Category Archives: Les Guis

Saturday 20th November 2010 – I WENT SHOPPING TODAY …

… for the first time since I’ve been back. Ist port of call was the cheapo car spares place in St Eloy. Despite his shop, he knows nothing about whatever it is that he’s selling and couldn’t understand amp-hours for batteries and the like. He ended up measuring the battery tray in Caliburn and trying to sell me a generic 95-amp-hour battery that would fit – for €109:50.

But of course anyone who remembers the discussion we had about tyres when we were building the trailer will recall this kind of performance, and from the same guy too. The big tyre and exhaust place in Montlucon will sell me the correct battery (a 92-amp-hour battery as it happens) by one of the leading makes of battery manufacturer, and for just €10 more and so I reckon that that is the route I’ll be taking.

Monday I’ll need to book Caliburn in for his service and order the battery so that it arrives at more-or-less the same time. I might even treat myself to a night in Montlucon while the work is being done.

Round the shops, Carrefour is getting worse and worse but LIDL is still the same. They were having a music sale this week and so I bought a guitar stand for the agnostic guitar. I’m still humming and hahing over an electric 6-string and I’m still regretting not buying that Hohner 6-string that I saw in that junk shop in Boulogne two years ago.

This afternoon we had the Annual General Meeting of Pionsat Patrimoine – the local history group. And for a change, for a body of intense and passionate people, the meeting moved along quite smartly.

I seem to have managed to have had myself elected to the organising committee (heaven help them) and we’ll have to wait and see what tasks we are offered once it’s properly up and running.

After that we went for coffee and a chat and much to my surprise I was there for a good two hours. Not like me at all, this. Normally I’m the first to bolt for home.

No footy either – it’s a bye week during which clubs might catch up with outstanding fixtures. But the season has run pretty smoothly so far, said Jean-Pierre who plays for the 3rd XI and who had his pizza van parked up on the square at Pionsat.

But at about 15:00 the heavens opened and it’s been pouring down all night. I hate this weather.

-4

Thursday 18 November 2010 – I MANAGED A WHOLE …

… day today.

Yes, for a change. Even though a 08:30 awakening meant nothing like a pre-10:00 rising. It was 10:03 precisely in fact, as I noticed the time on the clock as the phone rang. My “not before 10:00” seems to be working.

It was in fact this other radio station that wants to broadcast the radio programmes that Liz and I do. Would we be able to do it, and would we like to come around and inspect their facilities? I politely explained that just 7 weeks ago we had told them that we would and that we went round to check their facilities at that date.

Ahh the joys of dealing with people with memory issues.

>Rather like my own in fact. As I keep on saying to people, two things happen when you get to my age –

you lose your memory
I can’t remember what the other thing is

So I’ve now unpacked my suitcase and I’m well on the way to sorting out my clothes. And the place up here looks a little tidier.

I still haven’t managed to go outside properly yet but tomorrow we are recording and so we’ll be off out to Gerzat. I’ll need to buy a new battery for Caliburn as the old one is a bit creaky and didn’t hold its charge for the 7 weeks that I was away, and I also have two gas bottles empty which need filling.

It’s spend, spend, spend just now

-1

Wednesday 17th November 2010 – TODAY WAS …

… a little better.

Not only did I manage to wake up at a respectable hour, I managed to stay awake all day too. I’ve even done some tidying up in here and I’ve also managed to eat three meals, and all of that is something of an achievement.

My marathon adventure has clearly taken something right out of me and it’ll be a while before it finds its way back.

But never fear – normal service will be resumed in due course … "ohhh God!" – ed … it’s just hard to know whenever that “due course” might be.

But Liz reports that the mountains are now all white and a friend of mine who lives about 10 miles away has reported on her Social Media page that the first flurries of snow have arrived at her house. It won’t be very long before they arrive here.

Rather a chilling thought, that.

How am I off for wood?

-1

Tuesday 16th November 2010 – SO WHAT HAPPENED …

… today then?

I vaguely remember the phone ringing at 09:30 to say that my freight from the USA was about to arrive, so I had to wake up, leave my bed, dress myself and go downstairs to sort that out.

Usually the arrival of a parcel full of new toys makes me quite excited, but not much chance of that today.

I retreated back upstairs to sit back on the sofa but feeling myself drifting off again, I set the alarm for 13:00 to remind me to wake up to go and record the radio show.

However, I was woken by a phone call at 12:45 to say that the recoding session was cancelled.

