Category Archives: Les Guis

Monday 28th April 2014 – WE’VE BEEN RADIOING …

… today.

First off was to record the rock music shows that I do, which means that I needed to be in Marcillat by 09:30 this morning. Liz came to join me at 10:00 to record a month’s work of the Radio Anglais information programmes.

We went round to Liz’s for lunch – some of the left-over aubergine and spaghetti casserole from Saturday, and went down to Gerzat to record the Radio Anglais sessions for Radio Arverne.

While we were in Gerzat we had to track down a parcel that had not been delivered. We tracked down the depot where it was kept, and they tracked down the parcel. It seems that the address on the parcel was incorrect, hence the non-delivery, so we’ll let them off this time.

But it was nice and sunny down there and what was so ironic was that we could see the thick black clouds over the Combrailles from there.
“I bet that those clouds are right over our houses” said Liz, and she was right too. Torrential rain up here.

The parcel was the towbar for Terry’s new Jeep and so once he had checked it over and was satisfied, he said “have you got half an hour?”. So while Liz was sorting out some surplus strawberry and raspberry plants for my soft fruits bed in exchange for me having driven her in search of this parcel, Terry and I fitted the towbar.

Liz cooked a tea for us, which was always very welcome, and then I came home.

And now I have more gardening to do for tomorrow.

Sunday 27th April 2014 – HA! HA! HA!

FC Pionsat St Hilaire are desperately in need of points to keep alive their faint hope of avoiding relegation to Division 2. And today they were playing against Chatel-Guyon, currently top of the Division and likewise desperate for points to keep the chasing pack at distance.

Pionsat had a very-much scratch team out there today too. Blond Frederic was in goal for only the second time in his life, and with Fabien, Vincent and Kevin out there, they had three players who ply their trade in Division 4. Cedric was playing centre-half too.

As you might expect, Chatel-Guyon had 99% of the play and dominated the match from start to finish. But the Pionsat defence was resolute and I can safely say that Cedric at centre-half had the match of his life. With Julien alongside him and Alex just in front, they were totally inpenetrable and when Chatel-Guyon did manage a shot on target, they found Frederic in fine form.

Pionsat rarely managed to get forward in anything like enough numbers to threaten the Chatel-Guyon goal and for much of the match their goalkeeper was actually playing as a sweeper behind his defence.

But Matthieu Sikorsky came ohhhh so close with one effort and it was only the desperate outstretched fingertips of the keeper that stopped Matthieu from pulling off a shock goal well against the run of play late in the first half.

That would have been oeuf sur le visage of the Chatel-Guyon defence if that has gone in.

It was still 0-0 with just minutes to go and Pionsat, in a breakaway upfield, win a corner. The ball is easily cleared out but the clearance is intercepted by a Pionsat defender who plays it back up to the other Frederic who is about 30 yards out from goal.

He advances on the goal with the ball and as the keeper, who is miles upfield from where he should be, back on his own 6-yard line, tries to stop him, Frederic simply lifts the ball over the top and into the net for probably the most astonishing goal against the run of play that I have ever seen.

The silence in the stadium was overwhelming. All of the possession that Chatel-Guyon has had during the match and here they are, 1-0 down in the closing stages of the game.

But look where the goalkeeper is. What on earth is he doing 30 yards out of his goal? It’s a suicide position for any goalkeeper.

Chatel-Guyon now throw caution to the winds, bring on a few pairs of fresh legs and throw the kitchen sink at Pionsat. And they win a penalty, which they convert to level the score.

But they need all of the points here and they fight for everything, to such an extent that the Chatel-Guyon n°14, who has only been on the field for a minute, makes a horror late-tackle on Kevin which earns him a yallow card.

The referee has hardly put his yellow card back in his pocket before the n°14 does exactly the same thing again, on Alex this time.

This leads to a little unpleasantness on the field from one or two of the Pionsat players which is always regretted but in this case understandable, but the result is that the referee pulls out the red card and the n°14 goes for the early bath. And quite right too, because it really was deplorable.

Just after this, the final whistle blows and Pionsat come off the field having earned a most unexpected point. And if the defence plays like this for the final two matches then anything is possible.

