Tag Archives: valentin

Thursday 13 August 2015 – FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE …

…I’m ready well in advance of time to go.

Well, I’m not. I have been looking for three days for the $200 that I drew out of my Canadian Bank before leaving last October, so I’m having to go without it. And now I know why I drew it all out too. My Canadian bank card expired back in May!

So I hope that my European cards work, otherwise I’m going to have a couple of problems.

Mind you, it was touch and go that I got here in time this morning. I’d been out in Eastern Europe in a city that straddled the border between the East and the West. I was in the east with a party of people (as it happened, people with whom I worked in Stoke on Trent) and we were in a coach or a train that wasn’t moving but the seats were comfortable. Anyway, who should turn up but Nerina, with her Afro haircut of the early 90s. She sat next to me and ended up sharing my bunk, and I could see all of the people looking around and quizzing each other as to who she was.

I asked her how she had made it over to here – did she come by rail through the East, because I was interested in the trains that she might have seen, but she had come to the railway station in the West and walked across the border, which disappointed me.

So first job was the washing up. And that was when I made a startling discovery – that I had brought some water up last night to do the washing-up, and then left it on the side and went to bed. I’m definitely getting old, aren’t I?

And then there was the beichstuhl that needed emptying, cleaning and refilling, such delightful jobs that I have.

I’ve also cleaned the waste bins and isn’t that a first?

Liz came for me and we went to the mairie to pick up a Certificat de Domicile but as I expected, it’s closed for the holidays. I must remember to ring up on Tuesday! I did meet Valentin there though, loading up the Commune’s little van. We had a good chat and it seems that he’s re-signed for Pionsat this year, and that’s good news! I’ve no idea why he went to play at Terjat.

piaggio APE brasserie de la gare montlucon allier franceLiz and I went for coffee in the brasserie opposite the station.And while we were there, this interesting Piaggio APE pulled up just opposite.

I had a brief chat with the owner but he didn’t say very much. But he didn’t mind me taking a few photos of it (it’s always polite to ask).

It brought back a few memories of the Piaggio APE50 that we discovered on waste land in Brussels and which now resides – or it did, the last time that I heard anything about it – in Stoke on Trent

SNCF single unit diesel passenger train franceHere’s my train – a little single-unit diesel. I’ve not been on one of these before. But it’s nice, clean and comfortable – a far cry from anything that you find on the rails in the UK.

And we set off bang on time too, which is another far cry from life on the rails in the UK. And one thing that I like about France – “we regret that the toilet on board the train isn’t functioning. If you need this service, please make yourself known to the guard who will arrange for a longer stop at one of the stations that we visit”.

Mind you – I was half-expecting that we would be offered the possibility to pull up on the main line at a suitable hedge.

I didn’t realise that there were two railway stations in Montlucon – but I do now!

The line to Riom is what can best be described as “bucolic” – what one writer once wrote as a “merry, mazy ramble” across the Auvergnat countryside. I’ve advanced about 25 kms but it’s taken me an hour and a half and about 90kms to do it.

diesel multiple unit riom puy de dome lyon franceAt Riom it’s pouring down – a real torrential downpour – and my train is bang on time. And then this is where I realise that it’s lunchtime and for once in my life I’m caught without a supply of food about my person.

By the time I reached Vichy it had stopped raining, but it had started again at Tarare.

place part dieu lyon franceFirst stop at Lyon was at the Subway for a very late lunch. And it was at here that we had the usual Subway dialogue-
Our Hero – could I have a 12-inch with nothing but crudités?
Serving Wench – do you want cheese with that?

trolley bus lyon franceThere are trolley buses in Lyon these days – I hadn’t noticed that before. It seems that all of this “obsolete” transport of the 1950s – trams, trolley buses – was not obsolete at all. In fact, it was a hundred years ahead of its time. And it seems to be doing its work here in Lyon too because the streets are much less crowded than any other European city that I’ve visited recently.

As for my hotel, it’s 5 or 10 minutes away from the station. It’s modern and clean and tidy, with all of the services to hand. I had a lovely vegetarian pizza (I always bring my own cheese) for tea. It seems that this idea of flying out of Lyon, at least to here, is paying off in spades.

