Category Archives: st bonnet

Saturday 10th November 2012 – WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY …

… football match!

I’ve just come back from Pionsat where I’ve been watching the FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 1st and 2nd XIs in action tonight.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot st bonnet puy de dome franceAs for the 2nd XI, despite havng a decent team out there tonight, and despite their rather dramatic improvement over the last couple of matches, they ran out of steam tonight.

It seemed to me that several of the players out there tonight just weren’t “with it”.

That’s quite a contrast to the last couple of matches against the Goatslayers and Miremont.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot st bonnet puy de dome franceIn those matches they played with real enthusiasm, but somehow tonight they couldn’t come up with the goods, and ended up losing 3-1.

This wasn’t really a difficult match either because the opposition didn’t seem to be up to much either.

The three points were definitely there for the taking but they ended up being thrown away.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot st bonnet puy de dome franceAs for the 1st XI’s match against St Bonnet, I’m still shaking my head even now.

The FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence was ripped to shreds by a lightning-quick St Bonnet attack team which played in a very robust, even physical manner.

And things didn’t go very well from an official’s point of view either.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot st bonnet puy de dome francePionsat were denied an absolute stone-wall penalty when one of their players was pushed (and a clear two-handed push at that) off the ball.

They also were awarded a penalty for something that only the referee saw – even the FC Pionsat St Hilaire linesman, who was down at that end, said later that he saw nothing to get excited about – and they contrived to miss it.

All in all, you had the feeling that it was going to be “one of those days”

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot st bonnet puy de dome franceAnd so when I tell you that FC PIonsat St Hilaire ran out 2-1 victors at the final whistle, you will be just as surprised as I am.

One slice of good fortune, one spectacular long range effort that could have gone anywhere – and usually does – but this time finds the back of the net, and some dogged last-minute defending, and FCPSH stole the points.

It’s not every day that they come out with three points from a match like this so they should make the most of it.

Despite what I said last night about an early night, it was after 04:00 when I went to bed – clearly my guilty conscience is pricking me. And with going to bed at 04:00, you can imagine just how difficult it was to raise myself at 07:45.

I was rather like a zombie for an hour or two this morning – “only an hour or two? … ed – although I managed to finish my rock music radio programme for Radio Anglais.

Off then for a flying visit to the shops in St Eloy-les-Mines and then round to Rosemary’s to help her move some stuff and to receive the low-down on her date on Thursday night.

If you ask me, I think that it’s cute, all these people going out on dates. As for me, I can still chase after the women, even if I can’t remember why.

>So tomorrow it’s my weekly lie-in and then bits and pieces until the afternoon when I shall be off to Terjat to see AS Terjat in action at home – no footy tomorrow in the Puy-de-Dome.

I aren’t ‘arf getting about these days, aren’t I?

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Sunday 27th November 2011 – I WAS A BIT PUT OUT TODAY.

But before I tell you about that, let me first tell you the good news.

Although it was late when I went to bed, I managed to sleep for 6 hours or so. And after breakfast, I finished off the scripts for the radio programmes that we will be recording this week for Radio Anglais

I had to rush though as Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI were playing away at Combronde at 13:00 but just as I was stepping out of the door to go, Percy Penguin chose that moment to ring me.
“You fell on your head? It might knock some sense into you”.
It’s nice to have friends, isn’t it?

And so at Combronde, 5 minutes late and the place all deserted. There was no-one around at all. So what’s going on here?

col de ceyssat puy de dome franceAnyway, that was an hour and a half and 75 kilometres wasted. There was clearly no point in staying on here so I fuelled up and went off to Ceyssat for the 1st XI match instead.

That long drive took me round by the Puy de Dome – right past the foot of it, and it was remarkable to notice the change in the weather. From my humble abode to round about St Bonnet it was grey miserable and overcast.

But south of there we had glorious sunshine. The Puy de Dome (and you pass within about 200 metres of it) was especially nice. But once over the Col de Ceyssat I drove straight into a fog and that was that.

