October 2011

Returned drained and exhausted from England and had a day at home. The day after we got up at 0430 to catch the Guernsey Ferry - lovely place for a holiday, I hear you say and I have no doubt but that you are right. I will try it one day. We were on business to see our accountant. 'Gosh' people will say,'they must be hell's rich, having a Channel Island Accountant,’ No we are not, it is just that Sarkosy is trying to pull a fiscal stroke to make us even poorer - a very moderate little man in my opinion and that has nothing to do with his ethnicity. We are fortunate in that our lovely Virginie, is well upsides of all the knavish tricks of 'Johnny Crapaud'. Whatever - the crossing to Guernsey was very rough, with that nasty Atlantic swell. I know from hard experience that that particular sea scape can make one lay out one's kit. All my life I have, like Nelson, been a victim of Sea Sickness, but this time I was spared although many of our fellow passengers succumbed and I felt very sorry for them. That is one pleasure I have to look forward to that I can do without St Peter Port is a pretty little harbour. We set off for lunch in high hopes and a taxi cab, being lame gives one certain privileges. The lunch was excellent, but I regret that Madame Virginie's upsum did not cheer us up much. It seems that Sarkozie has it in for the English; something to do with Waterloo - the battle, which the French won as any French school boy will tell you, not the Station in London. And he wants to fiscally screw the wicked English. However Madame V says that nothing is certain as the French cannot make up their minds - that will amaze you. In as much as I have ever given the Channel Islands much thought room. I had always thought of them as part of France that had come our way after 1812 - not so, it seems. Les Isles de la Manche have always been highly independent. They were and remain the personal property of the Duke of Normandy. Now if you shrug and say 'Yeah, well 'ees dead, innee?' You are quite wrong. The Duke is alive and well in the person of Our Gracious Queen. You do not have to ask how that works, just know that it does and stop asking damned stupid questions. The Channislanders won't thank you for it. They are a very independent people. At one time they spoke a French patois that was thought to be the nearest thing to Norman French that existed, since the real thing - it still does, but only just - amongst the older generation. The present Generation still speak Patois but it is an English based a sort of a bastard Cockney, a bit like Pompey English. I do not find it very attractive, any more than the embryonic sluts in the pub by the Portsmouth docks, but for some obscure reason, no one give two monkey's for my opinion - very strange. My wife's Great Uncle owned an island off Guernsey. You can see 2 or 3 from the harbour, so I suppose that it was probably one of those, but nobody seems to know, or, if it comes to that, care. The Channislands remain very much their own. They refuse to join Europe and who is to say that they are wrong in that? I mean would we English have done it had Grocer Heath not lied through his teeth to us and told us that Brussels would never have more power than a District Council ? The Islanders won’t pay VAT and they would not bomb Libya or anywhere else come to that. The Islanders will only take up arms if the person of H.M the Queen (aka the Duke of Normandy) is under threat. All in all they are cussed buggers, who have many good negatives. Search for 'good positives' and you will find them in the crew of the boats of the 'Manche Express'. These are the fast launches that ferry you over the troubled waters from Normandy to the Isles. I was officially posted up as 'disabled' and they were brilliant at getting me (slim as I am) and my wheel chair up and down steep stairs and gangways. I know that Mrs Poole wrote a thank you letter to them, I would like my own Gratitude to be recorded. Mind you, it took, the Bosun and two Engineers to manhandle me and m'chair up and down and all in French too, them and the launches coming from Normandy.