The next thing I remember was about 20:00 when I woke up and had to go outside to fetch something to drink, and after that it was about 23:45 when I managed to stay awake for a whole two hours.

So that was Tuesday. all of it.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Monday 15th November 2010 – I FINALLY …

… struggled back home at about 16:00 this afternoon.

I was not in much of a rush to rise this morning, and when I did, I took it quite easy.

But all good things come to an end and I set out for home in mid-afternoon.

I’m surprised that I could remember where it was, and I certainly didn’t recognise it. Even in September and October you’ll be amazed at the amount of stuff that can grow if you aren’t expecting it.

Freezing cold in here too after being absent for so long. And dust everywhere.

But there we are then. That was my great adventure – all done and dusted. And a couple of thousand photos to show for it too, which I shall have to set too and organise some time soon.

I won’t ever be the same again.

And neither will Canada!

-1

Tuesday 28th September 2010 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE …

… that this is the first time that I’ve been on a French train since all of 1978? That was when I had a brief excursion from Rouen to Paris to escape from a party of schoolkids that I was accompanying.

The trip itself was quite uneventful except that I had to share a table with three other people and a large black dog. Everywhere you put your feet it seemed to be on top of the dog. Probably something to do with me going to Labrador, I reckon.

everything went according to plan at Gerzat and Liz dropped me off at the railway station in really good time for my train. I even managed to have time for a coffee and was on the platform in good time for my train.

The British King Richard I was, as every schoolboy will tell you, nicknamed Richard Gare de Lyon because he was always travelling south with his pal Philip of France. I was here in the Gare de Lyon and I was going west. I didn’t like the analogy.

To seek directions to the RER I enquired of a member of the station security staff. He replied in an English which was absolutely impeccable. When I congratulated him on it he replied
"and so it ought to be. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia".
Ahh well.

So down into the basement, off to Something Halles du Something Else on the RER line A, and then change onto the RER line B for Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 1. And it wasn’t half a struggle fighting through tides of people with a big heavy suitcase. This was the worst part of the journey without a doubt.

When I finally arrived at the airport I waited outside in the wind and rain in the company of a hundred other people for the Hotel navettes. My hotel was the Comfort Inn and I have no idea why they call it Comfort because the light in my room doesn’t work, the shower is only lukewarm and leaks all over the bathroom floor, the meals and drinks are like the internet service – flaming expensive!

But then it’s the cheapest hotel I could find that had a direct connection to the airport and still had a room vacant. I could have paid a lot more for my room elsewhere. And I’m only going to be sleeping in it anyway. It’s better than a draughty railway station concourse.

And I have my humus butties and a packet of biscuits – what more could any man desire?

Monday 27th September 2010 – IN 24 HOURS TIME …

… if all goes according to plan, I’ll be in a hotel at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Browsing around this evening on the web and looking for some kind of accommodation, I noticed that the airport has a hotel booking service. So on a whim I typed in a request for the cheapest hotel possible within the airport limits.

And the price that came up was €106. So forget that!

But there was one of these Google advert things on the side of the page for some kind of wholesale hotel booking agency. And they offered me a price in the same hotel for … errrr ….€66. So with shuttle to and from the flight terminal included in the price I’m not going to mess around wandering around the city at weird hours of the night – I’ll get a good night’s sleep instead.

But the main reason for not wanting to hang around in Paris is the weather. Winter has come with a vengeance and it fell to 2.9°C last night. And it’s been grey and miserable all day too. I shan’t be sorry to see the back of this weather. Canada won’t be any warmer but at least the cold is different over there.

I was going to spend the day packing and tidying up but I’ve run aground again. It’s a tip up here at the moment with papers and all kinds of things lying around here. But that’s how it’s going to stay until I come back. I’ll just be glad when I’m on the train.

I’ve a lot to organise tomorrow morning, then I need to give Rob and Nicolette the instructions about checking up on the place, and then going round to Liz and Terry’s to park up Caliburn, and then recording 2 months’ worth of radio programmes. I’ll need a rest after all that.

But it’s been 5 years since I last went on a major adventure, and it’s 7 years since I went to Canada last. It’s about time I had a holiday!

-4

Sunday 26th September 2010 – I’m exhausted …

… and that’s just from watching the football this afternoon. If I had been playing in it I would have been absolutely worn out long before half-time.

We were out at a wind-swept Herment today for the 2nd XI’s match, and I can safely say without fear of contradiction that I have never seen FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence play as badly as they played today.

