Category Archives: Les Guis

Monday 19th November 2012 – WE WERE RADIOING …

… today

But I almost wasn’t.

Coming into Marcillat-en-Combraille I encountered a large red lorry, and the closer I approached it, the farther it drifted out across the road into my path.

I ended up with two wheels on the pavement and a big bulge in one of my tyres. And just before I come to the UK too. I could have done without that.

Just for a change, things went according to plan at Radio Tartasse and we weren’t there long. I put some diesel into Caliburn and then went down to Liz’s for lunch – hot-pot, apple crumble and custard.

That was followed by some of Cecile’s chocolate cake and Liz’s carrot cake, all the leftovers from yesterday evening, and very nice they were too.

Radio Arverne was surprisingly well-organised too and we didn’t stay long there.

I’ve been planning a new format for the presentation of the programmes and that seemed to work quite well – a vast improvement on piles of scattered papers all over the place.

Bernard the engineer finally managed to track down some of the programmes that were lost following his technical hitches in March and September but the rest are, unfortunately, irretrievably lost which is something of a shame.

Back to Liz’s for more coffee and carrot cake (I really am so lucky) and that was that

Tomorrow it’s back to work and I’ll be doing the flooring in the shower room I hope, unless I have any more interruptions.

That should keep me out of mischief for a while.

-4

Sunday 18th November 2012 – I WAS GOING …

… to go to watch a football match this afternoon.

No match for FC Pionsat St Hilaire this weekend so I had had a search around on the internet.

And I came up with quite a choice too – St Avit to see Le Quartier’s 2nd XI (which apparently is many of FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s 3rd XI from last year, so they say), Neuf Eglise to watch a cup match, or to Baudelaire or Chambon in the Creuse, where there were a couple of matches.

Instead, though, I stayed in, because I was busy. I have a lot to do and it won’t be done if I don’t do it.

I actually managed a lie-in until 09:45 today, although that wasn’t too much of a lie-in seeing as how I didn’t go to bed until about 02:00.

And after watching The Cannonball Run, which is definitely one of my favourite films for mindless, light-hearted entertainment, I sat down and started on a new project.

As you might (or might not) know, I present a Radio Anglais rock music programme twice a week for Radio Tartasse in Marcillat-en-Combraille.

That sounds very grand but it is in fact just a couple of programmes recycled during the month.

However, I’m playing stuff that most, if not all, my listeners have never heard, because I’m not going for mainstream music but for the more marginal stuff that never had the airplay to be a top 20 hit.

So what I’ve started to do today is to prepare a web page listing all of the albums from which I’ve been playing stuff, and arranging them by month.

It’s a long way from being finished but at least it’s started and it’s well on its way

This evening I picked up Cécile at her place and we went down to Liz and Terry’s – for me to rehearse my radio programmes with Liz and for Cécile to discuss some work with Terry.

In the end we all had a very good chat and a nice socialising evening.

And tomorrow, we’re recording our radio programmes, so I’ll be out all day.

It won’t leave me much time to do this floor.

-4

Saturday 17th November 2012 – AFTER AN EARLY …

… early start this morning, I dashed off a complete Radio Anglais programme – the rock music programme for January.

I can do things like that at one sitting when I’m in the mood and I wish I were in the mood more often. When I’m feeling like that I can move the world and that’s a phenomenon that I would like to maintain.

I had a quick whizz around the shops at St Eloy-les-Mines where I bought nothing of any importance, and then round to Marianne’s for a chat and a coffee. She gave me a couple of prezzies too, which was nice.

This evening it was out to Marcillat-en Combraille for the football.

This match tonight could best be described as a “warming” match – very entertaining, and all for the wrong reasons too, with AS Marcillat winning 2-1 in the end.

Tomorrow I’m having a lie-in, I hope and then I have more work to do. I can’t even arrange to have a day off these days.

Ohh how times have changed 🙁

-4

Friday 16th November 2012 – I’M BACK HOME NOW.

which is something of a surprise.

What isn’t a surprise though is that it’s long after midnight, which is some kind of indication of how much I had to do today.

I nipped out at 09:15 to drop the football club photos off at the new printer’s in Pionsat and then to go to Marcillat-en-Combraille to record my Radio Anglais rock music programme for half an hour or so.

For once, the people at Radio Tartasse were properly organised and I managed to have everything finished by 10:25, and that makes a pleasant change.

From there I went round to Cécile’s, She was having problems with one of her electric radiators – it didn’t seem to be working – and wondered if I could help her out.

So off I duly went to find that lunch had been prepared, which was very nice of her. I’m all in favour of that as you know. I’ll do almost anything for a cup of coffee and a home-made vegan salad.