What made things even better was that St Priest, who were at home to Lempdes Sports, were stuffed 7-0. This means that Pionsat are out of the bottom 2 – for the first time for ages and ages. Only on goal difference, it has to be said, and their last two games are difficult, but they have their noses now slightly in front and it’s up to St Priest to try to catch them.

I also saw Xavier there. He used to play for Pionsat but his working commitments nowadays mean that he can’t make the matches. It was good to catch up with his news.

Apart from that, Rosemary is back in the Land of the Living and we had quite a lengthy chat. I’m invited round for coffee sometime, when I can catch up on all the latest gossip.

However, I should perhaps mention that being on the coffee at the footy last night, and having some chocolate when I came home, it was gone 05:00 when I went to bed last night, or, rather, this morning. Something of a waste of my Sunday lie-in.

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Saturday 26th April 2014 – HE’S DONE IT AGAIN!

Two weeks ago, you may remember, Matthieu scored a stunning goal from a free kick miles out from goal – a shot that went through the wall and through the keeper into the net.

Last week, you may remember, he scored a goal directly from a lay-off from the kick-off – standing on the half-way line.

Tonight, he took a free kick from about 45 yards out. It sailed right over the defensive wall, right over the flailing arms of a despairing keeper and right into the top corner of the net.

He took another free kick a short while later from even further out, and that didn’t clear the bar by much. And then we were treated to the astonishing spectacle of the Chimps (because it was Montel-Villosanges that Pionsat were playing this evening) lining up a defensive wall in Pionsat’s own half when Matthieu took a free kick from deep in his own territory.

Pionsat’s second goal (because they beat the Chimps 2-0 ha ha ha!) was even more bizarre. Didier broke through the defence into space in the Chimps penalty area and was pushed off the ball flat on his back.

The game came to a standstill with everyone awaiting the obvious penalty whistle, but it never came. Consequently Didier poked out his leg while still flat on his back and kicked the ball through the Chimps’ goalkeeper’s legs and into the net.

As for the rest of the game, I’m not going to say a thing at all. I shall simply remember the wise words of Ron Atkinson, who famously said “I make it a rule never to comment on referees and I’m not going to change my rule for that tûsser”.

And it’s also the first time that I’ve ever been threatened by a footballer that he would come into the stands and sort me out. Mind you, when I went to look for him after the final whistle to discuss his bad attitude, he had fled into the dressing room. Obviously the tremedous rainstorm that we had near the end had calmed him down.

But life is so sweet when you have properly stuffed the Chimps, especially when there was so much controversy.

Apart from that, I was round at Liz and Terry’s this afternoon, rehearsing our radio programmes. Normally we do that on Sunday but Liz isn’t available tomorrow. And we had a nice tea too.

I had planned to go to Montlucon today too but with having to do the radio today, I needed to check everything over, and so it was simple shopping at St Eloy, with no frills.

But there was a tragedy in LIDL. Some woman doing her shopping didn’t have enough money on her card to pay for her bill. She was obliged therefore to return one of her bottles of whisky. I was eagerly anticipating her returning some of the food instead but, apparently, wiser councils prevailed. But it does sum up St Eloy pretty much.

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Friday 25th April 2014 – NEW TOY!

You may remember the other week that while I was out shopping one Saturday I spent a huge pile of money – more than I’ve ever spent on any previous shopping trip?

Well, here’s the reason why – delivered this afternoon.

It’s a Kubota B1220d mini-tractor, diesel-engined, 4-wheel drive with tri-point lift and power take-off

Anyone who has followed this rubbish for any length of time will have seen me spending three days with a hand-winch moving an old van 20 yards, or seen me shifting a couple of tons of rubble two buckets at a time, or shifting a trailer-load of sand in a wheelbarrow, or dragging logs one by one up from my forest.

Well, the fact is that I’m fed up of doing all of that and I’m not getting any younger. And on my birthday the other week I had a small insurance policy come to maturity.

Anyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray!" – ed … when I was in St Eloy the other week, the local DiY place was just taking deliver of four of these for sale with the price slashed something like 40%, as they are old stock and a new model is coming out.