I met Bernard the club president. he said that the 3rd XI match was cancelled, and so I berated him for not sending me a text – after all, I told him last night that I would be going. It’s a couple of times now that they have done this on me and I’m becoming rather fed up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire football club de foot olby ceyssat puy de dome franceBut the actual match cheered me up considerably.

Olby-Ceyssay were a pretty poor side and FC Pionsat St Hilaire had no trouble whatever in demolishing them 4-0, hardly breaking sweat in doing so.

it’s a shame that they can’t play like that every week.

From there I went on round to Liz and Terry’s where we rehearsed our radio programmes – we’re recording next week.

Liz had baked potato pie and rice pudding for afters, and she even made up a doggy bag and a lump of fruitcake for me to take home. It’s that kind of thing that makes it worth-while having good friends, and helps me to forget all of the worries and disagreements.

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Sunday, 16th January 2011 – What a beautiful day.

Definitely the best of the summ… errrr … winter so far. Not only did we have the hottest temperatures of the winter, we had the sunniest too. Not a cloud in the sky all day. My batteries in the house are all fully-charged and the water heater (that uses up the excess electricity) ran for 2.5 hours and warmed up the water to 32°C. Not quite shower-warm but we are getting there.

But how ridiculous is this though, when just 12 days ago we had -8.4°C? It could only happen here in the Combrailles.

Today I finished off “holiday lettings” ready for recording tomorrow, and then I worked on a blog for the radio programmes – an important thing that needs doing seeing as we seem to be going nationwide (well – alright, into the Allier and the Creuse). The aim is of course to stream out programmes so that people who miss them or live outside the reception areas can pick them up.

fcpsh fc pionsat st hilaire st bonnet puy de dome ligue football league franceSo after that it was off to St Bonnet to watch Pionsat’s 1st XI give them a good spannering. and I arrived 10 minutes late to find that they were already ahead 2-0. They won 4-0 in the end and that included missing a penalty, thanks to an excellent double-save by the St Bonnet keeper.

But this match was well-planned to be played in mid-winter. The heat that was generated on the field both on and off the ball would have certainly melted any ice that might otherwise have formed in any traditional kind of winter weather.

And so round to Liz and Terry’s to rehearse our radio programmes this week. We are recording at Radio Arverne tomorrow and Radio Tartasse on Tuesday.

And now I’m back home in my warm unheated attic – two consecutive days that I haven’t had the heating on here – watching the Jets and the Patriots. And listening to the adverts – including one for Viagra “seek medical attention immediately if you have an erection that lasts for four hours”. At my age, it wouldn’t be medical attention that I would be seeking, I could tell you. It reminds me of the time that a new machine tools factory opened up in Crewe, and the proud owner put up his sign “O’Malley’s Tool Works”. So I rang him up and told him “so does mine, but I haven’t put up a sign about it”.

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Friday 26th March 2010 – On my way …

rainbow heavy rain beauregard vendon puy de dome france… to Clermont Ferrand this evening I passed under the autoroute, went round the bend … “no surprise there” – ed … above Beauregard Vendon and noticed this absolutely magnificent rainbow dangling underneath the clouds.

You need to enlarge the photo to see it and it’s not really all that clear even then, but it wasn’t half impressive. I wish I had taken the Pentax, poorly though it is, with me.

1951 citroen U23 lorry st bonnet puy de dome franceA couple of miles further on at St Bonnet there was a Citroen U23 lorry from 1951 parked at a garage at the side of the road so I stopped and took some pics of that too. No old vehicles for months and months and then two good ones – the Studebaker of Sunday and now this one – in a couple of days.

This morning I was much more mobile – most of the aches seem to have worn off. But after breakfast I came up here for three hours and did some more stuff for the radio programme. I can now tell you all about registering with French Social Security.

gardening raised beds slate pathways les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I went into the garden and braved the wind and rain (we had ONLY 22mm of rain today and it’s p155ing down now). I didn’t install any more raised beds today but I’ve started doing the paths in between them. People keep asking me what I ontend to do with the rubble and old slate still in the first floor bedroom- well now you know. The rubble from the dividing wall is the base of the path and the slates are the top covering. They say that slates discourage slugs from crossing but I don’t care – it makes a good path and there’s plenty of it. Slug-repellant capacities will be a bonus.

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