Anyway, as far as the radiator goes, the fuse seemed to be fine but there seemed to be no power to the appliance. I disconnected the radiator, fitted a standard plug and plugged it into a standard socket.

Sure enough, it fired up as it should so there must be a fault in the wiring in the wall somewhere. Either that or there’s a bad connection at the fuse box end.

So that was that, and then my attention was drawn to a couple of other things that a quick turn of a screwdriver would put right straight away.

But to be quite honest though, I think that we spent more time talking than working, and I didn’t return home until just now.

I’m really going to have to get cracking chez moi though if I want to make any reasonable progress.

-5

Thursday 15th November 2012 – THE SHOWER ROOM FLOOR …

… is almost up

Just two boards left to pull up but they aren’t going to be easy as I can’t get the circular saw in to trim them off the boards that run through the bedroom.

For that, I shall have to resort to some heavy engineering.

And I’m glad that I decided to take it up anyway, as two of the boards are pretty rotten. They weren’t going to hold much up.

All of that means that the beams will need to be treated with xylophene just in case there’s anything living there that shouldn’t be.

You might be wondering where everything has gone, because the last photo that I took showed it all covered over with junk.

So here, while I have the camera handy, is the cupboard at the back of the stairs with everything arranged thereupon.

And you can see that there’s plenty of room left for more stuff – but that’s never going to be a problem around here, is it?

This morning though, I read through everything that I had written this week, made a few corrections and then printed it off. That takes ages with my sick little printer but at least it’s all done now.

I reckon that there’s enough stuff now in the pipeline for three months, which is just as well.

I’ve also been inundated with phone calls again. I don’t know what it is, but I’m clearly doing something right.

But as a result of all of this, tomorrow I have to go to the printer’s, then to Marianne’s, then to the Radio Tartasse at Marcillat-en-Combraille and then round to Cécile’s – all before midday.

I’ll be having my work cut out to do all of that.

-2

Wednesday 14th November 2012 – I DIDN’T MANAGE …

… to rip up the bathroom floor today.

In fact, I was considerably sidetracked.

This morning though was pretty much more of the same. 11 pages of writing about the French laws of slander and libel for Radio Anglais – important for ex-pats due to a couple of high-profile court cases just recently concerning postings on social network sites;

And you wouldn’t believe just how different is the law over here compared to the UK.

Yesterday however when Rosemary was on the phone, she told me that the swimming baths at St Eloy-les-Mines had reopened after maintenance, and that one of the few times that they are open is Wednesdays at 13:30.

And seeing as it’s been a good while since I’ve had a decent soaking, we agreed to meet up this afternoon and go for a swim.

And so we did.

Flaming cold in there it was (although not as cold as that swimming baths in Québec last May), but at just €1:88 a ticket, it was value for money and I had a really good scrub in the shower afterwards.

I look almost human now.

We went for a coffee and a chat afterwards, and then for a wander around a couple of the DiY places.

That wasn’t all though.

I’m nice and clean now, but my clothes weren’t. In fact my bedding walks off into the cupboard every morning under its own steam. Consequently, off I went to the laundrette and washed everything that I could lay my hands on.

Yes, a nice clean me, nice clean clothes and nice clean bedding tonight. I won’t know myself, will I?

But we did have a culinary disaster tonight. I made one of my mega-aubergine-and-kidney-bean-chili things tonight, to last me for three days, only to realise that I had forgotten to add the kidney beans.

And then I dropped tonight’s portion on the floor in the verandah. Luckily that I had a few more helpings left over.

But what a waste of food, hey?

-3

Tuesday 13th November 2012 – I’VE JUST WOKEN …

… up 🙁

Yes, I went out like a light again in the middle of the evening and it’s hardly as if I’ve been working too hard either.

This morning after coffee I wrote some more stuff for one of the Radio Anglais programmes that we do – a delightful couple of pages on composting toilets, would you believe?

And then I went out to cut another pile of wood ready for the bad weather.

After lunch I carried on emptying the first floor and finally, at 18:00, I was in a position where tomorrow, if nothing else crops up, I can rip up the floor in what will shortly be the shower room.

It’s quite nice tongue-and-grooving but it has about 200 years of ingrained dirt from when it was the upstairs hallway – that is, until I turned the stairs around in November 2009.

It’s impossible to clean it – believe me, I’ve tried, and so it’s coming up and being replaced with new. Once that’s in and given a couple of coats of varnish, I can start on insulating the walls and then fit the plasterboard.

Yes, and I don’t know why, but I also seem to have been very popular today.

I’ve had four phone calls, from Cécile, Rosemary, Percy Penguin and Liz, although not necessarily in that order. Maybe its those that are wearing me out.

-1

Monday 12th November 2012 – SO ONCE AGAIN …

… yet another early morning, another early breakfast and another early start.