Not only that, the French government’s “cash for clunkers” programme also covers agricultural machinery and if I traded in an old auto-tractive machine, I’d get another €1,000 off. As it happened, I had an old, rusting, rotten auto-tractive field lawnmower that’s done nothing at all since I brought it here in 2002 and never will do either.

And so I thought “what the hell!”

What I need for it now is a flat-plate mower, a tri-point blade, a chain harrow and a small trailer. I already have an electric winch and that’ll do me for now. I can think of loads of other things, but all of that in due course.

So here I am now, totally broke, but ask me if I care. I’m as impressed with this as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. It means that I won’t get to go on Trixi’s week in Corfu in May, which is a huge disappointment as I was really looking forward to seeing her again, but that can’t be helped.

So after the usual morning’s activities were dealt with, I went outside at midday. With not being sure of what to do, I had a look at the little greenhouse and it now seems that I have a cucumber, piles of lettuce, three leeks, some broccoli, some chives and some basil. It seems that things are very slowly coming to life.

And the … errr … 37mm of rain that we had in 12 hours late yesterday has caused a huge pile of weeds to spring up. I need to look at them.

Where I cleared off the space for the new raised bed the other day, I noticed that I had covered it over with sheets of corrugated iron. That had prevented anything from growing in there, which was the aim, but also loads of stuff had fallen on there over the last three or four years and was well on the way to making a nice compost.

I cleaned all of that off – there was 4 barrow-loads of it – and all of that has gone into the compost bin, which has filled that.

So this afternoon, after playing with the Kubota, I dug over where the raised bed will be and then made the framework. I’ve put some wood-preservative on that to see if that will slow up the decaying process any, and I’ll do a second coat over the weekend. That can then be laid down at the beginning of next week.

That took me up to 19:20.

Yes, I’ve been very busy today but it’s all been productive.

And I’m really pleased that I bit the bullet and bought the Kubota.

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Thursday 24th April 2014 – 19.5MM …

… of rainfall we have had between 20:00 and 21:30 – and there’s much more forecast; No issues about watering the plants then, that’s for sure.

I was up before the alarm again this morning and after breakfast that gave me almost 3.5 hours on the website. I like being on summr hours!

First job outside was to sow the beetroot and spinach seeds that I had left to soak. That meant doing a little bit of hoeing of course. And then I finished off the solar shower. That is exactly how I want it now, but there are some kind of pressure issues that need to be resolved. We’ll have to see how it goes.

After lunch I did a little measuring up for my next trick, but while I was doing that, my eye was caught by some blossom down in the jungle that is the bottom of my garden.

Of the 20 or so fruit trees that I planted in 1999 and 2000, one is still there, but it seems that there’s another one too. Way down the slope a little, and this is what the blossom is.

It’s surrounded by a pile of these scrub trees and is getting no light at all and so I resolved to deal with this issue.

By the tile I had knocked off I reckon that I had cut down over 20 trees (one or two of them were significant too) and the tree concerned is now clear of oerhanging trees. That will bring more light to the tree, and also more light to the rest of the garden, includind the vegetable beds.

Not only that, I managed to make my way out the other side too into clear space for the first time for 11 years and that really is something to celebrate.

And then tonight we have the rain …

I’m not sure what to do tomorrow.

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Wednesday 24th April 2014 – I’VE SPENT MOST OF THE …

… day in the garden today. And a long day it was too as I was awake and out of bed before the alarm clock went off – such are the benefits of an early night.

So after the customary few hours on the web site I went outside, and the first job was to sow some Witloof chicory seeds. Well – perhaps it wasn’t. First job was to hoe the raised bed in which they will be planted, put some potash in there and then hoe a few other raised beds while I was at it, and THEN sow the witloof chicory.

After that, I repaired a couple of bean frames, fixed them to a raised bed, and then sowed a pile of peas. We’ll see what happens to them.

After lunch I really got stuck in.

