Category Archives: clermont ferrand

Monday 6th September 2010 – I just KNEW …

… that it wouldn’t be THAT easy.

clermont ferrand puy de dome franceI’ve been all the way to Clermont Ferrand today about this perishing driving licence. And here’s a pic of part of the centre of the city with the Puy-de-Dome towering in the distance. I hope you like it.

So I got to the city early this morning (well, early for me, anyway), found a parking space, paid for three hours parking and picked up a nice thick book (on the Treaty of Yalta, in French if you must know) as I know what these Government departments are like

puy de dome franceAt the prefecture I took my ticket for the queue and was totally astonished to find that the number of people ahead of me in the queue is … errr … NONE – now that’s a first in any Civil Service department anywhere in the world. What a waste of all of this parking money that I’ve just spent!

And so the woman at the counter went through my paperwork, and suddenly came to a dead stop.

clermont ferrand puy de dome france“What’s this?” she said, brandishing a document that she had found.
“It’s my medical statement that I had done on Friday” I replied
“I can see that” she said, “but why have you had it done?”
So I explained slowly and gently that it was for a PSV and HGV driving licence.
“I can see that” she replied “but who told you to do it?”
“I understood that this was the procedure and no-one has told me any different” I replied
“Well, the doctor should certainly have told you different. He ought to know that for all new French commercial driving licences, whether for a new candidate or a transfer in from abroad, the medical is done here by our official doctor!”

clermont ferrand puy de dome franceSo I explained that I needed the licence, and an International one to boot, by the end of September. She retaliated by offering me a medical appointment in, if I heard her correctly, the year 2016.
Yes, it was too good to be true. I knew it would be.

But after a lengthy discussion she did in fact become quite helpful in her own way. She promised to do her best to have my medical certificate accepted. And if she failed, she would send my Belgian licence back to me to take to Canada, but she would “make sure” that I received an International Driving licence.

pope urban II clermont ferrand puy de dome franceNow having had years of promises made to me by all kinds of Civil Servants the world over, my bitter experience is to reserve judgement until I have the paperwork in hand. But it was really nice to find a French Civil Servant doing her best to deal with a difficulty that is not covered by the rules and regulations, and doing her best to think around corners and find a solution.

So after that I went for a wander around. I had paid for all this parking and I wasn’t going to waste it. And in any case I hardly know Clermont Ferrand, even though it’s the “county town” of the area where I live.

cathedral clermont ferrand puy de dome franceThe most important place to visit in Clermont Ferrand is the cathedral. I went inside and managed to take one photo, and then we had an announcement –
“it is now midday and the cathedral is closing until 14:00. Could all visitors make their way to the exits”.
Yes, even God has his two-hour lunch break here in France. Heaven help the sinners in the meantime.

I can’t be doing with this.

So  had a good wander around until 13:15 and then off to the Footy offices where they gave me some log-in details for the website so that I can see my programme. And I am indeed refereeing on Sunday as announced earlier.

Then to Brico Depot for some wood for Terry, followed by a stop off at the Carrefour at Riom for some shopping. But I didn’t do much as I was waylaid at the computer counter. I have a couple of printers here – the very old first-generation printer/scanner/copier that won’t work on Windoze Vista and so I have to copy it onto the old laptop to print it, and the little DJ540 that swallows expensive ink cartridges at an alarming rate. And I need a working printer to print out my refereeing stuff and stuff for the local history group, so I was pricing up another load of cartridges for theDJ540 when I was interrupted by a pile of Epson SX115 printer/scanner/photocopiers reduced on sale to just €49. And the ink for them is the cheapest on offer. So I bit the bullet and purchased one of the aforementioned.

At Liz and Terry’s I gave Terry his wood and inspected our new toy, the Ifor Williams trailer, which isn’t half a mega-beast and well-worth the money that we paid, and then back here to pull more caterpillars off my brassica – I’m in the middle of the second round of the cabbage-white infestation.

It was my turn to animate the Anglo-French group this evening and I had everyone discussing DiY tools and words that derive from them. It went down rather well.