Slow off the mark for the ball, not quick enough going back, failing to clear the ball when they had possession – you name it, the Pionsat defence did (or didn’t) do it.

And it was only a heroic performance by Matthieu in goal – easily the best I have ever seen him play – performing acrobatic like this that kept the score down to a 3-2 defeat.

But today got off to something of a bad start. I was up early for a change and just as well for at 10:04 precisely Bill came round. He needed some help setting up an e-mail account so I sorted him out. But at 10:04 on a Sunday??

And so after that I worked on my notes for the radio programme and spoke to Desiree the local estate agent who gave me some useful info for a radio programme that I have in mind for the future.

On the way back from the football I went round to Terry and Liz’s to talk radio. Simon was there and so we had a chat about a project I have in mind.

I also found the time this morning to book my train out. I’m on the 17:39 from Riom to Paris as I’ve decided to hang around there through the night. There may well be a left-luggage at the Gare du Nord and I might even find a cheap hotel nearby. And if not I can always go for a wander around the city through the night. There will be plenty to do there rather than sitting curled up on a draughty railway station in the middle of nowhere.

-5

Saturday 25th September 2010 – Well, I’m back home.

And hasn’t this been an exciting few days?

The journey back was just as exciting though – it was raining when I left Brussels, (which was actually at about 21:00 in the evening Friday) and it gradually came down heavier and heavier.

At Troyes it was starting to become difficult to see with the rain and my eyelids were becoming heavier and heavier, so I parked up at St Florentin at 01:30 for a few hours for a sleep.

A torrential downpour woke me up at about 08:00 and that set the seal on the whole day. It rained non-stop after that and I brought the whole lot back home with me.

But the exciting events of the last couple of days have worn me out and I crashed out this afternoon. In fact I was hard-pushed to make it to the footy tonight.

And don’t ask me what happened there because I really can’t remember. I came back here and was out like a light.

I’ll be dead for a week, I reckon.

Thursday 23rd September 2010 – THE JOURNEY …

… to Brussels on Thursday went fine until a few miles north of Moulins when the heavens opened.

And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen rain like that. After a couple of hours it calmed down a little but I still arrived back in Brussels resembling something rather like a drowned rat.

And I must have been in a dismal humour when I left there back last April.

The computer was still on, the door onto the balcony was open and generally speaking the place was in something of disarray. I didn’t really fancy that at 02:30 in the morning after having just driven 8.5 hours.

It took me a while to tidy up some space and it was not unti 04:00 that I finally went to bed.

Wednesday 22nd September 2010 – This thing about Canada …

… might be happening, you know.

It seems that Connections, my travel agent in Brussels, might come up with the goods.

They have found me a flight for just €583 for a start, going via Philadelphia but then again you can’t have everything.

The difficulty is that it leaves at 10:40 in the morning on the Wednesday which means that I need to leave here on the 17:30 train at the latest Tuesday, but I can’t guarantee that we will have finished recording by then.

So I’ve asked them to see if there’s a similar deal for a plane on the Thursday, and if there is, then I’m taking it.

As for car hire, I told them about my difficulties. I told them the best quote I had found and the guy with whom I spoke reckons that they can beat it.

But the hire company they use only allow rentals for three-weekly periods. This means that there will need to be a changeover but that’s really out of the question as in the middle of my journey I’ll be nowhere near Toronto.

They are getting back to me tomorrow with the price and if it does beat the best that I have found then I’ll be going for that one too, as long as this changeover thing can be arranged.

But you’ve no idea how difficult it all is, I’ll tell you.

The banks have been organised too. I told the Royal Bank of Scotland that I’m going to Canada – I don’t want a repeat of 2002 when the first time I bought petrol in the USA it flagged up “unusual spending pattern” and blocked the card, leaving me to starve for two weeks.

I’ve paid a lump up front on both my credit cards and I’ll remember to keep them separate this time so as not to have a repeat of 2005.

What with a passport and a driving licence, the only thing that can now go wrong is that if I am arrested at the airport. Yes, 2002 was rather an eventful year for me.

I’ve also emptied all of the microcassette tapes and I’ll be taking the dictaphone with me if I remember it.

There are loads of other things that I need to remember but I’ve forgotten what they are right now.

-3

Tuesday 21st September 2010 – I’ve been really busy today ….

… and I couldn’t really afford to spend the time as I have so much to do.