And as good an idea as it might have been, it could be even better too, believe it or not, because there’s a cheap budget hotel – the Athena – with rooms at €58:00, actually built into the station block. A walk of about 50 yards.

I shall have to look closely into this, but not tonight because although it’s only about 22:00, I’m crashing out.

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Sunday 10th November 2013 – THERE’S ONE THING …

… about owning a bright yellow van, and that is that everyone knows who you are. So at about 12:15 when I was on my way to Villosanges, a red saloon car suddenly sat on my tail and started desperately flashing his lights.

It turned out to be Fabien from the football club. It seeemed that the heavy rain over the last few days has caused the river at Villosanges to burst its banks and seeing as how the footy ground is right at the side of the river, the ground is now under three feet of water. So that was that.

Mind you, listening to the weather this morning, I didn’t feel much like going out. In fact I didn’t feel much like getting out of bed either, but then again it’s Sunday and Day of Rest so there’s no problem with that.

I had a late breakfast and did some desultory cleaning up here – the typical Sunday stuff – and then I went off for the footy. The bakery in Pionsat is open on Sunday mornings and so I went in to pay my respects and restart the bread round that I cancelled when I went off to Brussels. No point in me going every day or every other day to buy my bread when I can have it delivered for less than the cost of the fuel to go and fetch it. And it was shortly after this that I was turned back.

Back here, I made some butties and did a little job of work. I’ve been buying loads of CDs just recently and keen readers of this rubbish will recall that a good while ago I had bought some CDracks from IKEA. I’d put up four of them but now the collection has overflowed, so I installed a fifth one. Just one more left, so I might make a little trip to IKEA in due course to buy a couple more.

After eating my butties I went off to Terjat. I’d heard that the 2nd XI were playing Premilhat at 15:00 and as you know I try to get out and see Turgid whenever there isn’t any local football here.

football club de foot as terjat premilhat allier franceThis was a match that had everything. Torrential rain, sleet, hailstorms, as well as bright sunlight. But the howling wind was pretty much a constant and made play from east to west rather a tricky proposition.

It also had a few other features as well, including a right hook that would have put Joe Frazier to shame and which put the Terjat right-back into the dressing room iwthout any help from any of his colleagues. This led to controversy, as you might expect, for at this level (the basement of football as far as I’m concerned) there are no bookings and no sendings-off. The offending player was taken off by his captain, but a substitute ws sent out and this threatened to bring the game to an unceremonious end.

However, wiser councils prevailed. The referee blew for half-time a minute or so later, and at the start of the second half, it was clear that Premilhat had returned to the field with just 10 men.

football club de foot as terjat premilhat allier francePlaying with the wind in their favour but with 11 against 11, Terjat were only trailing by 3-0 at half-time. But playing against the wind and against one man less, they were completely overwhelmed and let in another 4 goals, to lose by 0-7.

The fact that the score was 0-7 is laregly due to the Terjat goalkeeper who was effectively playing on his own against 5 or 6 Premilhat forwards and made probably 7 or 8 high-quality saves that would not have been out of place at Conference North level, and also due to the Premilhat attackers who missed a penalty, who hit the woodwork four times and who missed a load of sitters. If Premilhat had scored a dozen, no-one from Terjat could have complained.

Worse, though, is that Valentin, one of the heroes of Pionsat 2nd and 3rd XI’s valiant struggles, is now playing for Terjat, in his usual role out on the wing. He was an excellent player for Pionsat’s lesser sides but here he had a match that he would rather, I’m sure, forget completely. Not through any fault of his own, but simply that his colleagues were totally incapable of getting the ball forward to him.

I said to him after the game “what on earth are you doing with a team like this?”, for there’s no doubt that Terjat are the worst team that I have ever seen so far. And here I was – it was less than 8 days ago that i’d been watching a team that is playing in the Europa League.

Back here I lit the fire and made myself a pizza in the oven, and then watched some gridiron before going to bed. Tomorrow is a bank holiday so I’m going to have another lie-in.

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