And in other news, terrorists have attempted to bomb a Primary School packed with children, and an 8 year old boy discovered the primed and armed bomb, picked it up and took it into the classroom to show all of his classmates. The carnage that might have been caused can only be imagined.

Now where did this outrage take place? Iraq? Afghanistan? Well actually, it was in Antrim, Northern Ireland, which for those of you who are geographically-challenged, is in the UK. Of course it is rather ironic about how the UK is going to war to deal with “terrorists” who attack armed soldiers who are trained to fight back and to kill, so I carefully scrutinised the news report for the expressions of outrage, horror and revulsion from the British Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the B liar and assorted American politicians who have criticised Scotland’s “interaction” with one of that ilk, yet do you know what? There’s not a word!

And I wonder what they would have said if it had not been the white-skinned Paddy O’Reilly who had planted this device, but the brown-skinned Abdul Mohammed?

And I’m waiting for the aforementioned Paddy O’Reilly to be uncovered and to be named as someone with an interest in the Irish Republic, because I shall be eagerly awaiting the Anglo-American invasion of that country to sort out that nest of vipers that are sending foreign fighters abroad to spread their messages of extremism and hatred amongst innocent children.

But I am not holding my breath as it isn’t going to happen. The Brits and the Americans, and the Irish, and most of the other white-skinned westerners are the biggest bunches of hypocrites I have ever encountered.

It makes me sick.

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Friday 6th August 2010 – I had a bit of a day out today.

meandre de queuille gorge de la sioule puy de dome franceOne of the places that I visited was the Meandre de Queuille – where the River Sioule makes an incredibly tight turn around a promontory of hard rock (yes, we ought to put a cafe on it – I know).

I’ve never been here before, even though it is something of a local tourist attraction that brings the crowds a-flocking. But maybe that’s the reason – having spent as long as I did working in the tourism industry my cynicism has made me immune to all this kind of thing.

meandre de queuille hydro electric power station dam barrage gorge de la sioule puy de dome franceThat’s not the only thing that’s interesting about this place – at least, from my point of view. There’s also a dam – or barrage – across the Gorge de la Sioule just here and a very early hydro-electric generating plant.

Following the success of the hydro plant across the Sioule at the Viaduc des Fades, they built this one here in 1905. There’s a drop of 24 metres that powers 6 turbines that have an output of something like 20,000 volts and the power was supplied to the city of Clermont Ferrand.

I had set out originally to go to see these Health Assurance people. As I’m now a French businessman the health cover that I have is deemed insufficient. I’m required to take out a complementary assurance. But as luck would have it, the cover that I do have is recognised by the French government so I only needed to take out a top-up cover that makes up the difference between the total cost of any treatment and the amount that I would be reimbursed.

It isn’t cheap but in actual fact it is cheaper than the insurance I could take out in Belgium.

After that I hit the shops – Carrefour, LIDL and Bricomarche in Riom and the Auchan in Clermont Ferrand. And nothing of any real excitement except a USB fan for €3:00 – I’ll install that in Caliburn.

Outside the Bricomarche I saw the absolute ideal trailer. It’s 4 metres long, takes 2 tonnes in weight and has a double-axle with 13-inch wheels. It’s a bit knocked about but it’s not all that bad. It belongs to a company that is rebuilding part of the Bricomarche and the manager says that they haven’t used it in years. “So is it for sale then?” I asked optimistically. “Dunno” replied the manager “but I can find out”. So now that he has my phone numder we will have to wait and see.

But the most interesting part of the day was just outside Chatelguyon this morning. You’ve all heard of staff-and-ticket single line railway working. On single track railways there’s a danger that if two trains are heading towards each other they will have a collision. So what they do is to divide the line up into lengths with a signalman at each end and a passing place. These sections are called blocks.

Each block has its distinct staff – a brightly coloured stick – and no train can proceed into the block unless the signalman can give it the staff.  If he cant give it the staff, because it is with the signalman at the other end, the train has to wait in the passing place until a train coming the other way brings back the staff. With only one staff then of course there can only be one train in the block at any one time and hence the risk of collision is nil.