This morning we had to go to this radio station in Marcillat en Combraille to discuss the arrangements for the programme they want us to do. And what we discussed was almost exactly the same and no different from the last time we were there. Mind you, the guy we talked to was as interested in the Ligne Economique as I am and he told me that he has ridden on it to Durdat Larequille. And seeing as the line closed in 1932 and he has ridden on it, then he probably has a good excuse for forgetting things.

He was minded by a woman who may well have been his wife, and while she was much more purposeful about things and helped to keep her husband on track, she had hearing issues. So as you might expect, this meeting was a bundle of laughs. But nevertheless we did fit in a good chat about solar panels, the Anglo-French group and Terry’s little business.

Then it was off to the Mairie to give them copies of the photos from Saturday.They are “internet” quality so if they want them at proper press quality (350dpi and all that) they can tell me which ones.

Then off to Marianne’s where I stayed for ages talking about Pionsat-Patrimoine, the Anglo-French group, the newspaper, the Foreign library and all that kind of thing. Things are moving around here, although you wouldn’t believe it.

The next people to have the pleasure of my company were the people at the bank. I warned them that I would be going to Canada shortly and so not to be surprised at my “extraordinary expenditure” and not to cancel my bank card – not like 2002. I suppose I ought to do that for a couple of other cards too.

I also bumped into Damien from the football club while I was in Pionsat.

Rob and Nicolette were out so I couldn’t give them their photographs (they were out later too) and so after lunch I wrote a few important letters (it’s great having a printer that works!) and carried on with my researches. And I might just be onto something. A company called Tiger Rentals might let me have a Toyota Yaris for just about $1500 CAN – about €1100. It’s said that this figure includes the collision damage waiver and all taxes, allows unlimited mileage and permits travel to the USA and the rest of Canada. Now this sounds too good to be true so I’ve sent them a mail for confirmation.

Watch this space.

Of course I need to pay for the accommodation on top but a Yaris does just about 50mpg whereas a motorhome will do just about 18 to the gallon if you are very lucky before you even think about the extra rental charges and whatever charges you might have to pay for camping.

-4

Monday 20th September 2010 – I’ve had a whale of a time today .

I’ve spent all afternoon trying to book a flight and a car hire. I’ve narrowed my options down to
1) a flight to either Toronto in Canada or Detroit in the USA
2) either the cheapest and smallest car possible, or else a small motorhome.

Now how difficult is that for any travel agent to come up with?

First port of call was Lastminute dot com. Their price for a flight as an unbelievable £1408. Now I can get a deal myself for €650 off the internet so that’s a non-starter.

But what was even more unbelievable was that they couldn’t offer me car hire. Apparently, that company is now owned by a car hire firm and they don’t do car hire in Canada in winter.
“Do you do it in the USA in winter?” I said, after recovering from the shock.
“Ohh yes” said the boy on the phone.
“So can you work out a deal for me from Detroit then?”
So he gave me some figures, which on the face of it were quite reasonable.
“And that’s unlimited mileage?”
“No – 1000 miles”
“Per week?”
“No, per Hire”.

Keen readers of my pages will know that I am capable of doing 1000 miles in a weekend in North America, never mind 6 weeks. Ahh well, that’s another speedo cable I’ll have to pull out, I suppose.
“And you can’t take it to Canada either”
“What?”
“Our hire company doesn’t allow its cars to go abroad”
Well’ as Burt Reynolds once said, “you’ve got to catch me first“. I’ve heard some stupid things in my time, I’ll tell you.

And you have to pay the first $7,000 of any damage too. If you want insurance against that so that you only pay the first €500, that’s an extra £20 per day”

Well, they can p155 off.and no mistake.

And any other internet company? They can do the vehicle hire. Or they can do the air fare. But can they do both? Ohhhhh no. It’s far too difficult.

The only answer is to go to the travel agent who organised me the last time I went to Canada and the last time I went to the USA. The only problem is that they are in Brussels and all their flights go out of Zaventem. So unless anyone reading this blog has any better ideas (and I hope someone does) then on Friday morning when I’m in Brussels I’ll be booking my flight and my car, attending to my business, coming back to here, recording our radio programme, sleeping overnight in Riom, caching the 05:40 train to Paris and then the 10:40 TGV back to Brussels, where I’ll get the airport shuttle.

But one good thing that will come out of it is that I’ll be so exhausted by all of this that once I’m on the aeroplane I’ll crash out all the way to North America. Which, seeing as I am something of a nervous traveller on aeroplanes, isn’t such a bad idea. But seriously, here I am trying to arrange for myself a less-stressful life and all of the events are conspiring against me.

