music starts at 4.00pm Thursday so I had managed to scrape back to bare metal quite a section of upperworks and even give it a coat of Firtan.  With a day at WVM there was still time to wash off the Firtan and get two coats of red oxide over it.  As red oxide is porous and Firtan is only good for a short while all this was necessary to prevent me having to start from scratch at a later date – and still one more coat would be necessary before the long break.  But all work and no play…

Dominic is an old mate of longer standing (with some fairly long breaks) than Fairport’s Cropredy Convention, as it is punnily named, has been in existence.  Of late we have met up there quite a few times for our annual RV, sometimes in the company of Cap’n John, sometimes in the company of others.  This year he was accompanied by his fiancee and so I didn’t have to take a tent for him.

Thinking that I would stop at Lidl’s for some cheap beer it turned out quite expensive – there was a really, really must have one of those or my gusset will burst into flames cordless circular saw…  Expensive savings will appear to be a theme today.

Sarah has a five-years old daughter called Phoebe who is an absolute sweetie but does need her sleep, thus by the time we actually met it was almost her bed time so the shared supplies weren’t quite.  Bishop’s Finger is a pleasant if slightly stronger than usual beer and five fingers make a fist (I can almost hear the pedants’ cries of anguish but there isn’t a beer called Bishop’s Thumb), so Thursday became Bishop’s Fist night.

Being one of the UK’s earliest folk rock bands Fairport attract fairly eclectic fans (there are also some acoustic ones) and, as Cropredy straddles the Oxford canal, some river rats and chancers.

Between the festival site and the canal these two, obviously acoustic, fans were indulging in a spot of private enterprise.

It is a festival of much continuity and much change.  Thursday, as usual, started with an acoustic set from Fairport themselves and continued with some good folk rock throughout the evening.

On Friday and Saturday the music doesn’t start until midday and so the whole village gets in the party spirit.  The cricket pavilion is open for showers, the junior school does breakfast in a bun with all funds swelling their coffers and the litter is cleared by the scout troop, who invite donations on Saturday afternoon.  I do wonder sometimes whether the opposite force is that some usual village type fund raising activities go by the board.

One of the continuties is the Saturday opening slot being Richard Diigance, the London version of Billie Conolly, Jasper Carrot, Max Boyce et  al – the comedian/folk singers who grew out of the ever longer, rambling introductions which were common in folk clubs of the late 1960s.

The school breakfast in a bun has recently extended to buy a travel mug, get a season ticket on the hot drinks.  Dominic mentioned that five drinks was the break even (he was excluding the value of the mug) and I replied to the effect of economies and false economies.  In Moscow, the first time, and in Berlin, the second time, carnets or season tickets have been false friends.  In Moscow, following a travel tip, I bought a carnet of ten metro tickets for the price of eight – and used only one.  The tip did not take account of those of us who prefer walking.  In Berlin Sven kindly bought me the weekend season ticket and again I used it for only one journey.  A fool and his money being soon parted is a tenet of English civil law – and I am living proof.

The change side of things concerns some of the bands and here I differ from the organisers.  I  like folk rock; Petula Clark may well be great for her age but her USian style of presentation and her style of singing do nothing for me.  I fear Cropredy and I may be growing apart; I hope that the Cambridge Folf Festival remains true to itself.  For all of that, the folksy bands were up to their usual high standard and the joke of Richard Digance taking a year out but being screened at the time that he would be doing his really cheesy bit of getting the whole field (or at least, the human part of it) waving hankies as he played a cod Morris dance was pleasing (to the cogniscenti, at least).

To show that old folkies never die, they just creep into VW micro-campers:

The split windscreen is the ultimate, beating everything else – including the Land Rover – but definitely wouldn’t beat anything over 100 yards (or any other distance for that matter) but it has stood the test of time.

One big advantage of going with someone who has a small child in tow – when Dominic and Sarah took Phoebe to bed I inherited some of his stash – not quite as good as bottles of Bishop’s Finger – but  cans of Old Speckled Hen (known to the select few as Spotty Chicken, hence the title) make a welcome substitute.  Which is more than can  be said for the non-folksy bands.

With the ever looming deadline (ferry booked and Geo. and family arriving soon after me) it was handy to be up and away early on Sunday morning, so much so that I even managed to slap another coat of red oxide on the work-in-progress.  It certainly makes a difference:

There’s only four times the length done so far… on each side… and the roof… and the side decks… and the bit above the rubbing strake… and the stern…  Then it will be time to start ripping the inside apart.  Just the idea of it  makes me think I need to lie down in a dark room.

Ronald McDonald The Trump – Clown Plince but not of China.