I sowed another row of parsnips and carrots, and put some beetroot and spinach seeds in to soak. I then went through the seed list and the little plastic greenhouse to see what there was, and now I’ve added some more

broccoli
aubergines
tomatoes
cayenne peppers
gherkins
peppers
cucumbers

Finally I gave everything a really good watering, but I needn’t have bothered as we have just had a torrential rainstorm.

Tomorrow i’ll sow the spinach and beetroot, and then I have other things to do.

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Tuesday 22nd April 2014 – SO WHAT’S HAPPENING …

… over there tben? There’s quite a fire burning for some reason or other and I wonder what’s going on.

I couldn’t hear the pompiers or any amulance or anything and so I don’t know how urgent that might be, but it certainly looks most unwelcome.

However, it’s not likely to burn for very long because we’ve had something of a torrential downpour this evening. There’s been the odd shower or two and we had a thunderstorm pass over at about 15:00 but it really meant business this evening.

Still, the first real rain for a couple of weeks and so we can’t complain too much.

The rain is my fault too, for I’ve been out gardening today. And I noticed that the three surviving strawberry plants have flowers now. But that’s by the way.

First job was to plant the Brussels Sprouts that I bought on Saturday. So I gave that bed a good hoeing over first, and carried on to weed a few more as well while I was at it. Then I planted the sprouts, followed by the 12 lettuce that I bought. 6 of them went in between the sprouts, and the other 6 went in between the cabbage that I planted the other week.

After lunch I sowed the new potatoes, and then I turned my attention to the seeds. Seems that I have some lettuce coming up, and there’s signs of life in the leeks too. But still nothing much coming up anywhere else.

Now though, I have some sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower seeds sown, as well as some organo and basli seeds. Tomorrow, though, i’ll need to push on.

At 17:45 I came to a halt as I had to go round to Cécile’s to show some househunters around – that was what I was on my way back from doing when I noticed the fire.

I made another mega-curry tonight. This one is a mushroom and green pepper one, and that will keep me going for a few days too.

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Monday 21st April 2014 – BACK TO WORK TOMORROW … BOOOH!

… after my 4 days off. And I’m not looking forward to it all that much either.

I’ve had four days where, if I’ve done anything at all, it’s not been very much and today I did even less. I vaguely remember being awake at some point during something-like normal hours and I remember saying something like “sod this for a game of soldiers” and so it was 10:10 When I crawled out of bed.

And apart from a long phone call from Cecile, going outside to fill the kettle, outside to do the stats and outside to fetch a bottle of pop, I’ve not moved from my little attic today.

All I’ve done is to work on my website (and I’m now just leaving Godbout) and eaten a handful of liquorice-flavoured sweets.

And ask me if I care?

Sunday 20th April 2014 – EVEN THOUGH IT’S EASTER SUNDAY …

… I was out working today. And not at my place either but at Cecile’s. She came home today for a couple of days and so I liberated a lawn mower and attacked her jungle. At least she can find her house now. I also lit a fire for her to warm up her house seeing as it’s been empty for almost a year.

She came round here too for a couple of hours and I made tea for both of us. It’s nice to have visitors occasionally.

FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 2nd XI should have been playing Teilhet this afternoon but the Goatslayers couldn’t raise a team. So that was today’s footy kicked into touch.

Apart from that, I’m disappointed with this Dragon speech recognition software. Try as I might, I can’t find out how to inport an *.mp3 file into it to be transcribed. And that was what I wanted it for in the first place.

As for Audacity – I started to import a soundtrack of a video at about 15:30 this afternoon. It’s now 02:05 and it’s still trying to import it. I’m not very impressed with this either.

So apart from all of that, I’ve not done very much.

And I don’t care either. And it’s Bank Holiday tomorrow too.

Saturday 19th April 2014 – I’VE JUST SEEN …

… one of the best football matches for ages. No football at Pionsat tonight so I went to Marcillat en Combraille who were playing Mercy-Chapeau. An excellent game that finished 3-3 but Mercy can consider themselves robbed of a victory. 2 of AS Marcillat’s goal came from free kicks, one of which I wouldn’t have awarded and the second I would have awarded, but in the other direction.

