Early in 2019 I took a fancy to being a volunteer with Jersey Heritage who manage several of the island’s major historically significant sites. Being of more mature age than some I was encouraged to consider the job of Tour Guide, skipping the entry level job of Visitor Host. Mont Orgueil, our showpiece medieval castle, was my preference. I spent time there familiarising myself, swotted up on the history and picked the brains of more experienced guides. Each had (and has) a different approach to their tours. Armed to the teeth with new knowledge and rudimentary skills, I was let loose on the public.

That year of 2019 was great fun. I was slotted into Monday mornings and I would rock up each week for a 10.30am tour of about 75 minutes. Mondays were popular with visitors; the queues built up before opening time and it was constantly busy until early afternoon. I’d usually gather together a fairly large group and set off on the journey to the top, learning the art of guiding on the hoof. That year the visitors were predominantly from the UK but with a good proportion from Europe and elsewhere. On busy summer days I’d double up, finishing my tour at the top of the castle before trotting down to pick up a second group.

I must have made a reasonable impression as, for the 2020 season, I was taken on for a paid role, Visitor Services Assistant, two days a week. My volunteer guiding would continue subject to this new role. Then of course, the pandemic hit. Everything ground to a halt before cautiously re-opening after a few months. Even so, there were no overseas visitors and no Jersey folk wanted a tour of their local castle. Week after week us guides would turn up, hang around, drink coffee, go home again. It was a sad kind of year even though Heritage kept the sites open as best they could and without having to make redundancies, a relief for the full-time staff.

But 2021 has been better. Especially since midsummer the border restrictions have eased and the UK visitors have returned in reasonable numbers. And, slowly but surely, us tour guides have seen our groups increase in size again. Still no French or Germans though – we’re always happy to welcome our continental friends but one has to modify the banter a bit!

Into November now and Mont Orgueil will remain fully open until Christmas. Even this morning I had a lively dozen or so on the tour and enjoyed a good bit of chat with them. Hopefully 2022 will, fingers crossed, see things improve even more.

A rainy old day. I ran around the coast road to Gorey Pier – a regular little run – ready with my bus pass to get the no.1 bus back to my starting point. The harbour area is a pleasant spot in the shade of Mont Orgueil and busy with tourists in a normal summer. There’s a large, four-sided shelter where the buses turn around. The benches on all four sides were occupied this day. The bus arrived and I hesitated, waiting for those who had arrived earlier to climb aboard.

No one from the shelter moved a muscle. On I got and off we went.

It’s the new phenomenon, here in Jersey at least. The cafés, unable to seat customers due to Covid restrictions have embraced the takeaway (‘takeout’ in the States I believe). So where do you go with your takeaway? Of course, one of the many shelters constructed for bus passengers or, elsewhere, for the weary tourist. They’re packed. The rubbish bins are full of cardboard cups and more bins have had to be deployed at popular spots.

This pandemic has certainly galvanised many local businesses into survival mode and who have made changes to adapt to the new circumstances. One of the striking first examples of this was at the time of the first lockdown in March of last year. Suddenly our local fishermen had no sales outlets for their catches. What did they do? They started selling right there from the harbour, from the boats, via a hurried social media campaign. The response from the locals was excellent.

For general food shopping, queues formed outside supermarkets due to restrictions on numbers. In response, the supermarkets started to offer home deliveries, taking on extra staff to do so. Not to offer delivery was to risk losing market share.

Non-food retailers, classed as non-essential and therefore restricted even more, started to offer Click-and-Collect, rarely heard of before. Many upped their online presence with many more people now finding it easier to shop from their armchairs.

And never mind the cafés, the high-end restaurants are now offering takeaways and home deliveries to keep a little income flowing before life returns to ‘normal’. My local Chinese takeaway was rushed off its feet during first lockdown, the delivery guys couldn’t cope. However they are now quieter than previously as so many other places have joined the battle for the home delivery market. (Personally I still don’t understand why many people won’t stretch their legs a few yards to collect their food but I guess these are the times we live in.)

And when this is all over our retail landscape will most certainly have changed forever. I doubt it will be benefitting our previously thriving town centres though.

Honoured to be interviewed by the amazing Blonde Plotters – see link here. Debs, Gwyn and Kelly are Jersey-based writers specialising in Romance but with a bit of crime and suspense in the mix.

Give them a try. Here is their website.

To be clear, this is not a Blonde Plotter

Yesterday evening I had an hour or so before I was due to pick up my little jogging group. The nearby sand dunes, the Blanches Banques on Jersey’s western shoreline beckoned. They were shrouded in mist and I was quickly into a timeless zone, one that would have been recognised by the original Neolithic settlers of this place.

And, armed with pocket camera, I was soon lost in this amazing and living landscape. Click on pics to enlarge, and for captions.

The little lake that comes and goes with the seasons.

It will be gone by September.

Our ancestors left us these. Did they foresee 21c joggers admiring them?

Menhir

Ossuary

The Blanches Banques has a pretty special eco-system, ever-changing, delicate, with many unique or rare species of plants and insects.

Peaceful this evening, but it gets wild quickly.

Definitely a bit of WW2 concrete – see the mix of sand and pebbles from the nearby beach?

A bit of more modern history, and nature’s defiance.

Foundations of the WW1 prisoner-of-war camp, ablutions block.

Standing firm through the ages despite many storms.

Always worth a visit and you always spot something new. And yes, I just about made it out of there to meet my group!

…my BAC1-11 touched down at Jersey Airport. I found my guest house and watched Borg beat Connors in the Wimbledon singles final. Two days later I rocked up for my first day in the offices of Turquands Barton Mayhew & Co.

As a recently-qualified accountant in 1977 I had many options. Employers were fighting each other for young and reasonably cheap professionals. The Channel Islands finance industry was expanding rapidly and I was one of a number recruited from the UK mainland around about that time. We’d stay for a couple of years, gain experience, have a good time and go home.

Only thing is, few of us ever went home. We’re either still here or dead. In my case I met a local girl, got married, had two lovely children (Eoin 29, Emma 27), got divorced. I broke for the border a second time in 2007 but, after an ill-starred couple of years in Ireland, found myself Back on the Rock.

A lot has changed over those 40 years. Maybe I’ll reflect on some of those changes over the next few posts.

Many places have their mysterious and mostly unseen supernatural beings, but the British Isles and Northern Europe are particularly rich in such folklore. In Ireland for example, the ancient race of the Tuatha De Danann were defeated in battle and retreated to dwell underground in the Otherworld. They manifest in folklore as leprechauns and fairies. Scotland’s equivalent are divided into the Seelie Court (benevolent) and Unseelie Court (mischievous).  Norse mythology has its elves, both dark and light.

Les P’tits Faîtieaux (The Little People) – Kerry-Jane Warner

But it’s not so well known that Jersey has it’s own ‘little people’ who dwell in our ancient dolmens. Like their cousins elsewhere they are capricious. They can cause harm when annoyed but are capable of good deeds when placated.

Here, local artist Kerry-Jane Warner has portrayed a few of these folk caught unawares outside the entrance to the Neolithic passage grave of La Hougue Bie in the Jersey parish of Grouville.