We started off the day by tidying up in here in the attic- something that I had been meaning to do over the weekend but somehow never managed it.

And then I cracked on with the website and the next round of radio programmes for Radio Anglais.

But here’s the exciting thing. I’ve decided, as many of you might already have guessed, to go to the UK for a week or so quite soon to catch up with old friends and have a break.

This involves a ferry crossing of course, but my plans to book a ferry on-line ended up being a total failure as I can’t make any of my credit cards work with these new security controls.

In the end I booked by phone with one of these bucket-shop travel agents (my usual one was just totally unhelpful and I won’t be using them again).

Just for a change, seeing as there is nothing to be gained or lost, I’ve abandoned my usual ferry routes and travelling on the Dieppe – Newhaven route. I’ve never sailed that route before and it will make a pleasant change for me.

But over 90 minutes trying to book a ferry is just absurd.

Anyway, I’ll start back to work tomorrow. I’ve plenty to do as you know

Sunday 11th November 2012 – WHAT ANOTHER …

… extraordinary football match.

Yes, ths afternoon saw me at Terjat to see the AS Terjat 1st XI play Hyds in Division One of the Allier League. But I’ll talk about that in a moment.

First, though, with a fairly early night on Saturday (despite the cups of coffee) and no alarm clock either, I managed to be fully conscious and on my feet at … errrr … 08:26. I haven’t a clue what happened there.

So after an early breakfast and watching a film I mooched around for the morning doing not very much at all, and after lunch went off into the wilderness.

An extraordinary match indeed. The final score was something like 8-6 to Hyds and I’m not talking about the goals but about the yellow cards. I think that the referee must have had a pop-up toaster in his shirt pocket. Every time there was a foul, up popped a yellow card. Amazing!

And not only that, I’m sure that the referee must have been officiating a different match to the one that we were watching, because some of the decisions were, well, bewildering, to say the least.

We had the AS Terjat keeper throw himself on top of a Hyds attacker to stop him scoring (and I do mean exactly that) and the referee blew for … a free kick to AS Terjat.

And then, a few minutes later, an AS Terjat attacker flattened the Hyds centre-half, and the referee blows for … a penalty to AS Terjat (which they miss).

If that’s not enough to be going on with, there’s a foul on an AS Terjat player about 25 yards out but as the ball breaks free to another AS Terjat player in an excellent position, the referee plays a good advantage.

This second AS Terjat player is then scythed down well inside the penalty area by a later Hyds challenge and the referee blows … not for the penalty, but to bring the game back for the first foul.

That’s probably the strangest “advantage” decision I have ever seen.

AS Terjat eventually win 3-2, but both sets of supporters (and I was chatting to both groups) left the ground shaking their heads in disbelief.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I lit the fire to cook my pizza and settle down to watch the gridiron. We were promised a sportfest – three matches consecutively last night.

But the early start clearly had its effect because I fell asleep towards the end of the Eagles – Cowboys match, woke up in the 2nd quarter of the Jets – Seahawks match, fell asleep again later and woke up at 2:30 having missed all of the 49ers – St Louis match.

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.

As 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.

In 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.

As 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.

Pionsat 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”

And 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?

-3

Friday 9th November 2012 – I DIDN’T QUITE …

… manage to do as much as I would have liked on the tidying up in the bedroom where I’m working.

I had a phone call from Cécile this morning inviting me round for a chat. She’s renovating a house all on her own and reading between the lines, she had run out of ideas and inspiration.

That, of course is something to which I can easily relate, having been here myself on many occasions and needing a push along the path (thanks, Terry).

Anyway, we had quite a long chat about things in her house and so she’s going out shopping tomorrow for some bits and pieces to help her along the way.

It really does help to have someone to chat to every now and again in circumstances like this.

This morning though, I had a good stint on the website and I’ve now finished my visit to Québec and I’m back in my motel in the Street of 100 Motels.

I can now start indexing the Québec photos and splitting the pages up into bite-sized morsels so as not to overwhelm the MTV generation with its truncated attention span.

That might take some time too.

After that, I cut a pile of firewood, emptied the composting toilet (there aren’t half some lovely jobs around here) and then attacked the tidying up for an hour or so.

The pile of stuff on the shelves is diminishing rapidly. I can’t imagine what half of the stuff is doing in here anyway. It should be in the barn.

Tonight I lit the fire, even though there wasn’t really a need. It’s just that I fancied jacket potatoes and baked beans for tea and for that I need the oven.

It was well-worth the effort too, really enjoyable.

And so I’ve decided to have an early night tonight. That will do me good too.

But before I go, a huge “well done” to Rhys who has at last, after all kinds of vicissitudes, some of which have been mentioned in these pages and others which haven’t, been finally awarded his citizenship of the USA.