-3

Sunday 19th September 2010 – What do you make of this?

I went to Giat for the footy this afternoon and as I was a little early I went for a wander around the town.

Of course it wasn’t long before I found myself at the railway station – on the line between Montlucon and Eygurande (the junction with the line from Clermont-Ferrand to Bordeaux). Even though the line is still listed as being open, no trains run and the service is assured by an express bus, but I was here to look at the station.

And if as by pure chance I noticed this railway sleeper just here. – the second (and also the third) up from the bottom. The rails are firmly attached to the sleepers of course, and set at “standard gauge” – which is 4’8½”.

But if you look closely you can see other bolt holes and impressions in the wood where other chairs have sat on the sleepers at one time. And although I didn’t have a measure with me, a quick and rough estimation put the centre of these chairs, where the rails might be, at about 1 metre apart.

1 metre rings a bell of course – it’s our old friend the Ligne Economique up in the Allier and on a couple of occasions the Ligne Economique shared a set of sleepers and a common track bed with the standard gauge lines, especially in bay platforms at shared railway stations. And when the Ligne Economique closed down, the lines in these bay platforms were for the most part ripped up. So this has got me wondering if the sleepers from the ripped-up bay platforms were put into store for reuse.

The football at Giat was a real “game of two halves”. In the first period Pionsat swarmed all over the opposition. They scored 2 and they could have had 20 without too much effort.

But at half-time they went to sleep and in the second half Condat-Giat-Voingt went on the attack. They pulled one back and weren’t all that far from getting a second. The transformation was remarkable.

After the game I had to go to Terry’s to bleed the fuel system on the tractor. The quickest route between Giat and Terry’s passes through Pontaumur where I refereed last weekend so I had to stop and put on some dark glasses and a false beard.

We were ages trying to bleed the fuel system and it wasn’t working at all. There was clearly something I missed so I asked Terry to look on the internet under “bleeding diesel”. He replied that we may as well look under “f*cking petrol” and we would still have the same result. But we eventually solved it. The diesel was filthy and it seemed that when the tank ran dry the level of dust and scum floating on the top had settled down and blocked the top of the tap inside the tank. Draining the diesel (mostly all over me) and dismantling the tap and we could clean everything out. Once we’d cleaned it and bled it (and it worked this time) we got it running. And I was paid in food – something that is always welcome.

But on the way to Liz and Terry’s Strawberry Moose and I saw a deer. As it was a female, His Nibs wanted to chase it but I had to tell him … “if you are anything round here you are a stag – S-T-A-G – the second letter is not an H.

-4

Saturday 18th September 2010 – Winter is acumen in …

… Lhude sing Rudolph and all of that. The temperature has been slowly dropping for the last few days and last night it reached a low of 5.6 degrees. You might think that that is cold, but on checking my stats I find that apart from last year when we had to wait until mid-October, the other years that I have been here (2007 and 2008) have been the same. So there!

But today was an interesting day, to say the least. It was the mobile phone ringing that woke me up. Who the h*ll was ringing me at that ungodly hour? So the phone stopped – and five minutes later it rang again. And then stopped. And five minutes later …….
“Arrrggghhhhhhh”.
Yes’ I’d slept right through the normal alarm and it was the alarm on the phone going off – at … errrr ….. 10:40 am. What happened there?

So with the morning knackered, first thing that I did was to go outside and check on how the pointing from yesterday was looking now that the cement has dried. There’s definitely some progress, although it’s not as quick as I would like.

Once I’d done that, I had breakfast and then went shopping. They had a few exciting things at LIDL such as a hammer-action stapler which will really come in useful, and then I came back here for lunch

Once I had had my lunch, I went round to Rob and Nicolette’s. They are the people who bought Claude’s old place. Now Nicolette (on the right in the photo) is an artist of no mean repute and they have turned Claude’s barn into a studio for her where she can display her paintings.

It was the official opening of her studio today and the whole village as well as everyone else was invited. We even had the mayor doing the formal unveiling too

>But upstairs in the barn, the transformation is magnificent. You wouldn’t believe how much work that has taken place up there in just 6 months since they bought the place from Claude.

And you can see by the paintings on the wall just how much of an artist that Nicolette is. I have to admit that I’m not a big art fan, especially not of surrealist images, but even I can see the quality in these paintings.

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EPIC HALL

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