Oh the joy, the rapture.  Who needs  a TV (and its licence fee) when the papers provide us with so much comedy.  When the British parliament goes on holiday it is meant to be the silly season, but with our leaders making total arses of themselves and fighting like ferrets in a sack over who said what (and who meant what) and when about leaving the European Union and Donald the Trump firing staff like Buffalo Bill on speed, this year must be a vintage one.  Long may it last.

With the Edinburgh Fringe being in full session I wonder if Donald The Trump is looking for a second (or third) career.  He has, apparently, screwed up the fortune that daddy left him and now seems to be turning the White House into a comedy venue.  It is a shame that only one-liners seem to win the Perrier prize for best joke at the fringe, his long running saga would be odds-on otherwise. Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive insane – but chauffeur someone to a Parisian river before destroying them?

In another of those uncanny coincidences that seem to follow me around I was discussing the forthcoming works at BSB with one of my offspring and we got round to the British Navy approach – rub it down and then slap some top coat on it.  One of the several non-M.I.6 Ems that I know is in the process of painting her boat and I was directed towards her for first hand knowledge of a new type of paint.  There is as yet only a limited colour range available – and she has chosen Battleship Grey.

Unlike the artificer’s tool kit (a can of WD 40 and a hammer; if it moves and it shouldn’t, hit it, if it doesn’t move and it should, spray it), I have yet again been shown the foolishness of monkey materials.  I had two Leclerc Mickey Mouse angle-grinders amongst the various tools, now I have only one.  The other, after a mere five minutes or so, started smoking and stopped working; smoking was obviously very bad for its health.  With a neighbour’s good quality angle-grinder and some flappy discs bought from a former neighbour I had a wonderful day playing hide and rub down – and managed to make a worthwhile contribution to the new look between showers (hence the hiding).  That should (but won’t) be sufficient to silence the cynic who made a disparaging comment about my ‘usual, do a couple of square feet and then give up.’  As I started the process on Friday afternoon I could understand the cynic – there is a no using power tools once the chandlery is shut rule.  Hence day 1 was a somewhat truncated affair.

Fortunately the current rustproofing of choice is now Firtan; when it was Genolite I often caused confusion by asking for gelignite. People have attracted life sentences for less.  Firtan can be applied with a brush, so no curfew on painting hours.  Despite that Friday evening became a social event with the neighbours of the big strong angle-grinder – and a very jolly evening it became too.  I am not often praised for the quality of my wine but Uta was wholesome in her praise; no hangover so it must have been a good one!

Saturday was a slower start and therefore a bit less done but now that half of one side of the superstructure has been taken down to bare metal and then made ready for primer it does look as if something is stirring – and not just in the paint pot.

The Organisey One had offered Sunday lunch to Jim and Phyllis and myself, I thought for me to give them some further directions to watering holes in Palestine and Israel.  It was only as XBob(!) was writing a card that I was informed of Phyillis’ birthday two days before!  It was fortuitous that I had gone bearing gifts a-plenty anyway.

Some years ago, at the start of the raggedy-arsed travels, I walked through a part of the Sahara Desert raising funds for an NGO.  On that walk I made friends with a woman who was writing a journal and subsequently found out that many people who wander in similar fashion keep diaries and the like.  Loyal readers will be aware that that is part of my rationale for this blog; it is just an electronic version. As with most of my good ideas, I either can’t be bothered with them or start them slightly after the off.  It was only after many years of traipsing around that I undertook the long ride on a totally unsuitable motor-bike which heralded the start of the musings and ramblings.

One definition of intelligence is the ability to learn from experience – and I have displayed an element of intelligence!  Sort of.  I went to take some photos of the boat before I completed too much of the refurbishment (I wasn’t clever enough to take them at the outset, I’m not that intelligent) – and found that the wee camera that I bought in Andorra runs itself out of battery power.  This is the second time that has happened, I hope that I am intelligent enough to learn from the experience; eventually.

In the interview for a job giving supervision to counsellors (helping them sort their own baggage from that of their clients and not allowing the flow of empathy to go the wrong way) I, and I later found out, all the other applicants were asked our greatest strength and greatest weakness.  At least one other gave the same answer – that it was the same thing, but from a different perspective.  The negative one – prevarication to the point of death by boredom – continues.  I managed to spend two days at WVM and one being wined and dined at lunchtime in The City.  Eventually, though, all good things come to an end – hence the boatwork starting.  It is a shame that I will be going to a festival, then to see one son, then to LTC for a month, then for a rolling in the mud weekend with the Crisis Grumpy Chums, then to the US for the autumn.  Perhaps the old cynic had a point after all…