I found this and grinned

I introduced Shirley to a pass time called, "watching paint dry" and it became both absorbing and great fun.

With the weather being as unpleasant as it was and me not feeling 100% we sat in areas where the view was good but we were out of the rain and wind.

One day we spent the entire morning watching a ferry unloading army vehicles and then driving them off to somewhere close. The drivers were then returned by coach and the next batch of vehicles unloaded and dispatched.

It sounds boring but in fact we were riveted by the whole process.

Bristling with police, military precision and extreme slowness, the whole process was mesmerizing. 

Another wet and unpleasant day in La Rochelle we watched tankers coming into a warehouse and being filled with some white powder. 

I wondered why the cabs were sitting outside the warehouse, then I saw the reason. Clouds of white powder billowed out the doors covering the area in white frosting.

We spent ages attempting to solve the puzzle: what was it?

The tankers then came out and screwed down the four shoots. The whole process was slow, methodical and mesmerising. 

Our fascination then turned to three men, a dumper truck, two cement mixers, buckets and a pickup truck.

They were building a wall? Enclosing an area? 

In the end we had to get the binoculars. 

Yep, they were building a wall and reinforcing it (this came in the pick up). The cement was mixed, dumped in the bucket on the dumper and then scooped out by the bucket load. They then threw this behind cement blocks.

Pass? 

Rain stopped play on that one, washing all the powder away.

A thoroughly enjoyable morning.

Learnt a lot and mused even more. 

Pleasant morning, Shirley, watching paint dry.