Yes, I’m really happy for you and I’m sure that the rest of the readership is too.

You deserve it.

-1

Thursday 8th November 2012 – I’M BACK!

And I bet that you didn’t know that I’ve even been away.

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago a small group of us went round to Nan’s for some kind of soirée – well tonight, we all went round to chez Gilles.

6 of us there were – Nan, Cécile, Zoë, Gilles, Yours Truly, and Isabel. We wined and dined and then played a board game.

It’s quite rare this – me socialising, isn’t it? But I think that I really ought to get out more, and that’s an opinion which everyone else shares.

This morning I didn’t have my usual go on the website.

In a change to the advertised programme, straight after breakfast I attacked the shelf unit and varnished it all. This would give it much more time to dry, of course.

And then I had a problem.

When I went to take off the lid of the varnish tin, I discovered that it had rusted on and so I had to chisel it off. And what I had to do to it to make it come off meant that it was clearly in no fit state to go back on afterwards.

It was a large tin – and expensive too – and so I had to find a few more paint tins, throw away the content, clean out the tins and pour the varnish into that.

Such is life.

Once the varnish had dried I fitted it all into the cupboard – not without having to do a few little alterations, it has to be said, butnow it fits beautifully – exactly as it should.

7 shelves there are, and soon there will be 8.

The metal shelf unit that I had brought upstairs and put in the shower room to store some of the bits and pieces that were loitering around – what was on there didn’t even take up one shelf on the new unit.

Yes, it’s a monster and quite right too.

Actually I’m impressed – it goes quite well in there and fits the little cupboard quite nicely.

And it’s amazing – with that I’ve already managed to put on there, there’s already so much more room to move around in the bedroom and work

When I’m organised – whenever that might be – and the house is well-advanced, there will be tons of room in there to store all kinds of stuff – you can’t have too much storage room.

Tomorrow I’ll finish off rounding things up and stacking them on the shelves. and once it’s all done I might even have enough room to start cutting plasterboard again.

-1

Wednesday 7th November 2012 – I’VE FINISHED …

… making the shelving unit for the cupboard at the back of the stairs.

And after all this time too, but it’s made-to-measure and each of the shelves had to be cut and fitted individually. Anyway, there it is.

It’s not actually quite finished though – it needs varnishing and it will have the first coat of that tomorrow morning.

The shelving unit is actually a huge beast and weighs a tonne – I never expected it to turn out anything like this.

You’ll also notice that there’s a shelf missing. The original plans called for 7 shelves, which is how many 400mm pine planks that I had, but Brain of Britain seems to have managed to forget his original plans and has made it to take 8.

But never mind. I’m bound be in Montlucon sometime and I can pick one up then from Brico Depot.

That’s where it’s going to go – in the alcove there that will be the stair cupboard in the empty space at the back of the stairs that I built in the winter of 2009-2010.

That’s an ideal place to make a little cupboard – after all, I can’t think of what else to do with the space.

And I won’t know myself when this is installed in there and full of all of the stuff that’s lying about all over the place and that’s the whole point of making it.

And so apart from that and the usual stuff on the computer, that’s about that.

But I did have a phone call from Nada who has resurfaced in the area after all this time, and also a long chat with Rosemary. She’s going out on a date tomorrow night – it’s alright for some, isn’t it?

Anyway, my bed beckons. I feel like an early night.

Tuesday 6th November 2012 – HORRIBLE, GREY, WET AND MISERABLE.

But that’s enough about me – let’s talk about the weather.

That was miserable, dark and overcast, and it has done nothing but pour down with rain all day.

This morning I finally finished off putting the data logger statistics onto the computer. It’s taken me ages to do that and it would have been so much easier to have done it day by day.

I’ve also finished off writing the web pages for the Pionsat football matches at the weekend. You can see them here if you like.

That took me up to lunchtime, and this afternoon I carried on with the shelving.

Now, both the rails are now finished and assembled, and I’ve started to cut and shape the shelves. And that’s not the work of 5 minutes to cut them precisely to shape either.

And that’s it, really. Nothing else. It’s not been the right kind of weather to do much or to go far.

-2

Monday 5th November 2012 – IN POSSIBLY WHAT …

… is going to be one of the shortest blog entries ever, I’m clearly not quite 100% – but then you knew that anyway.

The effects of my weekend away must have taken out of me more than I realised because it’s been quite difficult for me to move. Leaving my bed was quite exciting, I’ll promise you.

So today, I’ve been slowly catching up on what I should have done this weekend, including writing up yesterday’s mammoth blog entry and when I finish it (whenever that might be) I can restart work.

Always assuming of course that it stops raining sometime soon. For if not, I’ll be building myself an ark

-4

EPIC HALL

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