Of course it may be a while before the staff comes back to our signalman from the signalman at the other end of the block and if two trains are following each other this could be inconvenient. What our signalman would do then is to show the staff to the first driver who would then sign a movement book in the signalbox to say that he had seen the staff, and he would be given a ticket to proceed, which he would hand to the signalman at the other end of the block in lieu of the staff – effectively reminding the second signalman that the staff is still at the other end of the block and that another train is following.

And so today they were resurfacing the road in the hills outside Chatelguyon. The road was cut down to single-track and there were no traffic lights but a man was there stopping the traffic. There was a stream of cars coming the other way and the last car stopped and handed the workman a brightly-coloured object. Once that car had gone the workman waved us forward and showed us all the object – his authority to allow us to proceed and which he would presumably give to the last car in the queue to take to the other end.

I’ve never seen this done before on the public highway. I was impressed!

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Thursday 1st July 2010 – I mentioned yesterday …

roofing sheets barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… that one side of the barn roof is finished. And so, here’s a pic that I took this morning not long after I woke up.

It’s quite impressive this roofing stuff isn’t it?

I’ve been quite busy today, although it might not seem much like it. I started off with a little gardening and then went into Pionsat for 11:00 to meet Max the secretary of Pionsat’s football club who had to sign a document or two for me.

Then it was back to gardening again and everything that is going to be planted this year is now planted and that is that.

That took me until 13:10 when I went chaud-pied into Montlucon. First stop was LIDL as they were selling some more 12-volt LEDs and at €3.99 too – I bought a pile of them. And then to Brico Depot for the guttering, the nails and stuff. No downpipes and no joints (it’s a rather familiar lament isn’t it?) but tons of other stuff, including a pile of drawers (not THAT kind of drawers, Rhys!). Yes, here I am planning to build myself a fitted wardrobe and a fitted kitchen and there they were with some end-of-range drawer kit – deep 40mm ones at €3.50 (you can’t even buy the sliders for that) and deep 60mm ones at €5.00. I now have 8 of each which is impressive.

Following that was my test d’effort. They put me on a running walkway thing for 7 minutes and attached a load of electrodes to me. I ran about 2.5km in that time (and in that heat too – it’s been glorious today) and the verdict is “very good condition for his age”. I sound like a horse or an old Ford Cortina.

I’d missed the post by then and so I had to drive all the way to Clermont Ferrand to deliver my file to the Referees’ Association, taking in a visit to the Auchan on the way. And I can’t find my satnav now – another thing I’ve mislaid.

But the highlight of the day had to be in the doctor’s this afternoon. He was helping me fill in the medical form –
“Sex?” he asked
“Put down ‘yes’ for that” I replied.
“Errrr … I think they wan’t you to put down ‘M’ or ‘F’ there” said the doctor.
“Okay – put down ‘M’ then” I said. “It’s been years since I’ve had an ‘F'”.

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Wednesday 5th May 2010 – This is just flaming ridiculous!

snow in may 2010 col des goules puy de dome franceIt’s the 5th of May today (did you all have a good Star Wars Day yesterday?) and we have had a heavy snowfall. It’s unbelievable.

We were out and about on our travels today, as I told you yesterday, and on the way down to Clermont Ferrand we noticed in the rain that at times it was looking like snow. In Clermont Ferrand we saw one or two cars that had a covering of snow, which surprised us greatly.


snow in may 2010 col des goules puy de dome franceBut that was nothing like the surprise that we had as we were coming back over the Col des Goules near Orcival we were greeted by the sight in this photo. This is just absurd.

Mind you, in certain respects I whouldn’t have been surprised. When I woke up this morning, the temperature in my attic had dropped to a mere 12 degrees, just like winter in fact and the driving rain that we had through the night was still falling .

Still, never mind. I set of for chez Liz and Terry through the rain and all in all it was very unpleasant but we managed to accomplish all our tasks.

We obtained the tax certificate for Terry’s van and then doorstepped the lady at the Chambre de Metiers who, despite her surprise, received us and gave us all of the information we needed.

After lunch (thanks, Terry) we went to the URSSAF to enquire about why our applications for this auto-entrepreneur registrations for Liz’s and my business plans had never been processed. It turns out that we had missed out a vital step in the process so the woman there (probably the most helpful and friendly French Civil Servant I have ever met) completed mine on the spot (so now I am a properly registered French businessman), gave Liz the advice she needed to complete hers, and told Terry what he needed to do to make his application.

What was funny about the visit to URSSAF was that we couldn’t quite find the building on this Industrial estate so Terry helpfully suggested “it’s a Government organisation so look for the poshest building”. And he was right!

At the Tribunal de Commerce the reception staff were much less helpful – hurling abuse at us as we tried to find out where to go but one of the administrators who we doorstepped in his little office put us on the right track.

But back here, even though it’s cold and miserable and wet (I have the fire on here right now) there is only a scattering of snow. But we have had TWENTY EIGHT mm of rain today and it is still pouring down. You really cannot believe this weather.

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Friday 16th April 2010 – I must be off my head.

I bet you have been wondering what I’ve been doing going to Clermont Ferrand every Friday evening and what is the real reason behind my sudden quest for fitness. The truth is that a couple of months ago I saw a course advertised on a website and being a keen follower of further education and broadening my sphere of knowledge, I decided that I would talk my way onto it.

And sure enough I did, and I’ve been on this course for six weeks and I am now, would you believe it, a fully-qualified French football referee. I reckoned that seeing as I have more than a passing interest in football and I go to as many local matches as I can, I would take something of a more active role in the sport. If I were really honest about it I’m in no state to actually play and so refereeing would be a suitable role. And it’s also an unusual qualification to have, isn’t it?

Many people had to study hard and take this examination, but not me of course. My route to the top was somewhat easier –
1) They enquired if my parents were married at the time of my birth
and on hearing that the answer was no —
2) They gave me an eyesight test
which I promptly failed …
and so I was passed straight through and didn’t have to sit this 2-hour exam consisting of 44 video extracts of matches and asked several questions on each extract.

Today I did some work up here until about 12:30 and then I started to tidy up in the garden now that work has finished there. This afternoon I had a good go at tidying Caliburn and I have the cab quite clean and tidy.

But I still can’t find my mobile phone and I’ve no idea where it is that I have left it.

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Friday 9th April 2010 – This morning …

… there was a thick hanging stationary cloud over the mountain (as predicted last night) – the first one for ages. It was grey and drizzly so after breakfast I came up here and carried on with updating the footy website.

Once the cloud lifted a little (and I mean a little) I went outside to start on the megacloche. This involved rooting around in the barn for the wood and this led on to searching through the old clothes and rescuing a few that are too good to chuck in the bin. Once that was all out of the way and I’d found the wood I cut it all to shape ready for after lunch.

So now the base has been made and laid in position, I’ve built the two sides, and I’ve got the wood ready to make the back so with a bit of luck it will be ready on Monday. It’s 1m60 wide by 1m15 deep by 1m20 high at the back and 15 cms at the front – so it will be a veritable sun-trap (assuming that we get more sun). Fenestration for the moment will be by somoe of the old caravan windows that are lying around here – a useful quarry of all kinds of spare parts is an old caravan.

The trip to Clermont Ferrand and back was uneventful but we finished early so coming through Pionsat I noticed that the floodlights were on at the ground. They are training, maybe. I hope so as they need some good results this weekend and all three matches are derbies against hated local rivals where considerable bragging rights are at stake.

In other news, there is to be a meeting shortly of nuclear powers and a motion has been tabled to quiz the Zionists about their possession of nuclear weapons. As a result, the leader of the Zionists has pulled out and instead is sending a minion who will doubtless reply “I know nothing”.