And I have at last seen a player in the Allier who I would pick for FC Pionsat St Hilaire. Mercy-Chapeau’s n°5, playing at the heart of the defence, was big, quick, intelligent and commaanding and if Pionsat could find a player like him, they wouldn’t have anything like the issues that they are having now.

Apart from that, after breakfast I tidied up in here. Not much, it has to be said, but just a little but at least the table is clean and tidy and I’ve vacuumed the floor round by where I sit. Not with the new vacuum cleaner – I’ve yet to try that out – but with the 12-volt cylinder vacuum cleaner that I found again the other day.

In St Eloy les Mines, I did the shopping and at Carrefour they had 12 lettuce for €2:60 and the brasica was reduced to €3:95 for 10 so I bought some sprouts to go with the cabbage I planted a few weeks ago. They will be in the garden on Tuesday when I restart work.

I noticed today as well that the lettuce seed that I sowed in a tray – there’s signs of life in there as of this afternoon. That looks quite optimistic as I was beginning to think that I’ve been wasting my time with the gardening effort this year. Only the courgettes (and then only some of those) seemed to have done anything.

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Friday 18th April 2014 – I HAVEN’T DONE A TAP …

… of work today, you know.

Well, that’s not true. Through the night I was out on the Saguenay River in the Province of Quebec. Mind you, that’s no surprise because I’ve been writing rather a lot just recently about William Price and the Clarke brothers, pioneers of the lumber and pulp industries around that part of Canada.

No alarm clock either and so it was 09:50 when I crawled out of bed. And why not? It’s a Bank Holiday.

And so all day I’ve been working on my web pages and I’ve arrived in Baie-Comeau at long last. This is where our 2010 journey branched off to go to Labrador on the Trans-Labrador Highway.

Followers of the 2012 journey will be able to come with me along the North Shore of the St Lawrence River all the way to the end of Highway 138 way beyond Natashquan, and then didn’t we have a surprise?

Apart from that, not very much at all. Cécile rang up for a long chat and that was about it.

I’ve not done anything that I was planning to do today – I’ve been quite leisurely. But I don’t begrudge it. If I can’t have a few days off over a Bank Holiday weekend, it’s a pretty poor do.

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Thursday 17th April 2014 – I HAD A BAD START …

… to the day today. Waited until all of the alarms went off – and then went back to sleep. It was 08:44 that I finally surfaced this morning.

That meant that I didn’t have as long on the website as usual, and I was back outside by just after midday.

I had another design change to make to the shower unit and when I’d done that and screwed it all together I gave it the first coat of wood treatment.

After lunch I cut the shower base to fit, and then gave it all the final coat of treatment.

While I was waiting for that coat to dry I made a list of what I needed to buy for the fittings, and then I had a look around to see how many of them I actually had. This led to a full-scale sort-out and tidy-up of all of the plumbing accessories and I found that in fact I have all that I need. However, it was too late to assemble it by the time that I had finished.

I found enough time to clad the sides of the shower unit with the sheets of corrugated perspex.

Or at least, two of them, because the problem of what to do about a door solved itself when I opened the door to the lean-to, as you can see. Even the bolt on the door goes right into the correct place, and that can’t be bad.

Mind you, it was all of 19:45 by the time I finished, but at least the shower unit won’t take much to finish off when I start back to work.

Yes, “start back to work” because it’s Easter and I’m having 4 days off.

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Wednesday 16th April 2014 – I DIDN’T REACH …

… anything like my goal today, more’s the pity.

I had something like a late night last night and so this morning I wasn’t really feeling up to it, although I did have the usual couple of hours on the web pages.

Before lunch I managed to assemble both sides of the solar shower unit.

You’ll notice the extra-long leg on the side that will be furthest away from the wall. Because of the slope of the land I need to build it up like that, and then cut away the surplus length.

You might also notice that the top rail is fitted the wrong way round. I did when I came down from lunch and so I had to change them round. THat wasn’t easy as the head stripped in one of the screws and I was there for about three quarters of an hour drilling it out.

But I was sidetracked for about three quarters of an hour. Checking on the dump load for the excess solar charge (which is a home-made 12-volt immersion heater), and we’ve been having some right excess loads just now – 180 and 190 amp-hours for the last few days, I noticed that the extension cable that leads to the immersion heater was red-hot.