Although the Zionists refuse to comment, it is a rather open secret that they possess nuclear armaments – they had a secret arrangement with another pariah state – White South Africa – back in the 1960s and 1970s where nuclear technology leaked from the USA by Zionist and White Supremacist nuclear scientists, with the covert agreement of the USA Government, was put to use by those two groups. In the 1970s Jimmy Carter estimated that the Zionists had about 150 nuclear weapons. How many they have now is of course anyone’s guess.

Mordechai Vanunu, a Zionist “scientist”, was imprisoned for many years for trying to leak to sympathetic newspapers details of the Zionist nuclear arsenal, and the terms of his release forbid him to talk to any foreigners or any journalists and every time one of them hovers around his place of abode Vanunu is whisked off back to prison. Yet despite the furore about Aung San Sun Kyi in Burma (whose father as we all know was the person who “invited the Japanese liberators” into Burma in 1942 and co-operated (at least in the early stages) in the wholesale massacre of tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent Burmese civilians, many of whom were women and children), no-one ever tries to rally round Vanunu.

There are just four states in the entire world who have refused to sign up to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty – Pakistan and India (who would wipe each other off the face of the earth in the twinkling of an eye given half a chance and never mind the consequences), North Korea (which has an American nuclear arsenal right on its doorstep) and …. errrrr …. the Zionists if I break my usual convention and accord them – for the purposes of this discussion and no other – some kind of de-facto statehood.

So if the Zionists have nuclear weapons and refuse to be called to account over them, would someone mind explaining to me what exactly is the issue that the west has about Iran and North Korea having them?

Nothing but rank hypocrisy.

If the Septics were to come to some kind of realism and tell the Iranians that they can have nuclear weapons as long as they point them at Tel Aviv, it might knock some sense into the Zionists. But as if that will ever happen!

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Friday 19th March 2010 – It’s raining now and blowing a gale.

In fact the rain is the first we’ve had since a week last Thursday -over a week ago. And hasn’t a lot happened in that time? A week ago we were still in the grip of the icy weather with the temperature as low as minus 9. Last night it was as low as … er …. PLUS 9.2

And look at everything I’ve done too – finished off weeding the hedge and the area around the vegetable garden, burnt all of the rubbish in a mega-bonfire, moved the greenhouse, moved the cloche, dug two raised beds, planted tons of seeds. Today I finished all of the sowing for February and March and I’ve started to repot the Liz Ayers Memorial Orchard, as the trees are having to stay in their pots for another year.

One thing I noticed in a gardening book is that they reckon that the soil I’m planting things in should be friable. One of my plots has onion and garlic in it. Now how friable is that?

But I’m going to have to do something about the manure water distiller. Since its installation back in February it’s given me about half a litre, most of which was yesterday.Today it gave me three litres and there is more beckoning. I’m going to have to move it no matter what otherwise they will be changing my address from “Les Guis” to “The House at Pooh Corner” and like Christopher Robin, I’ll go down with Alice or some other infectious disease. Which of course reminds me – the new AA Milne Travel Company is now organising trips to London where you can visit Buckingham Palace to see The Changing of the Guard, followed by a trip to the Bank of England to see “The Guarding of the Change”.

And I’ve not long been back from Clermont Ferrand, I’m thoroughly exhausted after this hard week, and so I’m going to have an early night.

Goodnight All!

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Friday 12th March 2010 – No wonder …

old ford transit les guis virlet puy de dome france… it was flaming cold (like 7 degrees) in here when I woke up this morning. Outside it had dropped to minus 9!!! That is just crazy.

So after breakfast in the cold I started to tidy up the wood that I’d cut down. And as you can see I’ve collected quite a pile. That wood is for three years hence and so it’ll stay on the pile for a while until I get round to cutting it up -which won’t be for a while because I’ve broken my loppers. That’s the third pair I’ve broken down here.

On the other side of the patch of land is a huge pile of brambles weeds and the like. And if Monday is a good day all of that will be burnt and I can get on with digging up tree stumps. I’ve washed the inside of the plastic greenhouse ready to move down here and I need to think about uprooting the raised beds.

And this evening I’ve been for a little drive to Clermont Ferrand.

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