Not up to carrying the load of 35 amps that’s been going along it at times, so I’ve had to resite the immersion heater so that it doesn’t need an extension cable. The wires aren’t getting so hot, but I still don’t like them and so I’m going to make something of a design alteration – instead of using one cable and bridging the two terminals of the element, I’ll remove the bridge and use two cables. That way, only half of the current will be running down each cable. Either that, or use thicker cable.

But I’m impressed with the load that it’s been carrying and the heat that’s been put out.

Back at the solar shower, I had a change to the design. And a positive one too.

I had completely forgotten that I had an old enamel shower base that I picked up in Brussels. I stumbled across that today by accident and found that it’s 80cm x 80cm. That will go quite nicely in the 90cm x 90cm shower unit, but two of the corners need trimming off, which I shall do tomorrow.

So here’s a photo of the framework of the solar shower unit. It’s all assembled now and bolted to the wall of the lean-to where it will live for the next couple of years.

The shower base isn’t installed yet – as I said, it needs trimming to fit. And the woodwork hasn’t been treated, which was what I really wanted to do tonight so that the second coat of wood treatment would have gone on tomorrow first thing.

But it wasn’t through lack of effort. It was 19:45 when I knocked off today – long after my usual knocking-off time.

But I do want to finish it as much as I can tomorrow. We’re on a four-day week this week with it being Easter starting Friday and I’m not working on a Bank Holiday under any circumstances.

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Tuesday 15th April 2014 – I’VE FINISHED …

… cutting all of the wood for the outside shower unit. it took me until 19:20, mind you, but it’s all there ready, cut and shaped.

All that now needs doing is for the two sides to be assembled and to be screwed to the wall of the lean-to and then to fit the bracing that will make the back. One side and the back can then be clad and I’ll have to invent a door for the other side.

Fitting a floor and a roof should be straighforward and then that will be finished.

So what else?

Not much, really. I haven’t been anywhere or done anything, and had no visitors either.

But we have had the wind – tons of it too. The wind turbine on the house is still going round even as I speak. And it’s been one of those days where more energy has been produced by a small wind turbine rather than a large one, strange as it might seem.

But the reason for that is simple. Wind turbines have dynamos in them, and a dynamo is really a copper-coiled circuit and a magnet. The more powerful the dynamo in the motor of the wind turbine, the bigger and more powerful the magnet, so it needs more wind to start it. A smaller and less-powerful dynamo in a wind turbine will turn quite happily in wind speeds that aren’t powerful to overcome the resistance of the magnet in a larger wind turbine.

It’s quite often a fallacy to think that the bigger and more powerful a wind turbine, the more wind energy it will generate.

And I made a mega-tea tonight. Red-pepper and lentil curry, with enough to keep me going for four days too.

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Monday 14th April 2014 – AFTER ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT …

… after the weekend, it’s back to the daily grind today.

We had the usual few hours on the website this morning and then I went outside. First job was to clean out the solar shower – and it needed it too. Something of a mess of algae growing in there over the last 9 nonths;

I found most of the stuff to connet up the heat exchanger to it too, but there are still a couple of vital parts missing so I need to go to Brico Depot for those.

As I couldn’t connect up the heat exchanger I decided to deal with another issue that I’ve been putting off – the outside shower cabinet. I started to sift through the old beams left over from when we did the roofs here, but the more I checked the beams the worse they were and I’ve ended up with a huge mound of extra firewood instead.

Not that that worries me, because they were always going to be for firewood and if I could reuse any (like I did on the woodshed) that would be a bonus.

So by 18:00 I gave up the idea of finding enough recycled wood, and went to water the garden. It was a glorious day today and everything needed it.

And then I found some new wood – a couple of chevrons and demi-chevrons, and started to cut those but I didn’t get very far before knocking off time.

And tonight we have a glorious, gorgeous full moon. Just like the one that we had on the banks of the St Lawrence near Godbout in May 2012.

Mind you, the setting here chez moi is nothing like as spectacular.

I really ought to think about moving on, oughtn’t I?

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality